stultifera navis rerun AKA thinking about Iberia hours again because a lot of the Iberians have such fascinating relationships with the concept of home but specifically Thorns and Lumen are eating at my brain. like where do you call home when the place that is your home Just Fucking Hates You? Elysium's rewinding breeze specifically makes a point to hammers home how differently Iberia treats its Liberi and its Aegir
(which is especially interesting since this comes right after a conversation where Purestream commented on how despite Leizi being a high ranking government official, there are still some experiences that are universal for all Yanese people - because the experience of what Iberia itself is like isnt universal for all Iberians)
But all that being said, Thorns also straight up states that Aegir is not his home, and yeah, how could it be? How could a place you've never been to, never truly known, ever be your home? How could it ever feel like a home?
so where do you go when the place that you are from hates your people and the place your people are from is completely unfamiliar and alien to you? Thorns' answer at the end of the conversation with Aya is: my home is where i chose it to be. my home is where there are people I care about and people who care about me
in the complete opposite direction, Lumen's oprec asks: why do you still stay in a place that wants you gone? because the people of Gran Faro like Jordi well enough but when push comes to shove, they will want the only Aegir in town gone
and yet, when Rald the messenger offers him a chance to leave Jordi turns him down and when he's forced to escape Gran Faro after the people there literally try to send him to his death (or worse) at the hands of the Inquisitors he keeps trying to go back because like everyone in stultifera navis, Jordi is clinging to his own dreams of a golden age
but the shape of that dream is unique to every character and for Jordi, his dreams are deeply, inseparably bound to the Eye of Iberia, the legacy his parents left behind
and it's this dream of becoming someone great, of bringing about that golden age that his parents devoted their lives to help create that ties Jordi to this nothing town because despite everything, despite the mistrust of the townsfolk and the hostility of the Inquisition and the danger from the ocean, he simply cannot leave it behind
(or, because i personally dislike the official translation,)
"I just see this place as my home"
so yeah. not sure what overall point i was trying to make here i'm just. deeply in love with these stories about chosing what is and isn't your home, of saying you will not call a place your home because it has given you no reason to or saying you consider a place your home even though it has given you every reason not to. deeply unwell about them <3
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I almost forgot to update you all, sorry Darlings, it's been a very long day.
Thankfully I do have some good news! Both Bug and Bunny are doing surprisingly well, though they are both noticeably anxious still. They will be on some medication for a few weeks that I have to give them at set intervals, and I will have to take them back in for a check up a couple of times too, but other than that, they are both doing shockingly well all things considered.
The vet staff was even kind enough to give them both a bath and help remove some of the mats I was unable to remove myself, as well as handle the injuries to their paws and mouths from the neglect they dealt with in their former home.
It took a while to get them to come out of their new carrier, but once they did, they pretty much went into hiding immediately. I was eventually able to lure them out with a promise of treats and an old documentary about birds so that I could give them more meds, and thankfully they both stayed in view long enough for me to get a photo of the two of them watching it together to share with you all!
(Please forgive the mess, they think they're smaller than they are, so playtime clearly results in a lot more chaos than I was really prepared for.)
(Bug is the chonkiest boy, holy shit. Him Round.)
Once again, I'm incredibly grateful for the support and understanding from all of you, it really does mean a lot to me. I don't know if I'll be able to jump right back into posting just yet, but I will do my best to get back to it again soon.
Please stay safe Darling ones, and try to be kind to yourselves 🖤
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Hair
They say that hair holds stories, that the style is what makes a man.
They say long locks make you a pansy and a real man should have it short lest they be mistaken for a girl.
Where I grew up, every man buzzed their hair down.
It was a shame for it to be long and shaggy, and mothers would fuss over you, insisting upon a haircut.
For girls, it was fine.
They could have hair as long as they wanted or as short as they needed, so long as it wasnt buzzed as short as a man’s.
Being anything else just wasn’t a thing round these parts where churches chimed every sunday, pastors clammoring around resturants and filling their quotas in a single lunch.
So I buzzed mine.
I tried as hard as I could to seem as manly as possible
To appear as bull of a brute as any cowboy should.
I wore all the boy things and had all the short boy hair.
My scalp was sensitive anyways, so I thought it didn’t bother me.
It was better shorter.
Wasnt it?
I still gazed and clammored about the anime boys I saw on screen or in Otome games though.
I gushed about how pretty they were with hair down their backs like a silken curtain, or whipping wild through the air like the mane of a lion.
Legolas was never deemed as not manly enough
Beither was Zen or inuyasha or the undertaker.
A crush, I supposed.
Because of course thats all it was.
I was a gay little boy with gay little crushes and my type was men with long, Beautiful hair.
Right?
My hair was a dull, discolored brown from the shimmering blonde it used to be, the blonde I remember from kindergarten.
I tried to return to that blonde with bleach.
My school didnt allow unnatural colors, so anything was better than that matted, oily brown.
Shaved short and as platinum as a ken doll, I should have been as man as ever.
4 years, I stayed like that, and while the short hair was easy to take care of, I felt as hideous as a pile of sludge.
It didnt matter if I was loved for my looks, I supposed.
Wouldn’t that be too vain of me?
Boys weren’t supposed to care about what they looked like, they werent supposed to coo and admire Beautiful hair or seethe in jealousy that their sister looked so much better and has such long, goregous hair.
It wasn’t until after high school that I began to explore.
Covid let me grow my hair out more, though I still trimmed the sides.
I let my bangs grow long and shaggy over my face, like a veil to hide me from the world.
Eventually I dyed it again, this time going with that green I had always wanted to try, the one I had seen on my favorite youtuber growing up, fluffy and emerald.
Still, for years more, I kept it short. Only allowing that fringe to hover over me as some sort of style.
Recently though, I’ve realized I want that hair that those anime men had.
I want that soft curtain rolling down my back like waves of an ebony river, flecks of mossy green dotting it like a miasma of toxin flowing through the oily black stream.
I want the hair like the ring girl
The people around me are foolish and prudent to think the length of ones hair makes you more or less of a man.
I know that now, and I’m glad I do.
I want to stop pretending not to like things
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Fic writers, if you're writing in one language and your characters are using another you can just Say they're speaking that language unless you're A. communicating that the POV doesn't understand or B. providing translations afterwards. It's all well and good to use other languages in your writing but if you don't provide a way for the average reader to understand it you're just taking them out of your story by making them translate everything manually.
I just read what was supposed to be a very emotional chapter in a fic but couldn't focus on the emotional beats bc I couldn't understand what the characters were saying to each other and kept having to copy and paste translate the dialogue. There are other, clearer ways to communicate what you're going for.
Edit: to clarify my point, I'm specifically referring to dialogue in a language that is different from the rest of the work and there is no translation provided within the work itself. It's like reading an Untamed fic and the dialogue is in Chinese, a Skam fic and the dialogue is in Norwegian, or a Not Me fic and the dialogue is in Thai. You can make that choice but it should be with the deliberate knowledge that it will change the way ppl engage with your fic, it WILL change the flow if your average reader is having to stop and translate everything. You should know these things to make an informed choice when you're writing. You can do whatever you want, it's your fic it's not that serious and you write however you want. BUT you should make the choice deliberately with the knowledge of how it will affect your readers IF that is something you choose to care about.
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