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And I say that after twenty-one years of being spoiled by my mother's cooking, which I will very cheerfully say can rival Molly Weasley's. :)

I live in a part of the world where it's very easy to get fresh produce, particularly fish; my local fishmonger operates his own fifteen-boat fleet and once supplied fish to the Queen. Other people don't have that luxury. There's the phenomenon of "nutritional deserts", in which poor people who get paid once a month and therefore have to get food that lasts a month for some reason buy frozen ready meals rather than fresh fruit and vegetables. This is a truly inexplicable state of affairs and is probably to do with how poor people are just too stupid to know what healthy food is, so we'll send Jamie Oliver in to look mournfully at a chicken nugget and this will solve everything forever.

Another big part of the lack of cooking skills is the idea that you should be constantly working, all the time, always and forever. Breaks are breaks in productivity and therefore to be not only discouraged but shamed. Not only does nobody have the time to learn how to cook, nobody has the energy to cook. If you've done a twelve-hour shift for a pittance of wages that you won't see for dust come payday's round of bills and are trying to keep a house in order, you don't want to run the risk of the household going hungry for a night and/or wasting a load of money by trying and failing to cook something. It's wasteful to try and cook; wasteful of your time and energy and very limited resources. So you don't try. You can't try. And trying only ever hurts you.

I can cook pasta, if that counts, and I’m a fairly good baker. I still have a lot of learning to do to be able to cook properly.

But I am capable of making a meal, considering as I have passed my year 11 Cooking class. Gonna go for the Year 12 course, up my skills a bit more.

Granted, I know many people my age who eat two minute noodles often, so it does have a basis.

But often I'm too lazy to really cook stuff. I can do a lot of baking as well, and (for the most part) I do enjoy doing both.

Strange, intensely lonely person quietly beavering away at something barely anyone will ever read and less will understand? Based on a pre-existing intellectual property?

It's badfic!

I have a Permission request drafted! Would anyone be willing to beta-read?

I can cook! I've got a kitchen and a slow-cooker and everything. I still don't have the knack of breadmaking, but I can do a reasonable amount of other things.

Of course, I'm also starting into my thirties, so I'm not terribly far into the younger generations. :)

It seemed like a list of specific colors, not a range, and red IS the color of their logo. If you were to edit this, I'd suggest you either go more general ("every color in the visible spectrum") or ludicrously specific ("everything from black and white to red and orange to chartreuse-and-mauve paisley with electrum accents"), depending on how much humor you want out of it.

... I wouldn't recommend actually wearing that last one, but seeing as it's the PPC, no doubt someone thinks that's the height of beauty. And/or they had nothing else remotely suitable. {= )

~Neshomeh

I agree that, story-wise, including all of that stuff would be beside the point. If this were part of a longer arc about their relationship, then it would be relevant, but as a concise one-shot about remembering and mourning, not so much.

It's been a while since I checked in with the prompts, since I haven't written one (or much of anything else) in some time, so I've certainly missed things you've established in previous pieces. It's to your credit that I don't feel like I have. I can jump back in feeling invested, and everything required to interpret what happened between scenes is there. I was just worried and wanted to know everything would work out and be okay in the end. {= )

I love my angst, too, but I'm an optimist, dammit. The point of putting characters in a hole is to see them claw their way back out again, because they CAN. And so can we all... if we're determined and lucky and maybe someone throws a rope and we're not to damn stubborn to take it. {= )

~Neshomeh

He did work on it off and on pretty much his entire adult life, and I can't imagine he'd have trusted anyone to give any kind of editorial feedback. "Hi, I'm a deranged lunatic living under an opera house, would you please give me constructive feedback on my magnum opus? I promise not to torture and kill you, so be honest! :D "

~Neshomeh

"You guys are weird," he opined. "I don't think I'm gonna get married to anyone at all if it makes you that weird."

Meanwhile, Ian was thinking. "That's, uh, Wing, right? Yeah, we definitely learned about that one. One of the villains was a big Lust Object, and his name was Zechs?" He snickered. They had barely made it through that particular class. On the other hand, they remembered it, so the teachers likely considered it worth the inevitable case of the giggles.

At another discussion board, a topic came up about people losing cooking skills, especially younger generations really now knowing how to cook. All of my close friends, who are in mid-thirties to mid-forties, are good to great cooks - but there may be a selection bias. I don't really know many people who are younger than 30, but I know many PPCers fall into that category. So, I hope you can prove me right and say that are, in fact, capable of putting together at least one meal that is not takeout/reheating a frozen package. :)

"Indeed. Naturally. Indubitably." He sighed.

"...In fact, I have no intent of stealing your man, Gall. The days when I would have considered such a thing are long behind me."

Continuing the series of posts that could roughly be described as "Thoth gives his thoughts on various stuff from the Fate-verse why is he still doing this nobody cares," I'm talking about Volume 1 of a light novel nobody's heard of that I actually rather liked and would have liked quite a lot more if... well, I'll get to that soon enough.

If course, LEM2 had my attention pretty much from the word go. When I talked about Fate/Zero, I described Waver and his Servant by saying "they actually ARE the best. I'm not even kidding, it's not up for debate." So an entire series that shows Waver 10 years down the line and all grown up was always going to be of interest, seeing as he's one of my favorites. And then there's the fact that he adopts the role of a magical detective, a grumpy, inadequate Sherlock Holmes with a shy and awkward girl with some quite interesting talents serving as his Watson. I mean... come on! That is so much my thing that I'd almost say this series was written specifically for me.

If not for the fact that it was never actually translated to English officially. I've been reading an unofficial translation, and it is terrible. Just... awful. I mean, it can be read, but there's no sense of style, and the prose all-too-often feels awkward and stilted, which sometimes makes it hard. Then again, the anime/manga/etc community tends to value accuracy over style in their translations, which is something I can never quite forgive them for. Because it's a fundamentally wrong approach, as seen in the best translations, which are more concerned with keeping the spirit than the wordings.

Anyways, allow me to take a break from that rant to rant about something else: Type-Moon's localization policy. Or should I say, lack of one. Type-Moon is a company that is arguably ate the forefront of their industry, and their games are among the most recognizable Visual Novels worldwide. Sure, they don't have quite the same recognition as Phoenix Wright, but they're in roughly the same tier as Dangan Ronpa or 999, games that are markedly more western in their approach.

In my assessment, FS/N is probably the most traditional Japanese VN to get a real foothold in the west (Emphasis on Japanese: we have our own VN industry over here, although whether any of them have reached Fate's level of success is debatable as well), largely through word-of-mouth and its fantastic anime adaptations. And while that's not uncommon for VN-adapted-works, like CLANNAD and Steins;Gate, Fate is notable for its dedicated fanbase, many of whom have actually invested a tremendous amount of time into the source material.

So it's bewildering that in light of the fact that they have an army of international fans that will go to frankly insane lengths to get their hands on their work, even playing entirely untranslated versions of tie-in games, that Type-Moon continues to have little to no interest in international releases for their works. To date, not a single one of their Visual Novels has been officially translated, and it's only thanks to some brilliant work from MirrorMoon and Beast's Lair that we've got translations that are as good as they are. Which is... honestly pretty good, most of the time, especially considering that the original works have an infamously quirky style that can even throw people in Japan for a loop.

The only reason we even got an international release of Fate/Grand Order, the free-to-play mobile spinoff (which is one of... maybe four spinoffs ever to be translated?) is because of a loud and repeated outcry from fans who had to fight tooth and nail to get what they wanted. And even then there are issues: f'rinstance, in FGO, Artoria's name is rendered as "Altria". Now, Artoria is an English name, a female version of "Arthur" because famously in Fate King Arthur is a girl. Altria is what happens when you take the Japanese version of the name (which is altered to account for Japanese phonetic rules, in much the same way that "mele kalikimaka" is as close to saying "Merry Christmas" as you can get in Hawaiian) and translating it literally back into English without Anglicizing it to reverse the original conversion. In short, it's a "google translate" translation: technically correct but ignoring the meaning.

What kind of professional translator would possibly make this mistake? Oh, they didn't. They knew full-well the proper way to translate the name, but Kinoko Nasu, the series' original creator, actually mandated that they use the wrong translation.

So I think it's fair to say that Type-Moon just hates us English-speakers and wants us all to die without having experienced their works.

Anyways, I was supposed to be giving my thoughts on a work here... so let's get back to that.

In the 10 years since the events of Fate/Zero, Waver Velvet has become a charismatic eccentric. He's one of the Mages' Associations's Twelve Lords, but largely through political dealings, as despite a keen intellect and an an ability to analyze and understand magecraft that is genuinely impressive (and makes him an excellent teacher at the Clock Tower) he's all-but utterly devoid of natural talent as a mage, having to resort to far more mundane techniques to get results. Remember that bit in Fate/Zero where he says a more talented mage could have used a far more intricate method to get their results than his primitive alchemy? Yeah, he's still very much doing that sort of thing. He's also, despite his outwards-facing charisma, a total mess in private. And yes, Fate/Zero fans, he still has his T-shirt.

Our protagonist is his assistant and apprentice, Grey, a shy girl who lived a strange and sheltered life before moving to London to become a student at the Clock Tower, and who has some quite remarkable abilities of her own (in fact, Waver makes a point of saying that if there's a fight between mages, he'd be dead long before she hit the ground). She is, as I said, the Watson to Waver's (or should I say, Lord El-Melloi II's) Holmes, serving as an audience surrogate when the narrative needs an excuse to explain something to us, but she is an interesting character an in her own right and I genuinely want to learn more about her.

The story itself is... good. If it was translated better, it could even be great. Hell, I'd say a real proper translation of this actually might work as a viable introduction to Fate for people who don't know the world. Sadly, that's not what we have, and it took an awful lot of my Fate background knowledge to make sense of some of the details of what was going on, although the broader plot was plenty accessible.

As for what the story was, Lord El-Melloi is sent off by his half-sister-sort-of (their relationship is complicated) to answer an invitation to a mysterious castle built by a mage obsessed with Angels. Said mage has just died; the invitation is to the reading of his will. Several other mages have been invited as well, and all of them are hungry for whatever he might have left behind: the mage was particularly well-known for his work in restoring magic crests that had been damaged or rotted due to age beyond the point where others would have deemed repair impossible.

What he did leave behind, it seems, was a puzzle, and whoever works it out gets whatever he's left for them all. The competition is between mages, so it's needless to say that it's cut-throat: mages are almost by-definition sociopathic when the need arises, especially when it comes to preserving their legacies.

Which is when the bodies start showing up.

So yeah, it's a pretty classic mystery setup (isolated location, multiple guests, everyone has a motive, increasing body-count), but it's pretty well-executed all the same, taking advantage of the unique aspects of the setting in ways that I honestly didn't expect. Waver, as a mage, is often more concerned with why a murder happened rather than how: with so much complicated magic being thrown around, the "how" is neither as meaningful nor as easy to discern as it might be in a traditional detective story. Sure it still matters, but it matters an awful lot less when your suspects have almost infinite methods at their disposal and powers that may well violate causality. And of course, alibis are almost entirely meaningless, because it's quite possible that everyone can kill from a distance. Arriving at who from why becomes easier, even in a cast packed with motives.

The atmosphere is also quite suitable. There's a distinct sense of gothic horror all about the book, as well as a lot of drawing on real-world mythology. That's suitable for Fate, which is a pretty cold and cynical setting when you get right down to it.

Anyways, in conclusion to this mess of weak, scrambled writing, Casefiles is pretty good, I just really hope we can get a better translation sometime soon. This is most likely to happen if Ufotable adapts it, so... please. Ufotable. I am begging you. Make this an anime.

Neither of these topics were ones he was sure he wanted to be drawn into further.

Naturally, that was when Gall chose to stride back up to the group, mouth half-full of pie. She gave Thoth a once-over and a nod. "'Sup, Jötun?" With a smirk, she said to Derik, "See you found your boyfriend."

He rolled his eyes. "Yes, we're announcing our engagement at midnight. Don't miss it."

(( Thank you for the perfect setup for a joke I've been planning this whole time. {= D ))

"My scales look like my hair. Funny how that works..."

Ialthos gave him a whack. "You did that deliberately! I've looked it up, that's not how the magic works." He turned to the kids, grinning. "He's a western-type dragon. He's also adorable."

"Yes!" said Ferrux proudly, "Yes I am!"

"...Honestly he's like an oversized puppy sometimes..."

"Oh, ease up on me, knight. It's not like I've ever heard you complain about it."

"Hey, I went this far with you. Don't push your luck, dragon."

"...As I recall you went quite a lot farther than that..."

Ialthos whacked him again, blushing furiously. "Ferrux, there are kids present!"

"Hey! Your dirty mind isn't my fault." He grinned at the kids. "Never marry anyone who will whack you on the head. It turned out well for me, but as a dragon I have a thicker skull and... ow! What was that for?"

"Absolutely nothing..." said Ialthos, chuckling to himself. "I just thought it was funny."

"Well then how would you like... this!" Ferrux poked Iathos's forehead. Both of them broke down laughing.

"It seems there are many musicians among us tonight. I must confess a lack of talent in that area myself, however. The art of war consumed enough of my attention."

He paused for thought. "I suppose that is love, between two mortals, then. My apologies, it's been long enough since I had any experiences of the sort..."

Ignoring the gods, who have been shown multiple times to not be very picky: Magnus himself is at least bisexual, (and yes, you were right, it was Alex from the books who was genderfluid), Nico di Angelo and Will Solace are gay, there's a pair of lesbian ex-hunters of Artemis who left so they could be together... and I know I'm missing a lot trying to think of them off the top of my head.

The Trials of Apollo books have been pretty great throwing Apollo to the front and center narrating them, because he literally does not care and thinks humans are really silly getting hung up on the gender of their partners. Hell, he's even got a demigod daughter with a mortal man, so make of that what you will. :P

I remember wossname from the Magnus Chase books (Alex, maybe?), who as a child of Loki has total mythological justification to be gender dysphoric, but... who else is there? I remember several gay characters in the Greek series (Nico, wossname in Last Olympian, the ladies in Apollo 2... plus, y'know, various gods throughout mythology), but I don't think 'gay' is a subset of 'gender dysphoria' (unless there's been another linguistic shift I missed). So am I forgetting someone/s, or does that person just REALLY dislike probably-Alex?

I guess it could be parsed as 'less of the gender dysphoric character', but really the natural intepretation is 'fewer characters with that trait'. So there MUST be more than one, right?

The only alternative is that twittercommentor19024 did not fully consider the logical soundness of their tweet, and that is simply inconceivable.

hS

Okay, Epic Fantasy roundup time! We know that a lot of fantasy (including Middle-earth) is inspired by British mythology and medieval Britain. But that's far from the only possible inspiration.

If you want Africa as your inspiration, check out N.K. Jesmin. Her Broken Earth series won the Hugo award for all 3 books (I believe that's the only time that's happened). I've read the first one, and it's very different to your European fantasy.

Going specifically to the Middle East, Google recommends Saladin Ahmed's 'Throne of the Crescent Moon'. I've not read it, but the list looks trustworthy, since it also includes Jesmin and...

'Earthsea'! Ursula leGuin was inspired by North America, which gives the Earthsea books a distinctly different feel.

Also from North America: Niven and Pournelle's Burning City/Burning Tower duology, set mostly in prehistoric California.

And going back to Google's recommendations: how about a Central Asian fantasy where 'the sky changes color as you move between empires, moons come and go, some people live beneath cherry red skies, and humanoid tigers are a thing.' That's Range of Ghosts, by Elizabeth Bear.

What I /don't/ know is how many of these were written by people actually immersed in and learned in the culture, as Tolkien was. Maybe if you read them, you can find out. :)

hS

It's clearly a concept album. =]

In answer to your question: it's been briefly mentioned, but Em and Cass are both in the care of FicPsych more often than not. Em favours group therapy, while Cass prefers one-to-one sessions. It's been briefly touched upon a few times here and there in other Cass and Em stories, but they are not without their own independent support networks.

You're right that there was an apology in the ugly crying. I wanted to write it so that a lot of time was passing with both characters in something of a hole. As for acknowledging Em meant well, it almost certainly did happen, but Cass (as we've seen) has a self-flagellatory instinct and a very sharp tongue so it probably got twisted into something very nasty being said about herself. Why didn't I write any of that? Well, it's mostly because I felt like it would have really slowed the story down. It might also have become repetitive fast; there's only so many times you can apologise for something before it all starts to ring a little hollow.

You mention Em being hurt badly but not say anything about it. She's not the kind of person who says when she's hurting (this may have something to do with why she's in FicPsych); instead, she backs off or runs away or plasters on a fake smile to brush it aside. Despite being from a very action-heavy setting initially and being, y'know, a DMS assassin, Em really doesn't deal well with conflict. I've tried to show it in the other stories, but if it's not been clear then that's on me.

Poor Em. I feel I should write a story about her having a nice time with some friends, but it's me and I seem to have stolen inherited Ix's portable feels generator so maybe that's not such a brilliant idea. =]

I like Em and Cass, from the stories I've read with them before. It was hard to see Cass be that nasty to Em, and Em be hurt badly but not say anything about it.

I understand it. This thing with the watch touched a trauma, and trauma can manifest itself in unpredictable and nasty ways. I know Cass was sorry for it afterward. I assume that there was an apology given amidst the ugly crying, perhaps even some acknowledgement that Em meant well and Cass overreacted because of something that doesn't really have to do with an old, broken watch, but rather with a much deeper horror and (I think) shame. It's good that she was able to talk about it rationally afterward. I sure hope Em has some external support for herself, though.

~Neshomeh

The song wasn't really a choice, though. It's the text of that Bible passage set to music. The way I see it, that's the much more fitting way to honor a harper, and Aivas has several versions of "Home on the Range," of all silly things, in its databanks, so I don't think an extremely well-known protest song with extremely well-known lyrics was too much of a stretch. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that Derik's guitar gently wept, as such, before he was Derik. {= )

Tangentially related: I have a pet theory that the Phantom's Don Juan Triumphant was a rock opera way before its time. It burns, it's discordant noise, it gets in your head, it's full of dark passion... It's rock'n'roll, baby. |m|

~Neshomeh