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diejager · 17 days

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Hi! I got the notification that your requests are open skjsjsjs so exciting, can you do something about the noodle dragon with Monster!Task Force 141 please? That would be all, thank you and have a nice day! ❤️✨

Cw: canon-typical violence, weird water magic, weird dragon/monster shit and lore, death, crash, tell me if I missed any.

They’d gotten used to you over the month, watching you prance around them like a graceful panther in hunt, stalking around them with that cheeky smile of yours and a clawed hand always ready to patch someone up. You were a might dragon, a warm to some classifications and an Asian one to others, but the consensus was that you weren’t one to be trifled with —as most dragons were, but if anything, you were so a feline in a body of a dragon than the ferocious monster you were. Always prowling and on guard, watchful and observant, aware of the events transpiring around you like a protective cat.

They took well to you, forgoing the paranoia and apprehension at your eagerness to help them and you openness, your long tail, hard scales protecting the thick cords of sinewy muscles curled ever so softly around them, and the tuff of fur tickling any naked piece of skin. And however tender and soft-hearted you were, they’d seen the dangerous part of you, the draconic one with a strange affinity to water rather than the destructive fire they were so familiar with. Whereas Price was a chaotic force, burning everything on his path and leaving nothing but cinder and ash, you were an unmoving force of water, a typhoon and cyclone that would crash the land and leave broken pieces of what remained, cold and drowned —the calm before the storm as people said, a perfect imagery of you.

Yet there was a lingering suspicion that it was all, that there was a more monstrous part of you hidden away from their eyes. Horangi had shared such thoughts - another mythical creature of sacredness and nobility - and showed them what hehad heard of eastern dragons: giant snake-like creatures with the faces of lions and crowns of graceful antlers, born with lustrous manes and hard but flexible scales that let them dance and twirl as they wished it. Destructive beauty, Horangihad mumbled, a creature who’s image is drawn to represent beauty and nobility.

They knew, they were fully aware, that you had more to show, yet they couldn’t hold back the awe and amazement that followed the gut-deep fear and worry after they saw you fall, your figure shrinking as you plummeted into the dark and silent ocean, gone into the wide, open sea. Rather than seeing your head pop out, gasping for air while they clung to their straps and helicopter, Nikolai screaming through the comma about holding onto something, swirling left and right to avoid being hit a second time by the war ship, it was calm, a smooth plain growing in darkness, a shape forming beneath the veil of a blue ocean.

Then, before they knew it, a majestic serpent erupted from the sea, wet scales gleaming under the sun while you rose into the sky in a spiral, white fur floating like you hadn’t just come out of water. You were swift, curling in the air, your magicworking it’s wonder when you flew, stubby arms and legs moving as if you were swimming, looping around them to shield them from being narrowly hit. It was as Horangi gushed, water rose and fell with you, tendrils of salty water reaching out to curl around you, rising high to swarm the enemy ship the same way you did, circling around it until it was left submerged, swallowed up by your hydromancy. You had drowned warship in the depth of the abyss, a dark and cold pit that promised a lonely death, forgotten and painful. You had caused the deaths of hundreds with a twirling dance, an alluring, yet deadly show, like an oleander.

You made no show of joining them in the aircraft, keeping your distance from them, adequate enough to protect them from further damage without becoming a danger to them. They - especially Price, since he had never seen an eastern dragon, only from files and catalogues - gawked, gazing at your head-sized eye, blinking owlishly at them with a narrowed eyes, slitted pupil gleaming with glee at their admiration. You purred, a growling rumble that shook your gills, a deep sound shuddering through them like thunder, low and booming, but it was a happy sound, meant to comfort them from the near sinking that you’d saved them from.

Even in this situation, where they’d been saved by you, you were still trying to comfort them and reassure them despite having taken a hit or two. They were glad Laswell found you.

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stickylizardcave · 9 months

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a hammer to the statue of david

The proof is shattered at their feet. Tensions are high. Loyalties are in question.

Ambrosius reaches out. Ballister takes a chance.

Things go a little differently.

Ao3 Mirror

Warnings for: Canon-typical Violence, Mentioned Suicidal Thoughts, author’s Blatant abuse of italics and commas

---

It’s hard to breathe. Staring down a gilded blade at Ambrosius, there’s an ache in Ballister’s chest; one that had been there for days now. Ambrosius’s face is pinched in a way he knows that the other man is thinking deeply and torn. With the Director still standing at Ambrosius’s shoulder and Ballister’s proof shattered on the ground, it’s all he can do to plead silently.

The stare-down stretches on for what feels like an eternity.

“Ambrosius…please. I am begging you to trust me-”

The sword raises a little higher, cutting into his words and his heart just the same. He feels like he’s going to shatter.

Two little motions.

Promise. Truth.

You promise you are telling the truth?

Ballister met Ambrosius’s gaze. His metal fingers flicked back. Promise. Always.

Something shifted in Ambrosius’s expression, a softening that soothed the ache in his chest ever so slightly. One more sign, play along.

He sets his shoulders in assent as Ambrosuis says, “Arrest them.”

A breath, standing straighter. Playing along. “You wanna know who the kid is?”

And beside him, he knows Nimona’s expression has shifted into excitement, “Oh-ho, I like where this is going!”

He keeps his gaze on Ambrosius even as he continues speaking in a low voice, “Let’s break stuff.”

The fight starts and it's a whirlwind of activity. Guard after guard, dodging and weaving, working with Nimona’s chaos and adapting on the fly. It’s fun, almost. Ambrosius has dropped back, shepherding the Director to the carriage, getting her out of the way. He stands on ‘guard’ until the carriage is in the air and by then, most of the others are down.

Then they’re falling and then they’re all the base of the building. He’s fighting more guards and then Ambrosius is there, their swords clashing together. Their eyes meet again.

Play along.

“Well, if it isn’t the Golden Boy,” he sneers and they start their dance. Years of duels and spars and training settle on them, perfectly matched in every way. The rest of the world melts into blurred color. Familiar. They clash again, closer. Ambrosius’s eyes glance down at his metal arm, then looks at him with pain and guilt. I’m sorry, he mouths before saying more clearly, “You won’t get away with this!”

Ballister’s gaze softens. I know.

Taunts and jabs thrown at each other, meaning nothing and only there to keep up the ruse. Swing, dodge, parry. Their swords meet again, again. They pretend to struggle against each other’s blade, more of a casual press than the full-force shove it looks like they’re doing. Ambrosius’s mouth is a thin line. I love you. Ballister’s throat closes. He twists, Ambrosius lets his hands go slack and his sword goes flying, and then he’s on the ground.

Ballister takes a chance.

He grips the other’s breastplate with his metal hand, hoisting the man up, and murmurs under his breath, “The eastern forest. Two miles out, in the old sector. There’s a tower. Meet us there.” A pause. “Sorry about this- ”

And then he punches Ambrosius across the face.

Ballister stands, looking down at his other half with a wince, and then he’s grabbed by Todd and dragged away and everything becomes a blur.

It’s easy for Ambrosius to slip away in the chaos afterwards. To follow the direction the fugitives had fled before splitting off from the search party. Easier still to escape into the forest, to shed his armor and sword, stashing them away in the roots of a tree. He pulls his cloak tight, chilled to be in just his under-clothes after wearing the gilded armor’s weight for so long.

When he finds the abandoned hover-cart, hastily hidden, he knows he’s on the right track. Old cracked stone soon comes into view, overgrown and dilapidated. Faintly, he can hear a young voice, full of pain.

“...little kids grow up believing they can be a hero if they drive a sword into the heart of anything different, and I’m the monster?”

Ambrosius swallows heavily, creeping quietly towards the half-open door. (He sees a young girl with long hair standing alone in the road, surrounded by dust, looking at where another child had been pulled away. Her face crumples into anguish, before she’s pulled onto a hover-cart and disappears.) There’s silence inside for a moment. Then-

“...Sometimes…I don’t know what’s scarier. The fact that everyone in this kingdom wants to run a sword through my heart, or…that sometimes…” The voice cracks, “-I just wanna to let ‘em.”

He freezes as a dull ache suddenly forms in his chest. A memory jumps to the forefront of his mind. A long night years ago, just after he had realized he was in love with his best friend.

Ballister lying in his bunk, half-delirious with fever from an infected wound he got in drills the week before, tears streaming silently down his face from the pain. Ambrosius remembers brushing back dark hair before placing a new icepack on the boy’s forehead, pulling a clammy hand into both of his own. Bal’s eyes had cracked open, out of focus and looking at nothing. In a rough rasping whisper he says, “Brosius...I feel like ‘m dying…” Bal shuttered and then sighed in a way-too-resigned way, “Maybe…it wou’’be better if I did…I think e’eryone is countin’ on it anyway…”

Ambrosius is sure that Ballister does not remember that night, but he does. He can’t forget it. He can’t forget how it felt like he had been stabbed clean through at that moment, staring down at Ballister’s pale face in horror and thinking about how he can’t lose the other boy. Not after he had just figured out just how much Ballister meant to him.

That same pain returns and oh , he understands now. Understands how Ballister could look at the shapeshifter and see her. Understands when he hears Ballister start moving, saying, “We have to get you out of here-”

A breath and under the cover of the noise the other man is making, Ambrosius gently pushes open the door, standing on the threshold. Both of their backs are to him, Ballister saying in a small voice, “No matter what we do, we can’t change the way people see us…”

His chest throbs again.

There’s silence for a moment, then the girl says quietly, “You changed the way you see me…didn’t you?”

Ballister turns to face her, his expression soft in a way that Ambrosius knows all too well. Their eyes meet for a split second, enough for Ambrosius to nod, before Ballister is looking at her. She wipes at her face and then with determination in her voice, says, “We can’t let the Director get away with this.”

Ambrosius makes his choice.

“She won’t,” He steps inside as he speaks aloud. The girl whirls in surprise, eyebrows nearly to her hairline before she’s glaring with too-sharp teeth bared.

“Nemesis,” she hisses (which, he still doesn’t know where that came from) before demanding harshly, “What are you doing here?” Then her face gets more angry, and suddenly there’s a pink wolf standing in front of him with its hackles raised, “How did you find us!? Where-”

Ballister cuts her off, “Nimona, don’t. He’s on our side. I told him to come here.”

The girl–wolf–Nimona doesn’t look convinced, “He just tried to arrest us! He was fighting you! He cut off your arm!”

Ambrosius flinches because, ouch, but Ballister just sighs heavily, “Yes, but he’s also apologized for it and I’ve already forgiven him.” They both look at him; Nimona in disbelief and Ambrosius with a mix of guilt and warmth. “Also we weren’t fighting. We were pretending to fight back at the Institute to prevent suspicion.”

The wolf turns back into a teenage girl, still staring at Ballister. Ambrosius cautiously walks further into the tower, saying honestly, “I promise I’m here to help. Look-” He sheds his cloak, “-I’m unarmed and alone. No one else knows I’m here or where here even is.”

She looks at Ballister then to him and back again, doubt clearly evident in her face as she asks, “You really trust your nemesis that much?”

“He’s not my nemesis,” the other man exclaims, exasperatedly throwing both hands into the air, “You decided that, not me! Ambrosius is my boyfriend.”

Oh. A tension in his heart he didn’t realize was there unclenches and feels like a weight has lifted. He meets Bal’s gaze, smiling a tiny bit with heat rushing to his cheeks. Bal is looking at him with affection in those gorgeous brown eyes.

Nimona blinks. Looks between them again several times, clearly thinking, before- “Huh...well, alright then. You got a plan then, Boss?”

Ballister scoffs, then laughs, “‘Course, I’ve got a plan.” He holds out a piece of paper to Nimona even as he levels a grin at Ambrosius, “Something, something, something…”

The girl grins too, all shark-teeth as she takes the paper and pins a picture of the Director to a wall, “We win.”

The plan ends up being as follows–they need proof (again) of the Director’s crimes, so Nimona is going to confront her while posing as Ambrosius. It was a little unsettling when she first did so; Ambrosius looking at a strange mirror image of himself even while coaching her on what he would ask, how he would act. Ballister says that she did it to him too and Ambrosius remembered the video of the subway and started laughing hysterically. (“I knew it wasn’t you! You hate free-form jazz!”)

Bal is hidden out on the balcony, recording the conversation. Ambrosius is posted in a hidden alcove down the hallway, waiting for the signal to storm the office. In his ear, Bal is keeping a running commentary.

It seems to be going well. Ambrosius can faintly hear his own voice in the background as Nimona spits out the lines he gave her. And, while he can hear the Director’s voice too, he can’t make out what she’s saying.

At one point, Ballister sucks in a sharp breath that has Ambrosuis’s hand going to his sword automatically, tensing, “What happened? Everything okay?”

“Yes, but she just stabbed Nimona with my sword-”

“What? Is she alright??”

Bal hums quietly in affirmation though it has an amused undercurrent, “Yeah. She’s really playing up ‘dying’, though.” Which gives the muffled thudding he can also hear a little more context. Somehow, he suddenly feels embarrassed as to what Nimona is doing with his appearance.

Faintly, Ambrosius hears the Director speak, “So, yes. I framed Ballister. I killed the Queen–” and then Bal is saying “-go now–” in his ear. With a deep breath, he steps out into the hallway and calls the group of guards outside the office to his side. He hears “-may Gloreth forgive you–” and then Ambrosius has slammed the doors wide open.

It’s only a little jarring to see his own body on the ground, Bal’s dark sword stuck in his torso. (And yes, the expression was embarrassing. Thanks, Nimona.) The Director whirls around with wide eyes, “What? Ambrosius-?”

She looks disoriented and alarmed, clearly thrown off. The guards are similarly bewildered, exchanging confused murmurs. “How-”

The sound of a recording being rewound cuts her off, and there’s Bal leaning on the balcony frame playing back the Director’s words “–I framed Ballister. I killed the Queen.”

He looks so handsomely smug and Ambrosius wants to kiss him as he laughs and says, “I can’t wait for the Kingdom to see this.”

The Director has gone very pale, “You-”

“Us,” Ambrosius cuts her off again, feeling a weird vicious satisfaction as her expression slackens in surprise. He nods at ‘his’ body, “And Nimona, of course.”

“Round of applause, ladies and gents,” Bal says, still grinning. ‘Ambrosius’ pops back to his feet immediately with a bright smile.

“That was fun! Did I do okay?” He says, looking to Ballister for approval. “I’m worried that last blegh was too over the top.” The sword is pulled free as Nimona shifts back into a teen girl, brushing herself off.

Ballister snorts, “If you’re really looking for feedback, it was a little dramatic-I mean, you’re not gonna win any awards or anything.”

“Did you have to make my face look that stupid?” Ambrosius adds with a huff, trying to sound more offended than he actually felt. Nimona grins at him in a way that allows him to predict her comeback and retort before she can even say anything, “Don’t say it was already stupid-”

She cackles, hyena-like, “Hey! You’re the one who said it, Nemesis!”

The Director is looking between them all in shock. Right, then. Time to wrap up. He clears his throat, squares his shoulders, and schools his face into one of authority, “Director, you are under arrest for the murder of Queen Valerin.”

She seems at a loss for words, sputtering out, “I…you- how–” Then, her face twists into something harsh, “You’re being played, Ambrosius! They’re fooling you!”

Ambrosius gives her a flat look, “You just tried to murder me.”

“N-no, I–I’m–” Trying to grasp at anything she could use, the Director looks around wildly before focusing on her desk. She dives for something there before any of them could stop her, but instead of a weapon as expected, when she turns back to the room there’s an ancient looking scroll in her hand. “This! This explains everything! It’s been in the archives for a thousand years. That thing is Gloreth’s monster!”

Ballister bristles and growls like an angry lion, “Don’t you dare call her that!” Except the scroll is open and on it shows a damning picture. Gloreth wreathed in golden light facing off a beast made of shadow, a young girl with rose colored hair as its heart. Ambrosius stares at it, the world going muffled.

Faintly, he hears the Director speaking of the evil the monster hopes to spread, that it was trying to destroy them all, that they were being manipulated. Ballister is yelling back, angry and protective, saying that she’s lying, that she’s just trying to get out of her own crimes. Nimona is—

Nimona is…

He turns to look at her.

She’s gone silent, has backed up and hunched over, arms wrapped around herself. She’s staring at the scroll with a wide unblinking stare, face screwed up in anguish. And all Ambrosius can see is that little girl, standing alone in the street (sometimes I just wanna let ‘em); that young boy lying sick in bed, tears staining his cheeks (it would be better if I did).

Ambrosius makes his choice.

“Director,” he says, breaking through the argument and there’s sudden quiet. He meets the woman’s wild gaze. “You are under arrest for crimes against the kingdom, the murder of Queen Valerin, and the framing of Sir Ballister Boldheart.”

She glares, her voice all venom as she spits, “You’re being deceived, Ambrosius. That monster is a threat to our very way of life–”

“And if you’re wrong?” She blinks, mouth going slack. Ballister is watching him and he can feel the weight of Nimona’s gaze on him. “What if we’ve always been wrong?”

Silence hangs heavy over them all. The tension is thick, almost oppressive. The Director stares for a long moment before her shoulders go slack in defeat.

And then she whirls, hand flashing to grab her staff from the desk, raising it–there’s a familiar terrible green light and it’s pointed to his side, slightly behind him and he doesn’t think, he just moves , throwing himself in front of Nimona–

The blast hits his shoulder with enough force to send him flying with a pained noise. He crumples to the ground and thinks vaguely, I wonder if this is what Bal felt, and there’s shouting, a whistling noise and he sees the Director’s staff hit the floor and shatter like Bal’s sword had during the ceremony all those long weeks ago.

Then, Bal is there with distress creasing the corners of those lovely eyes, huge and glimmering and soft as he’s pulled upright to rest against Bal’s shoulder. And Nimona is there with a complicated, conflicted expression on her face, looking at him like she’s suddenly seeing him for the first time.

His shoulder is screaming in pain and he can vaguely smell sickly burnt-flesh, but he still manages to ask, breathless, “You two okay…? Not hurt…?”

Nimona’s face goes through a series of emotions that Ambrosius can’t really parse with the haze of hurt, but Bal scoffs in a soft way that makes his heart flutter because he thought he might never hear that again, “No, we’re not hurt.”

There’s stubble rubbing against his forehead as Bal nuzzles into the top of his head and Ambrosius can’t help but sigh gently at the familiar sensation even as the other man asks, “What were you thinking, jumping in front of a lazer like that?”

It hurts to laugh but he does so anyway, grinning cheekily, “I wasn’t.”

He doesn’t need to see Bal’s face to know the man is rolling his eyes, “Well yes obviously, you dumbass.”

Nimona still hasn’t said anything, still watching him, her eyebrows furrowed. He looks at her and is about to ask again if she’s okay when she gives him a tiny smile, “...You’re alright, Nemesis,” and that feels important somehow, coming from her, in a way that he doesn’t understand yet.

And that’s fine. There will be plenty of time to figure that when he can think clearly again.

Ambrosius is moved into a chair as medics arrive and descend upon him. The Director, her hands cuffed behind her back, is led out of the room by another knight. Bal is holding his hand while the medics remove the warped and blackened armor from his shoulder. There’s a pink shark playfully menacing a guard in the background.

It’s not perfect. There’s still a lot that’s going to have to be done, things to change, problems they’ll have to face, issues that must be fixed.

But that can come later. For now, it’s nice to just laugh as Bal scolds Nimona, telling her to stop chasing that poor guard around while trying to convince them to stick their head in her mouth in a voice of tired affection.

Ambrosius squeezes Bal’s hand and feels Bal squeeze back.

#nimona #nimona 2023 #ambrosius goldenloin #ballister boldheart #ballister x ambrosius #goldenheart #writing

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ruthbancroftgarden · 17 days

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-Gasteria pulchra

Gasteria is closely related to Aloe, but it is a smaller genus with a more limited area of occurrence, since all the species come from southern Africa. All the species have dangling flowers shaped like a comma, and typically the swollen base of the flower is in the red-to-orange range, while the mouth is striped. Gasteria pulchra is notable for its tall inflorescence with widely diverging floral branches, as well as its small flowers and its smooth, narrow spotted leaves. From west of Port Elizabeth in South Africa's Eastern Cape Province.

-Brian

#gasteria #asphodelaceae #ruth bancroft garden

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cpunkhobie · 1 year

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OK SO.

now that i've finally gotten the question of "should there be magic?" sorted out (the answer is yes) I can finally start worldbuilding for the hidden city so this will just be info dumping abt it . This is the first time I've put any of this stuff on paper so take it with a grain of salt - everything is up to change etc

Since there aren't Yokai in the GMNT AU that means that there's no actual "hidden city" since there was nothing to be hidden from. Instead comma, the hidden city is actually the name of Big Mama's crime organization(s) of which ranges from corrupt officials to small petty criminals and criminal gangs. It's not actually an organized thing but it's more so something that everyone who works under Big Mama - no matter how many layers of separation there are - adopted to call it. The Battle Nexus is an underground fighting ring of which Big Mama runs , and the Nexus Hotel is a front for it and also a place where members of the Hidden City go to congregate. I'd imagine that she has a global reach, although much of her power is located the Eastern US , lets just say she has connections.

Now with Big Mama, in terms of "professional" work she prefers to go by the alias "Mona Lisa," however when people in the city talk about her casually everyone just says "Big Mama." Everyone Outside of the hidden city knows her by Mona Lisa, with her legal name being something you generally have to dig for. Mona Lisa is like a stage name.

I want to talk a lot more about how magic in this AU would work but unfortunately since mystic lore is something that had to get largely cut from canon I'd have to make a lot of it up myself and try and connect a lot of dots and that's something I wanna put a lot more thought into . But ya that's it for now in terms of things I think are pretty set ^_^

#jonah with a megaphone #gmnt tag #rottmnt #rottmnt au #rise tag #human rottmnt

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cryptid-of-ohio · 6 months

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You wished for asks about butterflies? Well I am here to deliver!!

1. What is your favorite butterfly? Why?

2. Do you play animal crossing? Have you caught all the butterflies?

3. Thoughts on moths?

4. Have you seen sea bunnies? They are not butterflies, but they instill me with similar child like wonder-

Thanks for the questions! I always love a willing victim participant to infodump to.

I have a lot of favorite butterflies, so I'll give one I don't think I've talked about before. It's called the Question Mark! (No, seriously). It's a butterfly native to where I live, and it has a really interesting wing edge. It's scientific name is polygonia interrogations, which roughly translates to many angles of questions. Yeah that's right. It's a questioning butterfly, with very not straight edges if you catch my drift.

The Question Mark is also commonly confused with another butterfly in my region, the Comma! I don't know why these two are named after punctuation marks, but it does make filling out monitoring forms for them a bit fun. Anyways, the Eastern Comma, or polygonia comma, look virtually identical to Question Marks from a distance. Telling them apart in the field drives us lepidoptera enthusiasts a little insane, lol. I still love them though.

2. I have played animals crossing, and I have caught all the butterflies. My one complaint is that the Queen Alexandra Birdwing butterfly in game is only depicted as male. QABs are a sexually dimorphic species, and only the males look like that. The females have a lovely brown and yellow pattern. Also, only the females are the largest butterfly in the world, with a wingspan the size of a sheet of paper. The males' wingspan are only 8-9 inches.

3. I love moths a lot too! I'm just more experienced with butterflies and how to identify them, so they take president in my interest. My favorite moth species is probably the Death Head Moth or the Polyphemus Moth, but I like a lot of them too.

4. Yes I have seen sea bunnies! They are wonderful little guys. I've been meaning to find a crochet pattern for one to make.

#thank you so much for asking about butterflies #and feeding my favorite special interest #i love you platonically mwah #cryptid butterfly talk #butterfly #butterflies #infodump

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middleland · 2 months

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Eastern Comma (Polygonia comma) by Wayne National Forest

Via Flickr:

As temperatures first rise into the 60s in the early spring, several species of butterflies begin taking wing. One such species is the Eastern Comma (Polygonia comma). The strange name comes from the white marking on the underside of its wing that looks like—you guessed it—a comma. This key feature helps separate it from the similar looking Question Mark, which has a white marking that looks like a question mark (and yes, there is really a butterfly called the Question Mark). Eastern Commas are a common butterfly that can be found throughout forested areas of the Wayne National Forest and Ohio as a whole. The caterpillars feed on elms and nettles, while the adults feed on tree sap and rotting fruit. The Eastern Comma pictured here was found along the new Holler Collar Trail in the Baileys Trail System, sipping up some sap that was oozing from a tree stump. The Eastern Comma is a master of camouflage. When their wings are closed, they look like a dead, dry leaf, and when their wings are open, they look like a freshly dropped leaf. But don’t let their camouflaged appearance full you—they don’t spend their entire life trying to hide from predators! Eastern Commas are known for being very territorial, and males will often fly at “intruders”—such as other insects, birds, and even people—in an attempt to scare them away! Forest Service photo by Kyle Brooks

#wayne national forest #cw insects #et in americana ego

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can-of-pringles · 3 months

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Assign butterflies to your OCs?

Thank you

Arline Lanes: Banded Hairstreak

Fox: Baltimore Checkerspot

Carina Shepherd/Beatrice Maddison: Mourning Cloak Butterfly

Dannie Karim: Common Buckeye Butterfly

Ryn Halvorsen: Eastern-tailed Blue Butterfly

Silas Petersson: Malachite Butterfly

Pigeon: Checkered White

Arith: Blue Morpho

Iriel: Anise Swallowtail Butterfly

Kaia: Black Swallowtail

Odel: Phaon Crescent Butterfly

Eliška Hasek: Green Comma Butterfly

Marigold Rosales: Bordered Patch Butterfly

Rosie Rosales-Maximoff: American Lady Butterfly

Allison Dahir: Red-spotted Purple Admiral

Lee Quinn: Little Wood-Satyr

Jelaa Latka: Pipevine Swallowtail

Van Kahl: Ceraunus Blue Butterfly

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nuwanders · 1 year

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What English accents do you think they’d have in Cyrodiil other than Yorkshire accents in Kvatch (according to a headcanon by @bretongirlwrites)?

Hope the bugs aren’t biting you too much

(so far no bites or signs of activity since arriving back in the flat!! we're hoping that's the end of it, but of course we'll remain vigilant for the next few weeks until we can be certain :))

anyway! interesting ask. i'm hesitant to map real life cultures 1:1 onto TES cultures, especially when cyrodiil is clearly based on a weird mixture of ancient rome and medieval italy (and when england finds its own TES 'equivalent' in High Rock), but for the sake of answering your ask I'll assume that Cyrodilic (or what the game calls 'common' or 'Tamrielic') is the same as English. This isn't too much of a stretch; if Old Cyrodilic is similar to Latin, it seems reasonable to imagine that Old Cyrodilic + Ancient Nordic + Bretonic languages (which I headcanon to be similar to languages from the Celtic family, with the addition of French) could result in something sounding like English.

so! Cyrods speak English. I'm going to hazard a guess that the Kvatch/Yorkshire comparison comes from Sean Bean being a Yorkshireman, which is cute so I'll leave that as is.

Going further, it would probably help to draw a boundary somewhere between northern and southern English accents. It seems obvious to draw that boundary between Colovia and the Niben. The climates obviously don't map very well, but in terms of culture and vibe, the north is seen as rugged, 'wild' and economically poor whilst the south(-east) is seen as 'civilised', 'cultured' and economically prosperous. Inverted commas because this is obviously a load of bollocks, though the economic disparity is definitely there.

So to start with, I think the Nibenay Basin accent would sound similar to Estuary English (also known as BBC English, received pronunciation, etc... basically what Americans think of when someone says ‘British accent’). Cyrodiil's financial, cultural and political power is concentrated in the Basin in the same way England's international influence is concentrated in London/around the Thames. The 'Basin accent' would be spoken by the Imperial City's upper classes and mimicked by aristocrats across the province, regardless of whether or not they actually hail from the Niben.

(more under cut)

Making a slight exception to the Colovia = North rule, I'm going to say that an Anvil/Gold Coast accent sounds like West Country English. This is because the West Country, whilst being in the south of England, has more in common with the north in terms of how it is viewed by south-easterners. West Country English is associated with farmers, agriculture, and rolling green hills. If you go far enough west, you find the Cornish accent, which I think seems appropriate for sunny, coastal Anvil. A famous example of West Country English would be Sam Gamgee from TLOTR.

I think the Colovian Highlands accent would sound like Cumbrian English. Cumbrian English is spoken in the mountainous Lake District, in the north-west of England and close to the Scottish border. It shares a border with Yorkshire which would make sense given the position of Kvatch, (though I think the Kvatch accent would probably bleed into the Heartlands).

I think the Skingrad/Heartlands accent would sound like (north) Derbyshire English. Derbyshire sits in the midlands, just south of Yorkshire. It is the home of the Peak District (where I'm from!), which is very 'Heartlands' in both vibe and location.

I think the Bruma/Jerall Mountains accent would sound like north-east/Geordie English. Don't ask me for an explanation, i simply feel it in my heart. A famous example of Geordie English can be found in Billy Elliot.

The Chorrol/Great Forest accent would sound like east-midlands English, which is more a group of accents than an accent in its own right, but the important thing is that it’s not as strong as most northern accents (relative to 'standard' / RP english), but is noticeably distinguished from SE English by the short 'A' in words like bath, laugh, grass etc.

Lastly, I think the Blackwood accent would sound like Black Country English. The Black Country also lies in the midlands, but has a very distinct (and strong) dialect of its own, not dissimilar from the brummy accent of Birmingham (made internationally recognisable by Peaky Blinders). This, in my mind, is analogous to the Blackwood's proximity with the Niben yet distinct cultural identity. The Black Country is seen in England as impoverished and uncultured, which I think fits with the negative stereotyping about the Blackwood in-game.

I'm not going to break down the various regions of the Niben because I think, like in the south-east of England, there would be less variety in accent. If you want to break the Imperial City down into its different districts, you could easily do so with the various accents of London (e.g. Waterfront Cyrodilic could sound like Cockney). In general, I think the upper-middle classes and the aristocracy will speak with a Nibenese accent no matter where they're from, in much the same way 'RP English' is seen as the universal 'middle-class' accent of England.

Hope this helps!

#ask #thelonghanddaydream #this answer makes a lot of assumptions and i don't agree with all of them myself but if you want english accents in Cyrodiil #this is what i'd come up with :^)#tes #teslore #oblivion #take everything with a pinch of salt i'm not a linguist by any means and all of this will be influenced by own upbringing #long post

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bookofjin · 1 year

Text

Records of Jiankang (280 - 311)

The Jiankang Shilu by Xu Song (c. 760) is a history covering the six dynasties that located their capitals at Jianye/Jiankang: Wu, (Eastern) Jin, Song, Qi, Liang, and Chen. It is written in the annalistic style with a main chronology interspersed with short biographic sketches (sometimes these are not so short).

I've skipped past Wu for now, to the earliest origins of Eastern Jin.

Xiaowu [sic] of Western Jin's 1st Year of Taikang [280 AD], he pacified Wu, and therefore abolished Jianye建業, restoring it to be Moling. He divided off Danyang's southern commandery to be Xuancheng commandery, and returned the management to Moling, locating it 6 li south-east of the county. The crossing [?] at Changle Bridge is the ancient Danyang commandery. He used Zhou Jun as Inspector of Yang province, and under his command were 19 commanderies and 70 counties.

3rd Year of Taikang [282 AD], he divided off north of the Qinhuan River to be Jianye建鄴, south of the river became Moling county, still located on the land of the Qin town [?]. However Jianye建鄴 county is within the former capital city's Xuanyang Gate, 2 li east of the present county city, east of ancient Carriage Street.

[Emperor Hui's] 2nd Year of Tai'an, Summer, 5th Month [2 June 303 – 30 June 303], Zhang Chang, a Man of Yiyang, raised troops, titled [himself] Han, and declared it the 1st Year of Shenfeng. He sent General Shi Bing to rob Yang province, the various commanderies were fully lost. Bing following that repaired the palace of Jianye and lived there.

Note: Cao Xian's Annals of Yang province: Hui of Jin's 2nd Year of Yongning [302 AD], there was a stone [shi石] which came floating to Jianye. It entered from the Qinhuai's Xiajia Lake, and climbed the banks for more than 200 paces. Among the hundred families everyone said: “A stone comes, a stone comes. Arriving at the next year, Shi Bing as a result entered Yang province, and thereupon occupied its lands.

Winter, 12th Month [25 December 303 – 23 January 304], the General who Conquers the East, Liu Zhun, sent the General of the Right and Chancellor of Guangling, Chen Min, to cross the Jiang. He attacked and routed Shi Bing at Jianye.

2nd Year of Yongxing, 12th Month [1 January 306 – 30 January 306], Chen Min also occupied Jianye, titling himself Inspector of Yang province. He made use of Gu Rong as Intendant of Danyang, and used Gan Zhuo and Zhou Qi as Generals. Min suggested his functionaries and aides to advance him to be Duke of Chu, and added the rites of the Nine Bestowals.

At the time the Libationer to the King of Donghai, Hua Tan, heard about it. He sent a letter to Rong about Chen's rights and wrongs, telling him:

Min is a common talent without far-reaching schemes. Formerly Qi's Wang Zhu was [a commoner in] cloth clothes, still he did not bend to Yan. How much more so, Sir, when fame is heavy and rank is evident, to accept kindness from the state and yet make faction with faithless dissenters, setting each other up in official posts?

Rong received the letter and was greatly ashamed. He planned with Gan Zhuo and others, saying:

If the affairs of Jiangdong are to be achieved, [we] must complete them together. However, when observing the shape and conditions, what are they like? Min is wholly an ordinary talent, his government orders are contradictory, his sons and brothers are proud and aloof, his defeat is certain! We accepted his offices and salaries. On the day of his affairs' defeat, when they send the various armies from west of the Jiang to pack up the heads to be sent off to Luoyang, the label will say “Heads of the disobedient traitors Gu Rong and Gan Zhuo”. Is it only one person whose shame will reach ten thousand generations!

Zhuo and others considered it so. Thereupon they and Rong made plans. They dispatched messengers to secretly report to the General who Conquers the East, Liu Zhun, to cause him to lead soldiers and approach the Jiang. Min ordered his younger brother Chang to command troops and resist him, and he sent Gan Zhuo to station at Hengjiang. Gu and Qi took the opportunity of Zhuo's troops to kill Chen Chang, cut the bridge, and fully gathered the ships to the south of the Huai River. Min set out himself with the army to approach the shore of the great pontoon [?]. Rong used a feather fan to signal them, and Min's multitudes scattered and dispersed. Min fled north on a single horse, Qi and others pursued and beheaded him in Jiangbiao [lit. “the layer outside the Jiang”, i.e. the south].

Chen Min, courtesy name Lingtong, was a native of Lujiang. AS young he was able and competent, and was appointed Foreman Clerk of the Granary Section to the Masters of Writing. When the King of Zhao, Lun, usurped in rebellion, the righteous troops lacked food. They used Min as Supply Controller of Guangling to make use of water transport on the Jiang and Huai to aid the Central Provinces. During the chaos of Zhang Chang, he sent Shi Bing to hasten towards Shouchun. The Commander-in-Chief, Liu Zhun, made plans with Min to rout Bing and others, and due to his merits he was designated Chancellor of Guangling. At the time Emperor Hui moved west and the Four Regions were altogether fought over. Min thereupon had a desire for occupying Jiangdong.

Emperor Huai's 1st Year of Yongjia [307 AD], the King of Donghai, Yue, held the government.

Autumn, 7th Month [15 August – 13 September 307], he used the King of Langye, Rui, as General who Calms the East, Commander-in-Chief of the Various Army Affairs of Yang Province South of the Jiang. He employed Wang Dao's strategy, and crossed the Jiang to garrison Jianye. He chastised Chen Min's remaining partisans and cleaned up Jiangbiao. He relied on Wu's old capital city, repaired it and then lived there. The Taichu Palace became his office building.

Note: The Taichu Palace was originally the palace of Wu. Jin pacified Wu, and then afterwards when Shi Bing made chaos, it burnt down and was swept away entirely. Chen Min pacified Shi Bing and occupied Yang province. He relied on Taichu's old foundations to start constructing office buildings. When Zhongzong first crossed the Jiang, he because of that lived on this land.

He set up the office of Interior Clerk of Danyang, and used Gu Rong as Army Marshal and He Xun as Assistant Aide. Wang Dun, Wang Dao, Zhou Yi, Diao Xie, and Dai Rousi became his belly and heart, thighs and forearms. He connected with guests and visitors, was courteous to famous worthies, and inquired into and asked about manners and customs.

5th Year of Yongjia, Summer, 6th Month [3 July – 31 July 311], Liu Yao robbed Luoyang, the Imperial Capital was lost, and Emperor Huai suffered dust at Pingyang. The Minister of Works, Xun Fan, circulated a document under Heaven, pushing forward the King of Langye as master of the alliance.

#jksl05

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