Random Rants 94 I rant at the thread title and shake my fist menacingly.
- Thread starter Broken_Erika
- Start date
Yes, I found that out after seeing a note that it was down for maintenance. They've been putting out a variety of notices that say different things.
It's easier to get information from their Tumblr account (I finally joined that to find where the heck all those "Whumptober" fanfiction prompts were coming from, and found the information about the DDoS attack.
I might try Whumptober, since it would be a good warmup for NaNoWriMo in November (the idea is to write 31 short stories/chapters in 31 days, according to prompts that are provided; the length is up to the author).
Nitter is working again (for account pages, search is still broken)
AO3 Status (@AO3_Status)
Site status updates for the Archive of Our Own (@AO3org), a Hugo Award-winning project of the Organization for Transformative Works (@OTW_News)nitter.net
It's been off and on all day. But at least I was able to get updated on the Harry Potter story and post a couple of comments (the author is also Canadian and we've had some excellent conversations in the comments section).
aimeeandbeatles
watermelon
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I would expect access to be a bit unreliable for the next few days (or possibly weeks, depending on how persistent these butts are). I noticed the Cloudflare protection level jumping around a few times - mostly because the RSS feeds die with a 403 when it jumps to 'under attack!' mode.
Note to mods: I know this is an extensive explanation of a fanfic story, but I'm politely answering another person's comment and I do have a rant in here somewhere.
Now, about Arthur and Hermione:
There's a subgenre of Harry Potter fanfiction involving a Ministry-ordered Marriage Law. According to the summary at the beginning of the story:
Teao said:
Teao is the author of this story. Her premise is that Fred and George are okay, but both Molly and Bill died. So when the story begins, Arthur Weasley has been a widower for 6 years and is just under the 55-year age limit to marry. He could ask for an exemption, considering the number of children he's already fathered, but as he tells Hermione, he's found life without Molly rather lonely, particularly as all his children are now adults out on their own and it's just him living alone in the Burrow. He says he wants to marry again, so he's not opposed to the match, but would understand completely if Hermione doesn't want to marry someone old enough to be her father (Hermione was never able to undo the memory-loss spell she cast on her parents, so they're still living in Australia and unaware that they ever had a daughter).
Ron and Hermione were never a serious couple in this story. Hermione preferred to remain single and Ron marries Astoria Greengrass.
Hermione's first match was Draco Malfoy. This is not one of the stories where they get along, so they both reject the match. Her second match is Malfoy's friend Goyle. They hate each other as well. Hermione has to either take the third match or risk having to marry whoever the Ministry comes up with for the 4th one. And since Lucius Malfoy is due to be paroled from Azkaban soon, Hermione realizes that when Arthur Weasley's name comes up for the third match, she'd better accept, so she doesn't risk being matched with Lucius.
What Hermione expected from this marriage isn't how it's turning out. She didn't love Arthur at first and he's okay with that - all he wants from her is what she's willing to give (and they do have to have at least two children within 10 years to meet the requirements the Ministry has set down), and that she be faithful to him. But eventually she does come to love Arthur, and it's an interesting situation given the dynamics of not only her marriage, but the marriages of Arthur's children.
The marriage law doesn't care if a witch or wizard is LGBT. They expect people to marry and produce children.
It's a realistic (for HP) take on people who survived a horrific war, losing family and friends, dealing with PTSD, and trying to fix the broken parts of their society.
The story is currently 71 chapters, and Arthur and Hermione are visiting Arthur's brother Charlemagne, who lives in Saskatchewan with his extended family of children and grandchildren and their families.
So as 'ships go, this is unusual. As a story, it's well-written and has a good balance of plot, character, good times and not-so-good times. Yes, it's a bit smutty in some chapters, but if that's not your (general 'your') thing, nothing plotwise will be lost by skipping over those parts (I usually do; I don't need a play-by-play of bedroom activities to enjoy a story, but this isn't something I've told the author in the conversations we've had in the comments section).
There are a lot of people who follow this story, and I look forward to the weekly updates - so it was upsetting to think we might not get this week's chapter. But the author was able to update, so now she's set me a puzzle... we got talking about naming characters and she's challenged us to figure out the themes she used for naming the characters in Charlemagne's extended family. It's fun; the author is Canadian, so this part of the story that's set in Canada is a treat. She asked for suggestions of Canadian musicians who were popular in the year 2005 or earlier, and of course I suggested the Irish Rovers. She incorporated one of their songs into the latest chapter, so that's a Rave-worthy thing - first time any fanfic author has incorporated one of my suggestions into a future chapter.
I have a "fanfiction recommendations" thread planned for A&E, and am working on the OP for that. This story will be among them, as it's quickly become one of my favorites.
But since this is the Rants thread, here's a minor rant: I told her about my King's Heir project and my problems with coming up with names for my own characters. She thinks I should keep the placeholder name of "Count Chocula" as his actual name. Thank you, no. I'm not naming someone living in an AU Britain in the year 1039 "Chocula." Nor will I name him Dracula or Vladimir. After nearly 5 years it's really frustrating not to have a name for this character.
He's not a vampire. There are no vampires anywhere in this story. "Count Chocula" is the name of a children's chocolate-flavored breakfast cereal. There are several other flavors in this line of totally non-nutritious sugar-laden stuff, as you can see:
Yes, I would very much appreciate if you could recommend some names for characters. The story takes place in the year 1039, though this character is in the vicinity of 40-50 years old and has no friendly intentions to either the king or his loyal councilors or the noble families who support the king. He's a supporter of the Queen (the king's 2nd wife, who is determined to put her own brother on the throne and rule through him).
I'm not sure what this character looks like, but I keep seeing him with long-ish hair, somewhat grey, in more elegant clothing with richer fabrics, not really practical, since he probably has a slew of servants to do everything for him. But he is skilled with weapons, and has the manner of someone who would happily slit your throat right after shaking your hand in friendship. He's vicious.
As for themed... let's see. The game developers are all over the map on this. It's an AU version of England/Britain/British Isles (sorry, not sure which term is more accurate for that time period). There are no Plantagenets or Tudors, the events of 1066 are not going to happen, and while there's a brief mention of a "crusade", the backstory made no mention of where it was supposed to go. I've decided to throw out all RL religious issues in this story and make up my own.
The game developers made the main characters have a German surname, but their first names range from Old English to German, Irish, and a few other possibilities. There's a fishing village across the lake from the capital city that's in an obviously Norse style, so I included Norse-sounding names for some of my characters who weren't given names already.
I decided that for some reason the devs never explained and that I have yet to explain, there's a lot of diversity in names in the Kingdom of Griffinvale. But it's really frustrating to have writers' block on a name for a character I want to use for some scenes with one of the characters who is named, has had a name, personality, interrelationships with a variety of other characters for years, but haven't written anything down yet because I don't want to write a swordfight between Sir Michael and Count Chocula.
England had formed by 927 or so, but Britain as the name for the island doesn't really go out of style.
Behind the Name has a whole page of Anglo-Saxon names and their meanings, but some of my favourites include Ælfræd (or Aelfraed, as in Alfred the Great), which meant "Elf counsel", Æðelflæd (Aethelflaed, notably Alfred's daughter and Lady of Mercia), which meant "royal beauty", Eadwine (now the modern name Edwin), meaning "wealthy friend"), and Hroðgar (or Hrothgar, now entirely replaced by Roger), meaning "glory spear".
Behind the Name has a whole page of Anglo-Saxon names and their meanings, but some of my favourites include Ælfræd (or Aelfraed, as in Alfred the Great), which meant "Elf counsel", Æðelflæd (Aethelflaed, notably Alfred's daughter and Lady of Mercia), which meant "royal beauty", Eadwine (now the modern name Edwin), meaning "wealthy friend"), and Hroðgar (or Hrothgar, now entirely replaced by Roger), meaning "glory spear".
Is that the origin of "to roger" as the euphemism/slang?
GenMarshall
Sin'dorei ISB Capt & Ghost Agent
EgonSpengler
Deity
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I remember many years ago, blowing a friend's mind with how many surnames were just people's professions. Cook; Baker; Carter; Carpenter; Farmer; Shepherd; Carver; Draper; Smith; Mason; Miller; Cooper; Fletcher; Sawyer; Porter; Thatcher; Wainwright; Tanner; etc, etc. "Dooood, that's crazy..." There may or may not have been a haze in the air and we may or may not have been listening to King Crimson.Aren't etymologies fun?
"Glory spear". Ok. Similar to how natives in Melanesia named stuff after penises.
In case germanics wondered about their glorious past ^^
Some cool surnames are actually names people personally invented for themselves, to replace rather less cool sounding original surnames. I read that J. Phoenix's family name originally was "Bottom".
In case germanics wondered about their glorious past ^^
Some cool surnames are actually names people personally invented for themselves, to replace rather less cool sounding original surnames. I read that J. Phoenix's family name originally was "Bottom".
Did you realize that one of the names on that list is "Cola"?England had formed by 927 or so, but Britain as the name for the island doesn't really go out of style.
Behind the Name has a whole page of Anglo-Saxon names and their meanings, but some of my favourites include Ælfræd (or Aelfraed, as in Alfred the Great), which meant "Elf counsel", Æðelflæd (Aethelflaed, notably Alfred's daughter and Lady of Mercia), which meant "royal beauty", Eadwine (now the modern name Edwin), meaning "wealthy friend"), and Hroðgar (or Hrothgar, now entirely replaced by Roger), meaning "glory spear".
There's a bit of an intense argument between Duke Edvar and "Count Chocula", and I'm not sure it would be improved if Duke Edvar were to address him as Count Cola.
I think I have another character in there named Hrothgar... or maybe that's my Caverns of the Snow Witch novel I did back in 2016 (prose adaptation of the Fighting Fantasy gamebook). I seem to recall a blacksmith character with that name, and my spell checker pitched a fit over it.
I'm not seeing any that jump out for a King's Heir character, but there are a couple that would fit the Merlin stories I'm planning.
I can't use anything that means "Edwin" due to the importance the game puts on the long-dead King Edwin the Great, aka Edwin Griffinrider. My take on him is that he founded the current dynasty of monarchs that have been ruling Griffinvale for however many centuries (the game only gives information for about 250 years' worth and King Edwin predates that by quite a bit).
Here is the Royal Lineage puzzle in the game. I estimate it goes back about 200-250 years, with the earliest monarch there being a woman. I decided to give her the name of Gabriella, and she is at least the granddaughter, if not more generations, removed from King Edwin.
This is an AU version of Britain, and the game devs decided to give us Shakespeare 500 years early. So if they can do that, I can make up a whole new set of names for an entirely fictitious royal family and aristocrats in a fictitious period of British history.
I wonder if it might be short for "Agricola".I hadn't noticed that were a name called 'Cola' on there, no. I mainly linked the page to show you a list of names for inspiration purposes and provide examples of Anglo-Saxon name-stems.
Broken_Erika
Play with me.
That was the name of one of the Civ2 Scenario League members, haven't heard from Agricola for a long time.
That was the name of one of the Civ2 Scenario League members, haven't heard from Agricola for a long time.
Sorry, that must have been so long ago that I don't actually recall if I ever interacted with him.
Of course I'm referring to Suetonius' father-in-law, who was stationed in Britain for awhile.
EgonSpengler
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So the other day my commute to work was interrupted by a temporary shutdown of the subway line I use. It was a [stink]show. First, there is simply no way the transit authority can run enough buses to transport the number of people who use the subway at rush hour. They would need 6-8 buses running the route every 10 minutes, and unlike the trains, they'd have to be doing it on a winding route, through city traffic. But it was even worse than that. I saw a guy walking with a cane almost die because he tried to cross in front of a bus that had people standing in the door beside the driver, such that the driver couldn't see out the righthand side of the bus. And there were no police there directing traffic. Pedestrians waiting on the opposite side of the street walked out in front of the bus yelling to alert the driver that there was a person in his blind spot.
It turns out the fustercluck was even worse than I knew.
I learned later that day that the problem had been caused by a track fire. But just a few minutes ago, from a radio program I'm listening to, I learned that the standpipe inside the subway station was nonfunctional and the fire department actually formed a 'bucket brigade' to get water on the fire. And where did that water come from? The sink inside a janitor's closet? If just one standpipe failed, there wasn't another one within the distance that the fire department's hoses can reach? Kind of suggests that all of the station's standpipes were dry.
Now they're talking about how a crucial intersection of subway lines was abruptly closed on the weekend. This is while travelers trying to reach the airport are specifically being told to use the subway because the vehicle tunnel that gets you to the airport is closed for critical repairs.
What the actual f...
It turns out the fustercluck was even worse than I knew.
I learned later that day that the problem had been caused by a track fire. But just a few minutes ago, from a radio program I'm listening to, I learned that the standpipe inside the subway station was nonfunctional and the fire department actually formed a 'bucket brigade' to get water on the fire. And where did that water come from? The sink inside a janitor's closet? If just one standpipe failed, there wasn't another one within the distance that the fire department's hoses can reach? Kind of suggests that all of the station's standpipes were dry.
Now they're talking about how a crucial intersection of subway lines was abruptly closed on the weekend. This is while travelers trying to reach the airport are specifically being told to use the subway because the vehicle tunnel that gets you to the airport is closed for critical repairs.
What the actual f...
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