#proto-romance

[yvanspijk]

The word for 'I' has many different forms in the Romance languages, such as French je, Italian io, Portuguese eu and Spanish yo. Yet all these forms stem from one Latin word: egō. Here's how egō step by step changed into a selection of its Romance descendants.

People who subscribe to my Patreon get access to extra information further explaining what you see on the infographics and videos. To give you an impression, here's the text that goes with this video.

How did these forms originate?

Latin, Late Latin and Sardinian Around the second century AD, the [g] sound of Latin egō (as in English go) started to weaken. It became a fricative sound similar to the one in Modern Spanish agua 'water'.

In this form, with only minor vowel changes, it survived until this very day in certain Nuorese dialects of Sardinian: ego. These geographically isolated dialects are known for being the most conservative descendants of Latin. Their most notable trait is the conservation of the Latin [k] and [g] sounds before i and e: Latin centum '100' with [k] became kentu, whereas in Italian it became cento with the [tʃ] sound of English check, and in French, Portuguese and many variaties of Spanish it respectively became cent, cento/cem and ciento/cien with [s].

In a Late Latin text from the 6th century, we encounter egō as eo. By this time, the consonant had been dropped. It's this form that's considered Proto-Romance, i.e. the form that gave birth to all descendants except the form in the Nuorese dialects I discussed above. Eo even remained practically intact in a number of other Nuorese dialects.

Portuguese and Romanian In Portuguese and Romanian, the -o of eo became w-like: eu. However, the Romanian spelling hides the diphthongisation of [ɛ] to [jɛ], later [je]. Cfr. ferrum > fier, and pellem > piele.

Italian and Neapolitan In Italian, [ɛ] became [e] and then [i], a sound close to it: io. This sound change didn't only happen in this word: compare mio 'my' (from Old Italian meo) and Dio 'God' (from Deo) with Portuguese meu and Deus. In Neapolitan, the -o weakened and became the schwa sound of English words like roses.

Spanish and French The form io must have also existed in the distant ancestors of Spanish and French, but there, [i] didn't stop changing: it turned into a [j], its consonantal counterpart. In both languages, this [j] eventually underwent fortition: it became a stronger consonant similar to the one in English joke, which eventually weakened again in Modern French je.

In South American Spanish, interesting things are happening. The sound change that yo pronounced as [ʒo] has undergone in the Rioplatense dialects in Uruguay and the southern part of Argentina is called zheísmo, and what's happening in Buenos Aires and spreading through Argentina is called sheísmo: [ʃo].

#historical linguistics #linguistics #language #etymology #latin #french #spanish #old french #old spanish #romanian #sardinian #portuguese #italian #proto-romance #video #audio #lingblr #late latin

[willowcrowned]

#for the record this poll is just for fun i’m going to use it #if I don’t use the word frenching next thing you know I’ll be having to come up with an in universe word for wine #because of course the English wine comes from the old English win comes from the Porto Germanic *winam #which itself is a borrowing of Proto romance vinum #and everyone knows space Italy isn’t a thing #polls #star wars

[tompettyscontroversiallyyounggf]

i lowkey feel like i have a different astarion build in my game than everyone else ngl like for me he can pick any lock you throw at him, traps fear him, and he is here to fuck but then i see these posts about how he's an asexual (or like, asexual in spirit? i'm not entirely sure of the context tbh) romance or his lockpicking is zevran 2.0 adjacent and i'm like who is this gentle door-fearing man

(eta it should be noted i am avoiding as many spoilers for the game and romances in general as i can at this late date so i truly do not know the context for like...any comment anyone is making wrt anything happening that's not exclusive to my playthrough)

#presumably it's just differences in playstyle lol but i do think it's funny #also tbf i so completely borked the order of a ton of stuff romance included in my act 1 proto run #the romance comments might make more sense this go around the further i get into it #bg3 tag #coiffure texts

[spectre-ship]

I think my favorite bunk Voynich manuscript translation attempt is this guy whose explanation for how he 'solved' it was basically "I decoded it by being very smart"

#voynich manuscript #(probably goes without saying but “calligraphic proto-Romance language” is kind of nonsense and he did not in fact Solve It)

[fanfiction-artist-prototype]

If "dark romance retellings that are cheap attempts to hide the fact you never read/deeply misunderstood the meaning/subtext of the source material" books have a million haters I'm one of them, if they have 100 haters I'm one of them, if they have 10 I'm one of them, if they have 0 haters then I'm dead.

#the phantom is a groomer it is not even subtext people please im going to scream #tonight on proto cant fucking escape this nightmare -someone gave phantom from PotO a breeding kink with aged up mc so its not fbi open up #i used to like the idea of dark romance for what it promised and now life is a fucking nightmare! #rant #proto rant #why can dark romance girlies not understand that just because you go hey this is dark romance #it does not mean when you go and romanticise a character that is grooming the protag in the #source text and read that and thought but what if they DID go through with the relationship #that youre not going to be judged #have a fucking CnC kink for all i care but for thr love of the universe please recognised that finding characters that are subtextually or #sometimes not even fucking subtextually but front and centre creeps to kids and seeing an attractive want to screw you guy is not it

[emelkae]

Three Facts Tag

Thanks for the tag, @chrismerle!

Rules: Post three facts about yourself and/or your characters.

I'll be following Elsa's example and posting three facts about a wip :)

#romance wip idea

An as of yet unnamed wip that's purely vibes and no plot. I'm in the "gathering tropes, plot points, and general inspiration" stage of this one. I do, however, have a very vivid opening scene in my head that I might write soon for funsies?

The vibes: Queer monster fantasy romance. Enemies (actually enemies, not rivals or annoyances) to lovers, since my brain has been shrieking at me to write enemies to lovers for at least six months. A violent, gruff monster woman escapes from her prison and eventually falls in love with the equally violent woman assigned to hunt her. The hunter has to choose between the career that's always provided for her—since she's as much an outcast as the monster, celebrated only in how good she is at her job—and her newfound respect for what she'd thought was nothing more than a beast. The beast, meanwhile, has never known anything but the thrill of hunting and being hunted. What happens when her hunter shows not just respect, but even love? Finding the answer is not an easy process, and comes with its own... messes. Some of them involving blood.

Yes this is inspired by already existing characters of mine shut up (affectionate). I needed an outlet for my Thoughts so they don't bleed into my current wip lmao. This was originally going to be M/F, but when I daydreamed the opening scene, the monster turned into a big buff lady :) And I was like *slams fists on table* I gotta make it gay

Leaving an Open Tag on this one! This is an excuse to ramble about something you've wanted to share! Just tag me in it so I can respond 👀

#highly recommend just making a whole new wip if there's a concept you wanna explore but it doesn't fit in your current one #i rotate this one in my head often. it makes me smile #and now i can leave sharpe and proto alone finally #i don't think i ever actually wanted them together. i just wanted to write this #writeblr #tag games #me. #romance #romance wip idea

[oh-gee-no-way]

Very little separates me with no tattoo and me with a centipede tattoo with “one good turn deserves another” written under it

#a sister a brother a mother also #mcr #my chemical romance #My Chem #gerard way #I listen to this one minute proto song on repeat all the time forever #everyone hates the eagles #SPENCER SPEAKS

[johannestevans]

Last week, Romancing the Gothic ran an excellent weekend conference to raise money for Magic Breakfast, a charity here in the UK that dedicates itself to providing free and nutritious morning meals to schoolchildren around the country!

It was a privilege and a delight to be a part of the event, where I gave a talk discussing Guillermo Del Toro's 2015 masterpiece, Crimson Peak, as a gothic romance, Victorian attitudes to the female Gothic and proto-feminist responses to female rebellion and empowerment within the genre, and finally contemporary conservatism and moral panic around literature and fiction, linking these three themes together.

You can watch this talk for free on YouTube, right here:

And even more excellently, if you're disappointed that you missed the conference and want a chance to enjoy the dozen other fantastic talks, workshops, and lectures given across the weekend, you can still access the rest of the archive!

Just dispatch to Doctor Sam Hirst, the runner of RtG, a screenshot of your donation to Magic Breakfast, and you will be provided access to the rest of the weekend's archive!

The other pieces I mention having recently published in the talk are these:

Crimson Peak: A Love Letter to Gothic Romance - A short essay and review discussing Crimson Peak as a pastiche and a representative of its genre.

The Real Harm in "Harmful Content" - An essay delving further into moral panic and modern reactionary thought in response to "problematic" or otherwise upsetting themes in fiction and broader media.

#crimson peak #tom hiddleston #mia wasikowska #musings #gothic romance #Youtube

[creative-type]

The Romanticism of One Piece

I’m always amazed by how Oda has managed to stay thematically consistent for more than two decades while writing a thousand plus chapter epic about silly pirates having fun chasing their dreams. One Piece, at its core, is about the dawn of a romantic adventure, and its been that way since volume one, chapter one.

But romance is one of those terms whose meaning as shifted over the years and is drastically misunderstood. So what is literary romance, and how does One Piece fit within its framework?

Well buckle up, folks. This is gonna be a long one.

Romanticism as a movement started in the late 18th century, and is described by Isaiah Berlin as the “the greatest single shift in the consciousness of the West”. The modern ideas of childhood, imagination,  and sentimentality were born here. It’s a rejection of society’s constraints in favor of impossible yearning for impossible goals. Romantics were restless and passionate, and embraced the magnitude of their feeling over the scientific rigors of the Age of Reason.

Sound familiar?

Romanticism gets its name from the old medieval ballads (themselves written in the Romantic languages) that became popular with the growing movement. The 19th century was a period of incredible change. Industrialization, urbanization, and the development of the middle class were all new. Revolution, both industrial and political, was changing the course of the world forever. The Romantics worshiped heroes of the past (in fact, the term hero worship was coined during this time) and sought a return to nature. William Wordsworth famously lobbied against the building of railways in his beloved Lake District, and much of the art of the time, whether it be painting or poetry, focused heavily on man’s relation with nature

In addition to rebelling against traditional political structures, the Romantics also broke away from the traditional religious teaching, many believing that man found enlightenment not through theology or the bible, but by study and attunement with nature. One of proto-Romantic writer Jean-Jaques Rousseau’s most influential works Emile, or On Education was banned in parts of Europe and even publicly burned due to its ideas on natural religion.

All of this leads to the Romantic pursuit of the sublime. While Enlightenment thinkers would often attempt to remove themselves emotionally from what they were experiencing in order to understand said experience through objective, immutable fact, the Romantics sought emotion, awe, and reverence that transcended rational thought. They celebrated and marveled at the wonders of creation, allowing themselves to be consumed by emotion and experience. These were not stoic people, and its here where One Piece truly begins to shine as a work of Romantic art

The world of One Piece, particularly once the story gets to the Grand Line, is chalk full of impossible wonder and whimsy. Each island visited along the journey is a feast for the eyes, and Oda’s art does each distinct and incredible location every justice. Luffy has no desire to see the boring or everyday, and he has no qualm in expressing his excitement everywhere he goes. Oda has made the conscious decision never to let the reader look into Luffy’s thoughts via thought bubbles, but the audience is still able to connect with him because they are always aware of what he he is feeling. Every smile takes up half his face, every sadness drawn as a sniveling wreck. Logical ideas are routinely rejected in favor of desired experiences, and Luffy himself rejects the opportunity to hear the answer to the series’s biggest questions because to him, the journey is more important.

It’s important that Luffy’s mindset isn’t all that common, even a world as wild and wacky as One Piece. As the Jaya arc proves, Roger’s execution initially inspired a generation of pirates to go out and follow their dreams, but in the twenty years since his death that ideaolgy has crumbled under the weight of a new wave of dreamless pragmaticism, the same way the Romantic movement gave way to the Realists who followed. 

Luffy’s Romantic spirit stands out, even amongst the Straw Hat Pirates. Many of the Straw Hat’s character arcs involve Luffy helping to remove the blocks that prevent them from living out their Romantic ideals. As the series progresses, the crew inches towards embodying that freedom of spirit that Luffy exemplifies. What that looks like for each crewmate is different (Romanticism is highly individualistic, after all) but they’re given the opportunity to live out that ideal because of their association with Luffy.

This theme of freedom of expression and pursuit of dreams follows the Straw Hats wherever they go on both the micro and macro level. The Romantic pursuit of self-determination bleeds over nearly every arc with Luffy at its epicenter, until it comes to a crescendo during the Wano arc, when the true nature of Luffy’s fruit comes to light for the first time.

Luffy is the beating heart of One Piece’s Romanticism. He specifically imbues many of the Romantic ideals of childhood, such as innocence, joy, and being unprejudiced by a corrupting society. He’s uncomplicated yet passionate, without a care in the world for what anyone else thinks about him, and because of that disregard for authority he comes off as equal parts wise and naive.

In Emile, Rousseau lays out his idea of childhood education, which doesn’t include a classroom so much as the child’s interaction with the world, emphasizing the senses and building on the child’s own observations and inferences. The Romantic child was instinctual and in tune with nature, and a character like Luffy growing up on the fringes of society while spending most of his time romping around in the woods would not be out of place (see Mary Robinson’s The Savage of Aveyron, based on the real story of a feral boy that had been found in France).

What makes Luffy different is that he never loses that simplicity of character even as he interacts with an increasingly complex world. Yes, he matures both as a person and a captain, bearing the weight of terrible loss and difficult decisions, but he does it still while maintaining that curious mix of selfish desire to do whatever he wants and selfless sacrifice towards the people he cares about. Luffy doesn’t want to be a hero, but remains uncorrupted by the malevolent social hierarchies that rule One Piece’s world.

But for all the ways One Piece is a Romantic story, the philosophy of the series departs in several key places. The Romantics of the late 18th and 19th centuries were reacting to the anxieties brought around by the Industrial Revolution and the subsequent urbanization that came along with it, while One Piece belongs squarely to the post-modern era of the 21st. While both glorify a long-gone past, what that past looks like is very different. One Piece fully embraces technology and progress, as best seen during the conflict between Noland and Calgura in the Skypia flashback. While industrialization is sometimes portrayed negatively (see Wano) it’s just as likely to be seen in a positive light (Water 7), and the mysterious civilization of the Void Century was more technologically advanced than the present day manga, not less.

What’s more important than modernization and technological advance is the ways people use said technology. The beautifully rendered locations along the Straw Hat’s journey are just as likely to be vast stretches of wilderness as bustling metropolises, and that search of wonder and the sublime is equally likely to be found in both.

More importantly, I think, is that the Romantics of old were solitary creatures, brooding and isolated from the people around them. There was a preoccupation of creating art devoid of outside influence. The sublime was a deeply personal experience that by its very nature could not be shared with others. Melancholy, loss, solitude, and death were preoccupations of the Romantic mind, the price of visionary genius being social isolation.

One of the most famous Romantic heroes of the 19th century was Thomas Chatterton, a young genius of a poet who, in the midst of poverty and depression killed himself at the age of 17. He was immortalized in paintings and poems, and his influence can be felt to this day by the persistence of the trope of the suffering artist that he, and countless others, helped codify.

One Piece is the story of a boy who rejects the confines of society in search of his own freedom, but he does not do so alone. Luffy is driven as much by the desire to be with his friends as he is by his desire to find the One Piece. The series agrees that risking death is an acceptable part of chasing ones dream, but rejects the notion that it should be sought out or celebrated. It’s better to live an undignified life in the hope of a better tomorrow than to give into an easy death.

And that’s the fascinating part about how philosophies evolve over time, because as much as One Piece borrows from the Romantic era of the 18 and 19th centuries, it isn’t a Romantic story, just as how no amount of research and copying of style could ever turn a historical novel written today into a product of the era its trying to emulate. Oda has taken an old idea and made it into something new, using that idea as the guide for the entire series. Like sun, guiding to the dawn of a new era.

A Romance dawn, if you will. 

#one piece #romanticism #creative-type analyzes #monkey d luffy #guess what I wrote instead of sleeping

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Diahann Carroll (Paris Blues, Carmen Jones, Porgy and Bess)— Face of an angel. She had the range. She brought chemistry with every romance she portrayed. She also had a great fashion sense, and was so pretty Mattel made a doll based off of her.

Fay Wray (King Kong)— the original scream queen!! she started acting in silent comedies as a teenager and got her first big break when erich von stroheim cast her as the lead in the wedding march. her career started to take off starring in silent movies at paramount, and she survived the transition to sound smoothly - josef von sternberg’s weird proto-noir thunderbolt was one of her first sound films. she began to make horror movies in the early 1930s, such as doctor x and mystery of the wax museum, both filmed in beautiful two-strip technicolor (which looked like this if you're curious. i just think it's neat!), as well as the vampire bat, the most dangerous game, and of course the boy himself, king kong. a little on how she worked with her most famous costar: “Although Kong appeared huge, the full figure was a model covered with rabbit hair, standing only 18 inches tall, that was filmed one frame at a time by stop-motion photography artist Willis O'Brien and his crew. The 5ft 3in Wray only knew one part of the ape's body when she was grasped in an articulated 8ft long hand. Hence the title of her 1989 autobiography, On The Other Hand. ‘I would stand on the floor,’ she recalled, ‘and they would bring this arm down and cinch it around my waist, then pull me up in the air. Every time I moved, one of the fingers would loosen, so it would look like I was trying to get away. Actually, I was trying not to slip through his hand.’” (link)

This is round 3 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Diahann Carroll:

Another groundbreaking black actress, although she might be better remembered for her television roles. She was also an activist and worked with charities to support women in need.

here she is hanging out with shadow prince anthony perkins :3

Fay Wray:

Actress prominently known for starring in horror, she was one of cinema's original "scream queens". She knocks it out of the park whenever she's with the horror genre, bringing a depth and likability to characters that would other be flat and boring characters.

An early scream queen, name me another woman who could look so beautiful while so disheveled and scared for her life

She was name-dropped not once but TWICE in the Rocky Horror Picture Show. She's arguably the original Scream Queen.

#diahann carroll #fay wray #hotvintagepoll #fuck that old woman #ladies 3

[rhinozzryan]

can u do etymology of the word kitten? i cant believe ive never asked this of u yet

TL;DR: kitten is a borrowing from French, a diminutive of chat, from the same Latin root as English cat, probably ultimately borrowed from a Near Eastern language like Arabic.

English n. kitten 'the young of the cat; a young cat, a cat that is not full-grown; the young of another mammal' (form attested from the early 17th century), earlier as Middle English n. kitoun, ketoun, kyt(t)on 'id.', a borrowing from Anglo-Norman n. *kitoun, *ketoun, *kiton, *keton 'id.' (not attested, but required as an intermediary; the regular change of word-initial /t͡ʃ/- to /k/- is implied by an erroneous ca. 1190 usage of Old Picard n. caston 'id.', with the form construed with the northern dialectical form of Old Picard n. caston, caton 'collet, bezel'), dialectical form of Old French n. chaton 'id.' (attested ca. 1230), diminutive of Old French n. chat, chas 'the domesticated cat, Felis catus' (attested 2nd half of the 12th century), a passing from Proto-Romance n. *katʊ 'id.' (secondarily attested in the borrowing into Basque n. katu 'id.'; also reconstructable via the passing into forms like Old Galician–Portuguese n. gato 'id.' and Sardinian n. gattu 'id.'), reflecting Late Latin n. cattus, catus 'id.' (a term widely borrowed, including, ultimately, into English n. cat 'id.'), probably (based on genomic and archaeological evidence in Egypt and the Near East) borrowed from Arabic n. قط 'id.' or a cognate, of uncertain further origin.

#you asked me this in vc a couple months ago #i think #idk i dont know anyone else who would make sense to have asked me #to be fair there is a large number of my friends who are tiny kittens #ok maybe it wasnt u

[yvanspijk]

The endings of the future tense in many Romance languages look suspiciously like the forms of the verb meaning 'to have' in these languages:

French ils finiront (they'll finish) & ils ont (they have)

Spanish harás (you'll do) & has (you have)

Italian darò (I'll give) & ho (I have)

Well, that's actually what they are! Here's how this future tense originated.

#historical linguistics #linguistics #language #etymology #latin #french #spanish #grammaticalisation #portuguese #catalan #romanian #sardinian #lingblr #proto-romance #old spanish #grammar #morphology #romance languages

[nimata-beroya]

Star Wars Writing Resources

Note: None of the resources below are mine. I just assembled them in one place for your and my convenience. Feel free to use and reblog. If you know of any other useful site missing from the list, let me know and I'll gladly add it.

NOTE (05/17/23): There's a new, much more comprehensive version HERE.

Places

Interactive Galaxy Map by Henry Bernberg

Map of the Galaxy

List of planets and moons [Wikipedia /needs expanding]

Planet Name Generator 1 [SciFi Ideas]

Planetary System Generator [Donjon]

Character Development

Star Wars Name Generator 1 [Donjon]

Star Wars OC flow chart by @thefoodwiththedood

Star Wars Name Generator 2 [FantasyNames]

Star Wars Name Generator 3 [FantasyNames]

The character creator

Droid Name Generator

Star Wars Randomizer by @aureutr

Clone Trooper face/helmet template pack by @fox-trot

Clone Picrew by @batdad

Character Picrew [Twi-leks, Zabraks, Torgutas and Nautolans] @/megaramikaeli

Star Wars Character Templates by SmacksArt [the ULTIMATE battery of template for any human/humanoid original character in any era. From troopers to droids, from Jedi to Sith, from KOTOR to the sequel Trilogy. 100% RECOMMENDED]

Miscellaneous

Standard Calendar and Holidays [including month names!]

Galactic Standard Calendar [wookiepedia // including week day names]

Date converter according to SWTOR [Google sheet]

Hyperspace Travel Times (to calculate how much time would take to go from point A to point B within the GFFA)

Materials (fabrics, leathers, silks, plastics, construction, metal composites, etc.)

List of TCW Opening Quotes

Ship Generator 3D

Star Wars: The Clone Wars Republic Military Hierarchy Flowcharts by @cacodaemonia

Languages; Phrases and Slang; Vocabulary

Coruscant Translator (from/to Basic from/to Old Corellian, Proto-Basic, and Smuggler's Cant; Catharese and High Cathar; Cheunh and Minnisiat; Echani and Thyrsian; Mirialan; Flora Colossi, Ortolan, and -everyone's favorite- Mando'a)

In-Universe phrases and slang [Google sheet]

List of phrases and slang [wookiepedia]

List of equivalents to real-world objects [wookiepidia]

Star Wars Menu Generator

Helpful blogs

The amazing @fox-trot, who not only makes astonishing art and write an amazing fic, she also responds to medical questions and gives all kinds of references for writing medic characters.

@writebetterstarwars, which seems to be inactive, but there are a bunch of references there.

@howtofightwrite The place to find out how to write a good fight scene.

@scriptmedic no longer active, but it has a great deal of useful information.

@scripttorture for your whump needs. Major trigger warning for all its content.

Writing in General (For those who don't want to die like Stormtroopers)

SlickWrite: Completely free; online. Checks grammar, punctuation, flow, and writing style according to different settings (including fiction writing).

ProWritingAid: [RECOMMENDED] One of the most thorough online proofreader I've ever used. Although when using a free account gives extremely thorough feedback, it gives +20 different in-depth reports for only the first 500 words for free. However, you can earn a premium account license (for a year or for life) if you get 10 or 20 new users signing up for free; (if you wouldn't mind doing so using the link above and help me earn mine, please). The settings allow you to check your writing according to your needs, from general to formal to creative. It has a bonus that you can check depending on the genre you're writing. For example, in creative, you can choose romance or sci-fiction (there are 14 sub-genre in total). And just like google docs, you can share a document, and people can view, comment or edit.

LanguageTool: [RECOMMENDED] Another excellent proofreader. It also has a word limit in free accounts, but if you use the add-on for Google Docs, it counts each page as a new document, so hitting the limit is nearly impossible. It helps you to rewrite a sentence, even if it doesn't raise any flags; it's very useful for when your sentence is grammatically correct, but it doesn't feel quite right.

Grammarly, Hemingway Editor: No so great, but they do the basic job.

#star wars writing resources #star wars #the mandalorian #the bad batch #sw rebels #the clone wars #obi wan kenobi #obi wan kenobi show #tbobf #the book of boba fett #andor

[forthegothicheroine]

Do you have any gothic novels that you can recommend off the top of your head? Especially to people who want to try their hand at the genre? I've hit a wall in my project and I need to get some fresh inspiration, but I don't know where to start and the book side of tumblr failed me the last time I tried asking them for recs

Hell yeah! I made some old posts for this a while back, but it's good to look at it again with my more recent taste! Let's see...

Classic Gothics

Dracula: The one, the only. Often imitated, never equalled.

Frankenstein: Short, sad and world changing! Can get a little slow at parts, but definitely worth it. (True story, my parents read this to me as a fetus to calm my kicking, so it's part of my personal mythology!)

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward: The most gothic of Lovecraft's work, and possibly my favorite. Novella length, usually found in collections.

The Picture of Dorian Gray: Sinister, sexy, philosophical, with a main character I want to punch in the face!

Carmilla: Another novella, about as lush and swooning as vampire stories get.

The Hound of the Baskervilles: A very readable gothic mystery.

Confessions of a Justified Sinner: This one isn't as action packed, but if you have big religious issues like me, it's incredibly haunting.

The Monk: Like the above, but sleazier and crazier!

Northanger Abbey: A gentle parody of early gothics, starring an adorable proto-goth girl.

The Italian: I'll be honest, I find Anne Radcliffe kind of a slog, but if you liked Northanger Abbey and want to read what Catherine Morland reads, this is probably the most accessible.

A Long Fatal Love Chase: This starts as campy and then takes a plunge into gut-wrenchingly intense. The book Jo March was always trying to write!

The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Another novella, and Stevenson is one of the best writers out there for excitement!

The Werewolf of Paris: Gothic monster as serial killer, still scary today.

Rebecca: The foundation of all gothic romance to come afterwards. A ghost story without a ghost, with an ending that's still debated as happy or sad!

Jane Eyre: The other foundation of all gothic romance to come afterwards. I bounced off the child abuse-heavy beginning a few times, but I'm very glad I finally read to the good stuff!

The Castle of Otranto: Considered the first gothic novel, a goofy b-movie in written form.

Modern-ish Gothics (post-1950 or so)

The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein: Fuck the haters, I love this book.

Mexican Gothic: Genuinely scary, genuinely romantic, genuinely creative. A favorite.

Blackwater: A southern gothic saga of a family in a flooded town, whose scion marries a woman who isn't quite human. A whirlwind ride!

A Bloodsmoor Romance: Another family saga, this one northern gothic, with sisters whose lives all go off the rails in different supernatural ways. Give this a try before writing Joyce Carol Oates off entirely!

The Silver Devil: A nasty, problematic bodice ripper where you'll cheer for the heroine to bring the hero down low!

Interview with the Vampire: To be honest again, I'm not super into Anne Rice, but this is a page-turner, and every vampire book that has come after it has had to respond to it in one way or another. Read the next two Vampire Chronicles books if you like it!

A Taste of Blood Wine: My own preferred sexy vampire romance!

The Bloody Chamber: The ultimate dark sexy fairy tale work, accept no substitutes.

Haunted Castles: Contains the brilliant novella Sardonicus, as well as some other campy gothic stories!

A Great and Terrible Beauty: Many millennials were introduced to the gothic genre via this, Fear Street Sagas, or A Series of Unfortunate Events. This is my favorite of the three, though the sequels are a bit of a letdown.

Gormenghast: This series is a throwback to the pseudo-medieval, Otranto-style gothic, but much better. Don't read Titus Alone.

#books #gothic literature

[teecupangel]

Bayek meeting Desmond?

Like, Desmond gets transported back to Egyptian times and becomes a merchant or protector of some small town, and Bayek comes waltzing through.

They meet and Desmond (who may be a bit thick) doesn't connect the Hidden Ones/Assassin/Medjay relationship. And Bayek just sees this guy who might be Greek and obviously isn't Egyptian protecting this small Egyptian town. Chaos ensues.

Romance may bloom?

It would be possible for Desmond to not put two and two together because he’s never even heard of the Hidden Ones and only saw Amunet’s statue as a ‘proto-Assassin’.

There’s also this sense of loyalty he feels towards the ‘Assassin Brotherhood’ as a title because of his Bleed of Altaïr.

As far as he knows, their Creed started with the Brotherhood.

And the Hidden Ones do their best to stay out of sight after what had happened before in Sinai.

It also helps that the small town he decided to dig his roots in was an out of the way peaceful town.

They rarely get visitors and, even when they do, those people turn out to either be a relative of one or more of the townspeople or a traveler who got lost.

Desmond got a small house with a small plot of land that can be converted to farmland by saving the son of the village chief who had been chased by a pack of wild animals and had to climb a tree in fear.

Desmond had just been passing by, debating if he should try his luck in going to what would later be called Levant or to just… stop somewhere and try to build a life there.

He was so tired.

So very tired.

And the people of the town had been kind to him. They didn’t ask why he was traveling all by himself.

They even stopped asking about his past after Desmond told them it was a ‘not a kind one’.

And now, here he was…

Working on his farm using the knowledge he had from the small farm that the Farm had, the books Altaïr and Ezio had read during their lifetime about agriculture and the tips and suggestions from his neighbors and fellow townspeople.

And one day…

He appears.

Bayek of Siwa.

He calls himself a traveler.

A few drinks later and he admits to being the last Medjay, traveling the lands to ensure its peace and to help those who need a hand.

Desmond had simply been in the village’s house with most of the men because they wished to present a united front in front of a traveler armed to the teeth.

Desmond saw his missing ring finger and thought of it as a coincidence.

Then…

Their paths intersect once more while Desmond was out in the wilderness near the town, bow in hand and quiver filled with arrows to hunt.

They met by accident and Bayek admits that he heard there were ruins nearby.

Desmond heard the tale, of course.

An ancient city, deep underground, holding the ground from caving in and burying everything with strong stable pillars too many to count.

Desmond has heard of the tales.

And he knew the name.

To be more exact…

His Bleed of Altaïr knew of the name…

Imar.

The fabled City of Pillars.

He also knows that this city was supposed to be somewhere in Levant or near Levant, not here in Egypt.

The tale the villagers would tell their children was that it wasn’t a city.

It was an underground road that would lead to the fabled city.

Desmond never saw anything, not even his Eagle Vision could find anything of interest in this town or anywhere nearby.

The most interesting thing his Eagle Vision had pinged was the gold in the village chief’s house and that was actually the chest where he stored the funds he would use to maintain the towns’ buildings and roads.

But if this man believes he can find that city then Desmond felt the need to follow him.

Because if there really was an underground city or a road that would lead to it nearby?

That could only mean…

There was an Isu facility nearby.

… and perhaps a POE as well.

.

.

.

Cue a DLC-length storyline of Bayek looking for an underground city with a mysterious young man who seems to embody the core principles of a Hidden One.

#desmond doesn’t have a hidden blade #otherwise bayek would be super sus of him already #desmond doesn’t recognize bayek’s hidden blade #because (1) he uses his sword and shield most of the time and #(2) bayek’s hidden blade look a lot like a normal gauntlet in desmond’s eyes #this is after the main story and dlcs #so that bayek and aya have both moved on #ask and answer #what do we call this? #baymond #baydes #XD #assassin's creed #desmond miles #bayek of siwa #teecup writes/has a plot #fic idea: assassin's creed

[absolutebl]

Hi! apologies if you've answered this before, but can you recommend some bls that deal with homophobia, be it internalised or external? or more generally, bls that are not set in the bl bubble where gayness is 100% accepted?

Thank you very much <3

Ooo, sure thing!

BL's Not Set in The Bubble

BLs that deal with homophobia (internal or external) and rough coming out sequences

Began Beginning from Myanmar is all about this. It's not a BL I would necessarily recommend but it is interesting for many reasons. Both leads are dealing with massive internalize homophobia, among other issues.

Similarly: Like in the Movies and Tie the Not from the Philippines.

And Goodbye Mother and Nation's Brother from Vietnam.

From Thailand

To Sir, With Love - witnessing his family's massive homophobia that results in major tragedy as a child is what drives our main character's whole personality and self hatred. Massive trigger warning.

Until We Meet Again - the pair in the past, of course, it's the driving trauma of the relationship reincarnated. Massive trigger warning.

I Feel You Linger In the Air - fear of being caught is a through line in this drama.

More modern set stuff:

City of Stars deals with having to leave the closet as a super star. So does Close Friend Season 2 a little. The OhmFluke pair also deals with coming out to parents. Love Stage!! (Thailands version) contains one couple that chooses to remain closeted for the good of a career and another that risks it.

Moonlight Chicken - mostly about self hatred and difficulty in being out, to the point where his young nephew challenges him on it and provides a foil.

Also, ya know, TharnType and Why R U. Both have self hated and challenging coming outs because of trauma and daddy issues.

Dark Blue Kiss - Kao is terrified of being outed and it's used to blackmail him.

Similarly although he is out of Ae, Pete is being abused and blackmailed because he is gay in Love By Chance. Also Ae doesn't manage to come out... yet.

I Told Sunset About You - of course.

My Gear and Your Gown final episodes contain homophobic (or are they?) parents.

Second Chance heavily implies that there is something going on with Paper's inability to accept Fah.

Similarly Gene accepting Sib in Lovely Writer.

I'm pretty sure there's a ton of homophobia at the back end of My Tee, but honestly it's been years sicne I watched that mess.

Charming little pulp 21 Day Theory deals with quite a bti of this, but our main character has a lovely gay uncle to guide the way.

"Punch the homophobe" my favorite trope of all time, happens in Oxygen. But otherwise they neatly circumvent the patriarchs objection by defacto adopting a child to inherit.

TonhonChonlatee is all about one characters inability to acept his own queerness as encouraged by his homophobic family and various other evil characters.

My Only 12% actively tackles and calls out cultural homophobia and damaging misrepresentations.

"Why does everyone think that both of them are strange? If it's not wrong, why does everyone hurt?"

The show he's talking about is Thailand's first proto-BL, love of Siam and it is about an inability to come out.

From Japan

Life: Love on the Line - it's parental disgust and personal self hatred and paranoia that breaks them up (they get back together but he as to get over it)

Similarly His - is a kind of reunion romance after self-homophobia drove one half of the pair to marry someone else.

Actually the original series with the same characters, His the series, also deals with self acceptance around gayness, and it's subtle (Japan) but it's pretty clear one of them was kicked out of/ or left his previous school because he got outed. (Light on Me references a similar situation, but it's ultra subtle.)

If It's With You also kinda falls into this category. Not sure these can be called "dealing with" it tho, more side stepping and alluding to it.

Tokyo in April is - yeah it's kinda the whole thing from one half of this pair

What Did You Eat Yesterday also has a coming out to the parents thread throughout, and a coming out at work thing, but it's not really the point of the show.

From Korea

Most Korean BL are gonna be out. The specialize in the bubble. Although a case could be made for Love For Love's Sake and Love Class. And, see comment, Jazz for Two.

One noted exception is Just Friends which is a short piece about coming out to mom while on leave from the military. This is one of Korea's earliest BL pieces and not strictly BL, but it's fascinating in that neither theme (military nor coming out) would reall be reused again.

From Taiwan

My Tooth Your Love - has a kinda different take and we aren't sure, as viewers whether it's because he's gay or because he's not doing what the Patriarch wishes. But trigger warning for [physical abuse.

DNA Says Love You deals with this and other forms of queerphobia during the later half. Slow start but I do love this show.

Faded is a propaganda piece (pro marriage equality) which is all about coming out to a parent.

In H4CTY Xing Si (of the side couple) is having a hard time coming out but that's complied by the fact that he's fucking his stepbrother, it's a mess, bit I enjoy them - v problematic couple tho.

Papa & Daddy actually has a coming out sequence (GASP!) where the parents don't take it well as does Love is Science? (sides) - but the later is mostly because disaster bi is also baby daddy.

Red Balloon, of course, and it's sibling movie Your Name Engraved Herein are kinda all about self loathing and suffering because of gayness and lack of acceptance.

Unknown is certainly tackling some of this.

In which I talk about some of my favorite coming out sequences:

He's Coming to Me has my favorite series of coming out sequences to both friends and mother.

A few more that I really don't like (Promise) and probably Together With Me should be here, but I willfully can't remember them.

(source)

#bls with angst around coming out #bls that deal with homophobia #bls that are not set in the bl bubble where gayness is 100% accepted #mostly thai bl #thai bl #japanese bl #taiwanese bl #historical bl