#this whole passage! this whole poem! this whole book!

[reachthezeneth]

I follow you

#lestappen #charles leclerc #max verstappen #richard siken #war of the foxes #i posted this bc i keep seeing people post it with other rs poems but I'm like !!!! pls !! the poem he's talking about!!!!! #hiding in each otherrrrrr plssss #this whole passage! this whole poem! this whole book!

[midnightorchids]

hey babe- I sucks so much that your sick and stressed. Maybe some soft Jason HCs will help. - Jason will highlight and annotate lines or passages in his book that remind him of you. He will say them to you late at night when both of you are tucked away in bed to make it seem like he made it up himself. You know he's lying since you have read all of his books but you indulge him. That adorable proud smirk on his face is too kissable not too. - Both of you have scheduled reading dates once a month where you'll spend most of the day just reading on the couch. Your head in his lap or his head in yours. You spend supper that night talking about your separate books. - He loves it when you slightly tug on his hair or gently scratch his skin (non-sexually). It's like a reminder to him that he didn't make you up and that he can still feel you so closely. He's dead asleep as soon as his head connects with your chest and your hands tangle in his thick black hair. He'll smile and giggle like a little kid as you kiss the white tuft of hair tangled over his forehead. - If your a hero/vigilante yourself, he coordinates his patrol times so that you'll start patrol together. He only takes his mask off during patrol time when he's with you on a secluded roof-top or warehouse. The first thing he always asks is 'you ok hun? anything happen?' - After patrol, he's always antsy to pamper you first. He helps you out of ur uniform, sweeping you up into his arms to be placed in the bath. The warm water, scented at your request, settles your nerves, the tension leaving your muscles as Jason starts washing down your shoulders and chest. He settles behind you, your body trapped against his. His legs on either side of you and his thick arms holding you tightly against his chest. His chin usually rests on the top of your head as you ramble about your evening. He'll press soft sweet kisses under your ear and along the curve of your neck, making you giggle. - He'll help you step out of the bath and wrap you tightly in a towel, giving you one of his shirts to change into as he finds his sweatpants. You fall asleep on top of him, nestling into the safety of his arms. Both of you are cozy and extremely sappy. But it's just a fraction of the love that he pours into you and your relationship. Jason falls asleep smiling, knowing that he has the most important person in his life wrapped up and safe tangled in his arms.

You don’t understand, this genuinely just made my whole day, week even!! Thank you!!! These are the sweetest headcanons ever, I would die for soft Jason.

I had the stupidest grin on my face reading the first one, he’s such a loser, but in the best way possible.

And because of that, I’d also like to add on to that one…!

You know when a song comes on that you know really well and you just can’t help but sing along? I think there would be a time in your relationship where he’d recite you a verse from his favourite poem, acting all high and mighty like this is his own work. You’ll look at him with a small smile on your face, trying to hold yourself back from reciting along with him, but you can’t help it!! Once you start, he’ll stop and get this really cute, sheepish smile, knowing that he’s been caught.

You’ll both let out a giggle and to tease him further, you’ll tell him he’s an amazing writer and that you’re a big fan of his works. This will end in one of two ways, he’ll tackle you and smother you with kisses or he’ll tickle you until you’re both a laughing mess. Either way, this doesn’t stop him from reading out his favourite lines to you and pretending like they’re his own.

The scheduled reading dates one also has me on such a chokehold. I want to be bundled up in a cosy sweater with big blanket and have him lay his head on my lap, while I play with his hair and read to him (I suck at reading out loud, he’d probably make fun of me LMAO).

I also want him to tell me about the books he’s reading, his eyes wide, full of life and beaming with passion.

This is when he looks the prettiest. He’s so excited, he’s waving his hands around gesturing to things, pacing around the room, trying to explain this crucial point in his story to you. You can’t help but stare at him in awe, he’s just so so pretty like this.

#gn!reader #jason todd #red hood #jason todd imagine #red hood imagine #jason todd x reader #red hood x reader #jason todd headcanon #red hood headcanon #batfam

[grandhotelabyss]

Advice/hard truths for writers?

The best piece of practical advice I know is a classic from Hemingway (qtd. here):

The most important thing I’ve learned about writing is never write too much at a time… Never pump yourself dry. Leave a little for the next day. The main thing is to know when to stop. Don’t wait till you’ve written yourself out. When you’re still going good and you come to an interesting place and you know what’s going to happen next, that’s the time to stop. Then leave it alone and don’t think about it; let your subconscious mind do the work.

Also, especially if you're young, you should read more than you write. If you're serious about writing, you'll want to write more than you read when you get old; you need, then, to lay the important books as your foundation early. I like this passage from Samuel R. Delany's "Some Advice for the Intermediate and Advanced Creative Writing Student" (collected in both Shorter Views and About Writing):

You need to read Balzac, Stendhal, Flaubert, and Zola; you need to read Austen, Thackeray, the Brontes, Dickens, George Eliot, and Hardy; you need to read Hawthorne, Melville, James, Woolf, Joyce, and Faulkner; you need to read Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, Goncherov, Gogol, Bely, Khlebnikov, and Flaubert; you need to read Stephen Crane, Mark Twain, Edward Dahlberg, John Steinbeck, Jean Rhys, Glenway Wescott, John O'Hara, James Gould Cozzens, Angus Wilson, Patrick White, Alexander Trocchi, Iris Murdoch, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, Anthony Powell, Vladimir Nabokov; you need to read Nella Larsen, Knut Hamsun, Edwin Demby, Saul Bellow, Lawrence Durrell, John Updike, John Barth, Philip Roth, Coleman Dowell, William Gaddis, William Gass, Marguerite Young, Thomas Pynchon, Paul West, Bertha Harris, Melvin Dixon, Daryll Pinckney, Darryl Ponicsan, and John Keene, Jr.; you need to read Thomas M. Disch, Joanna Russ, Richard Powers, Carroll Maso, Edmund White, Jayne Ann Phillips, Robert Gluck, and Julian Barnes—you need to read them and a whole lot more; you need to read them not so that you will know what they have written about, but so that you can begin to absorb some of the more ambitious models for what the novel can be.

Note: I haven't read every single writer on that list; there are even three I've literally never heard of; I can think of others I'd recommend in place of some he's cited; but still, his general point—that you need to read the major and minor classics—is correct.

The best piece of general advice I know, and not only about writing, comes from Dr. Johnson, The Rambler #63:

The traveller that resolutely follows a rough and winding path, will sooner reach the end of his journey, than he that is always changing his direction, and wastes the hours of day-light in looking for smoother ground and shorter passages.

I've known too many young writers over the years who sabotaged themselves by overthinking and therefore never finishing or sharing their projects; this stems, I assume, from a lack of self-trust or, more grandly, trust in the universe (the Muses, God, etc.). But what professors always tell Ph.D. students about dissertations is also true of novels, stories, poems, plays, comic books, screenplays, etc: There are only two kinds of dissertations—finished and unfinished. Relatedly, this is the age of online—an age when 20th-century institutions are collapsing, and 21st-century ones have not yet been invented. Unless you have serious connections in New York or Iowa, publish your work yourself and don't bother with the gatekeepers.

Other than the above, I find most writing advice useless because over-generalized or else stemming from arbitrary culture-specific or field-specific biases, e.g., Orwell's extremely English and extremely journalistic strictures, not necessarily germane to the non-English or non-journalistic writer. "Don't use adverbs," they always say. Why the hell shouldn't I? It's absurd. "Show, don't tell," they insist. Fine for the aforementioned Orwell and Hemingway, but irrelevant to Edith Wharton and Thomas Mann. Freytag's Pyramid? Spare me. Every new book is a leap in the dark. Your project may be singular; you may need to make your own map as your traverse the unexplored territory.

Hard truths? There's one. I know it's a hard truth because I hesitate even to type it. It will insult our faith in egalitarianism and the rewards of earnest labor. And yet, I suspect the hard truth is this: ineffables like inspiration and genius count for a lot. If they didn't, if application were all it took, then everybody would write works of genius all day long. But even the greatest geniuses usually only got the gift of one or two all-time great work. This doesn't have to be a counsel of despair, though: you can always try to place yourself wherever you think lightning is likeliest to strike. That's what I do, anyway. Good luck!

#creative writing #literature

[clarrissanewt]

CHARACTER BACKSTORIES

what are character backstories?

character backstories is anything that happened to your character before the main story begun. it a crucial part of character development and creation and can help you have a strong sense of the character’s background (and probably one of the reasons why the character does something in the present!)

ways to add backstories:

flashbacks:

flashbacks can be a powerful way to make a promise to a reader. any cataclysmic event might trigger the protagonist into getting a flashback. flashbacks don't only provide an insight to the character's past but also intrigue readers.

Use verb tense shifts to move between the flashback and main narrative. Whenever your narrative or characters recall a memory from a time before the story began, you have two choices. If the memory is short, you can describe it briefly. If it’s longer, you may want to pull the reader back into a full scene describing a past event. It important to mark the beginning and end of a flashback to make your time jumps clear to the reader.

Keep them relevant. Flashbacks help fill in the characters’ motives and history, but if they are too long or tedious, the reader will get bored. If you use flashbacks, always be aware that time is still moving in the front story, and make sure that your reader can hear the clock in that front story ticking.

Sometimes the whole book is the flashback. it can start with a character narrating the story to someone else. Framing the events of the storyline this way, with a dual point-of-view into a character’s life over the passage of time, can bring more nuance to the storytelling. Before using this technique, ask yourself whether the character’s arc is dramatic enough to make for interesting retrospection.

Tell the present story first. Sometimes it may not be clear where a flashback belongs until you’ve completed your first draft and have a complete view of the storyline.

dialogues:

sometimes a simple conversation might let the character reveal few of the past events to the person they trust or look forward to. it can be a good way to hide the backstory all the while giving it to the readers.

reflection:

let the character 'reflect' on how far they have come. introspection or reflection is one of the ways in which your character can reveal their backstories in the present narrative.

+ bonus! - prologues

Prologues come before chapter one and could be expository/introductory prose, a poem, diary letter, news clipping, or anything in between.

Prologue Don'ts:

1. Using a prologue as a place for a massive dump… information dump.

Information dumps are one of the easiest ways to make readers’ eyes glaze over. Paragraphs of text that provide dense (albeit important) background information are tough to digest. Without strategically trickling this information throughout a scene or throughout the chapters/book, readers can be immediately turned off to a story.

2. A prologue that has nothing to do with the main story.

Prologues need to somehow propel or impact your main plot. Period. If your prologue is filled with action, offers bite-sized pieces of background information, and weaves a compelling scene but is not relevant to your main plot, you probably need to re-think your strategy.

It doesn’t matter if your writing is solid if the scenes aren’t strategically moving toward that pretty plot arc—depicting an emotional journey for your character and exhibiting the stakes for your protagonist and the world at large.

3. Prologues that are too long.

The modern reader (often) prefers shorter chapters—prologues included. If your prologue is longer than most of your chapters (or if both your prologue and chapters are longer), it might be time to reevaluate the structure and pacing of your chapters.

4. Using the prologue to hook the reader as the sole purpose.

think of the prologues that throw the reader into the action—and I mean the middle of the action. Maybe it’s the center of a bloody battlefield or twisted in the sheets of a love affair. Whatever it is, the reader is unceremoniously plunked into the action in a world they’re unfamiliar with and whose characters they don’t yet know (and love).

While action scenes are a gripping way to begin a story, consider whether or not this action is important to the central plot and if this beginning isn’t too overwhelming/confusing for the reader to acclimate to.

5. Using the prologue strictly to provide atmosphere or to do some early-on world building.

World building is one of the things readers love most about fantasy and science fiction. These delicious details are… well… delicious! The setting is described with enough detail to have the readers visualizing the character’s surroundings but not too much to bog down the pace of the scene.

Types of Prologues

Background/History: This type of prologue provides background to the history of the world and events that previously transpired—such as a major battle or betrayal. These events typically took place before the beginning of your story and somehow significantly impact the events going forward.

Different Point of View (POV): This type of prologue could be advantageous when diving into another character’s perspective—particularly when that character’s insight is only needed once and provides a foundation for the story.

Protagonist (Past or Future): These prologues are great for showing a pivotal moment for the protagonist—either in the past or in the future (such as a defining moment years ago or after the main plot has taken place).

Strengths of a Prologue

Fear not, writers. Prologues aren’t all bad. In fact, they come in handy in a number of scenarios:

To provide a “quick-and-dirty” glimpse of important background information without the need of flashbacks, dialogue, or memories that interrupt the action later on in the book.

Hook the reader into the action right away while having the readers asking questions relevant to the central plot—and therefore eager to learn those answers in the opening chapters.

Offer information the reader couldn’t otherwise glean from the plot (such as a break from the point-of-view narration or from a different character’s perspective).

Introduce the antagonist—providing background motives that either humanizes the character or exhibits his/her evil intentions. This angle can be handy if the protagonist doesn’t meet the antagonist until later on in the book.

Introduce a philosophy or religious belief important to the plot/setting.

Foreshadow future events, thereby creating suspense for the reader and get them asking questions (and eagerly reading on).

Do I Need a Prologue?

Consider the following questions:

What information am I providing in the prologue? Why is it important to reveal it up front? Can it be revealed throughout the story in smaller trickles and still be as impactful (or more)?

Does this character’s POV come up again later in the story? If so, would this work as a first chapter instead?

#writing #creative writing #writblr #writing community #writers of tumblr #writing tips #writing characters #writing advice #writing resources #writer #writing backstories #character development

[nerdyrevelries]

Jo March: The Pragmatist

One of the most common complaints I hear about Little Women is the way it ends. Many people think that Jo stifles her creativity and gives up on her writing in order to marry Professor Bhaer, which isn't true. Jo writes a very successful book in one of the sequels, Jo’s Boys, but let's set that to the side because what I really want to discuss is what Jo actually thinks of the writing she’s doing in the latter half of Little Women. 

In Part I of Little Women, we see the type of writing that Jo does prior to selling her work. In “A Merry Christmas,” the family puts on The Witch’s Curse, an Operatic Tragedy, which seems to be a Shakespearean melodrama. In “Jo Meets Apollyon,” the book Amy burns in anger is “half a dozen little fairy tales.” In “The P.C. and P.O.,” Jo writes a comedic poem and a lament for one of Beth’s cats. Finally, in “Secrets,” Jo submits a tragic romance to The Spread Eagle (one assumes that this name was less funny when Little Women was originally published in 1868.) The Spread Eagle doesn’t pay beginners, so we can assume that everything written up until this point is the type of writing Jo does for herself when there’s no pressure to make changes to please an editor in order to get a paycheck. 

Part II begins with the chapter “Gossip,” which catches us up on what’s been happening over the past three years. Jo is now a regular contributor to The Spread Eagle who receives a dollar for each story. She refers to them as “rubbish,” so she doesn’t seem particularly proud of the writing she’s doing, but she’s in the process of writing a novel she hopes will win her fame and prestige. 

In “Literary Lessons,” Jo observes a boy reading a newspaper story illustrated with a dramatic scene of “an Indian in full war costume, tumbling over a precipice with a wolf at his throat” and two men stabbing each other while a terrified woman flees the scene. When the boy offers to share, Jo agrees more because she likes the boy than because of an interest in the story. The story is sensation fiction, which Jo privately thinks is trash anyone could have written. However, when she learns the author is making a good living from her stories, Jo decides to try her hand at this new style of writing. She submits the story to a contest the newspaper is running and wins $100. Jo uses the money to send Beth and Marmee to the seashore. She’s proud of her ability to earn money to help her family, so she continues to write these kinds of stories since they are lucrative. 

She later finishes her novel and sends it to multiple publishers, only one of whom is interested, and only if there are major cuts and revisions. After conflicting advice from her family, she decides to make the requested changes, which earns her $300 and some very mixed reviews that lead Jo to respond, “Some make fun of it, some over-praise, and nearly all insist that I had a deep theory to expound, when I only wrote it for the pleasure and the money. I wish I’d printed it whole or not at all, for I do hate to be so misjudged.” 

In “Calls,” Jo reluctantly joins Amy to return calls to their neighbors with generally disastrous results. One incident involves Jo receiving a compliment on her writing. 

Any mention of her “works” always had a bad effect upon Jo, who either grew rigid and looked offended, or changed the subject with a brusque remark, as now. “Sorry you could find nothing better to read. I write that rubbish because it sells, and ordinary people like it.”

This passage makes it very clear that Jo isn’t proud or fond of what she is writing. The reception to her novel combined with the money she can make from sensation fiction has changed Jo’s primary motivation for writing. She is no longer doing it for the love of writing or because she’s pursuing her dreams. She’s trying to make money to help out her family.

I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. We all have periods in our life when we take a job that we aren’t extremely excited about because it will allow us to achieve something that is more important to us. However, it’s a different narrative than is usually spun about Jo who is frequently depicted as continually working towards her dream. There is a role in Castles in the Air that fits that narrative. It’s called the Striver, but I don’t think that’s the role that Jo has. Instead, Jo is the Pragmatist, which is a role about setting aside your dreams for the moment because you have other responsibilities. Both are interesting conflicts, but they lead to very different conclusions when it comes to Jo’s story! 

With that in mind, let’s take a look at “Friend,” which follows Jo in New York. She’s now writing for a newspaper called the Weekly Volcano, which has required Jo to make so many changes to her stories that she decides to have her work published anonymously. That certainly wouldn’t be a good career move if she was truly trying for fame! She’s also come to greatly respect a man staying at her boarding house named Professor Bhaer. One day, he makes a comment about a newspaper that publishes sensation stories like the ones Jo is writing. Her response is telling:

Jo glanced at the sheet, and saw a pleasing illustration composed of a lunatic, a corpse, a villain, and a viper. She did not like it; but the impulse that made her turn it over was not one of displeasure, but fear, because, for a minute, she fancied the paper was the “Volcano.” 

Professor Bhaer notices her look and guesses the truth, but instead of letting her know this, he decides to gently explain his reasoning. After this, Jo goes back to reread the stories she has been writing and decides to burn them. Far from stifling her creativity, Professor Bhaer is the one who sees that Jo is ashamed of her writing and reminds her that she is capable of more.

This is part of a series on the literary inspirations behind game elements for my upcoming tabletop RPG based on the novels of Louisa May Alcott and L.M. Montgomery, Castles in the Air. To see a complete list of the posts I’ve written thus far, check out the master post. If you would like more information, visit the game’s website!

#Louisa May Alcott #Little Women #Jo March #Jo Bhaer #Friedrich Bhaer #Professor Bhaer #Castles in the Air #Storybrewers Roleplaying #tabletop roleplaying #tabletop RPG #ttrpg #indie ttrpg

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #13 – Victory City by Salman Rushdie

One of my goals for the year is to read more proper literature (here defined as fiction I can mention reading to my mother without getting judged for it). I’ve never read anything of Rushdie’s before, but I did remember his name in the news recently due to the whole attempted-murder thing and, happily, my library actually had a copy of his newest work. So, picked this up and read it sight unseen!

The book follows one Pampa Kampana – a nine-year-old girl who, in the 14th century, witnesses her city destroyed, and her mother burning herself alive. She is then inhabited and blessed by a goddess, blessed/cursed with a lifespan measured in centuries and the destiny of raising an empire up and seeing it fall before she dies.

The narrative is framed as a modern adaptation/summary of the epic poem recounting her life Pampa completes before finally dying, finally discovered and translated after being forgotten in the ruins of te imperial capital for centuries. The story is largely a story of this miraculous, semi-utopian empire, as told Pampa’s eyes (and with a lengthy digression during the years she spends in exile).

This is a story that exists somewhere in the muddy middle ground between historical low fantasy and magical realism – it’s in some sense an alternate history of the Vijayanagara Empire, and replete with historical trivia and references, but is quite clear from the outset that accuracy is not really something the book cares about. Instead, the book’s Vijayanagara – always written as Bisnaga, as it was translated by a historical Portuguese chronicler whose also a minor character in the story, to prevent confusion – is basically allegory and morality tale with a light coating of history for flavour.

Not that I can really begrudge Rushdie for his strident politics (as far as I can tell I basically agree with him on all of it), but this really does feel like one of those old fantastical utopias, or a political treatise that gets past the censors by pretending to be the history of a foreign country, more than it does a novel. Which could definitely work! But in this case really didn’t, at least for me. There’s enough time spent on characterization and character drama to eat up pages, but not enough for it to ever feel like they’re people and not just marionettes acting out a show. I suppose the best way to get across the reading experience is that I was reading a proper 500 page history book at the same time as I read this, and this felt like the bigger slog by far.

Though part of that might just be disappointed expectations that I really had no right to have in the first place? As I said, I had Rushdie slotted in my head as a literary author, but really I don’t know nearly enough about him or his work to justify that. So I came to this expecting to be at least a bit wowed and bedazzled by the artistry and beautiful prose on display – and like, eh? Not bad, to be sure, the narrative voice and the framing device are both fun and fairly well done. But having read it there’s really not a single passage or sequence I can say has stuck with me.

The comparison that comes to mind is Kalpa Imperial by Angélica Gorodischer, which is also a book-length epic history of a fantastical empire that never was which laughs at all conventional wisdom about pacing, characterization and plot (and which also has been shelved as magical realism for what are basically reasons genre snobbery imo). It’s been a few years since I read it, but from what I recall that agreed with me far more. Maybe just because it abandoned the conceit of a single protagonist and family melodrama entirely, or maybe because it had a bit more subtle in its social commentary (or maybe it was just better written on a sentence-to-sentence level).

Though I should say, there’s every possibility I’m being a bit harsher on this than it entirely deserves – it’s an entirely competent book! The politics are blatant but like a) they’re politics I agree with and b) they’re nowhere near the most blatant or forced-feeling inclusion of progressive politics in fiction I’ve seen recently. However, this is also a piece of writing that’s among other things very clearly and directly about how important and sublime and world-changing the art of writing is. Which is like a movie about making it in showbuisness, or a musical about how great singing is. Automatic deduction of a full letter grade.

#book review #victory city #salman rushdie #literature

[stingraystudiess]

Spring Break Recap - with pictures :)

the day we got off my friends and I went out to town and went to the beach. (so so grateful for where I live)

my (not so baby anymore) cousin visited from Switzerland! we did so many things since this is the first time she had come to Scotland, she is such a bookworm so me and my dad bought her some books from Waterstones. Love her sm :)

Wrote a letter to my school teacher about joining an abroad programme. I really hope I get in as I honestly believe it would be life changing. this was a draft dw! didn't look this scruffy on the final one :P

Cat shelter volunteering (I didn't get any photos of the shelter as I felt that would be inappropriate) this was on the way back though and I thought It looked magical. forever grateful for the scenery around me.

Played around with my new keyboard. It's a Casio and I love it sm, it was gutted by my uncle and auntie from Switzerland. I partially learned Chemtrails Over The Country Club by Lana Del Rey.

My friends birthday party!!! we did pottery painting and I got to paint a highland cow :D got ice cream (yum) and went to the park after.

Started reading the Bhagavad Gita. For those who are not aware, the Bhagavad Gita is a Hindu epic scripture that is part of a larger collection of works known as the Mahabharata. The Mahabharata is a Sanskrit epic consisting of over 100,000 shloka (a form of long prose passage) fully forming in to about 1,800,000 (1.8 mil) words and is approximately ten times the length of the Iliad and the Odyssey combined. The length explains why most only read smaller portions such as the Bhagavad Gita which is in fact a poem! ok I could talk about this forever but I hope that someone learned something new from my spiel :P.

Other stuff I did

-Reorganised my note taking and filing system (I could make a whole post about that)

-looked through all my subject specifications to get a feel of how many topics were are (and sub topics... and sub sub topics :,) )

-painted a mini canvas for my friend (dw that wasn't the only thing I got for her birthday)

-did some sketching (my artistic ability comes in waves)

-played Roblox, idc If its childish SUE ME (I am undefeated in paintball 🥱)

-did my extracurriculars (Sangeet and Bengali)

-Celebrated Poyla Boishakh and Vhaisakhi

Goals for new term

-study at least an hour on weekdays

-ace my sangeet exam

-get >6 on everything

-plan for mocks accordingly

-stay consistent

-do assignments as soon as they are given

-have fun

..............................................................................................................................

Ok this was long but I feel as if I did my break justice, a lot went on and it would be wrong to not give details.

thank you so much for reading this long post

Signing off~

StingrayStudies

#student #studyspo #study motivation #study #studying #studylapse #studyinspo #studyblr #bhagavad gita #hinduism #hindi #desi studyblr #desi teen #desiblr #desi tag #desi tumblr #study aesthetic #study blog

[expectris-patronum]

i've seen a lot of "dead poets society characters as..." posts on tumblr and I thought I could do the same thing with Latin texts/fragments/... since the poets learn Latin at Welton.

Two things first:

1. almost all translations are from the internet

and 2. English is not my mother tongue, so don't be surprised if something sounds very strange.

Neil

Neil could be this passage of Horace's Odes because that's where the term "carpe diem" comes from

Todd

At first I thought a poem would be the best kind of text for Todd. But when I was going through the Ovid texts we were studying in Latin class, I came across this extract from Ovid's Tristia. I think it fits Todd quite well because it combines poetry, an older brother and a father who isn't particularly proud of his younger son. But I don't know if it counts as a poem.

Charlie

The fragment that suits Charlie best would surely be the introduction to Ovid's Ars Amatoria, because presenting himself as the god of love is something that Charlie would actually do

Meeks

I wanted to give Meeks something more scientific than lyrical. The only texts of this kind that I know are Pliny's letters about a volcanic eruption. No quotes this time. The whole letter suits him.

Pitts

Pitts just gives me Martial vibes. Martial wrote a lot of short poems in which he basically made fun of people.

This one means something like: I don't know what you write to so many girls, Faustus, but I know that no girl writes you.

Knox

Knox has a huge crush on Chris, which reminds me of Catullus' poems about Lesbia.

Cameron

Cameron could be some typical Latin class reading that is hated by students and loved by teachers. So I thought Caesar's works would be a good choice for him. I can't find a specific line or book for him, he just gives me general Caesar texts vibes

#dead poets society #dps fandom #latin #neil perry #todd anderson

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

Hello! I just saw your reply to an ask and noticed this passage:

At the end of a century which had profaned love, Robespierre distinguished himself by the purity of his morals and by the delicacy of his procedures towards a sex, which the literature of the time regarded as born almost solely for pleasure. Above all, he respected the marital bed.

Do you know more about Robespierre and his views and relationships with marriage/women (I don't mean in the political sense)?

I've heard that he was meant to marry once but the lady ended up marrying someone else. And that he wrote a poem to a lady once, and that he enjoyed talking/singing/dancing with the ladies at the poets club he used to frequent (I can't remember the name of it atm). Overall, I get the idea that he loved/respected/admired women a lot and wanted to marry in the future. And also that he had conservative views on marriage and women. Am I correct? Are there any other examples I missed?

Thank you!

Yes, Robespierre overall seemed to have respected and gotten along well with women. He gets described in friendly terms by both his sister, Élisabeth Lebas and Rosalie Jullien, who all met him in private. The woman he sent poetry to was Charlotte Buissart, whose entire family was close to both him and his siblings (they would however fall out with each other during ”the terror”). In the 1780’s Robespierre also sent works of his to one mademoiselle Duhay (1, 2, 3) who in her turn gave him canaries and puppies, as well as to ”une dame”, to whom he wrote that ”the sweetest, the most glorious of all, is to be able to communicate these feelings to a kind and illustrious lady whose noble soul is made to share them.” The historian Ernest Hamel reportedly tracked down an old woman in Arras who told him her mother used to dance with Robespierre and found him a pleasant partner, and once Robespierre got into politics the amounts of female fans he had was noted by contemporaries. There evidently exists so much material regarding his relationship with women that the historian Hector Fleischmann in 1913 could release a whole book with the title Robespierre and the women he loved (original title Robespierre et les femmes).

For the moment I can only really remember one instance where Robespierre is reported to have acted in an inappropriate way towards a woman, and it was reported in Souvernirs d’un déporté (1802) by Paul Villiers, who claimed to have served as Robespierre’s secretary for a few months 1790-1791:

As for [Robespierre’s] continence, I only knew of a woman of about twenty-six years, whom he treated rather badly, and who idolized him. Very often he refused her at his door; he gave her a quarter of his fees; tre rest of it was split between me and a sister he had in Arras whom he loved very much.

Villiers’ work was declared apocryphal by the historian René Garmy in 1967. When Hervé Leuwers 47 years later wrote he still thought it authentic, he added that some parts of it still seemed like ”probable fabrication” and listed the mistress claim as an example, though without elaborating why he thought that was.

There are three women Robespierre is alleged to have been engaged to — mademoiselle Deshorties, Adélaïde Duplessis and Éléonore Duplay — though none of these allegations were ever confirmed by Robespierre or the women themselves. The lady you’re thinking of is the first of those listed — mademoiselle Deshorties (it’s often said her firstname was Anaïs, but I don’t know what the source for that is). She was Robespierre’s step-cousin and had, according to Charlotte Robespierre’s memoirs, been courting him for two to three years at the start of the revolution. Charlotte claims that it’s very likely the two would have married had things remained the way they were, however, with Maximilien away in Paris, mademoiselle Deshorties soon enough got engaged to someone else, and the two got married in 1792. When Robespierre found out about this after returning to Arras for a short stay, he was ”very grievously affected” according to Charlotte.

If Robespierre would have married had he lived if of course something we can’t know for sure. There does exist an anecdote where he, upon his friend’s Pétion’s insistence that they must find him a wife to lighten up his stiff behaviour, firmly responds: ”I will never marry!” If it is to be treated seriously or not is of course another story (and, if it happened, who knows if he changed his mind between this moment and his death).

As for if Robespierre held conservative views on marriage and women, for the first of these topics, I can only really find one place where he’s recorded to have mentioned it at all, and it’s when he on May 31 1790 argues for granting priests the right to marry, stating among other things that ”to unite priests with society, we must give them wives.” However, this of course has more to do with men’s relation to marriage and not women’s.

For his view on these, his perhaps most feminist moment takes place in 1787, when the Arras Academy of which he since one year back was the director, accepted two well-read women as honorary members — Marie Le Masson Le Golft and Louise de Kéralio. Robespierre was not present when the two were elevated to membership, but he was the author behind the response to the discours de la réception written by de Kéralio (who ironically, would go on to voice much more sexist opinions compared to Robespierre). In the text, he regretted that there were so few women in the academies and advocated for letting more in, arguing that ”habit and perhaps the force of prejudice” had intimidated women from presenting themselves as candidates for open academy positions, but that ”their sex does not make them lose the rights that their merit has earned them. […] If we grant that women have intelligence and reason, can we refuse them the right of cultivating them?” This is however not to say he viewed men and women as being the same in essence, but rather that they had received different sets of talents from nature that complemented each other. Men and women, he argued, were not meant to study the same subjects, the former being more suited for ”the initricacies of the abstract sciences,” while the latter should not be forbidden to contribute to those fields that ”demand only sensibility and imagination,” such as litterature, history and morality. Another argument put forward is that women will be able to make the sessions more interesting for the men:

The mere presence of a lovable woman is enough to enjoy these cold pleasures. They give interest to nothing, they spread a secret charm over this insipid circle of monotonous amusements which usage brings back every day. Women make a conversation where nothing is said, an assembly where nothing is done, more than bearable. They share laughter and merriment around a game table. Beauty, when it is mute, even when it does not think, still interests; it animates everything around. It is Armide who changes the dreadful deserts into laughing groves, into delicious gardens. From this, let us form the idea of a society where we would see the most amiable and witty women conversing with enlightened men about the most pleasant and interesting objects that could occupy beings made to think and to feel. Ah! If those who have no other merit than the amiability of their sex can respond so gently about the business of life, what will it be like for those who, freed from the false shame of appearing educated, without blushing to be more amiable and more enlightened would boldly deploy in an interesting conversation the playfulness of a delicate mind and the graces of a laughing imagination and all the charms of a cultivated reason!

A year earlier, the lawyer Robespierre had also been given as client the Englishwoman Mary Sommerville, widow of Colonel George Mercer, Governor of South Carolina, who had been imprisoned for debt. In his defence of her, Robespierre first and foremost underlined the fact that the Ordonnance de Saint-Germain-en-Laye from 1667 expressly stated that women and girls couldn’t be kept imprisoned. But he also voiced his personal support of this differential treatment between the sexes:

When the legislators introduced this terrible right to throw a man into prison for the non-performance of a civil commitment, I observed that they made it their duty to soften its rigor by a large number of restrictions. One of the main ones was to exclude women; reason and humanity indicated this exception to them; its motives can be discovered by every man made to think and feel. The ease, the inexperience of this sex which would have led it to contract too lightly commitments fatal to its freedom; its weakness, its sensitivity which makes it more overwhelming for the shame and rigor of captivity; the terrible impressions that the apparatus of such constraint must have made on its timid nature; the fatal consequences that it can cause, especially during pregnancy; what will I at last say? The delicate honor of women, which the glare of a public and legal affront irreversibly degrades in the eyes of men, whose tenderness vanishes with the respect they inspire in them; the sacred interest of modesty injured by the violence which accompanies this rigorous path, and the facilities which it can provide to outrage it...

Once we get to the revolution, I have yet to find a place where Robespierre talks about women much at all. Searching for the term ”femmes” in the volumes of Oeuvres complètes de Robespierre covering this period, the most common phrase it shows up in is probably ”women and children,” as in, something good and precious that needs protection against counter-revolutionaries. The two instances I’ve found where he speaks a bit more on women as such are the following:

Women! this name recalls dear and sacred ideas. Wives! this name recalls very sweet feelings for all the friends of the society. But aren't the wives republican? And doesn’t this title impose duties? Should Republican women renounce their status as citoyennes to remember that they are wives? Robespierre at the Convention, December 20 1793, showing his hesitation towards a commission of women that has arrived from Lyon to plead for mercy for their husbands.

You will be there, young citoyennes, to whom victory must soon bring back brothers and lovers worthy of you. You will be there, mothers of families, whose husbands and sons raise trophies for the Republic with the debris of the thrones. O French women, cherish the liberty purchased at the price of their blood; use your empire to extend that of republican virtue! O French women, you are worthy of the love and respect of the earth! What do you have to envy of the women of Sparta? Like them, you have given birth to heroes; like them, you devoted them, with sublime abandonment, to the Fatherland. Robespierre’s report on religious and moral ideas and republican principles, held on May 7 1794

Robespierre is not confirmed to have ever openly advocated for women being granted more political rights in general, like Condorcet and Guffroy in 1790 or Guyomar in 1793, or that married ones deserved to share the right to administration of property with their husbands, like Desmoulins, Danton, Lacroix and Couthon in 1793. However, this is not to say he ever openly spoke against these ideas either. In the third number of his journal Le défenseur de la constitution (1792) Robespierre does however warn about a girondin plot that includes a ”female triumvirate,” seemingly implying he thinks the concept of women in power needs to be side-eyed:

When following the thread of this plot, we arrive at a female triumvirate, at M. Narbonne who, then struck by an apparent disgrace, nonetheless named the ministers; at Mr. La Fayette, who arrived at this time from the army in Paris, and who attended secret meetings with the deputies of Gironde, what vast conjectures can we not indulge in?

The three women Robespierre is alluding to here have been identified as Manon Roland, Sophie Condorcet and Louise de Kéralio-Robert, the latter of which ironically being the same de Kéralio he had welcomed as an honorary member to the Arras academy five years earlier.

Finally, in a notebook he kept in the fall of 1793 regarding measures to be taken, Robespierre has written ”Dissolution of F.R.R” as in the society Femmes Républicaines Révolutionnaires, which would indeed be shut down by the Committee of General Security on October 30, alongside all other women’s clubs. This has however been accepted as part of a bigger pattern of the deputies cracking down on anything that may pose opposition to the government and not a move against women in particular, even if Jean Pierre André Amar, when announcing the dissolution to the Convention, did motivate it in sexist terms.

It’s however hard for me to say if all these factors added together makes Robespierre have an overall conservative or an overall radical view on women. This due to the fact I still haven’t fully discovered what the standard perspective on the topic was for the time for an educated, middle class man. Instead, the concept of women and what they are and are not capable of comes off as deeply controversial, look for example at the aforementioned debate on women’s right to the administration of property, where men with overall similar backgrounds and educations come to fully different conclusions, some arguing women are biologically incapable of handling such things and some that women are born with as much capacity as men and that not letting them enjoy this right would be akin to slavery. Someone could ask for women to more or less be granted the same rights as men only for someone else to suggest women shouldn’t even be taught to read a few years later. The article Robespierre: old regime feminist? (2010), while underlining Robespierre’s suggestion to let women into the academies was met with a lot of backlash (nine out of eleven correspondents disagreeing with his views), also makes sure to state he was nevertheless far from alone in pushing for this integration, and that those who were against it argued less for the notion that women were incapable of learning (the actual amount of well-read ones making it come off as weak) and more that ”they could but they shouldn’t” since they needed to take care of the home and children. All of this makes it hard to say exactly how normal/radical/conservative Robespierre’s views were for the time. I would conclude by saying he deserves a ribbon for neither ”Revolution’s number one feminist” nor ”World’s most raging misogynist.” In his private life, he does however appear to have gotten along well with women, at least we don’t really possess any serious testimony hinting at anything else.

#ok this ended up being about his political views on women anyways hope you don’t mind #but yeah that’s about all i know regarding the subject #robespierre #maximilien robespierre #frev #ask

[pollyna]

Tom's cancer goes:

0.

1.

2.

His breath is short and his throat hurts like he forgot do drink for days. His hands feel clammy and it's only when Ron's arm catch him that he realises he's falling. Every single person in the room is looking at him with the expression of who just saw a titan falling from the sky. But his feet are steady, more or less, on the ground. His best friend doesn't let him go until he's sure Tom isn't going to collapse again. He blames it all on exhaustion.

(It's not a total lie because when his parter isn't around he tends to work two to three times more than usual. Most of the time Charles, the Vice Admiral who has office a coupe of doors from his, finds him still working in the middle of the night and already working when he comes in at eight. All his concernes go blind on him.)

3.

4.

The house is silent when he comes back from the visit and Ron is still walking just a couple of steps behind him. Ron who's hands were big and warm while the doctor dictated his sentence and Tom was hoping, the whole time, for smaller hands in his. Pete is far away and he's going to be until the end of the year. By the time he's back Tom is probably going to be dead.

I have to- he starts but Ron is already taking away is computer and cellphone. Not tonight Tom, not tonight.

They don't talk a word until he falls asleep on the couch, Ron's arm around his shoulder and half of the dinner still on the coffee table.

5.

Writing to Bradley leaves him without energy for two entire days but it's the first round of chemio that does that, not the long and verbose mail he composes. He starts the white pages for forty minutes and writes seven different drafts. Dear Bradley, Kiddo listen, Lieuten-, Fuckin' christ, Baby Goose I really need y-, I'm dying, It's for Mav and the 8th is the good one because he writes as Admiral Kazansky and not as Uncle Tom. He writes to Bradley's superior and order him to give the boy, a man this days, five days of leave and that he has to report back in DC as soon as he's back in the States. Then he calls a person who will call another person and Bradley is going to arrive in Miramar.

6.

He spends hours learning ASL. The doctor says his voice could be forever damaged. He spends a little more time learning ASL.

7.

It takes almost three months for Bradley to be there because, as the superior officer writes back, right in that moment only some sort of deity would allow the Lieutenant to leave his mission and, contrary of popular belief, you Admiral Kazansky are still not a god. With all the respect, sir. By the time he's at the door step Tom's day is a full cycle of meds to take at what hour and how much morphine he's allowed the think about to take before that dosage got cut in half and then in half again. Bradley says Admiral Kazansky, sir with the whole salute and Tom can barley lift his arm to do the same.

8.

9.

It's not an easy argument to have. Ron makes them tea, kisses Bradley's forehead and he's out of the house for hours. At some point, while Tom is trying to explain papers and his will Bradley leaves the house too. He doesn't scream this time, he's not eighteen anymore, and the silence that follows is more defining than all the words he said the first time. He falls asleep on his armchair and wakes up for dinner, a table ready for three and only two person eating at it. He will come back Ron says. Tom would like to believe him.

10.

Somedays he's better than ever and registers long messages to Pete. Things he's going to listen when Tom is dead and he knows his husband would appreciate. He says I love you as much as he can and reads books and passages of their favourite poems. Once, seven months in to therapy, Tom records an entire hour of Pete's favourite pieces at the piano and sings along for what he can. Bradley is around and lately is always seem on the point of running away, for the third and last time. Tom is greatful he's still here. Ron calls him a romantic at heart and Tom gives him the finger. It's nice, they're laughing, and it almost doesn't feel like the last of his good days.

Tom's remission goes:

10.

9.

8.

He's still half asleep and there's a smaller hands in his, the weight of something, a head?, near is shoulder and his nose is full of the generic shit his husband likes to call his favourite shampoo and that make him cry more than the absence of his voice and the ugly scar that will forever sign his skin. He's alive and Pete is too.

7.

6.

Pete spends a lot of time kissing him, on his lips, on his cheeks and everywhere he can reach without moving away from him. Getting back home from the hospital isn't as smooth as he tought he would be and the road to heal is far from done. Bradley is still there, Ron is still there and Pete wants to say something, probably scream at him, but sometimes he can barley talk at all.

5.

He screams at Ron tho. He picks stupid fights, tries to make Ron angry and goes out on long walks and he almost end up in jail, more than once. Tom pulls some strings and let him fly, because flying is the only way Pete knows how to deal with emotions. He spends hours out there and he's mourning and giving all over again but this time no one is dead, not yet.

4.

3.

Speech therapy is a mountain Tom doesn't feel like he's never going to finish climbing in. But it helps more than he could ever think. And gives Pete the out to scream at him now, even if all he can do is answer with his fingers. It's ugly, how could it not be when he spent a year dying without having the possibility to tell it to his husband?, and it ends in tears from both sides but is a starting point. Another one.

2.

Pete takes on experimental programs that let him be at home at 5 and give him, them, free weekends. He learns ASL and he learns how to talk with Bradley again. Ron goes back on his boat, I missed this old gal he writes him in the first postcard he received, but everytime he has leave is sleeping in their spare room or on the couch.

1.

Bradley starts calling them Uncles again and then dad and pops. If Tom still had tears he would have cried over his icecream. He hugs him as strong as he can against his chest. He isn't as strong has he used to be but he's starting getting back a little muscle, he hopes the hug is warm as the warmth he feels inside.

0.

He says his second first word looking straight in his husband, now legally so, and says Pete and then I love you.

Polished version: here.

#pain and numbers have a strange correlation in my mind they almost walk hand by hand #tom iceman kazansky #ron slider kerner #pete maverick mitchell #icemav #bradley rooster bradshaw #he gets sick and mav is on a year long super secret mission so ron sticks around a little more #iceman & slider friendship #bradley gets back and tries to stay (it's not easy. tom doesn't really blame him) #technically mav&ice aren't married but they call each other husbands #pre top gun: maverick #angst #terminal illness (almost) #anger #maverick's copy mechanism isn't always the best #otp: i heard from the heavens that clouds have been grey

[boston-babies]

Welcome home..

A/N: here’s part 2! I think I’m going to write one or two more parts after this but I hope you guys like it! This part was also heavily inspired by practical magic

***************

You came downstairs from taking a nice little cat nap. Your parents had insisted on watching Teddy for you so you could rest. You wrapped your favorite chunky knit cardigan tighter around you as you walked into the kitchen. From the window you saw your mom and dad building a snowman with Teddy and for the first time, you smiled a genuine smile.

You and Teddy had only been here for nearly a day but you could tell that you were starting to feel more like yourself again. More than you had in a whole year.

You made yourself a cup of tea and went out to the greenhouse to poke around. You sat on a stool by the large table that was against the window. You took a sip of your tea and opened one of the drawers and found a notebook. Your curiosity peaked so you set your mug down and opened the notebook. You recognized your handwriting immediately. It was a notebook you kept when you were a little girl. You’d write poems, thoughts and other little things. You giggled while reading it but a certain passage caught your attention-

He will hear my call a mile away. He'll be marvelously kind. And his favorite shape will be a star. And he'll have green and blue eyes. He will whistle my favorite song, flip pancakes in the air and he can ride a pony backwards.

A memory flashed in your mind of you and Tanner playing out here when you were eight years old when you wrote that in your book..

Tanner laughed “I thought you didn’t want to fall in love?” You shrugged your shoulders “That's the point. The guy I dreamed of doesn't exist. And if he doesn't exist I'll never die of a broken heart”

You wiped your eyes as you came back and heard your mom walking in “Teddys all tuckered out honey so daddy’s putting him down for a nap” you nodded “thank you momma” she came over to you and smiled “oh I see you found your spell book” you rolled your eyes and let out a small laugh “yeah..” She read over the same passage you just did and laughed “well how about that little lamb, you managed to manifest this exact spell” you look up at her, confused with a furrowed brow “huh?”

Your mom laughed “granted Chris can’t cook or ride a pony but he does have green in his eyes, he is very kind and you could argue that since he was Steve rogers that his favorite shape is a star..” Your face went from confused to shock as your jaw dropped. She gave you a knowing smile then kissed the crown of your head “lunch’ll be ready soon little lamb” She walked away and you just shook your head. You waved it off, chalking it up to a huge coincidence.

*************

Later that night, you were in the living room with your parents. You dad was out cold and snoring as you laid across the couch with your head in your mom’s lap. She was stroking your hair while reading a book as you watched the roaring fire. “Momma?” She hummed in acknowledgement with a soft smile “how’d you and daddy do it?” “Do what angel?” You sighed “staying together?” She laughed “oh honey, there were plenty of times I thought for sure daddy and I were done for good” she looked over at your dad then back to you “that old man over there has driven me up the wall more times then I can count” you sat up looking shocked “what?”

She nodded “oh yeah, one fight had been so bad, we didn’t speak for a week. That was when you were about five years old and I took you with me to go see Grammy and pop” you shook your head “I never saw you two fight” “we never wanted you to see us like that honey” she took your hand and you looked over at her “we wanted to show you what love looked like not the ugly side of it” you nodded “not that I ever thought your marriage was perfect, because I know that no one’s is but momma, maybe I needed to see the ugly side of it..”

Your mom sighed “honey fights between couples happen no matter what. You can be the happiest couple in the world with a perfectly healthy relationship but disagreements will always be there”. You looked down at your hands and your mom wrapped her arm around you “I know what’s been going on this past year-“

you snapped your head up and looked at your mom with wide eyes and she giggled “what? You didn’t think I’d keep up with my son in law?” You sighed “momma-“ “what he did was wrong-“ your eyes watered as your mom continued “but honey you need to stop tearing yourself up over this. I am in no way going to tell you what to do because at the end of the day all I want is for you to be happy. I am going to ask you a question though, and I don’t want you to think, just answer with what ever comes to mind” you nodded and your mom continued “do you still love him?”

“..yes”

*********

[ghostlyswamp]

Random byler head canons because they love each other:

-Mike will find a way to always be touching Will whether it’s nudging his foot under the table or pressing their shoulders together or knock their knees together gently when their sitting down

-If they’re walking side by side or in a group Mike will rush ahead so he can hold the door open for Will

-When Will notices Mike reading a new book he’ll ask Mike a whole bunch of questions about it so he can listen to Mike talk passionately for hours (he especially loves it when Mike get really into and he starts making wild arm movements and gestures)

-Will gives Mike his art sometimes and every time Mike reacts like it’s the best art he has ever seen and to him it is

-Mike steals Wills sweaters and shirts all the time often without asking (not that Will minds it actually makes him incredibly happy when Mike does this and it gives him a swooping sensation in his tummy)

-Will slowly starts running out of clothes because Mike and El keep taking them

-Will compliments Mike frequently so that he can see the cute blush that covers his face as a result

-They eventually make this into a competition of who can make the other the most flustered with the nice stuff they say to each other

-If Will starts getting really flustered by Mike he will either kiss him to shut him up or grab the nearest pillow and hit him with it

-Mike makes Will mix tapes of his favourite songs and will pick up albums from artists he knows Will likes

-Sometimes when Mike enters Will room and sees that he’s painting he’ll flop on to his bed, strike a ridiculous pose, wiggle his eyebrows, and says something like “My artist, you’re muse has arrived” (Will laughs every time)

-Will likes it when Mike and him cuddled up on his bed together while Mike reads out loud from some of their favourite books

-Will gets extremely clingy when he’s tired and will latch onto Mike and refuse to let go until he’s woken up a bit more

-Mike writes Will mini letters

-Will often tries to count all of Mikes freckles

-Mike will memorize certain passages from books or poems so he can recite them to Will 

#byler #st headcanons #byler headcanon

[thatlittleegyptologist]

This is the only source I can find https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43070/43070-h/43070-h.htm#Page_413 (page 413 if the link doesn’t fully work) and it cites a German book from 1899 (W. Max Müller Liebpoesie der alten Ägypter, Leipzig, 1899) but I can’t read German so that’s no help for me. Sorry, assumed the poem was more well known than it is bc it’s plastered all over Google when you search “Egyptian love poem”

Ah, so this is also from P.Harris 500, like the previous post. It's a collection of love songs, and I would have struggled to identify it from one line because these texts are not exactly short. The line you want is from Song 2 on that papyrus. William Kelly Simpson (2003) The Literature of Ancient Egypt, has this translated starting from pp.308 of the book. The line I think you're referring to is on page 309 and translated as 'Your love has merged completely with my body.'

So, I looked on the Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae (TLA), which is both a dictionary and a repository of texts, and found the transliteration and translation and was all ready to go and generate some glyphs for this when @rudjedet (who is now my wife due to finding this, despite me being straight and her being married already) remembered she has a copy of M.V. Fox, 1985. The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love-Songs, which has the glyphs in the back as well as a translation of the whole passage from the source you've got up there. The transliteration and translation are as follows:

mrw.t=k Abx.ti m X.t =i mi [...] Hr mw mi rrm.t Abx.t.n=f qmy.t mi Sb HsA.w Hr [...] sxA st=k r mAA sn.t=k mi ssm.t Hr pw gA mi [...] [nA]y=f Dr.t iw Di tA p.t mrw.t=st mi wAw n aHA[.w] [...]=f mj Hti n biwk

Your love is mixed in my body, like […] [like honey?] mixed with water, like mandragoras in which gum is mixed, like the blending of dough with […]. Hasten to see your sister, like a horse (dashing) [onto a battle]field, like a […] […] its plants, while heaven gives her love, like the coming of a soldier(?) like […].

Fox notes that love is like a strong drug for the feminine speaker, because all the ingredients listed here are medicinal. Mandragoras is a fill in that Fox suspects is correct, but there's no real translation of rrm.t. I'll also note that there's more in the transliteration than is translated because there's too much uncertainty over the correct translation.

The glyphs are (right to left from the [2]):

The line you're looking for (read right to left ignoring the [2]) is:

to read it the way you'd want to read it (left to right) I've flipped the image:

mrw.t=k Abx.ti m X.t=i 'your love is mixed in my body'

#it's Late Egyptian so the grammar and composition of glyphs would have been entirely different if I'd rendered this in MEg

[ofsilentthings]

I like to go thrift shopping. Today I went for a chair - no luck, but I took a bit to look through the donated books.

The donated book section can be hit or miss. Sometimes they're a smattering of various topics. You can tell they were donated or freebies, or that a household didn't really read them. Coffeetable books, books about fad diets or dealing with sympathy, books about passing interests like photography. These books are given as gifts to acquaintances, who heard you mention you were interested in something, the quip remembered (even though you just made it to be polite), and then on a birthday or Christmas there it is.. A book you'll flip through once or maybe twice and then donate.

Not these books though. Today's donated books skewed towards the literary. Now I have a degree in English Literature so these topics pop out to me. There were Norton Guides to Literature, analyses of the Middle Ages, Romantic English Novel, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Coleridge and Shelley, and the classic Shakespeare plays everyone seems to read: A Hamlet, an Othello, a King Lear.

Looking at these books as a whole I wondered what kind of person would donate them. Maybe they had studied literature awhile ago and had moved on with their lives? Maybe, but these books had notes in them. A poetry book talking about what made a poem lyrical. Underlined passages. Brief phrases in margins.

What kind of person donated these books? I don't know but I feel a kinship with them, wherever they are. These weren't just books. These were studied and absorbed into someone's life. I know because my own set of books at home are just like that. Written in, scribbled, highlighted, studied, absorbed. A time capsule of the person I was when I first encountered those texts.

I wonder what kind of image my book shelf will present when I move on and my books are donated. I hope they see the type of person I was, and know my books were loved

#books #personal musings #thrifting

[aroace-poly-show]

This is the fic i was reading: defining love by tinkonka. have i finished it? no. apologies if it takes a weird turn. however, i present two pieces of YEHFDKSKJKLFJSDLKFS: 1. implied arospec rui and 2. the most BASED emurui takes ive seen in my whole entire life.

and for completionist's sake, here's a few more fics i have bookmarked, in no particular order!!

poor communication kills by HakaiEve: THE og aroace wxs fic. also recommend their other wxs works too because they get them. (also i think they have a tumblr with some aroace wxs art, if you haven't seen it yet!)

ikanaide by Gummysaur: maybe im just a sucker for sick fics and poetic language but. they all just care about their idiot troupe leader so much.... there's another one by them with the reverse plot of tsukasa taking care of emuruinene too that i remember relating to quite a bit!

the study of the sky, the sun, the star, and the moon by JadeMeraki: MY FAVORITE SERIES OF ALL TIME THE LANGUAGE THE HEADCANONS THE ABSOLUTELY UNFILTERED RAW TAKES i love this characterization and have accepted every word into my personal canon. i love this.

and by the same author, with hope: rui writing letters to his future self. im genuinely not ok reading this fic. the crossed out lines. the language. the despair and the hope that defines rui's core. this fic inspired me to write my own journal.

polysho nails by nonchalantatall: to be perfectly honest i do not remember this fic but 1. miracle paint reference 2. acey's favorite band reference (ajr) and 3. i must have saved it for a reason so now you will figure that out

How to Be Free by SkylerHyrule: VBS FANTASY AU (featuring the one and only tenma tsukasa and co). looooooove the way this is written and also this author understands vbs so well. really fun akian interactions too, a rarity in the field. If you like vbs i would also recommend their Misadventures of VBS's Clothes!

Infinity Spectrum by kjcoded: mizuki focused fic! the way this author describes gender stares directly into your soul and gives feelings you didn't even know you had a voice. i think about some of the lines in this daily.

Disparate Threads by MiyoatThePineapple: a little tsukasa-focused poem on creation and loving your friends a whole great deal :) (i am a sucker for poetic language)

if you're ever tired of being known for who you know (you know, you'll always know me) by dizzi_dizzy: like it says on the tin, tsukasa through ichika's eyes. it has been a while since i read it but again. bookmarked it for a reason. i think it had some great language on the passage of time?

july 27th, 2015 by anonymous: i left a comment here about dragonfly symbolism and characterization. i think that's all i need to say about it actually. yeah. loved it.

that was... a lot more than i thought i had. lol. anyways. book club!

ourgh saving all of these to my marked later thank you so much acey i will have so much to read. if i remember some bookmarked fics in particular that i really liked i will recommend them to you as well. book club!!!!!!! :3

#asks #to read later #aura tag ☆

[thatscarletflycatcher]

I have seen a whole lot of posts dismissing "concerns" about the whole killing of Lucy and Mina as vampires in the tags, and some claiming that the passage is actually about showcasing Mina's agency.

Look, I like Mina as much as the next gal. I think all these characters do have a lot of potential, and I acknowledge it is fun to think of that potential and to build up in one's head a version of the characters and the story that we may enjoy better. That's all good and valid and I do it too. BUT that cannot come at the expense of pretending the text isn't doing a yikey thing, because it is.

Van Helsing says that Arthur has a right to kill vamp!Lucy. Mina says it is Jonathan' duty to kill her. In both cases the killing of the beloved woman is presented as a romantic gesture. And you might say "ah! but it is no longer her! It is a vampire! All she's asking for is deliverance!" And I say to you: horror doesn't exist in the vacuum of a parallel universe. It relates to the real world, and very often it is commentary on the real world.

You know, even nowadays, in the case of women being murdered, is most often the killer? Her male romantic partner. Do you know how often the excuse is that he loved her like no one else, and so she could only be his? That he killed her because he loved her?

Bram Stoker chose to have the two vampires turned by Dracula during his novel be women. He also chose for both of them the idea that their husbands should be the ones to kill them, as a right and a duty.

Dracula was published in 1897. Do you know what was published in 1898? Oscar Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Gaol. This long poem has as its central theme, the horror of the death penalty, and the subject is a man that murdered his wife and was hung for it. It includes these verses:

The man had killed the thing he loved, And so he had to die.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves, By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young, And some when they are old; Some strangle with the hands of Lust, Some with the hands of Gold: The kindest use a knife, because The dead so soon grow cold.

A few decades earlier, Edgar Allan Poe was saying, in The Philosophy of Composition:

"The death then of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world, and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved lover.“

Context is everything, and in this case context is these men see the beloved woman as an object, a poetic object whose death exists for the sake of their own poetic sadness, and sometimes the killing of the beloved woman as a romantic right or duty because she belongs to them as a thing.

I don't care that in book it is about freeing the soul of the woman. I don't care that in book Mina is the one who requests the promise to be killed, and I don't care because the meaning and symbolism transcends the plain facts of the narrative, and what it says is chilling and objectifying AND something that killers say and use to this day. And I also don't care because the same people that tell us to ignore this here won't have the same attitude towards other works they don't like or care about.

It's been said to death, but it bears repeating: you can love a problematic thing; but you cannot pretend it is not problematic or twist it into an unproblematic reading because you like it and you are a Pure PersonTM who only consumes certified WholesomeTM ApprovedTM content.

#Dracula Daily