Comment on Moonflower Books and Curiosities

  1. imonthemoonitsmadeofcheese on Chapter 4 Sat 25 Oct 2025 12:17AM UTC

    Ikora working for a university and bringing Eris to dinner with Zavala, Osiris and Uldren has that lovely AU resonance to it. It rings true.

    Uldren unwittingly asking the awkward question that puts Eris off, also bang-on. Crow is like that in every universe. And the ominous silence between Eris and Ikora... palpable tension.

    Your use of Eris' limited vision is great throughout the story but especially here. I really appreciate how you communicate how she sees (or doesn't see) in so many different details and interactions. It's so well done.

    I googled spaghetti puttanesca since I was not familiar with it. Now I need to make it.

    "Because puttana means roughly 'whore' or 'prostitute' and puttanesca is an adjective derived from that word, the dish may have been invented in one of many bordellos in the Naples working-class neighbourhood of Quartieri Spagnoli as a quick meal taken between servicing clients. Alternatively, food historian Jeremy Parzen suggests: "Italians use puttana (and related words) almost the way we use shit, as an all-purpose profanity, so pasta alla puttanesca might have originated with someone saying, essentially, 'I just threw a bunch of shit from the cupboard into a pan'."

    Eris nibbling on this highly specific pasta and finding it delicious (but not finishing it) while slowly becoming closer with one infamously meretricious rogue has me in utter giggles because it fits so perfectly regardless of which version of the etymology is used.

    And Eris being drained and exhausted from the social encounter to the point where she falls asleep on the couch in gloves and glasses, as opposed to how she feels after interacting with the Drifter is... again... hitting all the emotional resonance in all the right ways. I am really loving the well crafted character development going on in this chapter. You're tugging on so many extremely interesting threads here. I'm excited to find out where you go with them.

    Reading this is really fun.

    I am so into this shit you have no idea.

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    1. vexonthefield on Chapter 4 Sat 25 Oct 2025 02:02AM UTC

      Damn! I should’ve known someone would look up the pasta etymology, nothing gets past the Destiny fans. I will admit that was intentional and mayyy come up again later, but I also drew from the headcanon in your stories that Eris has a love for olives, pickles, and other salty and briny foods. I feel like she would enjoy capers and anchovies.

      I was honestly mixed about this chapter, I wasn’t sure if including the other characters would seem clunky or not, so I’m glad it worked out well! I felt that the best real life parallel to the vanguard would be university professors since they’re experts in their fields who focus on training the next generation of likely very irresponsible students (who may or may not have a habit of trespassing and falling off of buildings).

      I’m relieved to hear that Eris’ limited vision is coming across well, I wanted to include that aspect of her character because I think it’s pretty important to her identity, but I was pretty nervous about executing it well. I definitely did a lot of googling. I think the cane works well, since in game I would consider her Ahamkara bone to function as a mobility/accessibility aid of sorts (except, yknow, actively malevolent)

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