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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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"Open" "AI" isn’t

Tomorrow (19 Aug), I'm appearing at the San Diego Union-Tribune Festival of Books. I'm on a 2:30PM panel called "Return From Retirement," followed by a signing:

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/festivalofbooks

The crybabies who freak out about The Communist Manifesto appearing on university curriculum clearly never read it – chapter one is basically a long hymn to capitalism's flexibility and inventiveness, its ability to change form and adapt itself to everything the world throws at it and come out on top:

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm#007

Today, leftists signal this protean capacity of capital with the -washing suffix: greenwashing, genderwashing, queerwashing, wokewashing – all the ways capital cloaks itself in liberatory, progressive values, while still serving as a force for extraction, exploitation, and political corruption.

A smart capitalist is someone who, sensing the outrage at a world run by 150 old white guys in boardrooms, proposes replacing half of them with women, queers, and people of color. This is a superficial maneuver, sure, but it's an incredibly effective one.

In "Open (For Business): Big Tech, Concentrated Power, and the Political Economy of Open AI," a new working paper, Meredith Whittaker, David Gray Widder and Sarah B Myers document a new kind of -washing: openwashing:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4543807

Openwashing is the trick that large "AI" companies use to evade regulation and neutralizing critics, by casting themselves as forces of ethical capitalism, committed to the virtue of openness. No one should be surprised to learn that the products of the "open" wing of an industry whose products are neither "artificial," nor "intelligent," are also not "open." Every word AI huxters say is a lie; including "and," and "the."

So what work does the "open" in "open AI" do? "Open" here is supposed to invoke the "open" in "open source," a movement that emphasizes a software development methodology that promotes code transparency, reusability and extensibility, which are three important virtues.

But "open source" itself is an offshoot of a more foundational movement, the Free Software movement, whose goal is to promote freedom, and whose method is openness. The point of software freedom was technological self-determination, the right of technology users to decide not just what their technology does, but who it does it to and who it does it for:

https://locusmag.com/2022/01/cory-doctorow-science-fiction-is-a-luddite-literature/

The open source split from free software was ostensibly driven by the need to reassure investors and businesspeople so they would join the movement. The "free" in free software is (deliberately) ambiguous, a bit of wordplay that sometimes misleads people into thinking it means "Free as in Beer" when really it means "Free as in Speech" (in Romance languages, these distinctions are captured by translating "free" as "libre" rather than "gratis").

The idea behind open source was to rebrand free software in a less ambiguous – and more instrumental – package that stressed cost-savings and software quality, as well as "ecosystem benefits" from a co-operative form of development that recruited tinkerers, independents, and rivals to contribute to a robust infrastructural commons.

But "open" doesn't merely resolve the linguistic ambiguity of libre vs gratis – it does so by removing the "liberty" from "libre," the "freedom" from "free." "Open" changes the pole-star that movement participants follow as they set their course. Rather than asking "Which course of action makes us more free?" they ask, "Which course of action makes our software better?"

Thus, by dribs and drabs, the freedom leeches out of openness. Today's tech giants have mobilized "open" to create a two-tier system: the largest tech firms enjoy broad freedom themselves – they alone get to decide how their software stack is configured. But for all of us who rely on that (increasingly unavoidable) software stack, all we have is "open": the ability to peer inside that software and see how it works, and perhaps suggest improvements to it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBknF2yUZZ8

In the Big Tech internet, it's freedom for them, openness for us. "Openness" – transparency, reusability and extensibility – is valuable, but it shouldn't be mistaken for technological self-determination. As the tech sector becomes ever-more concentrated, the limits of openness become more apparent.

But even by those standards, the openness of "open AI" is thin gruel indeed (that goes triple for the company that calls itself "OpenAI," which is a particularly egregious openwasher).

The paper's authors start by suggesting that the "open" in "open AI" is meant to imply that an "open AI" can be scratch-built by competitors (or even hobbyists), but that this isn't true. Not only is the material that "open AI" companies publish insufficient for reproducing their products, even if those gaps were plugged, the resource burden required to do so is so intense that only the largest companies could do so.

Beyond this, the "open" parts of "open AI" are insufficient for achieving the other claimed benefits of "open AI": they don't promote auditing, or safety, or competition. Indeed, they often cut against these goals.

"Open AI" is a wordgame that exploits the malleability of "open," but also the ambiguity of the term "AI": "a grab bag of approaches, not… a technical term of art, but more … marketing and a signifier of aspirations." Hitching this vague term to "open" creates all kinds of bait-and-switch opportunities.

That's how you get Meta claiming that LLaMa2 is "open source," despite being licensed in a way that is absolutely incompatible with any widely accepted definition of the term:

https://blog.opensource.org/metas-llama-2-license-is-not-open-source/

LLaMa-2 is a particularly egregious openwashing example, but there are plenty of other ways that "open" is misleadingly applied to AI: sometimes it means you can see the source code, sometimes that you can see the training data, and sometimes that you can tune a model, all to different degrees, alone and in combination.

But even the most "open" systems can't be independently replicated, due to raw computing requirements. This isn't the fault of the AI industry – the computational intensity is a fact, not a choice – but when the AI industry claims that "open" will "democratize" AI, they are hiding the ball. People who hear these "democratization" claims (especially policymakers) are thinking about entrepreneurial kids in garages, but unless these kids have access to multi-billion-dollar data centers, they can't be "disruptors" who topple tech giants with cool new ideas. At best, they can hope to pay rent to those giants for access to their compute grids, in order to create products and services at the margin that rely on existing products, rather than displacing them.

The "open" story, with its claims of democratization, is an especially important one in the context of regulation. In Europe, where a variety of AI regulations have been proposed, the AI industry has co-opted the open source movement's hard-won narrative battles about the harms of ill-considered regulation.

For open source (and free software) advocates, many tech regulations aimed at taming large, abusive companies – such as requirements to surveil and control users to extinguish toxic behavior – wreak collateral damage on the free, open, user-centric systems that we see as superior alternatives to Big Tech. This leads to the paradoxical effect of passing regulation to "punish" Big Tech that end up simply shaving an infinitesimal percentage off the giants' profits, while destroying the small co-ops, nonprofits and startups before they can grow to be a viable alternative.

The years-long fight to get regulators to understand this risk has been waged by principled actors working for subsistence nonprofit wages or for free, and now the AI industry is capitalizing on lawmakers' hard-won consideration for collateral damage by claiming to be "open AI" and thus vulnerable to overbroad regulation.

But the "open" projects that lawmakers have been coached to value are precious because they deliver a level playing field, competition, innovation and democratization – all things that "open AI" fails to deliver. The regulations the AI industry is fighting also don't necessarily implicate the speech implications that are core to protecting free software:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/remembering-case-established-code-speech

Just think about LLaMa-2. You can download it for free, along with the model weights it relies on – but not detailed specs for the data that was used in its training. And the source-code is licensed under a homebrewed license cooked up by Meta's lawyers, a license that only glancingly resembles anything from the Open Source Definition:

https://opensource.org/osd/

Core to Big Tech companies' "open AI" offerings are tools, like Meta's PyTorch and Google's TensorFlow. These tools are indeed "open source," licensed under real OSS terms. But they are designed and maintained by the companies that sponsor them, and optimize for the proprietary back-ends each company offers in its own cloud. When programmers train themselves to develop in these environments, they are gaining expertise in adding value to a monopolist's ecosystem, locking themselves in with their own expertise. This a classic example of software freedom for tech giants and open source for the rest of us.

One way to understand how "open" can produce a lock-in that "free" might prevent is to think of Android: Android is an open platform in the sense that its sourcecode is freely licensed, but the existence of Android doesn't make it any easier to challenge the mobile OS duopoly with a new mobile OS; nor does it make it easier to switch from Android to iOS and vice versa.

Another example: MongoDB, a free/open database tool that was adopted by Amazon, which subsequently forked the codebase and tuning it to work on their proprietary cloud infrastructure.

The value of open tooling as a stickytrap for creating a pool of developers who end up as sharecroppers who are glued to a specific company's closed infrastructure is well-understood and openly acknowledged by "open AI" companies. Zuckerberg boasts about how PyTorch ropes developers into Meta's stack, "when there are opportunities to make integrations with products, [so] it’s much easier to make sure that developers and other folks are compatible with the things that we need in the way that our systems work."

Tooling is a relatively obscure issue, primarily debated by developers. A much broader debate has raged over training data – how it is acquired, labeled, sorted and used. Many of the biggest "open AI" companies are totally opaque when it comes to training data. Google and OpenAI won't even say how many pieces of data went into their models' training – let alone which data they used.

Other "open AI" companies use publicly available datasets like the Pile and CommonCrawl. But you can't replicate their models by shoveling these datasets into an algorithm. Each one has to be groomed – labeled, sorted, de-duplicated, and otherwise filtered. Many "open" models merge these datasets with other, proprietary sets, in varying (and secret) proportions.

Quality filtering and labeling for training data is incredibly expensive and labor-intensive, and involves some of the most exploitative and traumatizing clickwork in the world, as poorly paid workers in the Global South make pennies for reviewing data that includes graphic violence, rape, and gore.

Not only is the product of this "data pipeline" kept a secret by "open" companies, the very nature of the pipeline is likewise cloaked in mystery, in order to obscure the exploitative labor relations it embodies (the joke that "AI" stands for "absent Indians" comes out of the South Asian clickwork industry).

The most common "open" in "open AI" is a model that arrives built and trained, which is "open" in the sense that end-users can "fine-tune" it – usually while running it on the manufacturer's own proprietary cloud hardware, under that company's supervision and surveillance. These tunable models are undocumented blobs, not the rigorously peer-reviewed transparent tools celebrated by the open source movement.

If "open" was a way to transform "free software" from an ethical proposition to an efficient methodology for developing high-quality software; then "open AI" is a way to transform "open source" into a rent-extracting black box.

Some "open AI" has slipped out of the corporate silo. Meta's LLaMa was leaked by early testers, republished on 4chan, and is now in the wild. Some exciting stuff has emerged from this, but despite this work happening outside of Meta's control, it is not without benefits to Meta. As an infamous leaked Google memo explains:

Paradoxically, the one clear winner in all of this is Meta. Because the leaked model was theirs, they have effectively garnered an entire planet's worth of free labor. Since most open source innovation is happening on top of their architecture, there is nothing stopping them from directly incorporating it into their products.

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/leaked-google-memo-admits-defeat-by-open-source-ai/486290/

Thus, "open AI" is best understood as "as free product development" for large, well-capitalized AI companies, conducted by tinkerers who will not be able to escape these giants' proprietary compute silos and opaque training corpuses, and whose work product is guaranteed to be compatible with the giants' own systems.

The instrumental story about the virtues of "open" often invoke auditability: the fact that anyone can look at the source code makes it easier for bugs to be identified. But as open source projects have learned the hard way, the fact that anyone can audit your widely used, high-stakes code doesn't mean that anyone will.

The Heartbleed vulnerability in OpenSSL was a wake-up call for the open source movement – a bug that endangered every secure webserver connection in the world, which had hidden in plain sight for years. The result was an admirable and successful effort to build institutions whose job it is to actually make use of open source transparency to conduct regular, deep, systemic audits.

In other words, "open" is a necessary, but insufficient, precondition for auditing. But when the "open AI" movement touts its "safety" thanks to its "auditability," it fails to describe any steps it is taking to replicate these auditing institutions – how they'll be constituted, funded and directed. The story starts and ends with "transparency" and then makes the unjustifiable leap to "safety," without any intermediate steps about how the one will turn into the other.

It's a Magic Underpants Gnome story, in other words:

Step One: Transparency

Step Two: ??

Step Three: Safety

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5ih_TQWqCA

Meanwhile, OpenAI itself has gone on record as objecting to "burdensome mechanisms like licenses or audits" as an impediment to "innovation" – all the while arguing that these "burdensome mechanisms" should be mandatory for rival offerings that are more advanced than its own. To call this a "transparent ruse" is to do violence to good, hardworking transparent ruses all the world over:

https://openai.com/blog/governance-of-superintelligence

Some "open AI" is much more open than the industry dominating offerings. There's EleutherAI, a donor-supported nonprofit whose model comes with documentation and code, licensed Apache 2.0. There are also some smaller academic offerings: Vicuna (UCSD/CMU/Berkeley); Koala (Berkeley) and Alpaca (Stanford).

These are indeed more open (though Alpaca – which ran on a laptop – had to be withdrawn because it "hallucinated" so profusely). But to the extent that the "open AI" movement invokes (or cares about) these projects, it is in order to brandish them before hostile policymakers and say, "Won't someone please think of the academics?" These are the poster children for proposals like exempting AI from antitrust enforcement, but they're not significant players in the "open AI" industry, nor are they likely to be for so long as the largest companies are running the show:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4493900

I'm kickstarting the audiobook for "The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation," a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and make a new, good internet to succeed the old, good internet. It's a DRM-free book, which means Audible won't carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/18/openwashing/#you-keep-using-that-word-i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #llama-2 #meta #openwashing #floss #free software #open ai #open source #osi #open source initiative #osd #open source definition #code is speech

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rexinasuperomnes · 3 months

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Got a new theory about Solas and his identity, contains spoiler-ish stuff from the game informer article

So, I just reblogged a post by @arlathvhenan about solas being the Irish word for “light.” In Tevinter Nights, the story “Genitivi Dies at the End” by Lukas Kristjanson, Rasaan says, “The name given when [Solas] lied to us - and to your Inquisition - was chosen by a self-styled martyr. ‘Solas’ is also not true” (311).

So what if Solas’s true name means light?

Solas himself says, “I was Solas first. Fen’Harel came later.” But what if Solas isn’t his original name?

The Game Informer article revealed that the Lighthouse is actually his home, near the Crossroads. The house of Light.

What if his true, original name is the elven word for light, which could also be translated as the sun?

In the codex entries about Elgar’nan and Mythal that we find in Origins, we learn a creation myth featuring those two, the Sun, and the Earth. Link Link

To summarize those, the Sun grew jealous of the Earth’s love and attention toward Elgar’nan, and destroyed everything the Earth had created for him. Elgar’nan threw down the Sun in a rage into the depths of the Earth. The heat of the Sun cracked the Earth, and her tears filled those cracks to become the ocean. (“Elgar’nan’s pride was great”) Mythal was created by her tears and was able to reason with Elgar’nan to release the Sun from his prison. Elgar’nan, “humbled,” agreed, and Mythal created a sphere to house the Sun so his power would never burn the Earth again.

In those codices, there’s also some fun wordplay with pride and humility, as well as direct mention of the Sun feeling remorse, with regret supposedly being a major theme in Veilguard.

Many people have theorized that Solas was a servant of Mythal in some fashion, based on his armor, the placement of wolf statues around her temple, comparison to Ghilan’nain and Andruil, and the fact that he had vallaslin at one point. What if his service to Mythal, or fealty or loyalty or whatever it was, started when she bound the Sun? What if the Lighthouse is what remains of the space Mythal created for him?

I would like to offer visual evidence as well. These images are from the 2022 trailer that gave us the name “Dreadwolf”

Look at how prominently the sun features in these images, framing him. In the image on the left, the sun is embedded in the Dread Wolf.

I know that the legends and stories we have learned are echoes, changed drastically over thousands of years, but the names have been correct so far. I’m so excited to learn more with Veilguard coming out.

#solas #dragon age #dragon age: the veilguard #dragon age spoilers #dragon age theory

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lululawrence · 2 years

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lululawrence's October 2022 Fic List

Previous Fic Lists / Lulu’s List Podcast Masterpost

Hello hello! My October list is a day(ish) late for the 28th, but I wanted to still get it out while it was still October, and I made it! Even with 30 fics having been read somehow this month hah!

The podcast is still on a break, but will return as soon as I'm able to manage it. I still hope to do a catch-up series like I did before, so fingers crossed that can happen, and sooner rather than later.

As always, be sure to show your love and appreciation for all of the hard work our fandom authors have put into their fics with kudos, nice comments, and (when applicable) reblogging their fic posts!

hold this thread by @disgruntledkittenface / disgruntledkittenface (27k, E, Nick/Harry, Alternate Universe, Model Harry, DJ Nick, Nick is essentially the Nick we know and love but Harry's a model hehe, Meet Cute, Flirting, London Fashion Week, Kink Exploration and Negotiation, some BDSM fun in such a great way)

There was a lot done in this fic regarding the dynamic between the two of them that had me squealing and screaming in happiness and awkwardness and excitement and just sheer enjoyment. Maggie did such an amazing job with this fic and it is absolutely one of my fav gryles fics I've read

Uh oh, it’s Magic (when I’m with you) by @kingsofeverything / kingsofeverything (7k, E, Harry/Louis, Astro Fest fic, Alternate Universe, Magic, Meet Ugly, basically hehe, Camping, Searching/Waiting for Magic Powers, Magic Dick, no like really lol)

This fic was so insanely ridiculous and silly but also so much fun lol It was funny, sexy, cracky... all the best things thrown together in a little fic that has you feeling so happy by the end. I loved every moment.

Jealousy, Jealousy by @wabadabadaba / wabadabadaba (26k, E, Harry/Louis, A/B/O dynamics, non-traditional A/B/O dynamics, alpha/alpha, alpha Louis, alpha Harry, new relationship, bi character, jealousy, alpha nesting, figuring out how to make a new relationship work)

This fic was just. WOW. I love non-traditional A/B/O dynamics, but this one took it in a direction I've not seen where the characters have a lot of challenges to overcome that aren't entirely external as they adjust to being in a relationship with another alpha. It's handled so beautifully and shows the love they have for each other as well as the way they are both so concerned and nervous as they figure out how to express their concerns and what they're experiencing and it's just a lot and fantastically done.

In the midst of a storm by @quelsentiment / wordsnnotes (55k, M, OT5 Relationship, Alternate Universe, Guernsey, Angst, Sadness and Loneliness, Exes to Lovers, Polyamory Negotiations, Friends to Lovers, Family Drama, Confronting your Past, in a myriad of ways)

I wish I had the words to talk about this fic, but it has been almost a month since I finished it and I still cannot find any that sufficiently describe this fic. There is such a depth and wealth of emotion found within every character in this fic, yet you see all of them through the POV of Zayn. You know there's a history, but you don't know most of it until you need to, you just know enough to understand at least part of what Zayn is grappling with. The island is such a strong character to the fic as well, and Zayn's grandfather as well as others on the island are just so rich and powerful. The entire fic transports you to another place and makes you feel so safe with these characters, even at the most distressing part of it all, that you can't help but want to stay with them. I just... this fic was hands down one of my favorites I've read all year. End of.

I know I've got this (because I've had it all along) by @so-why-let-your-voice-be-tamed / we_are_the_same (16k, T, Harry/Louis, Alternate Universe, Girl Direction, Boudoir Photographer Harry, insecure Louis, Best Friend Liam, side Ziam, Body Positivity, talk of past abuse from a partner, Self Empowerment)

This fic is so vulnerable from the moment it begins. Mia is incredible when it comes to infusing her fics with All The Feelings, and this fic isn't an exception, except instead of the traditional angst and painful feelings that make you hurt and cry, this is entirely different. It still cuts you to the core, but it's due to the fear and ghosts and everything Louis is still dealing with paired with the gentleness and care Harry takes as she does her best to help Louis let go of everything she's held on to for too long. It's incredible and powerful.

Will Death Be Our Last Kiss, My Love? by @fallinglikethis / FallingLikeThis (7k, M, Harry/Louis, Alternate Universe, Harry Potter Crossover, Harry and Louis are partners at the Ministry of Magic, Half-Selkie Louis, Kidnapping, Murder Investigation, Dark Fic, Mystery)

This fic was incredible! It was part of the Tri-Wizard Fic Challenge and I have no idea how Tabby manages to fit so much backstory and worldbuilding in addition to plot into so few words. It feels like a fic that is so much longer than it actually is because of how much she manages to fit into those words, and it's insanely effective. I felt like I was also trying to solve the mystery of who it could be and the fear and worry lacing the words were felt as I read as well. The way canon HP characters were woven into the story with people we know from our fandom was also so much fun.

More Than a Mic Drop by @haztobegood / haztobegood (8k, E, Harry/Louis, Alternate Universe, Singer Louis, Sound Engineer Harry, Flirting, Dom/sub, I would say undertones but honestly it's not even undertones by the end lmao, Mic Drops, LTWT22)

I'll be honest, I read the complete fic, or as complete as it WAS, closer to the beginning of October and Jinny has since added a sixth chapter. I'm gonna go ahead and still rec it even though I've not read that last chapter she added a day or two ago yet, because I'm sure it's still amazing. This fic is so playful and fun and Louis is SUCH a brat in it, I was like... almost cowering because I knew his punishment wouldn't be BAD but also I had no idea how far Harry would also push it. It was amazing to read them both kind of feeling each other out and figuring out where their boundaries were, and it's just... so fun and so sexy and so cool to read the bits we have actually seen of Louis' stage antics turn into such a fun dynamic.

Examine by @louistomlionson / sitandadmire (42k, E, Harry/Louis, Alternate Universe, Footballer Louis, Doctor Harry, Past Abuse, Mental Health Issues, Trauma Responses, essentially both are pretty fucked up and they are fucked up together, but by the end they try really hard to work on their issues lol)

I'm reccing this fic while I still can because It's not going to remain on AO3 for much longer! So download it if you need it! haha I actually started this fic ages ago when it was on anon and then it was taken off anon and I lost it for a time, but finally found it again so I could finish it. For real though, please read tags and be safe, because this fic is HEAVY and dark and deals with a lot a lot a lot of hard topics. It's angsty and painful but is such a journey that you cannot help but cheer for them as they continue through their difficulties. I really came to love them so much.

ghost of you by @beckydoesthings / beckywritesthings (109k, E, Harry/Louis, Big Bang fic, Star Wars AU, non-linear narrative structure, Jedi Master Harry, Harry is Obi-Wan, Mandalorian Duke Louis, Louis is Satine, Padawan/Jedi Knight Zayn, Zayn is Anakin, Strangers to Lovers, Plot Twist, Time Jumps, You don't need to know Star Wars to enjoy this fic!)

Uh, yes, this fic was fucking MINDBLOWING. I know I keep raving about these fics and saying they're the best I've read, but I'm being serious every time. This fic was incredibly done. I've mostly just seen the films and a couple of the TV series that Disney has done, so I'm not so well versed on all the Mandalorian things, but it didn't matter. I was able to follow all of it so well that it actually helped me make sense of some things I'd seen in the films/shows. This fic is an epic journey in so many ways, and the depth with which you get to know and love the characters was incredible. The way the men we love were merged with the characters they were meant to be portraying was amazing as well! And the way the narration was set up was so incredibly compelling as well. The plot twist and the time jumps are all done so perfectly for maximum emotional impact and I just cannot rave about this fic enough. It is stunning and stellar and I want everyone to read it lol

Outside Is Just A Blur by daggerandtherose (18k, NR, Harry/Louis, Alternate Universe, Single Dad Louis, Struggling Louis, Protective Louis, Baby Dialling, Wrong Number, kind of?, Strangers to Lovers, Online Friendships, again kind of, It's complicated)

I actually don't even know how I found this fic honestly lol but it was such a great read! Louis' baby somehow manages to call Harry, without knowing who he is or having his number previously, repeatedly when playing with Louis' phone, and that's the basis for everything. The friendship and relationship that develops from there is so pure and lovely and they are exactly what they both needed, but there's also so much difficulty they have to work through and it's just so sweet and lovely. Such a fun read.

Plant New Seeds by @hellolovers13 / HelloLovers13 (LilianAngel) (2k, T, Harry/Louis, Alternate Universe, Neighbors to Lovers, Mystery/Secret Plant Watering, Fluff, that's literally the entire thing and it's so perfect lol, Fluff, Humor, and perhaps my favorite tag I've read this month, "No Plants Were Harmed" lolllll)

This fic was like the alternate universe version of the Guerilla Warfare Planter on Campus Harry fucking Styles fic and I cannot express how very much that pleases me lollll This fic was so silly and Louis was so quick to believe almost anything but the real thing that happened and the exasperation on Harry's side is just palpable and... yeah. I could not stop giggling while reading this and isn't that just the best feeling? A perfect little pick me up, for sure.

Just Pretend by @kingsofeverything (90k, E, Harry/Louis, Silver Fox Louis fest fic, older divorced dad Louis, older divorced dad Harry, both have teenage daughters, both are small business owners, Fake Relationship, One Night Stand gone wrong lol, Small Town USA, slow burn, pining, bed sharing, just all the good things)

I'm not sure how she managed to do it, but Lauren took all of my favorite fic things and threw them into a fic then added some new things to the mix like silver fox louis and divorced dads with teen daughters and just made it like a siren song for me lollll and it was still somehow even better than I expected it to be? I put off an entire day's worth of chores around the house and other tasks that really seriously needed to be done (like MEAL PLANNING and GROCERY SHOPPING and IMPORTANT PHONE CALLS BEING MADE etc that keep the family running) and just... read while the toddler of terror sat in my lap and demanded different videos on YouTube. I didn't fight him. I gave him what he wanted because that's how I was able to continue reading in relative peace, and you know what? I regret nothing. This fic was fucking incredible. Left you feeling so fulfilled and happy and just SO pleased with how things turned out. Cannot rave enough.

silver dress feels like a cure by @finelinegynandromorph / finelinegynandromorph (11k, E, Harry/Louis, Bottom Harry Fest fic, Alternate Universe, Ballet Dancer Louis, Boudoir Photographer Louis, former Ballet Dancer/now Pole Dancer Harry, Trans Harry, Non-Binary Harry, Intersex Harry, Strained kind-of Ex-Rivals to Lovers, It's complicated lol)

It is so funny that I somehow managed to find and read two boudoir photographer fics in the same month and how, despite being such a niche and specific plot in a way, they were so different! This fic was at times a difficult read, just because of the things mentioned in the tags and the difficulties Harry had to deal with as well as the internal struggles Louis had, but the way it was all handled and information was given to the reader was so fulfilling. I appreciated how they talked through the awkwardness and just handled everything. It was a great read.

A Friend's Gambit - It Begins by @laynefaire / Layne Faire (HisDarlin) (1k, T, Zayn/Liam, Wordplay 2020 fic, Alternate Universe, This is just part 1 of the series, I haven't read the rest yet lol, Tooth Extraction and the Dentist, or at least talk about it)

I am FINALLY catching up on everything from @wordplayfics I have missed in the past three rounds. sigh. Anyway, there will be several more from this round following because I started with this one! haha I'm still working on week 1 from round 4, so while this is the beginning of the story that will be told over the course of the five weeks, it was such a great way to start it off and it has me so excited about what is to come!

In a Little Bit of Trouble by @becomeawendybird / QuickedWeen (5k, T, Harry/Louis, Wordplay 2020 fic, Alternate Universe, Girl Direction, Louis is Agent Carter, Waitress Harry, Spies and Intrigue, Historical fic, 1940s, Action/Adventure)

This fic was SO fun because it was like a little slice of a larger story and yet it still felt so complete! That doesn't mean I don't want more, because I do, but mostly because Molly does it so perfectly she makes me want to just hear the rest of this larger story and learn more about everything she references in passing. It's killer world building, the dynamic between the two women is incredible, and it's SO HOT and yet still smut free. Perfection!

Vanilla Extract by @maelstromroots / Maelstrom_Roots (4k, T, Harry/Louis, Wordplay 2020 fic, Alternate Universe, Established Relationship, COVID and Quarantine, Anxiety, Panic Attacks, Date Night during a Pandemic, This makes it all sound so heavy but it's not, it's actually so soft)

Oh man oh man, where to start. This fic was so fucking relatable and in some ways still felt like it was too soon, but maybe that's just because I still feel like I'm struggling with a lot of the feelings that Harry is in this fic lol That said, it was so cathartic to read and so beautiful to see their relationship and how much they really were/are still looking out for each other despite their struggles. It was so soft and careful in so many ways while still dealing with the hard topics, and I just really appreciated the way all of it was written about so it didn't feel preachy or condescending, but instead it felt relatable and like you were getting a big hug at the end as you were told it would be okay. If that even makes sense? I just really loved it.

In the Homestretch of the Hard Times by @fallinglikethis / FallingLikeThis (5k, M, Harry/Louis, Wordplay 2020 fic, Alternate Universe, Zombie Apocalypse, Scientist Harry, Protective Older Brother Louis, Harry is looking for a Cure, Louis might be the cure, sounds about right yeah? lollll)

Okay so this fic is such a fun metaphor for everything we were in the midst of in 2020, or that's how it felt to me. We were just looking for a way to stop it all and help us become immune, so to speak, and while we never did find a cure, I loved seeing how it all worked out in their world. The way they were essentially able to save each other in different but still incredibly important ways. It was such a beautiful story, and I keep thinking about it.

A+ Patient by @louandhazaf / YesIsAWorld (2k, G, Harry/Louis, Wordplay 2020 fic, Alternate Universe, Dentist Louis, Dental Assistant Niall, Patient Harry, Anxiety, Humor, Mutual Pining, Fluff)

Harry in this was so fucking relatable lmaooo The way he put off going to the dentist until he couldn't anymore even though he knew it made things worse and almost was embarrassed because of how bad it was and he wanted to get a good grade as a patient, as if that was a thing? I couldn't stop laughing because it felt like Nic had somehow managed to write me to perfection in this fic lol And Niall with the humor and begging Harry not to sue them and just... all of it was so great. I loved it all so much.

This is Not My Cat by @londonfoginacup / LadyLondonderry (3k, G, Harry/Louis, Wordplay 2020 fic, Alternate Universe, Hybrid Harry, Confused Louis, Thunderstorms, Humor, Fluff, Meet Awkward, lolllll)

I forgot about the random things Emmu sent while writing this fic until I was reading it and could not stop laughing and cooing as I did so. This fic is so funny and so cute and I love Hybrid Harry and Gemma with my entire heart. It's the perfect crack-y Emmu fic we have all come to expect from her, I think, and it does not disappoint. Such a fun read haha

Watching Camboys on Lockdown by @reminiscingintherain / reminiscingintherain (1k, E, Harry/Louis, Wordplay 2020 fic, Alternate Universe, Camboy Louis, Viewer/Supporter Harry, COVID and Quarantine, Lockdown, Harry learns about Camboys from Gemma, and I cannot stop laughing about that)

I read part one of this fic as part of @wankersday back in 2020 and cannot believe it has taken me this long to continue reading it lol I am so happy Roni continued this story for Wordplay. Louis is a bit of a disaster his first time and I just keep thinking about the way his foot kicked out and knocked over the camera and giggling all over again but Harry is so protective from that first time and it's just such a great start to the rest of the series and I cannot wait to read the rest.

captivate by @ohmydarlin / heartland (605, M, Harry/Louis, Wordplay 2020 fic, Alternate Universe, Established Relationship, Reading, Books)

This fic is so short and simple and so perfect! The way Louis learns that Harry's favorite book is Pride and Prejudice and immediately has to read it is so sweet and lovely and I just think it's such a cute start to this series. I can't wait to read the rest of this as well!

Extraction Plan Alpha Prime by @soidiallednine / soidiallednine (7k, M, Harry/Louis, Wordplay 2020 fic, Alternate Universe, Sci-Fi, Space, Warring Planets, Undercover Agents, Spies, Hiding, Escape, Action/Adventure)

There was so much world building and adventure and excitement in this that I forgot it was only part one of a series and was SO SURPRISED when it ended and nothing had been resolved lmaooo You can imagine my relief when I realized there would be more coming in following weeks haha For real though, the way this was written felt like I was watching an action sci-fi movie play out in front of me. I have a lot of trouble visualizing things I've never seen before, and yet the way they described things it was all done in a way that made it feel like I was physically in the space it was happening in. It was incredible and so good and I'm feeling a bit stressed thinking about it right now because I want to read the rest so just let that speak for itself hahaha

Your Voice, Leading Me Home (Extraction) by @phd-mama / phdmama (5k, M, Harry/Louis, Wordplay 2020 fic, Alternate Universe, Spies, Undercover, Secret Identities Compromised, Escape, Danger,)

This fic, y'all. Especially following the previous one, it was just A LOT OF TENSION because phdmama does such a stunning job of throwing us right into the action. Harry is undercover and his identity has already been compromised and he's trying to escape and he has Louis in his ear trying to help him escape and it's so dangerous and so much is at risk and holy shit my heart leapt into my throat at one point and just there's a plot twist and it's so good I cannot explain! It was such a well written story and had me on the edge of my seat as I read as fast as I could as if that would somehow help anything lol It was just SO good and exciting!

Fun Time Candles by @sadaveniren / SadaVeniren (1k, T, Harry/Louis, Wordplay 2020 fic, Alternate Universe, Established Relationship, Parents, Parenting while Active in the BDSM world, what a great premise honestly lol, candle making, specialty candles hehe)

This fic is so great because the humor and hilarity of Harry and Louis trying to navigate the pitfalls of their child being able to read while having scandalous labels for your specialty candles specifically geared towards wax play is... just the best thing I never knew I needed lol It was so funny and real and wonderful I adored it.

Extract: Japan by @sashinalash / SashinaLash (676, T, Harry/Louis, Wordplay 2020 fic, Canon Compliant, Harry in Japan)

This fic is so unique and beautiful and I cannot even explain why exactly, you just have to read it and experience it yourself. It almost feels like poetry, the way it is structured and how it flows. It has a vibe of stream of consciousness and yet it is so much more? It was one of those fics where I read it and then had to sit with it for awhile to really take in what exactly I had read. It was stunningly beautiful and such a cool way to explore it all.

Get You a Husband Who... by @daggerandrose / amomentoflove (3k, T, Harry/Louis, Wordplay 2020 fic, Alternate Universe, Established Relationship, Youtuber Louis, Baker Harry, Humor, Baking, Fluff)

This was another one where when I realized there would be more from this universe coming in the later weeks, I was so excited. This was such a cute setup and I loved the dynamic they had together as well as the humor of the entire situation while also getting behind the scenes details on Louis making the video itself and their relationship was just so soft. I loved it all, what a cute idea and I can't wait to explore more of their adventures together.

my love will never leave you by @so-why-let-your-voice-be-tamed / we_are_the_same (10k, T, Harry/Louis, Wordplay 2020 fic, Alternate Universe, Established Relationship, World Building, Illness, Memories, Loss of Memory, Very Sunshine of the Spotless Mind vibes while also being so different, Memories are Currency, Established Relationship, Angst, Pain, Hope, Sci-Fi almost, super super cool)

Mia out here throwing down a 10k fic of an entirely different world that was essentially created by her as far as I know and it's completely stunning? Like how? So wild. The pain and longing and angst in this fic is so much, though. I would summarize the fic except it's so complex I could never do it justice here so hopefully someday I'll do the podcast for this month so I can fumble my way through that for you haha Just... it's almost exes to lovers except also strangers to lovers because its complicated and yet is also a happy ending? It's just a stunningly beautiful and wonderful fic and had me wanting to just inhale the entire thing and yet also jump into the world and start a revolt myself to free them from the system they were stuck under lol it was just insanely good. So good.

The Sweetest Thing by @homosociallyyours / homosociallyyours (100, G, Harry/Louis, Wordplay 2020 fic, Alternate Universe, A/B/O dynamics, non-traditional A/B/O dynamics, omega Louis, omega Harry, meet cute, drabble)

This drabble was so cute and sweet and fun! It was the perfect opening to the series Megan continued with this round of Wordplay, so as I keep saying, I can't wait to keep reading as I catch up!

to tell you the truth... by @hogwartzlou / 5sexualhomos (1k, G, Harry/Louis, Wordplay 2020 fic, Alternate Universe, friends to lovers, exploring the woods, alien plantlife)

This fic is so fun? It's such a fun and mysterious and almost creepy set up and it turns out so perfectly fluffy and cute and sweet and fun. It was one of those perfectly fluffy and fun reads that you can read in a few minutes as a little pick me up and I loved it for that exact reason.

It's Paradise As Long As I'm With You by @loveislarryislove / LiveLaughLoveLarry (3k, T, Harry/Louis, Wordplay 2020 fic, Established Relationship, Parents, Harry's Birthday, Domestic Fluff, Baking)

This fic was so perfectly cute and sweet. The strength of their relationship to each other and their kids was so palpable and lovely. The way that Louis was doing his best to celebrate Harry's birthday in the way he knew he deserved while also respecting his wishes was so wonderful and also their getting alone time was so perfect, or maybe I just felt that way as an exhausted mother of three who struggles to find time alone with her spouse at all haha It was such a soft and sweet fic, and just a joy to read.

#fic rec #my fic rec #fic writer appreciation #fic list #october 2022 fic list #long post #honestly there are 30 fics on here #30!!!!!#i haven't read that many fics in a single month in ACTUAL YEARS #wtf?!?!#and like not ALL of them are short because yes i did read a lot of shorter wordplay fics #but fucking hell i read some hella long ones too #and was also ridiculously busy #and like i know i didn't sleep well for most of the month #but hot damn how did i manage 30 fics???#anyway i hope you enjoy hahahaha #i also did a slightly different structure since i'm not able to do the podcast atm #hope you like that #okaythanksbai

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mmmmalo · 3 months

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Pinned 2024

Hi I'm mmmmalo, I write about Homestuck and post doodles.

In the summer of 2022 I posted the essay Slurquest, which proposed that much of Homestuck is provocatively structured around racist/homophobic anxieties of black/gay people taking over America. The bulk of the essay consisted of seeking out slur-based wordplay, hence the name.

Even now, most of my writing is an attempt to navigate Homestuck's ironic engagement with hate rhetoric and political paranoia. My #homestuck commentary tag is a meandering hodgepodge, but here's the last half-year of interpretation in brief:

Anti-Semitic and anti-feminist motifs can be united under the banner of the once common appellation "feminazi".

Thus, Vriska countering a misogynist barb by insulting "philistines" (a cognate of Palestine) suggests a complementary engagement with anti-Islamic rhetoric.

Distorted references to turbans and veils mingle with irreverent depictions of Muslim practices, in service of crafting a picture of religious authority that is simultaneously gay and homophobic.

I'm currently working on a longer piece putting the above in dialogue with Hussie's visual novel Psycholonials, which I hope will by some measure answer the question of what purpose all the byzantine obscenity serves. But this is where we are for now

#aiming to update this with a completed work in a month or so

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uhoh-but-yeah-alright · 2 years

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2022 1D Wordplay Challenge fics by yeah_alright

This was my fourth year doing the @wordplayfics challenge. It was the hardest year for me so far. It resulted in the fewest words I’ve written across this challenge in all those years. It’s still one of my favorite fic things to do. Love and thanks to @lululawrence for running it. <3

Louis gets a little caught up in adoring Harry’s endearing breakfast-making habits. After breakfast, they both get a lot caught up in adoring each other’s bodies.

Zayn takes her new girlfriend for a drive.

A love story told by five swings who each were there to see a piece of it unfold.

Harry’s agreed to let someone else fuck Louis. As long as Louis describes it all to him as it’s happening.

Niall taking care of the bill has always turned Shawn on. Sometimes he feels the need to thank him immediately.

My previous wordplay fic posts are here: 2019 | 2020 | 2021

#wordplay 6 #2022 wordplay #my fic #my fic masterpost

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rustedhills · 8 months

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Merobiba's Etymology: A Classical Discussion

The most likely place you've seen the word 'Merobiba' is Drawfee on Youtube - which has coined it as the name for a goofy little puppet-Merida from the hit film 'Bwave'.

Fig. 1: A screenshot from the original Drawfee video, posted Feb 2, 2023.

They pulled the word (among others) from the twitter account Weird Medieval, which posted this (Fig. 2) on Dec 6, 2022.

Fig. 2, the original 'merobiba' tweet, accessed via proxy

Weird Medieval sources the word (and others in the thread) to The dictionary of syr Thomas Eliot knyght, written 1490? - 1546, according to the University of Michigan Library [via the Early English Books Text Creation Partnership].

But where did syr Eliot acquire the word?

Fig. 3: the cover of Plautus' Curculio: Revised Edition, With Introduction and Notes by John Wright, which is what I'm currently using for class.

It was likely in a contemporary transcription of Plautus' Curculio, a Roman comedic play published around 200BCE. - Specifically act 1, line 77 (though different versions have slightly different numbering):

Transcribed from Plautus' Curculio: Revised Edition, With Introduction and Notes by John Wright:

77 - PH. nomen Leanaest, multibiba atque merobiba.

78 - PA. Quasi tu lagoenam dicas, ubi unium Chium

79 - solet esse. PH. quid opust uerbis? uinosissuma est;

The two characters - Phaedromus (PH), a young man madly in love, and Palinurus (PA), his sassy, unimpressed slave, are discussing an enslaved woman in the supporting cast (ancilla). Merobiba references her ability to drink very strong wines, and multibiba references the amount. As T. H. M. Gellar-Goad translates it in Plautus: Curculio: "she's a super-drinker and stupor-drinker" (pg. 10) [multibiba atque merobiba]. Phaedromus goes on to state uinosissuma est, which Gellar-Goad translates to "She's winetastic" (pg. 10). Phaedromus may not have game, but he has... a way with words...?

Gellar-Goad goes on to state that "Plautus has coined [multibiba and merobiba] by smashing together smaller, familiar words. ... Plautus' plays are chock-full of this sort of inventive, fast-and-loose wordplay, and it's a challenge for translators to keep up" (pg. 11).

Given Plautus' propensity for creating weird, cognate words for the sole purpose of sounding silly, it's highly likely that this is the truly first use of the word 'Merobiba'.

So, next time you hear "I'm merobiba!" and chuckle sensibly, remember:

You are keeping a 2200 year-old word alive. Thank you.

Note: If you've read to this point and think you've got an even earlier version--probably also in the colloquial/comedic Latin literature tradition--please rb with your findings!! And if I forgot a source pls lmk.

#classics #merobiba #drawfee #drawfee show #latin #ancient rome #plautus #curculio #literally just saw the word in my plautus homework and wrote this in a frenzy of academic passion #*nathan voice* is anyone... still watching...?#also deffo the weirdest collection of tags I've put on a post #if you did read the entire post. thanks for uh. looking at this thing with an intended audience of like two people max #please learn latin if you have the time. plautus is hilarious

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mercyisms · 7 months

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necro elysium: director's cut

in which i tell you bonus things about necro elysium (yuck!!).

genesis:

i'm not exactly sure how i came up with the idea, other than it was probably 2022 and i had been playing a lot of disco elysium. i was also thinking a lot about mercymorn, as is my terminal condition. i'm sure i talked a lot to ave about it. i also know i had a conversation with ama, where i soft-pitched a disco adaptation where certain skills would be in cristabel's 'voice.' it seemed like an interesting way to dissect lyctorhood. posts had been circulating about the parallels between harry du bois and harry nonagesimus, but, i'll be honest with you, i think i have very little capacity to write either harrow or gideon. but writing mercy seemed a) something i could pull off, b) a way to gesture at the harrow/mercy parallels without requiring me to leave my zone of interest, and c) there is something about mercy that seemed much more in line with harrier. i think they are both porous, both lacking a certain kind of filter, i felt like if mercy was given a disco skillset, it would really wrestle within her. augustine, i think, would be a bit more a kim. something that at least made pretenses of cohering. (more on augustine later, ofc.) possibly this was also, bc, for the purposes of this fic, i am a subscriber to cristabel having quite a big personality. also, following the release of nona, which gave us some cristabel (!!!) but also kind of dashed my cristabel oct is an e-girl (at least pre-res), I was keen to try and bring my cristabel characterization in closer synthesis with what was now in the text. also, once i realized the obvious semi-pun of "necro elysium," i knew i'd have to write it, if only for the wordplay alone.

anyway, i wrote 1,000 words, dashed off a bit of fanart, and then rolled away.

the skillset & mechanics:

as my fanart attests, the first mercymorn disco skills i pitched were not where we ended up! exclamation and discontent merged into indignation; scrutineer felt distinctly covered by the perception skills; i really wanted to keep acupuncture, because it was by far the funniest, but as i wrote the fic, anatomy was getting significantly more play and i waffled on merging them.

i wanted the skills to still retain a lot of the disco roots, but we weren't trying to have perfect fidelity. we were also integrating the presence of cristabel (more on that later). still, i wanted to be true not only to mercy's 'build,' but also the fact that she is a baby lyctor at the moment of the fic. because she's a just-ascended scientist, her skills are very blue (disco's "intelligence" set) coded. i initially also wanted to give her a skill called "scientific method," but didn't want to upset the balance of skills 'speaking' & so i hope some of mercy's methodical inclination come through in other ways. i planned for her to have very low artistry (a canonical disco skill), but the staging opportunity didn't present itself.

it was important to me that mercy failed some checks, because that feels true to the character & the spirit of disco elysiums checks & how harry interacts with his world. you will notice that mercy fails maybe ever composure check. this was absolutely intentional.

as for acupuncture, it clicked into place once i recategorized it from a 'blue' skill to mercy's sole 'red' (physical) skill. i very much see acupuncture as anatomy applied. canonically, we know mercy & cristabel contributed spirit magic to the megatheorum (see also: the eighth house's reliance on soul siphoning). her pivot to an anatomist also struck me as something born out of repression and grief, and so acupuncture is there to sort of illustrate this shift. the beginnings of a 'brute force' skillset she will continue to grow. in any event, it let me not kill my darling and keep both anatomy and acupuncture in, which felt right.

the art:

now we have to talk about the art because i'm always talking about this art. this art! when i was 80% of the way through the draft, i pitched the wonderful ama/smapis on drawing something for the fic. this was mainly bc ama is one of my favourite tlt artists ever & her mercy and disco elysium art rules. she was beyond kind enough to indulge me, at which point i sent her the draft & left it all in her immensely capable hands.

ama dignified my very silly fic to a level i couldn't have imagined! you may note that also encoded each of mercy's skills to different bodily systems (circulatory, muscular, skeletal, digestive, etc. are all accounted for), which is? genius?? her artistic vision elevated the whole thing & made the synthesis between lyctorhood and whatever's going on in harry's head so much more rich and meaty and nuanced. i cannot praise it enough. it's so good. i gaze lovingly upon it every day.

the unwanted guest:

"You can't admit what's happened here because you're fixated on this idea of the soul as inviolate and inviolable—this perfectly solid, impervious thing, the diamond sitting in the glass of wine. But souls are permeable. When they rub up against each other, they bleed—they mingle—they contaminate each other."—Palamedes Sextus, "The Unwanted Guest"

i started writing & had the thematic beats of necro elysium in 2022, long before we knew "the unwanted guest" was a glimmer in tamsyn's eye. but can you believe? can you believe how prescient i would've looked if i had a) finished a tlt playtext fic and b) also finished a fic about soul permeability? alas, it was not to be. but the publication of "the unwanted guest" did make me want to return to necro; it gave more weight to the reading i was using disco's format to impart.

i will say my personal reading is not that mercymorn is pious because that's cristabel as-a-nun inside her. i think mercymorn is pious because she was literally resurrected by her friend who literally has god-tier powers. when thinking through cristabel's skillset, i was thinking of aspects of mercymorn's personality where cristabel's would be most at home, would maybe latch onto, emphasize. i think of her as a bold and underline, as a different inflection into the lyctor's personality. some were obvious: now that i knew cristabel was a nun, piety was a clear fit; joy was another non-negotiable, as it was the guiding characterization of cristabel we get in harrow the ninth (john saying the saints were to be named after their cavs, augustine calling her a "twerp" and likening her to a child also, through the dark prism of augustine's mind, implied to me someone more exuberant). then i also wanted cristabel's "master of the sword" characterization present and to put the cannibalized cav swordfighting skills in purple (psyche), which is mostly "cristabel" coded skills, but also is, for me, anything gained through lyctorization. hence death's presence.

when we finally meet cristabel, a little, pre-res cristabel, in nona, she's much more utiliarian and practical than the cristabel i had spun out pre-nona. drawing from the way she counsels john, rigour seemed like the driving force. someone who achieves mastery through hard work, through discipline, but also joy is also v present in any sword-fighting scenes to balance it out & suggest that cristabel mastered swordplay partially out of duty & partially out of sheer joy.

one way my fic's use of disco elysium's skillset departs a little from disco elysium's is i wasn't as concerned with creating hyper-distinct voices for each skill. this is partially due to my own limitations and partially because some sets are meant to be, as i say, inflected with cristabel's personality & thus coherent to each other (hence: the whole climax where her voice comes together across traits). one could argue, this is to illustrate the permeability even between these seemingly separate traits. one could also argue i was just not very imaginative.

whatever souls are made of:

i also wanted to note that i sort of see all three of tlt fics in conversation with each other, but whatever souls are made of especially mirrors necro elysium. astute readers (lmao) will notice i hit some similar beats or ticks. is this because of my own limitations?? maybe! but also i do have readings of these characters i'm attached to & am interested in furthering.

i think there's something sort of fun and pleasing and characterizing about how much of whatever souls are made of, which is filtered through augustine, is collaged of references and quotations. it's also a cacophony of voices, but for augustine they're cribbed and for mercy, they're positioned as a fracturing internal monologue. i do think this is consistent with augustine's performative and also deceitful relationship to lyctorhood and the repression surrounding it & to mercymorn's more tortured self-image and inescapable emotional honesty.

the bigger parallel (if we can generously categorize it thusly) is that alfred and cristabel say very similar things to their necomancers. again, i have a beat!! but i hope people will forgive the symmetry for its slight differences. alfred says to augustine that he 'never wanted to be without' augustine (possibly, also, a longing to be included); cristabel hopefully speaks with a bit more righteousness, 'i could not have you stopped...least of all [by] myself.' cristabel's, i hope, adds in an element of someone who believes in mercy's 'greater' destiny, to the wider divinity of the world john is building, who believes that it is loving to propel someone forward. this is also, ofc, connected to how pre-res cristabel propels john forward. is that ethical??? is it good??? maybe not, but it is love. it is a kind of love.

okay this is much too long!! but tysm for reading. i received a few very, very nice asks about other specific parts that i am keen to blabber about, but i will do those in separate posts to give us some breathing room. everything will be in my fanfic tag.

but tysm for reading the fic & ty to the few kind anons who indulged me in this director's cut. <3

#the locked tomb #m: tlt fic #mercymorn the first #cristabel oct #augustine quinque #harrow the ninth #💖💖💖

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