#incorrect a tale of two cities

[incorrectatotcquotes]

Cruncher: Do dragons fart fire?

Sydney: I don't know.

Cruncher: I thought you went to university.

#source: tumblr #a tale of two cities #atotc #dickensian #booklr #incorrect a tale of two cities #books and literature #charles dickens #english lit #incorrect quotes #incorrect dickens #classic lit #classic literature #lit #literary memes #bibliophile #books and libraries #old books #books #booklover #victorian literature #book blog #bookaddict #bookaholic #bookworm #i am back my dudes

[incorrectclassicbookquotes]

A Tale of Two Cities High School AU

Madame Defarge: They said they won't let me back into sewing club because apparently when I threaten someone with sewing needles it's deemed "inappropriate" and "I have to leave."

#a tale of two cities #madame defarge #incorrect quotes #source: 50% off

[violet-eng]

REMEMBER ME POOKIE? (THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR FOLLOWING I APPRECIATE IT ♡♡♡♡

So Just think about it if zongli is your boyfriend right image he shows his dragon parts to u like tail and tongue scales horns👹👹👹

And dragon is a type of lizard so dose that mean he breeds whit his tongue and tail and he always wears gloves JUST THINK ABOUT WHAT GOODIES ARE UNDER THERE😚😚😚 GROWING FINGERS.

do u think he has 2 cocks?

You.Need.Jesus... And so do I...

About the 2 cocks thing... I asked an expert (my college friend) and she said yes...

Btw I took a little creative freedom bc I had this "jealous scenario" long ago and wanted to try again some interaction with hybrid Zhongli.

Also, in case you want something more casual then just tell me and I'll give it a try.

Order ready. Enjoy.

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Jealous Hybrid! ¡Zhongli! x fem!reader | NSFW 🔞

Summary: You traveled to Fontaine where you became close friends with Neuvillette. That's why when you return to Liyue and Zhongli SMELLS Neuvillette in your clothes, he goes feral and (basically what was previously asked).

Advertencias: smut 🔞. MDNI. Established relationship. Dirty talk. Does this count as fucking a monster? Zhongli hybrid sex. size kink. Incorrect use of the dragon's tail (not just once, but twice 🎶fancyyy🎶). Two cocks. Piv, anal. Fingering. Does tail sucking count as a bJob? Unprotected sex. Overstimulation. Dacryphilia. Basically, daddy Geo goes wild.

4.1 k words.

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In a few days, you will return to Liyue Bay, to your comfortable apartment in the center above the jewelry store, next to your beloved Zhongli, who has not stopped answering your letters since you left for your work trip to Fontaine. The immense city had completely amazed you, and dazzled by the avant-garde facades of its buildings, the days had felt more like a vacation than work.

Despite the ostentatious façade of the city, you miss home and the delicate architecture between the mountains that guard the city. You also miss the ocean, so different from the primordial sea, full of ancient legends and tales of war. Most of all, you miss your dear counselor at the funeral parlor. Zhongli had been very encouraging about the idea of your trip, especially knowing how much you were interested in working at Meropide Fortress.

This, in your lover's words, would give you a fresh perspective and update your knowledge of the law, as well as a useful contact like the Duke. However, your dear Zhongli did not expect that your thirst for knowledge would be overshadowed by a reluctant desire to help the helpless.

Wriothesley was the first at Fontaine to notice this, so he didn't stop you when you offered your knowledge and help during a trial at the Opera Epiclese, a murder case that was quite scandalous, but not enough to horrify you…

As a paralegal, your knowledge had become indispensable in subsequent trials, so much so that you spent more time in the office of Iudex Neuvillette than in the Fortress. One day you had to attend to a poor robbery victim, the next day you had to observe the petitions and lawsuits of a Sumeru traveler who had come to town, another day you had to make sure that Liney had not been sued for one of those dangerous magic tricks, and then you had to return to the Opera for more cases… and so on for the months you spent there.

Mornings and afternoons you were busy, surrounded by paperwork and research. Fontaine's technology was indeed a welcome relief, and you counted the days to return to Liyue with plans for those strange machines….

As long as the sun was high, you kept your mind on your work, whether it was at a trial or in Monsieur Neuvillette's office. But when the moon rose, and even the Iudex warned you that you had worked too hard, you enjoyed the tourist wonders the city had to offer. The cuisine was very different from Liyue's, the clothes and the songs… ….

Neuvillette, like the good ruler he is, as a result of all the help you had given him, dedicated himself to being your guide during your stay there.

You had found in the Iudex a pleasant companion, whose stories and knowledge consumed you with curiosity. He reminded you of your Zhongli in many ways, and in that ancestral spirit they both radiate… After all, both of them had been great ancestral dragons at some point in their lives.

The farewell from Fontaine had been anything but sad, you had promised to come back, the Melusines had obliged you… and they had given you a box of macaroons. The return to Liyue is much easier than the departure, and when you finally see the red-and-green tiled roofs of the atavistic buildings, a warmth floods your heart. Home… you're finally back.

You hadn't told Zhongli about your return, so he's surprised when he catches your scent while drinking tea near the Wanmin Restaurant. He puts the cup down on the table and, with a subtle movement, closes his eyes, concentrating on the scent emanating from your skin. Yes… it is definitely you, it is the scent of your hair, the balm of your lips, the smell of the cream you use to moisturize your hands… how he missed that smell… how many times he had masturbated smelling your clothes, in the dark solitude of his apartment, longing for you to come back to him and let him take you on the floor, on the table or wherever…

He could perceive every bit of your cinnamon scent, of the lavender cologne you had bought a few months ago, of the floral soap with which you washed your clothes, even the new smells, the dew from the plants of Fontaine, the scent of the flour with which they prepared their famous cakes, the outflow of the sea in which you must have swum, and… what is that smell?

Zhongli frowns, no matter how expressive his face contorts as he turns his head toward the cobblestone streets of his city to meet your figure and your surprised, almost disappointed expression.

"It was supposed to be a surprise," you complain as you embrace him from behind and leave a kiss on his head, how much you missed the scent of his dark curls, the feel of the softness of his hair… the scent of the man he is… you can't wait to have him on top of you that night…

"I smelled you from miles away," he mentions as if it were something banal, though in a rather stern tone of voice. You can't help but dive into the deep doubts of that foul smell. It seems familiar to him…

"I missed you too, my dear… Ah… It's been a long trip, but I had fun… I learned a lot," you say smiling, "Wriothesley was very kind to me, he gave me a lot of freedom to work in the Fortress…" you begin to tell.

The Duke, Zhongli thinks, no… that smell doesn't belong to him….

"Clorinde saved me from trouble when I first came to Fontaine…" you continue.

No… neither did she, Zhongli tells himself.

"Oh, Lady Furina was also very hospitable to me, even though she had a terrible flu when I first started working with the Iudex Neuvillette… oh, I almost forgot to mention the Hydro Dragon to you," you laugh, "you two have a lot in common…"

That smell… that reptilian stench of primordial water. So that's the name the vermin is using now…

Zhongli, smelling Neuvillette's perfume on your clothes, on your skin, can't help but think of all the days you spent with this man… being with him instead. He starts to feel a burning spark inside him that could explode any moment. Jealousy, people would tell him, he would call it thirst for death and war….

For the rest of the afternoon, all he hears from you is how wonderful and interesting Monsieur Neuvillette is… Neuvillette this, Neuvillette that, Neuvillette complimented me, Neuvillette helped me… Although you talk little about him and more about the other friends you made during your stay in Fontaine, in your territorial friend's mind it feels like you're explaining to him what a catch Monsieur Neuvillette is, a dragon who's not afraid to rule his country... while he…. Well

"I didn't think he was such a dragon," you comment, recalling the time Liney insisted Neuvillette to show him his original form, lying that it was his birthday, something the kindly Iudex, who cherishes the friendship of such an interesting being as Monsieur Liney, cannot deny.

"Did he show you his draconic form?" asks Zhongli, as if out of a trance.

"Only for a few minutes, but that was only once. I think I saw him more often as a dragon-human hybrid when we were working in his office late at night," you comment, very unaware of the pressure cooker Zhongli is turning into.

How comfortable Neuvillette must have felt, Zhongli thinks, to show himself to her like that… did they…? No, he reproaches himself, y/n would never do such a thing. And surely Neuvillette was just being kind to a guest like her, who had been so helpful during her stay there.

"Well," Zhongli adds, in the mood to change the course of the conversation, feeling a little more relieved, shedding his primitive instincts, "how was the weather?" he already knows the answer… rainy as usual… ….

"Pretty sunny," you reply.

And that's the breaking point for the great Rex Lapis, who has so patiently endured this conversation.

You hadn't realized how quickly night had fallen on Liyue when Zhongli led you by the hand at a brisk pace to your shared apartment. His grip is strong, like a heavy chain on your wrist, and his steps are longer and faster.

"Zhongli," you mutter between gasps at the performance you must give for this feat… After your long journey, the workout is going badly for you, "slow down".

"Yes… practice," he says, "because soon you will ask me to go much slower."

Your voice catches in your throat, while a few hours ago you had the idea of intimacy with Zhongli, you were expecting something slow and loving, as it usually happens when you return from your crossings… not what this man has in mind.

You stumble up the stairs, covering your face in embarrassment at the curious looks of your neighbors as they watch the unchanging funeral consultant drag his girlfriend up the stairs and into the confines of his apartment.

"Zhongli, stop it," you say once inside, breaking free of his grip, "what will the neighbors think?"

"That I'm fucking you until your legs stop working," he says, locking the front door.

"Don't say things like that," you squeak as you cover your face, your face red as a tomato.

"I wonder if you were this embarrassing when you were with your dear, respectable Iudex Neuvillette," Zhongli whispers, a hoarse undertone rising from his throat.

"Wait, Zhongli, it's not what it looks like," you try to defend yourself, though your words seem futile as the former Archon has you pinned against the wall, his entire form dwarfing your diminutive humanity.

"I'll tell you what it looks like," Zhongli says, slurring his words, despite the darkness, you can see his figure changing, growing in front of you, and his eyes, like two amber fireflies, piercing, are the only glimpse of light in the house, "it looks like I have to remind you who is the only dragon that can impress you, who is the only dragon that can eat your pussy and penetrate you until you're split in two."

"Zhongli!" you try to push him away, even though deep down something has started to smoke between your legs.

"I can smell how I turn you on," Zongli hisses, sinking his nose into your neck and brushing your cheek with his… horns?

"These…" you bring your hands up to his head, running them along the curve of the appendages that spring from his forehead, tangled in a spiral.

"Do you like them?" Zhongli muses, so deep and seductive that your skin bristles and your core soaks at the mere sound.

"I've never seen them before…" you say, your voice cracking, something besides Zhongli's hands caressing your hips and sliding up your thigh.

A tail… you'd be sure it was a tail if it wasn't for the darkness…

You turn your face away from Zhongli to watch him closely, noticing a certain look in his amber eyes, a pupil of an unfamiliar shape, and the way his smile shows you his sharp, gleaming fangs.

"I hate that you smell like him," he growls, shaking his head, "you should smell like me."

"Zhongli…"

"Is that all you can say?" he teases, sensing the eager tone in your voice, the nerves coursing through you from the tip of your nose to your toes, overwhelming your body in a rising flame of bubbling pleasure.

Zhongli is subtle as he leads you to the carpet, lighting the fireplace with his breath of fire on the way, illuminating the room and drawing a gasp of surprise from you.

Zhongli's figure towers over you, slender, almost monstrous. You find yourself propped up on your elbows, your skin brushing against the fabric of the carpet, while before you were wondering why he didn't leave you on the bed, now you understand, and that is that he wouldn't fit.

"Do you like what you see?" asks Zhongli, a proud smile on his handsome face. He kneels over you, cupping your frame between his thighs, to remove his clothes, which would have been torn by now but for the subtlety of his movements.

The thin fabric of his cloak falls behind his back, as delicate as lilies in spring, while his vest slides under his shoulders, tracing the slender figure of the ancient Archon. His tie is undone with a practiced gesture, and his white shirt opens in two, revealing the sculpted figure of the man above you.

The golden details of his skin reflect the fire of the hearth, and his chest, as fiery as the flame beside you, rises proudly before your incredulous gaze. The distance between his shoulders has grown, his chiseled muscles flexing with every movement. He undoes his gloves with his teeth, and as perverse as you look, you can't help but wet your lips with your tongue. His digits, like the rest of his body, have grown in size.

"I can read on your face the myriad fantasies that plague your depraved mind," he muses, adding a snaky sound to the end of the sentence.

Saliva drips down your throat, sweat trickles down your forehead, and your fluids begin to soak your core, all wet.

Zhongli is very skilled at undressing you, he has always taken his time for this kind of prelude, warming you up for him and adjusting your body to his eager caresses… but this is not just any situation… no, in his mind, in the mind of the powerful and ancestral ruler of Liyue, the goal is not to show you what a fervent and devoted lover he can become, but to rip all traces of the unwanted water dragon from your head and body.

"Careful," you mewel as you feel his claws growing and tearing at the fabric of your blouse and skirt.

"If these rags are so important to you, you know I can buy much more graceful ones that flatter the divinity of your figure," he orders, he's a tough nut to crack… and damn, that makes you…

"It's not the clothes…" you look for support on his shoulders, he moves you as if you were a rag doll, "I'm afraid you'll rub my skin…"

"Precious," he inhales deep into the skin on your shoulder, "I'm very skilled at moving when I'm with you. I would never allow myself such an atrocity, to bruise this pristine skin would be punished with the worst of punishments".

"Still," you whisper, and he gives you a golden look, expecting what you will say, with a calm but instinctive depth, you feel the flame of his lust grow and spread.

"Calm down," Zhongli says, laying your back down on the carpet again and parting the fabric of your bra with his claws. Your breasts heave after the release, your face turned sideways with crimson cheeks. "You look so beautiful when you're embarrassed," he adds, dipping his nose between your breasts, taking a deep breath of your eager, warm scent, bathed in eroticism and anticipation.

Zhongli slides his nose over your belly and then between your legs, over your soaked lingerie. Without taking his eyes off you, his eyes locked with yours in an iron grip, he slides the elastic of your garment around your hips, sliding the thin fabric down your thighs and then your ankles. The movement is slow and painful, but exhilarating, just as the image he gives you by smelling your underwear is exhilarating.

His beautified figure towers over you, the fabric clenched in a fist to his nose, where a deep sniff brings Zhongli the ecstasy that no recreational tea leaf could ever provide. The nectar of your sex is the only delicacy he needs that night, whether in his mouth or around his cock…

Throwing the lingerie aside, Zhongli places his hand on his pants, ripping the dark fabric tightly from his muscular legs to reveal not one, but two huge, thick, throbbing cocks eager for you.

"What the fuck!" you exclaim as you watch Zhongli's monstrous appendages slam into his abdomen.

He seems to ignore your expression as he buries his face between your legs, kissing the inside of your thighs, inhaling the juice inside of you as it oozes from your center… Well, he tells himself, it doesn't smell like Neuvillette, at least not here.

"Do you hear me?" you call, lifting his face by the horns, "do you have two cocks?"

"'Indeed, yes," he answers, taciturn as always, "what a crude way to question me about my nature, dear," he says, while you notice his tail waving behind him, wagging from side to side like a predator about to hunt. .

"Did you learn these manners on your wonderful journey to the Nation of Justice?" Zhongli asks as his tail wraps around your thigh, grazing your skin with its scales as it moves closer to your center.

"No… but it was a coherent question I asked," you argue with him, so vainly that you look pathetic.

"And I guess you didn't learn how dragons mate either?"

"The Iudex and I," you start to speak, but your voice stops when you feel Zhongli's tail tempting your folds, "He and I never… no…"

"Too bad," Zhongli replies, "because at least his tail would be softer than mine."

The words catch in your throat, a gasp as Zhongli spreads your legs and the rough skin of his tail slowly slides into your pussy, shaping the surprised, wet, velvety walls around him.

"Ahg!" You cry out between painful moans, you haven't even had time to get used to his thickness and he's already reached the bottom.

You writhe on the rug, your hands clenched tightly against the fabric of the rug as Zhongli holds your legs apart, watching the embarrassing way your pussy clenches around his appendage.

Your back arched as you heard him laugh, sending vibrations to your center, as if everything in it was somehow connected.

"Nothing to add?" he asks, almost mocking you.

"I~…mmhh~" you mewl as your chest rises and falls heavily, waves of heat gather in your belly, the thickness of his tail hurts, burns, but he touches you in every place you could want, even though it seems if he went any further he could reach your throat, "Ahg~"

"Too big?" he asks, pulling back just in time to hit your cervix again.

"Ah!" you moan hotly.

"Speechless?" Zhongli plays with your mind as he withdraws again, this time further, to sink deep inside you again, this time harder.

You can't help but let out a high-pitched, almost heartbreaking scream as you feel him plunge his tail all the way in, welcomed by your walls as they get used to him. His tail is long, largely due to his draconic form, so each time it curls up to penetrate you, it reaches the bottom with a crushing fall, pressing down on the rubbery spot that suffocates you.

Zhongli crosses your legs over his shoulder and pumps his tail into your pussy as if he's cleaning something inside you. Your back jiggles in this position, your waist moves at the stimulus of his thrusts inside you, your throat emits the most outrageous cries of pleasure you've ever made.

He goes in and out, rubbing every corner of you in synchronicity and fervor, little patient with your tolerance and abusing your limits. It excites him to see you screaming for him, and it excites him even more to see pearly drops sliding from your eyes, glistening like the juices overflowing from your abused hole.

"Ahhg~ yes, yes~" each word shouted between moans and sighs, deepens in Zhongli an instinctive way that he has wanted to show you for a long time. Each thrust accelerates, becoming frantic and jerky, each stroke brimming with power, and his hands wrap around your legs, holding you in place so you don't move as he ejaculates inside you.

His tail spasms painfully and suddenly you feel a familiar warmth explode inside you. he has cum inside you, you know it because you are aware of the sensation of his seed overflowing from your pussy… although you doubt that it came from his tail…

"You…" you gasp, mesmerized by the dark new sensation Zhongli has given you.

"Looks like you enjoyed it more than I thought," he smiles, a dark smile.

His tail emerges from inside you and slides over your stomach and waist, turning your body until your knees and palms touch the carpet.

"You're not very swollen yet, are you?" he asks.

"Well, I… ah!" you moan in mid-sentence as you feel his fingers sink deep into you, almost as long as your insides, reaching the deepest valleys of your insides, "Zh…. Zhongli~."

He moves his fingers inside you, bigger and thicker than you remembered. He pulls them out to leave your fluids on his cocks and plunges his fingers back in to lubricate your ass this time.

"I never dared to ask you to do it from behind," he says as he spreads your buttocks with his hands, exposing your small hole to him, "perfectly made for me," Zhongli whispers to himself.

You feel his thick member slide into your pussy, your entrance getting used to his new length as it throbs around him. Almost immediately he enters your ass, slowly working his way inside you, your hole welcoming the new guest with contractions that elicit guttural moans from Zhongli.

"Not so hard, darling," he growls, "or you'll make me cum," he adds, placing his hands firmly on your hips, avoiding the way your body trembles at his intrusion.

"It hurts~" you let out with a moan, because indeed it hurts, but the feeling of being so full makes your body feel like you are on cloud nine, experiencing sensations you have never felt before. "Mmhhh ~ Zhongli ~," you unconsciously move your hips back and vulgarly ask him to start his thrusts.

"I'm going to move, dear. Need you to hold on as long as you can," he says, leaning into your ear, the warmth of his breath flooding your neck and cheek. He doesn't want to hurt you, in short, he's jealous of your new friendship in Fontaine, but he didn't want to make you a victim of his feelings. He loves you, he is madly in love with you, and that is why he is willing to show you, in the most draconic human way possible, who is the only one who deserves to have you.

"Please," you beg, grinding your hips against his, feeling his cocks sink deeper into you.

Zhongli, like the ardent lover he is, doesn't keep his beautiful lady waiting, not after how well you've just taken him. He rubs your insides with his cock, eliciting mellifluous moans from you, and in an arduous retreat, he enters you again, all the way in, again and again and again.

The sound of skin against skin fills the room, Zhongli rushes into you at a frenetic and almost deadly pace, one second you feel empty and the next you are completely full, his appendages bruise your insides, shaking your insides and churning your belly in skillful movements.

He throws his head back, enjoying the way you clench around him, completely hooked on you, trapped in your vicious holes. He takes one of your breasts in his hand, massaging the soft, sweaty flesh under his fingers as heartbreaking screams leave your throat, his tail trailing up your other nipple, wrapping around it as one of his hands massages your clit.

You're completely pampered by his limbs, screaming his name as if it would save you from the overwhelming storm of pleasure consuming your body. Your face is contorted with pleasure, your eyes are in the back of your head, your heart is pounding against your chest just as Zhongli is doing inside you. All in perfect synchronicity.

The climax of pleasure comes when Zhongli takes your hands and places them behind you while his tail splits your lips and slides over your tongue, down your throat. All your holes are completely filled, all subdued by him, entering relentlessly without stopping for you to rest.

Zhongli grunts and moans as he feels your throat close to his tail and as your ass begins to shake around his cock. And he does it even more when he thinks about how beautiful you will look completely bathed in his cum. That's why when he comes inside you, from your mouth and pussy, he can't help but move away from you to get a clear picture of you gagging as you try to just swallow his contents, and as the milky fluid gushes from your butt under your thighs.

You cough and wipe your lips with the back of your hand, looking over your shoulder at the way your legs and ankles are soaked with hIs seed. Dragon stuff, you think, because he's never given you a load of this size before.

"Charming," he whispers, enchanted by the image your corrupted form offers him, "divinely accommodating and beautiful. The most precious treasure I have found on my long journey," he adds, crawling towards you, wrapping your body in his arms as he surrounds you with his figure in fluid movements, pressing you against his chest.

You feel Zhongli's chest vibrate, and the way he has put you on his chest, between his arms, and covered you with his tail, gives you the impression that he is holding you in a shelter, you, his precious treasure.

"Tomorrow I will make you a nest, I have to build one so I can take care of you and our cubs," he whispers above your head.

"Did it really occur to you that I could cheat on you with another man?" you ask, taking advantage of the fact that Zhongli has let down his guard.

"It was my mistake to let my foolish thoughts control my actions. In fact, I think you are the most loyal person I have ever met in my life," he replies.

"If so… why doubt me?"

"Because you are too good for someone like me. Because your sense of help and perseverance is more like that of a dragon who decides to take care of his people than one like me… who leaves them to their own fate," there was a hint of melancholy in his words.

"You have been a good ruler, my dear Rex Lapis. Liyue is more than ready to be ruled by humans…don't think that you have left it to its fate…especially when you walk through its streets and talk to its people," you smile as you caress his chest.

"My dear y/n, you always have the words to make my cold heart warm and smooth," he plays with the strands of your hair, "I am deeply sorry that I ever doubted you…in the near future I will make it up to you, and maybe in the distant future we can remember this as a simple and shameful mistake of mine," he adds, joining his lips to yours in a kiss that shows you his painstaking sincerity, the doors of his emotions wide open for you.

Zhongli's tongue slides into your mouth, giving the kiss a more naughty touch… and you don't know how, but suddenly you find yourself at his mercy again, stretching your pussy with his two cocks inside you, shaping your walls with relentless attacks.

"I want to see you with a swollen belly," he moans, "you're going to be a beautiful mother…" he says, opening your legs, digging his claws into your thighs, watching as his two cocks disappear into your hole.

Now that you think about it… maybe Zhongli is in heat…

#zhongli smut #genshin impact #zhongli x reader #genshin smut #genshin #zhongli #genshin zhongli #genshin impact smut #genshin x reader #zhongli genshin impact #zhongli x you #morax #rex lapis

[sydney-carton-of-sour-milk]

The Many Illustrators of A Tale of Two Cities 3: Enos Benjamin Comstock

...& the importance of a good signature...

We're taking an entirely different turn this week to examine the work of — well, evidently, Enos Benjamin Comstock!

I interrupt myself because I had actually originally written "an unnamed artist," as up until the creation of this post I had not actually noticed the very clear signatures at the bottom of this week's set of illustrations. For the entirety of the many months I'd had these illustrations saved on my computer, I had never known the artist's name and had resigned myself to the idea that I had no way to find it — because nowhere in the text of the 1906 edition of A Tale of Two Cities from which these illustrations are sourced did it actually credit the artist!

Here are those illustrations (sadly crunched a bit by the PDF format):

This is one of the more glaring examples I've seen so far of this phenomenon of not crediting the illustrator, but I've also seen in my research many, many frontispieces used in old editions of A Tale of Two Cities without credit to the artist who created them (more on that later, in fact)! It pains my soul.

That isn't the end of the mystery of these poor neglected drawings, though:

This list gets the number of illustrations right, but otherwise, it's almost all incorrect. By my research, it should read more like this*:

Portrait of Dickens . . . . Frontispiece "Say that my Answer was, 'Recalled...'" . 1 "How was this? - Was it you?" . . . . 52 "'You seem to know this Quarter…'" . . 214 "Here and there … Cries are raised…" . 442

*(I skipped "Facing page" solely for formatting purposes)

Pretty significant difference in subject and page number! And that's because four of the five illustrations listed to be in this edition are actually from a different, near-identical edition!

They are, naturally, Phiz's — except for that first one, which does serve as the frontispiece of both of these doppelgänger (lol, on theme) editions. Being in a completely different style, it's likely by neither Comstock nor Phiz...and, of course, neither edition chose to credit this artist either.

I sure wish I could read that signature.

In summary, the lesson here is: If you reading this are an artist, always legibly sign (and/or watermark) your work — because the culture of callousness with which the concept of crediting artists is treated is evidently much, much older than the Internet.

After all, if Enos B. Comstock hadn't legibly signed his name on the illustrations printed in this book over one hundred years ago, we of today very well might not know that he was the one to create them!

& the standard endnote for all posts in this series:

This post is intended to act as the start of a forum on the given illustrator, so if anyone has anything to add - requests to see certain drawings in higher definition (since Tumblr compresses images), corrections to factual errors, sources for better-quality versions of the illustrations, further reading, fun facts, any questions, or just general commentary - simply do so on this post, be it in a comment/tags or the replies!💫

#A Tale of Two Cities #AToTC #classic literature #victorian literature #dickens #charles dickens #illustration #illustrators #Enos Benjamin Comstock #Enos B. Comstock #1900s #by which I mean the decade not the century lol. the 19aughts... #seriously everybody sign your work and sign it clearly #and value the time and work of any and all artists and media-makers out there! #if a work takes you a lot longer than *you* think it's going to (as...very often happens to me) #you can be sure that people who don't habitually make art #are on average gonna underestimate that necessary time and energy even more! #also I got his middle name from just looking up his name with the b initial. super straightforward. he was an american artist

[nanamismoonchild]

bts at the cookout w/black reader (namjoon, yoongi,hoseok, seokjin)

Namjoon: 

“Momma, you seen Namjoon?” 

The two of you had arrived a little late. Regardless, the food still wasn’t done and your mom had forced you to help her. Namjoon had scurried away before she could force him to chop or stir something. 

It was in her good graces that he didn’t bother with cooking anyway. 

But now, the food was done and you wanted to sit by your man while you ate a plate full of lasagna and collard greens. 

“I think I heard Grandma Shirley say she was going to bring him a plate of her  cobbler.”

“Aw lord, she trying to take Joon from me. Why didn’t you stop her?”

“That’s a you problem.”

True enough, when you went outside to look at the grandma and auntie tables, Namjoon was sitting by your Grandma Shirley and Auntie Patricia. From the looks of it, he was caught up in their long going argument of who had the better pie. He didn’t seem to care since he had two pieces of pie in front of him and the ladies were just watching him eat.

Cheater. 

Originally posted by yoonsguk

Seokjin: 

Seokjin had always heard you bragging about [insert your home city ( but we all know Memphis has the best bbq, and I stand by that lol)] barbeque. To him, no one had better bbq than Seoul. But he realized how mistaken he was as he bit into a rib that was damn near falling off the bone. 

The seasonings were making his taste buds dance around his mouth. And the sauce? Spectacular.  He was trying to keep himself from licking his fingers. 

And don’t get him started about the deviled eggs. Or the mac and cheese. Or the, gods help him, potato salad.  Seokjin had dipped the rib into the potato salad 

“I need to marry whoever made this.”

“My auntie  made it. And you’re married to me, fool!”

“Polyamory it is then.”

“No sir. That’s weird.”

“Well, we are getting a divorce then.”

Yoongi:

The tell-tale signs of someone losing a game includes: a chorus of “no’s,” a bunch of grown men slamming down cards/dominoes, a lot of cursing, and laughter.  

You watched as Yoongi put most of your uncles to shame in dominoes. He was collecting dollars like he collected your orgasms. Quickly.  

“Nah we need to switch games. Cuz ain’t no way this nigga is taking my money.”

“Uncle Ben you talked all that shit about being the best player and here you are being a sore loser.”

“You better hush before I tell yo momma to bring out the photo album.”

You promptly hushed. 

Your Uncle Ronnie shook his head as he looked at his dominoes.  “I agree though. Let’s switch to Spades. Ben, you on my team. Y/N and Yoongi on a team. Bert and Rob make a team. Who dealing?”

Yoongi raised his hand and took the cards from your Uncle Ronnie, who was trying to be slick and pocket the money he had thrown on the table. 

You watched as Yoongi cut the deck and shuffled as only a pro card dealer could. His hands moved so fast it gave you whiplash.  

The next thing you knew, you had joined the collective “bruh what the hells” and “noooooos.”

Hoseok:

“Ah shit! Get it get it now. Y/N, ain’t that your man?”

You look to see where your cousin was pointing and sure enough, that was your husband. Throwing it down on the “dance floor.”

Jung Hoseok had been dying to show your folks the moves he had learned from you. And right now, he was showing your younger cousins how to walk it out.  

The first day he had heard the song was from TikTok and, as usual, the dance was butchered by a Tiktoker doing the incorrect dance. When you had found him doing the dance the Tiktoker was doing, you had immediately corrected him. 

And now here he was doing it better than everybody. 

“Does he usually have all this energy girl?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“I bet he be tearing that ass up. How you sitting with us right now then?” “Mind yo business.”

#hyunglinenetwork #bts #namjoon #seokjin #yoongi #hoseok #bts reaction #bts x reader #bts x black reader #black reader

[memoriaedamnatio]

Aliakai

TW: Antisemitism

Aliakai#0945

253038952934670336

The pagan YouTuber Aliakai (she/they) attempts to present herself as a community figure, but is rife with problems ranging from toxic debatebro rhetoric and misinformation to antisemitism.

She is a hypocrite, constantly railing on Christianity and the Bible, including the Old Testament, which Christians barely use, and treating the Odyssey as a Bible. This is neither historically accurate nor the intended purpose of ancient Greek myths.

Her anti-”monotheism” runs constantly throughout her platforms, and one could say this is their most consistent issue.

Tweet archived here.

As for Aliakai’s antisemitism, it requires a deeper look. In this video, we find multiple instances of their antisemitism. Referencing the Old Testament to try to defeat the Christians just ends up being antisemitic almost every time. They repeatedly bring up Elohim and specifically Jewish stories in their attempt to “debunk” or “out-logic” Christianity. The Old Testament isn’t meant to be a strict rulebook - it’s also a collection of stories, a fact which Aliakai seems to purposefully ignore.

They talk about Sodom and Gomorrah and the sins committed therein as if the two cities were not specifically written to be bad examples. Additionally, ancient Greeks famously abducted women as the spoils of war. It is incredibly hypocritcal to judge mythical Sodom and Gomorrah without even a mention of the known, historical practices in ancient Greece. She then ties homophobia to the fact that God smote people with hemorrhoids, once again, in a Jewish tale. She is aware that the infamous Leviticus quote is likely about pederasty, but continues to use it to try to posture Judaism and Christianity as inferior anyway.

Aliakai criticizes the God of the Old Testament for smiting Job when Apollo also smites Cassandra in an equally cruel manner.

She then claims that Exodus is actually about punishing Egyptian gods and that the pharaoh is somehow the true victim in the story, not the enslaved Jews.

She also implies everyone takes the Bible literally, committing the common fallacy of equating all Christians with dangerous evangelicals. There is no “common Christian theology” as she claims. They are also condescending to trinitarians, while simultaneously assuming all christians are trinitarians. The text of the Bible does explicitly refer to the Trinity, contrary to their statement.

Any attempt to try to find plotholes in the Bible is pointless, and the amount of time and energy Aliakai wastes is akin to an atheist in 2016.

Here are some furtner examples of Aliakai’s antisemitism:

(Archived first link)(Archived second link)

Here she implies Christianity and Judaism are the same faith, which anyone knowledgeable in either should be able to tell you is both incorrect and a dangerous statement.

(Archived here)

This shows an incredibly poor understanding of how religious oppression is currently functioning in society, and again demonstrates their anti-monotheism. Do we need to discuss Myanmar’s militant Buddhist genocide of Rohingya Muslims, for example? Or Hindu lynchings of Muslims? The list goes on.

Aliakai’s archived talk for the Hindutva org Indica here. To her credit, she did sever her relationship with Indica (archived). However, for a politically inclined youtuber who can research, this is a dangerous lack of vetting. Same can be said of the others who partook, of course.

Despite disavowing Indica, they never disavowed Butler, who is undeniably a fascist. In fact, Aliakai continues to recommend Edward Butler a year after the community-wide revelation of his fascism.

Here is her only acknowledgement of Butler's fascism (archived), without explicitly agreeing or disagreeing with the blogger's criticism of him.

In this Tweet (archived), they are making a lot of assumptions about Butler here and being too generous.

They give Butler a lot of leniency despite his years-long, public love affair with fascism. This is an extremely weak willed response to finding out an associate is fascist. This is not antifascism. This is not accountability.

In this video, Aliakai tries to present a case for making an SPG more official of Ares and mental health. In this video, around 8:03, she hints that Ares is the god of police officers who brutalize protesters. Considering police brutality and the unjust use of police violence, this is incredibly insensitive and quite racist. Police do not have anything to do with justice, and claiming as much for a shared community experience is bold.

Performing a Hellenic ritual for Ukraine with a Heathen without involving any Slavic pagans is morally questionable, as is claiming Ukraine is dedicated to Demeter’s arts. This is an act of further colonialism against a country currently being invaded by imperialist forces.

Asking viewers not to invoke Eris simply because of personal beef for a supposedly aid based ritual is infantile.

#aliakai #hellenic paganism #pagan community #paganism #pagans of tumblr #witchy #witchcraft #hellenismos #helpol #hellenic polytheism

[directdogman]

hey howdy hey! first off, i wanna say that ive been following dialtown since it was a wee baby demo and i have loved to see every inch of progress it has made. i love this game to bits. i can't accurately express how much of a comfort game it is to me, or compliment the writing enough, but rest assured that i believe it's a fockin masterpiece (even if that means i am damned to hell. i welcome u, phone-satan)

that being said! woe be upon ye, i have lore questions for ya (and i'll probably ask more at a later date)

i would love to hear more about callum crown. literally any detail(s) you can comfortably give that wouldn't spoil a potential sequel or that 30-page lore doc (tho , gotta say, i wanna see that lore doc real bad).

you've said before that you'd like to expand on the singular timeline (how all of the routes coalesce in chapter 3) in dialtown, but that it's tough to put the words you have on paper into words on tumblr. i've got time. lemme read info on the timeline i beg of you

is there any particular reason that phonegingi's head resembles callum's, to the point that callum's 3D model head uses gingi's as a base?? there are hints (i use that term loosely) on your blog that gingi might have modeled their head after callum's. is there anything to that?

moreover, i'd like to know if there's more of a connection between callum and gingi than the heads alone. i mean, gingi literally hears callum's voice before hearing anything about the guy, and they can also somehow read his postcard (without the narrator) DESPITE being illiterate?

finally, a silly one, since winter is upon us! how does norm handle dialtown's winters, being a native arizonan/texan and all? as somebody who lived in arizona, lemme tell ya, the folks there don't take kindly to winter.

i know this is a lot, so thank you if you even took the time to read lol

Some really interesting questions here. I could write an essay in response to some of these questions, which means you’ve undoubtedly asked some good questions heh. You're a sharp one. Lemme answer these as best I can without anticlimactically revealing essential lore in this random tumblr post heh heh

> "i would love to hear more about callum crown. literally any detail(s) you can comfortably give that wouldn't spoil a potential sequel or that 30-page lore doc (tho , gotta say, i wanna see that lore doc real bad)." The stupid thing about that lore doc is that it should be even LONGER. While parts of the Dialup are explained, parts are left out, because I realized that explaining it would require adequately explaining a piece of very strange context regarding another character. Long story short, it connects to something that should ordinarily be very far removed from Crown's tale, so I left it out. I actually left entire pages out to avoid having to explain who someone previously unmentioned in the doc was. Crown's story is funny in the sense that so much of it is why Dialtown (both the game and the city) is the way it is, but the main story of Dialtown is so far removed from it, the only connections to it remaining being Mingus/Norm's beef. Norm's account of Crown's life isn't exactly inaccurate, no one thing he says is technically incorrect, but it misses vital context that completely changes parts of it. Norm missed the end of Crown's presidency, so he also had to learn from revisionist/secondary sources. Some parts are overly detailed, while other parts aren't. EG: Crown's early life has a LOT of focus, but as the timeline gets closer to the end, the detail slows down. Crown's two years of 'honorary leader of the UN' is brushed over, a title that implies he had control over the entire world briefly. As Norm's extras menu implies, Norm is (just like in Mingus) in partial denial about aspects of Crown's leadership and is also in the dark about the behind the scenes stuff from Crown's presidency. Crown's vice president (and best friend, Milton R. Wallace) ended his life after falling out with Crown over the Dialup, and the postcard read in chapter 3 heavily implies that Marla had returned to Dialtown without Crown after he left office. Since Mingus exists, we know Marla + Crown had at least one kid together. Could you imagine trying to raise a young family with the most powerful man in the world, a man who plans his day down to the hour, all without even having a permanent address? Crown’s final days were lonelier than Norm knows and I’d love to discuss them more one day.    

> “you've said before that you'd like to expand on the singular timeline (how all of the routes coalesce in chapter 3) in dialtown, but that it's tough to put the words you have on paper into words on tumblr. i've got time. lemme read info on the timeline i beg of you” There isn’t much I can really say about the timeline without just calling attention to what’s already seen in-game. Any instance in-game where time seems to be falling apart, there’s common visual signs that reality itself is tearing apart at the seams, hell, even outside of the main endings. Only one character in the cast seems to be really aware of this and... Well, seeing God binge-drinking on the curb is usually a bad sign of what’s to come. Hitchcock’s advice for writers who wanna add suspense to a scene is to make people unaware of something significant that’s about to happen. Example: Two men sitting at a table in a diner, talking about something, say, like football... Not a massively suspenseful scene. However, add a live bomb underneath the table, and establish that neither of the men know that it’s there, and every second of that scene will feel like hours, as you hope to GOD that one of the men will look under the table and notice the bomb before it goes off. The bomb under Dialtown’s ‘table’ has a long fuse, but the clock’s ticking down. A lot of what people have noticed regarding Dialtown’s time fuckery is a symptom of something (or someone?) desperately trying to plug up holes in a sinking ship. Anyway, I think I’ve said enough.    

> “is there any particular reason that phonegingi's head resemblescallum's, to the point that callum's 3D model head uses gingi's as abase?? there are hints (i use that term loosely) on your blog that gingi might have modeled their head after callum's. is there anything to that?” Fun question, and a tough one to wrap your head around. Callum Crown’s fame makes it impossible to tell if there really is any connection between him and Gingi’s appearance outside of an eerie coincidence. If Gingi’s head resembled a frankensteined JFK, I don’t think anyone would think for a moment that it meant that JFK and Gingi shared a direct connection, of course, and same for say, Mr Bean and the like. But Crown himself also being connected directly to Norm + Mingus makes it strange. Maybe it’s just the universe’s weird way of doing things, or maybe caused by an intrinsically unknown force? Maybe whoever built Gingi’s phone head just felt that it should look like the most powerful man on earth? Lotta possibilities. I mean. Like, I know the answer. But, for you guys, maaany possibilities!  

> “moreover, i'd like to know if there's more of a connection between callum and gingi than the heads alone. i mean, gingi literally hears callum's voice before hearing anything about the guy, and they can also somehow read his postcard (without the narrator) DESPITE being illiterate?” Again, gotta commend your sharpness, I’ve heard very few people really ask about this. The big issue with the question, of course, is how utterly abnormal Gingi is. God outright implies that Gingi is some sort of time anomaly, since he’s never seen anything quite like Gingi before, and with some of Gingi’s 4th wall breaking dialogue, it seems Gingi has some fleeting awareness of events in other timelines, somehow. That’s excluding Gingi’s weird biology or the fact that Gingi can hear sentient voices. Gingi is unique. You’re right that Gingi being able to hear Crown is abnormal, and combined with, like you said, them having similar appearances (and hell, I’ll add fuel to the fire: how transfixed Crown was with Gingi in that memory Mingus tearfully recounts during the climax, the one where Crown stares at Gingi while Gingi rummages through the garbage outside his window at the nursing home), there’s enough of a connection to be weird, but not enough of one to say anything conclusive. In my eyes, though, I reckon that some universal force could be drawing these two weirdos together, almost like a moth to a lamp. Birds of a feather.   

> “finally, a silly one, since winter is upon us! how does norm handle dialtown's winters, being a native arizonan/texan and all? as somebody who lived in arizona, lemme tell ya, the folks there don't take kindly to winter.” I imagine when he lived in the cabin, during the winter, Norm CONSTANTLY had a fire lit and basically didn’t leave it. Probably had some kind of insane insulation through hunting animals and shoving the pelts into the walls, or something. I guess he wouldn’t had the time to kill, alright.

Thanks for the great questions. Sorry for the vagueness, but hope you got something out of these answers regardless! Some of this stuff will for sure be coming up in future Dialtown stuff! Knowledge is pain!

[tlt-big-resurrection]

ARCADIA RISING: DEAD WOMEN TELL NO TALES

by @incorrect-house-of-nine

art and cosplay by @ambiguouswren

Read the Fic & See the Art HERE

Rating: M

Summary:

Two thousand years after the Mass Exodus, it is up for hot debate among the scholars and historians in the academic institutions of the City States whether all the Imperial Houses survived. For the person who can prove their location, honor and glory shall be their prize.

Necromancy is on the wane. Harrowhark Nonagesimus theorizes that there are missing pieces of the puzzle out there to be found. When a fellow scholar, Palamedes over hears a rumor about strange occurrences out in the Yurridian Desert, the opportunity to investigate is too good to pass up.

In the bustling port town of Capri, a rumor like that never stays contained for very long, and soon they find themselves in a race of horse and hounds with the Tridentarii to lay claim to what ever might be hidden beneath the grey sands of the Ash Scattered Dunes.

Only problem, they are forced to rely upon a rough neck cav cropper with a personality problem and biceps that ought to be illegal.

#tlt big resurrection event #tlt bre #tltbre #the locked tomb

[sleepingdeath-light]

trans masculine s/o hcs ; royal margarine cookie

requested by ; 💠⏹️ anon (05/08/23)

fandom(s) ; cookie run

fandom masterlist(s) ; hub | specific

character(s) ; royal margarine cookie

outline ; “hii it's me again!! can I get some fluffy royal margarine x transmasc reader hcs? thank youu!!! ~ 💠⏹️”

warning(s) ; none, just fluff!

royal margarine cookie is, by nature, a bit of an overly cocky flirt and this only becomes worse once the two of you start dating — and your neighbours will never hear the end of how much he loves his ‘handsome boyfriend’ and how he’s the ‘luckiest man in the world’ to have you on his arm (it’s terribly cheesy and dramatic, but if you tell him as much he’ll give you a cheeky wink and a kiss on the cheek as he insists that he’s ‘only being honest’)

the village is pretty isolated and there aren’t many resources available to help you transition, at least not as many as there are in the larger cities and kingdoms, but ever the attentive partner, your boyfriend and his loyal butter wyvern are always there to help you make any appointments or pick up anything you might need — even offering up whatever he can from his own funds to help you get a hold of any binders, properly fitted clothing, packers, and so on that you might want or need

he’s not afraid to correct anyone that uses the wrong name or incorrect terms of address towards or about you, interrupting them with a ‘he’ or a ‘they’ or a ‘sir’ or ‘boyfriend’ whenever they use the wrong term — so casual about it that they don’t fight it but more than ready to take advantage of the reputation he’s made for himself to intimidate them out of trying to start something with him (for all of his talk, he’s not the best fighter and he really doesn’t want to get into an actual altercation unless he actually has to)

he’s forever showing off in front of you, preening himself like a peacock and strutting around with perfectly combed hair and the clothes he knows best flatter his figure, a confident look in his eye and a new fantastical tale on his lips as his wyvern follows him around as loyal as ever — spinning these wondrous stories of battle and triumph, of adventure and dragons, of fire and destruction and rising up from the ashes, forever and always the victor (hanging off of your every hum and smile and nod as he speaks, thriving under your attention and approval)

he’s incredibly attentive and affectionate and considerate as you recover from top surgery — helping you with scar care and re-wrapping/changing your bandages and tending to your every need as your body heals (complimenting you the first time you show him your uncovered scars and calling them ‘handsome’ and saying that they suit you well — ‘battle earned’ he called them, and you jokingly slapped his shoulder)

#sleepingdeath #💠⏹️ anon #trans masc reader #fluff #fluff hcs #royal margarine cookie fluff #royal margarine cookie x reader #cookie run x reader #cookie run fluff #crk fluff #crk x reader

[leam1983]

On Repeated Visits

A friend from work asked me why I went back to Middle-Earth: Shadow of War so often. They're the Tolkien Purist type, the exact sort that wrinkles its nose at The Rings of Power.

I shrugged. I don't care much for Talion and Celebrimbor and the timeline getting Batman-Backbreaker'd in half in order to accomodate the designers' desire to design a city inhabited by Men without invoking Minas Tirith really didn't strike me as being sacrilegious. I don't need Everything Tolkien to be focused on Hobbits and I really don't mind Monolith ignoring and twisting huge swaths of the lore, not when said lore remains accessible in its correct form, through the Silmarilion and the Unfinished Tales.

I like Shadow of War that much because it gives one of the least-represented groups a voice, and does it in a way that respects their posture as antagonists while still adding more to the fire than the usual "Well, dur, the Uruk-Hai were made by Sauron, of course they'd follow him!"

SoW's Uruk can be seen and heard bickering, debating Ethics during wartime, behaving as much like weary soldiers as they would like the caricature of shellshocked pricks with War Crimes charges waiting in the rinks. You can see them trying to dodge conscription in hunting parties or raid groups, or step aside to question orders on the sly. They function off of woefully incorrect and incomplete information, yes - but they're asking all the right questions. They're like companies in Vietnam that went on for too long without furlough; the pecking order gets challenged, authority crumbles and the occupying force's fault lines are laid bare. They're shoddily trained and taught to think of themselves as the Bestest Evar, and some come achingly close to realizing that their training modes are insufficient. They're all clamoring for something better, but were never taught what to ask for, what to expect.

And so, logically, they hate those who have it better. The better-trained with palatable rations and properly-developed skills. Those who were given processing skills to tolerate the rigors of war without snapping. The Men of Gondor and the Elves of Rivendell or Lorien. Their aversion to light isn't just an affect of their starting as troglodytes, it marks their finding the other races' acquired power and wisdom as being insulting to their own efforts. It speaks to a massive inferiority complex and a sense of envy that's pervasive in their culture, that they see as more or less smothered away behind their hatred.

In my mind, the Orcs aren't really hateful - they're envious. They just can't process this correctly, being the product of generalized trauma. It speaks of Sauron as being an absent ruler and commander, an abusive father, an incompetent figure of authority and a force of Evil for whom the only driving factor is his absolute pugnaciousness. Sauron is very much a Karen, and he's spent two Ages of Middle-Earth's history trying to Speak to the Manager.

With that in mind, how could you not pity the Orcs and find them several orders of magnitude more interesting than Arda's better-adjusted races?

#lotr #tolkien #rings of power #middle-earth: shadow of war #talion #celebrimbor #orcs #uruk-hai

[incorrectatotcquotes]

Charles: Started talking to yourself too, Sydney?

Sydney: Yes, it's the only way I can be sure of an intelligent conversation around here.

#source: blackadder #a tale of two cities #atotc #dickensian #booklr #incorrect a tale of two cities #charles dickens #classic literature #lit #bibliophile #books & libraries #incorrect quotes #victorian literature #old books #book blog #booklover #bookworm #books #bookaddict #bookaholic

[incorrectclassicbookquotes]

When Charles Darnay is trying not to get caught in France

Sydney Carton: Relax. No ones gonna recognize you.

Charles Darnay: What, because of the hat and sunglasses? It's not a disguise, Sydney. I look like myself at a baseball game.

#a tale of two cities #sydney carton #charles darnay #incorrect quotes #source: ant man and the wasp

[squidknees]

List of things you might find on a bookshelf in Empyria:

A pocket-sized “human phenotype” reference, where you can look up physical features (ear shapes, tail types, etc.) and see which cities produce humans with those traits. Extremely incomplete, and some chapters are sketchy, or straight up incorrect.

A collection of depressing fairy tales, including one about a man who died in a senseless war and came back as a horrible rampaging monster, razing his hometown and eating people until his wife found and properly buried his corpse.

A romance novel about a farm girl who gets rescued from bandits by a dashing adventurer. The back cover claims it gives a “realistic look” into the adventurer lifestyle, but it’s mostly just the two of them cutting down generic villains and gazing soulfully into each other’s eyes.

A Church of Aether pamphlet about how the world is going to end again soon if you don’t stop using those blasphemous magitech washing machines.

A cheap paperback about Rugged Heroic Adventurers sailing to an unexplored Outer Continent and roughing it out in the Perilous Jungles that definitely exist beyond the outer seas. They fight a variety of lovingly-described “beasts”, which are totally different from monsters for reasons that are never really made clear.

#squid writes #empyria #empyria wb #worldbuilding

[morgulscribe]

The Lost Elves of Mordor?

"But still she [Shelob] was there, who was there before Sauron, and before the first stone of Barad-dûr; and she served none but herself, drinking the blood of Elves and Men, bloated and grown fat with endless brooding on her feasts, weaving webs of shadow; for all living things were her food, and her vomit darkness." -- "Shelob's Lair," The Two Towers, p. 375-6.

Now it could be assumed that the "Elves and Men" whom Shelob was eating were prisoners fed to her by Sauron.

However, this quote is discussing how long Shelob had been dwelling in Mordor. We definitely know she was living there before year 1000 of the Second Age. (This was when Sauron came to Mordor and started building Barad-dur.)

"How Shelob came there, flying from ruin, no tell tales, for out of the Dark Years few tales have come." ("Shelob's Lair," 375.)

This implies that Shelob's arrival to Mordor was a direct result of the fall of Beleriand. (I assume this is what "ruin" refers to here.) However, I suppose one could argue that it is theoretically possible that Shelob could have been living in Mordor during the latter years of the First Age. After all, the text is purposefully vague: "for out of the Dark Years few tales have come."

(Mordor existed in the First Age; the Atlas of Middle-earth is incorrect in this regard. There is proof of this in Unfinished Tales and Peoples of Middle-earth.)

So where is Shelob getting these tasty elves prior to Sauron's arrival in Mordor???

In fact, it is implied that Shelob gets fewer elves and men BECAUSE of Sauron!

"[...] long now had she been hungry, lurking in her den, while the power of Sauron grew, and light and living things forsook his borders; and the city in the valley was dead, and no Elf or Man came near, only the unhappy Orcs." ("Shelob's Lair," 376)

Could these references to Shelob's victims be evidence of a human (and elvish!) presence in Pre-1000 Second Age Mordor?

After all, it was the ELVES who gave Mordor its name, "because of its volcano Orodruin and its eruptions" ("Last Writings," The Peoples of Middle-earth, 390). Tolkien implies that the elves had been calling this land Mordor for an undetermined amount of time prior to year 1000 of the Second Age.

Amazon's "Rings of Power" explored the possibility of both men and elves living in Second Age Mordor. At the beginning of the show, the volcano is dormant, and Gorgoroth is a green and fertile land, much like in Sam's vision. Keep in mind that the Gorgoroth region of Mordor might not always have looked like a desolation, for thousands of years passed between eruptions. There may have been some truth in the vision that the Ring showed to Sam.

An indigenous human population in ancient Mordor definitely seems like a possibility, but could elves have lived there as well?

Going by the quote in Peoples of Middle-earth, it is obvious that elves explored Mordor at some point during the First and/or Second Ages. Could there have been elvish villages in Mordor and/or Nurn? And if there were, what happened to these elves? Were they frightened away by the eruptions of Mount Doom, killed by human and/or orc warlords who desired their lands, or driven away by the predations of a giant spider?

One thing is for certain: by year 1000 of the Second Age, any remaining elvish presence in Mordor would have been enslaved or exterminated.

#tolkien #middle-earth #shelob #second age #middle-earth history #tolkien headcanons #mordor #amazon rings of power #elfhild's essays

[tildeathiwillwrite]

Tales from Valaria Masterpost

A collection of fantasy stories taking place on the planet Valaria.

About Valaria

A world with two main continents: one referred to as the eastern, one as the western, with a smaller third continent and numerous islands.

(map made with Roll for Fantasy map maker)

Valaria is populated by three dominant bipedal species (humans, elves, Draigo) and three known subspecies (devar, lycanthropes, sang) The magic system is based on spells, which are cast by writing or speaking runes. Only two groups can use runes: magicians and Stalkers. Magicians write runes using ink or blood, while Stalkers learn to speak runes through experimentation and thirst for power.

Characters:

[TBA]

Stories:

(arranged chronologically but can be read in any order)

The Watcher and the Thief

[1:1] [1:2]

A Watcher (glorified detective/bodyguard) seeks out a magician to reverse a curse placed upon his apprentice. A thief steals a gemstone from the Draigo that is much more valuable than it seems. And a devar, dispatched to catch the thief, is instead drawn into the conflict between a Stalker and her prey. Contains: magic whump, knife wounds, arrow wounds, burns, gunshot wounds.

The Hunter, the Myth and the Cure [TBA]

Draven Cozenson, an infamous lycanthrope hunter, is tasked to capture numerous werecreatures within the city of Zariya. At the same time, a devar acquaintance seeks his aid. A young teen is kidnapped from her home for unknown reasons. Contains: kidnapping, blood drawings, gunshot wounds, knife wounds, magic whump, monsters.

Magician's Bait

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Damian has been abducted by a Stalker who seeks to use him as bait for her true prize. Contains: magic whump, captivity, PTSD, deception, knife wounds.

Misc:

Tag Games:

Find the Word Incorrect Quotes OC in 15: Draven Memes Character Voice OC Questionnaire: Draven, Octavian, Reese OC Questionnaire: Luc

Character Asks:

Worst Ever Hurt Lost Children Weirdly Alike OCs: Draven and Korfel Knights Radiant Quiz

Incorrect Quotes:

Two Truths and a Lie

#tales from valaria #masterpost #masterlist #my wips #my writing #tfv #twatt #thtmatc #magician's bait #fantasy writing #writeblr #whump #whump writing #my ocs #my stories

[docholligay]

In as much as I’m aware, G&T is a US only thing though I may be incorrect about that.

The anon is crossing wires a bit, I think, so I’ll explain the GENERAL structure of it. I am assuming anon is in the US, and, I cannot say this enough, if you are not, I do not care. Everything I said stands.

G&T is an elementary school program where children who are considered to be particularly intelligent or have large amounts of potential are given additional out of class time to be taught higher level things. If this sounds a LITTLE vague, it’s because the US states are run a little like UK countries--there is QUITE a bit of variation in how things are done because of states’ autonomy. In Montana, I was required to take several tests and an interview to be considered G&T. I passed. My sister didn’t. My sister makes six figures as an engineer and got accepted to MIT, I talk about anime on the internet. So.

Largely, what G&T programs do is introduce concepts that are considered ‘above’ other children--I was taught algebra at 7 or 8, we often engaged in word puzzles, we were introduced to high-level literature. There is QUITE a bit of the idea that you are ‘smarter’ than other kids, and anyone who says otherwise is full of it. It was like, my sole fucking consolation in elementary school. That these kids were mean to me, but I was SMARTER than them. BETTER. Lol what hot bullshit.

In high school it largely translates into the AP (Advanced Placement) program. I am not 110% sure how you transition into this if you weren’t G&T as a child, but I know you can because the classes got bigger. So, AP kids take math classes a year sooner and can do Calculus before they graduate if they choose the math track for example. I dropped math the second they let me, so I only went to Trigonometry. AP English is a separate class entirely that does more difficult work. So, for example, we did Beowulf, we did Hamlet, we were expected to write higher-level papers and read A Tale of Two Cities over the summer. Crushing. You could opt out of this at any time when you were making your schedule.

College...does not have G&T. lol. They have honors programs, which vary so widely by school that it’s barely worth getting into here. In my college, if you wanted to graduate with honors you had to be a part of the honors program, which involved a whole extra class every year, and, thank you but no, I do not actually care about graduating with honors and I care even less about taking a class a year with a bunch of Fareeha fuckin Amaris.

I never found any of this particularly dealing psychic damage, and I find it a little frustrating that the story on the internet has become “Oh no adults told me I was smart and I found out it was meaningless.” It’s a bit like hearing about the poor little rich girl who was sent to Switzerland for the summer with her governess and was never quite wanted--sure, but also, eyeroll.