#vann writes stuff | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

imthefailedartist · 2 years

Text

Rambling Thoughts. Spoilers.

Wow it looks like a real movie.

There is proper lighting and cinematography. Wow.

I hate how he's walking through this field.

Amira Vann is a performer.

Should've killed her grandaddy.

Too much narration.

These letters a little too detailed. Show don't tell.

I'm gon be honest, Tyler is the last person on earth who should tackling race.

I know Buster don't think Willie Earl is his child. Sir your colorism and self hatred can't be that severe that you think Bayou is half white. Sir! Open your eyes. He called him HALF BREED! Bruh. Delusional men are pure comedy.

I like that he calls her Lil Anne

Bayou is not it. I just don't think he's worth all the drama. He is boring. He doesn't even write songs. For a movie called A Jazzmans Blues Bayou has no interest in music. He doesn't write songs/music or play an instrument. Paper Airplanes isn't even written by him. He doesn't even really take singing seriously its just something he does.

Ooh he on that stuff.

Bucket better watch who she put her hands on. We know your truth and the only ones who gone help you.

Bayou has no stage presence. I'm not braving the Chicago winters to see a ni**a standing still. Willie Earl on the other hand, stage presence but I hate him so I never want to see him win.

"We don't allow coloreds to sit at our table". Sir that is the kitchen table! That is for the servants to sit and prep it is not the dining room table.

Soon as her momma said that lie Leanne should've blew up their spot. "Okay mama. Okay. Well guess what, we are negroes."

They stopped the car cut it off slammed doors, threw up, swap stories get back in cut the car back on and not once does Willie Earl wake up. Don't do drugs kids.

They never call it heroin. Why? It can't possibly change the rating to call it by name over showing the needle in his arm.

Ira do know he talking to a black man in the Jim Crow Era South?

Ira telling Bayou his survival story to tell him to survive so you can help others.

Me: Ira save that story for someone else. Bayou ain't got that dog in him.

Citsy is great. She needs more story.

This needs a good editing. It needed another script edit. Its much too long and the timeline gets a little jumbled. After Leanne comes back. I have no idea how much time has passed we needed more time with them at 16 & 17. This is where their performances shine. Also we needed them sneaking around more after she returns to see that it wasn't just puppy love taken too seriously.

This heffa bes better hope that baby don't come out chocolate.

Everything happens to Bayou. He is never in charge of his own story. He is very hard to root for. And the one time he makes his own choice it's the dumbest decision ever.

The Debbie Allen did the choreography for this movie and we never get to see it shine.

What is the audience of the Royale? Why are these white folks coming to see what seems like an all or majority Black Revue?

Only nine months have passed since he left?

Did she come to Hattie Mae for comfort and familiarity or because she was scared that baby was gon come out dark.

You can't take your aunty some money to make sure she is able to live and feed herself? Ni**a kill yourself.

How you the headliner but your brother, high out of his mind has more stage presence than you?

Bayou joins the military but it has no effect on his character. It doesn't make him braver or stronger or more sensitive. He just joins and immediately gets out.

Ira wasn't on heroin? Then what the hell was wrong with him? Heat stroke?

I think he's getting darker. She says about a baby the color of alabaster.

Baby the color of fresh fallen snow in Alaska, freshly painted apartment walls, unseasoned mashed potatoes, the color of the crowd at a Train concert

His momma: is he getting darker?

Ira saw him perform and thought he was the star compared to Willie Earl? Absolutely not. Now if it was that he had that sweet, innocent charm that would stretch across to white markets I could believe it but it wasn't so it's unbelievable.

Look I'm all for resilience in the face of adversity but as Tyler Perry himself once said. If you can't get peace where you are, MOVE. Hattie pack your shit and go.

How you mad cause you let heroin get in the way of you auditioning?

Being a woman is dangerous business. This man would rather kill her than just admit she couldn't stand The South. Imagine if he found out she was Black? He'd of killed her and the baby. Imagine if that baby came out brown. They'd have burned the city down.

Her mom's crazy for bringing them back to the South. That's the one place where black folks are in abundance. Passing is easiest when you isolate. That's what's missing from this story. The husband and sheriff are never suspicious.

This movie is too long to cut that out. We should've seen more of her life with her husband and bonding with Citsy.

So she's a quarter or a half? What is her mama?

Bayou is a fool. Not a fool, a damn fool. Why the hell would you go back to Georgia?

Willie Earl ain't shit.

Yeah, Bayou is not worth all this. Neither is Leanne.

There should've been more cuts to the eighties.

See you gotta be careful who you have ya kids around. How you 50-75% percent Negro and racist.

Tyler really put effort into this movie. The sets fell and look real.

Someone said Leanne aged like a yt woman and said that was her punishment? Y'all!!! I laughed.

Did Hattie give him the letters because he's her grand baby and she's tired of his racist bullshit or because she was serious about the investigation?

I did not need the nurse pointing out who he was.

The credit version of Paper Airplanes is really beautiful.

#a jazzmans blues #tyler perry #Joshua boone #amirah vann #solea pfeiffer #austin scott #ryan eggold #jazz music #blues music #1940s aesthetic #the south #georgia #historical romance #historical fiction #jim crow

17 notes · View notes

thickenmyblood · 3 years

Note

The Captive Prince trilogy in general is very male-centric, but it never struck me as overtly misogynistic, and I’m just speculating but I think that was the intention on Pacat’s part. I think she wanted to give her (majority female) audience a feeling of escapism. So she made a world almost entirely of men, a world that included compulsory homosexuality, and I feel like she kind of explored it in a gendered sort of way? Like the top/bottom dynamics were pretty rigid in that world, the younger, “prettier” characters were all depicted as bottoms. And in the same vein, unlike in the real world, in Pacat’s there was an almost complete absence of violence against women. The stronger men assaulted the weaker “prettier” men (govart and Erasmus), and the Regent had a strict preference for boys rather than girls. So I feel like escapism was a big part of why the trilogy was like that, and also why most of the few women in the story belonged to a matriarchal society and were “warrior queens” but were relatively unimportant. Pacat didn’t want the women mistreated but she also wanted to take the gendered roles in our society and project it onto specific types of men in her world.

okay but i have so many thoughts on this, and yet when i sat down to write a reply they wouldn't cooperate with me. i agree hard that it reads like escapism and based on things pacat has said about her own work (she always says she didn't start it as a book series) i guess it makes sense that she wrote what she wanted to read and all that perhaps lead to very indulgent and self-indulgent narrative choices.

a world that included compulsory homosexuality, and I feel like she kind of explored it in a gendered sort of way? Like the top/bottom dynamics were pretty rigid in that world, the younger, “prettier” characters were all depicted as bottoms.

i can't decide if I agree with this or not : ( I feel like you're right and it def felt "gendered" to me when I read it, especially some of the sex/rape scenes in pg and kr. maybe I've officially lost my marbles but I can't remember if there are characters that are vers? like, on screen both bottoming and topping? (I'm not making any claims, I literally don't remember?) and I think most of the slaves and pets are meant to be bottoms (ONCE AGAIN A QUESTION?). there are some quotes in kr that suggest damen might be open to bottoming in the future but... i do agree HARD on the youth part of your ask. i think it was def a trope/theme that was ongoing—every couple had some sort of age gap that was very present.

why most of the few women in the story belonged to a matriarchal society and were “warrior queens” but were relatively unimportant. Pacat didn’t want the women mistreated but she also wanted to take the gendered roles in our society and project it onto specific types of men in her world.

i agree that they were relatively unimportant haha. i kept asking myself why it was that I could like a character that was never present (auguste) but couldn't really get interested in the female cast. taste and misogyny aside, I think it's bc they're just sort of irrelevant to the plot and the main characters themselves. laurent's life would not change if halvik was there or not (A BRUTISH EXAMPLE BUT YEAH). they feel very background-y to me.

however... i was talking to a friend the other day and she sort of showed me that although it's not explicit, pacat does write her female characters as... i don't want to say victims, but rather like... they do seem to experience disadvantages/hardships/sometimes have to "bend over" for the men in their lives? like loyse is married to guion, who we know is awful (their marriage is like ???). to get to power, jokaste does have to sleep with kastor and damen. vannes, like kass showed me in her quote (the regent talking about women) is not very liked or THAT respected. damen's slave in book 1 (i can never spell her name, don't hate me...) is killed off. there's that woman laurent pays in pg to suck govart off.

i think like you said pacat was very careful of writing explicit violence against women, but if you take a closer look most of the women in the trilogy are written in a "traditional fantasy setting" way? which is not to say they're weak or useless or that they're poorly written, just that i can't decide if there is implicit violence there or if I'm reading too much into things. so yeah, if we think of rape, non-con, csa... women in the trilogy are not the focus of these issues. I'm curious if anyone disagrees? for once (lol) i don't have a solid opinion on this issue.

also i found what you said super interesting—she basically projected gendered roles and issues into male characters? do you think that's why there seems to always be, in fandom, so many discussions about some characters (laurent, erasmus, aimeric, ancel) being depicted as feminine?

thank you so much for this ask!! it really made me think hard about stuff <3

#anon

83 notes · View notes

mordioux · 3 years

Note

Hello @mordioux,

I would simply like to say that I love your blog about the Three Musketeers! Thank you for all your delicious posts! You have a great sense of humour. I've always been fascinated by some Dumas' novels! I love "The Vicomte de Bragelonne" the most of The D'Artagnan Romances set. The book is the most interesting and complex but the main reason for that is Aramis. He is so mesmerizing as the sneaky bishop of Vannes! Truly a mess of contradicitions. I'm aware that he is the Musketeer who you like the least. ;) Athos was great in the first novel but he became so irritatingly perfect in the sequels. In "The Three Musketeers" I perceived D'Artagnan as an annoying little brat. Fortunately, he was more mature and really intelligent in the sequels. I admire word duels between Aramis & D'Artagnan in "Twenty years after" and "The Vicomte de Bragelonne". :) And Porthos was... Porthos. ;) A nice and extremely loyal guy, nothing of sneakiness. ;) I'm also amazed that you know so many languages: English, French, Japanese, Greek. These are only my suppositions based on your blog. My language skills are not as impressive as yours but I admit that reading Dumas' books in French is wonderful.

Thank you again and best wishes! Keep writing! :)

Hey there, fellow musketeer fan! :) To ne honest, this blog is mostly inactive after so many years (!) and I mostly use this account to browse stuff from time to time. Seldom do I receive any asks anymore. But! I'm really glad you enjoyed my silly gifs 😊 Perhaps I'll revive the entire thing and I'll make more, who knows 😅 Aramis is indeed my least favorite, but he's the one that I made a mini comic about already, so his character has had his fair share of appreciation on my part 😛 I also agree with your views on the books and the characters. Oh, and thank you for your kind words 😊 However, Greek is my native language and my Japanese is very, very poor, so I guess my language skills are not that exceptional after all 😅😅

Thanks for dropping by, feel free to ask and discuss anything related to the saga. I may not visit tumblr as often as I used to, but I'll find me a few minutes to reply 💜

20 notes · View notes

goldencuffs · 4 years

Note

If u are gonna write more for the fic I would LOVE a sequel I would die to know like. What happens to Laurent and Damen and the rest of the gang after the wedding. Where do they end up? Does Laurent remain a part of the team or go live with Damen in Ios and do like political/police stuff there? Does the TEAM move? Do they visit? I could imagine them being cowed at Laurent being pampered in a palace by his lovestruck husband. I LOVE THIS AU! I think abt it all the time ❤️

THE FACT THAT YOU'VE THOUGHT ABOUT THIS SO MUCH MAKES ME SO GIDDY!!!😍😍😍

full disclosure i havent really thought about what happens after the ending of for better, for worse - ive mostly been thinking of how damen/laurent meet and how their romance develops, what kind of problems damen has eloping in secret and eloping with a commoner, how laurent feels inadequate in their relationship, damen being completely in love with laurent, laurent dealing with a marriage that has to be kept a secret and also laurent's friendship with herode, vannes and kashel lol

bur everything you said was amazing and now i kind of want to write what happens after as well????? bless you

#this ask is amazing and i love you anon #seriously im going to spend the rest of the day thinking about this au #❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️#asks #b99 meets modern royalty au

13 notes · View notes

theonyxpath · 4 years

Link

Our Legendlore KS only has days left to run, and actually ends on Thursday this week, so as my final push for folks to check it out, I’m not going to try and convince you like last week. I’m going to let two excellent writers do that!

Here’s a great description of Legendlore, written, as only he can, by our own Matthew Dawkins:

But why should you back it? Well, in this time where some gamers are clinging on to the notion that “all orcs are evil from birth”, “disability has no place in fantasy adventures” and “there’s no such thing as a good drow” (they haven’t heard of Drizzt), Legendlore says the opposite.

Legendlore is a fantasy setting where diversity is a strength, we don’t shy away from complex societies and cultures, and where you can damn well buy yourself a wheelchair especially designed for dungeon crawling, or sit on a bloody floating disc! This is a game that embraces the fact that it’s magical, it’s wondrous, and yes, there’s evil out there in need of vanquishing, but there’s also a brilliant world to discover and enlightenment and wisdom to be found.

I’m in love with the art, the writing, and skilful design of this game, which uses the 5th Edition system to amazing effect. I’m impressed by the effort and energy Steffie De Vaan and her entire team of writers have poured into it. It’s a game I want to play, and if you feel orcs are better only as black and white villains, I invite you to read the manuscript – which is available as a free download from DriveThruRPG.com – and feel as impressed as I do.

And here’s developer Steffie De Vann’s excellent take on why she loves the game:

Legendlore offers a rich and layered world. No one is born good or evil, nor does it have ‘evil races.’ People come in all colors, genders, orientations, and alignments. You can be a black trans feminine elf & be right at home in the Realm. Our iconics put our ‘money where our mouth is’ – our elf is a trans black woman, our pixie a non-binary person, our dwarf is a combat veteran in a wheelchair, and I could go on. This is a game that believes diversity is strength. It’s an isekai/portal game, and we created Backgrounds ranging from ‘Activist’ and ‘RPG Aficionado’ to ‘Working Poor.’

The world of Legendlore is home to a sentient 1974’s Ford Mustang, parasite mushrooms that try to kill you by YELLING VERY LOUDLY (trust me, it’s effective), sacred Chipmunks, and the descendants of Amelia Earhart running an aviation nation. It pairs this whimsy with a genuinely complex world. For example, the orcs used to live in what’s now the nation of Drohm. Orcs ambassadors are petitioning the other nations to recognize their sovereignty, but doing so would give Drohm the excuse it needs to go to war – and make no mistake, Darkoth the Darklord *wants* to go to war. Are the orcs right? YES. Should the other nations help them out? HECK YES. Is it understandable that the nations are dragging their feet because war is good for no one except the Generals? Also yes. If that sounds like a conundrum you want to tackle, and sway the fate of Azoth, this is a game for you.

If that sound good to you, go check us out on KS. And if you’re still on the fence – there’s a link in there to a free preview manuscript.

In fact, Steffie has been posting examples of the Legendlore characters she mentions above:

This is Aaliyah, our elven iconic. She’s a Black trans woman who uses a mix of ASL and forestspeak signs to communicate. She’s a peaceful ambassador foremost, but doesn’t back down from a fight when it comes to that.

This is Najda, our dwarven iconic. She is a Muslim army vet who was wounded during her tour in Afghanistan. She now works in a Los Angeles comic book store, where she discovered a crossing into the world of Legendlore.

Here’s Jada, our pixie iconic. Pixies are born agender, and choose a gender as they grow up. Feminine pixies have 2 antenna, masculine pixies have 0, and non-binary pixies have 1. Pixies are as fierce as they are small, they love laughing and hate bullies.

There you go, and here’s the link to the Legendlore Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/339646881/legendlore-rpg-setting-for-5th-edition-fantasy-roleplaying-0

Let the Streets Run Red art by Oliver Specht

Besides Legendlore, What Else?

Just a warning, and it may just be a short-term issue, but right now it seems that we can’t ship anything to Canada or Mexico. We haven’t yet heard whether we can receive packages from those countries, but since our most prolific printers are based in Canada, we may experience some delays in our traditionally printed projects.

Right now, we’re only having issues with getting the physical printer proofs sent back and forth for approvals, and not the actual books themselves.

You’d think after all the panels and Actual Playing I did during the Onyx Path Virtual Gaming Con a few weeks ago that I’d be all talked out. Well, that does not seem to be the case. Ever.

Naw, I love telling folks about what Onyx Path is and the game worlds we make! I just can’t help myself, we have so many exciting and fun things going on!

Last week, Mike and the gang over at the This Week In Geek podcast interviewed me about WW and Onyx Path, and it turned into a sort of oral history of how the companies transformed into each successive version, and just where game lines branched off to different companies and editions.

If that sort of stuff is interesting for you, here ya go: http://thisweekingeek.net/news/interviews/fan-service-interview-rich-thomas-onyx-path-june-2020

Then this weekend, I sat in on a retrospective of the Art of Mage at Ascension Con 2020 along with Satyros Phil Brucato and artists Mark Jackson and Echo Chernik. Echo took on the slideshow duties and we all discussed the Mage art that came up as it appeared.

That was pretty great, and it was certainly a treat to chat with folks I haven’t talked to in years. Hopefully, that recording will show up on YouTube soon and we’ll get you all a link.

Cults of the Blood Gods art by Thomas Denmark

What wasn’t great last week were a couple of issues that we needed to deal with. While we dealt with them as best as we could, we realized that at core our little crew of folks here are simply not HR experts. And more importantly, we shouldn’t try to be.

We need to concentrate on making great games and amazing worlds, like we do.

Which means that tomorrow, I’m interviewing our current best prospect for an HR point-of-contact for the company. Someone who is HR trained and has worked in HR at other companies. And very important for us, someone who is unconnected to Onyx Path and has never been a gamer or in the TTRPG business.

We need someone who doesn’t have the connections or baggage that might make it hard to be objective when they review HR concerns. Hopefully, my interview is the one, and once everything is good to go we’ll include info concerning them prominently on our website so folks know who to contact.

I mean, it’s important that our worlds are all about excitement, and fear, and victory, and defeat. What our creators and community go through in the real world shouldn’t also require all those moments. We want everyone playing our games and reading our books to be safe while they explore our:

Many Worlds, One Path!

Blurbs!

Kickstarter!

The Legendlore Kickstarter is in its last few days and ends this Thursday, and now we’re really building towards Stretch Goals: the GM’s Screen, and starting the Legendlore Companion book PDF!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/339646881/legendlore-rpg-setting-for-5th-edition-fantasy-roleplaying-0

Grab your friends and escape to another world!

You’ve found an enchanted portal — a transition point — between worlds. The portal, called a Crossing, takes you to a world you thought only existed in novels and films: a magical land where dragons roam the skies, orcs and hobgoblins terrorize weary travelers, and unicorns prance through the forest. It is a world where humans join other peoples such as elves, trolls, dwarves, changelings, and the dreaded creatures who steal the night. It is a world of fantasy — of imagination.

It is the Realm.

It is Legendlore.

Next Up On Kickstarter: They Came From Beyond the Grave!

Onyx Path Media!

This week: the return of the return of the Scion Actual Play as Eddy and Dixie’s characters dig further into the machinations of the gods!

As always, this Friday’s Onyx Pathcast will be on Podbean or your favorite podcast venue! https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

All our panels and games from Onyx Path Virtual Gaming Convention are still available on twitch.tv/theonyxpath! All you need to do is head on over to the website and subscribe. If you have an Amazon Prime account, you can do so for free and access our entire catalogue of videos!

Legendlore‘s Kickstarter is coming to an end, but Jen Vaughn’s actual play is still going on our Twitch channel every week on Friday night! Lost in the Crossing is an amazing story played through by a fantastic GM and excellent roleplayers, and handles the Legendlore world from the perspective of visitors and native inhabitants of the Realm! Make sure you’re tuning in every Friday or catching up afterwards by subscribing.

That’s not all for Legendlore, as we have actual plays by Steffie de Vaan and Corinne McCrory over on our YouTube channel, which you can find here https://youtu.be/UaQXSlEatDw and here https://youtu.be/RRvnJOrmNzM! Please give our GMs some support and tune in!

This week on Twitch, expect to see:

V5 – Chicago by Night

Realms of Pugmire – Paws & Claws

Legendlore – The Metal Scourge

Dystopia Rising: Evolution – Thieves of Old York

They Came from Beneath the Sea! – They Came from Devil’s Reef!

Changeling: The Dreaming – The Last Faerie Tale

Mage: The Awakening – Occultists Anonymous

Legendlore – Lost in the Crossing

Scarred Lands – Purge of the Serpentholds

Chronicles of Darkness – Tooth and Claw

Deviant: The Renegades – A Cautionary Tale

Get watching for some fantastic insight into how to run these wonderful games.

Come take a look at our YouTube channel, youtube.com/user/theonyxpath, where you can find a whole load of videos of actual plays, dissections of our games, and more, including:

Legendlore – The Metal Scourge: https://youtu.be/ECRrErPLm64

Storytellers with Coffee – Safety Tools: https://youtu.be/FjG-YbG_Q1k

Mage: The Ascension – Technocracy Reloaded: https://youtu.be/9Al7ZdkLGiM

Even more Legendlore – The Metal Scourge: https://youtu.be/RRvnJOrmNzM

#OnyxPathCon | How to Write for TTRPGs [Panel]: https://youtu.be/UKmJQEhInP8

Subscribe to our channel and click the bell icon if you want to be notified whenever new news videos and uploads come online!

Occultists Anonymous continues right here with their excellent Mage: The Awakening chronicle:

Episode 108: Car-V Heist While Songbird prepares for a dangerous summoning, Atratus and Wyrd hit the junkyards with an overly elaborate plan to make an overly elaborate gift. How very Mage of them… https://youtu.be/wSy3c74jkfM

Episode 109: Crown of Blood Wyrd and Atratus enjoy the joy of a well-made gift and the good vibes that comes with that. Songbird joins together with Hadramiel to summon an Angel of Death to anoint a Vampire Prince in power. https://youtu.be/QxB6Ml6uStY

A Bunch of Gamers continue their actual play of They Came from Beneath the Sea! and conclude it with a mini review: https://youtu.be/qIMwcOZmR8k

The Botch Pit have released a wonderful new guide for Changeling: The Lost right here. Do give them a like and a subscribe: https://youtu.be/Bd0UZQZt2OM

Please check these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games! We’d love to feature you!

Electronic Gaming!

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is awesome! (Seriously, you need to roll 100 dice for Exalted? This app has you covered.)

On Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue from which you bought it. Reviews really, really help us get folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these latest fiction books:

Our Sales Partners!

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost Second Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Scion 2e books and other products are available now at Studio2: https://studio2publishing.com/blogs/new-releases/scion-second-edition-book-one-origin-now-available-at-your-local-retailer-or-online

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e at the same link! And now Scion Origin and Scion Hero and Trinity Continuum Core and Trinity Continuum: Aeon are available to order!

As always, you can find Onyx Path’s titles at DriveThruRPG.com!

On Sale This Week!

Available this Wednesday, we present Dystopia Rising: Evolution shirts and posters on our RedBubble store!

Conventions!

Though dates for physical conventions are subject to change due to the current COVID-19 outbreak, here’s what’s left of our current list of upcoming conventions (and really, we’re just waiting for this last one to be cancelled even though it’s Nov/Dec). Instead, keep an eye out here for more virtual conventions we’re going to be involved with:

PAX Unplugged: https://unplugged.paxsite.com/

And now, the new project status updates!

Development Status from Eddy Webb! (Projects in bold have changed status since last week.):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep.)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

Adversaries of the Righteous (Exalted 3rd Edition)

The Devoted Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)

Saints and Monsters (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Anima

M20 Technocracy Operative’s Dossier (Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary)

Squeaks In The Deep (Realms of Pugmire)

Redlines

Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Hundred Devil’s Night Parade (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Novas Worldwide (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Exalted Essence Edition (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Wild Hunt (Scion 2nd Edition)

CtL 2e Novella Collection: Hollow Courts (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Second Draft

Many-Faced Strangers – Lunars Companion (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Mission Statements (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Contagion Chronicle Ready-Made Characters (Chronicles of Darkness)

Trinity Continuum: Adventure! core (Trinity Continuum: Adventure!)

Dead Man’s Rust (Scarred Lands)

The Clades Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)

V5 Forbidden Religions (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

M20 Rich Bastard’s Guide To Magick (Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary)

V5 Children of the Blood (was The Faithful Undead) (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Development

TC: Aberrant Reference Screen (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Contagion Chronicle: Global Outbreaks (Chronicles of Darkness)

Exigents (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Assassins (Trinity Continuum Core)

V5 Trails of Ash and Bone (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Manuscript Approval

Crucible of Legends (Exalted 3rd Edition)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Under Alien Skies (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

N!ternational Wrestling Entertainment (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Post-Approval Development

Editing

Lunars Novella (Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Player’s Guide to the Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Contagion Chronicle Jumpstart (Chronicles of Darkness)

TC: Aberrant Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

LARP Rules (Scion 2nd Edition)

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

The Book of Lasting Death (Mummy: The Curse 2e)

They Came From Beyond the Grave! (They Came From!)

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

Dearly Bleak – Novella (Deviant: The Renegades)

Post-Editing Development

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

W20 Shattered Dreams Gift Cards (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Hunter: The Vigil 2e core (Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

Pirates of Pugmire KS-Added Adventure (Realms of Pugmire)

Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Terra Firma (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)

Indexing

Art Direction from Mike Chaney!

In Art Direction

Tales of Aquatic Terror – Handing off to Meredith to AD.

WoD Ghost Hunters (KS) – Prepping KS assets.

Aberrant – AD’d. Sketches from HIVE in.

Hunter: The Vigil 2e

Mummy 2

Deviant

Legendlore – KS running.

Technocracy Reloaded (KS)

Cults of the Blood God – Rolling along.

Scion: Dragon (KS) – Waiting on art notes.

Masks of the Mythos (KS) – Pinging potential cover and fulls artist.

Scion: Demigod (KS) – Art rolling. KS assets AD’d.

They Came From Beyond the Grave! (KS) – Prepping KS assets.

TC: Adventure! (KS) – Shen Fei cover art finishing.

Geist: One Foot In the Grave – AD’d.

In Layout

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad

Vigil Watch

TC Aeon Terra Firma

V5 Let the Streets Run Red – working layout now.

Pugmire Adventure

Scion Titanomachy

Proofing

Trinity Aeon Jumpstart – Errata gathering.

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate – Page XXs.

Contagion Chronicle – Backer PDF out to backers, gathering errata.

Cavaliers of Mars: City of the Towered Tombs

Magic Item Decks (Scarred Lands)

Yugman’s Guide Support Decks (Scarred Lands)

Dark Eras 2 Screen and booklet

At Press

Scion Companion – Awaiting errata from devs.

TCFBTS Heroic Land Dwellers – PoD files uploaded.

TCFBTS Screen and Booklet – Files at press.

They Came from Beneath the Sea! – Press proofs signed off on, PoD files uploaded.

Creature Collection 5e – PoD proof ordered. Traditional files sent to printer.

Pirates of Pugmire – Files at press. PoD proofs ordered.

Pirates of Pugmire Screen – Files at press.

Pugmire Buried Bones – PoD files uploaded.

Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition Dark Eras Compilation – Creating PoD file.

Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

This coming week is a big one for our household with the birthdays of two of our widdle kiddies (really not widdle at all any more), and the July 4th celebration of the American colonies’ independence from Great Britain! “And just as Tom here has written, we say To Hell With Great Britain!” Sorry, Matthew…

In sadder news, we acknowledge the passing of Jim Holloway, noted artist for Paranoia and Star Frontiers and many early issues of Dragon Magazine. Personally, I very much enjoyed his style, and he brought a technical expertise and a sense of humor to the early TTRPG business that it sorely needed.

#Onyx Path Publishing

3 notes · View notes

jackednephi · 4 years

Text

On daily scripture study

Kind of a long post. I'm on mobile so no cut. Sorry :(

Ok so I'm gonna try doing something this year that I haven't in the past and that's reading my scriptures every single day. In the past, I've been hindered by like approaching it as the Ideal like we learn in seminary which is Deep Study every single day. Obviously, I ended up failing because that's such a lofty goal. I mean, it always ended up being good for me because it would inevitably deepen my study. I'd involve Google in with the footnotes and get really deep into things. Like the post I have forever ago about Nephi's sword type of thing. But research rather than happenstance and it's part of why I know so much about kosher laws off the top of my head

Something else I think has been a hindrance to this goal has been the idea that I need to bust out my physical scriptures to do so and, at least when I was in high school, the only comfortable place I had to do this was the couch in the living room. Also, if I'm being honest, I was definitely doing Way Too Much (as is the common Mormon trap tbh) But I'm not doing Way Too Much because what work I get is by no means full time. I do what I can around the house, but that's limited to weather, spoons, and so on. I'm in the process of applying for disability but that's not an all day, every day type of affair. I'm going back to school eventually and studying for the GRE in the meantime but, again, even with all this, I have a lot of open time. And I have a comfy bed if nowhere else

ALL THAT SAID, I wanted to know if anybody used the LDS library app for reading and how that worked out. I figured if I can make time to read bits of fanfiction/otome apps every day, then I can try to read the scriptures every day. Also, is the app good for study? I know it's good for church use so will be good for casual reading but a big reason I haven't relied on it for daily reading is that I'm worried about relying on it for regular study

I mean, I've always been partial to physical books and scriptures (I can write in them and I like the heft and can use them even when headaches crop up) but I need to be realistic with myself. Sometimes I can't even get out of bed for hip pain and can't even prop myself up to read a physical copy. Plus, I do NOT want my kids (the buns for those of 6ou unaware) thinking it's something they can destroy cause we give them phone books and stuff to shred and scriptures are similar enough. But again, not sure if the app is good enough for me to kind of "retire" my scriptures so to speak. Especially since I really, really, REALLY like marking them and writing notes in them. I know there's a little notebook thing but, again, I've been reluctant to explore it because I was pretty sure there was no way it could be as good as physically writing

How does everyone else approach what to study too, by the way? Do y'all go "I will study what we are in Sunday school this year" or do you just eat up the BOM year after year instead? Do you switch it up from day to day just going wherever? Do you start with the ensign and work from there? Conference talks? Because that's technically scripture too, right? Also, would it be a good idea to maybe record my progress in my journal I use for scriptures and study maybe? Like the date, where I read from and to, maybe some quick notes? Or would that be too ambitious for now? I was thinking it would be good to see if I've been actually accomplishing reading every day and adjust accordingly if I wasn't. Maybe printing out a little calendar or chart and giving myself a cute little sticker as a reward for that day to mark my progress

Like the goal is to get myself to make this a habit. It has never ever been a habit for me and that definitely needs to change. Like I do read scriptures but never daily like we're told. I want to give myself as much opportunity for success as possible and, considering I'm 25, I clearly have yet to figure out what I need to do for success. I'd tried every day in the mornings in high school but needed to wake up at 430 to do that due to morning JROTC practice three days a week and seminary the other two. Then, who's going to wake up that early on the weekends to keep that kind of habit? Not a growing, anorexic, overscheduled teenager, that's who

Then, I'd have after school stuff. Drama, choir practice, viola practice, fencing, or karate depending on the year, piano practice/lesson every day except Sundays, JROTC stuff depending on time of year and if stuff was coming up, a MOUNTAIN of homework, and by the time all that was done, it wasn't like I was in any shape to do more studying. I wanted to play video games or draw or read or otherwise destress. Then, I was inactive in college so why would I go out of my way to form (let alone keep) a daily scripture habit

So do I go for a same time every single day type thing? I attribute the past failure of that to circumstance. A set time is fine when I have/remember to take my meds. But that will probably fall apart other days and habits are consistent things. Maybe I should aim for, instead of a time, more of a "as soon as I wake up, have had food and meds" type of flexible thing so I'm not beating myself up for sleeping in until noon when I meant to get up at 8? Or do y'all find later in the day better because you're not having to worry about the Rest Of The Day setting in on you? I'm thinking after me waking might be best so I'm not feeling guilty for taking time away from my family

Regarsing frequency, should I start with doing it as often as possible? Shoot for once a week then slowly increase it? Go whole hog and get it done daily even if it's just a couple minutes? I genuinely do not know. The year my family and I read the BOM every day together, I was in elementary and not doing too much. We did four chapters a day, more if they were short and less if they were long, but my parents really were the ones who dictated that so I don't really know how to do that myself

Anyway, I really want to make sure this goal sees success and then, in time to come, I can deepen it to be rigorous study rather than just reading every day. Thus all the questions. I also know different people are different and what may work for y'all may not work for me. But I would like real answers as to how y'all do your scripture habits as opposed to like Advice y'know? Like get real specific with it so I can have a good idea of what works for different people so I have a concrete idea of things to try

Nobody is obligated to answer any of these questions by the way. Just I wanted to ask them and throw this out there to all of tumblrstake so I could get a good range of answers. Daily scripture study is such a nebulous concept to me that I definitely need concrete examples as opposed to vague advice. Also no I'm not gonna pray about how to know how to do things. HF doesn't work like that. I mean I will pray for guidance to know when things are working or not but I can't do that until I'm actively Doing The Thing and how am I supposed to actively Do The Thing if I don't really even have a starting place

Like do I hit up the church website and comb through conference talk after conference talk about "read your scriptures daily" in hopes of finding a more practical how to? I'd think there would be less of that and more admonishing. I was also born in the church so idk if converts get some kind of lesson from the missionaries the rest of us don't about how to read daily. If so, can we like spread that to the general populous? Cause I would appreciate it

Anyway, sorry for the wall of text. Vann had Questions

Feel free to hit up my inboxes by the way. I do read everything even if some asks sit there for like months at a time because I never get around to answering them

#queerstake #tumblrstake #lds #scripture study #ask to tag #i think i got all the ones needed to try and get people seeing this in the tags to answer me questions #feel free to tell me how your family members study too #i need all the concrete answers i can get

9 notes · View notes

ergomaria · 4 years

Text

The Past is Gone (but something might be found) Preview Pt. III

Somehow, the text from the original post was deleted when I tried to edit the tags to make this easier to sort. I’ve restored it. Once again, I’m just posting this as a reminder that I’m alive and still trying to write!

PLOT: Vann, Meetra, and Carth touch the wrong thing at the wrong shrine and are turned into themselves at 18. Alek finds himself paying his penance to the Force when he has to simultaneously watch over the trio while trying to figure out how to restore them to their proper ages.

Now saddled with three teenagers and very few clues, Alek nodded in acquiescence as he trudged back towards the Hawk. Luckily, they were all fairly well behaved during the walk. Once they reached the ship the real fun began.

“So, do any of you know the codes to get back on the ship?”

There was a long bout of uncomfortable silence during which it became clear that no adult knowledge about the freighter had stuck with the teens. The worst part was that Alek did know the codes but couldn’t admit that fact without seeming suspicious. The next best option was to rewire the door panel and go from there.

“Alright, here’s a better question. Do any of you know how to rewire a hatch?”

Predictably, it was Deran who raised his hand. “Obviously I can, at least if I have the correct tools. Unfortunately, I don’t have my normal gear…”

The amount of places that Vann had broken into or out of during his search for the Star Forge still grated on Alek’s nerves. He knew for a fact there was a multitool tucked somewhere in that worn black jacket, but it was yet another fact he couldn’t openly share. “This might sound absurd, but everyone check your pockets. If your clothing originally belonged to spacers, and it looks like it did, the original owners may have left something useful behind.”

It was a risky gamble since there was always a chance that one of them had identifying documents on their person. But Alek was hoping they’d left those behind to perform a mission as covert as hiding a highly dangerous Sith holocron. Onasi’s civilian clothing was the best indicator that this might be the case. For once the Force was on his side and the search produced nothing but various odds and ends. An extra reload for the blasters, a few credits, a ration bar, a medpac, and finally a multitool that Vann had definitely purchased illegally.

Deran was predictably pleased to find the item and immediately set to work rewiring the door to his own ship. Meanwhile, Alek quietly filed that irony away for later. When the exit ramp slid open with a smooth hiss, Onasi practically cracked a tooth in his desperate attempt to not look impressed.

The inside of the Hawk was in partial disarray, though it was hard to tell if this was from whatever had transpired to turn three adults into teenagers or the mere fact that it was Vann’s ship and thus naturally full of clutter. Either way, the mess made it easier for Alek to order the teens to remain in the main hold where it was neater and theoretically ‘safer’ while he ‘checked’ the rest of the freighter. As soon as he was sure they would stay put, he moved into the cockpit to look for further clues.

Despite his tendency towards random piles of mechanical parts, Vann was absolutely fastidious when it came to researching locations and making notes about what he discovered. Before the original trip to Dromund Kaas he’d compiled an entire datapad full of files on the history of Sith purebloods, their laws, and their customs. While Nirauan had significantly less information recorded, there was still a pad with multiple paragraphs discussing the planet’s connection to both the Rakata Infinite Empire and the Force itself. It seemed that the crew was aiming to land near a series of suspected Rakata ruins that had a notable presence.

Datapad in hand, Alek peeked into the main hold to inform his charges of his next step. “Just so you’re aware, I think I found a series notes mentioning that this planet has a strange connection to the Force. I don’t know if it has anything to do with your current situation, but we can’t rule it out. I have a friend who might be able to untangle the few clues we currently have, so I’m going to comm her using the ship’s unit. Just wait here until I’m done.”

“Is she a Jedi?” Meetra was sprawled across two seats looking dangerously bored.

“She was at one time, but she’s since left the Order. However, she’s very knowledge about certain subjects and I feel that her input will be extremely helpful.” One of the subjects she had a great deal of experience with was being a Force prodigy and another was ancient artifacts from the Infinite Empire, currently making her the galaxy’s only authority on the situation. When there were no further questions, Alek hurried away to contact Rakata Base in the hope of begging Bastila for assistance.

“Vann?” The young woman’s face immediately darkened when she saw who was on the other end of the call. “Why are you there and where is Vann?”

“I’m here because Meetra contacted me when there was a complication with their current mission,” Alek hissed as quietly as possible. Noting the concern that immediately overtook Bastila’s face he assured her, “Everyone is healthy. I hesitate to say ‘fine’ because, well… Somehow, through a combination of some Rakta ruins and a Sith holocron, all three members of this crew are currently teenagers with no memories of their adult selves. I’d estimate them between seventeen and nineteen, if I had to guess.”

The incredulous glare was absolutely scathing. “You’ve picked a poor time to develop a sense of humor.”

“Why in Sith hells would I joke about this? I currently have three teenagers in the hold of this damn ship who are convinced that I’m a Jedi Sentinel named Naver who happened to sense a disturbance in the Force. Since it’s blatantly clear that my creativity it lacking, you can be sure that I couldn’t make this bantha fodder up if I tried!”

“Dustil, can you please come here? Our former ‘master’ is on the comm and he believes that he’s being hilarious. Perhaps you can convince him to tell me what’s really going on.”

“What the hells is going on now, Malak?” The younger Onai looked supremely irritated, which actually mirrored how Alek was currently feeling.

“That’s not my name.”

Appearing unbothered by the correction, Dustil sneered for a moment before snapping, “What kinrath nest did Vann get my dad into this time?”

“Oh, did he not tell you? Supposedly through the will of the Force, Vann, Meetra, and your father are now teenagers with no memory of their adult lives.” Bastila looked equally unamused. “Funny, yes?”

“Hi-kriffing-larious.”

Alek was about two second from hanging up and hoping that Rand would be more helpful, if only to get Meetra back into her proper body, when a slender figure crept into the room just within view of the comm unit.

“Um, Knight Naver, I apologize for bothering you but…”

There was a loud pop of static from the other end of the comm, which turned out to be Bastila covering the microphone with her hand so that she could curse for about thirty seconds straight.

“Yes, Deran? I was actually just telling me friend Bastila a bit about you and the others in the hope that she’d be willing to assist us in figuring out what happened. Perhaps you’d like to speak with her about your current situation? It could be useful.”

It was hard to tell who was more bewildered by the entire scenario. Luckily, Deran’s natural curiosity quickly took hold and he slipped over to the console and situated himself before the camera. “Hello, Bastila was it? What did you want to ask me?”

“Oh stars…” The young woman was doing a poor job of disguising her surprise, though she still managed to stutter, “I apologize for my lack of manners. You just… remind me of someone I know. No matter. Actually, Deran, I was just wondering how, ah, how old you are.”

“You really aren’t a Jedi, are you? Sorry, that was rude. It’s just… everyone in the Order always seems to know everything about me. But uh, I turned eighteen a few months ago.”

“Two years before Knighthood…”

“Bastila, be careful. You don’t want to scare the boy!” While it was technically true that Deran became the youngest Knight in the order at age twenty, that wasn’t information his eighteen-year old self knew. It wasn’t until nineteen that his trials actually began.

Plastering on a false smile, the young woman quickly stammered, “That’s just a guess on my part. Though, of course, I could be wrong. It’s not like I can see the future and you’re so very… young.”

Unfortunately, just the mention of Knighthood had made Deran’s back go stiff, his jaw ticking in the corner even as his expression remained stoic and proper. “Well, that’s for the Council to decide. They know best.” Even at this age he sounded thoroughly unconvinced. “What else do you want to ask me?”

“That’s… that’s it.” Turning to Alek, Bastila stated, “I believe you and I’ll do whatever I can to help. Just tell me what you need.”

“I’ll send you all of the data I have in a minute. Let me just find out what brought Deran in here in the first place.”

“I came in to let you know that Carth and Meetra left the ship. They said that they got tired of waiting for you and decided to explore on their own.” The teen winced slightly. “Also, they may have been flirting? I’m not always great at telling that type of stuff, but it’s possible they just went to go and… you know.”

The snort of hysterics from Dustil was all the confirmation that Alek needed to know that this entire situation was his punishment from the Force. Part of him considered letting Meetra and Onasi do whatever they wanted. Someone else could deal with the fallout. But he also needed to get Deran out of the room to prevent him from snooping. “I’m concerned that they’re going to get themselves into trouble. There are some very powerful ruins on this planet and I’d hate for them to make the current situation even more complicated. Can I trust you to find them and bring them back safely?”

It was an underhanded ploy. Alek was fully aware that Deran’s facade of teenage bravado combined with his crippling fear of failure would make him agree to almost any task without question. But the former Sith didn’t have time to chase two teenagers down, all while trying to keep a third from learning that he was currently speaking with his own kriffing Padawan.

As expected, Deran immediately nodded. “Of course. I’ll bring them back as quickly as possible.”

It wasn’t until the teen’s footfalls disappeared off the ship that Alek sat down with a sigh, his head pounding from the sheer mental acrobatics required to keep this situation moving forward. As he uploaded the information from Vann’s datapad he grumbled, “For Force sake, Dustil. I thought your father would be the responsible one!”

The damned kid was still laughing. “Just checking, but is Meetra the teenager as pretty as Meetra the adult? Big blue eyes and wavy blonde hair?”

Attempting to be objective about the attractiveness of someone who was like a sister to him, Alek shrugged. “I suppose? She was more petite at this age, almost willowy. I honestly think she looks better with some muscle. Less delicate.”

“I don’t care either way, it’s just… My dad kinda has a type. Or, at least he did at that point in his life. My mom was petite with wavy, honey-brown hair. They met when he was twenty.”

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

“Nope, you can look up the files for Morgana Onasi if you want. I um, I have. Just to see her, you know? It helps me to remember her face…” Shaking away his melancholy, Dustil cleared his throat. “Ah, anyway, at eighteen my Dad was really responsible when it came to official things. Training and studying? He was incredibly dedicated. But when he had time to himself he kind of… let loose. Nothing really bad, just a lot of drinking and fooling around with his fellow cadets. Put a bunch of bored, horny teenagers in the same dorm and stuff happens.”

Alek had lived in the Jedi dormitories during puberty and was well aware of what could happen. He winced.

“The good news is that my dad definitely liked men at that age as well… Please don’t ask how I know this. It was a really awkward conversation that only happened because I got mad at him and… ugh. But the good news is that he might rediscover how amazing Vann is. He is really great at this age, right?”

“He’s actually an anxious mess who likes to pretend he’s confident, which just comes off as arrogance. It doesn’t help that he’s actually good at whatever he does. Honestly, I think your father currently wants to throttle him.”

“Ouch. Well, maybe they’ll lose all memory of this once they get restored to their actual ages!”

“We can only hope the Force is that kind.” Rubbing his forehead, Alek asked, “Bastila, have you looked over those files I sent?”

“I’m reading them now and I’ll run them through the Rakata archives when I’m done. But you should be aware that, while we have a significant amount of information on the Infinite Empire, we don’t have much else. Vann tries to update what he can, but it’s still nothing compared to what the Jedi possess.”

“Do your best, it’s still more than I have access to on this ship.”

“I do have an idea, but you’re not going to like it one bit.” Upon noting Alek’s hopeful expression, Bastila sighed...

#kotor 2 #kotor 2 fanfic #wip excerpt #revan #male Revan #vann chis #The Jedi Exile #Female exile #Alek Squinquargesimus #Malak #bastila shan #dustil onasi #my writing #not perfection but completeness

8 notes · View notes

vannral · 3 months

Text

Sarah sucks her top lip against her teeth, her mouth pinched into a tight line.

”Tom,” she says, ”you know you raised that kid with Maverick. When Carole died, when Bradley got in trouble, you and Maverick made it work and made him feel safe and loved. He was your kid. Yours and Maverick’s.”

Ice’s throat burns to welts. Everything is spiraling out of control.

It’s true. Bradley was. Is. His and Maverick’s scrawny, awkward kid with a toothy grin and baseball games and scraped knees and passion for music and flying and his cap askew on his curls and Ice loves him like he’s his own flesh and blood.

”And what happened with his papers, you backed Maverick.”

”He’s my wingman, we were trying to protect him,” Ice rasps, terribly low and raw. Wingman. Partner. Best friend.

(ice knows he'll go to terrifying lengths for maverick, no hesitation - )

He knew it before. He knew the first shift of it in ’86 when he watched Maverick fall apart and collapse under the brutal weight of his grief.

It's been twenty years now.

And that's still their kid.

#icemav #i'm very emotional about them raising brad #that's THEIR KID #top gun #top gun 1986 #tom iceman kazansky #pete maverick mitchell #vann writes stuff

338 notes · View notes

jenny-dreadful · 5 years

Text

tagged by @kaelvas (thanks!)

rules– answer 21 questions and then tag 21 people who you want to get to know better

nickname(s): other than like, the stuff my mom calls all of us? nothin

zodiac sign: taurus

height: 5′0”

last movie I saw: last in a theater would be Spiderverse. not sure what i saw last period tho

last thing I googled: “baby tiefling” ...don’t @ me i’m CHARACTER BUILDING

favourite musician: i REFUSE to dignify this question with a response. but generally speaking, at the moment, i’m very into pop music that’s upbeat and energetic without being too loud ykwim

song stuck in my head: The Killers - Just Another Girl

other blogs: all of em are really defunct, but there’s @glorifymediocrity @mightymorphinpowerpets @zaftighobbit and @imaginehannibal

following: 351

followers: 709

amount of sleep: VARIES WILDLY

lucky numbers: idk about lucky but i like primes and multiples of five and multiples of three

what I’m wearing: Hot Pink Nightgown, Bimch

dream job: man i did not come here to talk about my life path issues but like IDEALLY i’d be getting paid to write my nonsense

dream trip: i’d like to tour like, scotland/ireland/wales, but i also just. really like the idea of shacking up in a nice cabin up on the Sound for a week or two but lbr lbr that is more of a “honeymoon” concept than a “trip”

favourite food: i am BASIC and love a nice sloppy PIZZA but also. good fish and chips? An Pineapple? there’s a lot of directions to take this

instruments: VOICE and LAPSED MIDDLE-SCHOOL CLARINET

languages: ENGLISH and LAPSED HIGH-SCHOOL LATIN

favorite songs: currently? the high kings - galway girl; bastille - weight of living, pt. 1; jack johnson - if i could; my chemical romance - bulletproof heart; dua lipa - new rules; the narrative - castling; fall out boy - the last of the real ones

random fact: i think about several people all the time but know i won’t be able to sustain a conversation so i just. don’t say anything. i wish there was a socially acceptable way to say, hey i love u and i’m thinking about u but i just can’t talk to you right now and it’s a me thing.

aesthetic: evergreen forests backed up to gray beaches. moss. being carried away in a fairy tale. walking barefoot in the rain, alone in the dark, pushing down worry. days logged snuggling. a basket full of wild berries. classic clothing. a fistful of d4. the smell of brine on the air. dim aquarium light.

tagging: 21 is a lot but ok ok @thundercaya @captainhelion @i-peed-so-hard-i-laughed @j-the-latter-gay-saint @officialjeffgoldblum @vann-haal @andhumanslovedstories @alltheladiesyouhate @ghostcongregation @hollyblueagate @jacobtheloofah @latining @curioscurio @incomprehensiblelentils @toospoopyformyshirt @silvertide @oceanfae @apeironaxiomaton @corvidcall @phoenixflorid @blessedlunatic

and PLEASE anybody else who wants to, u just didn’t come up in my suggestions when i typed @ and a letter or in my most recent notes, please do one if you want!

7 notes · View notes

covertius-fic · 6 years

Text

200,000 word monster canon-divergent au I do not have the skills to write

The canon diverges post-Charcy in the tent scene

The scene goes forward mostly canon from “I’ve come to tell you who I am” “I know who you are” on, but when Laurent demands Delpha, Damen finds the strength to call his bluff. He’s not going to bribe Laurent with territorial concessions to make him accept what is already a mutually-beneficial alliance: Laurent promised once that he would not try to make Damen work against the interests of his own country, and just because he’s willing to break that promise now doesn’t mean that Damen has to let him. Laurent can accept an alliance in which Vere and Akielos are equal beneficiaries, or he can do without the alliance altogether.

Laurent did not expect this, he completely thought that Damen was so unwilling to let go of whatever was happening between them that he would accept any conditions to see it through, but just because he was bluffing doesn’t mean that he’s any less determined to follow through with what he said, so without Delpha, Laurent rejects the alliance and Damen takes his half of the army and leaves.

He commands his men not attack or harass any of Laurent’s men should they come across them, as they are fighting a common enemy, but they fight along parallel, not conjoined, lines and they do so separately.

This separation Costs Damen. But not as much as you’d expect - not fatally so. He’s still the best military commander and strategist in a century. No, Laurent’s not there to help him secure Makedon, but Makedon’s issue was being forced to work with/for Laurent in the first place so with him out of the picture there’s no tension to resolve. It plays out more as a straightforward, prolonged military campaign. Winning back the territory is more damaging to Akielon lands and people and takes longer, but Damen still achieves it. Each new territory he conquers, he gains soldiers as men desert to rally round the banner of the true king. Kastor’s forces are dwindling.

Without Laurent’s help, Damen has to make more concessions to Jokaste to secure the safety of the baby that could be his son or his nephew than he wants to, but Jokaste is less an enemy than he thinks so it actually turns out sort of OK.

Without the alliance to mess with, the Regent switches tactics: instead of destroying Veretian villages and making it look like Akielon atrocities, he destroys Akielon villages with men he’s hired to wear the starburst. Damen is not fooled and insists that Laurent would not do that to civilians and this is the Regent’s treachery. Makedon and Nikandros are unconvinced, but it’s a slower burning anger because hey, at least they’re still fighting Veretians, right? So it doesn’t come to a head until after Jokaste is with them and she manages to find proof that all is as Damen insists.

He still won’t sleep with her, though, even after she proves so helpful. She did not expect this?

But anyway, slowly but surely, the Akielons are winning battles.

The same cannot be said for Laurent, who, it turns out, needed Damen’s military/strategic mind and the Akielon troops slightly more than Damen needed his twisty mind and the Veretian troops. Oops.

He does a bunch of brilliant things and has many last-ditch escapes, but finally he misses something and gets caught in one of his uncle’s traps, arrested with his men scattered. He’s put on trial and about to be executed when word comes that Damianos’s army has moved faster than expected and everything screeches to a halt so Kastor and the Regent’s combined forces can defend the city of Ios.

A lot of lives are lost and valuable Akielon buildings and cultural artifacts are destroyed in the fighting, but Damen wins. Most of Kastor’s troops defect once they see the way the wind is blowing, and Nikandros gets to kill Kastor like he’s probably always wanted to.

Problem: the Regent survived the battle and he and the Council want to head back to Vere with Laurent still in chains to execute him for treason there. Damen wants to kill the Regent and install Laurent on the throne while they’re still in Akielos, which as the whole Council and Nikandros point out, constitutes a soft takeover of Vere. Damen makes a slightly toned down version of his canon-speech to convince the Council that they are wrong about Laurent; Laurent appeals to Loyse and she steps forward with her canon testimony. When that fails to sway the Council, Paschal, who did not see the point of doing so before but is now bold with an army behind him, produces his evidence. The Council, both swayed by the evidence and realizing this is the only way they will get to leave Ios alive now that it’s been retaken, switch sides and Damen gets to execute the Regent so he’s nice and dead before they even go back to Vere.

But there’s 80,000 words left, what’s going on?!

As the Council and Laurent prepare to depart, he and Damen have some talks where they work through the death of Auguste and Damen explicitly apologizes for the pain he’s caused Laurent. The sword fighting scene gets re-inserted here, and a lot of their canon-conversations end up taking place with slightly altered context. “You told the Council I was a good man,” Laurent says, during the last of these, when they’ve worked through a lot of stuff and Laurent and the Veretians are about to leave. “You are,” Damen says, “I did not think so at first, but through the campaign on the border, I came to know your heart. You are one of the best men I’ve had the privilege to know, and you will be a great king to your people.” “Damianos,” Laurent says, the first time he’s ever said his name, almost wonderingly, “My strongest ally.”

“Always your ally and always your friend,” Damen says. But his time apart from Laurent has given him the space to deal with things a bit better than the “Damen had barely acknowledged what Laurent had done to him while it was happening” that he gets in the canon, so he goes on. “I know that you are a good man. But that does not erase what you did to me when you had the power and I did not, or make those things between us matter less. We cannot be to each other what we once pretended we could.” He extends his hand. “Still, you will always have a friend in Akielos, our brother of Vere.” Laurent shakes it, and goes home.

But being back in Vere without Damen is ... awful. He looks up from paperwork a dozen times a day to get the opinion of his Akielon slave, who is not there. He can barely enter a room in his own court without thinking, “This is where I forced him into the ring,” or “This is where I was when I decided how I would have him whipped,” or “This is where he dared to say no to sex with Ancel and I had it forced on him to humiliate and punish him.”

He has no friends, or even supporters on whom he can wholly rely. Lazar died in one of the battles; Jord survived, but he’s never managed to completely forgive him for Aimeric; he can’t look at Berenger and Vannes without remembering them standing there and watching, doing nothing to stop him from having Damen assaulted, and hating himself so much that he hates them too.

Plus he keeps hearing word from Akielos, Damianos doing some foolish noble thing like freeing the slaves, but going about it in that pig-headed, heavy-handed Akielon way. He’s spending all his political capital and it’s so frustrating, Laurent just knows the right way to do it, what he would say if he was there to advise him, but he’s not, all he can do is watch helplessly and -

And his bed is cold all of a sudden, after years. He never minded being alone in it before, but one night - a single night - with the one who should have been his enemy and all he can think about is how good it felt and how empty his life feels now without it and what he would give to have Damen back in his life, to hear his stupid honorable advice and not be so frightened of turning into a tyrant like his uncle because someone would be there to yell at him when he crossed a line and most of all to get to roll over in the morning and have that one-dimple smile be the first thing he sees as he starts his day and -

Obviously, he needs to find a way to earn his forgiveness and get Damen back in his life again, on any terms.

Let the courting of King Damianos commence ...

#captive prince #my writing #canon divergent au

68 notes · View notes

valhrafns-nest · 5 years

Text

Modern Paganism - Runes

Runes are a focal point of modern paganism, since they portrait a certain mysticism sought after by many, especially by those of the esoteric variety: Ancient symbols of a long gone ancestral culture, imbued with great symbolism and power. But are they really that laden with symbolism, are they really what many today perceive them to be?

The short answer is No. The biggest problem, in my opinion, stems from the often completely nonsensical usage of runes and interpretations that are not backed by our current scientific understanding of Old Norse culture. So, for starters, I’d like to give a brief history of runes and clear up some very common misconceptions.

A Brief History of Runes

The earliest runes finds that we have are from the 2nd century CE and stem from the area around southern Scandinavia and northern Germania. They are not some genious or gods-given invention, but are rather most likely derived from the latin script, although some scholars still think it might have been derived from the estruscan script. In any event, they are probably, as Düwel suggests, the creation of one or few skilled individuals, that sought to recreate writing for their own culture, while forming their sources into something of their own, from their own culture. Why they didn’t just adapt the latin script is unclear, but some suggest that it might have been to create stronger cultural identity to distance themselves from Rome. In the 2nd and 3rd century, these runes spread first throughtout germanic Settlements in Northern Europe and then throughout the whole of Germania, leaving finds even in my home state of Bavaria. This script was used utterly differently from the way the romans wrote. Whereas in Rome, people wrote a lot of things down, literacy was relatively high for the time – still very low to our standards, but still way higher than anywhere else in Europe -, literature existed not only in oral tradition, but was also recorded; the germanic people on the other hand used their script only in a epigraphic way, meaning small inscriptions with either pragmatic use: Declaration of ownership, memorials, recording of certain events on public stones; or “magical”: invocation of certain gods, invocation of powers (e.g. writing “fly” on a spear to make it fly farther when thrown), etc., with the magical ones being the earliest examples. (see Alu)

As the Northern Germanic dialects of Proto-Germanic began to form a own language, Old Norse, the runes began to change with the language, though not in a way that makes a lot of sense. While normally alphabets tend to get bigger when new sounds get introduced into a language, the set of runes used got a lot smaller in the Scandinavian region, while the Old English futhorc stayed more like Elder Futhark, while adding some new runes to fit the sounds of the language. The Younger Futhark contains 16 instead of the original 24 runes, with some runes like *perthro having had fallen out of use for at least 300 years because of the rarity of certain sounds, some changing into easier forms, like hagall. The new runic futhark was rather hard to read and still only used epigraphically, but in a greater extend than before, upgrading from around 350 finds for Elder Futhark to around 6,000 for Younger Futhark. Runecarving was a profession, as attested by some stones, and not an easy one, judging by the hard writing rules and by some badly made copies of runestones with nonsensical texts that also date back to the timeperiod – 8th/9th .- 12th century. When texts were written, no runes where to be repeated, even between words since word separators where not the norm. Also, runes articuled in the same region of the mouth were very often left out. To see what this means in practice, let’s have a small lesson in rune transliteration and then translation.

(Source: http://www.megalithic.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=a312&file=index&do=showpic&pid=50955) We’ll take the Side A of the famous Jelling stone as an example. The runes themselves look like this:

ᚼᛅᚱᛅᛚᛏᚱ ᛬ ᚴᚢᚾᚢᚴᛦ ᛬ ᛒᛅᚦ ᛬ ᚴᛅᚢᚱᚢᛅ ᚴᚢᛒᛚ ᛬ ᚦᛅᚢᛋᛁ ᛬ ᛅᚠᛏ ᛬ ᚴᚢᚱᛘ ᚠᛅᚦᚢᚱ ᛋᛁᚾ ᛅᚢᚴ ᛅᚠᛏ ᛬ ᚦᚭᚢᚱᚢᛁ ᛬ ᛘᚢᚦᚢᚱ ᛬ ᛋᛁᚾᛅ ᛬ ᛋᛅ ᚼᛅᚱᛅᛚᛏᚱ (᛬) ᛁᛅᛋ ᛬ ᛋᚭᛦ ᛫ ᚢᛅᚾ ᛫ ᛏᛅᚾᛘᛅᚢᚱᚴ

When converted to latin characters, they look like this.

haraltr : kunukʀ : baþ : kaurua kubl : þausi : aft : kurm faþur sin auk aft : þąurui : muþur : sina : sa haraltr (:) ias : sąʀ * uan * tanmaurk

This is not Old Norse, or any language at all really. We need to apply our knowledge of the runes and the way they were written to get to Old Norse text. A first step would be, for example, to realize that voiceless and voiced consonants were not differentiated when written, so we need to apply some Old Norse language to these words and see what could be the words meant. After a while, you will get something like this, if you speak Old Norse:

haraldr kunugr bað kaurua kubl þausi aft gurm faður sin auk aft þąurui muður sina sa haraldr ias sąʀ uan danmaurk

This looks quite better, let’s continue! Now we look at names, that we might recognize. We know the stone was set by King Harald Bluetooth, whose parents were names Gorm and Þorvi, so we realize, that ᚢ can be u, but also o, as can ąu. ᚢ can also stand for w/v, (double u). So the text looks like this now:

haraldr kunugr bað kaurua kubl þausi aft gorm faður sin auk aft þorvi muður sina sa haraldr ias sąʀ uan danmaurk

After this, some hard Old Norse is needed: kunugr is konungr (n left out because of the g, which is articulated in the same position), kaurua is gørva, kubl is kumbl (m and b are articulated at the same position, the lips), sin is sinn (masculine form), muður is móðir, ias is es (vowels are rather randomly put in most inscriptions, as there was not uniform writing standard), saR is sér, uan is vann, danmaurk is danmǫrk. Auk is ok, since vowels are often weird in Old East Norse inscriptions. Also aft is aftr Adding lenghts, the full sentence is now:

Haraldr konungr bað gørva kumbl þausi aftr Gorm, faður sinn, ok aftr Þórvi móður sina. Sá Haraldr es sér vann Danmörk.

This means: King Haraldr bade to construct this memorial after (in honor of) Gorm, his father and Þórvi, his mother. (It was) this Haraldr, that had won Denmark for himself… (the sentencce continues on the other sides of the runestone.)

In conclusion, the runes were never (apart from one attempt in the middle ages to write laws down like that, but it didn’t catch on, see Codex Runicus) used in a traditional, literarical way, but were rather a way for some elite class of runemasters and local rulers to record stuff, mark ownership or use “magic”. Full disclaimer: I don’t go into everything and focus strongly on Scandinavia, since I didn’t want to write a full novel. If you’d like to know more in depth, please refrain from using popular, often wrong sources, especially on the internet, and instead look at books from the likes of Düwel: Web Archive: Rune Bibliography.

Runes today

When you look at runes in the modern age, many people attribute a lot of things besides their names to them, but let me be clear in this:

A whole lot of these interpretation are based on NOTHING but the writers imagination.

There are very few things we know for certain: We know the names of the runes from Old Norse and Old English rune poems from the late middle ages, which were written down in christian times, making these an uncertain source since runes had been out of use for a long while by then. From these names, we can reconstruct the names of the Elder Futhark, but we know nothing for certain in that period. We know that they most likely knew the names of the runes and used them seldom as placeholders for words, e.g. ᛟ as short for *othala, meaning estate, heritage, inheritance. Beyond that, we have no sources as to what runes were associated with. While the edda contains some references to runes, it is hard to attribute certain meanings to specific runes.

What does this mean for modern paganism? It means that most of what is “taught” about runes today is just flat out fantasy with no basis in tradition, with runes being treated like magic, while ignoring their historic background. While I don’t personally believe in magic, I don’t judge those that do. What I do mind is passing of some New Age interpretation of these runes off as some ancient wisdom, while those interpretations aren’t even 200 years old. If you see meaning in these symbols beyond what we know about them, if you feel they represent something bigger, I will not discourage you, I even think so myself, but please keep in mind, that this is your interpretation and not something based in what we know about the ancestors.

There is a lot of misinformation disguised as truth out there, and I highly encourage you to stick to scientific, modern sources when trying to learn about runes. I leave you with the pagan sounds of Sowulo and bid thee farewell, until next we meet. Verið blessuð. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLK0WNnzTY4

#asatru #runes #history #philology #literature #heathenry #heathen #nonsense

1 note · View note