#I’m just more of a journeyman writing to assignments and prompts than someone who wants to make up plots

[elodieunderglass]

I really like the idea that one of the weird lurkers of your blog (like me) just hangs around looking for inspiration to write papers about. Like I realize that's not how it probably actually went down, but 2017 to 2022 seems like a pretty reasonable lead time from reading your post to conducting the research to writing and publishing the paper.

In reference to this:

It’s amusing that the original post only got 22 notes (likes), but when I looked at it again it had 19, which I’m choosing to interpret as the authors sheepishly withdrawing their likes in order to preserve their anonymity.

I think they probably just googled the phrase “friends to lovers pathway” before using it as the title of their paper and pulled up my post, or the other alternative being that the post popped onto their timeline when they were in the early stages of manuscript prep, and it was a moment of academic serendipity. I definitely don’t think I inspired the work in any way - just the quote and title. But it’s funny to imagine being studied.

I should say that I don’t necessarily expect permission to be asked if people intend to prosper or advance their careers from my words or art. However, I do appreciate the courtesy of being told that it’s happened. So far I’ve been quoted in a published book, quoted to name an academic paper, a person is actively selling plushies and other merchandise based on a post of mine while claiming that it’s their intellectual property actually, and screenshots of my work are regularly considered hilarious enough to steal but not pay me for. (the cricket post in particular was screencapped, went viral on Twitter some years ago without reference to me, was shared around BBC journalist twitter, and hundreds of people in the media industry said things like ‘lol we should pay this person to write’ …. in the apparent ignorance of the fact that if they had asked I would probably be open to…. Being paid to write……… and all the other times my posts have broken containment to go viral on other platforms for other people, with comments about how I should be commissioned to write a book; obviously that’s a normal part of online journalism and media, and I’m not naive about it, but it’s a bit much to for these people to be enriching their platforms with screencapped content, without the OP’s knowledge let alone consent, and joking about how they should pay for it or would read a whole book about it, when they’re the only people who could actually do something about it in the nightmare media landscape.) And nobody told me about any of these examples, I always find out by trying to retrieve links to my own stuff, or by friends telling me that someone else has gone so viral with my recognisable work that it got around to them.

Anyway if you do use my stuff in your own stuff, do let me know! I’m not here to prosper, but I am here to connect, and I’m quite willing to link your paper (and write a lay summary for free), buy your book or art, make your acquaintance, promote your work, or just add it to my portfolio - because if I ever DID want to prosper from my work here, which I wouldn’t usually consider except that it is evidently peer-reviewed good-enough-for-others-to-prosper-from, all of that would be valuable and helpful for me to know.

#elodieunderglass #at gmail #I’ve always said that if I wrote a book it would be a nonfiction book called something like THE SECRET LIFE OF MOSS with a linocut cover #stacked with all the other eco-unreadables on an unwanted desk in Waterstones #next to WALKS WITH MY HAWKS and THE HIDDEN LIFE OF MOSS and BEES FROM MY HEARTHSTONE #A YEAR OF HONEY AND WALKS #THE LOST WORDS OF NATURAL WISDOM #MOSS: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY #but you never know! I’d write a book for you if you wanted one #I’m just more of a journeyman writing to assignments and prompts than someone who wants to make up plots #and I believe my CHOSEN TRAINED career SERVES SOCIETY #far better than a novel going THE BOOK OF BONKS AND BLOSES #but fuck if someone was like #the world needs a book about walking with moss that fixes their mental health somehow #I’d be like sure. not to worry. the world does need that. #I am a workhorse who does work. I will do that work. #not the twitter marketing promotion stuff but writing is work and I do it on command. #anyway this has spiralled a bit

[catpella]

FFXIV Write #4: Unqualified Success

Prompt: clinch

to settle (a matter) decisively

Words: 1670

Valle’s second carbuncle summoning is also a victory.

Part of the duties of Mealvaan's Gate was to oversee the ships that came in and out, carrying the cargo that served as the lifeblood of the city. The Arcanists' Guild was involved in this process because some of the arcanists acted as assessors, inspecting cargo to determine if it was normal items that might pass through the port of Limsa Lominsa on any given day, anything ranging from fabrics to spices to fine crafts from other nations, or if ships carried contraband such as illegal herbs and drugs.

There were arcanists who grumbled about assessor duty, preferring other aspects of Guild life, such as research, or courses, or going into the wild and being adventurers. Valle Serreta found she and Equinox were rather good at it and didn't get harassed in the same way some inspectors did, that she rather enjoyed assessor work, and she never dramatically grumbled when she was assigned to it or came up with ways to get out of it. She'd noticed that she'd been assigned to it more often lately and suspected it was some combination of those factors that was causing it.

It wasn't as though she was a full-time assessor, though; she still had time to work on the academic studies she was interested in, including one study that had arisen out of her assessor work. The very thing they were putting to the test today, in fact.

The standard emerald carbuncle summoning array was a well-rounded design, one that  contained tested and guaranteed protocols for the major Guild uses. When it came to cargo detection, the background equations and calculations had remained fairly static for quite some time. There was a learning capability built into them - a carbuncle needed to be trained to learn new types of contraband to find it - but that just increased the range of what they could detect, it didn't adjust the common sensors and detection array at all.  

Valle had heard that a few arcanists here and there had modified the sensors in places, but when she'd asked around, she'd found most of those had been done by senior arcanists and not by ones who were as new in their education as she was. And most of them had been doing it as part of their specialized levels of research - such as Mistress Ingolia training hers to track aetherial trails, which she'd let Valle peek at for a bit just to see what advanced.

Valle hadn't gone totally blind into this. She'd shown her planned equations and designs to X'erys, who had read over them with grave concentration and then said, "They're something, Valle. I never would have thought of this. I think I see it." Then she'd shown them to Synnove Greywolfe, a senior arcanist who had done innovative designwork on her own carbuncles, to see if she was going to be told she was on the wrong track. What she got was, "Test it and see."

Armed with that, she'd finished the design, coded it into the grimoire, acquired a topaz stone from the guild's stores to use as the summoning foci and, and prepared for this trial. When it was all done, she'd spoken to Mistress Ingolia and arranged for a cargo inspection trial.

Now she stood in the training ring, rolling the summoning topaz stone in her hands, hoping she'd gotten it all right. Because this was so experimental, she hadn't wanted to use one of the stocks of good topaz they distributed for summoning. There had been a few stones in the Guild's stores that were smaller, or needed to be shaped differently to deal with flaws in the stone, and so when Valle had talked to the quartermaster she'd requested one of them. It hummed with aether in her hands like it was purring, waiting to be used for this.

The training ring was full of cargo boxes, and she'd been told that there were fewer than 25% of them containing contraband. Mistress Ingolia was overseeing the actual test and for some reason Valle had assumed it would be her alone watching this test, but no. Several arcanists ringed the outside, ready to watch and see what happened. She had an audience for this. Well, it was a test of a new, experimental adjustment...word must have spread. So there was a crowd. Some of the faces were at least friendly ones who she knew were rooting for her, others were just there to watch and didn't seem invested one way or another.

"You may begin the summoning," Mistress Ingolia intoned.

Valle closed her eyes, rolled the stone again, rooted her feet in the ring, in the smell of the wood, imagined the stone below that, took a breath, touched quill to grimoire, and began the summoning cant. She thought of the rich color of topaz, she thought of how she had made these equations so the carbuncle had the clever nose for seeking items as a whittret, she thought of how earth was material and solid and how to sort through material one needed to know what a thing was as surely as stone knew itself.

A topaz carbuncle burst into the world for the first time. Only...slightly different. The body was more slender and less long than a standard carbuncle, somewhere between half- and full-size compared to the normal model and the snout protruding forward somewhat more. It appeared otherwise to be a fully functional carbuncle and made a delightful dance as it rushed up to her, transmitting eagerness by hop-dancing around her heels.

A muted clamor immediately began to echo through the hall, arcanists talking to each other mostly in low tones. Valle heard, - 'looks wrong donnit' and 'awful small for a 'buncle' and 'whats wit its mouth' - among other things. She tried to tune it out as she bent down to inspect the carbuncle, running her hand over it to see if the equations and arrays were right, pausing at the head - yes, there they were, in that elongated snout.

"Arrays and sensors functional," she reported, standing up to face Mistress Ingolia, who seemed impassive. "May I begin the trial?"

"Go ahead," the Elezen said. Unlike the other arcanists, she was showing no signs of any concern over the strange appearance of the carbuncle, for which Valle was glad. "You have 10 minutes to assess the cargo and determine what contains contraband."

"Do we know what we're looking for?" she asked.

"No. Assume this is a ship with Ul'dahn flag and you have no manifest."

The most difficult type of exercise, no hope of knowing what should be there and thus the chance to mess up some things that scented somewhat alike - some herbs that could be used as medicines that smelled like some that were only used as poisons  -  which would ding them points. She'd have to hope her loaded library of recognition would be enough. "I understand," she said.

"And...begin!"

Immediately Valle moved towards the nearest stack of boxes, coaxing the carbuncle and watching as it sniffed its nose and began to move...

And after only one round of the arena, with the topaz carbuncle having climbed on three boxes to get better scents and in one cases slipping between a stack of crates in a way Valle couldn't tell if was due to its smaller size or if she'd accidentally copied in something physics-breaking from someone else's grimoire (which had not been her intention!), they had found 4 suspicious crates of 50.

"Four," she said.

Mistress Ingolia checked her timepiece. "You have four minutes remaining if you wish to check again."

That made it sound like she'd missed some. Briefly, she considered summoning Equinox to check and say she was verifying old vs new protocols but...no she trusted the array matrix. "I'm sure. I trust my carbuncle."

"You pass. Four crates. What was in them?"

"Somnus, an invasive species of snail, and seed packets of some type that I assume weren't reported."

"Correct," the Elezen said, and to Valle's surprise she did hear clear pride in her tone.

The thrill of victory suffused her, making her feel flushed and joyful.

Mistress Thubyrgeim stepped past Mistress Ingolia. "Come see me. Bring the grimoire and the carbuncle."

The murmuring from the audience grew louder. Everyone knew Thubyrgeim had basically become the Guildsmistress in the frequent absences in that of the man on paper. If she wanted to see Valle  - still a student and not yet a full journeywoman - what did that say? What did that mean? Was she in trouble?

Valle beckoned the carbuncle rather than desummoning it, feeling it crawl her her leg, but instead of settling in her arms, this one seemed happy to wind up her body and then to crawl up to wrap around her to hang along her neck and shoulders like a stole made of soft fur. Or, in this case, warm aether. She tried to let the sensation comfort her as she carried her grimoire to the acting-Guildmistress' office, fear beginning to curdle in her belly...

And an hour later, she came flying out the office and to the student lounge on the third floor of the Gate. There were a number of people in there, all occupied but most looking up when Valle came in.

"Did she chew you out?" asked R'awynde.

"Did she say you can't do assessor duty anymore?" X'erys asked.

"Are you still in the Guild?" was Gilded Feather's contribution.

"Yes, I'm still in the Guild. I'm likely on more assessor duty. I'm not in trouble, I'm not chewed out, she loved my carbuncle, she thinks it's clinched my journeyman's research project," Valle rattled off. "It's atypical in design but it had successful practical results and she thinks I can refine it further to maybe help improve future designs!"

"Let's take a look at how you did it, then," Feather demanded, pointing at her grimoire.

"Let's take Valle out to eat first, she must be starving," X'erys said.

And so they went out to celebrate.

#valle serreta #valle's carbuncles #FFxivWrite2020 #cat's writing #cat vs ffxiv #ffxiv ocs