#i posted this translation some years ago (and edited it recently)

[rassicas]

so i was on Pinterest and i found this duo that is kinda similar to the cuttlefish duo (coikals) is there any information about these two girls? they kinda look like a k pop or j pop duo

haikara walker page 221. i believe theyre in-universe fictional characters. magical girls maybe?

"We usually think of cans being filled with food or drink, but these fun cans contain toys instead. They can be found in E04 Heinous 8-Ball Station. It gives off the sort of excitement like one gets with a capsule toy, as the contents are unknown until opened. Inside the can with the brave, helmeted squid on it are small plastic models for boys. The can with the cute squid girls on it contain things like accessories and stickers meant for girls."

#asks #splatoon #haikara walker #i posted this translation some years ago (and edited it recently) #highly likely the pintrest repost was cropped from my old translation lol

[pessimisticoptimistsblog]

AN: It’s been YEARS, possibly like a decade honestly, since I’ve written down a story idea, but I have like this incessant story bug in my brain. This series and Lucifer especially have me in a chokehold, so hopefully, this helps to ease the brain rot a bit… this is inspired by the series, obviously, but also by a clip I’ve seen of Supernatural that mentioned Nephilim and them being not accepted by heaven (I think? I’ve never watched SPN, so maybe I got the idea wrong, and the clip was out of context.. oh well, in this story, Nephilim exists, and heaven doesn’t like that.)

Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8

This has been lightly proofread. I needed to get the idea down finally since it's been circling my brian since I watched the finale. Also  chapter 1 is written! I’ll probably edit it a bit more tomorrow and post it by tomorrow evening. Anytime my oc is just signing and it isn't being interpreted by her assistant, it will be like this *text*. If her assistant is translating, then it will appear as regular speech.

CW: Not much yet, just some cursing

Summary: He claimed her mother seduced him, bewitched him with some devil-magic to make him fall for her, making her inherently evil. How else would a mere human have come to carry a half-angel? So he forced their offspring into hell, hid her amongst the “Losers,” and sealed her angelic half and her voice away so no one would ever know what he had done. With the extermination creeping closer to her doorstep and now being moved up, Madame C has finally had enough of her father’s hypocrisy. It’s time to leave the shadows and show Heaven and her father they’re not as great as they think.

Prologue

~ THE BEGINNING ~

Year – 1467

Quickly, wee one, only a bit further. We cannae’ risk being found!” The urgency in the older woman’s voice was barely masked, wishing the younger girl holding her hand could still think of this as nothing more than a game. The two slipped into a small cave opening, and the mother raised a finger to her mouth with a shaky grin.

Her tired brown eyes peaked out after a few moments searching the wood for any sign of the mob they had just outrun. The village they had only just reached a fortnight ago seemed to have decided the woman was a witch when they caught her using herbs to heal a scrape on her daughters knee. The village elder had gathered every able-bodied man and some women, armed them with anything sharp they could grab, and set the woman’s small home on fire. One had seen the “witch” and her daughter trying to sneak out of a window, and soon, the mob had begun chasing the two into the woods surrounding the village.

The woman scanned the trees half a dozen times, hoping and praying that some diety would hear her and the villagers would give up soon. She knew her daughter was growing weary, and at nearly 13, she was too heavy for the small woman to carry while trying to escape certain death. After a few tense moments of eerie silence and no sign of flames or shadowy figures, the mother breathed a small sigh and sunk into the wall of the cave. She looked to her side, seeing her daughters green eyes wide and scared – scanning her mother’s face for whether they would begin running again or if they were finally safe. For now.

In truth, the duo had been doing this for years. The young girl could barely remember a time they weren’t running or hiding, and she had only recently begun to grasp why. Witch hysteria was gripping the continent, and women healers and single women were being targeted. Someone like her mother, a healer and mother with no husband in sight, was no doubt evil and wicked. So the two were hunted, like animals, no matter how far they tried to stay away from civilization. This time, the mother had hoped to use a ruse of her husband dying on their travels to gain acceptance into a small village. It had worked for a short while until one of the older men tried to court her, and her rejection immediately put her under suspicion. Only a few short days later, their new home was behind them, and they had even fewer belongings than what they had come with, unable to grab much in their haste.

The young girl stared at her mother a few moments longer until a gentle, calloused hand began to smooth out unruly brown hair and a small smile stretched on the older woman’s face. Just barely gracing the planet for 28 years, the woman looked much older in this moment. So tired and broken from the last 11 years of running and hiding, unable to give her daughter the life she deserved, all because of a “man” that had promised her everything and then disappeared. The girl wanted nothing more than to ease her mother’s worries, put a stop to the need to run, and escape certain death. With exhaustion pulling her closer to sleep, all she could do at the time was collapse into her mother’s lap and cuddle into the last bit of safety she would feel for many years.

~ PRESENT DAY ~

Green eyes cracked open at the sound of a knock on the bedroom door. Red light was peeking through curtains, unable to break through the darkness of the rest of the room.

“Madame C? We’ve got breakfast ready, and Miss Carmine’ll be here in an hour,” a gruff voice called through the door before footsteps could be heard pacing away from the door.

The woman In the bed stretched before sitting up in bed and rubbing her eyes. Slowly rising from her bed, her feet softly padded over the wooden floors towards her small ensuite bathroom. After washing her face and getting dressed, she allowed herself to be enveloped in darkness, appearing to everyone as a shadow figure anywhere she went. The only visible part of her – green eyes and the short white gloves she wore so everyone could see her sign. The rest of her appearance she had found, after the first hundred years, was too close to her father’s for Hell.

Exiting her room, there stood a slightly buff hell hound watching the area around her door. He began to follow her to her office while speaking into an ear mic, “Madame C is on the move. Bring breakfast to the office.” Reaching the large double doors to her office, the first hell hound greeted another smaller, younger hell hound with a nod before they opened and shut the doors, allowing their boss through and positioning themselves on either side. Inside the office, the small shadow figure seemed to float to her desk, turning on a small light on her way and taking a seat in her chair with a sigh.

Not long later, a female hell hound came through the doors; dressed in leather and spikes, the only sign she was a secretary was the tray of food in one hand and a stack of files in another. The hell hound’s mouth turned up into a smirk seeing her boss slumped in her chair already. “C’mon boss lady, don’t tell me ya didn’t get any sleep? You got important shit to take care of today!”

Madame C gave a wry grin. When did she ever sleep well? She made a motion with her hand, waving off Nia’s question before signing to ask for the coffee on the breakfast tray. After setting the tray down and handing the coffee to her boss, Nia launched into a spiel about who had scheduled a meeting and why. Sipping her coffee, Madame C sat and listened to her assistant before a knock sounded on the office doors, signaling the start of another long day for the woman blanketed in shadows.

Hours later, Nia was absently scribbling in a notebook, bored out of her mind and not bothering to hide it. The meetings had ended 30 minutes ago; new contracts had been made, old ones were closed and paid out, and others would have to have bill collectors sent out to ensure clients paid their dues. Madame C sat back in her chair after signing checks for the hell hounds she employees, stretching her fingers out and rolling her shoulders to ease the ache that had settled in.

She looked at Nia with a small smile before tapping her desk to catch the young hell hound’s attention. Her white gloved hands began to move as soon as Nia looked up, *You should go. Beelzebub has a party tonight, right? Go.*

The female hell hound's head perked up, and her tail began to wag as she practically vibrated out of her seat. “Oh my Satan! Are you sure?! It’s supposed to be a big one tonight, so that’d be amazing if I could leave, like, now, but I totally understand if you need me! But, there’s also, like, this super hot guy that’s supposed to be there and I really want to shoot my shot, ya know? Ugh! He’s so fucking hot. I just-“

*Yes! Go! Please.* Hands moved quickly to cut the hell hound off. The green-eyed woman cut off Nia’s rambling, all but pushing her out of the office doors. Nia shouted a quick thank you, running off with the pile of envelopes leaving Madame C and the 2 hell hounds outside her office shaking their heads in amusement. The smaller demon looked between her 2 guards, signing that they should be heading home, too.

“You sure, ma’am?” One questioned.

“We don’t mind sticking around. Sinners are getting a bit braver with the next extermination coming up,” the other added.

*Go home, I could use the quiet. Plus, Carmilla left me a couple of new toys. I might enjoy a reason to test them!* White gloves signed as green eyes shone bright and sharp white teeth poked through a grin, accompanied with a short, silent laugh.

After sending the rest of her employees home, Madame C closed her office doors and collapsed onto a small couch to the side of the room, releasing a sigh. She had dreamt of that awful night again, the last time she had been able to hug her mother and feel her warmth. Her final moments of life before they came and cornered her and her mother. Before she was cast into hell and striped of her identity and voice. A gloved hand reached up to the center of her chest, where binding marks lay beneath her clothes.

One day, she’ll break the chains her father wrapped her in and show everyone just how evil he truly is.

Soon. Very soon. Were her last thoughts before she allowed sleep to claim her, hoping for no dreams to plague her tonight.

~I'm screaming inside. I hope ya'll like this at least a little. 🙏~

#hazbin hotel #helluva boss #lucifer morningstar x reader #hazbin x reader #hazbin hotel x reader

[hotwaterandmilk]

Just another one of those posts where I do a bit of a general update on a few things. This time opening with an edited scan of Maomao from Nekokurage's Kusuriya no Hitorigoto manga adaptation to get your attention. Boo!

I've been reading the Kusuriya no Hitorigoto light novels and enjoying them in the sense that I think preteen me would have liked them. I started reading the LNs earlier this year (as they're great for reading in waiting rooms and the like thanks to their short format) and I think the LNs are definitely my preferred version of the story. The anime has a nice OP theme but is fairly middling otherwise and I don't go much on the art in either mang adaptation (though Nekokurage's art has improved recently and Maomao looks less like a giant-headed baby doll in the Animate bonus cards per my scan above). Maomao is the real draw in all versions so obviously I preordered her Nendo the first moment I could — bring on May 2024!

Speaking of translated light novels you can buy right now, the first part of the Oguni no Koushaku Reijō wa Tekikoku nite Kakusei Suru light novel was just released as A Young Lady Finds Her True Calling Living with the Enemy Volume #1 by Cross Infinite World (see here). It's a solid story that doesn't overstay its welcome and Bertine's business acumen is just *chefs kiss* for those after a competent heroine.

Once the second and final part of this is out, I'd love to see Cross Infinite World pick up another short (but unrelated) PASH! Books publication, Shiitagerareta Shuusai Reijou to Ringoku no Haraguro Kenkyuusha-sama no Amayaka na Yakusou Jikkenshitsu. The web novel version was quite solid but I haven't read the printed version yet. Yeah I like science ladies, what can I say? It would be so good to keep seeing interesting titles for girls and women being picked up for English release because I tire of isekai villainess stories (which imho peaked years ago with Watashi no Oshi wa Akuyaku Reijou) and there are some great little tales out there that do things a bit differently & just need to be shown to the right audience.

I'm so excited for Metallic Rouge in early January! While it used to be that getting an original property from BONES was always exciting, it has been a while since they've created anything I've really cared about but I'm hoping this will break the drought. If a show has Izubuchi, Kawamoto, Yamada contributing then you know I've got to be there. Plus a couple of lady leads in a SF setting? Trailers with some great action and music? I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much but I'm keen to give it a shot. If it isn't for me at least I can say I've given it a chance, right?

I've been terrible at sharing the latest about this year's Silent Möbius anniversary, but I'm not a news blogger and frankly very few people care so eh y'know, whatever. BUT I figured I should say something about FAIRYTALE PARFUM releasing scents for the key members of AMP this month (though Mana has been totally forgotten, it seems). You can check out the range here, there will be a launch event on the 10th of December in Shinjuku too.

Asamiya drew new artwork for the bottles and while I'd love to get Kiddy's perfume that nods towards her bodily acceptance in its notes, importing that stuff is just too much of a pain so I've settled for a tiny acrylic stand of Kiddy instead. Sadly there's no option to buy a set of stands so I just went "whatever" and grabbed just my best girl. Anyway, if you'd like a tiny acrylic stand of an AMP girl with extra weird proportions then make sure you check out the FAIRYTALE PARFUM website.

#personal #sorry for the long post #this is just y'know a bunch of stuff that didn't warrant individual posts #so here it all is in one big slab sry

[haljathefangirlcat]

My dealer: got some straight gas 🔥😛 this strain is called “Beowulf” 😳 you’ll be zonked out of your gourd 💯

Me: yeah whatever. I don’t feel shit.

literal years later, when I least expected it: dude I swear I just saw Cain's spawn lurking in the fens

My buddy the narrator pacing: Hrothulf is plotting against his uncle

The thing about Beowulf is... I never quite got the hype about it. (Yes, we're not Supposed to use words like "hype" about world literature Classics, especially from ancient times, or to make light of them in general. Shut up and contemplate the fact that social media posts expressing nothing more than personal opinions and feelings aren't generally meant to be the same thing as academic work to be shared between academians in an academic context.) Ofc, I understood its historical value, including in terms of linguistics and philology. But in terms of "would I pick this as reading material to obsess and fall into a research hole over"? Despite trying a few times, I never quite got past ALL the references to God every other line. ("Snorri was an Evil Zealot who set out to knowingly and purposefully Christianize Norse mythology For The Evulz" crowd, I will tattoo each and every single one of those all over your body so you can't look into a mirror without accidentally reading one ever again.) The apparently disjointed "Beowulf fights Grendel and then Grendel's mother in Denmark. Years later, after going back to Sweden and becoming king, he also fights a dragon but this time he dies" narrative didn't really appeal to me, either. Nor did the presence of (afaik) exactly one (1) named female character. (Wealhtheow, babe, in hindsight I'm so sorry.)

I'm not sure what changed, exactly. It's just that, some time ago, I finally got around to reading Grendel by John Gardner, and I loved it and thought "wow, this would have made me either bawl my eyes out or stare off into space for like five-to-ten minutes after finishing it, had I read it as a teen." And after that, I found myself thinking "well, now I should probably get to know know the original story," and finally picking up my copy of Tolkien's translation of Beowulf, and realzing there actually was a lot going on in the story, and getting way too engaged in the looming "Hrothulf kills Hrothgar's kids" subplot that doesn't even really resurface in any later material about Hrolf Kraki (though those aren't exactly free from fucked-up family dynamics, either...), and going "!!! Volsungar mention!!!!" at the bit about Sigemund and Fitela despite already knowing about the Sigemund and Fitela bit and the whole "who actually killed the dragon first/in which tradition" question, and losing my mind at the bit about Hama and the "necklace of the Brosings" and "Eormanaric's hate" because, yeah, I already knew about that one, too, kind of, but recently I've gone into a little bit of a Brisingamen deep-dive, and a while ago I read a really interesting commentary and translation of the Hildebrandslied that had quite a lot to say not just about the specific hatred/enmity of a powerful king for an adventurous hero but also about the shift from Odoacher to Ermanric as Dietrich' von Bern's enemy, which ofc (?) got me thinking about Eormanaric/Ermanric/Jormunrek's apparent widespread reputation for being an asshole, something there probably has to be some accessible paper in English about somewhere out there...

Ahem. Anyway, I also found myself alternating reading Tolkien's translation with watching Grendel Grendel Grendel, the weird and very simplified and toned down but still somehow very enjoyable and sad kids' movie adaptation of Gardner's Grendel. And Beowulf & Grendel, the one without any magic where Grendel's a traumatized Neanderthal on a quest of vengeance that's somehow also quite a good watch despite the wonky editing, the cast and crew being possibly cursed by the Norse gods, and ofc, the time-displaced Neanderthals. And Animated Epics: Beowulf, which I might have actually watched once as a child, thinking about it. And Simon Roper and Jackson Crawford's read-along, featuring interesting linguistic, literary, and historical notes as well as Australian!Hrothgar, Beowulf making it exceedingly clear that "some of my best friends are Danes!", and some unforgettable exchanges such as "I used to tell my students the story about that time I almost drove off a cliff when they were worried about their exams to make them undestand that I, too, had experienced the fear of death :|" "I'm glad you didn't perish :)" "Thanks. :|" (I'm on the Fits 8-11 video, btw. Even if, when it comes to Tolkien's translation, I'm already at the part where Beowulf says goodbye to Hrothgar and sails back to the land of the Geats. Look, I remebered thos videos existed somewhat belatedly.)

I think eventually I might also end up rewatching The 13th Warrior (which I'm gonna go out on a limb and say might be the true origin of the ahistorical Neanderthals in Beowulf & Gredenl, but I remember liking that one, too). And Outlander (my beloved "aliens crash-land in Viking Age Scandinavia and fight each other while being Sad & Tragic in their own ways" one, not the Scottish one) but specifically as a Beowulf reimagining this time around (rather than as "the movie that could have totally had the Brooding Hero, Fiery But Sweet Warrior Woman, and Hotheaded Rival-Turned-Friend invent modern polyamory, because that wouldn't have been weirder than having a character called Boromir" like every other time). Maybe that weird post-apocalyptic Beowulf that was the first to do the "Grendel's mom's got it goin' on" thing, too, at least if I can find that snarky review of it on Youtube again. Probably not the Uncanny CGI Desperately Trying To Be Live-Action 20O5 Beowulf where the titular hero keeps screaming "BEOWULF!!" and "I'M BEOWULF!!!" just in case the audience's intelligence levels can't be considered to be above the average rock's, and that also decided to add a foot fetish/body paint kink note to its cover of Grendel's Mom, though, unless I can find any snarky review of it. (I remember reading somewhere that the director actually hated Beowulf, as in the poem itself, and accepting the bit of info without question. The high heels-shaped feet are just one of the reasons why I wonder if anyone ever asked him if perhaps he hated women, too. At least his work supposedly contributed to the writers of Outlander being told "there's already too many Beowulf movies coming out!" and going "whatever, we're gong to do our own thing! With blackjack and hookers aliens and shieldmaidens", so I should probably thank him for that.)

Unfortunately, while I'm pretty sure I'll be able to avoid writing down a list of Adaptations I Absolutely Need To Check Out One Day Or I'll Die (i.e. Every Single I've Ever Heard About) like I did for The Nibelungs In Their Every Possible Form, all of this had the unforeseen side effect of reminding me that, even when I didn't have much if any interest in Beowulf, I used to have a bit of soft spot for Unferth. I mean, how could I not, when I imprinted on Hagen von Tronje when I was eleven-years-old? Give me a guy who knows all of The Hero's heroic deeds and still doesn't find him all that impressive from their very first meeting, and I'll just "👀" at him. Though from what I knew, this guy in particular seemed to go against his character type by becoming more friendly with the hero and lending him his ancestral sword, which seemed pretty interesting. Especially because he was apparently a fratricide, too? And you wouldn't expect a guy who killed his own brothers and got a "... and that's why you'll go to Hell!" by The Hero over it to have any kind of redemption arc/sudden reveal of hidden depths in any positive sense. And there was also that paper (which, ofc, I didn't bookmark at the time, and now I want to kick myself for that until I remember the title or at least the author...) arguing that maybe him telling off Beowulf about the swimming race was less about him as a person and more about him having a specifc role among the thanes in Heorot that included testing strangers requesting to speak with Hrothgar to figure out if they really were who they claimed to be or if they could actually live up to their reputation...

Again, I blame John Gardner, at least in part. He has a really crunchy Unferth, who definitely reawakened my interest in the character. The on in Grendel Grendel Grendel wasn't half-bad, either, though very different in some respects. But the original, too, ended up being actually so much more fun (meaning, so much more to chew on/rotate in my mind) than I could have imagined from my vague memories.

First you've got the iconic "didn't you look like a total loser against Breca, and isn't that literally all there is to know about you?" "shut up, you're drunk, a kinslayer, someone I have never heard anyone tell heroic tales about, and also, maybe if you were braver Grendel wouldn't keep eating you guys" banter, and I'm starting to realize that might be already more juicy, in terms of both Beowulf's and Unferth's characterizations and their interactions together, than I ever thought it was. Then you've got a line that sounds an awful lot like "everyone could see Grendel's severed arm hanging from the ceiling and that shut Unferth up" and seems to imply some sort of lingering bitterness on Unferth's side when Heorot is in the middle of the celebrations for Grendel's death. But then Unferth actually starts being described in much more favorable terms, almost as if the narrator were pointing out that, despite what the audience might think after his first appearance, there's a reason he's close to Hrothgar and has a good place in his hall... even if at the same time Unferth's praised for his "mighty heart" (something quite different from cowardice), wisdom, and the trust everyone in Heorot apparently has in his mind, there's actually another reference to him having had no mercy for his relatives "in the play of swords" in the past. (Fun little detail: that line comes right after one to the effect of "Hrothgar and Hrothulf were there and no betrayal had yet happened between them"...)

Until, finally, you get Beowulf preparing to go fight Grendel's mother and Unferth giving him his family's swords, Hrunting. And all kinds of entertaining things happen in relation to Hrunting.

You've got Unferth not remembering his first words to Beowulf because he was just really, really, really drunk when he said them, which seems to go well with Beowulf himself calling out his speech as a drunken boast but not with the "that shut him up" line I mentioned before. (Which leads me to wonder: was he actually too drunk to know what he was saying? Or did Beowulf give him an easy out in case he regretted it, which Unferth eventually chose to take to try and smooth things over?) You've got Unferth being "mighty of valour" yet not daring to go after Grendel's mother himself and "forfeiting glory" while giving his weapon to a "worthier" warrior, but his sword getting some lengthy praise nonetheless, to the point of being basically deemed infallible, and Beowulf not only not making any more comments on Unferth's supposed lack of bravery but calling him a man of "wide renown", praising his sword some more, vowing to succeed in his heroic feat with Hrunting or die trying, and telling Hrothgar that no matter what happens, Unferth must get it back when it's all over. And after that... you've got Hrunting utterly failing to kill or even harm Grendel's mother.

Except, that's literally the first time it ever fails at anything? And Beowulf can only kill Grendel's mother when, with the help of God, he finds a magical sword forged by giants, which implies there was no problem with it (and, by extension, with Unferth?) as the whole situation simply needed a little something extra to be dealt with?

Then, you've got Beowulf actually bringing Hrunting back, even if it wasn't much use to him when it really mattered. And praising it again, making sure to publicly clarify, while addressing Hrothgar himself, that no, it really is an excellent sword. And, after some more "the monster is dead!" celebration, Unferth himself (unambiguously "bold", now) having the sword brought over again not just to lend it Beowulf, but to gift it to him.... a weapon that is both nothing to sneeze at and, as Beowulf himself has acknowledged while praising it, a family heirloom. (From a guy who probably already has enough complicated feelings about his family without running around giving that kind of stuff away, to boot!) One Beowulf accepts once more, and gladly, already figuring it will be "a good friend in war, a power in battle" and saying absolutely nothing bad about it (the narrator goes "oh he's so gallant!" at him after that bit, which is admittedly kind of hilarious in itself, but still, imho, not really much to go on if you want to think he's not being sincere) right before he announces his intentions to sail back home.

I'm gonna be honest: I had already read most fics tagged Beowulf/Unferth on AO3 before this Beowulf binge. And now, I've gone and reread them. I've actually read the ones I'd missed the first time around, too. Not that it took me much time at all, but still. WildandWhirling has two really lovely ones. This innuendo-heavy one is a delight to read, too.

I think I might end up writing at least one more. Maybe canon!verse, if I manage not to spiral into researching Old English attitudes to homosexuality, or maybe Modern!AU, if I manage to find a good way to transliterate "sailing off to another country to slay monsters" in this century in a convincing way. Even just to have more than six works in the tag itself. But we'll see...

I suppose, in the end, the whole point of this random, almost stream-of-consciousness post (besides freeing up my head from at least some of my recent Beowulf thoughts) might have turned out to be just that, no matter who they are, fangirls will, indeed, always make them gay. (... I say, as if this was a surprise and I didn't already ship a number Nibelungenlied-and-adjacent gay ships I got into way before any of this.) It wasn't its original purpose but *shrug* I'll take it.

Then again... come on. All that talking about swords. *grin*

#beowulf #beowulf x unferth

[beesmygod]

BLOODBORNE LORE Q+A PART 7: CAINHURST RAID, CARYLL AND THE RUNES, LEAVING BYRGENWERTH

part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4

part 5

part 6 (start of lore dump)

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my new adhd medication is working too good.

BLOCK #LONG POST/ TO NOT SEE THESE HUGE POSTS

i will post pure speculation in italics and important nouns in bold. these are created with the intent to be enjoyed by fans and non-fans.

translation source

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from the jump i'm going to add an editor's note that from this point on the timeline is muddled, confusing, vague and occasionally contradictory. people have moved heaven and earth trying to make sense of the inconsistencies, but the truth of the matter is that bloodborne suffered the fromsoft late game curse and was chopped up beyond recognition at the 11th hour for whatever internal development reason. whats interesting to me is the stuff they chose to keep that's complete and utter chaff. there are extremely rare items that do literally nothing but sit in your inventory, or quests that are completely pointless. enemies appear where they "shouldn't" and it difficult to tell if they are trying to impart some kind of information or if we're just getting dragon-assed in lost izalith again. its very odd and i think thats what draws people back again and again. such as....me......

i can give you overviews of these events in the approximate order that they happened but there is no guarantee that they happened exactly in this order or in this fashion.

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from this point on, there will be a distinct delineation between "old hunters" and "hunters". old hunters are from the time of byrgenwerth and have survived into the modern day as a result of old blood injections or can be summoned from the hunter's nightmare using the old hunter bell. a distinct characteristic of old hunters is that they no longer dream (the bell description reads: "The old hunters, who have long passed from the dream[...]"). notable old hunters include: gascoigne, alfred, djura, ludwig, gehrman, and maria.

regular ass hunters are new on the scene and usually belong to a recently established institution such as the healing church, school of mensis, or the choir. or they might just be common schlubs who joined the hunt as part of the neighborhood watch. [points at the camera] that's you. eventually. not yet.

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as perfect proof of what i'm talking about with regards to contradictory timelines and being chopped to bits: an unknown time ago, martyr logarius and a band of executioners traveled to cainhurst castle and slaughtered the inhabitants, the dreaded vilebloods. the inciting incident (or so says alfred, a heavily biased source as hes the only executioner in the game, uh, with lines anyway) was an unknown scholar who "betrayed his fellows at Byrgenwerth and brought forbidden blood back with him to Cainhurst Castle". the blood "threaten[s] the purity of the Church's blood healing" although it's not explained how or what the fuck they're talking about. according to alfred, logarius stayed behind to prevent the undying and unkillable queen from regaining power.

i do not know when this takes place. cainhurst royals were "long-time imbibers of blood" who already had a system to deal with the beast plague, implying they doing blood before blood was cool. but eventually ludwig uses the executioner uniform as the basis for his church hunters and it features the modern edition of the hunter's mark (as opposed to the older versions that you can see in this concept art and in chalice dungeons), so it had to be during or before ludwig's time. there are runes associated with both parties that were discovered by a byrgenwerth scholar, so it at least happened during or after their lifetime.

so its kind of vaguely around this time even though they talk about it like it happened 1000 years ago. since this is one of the least comprehensible story-lines of the game, we won't worry about it too much right now.

i need an image to break this up so check out the most fucked up, non-snake related map in the game:

for a company known for its cohesive maps, this is a fucking insane series of choices. i understand annalise needs to be trapped but what the fuck is this room. why is it up here. why is it magic. why is it like a hoarders nest full of the same 4 statues found literally everywhere on this map. this truly is the most mysterious game.

everyone and their mother has a completely baseless and improbable theory about who the culprit was or if there even WAS a rat at byrgenwerth- so of course so do i. let me work my way over there.

---

whether due to an ideological difference or the whole fishing hamlet genocide thing, laurence and several of the hunters left byrgenwerth with the intent of researching "the old blood" from the labyrinth. the miraculous healing powers were too enticing for laurence to ignore, but willem was steadfast in his belief that humanity was not yet ready to reckon with whatever it was that was happening here - at least, not without elevating themselves to the same level as those in the "cosmos". his distaste for use of the blood is mentioned off-hand in the rune workshop tool description.

caryll runes side note for newbies: caryll runes are a gameplay mechanic that give you buffs you can switch in and out by using an iron brand on your consciousness. the runes themselves are transcriptions of "the inhuman utterings of the Great Ones". all but a handful of the runes were discovered/transcribed by runesmith caryll and some were explicitly secret ones.

almost nothing is known about caryll except they were a student of byrgenwerth. the workshop tool named for them is found on a dead hunter tied to a chair as the reward for the witch of hemwick fight. people will try to tell you that this schmuck is caryll but that's fucking stupid. caryll was not a hunter and there's no reason why caryll would have the means or motive to pilfer their own tool from the hunter's dream. i dont know why this guy has it. maybe hes just an asshole and stole it from the dream to be a dick. who knows. hes just griefing us lol

all three translations agree that caryll runes "do not rely" on using blood, so its significant when they DO start using blood in the runes. one could read this as indication of caryll's transition from byrgenwerth to the healing church to follow laurence over willem. nearly all of the covenant related runes and the runes relating to oedon are bleeding or "contain a nuance of Blood", as it says in the corruption rune used by the vilebloods.

the executioners have a rune too, "radiance", which is unusual for its description specifying that caryll had already discovered the rune by the time the executioners adopted it as their own. there is no mention of this on the "corruption" page, nor on the remaining covenant runes discovered by caryll.

if cainhurst were to alert their subjects of the already well-known beast plague caused by the miraculous healing blood, the church's newly established grasp on the populace would crumble. if cainhurst could keep the beasts in check, why couldn't they? they already did, after all, in the labyrinth. with the vilebloods gone (or at least, dealt with), the church has unilateral control of the ministration process to the point where alfred, an old hunter, does not understand it in the least. i wonder if a certain byrgenwerth educated runesmith was invited to castle cainhurst or traveled on their own, only to discover during the runemaking process that the "old blood" from the labyrinth and the blood in the veins of the royals were one and the same.

---

"eyes on the inside" is a cutesy way of describing "insight", but the byrgenwerth system for deriving said insight necessitated the gruesome acts at the fishing village to obtain an eye-ridden cord, or at the very least, the parasitic creatures and slugs aligned to the arcane found in the village and bodies of the fishing village. willem hoped the cord would elevate his mind, and by extension himself, into a great one.

if we do some reading between the lines on the description for the "spark hunter badge", the description of "a style of inquiry that [...] closely followed the methodology of Byrgenwerth" is almost certainly "expose yourself to it" or "use living specimens" based on, well, everything and their protegees do. its not clear if willem ever actually got the cord; it only says he "sought" it. but he did, at least take part in and shape the byrgenwerth focus of learning away from blood and toward developing eyes on the inside. by putting slugs in your fucking head.

someone on reddit pointed out that the brainsucker enemies are kos parasites living inside the stitched up skulls of...people? pthumerians? i would argue pthumerians due to the fact that these enemies replace the generic pthumerian enemies in a chalice dungeon much later.

we can talk about byrgenwerth's results and fate later. because next time, the healing church is established.

---

i cannot believe how long this shit is. kudos if you read it i guess. if nothing else it gets this out of my head, forever.

#bloodborne #lore #brainsuckers #byrgenwerth #vilebloods

[pochqmqri]

My copy of the “Looking for Magical Doremi” (“Ojamajo Doremi — Majo Minarai wo Sagashite”) Collector’s Edition finally came in the mail from the UK!

The home release comes in a slipcover that goes over the slipcase, which holds the disc case and a booklet filled with interviews, character profiles, and artwork. The disc case has both a Blu-Ray and DVD version of the film.

As for the actual film presentation, it can be watched with Japanese, French, or English audio. The Japanese audio is the only one that can be watched with subs, either French or English. In the case of English subs, there are a few more options available, such as standard, subs for the deaf/hard of hearing, and subs with audio description.

The visual quality appears to be fine, indistinguishable from the 6-minute preview Toei posted on their official YouTube channel, or what's available on streaming. No weird tints or anything that has plagued a few recent home releases of other Toei properties.

I have a few complaints with this release, mostly regarding quality of life issues. To go back to the audio + subtitle options, it's a little frustrating that the English audio track does not come with an option for any sort of subtitles. In addition, for some odd reason, the Japanese audio track with standard English subs does not include translations for some of the songs, notably the opening credit theme ("Ojamajo Carnival"). This is bizarre when every other option to watch the film, including the English dub, has translated subs appear when the songs play.

All in all, this is a fairly serviceable official English release of the award-winning 20th anniversary film. The release of this film on streaming and now physical disc marks the first time any piece of Doremi-related media (not counting a few books and merchandise) has been available for home release since about 15 years ago, when 4KIDS still had the license to the original TV anime. My hope is that, if other fans are interested, they'll purchase the film, and that possibly might signal a demand to Toei to re-release the original Doremi TV anime in the west again, uncut and all.

You can purchase the film off of the UK-based Anime Limited's website. It normally goes for £40, but at the time of this writing is currently on sale at £30, which is fairly cheap for what is considered a "Collector's Edition" containing two discs. As the company is UK-based, their discs will also be region-locked to that country. For DVDs, that is Region 2, and for Blu-Ray, that is Region B. If you are not of those regions, it is recommended that you get a player that can accommodate those, such as a modified region-free Blu-Ray player. In my personal experience, I was able to play the DVD on my PC's disc drive easily through VLC media player, without having to change the actual region of my disc drive or anything (of which you only have a limited number of times to do).

#ojamajo doremi #magical doremi #majo minarai wo sagashite #looking for magical doremi #majo minarai o sagashite #anime #dvd #blu-ray #home media

[blazehedgehog]

I remember years ago you posted your Dolphin control profiles for Secret Rings (and maybe Black Knight?) but Tumblr's search function is awful and I cannot find them anymore, so I was wondering if you still had them on you?

Not so sure I ever did Black Knight (though maybe I did), but I did do this for Secret Rings, because I used them with this video:

It's possible I did Black Knight, because I intended on doing a follow-up to this video with Black Knight at 4K60 and never got around to it.

But, bare minimum, good news! I link an imgur album with the Secret Rings control setup images in the description for the above video.

Dolphin's control configuration menu looks a lot different these days but it's probably not impossible to translate things across. Looking in Dolphin now, I haven't updated my controls for the new menu, so they're exactly like they appear here still, just in the new interface.

That being said, I do seem to have settings for Black Knight in here, and I used them as recently as the Sonic Frontiers video review, because I captured Black Knight footage for that. So here are those:

I realize these aren't all the available tabs, but the ones I skipped have been left blank. It also looks like some of these buttons are bound to Dualshock 4 buttons and some are bound to Xbox buttons, which is probably a hold over of Black Knight's profile being built from Secret Rings (or some other game, I guess).

It's a bit of a mess! But it's all I have for you, sorry.

Edit: To help out a bit...

The Hat: This is the D-pad.

Button 1 is Square, 2 is Cross, 3 is Circle, 4 is Triangle.

Button 5 is L1, Button 6 is R1.

Button 9 is Capture, Button 10 is Options.

Button 8 seems to light up if I pull the R trigger? That doesn't seem right, but maybe it is.

"Full Axis Xr" and "Full Axis Yr" are the triggers. X seems to be left, Y seems to be right.

"Right Y+" seems to be a leftover from the Xbox controller and isn't used for Black Knight.

Instead, "Axis Z" seems to be the right stick. Zr for up and down, Z for left and right, I guess?

The rest are Xbox holdovers and don't matter in Black Knight.

#questions #saturnw0lf #sonic the hedgehog #sega #sonic team #black knight #secret rings #sonic and the secret rings #sonic and the black knight #wii #dolphin #configuration

[crystaljins]

Stars Above | 09

Characters: Taehyung x Reader

Word count: 1.7K

Synopsis: Your nagging roommate is desperate for a third person to help meet the rent and your university just so happens to be running a fully-funded government grant for anyone who signs up to participate in the Intergalactic Exchange program.

Having an alien for a roommate is just asking for all kinds of trouble, though.

Alien!Taehyung x reader

Rating: Teens

Notes: My laptop has aged to the point that it’s SO SLOW and it makes posting chapters SO INCREDIBLY TEDIOUS especially with all the linking and editing of all the other posts it drives me nuts, rip.

Anyways please enjoy the next installment! Only two more to go! I accidentally lined it up so perfectly that this fic will end with the year 2022. Crazy.

Masterlist

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11

You’re idly watching a youtube video when Taehyung wonders into the living room. He notices you, stretched out comfortably on the couch beneath the pink fluffy blanket that is usually draped over the back. Your eyelids flutter as you fight back sleep, and you look sleepy and content, like a cat curled up in front of a heater.

“What are you seeing?” He asks. He can vaguely hear the sounds of some sort of rapid explanation but his grasp of the Earthen common language still isn’t quite good enough to pick up the soft noises and rapid speaking, apart from the random word that doesn’t make any sense out of context. Not to mention his translating earpiece is charging in his room but he doubts it would be able to pick up the soft voice anyway.

“A tutorial.” You answer absently, pulling up your knees so that he can seat himself on the other end of the couch. Briefly, he’s struck with the longing for you to shift the blanket and let him curl up against you. That way, he could sense the warm sleepiness that plays across your expression, were he to brush his fingers against yours. Certainly, it would be a far more comfortable position. Instead, he tamps down the urge and settles with shifting so that his back is against the armrest with his legs hugged up into his chest as he gazes upon your outstretched form. He can’t handle the strange emotions that come with touching you lately; they’re a little too overwhelming and he knows that they’re not coming from you.

“My little brother has been nagging me to do his hair, recently. He watched how to train your dragon and I think he likes the little braid Hiccup has.” You tilt your screen towards him so that he can see the little animated character on your screen. It’s one of the more charming things about humans- they’re quite good with entertainment. He’d watched the movie in question with you a few weeks ago when you’d been searching for appropriate movies to watch with your siblings. The thought of your small brother running around imitating the main character of the franchise is adorable, to say the least.

“Are you utilising the weekend with your family, then?” He asks. You shift, yawning and stretching so that the blanket shifts around and exposed your torso. Beneath the blanket, you’d been wearing a fluffy jumper, and the sight of you curled up and sleepy on the couch does funny things to his heart. He glances away quickly though his fingertips twitch with the urge to read your emotions and share in that same sleepy contentment.

“Yeah. Mum has some conference and dad wants me to come over and help him out.” You explain. “And so I thought I’d learn the hairstyle before I go.” You wrinkle your nose and it’s oddly endearing the way your face bunches up like that. He wants to lean forward and press his thumb into the space between your brows to smooth the wrinkles that have formed there. He settles instead for leaning his cheek into his palm and just gazing at you. “It’s too complicated to do properly- I might just do the little braids.”

Nayeon had once commented that Taehyung’s tendency to stare makes her uncomfortable. He struggles to decipher human expressions sometimes and it’s an entirely new species to deal with so sometimes he gets a little lost and forgets he’s staring. You, in contrast, are never bothered by such a thing. It’s soothing, the way you never seem repulsed or uncomfortable with him. Just endless patience, perhaps occasionally edging into tired resignation if you’ve had a long day.

This time, however, you stare back. You’ve never done it before- usually you just quietly go about your business while he watches on. He can’t think of a time he’s had your full attention directed at him for so long. If this is how it feels to have someone stare so intensely, he suddenly understands Nayeon’s ire. He feels his cheeks heat beneath your stare as you scan thoughtfully.

“Uh-“ he opens his mouth, ready to enquire what you’re thinking about, but you interrupt.

“Can I braid your hair?” You ask suddenly. He’s glad he isn’t drinking anything for surely he would have sprayed it all over your cosy pink blanket.

“P-pardon?” He asks, feeling a little short of breath. You blink and then stiffen. It reminds him of a plant back home that shrinks away from the touch of his people.

“Just, you kind of have similar length hair to him.” You confess, fidgeting awkwardly with the edge of the blanket. “If it makes you uncomfortable-“

“I can do it!” Taehyung reassures you hastily. Somehow, he feels like he’s resigning himself to trouble, but he also hates the thought of you withdrawing from him over something as silly as a braid. “It’s fine! It would be good for you to have a practice.”

You smile, that faint, reserved curl to your lips that always has Taehyung craving more. You sit up and shuffle towards him on the couch.

“Do you mind sitting on the floor? It’s probably the most comfortable position.” You comment. He nods and hopes it comes across as a casual gesture, before shifting to sit on the ground, with his back against the couch. You shift behind him, crosslegged.

Taehyung stiffens as he feels your fingers tickle the back of his neck. As he does, he feels brief flashes of your emotions jolting through him like electricity- curiosity, nervousness, and a brief flash of happiness that has him flushing.

“Do the people on your planet have special hairstyles?” You wonder, as your fingers thread carefully through his hair. He feels like his heart may gallop out of his chest- no amount of training to prepare him for human culture could have equipped him for this. It reaches the point that he can’t even feel your emotions over the loud clammer of his own- this overwhelming feeling could be his own or could be yours but it’s too much to discern.

“Y-yes.” He stutters- it’s difficult to focus on forming words when his brain is fixed resolutely on the sensation of your fingers brushing the side of his neck, delicately gathering strands of his hair between them. Thank goodness you can’t read emotions too. “M-mostly for special occasions. Otherwise we simply leave it as is.” He admits. You hum thoughtfully, weaving strands of hair together.

“Not unlike us, then.” You comment. You shift backwards, and Taehyung releases a breath of relief.

This hypersensitivity to your touch is driving him insane. He’s not sure why things changed so suddenly. One moment, he was seeking the comfort your touch provided, and the next it was making him feel like his skin is alight with fire. It can only mean that there’s something wrong with him. He blames that stupid lakehouse trip- maybe the freshwater messed with his biology. Perhaps he should visit a medic, and investigate the strange symptoms he has. His heart won’t calm down, and he can’t get rid of this constant longing to reach out to you, to feel the quiet buzz of emotions flutter across his skin. He’d almost suspect that he’s caught some sort of cardiogenic virus were it not for the fact that this strange yearning seems confined purely to you.

His fingers come up to fidget with the tiny braid you’ve left in his hair.

“Would you like to see some of our hairstyles?” He blurts, before he can stop himself. But when your eyes spark in interest, he internally cheers. “Sit down and I’ll decorate your hair for you.”

You nod, before dropping down off the couch to sit beside him. The blanket tangles between the two of you. He shifts towards you, leaning forward to think of a hair-style that would suit you.

“Do you have much experience with doing hair?” You wonder. Taehyung nods as he sets to work.

“I have a younger sister and I used to do her hair for her. She grew out of that phase but I still recall a few techniques.” He confesses. You nod, tilting your head to the side as he tugs at your hair and he tries to ignore the way his focus zeroes in on the exposed skin of your neck. He wonders if it would feel as soft beneath his fingers as it looks. He rubs his fingertips together to squash the urge.

“Do you miss your family?” You wonder in between a tremendous yawn. “It’s been a few months since you saw them. Did you end up sorting that whole “extending the exchange” mess?”

Taehyung shrugs.

“Not really. But my sister is attending earth for a couple of weeks next month.” He reminds you, something he’d already run by both you and Nayeon. He’s nervous for said visit, but neither of you had voiced any objections so far. “I’m hoping I can assure her that I’m doing well here and that she’ll convey the sentiment to my parents.”

“Mmm.” You say, but you don’t question any further and he can’t help but notice the way your head is tipping forward. You shake yourself and sit up straighter, and it occurs to him that you’ve started to drift to sleep in the time it’s taken him to do your hair.

Biting back a smile, he finishes off your hair.

“Do you want to head to your room and have a look?” He asks, leaning forward to ask you the question.

You nod sleepily, barely awake, accepting his hand to pull you to your feet. You stumble into him, but a firm hand on either shoulder is the stabilisation you need to make it safely to your room. He settles you on the edge of your bed, gazing at the mirror.

“There, look!” He says, gesturing to your reflection. “What do you think?”

“It’s pretty.” You yawn, just in time for your head to slump into his shoulder, fast asleep.

He takes a moment to take it in- the warmth of your breath against the side of his neck, the flutter of your lashes against your cheek, the gentle curl to your lips.

And then he sighs, adjusting his position so that he can lower you back onto the bed safely. His heart throbs longingly.

He should call a medic.

Or just be brave enough to call this feeling what it is.

#taehyung x reader #tae x reader #kim taehyung x reader #v x reader #anis farewell

[thebookdragonsden]

Omg my wife's I just resolved a weeks long misunderstanding and I'm dying. Little backstory and to set the stage... we're both heavy readers but for the past five years my tastes have leaned pretty far outside of the general Western reader's interest sphere (about 50% danmei web novels, 40% manga/manhua, and 10% western published media) and my wife, while much wider in her reading tastes has recently been caught up Korean manhua and those really trashy translated web novels that FB advertises.

So her coworker had recently mentioned he was looking for LGBT SFF recs, specifically YA because he was not interested in reading sexual content. She mentioned this to me and after In Other Lands and FT Lukens we both just kind of stared at each other blankly. Most of my western media consumption has been LGBT but it's also been adult or new adult.

So anyway she starts poring through ideas and the going through other rec lists. I'm playing a timed game demo so I'm only half paying attention to what she says and finally we have an exchange that goes something like this:

Her: you've read the Witch King right?

Me: yeah, not too long ago.

Her: would you recommend it?

Me: definitely. I really enjoyed it. But I thought he wanted YA and LGBT recs?

Her: he does.

Me: ??? Okay. Well the LGBT content is pretty minimal, mostly side characters, no romance, and i wouldn't really characterize it as YA

Her: ???? But it's on this YA rec list

Me: ???????? They crazy

Her: Isn't the main character Trans?

Me: he's a demon possessing bodies. Sometimes they were male sometime they were female. Pretty sure the author stuck to male pronouns though. Is that trans?

Her: hm

Me: I'm serious though. Almost no romance. There's an established side lesbiam pairing but one of them is missing for most of the story and the MC has some ambiguous relationships and accusations made about other men but it's never overt or the focus.

Her: alright

Three weeks later I'm sending her a screenshot from Illumicrate's upcoming special editions for HE Edgmon, gushing about the editions but mentioning I didn't know the books themselves. My wife sent me screenshots of the original covers, a funny post the author had made when doing cover reveals and then mentioned it was the same author as the Witch King. To which I'm like ????????? But i thought... And then i start frantically googling.

So that's the story about how my wife and I had a very confusing conversation for both of us regarding a book recommendation, where I was talking about Witch King by Martha Wells and she was talking about The Witch King by HE Edgmon and titles are hard.

#book recommendations #the struggle when books have similar titles #had authors been stated this problem would not have been a problem #my wife's been trying to get me to read murderbot for ages #i knew martha wells #im sorry i forgot your book he edgmon #im sure its very good #i see it recced a lot #im just a terrible consumer of western content right now #witch king only got read because i needed to listen to an audiobook and it was already dled months ago

[pipermca]

I am accepting @altraviolet's challenge (from the post here) for the fic writer questionnaire. This looks like fun! *cracks knuckles*

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

90

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

1,133,042 (holy shit)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I mostly write for Transformers these days. I do have a little short story cooking for Centaurworld; maybe I'll get that jotted down some day.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

I can definitely see how writing for a popular ship will skew your stats on your fics, and smut gives bonus points. 😅

Frag the Police. Jazz/Prowl, NSFW

Claim Rejected. MegOP, SFW

Peer Review. Starscream/Wheeljack, NSFW

Anamnesis. Jazz/Prowl, SFWish (has plug-n-play interfacing)

Public Indecency. Jazz/Prowl, NSFW

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes! I love comments and I want to pass on that appreciation. 💗

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Hmm. Even my darker stories usually have a bit of light in the end, since I am a sucker for happy (if possibly bittersweet) endings. But the story Atrocity (please mind the tags on that one) leaves Bluestreak in a bad place at the end, and nothing is really resolved.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I have lots of fics with really happy endings! But in terms of having no hanging ends, I think The Renegade and the Hound might be the happiest. 🤗 The last chapter of that fic is all warm fuzzies for the characters.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not yet. 😄 I've gotten some vaguely critical comments sometimes but I wouldn't call that hate.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Ooooh yeah. I write it all. I'll even write the weird stuff there's no terms for. Give me that weird-ass smut.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I tend to write fusions rather than traditional crossovers, but the weirdest one was very recent: The Spark and the Lightning, which is the War for Cybertron game crossed/fused with Dune.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I am aware of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! The fic Becoming has been translated into Russian.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Sort of? A friend and I tossed little bits of a story back and forth several years ago, each of us building on what the other had just written. I have the bits all collected, but I'm not sure if it'll ever see the light of day.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Bluestreak/Hound. 💗

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

It's in the Alt Modes and Alchemy AU. Basically it's the events of the climax of The Renegade and the Hound and a period immedately afterwards, but from Perceptor's POV. It's written as a half diary/half academic paper. The title is:

On the Restoration of Cybertron: An Analysis and Personal Account, or A Treatise on the Effects of the Destruction of the Matrix of Leadership on Cybertron and its Inhabitants from an Alchemical Perspective, and a Personal Account of said Event as Recalled by Perceptor of Iacon, Head Alchemist of Optimus Prime.

It's hella fun, and I'd love to finish it, but it keeps moving out of my "currently working on" stack into the "shelved" stack. :/

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think I'm good at worldbuilding and writing those juicy emotional scenes.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Finishing stuff. 😅 But seriously, I have a tendency to go back and rework stuff I've written (but not yet posted) instead of working forward on getting more words down. I love editing too much I think. >.<

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

It's fine? It should be clear to the reader what the dialogue says without them having to Google Translate it. Anything that stops a reader and takes them out of the flow of the story is a Bad Thing imo.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Hahaha! I think the first actual fanfic I wrote was in the Time Quintet series (specifically after reading A Swiftly Tilting Planet) by Madeleine L'Engle. I think I was about 8 or 9.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Hmm. My favourite long fic is Mind, Body, and Soul (which was long and self-indulgent and I said everything I wanted to say about the Big Themes of the story). My favourite short fic is probably Datastream, mostly because I dipped into Cybertronian brains and weird sci-fi elements, mixed with formatting to help tell the story. :)

That was fun! Consider yourself tagged if you want to play along.

#fic author questionnaire #on writing

[dodger-chan]

20 Questions for fic writers:

Tagged by @cchapsticck

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

59, if you count the very old stuff I archived there. 39, if you only count the stuff I originally posted there.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

194,755

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Recently, it's been all Stranger Things. If I start writing other fandoms again, tumblr will be the first to know.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Their Wedding Night (cowritten with @sharpbutsoft )

Adventures in Housekeeping

The Opposite of Love

The House Dick

Her Double Life

All but The Opposite of Love are part of A Bliss Like This

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to. I used to not, but I've gotten into some nice conversations with other authors who responded to my comments, so I decided to try it. And I'm a very small author (don't let the word/ count fool you; I've been posting fic online since the late 90s) so there aren't that many comments to reply to.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Probably that sin, through which I run. Though it's told backwards, so it might depend on what you consider the ending.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Any fic in A Bliss Like This. It's a guaranteed happiness series.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Never on AO3.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I've written, but not published smut. I'm not good enough at it.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I don't, really. Nothing wrong with crossovers, I'm just not usually inspired in that way.

I did work with a couple of friends once on a wild, universe hopping crossover that involved Sonic characters, Gundam Wing, Dragonball Z, The Old Man from Scene 24 (Holy Grail) and others with a friend that I think she posted somewhere. Probably fanfiction.net, but it was like 25 years ago (I am very old) and I'm a little scared of how awful it must have been so I'm not looking.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that anyone's mentioned to me.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not in the sense that we've blended our writing into a single story, but @sharpbutsoft and I built a 1920s AU together. Individual stories in A Bliss Like This are often hers or mine but they build off each other and all the major details are a joint endeavor.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

This is an impossible question.

I have noticed a preference for jock/nerd or similar such pairings. Where one half of the couple is "normal" or socially acceptable and the other half is very, very weird. But only when the relationship develops without either of them giving up that aspect of their personality. No makeovers!

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

A Nancy POV fic tentatively called 'Three Truths and No Lies' that I started between the two volumes of season four. Because there were all these "fruity four" fics and I thought Nancy would likely try to fix or at least find closure in her relationship with Jonathan as soon as he got to Hawkins, leading to her feeling a little left out of the Eddie and Stobin closeness.

Also a third part of Coming Out with a Purpose, where Robin and Steve come out to Joyce to test her reaction and give her the opportunity to learn from the mistakes she makes with them so that she doesn't fuck up when Will finally comes out.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Limited POVs. I think I'm decent at character voices, too, but I'm less confident there.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Actually writing words down (what do you mean just thinking about the fic doesn't make it exist?). The urge to edit while I write. Spelling. Plots.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I'm not good enough at it to really do it, unless the character speaking is not supposed to be fluent.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

That I published online? Fushigi Yuugi, as I recall. Maybe Gundam Wing. But as a kid I used to write Real Ghostbusters fic for my parents (they wanted to encourage my creativity). Mostly fleshed out (no pun intended) back stories for the ghosts.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

I'm still writing it. I'm gonna finish it, I swear.

Of what I've published, it's probably Her Double Life, because genderqueer drag queen Eddie of the 1920s is just so much fun. I have so many thoughts and feelings about her. So, so many.

No pressure tags for: @sharpbutsoft , @greenlikethesea, um, who else writes? If you do, and you want to answer these, please consider yourself tagged.

#tag game

[artbookisland]

What I’m reading these days #5

Previously:

* What I’m reading these days #01 * What I’m reading these days #02 * What I’m reading these days #03 * What I’m reading these days #04

Hey everyone, I hope you're doing all right! It's been a long while since I wrote one of these posts, almost 5 years actually... Yeah, recently I've been more focused on sharing scans than texts like these or artbook reviews, sorry!

Anway, these days I'm reading four cool books at once so I figured I could make you (re)discover something, so let's go!

What a surprise, yes, I'm reading Dragon Ball again, last time was 6 years ago so I thought I could revisit this cool universe that always brings me back to my childhood. In France we have a "Perfect Edition" which has a bigger format than usual mangas, a new translation and all the original colour pages so it's a great pleasure to read! I'm always in awe when looking at Toriyama's watercolours, they were absolutely beautiful.

I'm not going to dive much further into Dragon Ball because I've already talked about it a lot, maybe take a look at this old article. 

///

Now something completely different, if you are an avid TV show enthusiast, you might have watched the sci-fi show The Expanse. I discovered it after a few seasons had already aired and really enjoyed it (except maybe the last two seasons which had some flaws in my opinion). I quickly learned that before being on TV it was a very good series of books by a couple of authors writing under a single name: James S.A. Corey. So naturally I started buying and reading these books, loved them and realised that the adaptation was quite good. It took some years but I eventually finished reading the nine books and at that moment, just when I thought I was out of this amazing universe, I saw that there was a collection of The Expanse short stories published under the title Memory's Legion.

So that's what I'm reading right now and just like the rest of the series, it's very cool and definitely fills some interesting holes in the Expanse's lore (plus I always enjoy good sci-fi short stories)! You will learn a little bit more about the guy who came up with the Epstein drive that made space travel a lot easier in the story, the backstory of a cruel but intriguing character (Cortazar), the life of a young Amos (even before he was called Amos), etc. It's a very good read if, like me, you've finished the main series and still want more!

///

Let's keep our heads towards the sky for this next book: Moonfire by Norman Mailer. I stumbled upon it in a bookstore in Lyon, France and the cover immediately caught my eye. It's a small but thick book which contains as much text as photos from NASA's Apollo 11 mission (the first time humans beings walked on the Moon back in 1969). Being an astronomy and space exploration fan I just had to buy it and I'm glad I did!

Actually I thought it would be a historico-scientific recollection of this incredible event of the XXth century but that's because I didn't know Norman Mailer! I will let you read his Wikipedia page but he wasn't "just" a writer, he also was a journalist, a poet, an essayist and so on. So instead of simply telling us what happened in that important period of human history, he includes himself in the story as a character and shares his thoughts about the situations, the people, the technology, etc. It makes for a surprising yet very interesting read as he takes this unique opportunity to analyze, criticize even our modern society and more specifically the USA's society of the time.

I'm about halfway through the book and I really enjoy Mailer's way of telling the story but also the incredible photos of the event, most of them taken during the mission itself by astronauts Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins, I cannot stop looking at these shots and wonder what their experience was like. They freakin' walked on another celestial body (actually only two of them did while Collins was busy being the loneliest person in the history of Human life, flying above the far side of the Moon)!

///

A couple of my friends work at a local comic book shop and thanks to them I often discover very cool comics, mangas and bandes dessinées (what we call european comics in France). Also it's worth mentioning that the french publisher Urban Comics (they publish a lot of american comics here) is trying to make a selection of their books more affordable and compact for people who don't have much money or space in their home that they can dedicate to comic books. And so in this effort they have started a collection called "Urban Nomad" in which all prices are below 10€ (approx. 10 USD). The first one I picked is Watchmen.

I have watched the movie adaptation when it came out... 14 years ago (ouch!) and really liked it but kind of forgot about it, which is a good thing because now I can re-discover the story in its original format: on paper!

And what a story! Since the first pages I was sucked in by the strength of writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons and colorist John Higgins. The story is so good and feels so contemporary that I have to keep reminding myself that this was made in 1986-87! If you don't know anything about Watchmen I won't spoil it for you but the story takes place in a version of our world where masked vigilantes are already has-been, one of the reasons being the accidental transformation of a man into a God-like version of himself. Because of this event, the course of history is different from the one we know and live in, and in this context one of the few remaining masked vigilantes (pictured on the cover) is investigating a series of murders among his former colleagues. This is all extremely well integrated into the politico-historic context of the time (though once again it's somewhat different from our reality) and it's easy to recognize the quality of Moore and Gibbons' work!

///

Well, that's it for now, I hope you've discovered something, if so let me know! And I'll try not to wait five more years to write a "What I'm reading these days" again. See ya!

#books #comics #manga #Dragon Ball #Akira Toriyama #James SA Corey #The Expanse #Moonfire #Norman Mailer #Watchmen #Alan Moore #Dave Gibbons #John Higgins

[augustmourn]

20 Questions for Writers

Tagged by @jaimehwatson - thank you!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

165! Plus one unrevealed.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

567,814

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I tend to be serially monofannish and mainly write for one fandom at a time, with small forays into other fandoms for exchanges. So right now it's Danganronpa but for quite a while before that it was Locked Tomb, etc. My longest-running fandom I've written for is probably All For The Game because that series is embedded in my brain and will never leave,

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Unexpected - Bojack Horseman, 1220 kudos. It was the most kudosed fic in the fandom for a while!

you know what they say about assumptions - Star Wars, 872 kudos.

Into the Dark - IT Movies, 723 kudos.

The Kids Are Alright - IT Movies, 680 kudos.

Lights Will Guide You Home - Star Wars, 632 kudos. I should probably just tag this one "abandoned and discontinued" since I haven't touched it in six and a half years.

5. Do you respond to comments?

I used to be better about it and then I got out of the habit, probably because I stopped responding immediately (waiting for exchange anon periods to end.) I still try to go back and respond to recent ones, but there are a lot that it would be too weird to respond to now. I really appreciate every one of them, though.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Probably quiet birds in circled flight, which is an IT fic where Richie commits suicide instead of Stan. At least that's the first one that comes to mind.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

This is a harder one to answer, honestly, because I feel like most things I write aren't long enough to have an earned happy ending; it's usually at least bittersweet. My actual answer is probably the 50k Komahina fic that I'm in the process of editing, because the current ending was maybe the sweetest thing I've ever written and I disgusted myself.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I had one fic attract a bunch of hate comments because it was werewolf in wolf form/human smut. It was mostly funny.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes. Lots. I've been told my specialty is noncon but I write a lot of other stuff too!

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Never have and not sure if I ever will! It's just not something that really appeals to me, for some reason.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I think I had one put on Wattpad but I don't remember how that turned out.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! Into Russian.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, mostly because I don't think I could write that collaboratively. The idea is interesting to me, though.

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

I don't know if I'm capable of having an all-time favourite.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I would like to tell myself I will someday finish my Star Wars WIP, but I was still in high school last time I touched it, and my writing style and taste have changed so dramatically since then that I would want to rewrite the entire thing. I would also like to go back and finish the second chapter of the Karate Kid fic I posted.... three years ago? That's at least possible.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Porn, I think. It's pretty easy for me to write at this point. I like writing arguments, I like writing fight scenes.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I still have not figured out how to do structural or significant editing on longer stories. I finished three long stories (at least first drafts) in 2023, one had to be posted for a deadline, and the other two are extremely daunting to consider.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I've never done it, I'd be intimidated, I'd have to ask a native speaker for assistance.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Hunger Games, when I was eleven! The fic was not good and it's still online until FFN goes bust.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

My TLT longfic Crashing remains possibly the proudest achievement of my life thus far. More than four times as long as the previous longest story I'd ever finished!

Tagging @ladyculebras @hearthouses @gregwambsganss @queermccoy and anyone else who wants to!

#tag games #writing

[transxfiles]

For the book ask, number 3, 13, and 24 ?

3. What were your top five books of the year?

it was a difficult time narrowing these down, but probably:

1) It Came From The Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror edited by Joe Vallese 2) Sir Gawain & The Green Knight translated by Burton Raffel 3) An Unauthorized Fan Treatise by Lauren James 4) The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle 5) Pinky & Pepper Forever by Eddy Atoms

margaret atwood's oryx and crake, tom stoppard's rosencrantz & guildenstern are dead, and sarah ruhl's the clean house are all runners-up. and there are lots more tbh,,, this was a good reading year for me!! (in terms of enjoyment at the very least)

13. What were your least favorite books of the year?

this one's also kind of hard to narrow down, because i disliked various books for various different reasons. the luminous dead by caitlin starling was a pretty low point because i spent YEARS tracking down a copy of this book, paid for it FULL PRICE, had heard so many good things about it - and then it was a massive let down. mid plot mid romance awful worldbuilding (in my opinion) and very poor storytelling/writing. like, from a craft standpoint, just not very good. it was a massive letdown and it's a situation where i can't believe i spent my own money on it, yknow?

a more recent let-down was crazy food truck by rokurou ogaki, i had some free time before exams one day so i just sat down in a corner of my local bookstore and started reading this one. i heard about it either at the very end of 2022 or the very beginning of this year and put in for an ARC on netgalley but didn't get it (probably for the better tbh?) and the one-sentence description sounds really fun - grizzled man runs a food truck in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. but the way the author portrayed his only female character was so awful i just couldn't do it.

there are definitely others, but these are the first two that come to mind.

24. Did you DNF anything? Why?

YES i used to be a completionist but 2023 was the year i started embracing the power of a good DNF. had to stop reading the troop by nick cutter bc even though it was really interesting horror from a conceptual standpoint, the graphic violence against animals and children was really starting to fuck me up, and i got to a certain point in the book where it was clear it would only get worse and i just had to put it down. thought i'd be able to get over it in a day or two (normally horror books just don't bother me?) but i didn't and i ended up selling the book to a local secondhand bookstore two days after that.

i also DNF'd something to talk about by meryl wilsner after trying to read it for like a year and a half. i picked it up a while ago at a thrift store and i was SO excited bc i never see lesbian romances at thrift stores and something to talk about specifically was a big deal bc it was the first lesbian romance novel published by a mainstream romance publisher iirc. but it's SO. SOOOOO. SOOOOOOOO fucking boring. it's not even a slow burn that shit is glacial and listen i don't mind a lesbian romance that moves at a snail's pace but the book WAS the romance. or at least was supposed to be. and the non-romance subplots simply were not strong enough to support the rest of the story. AND the two leads had negative chemistry, just like, nothing going on there in my opinion. and most of the characters had the same voice </3 so frustrating bc i wanted to enjoy this book so bad which is why i stuck with it for so long, but after a while i just said "nope i can't do this anymore" and donated it.

#a-cool-bee #asks #books #2023

[maggot-monger]

i was tagged by @leatafandom — thank you!! it was fun both to see your answers and to think about/look up mine <3

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

99. some day #100 will be posted but who knows when or what that will be lolol

2. What’s your total A03 word count?

395,538

3. What fandoms do you write for?

currently none; i'm doing original stuff only lately. however i have things on ao3 written for marvel (specifically the asgardian faction), downton abbey, what we do in the shadows, and of course most recently (and also least recently...i've come full circle) supernatural

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

seize the crown (wwdits, e)

friendly favors (wwdits, e)

judges of character (downton abbey, gen)

"mr barrow has the flu" (downton abbey, t)

thomas barrow and the power of friendship (downton abbey, t)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

yessss i love responding to comments!!! i appreciate them so much, and i love an opportunity to talk about my writing <3 i can understand why people might prefer not to, especially on a place like ao3 which is technically an archive, but i like the community feel of interacting with readers on there (and i love it when other authors reply to my comments so kind of a golden rule situation)

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

hm...technically the song remains the same (spn, t) has the least desirable endingbut imo passive (mcu, gen), which is entirely about grief and denial, is angstier despite "brother died" being a less dramatic problem than "stuck in eternal crushing hell isolation"

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

to me it's phantom fangs (wwdits, t), my little vampirism-as-trans-allegory project! it's a bit of a bummer at times but to me the ending is so happy <3

8. Do you get hate on your fic?

i haven't!

9. Do you write smut?

yee. although i'm never sure if i want to write smut lmao but it sure does happen a fair amount sometimes

10. Do you write crossovers?

it's not generally my thing, although i do enjoy heavy allusions. i do have at least one though!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i'm aware of (i have had art stolen though RIP)

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes! although i'm not sure the translation is up anymore; it was a number of years ago

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

no...i'm curious about this but i'm not sure how it would go? but anyway no, at least not yet

14. What‘s your all-time favourite ship?

formally it's samifer because i got my fandom phd in this lol but who even knows in actuality tbh

15. What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

i'm soooo haunted by the last chapter of crimsonpeaknatural aka hollow's gate (spn, e). it is my longest fic on ao3 by far and is literally one chapter from done, i just can't bring myself to write the last ~7k. it is fully outlined. i know what happens in it. i just can't write it! why

i also started a michean fic over the summer that i really like but i doubt it'll ever be finished. at least i never posted any of that though :p

16. What’s your writing strengths?

imo characterization/perspective, atmosphere, and prose versatility. maybe pacing? i've gotten comments on that a few times but it's less of a self-observed strength

17. What’s your writing weaknesses?

i don't know what plots are <3 also sometimes my prose wraps around to being a little too circular for its own good so that's both a strength and a weakness of mine lol.

tbh i'm also bad at killing my darlings, especially when it comes to scenes i'm obsessed with, unless i give myself a LONG time to edit. like, on the order of months

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

i'm not really a fan of this as a reader and i prefer not to do it as a writer, but also i'm not going to knock it on principle because i do understand the appeal, especially to people who are writing primarily for themselves and are comfortable in both/all the languages they're including. it can be fun sometimes to see the differences between the language the dialogue and the translation gives (if they provide one) if the language is one i'm also familiar with.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

harry potter. y'know...what can you do lol it is what it is. i wrote the kind of dramione angst you'd expect of a person like me who was 13yo at the time

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

ohhhh i don't know. i had SO much fun writing poker face (spn, e) and i think it succeeds at doing everything i wanted it to do. this isn't an objective answer but i am genuinely very happy with that one so it is my answer atm!

no-pressure tagging @artoodeeblue, @fandom-space-princess, @quietwingsinthesky, and anybody else who would like to do this!

#tag games

[byzantine-suggestions]

Theodora: A Summary

So, a few months ago, I decided to torment myself by reading Theodora by Samuel Edwards, a deeply questionable "vintage" novel from 1969 that, in many ways, makes Robert Graves's Count Belisarius look tame. I did a whole summary of it that I never posted because it got too long and unwieldy, but I got bored this past weekend, so I went back and edited it down to bullet points and individual sub-parts for more readability. So, if you're interested in Highly Questionable Byzantine Shennanigans, here goes:

The book starts off normally enough, detailing the gossip circulating around Constantinople in the weeks before Justinian and Theodora’s engagement. It quickly introduces several important characters by basically just listing their names and their thoughts about Theodora; predictably, the patricians all dislike her, the other courtesans are all jealous of her, the Monophysite clergy love her because she’s championing their cause, and Belisarius has no opinion whatsoever about her because he’s too loyal to Justinian to give a shit about his romantic entanglements. And *then* the book introduces Narses, and it immediately gets weird. Basically, Narses is sexually attracted to Justinian, to the point of having frequent erotic fantasies about him, and he’s therefore disappointed upon hearing of Justinian’s courtship with Theodora. This is a one-off sentence or two in the intro, but don’t worry, Narses’s crush on Justinian (and general sexual deviancy) will become a major recurring theme. So we’re already off to a great start.

The reader is then introduced to Justinian, who is quickly established as a.) mysterious, b.) devoted to his work, and c.) completely fucking insane. We are told that he only sleeps 3 hours a night and frequently goes 72 hours without rest, and is still somehow completely functional, so “the sleepless one” is a literal moniker. He’s also, inexplicably, a talented swordsman (this never comes up again) who’s so strong that he can walk around without guards because he can defend himself using his sheer physical prowess, and he recently graduated college, having completed fourteen years of coursework in five years. Basically, he’s amazing at everything to an absolutely ludicrous degree. The reader meets him in a flashback to the night he first met Theodora, so he’s presently very lonely, wandering Constantinople and pondering the emptiness of his heart.

It isn’t long before Justinian, still lonely and sexually dissatisfied, goes to the Hagia Sophia to seek life advice from God. Of course, Theodora is in the Hagia Sophia, and he’s instantaneously attracted to her, because of course he is. We are told that Theodora has long black hair and purple eyes like a teenage girl’s OC, her waist is so tiny that Justinian can encircle it in his hands, and she looks much younger than she is (it takes Justinian a while to realize that she’s in her twenties and not, in fact, sixteen. Her apparent youth, of course, makes her more attractive to him.) When Justinian first notices her, she’s reading a book, and he finds this astonishing. So astonishing, in fact, that he basically just walks up to her and demands that she read some lines aloud to him in order to prove that she’s actually reading and not just, I don’t know, quietly staring at paper. So she reads him a paragraph or so, but he’s still not satisfied, so he makes her translate some more lines for him, and it’s just kind of exhausting. Justinian really comes across as, like, an angry nerd who walks up to a girl wearing a Star Wars T-shirt and goes “oh, you like Star Wars? Prove it by answering my trivia!” But Theodora indulges him, then they get into an argument about the divine nature of Christ, and she’s so charmed by his shitty attitude that she decides to follow him home.

We are then introduced to Justinian’s house, which is a decrepit hovel that desperately needs a woman to make it into A Home. (Obviously, Theodora is that woman.) She makes Justinian dinner because he’s too inept to feed himself, Justinian infodumps to her about bread, and then he gets called away to some meeting. When he returns from his meeting, he discovers that Theodora has miraculously transformed his terrible house into a habitable environment, then fallen asleep on his couch. So he decides to let her stay, and she basically moves in with him (having known him for a sum total of a few hours). It has the same energy as, like, someone bringing home a stray alley cat, then adopting the cat because it turns out to be really good at interior decorating.

The next morning, Theodora has someone make Justinian his favorite stew, and he’s like “HOW DID YOU KNOW THIS IS MY FAVORITE?” and she’s like “idk, it was a lucky guess :)” But then the narration reveals that she has been obsessively targeting Justinian for weeks, noting all of his movements in the hopes of attracting him and ending up as his mistress, and, as part of her campaign to worm her way into his heart, she’s been following workmen from the same region as him and observing what they eat so she could use that knowledge to make Justinian meals that remind him of his childhood. Which is so incredibly Machiavellian that it kind of circles back around to being amazing. I mean, that’s delusional stalker behavior, but I respect it!

It turns out that Theodora also has access to some important intel about the general Vitalian, which she got by, idk, being a courtesan and knowing things, and right after she admits this to Justinian, Narses and Belisarius conveniently show up with a problem regarding Vitalian. Theodora is able to fix the problem (to Narses’s envy) and Justinian is so happy about this that he gives her some expensive jewelry, which makes her cry. The entire time she’s crying, he just hovers over her and does nothing, like a creep. And then they have sex, because there’s nothing sexier than crying.

They start living as a couple, obviously, but Theodora quickly becomes kind of a homebody, refusing to leave the house or go outside for any reason. This is obviously weird and abnormal, and Justinian is unnerved by it, so he asks her what’s up. Lo and behold, the issue is the Prostitute Dress Code.

What is the Prostitute Dress Code, you ask? Well, it’s a bizarre, inexplicable, completely ahistorical set of rules that governs what color socks prostitutes can wear. Prostitutes of a certain rank have to wear a ridiculous yellow outfit, and prostitutes of another rank have to wear a ridiculous red outfit, and you can be upgraded from a yellow prostitute to a red prostitute, and it’s all just really stupid. And that’s why Theodora doesn’t want to go outside. Because she’d have to wear red socks. I don’t know.

(As an aside, Theodora has been wearing red and purple this entire time. She was introduced in chapter one wearing purple, even though she was a penniless prostitute at the time. Which kind of takes the bite out of “purple is the noblest shroud,” right? If everyone can wear purple whenever they want, and purple has no special significance to her beyond being pretty and fun, her whole speech becomes kind of meaningless.)

Anyway, Theodora doesn’t want to wear the Prostitute Socks, but she doesn’t want to *not* wear the Prostitute Socks because that would mean breaking the law, and this leads to an argument between her and Justinian, which culminates in him proposing to her. As one does.

That concludes the courtship and falling-in-love montage! If you're thinking "this relationship sounds shaky and Justinian sounds very unpleasant," hold on to your stolas; it gets worse in part two.

#samuel edwards theodora #queue