The Falcon's Pen is Sharp And Quick

This is Innocuous by flamethrower and it is a canon-compliant, post-s1 Good Omens fic from 2019. Without getting too spoilery, Heaven and Hell are getting up to mischief again and our favorite pair are not nearly as at-liberty as they think. They have to think their way out of a trap that they don't even realize at first that they're in.

Alright, for cover materials we have lineco tan book cloth on the spine, textured turquoise cardstock for the base, chiyogami with a floral mosaic pattern for the ornamental parts, and gold foil HTV for the title. I included two photos to show off how shiny it is. The chiyogami is actually a couple of scraps from way back when I bound The Rose and the Serpent back in 2024. I used it for the endpapers in that one and this is nearly every bit of what was left. There's more on the back, so have a look under the cut!

wait. cancel post. gung-ho cannot be English. where did that phrase come from? China?

ok, yes. gōnghé, which is…an abbreviation for “industrial cooperative”? Like it was just a term for a worker-run organization? A specific U.S. marine stationed in China interpreted it as a motivational slogan about teamwork, and as a commander he got his whole battalion using it, and other U.S. marines found those guys so exhausting that it migrated into English slang with the meaning “overly enthusiastic”.

The way I explain it to my patients is that our neurons don’t regenerate. They make connections with each other and that’s it. If you don’t use your brain, they make fewer connections and, if one of them dies, you’re gonna miss it, because that was the only one that knew how to do X. Now, if each one of them has many, many connections, you won’t notice the difference when one of them dies. The others pick up the slack.

As of 2024, 45% of dementia risk factors are modifiable. Relevant to this conversation, 5% for less education and 5% for social isolation.

We absolutely are going to see the reflection of this, but it’s gonna take decades and it’ll be too late. So, for the love of your brain, pretend that it’s a muscle and make it work. People complain about “when am I ever gonna use this maths formula in my life?” You’re not. You’re teaching your brain to think logically. Those sinapses will be there for when you need to figure out your week’s schedule. English classes taught me how to interpret data and how to convey it in this text so it’s clear and you understand what I’m saying, not because I needed to justify why the curtain is blue.

Make your brain know how to do different things. Logic games, puzzles, taking care of a garden even if small, planning a church’s event or birthday, learn a new instrument, learn a few words in another language, look at a calendar every day, do some manual labor if possible. Do not, I repeat, do not let your brain get rid of sinapses by letting AI do everything. Your brain uses 20% of your body’s energy — do you really think it’s going to maintain connexions that aren’t in use?

Most cases of Alzheimer’s are sporadic, meaning no family history. Family history of a first-degree relative with Alzheimer’s starting before they were 80yo increases your risk in 2-3x on average.

What a great 1890 Queen Anne Victorian, for the price, in Little Falls, NY. 6bds, 3ba, 5,318sqft, Reduced $11k to $399k.

Okay, so when we talk about the meaning of words, we are talking about denotation, the dictionary definition of the word, and connotation, the context in which native speakers associate with the word. Connotation is why just looking up synonyms of words doesn't always work.

When teaching this to ESL learners, my favorite example is the word "accumulate." Accumulate means to gather or collect in the dictionary definition of the words. The error in the example is for someone to say "I accumulate things" instead of "I collect things." This sounds wrong, because despite the denotation of the word, the most common connotation of accumulate is that a process done over time and without intent. Water accumulates. Dust accumulates. Money accumulates. But a person cannot say they accumulate things, because that is not a natural usage of the word.

However! As a writer who likes to learn new words, you can now use this knowledge to your advantage. Consider the following sentences:

Bob collected unread books until they piled high around his bed.

Versus

Books accumulated around Bob's bed, turning it into a fortress of unread words.

"The 'God Made Trans People' billboard is stupid! God didn't make me! I'm an atheist!" Okay. The billboard sits along a major highway in Kansas. We can deduce that the target audience is not you—it's the centrist evangelical Christians driving along that road who could probably be persuaded to become allies as long as we choose our words carefully and don't make them feel attacked for not already knowing everything about trans rights issues. Another one I see a lot is, "We shouldn't be talking about how right-wing legislation catches [privileged in-group] in the crossfire when [marginalized out-group] suffers far more!" I know. I agree with you. Which is why you and I are not the intended audience of this argument!

The entire point of rhetoric is to win over someone who doesn't already fully agree with you. In this case, let's say that someone is Jennifer, the moderate center-right mom in your neighborhood who doesn't really know or care about transgender issues but would be absolutely horrified by the idea of her teenage daughter having to submit to an invasive inspection of her body just to be allowed to play soccer. Tell her, "Banning trans students from sports will inevitably subject all student athletes to invasive gender-policing," or "Legal restrictions on gender-affirming care will make it harder for you to access the hormone replacement therapy you take to treat menopause symptoms," and she is more likely to question her existing beliefs and listen to the rest of what you have to say than if you lead with leftist talking points that she already has a calcified opinion about or which she thinks do not personally affect her.

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