dinosaursarepeopletoo

[snailpaste]

Astarion Name Meaning

Ancient Greek

ἀστήρ (astḗr)‎ -- meaning "star"*.

There are a few different possible configurations regarding "-ion" in Ancient Greek, but only two that work in this context:

-ίον (-íon) -- A noun-forming diminutive suffix, indicating smallness. In this case it would mean "Little/Small Star" giving us ἀστήρίον

-ῑ́ων (-ī́ōn) -- patronymic suffix meaning "son of". In this case it would mean "son of [the] Star". As -ῑ́ων is primarily an Epic suffix, the meaning could be extended as poetic to mean "Son of [the] Stars". Which gives us ἀστήρῑ́ων

*(Likely from Proto-Indo-European *h₂e(h₁)s- meaning to burn/to glow, ultimately from the root *h₂eh₁- which was found on Palaic tablets)

[hercarisntyours]

greek mythology nerding out over the connections with elita and orion (they aren't good ones in greek mythology terms but still indulge me)

so like obviously Elita combines into Orthia yada yada yeah BUT ORTHIA AND ARTEMIS HAVE CONNECTIONS IN GREEK MYTHOLOGY (there's a lot to it but in summary Orthia = Artemis blah blah same person) and I'm sure everyone knows that Artemis is Orion's (supposed) lover

SO BASICALLY ELITA IS ORTHIA WHO IS ARTEMIS WHO'S LOVER IS *ORION*

[chicago-geniza]

Wait. Guys. Was "Fido" the archetypal pet dog name during the 19th and early 20th century because of fucking. Latin. Your dog is your loyal and trusted companion. Sorry I saw a postcard from that period with a cute caption referring to the lady's lapdog as "Fido" and am just out of it enough on Benadryl to Realize

[agp]

started flipping tables in my head again like those old rage comics cause cbc published another article on solidarity with palestinians that presents 'from the river to the sea' as a call for the ethnic cleansing of jewish people, but that 'its meaning and use is more complicated'. ill click the link on the part of the sentence that says 'experts told cbc' (its complicated) when i feel like flipping tables again but in the meantime lets try working with one instead of dropping the whole thing.

from the river to the sea palestine will be free from jews is an antisemitic position, one that is no different from the same calls for the ethnic cleansing of jewish people antisemites around the world call for in their own countries. a problem arises in that israel benefits from antisemitism in what it maintains as diasporas, antisemites and zionists have worked together for over a century to tie jewish people to this particular colony in palestine, and the notion of jewish people as necessarily foreigners wherever they may be maintains its legitimacy specifically through the exception that is israel.

to belong somewhere is too often not to belong elsewhere, and in the case of zionism, belonging is employed in a way that existentially ties the struggle against antisemitism, the ongoing genocidal process that targets jewish people, with zionism, the ongoing settler colonial process that targets palestinian land and produces a genocidal relationship between its settlers and indigenous people. for jewish people not to belong 'here' and not to 'belong nowhere', they must 'belong somewhere', and for them to 'truly belong' (the american way), they must put into question the belonging of everyone only to fall back on settler bourgeois property relations. that is why the right to return of palestinians is something zionists refuse to concede to, and fundamentally can not: because the unbelonging of palestinians from their land is a necessary function of israeli sovereignty, through the colonial establishment of bourgeois property rights.

the violence capital has wrought on the body of the earth has been given a special attribution to jewish people for a long time. so called socialists have historically tempted to solve the contradictions of capital by means of scapegoating jewish people. the violence committed in the name of israel is not uniquely jewish in character: it is colonial, imperialist, capitalist violence being committed by people who are jewish. even though israel is a product of global antisemitism and a pervasive cultivated desire in the west to expel jews, the israeli economy and its settler bourgeois property relations is its material raison d'etre, and this, again, is not uniquely jewish, it is simply another segment of the bourgeoisie being bourgeois. what one calls a national bourgeoisie

from the river to the sea palestine will be free. from apartheid. from genocide. from settler colonialism. from imperialism. from capitalism. but right now it is not. the sun will set on israel one day, just like canada and the us, just like the so called thousand year reich that only lasted a handful of years because of its imperialist colonial and genocidal relationship to its volk, lebensraum, and whoever and whatever was next door.

to fill the gap of 'what does freedom involve' with 'the ethnic cleansing of jewish people' shouldnt be considered more reasonable when the topic is israel and palestine. it should be rejected as an antisemitic position, and yet it is so often being presented not only as a reasonable conclusion but as the only way it could be. as common sense. of course freedom means kill the jews, and to question this is the real antisemitism. of course this is all the palestinians could ever mean by freedom

when mel gibson was screaming about freedom in that movie do you think it was about getting back to committing pogroms? that jewish presence was his characters real problem with the english? idk ive never seen it but why would it necessarily be the case with israel and palestine? there being a greater need to expel jews because there are a higher proportion of jews is just antisemitic reasoning. it being a colony that is so jewish it explicitly considers itself as such shouldnt be a reason for us to implicate every jewish person globally as a collective in punishment and further buy into and reproduce zionist propaganda.

to abolish israel would not only liberate palestinians, it would also liberate jewish people from zionist claims of an existential relationship to apartheid in palestine. to believe that without zionism jewish people could not culturally or biologically survive is to take the zionist claim regarding existentiality and colonialism to those degrees.

the liberation of palestine is historically inevitable. it will happen. this process necessarily involving the ethnic cleansing of jewish people is an antisemitic lie that serves a dual function: rejection of palestinian resistance based on essentialist claims of antisemitism and rejection of antisemitism based on essentialist claims of zionist interest. zionism puts the interests of jews and palestinians in conflict, and only a free palestine can allow for actual jewish safety there.

from the river to the sea palestine will be free from collective punishment. but right now it is not. palestinians are experiencing genocide at the hands of israel and its supporters. the end of apartheid is a historical necessity: it will eventually happen. you cannot stop it from collapsing, only delay it. israels days are numbered, just like canada and the us. every day without a ceasefire is another particular form of breath of existence for israel, and another set of breaths taken away from palestinians. ceasefire now.

[eliounora]

quick doodle of my oc, haru! I’ve changed her character quite a bit recently

[musula]

what are you thinking about rn

how i'm gonna come up with words for my conlang, i have a word for setting something on fire but not "eye"

[coquelicoq]

In talking about Chaucer (p. 74), I said that, in general, puns and verbal connections of sound were unimportant and not to be sought out; and now, you will say, I have been using them to explain cruces in Shakespeare. Alas, you have touched on a sore point; this is one of the less reputable aspects of our national poet. A quibble is to Shakespeare [Johnson could not but confess] what luminous vapours are to the traveller; he follows it at all adventures; it is sure to lead him out of his way and sure to engulf him in the mire. It has some malignant power over his mind.... A quibble was for him the fatal Cleopatra for whom he lost the world, and was content to lose it. Nor can I hold out against the Doctor, beyond saying that life ran very high in those days, and that he does not seem to have lost the world so completely after all. It shows lack of decision and will-power, a feminine pleasure in yielding to the mesmerism of language, in getting one's way, if at all, by deceit and flattery, for a poet to be so fearfully susceptible to puns. Many of us could wish the Bard had been more manly in his literary habits, and I am afraid the Sitwells are just as bad.

William Empson, 7 Types of Ambiguity, ch 2 pp 100-101

i'm sorry this is so fucking funny. that pathetic loser shakespeare who loved puns so much it cost him everything, except of course his status as the most famous, most read, most immortal english-language author of all time. but everything else, he lost and it's all because of how weak he was to resist a pun :/ pouring one out for my sad little girly man who could have had it all if only he was better at writing, the thing he is the most famous guy in the world for.

even empson, who disagrees with johnson that shakespeare "lost the world", is like, too bad our favorite poet is susceptible to the thing that made him famous :/ really tragic that the guy whose wordplay we've been talking about for 300 years likes wordplay :///

also i can't get over writing a book about the types of ambiguity and NOT INCLUDING PUNS?? sorry but puns are ambiguous! that's where their juice comes from! imagine liking ambiguity so much you write a book about it but never mention puns except to dunk on them. imagine being a POET and POETRY CRITIC who looks down on sound-based ambiguity! could not be me!!

[derpinette]

that chilling feeling when you find out that words from your language are being used abroad casually as slang in strange ways o_0

[thatscarletflycatcher]

Once in a while I'm sad about an expression that doesn't exist in Spanish. Then I remember how the so hated Spanish Royal Academy has made concerted efforts ever since it came into existence to sustain and fortify the cohesion between written and spoken Spanish, and that they have a complete dictionary, accessible for free through both desktop and app (a free, no ads, no paywall app, may I add) which includes etymologies, regional definitions (and where specifically do they apply), and idioms. And the feeling goes away.

[journeytojaburo]

I didn't think luna II was ever gonna get mentioned again

[vvatchword]

Who We Were

Although bruised and dazed, Eleanor didn’t wait for anyone. Their eyes burned on her. Sinclair’s mouth opened—he was going to ask her what had happened—

She squeezed her eyes shut and popped into being at Delta’s side—but he was still running. He flew past her in a flash. She chased him with her mind. He was running the perimeter of the fence, flying across a deer path he walked every day.

She flung out her arm, she reached into his brain, and she clamped down. She didn’t have an intent; nor had she scouted out the lay of his thoughts before she dug her tendrils in. She should have; she knew she should have; she knew better. Some regulatory barrier of his had broken loose, and when she squeezed down, she could feel it snap free entirely. She could feel him hit the ground skidding, even from 300 meters away.

She was at his side in a second. He lay spasming under a tree, kicking in mad circles, hands digging into his scalp as though attempting to bore into his own brain. Calming him was like trying to put a lid on a volcano. The fury inside was directionless, horrified, alien. The minute Delta felt her influence, he screamed, and to her shock, it was in someone else’s voice entirely.

Who the fuck are you? he asked. Where am I? What’s going on?

Eleanor’s mouth fell open, for he mouthed what he was saying at her as though he still had a tongue. He was spitting all over the ground.

Calm down! she said. It’s me, Eleanor!

Get me out of here! he said. Oh my god, they’re coming! Shit! Shit!

A far-off crunching, crackling sound, and someone calling out: the Sisters and their families were entering the woods.

He curled into a ball, dug his toes into the loam. He had writhed so violently that his shirt and swimming shorts had twisted half-off. He no longer made any sound, but there was ungodly screaming inside of him—a mind-boggling despair, an all-consuming self-loathing.

“Daddy!” Eleanor said. “Calm down! You’re safe! I’m here!”

I hate you! he said. I hate you! I hate you!

His jaw was moving, his lips were shaping sounds, but all that came out of his mouth were whining, moaning noises pitching up and down. Eleanor stared down in utter horror. His face wasn’t only expressive—it was someone else’s. Delta had never looked like this. Eleanor released him.

To her relief, he stayed there, rocking back and forth. He was still making sounds as though he could speak, and beat his head into the earth over and over. The other Big Sisters appeared beside her.

“What’s going on?” Masha asked.

Delta froze in place, trembling violently. Fuck! Fuck! Shit!

Daddy, please! Eleanor said. Don’t talk like that!

Fuck you! Delta spun in a circle, burying his head in his armpit. Tell them I’m sleeping!

Eleanor started crying.

“What did you do?” Cecilia whispered.

“Nothing!” Eleanor said. “Daddy had a memory and I… I didn’t mean to but he… I… he remembered his past and then he…”

Stop talking! Delta said. Stop talking! Give me the fucking Heal-All already! Jesus-fucking-Christ! Jesus-fucking-fuck!

“Daddy, please!” Eleanor said. “We’re not in Rapture anymore!”

Then tell Sinclair I want it! he said. Tell him I need it! He’ll say I can have it!

“Oh!” Cecilia said, eyes brightening. She popped away.

One of the littlest kids found them first. When he saw the girls gathered around Delta, he ran off, shouting: “Mr. B is hurt! Mr. B fell down!”

The next second, Cecilia was running up the path with Sinclair thrown under her arm. He started kicking the minute he realized there was an audience.

“That’s all right! That’s all right!” he said. “Thank you, I can still walk. I can still… good lord, Sissy, it’s a limp, not a missing limb. John! John, what are you doing?”

Delta hissed. Stuttering bestial nonsense poured out of his mouth.

Tell him I want the Heal-All and he can fuck off!

Eleanor and the Sisters looked up at Sinclair miserably. Cecilia took his arm and relayed the message. For a moment, Sinclair stood utterly still. Horror flickered across his face. Then the look was gone, replaced by a slow, spreading smile.

“That’s John, all right,” he said, and limped up the path. “John, it’s me, August.”

Delta snarled and spat. The earth was dark with blood and tears and spit and sweat. He’d kicked up fallen leaves and foliage into a circle. His shorts were twisted into a coil over his thighs.

Get me the fucking Heal-All already! he said. I’m dying!

Cecilia kept her hand pinched on Sinclair’s, her eyes flickering with light.

“I can’t get you any Heal-All, John,” Sinclair said, kneeling down with a grunt. “You can get better without it now. Did you know that?”

Don’t talk to me like I don’t fucking know! Delta bared his teeth like a wild animal in a trap. You did this to me! Not me, you! You!

Sinclair took a deep breath. “Yes. I did. But I’m going to try and make it easier on you from now on. You don’t have to fight anymore. I got you back from Fontaine.”

The shuddering stopped. When it returned, it was less violent. Delta blinked up at Sinclair.

You’re serious?

“I’m serious. Not only did I get you back from Fontaine, I got you right back up to the surface, just like you wanted. See?” He dug his fingers into the loose earth, raised it, let it trickle through his fingers.

Oh. Delta watched the dirt crumble. I’m still not fucking you.

All of the Big Sisters flinched. Eleanor’s jaw dropped.

“That’s just fine, John. That’s just fine.” Sinclair slapped him on the shoulder and slumped against the tree beside him. “You know what, you taught me something important.”

I want Heal-All, Delta said.

“There’s no Heal-All on the surface, John.” Sinclair breathed out and dug his cane into the soil, relaxing the heel of his hand against it. A third Delta’s size, and he was completely relaxed. It was like watching a person take a siesta by a grizzly bear.

Delta watched him suspiciously, eye flicking from his cane to his hand to his face.

Something’s wrong in my mouth.

“Oh, never mind that. Think on this: you’re free,” Sinclair said. “You can do anything you want. You know, there’s a pond over there, and a barbecue, and lots of good folks who love you. You like kielbasa? Coleslaw?”

I have a headache. Why is it so hard to talk?

“Oh, you just took a bad spill, is all,” Sinclair said, pulling out a carton of cigarettes. “How's about a cigarette?”

Gus, there’s something wrong with my tongue.

Sinclair flipped a cigarette out and jammed it against Delta’s lips until he opened up.

Jesus! Don’t do that! You’re gonna break it!

“Then open up faster.” Sinclair cleared his throat. “Say, ladies—if some of you will assure the others that all is well and we’re just getting Mr. Barton here through a bad headache… ah, do stress the need for a little silence hereabouts.”

Delta’s wild eye followed the five girls who raced off into the trees. It flicked back to Sinclair as he brought out a lighter. The Big Sisters were pale with horror all around them. Delta didn’t seem to see them. Eleanor squelched the urge to reach in and see what he saw. She could feel him radiating an intense confusion.

“Real tobacco all the time, John,” Sinclair said, lighting him up. “Every day, whenever you want it.”

Thank Christ. I hate that seaweed shit.

Eleanor had seen Delta smoke a hundred times. She’d never seen him hold his wrist like that, balancing the cigarette on the end of his finger. He always had the cigarette clamped down like he was afraid it would blow away.

“What happened to your clothes?” Sinclair asked. “Do you need help?”

Delta glanced down.

Fuck, he said.

With stiff hands, he yanked his shorts up and his shirt down.

“I missed your constant swearing,” Sinclair said. “But the girls might not like it. You have a lot of girls, by the way. Hell of a father.”

What? Delta’s voice grew horrified. What are you talking about?

“Nothing you don’t already know.” Sinclair lit his own cigarette. “You know, the new you is a lot more polite and helpful. You should start your own handyman business.”

Gus, what the fuck is going on?

Delta’s hand came up as though he were thinking about signing something. Then he caught himself and dropped it again.

Something’s wrong, Delta said.

“No, it only feels wrong,” Sinclair said. “You’re just having a nightmare right now, that’s all. You’re going to wake up feeling fine.”

You mean I had another attack?

“Right! Just an attack.”

Well, fuck.

“But you know, you haven’t had one of those in a long ol’ time, so that means you’re getting better and better and better.”

Oh, thank Christ. I don’t remember what just happened, though. I mean, I thought I saw Tate. It was like I was there.

“Oh, Tate’s old news, honey. Long dead.”

No shit! Couldn’t happen to a nicer gal.

Sinclair started laughing uproariously. He slapped his knee and groped in a pocket for his handkerchief.

It wasn’t that funny.

“Oh, I just didn’t expect it, that’s all. Besides, I just like hearing you talk.” Sinclair wiped at his eyes.

Yeah, I’m still not fucking you. Wait, we were looking for medicine, right? Or was it the shrink?

He was starting to sign every other word, although it was half-baked, and mostly into the ground.

“We just saw the shrink. She wasn’t the right fit for you, honey.”

I don’t know. I kinda liked her.

“Don’t worry about it. We had a whole conversation about that just last night. It was nothing personal, as I recall… but don’t let me bore you with the details. You’ll remember it in a second.”

Right. Right.

Delta’s full-body shudder had sunk off to a low-key shiver that ran down to his hands. He had stopped trying to say words out loud.

“You need my hankie right now something awful, son.” Sinclair held it out, shook it.

Delta felt under his nose, drew his shivering fingers away. They glistened with blood.

What the hell did I do?

“You ran into a wall.”

Jesus Christ.

Delta took the hankie and pressed it under his nose. It took him several tries. His grip was unsteady, his wrist stiff, and he didn’t seem to have an idea of where his body was in space. He pressed it against his cheek and his ear a couple of times.

Sinclair smiled. “Well, don’t worry about it. Just clean up. You’re doing just fine.”

I’m covered with blood, but sure.

Sinclair’s eyes popped and he laughed once. “Hell, it’s good hearing you like this.” He looked up at Cecilia. “Does he often talk like this when I can’t hear him?”

Cecilia shook her head no.

Who’s that? Delta asked.

“That’s Cecilia. She helps me take care of you. She thinks you’re swell.”

Delta squinted at her. Flushing red, Cecilia squirmed behind Sinclair.

She’s young for a nurse, he said. They hiring out of grade school now?

Without warning, Sinclair laughed again. He looked absolutely smitten.

“The squint!” Sinclair said. “Look, girls, that’s the old John. Oh, I thought for sure he was gone.”

Eleanor could feel their dismay. Nobody liked old John. Utterly ignorant of his own failure, Delta swung 'round to look at the gaping faces around him like he was seeing them for the first time. He lingered on Eleanor’s face. His mouth fell open a little. He had forgotten the handkerchief; it hung limply over his fingers.

I know you.

“You do!” said Sinclair. “You know her! What’s her name?”

I… Delta pressed the handkerchief back against his mouth. I can’t remember.

The shudder was starting again in his shoulders. His eyes unfocused, staring off into space.

“Oh, it’s all right. You’ll remember in a second. Look, the long and the short of it is that you don’t have to worry about a damn thing right now. You’re actually in a great place. Would you believe it?” Sinclair asked.

Would I believe it? Delta repeated. He sounded robotic.

“You’re on the surface, right where you always wanted to be. There’s a big group of people here, and all of them adore you. The sun’s setting right now and you can watch it go down. There’s a big rack of ribs with your name on it. I got iced tea in the fridge. Tomorrow morning, I am personally gonna make sure you get a big stack of biscuits and gravy.”

Delta’s body had begun to relax, one taut muscle at a time. The shoulders slowly lowered. The hips sank to the earth. The knees stretched out. One of Delta’s enormous arms flopped to the earth, as broad across as Sinclair’s shoulders; with his other hand, he took out his cigarette and blew a lazy smoke ring.

“Iced tea,” Delta signed. He turned his glazed eyes to Sinclair’s. Where’s the iced tea? My head hurts. I need Heal-All.

He had begun to sign in earnest—up in the air, toward Sinclair, complete with proper facial expressions. Eleanor could feel the horrible stranger sinking back into the darkness.

Sinclair laughed. “I can get you some aspirin. How’s about some aspirin, John?”

Eleanor’s lips pinched together. Don’t call him that.

She didn’t dare say it.

“Aspirin sounds good,” Delta signed. He set the cigarette back in his mouth and slowly lifted to his feet. “I feel bad. My head hurts. My throat hurts, too.”

“Nothin’ a good night’s rest won’t fix.”

Delta took the cigarette out of his mouth. He clenched it like it was going to blow away. His whole body was shaking.

“Sleep sounds good,” he signed. “I’m tired.”

“You’ll want to eat something first.”

“Oh. Yeah. I forgot.” Delta wobbled in a circle. “Eleanor! There you are! Where are the floats?”

“I… I left them in the garage,” Eleanor said.

“Well, you’d better go get them, then, shouldn’t you?” Sinclair said, stabbing his cane into the ground. “John, honey, help me up. I’m a mess in my old age.”

“You’re not old,” Delta said, throwing his arm under Sinclair’s. “What happened? I don’t remember walking out here.”

“You got a bad headache and had to sit down. Don’t worry, we were with you the whole time.”

“Good.” Delta blew out a stream of smoke and shook his head. “I feel bad. I want aspirin.”

“We’re headed straight there,” Sinclair said. “Aspirin, ribs, and a big glass of ice-cold tea: just what the doctor ordered.”

~*~*~*~

Something was definitely wrong with Delta. He staggered like he was drunk. He couldn’t feed himself; he slopped most of his food on his chest. Eleanor quickly shuffled him into the kitchen to finish his meal out of the sight of the husbands and boyfriends, who had begun eying him in ways she didn’t like. He took a handful of aspirin—she measured it out carefully—and then shuffled off to his bathroom to take a shower. He could not undress without toppling over. When she trembled under his weight, she took a deep breath and cast out a thought.

Sinclair, she thought. Help me, please. We’re in the shower.

Sinclair appeared, right on cue, acting as though he’d simply walked by and happened to notice them. He bowed to Eleanor as she shut the door.

“Why, I just noticed you two seemed to be having some trouble!” he said.

Together, they took turns propping him up and making sure he was clean from head to toe. Soon enough, Delta hobbled out, wrapped in his bathrobe, one hand on Sinclair’s shoulder and the other on Eleanor’s. Both Eleanor and Sinclair were soaked through.

“Do you want to put him to bed, or shall I help?” Sinclair asked.

“I can do it,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Just call if you need anything,” he said, winking, and strolled off.

While Delta didn’t seem angry anymore, he also didn’t seem terribly concerned about anything. He didn’t ask about the other Sisters, he didn’t seem concerned about the floats anymore, and he started signing only single words. When Eleanor dropped into his brain to see how it was faring, her heart sank. It was like he had reverted to the Delta of two months prior, the Delta who couldn’t shave himself. What she had seen as a brightening of his intellect had been the return of some sense of self, and now that self had retreated into the dark.

Once he was safely tucked in, Eleanor came out again. Fireflies sparked in the woods outside, and peepers and crickets had begun cheeping in the trees. The sky was sprinkled with stars. The bonfire had been lit. Everyone was bunched around it, laughing and roasting marshmallows.

Everyone except for Sinclair, who sat on the swing, rocking back and forth with little kicks.

“How’s chief doin’?” he asked.

“He’s… he’s not good,” Eleanor said in a tiny voice.

Sinclair sighed and threw his head back.

“I didn’t do anything,” Eleanor snapped.

“I’m not tryin’ to imply a damn thing here, darlin’,” he said. “I just care about that boy, that’s all.”

“Was that really what he’s like?” Eleanor asked.

“That was him from a bad place.” Sinclair stopped swinging. “From Fontaine’s labs. Early on.”

“I didn’t do it.”

“Then how’d it start?”

“The light outside… it’s like the light grew dim, and a little green… and he saw a lady in the darkness. She had Hypnotize, I think.”

“That’d be Ava Tate.” Sinclair took a deep drag of his cigarette.

“You were there,” Eleanor said. She folded her hands into fists.

“Yes, I was. I got him out of there safe and sound, in fact.” Sinclair smiled grimly. “Believe it or not, I have never wanted to hurt the man.”

“He was so different,” she said in a small voice. “I didn’t realize he was so… so…”

“Filthy?” Sinclair laughed. “He was a sailor, honey. He swore all the damn time. He had a cute girl on his arm every ten seconds. The man was a sexpot.”

Eleanor shuddered.

“He was a fully-fledged man long before you were born, honey,” Sinclair said gently. “To make him this way, they had to clip his wings. Hell. They had to take them straight off. He was only ever meant to play second fiddle to you.”

“I didn’t like him,” she said in a small voice.

“Mmm. Yeah.” Sinclair leaned down, set his chin on his hands. “That was him as a splicer, hun. Full madness. Cancer probably set in around the same time. Of course you didn’t like him. Nobody likes splicers.”

There was something in the way he said it that made her feel guilty. He was frowning. His expression was unreadable in the unsteady dark.

“If we fix him,” Eleanor said, “if we revert him, will he just be… just like that? He’ll start screaming and swearing and fighting and…”

“I don’t know. We know for sure what will happen if we don’t try, and it’ll be all of that and more.” Sinclair smiled grimly into the fire.

Eleanor sank to the porch floor, folding her dress beneath her. Sinclair shifted. When she looked up, he was sliding to the other side of the swing and slapping the seat next to him.

Grudgingly, she lifted to her feet and settled on the far end, her knees pressed together.

“It’s hard, loving someone when they’re this way,” Sinclair said. “And I’ve got to bear the responsibility of it. I let my pride speak for me. When John rejected me there at the end, well. I just let my pride take me all the way to the bank.”

“And people like me didn’t matter at all,” Eleanor said.

“It wasn’t a question of mattering. It was a question of accepting what kind of world we lived in,” Sinclair said.

“I was a child,” Eleanor said.

“I’m not saying it was right. I’m saying I believed in a world where human beings pay the piper, and sometimes that human being was a child. I didn’t much believe in luck, and I didn’t much care about the power of an environment or society. Figured people could make something of themselves if they’d only try, even kids. See, people like me…” Sinclair paused, licked his lips. “‘Nature, red of tooth and claw.’ You know the line? Well. I figured we were living it. Human beings are part of nature, too, you know. Let the child learn to survive, I thought. Then we’ve made something of him.”

“That’s not how nature works,” Eleanor said. “That’s never been how nature works. It’s complementary. It’s full of teamwork. Individuals would be nothing without other individuals. They even evolve in ways that mean that they don’t have to compete with each other. You can see it all around you.”

Sinclair nodded, smiling at her. Her jaw snapped shut. She felt frightened, frozen, blank: she had been about to repeat her mother verbatim.

“No, no, don’t stop. You’re right,” he said. “Nature is so much more than that. But I made a mistake. It’s the mistake that a layman makes, eyeballing some complex subject and assuming he can get the idea of it through summaries. Except the summaries I was reading weren’t by biologists or sociologists. They were by political scientists and lawyers seeing what they wanted to see. There I was, thinkin’ I was so smart, being taken as a fool, going for what made me felt better instead of what was true.” He smiled up at her. It seemed honest enough. “You are the right person to take this to, you know. I’m sure you got to read some of my own philosophy before taking it apart.”

“Yes.” She looked down at her hands, lacing her fingers together. “I read some of your essays when I was 12.”

“Oh, you poor thing.”

“I hated you so much,” she said softly. “I blamed you for why I was… this way.”

“You were right to.”

“Why don’t you care that I hate you?” she asked. “Even when the other girls hated you, you didn’t seem to care. You don’t seem to care about anything.”

She stopped herself before she went on: I want you to care about something because caring is human, and you don’t feel like one.

“Darlin’, I’ve been hated my whole life. What’s new?” he asked. “You can spend your time beating yourself up, or you can go make things better every way you know how. Was I a monster? Oh, darling, I was. I made monsters of other people, too, all the way down to the man I loved the most. I get to go to bed tonight with an image of him reliving some of the worst pain of his life. That’s a great deal worse than hate, I think. Imagine seeing Jacob Marley every night of your life, not just at Christmas—and his misery is all your fault. You know there’s no great hereafter—you’re stuck with what you’ve done—you’re stuck with who you were.”

The fire was leaping up, its outermost flickerings green like witchfire. Eleanor couldn’t say anything at first. Sinclair let the silence sit. She twined her fingers together.

“I think I made it worse,” she said softly. “I was asking him why he liked you and I was angry he wouldn’t change his mind. I wonder if it… I wonder…”

“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” Sinclair said. “You’re trying to do the right thing. No reason to think the leopard’ll change his spots.”

“Why did you, then?” she asked. “What changed?”

“Well.” He cleared his throat. “Rapture fell apart. And eventually the only places money mattered were the vending machines. And when the vending machines stopped working, well!

“Point being, without a society, without people, Rapture didn’t matter anymore. And I think it’s when you start connecting dots: that I can only have what I have because of other people, one way or another. I could only have a Rapture with clean, sweet air because of a woman halfway across the city who grows trees underwater—that’s what she knows how to do best, and nobody else can do it, and when she dies, everything dies with her. I could only have a clean office because someone came in with a dustpan, and they could only afford to clean it if there was a life worth returning to somewhere else. A human being who didn’t feel like their life was worth living went and shot themselves full of ADAM and then I had a brand new splicer ranting and raving in the hallway and a waste-bin spilling over. If the people who keep your world from falling apart don’t feel like it’s worth it anymore, that’s it. It’s the end.

“And humans are so much more than what they do. They inhabit more than a home—they inhabit their bodies, you understand? And what’s so funny about that is that I already believed a man was limited to his body. Hell, most of the reason I came to Rapture was because I was being forced by society to ignore what my own body preferred in general.”

Eleanor glanced up sharply. He was looking her straight in the face. He kept talking, unblinking.

“Then I started taking other people’s bodies away from them.” He took a deep drag on his cigarette and flicked it down into the ashtray beside him. “That right there, honey? That’s not philosophy. I could talk myself into thinking I was a good man all day long, but human beings need their bodies, they deserve the time they have in them, and they need the freedom to take those bodies where and when they desire. I had no right to warp them into tools of my own, even if they had signed a dotted line somewhere.”

“You mean you thought people signed up to be lab experiments?” she asked. “Why the hell would you ever think something like that?”

“Figured they knew the philosophy, same as me, and what it meant to fail. That’s all.” Sinclair stretched back, popped his arms. “Thanks for letting me talk this out, by the by. It’s not conversation you can have with just anybody.”

“If we can bring… John back,” Eleanor said, her voice growing smaller and smaller, “he’s going to hate us, isn’t he?”

“Well, he’ll hate me,” Sinclair said. “He won’t hate you. If he’s able to remember that you two met in the city, he might even stick around.” He took a deep breath. “I’m worried about only one thing. See, he didn’t try to solve problems—he tried to leave them. He ran from every romance he ever started. I’m concerned he’ll get enough brain cells to mash together to realize what’s happening to him and then he’ll try to sprint off somewhere before he’s well enough.”

“He’d leave us,” she said softly.

“Don’t make my mistake, honey,” Sinclair said softly. “You have to be ready to let him go. He’s not yours and he’s not mine. He’s his. If I’d done what was right, I’d have sent him topside the first minute he started getting jumpy. Then, at least, he would have been spared this—this half-life. I couldn’t solve his problems. Neither can you. There’s a point where he has to deal with himself. That said…” Sinclair drew out another cigarette. “I think he’d think the world of you. You’re a hell of a woman, Eleanor Lamb. You came through a hell of your own. You overcame someone who swore she loved you, and probably thought she loved you, and you were able to see what love really was. Hell, for that matter, I’m proud of John. You’re probably the first problem he ever solved—ah, if you’ll pardon the phrasing.”

“He had to help me,” she said. “He was going to die.”

“He didn’t have to at the end,” Sinclair said. “As he didn’t have to save me. I wonder what he was thinking. I don’t think that I’ll ever know. I think when a man is made to kill, the way he had been made, there’s something meaningful about refusing to. And maybe that’s enough, and I’m fine if that’s all it is.” He shrugged. “At least I had him for a while. Of course, that’s easy to say, after a certain space of time.”

He glanced over at her, and it seemed as though something meaningful was glittering behind those eyes. She thought she might know what it meant, and she hated it.

UPRISING: BLACK SCRAPBOOK HUB

[musings-of-miss-j]

'how to write a good character arc' 'follow this act structure for your plot' 'best checklist for worldbuilding' 'the correct way to design a magic system' 'you're boring your readers with long descriptions' 'the correct amount of exposition' i don't know man. what if i do whatever the hell i want.

[romaritimeharbor]

İ just finished the archon quest and MANNN İ LOVE MAVUİKA SM AHSHDJKSK

YESSSS SHE'S LITERALLY SOOOO :((((( MAVUIKA MY BELOVED

[the-monkey-ruler]

Where do people get female from with macaque king because I don’t see it in the hanzi 🔭

So I'm not a linguist but I've been told because 弥猴 / 猕猴 / 獼猴 is connected with 母猴 when it comes to there use in language.

I'm very sorry to say I don't know the history of language or why these two character or so closely tied but I have seen that if you use 獼猴 it isn't too far away from saying 母猴 as well.

And thus connects that it isn't too far to assume 母猴 when reading 獼猴王.

At least that have I have seen it.

And also helps that the Yu translations also see this connection as well.

(Back of the index in Book 1)

And then referenced again in the second book when Wukong is telling his party about his sworn brothers.

I get it if not everything thinks 母猴 when 弥猴 but that is the best I can give you and some links to help show.

I hope that helps!!

[thesinglesock]

the weirdest part of my internship experience might be that I've become aware of how much latin I just know somehow. been translating a bunch of medical stuff that I don't understand one bit, but when the interpreters discuss words they didn't know how to translate and the words have latin roots I keep going like "oh it means like this!" and I didn't even know I knew that. and I always feel like I'm over explaining because surely it's self-explanatory but every time I get the response "oh, I never thought about that". so I guess people usually don't immediately dissect and ponder every latin-inspired word they ever encounter in their lives? but it's fun I think everyone should try it it's like a game.

[randomnameless]

I was wondering if you ever made a post talking about ladle's idea of meritocracy?

I don't think I did?

Watch out, it will be long lol

Let's take the Flayn'n'Ferdie ending - of course unavailable on Tru Piss, because Flayn is a Nabatean :

Assuming people are extra horny and start to breed like rabbits, because Flayn and Ferdie are extra “loving” and all, a nabatean blooded baby pops up (half or quarter nabatean, it depends on your hc about Flayn herself) from their "extra loving" shenanigans : that baby will obviously have a crest, since it is a nabatean (or part nabatean).

Assuming that baby will have his mom’s crest, baby will still be able to heal “better” than seasoned healers or trained ones, because of the power-up the crest gives them + baby, with their nabatean genes, might have a longer lifespan and be sturdier than a “regular human”.

So, if someone should become a healer, baby will obviously be picked, because baby can heal better than anyone else (save for their mom) in that situation.

Which makes me think about the Holst’n’Goneril house issue :

Thanks to Nopes, we have the hard confirmation Holst has no crest, and is so OP that he still manages to defend the border because he’s just that awesome. So yes, potentially, someone can do the work a crested dude can do, if that someone is exceptionnally good at doing what he does - Holst is a strong warrior, so he can protect the border, even if he doesn’t have a crest - meaning Hilda is free to live the life of leisure she wants even if she has a crest and can use Freikugel.

But 2 points :

First, iirc, from their supports, in Nopes, Holst actually says Hilda is amazing, and might be even stronger than him, she just doesn’t realise it yet. Is it because Hilda is also super strong on her own, or because Hilda… has a crest?

Second, checking weapon ranks again - Relics have a E rank. Meaning a crested person, without even having to train, can use them to unlease mighty artes and destroy people. To say it better, base Marianne, with her shit E-rank in swords and laughable physical attack stat, can kill people just as fine as Holst - a seasoned warrior - if she picks up Blutgang.

And it’s kind of sad because realising this, no matter how awesome Holst is - to be able to defend the border when it was usually thought only a person with a crest could do so - if a crested random comes with a relic, even without any prior training, they can kick ass as much, if not even more, as Holst, who graduated from a military academy and most likely spent the last 5 years of his life on a battlefield.

That’s not fair!

But that’s precisely the point - Relics and Crests are cheat codes! They make a few “ones” better at some things than others.

Randolph wants to be “successful” in battle to show how useful he is to guarantee his position? Sure, but when Sylvain, by flexing with his shiny lance, can do everything Randolph does in battle, but better, how can Randolph be successful? How can he guarantee his position? Why shouldn’t Sylvain’s achievements be rewarded with, say, the position Randolph was eyeing?

Back to Flayn’n’Ferdie’s kid Baby is a Nabatean hybrid.

If they have their mom’s crest, fine, Baby can heal better than anyone else on the continent, save for mom. If they have dad’s crest, they can be inherently better fighters than Randolph, due to that crest, but also to their Nabatean body (Rhea can eat 3 nukes and still be alive, a quarter nabatean hybrid might be able to tank 1 when a human, uh, is not be able to tank any!).

Even for governance, Baby will be long lived, they will have +100 years of experience and wisdom, compared to John the random human who might also want to become a governor.

Battle wise? Governance wise? Baby will always have more “facilities” and boons than “regular humans”.

I developed it a little in one of the “Lycaon the half-nabatean AU post” - no matter what angle you look from, Baby will have opportunities and chances to be “better” than any human around. 

So if positions of power, or jobs, or whatever, are given to the most “competent” people, Baby will obviously be given all those jobs offers, positions and whatnot.

Does it automatically mean doom’n’gloom for the crestless humans out there? No, because there are things being a Nabatean or having a crest or being able to use a relic doesn’t impact, like, say, Bernie’s dad’s job, or being in charge of foreign affairs, or trying to develop new tech (even if Constance’s gift for magic is implied to be due to her familial crest), or being in charge of engineering bridges, cities, canals, etc etc…

But in the other domains, like fighting and healing and whatnot (performing magic)?

If everyone should rise and fall by their own talents and merit, then what about the ones born with cheat codes, who rise through the ranks by snapping their fingers?

They will of course parasite the “rise and fall by their own talent”, since no one else, no matter how hard they work, will be able to match them.

Which is why the solution is either to remove crests from crested people (and erase nabateans from Fodlan because I don’t think they can survive exsanguination), or to get rid of that “by their own merits” system - but what system should be put in place then?

Good question!

We know the original noble “someone who knows, seek knowledge, leads and protects people” definition ended up being distorted in the current Adrestia, so, again, what should be put in place?

The game… doesn’t answer.

Bar a milquetoast “everyone should accept each other with or without crests” it’s radio silence. 

Only in some endings we have clues, Hanneman making tools to make crests obsolete (but it would just move the debate from who has magic blood to who has enough money to get those kick ass tools), or Sylvain wanting to find a way to stop fighting at the border.

And yet, the main issue remains : Nabateans. 

They are people who can, without tools, do superhuman stuff (at least lore wise!). Why should Jack pay for an automatic lamp 100 gold if Rhea can lit hers by snapping her fingers, for free?

Ultimately, given how the main character - Billy - is the reincarnation of the Goddess herself, and part nabatean, I don’t think the game wanted us to reach the solution that one day everyone will have the same lifespan and be able to use magic normally and everyone will one day stand on the same starting line.

Just like I don’t think Tolkien wanted to give a… message, when he designed Numénoreans - the most Noble of all Men - and the Lesser Men who lived in Middle Earth. Some people have magic powers, and some don’t and that’s the setting. 

Is it annoying because it’s again a story of a chosen one?

Maybe. 

Is it kind of a downer because it means the most basic random will never be able to swing a sword like Aragorn does, or in FE16, emulate Billy’s prowesses and be able to go back in time too?

Maybe.

What does it mean then, if a character’s leitmotiv is to change the world so all should “rise and fall by their own merits”?

The game tries to give an answer to this riddle - having the main hub being an orphanage and a place to shelter “those who have no status in the world” or the ones who fell, and with the “parley” - some people cannot rise on their own, they need support. If a name or a family line should dictate whether someone is going to be great or if they’re going to suck, ditto for their “merits or achievements”, it’s not because someone fumbled at life that they should just die and be “weak”.

It’s like an exam, if you’re first, yay good for you, you are received, but if you are last? What are you going to do? Re-sit? And if you’re last again, then what? Is it just the end of the road for you?

Sure it’s kind of cliché “together we can be stronger and survive” or “the strong must protect the weak, and the weak make the strong strong” but I feel like this was the kind of answer the game - that is a game that purposedly is left vague to make the world “feel larger” - wanted to give.

Nakama power, power of friendship, you name it! But imo, it’s always the same message in the series : it’s not the king that makes the country, but the country that makes (and can unmake!) the King.

It’s not the answer you’d like if you are looking at real life history or to make real life parallels but…

No matter how many “real life parallels” you might be tempted to make regarding FE16′s system of ruling/social system, FE16 and the world of Fodlan is still a world where some people have magical dragon blood that gives them superpowers.

It’s not supposed to be a mirror of the real world. It’s a fantasy setting - with interesting questions - but ultimately questions raised in that fantasy setting.

....

i don't even know if i replied to your question lol