embarked on the Grail quest wrong, came back from the Grail quest wrong

Inspired by @r0ck-the-casbah's brilliant post. Male living space Cullen :p

Avoiding Orientalist Language While Writing MENA Characters in Historical Setting

Anonymous asked:

Love this. I’d try the placeholder method (just made this up.) Honestly, the best thing to do is just write the story first using whatever English expressions come naturally — even if you know they’re super modern or wouldn’t make sense in the time period and setting (like “a dime a dozen” or “barking up the wrong tree”). Don’t stress about making everything historically or culturally perfect right away. That’ll stall the writing process. These non-suitable phrases become ‘placeholders’ to switch out later. 

So keep track of those lines (you can highlight them or jot the the page/line # down somewhere), and then later on, if you know someone who speaks Arabic or is familiar with the culture, ask them to help swap in more fitting phrases, and do a sensitivity read overall. They might not translate word-for-word, but they can help you find alternatives that still match the vibe or emotion of certain idioms. They can also find spots for Arabic idioms that you wouldn’t have expected. 

I found this list from Reddit user AgileCzar about gulf dialect idioms from a decade ago:

I would never have thought to do any of these, but they’re really fun! Scouring the internet for options and figuring out where these go is a total second-pass sort of edit. You don’t want to put pressure on yourself to get it all right on the first draft. It's a lot easier to fix language stuff when you already have the story down.

I do this in scripts a lot when I know something needs to be in Spanish or Arabic, but I’m not clear on the exact wording because finishing the story is more important at that moment.

Good Luck and Happy Writing!

-Melanie 🌻

(Note: this ask has been reviewed and approved by a MENA WWC mod)

Thinking about the Inquisition wearing military dress to Halamshiral, and I actually love it as a choice so much. I fully get why lots of people don't like the choice (and lets be real, I love all the fancy designs people have done!!) but honestly. What a power move.

To me, the Inquisition showing up in military dress and sans masks reads as a refusal to play Orlais' game. The Inquisition arrives at Halamshiral on its own terms.

It is a refusal to make people comfortable, a refusal to let people act like it is just another ball, that they can continue as normal. It is a bold statement that Thedas is in crisis, and it forces the nobility to confront that. Its a constant reminder that these are peace talks.

And, it is also a firm statement of power. It is a statement that the Inquisition has order and stability where Orlais is caught up in a chaotic civil war. And it is the sort of move that only works because the Inquisition has the power to back it up, both in armed forces, but also social, cultural and political capital.

Because Orlais is in a very weak position. They have been in civil war for two years with little sign of reprieve. No war is good for a country, but civil war is brutal. You can't really gain anything as a country in a civil war, you can't plunder or take home treasures and new lands. And we see in multiple locations in Orlais how bad the civil war has been for the country, with farms and estates in ruins.

And even Orlais' other element of power in the Orlesian Chantry has been basically destroyed and replaced by the Inquisition. They have no Divine, and the Inquisition has control of either the mages or templars. Orlais is powerless and is only managing to hide that fact by the trappings of wealth and luxury. If nobody acknowledges the elephant in the room, is it even there? If everybody pretends like everything is fine and Orlais is still powerful then it might as well be.

But the Inquisition doesn't try to hide the chaos and conflict going on in the world behind beautiful riches. By dressing in military fashion it is an uncomfortable reminder of everything going on outside the palaces and music and jewels and masks. And played right, it really forces the two sides of the civil war to come to the table and attempt to solve the issue. Because it just calls those in power out.

Its such a bolshy move to wear military dress and I love it. It catches Orlais in its own delusion of power and forces it to acknowledge the influence and power of the Inquisition.

I need people to know: femslash does not have a higher barrier of entry than mascslash. writing women does not require you to be a better writer than writing men does. you can write femslash that is low quality and i actually encourage it. you should write femslash that’s shitty, that’s underbaked, that you wrote in one night, that you didn’t proofread. you should write femslash for that one ship, yeah even that one other people might think is weird. you should write femslash whenever you feel like it and you don’t need to tackle misogyny when you do it, it can just be escapist, you can invent a fictional world where two women can be in love with each other without consequences. I promise you the people in fandom who enjoy femslash will love it.

TV show: This is a TV show called Shits&Farts. It is about shits, & farts. The main characters are two men named Shit, & Fart. They tell shit & fart jokes to each other for the whole twenty-minute runtime.

at least one person you follow on tumblr, instantly: omfg im WITHERING from last nights ep….. the dynamic between shit & fart is so fucking  tense and erotic……im still fucking sobbing i hate my sweet babies….. why do they treat each other like this im fucking BATHING IN ACID….. its so good…….. im EMBALMING MYSELF and then DESECRATING MY OWN CORPSE…..

certified iconic post

Which OC ship?

Editing? Oh you mean fic patching.

hi, a lot of you need a perspective reset

it is an incredibly joyous thing to look around at your friends as you're heading into your 40s and everyone is so much more themselves than they were when you were all scared and fragile 20-somethings. we're different genders now, we've gotten out of bad relationships and into good ones, we worked shit jobs and got better ones, we all cook a lot better and we eat better too, we casually pull off the kind of art we could only dream of as kids, we've figured out who we are and we do it on purpose now. the self-harm scars have all faded away and we complain about our bad backs and picky digestions instead.

we still lose at trivia real bad.

There's a whole issue "The purpose of a system is what it does" with regard to the Circle. But I'm going to drop a hypothesis here, because I think the positions of Knight Commander and First Enchanter were actually designed with the intention of being equals within a checks and balances feedback loop. And arguably a lot of the failures of Irving and Greagoir come from their attempts to fulfill these idealistic roles despite the clear practicalities getting in the way of it. So here it goes:

A First Enchanter's job is to manage the workforce of labourer mages within the tower in order to maximise the economic effectiveness of the Circle. This includes making decisions on which mages to make Tranquil and used as part of the production of enchanted goods (the way Irving singles out Jowan), steering mages that show particular talents into specialized fields of work from which the Chantry can profit from (this would be Irving pleading for mercy for Anders on the basis of the investment they put in training him up as a spirit healer, but also includes mages chosen for martial or court positions), and deciding which experimental magical research projects are worth the resources to pursue on the chance of future profits. I think from a lot of the more traditional Templars in the game, we can at times see the attitude that the study and practice of magic is something that should be left to the professional expertise of mages.

A Knight Commander's job, on the flipside, is to perform checks on the First Enchanter to make sure they're not being recklessly avaricious and ambitious in their economic and intellectual pursuits, veto projects that seem too dangerous, and intervene to stop mages that are abusing their powers both within and outside the Circle.

So it's a negotiation between the First Enchanter, who's looking out for the wealth and productivity of the Circle as an arm of the Chantry, and the Knight Commander, who is looking out for the safety and order of the realm the Chantry is governing.

In practice Knight Commanders have the power to undermine their First Enchanter's work at any time (I can't imagine Meredith allows Orsino much say in what apprentices are safe enough to assign to any job or what research projects are worth pursuing), and when they don't undermine that work you end up with Irving running circles around Greagoir, who doesn't even know what the hell is going on with Uldred, because Irving has to be way more canny than Greagoir about managing an enslaved workforce and deciding which members of an oppressed population (whose ranks he fought up) live or die. So I altogether think the system was designed to fail. But I think this is the vague intention of ~how a Circle is meant to work~ in the minds of the most idealistic think tankers in the Chantry.

Official Dragon Age Map with Distance Key!

I bring you a Dragon Age Map with the OFFICIAL distances calculated in miles! Higher rez version here for the regular map and here for the map with extra large boxes to help with reading larger distances.

Details under cut.

Never realized that this wasn't already done by someone, I think just because I've seen so many versions relying on the other "official" scalings. Really cool to see this done!

I love (and lament) the variations of scaling across the different versions of the Thedas maps. So here are some fun facts about the scaling of this map because they're are just kinda neat.

Note: I'm putting official in quotes because there is next to no consistency and the ttrpg scaling actively contradicts most of the other canon travel times that it is definitely not the one being used by anyone in BioWare. Though sometimes used by novels and other 3rd party material. Officially for the ttrpg, they made some decisions that BioWare says is canon as long as it isn't directly contradicted by the games - which this is so really up to you.

Merry: confused awe

Frodo: confused awe

Sam: confused awe

Pippin: finally i’m getting the respect i deserve from these peasants 

so accurate i am choking on my carrot. this is making me giggle harder than it should. I love Pippin so much.

I don’t think there will come time when I’m not reblogging this. Sorry guys. 

no no no you guys don’t understand, Pippin is someone really important in the Shire! The books don’t talk about it a lot, and the movies won’t touch that stuff with a bargepole, but Pippin will be inheriting land rights to about a quarter of the Shire. He’s second in line to becoming military leader of all Hobbits. His dad is currently in charge of that stuff, but he’s completely aware of it, and educated for it, and that’s why he’s such an over privileged little shit in the books.

I thought it was a shame the movies didn’t talk about class differences in the Shire. Also puts M&P stealing food in an uglier light.

To be fair, at the time of the Party, Pippin would have been 12, which puts it back into a more acceptable light.  And they’re stealing food from Bilbo, a wealthy and eccentric family member, which again makes things a bit different.

But yes, when they call Pippin Ernil i Perrianath - Prince of the Halflings - they are actually completely spot on.

And when Pippin tells Bergil “my father farms the land around Tuckborough” he’s deliberately downplaying his class so that he can greet the boy as an equal rather than a superior.  It’s Pippin’s most adult moment in the series.  Bergil is engaging in a status contest which Pippin can totally win - but instead chooses not to compete.  Pippin is a gilded and spoiled lordling in the Shire, but he becomes a Man of Gondor.

Yeah, to add a bit of unnecessary trivia/level of preciseness, Frodo is the oldest of the four; he was born in 2968, was (obviously) 33 at the time of the Party, and so he’s 51 here. Sam’s second-oldest; born in 2980, he was 21 when Bilbo left and is 39 at this point. Merry’s two years younger than Sam, making him 18 or 19 in 3001, when the Party took place, and Pippin was born in 2990, so he was actually 10 or 11 during the Party, and during this scene they’re ~37 and ~29, respectively.

So yeah, Pippin’s the youngest by a lot. Plus, taking hobbit aging into account, he really is still in the equivalent of his teens; remember the Party was half to celebrate Frodo’s coming-of-age at 33, and Pippin’s around twenty years younger than Frodo. 

This fucked me up. I didn’t read the books and in the movie it was shown like Frodo took off with the ring like 2 days after Bilbo’s gone away, but it was 17 years after that. OMFG.

Also worth noting that “Merry and Pippin stealing food” isn’t in the book - raiding Farmer Maggot’s fields, specifically the mushrooms, is something Frodo used to do when he was a kid, before his parents died and he moved to Hobbiton to live with Bilbo. Frodo’s still afraid of Maggot’s guard dogs, but the farmer himself is sympathetic and helpful when he finds Frodo & Co. cutting through his field.

And this is specifically invoked in the books at the Council of Elrond, where Elrond argues against Pippin in particular going, because  he is so young. He’s okay with Merry going but wants to keep Pippin in Rivendell. Elrond has serious misgivings against sending an early-teenager off to face the Shadow, and given what happens to Pippin in The Two Towers, he was not wrong.

@cyrefinns

@cyrefinns

This is just so great. I just–I can’t.

Merry is also a prince of sorts - his father is Master of Buckland, which is the semi-autonomous boundary community between the Brandywine river and the Old Forest (never, alas, discussed in the movies). Merry and Pippin are friends in the books in part because they’re of relatively equal status and in part because they’re cousins (like all nobs, Shire nobs mostly marry each other).

However, the books also clearly make Merry the Responsible One, even though he’s only been a full adult for four years. (Think early 20s in human terms.) Merry buys and prepares the house at Crickhollow. Merry figures out the secret of the ring before Bilbo even gives it to Frodo, but Merry keeps Bilbo’s secret. Merry convinces Sam to spy on Frodo. Merry explains that they’re all joining Frodo on the Quest, whether Frodo wants them to or not. Merry cautions about the Old Forest and doesn’t go down to drink in the taproom at the Prancing Pony.

So in the books, Merry isn’t Pippin’s partner in pranks - instead, Merry and Pippin spend all their time together on the Quest because Merry’s looking after his younger cousin. Can you imagine what his mother would say if he came home without Pippin? Merry can, and that’s why he takes some pretty absurd personal risks during the books to make sure that doesn’t happen. Like, he literally rides into battle on the back of someone else’s horse, in disguise, because Pippin is probably somewhere in that battle.

Merry is 99%* common sense unless Pippin is involved, and then he is 100% save/rescue/protect/support Pippin. The character growth and maturation we see in Merry in the movies isn’t in the books; instead he has almost the exact opposite arc of becoming an extreme risk-taker, driven by his protective instincts.

(*The other 1% stabbed a ringwraith in the calf that one time, but we can argue that this was due to a natural expansion of Merry’s protective instincts toward Eowyn, with whom he’d bonded quite a lot recently, and toward Theoden, who he deeply respected as being kind of like his dad.)

bonus kleenex moment:

when pippin finds merry stumbling half-blind and sick through the streets of Minas Tirith after killing the Ringwraith, he tells Merry “Poor old fellow! I’ll look after you,” half-carries him to the healing halls, and is worried sick about him until he can finally get Aragorn in to give him medicine.

It’s the first time in the story that Pippin  has looked after Merry, instead of the other way around.

It shows that Pippin has grown up, that he can protect the people who always protected him.

This is also why it’s awesome when they finally come back to the Shire, and Saruman’s made a right mess of things, and it’s Merry and Pippin that kick ass and take names. They’re the closest things the Shire has to princes and military leaders, and they’ve just had adventures that make this look like a minor action. Frodo’s tired, and Sam’s just worried about Frodo, and Merry and Pippin are like hold my pint, I got this.

Something I noticed when seeing the Fellowship on the big screen again for the first time in 20-ish years was the details they put into the character costumes that tell you a lot about the hobbits without even saying a word.

While the clothing is of a general style - shirt, waistcoat for gentlefolk, breeches and coat, it’s the details on all of them that show how much thought was put into the costumes.

Compared to the average hobbit, Bilbo and Frodo both have well cut shirts made of fine fabrics and velvet or brocade waistcoats, showing their respectable and comfortably wealthy status.

Compare Frodo’s clothing with Sam and the other hobbits in the bar - similar in style, but Frodo’s is clearly well-to-do compared to the coarser fabrics Sam and the others wear, which makes sense when Sam is a gardener and doing manual labour.

Then we have Merry and Pippin in the same scene:

Like Frodo, Merry does have a nicer cut of shirt and waistcoat in a bold colour, but not quite as fancy. Meanwhile Pip, who is a kid at this point, doesn’t wear one yet.

And this shot of the boys in Rivendell really brings home the difference in the quality and expense of their clothes.

Pippin has a fine white shirt with a lace patterned collar and his braces are intricately woven, both things that would be markers of high-quality, labour intensive fibrework, not to mention the fancy white buttons.

Sam’s collar, by comparison has clear hand-stitching and the fabric of both the shirt and waistcoat are much coarser and more natural colours with buttons probably made from horn or wood.

Merry’s shirt is definitely a step or two up from Sam, but definitely not near the fanciness and quality of Pippin’s or Frodo’s. Likewise, his waistcoat is more elaborate than Sam’s with quilted patterning, but it’s also not the same quality as Frodo’s velvets and brocades.

They didn’t say much about the shire class structure in the film, but the costume designers definitely knew what they were about.

Realizing the writing doesn't have to be done alone and is often more fun and more engaging when you're doing it with friends is a life changing experience.

I don't mean co-writing either. I mean having a friend or two who you talk through plot ideas with, who you bounce ideas off of, who you trust to tell you if something doesn't work.

Nothing is created in a vacuum and nothing can be created alone. Sharing drafts and ideas is a vital part of the creative process and it's a really fun part too.

Teen | Cassandra x Michel de Chevin | WC: 2749 | DA:I | Fluff | First Kisses | Romantic Comedy | Language of Flowers | Denial of Feelings

Summary:

I got to write this fic for @feminisssssssstreptilian for a Satinalia exchange and I'm so delighted to further my Michel x Cass agenda.

Excerpt below the cut!