#is nothing compared to their 20 year lifespan

[kedreeva]

To follow up on your answer about human-peafowl relations, how does someone like Bug, who basically demanded to be raised by you, fit in? Will she be just a very Ked-friendly hen, or will she be somehow very different from the other girls?

She'll be a little socially awkward, but she will get along, and the longer she's out there once she's a full-time-outside bird, the easier it will be, especially when her adult hormones arrive. Artemis was also raised by me, and she's a little awkward as well, but she gets along fine with the others and she's not even interested in fitting in the way Bug is. Bug may not have wanted to be left with the other babies when she first hatched, but she is very interested in the other birds now, she plays with her siblings through the fencing and she defers to the bigger birds like she learned to when she was a baby. We spent a LOT of time out in the bird pens when she was very little, so while she was raised by me, she also got to experience Being A Bird from a few days old. And we do still go out into all of the pens together, and she gets to spend time being chased around by the big birds or watching them from beside me, and hanging out near them while I free range a pen. She'll always be a little Different, having been to the realm of the fae so to speak, but it shouldn't inhibit her from fitting in.

#she'll just have the eldritch horrors in her mind #no worries #bug the peahen #my pets #peafowl #asks #even a year in close human care #especially before adult hormones #is nothing compared to their 20 year lifespan #for the hens all it does is make them a little more people friendly #and a little less peacock friendly #but they get along with the other hens just fine #for the males the 'human friendly' part is a bad thing #since the friendly part comes from viewing you to the same as them #with hens that means social group #with cocks that means mate or rival #and you're not mating with them soooo

[iheartshoyo]

INCOMING RANT

Yoshida Shoyo is a virgin and I stand by that😤

(with proof and analysis)

I definitely could have added more info on why I think that this is so cuz I have many more things that would stand as proof so ill add on a bit more. Read below 👇🏽

this is the same text but in video format but the scenes at the back in some places can be considered as back up for my post😭

MORE ANALYSIS BELOW 👇🏽

1. Total ostracism

He was ousted since he was a kid and it lasted for centuries. He was literally TORTURED for simply existing my man did nothing to warrant this hell but oh well that's humans of the past for you. It should be known that his whole 1000+ years of life, not one soul had bothered to help or stand up for him, because nobody knows what it's like to be in his state and never bothered to sympathise with him.

2. Disgusted by humans

He has literally called humans disgusting many times, and yet it's not even the most insulting thing he has called humans. He's a certified hater to the point that he could be considered a racist(discriminates the human race and kinda every other life form in the universe)

Mostly someone would say oh but he's been alive for over a 1000 years something definitely happened. Yes something did, hate and pain and agony is what happened😭😭😭 first few centuries, were different methods of killing and torturing him, then for about 500 years I think, he was rotting away in a cell in a cave.

And then the next 500 years he was killing mfs left and right. I can safely assume that after his break from jail, when he immediately started killing the first group of humans that he met, he literally means he wanted to get rid of anyone he laid eyes on💀 Man didn't just despise, he was REVOLTED.

An important qns that could come up is what if when he was yoshida shoyo (for around 20 years). It's a very short amount of time compared to his lifespan isn't it☠️ Also not to forget the fact as I mentioned before, he was still heavily discriminated and feared. Also He was chased out of every town or village he travelled to, hence the title that he's a wanderer(along with gintoki).

(This could possibly have been the fact that the people recognised him as either the immortal demon or as the leader of Naraku) However it could also contribute to the fact that his revolutionary teachings were bothering the townsfolk's norms, thus the community unrest resulting in chasing him out.

Idc what anyone says a man who was so intensely and ruthlessly tortured would have a dead libido, man has literally experienced death like a daily occurrence. It was frequent ritual to come back from the dead, he has literally seen death and had tea with it, and is used to it he would NOT gaf about his dick which probably stays dead too with how many times he's been killed.

I could say the same for physical attraction because, firstly, his deep hate,more emphasis on DISGUST and DISCRIMINATION he holds for humans as well as for living beings on every other planet in the universe as Utsuro is well known. But as for yoshida shoyo, the compassionate man, I would consider him a man above worldly pleasures, as his immortality, past lives and wisdom(along with how tired he is of everyone) can attest to that.

3. Man beyond societal pressures and standards

Considering that he's a certified menace to society from birth till death, along with the menaces he trained. Safe to say he would not give any fucks about being socially acceptable even as yoshida shoyo he was still a force to be reckoned with, he was in no way submissive(the scene where he rushes to protect his kids amd threatens a bunch of men that he'll collapse the whole government because HE COULD).

With the way he has lived his life and all the events he has gone through, societal expectations/cues would actually mean nothing to him(along with his lifespan), He had become numb to the minds and behaviours of humans long ago. He has no need to go out of his way to do or say anything that does not please him and has no one to appease to. The only reason he surrendered when the Naraku came for him was to not jeopardize the safety of his students.

He COULD have easily fought them off, but after twenty years or so he probably got tired again of constantly running from the naraku(he did say at one point he was tired of running). And he was also confident in the beginnings of revolution and strong spirits he had sowed into the students he taught.

His teachings were considered as revolutionary and forward thinking, he took a new approach to life that breaks away from the stigmatised version of what was initially taught to young people and his method encouraged individualism and soul searching along with self sufficiency and inner peace, atleast to pack all of his teaching's purpose in a nutshell(definitely encapsulates much more than these ideas).

The new outlook he had begun to teach was seen as rebellious and as a fire that had to be snuffed out before its influence could spread. This further solidifies the idea that he was rather more taken with the notion that each individual pursues their own ambitions and their own rules of life, rather than conforming to the society's expectations upon them at the time he was a teacher. The principle of a man following his own rules set upon his own soul can be found in Gintoki as well, which were the concepts of individuality Shoyo had passed down to his students.

In the current years as far as I know nobody really judges you for your sex life but hookup culture was more "normalised" a few decades ago, cough cough millennials cough cough. E.g. sorachi making constant cherry/virgin jokes. No matter how normalised or societal standard anything maybe, shoyo was FARRRR from normal, bet that he would be the polar opposite of any type of expectation society normally has.

It's clear for us throughout gintama that shoyo viewed being alive and having a body as a burden, immensely. So it's obvious that a body that pains his soul to have would not be worried about pleasure in a physical sense. As aforementioned in the first part(twitter post), he would not even bother to think about it given his life incidents.

And as an individual, for 1. he is very mentally ill and at war within himself,

2. he's seen too many things in life and is traumatised to an unimaginable extent.

3. nobody would ever be able to truly understand or sympathise with him.

4. with the way his character is he seems self sufficient and independent, thus losing the need to find gratification in anyone else physically, emotionally and mentally.

Instead he had a lot of wisdom and knowledge to share and demonstrate to the world instead, hence his choice to become a teacher(starting/working in a temple school).

4. Not human nor programmed to be humane.

Shoyo was born human initially, but due to unforeseen circumstances he ended up becoming a being of altana or was born with altana in his blood. So from a very young age he was programmed to be much different from the average human. He himself, due to all the abuse and visceral disgust aimed towards him, stopped considering himself a human and instead became a monster, not human, and was even deprived from any sort of human normalcy. As Yoshida shoyo, he would have not valued anything the average person would, he is not normal. (in a good and bad way).

Moreover gintama has many references deep-rooted into Buddhism and Shoyo was basically akin to a monk during his teaching era.

None of his personalities via his split personality would ever delve into pleasurable ways, because, exempting his personality of yoshida shoyo, every other personality was an extension of Utsuro, who wanted nothing to do with humans and wished for the extinction of them. So excluding his hundred other extensions of his mind(personalities), his singular personality, can definitely be perceived and considered as a zen master/monk.

Heres a link to a shoyo analysis(at the end of the post), it delves into the life and character arc of yoshida shoyo, along with his connections and references to Buddhism. And importantly how his death signifies nirvana, nirvana means to break the cycle of life, and to do that, some points to achieve this are to go beyond the worldly/materialistic aspects of life, which shoyo has already mastered in my opinion. Atleast as yoshida shoyo, excluding his other personalities.

The only thing stopping him from being freed was his suffering and absolute pain which even resulted in him becoming mentally deranged. His suffering was the only thing stopping him from absolution.

In a way, Utsuro yearned for nirvana too(shoyo is no different from utsuro in the ways of his soul no matter the amount of personalities, hes still just one soul, one man), but went about it in a more "all encompassing" method💀 because his nihilism was at its peak within him, with his history of genocide as a fuel to his ambitions. He wanted to truly end not just his existence and consciousness but everything that exists as a whole. As he believed as Utsuro it would be a more fitting way to end ALL cycles once and for all (perpetuated agenda by his hatred).

In the end, obviously as he has repeatedly stated, he yearned for death, the end of the cycle. And a man who yearns for death, would not consider anything else in his life other than leaving the very body that is nothing more than a burden to him. And vehemently strived to dissolve his soul to put a full stop to the endless agony that he knows and calls life.

Link: https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSFGagoWo/

End of my post I hope that everyone realises I'm always right when it comes to my love, shoyo😝.

#gintama #yoshidashoyo #yoshidashouyou #yoshida shouyou #gintoki #katsura #utsuro #sakamoto #takasugishinsuke #takasugi #shoka sonjuku #manga #anime

[thewiddershinsme]

Finished An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Roberson. Had a very interesting take on the fae and their relationship with human Craft. It was the most refreshing take on the fae I've read in a while, in which the fair folk still felt inhuman and other and couldn't lie (compared to other books where the fae just felt like regular people with some superhuman abilities)

Spoilers:

It felt like a good standalone until the very end. I felt like the ending was going for happily ever after, but honestly just felt like it was a happily for now ending. Isobel becoming Queen of the Fair Folk was odd considering how much she still hated fair folk in general even at the end. It was unclear whether she would be exercising any sort of real power or change (as Gadfly seemed to imply) or it's just a means to make Rook King of the Fair Folk. And while Rook and Isobel will no longer be put to death for loving each other, there's nothing to suggest she isn't going to age and die in a normal lifespan, while if Rook becomes like the Alder King he'll have a lifespan even crazy long for immortals. While I very much loved Isobel's practical nature, I got the impression at the end that in about 10-20 years later she's gonna break things off with Rook, which while perfectly practical is not the love story I got the impression the book was going for. And again, kinda surprised that a standalone ends with our mortal heroine becoming Queen of the Fair Folk with no follow up on that very intriguing premise.

Overall did enjoy it, and am planning on checking out her other book A Sorcery of Thorns. Oh and lowkey disappointed never learned Isobel's true name

#an enchantment of ravens #margaret rogerson #sorcery of thorns

[bookwyrminspiration]

Had Sophie stayed in the human world until she was older like the Black Swan planned for her to, do you think their experiment would have worked?

They want her to bring change to the human world, but an elf raised as a human being who came to the Lost Cities as an adult would have incredibly hard time adjusting or taking the Black Swan seriously for reasons that I think are fairly obvious. She would have had a life, with friends and family in the human world. Then they would require her to sever all of those relationships because they want her to bring change to a world that she did not even know existed. Once she got to the Lost Cities, she would have incredibly hard time integrating to the different clothes, food and culture. Once she got past those hurdles, she would have to work incredibly hard to be taken seriously. She would be a grown woman that no one in the Lost Cities is connected to, who is advocating for change in a world that she has no connection to. I am thinking of real life equivalents of this, like a child being raised in Russia, who only speaks Russian and thinks of themselves as Russian, is brought to the United States as an adult to tackle American social issues. They do not understand American social issues and it will take a long time before they do. Exchange the word Russia for human, Russian for human world and United States for Elvin world. Her credibility would be very low in this scenario, as she would struggle to get people to hear her thoughts on issues especially because she is not impacted by these problems. Moreso, she would view herself as a human being and would ultimately defend humans and even betray the elves if she felt the elves were going to harm humans.

Ultimately, the Black Swan would not work out. They would bring her to the world of the elves, use her for a different perspective then bring her back to the human world. Then, there is the problem of her abilities and lifespan. Would they leave her with her abilities and do nothing to do with them? Would they leave her, an immortal being, in the human world to spend the rest of her life with people who live quickly and die quickly? That is an interesting way to handle things.

There are so many ways the plans of the Black Swan could have gone wrong.

That depends on what you consider "working" for Project Moonlark. If we're going solely with the goal of bringing a new perspective to the Lost Cities, that still would've been achieved; she still would've been raised with the same human mindset that the Black Swan was looking for. If we're going with the goal for her "to be something new", then she still would've been that.

I personally don't think the problems you're suggesting would be too different from how it is now in the series. Perhaps they waited until Sophie was in her 20s or 30s, before people could notice she wasn't aging, but that's still so small compared to the elven lifespan. That's hardly a difference to their world and those who've lived in it for centuries.

Sophie now still had a hard time adjusting (and is still adjusting, over 2 years later), she had friends and family that she had to sever ties with, she's not used to the clothing and culture--though she has gotten used to the food for the most part. I think almost everything you're proposing isn't unique to an adult Sophie, it's the same as she's going through as a young teen.

I do think you make a good point about having no connections, though. The elven world is incredibly isolated, and she wouldn't have the connections or circle she does without being adopted and going to school, both things that only happened because she's a kid. However, I do think that could be compensated for via connections in the Black Swan. She wouldn't have as much exposure outside of them, but she wouldn't be completely on her own. However, that does also mean there's no easy way for other people to learn about her and hear about her the way there is now, but there could be gossip that makes her more known, people just wouldn't first learn of her at school as her peers.

Based on my understanding, I think the biggest problem they'd encounter is Sophie herself. She goes along with other people's suggestions and submits to certain authority because she's a kid, because she doesn't have the same sway as an adult. Her parents can tell her to do things and discipline her, the Black Swan can partially shut her out and guide her citing her youth. Adult Sophie would be an adult. Redundant statement, I know, but my point is she would be more on their level. She'd have more autonomy, be more individual. Even as unaware as she is, she's more equal. She doesn't have to listen to what people tell her, she doesn't have to do what they say. She's an adult who can do what she wants for her own reasoning. So the Black Swan would have to truly work with her more to cooperate.

However, at a certain point she doesn't have a choice in the matter. She has abilities, she doesn't quite fit in the human world (though in both cases she still sees herself as more human), the Black Swan can hold info over her head (like her parents/origin), etc. She's tied to them and I think would always end up with them and in the elven world.

The way I see it, Project Moonlark still would've worked, it just would've played out differently. Different people in her life, different setting, different dynamics between her and others. But ultimately the core of it the same. Her being a child is crucial to the story as we know it, but not crucial to Project Moonlark. Even if she prefers humans, she's not going to turn a blind eye to elven problems and ignore everything. Her age isn't a huge factor in the project on its own, so a lot of the details (leaving her life behind, struggling to adapt, etc.) are ubiquitous!

#kotlc #kotlc character analysis #sophie foster #quil's queries #thepinkdove #long post #this is of course just my interpretation and opinion. it's not set in stone or anything #I just don't really think at the core of it all it'd be that different #the premise and execution is pretty much the same regardless of age #so I think it would have the same impact. or at least similar enough to not be too noteworthy #but I don't think the black swan and project moonlark wouldn't have worked if she was older #that's how it was intended to work #perhaps sophie would've been more like the black swan if she didn't have that sort of teenage rebellion thing going on #and their progress would've been slower #who knows! i can't say exactly how it would've played out #anyway i should stop before i ramble forever :)

[isabelpsaroslunnen]

I was thinking about how I don't ordinarily like large age gaps in fictional relationships, but with an exception for one of my favorite fantasy tropes: unalterably different lifespans.

I actually really enjoy it when an ordinary lifespan forms only a small part of the life of some long-lived being(s), chronologically speaking, yet the comparatively short-lived person has an inexpressibly profound impact on the other person or people that lasts for multiple lifetimes (my group's last D&D campaign culminated in exactly this dynamic and it was great).

I particularly enjoy it when both or all go into the relationship with a solid understanding of what the disparity in lifespans will mean and acceptance of this as part of loving each other for who they truly are rather than wishing them fundamentally different. I do not particularly enjoy it when the disparity is "fixed" for whatever reason; it just de-fangs the whole thing to me and makes it 10x more boring. Give me the bittersweet lifespan angst, I eat it up like bittersweet chocolate.

There is a variant that I also like, which is when the disparity in their potential lifespans is not smoothed over, but through some horrible turn of events, the longer-lived person dies before their partner(s). I don't think I'd like it as "haha, a twist! you didn't see that one coming, did you?" But when it is serious tragedy, it's great.

I was thinking about this because I'm a big Tolkien fan, and some of the relationships work a lot better for me than others. But nothing works quite so well for me as:

Éowyn falling in love with and marrying the ultra-Númenórean Faramir, a man who will live to be 120 years old, likely outliving her by 20-30 years and possibly more if she dies of old age.

Galadriel's brother, Aegnor, falling hard for the mortal woman Andreth but afraid of the ramifications of mortality. He then dies in battle against Morgoth while she's still alive. Elves can be reborn sometimes, but Galadriel and Aegnor's oldest brother tells Andreth:

"he will never take the hand of any bride of his own kindred, but live alone to the end, remembering the morning in the hills of Dorthonion ... I say to thee thou shalt live long in the order of your kind, and he will go before thee and he will not wish to return."

It's sad, but also

#isabel talks #game: dungeons and dragons #isabel's games #tropes #sff chatter #ch: sephrene lyr #ch: cora runelerin #ch: ifrien runelerin #artist: jrr tolkien #ch: faramir #ch: éowyn #ch: andreth #ch: aegnor #ch: finrod felagund #text: athrabeth finrod ah andreth #text: lord of the rings #long post #text: middle earth

[wellntruly]

Les Mis Blogging RETURNS

Did you miss me???! (Mis me)

Yes I did carry the goddamn Brick all the way to New York and back, because I accurately guessed those long flights would make prime reading time. Well, one way at least—coming back too late at night after four long days I could manage nothing but huddling tired and cold in my seat, eyes closed, comparing every album of Hadestown available to me (to be continued) (Musicals: Two!)

But right now, we return....to France:

Volume III: Marius: Continued

Book 5

The rest of this volume treats primarily of Marius’s misadventures. One of the first things that happens is that THREE YEARS PASS. Marius is now twenty, we are told. What is wild about this is that would mean all the revolutionary boys we were just introduced to when Marius tumbled into them fleeing his grandfather’s at age seventeen, would now be three years older as well. Is that the case??? Is Enjolras actually to be 25 now? Bossuet 28? ''11th year'' student Bahorel fully to 30? It does not seem it! Perhaps the schoolboys of l'ABC are enclosed in one of those pockets of sustained time that fictional characters occasionally stray into—your Aubrey and Maturins, your Tintin and Haddocks—where the events of years happen yet don’t seem to apply to their lifespan. Paris marches on while they just continue to exist in a perpetual twilight of their mid-20s. I mean, good arrangement if you can get it.

But anyway, we’ll reconnect with them later. In the meantime, Marius learns what a woman are (barely), and figures out a way to keep himself (barely) fed, (barely) housed, and (barely) clothed. On that last, Courfeyrac gives him an old coat when his wears through—“But this coat was green. Then Marius ceased to go out until after nightfall. This made his coat black. As he wished to always appear in mourning, he clothed himself with the night.” Son, I love you.

Really he spends most of his three years alone daydreaming and being weird. Who can relate.

Book 6

We are given an in-depth physical description of Marius at this epoch, who turns out to be a raven-haired babe. We are then immediately treated to Courfeyrac flirting with him over how he won’t flirt with anyone, and Marius runs away. Remarkable.

But before we can have too much fun with that, we then slide into a rather trying section where Jean Valjean and Cosette re-enter the chat, have the same walking route as Marius (these creatures of unbelievable habit..), and then the very minute Cosette enters puberty, Victor Hugo and Marius are like “omg, a Woman.” No! A teenage girl! Barely!

Marius, admittedly also still emotionally an infant, proceeds to develop an entire religion around her. Over the course of months they share (1) glance—he is in raptures. At least we get some intermittent hilarity when it becomes clear Jean Valjean knows something is Up, and I personally believe leaves his own handkerchief on purpose, just to troll him.

Meanwhile, with the (one) friends we left behind: “On the way there, he encountered Courfeyrac, and pretended not to see him. Courfeyrac, on his return home, said to his friends, ‘I have just met Marius’s new hat and new coat, with Marius inside them. He was going to pass an examination, no doubt. He looked utterly stupid.’”

Sorry to focus so much on Courfeyrac when he actually appears vanishingly little in this part of the narrative, but every time he does appear it's something like this; what am I do to.

Book 7

Introducing: Montparnasse & Friends! UNREAL DESCRIPTIONS IN THIS SECTION. Here’s some selections:

“He was six feet high, his pectoral muscles were of marble, his biceps of brass, his breath was that of a cavern, his torso that of a colossus, his head that of a bird.”

“He was transparent but impenetrable. Daylight was visible through his bones, but nothing through his eyes. He declared that he was a chemist.”

“Claquesous was vague, terrible, and a roamer. No one was sure whether he had a name.”

and

“Montparnasse was a fashion plate in misery and given to the commission of murders. …his cravat knowingly tied, a bludgeon in his pocket, a flower in his buttonhole; such was the dandy of the sepulcher.”

A cold crime-hello to these four gentlemen.

Book 8

Jean Valjean stops taking Cosette to Marius’s stalking street and he sinks into a very accurate description of clinical depression. Meanwhile, I learn Groundhog Day may be French?? Sacré bleu!

But, while “Marius was too melancholy to take even a chance pleasantry well” (phenomenal sentence), Hugo has a scheme in the wings. EPONINE makes her teen reappearance—bold, tragic, unhinged. Incredible that this feral, topless little gremlin who crows in scrawling free-association verse is the origin character for the musical’s tender sadgirl singing ‘On My Own’.

I mean look at this:

Wow!

So all this stuff rather wakes Marius up, as one might imagine, and before you know it really, he’s engaged in a misbegotten sting operation with Javert and the Thenardiers, who live next door to him in Jean Valjean's old apartment building. There are apparently only 20 people in Paris and 3 locations. Oh and you will never guess which mysterious charitable gentleman and his daughter the Thenardiers are trying to kidnap and rob! No you never will! Okay you have guessed it exactly! Marius, peering through a hole in his wall (Marius, how’s the peeping), already thinks of Jean Valjean as his father-in-law, and is so proud of him. As he should be, Valjean ~rules~. At various points throughout the proceedings, he maintains perfect noble silence pretending he has no idea who the Thenardiers are, leaps to his feet revealing he has secretly undone his fetters while Thenardier was monologuing, burns himself with a brand to prove he has no fear of death, and ultimately slips out a window down a rope ladder when no one is looking. I wish he was my father-in-law!

Thus concludes: Volume III ✓

Oh, and one more place-keeping point: thus concludes FIVE years now since Marius ran away from home. Five??!? Truly I think these five years have only stuck to Marius and Cosette. Oh! Hey maybe the way time works in Les Misérables is that it only touches you when you appear on the page. So Courfeyrac and Bossuet, present in a mere handful of lines since encountering Marius in a fiacre 100 pages ago, are therefore still just the same

(the best).

[Brickolage]

#Les Mis 2 More Mis #Brickolage #Les Miserables #Victor Hugo

[technetiumai]

15 Questions | 15 People

Thank you for tagging me @raenestee and @cutestkilla! These are so much fun! I love learning more about you guys!

Oh, I’m supposed to tag 15 people? 😬 Do I even know 15 people?

1. Are you named after anyone?

My legal first name was my father’s grandmother’s name, but the only people who have ever called me that were people reading it off of official paperwork. My mom liked that my initials could also be a name and decided, before I was born, to call me that.

2. When was the last time you cried?

I seriously cry so much. I probably cried a little bit like half an hour ago because of a song I was listening to or something. But I guess that was like, I’m at work and I’m holding it together crying, not full on crying… I’m like 90% sure I was fully crying because of either a vlogbrothers video, a Rush song reaction video, a Glass Onion or Knives Out reaction video, or maybe a Dimension 20 clip either yesterday or the day before…

3. Do you have kids?

Yes, twin eight-year-olds. 

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot?

Hmmmm. I think so? It used to be one of my defining characteristics, but I don’t really know if it is anymore. I definitely use snark fairly constantly. The sass flows freely.

5. What’s the first thing you notice about people?

How the heck would I know? I don’t keep track... I’m sure it can’t always be the same thing, but I have no idea. Everything and nothing.

6. What’s your eye color?

Green. A it’s a true green in the center part and the outline of the iris, then most of it is like a turquoise with gold flecks in it that looks green when you zoom out. Not that anyone but me has ever looked close enough to notice 😂. That may be what all green eyes look like, I don’t know.

7. Scary movie or happy endings?

Happy endings, I guess. I usually find scary movies mostly boring. Not that I don’t ever get scared or anything, it’s just… just being scared isn’t very entertaining for me I guess. Also scary movies tend to very quickly break suspension of disbelief so usually it’s hard to a stay in a brain space that’s really open to being scared. I think there’s just something I don’t get about the genre, and maybe a campiness that’s not really my thing. The Ring is the only “scary movie” that jumps to mind where I was like in it. I know there has to be more though, my brain is just empty. What was the question? Oh, I mean… happy ending still has to a have a good journey though, right? And I’m not opposed to tragedy. I guess my point is that I don’t like either for either’s sake, but if it’s a good movie, it’s a good movie. 

8. Any special talents?

Define special—Ummmm… No, I’m gonna go with no. I have no idea. Throwing themed parties? Maybe? 

9. Where were you born?

Des Moines, Iowa. I read an article once that ranked Des Moines as the #1 metro area in the US to live in, in terms of something, but I can’t remember what... I think that pretty much sums it up.

10. What are your hobbies?

Craft stuff. None of it is actually interesting to talk about. 

11. Do you have any pets?

We have an ancient, calico Manx cat; she’s roughly 130 years old in cat years (factoring in the comparatively short lifespan of her breed). We have a four year old black cat, who a former coworker found abandoned by his (the cat’s, not the coworker’s) mom in the garage of a Masonic lodge soon after he was born. So we’ve had him since he was the size of a like a peach or something,  and now he weighs like 15 pounds. We also have two sweet little Guinea pig ladies, who are six years old and were already four when we adopted them. They’re so cute 😖🤗. I’m getting some baby-fever-style urges to get more pets though… more cats, or maybe rats… I want a pot bellied pig, but I don’t really think I could give it enough attention. I also want a goat, but that’s not legal where I live.

12. What sports do you play/have you played?

Lol, I wish.

13. How tall are you?

5'5"

14. Favorite subject at school?

Always math. I was never good enough that I got into super advanced classes, but it felt like I was just spending a bunch of time solving puzzles and getting rewarded for it; seemed like a great deal to me. Plus it didn’t have as much of the social weight that the rest of them did for me. 

15. Dream job?

I really want to keep part of Raen’s answer 😅 “Anything that I don’t dread going to every day, something that doesn’t feel like it’s sucking the life out of me.” That really is the dream. I really would just like to constantly be doing something creative collaboratively with other people. I’m not really picky about what it is though. Or if I could solve intermediate algebra problems all day—that’d be amazing. That’s not very realistic though. That’s what computers are for. If I could get paid what I’m paid now to like organize things or file things or something, I would love that.

@onepintobean @ivelovedhimthroughworse @captain-aralias @fatalfangirl 

I can’t do tags; you know the drill.

#tag game

[breelinkplumbingandheating]

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[badjust]

Tinderbox wolfchase mall

Tinderbox wolfchase mall full#

But Americans have been 9/11ed and Hollywooded into thinking a terrorist attack has to be some elaborate super planned out event with planes, suitcase nukes and whatnot. Traffic out there is frequently a nightmare.Īgree with you that the terrorism thing is beyond this thread and I apologize for my thread hijacking. To the extent that it is a victim of its own success. Furthermore, Germantown Parkway, in between Walnut Grove and 64 has more shopping than anywhere in the metro area. Wolfchase is doing as well as can be expected from a middle class oriented mega mall, a market that is struggling nationwide. Many of these folks like outlying areas, and spend little time in Memphis. But there is also a large demographic of folks who seek out that narrative because it confirms their ideas of how Memphis is. I agree that the 'if it bleeds it leads" "things aren't what they used to be" local news is a travesty. This is probably beyond the scope of this thread, but acts of international terrorism require far more planning than getting together a bunch of rowdy teens at the mall. If a bunch of knucklehead teenagers can organize chaos throughout the country via social media, why couldn't the latest bogeyman terrorist group do the same thing? Just goes to show how useless our "intelligence" agencies are. Some people need to respect and appreciate what we have before its all gone. We need to be glad that out city has a great mall that is doing well, especially in this day in age of the dying indoor mall and competition from Amazon and other online retailers. I don't shop at the Wolfchase mall much but these false accusations have to stop. They are not gonna let that happen and I cant see that happening myself. Long time residents will fight to the death to insure the Wolfchase does not become Hickory Hill part 2. Sure people of all races live in the area, but the white demographic remains the majority. White flight is not happening at Wolfchase either.

Tinderbox wolfchase mall full#

I cant remember the last time there was a full scale restaurant in that area that's not fast food. It would be as vacant and abandoned as the Trolley Crossing center. If the Wolfchase area was so called ghetto, then there wouldn't be multiple restaurants and other big box stores in the area. Compare the Trolley Crossing shopping center on Perkins/American Way to The Giasco Place across the street. The area around the Mall of Memphis went down with the mall. The same argument goes for the Wolfchase area in general. Even with all the Sears stores closing in the US, the one at Wolfchase would be one of the last to go. From a business/corporate level, not because of a local under performing store. The only way I see Wolfchase loosing an anchor would be Sears if they completely went out of business. I didn't see a "Extreme Wear" or "Regina's Nails" located in spaces that used to be GameStop or Charming Charlie's. Business is just fine at Wolfchase and isn't feeling the decline of American indoor malls. Wolfchase is still going strong and has yet to lose any anchor or national chain that hasn't went out of business. That's only three years younger than the entire lifespan of the Mall of Memphis. Later this year, Wolfchase turns 20 years old. There is a reason why Wolfchase is the main mall of the city. I dont see the need for all the worrying and false accusations. Hell, the entire Wolfchase area is nothing like the Perkins/American Way area is now. It also does not scream multiple store closures, white flight, and mom and pop discount stores. Sure we had a few incidents there, but it does not equal to the crimes we seen at MOM. Wolfchase has a VERY LONG way of even becoming anything close. Let me start by saying that Wolfchase is no where close of being anything ghetto nor anything like the old Mall of Memphis. After the "Mall brawl" after Christmas, I keep hearing local gossip about how the Wolfchase Mall is now ghetto and turning into the Mall of Memphis.

#Tinderbox wolfchase mall

[four-loose-screws]

In Japanese, is Yuri and Byleth's ending really stating that Yuri lived long with Byleth? Or is it talking about how they remained youthful in their spirits? They use the same terminology in Flayn's ending...

Actually on that note, are you aware if Byleth actually is supposed to live a long life (similar to a dragon)? I can't recall if that was a confirmed thing outside of Flayn's ending... (which I'm now calling into question...)

Sorry for the long and meandering ask, but do you have any thoughts on this?

For full context of anyone who doesn't remember or hasn't seen these exact endings, this ask is referring to m!Byleth / Yuri, not f!Byleth / Yuri.

This is a really good find! The wording in both the m!Byleth / Yuri and m!Byleth / Flayn endings is actually the exact same in Japanese!

m!Byleth / Yuri:

かつての仲間が残した手記には、どれほど年を重ねようと統一王とその伴侶は若々しい姿のままだった、と書かれている。

m!Byelth / Flayn:

どれほど年を重ねても彼らは若々しい姿のままだったという。

"No matter how many years passed (lit. "piled up"), they retained their youthful appearances." 若々しい = youthful, 姿= appearance, and まま means something is staying in the same state, unchanging.

姿 is the key word for answering your question - and it specifically refers to a person physical appearance/figure (I'm pretty sure I've seen it used for animals too, but the dictionary definition I read specified humans, so take my memory with a grain of salt.). So it is very clear from the Japanese that the endings are saying these characters look young past what age range is considered "normal" to humans.

The only differences here are minor grammatical conjugations and the like, as well as the words used for the subjects of the sentences, the Yuri ending specifies "The united king / archbishop and his spouse," whereas the Flayn ending says "they."

Neither Japanese text explicitly says the characters lived long lives like localized m!Byleth / Yuri does. It's implied, I think, but clearly not explicit.

-

I never really thought about how long Byleth's lifespan might be, since there's not much reason to think about it when the events of the games only cover 5 years. So I don't know for sure. Byleth certainly has their own aging logic separate from full dragons going on though, as we now know that they are only about 20 at the beginning of the game, yet already with the appearance of a full adult. You'd need to tack on 2 extra zeros or so before full dragons became full grown adults!

If I had to assume anything, I always went with the idea that Byleth would be more like Soren, with a longer lifespan and slower aging, but still nothing that compares to a full dragon. (The FE9 (or maybe 10?) artbook confirmed that the average dragon Branded lifespan is a "mere" 300 years or so.)

#fire emblem #fire emblem 16 #fe #fe16 #three houses #fire emblem three houses #fe3h #byleth #yuri #m!byleth #flayn

[script-a-world]

hi, any advice on timeline and era etc stuff? I have dyscalculia so numbers and measurements are meaningless to me and it’s really difficult to figure out how much time should lapse (on a large scale; time periods, millennia, eras, etc, not stuff like in one persons lifespan) between eras and events, especially in regards to political n social n technological etc changes

Feral: That depends. There isn’t one answer. You’re asking for longer time periods than a generation or a lifetime, but for scale, take what’s happening now. How many calamities, major political events, social trends, and changes in technology (and how we interact with it) have happened in the year 2020? Since the year 2016? Since 2008? Since 2001? How are they grouped together or spaced apart? And these are all working on each other. In the USA where I live, the 9/11 attacks absolutely have a direct causal effect with the politics that led to the 2016 election (actually before that a Supreme Court decision in the 2000 election also had an impact on that result), and the results of the 2016 election impacted how COVID has been handled this year. That’s 20 years, so when we’re looking at longer timeframes, we scale up. We see gaps and groupings and there just isn’t a specific “oh every decade/score/century, these types of events happen.”

To quote a particularly relevant introduction on Wikipedia:

This results in descriptive abstractions that provide convenient terms for periods of time with relatively stable characteristics. However, determining the precise beginning and ending to any ‘period’ is often arbitrary, since it has changed over time over the course of history.

To the extent that history is continuous and not generalized, all systems of periodization are more or less arbitrary. Yet without named periods, however clumsy or imprecise, past time would be nothing more than scattered events without a framework to help us understand them.

Eras, of the non-geological or -cosmological sort, or time periods are culturally determined, completely variable in length, and often overlap. For example, the beginning of the Victorian Era, 64 years, (defined by Victoria’s rule of England) of the Anglo-influenced world overlapped with the Antebellum Era, 78 years, (defined by political and social tensions in the lead up to the American Civil War) of the United States, which is also part of the Anglo-influenced world, and then following the end of the Antebellum Era, was the American Civil War, 4 years, and then the Reconstruction Era, 14 years (the first 2 of which are within the Civil War), which are both fully contained within the Victorian Era. Typically, when you are trying to think about eras, think about political rulership, wars, and large scale trends like artistic styles. It may also be helpful to familiarize yourself with the Three-Age System, which can be applied individually on cultures, rather describing trends for the whole world.

What it really comes down to when we think of eras and time periods is almost like a type of pareidolia. People see groupings of like things happening and put this grouping into a bubble of time, which kinda doesn’t actually exist in objective reality and is more or less a group hallucination on a massive scale. It calls to mind what Zeno’s arrow might have actually been trying to describe - not to say that this paradox is infallible, but it’s an interesting thought exercise, especially once you get into the quantum Zeno effect.

Now that I have fully diverged from the question at hand, we’ll get back to it. Let’s look at one technology type and how much time elapses between developments as well as some tie-in technological, social, and political forces that may be acting on the developments or that the developments might be acting on. I’ll also note how this technology traverses the eras of history as I find that looking at one discrete set over time is easier than just trying to look at the big picture. Let’s look at the history of printing.

(With hopes that it will be easier for you to conceptualize, I will use simplified (aka rounded up/down) timeframes written numerically rather than spelled out or via terms like decade or century so at the very least you can compare length of numbers. I’m also going to link as many Wikipedia articles as I can - I like Wikipedia for this because of its incredible cross-indexing and how it strings relevant articles together into a series, often chronologically. If the numbers are still challenging for you, I will summarize without at the end.)

5,520 years ago, the very first form of printing we know about is done with cylinders rolled over wet clay in Sumer in 3500 BCE, the beginning of the Early Bronze Age.

3,700 years later, woodblock printing is developed in China somewhere around 200 CE/AD, just after the end of the Pax Romana in Europe.

700 years later, the next development of printing is movable type, which is developed in China in 1040. 26 years later, on the other side of the world, in 1066 is the Battle of Hastings and the establishment of the Norman Era of rulership in England, in another 20 years, in 1086, the Domesday Book is hand written in 2 volumes: 1 is 764 8”x15” pages, the other 900 8”x11” pages.

400 years later gives us the Gutenburg printing press that is developed in Germany (at the time in the Holy Roman Empire) in 1440. This is during the Renaissance Era; it’s also the Era of Humanism, and often called the Early Modern Period. Martin Luther will write the 95 Theses less than 80 years later and start the Protestant Reformation, largely thanks to the ability for the theses to be easily copied by the printing press and spread quickly.

75 years later we have etching in 1515. 90 years later, the first weekly “true” newspaper, the Relation, begins printing in 1604.

130 years later we have mezzotint in 1642, which is the start of the First English Civil War, which will last for 4 years. Depending on your preference, the Age of Enlightenment either began 5 years before or 40 years later (unless you’re French).

130 years later we have aquatint in 1772. That is right at the beginning of the American Revolution: 2 years after the Boston Massacre; 1 year before the Boston Tea Party; 2 years before the Intolerable Acts and the First Continental Congress; 3 years before Patrick Henry’s “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” Speech (which is printed and shared across the colonies), Paul Revere’s Ride, and the Battle of Lexington & Concord; and finally 4 years before Thomas Paine’s Common Sense is published, the signing of the Declaration of Independence (which is printed and shared across the colonies), Nathan Hale’s execution for treason against the Crown, and Washington’s Crossing of the Delaware.

25 years later lithography is developed in 1796; the year prior Napoleon overthrows le Directoire.

40 years later we have chromolithography in 1837, the year Victoria ascends and the first electric/battery powered locomotive is invented.

5 years later is the rotary press in 1843. The First Industrial Revolution is over.

15 years later is the hectograph in 1860. 1 year later, the American Civil War begins.

15 years later is offset printing in 1875. 1 year before, the first commercial typewriter becomes available. 1 year later is Bell and Watson’s first phone call in 1876.

10 years later is hotmetal typing in 1884.

1 year later is the mimeograph in 1885. 2 years later is Black Monday. 5-10 years later the radio is invented.

20 years later is the photostat and rectigraph in 1907.

4 years later is screen printing in 1911. 3 years later WWI begins in 1914.

10 years later is the spirit duplicator in 1923. The Roaring Twenties.

2 years later is dot matrix printing in 1925. 4 years later is the Great Crash.

10 years later is xerography in 1938, the same year as the first digital computer. 1 year later WWII begins in 1939.

2 years later is spark printing in 1940. 1 year later is the Attack on Pearl Harbor.

9 years later is phototypesetting in 1949. The USSR detonates their first atomic bomb.

1 year later is inkjet printing in 1950. Truman orders the development of the hydrogen bomb. Apartheid becomes law in South Africa.

7 years later is dye-sublimation in 1957. 6 years later, Martin Luther King, Jr. gives his “I Have a Dream” Speech.

12 years later is laser printing in 1969, the summer of which is known for very Very.

3 years later is thermal printing in 1972. The break-in at the Watergate Office Building is this same year and 2 years later Nixon resigns.

14 years later is 3D printing in 1986, the year Pixar Animation is founded and the year after the beginning of the Iran-Contra Affair.

1 year later is solid ink printing in 1987. 2 years later is the invention of the World Wide Web, and the internet as we know it.

4 years later is digital printing in 1991, the same year the USSR dissolved. 2 years before, the Berlin Wall fell.

There have been no significant developments in the history of printing since 1991.

So, let’s look at some averages to help us consume this data. Printing has a history of 5,520 years. It took 3,700 years for another development to occur, and then another 700 years after that - in other words, in the first 4,400 years of printing, there were 3 developments, equalling to an average of 1 every 1,470 years. In the 400 years between 1440 and 1843,  there were 7 developments (average of 1 every 57 years). In the next 100 years between 1860 and 1957, there were 14 developments (average of 1 every 7 years but with 1 year having 2 developments simultaneously). In the next 22 years between 1969 and 1991, there were 5 developments (average of 1 every 4 years).

While the general trend is that the more a technology develops, the faster it develops, a trend is not the whole picture. Consider: in the 90 years of 1796-1885, there were 6 developments, making the average 1 every 15 years. In the 85 years of 1907-1991, there were 15 developments, making the average 1 every 6 years. There has not been a development in the past 30 years! There hasn’t been this large of a gap since 1837, 180 years ago.

In general, without numbers, what I think we can see here is that sometimes a certain development, like the printing press, can usher in a new era, and sometimes reactions to what else is happening in the world can pressure someone into developing something new, but often times, most times, when you look at just one thing under microscope over time, why that thing is produced in this era but not that era has nothing to do with the eras in question. When we create time periods, we’re generally doing it after the fact. No one living under the rule of the Roman Empire in 100 CE was thinking to themselves, “ah yes, the Pax Romana, when we have peace for 200 years!”

So applying all of this to worldbuilding, I see two methods that you can use together, to create a timeline that makes sense and is useful to your storytelling.

Method the first, arbitrarily create time bubbles of various lengths - I recommend the use of index cards for this. Index card A is 7 years; card B is 150 years; card C is 47 years and so on. Then take big ideas and put those onto your cards; use inspiration from real history. “I want the War of the Roses but condensed into 7 years.” “A Mongolian Empire type expansion happens over 150 years.” “There’s a 47 year Renaissance of fascination with Ancient History.” Then take those cards, lay them out into roughly the order in which you want them to occur, maybe overlap them a little, especially if they are happening in different parts of your world. Remember that time is not actually linear and things do not happen in a linear, narrative manner in the real world, so there can be wild leaps; there can be regressions; and you don’t have to follow real world history here - though you may want to the first time as a helpful exercise. It’s also very unlikely that you will ever have to know exactly how many years are between the eras or what the interstitial eras are.

Method the second, list all the major historical events, inventions, etc that you want/need to have happened. Start with what directly impacts your main characters and plot. “MC’s great-grandfather is humiliatingly defeated in battle, casting a pall of embarrassment across the generations following and ultimately putting the MC in the position that she starts in.” “The first great wizard codifies the 10 Laws of the Important Magical Order that the MC is trying to earn her place in.” Put these in an order that makes sense to you, keeping in mind that it’s not going to be a perfect progression. Again, you don’t need to know how many years there are between each event, but if great-grandpa was the last in a very long line of family members allowed to be in the Important Magical Order, then that IMO had to be founded first, and there would probably be some events between these two.

Then, when you have your two timelines, one of era/time periods and one of events, graft them together. You may have to shift some things to make it work, but consider the “feeling” or theme of the eras and what events make sense in relation to those feelings. Additionally would this event be more suited to happening when the era is new and is finding itself or when the era is solidly on course or is it an event that would completely shatter the illusion of the era and usher in a new one? Does it make sense for your great wizard to be codifying her laws in the expansion of an empire, or during a period of relative peace and prosperity in an established empire, or before empires were a thing in this world and few traveled far from home?

Tex: I’ve found that historically important events are caused for roughly two reasons - one, an invention that others capitalize on for an exponential growth into other inventions/social uses, and two, someone got sick of someone else’s crap and did something about it. Natural disasters will happen with enough frequency to be noted (see: the Little Ice Age, the Black Death, and the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa), although there’s little prediction for them because of the lack of observable build up in activity.

To pull from Feral’s timeline of examples, writing is popularly attributed to being invented in Sumer, 5,520 years ago - it’s our oldest found example, at any rate, though I’ve learned to never say never on archaeological discoveries.

What prompted this invention? Things rarely occur out of the blue, and rarely without interaction from other domains - where could writing have come from? Maybe art? What about from the creation of a tool, a reuse of certain skill sets? Something else we haven’t thought of yet?

So that’s one half of the question. But what about the other half - what did people around the inventor (multiple inventors?) think of this new thing? Deliberately associating a particular sound with a particular object - even a 2D object like pressing shapes into a piece of clay - and then standardizing it, is no mean feat. How did this agreement even happen? Were there arguments about how to do these graphemes, how best to shape them? What about which phoneme to each?

I doubt Sumerian cuneiform was created in a day, and likewise I doubt that language popped into existence on a whim. To keep pulling from this example, language composition has a strong effect on how we interact with our environment (University of Missouri-St Louis Libraries), but it conversely is also deeply affected by the environment its users create (Nature).

Because of this, I think it’s easier to work from a different angle - figure out what your major events are, and what eras you’re covering. If these major events also define an era, that’s even better! Working out how long everything each thing takes is ultimately a bunch of minor details, so it’s up to you how much your plot actively needs them, rather than decoration to your story meant to amuse you more than your audience.

#pylons #time #eras #timelines #Anonymous

[bilbobagginsomebabez]

The Broker

“How much time does she have left?” The woman before me looked haggard. Her straggly hair hung in mats down her back. She was dirty, with what looked like years of grime coated on her skin. Ill-fitting, drab clothing sagged around her shoulders, hardly touching the rest of her body.

“23 years.” She carried a child in her arms, shockingly clean compared to her own appearance. The child’s clothing was in no better condition than her own, but the visible parts of her skin had been washed recently enough.

“And me?”

“You have 46 years left.”

Her face filled with a common and recognizable conviction—that of a mother’s love.

“Trade them.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Trade my years for hers.”

“Ma’am, I could just shift the difference. Take 23 years from your lifespan and grant them to her. The fee will be lower.”

“I said trade them.”

“Very well.” I bent to lift the child out of her arms and move her to the appropriate location. Despite a long discovery of the science behind our brokering, it remained ritualistic. I turned a few knobs to dispense the correct vials—what was once a volatile potion is now an exact and specific formula—and extended it to her. “I take one day from every year transferred for myself.”

“I know that.” At her verbal assertion of understanding, I released my grip and moved toward the child, pouring it into her small mouth.

She waited a few minutes before asking, “is it finished?”

“Yes.”

“Check again. How many years for both of us?”

“She has… 21 years left. You have 42.” Something akin to panic filled me. This had never happened before. Transfers never failed, and years didn’t just go missing. It was as close to impossible as real could be. “Something must have gone wrong with my reading. I’ll try again.”

“Trade our years again.”

I looked at her with shock; “No, that can’t be necessary. I’m sure my reading was off.”

Her entire being seemed filled with grim determination and no small amount of despair. “Trade them again.”

I did, but only after I performed another reading and found the same. Five years missing— turned to less than dust.

I turned my simple knobs again, suddenly unsteady and unsure of something that I had previously understood completely. Before handing her the potion, I hesitated; “A simple transfer has never failed me.”

She looked at me with pity, as if I was lost with no way to be found.

“It must be a trade.”

I handed her a vial and bent to pour the other into the child’s lips.

Again, the mother waited a few minutes. “How much time does she have?”

“19. And 38 for you.”

Years of staunch detachment began to fall away. I had seen lifetimes traded away under the most vile of circumstances, payments made with the most devastating of interests. I had watched so many mothers before her trade years away for their children. I had never seen time slip away so quickly, with so little hope for gaining it back.

“Transfer them again.”

Abject horror contorted my face. I could feel my eyebrows raise and my mouth fill with arguments— You cannot give up time like this. It’s reckless. You’ll lose yourself and your daughter. These years could give you so much instead. Trade them for money, for clothes, for anything. Do not let them disappear. I said none of them, somehow stayed by nothing but her expression.

And so we continued. Trade after trade, my panic and horror growing, held there by something I could not comprehend. I did not know why I continued granting her requests. Perhaps it was my own morbid fascination. In a time and a place where nothing could be more valuable, all her time was slipping through her grasp like so much water through a broken cup, and she simply refused to stop. I heard only two things from her—“trade them again” and “how many left.” Perhaps I was titillated by such a unique tragedy. To watch an impossibility happen is rare and so tempting in the long, never-ending lifetime of a broker.

17 and 32.

15 and 28.

13 and 24.

11 and 20.

This mother grew visibly weaker. Her skin had taken on a dull grey color, and her cheeks sank deeper and deeper into her face. Still, I continued.

9 and 16.

7 and 12.

5 and 8.

3 and 4.

“How many left?”

“1, for your daughter. You do not have a full year left.”

“Thank you,” she said. As if I had performed the service requested rather than ended their lives. I gained 413 days from a broken woman and a child destined to die young.

Suddenly, the reality of what I’d done seemed to fall. This woman and her child would die, and they would die for nothing. “Do not thank me.”

“I can, and I do.” She walked across the room, visibly weak. She pulled her daughter into her arms, where I truly noticed the child for the first time. The child’s surprising cleanliness revealed skin that had grown pink and plump.

My horror at the lost years of this mother and daughter dissipated and gave way to an entirely different terror. “What have you done?"

This haggard, seemingly powerless woman gave a long stare and seemed to enjoy the silence. She met my eyes, drew in breath, and said slowly, “My daughter will never be prey. Her years will never be stolen, and she will never run out.”

“How?”

Her words seemed rehearsed, as if she’d heard them repeated to her and repeated them hundreds or thousands of times. “If the years of a mother double her child’s, a willing sacrifice holds untold power.”

She paused. “My child will write this story, though I will not live to see what it says.” She paused again. “I do believe that I know what was truly done. She will take what is unneeded, willingly or unwillingly, from those around her. I’m not sure that she or they will know what has happened. But when the time comes, she will be safe. She will be powerful. She will never be vulnerable, not to death or lasting harm.”

Compulsively, I read my own years. Hundreds of years transferred every day had grown into a comfortable figure. I had been alive for a thousand years and I should have been alive for a thousand more, but that figure had been halved. I whispered, unable to speak the words too loudly, as if that would make them more true. “You have created a monster.”

“Time makes monsters of us all, Broker. You should know that better than most. I have simply created their Queen.”

#writing #short story #mine

[101flavoursofweird]

For the ten line drabbles, would you do 20 for any combination of Kat, Ernest, and Sherl (either two of them or all three of them together)? Thank you!

[[Apologies, this ended up being more than ten lines and didn’t even include the quote, though it definitely inspired it! Thank you for giving me the chance to finally write a fic about my Sherl theory!]]

20. “If you feel safer with me being there, you know I will always be there.”

“Aurora, our messenger, do you wish for this human to be reborn as a beast?”

“Yes, please. He has brought a great deal of suffering upon the world and to the fabric of time. And he hurt the professor… Also, can you take away his memories, like you did for me?”

“We were able to accomplish that as you were an Azran golem—“

“I was a sentient being with a beating heart. Surely you can do this same for this man?”

“…Very well. We will grant your wish.”

—

Kat had gone out for dinner with her inspector brother and her chef sister, leaving Ernest and Sherl to ‘manage’ the agency by themselves. (Or rather, stall any clients until Kat got back.)

Sherl thought this would be the perfect time for a dognap, but then Pipstripes decided to switch on the television while he was dusting.

Uuugh, that stupid black box! Why did Kat have to bring it in here, and place it on the drawers right above Sherl’s bed? Why couldn’t she find another way entertain herself when it was raining cats and dogs outside?

Sherl covered his ears as the droning voice of a news reader came on.

“—on this day, seven years ago, that the St. Herald Hotel collapsed during one of the worst storms in British history—“

“Who cares what happened seven years ago?” Sherl groaned. “That’s... forty years ago for a dog...”

“Shush, Sherl,” Ernest said, his gaze glued to the television.

“—While the establishment had received five star ratings in the past, it was undergoing maintenance work at the time, making some rooms unstable—“

“That thing will rot your brain,” Sherl warned. You would never catch Sherl gawking at a screen.

He couldn’t see in full colour anyway...

For him, it was mainly grey with some shades of blue and yellow. Pinstripes stood out like a sore thumb with his waistcoat and his trousers. Sherl could distinguish Kat’s yellow coat and her hat, but her dress just looked... dull. (Kat had nearly thrown a fit when Sherl told her this.)

As far as Sherl could tell, the news reader was a lady with long blonde hair, a grey suit and a solemn expression.

“All of the hotel staff and guests were able to escape, expect for one—“

“Poor sod,” Sherl snorted.

“—Former Prime Minister, Bill Hawks.”

Sherl’s ears perked up. “Who?”

“Shhhhh!”

“Did she say Prime Minister?” Sherl persisted. He stumbled out of his bed to get a closer look at the T.V.— at the photo of the man the news people had put up.

He was probably in his late fifties or early sixties, judging by his balding head, deep frown lines, droopy eyes and glasses... Sherl squinted, wondering if dogs could get glasses.

“Yes— from about twenty years ago,” Pinstripes informed him, frowning slightly. “If you listen, they’re going to talk about his life soon...”

Talk about him they did. Bill Hawks: Born in London, squeaked his way in to university, became a scientist at the Institute of Poly-something or other... until there was an explosion at the lab he worked in. An explosion, it turned out, that Hawks had caused with an experiment gone awry.

Sherl hummed. “Why does that sound so familiar?”

“The... explosion?” Pinstripes fiddled with the end of his feather duster. “It sounds like something out of a sci-fi film, doesn’t it?” He closed his eyes for a moment. “But it really did happen, over thirty years ago... and there were terrible repercussions ten years after. You might have heard Miss Layton discussing it...”

Sherl shook his head. He would have remembered if Kat had mentioned something like that. His short term memories were clear as crystal. It was his long term memories that were murky— at least, those prior to joining the Layton Detective Agency.

All he could remember from his past life was a tower falling down, and lightning flashing across the sky... but with each passing day, the details felt less precise and less important. Kat seemed to have given up on solving his case of amnesia altogether!

“Oh...” Pinstripes glanced out the window and back at Sherl. “Do you— surely you know about the Mobile Fortress attack? From a man called Clive Dove?”

For some reason, that name made Sherl shudder. Still, he answered, “No...”

“He tried to destroy London? There were crushed buildings and a gaping tear left in the ground?” Pinstripes said, his eyes wide with disbelief. “It took them years to repair—“

“I might seem older than you kids,” Sherl interrupted, “but I can’t have been alive for more than six or seven years.” He was a ‘mature dog’ (according to the vet), but that couldn’t compare to a human lifespan. Kat’s grandmother, Rosa, was in her seventies!

Pinstripes waved his hand. “Right, sorry... Anyway, Clive Dove was put in prison— thanks to Miss Layton’s father— and he remains there to this day.”

“Good,” Sherl huffed. “Sounds like this Dove was barking!”

“That’s really not funny...”

“What made him go round the bend?”

Ernest winced. “He, um... he wanted to get revenge... because his parents died in that lab explosion.”

Sherl stuck out his teeth. “But if Bill Hawks was behind the explosion... then why didn’t Dove just go after him? Why take it out on everyone—?”

“I don’t know!” Ernest dropped the feather duster. He sighed heavily and crouched to pick it up. Turning his back on Sherl, he resumed his dusting around the television.

The news reader was exposing more about Bill Hawks; by sweeping his crimes under the rug and making shady deals, Hawks had climbed the political ladder to the very top.

Then he was kidnapped by one of his former scientist colleagues and taken to an underground fake ‘Future London’...

“So that’s what she meant...” Sherl breathed. When he’d first arrived at the agency, Kat had asked if he had a ‘letter from the future’. Had her father been sent such a letter?

Sherl’s heart pounded at the next part of the news report. Clive Dove had imprisoned Bill Hawks in the Mobile Fortress, using Bill’s heartbeat to power the machine... That was intense!

Fortunately for Hawks, Professor Layton had saved him and shut down the fortress.

After they all escaped, Hawks had ensured Dove was arrested, put on trial immediately, and locked up for life.

During Dove’s trial, however, Hawks’ disreputable past had been brought to light. Hawks wasn’t put behind bars, but he had to pay a lot of compensation money for the victims of the institute explosion and for the Mobile Fortress attack.

A clip from an interview was shown— a man from Barkleys Bank described Hawks’ loss of financial backers as his approval ratings dropped. (Poor Barkleys, having to represent Bill Hawks...)

Disgraced, Bill had resigned from his post as prime minister and disappeared from the public eye. His wife had divorced him and he had started mooching off his parents’ inheritance.

“Good-for-nothing fat-cat...” Sherl grumbled. You wouldn’t catch his pups leeching off their families like that. When Kat’s father went missing, she had set up a detective agency. When Ernest’s mother died, he had worked his way up to university— and taken an unpaid job on top of that!

Sherl hoped there were assassination attempts made on Hawks’ life after everything he had done.

But no... It seemed that the world had forgotten about Bill Hawks as soon as he left office.

By all accounts, his death at the St. Herald Hotel had been deemed an accident. He had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, asleep when the roof above him collapsed.

“...Did he wake up in unbearable pain or did he die peacefully in his sleep?” the news reader lady pondered.

“Oh, come on, woman!” At this point, Sherl was standing on his hind legs with his paws pressed up against the television screen. “I need to know! That skid mark deserved to suffer—!”

“We may never know for certain,” the news reader went on, smiling impassively. “But some might say that justice was served on that day... Thank you for listening! And now, over to Puzzlette for the pollen report...”

“Waste of time...” Sherl flounced away from the television and looked around. He spotted the T.V. remote on the settee. “Turn it off, will you, Pinstripes?”

With a huff, Pinstripes turned off the television. He tossed the remote back on to the settee.

Sherl flicked his tail. “What’s got you so hot under the collar?”

“N-nothing...” Pinstripes crossed his arms as if he was trying to contain something in his chest. Whatever it was— anger, grief or uneasiness— Sherl reckoned Pinstripes wouldn’t be able to hide it for long. (He had broken down the minute Kat accused him of being Lord Adamas.)

“You might as well tell me,” Sherl prompted. “Kat’s out, and it’s not like anyone else can hear...”

Sherl prided himself on being a good secret-keeper. He hadn’t told Kat about Pinstripes’ crush, besides a few snide remarks. He hadn’t turned that street dog, Yapper, over to the pound. And he hadn’t ratted out that mouse who would occasionally nip in to steal Kat’s food...

Pinstripes whispered, “You... you can’t tell Miss Layton. She and her family would hate me...”

“Is it worse than what you did at Richmond Court?” Sherl asked. He made a furtive glance at the door.

“N-no!” Ernest exclaimed, his voice rising a pitch. “It doesn’t even involve me directly... but it does involve... one of my family members.”

Sometimes, Sherl was glad that he couldn’t remember his relatives. He didn’t have to deal with any of that family drama— unless Kat and Ernests’ issues counted as drama.

“Just spit it out,” Sherl growled.

“I... I’m related to Bill Hawks,” Ernest burst out. “Distantly!”

After all the cases Sherl had solved with Kat, that wasn’t too surprising to hear. Sherl cocked his head to the side. “How ‘distant’ are we talking?” He had heard that a lot of Europe’s royal families were related. Did it work the same way with lords and politicians?

“Quite distant... He was my grandfather’s second cousin!” With the cat finally out of the bag, Ernest sighed shakily. He sank on to the settee and tucked his knees under his chin, pulling himself into a tight ball. He looked more like a child than a lanky young man, but then again, he was only nineteen. That was still young by human standards.

“Pinstripes...” Sherl murmured when he heard sniffling. Sherl padded over to the settee and jumped up beside him.

“P-please don’t tell Miss Layton,” Ernest repeated with a whimper. “I nearly— she let me stay... even after what I did. I don’t want to— to hurt her again...”

Knowing Kat, she had probably already discovered the connection between Ernest and Bill Hawks.

It was possible that she had figured out Sherl’s identity as well, but she was keeping quiet. Honestly... Sherl didn’t really mind at that moment.

What would he do if he knew about his past? Track down his family? Would they even be able to understand him? And what if he had left his loved ones on bad terms? He would struggle to make amends with them, and they might be even more upset.

It wasn’t like he could return to his old job, either... unless it involved police work, assisting people with disabilities, or herding sheep. There was always performing— who didn’t love a good dog act?  

But even then, it would be lonely if he couldn’t communicate with anyone.

At least if he stayed here, at the Layton Detective Agency, he could make a difference. He would do his best to help their clients... as well as Ernest and Kat.

Sherl curled up next to Ernest on the settee. After a while, Ernest’s sniffs stopped and he started stroking Sherl’s head.

Maybe one day they would find a way to transform animals into humans... but until then, Sherl didn’t mind being a detective’s dog. There were fates far worse than this.

#Answers #Sherl O.C. kholmes #Ernest Greeves #answers #Bill Hawks #My writing #my fics #layton’s mystery journey

[roof118]

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#Roofing #Roofers

[kannibal-kink]

Ok so y’all, I’m writing a fanfic with Rosie in a pretty significant role and I was like “damn, we hardly know anything about her!” So I thought, you know what, imma get my grubby little hands on google and do some research. So here’s whats I got on Rosie:

Time period: Def 1800s… narrower? About late 1830s - 1880s is my range. Age at death? Age expectancy was like 40 back then so??? (To compare, 75 is life expectancy in the US today). Most of our Hazbin friends died pretty early, but I suspect Rosie is on the older end (mostly because she gives me big mom vibes, but she does seem more mature and poised than other characters so far). Anyhow, I did my work under the assumption that most characters tend to gravitate towards the styles of their topside life.

First, when did people even use the word “emporium”??? Well, according to our lovely friend Google (because all the Nice Official Dictionary sites told me “well it was used first around like 1500s!” Neat! But irrelevant) it’s usage peaked in about 1837. And then did a nosedive in 1870. So I started there, and went onto her Style.

Let’s dip our toes in first and start with the top! Hats! Her hat is Super Distinctive, and, lucky for us, only started becoming common and popular in a Super Specific time: 1850s and 60s. They were replacing bonnets, and were, would ya look at that: wide-brimmed, pretty flat crowns, and, a few short years later, feathers and flowers were common decorations. Sound familiar? Oh yeah. Crowns got higher from here on out (we see a high-crowned hat on her reference sheet actually!) because of hairstyles (our next topic!). (Source: https://vintagedancer.com/victorian/victorian-hat-history/ )

We see in the show and every single official and reference artwork of Rosie with a hat on. So… we don’t really know what’s under the hat (tentacles? A chipmunk? A second face?). Probably more hair. A lot more hair, actually. Having your hair down was considered ~intimate~ and Respectable Women Don’t Do That (not that anybody in Hell necessarily functioned under respectable society). But up-dos hidden under your hat, with wavy bits framing your face? Super popular. So, fair chance she actually has lots of pretty hair hidden under that hat. In hindsight, this actually told us nothing about where in the 1800s she probably lived whoops. (Hair Source: Same as hat source and http://www.whizzpast.com/victorian-hairstyles-a-short-history-in-photos/)

Since we’re going top-down, let’s get into make-up. Now her make-up style changed quite a bit between her reference sheet and her appearance in the show, so I’m gonna go by her pilot cameo since that’s more recent. Notice something she doesn’t have that almost every other character does? Eyeshadow. (And a nose, but that’s none of my business). Eyeshadow was … not a thing back then. You just put oil on your eyelids to make them… catch the light??? Anyway, natural beauty was a big thing, and lots of make-up was apparently largely (and incorrectly) associated with prostitutes and “immoral women”. Mostly make-up was white powder (applied with rabbit’s feet sometimes???? Heavens sake people), rouge, and *le gasp* lipstick (very controversial). Having rosy (ha) cheeks was a Really Good Thing. (If you look closely on the pilot image you can actually see she has very pale pink cheeks like Charlie’s!!!) Also, big lashes were good. Which she has! On the other hand lipstick was, if you wanted to avoid controversy, just a bit of beeswax. (Source: https://vintagedancer.com/victorian/victorian-makeup-beauty-guide/ )

Now, last and certainly not least, my favorite part… Dresses! I found a lovely source that summed up each decade quite neatly! Let’s start with the first possible connection to Rosie:

in the 20s, wide shoulders! That’s about it.

In the 30s, that shoulder moved down to the sleeves and the waistline was, well, at the waist. Also, ankle length skirts with lots of petticoat support.

40s get closer, as sleeves became more tight-fitted, and the fabrics tended to be solid, darker colors. In the pictures included, we see a waistline much closer to Rosie’s. Also the neckline was high during the day and wide during the evening, which, looking at Rosie’s reference sheet on the wikia, looks to be fitting. This decade has our first pretty solid Rosie-looking dress.

The 50s (unfortunately) introduces hoop skirts which were, preferable to 20 petticoats, I guess, but like. Doorways. Gotta weigh the pros and cons there guys.

But! In the 60s we see the first bustles! Which, I’m gonna guess is going on in Rosie’s dress. Also, the wrists are fitted, something in most of Rosie’s dresses, minus the one from the pilot.

In the 70s, specifically later on, the high and low necklines are still the same and fitted sleeves are still in. Bustles weren’t as extreme, going down to wearing a small hoop, but skirts were looooong. Like, drag on the floor behind you long. Pretty. Impractical, but pretty. Also synthetic dyes had just been invented, so garishly bright color were now in fashion.

The 80s just got ridiculous: bustle’s back, dresses weigh more than a newborn baby, and corsets.

(Sources: Over decades: https://vintagefashionguild.org/1800s/ 70s: https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/1870-1879/ )

So yeah! Wow, that was a lot. Anyway, takeaway? Hats suggests she was part of the young in-crowd during the 50s-60s. Same with make-up, though it didn’t specify much of a time period, people got more open as time went, but even in the 80s and 90s that… wasn’t much. Dresses, best fit is in the 40s, with a little similarity in the 30s, but not much. The 50s defining feature is hoop skirts, but in the 60s we get to bustles, and we’re looking closer to Rosie again. By the 70s, we’re not changing a ton, mostly alterations of the 50s and 60s. So, assuming she died on the later end of her expected lifespan (late 30s), I’d say it’s pretty safe to assume that she was born in the early 40s, teens in the 50s, 20s in the 60s, and died later in the 70s.

(If anyone has anything to add, please do so!!! Want more fun tidbits for Rosie? Look up the hat pin scare of the 1900s, those long hat pins came into production during the 1830s so chances are it was happening earlier too! Also Boston marriages, but I’m still looking into that myself.)

#hazbin hotel #hazbin rosie #rosie #vivziepop #hazbin headcanons #this was actually super fun #you cant tell me rosie didnt kill somebody with a hatpin #and i wonder why im a theatre major #long post