#trulycertain

"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

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.)

@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.)

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

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?

JC is just baby cyberpunk Blade