#trulycertain

[merruschka]

"Is this the poison you mix for your blade?"

"M-hm, be careful with it."

Some cute and fluffy Marie De Sardet and Vasco for @trulycertain ♥️ It was so much fun drawing them for you! 8D

[tarysande]

Hello! I know this isn't your professional Tumblr and feel free to tell me to bugger off, but I was curious: I'd like to brush up on my SPAG and technical skill and on different, maybe more traditional-pub rather than fic, writing styles. ...OK, that's two or three different questions. But. Anyway. Are there any style guides, books or resources you like and would recommend?

Okay, I know this is coughmumblecough two months old. Better late than never??

For UK English, I recommend the New Oxford Style Manual, which includes New Hart’s Rules and the New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors in one big fat shiny volume. Dreyer’s English is also worthwhile reading.  For US English, the Chicago Manual of Style is used fairly frequently (or adapted fairly frequently) in fiction writing. AP (Associated Press) is the most common style guide used in journalism—though, given my personal love of serial commas, I am leery of them. Merriam-Webster is the most common dictionary I see used among my editorial peers (and it’s what I use when editing US English, unless someone specifies otherwise).

When I’m editing Canadian English, I use the Canadian Oxford Dictionary and Guide to Canadian English Usage. I know CP (Canadian Press) is also used fairly often, but again ... serial commas.

This is a great resource for comparing the spelling between Canadian, UK, and US Spellings!!

(If an author asks me to edit without using serial commas, I’ll do it. But I will cry on the inside a bit.)

This is a great list of diversity-related resources.

I haven’t read it yet, but apparently The Best Punctuation Book, Period: A Comprehensive Guide for Every Writer, Editor, Student, and Businessperson by June Casagrande is excellent.

Louise Harnby’s website is an absolute font of excellent information for writers and authors. She’s British, but frequently notes the differences between US/UK usage when it's relevant. Also take a look at some of the major professional editorial associations: CIEP, Editors Canada, ACES, EFA. They often have a mix of free and paid information/webinars/etc. that can be very helpful. (I’m taking an Editors Canada webinar tomorrow! It’s called “Oops! Finding and Fixing Blunders in Fiction.” I’m looking forward to it.)

A super fun rabbit hole to fall down: google “zombie rules of grammar.” So many of the things people assume are Thou Shalt Not rules are actually Hey Some Old White Dudes Tried To Make English Like Latin Even Though It’s Not Latin rules. Like splitting infinitives. Or ending sentences with prepositions. 

Oh, and I love this article on redundancies. (Note: the number of these we all see and use on the daily is shocking.)

I feel like this is just the tip of the iceberg, but it should get you started!! :D

[errantgoat]

trulycertain replied to your post: trulycertain: On Carver: I love him. A lot....

@errantgoat​ What he’s been through doesn’t make some of the way he acts OK, but to me, I do understand why he did it. He still needs to grow past it and apologise. (See also: some of the terrible things Anders and Fenris say, but it often seems like people give that a pass, but not Carver. And I say that as someone who likes all three characters.) Genuinely curious: was I getting that banter wrong? Why did Av refuse to recruit him for the guard?

hi hi, sorry to bother you; I’m kind of used to ops not really reading the tags too much. Aveline talks about Carver not being good at following orders, and that it would endanger him and the people he would be working with...that’s why she didn’t recommend him for the job.

other than that, I wasn’t really thinking about his attitude towards mages tbh, I’m usually more interested in character flaws and negative tendencies than this kind of discussions. :’) like for example I think Carver could very easily end up like Gamlen, because they share similar traits - I feel like a lot of issues Carver complains about are kind of self inflicted - like for example living in their older sibling’s shadow. He may have been shoehorned in that position by circumstances, but in the end nothing keeps him in the status quo, if he hates it that much, other than himself.  (And he does change it, if he decides to join the templars - he cuts the umbilical cord so to speak. And even when he’s forced to join the Wardens - it does him good to be way from Hawke, and he doesn’t have to make excuses anymore.)

So I’m sorry if I sounded a bit abrasive! I love Carver very much, but I think I’m just the kind of person to focus more on negative traits because I find them relatable and fascinating to explore! 

[cherieofthedragons]

This is one of Cherie's characters, so there's probably enough pining going on to build an IKEA coffee table.

@trulycertain in what is probably the most accurate comment on one of my fics ever

[tin-pin-artist]

‘Prague, 10:42 pm’ is a very very cute fic by @trulycertain I highly recommend it. Bonus, Jim getting the photo:

[withthebreezesblown]

I'd love to see either what the other apprentices thought of Solona and how she acted around the Tower, or more of the sword training lessons.

At seven, Neria is the youngest in the Circle. The youngest, but definitely not the biggest baby. That’s not Misha, who is eight and has been in the Circle for nearly a year and still cries all the time either. The biggest baby is Keili, age eleven, who tattles on everyone. She told the templars about the sweets Felton got from who-knows-where, and she told the templars about what Shan said about the templars being creepy, and she told them that she thought Neria was possessed because she laughs too much and it’s not right. It isn’t personal though, her being so sure that Keili is the biggest baby—it’s just that she understands. Trying to suck up to the templars—that’s something only a stupid baby would do. Because the templars are liars. They told her she’d be better off in the Circle. But they were wrong. Little Darvel from the Alienage she lived in before, he’d have been better off in the Circle than with his Mama who was always too busy trying to get another one of the green glass bottles to feed her boy or pay any attention to him at all. Her Mama paid plenty of attention. She braided her hair fancier than all the other mamas, and her stew was the best in the whole Alienage, and nothing about the Circle is better than being with her Mama, not even after the magic when everyone looked at her like she was a bear on the loose or a human with his sword out. That’s how she knows. The Circle isn’t about better. If it was they’d have taken Darvel, not her. It’s just about magic and fear.

So there are things a lot dumber and more babyish than crying.

And then everyone says they’re getting a new girl, that she won’t be the youngest anymore, and she’s not too sure how to feel. The older girls dote on her now, giving her a slice off their orange when they’re lucky enough to get them, and she always gets to be the princess when they play. Will the new girl get her orange slices now? Will they make Neria let her be the princess?

They bring her in at night, and her sobs intrude on the dormitory well before she does. In the dim light, her face is as red as her hair. When they put her on a bed, she curls in on herself, whimpering “Mama,” into the thin pillow. The other girls sigh. “A crier. Just bloody wonderful,” someone mutters.

It’s a bit unfair, she thinks, their resentment. It’s a perfectly reasonable thing to do, crying like that. It’s so reasonable that she’s afraid if she starts herself, she’ll never stop. That’s why she never does. That and something else she doesn’t have the word for yet.

Eventually someone—probably Keili, she thinks, disgusted—snaps, “Yes, yes, we all get it, you want your mama. Well guess what? You’re a mage, and she doesn’t want you. Keep it down so the rest of us can get some sleep, would you?”

And that’s it. She’s mad, and not at the crying girl. Just because they’re old and don’t remember their mamas is no reason to act like there’s anything wrong with crying for your mama. She’s up out of her bed before she can think twice, fists balled up at her sides. “Leave her alone!”

She’s torn for a moment between hitting someone and comforting the crier, but then the girl makes the most pitiful sound, like she’s trying so hard to hush but all she’s managing is to choke on her tears.

Neria let’s her fists fall open and makes her way over to the shuddering figure bunched up at the head of the bed across from hers.

At first she just stands there, not sure what to do. And then she remembers what her Mama would do when she had the bad dreams before the magic came.

She sings. She reaches up to pat the girl’s head, because Mama did that too, and it made it better. After a moment the girl shuffles around so that instead of being curled away from her, she’s curled in towards her, and slowly the shaking subsides.

“There, there,” she says when she’s done singing, because that’s what Mama said. She pushes hair, wet with tears and clinging to the girl’s forehead and cheeks, away from her face. When she can see the girl’s watery eyes, she grins. “Hi, there. I’m Neria.”

There’s a moment of quiet before the girl whispers, so softly she hardly catches it, “Solona.”

“Don’t mind them, Solona. They’re just grumpy because they don’t have mamas worth missing. You can cry if you want to.”

“Do you cry?”

Neria think for a long moment before she finally says, “No. Because some people like it when you cry, and they’re mean, and I won’t do it just because. But that doesn’t mean it’s bad to cry. It’s bad to be mean.”

The girl—Solona—contemplates this. “…I don’t want to do what mean people want. I won’t cry either.”

“Laughing is better.”

Solona nods, very seriously, repeating quietly as though she’s memorizing something very important, “Laughing is better.”

Later, Neria will realize this was a lesson no needed to teach Solona Amell. At seven, she couldn’t have articulated it, but half of Neria’s laughs are born of spite. Once the tears are well and truly dried, Solona laughs because she can’t help herself. 

She laughs at Neria’s worst jokes and theatrics and at the way Mr. Wiggins rubs his face against her ankles. She laughs with delight at the sweet taste of the blackberries they get for Summerday and at Senior Enchanter Sweeney’s muttered improprieties.

It turns out not being the youngest isn’t so bad at all. Not only does Solona laugh at all her jokes, she doesn’t even want to be the princess—Neria has to drag her along to get her to play at all, insisting that she’s a princess too because she’s Neria’s little sister. When Shan says, “But you’re an elf—she can’t be your sister,” Neria isn’t sure what to think. Back in the Alienage, they called the humans shems, and that was a big deal, shems and elves, but that was there, and here she thought it was just templars and mages.

Solona stops trying to pull away from the hand Neria is dragging her along by then and straightens herself up to her not very impressive full height, hardly taller than Neria. “I want to play now. I want to be Neria’s sister. You can’t make me not be.”

Neria grins. It’s not shems and elves after that. It’s not even templars and mages, not for them. It’s just Neria and Solona and everyone else.

They call Solona Neria’s shadow, and once again Neria finds herself thinking how dumb they all are. Her shadows are her own. Solona? Solona is all light.

[aphreal42]

@trulycertain tagged me to do a bingo card meme thing. Here’s my best attempt, which is hopefully mostly legible. 

[kentaurex]

trulycertain replied to your post “while i was on reddit, it was really fascinating to see how many...”

JC is just baby cyberpunk Blade

this is the truest sentence thats been on this blog to date