#damn i wrote these VERY in character

[evildog]

….i just found a fic i wrote over a year ago and its…actually good

[silverskye13]

For the record! I'm going to apologize now and say it's probably going to be a hot minute before a new RnS chapter comes out [a week, maybe two]. I have encountered some issues that need sorted.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

tell me why i wrote 4k words of fantasy au the other night but overall Absolutely Nothing Happened in it

[kanameows]

hello domestic rinniki nation

[weareuniqueandimportant]

EMPATHY GLAMORIZATION IS NOT ABOUT EMPATHY BUT SUPERIORITY TORWARDS APATHETIC PEOPLE BIGOTRY TORWARDS THEM TYPICAL BIGOT EVIL. SIMPLE AS THAT. IF YOU SEE THEM AS LEFTIST YOU'RE NO LEFTIST YOURSELF. HORRIBLE. THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO HAVE ONLY EMPATHY AND BAD TO THINK EVERYTHING YOU DO IS SUCH ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY'RE CLEARLY BEING APATHETIC IF ANYTHING WHEN THEY DO THIS...

COMES TO SHOW BIGOTRY TORWARDS CRAZY AND DISABLED PEOPLE ASWELL AS PARAPHILIA PEOPLE ISN'T TAKEN AT ALL THE SAME AS SEXISM RACISM AND QUEERPHOBIA... OR PERHAPS... LIKELY... THEY ARE ALL THE BIGOTED THINGS EVIL AND TAKE NONE THAT SERIOUSLY... BELITTLING DOWN THEIR PAIN AND DAMAGE...

[avernusfuries]

okay but thanks to @spiderwarden having introduced me to Westworld, I am at risk of being completely and utterly bodied by this song.

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Song of the Six Realms

a magical YA fantasy romance

follows a girl who’s an indentured musician at an entertainment house, with a talent for playing the qin

when her uncle (her only family) is killed, a Duke buys her contract with a promise to end her contract after one year - and reveals she might be the key to unlock the magical secrets tied to her uncle’s death

not to mention that he’s actually the Duke of Dreams, and she is whisked away to the Celestial Realm which is on the brink of disaster, plagued by demonic monsters

[cielsosinfel]

3-4x10月 / Boiling Point (1990, 北野武)

[m-for-musings]

@unreadpoppy tagged me in a WIP Wednesday post once but it got lost in my feed and I got lost in time so there it goes. Also I wished to know what's @jellymellydraws is up to? Hum? Hum?? (no pressure and no obligation, view this as a plead for another snippet of I've Got You, if you want to share it please tag me :B)

WIP WEDNESDAY

(very late, tho)

His voice faltered, caught in his throat. He hadn't spoken of it until now, and the words seemed to choke him, refusing to be uttered. “When I got there, he was…” The memories, once pushed aside, now surged forward, wrapping around his heart like suffocating vines. “I took his life.” “You spared the elder from a miserable existence and his family from a painful burden,” Minthara responded simply. Of course she would say so. Her upbringing in the unforgiving depths of the Underdark had shaped her perspective on such matters. “Taking care of those important to you is not a burden, Minthara,” Halsin replied, his eyes filled with sorrow. “I had no right to do what I did. Not without their consent.” “Bold of you to assume that desperate relatives around a deathbed would make reasonable decisions,” she countered. “They came to me for healing—” “They came to you for aid, as every single unfortunate soul in this place, and many others, do. And you aided them. You spared his children from the helplessness of watching their father deteriorate daily. You saved his widow from the arduous task of tending to his every need, neglecting her own. You prevented the despair, the exhaustion, the anger, and the prolonged grief of watching a loved one’s life slip away. You are their leader. They came to you for your aid and guidance. They came to you because they trust your judgment. You should trust it too.” For a moment, he felt strangely comforted by her blunt assessment. The guilt that had been gnawing at him eased, replaced by a reluctant acknowledgment of the truth in her words. She spoke with a brutal honesty that resonated with him, stripping away the layers of self-reproach he had wrapped around himself. Yet, this newfound clarity brought with it a new, confusing guilt. How could he find solace in her words, knowing the pain he had caused? He agreed with Minthara, and that agreement made him uneasy. It felt wrong to find comfort in the pragmatism that dismissed the emotional complexities of the situation. He grappled with this internal conflict, torn between his moral compass and the logic of her perspective, that seemed so undeniable.

[seariii]

Que horror

[aimless-passerby]

What chances people actually read tos?

[myname-isnia]

Ever since I first read Eugene Onegin two years ago, and even more now that I had to reread it for school recently, I've been saying that I've never related to a fictional character more than I relate to Tatyana Larina (not counting my own characters, that is, as they are intentional projections). Particularly the verses about Tatyana's childhood hit very close to home. I've been wanting to talk about it for a while but couldn't find a translation of the book that I liked. So, instead of sleeping, I spent 2 hours absolutely torturing my own brain by coming up with my own translation and I'm way too proud not to share.

Eugene Onegin, chapter 2, verses 25, 26 and 27, translated with the original temp and rhyming scheme intact, by yours truly <3

—

XXV

And so, her sister's named Tatyana.

She seldom catches someone's gaze,

Lacks Olga's beauty, lacks her glamour,

The pink-cheeked freshness of her face.

She's almost feral, quiet with woe,

So quick to startle, like a doe.

And even in her family home

She seemed a child not quite their own.

She hardly ever showed affection,

Both mom and dad would often say.

By window she would spend her day

Alone but for her own reflection,

She judged the children running wild,

Though she herself was still a child.

XXVI

Imagination was her close friend

From infancy. As village days

Kept dragging on without an end,

She'd get lost in her fantasies.

Needle and thread she too avoided,

Fabric was never once embroidered

By her unblemished fingers, for

She found needlework a bore.

An average girl would take her doll,

Sit down with it and start to talk,

Prepare it for the time to walk

Into an upper class grand ball –

To silent dolls during these sessions

Young girls repeat their mothers' lessons.

XXVII

Tatyana never had discussions

With dolls, nor did she play with them;

She never told them of the fashions,

Of city news, and even then

Of toys and games she was quite wary,

She'd rather read of something scary.

In winters, in the dead of night,

Her heart learned how to take a fright.

When for young Olga their old nanny

Would gather up the neighbours' kids

To run and play out in the fields,

Tatyana would act most uncanny:

She never played or ran around,

And found their laughter far too loud.

—

[alphonzogo]

... found this in my art folder from august

[derangedthots]

bored and should be sleeping but i'm gonna be irresponsible and go into fmf/ctf author annotations mode instead

i adore reliable unreliable narrator jace for a lot of reasons but something that i have fun with is how his near-perfect-but-not-quite competence+awareness interplays with good parent(but not necessarily good person) daemon. there's a lot of conflicting views abt daemon as a person within the fandom and within show/book canon, and as someone who hasn't read f&b but who tries to lead with george's characterizations, i very much fall back on the description of daemon as that deliciously gray "wonder and terror of his age..not a man so admired, so beloved, and so reviled in all Westeros...made of light and darkness in equal parts." (honestly is it any wonder why he's george's fav with a description like that? valid) and to me, both book and show - though the show+showriters can be somewhat inconsistent - agree that daemon is very deeply a family man who is unfailingly loyal to the people he cares abt.

i especially love the bit that says "to some he was a hero, to others the blackest of villains" bc it implies that the identity of his observer matters and influences which parts of himself daemon shows or leans more into.

it's why his relationship with jace - and specifically how jace perceives daemon - is so interesting in the CTF universe bc he def understands that daemon is capable of monstrous acts (and that he even occassionally delights in them) but daemon's also raised him? been good to him and his mother and his siblings as long as he's ever known him? jace doesn't view daemon as perfect by any means, logically he knows there are parts of his stepfather that are terrifying, but he's also aptly positioned to think daemon's best/kindest/noblest parts are more easily accessible to him and their family.

for example, the section in CTF ch2 abt jace thinking he can ask daemon to spare jaehaerys and maelor when nyra becomes queen and daemon will just agree...how true really is this? (the original circumstances of blood and cheese aside) i'd say it depends on how secure daemon views rhaenyra's reign, his mood that day, and/or how good jace+nyra+rhaena are at convincing him. i don't have any clear answers myself bc the man is just that mercurial but jace? jace certainly believes he does

anyway, food for thought going forward in the fic lol just wanted to share a little bit of my process behind writing but idk i'll probably delete this in the morning🤷🏻‍♀️🤡

[why-even-ask]

I headcanon J. S. Steinman as a Cypriot. And it works.

Aphrodite's birthplace is in Cyprus and we all know how much Steinman loves Aphrodite. You know, make him a Jewish Cypriot. His family might as well come to Cyprus during the Ottoman period (late 16th century onwards) or even the late 19th century.

It very much works. Look at him. He looks like some Nicosian you'd see in your uncle's kebab shop or something. Just some guy you'd drink zivania and KEO with.

Wanna read more? Click on.

I say he has a mixed family of Turkish Cypriots, Greek Cypriots, and of course his Jewish roots. I mean, Cypriots are kind of chill with religion; for example, the Linobambakis would have both Christian and Muslim traditions and celebrations. Nothing conflicts with anything, you just have a personal relationship with religion over there.

So, here's our favorite Jewish (and Greek and Turkish) Cypriot who worships Aphrodite.

[Using the "There's Something in the Sea" data to build a 'canon' background here.] So, he vanishes from the US around the late 1940s, right? Apparently, he had a friendship with someone for 32 years. Let's say that their friendship started around 1918. Steinman was known for his face reconstruction work at a young age, and it makes sense because it would line up with the First World War. If we say that Steinman took only a few years of education to get to that degree with extraordinary success, it would mean that he was in the US at least by 1914.

It means that, in the game (Bioshock 1 - 1960), Steinman is at least 65 years old.

And, well, building a headcanon here: Let's say that his family left Cyprus because of the British occupation getting stricter with taxes and even hinting at conscription if/when the war broke out.

Now, imagine him.

He still misses home during his studies. He complains about not being able to find zivania (Cypriot drink) to drink. His family sometimes visits Cyprus and sends him some halloumi cheese over. He even visits Cyprus at some point and brings some cattle bones from the empty fields over Nicosia, say, Kythrea. He has them in his student dorm on his shelf.

I mean, don't think of a city when I say Kythrea or something. Think of a village, a very small one. Imagine him growing up there. He steals from the melon fields of the neighbors. He knows which wild weeds to pick to eat. Hell, he even experiments with which herbs are good for healing purposes, as his grandmother is a village elder who people go to for that kind of stuff. He learns that the branch of pharmaceutics exists just for that. Then, though, his focus shifts to medicine. Most importantly, surgeries --face reconstruction and all that. He's around 15 or something, they leave Cyprus.

Now, it's around the 1930s. Steinman is well over 30 at the time. His family had gone back to Cyprus at some point because they couldn't handle the US. His father picks the field up, and his uncle and his mother are running the barns & farm. Sometimes when Steinman visits, his uncle asks him to check the health of the cattle. "I'm not a vet!" doesn't work for Cypriots, you gotta do what you gotta do, lol. He stays there for half a year as a break and thinks about staying and working there as a vet because he really misses home... but the Second World War breaks out. The Brits are trying to draft up people for the Cyprus Regiment to fight in Europe or Northern Africa, especially those who know English being very much preferred... and Steinman has to flee once again. He tries to take his family to come with him as well, but they refuse. They cannot part from Cyprus once again.

Hell, the Brits manage to "convince" his father and uncle to join the Regiment. His mother goes to the US to stay with Steinman because it's hard being so lonely there. Steinman is making good money but you know, his father and uncle are deep in the war already and were as stubborn as mules about not coming to the US.

By the end of the war, his father gets injured, and they get a residency permit for the UK as a "gift" or something. His father decides to live there because he cannot work in the field easily anymore. His mother follows suit. Only his uncle remains in Cyprus. Steinman is alone in the US again.

He also read about Cypriot mythology, by the way. He learnt that Cyprus was Aphrodite's birthplace and now he believes that it's all fate that he is the best face reconstruction surgeon. He believes that he should work with "beauty" as well, and starts worshipping Aphrodite in the private and takes up aesthetic surgery.

He briefly visits Cyprus every once in a while. It's not horrible, but it feels lonely as hell. At least he has his uncle still running the farm, so they hang out and all that. When his uncle dies in the late 40s, though, he permanently goes back to the US.

He's now over 40. He expects to have a feeling of home, right?

The US doesn't feel right, though. There's business, yes, but he wants a home. He wants a place he can belong in. He feels like he needs to erase his name and face off the earth to ever belong somewhere, which feels impossible.

Until... Rapture happens.

Does he miss Cyprus? A bit, of course. But he knows he couldn't have lived there. It's a memory, but quite a strong one. At some point, he manages to convince Fontaine to smuggle him some zivania. For Fontaine's surgery (the Atlas thing, you know), Fontaine brings him soil from the fields, some molohiya (a cookable weed also called Jew's Mallow), and crates full of zivania and a new brand: KEO. When Steinman asks what it is, he tells him that it's the new fad around Cyprus, established in 1949. It's good beer, truly.

And, well, Fontaine had brought him so much zivania and KEO that he doesn't run out of them until his death.

[time-is-restored]

i have literally nowhere else to put this i apologise for the spam. the absolute best thing to come out of s3 trent is without a doubt the fucking earnestness... like in s1-2 he always came across as a very self-assured kind of guy, who knew how he came off (ie: intimidating) and enjoyed it. but seeing that paired with him being silly + completely relaxing in certain company??? pulling ridiculous faces at vodka + scrunching up his nose when he smiles @ colin + making the most ABSURD 'i really wanna say something right now but i feel like im interrupting' noises ive ever heard in my fucking LIFE??? its like. he is cool as shit and he is self assured AND he can make dumb fucking sherlock holmes jokes and dance ridiculously. its like!!!! he's lame but he's also not bc he's exactly as confident in being lame as he is being cool. do u see the vision. he has killed the part of him that cringes!!!! its just.. that unshakeable self confidence that u see in his fucking swaggers into frame includes all of himself + his different moods and eccentricities and that's just so based to me idk. unironically live ur best life wear the loudest combination of prints and patterns and primary colours uve ever seen in ur life while espousing the virtues of extended museum hours!!! contain multitudes! get silly with it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!