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I'm very normal about Luigi and weak for Wing AUs

@mercelot / mercelot.tumblr.com

Chrome fae/faer they/them autistic Loves to write
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surlifen

NO ONE knows how to use thou/thee/thy/thine and i need to see that change if ur going to keep making “talking like a medieval peasant” jokes. /lh

They play the same roles as I/me/my/mine. In modern english, we use “you” for both the subject and the direct object/object of preposition/etc, so it’s difficult to compare “thou” to “you”.

So the trick is this: if you are trying to turn something Olde, first turn every “you” into first-person and then replace it like so:

“I” →  “thou”

“Me” →  “thee”

“My” →  “thy”

“Mine” →  “thine”

Let’s suppose we had the sentences “You have a cow. He gave it to you. It is your cow. The cow is yours”.

We could first imagine it in the first person-

I have a cow. He gave it to me. It is my cow. The cow is mine”.

And then replace it-

Thou hast a cow. He gave it to thee. It is thy cow. The cow is thine.”

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some-stars

This is perfect and the only thing missing is that when “thy” comes before a vowel it’s replaced by “thine”, i.e. “thy nose” but “thine eyes.” English used to do this with my and mine too (and still does with a and an).

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fremedon

The second person singular verb ending is -(e)st. In the present tense, it works more or less like the third person singular ending, -s: 

  • I sleep in the attic. Thou sleepest in the attic. He sleeps in the attic.
  • I love pickles. Thou lovest pickles. He loves pickles.
  • I go to school. Thou goest to school. He goes to school.

The -(e)st ending is only added to one word in a compound verb. This is where a lot of people make mistakes:

  • I will believe it when I see it. Thou wilt believe it when thou seest it. He will believe it when he sees it.

NOT

  • *thou willst believest it! NOPE! This is wrong

If you’re not sure, try saying it in the third person and replacing the -(e)st with -s:

  • *He will believes it when he sees it. ALSO NOPE! 

In general, if there’s one auxiliary, it takes the -(e)st ending) and the main verb does not. If there are multiple auxiliaries, only one of them takes -(e)st:

  • I could eat a horse. Thou couldst eat a horse. He could eat a horse.
  • I should go. Thou shouldst go. He should go.
  • I would have gone. Thou wouldst have gone. He wouldst have gone. 

You can reduce the full -est ending to -st in poetry, if you need to drop a syllable:

  • thou sleepst, thou lov'st.

In some common words–mostly auxiliary verbs, or what you might have learned as “helping verbs”–the ending is always reduced:

  • I can swim. Thou canst swim. He can swim.

Sometimes this reduction takes the last consonant of the stem with it:

  • I have a cow. Thou hast a cow. He has a cow. 

Or reduces the -st down to -t:

  • I must believe her. Thou must believe her. He must believe her.
  • I shall not kill. Thou shalt not kill. He shall not kill.

However! UNLIKE the third-person singular -s, the second person -(e)st is ALSO added to PAST TENSE words, either to the past stem in strong (irregular) verbs or AFTER THE -ed in weak (regular) verbs: 

  • I gave her the horse. Thou gavest her the horse. He gave her the horse.
  • I made a pie. Thou mad’st a pie. He made a pie.
  • I wanted to go. Thou wantedst to go. He wanted to go.

This is different from the third person!

  • *He gaves her the horse. He mades a pie. He wanteds to go. SO MUCH NOPE!

It’s not wrong to add -(e)st to a long Latinate verb in the past tense, but it’s unusual; it’s much more common to use a helping verb instead:

  • I delivered the letter. (Great!)
  • Thou deliveredst the letter. (Not wrong, but weird)
  • He delivered the letter. (Great!)
  • I did deliver the letter. (Normal if emphatic, or an answer to a question; otherwise, a little weird.)
  • Thou didst deliver the letter. (Great!) 

And a couple last things:

1.) Third-person -(e)th is mostly equivalent to and interchangeable with third-person -s:

  • I have a cow. Thou hast a cow. He hath a cow.
  • I love her. Thou lovest her. He loveth her.
  • I do not understand. Thou dost not understand. He doth not understand.

HOWEVER! Third-person -(e)th, unlike -s but like -(e)st, can, sometimes, go on STRONG past-tense verbs:

  • I gave her the cow. Thou gavest her the cow. He gaveth her the cow.

This never happens with weak verbs:

  • *He lovedeth her. NOPE NOPE NOPE!

And even with strong verbs, from Early Modern (e.g., Shakespearean) English onward, it’s quite rare. But you will see it from time to time.

2.) In contemporary Modern English, we invert the order of subjects and auxiliary verbs in questions:

  • Will I die? I will die. 
  • Has she eaten? She has eaten.

If there’s no auxiliary, we add one–do–and invert that:

  • Do you hear the people sing? You (do) hear the people sing.

In Early Modern English, this process was optional, and mostly used for emphasis; all verbs could be and were moved to the front of the sentence in questions:

  • Hear ye the people sing? (Or singen, if we’re early enough to still be inflecting infinitives.)

Do-support was also optional for negatives:

  • I don’t like him. I like him not.
  • Thou dost not care. Thou carest not.
  • She does not love thee. She loves thee not.

3.) Imperative verbs never take endings:

  • Hear ye, hear ye!
  • Go thou and do likewise!
  • Give me thy hand. Take thou this sword. 

4.) Singular ‘you’–that is, calling a singular person by a plural pronoun–arose as a politeness marker; and ‘thou’ fell out of use because it eventually came to be seen as impolite in almost all contexts. In general, once singular ‘you’ comes into use, it is used for addressing

  • people of higher social status than the speaker
  • or of equivalent status, if both speakers are high-status
  • strangers
  • anyone the speaker wants to flatter

‘Thou’ is used for

  • people of lower social status than the speaker
  • family and intimate friends
  • children
  • anyone the speaker wants to insult

It is safer to ‘you’ someone who doesn’t necessarily warrant ‘you’ than to ‘thou’ someone who does.

5.) And finally, that ‘ye’? That’s the nominative form of you–the one that’s equivalent to ‘I’ or ‘we.’ 

  • I  → thou → he/she/it  → we → ye → they
  • Me → thee → him/her/it → us → you → them
  • My → thy → his/her/its → our → your → their
  • Mine → thine → his/hers/its → ours → yours → theirs

Any time you’re using ‘thou’ for the singular, the second person plural– ‘y’all’– declines like this:

  • ye:  Ye are all a bunch of weirdos.
  • you: And I love you very much.
  • your: This has been your grammar lesson.
  • yours: This grammar lesson is yours. 
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bibibuck

people telling you they reread your fic is the biggest compliment you could ever receive. there are thousands of stories out there begging to be found, to be explored, but your story meant so much to someone that they came back to it eagerly, they went over every word again. to love is to return and loving a fic is rereading it. thank you to all readers and rereaders <3333

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herssian

2009 deviantArt artists telling you to fill an entire layer with neon green and place it behind your lineart to check if there's any unwanted stray lines or unfilled pixels were the elderly sages at the end of the spirit path atop a secluded mountaintop you reached just as the sun was setting

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reblogged

we’re not supposed to know what this many people think. legit we're not supposed to be seeing so many thoughts and opinions - i don't think we're wired for it

like in the space of two decades - ppl went from only knowing the ppl in their neighborhood to incessantly scrolling through the thoughts of thousands of other folks all day every day. the amount of bad advice/info goes up proportionally. even the term "influencer" being a thing is weird in itself. non-stop psyops. i think that's partially why tumblr feels "ok" it's not as populated as everywhere else

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reblogged

I can’t state enough how beneficial it was to work at the sex shop as my first retail job. We were encouraged to practice shutting down inappropriate behavior and it became a well practiced skill set. I had a flat stare, icy tones of disapproval, and a demeanor of untouchable scorn to back it all up. I could get the most hardened of perverts to back off or leave in a matter of sentences if they harassed staff or other customers.

When I moved on to selling mattresses I came prepared to handle pretty much any situation with the unruffled calm of someone who has asked Santa to stop touching himself and leave. To my vast surprise it was a skill I needed on the regular at the mattress store. For whatever reason men thought it was the height of entertainment to sexually harass me because I was young and cheerful.

They would always quickly learn they’d picked the wrong target.

One day a man strolled in, sizing me up as he came. He saw a young, tiny, afab person alone in the store and came to a stop way too close. He used his height to leer down at me and said, “I’m looking for a new headboard. Which ones are the best for sex?”

It was so stupid. He looked down at me with half lidded eyes and the grin of a man who owns an unmarked white van. He probably expected me to laugh uncomfortably or act flustered. He wanted to feel tall and powerful or maybe even sexy.

He was not expecting what he got. My face stretched into what could technically be described as a smile but was more accurately a threat display. The temperature in the room plummeted as I dropped all warmth in my demeanor. He took a half step back, suddenly aware that he was alone in a room with me.

“Well, sir, that depends on what kind of sex you’re having. If you are looking for a headboard that is grippeable, I suggest this model. The metal is rounded and wouldn’t hurt a hand gripping it tightly. However if you want something that you can secure with restraints, I recommend this wooden one as the slats are wide and quite sturdy.”

He looked liked I’d hit him over the head with a board and stared down at me blankly, taken aback by the authoritative way that I discussed the merits of his lackluster sex life. I met his eyes, a veiled threat in mine, and said, “Which one will you be purchasing?”

He tucked his tail between his legs and bought the metal one. I pulled up a thin layer of friendliness as I rang him up but he had the chastened air of a man who just ran straight into an iron pole.

Another time a man crawled up onto a tempurpedic and thrusted into an invisible partner. He gave a cocky look over his shoulder, sure that he was going to discomfit me as he asked, “How are these babies for fucking?”

I gave him a deadpan look and and said, “That depends on if you’re someone who has to rely on the bounce of springs for your thrusts. Memory foam beds are nicer on knees and joints for positions like doggy style but they absorb a lot of kinetic energy.”

He visibly deflated and got down off the bed with a vaguely ashamed air.

He bought a spring mattress.

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gpedia
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arctic-hands

[Image Description: the Shrek dental meme, showing Shrek the giant green ogre, speaking to Donkey the talking Donkey, and with the anthropomorphic Puss in Boots on his shoulder. In the original, Shrek is saying to Donkey in mock-dismay, "They don't even have dental." Here it's been replaced by "He bought the spring mattress." End I.D]

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luulapants

In 4th grade, my bff was in a death feud over chess with a boy in our class but instead of competing like normal people they decided that the best way to determine who was chess master was for each of them to select one of the two biggest idiots in class and teach them to play chess, My Fair Lady style, and see whose idiot won. We are just now, 22 years later, grappling with the moral implications of this exercise.

the spectrum of political literacy on tumblr

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reblogged

hi I'm from your pseudo-medieval fantasy city. yeah. you forgot to put farms around us. we have very impressive walls and stuff but everyone here is starving. the hero showed up here as part of his quest and we killed and ate him

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lilaccccc

yeah umm actually everyone kinda lives, inside.. the walls yeah. no yeah theres not any surrounding farming communities or villages to levy taxes from so we're pretty much just in a stone pit all together. Theres a massive stone castle tho! where did the infrastructure for the stone quarring come from? I dont know... Evil wizard maybe?

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elbiotipo

If you actually want to know how medieval (and overall pre-industrial) cities interacted with its rural enviroment, check out these articles:

Long story short, cities weren't islands in the middle of nowhere. If you're a generic fantasy character approaching a city, you wouldn't find a lonely Shining City Upon A Hill (hmm, interesting imagery there, wonder what it means...), but actually a highly populated area of farms, orchards and all that feeds and maintains a city.

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skull-bearer
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natalieleif

Seeing a steady rise of people using the library as we carry through summer break, so here's a quick thread from a staff member on little things you can do (for free!) to make life easier on staff. Let's go!

  1. If you want to put a book back, DON'T put it back on the shelf! Put it on the return cart or bin, or give it to a staff member. Not only does this make it MUCH easier to catch misfiles and gather abandoned books in one trip, our budget is literally based on returns. Putting it on a cart gives us more money!
  2. (To expand on the above: not only do we get paid more based on more returns, our book-buying budget for next year is based on what titles seem popular. Even if you don't check out a stack of books, putting it on the cart lets us know there's an interest so we can order more in that genre and support that author.)
  3. Conversely, if you see a cart already full of books being pushed around by staff, PLEASE don't yank books off it or loiter around it. Carts are unwieldy and returns can build up quick, so let a shelver have space to move around and do their job.
  4. (Again expanding on the above, especially please don't yank books off a staff person's cart if you see them pulling books off the shelf instead of putting them back. Books are pulled for a reason--hold requests for another patron, damaged, need to be relabeled, etc--so taking one can really throw off our list.)
  5. If you rent a DVD and notice it's scratched or doesn't play, please tell us! We don't have the time or resources to watch every returned DVD, so we rely on patron feedback. Even a note tucked inside the case helps it get flagged for damage inspection when we're processing returns.
  6. Pay attention to news related to your local branch! The VAST majority of book-banning demands we get are bulk lists from only one or two people--which means contesting them (or requesting a challenged book) also only takes one person.
  7. Remind your friends that most libraries don't do late fees anymore! We want to be a safe haven for low income and disabled/nd people, so don't let being late or disorganized or poor or anything else discourage you. Bring your books back whenever you can, or just mention to a librarian if you lose it, and you're always welcome to come back.
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