Ellie kept her head straight, trying desperately not to look back at Tess’s lovely new form. She would be lying if she said this wasn’t a situation she had often fantasized about; somehow, Thomas would get transformed into a girl, and would have to go on the run to avoid intensive government probing. As a matter of course, Ellie would flee with the newly transformed Thomas, and the two would, over time, grow closer and closer together until at last they would break their unspoken agreement and become lovers.
That was scenario A, anyway. The content and how fantastical each scenario was did vary, but they always contained the part about growing closer and becoming lovers. And…here she was, in the middle of one. And, to make things crazier, Tess had turned out so much better than she ever had even in Ellie’s most wild fantasies.
Then, her train of thought ground to a halt as she realized something. There was the potential that, if Tess absorbed the core of an animal-like monster, she could get the ears and tails of that animal. Right, that would be priority number one on her little list of “things to get Tess to do”. Scenario D might not be a pipe dream after all. Well, all her scenarios had been pipe dreams until this morning, but that one had been a bit more distant than the others.
She spent the rest of their walk practically salivating over the possibilities. She would have to play it cool, though; she was still in the closet, and now probably wasn’t the best time to come out. So, she was hoping that the theoretical awkwardness of being around a newly transformed person would cover for her strange behavior.
Her musings were cut short as her grandpa ushered them into a small room. Inside were The Rumors and, surprisingly, Ess. Gramps shut the door behind them, locking it and muttering a spell.
“I have already received your permission, but let me ask again,” He said, “do all of you, save Ellie and Tess, consent to this Fatebinder’s Oath?”
There was a chorus of assent, so Gramps nodded at Tess. “Go stand over near them. Ess will need you there for the ceremony.”
The Rumors were giving Tess some curious looks, but she walked up to in front of them anyway. Once she had, Ess stepped forward, and began to speak in a slow, careful voice, an almost palpable tension filling the air.
“Ker, Jin, and Alice, I ask you in the name of the God of Fate if you will swear to tell no one about Tess’s special capabilities or this Oath until the day she dies or releases you from the Oath.”
“By the God of Fate, we swear it.” They intoned.
Ess reached out, grabbing Tess’s hand in one of hers, and reached out her other towards The Rumors, who each grabbed part of it. “Then, as witness, I declare the Oath made, binding yourselves and myself to secrecy.” She dropped the hands and then yawned hugely, breaking any atmosphere that she had going on. “I’m going to go nap.” She said, “Oaths always take it out of me. Fill me in on the details later, guildmaster.”
“Of course,” Gramps replied, “thank you very much.”
Ess exited the room with another yawn, leaving everyone else just sort of…standing there.
But, not for long. Once the door had been shut, Alice began to speak. “Right,” she said flatly, “I think it’s time you explain yourself. I take my eyes off of you for two hours and suddenly you’ve got yourself turned into…this, and we have to swear a Fatebinder’s Oath, of all things. Spill it.”
Tess looked to Gramps, who shook his head. “I think it’s best you explain it. It’s your status, after all.”
“Um…ok.” Tess replied nervously. “So, after Ker had me go back home, I went to Gramps’ office so I could…go home. And Gramps was grilling me about why I was so discouraged, and so I told him about the Skills I got, and then he had me go beat the dungeon’s Challenge and try the Rewards Crystal and–”
Alice raised a hand. “Hold up there.” She said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Why would the guildmaster have you even attempt that? Everyone knows it’s the most worthless one of the lot so the danger isn’t even remotely worth it.”
Tess tapped the tips of her pointer fingers together nervously. “Uh, well, I might have been holding back on some of my capabilities. I was supposed to keep quiet but now that you’ve sworn the Oath I’ve been told it’s OK so…”
She took a deep breath. “The Goddess of Fortune has been keeping an eye on me and Ellie because of how closely tied we were to the situation with Mael, and then when I got the worst growths possible and Ellie got the best, she took pity on me and gave me her strongest blessing.”
Ker raised an eyebrow. “And, what does it do?”
“Well, if you, uh, look at my sheet, you’ll notice that my Luck is 0 and has 0 in all its growths. She said that’s because the blessing bypasses my Luck stat entirely and just gives me the best result in any situation it would be used.”
“What?!” Alice yelled, suddenly angry. “You have that, and you wanted to quit?! Do you have any idea how amazing that is!?”
Jin placed a hand on her shoulder. “Alice, calm down. It’s a natural reaction to the day he had.” He turned back to Tess, then continued. “Uh, come to think of it, he or she?”
“She is fine, I guess,” Tess said sulkily, “I apparently don’t much care, though I’m willing to bet it’s the transformation’s fault for that. And if you didn’t catch it before, everyone’s calling me Tess now, so you might as well do that too.”
Jin nodded. “Right, well, Luck is a vitally important stat for freelancers. It controls how often your effects go off, how often you get hit with things, certain Skills require it to work, and it even affects how much experience you get and how often monsters drop things. It’s not flashy, but it’s effective. Ask Alice, she’s got low Luck, so she knows better than most how important it is.”
“Oh yeah!” Alice said, “how many cores did you leave on the ground back there?! Surely you got more than the rest of us.”
“Um…Every monster dropped a core. So, if I didn’t say anything then it was just left on the ground.”
Alice started to go over that in her head. “You killed probably 100 slimes, that many cores would add up to…”
“No,” Tess said in a small voice, “every slime. Including the ones you guys killed.”
Alice stopped, staring Tess dead in the eyes. “You…that’s hundreds of cores you just left there!” She sputtered, “You probably could have made a few gold from that!”
“Actually, that’s something I should talk about,” Gramps interrupted, “Tess, I’m going to have to ask that you don’t sell all the cores you get, at least not to other guild branches; there’s a real risk of crashing the market. It probably won’t be an issue with smaller cores like regular slime’s cores, but for things like Bertha’s core it’ll become a problem fast. If you’re around, come to me and I’ll buy them from you in bulk, and we can have the guild hold onto them in case of emergency. If you need cash fast and aren’t here, go ahead and sell a couple to other branches, but be careful about it. The same goes for other drops.”
“Yeah, I can do that,” Tess replied, “that’s a good point.”
“We’re getting off-track,” Ker said, “and while this is obviously an important secret to keep, I don’t think the guildmaster had us swear an Oath just for that. You were talking about the Challenge, right? Please continue.”
“Oh, um, right,” Tess said, “so, I got a resistance Skill for all the elements the slimes in that Challenge use, and Gramps tested it, as long as there’s a possibility for me to resist a negative status effect, I will, so it was perfectly safe for me to try.”
Alice groaned. “That’s not fair. You don’t even know how good you have it.”
“Just ignore her,” Jin instructed.
“R-right. Um, I used the Rewards Crystal, and it gave me this Class called Monster Breeder, which did…this,” Tess gestured at her body. “And gave me four Skills.”
An expression of understanding flashed across Jin’s face. “Let me guess, one of them’s Phantasmal?”
Tess shrunk back into her oversized shirt. “Um…they kind of…all are.”
There was a long pause as The Rumors processed this, which was then broken by uproarious laughter from Ker. “I think that this counts as ‘some crazy Skill or something’,” he said, walking over and clapping Tess on the back. “That blessing alone probably would have let you get by in some higher-level dungeons, but four Phantasmal Skills on top of it? You’ll be totally capable of making your way to the very top, stats or no. Let’s hear about them, shall we?”
As Tess explained, Ellie got to thinking. Apparently, the Goddess of Fortune had been keeping an eye on them, and she was at least somewhat involved with Tess’s change, so…was it possible that the Goddess of Fortune knew about Ellie’s sapphic scenarios and had tweaked things? It wasn’t…right?
Ellie jumped as a screen popped up in front of her, unbidden.
;) |
Ellie made a mental note to convert to whatever religion followed the Goddess of Fortune later. Well, provided Fortune really was trying to be a wingwoman and not just messing with her and Tess.
Further rumination was cut off as Tess finished her explanation, and Alice once again burst into speech. “You’re not quitting,” she said defiantly, “that’s the most stupid set of Skills I’ve ever heard of. Yeah, your stats are hot garbage, but who even cares at this point?! Like…it doesn’t even matter! You could literally just buy your way to power, and you have the best money-making potential of anyone.”
“Don’t do that, though,” Jin warned, “I feel it would be more advantageous for you to slowly acclimate to the Skills you receive instead of just getting a bunch right off the bat and not knowing how to use them.”
“I won’t.” Tess replied. “I really don’t want to have to absorb many cores.”
“And why not?!” Alice protested. “There’s like…zero downsides!”
Tess blushed, squirming in place. “Um…ejecting cores is…” She motioned to her privates. “Not exactly pleasant.”
Alice rolled her eyes. “Just suck it up. You’re going to be doing something like that once a month anyway, so hurry up and get used to it.”
“Alice,” Ker said disapprovingly, “I seem to recall you complaining about that very topic not two weeks ago. And, unlike you, she hasn’t had a lifetime to grow used to it.”
“But, just listen to her!” Alice replied. “She’s practically being fed with a silver spoon and she’s still down in the dumps!”
“That’s enough, Alice.” Ker said firmly, “she doesn’t have the experience to know just how nice what she has is. Furthermore, her body’s been changed around a bunch; it’s a totally reasonable response.”
“She knew what she was getting into when she picked the Class!” Alice argued. “It’s–”
“Both of you, stop,” Jin said, “argue if you want, but do it later, when we’re not in front of who you’re arguing about.”
For her part, Tess was seemingly trying to vanish into the shirt without actually physically putting all of herself inside of it. She could probably do that, too, if she huddled up inside and stretched out the fabric.
Gramps walked over and placed a comforting hand on Tess’s shoulder. “Tensions are running high.” He said, “so, let’s all take a break and we’ll talk about this when next we meet. You three can figure out the best way to go about things, I’ll handle making sure Tess gets adjusted. Sound good?”
“Yes, Guildmaster,” Jin replied, “that’s an excellent idea. You lot, we’ve got work to do, let’s go.”
And with that, Jin walked out of the room, followed closely by Alice. Ker waited for a bit, though, giving Tess another clap on the back. “Don’t let Alice get to you,” he said. “She’s just upset because she sees a lot of potential in you and doesn’t want it wasted. Take care, alright?” And then he too left, leaving Ellie and Tess alone with Gramps.
“Let’s get you home, shall we?” Gramps said cheerily, “it’s getting late and you have school in the morning.”
“I…don’t exist on Mael, Gramps,” Tess said shyly, “I don’t think I can go to school.”
“Nonsense!” He replied. “I was expecting to have to pull a lot more strings to get you to be able to be out and about, so my people are almost finished. All you’ll need is a uniform, and until we can get one that fits better you can borrow one of Ellie’s.”
Ellie chose to let the clear display of political power slide; she had more important things on her mind.
Namely, the fact that Tess would be wearing a skirt the next day. One of her skirts. Not that the male uniform on a woman didn’t have its own charms, but a skirt was a whole different animal.
Another thought hit Ellie. “Um, Grandpa, now that you mention it, Tess is going to need underwear.”
He titled his head. “Can’t she just borrow yours?”
“I doubt it. Panties, maybe, but the bra? It’s hard to tell in the baggy clothes, but I’m pretty sure she’s, um, quite a bit bigger than me. She’s going to be really uncomfortable without one and having one that’s way too small would probably be even worse.”
Tess hung her head. “Can’t I just wear my old uniform for a bit? I can think up an excuse.”
Ellie shook her head vehemently. “No can do,” She said, “one, your old stuff will be way too big for you, two, you’re a girl now, and you’ll get a lot of weird looks. It’ll attract too much attention.”
“So? Gramps said he has people working on the memories. It shouldn’t be a big deal.”
“Ellie’s right,” Gramps said, “the memory alteration isn’t perfect, people will be able to start noticing something’s wrong if something too incongruous happens. Where would you have gotten a male uniform from? There’s no reason for one to be lying around the house.”
“And that still doesn’t solve your little underwear crisis,” Ellie said, “even if you could wear your old stuff, you’d be going braless and, trust me, you do not want that.”
“It’s settled, then,” Gramps said, “I’ll show you two to a nice clothing shop close to here and we can get Tess some underwear and regular clothes, then we’ll go home.”
“Can I just…stay here while you do that?” Tess asked hopefully, “I’m not exactly fully dressed at the moment.”
“We’ll need to take your measurements,” Ellie said, “we can go grab your pants and put some pins in them for the walk over, but you have to go.”
Tess sighed. “Fine, whatever.”
A short pitstop and quick pants modification later, the group set out and had another short walk down to the clothes shop.
“Hey, Grandpa,” Ellie asked, “why’s everything so close to the guild? It feels like we’ve barely had to do any walking.”
“It’s a matter of convenience,” He replied, shrugging, “we built it close to the dungeon, and then people naturally built facilities freelancers would want close to the guild. It’s just economics.”
They walked a bit past the dungeon, and Gramps pulled them into a store. “Hey, Rachel, got some customers for you!” He yelled.
“Coming!” Someone, presumably Rachel, replied, “give me a minute!”
While she was waiting, Ellie took the opportunity to look around the shop. There were a lot of clothes in all sorts of different styles hanging around on mannequins, handmade if Ellie was any judge.
Suddenly, there was a myriad of clacking sounds, and an arachne emerged from the back of the shop, walking up behind the counter. Were you to ignore the arachnid lower body, she would be the perfect picture of a saleswoman; she had a bright friendly smile, was sharply dressed, and kept her black hair tied neatly up. Not that Ellie minded the spider body; she rather liked the exoticness of it.
The other strange thing about her was the glasses she had. The woman had a set of human eyes as well as three sets of spider eyes set around them. The glasses had been modified to cover all those eyes, almost reminding Ellie of the tools that optometrists would use to test eyesight.
“Mr. Los, it’s been a while!” She said warmly, “What can I do for you?”
“Well, Rachel, I recently introduced my grandkids to the freelancer lifestyle, and, well…” He pulled Tess out from her hiding spot behind him, placing her squarely in Rachel’s view.
Rachel’s gaze flicked from Gramps, to Ellie, and then to Tess. “Transformee?” She asked.
“Transformee.” Gramps confirmed. “This is Tess, she used to be Thomas. Her wardrobe is kind of unusable right now, so I was hoping you could help with that.”
Rachel nodded sagely, scuttling out from behind the counter and putting a gentle hand on Tess’s arm and another behind her back. “That’s rough, dear. Come with me, you’ll feel better once you’re in clothes that actually fit.”
Without waiting for a response, she led a protesting Tess off to the backroom.
“Just a bra and panties for now!” Gramps called out, “Save her measurements, I’ll order a bunch more clothes later, but we need to leave here having covered her up!”
“Will…she be OK?” Ellie asked.
“It’ll be fine, Rachel’s a sweetheart.” He responded, “best seamstress in town too, if you ask me. Even uses her own silk for a lot of what she does. It costs an arm and a leg, but it’s worth it.”
“Why a seamstress, though? Wouldn’t it be better to get something more mass-produced, at least for today?”
“There aren’t many mass-produced clothes sold in the Outlands. Too many people of too many different races congregate here, so mass-produced clothes wouldn’t fit enough people to really be worth the effort when they could be sold places where the demographic is more certain. That’s not to say there aren’t any mass-produced clothes, just that they’re expensive and it can take a while to find what you’re looking for. It’d probably be faster than going to a tailor, sure, but Rachel works incredibly fast, so just the underwear will only be a few minutes, and if we’re getting clothes, we might as well get good ones.”
They waited for about 10 minutes before Rachel led a very red Tess back into the front. “All done!” She said happily, “we’ll call that one gold even!”
Without even batting an eye, Gramps dropped a platinum on the counter. “We’ll call this advanced payment for the order I’m making. I’ll send over the exact list in an hour or two, but she needs a whole new wardrobe, so it’ll be a big one. I’ll pick up the change when I pick up the order, alright?”
“Can do, Mr. Los.” Rachel replied, saluting and pocketing the platinum, “best of luck, little lady!”
As they left the store, Tess spoke. “Um, Gramps, is it…OK to spend that much on me so suddenly? You said that a platinum was ten thousand dollars, so that seems like overkill.”
Gramps shrugged. “Honestly, it’s not a big deal. I didn’t get to be in charge of the guild off of administrative talent alone, I was the leader of a rank ten party back in the day. I made a killing then, and managing the guild pays well too, so I’m one of the richest people in the Outlands. Rachel is one of the best in the business, her prices reflect that, and I’m planning on ordering around ten sets of clothes, so dealing in platinum is to be expected. Honestly, though, I’m only expecting to spend about forty gold, which really isn’t that bad.”
He gave Tess a smirk. “Trust me, give it a year or two and you two will be totally capable of making that much in a day, at least in raw materials. Besides, most of the clothes I bought for you when you were growing up have been from Rachel anyway, so it’s a little late to start getting cold feet about them.”
Huh. He never had told them where he got the clothes he gave them, and they had always been super nice, so Ellie had just figured they were a perk of whatever top-secret work he did. Her whole life she’d been wearing clothes straight out of a fantasy world and had never known. It really gave her a new respect for her wardrobe.
“Now, let’s go home for real.” Gramps said, “I’m starving!”
Fortune best wingoddess
Thanks for the chapter!
Driders as seamstress is an underused concept and I demand more of them.
Carry on.
If we are demanding underused concepts, i demand more driders in general lol.
;)
Well... HEY! EVERYONE WITH COMPLAINS LIKE "THE s*x CHANGE COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED" AND THE LIKE.... This is all the explanation you need
The Legendary Winky Face ;)
How to get follower. Fortune edition.
This chapter was 500% percent adorable, Ellie is definitly now one of my most favorite characters.
agreed!
There was potential that -> the potential
binding yourself and myself to secrecy. -> should this be "yourselves"? Or is the 'yourself' referencing each party member individually for their own version of the oath binding them?
"She is fine, I guess." Tess said sulkily. -> guess," Tess
should talk about." Gramps interrupted, "Tess -> about," Gramps interrupted. " Tess
"Yeah, I can do that." Tess replied. -> that," Tess
getting off-track." Ker said, "And while -> track," Ker said, "and while
"Oh, um, right." Tess said, "So, I got -> right," Tess said. "So
"Just ignore her." Jin instructed. -> her," Jin
Tess gestured at her body, "And gave me four Skills." -> either ' body." And ' or ' body," and '
clapping Tess on the back, "That -> back."
trying to be a wingman and not -> "wingwoman" , wingman can work I guess, but it seems more fitting to use wingwoman here
quitting." She said defiantly, -> quitting," she said defiantly.
"Don't do that, though." Jin warned, -> though," Jin warned.
"I won't." Tess replied. -> won't," Tess
Alice protested, "There's like -> protested."
Alice replied, "She's practically being -> replied.
Ker said firmly, "She doesn't have the -> firmly.
the Class!" Alice argued, "It's–" -> argued.
stop." Jin said, "Argue if you -> stop," Jin said.
putting all of her inside of it. -> all of herself
"Tensions are running high." He said, "So, let's all -> high," he said.
guildmaster." Jin replied, "That's an -> guidlmaster," Jin replied.
"Don't let Alice get to you." He said, "She's just -> you," he said. "She's
Gramps said cheerily, "It's getting late -> cheerily.
"I…don't exist on Mael, Gramps." Tess said -> Gramps,"
"Nonsense!" He replied, "I was expecting to -> replied.
"No can do." She said, "One -> do," she said.
"Ellie's right." Gramps said, "The memory -> right," Gramps said.
underwear crisis." Ellie said, -> crisis," Ellie said.
"It's settled, then." Gramps said. -> then,"
Tess asked hopefully, "I'm not exactly -> hopefully.
measurements." Ellie said, "We can go grab -> measurements," Ellie said.
Ellie asked, "Why's everything so close to the guild? -> asked.
"It's a matter of convenience." He replied -> convenience," he
got some customers for you!" He yelled. -> he
Someone, presumably Rachel, replied, "Give me a minute!" -> replied.
"Mr. Los, it's been a while!" She said warmly, -> she said warmly.
"Transformee?" She asked. -> she
"Transformee." Gramps confirmed. -> Transformee,"
Gramps called out, "Save her measurements -> out.
Rachel's a sweetheart." He responded, -> sweetheart," he responded.
"All done!" She said happily. -> she
pocketing the platinum, "Best of luck, little lady! -> platinum.
"Now, let's go home for real." Her grandpa said, -> real," her grandpa said.
You seem to have done a fairly consistent job of accidentally switching where the comma and period should go for dialogue and the speaker part of the sentence. Hopefully this spoiler has all of the places where it came up in this chapter
First Graham the Minotaur receptionist and now Rachel the drider seamstress. It's really neat to see what would probably happen in a fantasy world-all sorts of fantastic creatures and beings making a living doing something relatively mundane and no one bats an eye at it. Newcomers might do a double take, but for people who've been around it for a long time it probably wouldn't even register
Goddess was my co-pilot seems to be the theme for the day for Ellie and Tess. It's kind of interesting that Ellie *did* love Tess even as Thomas, but it didn't work out with her orientation being what it is. If this whole thing hadn't happened I wonder if she would have just left things as they were or eventually reached a point of "if it's you it's ok" and found a way to still romantically love Thomas, especially since she's admitted to frequently fantasizing about some way to get together with him in many different types of fantasies and *wanted* them to become lovers. Thinking about it-Ellie was awfully quick to come up with Tess's new name, it makes me wonder if that's something she'd thought about a lot during her fantasies
It's amusing to see Ellie key in so quickly on the potential Tess's eventual shapeshifting will be able to play in their future amorous endeavors. She's certainly not going to be shy about making "requests" for role playing purposes
Fortune certainly makes a heck of a wingwoman, and is still highly entertaining to watch
Given how Tess can use monster abilities and attributes, I wonder if she is able to substitute monster stats for her own. It would certainly go a long way to helping solve her stats problem beyond just having OP abilities. I think that might have been in the skill descriptions, but I'm honestly not sure. There was a *lot* there.
So Fortune is acting as a wingwoman/wing-goddess for Ellie and Tess? It does kind of raise the question of the ethics of effectively forcing someone into a decision that irrevocably changes them so dramatically, even if they do find genuine happiness after it.
Thomas wasn't in a good spot mentally when making that decision and didn't fully comprehend exactly what "permanent physical alterations" could entail, especially since he felt his choices at the time were either accept this class and the changes it would bring to try and have a chance at being able to keep adventuring or go back home to Mael and just stay there so he didn't drag Ellie down with him. It was very clear how depressed and hopeless the entire situation was making him feel. It really calls into question how willing he actually was when making that choice, especially since he immediately wanted to try and get it undone and only gave up on that when finding out how difficult it would be to undo.
Since you're the one writing this and you also share my distaste for tragedy I'm sure it's going to work out fine for Tess and Ellie, but I have seen other stories, and even cases in real life, where someone was pushed/coaxed into making a decision, or someone else made the decision for them, that had a profound impact/change to their physical body and they end up regretting it a lot. Those stories....usually don't end happily. Especially if the person it happened to really didn't want to make the choice, but was forced to by someone else; that leads to a *lot* of resentment. Some of those stories just lead to the person becoming depressed and resigned to their fate after finding out it can't be undone, while others have a worst case scenario and they either attempt or succeed at killing themselves...
Sorry for the late response, I was babysitting for my family and there was some drama where we had to go into the ER because my little brother hit his head (and nowhere else was open), he's fine, they just had to staple it up.
Things have been fixed, thanks! Though, commas are acceptable when splitting up speech as in "lorem ipsum," person said, "dolor sit amet". Periods are acceptable as well, depending on the structure of the sentence, I think? I did some digging online and couldn't find much about periods when splitting speech, and up until something is pointed out to me I tend to follow my gut with what "looks" right, thus the rather consistent wrongness. I've made another pass through the chapter and it should be a lot more cleaned up now.
Ellie did not actually love Tess in that way before. When she said "I feel the same about you", she was lying through her teeth so as to not freak Tess out. Well, I mean, she clearly saw Thomas as someone who would make a good girlfriend if he was a girl, but her feelings are not the same lol.
And, yeah, Ellie totally had Tess's new name planned out.
At the moment she is not even capable of even altering the stats of cores she has absorbed, so she is unable to substitute them for her own or anything. The closest she can get with that is to make a pet out of something with high stats and have that carry her.
Yeah, it really was not a cool move of Fortune to push something like this on someone. She was, however, not doing it just to get the two in a relationship, though that was a factor in things. The full reason has not yet come to light, but rest assured, she will be taken to task for this.
@Fighterman481 no worries, good to hear your little brother is ok.
From what I know of dialogue punctuation commas can be used like that ("words," said speaker," words"), but I don't think it's too common unless the speaker is directly continuing the previous sentence/thought. Maybe something used for emphasis? ("I *said*," he growled and slammed his fist on the table, "to leave me alone!")
Anyways, I don't think it was be structured like ("Oh, hello." He said," how are you?") That would be ("Oh, hello," he said. "How are you?")
I hope Ellie eventually talks it out with Tess and shares what she had previously fantasized about and how often, that's kind of a pretty big thing to deal with and have to sort out. I had thought Ellie liked Thomas, or would have liked Thomas if he was a girl, because of her phrasing of her fantasies always involving them becoming lovers and how it was specifically with Thomas. It seemed like the kind of thing where she would have liked him like that if she swung that way, but she doesn't so she didn't pursue trying to like him like that.
Good. I didn't think the relationship thing was her only motivation for pulling the strings to have things end up this way; it also probably included helping Thomas find a way to overcome his crap growths and be an adventurer still and some other things that haven't been revealed yet that she wants to have done (such as getting an Appointed and having someone she has direct access to moving about in the world to spread her influence) and this way was the best she could think of to get as many birds with one stone as possible. Still, not a cool move, as you said, so hopefully Tess chews her out over it when she finds out. I don't think Tess will have a huge meltdown considering all the positives, but she'll definitely say she would have preferred to make a more informed choice instead of being blindly thrust into it.
If I understand the characters right I think Fortune will apologize for it, but also explain her reasoning and I think that will be part of what helps Tess not go ballistic over it. Like, Fortune is joking about it with Ellie with the winky face, but I think she'll be very sincere and serious when talking to Tess about it. Then maybe go back to making jokes once Tess is able to calm down and move on
@MarkofWisdom Alright I did even more internet searching because I'm not an English major and haven't had to consciously worry about these rules since...I don't even remember lol.
Yeah, the two commas is used specifically when breaking up thoughts. Period at the end of quotations looks to be wrong except when ending a paragraph (I assume for paragraph end? Not quite certain), and I finally found some sources talking about periods.
Yes, "complete sentence," he said. "More dialogue" is the correct way to go about it so long as it's just an interjection to show who's speaking. Apparently, this is not the case when it as an action splitting the text and the preceding sentence complete, and the correct way is "complete sentence." He performs some action. "More dialogue".
Comma and comma is correct when the sentence is interrupted by an action (such as your example earlier with the fist and the table), but period then comma should never be used.
Well, OK, I say that but there are a couple of like...way out there exceptions that are probably wrong anyway and shouldn't come up?
Like, if you structure the sentence like this it might be right but IMO this is a stupid way to do things:
"Paragraph."
He continued, "more dialogue"
In that case I think it looks better to just do:
"Paragraph.
"More dialogue"
So, basically, the answer is yes, you're right*.
*With a couple of weird exceptions because English always has a couple of weird exceptions (Not specifically referring to my stupid example at the end, more so stuff like interrupting with actions)
Yeah I think I definitely misinterpreted what you said and/or phrased things poorly with regards to Ellie, you are correct in that regard. More of a "liked the personality a fair bit just was not at all attracted physically" deal. Of course, I might still be misinterpreting what you said, I'm still not on my A game due to the aforementioned babysitting incident meaning my night's sleep was rather rough lol, just let me know if I'm not at all getting what you're saying.
@Fighterman481 English always has those weird fringe cases that make people just scratch their heads and go "who the heck came up with this?" Grammar was a proper nightmare back in school, even if I was pretty good at it. If I'm uncertain about some kind of grammar thing, I honestly usually just try to reword the sentence/phrase until that grammar thing wouldn't be needed anymore, completely circumventing the problem.
Agreed with the dialogue thing looking better as
"Dialogue.
"Continued dialogue."
The other one just looks weird and only would really make sense if you *really* need to be clear about who is speaking, like if there are like 10 people in a conversation and the speaker keeps changing it might make sense, but otherwise it seems like awkward overkill. I actually did some research....maybe last month(?) when proofreading something and found that format for dialogue being a standard one for the same speaker continuing to talk in a new paragraph. Specifically the missing second quote mark from the first paragraph-it's indeed supposed to be like that
Right, Ellie always liked Thomas/Thomas's personality a lot, but wasn't physically/romantically attracted to him since she didn't swing that way. Sorry if it wasn't clearly conveyed. It's really difficult to make sure the mental context I have when writing something is conveyed in the message so it doesn't end up garbled because of half of the context having been left out
@MarkofWisdom From what I recall, the reason English is so messed up is because it's basically two and a half different languages wearing a trenchcoat that is the rules of Latin-based languages. I'm paraphrasing from my English teacher in my senior year of high school (what was a while ago so I may be misremembering) and some google searching, but it basically went like this:
-People in the British Isles are just chillin, get conquered by some germanic tribes. People speaking some Celtic languages get pushed back into Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. The germanic tribes' language evolved into Old English over ~700 years
-Duke of Normandy invades, conquers, now all the aristocracy speaks French and the peasants speak English. Over time these two naturally start to mix, as sometimes the peasants need to speak to the aristocracy and vice-versa. This marks the start of "Middle English".
-About 200 years later (1362), English becomes the language of law, and the language starts to evolve more through something called "The Great Vowel Shift" that I don't know much about
-That's early modern English, like 100 years before Shakespeare. The rest is mostly just natural evolution, but some wise guy in the 16th century thought it would be smart to slap Latin rules on English. This is not smart because English is not Latin-based. This was taught basically as the best way to do things until some time in the 20th century, though there are still proponents of the idea today.
Then add the fact that English uses a lot of loan words from different languages and the result is an inconsistent nightmare, the most notable example being "I before e except after c or when sounded as 'a' as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh'". Merriam-Webster says that if you want to make that little jingle correct, it would look something like this:
"I before e, except after c
Or when sounded as 'a' as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh'
Unless the 'c' is part of a 'sh' sound as in 'glacier'
Or it appears in comparatives and superlatives like 'fancier'
And also except when the vowels are sounded as 'e' as in 'seize'
Or 'i' as in 'height'
Or also in '-ing' inflections ending in '-e' as in 'cueing'
Or in compound words as in 'albeit'
Or occasionally in technical words with strong etymological links to their parent languages as in 'cuneiform'
Or in other numerous and random exceptions such as 'science', 'forfeit', and 'weird'."
So TBH half the time you're just guessing what's right and gut feeling is the way to go. Poor English teachers really have their work cut out for them.
@Fighterman481 I do remember reading some articles about the history of English and how it's from such an eclectic mix of languages and has so many loanwords. There were examples of how radically English has changed from older versions of English when compared to a fair number of other languages that have stayed mostly the same even over hundreds or thousands of years, or at least recognizably so. I think the example given was how Old Norwegian or some other Old Icelandic language is still fairly readable to the modern day speakers of the modern versions of those languages, while Old and even Middle English might as well be entirely different languages compared to modern English
@MarkofWisdom Yeah, when we were doing some older pieces of English literature (such as Canterbury Tales and Beowulf) in that class the teacher had us read some of it in the original language. From what I recall Canterbury Tales was mostly able to be read (though it was a pain), but Beowulf really was like reading a different language. I could make out a few words, but most I just had no clue.
@Fighterman481 I think those two books were some of the examples I read about that were used as examples of the dramatic changes in English over time, pretty much with the same result-Canterbury Tales was sort of readable if a bit annoying, Beowulf was practically unreadable to everyone who only knew modern English