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thebestofoneshots · 7 months ago

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Gilded Constellations | (wolfstar x reader)

Series Masterlist | Previous episode

Pairing: Wolfstar x Reader Word Count: 6.5 K Warnings: None Prompt: What will happen as you walk inside the snake pit? This IS a Wolfstar x reader fic, but it's incredibly slow burn. They won't start all dating each other until we're very deep into the story, but I promise the long wait will be worth it. Proofread by lovely: @aremuslupinsimp

Chapter 43: Sympathy for the Devil

You appeared in a large hall. Their invitation turned into a paper heron, flew out of your hands and up in the air before blowing up into small little gold specks, a rather elaborate spell for an invitation, which easily showed the amount of time and money the Rosiers had put into their party. Evan’s father, Arkalis Rosier, was a relevant political figure in the British Ministry, so it made sense.

He was basically the main aid of Harold Mitchum (the current minister) and was actively looking to secure the position in the next election. He was also an ambassador for the Ministry and had met your father during some of his trips, although he had already heard from him since he was close to Orion and your father and Orion went way back.

Either way, if this party was part of his quest to secure his position in the 1980s election, he was definitely doing a fine job at pampering his guests with bright and colourful tricks, among luxuries. You couldn’t say much about the food, but the small snack table displayed near the far corner of the room looked mouthwatering.

“Silas! You made it,” said a man as he approached your father. You swallowed, he looked exactly like Evan, except older, and with a thick scar across his left eye, which looked glassy instead of dark green as the other one.

“Of course. Arkalis, we wouldn’t have missed it for anything,” your mother responded with a bright smile and extended her hand towards him. She did always tend to shine in social situations; shiny grin, elegant manners, and incredibly persuasive stance, she managed to make every single person feel at ease when she was around. You sometimes wondered if it was because of the fairy bIood, running much thicker through their veins or because she had learned, and adapted to your father’s needs.

The fairy bIood made sense, after all, the fae were known for their lavish parties and alluring abilities to humans and wizards alike.

Your father extended his hand and shook the man’s hand, who promptly turned to you. “This must be your daughter.”

You extended your hand politely, channeling a similar energy to your mother’s, “Nice to meet you, Mr. Rosier, I am–”

“Oh, I’ve heard plenty of you,” he said with a smile. You swallowed. “Horace told me about the time he teamed you up with Evan on potions, he mentioned you had done a delightful job.”

“Right,” you added as you relaxed.

“Darling, you didn’t tell us you were friends with Evan,” your mom intervened, looking at you softly.

“I didn’t?” you asked nonchalantly. “Must have forgotten,” you shrugged it off. “You know how busy it’s been since I got to the new school, with all the classes and adapting and meeting new people, new teachers and so forth.”

“Of course, of course,” intervened Arkalis. “The young girl is right, you cannot expect her to tell you every single thing.”

Well, at least he’s nicer than his child, you thought as you looked at Arkalis and nodded in agreement. Your father, who clearly thought you befriending Evan would be an excellent political advantage was looking at you with a rather stern face. Holding back from speaking but not quite hiding his feelings completely. You pouted in return and continued nodding along with Arkalis.

Eventually, Arkalis had to go and your father grabbed your arm, gently pulling you to him and whispering through gritted teeth, “You didn’t think it would be clever to tell us you are friends with his son?”

“I am so far from being friends with Evan Rosier I might as well be on a different planet entirely,” you responded as you tried to shake his hand off. Even though he had grabbed onto you gently, the fact that he had done it was upsetting, especially with how much it reminded you of being manhandled by Barty and his gang.

Your father huffed and let your arm go, you pulled it back and gave him a rather defiant look, “What? Don’t tell me I now must also make friends that are politically convenient to your career?”

“It wouldn’t hurt if you did.”

You looked at the ground bitterly, remembering the bruises on your neck and the scraping on your knee and the splinching you had gotten on that November moon, then turning back to him with a calm expression, “Wouldn’t it?”

“Darling,” your mom intervened, pulling your father from you by hooking her arm with his, “It’s the Sallows, let’s greet them,” she added, your father’s gaze softened for a second, as if he could see through your brave façade, but he turned back to your mother shortly after, and walked along with her to greet the other family.

Right, go, who gives a fuck anyway, you thought bitterly as you took off in another direction, straight to that food table that had caught your eye a few minutes ago. You picked one of the small bruschettas and took a small bite of it as you looked through the window. Smoked Salmon, you realised as you savoured it. Outside, the sun was starting to set, the gardens were vast and covered by a thick layer of snow, and there was some kind of hedge maze that appeared to be surrounding the property. Perhaps with several spells to keep the muggles away from their house. It was actually rather clever.

There were a few crows perched on the hedges, black and contrasting with the layer of snow as they picked out something from their branches. While they gave the outside a rather ominous look, it also kind of made sense, considering the heritage of the Rosiers. Some people thought they were related to the eldest Peverell brother, in fact, you had heard rumours of Arkalis looking for the Deathly Hallows, even if most people considered them nothing more than fantasies.

“What are you doing here?” a scolding voice asked.

You turned around hastily to find Regulus leaning against the table with a sneaky smirk in his mouth. You sighed, “Godric, Reggie!”

His smile widened and he shrugged, “Fancy seeing you, I spotted your parents earlier, imagined you’d be here too.”

“Well you’re as clever as sneaky, congratulations!” you said before taking another bite of your bruschetta, it was delicious.

“You shouldn’t be here though,” he added in a more serious tone, “I overheard my parents talking about–”

And then it happened, the two large doors at the entrance of the hall snapped open and a man walked inside, making the most dramatic entrance you had ever seen in your life –and you were dating Sirius Black. He looked about as old as Arkalis, except this man was much better looking, not to say Arkalis was ugly –then again, you might have been biased because you despised his son.

Regardless, something about the man was oddly familiar, he had dark hair arranged in a perfectly put-together hairstyle that swooped in a rather elegant way. He was wearing dark wizard robes, although vintage looking, clearly expensive since the material flowed with a cadence that only the finest fabrics could match. He had a charming smile plastered across his delicate features as he approached Arkalis, easily greeting him like an old friend.

You watched with curiosity, the room seemed awfully silent since he walked in, there weren’t even whispers, Regulus had gone quiet too, as if they knew the man, as if they feared him. You looked at him again, at the elegant curve of his handsome nose and that’s when you knew who he was. You pictured him with a robe, darker lighting, in a blurry photo somewhere in the Daily Prophet that insisted on avoiding the subject.

“It’s Voldemort,” you whispered as you swallowed thickly, in absolute disbelief of what was going on around you.

You’d expect someone to scream, someone to pull out their wand or at least someone to apparate the hell away, but everyone seemed perfectly fine with the fact that the self-proclaimed dark lord had just busted the party like some sort of Maleficent from the sleeping beauty.

“Reggie, do you know who that–”

He shook his head in response, not because he was responding to your question, but rather in a warning manner, clearly telling you to remain as silent as the rest of the people in the room. You gave him a look combined with a sigh and you saw his jaw tighten as he nodded his head. Another warning. Whatever was about to happen, couldn’t be good. You were in the middle of what could possibly a tеrrorist attack–

Except you weren’t.

“Tom, a pleasure to have you here already,” Arkalis said, approaching the taller man with a bright smile, as bright as the one he had greeted your dad with. No, brighter actually.

It took 10 seconds of the following exchange for you to realise that you weren’t in the middle of a tеrrorist attack but rather that you were at their dinner party.

Does my father even know? You wondered, and then you spotted him amiably talking to Orion, who seemed as relaxed as possible with the entrance of the Dark Lord into Arkalis’ party. Of course he did, you thought as you tried to hold back a scoff.

You looked around carefully, not a single wizard seemed perturbed by the situation, not a single one had raised their wands against the man. Even Reggie looked relatively at ease as he witnessed the entire exchange, as if he had seen something similar happen before, that’s when the eerie thought crept up: He has seen this before. And of course, he had, he was the perfect child, polar opposite of Sirius. When you met him he was always scared of doing something that could enrage his parents, terrified of their reaction to him even thinking the wrong thing.

While Sirius had rebelled against his parents, Regulus had set out to be the ideal child, following their orders to protect himself from the wrath his brother often faced. His survival mechanism was to be the perfect Black child, and if his parents were Dark Wizards then he would have to become one too, at least until he was old enough to flee.

You looked at him with a pained expression, feeling the same way you had when you figured that he hadn’t been the one to tell on you, but rather been forced to do it, life had been unfair to him then, and was being unfair to him now. And you had no idea if you could even find a way to help him. It was in moments like that, when you realised how much he was like Sirius, both trapped, just in different ways.

But then again, were you any different? Weren’t you also at the party talking to dark wizards like they were any other influential person in society? Weren’t you standing there, like every single other person, looking at the interaction without raising your wand?

Of course, you didn’t stand a chance in a duel against the Dark Lord, but wouldn’t the right thing be to try? Wasn’t that what you had been training to do? No, that’s not it either. You remembered a conversation you’d had with Nightshade before you started training, she had said you were talented, but that wasn’t the end of it, your father’s contacts were a key factor here. If you managed to gather enough information tonight, perhaps then you could use that information against them in the future.

In the end, you’d do what your father has asked you to do from the very start, play the role of the perfect little politician’s daughter, smile and nod and charm people in the same way your mother did often, all in the simple effort to get something useful out of their head’s tonight. You took a deep breath, all that occlumency you had been practising would be more necessary than it had ever been.

“Excellent, why don’t we eat now?” Tom asked with a charming smile, “I believe you have a surprise prepared for later tonight.”

Evil doesn´t always look the part, you thought as you stared at him, he had a charisma similar to that of your mother, if a little sinister. He walked alongside Arkalis, who was quickly joined by his wife Astoria Rosier, an elegant, fair-haired woman that looked far younger than she could possibly be. Orion and your father followed next, along with a few other people whom you hadn’t identified yet.

“Not everyone will dine with them I assume?” you said turning to Regulus.

He shook his head in response, “Only some of us will.”

“Of course,” you said with a nod, you too were expected to sit on the same table as them.

You walked alongside Regulus and a few more people towards one of the doors, you saw Evan joining their parents. Barty was at the party too, you had spotted him in the distance earlier, but it seemed he wasn’t going to be part of the few selected, since he had stayed where he was, talking to a girl whom you didn’t recognize from school, but that oddly reminded you of your boyfriend.

When you reached the table inside the private dining room, you realised the seats had been tagged for everyone. Tom, as Arkalis kept calling the most evil wizard alive, had taken the head of the table while the host, and unsurprisingly, Orion, had taken the two seats next to him. Your father was right next to Orion and there was a rather young man with pale blond hair, as long as Lily’s but completely straight. He couldn’t have been much older than you, he looked in his early twenties at most, a child.

Your mother was close to your father, Astoria and Walburga right next to her. From there, there was a stern-looking man who you didn’t recognize and a curly-haired woman who looked about as unhinged as Barty. It was your position on the table that you found dire, you were sitting across from your mother and in between the long-haired blond, who looked displeased by having you sitting there instead of someone else and none other than Evan Rosier. When you saw his name next to yours on the small floating name tags, you had to bite your tongue to avoid the displeased sigh that was just about to escape your mouth.

When you sat down, the small paper with your name displayed on it disappeared, and on your plate appeared a fresh-looking salad. Evan sat down beside you a couple of minutes afterwards.

“Evan,” you greeted with a tight smile and a simple nod. Yes, you had to play a part, that didn’t mean you’d have to be best friends with Evan Rosier for the night. Why was Regulus so damn far away? You swore he was about the one other person in this entire party with whom you’d actually want to be sitting and there were about seven other people in between the two of you. You took a deep breath and turned to your salad as if it were the most interesting thing in the entire dining room, perking your ears when you heard Orion speak again.

They mentioned something regarding the salad being fresh, which you thought was the most philistine compliment someone could ever give, and then they started going on about the weather. Apparently, it had been an abnormally cold winter in England this year. And while White Christmas’ weren’t uncommon, they were a lot more rare than they had been in the past few years.

You heard your mother say something about global warming to Walburga, who seemed puzzled as if she had never heard the term in her life, which in hindsight she might not have since she lived in her own little pure-bIood wizard bubble and tended to stay the hell away from muggle news. Your parents always knew what was happening with the muggles, they thought it was important to stay informed to be able to maintain the relationships between the muggle world and the wizarding world as forthcoming as possible.

You stabbed a small piece of tomato and brought it to your mouth as you thought of how stupidly prosaic the small talk of dark wizards was. Were they holding back because it was a Christmas dinner? Were they all going to pretend Voldemort wasn’t sitting at the head of the table, eating the same boring salad as the rest of you?

How did they even manage to accomplish all their evil deeds if they were just talking about the scores of the latest quidditch championships? Okay, that was Evan talking with whoever was sitting beside him, but still. These people were supposed to be the most dangerous wizards on the planet and yet they were–

“So tell me, how is the little errand I asked for going?” Asked Tom.

There it is, you thought as you sat a little straighter and paid closer attention to their conversation. By now the salad had disappeared and there was a broccoli soup sitting across from you, the taste was actually pretty good, quite cheesy. Apparently, cheese was the right choice no matter how morally diverse the audience you were hosting was. Although, you weren’t sure their audience really was all that morally diverse, except for you and perhaps Regulus.

“Excellent,” Arkalis responded as he turned to Tom, he looked awfully pleased with himself. “They’re downstairs, waiting for the show.”

Tom took a spoon of his soup and then smiled. You saw a snake slowly creeping up his chair, and he seemed awfully comfortable around her when he noticed. The snake hissed and he said something back to her. He speaks parseltongue.

Now, that might not be new information for Dumbledore, but it was to you. The Daily Prophet didn’t talk about all the skills the Dark Lord had honed through the years. It’s ridiculous, you thought. What if someone tried to use serpensortia against him and got killed by their own spell? Of course, someone who thought that spell was enough to go against Voldemort was going to get killed later on anyway. Regardless, it should already be common knowledge what he was good and bad at.

“Good, I suppose we’ll be enjoying the spectacle when the dinner’s done?”

“Indeed,” Orion said this time around. “Things must be prepared for the ceremony.”

Ceremony? What fucking ceremony? You thought as you took another spoon of your soup. You tried to keep your eyes on it, as if not to seem like you were prying.

“Is the soup really that interesting to you?”

Godricbedamned, not now fuckface, you thought as you turned around to Evan, “It’s really good, actually. More interesting than you and your friend gushing about your quidditch crushes for sure.”

The blond man next to you, whom you had now learned was Lucius, snorted when he heard your reply while Evan clenched his jaw and looked at his parents nervously, as if trying to make sure he hadn’t caught your exchange. You followed his gaze and then turned back to look at him with a slight smirk. So that was a low blow then? You thought as you recalled, he had only talked about male players with his other friend.

Oh, it’s because Daddy doesn’t know. Better leave the subject behind. You weren’t planning to out him, no matter how much of an asshole he continued to be, even if last time he had actually gotten Severus off your back. Speaking of him, it was a delight not to have to see his long face around, looks like his family didn’t make the cut to be invited to the pit of snakes you were currently in.

“At least I have someone that’s interested in talking to me.”

“If I was interested in talking, I’d have already struck a conversation Evan, not all of us are eager to say every single thing that comes to mind.”

“You wish.”

You hmphed at that and turned your head to the other side, “Lucius, would you mind passing me the salt?” you asked politely. He turned to you a little confused at first, as if he was surprised you had talked to him and then nodded, handing over the salt to you an instant later. “Thank you. Your shoes are very elegant, by the way.”

Lucius seemed both surprised and pleased that you had noticed his shoes. They were impeccable like he had either bought them for this event or had them cleaned and polished. He had walked with slow decision as he approached the table earlier, and when you spotted his shoes, you realised why he was being as careful with them as he had been with his hair throughout the night. This man cared about looking good.

“Oh, thank you,” he said with a smile. “I got them custom-made by a very elegant designer, you might have heard of him, Alistar Shoman.”

Gotcha!

“You’re telling me that’s a pair of Shomans? That’s incredible.”

Lucius seemed pretty pleased with the conversation, you threw a side glance at Evan who just scoffed and turned to speak to his friend again, all the while you looked at Lucius and pretended the history of the Shoman company was the most interesting thing in the world. Perhaps it was just slightly more interesting than the broccoli soup.

Then you heard your name drop from Orion’s mouth and you turned to him with the most polite expression you could muster.

Fuck. You had been paying so much attention to Lucius’ stupid talk to prove Evan wrong that you had missed the one bit of relevant information they had been talking about, and now they were calling you for some reason. What a miserable spy you would make.

“Yes, Mr. Black?” You asked.

“We were just talking about the fact that we’ve been so busy that we haven’t been able to go watch the Quidditch Matches recently, but we’ve been told they have been outstandingly interesting.”

You felt the tension in his voice, they probably knew you had sought against Regulus in the Slytherin vs Gryffindor Match.

“They have been,” you said with a nod. “Quidditch is certainly something intense at Hogwarts, all of the teams are incredibly capable. It certainly has been a challenge to be able to keep up with my position.”

Orion laughed at that, “Such modesty.”

You swallowed, unsure how to respond to that but with a small smile. “Slughorn told me you were one of the most promising players,” added Arkalis. “Some teams are already considering you…”

That actually caught you by surprise, you loved quidditch, but you had never actually considered making a career out of it. Lucius turned to you with newfound interest, as if now that he knew what you were capable of you had become actually interesting to him, beyond whatever fashion talk you had held earlier. It was hard to hold the urge to glare at him for it.

“I’m sure all of the players in this table are as good as me, or even better,” you said, thinking of Regulus, and playing your role of clever guest, even if you had given Evan a compliment with it. It wasn’t a lie, Evan was a good chaser, but he was also a total asshole.

“And yet, your team won in the last match,” Arkalis said, making sure to look down on his son as he spoke the last line.

You didn’t turn your gaze to Evan but you could tell he had lowered his gaze from the little you saw in the corner of your eyes. No wonder the boy was like he was, his father was even worse than him. You felt a little pity towards Evan, even if you still disliked him thoroughly.

You decided driving the conversation to a different subject would be the best thing to do before things got even more tense. “How did you meet Professor Slughorn?” you asked, managing to have a genuinely curious look on your face as you did.

“We studied with him,” replied Tom, turning to look at you with a chill-inducing smirk, both charming and dangerous at the same time. He definitely had that cult-leader vibe going for him, no wonder so many people were so eager to follow him, it wasn’t just because he was powerful or because of their shared hate towards muggles, most of the men in the room shared those 2 characteristics. The one thing that made the difference was how much more charming this man was in comparison. “We were both in the Slug Club too, weren’t we, Arkalis?”

Arkalis hummed in response, “Indeed, he used to say Tom was the most brilliant student he ever taught.”

“He likes playing favourites,” you added with a smile.

“He does indeed,” agreed Arkalis, and eyed his son again, his gaze reproachful and thunderous. “He told me you and Evan made an excellent team.”

You remembered that day and tried not to shudder at the thought of Evan’s hand squeezing your injury, “Right we did,” you said as you placed your hand on his shoulder, making sure to dig your nails enough to make him uncomfortable. “He’s delightful to work with,” somehow you managed to make that sound honest rather than sarcastic. “He’s especially good at measuring and mixing.”

Arkalis seemed pleased with your praising of his son, and you thought they might start talking more the more pleased he was, especially since his wine wasn’t refilling fast enough. In fact, every single person in the room seemed to be drinking moderately, as if they were trying to keep their heads clear for whatever surprise they were talking about earlier.

“We’ve been friends ever since, haven’t we Ev?” you added with a charming smile.

“Right,” Evan added, “Best friends.”

Arkalis seemed pleased with the response, your father still looked irritated over the fact that you hadn’t told him about your friendship with Evan, even more so since he thought you lied to him earlier when you said you and Evan were light years away from becoming friends. The rest of the table seemed to buy your lie, except for Regulus who was looking at you with a rather anxious look on his face. While he didn’t know everything Evan had done to you, he had a pretty good idea of some of the things based on things he had heard at the Slytherin table.

You smiled shortly and then someone who you didn’t recognize said something to Arkalis and drew the conversation away from the two of you. Evan leaned over, “What the hell are you playing at?” he asked.

“I’m playing my role as a nice guest, how about you play the one of a nice host and we pretend we don’t hate each other’s guts for the night?” you retorted. “Your father seemed pleased enough about our friendship or whatever.”

“You shouldn’t have come tonight.”

“As if I wanted to,” you scoffed and turned back to listening to the adult’s conversation, they were now going on about the Ministry of Magic. They mentioned something about how he was now doing exactly what he was meant to do and you felt chills run down your spine when you spotted Voldemort’s smile.

The Ministry is on his hands, no wonder there is no news about him on the daily prophet. Just how many deatheaters are out there? All infiltrated on normal day jobs and working towards making the world a much darker place… the idea was horrifying, and yet everyone at the table seemed incredibly pleased with it.

Eventually, you finished dinner, Tom was the first one to stand and he said something about it being time for a show. At this point, you dreaded finding out whatever the hell was his idea of entertainment, from what you’d heard, it couldn’t have been good.

You were on your way towards the exit, trying to find Regulus again when Arkalis walked beside you and offered you his arm, “Darling, would you mind talking to me for a second?” he asked, using a charm similar, but not nearly as masterful as the one Voldemort had.

You looked around trying to find Regulus, of course, Arkalis had asked, but the way he had said it was enough for you to know that it wasn’t actually an option to say ‘no’. Reggie was a few feet from you and he sent you another anxious glance before Orion intercepted him.

“Sure, of course,” you replied as you felt Arkalis’ hand over your shoulder, urging you for an answer, you hooked your hand in his and followed him to a different room, completely missing the absolutely terrified look on Evan’s face.

“How may I be of help to you, Mr. Rosier?” You asked calmly, whatever reason Arkalis had to bring you to the library, it was not intending to hurt you, at least you hoped it wasn’t. And the chances were low since it would be a very stupid decision to make considering who your father was, and how close he seemed to be to Orion, who, you had concluded, was closer to Voldemort than Arkalis, even if they had studied together.

Whether you liked it or not, your parents’ connection to Orion Black, was the reason you were safe in this party.

“You’re friends with Evan, correct?”

You heard a shuffling at the end of the room, turning to look but finding nothing, you narrowed your eyes in that direction only for a second before turning back to Arkalis, he didn’t look like an overly patient man, “Indeed.”

“Excellent,” he said with a nod and then smiled, a smile so warm and kind that you might have bought his good intentions if you hadn’t been deterred by the thing that left his mouth afterwards, “You would tell me if he was doing something he shouldn’t be doing, right?”

Like threatening to throw me off the astronomy tower, choke me and throw me off my broom along with his boyfriend? Sure, you thought.

“Something he shouldn’t be doing?” You played dumb, that seemed to always do the trick for people like Arkalis.

“I’ve heard some rumours about my son.”

Rumours? You wondered. Whatever the hell is he–

“People have been saying he’s really close to a boy in school.”

“Evan has many friends,” you responded, just now guessing what Arkalis could mean.

“Closer than that,” he told you. “It’s a… deviation that happens to muggle men often?”

Fucking hell, you thought when you realised what he meant. Arkalis wants to know if Evan is gay, but the way he approached the subject, using the words “deviation” and “muggle” with such derision. You tilted your head slightly, trying not to look offended by his homophobia.

“I’m not sure I understand, Sir, Evan has many friends.”

“I mean, does he have a boyfriend?” Arkalis asked.

There it is. You played surprised at that. You heard another movement on the side, “Oh, Merlin no!” you said surprised. “I would definitely know if Evan had a boyfriend,” you said, trying to sound as confident as possible. It wasn’t completely a lie, you did know.

Then you felt Arkalis trying to prickle at your mind, looking for something, inside of it, the truth, you realised. And then you gave him what he wanted to see. You used every single ounce of mental power to conjure up one image and one image only. Evan pushing you against the railing of the Astronomy tower, hand in your throat and leaning onto you, the same way it had happened then except, there was no one else, and rather than lean over to threaten you, Evan was leaning over to kiss you.

You tried to hold your thoughts of disgust at the image being projected on your mind as much as possible, but you knew that, at least that scene, would get Arkalis off of Evan’s back for a while.

No, you didn’t like Evan, you’d go as far as to say that you hated his guts, but no matter how much hate you harboured for the blond, you would never out him, let alone to a clearly abusive and homophobic father like Arkalis. Take it as the good deed of the day, you thought as you used memories of kisses with Sirius to make the scene more realistic.

Eventually, Arkalis stopped digging inside your mind and you felt relief wash over you, allowing the horrifying image of kissing Evan Rosier to dissolve. Arkalis pulled back with a pleased smile. “What a deceptive little thing,” he said as he looked at you with a smirk and grabbed onto your jaw to pull your head up slightly. You gave him an innocent look in return, as if you had no idea what he was talking about.

Does he know I’m trying to trick him? Did he notice?, you wondered as you moved your hand towards your dress pocket to try and find your wand.

“Pardon?” You asked meekly.

“We all thought you were dating Orion’s eldest son,” he said Sirius’ name with scorn, and you had the urge to spit on his face, you somehow managed to hold back.

“I am dating Sirius,” you replied with an innocent frown, voice still soft, still playing a part, Arkalis had to think you had no idea he had dug inside your mind.

His smile just widened, “Of course, my bad,” he said with a smile and pulled his hand away from your face. “If you see Evan tell him I’m proud of him. He’s got a good eye for women.”

You swallowed thickly but managed to give him a confused nod in response. It was meant to be a compliment, and yet it made you want to puke, you definitely did not like Arkalis better than you did Evan. You didn’t even like him better than you liked Barty.

“Uhm… of course, Sir,” you replied, still playing dumb, his smile grew wider and he bowed his head before exiting the room.

When he was gone you allowed yourself to sigh, shutting your eyes as you thought over everything that had happened. And then you felt a hand in your arm, gripping tightly, just like he had back in potions class.

“What the hell was that about?” Evan asked from behind, he looked absolutely baffled.

“Oh, Evan, you were the one eavesdropping then,” you replied with a sigh and shoved your arm to try and pry his hands off of it. So fucking handsy, you thought as you remembered his father’s stupid hands on your jaw. “Do you mind?”

Evan seemed just as puzzled and slightly angry now too, and while he didn’t let go of you entirely, he did loosen his grip, which you were thankful for. “Why did you–? What the hell did you tell my father?”

“You know, the right way to express what you’re feeling right now is to say thank you,” you replied annoyed, you hadn’t saved his ass for him to be a total asshole about it.

He finally let your arm go completely and passed a hand through his hair, “What I mean to say is, you know about me and Barty, you could have told him, gotten rid of the two of us in an instant, my father would have probably sent me abroad to some other school if he found out and yet you… made him assume I like a woman?”

You sighed, “Look, Evan. I don’t like you, okay? You’ve been an asshole to me from the fucking start and frankly, I wish I could beat the fuck out of you sometimes, but there are lines that I’m not willing to cross. No matter how much of an asshole you are, I would never out someone just because I dislike them, let alone to someone like your father.” And then you scoffed, “Muggle-deviation, fucking hell, just say gay.”

Evan was speechless after that, he wanted to say something, but he wasn’t sure what he should say or if he even should. Perhaps he really should thank you for covering for him, but even that would feel empty. What you had done might have been one of the nicest things anyone had done for him in his entire life, but how could an enemy be the one to do that?

“I– I mean I–”

You sighed again, “Just… leave it,” you said and left the room, and an incredibly confused Evan inside of it.

Evan disliked you, he disliked you for throwing a Quaffle on Barty’s face and breaking his beautiful nose, he hated you for being a know-it-all, he hated you for being good at quidditch and he hated you for being such a self-righteous prick who considered herself better than him. He hated you for constantly teasing Barty and Mulciber and Snape, he hated you for how reckless you were and for picking up fights with people who were bigger and stronger without backing down from them. And his whole idea of you was crumbling down because he wasn’t sure he would have done the same thing in your position. If he knew how to destroy you, would he have hesitated?

Would he have saved you too?

Evan sank to the floor and started to cry, he wasn’t sure if the thick salty drops falling from his eyes were from angry or relieved tears. He didn’t know why he was crying, he just knew he couldn’t stop. The complexity of his emotions churned within him. You had the power to vanish him, you could have told his dad and the one bit of happiness he’d found would have been gone in an instant. He wouldn’t have seen Barty ever again.

Did you even know how much you had done for him in that 5-minute talk you’d had with Arkalis?

Years of hiding, years of being careful, years of feeling like he was wrong, and that what he liked was poisonous, deserving of mistreatment and scorn, years of dreading his father finding something, anything that could out him. All gone in a small little chat, where you barely even fucking spoke. The smile Arkalis had made, the relief in his eyes –the acceptance– that made Evan want to cry even more. Because no matter how great he was, no matter how perfect he was, he would never, ever be truly accepted by his father. Never would he make him as happy as you had by implying to him he liked a girl.

He was miserable, and out of all people, you had been the one to make his sorrow, even if it was just slightly, less painful, less burdensome and less suffocating.

Yet, despite the relief, Evan couldn't shake the lingering bitterness that consumed him. He resented you for knowing his weak spot, and yet, beneath the layer of resentment and anger, there was a tiny ember of gratitude, a flicker of acknowledgement for the unexpected reprieve you had granted him. As he sat there, tears staining his cheeks, he wasn’t sure he could continue hating you anymore.

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Want to support me? Like and reblog this post (reblogs are extra nice since they help me get my work to more people), also guys, I absolutely love reading your comments, so do throw them my way if you have any!

A/N: This might be one of my favourite chapters to write. I really like those emotionally charged scenes, but you've probably already noticed. Also, even antagonistic characters have feelings and boy, do some of them run deep... Poor Evan (I told you guys I did like the Slytherin boys, but the rivalry still exists. Even if, to their different points of view, the villain might just be, well: us. Love, Lils xx

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xxscarletxrosexx · 2 months ago

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Kiss Distance: When Feelings Can't Reach | Linguistic Analyses on Rick & Rachel's lines foreshadow for TwiYor, DamiAnya, and Marthanderson from Ch. 105.5 (PART 1)

This is gonna be a take from the linguistic + literary lens regarding Rick and Rachel's lines from Spy x Family's Ch. 105.5.

Spoilers beware.

So let's talk about the film: Kiss Distance.

On X/Twitter, all I said was my analysis senses were tingling. There was a strong linguistic and creative writing/literary devices indicating foreshadow from the movie, and this just surprisingly got attention.

So now, I'm finally addressing this specific section in a long analysis post.

I cannot stress how much I love Endo-san's short chapters. There are so many things going on in terms of literary devices, and now, I think he plays with linguistics in them. I believe that the last time he did this was during Ch. 90.1 when we learned that Ania's name turned into Anya. I remember freaking the hell out that linguistics was touched upon, cuz honestly, what manga does that? Someone is finally paying attention to linguistics in a story, and it's just further pulling me into my rabbit-hole fixation and obsession with Spy x Family.

Although the chapter is only 5 pages long, it has SO MANY THINGS TO COVER. I won't be able to do that in this post, but I DID cover the entire thing in a video analysis that you can watch here:

What I will mainly cover in this post will be the film: Kissing Distance and the characters (Yor, Anya, Becky, and Martha) watching it + post-watching it. I cannot stress the ridiculous efforts embedded in just 3 pages, so I need to divide these sections into a linguistic lens (part 1) and a literary lens (part 2).

Let's start with the linguistic lens.

Spelling reflects language association + cultural history + maybe it's a meme too.

Spelling reflects language association

At the top right corner of page 2, we've got some English texts on the movie's billboard. "Interesting" and "Entertaining" are stacked on the left while "Movie" and "Theater" are stacked on the right.

Of these words, the word that stands out the most to me is Theater. English experts recognize that there are 2 spellings of this word: theater and theatre. These spelling tell you that it is either American (theater) or British (theatre).

I'm no expert on geography, but I believed that Ostania and Westalis were loosely based in Europe. I think I read someone talk about the architecture in Berlint also reflected European style houses--I'm so sorry that I can't recall who addressed it. The wars also felt like they were influenced by WWI and WWII. But what I do know is English it's my goddamn expertise. I'm not gonna be an uptight ass about pointing out every nook and cranny of inconsistent English, because that's just a whole lot of work for a creator and his team can do, realistically speaking. If Endo-san wanted perfect control in the language he's portraying in SxF, then he would need a dedicated team of linguists to help with translations. It may surprise you but there are many variations of a language (ex: English has AAVE. It's still English but used by this group of speakers--more on this later). But this is a hell hole of work, so I'm giving him so much slack on it as well as the translators handling the translations (like, really. No hate. Thank you for your services <3).

Another caveat: the English translation may also be a reflection of the translators. Maybe they favor American English than British English--who really knows? But I digress.

I'll stick to what I already know of the Ostanian language: It's English (variety is unspecificed, feels American) + Japanese.

Spelling shows cultural history

Next, let's address that these are adjectives slapped on a movie billboard. Normally, American movie theaters do not post adjectives. They post about the movie, the actors, etc. Comments about movies theaters being "family friendly" are subtext under the current film, etc. Here's an example of a movie theater from the 1950s found on gettyimages:

So this brings me to consider that English is being used as kazari eigo which means 'decorative English' in Japanese. In Chris Broad's (AbroadinJapan) words:

"... English in Japan is most commonly used as a form of cheap decorations and prestige, or value to a product and because so few people here understand it, the companies that plaster English all over their products and items rarely bother to check that it makes any sense." Reference:

Maybe it's a meme

This chapter, overall, felt really silly. There were silly drawings, silly play on words, silly foreshadows, etc. I couldn't help but think that maybe Endo-san was throwing in something amusing in these small things (cuz he's got attention to detail). Is it:

Interesting Entertaining Movie Theater OR Interesting Movie Entertaining Theater

It reminds me of:

Endo-san does have a tendency to incorporate memes into his manga/anime. Like... was Anya's jump not a Jojo's meme...? //sweats

youtube

I don't know if I'm severely poisoned by JJBA memes but, yeah, I saw it since the day this chapter came out. I just thought:

ANYA = DIO BRANDO

Anyway... whether it was intentional or unintentional (for this section), I love when mangakas incorporate something meme-y

2. Ricky's English Variety

This is where I went berzerk in this chapter with all of these small linguistic details. Ricky's speech says so much about him.

His introduction of himself is that he's a broken razor. Essentially, he's painting the bad-boy ML image. But he's not just any bad boy. He's a bad boy with issues controlling himself/the situation. In other words he's toxic and not good for us healing men/women //joking. However, out of all of these words, the one that stands out to me is shaddup. His speech suddenly changed because romance conflicts need to have a wall between the main couple. In this case, other than Ricky's pompadour, it's his speech. What we have here is a clash between English varieties.

To understand what is variety in linguistics, you might be familiar with these words: language, dialect, vernacular, and accent. Language is the most obvious, but dialect, vernacular, and accent can be a lil confusing to distinguish. So here's a definition and a chart I made to help distinguish them:

- Language: a system of communication that uses words, grammar, and spelling to convey meaning, languages can be spoken, written, or signed-- Ex: English, Spanish, Arabic, etc. - Dialect: is a variation of a language that is spoken by a specific group of people, such as a community, culture, or region. It includes differences in vocabulary, grammar, and how the language is used -- Ex: American English vs. British English vs. Australian English - Vernacular: is a type of dialect that's used by the "common people" of a region. It's a non-standard dialect that's spoken rather than written. Vernacular language is often made up of slang or regional terms -- Ex: African American Vernacular English (AAVE) - Accent: is the way people in a specific group pronounce words, which is also know as the prosody of speech. Prosody refers to the tone and musicality of someone's speech -- Ex: Boston accent

In Summary (a simplified version of the above info): Language is the standard language (aka what you learn in grammar class and in public speaking class) Dialect is born from language where it becomes variations of the language and adopts different grammar, vocabulary, and language use (like American English vs. British English vs. Australian English) Vernacular is a type of dialect used by "common people" and often include slang words and regional terms (think African American Vernacular English, or AAVE) Accent is a type of dialect that is mainly focused on prosody, or how a person pronounces a word (think Boston accent)

Now that you understand the linguistic terminologies, here's a fun exercise to show you what I see:

Ricky predominantly uses the standard English language in the film:

The moment a language's word has a (legitimate) spelling change, it automatically turns into a dialect (which touches on my previous topic about theater vs. theatre).

These are Ricky's English accents:

Finally, this is Ricky using an English vernacular:

POP QUIZ!

Now that you know what English variety is, can you guess which one Ricky has? If you guessed dialect, then you're half a step there. If you guessed accent, you're so close! But the correct answer is vernacular. This is because accent overlaps with vernacular, but accent stops at word pronunciations. Vernacular has accent and slang.

3. Discourse Analysis on Ricky's Vernacular

You should now have a good understanding of Ricky's vernacular, but now let's talk about why this is significant in discourse analysis.

Linguists who specialize in discourse analysis are responsible for analyzing why and how people speak a certain way. Many linguistic features are observed (lexicons, syntax, phonology, semantics, etc.) but what they share in common is who it's presented to. They're looking at the relationship between interlocutors (people who take part in the dialogue/conversation). In other words, depending on who you converse with, the way you speak is affected.

You may have already realized that Ricky is code-switching (a speaker switches between one or more languages and/or varieties) between standard English and his English vernacular.

Now, pay attention to who Ricky speaks to and when he code-switches.

We can observe in the above panel that Ricky uses standard English when speaking to Rachel. This is because Ricky has linguistically profiled her.

How am I so sure that he's linguistically profiled her? Well, because the majority of human beings unconsciously linguistically profile their appearances. Linguistic profiling does have a similar general word: stereotype. The only difference is that based on appearance, we make a split-second assumption and decision on how we talk to that person.

In this case, Ricky spoke first (exercising dominance through initiation) and used standard English. From a linguistic lens, Ricky is telling me: hey, I know I look like a bad boy, and you may have linguistically profiled me as someone who didn't have good education, which would have reflected in my speech, but I'm more than competent to use standard English. And because I can use standard English, I'm on the same equal playing field (metaphorically and linguistically speaking) as Rachel.

But then, notice the moment, Rachel tells him that she hates Ruffians like [him], Ricky's replies with an accent of shuddap (shut up). Linguistically, he's drawing a line between them. This also indicates that they're no longer on the same side before adding his threat: "I'll cut you!"

In this scene, notice Ricky's accent comes back again, but who is it directed to? An enemy or someone from his linguistic background. He uses this accent with an interlocutor of the same English variety background to make it clear to the person he's beaten up that he's speaking in the "language" that they both completely understand.

But, the moment Ricky speaks to Rachel, he reverts back to standard English. What this means is that Ricky is linguistically assimilating/aligning himself with Rachel to show that he's on her side. This can also mean that he's making himself appealing to her through discourse. On the other hand, Rachel makes herself appealing through physical means (her taste in clothing has changed--more on this under literary analysis).

In this scene, Ricky changes appearance (more on this under literary analysis) and he speaks using standard English. But the moment he loses his pompadour, guess what happens?

Ricky goes back to his true self and shows it through using English vernacular.

Rachel has never changed in her English, so she's always been true to herself. It's Ricky who goes through these changes. And it becomes a beautiful and romantic moment of a man undergoing change not only visually but linguistically.

4. Language parallel/mirroring between the anime and the manga

The fact that Endo-san decided to give Ricky an English vernacular in the English translation of the manga reflects his attention to details between the manga and the anime adaptation.

Linguistics in Anime (what you hear)

Maybe you've noticed, maybe you haven't, but Takuya Eguchi, Loid's voice actor, ingeniously incorporated different prosodic features when assuming roles for [redacted], Loid Forger, Twilight, and Robert. Catte-b covers this in her Leitmotifs in the Spy x Family soundtrack. Piracytheorist also provided a video demonstrating Loid, [Redacted], and Twilight's voices. In both posts, Eguchi's changing voice is called timbre (Catte-B and Piracytheorist have a music background). Timbre is defined as:

In other words, timbre is an individual's voice quality or vocal signature. It's how listeners can recognize a singer regardless of what song they sing and how anime watchers can identify a VA's voice by the character's name in another anime--there's just a certain quality in a person's voice that makes them identifiable.

Because of this definition, timbre is unfortunately not the correct terminology. Using vocal/voice timbre when describing vocal register, at the end of the day, is just pitch. Catte-B and Piracytheorist, however, are not wrong in their analyses. They have correctly identified one of the characteristics of speech and even provided vocal qualties (sharp, flat, soft, etc.) but the more appropriate term should be prosodic features.

I want to highlight the most important thing about prosodic features and it's the features that make it up: intonation, stress, rhythm, pitch, and pauses.

Intonation: is the variation of pitch across a phrase or sentence. > in a way, it's creating a melody when speaking. > its purpose in spoken language is to convey meaning. This is usually the case in tonal languages that require a specific pitch to indicate a word. However, in English, intonation is present when we ask a question (the last few words tend to be higher-pitched) vs. a statement which is either consistent in pitch or can sometimes be lower-pitched. Stress: involves giving prominence to one or more syllables in a word. This is achieved through increasing the length, volume, or pitch of a syllable, or by changing the vowel quality. > stress is important for helping listeners understand meaning / word class and distinguish words during rapid speech (ex: address, graduate, permit etc.) > it can be used to emphasize a specific word of a sentence (ex: Where did you go last night? vs. Where did you go last night? vs. Where did you go last night?) Rhythm: refers to the sense of movement and flow of speech. It's a combination of stress, length, and number of syllables. > mostly concerned with syllables and larger parts of speech rather than phonetic segments like consonants or vowels > important for making speech sound flow well and helps us understand what's being said > 2 most common types of rhythm in language are stress-timed and syllable-timed (English typically uses a stress-timed rhythm) Pitch: indicates highness or lowness of sound. > A person's pitch can reflect friendliness and warmth from the upper register (higher pitch spectrum) to mysterious and sexy with the lower register (lower pitch spectrum)--or at least, this is a consensus opinion that I've heard in English-speaking communities when it comes to the opinion of an individual's vocal pitch for both men and women. Pauses: a break in speaking or a moment of silence that can help add structure to the speech. Pauses have several functions: > gives listeners time to comprehend and digest the information > can be used to emphasize words or ideas > helps speakers transition between ideas > prevent rambling > can signal speech breaks, especially in languages that utilize pausing as a prominent cue > can denote high-information content

There are more prosodic features listed like juncture, loudness, duration, and tempo, but this is where it'll get too specific. Rhythm kinda already accounts for duration and tempo. Juncture is relating to annotating pauses (like indicate when a pause is greater than a certain milisecond), and loudness could kinda fall under the category of rhythm.

Timbre isn't listed as a feature, but I think it should simply because timbre is what makes your voice your voice. And because timbre is the "vocal signature", the shouldn't change--not unless you're as vocally talented as Tara Strong, who can easily change her timbre with different characters.

youtube

Eguchi-san does, however, have some roles where his timbre does change, specifically as Shuuji Hanma from Tokyo Revengers and Kazuya Kujou from Gosick (he does have some moments when he slips back to his familiar timbre).

youtube

Now that you have an understanding of what prosodic features are, you'll be able to hear that Eguchi-san's timbre doesn't change as [redacted], Twilight, Loid, or Robert. I believe Eguchi-san intentionally kept the same timbre for [redacted], Twilight, Loid, and Robert because they're all staying close to home. You can still recognize it's still the same person. But what changes are other prosodic features (intonation, pitch, rhythm, stress, and pauses). The following video is from Piracytheorist's post and the YouTube video is from Calle-B.

youtube

Here are my descriptions of the 4 voices:

[Redacted] - Intonation: N/A. Japanese is not a tonal language. - Stress: vowels and consonants are even for syllables - Rhythm: slow and steady - Pitch: low register, feels like it can be the middle (makes sense since this is the voice he's born with) - Pauses: frequent pauses (also, no way in hell you can convince me to measure the mili-second of his pause) - Tone: warm and soft - Other quality(-ies): reminds me of slight head-mix dominant (60% - 70%). In singing, a mixed voice is when a singer mixes his/her/their head voice and chest voice together (you might commonly know this as belting). But with mix voices, the singer can choose to make it an even mix of both head and chest, or leaning to either more head or more chest. Twilight - Intonation: N/A. Japanese is not a tonal language - Stress: consonants, vowels, syllables, and long phrases are rushed - Rhythm: his speed is fast. it's like water gushing out - Pitch: low(est) register. This is probably the deepest voice he can go while maintaining his timbre - Pauses: They only exist when a completed thought is finished. Twilight, BREATHE, man - Tone: cold and sharp - Other quality(-ies): sometimes his low register have a bassy quality to it Loid Forger - Intonation: N/A - Stress: His consonants and vowels are spoken fast in some syllables but also have a slight elongation typically towards the last few words of a completed thought - Rhythm: fast like Twilights, but has an upbeat rhythm to it - Pitch: upper register (it's the customer service voice lol) - Pauses: It's a mix of Twilight and [Redacted]'s. He has moments where he pauses after a long completed thought. Sometimes, he pauses in between a few words/syllables. Pauses feel irregular here--like he doesn't know if he should relax of speed up (as if he's being pulled to either Twilight or [redacted]'s pause pacing) - Tone: sounds cheerful - Other quality(-ies): 80% head-mix voice. The chest voice is still there, but head voice stands out Robert - Intonation: N/A. Japanese is not a tonal language. - Stress: elongated vowels and consonants -- similar to [redacted]. - Rhythm: originally slow and drawl. But as soon as he realizes that "Robert's mission is over", he starts speaking fast like Twilight - Pitch: low register and soft - Pauses: He has similar pauses to [redacted]. There seems to be a lil bit of longer pauses to indicate passiveness (reinforce the boring image of Robert) - Tone: monotone and soft - Other quality(-ies): head voice. The chest voice seems to be absent (chest voice is perceived as the power in singing and speech) as to reflect Robert as someone who is small and doesn't have much personality (as to not stand out during this identity). This voice is achieved by keeping your voice low but above a whisper. When "Robert's mission is over", the chest voice emerges and his head voice becomes head-mix.

Prosodic features are best accurately portrayed in discourse, meaning it's exclusively for speaking, not writing. So, how can Endo-san incorporate any linguistic feature in writing? We've already answered that with the analyses above: spelling.

Linguistics in the manga (what you read)

I've already went into great detail about spelling reflecting dialect, so I won't regurgitate what I've already covered. Instead, I want to focus on the fact that Endo-san actually acknowledges and uses prosodic features to mirror the 2 mediums of Spy x Family. This is significant because it reinforces the mirroring characters between Ricky and Loid. After all, it's going to be a foreshadow. Normally, I'd talk more about foreshadow under a literary lens, but for once, foreshadow is illustrated through linguistics.

In discourse analysis, the way you speak almost always portrays your identity.

Ricky's English vernacular is his real speech. > [Redacted]'s voice is Loid/Twilight's real speech, which often came out in the presence of Yor Forger.

Ricky speaks in standard English to mask his real voice and make himself more appealing to Rachel. > Loid's voice is used to mask both Twilight and [redacted].

Ricky gives up his pompadour (the most important thing in his life--which also happens to be a part of his identity) to destroy the "barrier" between him and Rachel. In doing so, he goes back to speaking with his English vernacular. > FORESHADOW: Loid will give up one or two of his identities for Yor (it might be Twilight and/or Loid). In exchange, [redacted] will come back.

Another possible foreshadow is what Rachel says about recognizing the importance of Ricky's pompadour to him. Because Rachel is a parallel character to Yor Forger, it can be implied that Yor would recognize how important Loid's identity is to him. In a previous analysis, I mentioned that Ch. 90.1, is the closest thing to an identity reveal. When Yor carved out Anya's name as Ania, she never once questioned it. She also didn't question when she had to carve another sign and spelled it with Anya. I'm aware of the caveat in this claim, such as Yor lacking education in Ostanian orthography which is why she doesn't react.

Be it grasping at straws or not, Yor has the emotional maturity to bounce back from the shock of an identity reveal. Yes, Yor would be sad and hurt to find out that Twilight is a spy from the opposition, but she would understand. They know they're both orphans because of the war. Yor already has a positive bias towards Loid based on observing his behavior at home, in his efforts to provide a better future for Anya, regardless of blood relationship. The point is, Yor is already infatuated with him and her feelings for him will influence her compassion and understanding for the person he's become, so bouncing back from feeling betrayal (not the romantic kind) would be faster for her than Loid.

Loid, on the other hand, may have more reluctance towards accepting the identity reveal (this is also mentioned in my Ch. 90.1 analysis). This is mainly because he's been conditioned to be skeptical and overanalyzing. So, he'll definitely need time to brood and reflect on their situation. Or, maybe he just might have already reached a point where he's just tired, and deflatingly accepts the situation. He'll self-loathe himself for being Westalis's best spy only to have married a legendary Garden assassin--seeing both as a win and loss (he'd be the type to say that he should be dead right now because his identity was revealed to the deadliest enemy). The confession of their love for one another just might be the thing to smooth out the wrinkles.

Someone once commented that, technically, losing Twilight as an identity isn't technically a loss. Twilight was born from a sacrifice. Loid technically isn't a loss either since he was born as a role for Twilight to play. Which leaves [redacted]. Like the film for Ricky, [redacted]'s foreshadowed arrival is just an opportunity for him to come in full circle.

PHEW.

This was a long linguistic analysis of these few pages, and in real-time this took me 8 hours to write. I did lose a night of sleep cuz my brain hyper-fixated on writing this. Help. But we're not done yet. The knowledge that you've acquired will definitely be beneficial through a literary lens in part 2.

I'll update this post with a link when Part 2 is finished.

#spy x family #spy x family ch. 105.5 #spy x family manga #linguistic analyses #linguistics #discourse analysis #orthography #English #English variations #scarlywroteathing #yor forger #anyaforger #becky blackbell #martha marriott #twiyor #damianya #marthanderson #Youtube

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sapphicthunderhead · 5 months ago

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TMAGP 21 Spoilers Ahead!

Right out the gate we get yet more confirmation that Sam is trying his best to do the right thing, but that his curiosity is a substantially greater motivating factor behind his actions than either his self-preservation instincts (which may be nonexistent) or his moral principles. This is positively fascinating characterization.

Also, this episode really uses setting to help establish tone in a much subtler manner than a lot of podcasts, which require the characters describe to the setting verbally (Penumbra, Sherlock & Co., Malevolent). Of course, I don’t think it’s quite on the level of setting-through-sound-design that The Silt Verses pulls off, but environmental storytelling isn’t as necessary to the plot and world-building in TMAGP as it is in TSV, so that’s not necessarily a criticism.

Celia cracks me up with her talk of “complicated immigration status.” Every scene featuring Celia is heavy on Dramatic Irony from the perspective of we who Know (have listened to TMA) and bring an element of mystery to the plot for any and all audience members, be they in the Know or not— just a little bit less for the former. Reminds me of the early days of TMA in the way. Jonny does a great job of introducing a mystery element seamlessly into all his horror fiction, and I think the two complement one another perfectly. For another example of this, see his book 13 Storeys (it is spelled that way deliberately). I highly recommend the audiobook on Audible.

(Did anyone else subconsciously assume Jack was some sort of sinister Fear receptacle before this episode? Celia seems genuinely emotionally attached to him, so I’m a little less concerned now.)

On to the statement itself: FUCKING MAGNIFICENT. I am positively infatuated with this one. So much suspense! So much information, such a beautiful bit of storytelling, and yet NO ANSWERS! I am dying for an explanation here, in the best way possible— because I also found myself perfectly content to just enjoy the events unfolding while I was listening.

I really felt that the authorial tone and style Jonny used for this character, Mr. Kennings, harkened back to one of the major inspirations for TMA: the ghost stories of M.R. James, one of my favorite horror authors (alongside Shirley Jackson). I first read his collected works after Jonny mentioned him in a Q&A, and I was hooked; I have since re-read his work a couple of times.

But it wasn’t just the style of this episode I enjoyed. The substance was also very satisfying. I find the idea of the scholars and administrators of the Institute bickering like petty children whilst using their most formal jargon, attempting to conceal their contempt for one another behind a flimsy facade of civility, incredibly amusing. I also found Kennings’ jabs at the British monarchy and his concern about soil toxicity and its effect on the laborers and foremen at the construction site allowed me to follow his perspective somewhat sympathetically�� although I was horrified when he did nothing to assist the poor man whose decrepit old doppelgänger emerged from the earthen wall of the ditch to drag him underground. But I should have expected it. Kennings worked for the Magnus Institute, after all.

As an aside, this tragic event could have a couple of possible symbolic meanings. The description of the haggard elderly counterpart of the younger construction worker, who drags himself out of a wall of dirt that Mr. Kennings specifies exhibits “tell-tale indications of heavy metals in the earthen edges of it,” evokes the idea of a young man confronting what his life looks like if he continues to sacrifice his health and safety to this dangerous line of work. It could also be the reverse: the old man killing a younger version of himself who made poor choices (because he had so few choices or none at all, because he had to support himself or a family, who knows?) that would otherwise have killed him slowly and perhaps agonizingly, the toxic gas seeping out of the soil and into his lungs and blood. By the end of the statement, I was surprised that the writers had titled the statement “Breaking Ground” instead of “Poisoned” or something along those lines.

Alice trying to protect Sam from the scary little men in the computer was very amusing. Silly Alice, he serves the plot now! There’s nothing you can do to stop him, my dear! Mwahahahaha!

Lena Kelley being worried about Gwen wasn’t entirely unexpected, but does further emphasize the contrast between her and Jonah-Elias. Still unclear whether Lena is a cog in the Fear machine or is actually doing anything to protect humanity, but she clearly thinks she’s doing the latter. Can’t wait for her disillusionment arc, epiphany, and/or moment of self-awareness.

Then we have Gwen, Ink5oul, and…. What the fuck is that. What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck? That can’t be Jon. Another Archivist? Gertrude? Doesn’t sound like it. Who? What? Definitely an extension of the Eye, but the voice is unfamiliar.

Returning to the subject of Kennings’ statement: this series continues to emphasize that there are no clear delineations between Fears. Doppelgänger? Stranger. Dirt? Buried. Pollution? Extinction. All of the above? It’s just fear. That’s all that matters.

#the magnus protocol #tmagp #tmagp spoilers #tmagp 21 #oiar #tma entities #tma spoilers

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nohoperadio · 6 months ago

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The first thing I do every morning is make myself a tea. This simple ritual already involves me in a small degree of introspection and reflection, because it means I have to choose a mug to drink from, and I seem to have decided (without remembering how this decision came about) that it's important that the mug I choose should represent the mood I'm hoping to bring to the oncoming day. It's usually immediately obvious which mug is correct each morning, although sometimes there's some wavering and considering.

I'm going to introduce you to my four main mugs and the energy I superstitiously attribute to each of them. For whatever it's worth, I am aware that mug energy is not actually a real thing. And yet--

We'll start with this Mario power star mug because it has the simplest and most obvious meaning. This is, naturally, the mug of needing more energy than usual, or more energy than I expect to have available, usually because there's some demanding task(s) I need to get done. I say energy, sometimes resilience is more accurate, I'll be drawn to this mug whenever I have some unavoidable and unpleasant experience in store even if it's not strictly speaking one that requires actual work from me. Not much more to say than that; everyone knows what a power star is.

This might be the mug I've used the most times even if it's not the one I use most days, because days that call for the power star mug are disproportionately likely to be several-cups-of-tea days, for obvious reasons.

The black outline of the main star and the little black star images that decorate the mug have largely rubbed away over time, but not the yellow luckily. There's also a black outline picture of Mario on the side opposite the handle which has also mostly faded now. That's alright.

British birds. This mug, I suppose because the numbering (which as far as I can see is totally meaningless) and the pronunciation guides give it a vaguely academic air, has associations with the life of the mind--which is far too grandly put for how I usually use it but that's the closest phrase I can think of right now. By far the most common use of this mug is simply "I have a day off and I would like to spend most of it reading". But it's also my choice for days when I particularly want to practice a skill or give some time to trying anything creative (which might be as modest as finding a new recipe to try (I realize "modest" does not always aptly describe trying new recipes but you see I would only ever choose easy ones)). Occasionally the thing I want to do is quite literally to go and find some birds to watch, which may give an indication of how loose this category is.

It's similar in a way to the power star mug in that it usually signals that there's something "productive" to be done, but it's the kind of productive thing I expect to enjoy, and the kind that's a little bit higher up on the Maslow's. If I had to sum up this mug's ethos in one sentence it would be something like: "please try to spend today in such a way that you won't go to bed feeling like you've wasted it".

You might have noticed that the pronunciation guides this mug offers for each bird are completely pointless, because in most cases they simply repeat the bird's name, spelled exactly the same way, just with some hyphens in between the syllables. British birds have pretty easy to pronounce names it turns out! All I can think of is that this mug must be part of a series and some of the other mugs in the series feature the kinds of things where a pronunciation guide would actually make sense, and they didn't want to change the format for this one. I love this mug very much.

Feline Fine... a little more nebulous, this one. It has a very distinct meaning to me but am I up to the task of describing it, I wonder? I'll start by saying it's the mug most associated with social life. Probably the most illustrative use-case for this mug is, I'm going to be hanging out with some people that day and I want it to go well, I want to have a nice time, never a guarantee even if the people are good because of my severe social anxiety--but I would never use this for the sort of grim social obligation I fully expect to hate every second of, that's a power star day for sure. This is a mug that leans optimistic.

But it's not exclusively about social stuff. It's about... well I think it's not a coincidence that I contrasted it with the power star mug just now. This is the mug that hopes that the coming day will not feel task-shaped. This is the mug of liveliness, desire, spontaneity, music--the cat is clearly sleeping, but I always see it as the cat dancing somehow, when I'm not really looking at it? This is the mug that wants to have a good day and intends to adjudicate that based on feeling rather than on a to-do list or any other external measure. This is... it's the mug of feline fine, you know?

Orange mug is a calm mug first and foremost, which means it does not have calm associations, because you're not going to bust out your calm mug when you're feeling calm. Orange mug comes out on days when I feel fragile. Orange mug comes out on let's just get through today days. Orange mug is a way of signalling to myself, hey, I'm not going to ask much of you today, don't worry; contra British birds mug, the message here is: "don't worry too much about whether we waste today". You know. It's a mug for those orange mug kind of days.

And sometimes it's a mug for, like, still that, but a less extreme form of that. Probably I can add that caveat to all of these mug descriptions. I'm probably describing the most exaggerated form of their various vibes for ease of expression, but most days aren't the extreme form of the type of day they are, right?

I think the orange of orange mug is a very nice orange. I like orange in general but this one is particularly elegant. Most shades of orange could not convey orange mug calm nearly as well.

You might notice orange mug has a largeish chip in the outer rim; it's not very clear at this angle but you can see it at the top left there. That's alright.

---

If you have any hot drink-based spiritual exercises you spontaneously invented I'd be delighted to hear about them.

#selfposting #uninteresting #birds birds birds birds birds birds birds

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cherrylng · 4 months ago

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MUSE Discography 1999 - 2010 [ROCKIN'ON (August 2010)]

MUSE DISCOGRAPHY 1999 - 2010

SHOWBIZ (1999) ■ A towering origin point that strips everything out. I saw them live and interviewed them at the time of their debut. I wasn't convinced at the time that they were going to be as big as they were, but I'm pretty sure I liked their dramatic world a lot. The band's debut album is a sad, full-throttle sound that shows their determination to carry on Radiohead's naivety and Nirvana's violent impulses, as well as the reality of a new generation.

The album is packed with special songs that have been made into singles, such as "Uno", "Cave", "Muscle Museum", "Sunburn" and the ballad "Unintended" which is sung in a very simple sound with acoustic guitars, an approach that is quite rare nowadays. In addition to that, there are also excellent tracks such as "Fillip", which are also on the album, as if they were commonplace. The songs came out of his body one after another, and Matthew must have been swirling with ideas he wanted to sing. It was also a happy encounter with producer John Leckie, who responded quickly. The title 'Showbiz' is also suggestive in hindsight. Not because of its success, but because of its content! It is a masterpiece that deserves to be proud of. (Shunichi Otaka)

RANDOM 1-8 (2000) ■ A project disc filled with sounds that could only have come from the early days of the band. This is an original Japanese project disc, which is quite valuable nowadays. It was made to commemorate the Tou-Mei-Han (Tokyo-Nagoya-Osaka) tour* in 2000 and is already out of print, but it's well worth getting even if it has a bit of a premium. It's basically a collection of singles that were coupled to singles that were never released in Japan, starting with the popular "Host" and "Coma" from "Cave", and it's a shame to miss out on them! The album is packed with numbers that are full of the nuclear impulses of the early days of the band. The songs, such as "Pink Ego Box" from "Muscle Museum", are in a sense so cluttered that it's hard to imagine them in their current incarnation, but that's what makes them so appealing. It is natural that there is a robust aesthetic that comes from meticulous construction down to the smallest detail, but on the other hand, I often have a special feeling for the beauty of disintegration. These various aspects are often felt because of this kind of project.

The slightly eerie "Forced In" from Uno, the grunge-tinged "Agitated", the live "Fillip" and "Do We Need This?", recorded for radio and on-air use, are all songs that I miss now. But now you can listen to it all at once with a sharp sense of sharpness that is nostalgic nowadays. (Shunichi Otaka)

ORIGIN OF SYMMETRY (2001) ■ Origin of Muse Sound Brilliant, spectacular, dramatic, excessive - all of these adjectives are now indispensable when describing their music, and Muse have newly defined "their own characteristics". With this second album, the band shook off the 'Radiohead follower' preconceptions and spells that have haunted them since their early days, and established 'their own sound + view of the universe' at lightning speed. The band's sound was fundamentally dismantled and reconstructed as the ultimate form of 'dense sound' with completely new dynamics, although the same John Leckie was employed again as the producer as on the first album. The album features a grand introduction of graceful, classical piano, pipe organ, synths, strings, etc., intense guitar riffs and distortions that are similar to those in metal, and manic, bewitching, over-dramatic vocals. The rhythmic structure is a cross between high technology and eccentricity. Everything is out of the 'rock view' of the British scene in 2001. In fact, no other new release from a newcomer was so 'heretical' in every sense of the word, and the media reaction at the time was 'stunned'. No one could define the 'unorthodox beauty and talent' produced by this country, and there was virtually no convincing critique. I think it was after this film that we began to see many new media terms such as 'neo-progressive', 'opera rock' and 'space rock'. (Yukiko Kojima)

HULLABALOO SOUNDTRACK (2002) ■ The origin of the spectacle. Released just before the band's global expansion after two original albums, HULLABALOO SOUNDTRACK is a two-disc set that includes disc one of B-sides and disc two of live recordings compiled from live performances in Paris, and is intended for core fans. . However, listening to it again now, it is a real treat (and therefore a great entry point) for Muse, reflecting the band's potential in all its glory. In the B-side collection, elements of experimental and folk can also be heard. However, this is not just an experiment, which is what makes Muse so atypical. The band's anti-sensibility and daring songwriting ability, which was far removed from the impression of being 'Radiohead followers' as it was thought to be at the time, is testament to this. The same can be said for the live recordings, which are not the same as the slapdash worldview of a literary rock band, but are more like a spectacle with a highly dramatic development and entertainment value. The soundtrack functions as a document of the band's eve of further success, as well as a text that reveals the band's true nature. (Mami Hatori)

HULLABALOO -LIVE AT LE ZENITH- PARIS (2002) ■ Muse were no longer just Muse. The DVD of "HAARP" goes without saying that it is the definitive live video of Muse, but this work is also indispensable when looking back on their history. Like the Hullabaloo Soundtrack, disc 1 contains footage from the Paris leg of the band's European tour in autumn 2001 (not the entire show, but a 90-minute selection from the two dates), as well as backstage footage and an introduction to the magazines Muse have appeared on the covers of. Of course, it is their live show from 2001 that is a must-see. Muse's second album, 'Origin of Symmetry', had awakened them both in the studio and on stage, but here they are still young and innocent. Despite this, their performances are already perfected. Of course, there are no flashy stage sets, lasers or visions, as there are now. However, there is already a presentation with a touch of irony, such as Matthew's self confetti, and above all, the performance has been built up to a strong level. Rather than a rare live video from the early days, this film should be seen as a prologue to the myth of Muse up to the present day. (Tomohiro Ogawa)

ABSOLUTION (2003) ■ Liberation from Gravity If I were asked to pick one Muse album, it would be really difficult, but I think I would ultimately choose this one. As Matthew said in an interview, this album, released in 2003, was a stepping stone to a full-fledged foray into the US, and from the tour of this album, the band started playing a completely different class of venue in the US. This led to the tangible result of their next album, which debuted at No. 9 on Billboard.

These classic songs still remain highlights of live performances, including "Apocalypse Please," which achieves an unprecedented scale without any heavy guitar outbursts, "Time Is Running Out", which became one of the most singalong anthems in the Muse song list, and "The Time Is Running Out", "Stockholm Syndrome", with its ultra-technical riff going through multiple transformations, and "Hysteria", where Chris' bass riffs make the ensemble sound like a three-piece. The consistency of Muse's discography is unmistakable. In terms of the band's worldview, Storm Thorgerson of Hipgnosis began to design the jackets from this album, and the motif of the limitless universe further unleashed Muse's excess. This was the start of Muse's second chapter, including expansion into the USA. (Takuya Furukawa)

ABSOLUTION TOUR (2006) ■ All about the formula of the greatest live band of all time. This is the second live video collection of Muse's memorable 2004 shows, focusing on their performance at Glastonbury, a turning point for Muse in the year that earned them the title of "the best live band in the UK this century". This album, which is positioned in the middle of "Hullabaloo" and "HAARP", is also in the middle of Muse's career, and it meticulously records how the band, which was a liberal arts rock band that aimed for European aesthetics and style, acquired a kind of athletic loudness and heaviness and ran on the path to becoming a stadium rock band. The album 'Absolution' and the tour that followed were the catalyst for Muse's jump up from being the lone devil of the scene to a band of a different kind that had a hold on the majority, and the drastic transformation can be instantly understood when watching this film. The film also includes extra performances in Los Angeles and San Diego, as Muse had already made inroads into the US and were now setting their sights on worldwide success. At the time, however, their popularity in Japan was still in its infancy. The Bay NK Hall concert, where empty seats were conspicuous, is probably a lie nowadays. (Shino Kokawa)

BLACK HOLES AND REVELATIONS (2006) ■ The Great Trial. The Beatles, The Stones, The Pistols, The Clash. Britpop, which owed much to these 'great British garage rock archetypes', eventually stalled in the safe zone of self-indulgence. Among the British guitarists who emerged in the late 1990s, Muse were quick to free themselves from the cynicism and disappointment of post-Britpop with their fusion of the beauty of classical arrangements, post-grunge modern heaviness and the restoration of passion. “Absolution”, which saw the band achieve something in terms of pushing the limits of their heavy, vertical-fall dynamics-power trio, was at the same time a milestone towards “The Resistance”, with its expanded vocabulary of synths and rhythms. This album, which lies between the two, is still a transitional period in this sense. Some of the songs in the latter half of the album have a sense of 'treading water', where ideas have not been fully realised or have not yet made the leap from the past, and the overall concept is also uneven. However, the idea of creating depth by integrating and narrowing down the sound, rather than just over-laying it on top of each other, has given a clear and highly finished form to the current live essentials such as "Starlight", "Supermassive Black Hole", "Invincible", and "Knights of Cydonia", with simple song ideas and arrangements (for this band), and has created an opportunity to reach a wider audience. (Mariko Sakamoto)

HAARP (2008) ■ The fight to 'embody all music'. "Knights of Cydonia," "Invincible," "Time Is Running Out": A spectacular sight of the most splendid and excessive art form of the band in the 21st century rock scene becoming "everyone's song" one song at a time. It was, at the same time, the moment when Muse transcended the confines of UK rock to join the list of 'biggest live bands in the world'. The Wembley Arena concert, with "Black Holes and Revelations" fully fleshed out and ready to go, was a spectacle of epic proportions. Even the staggering data of "160,000 people in two days!" seems like mere microscopic noise in front of the dynamic performance of the three and the roaring chorus of the audience in response.

Electro, classical, metal, goth, in short, Muse have taken in the beauty and sharpness of the world and have finally become a huge 'music itself' that covers our sight. From the hybrid sound of "Map of the Problematique" and "Starlight", as well as Matthew’s guitar hero-like appearance in "Stockholm Syndrome", the fighting spirit that seems to embody all of music by themselves is exuded throughout this incredible live masterpiece. (Tomoki Takahashi)

THE RESISTANCE (2009) ■ The pleasure of succumbing to the microcosm of self-reliance. Muse's latest original album at the moment is synonymous with being Muse's strongest and deepest original album at the moment. Muse is a band that has basically devoted their energy only to forward movement without deviating from their own aesthetic, so it is no surprise that the most recent album is the one that is most bursting with Muse-ness. The Resistance, self-produced in their own studio in the ancient Italian capital, is a limitless album in which the microcosm of the three exploded in an isolated environment where there was no outside world to suggest a course correction, only justice. As a result, this 1984-inspired album became Muse's first full-fledged concept album. Borrowing boldly from metal to electro-pop and even Chopin, it became the most varied album in Muse's history. Matthew is reasonably concerned about the world and reasonably proposes a better world through the numbers in this film, but his definition of this 'world' is highly fictional and far removed from what we know of it. But the discrepancy is so great that there is no other way but to give in. This is such an extraordinary album. (Shino Kogawa)

Translator’s Note: “Cherry, how many times are we going to keep reading these discography reviews?” Until there’s no more to be published about it, that’s how!

*A Tou-Mei-Han tour is exactly what it says on the tin, which is a Tokyo-Nagoya-Osaka tour. But in context, this is actually the most common tour circuit route in Japan, done by all artists regardless of whether they’re a local one or an international one. Many artists starting out in Japan tend to use this tour circuit route because all three locations have a large population in the cities, an active nightlife, and numerous music venues for low, middle, and high capacities, so it makes for a budget-friendly choice to the touring artist. With sufficient funds and just a van, one can easily do the tour within less than a week.

#Matt Bellamy #Dom Howard #Chris Wolstenholme #Muse #Muse band #Showbiz era #Origin of Symmetry era #Absolution era #Black Holes and Revelations era #The Resistance era #my scan #translation #ROCKIN'ON #ROCKIN'ON August 2010

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johndpg · 1 year ago

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CATWEAZLE (1970)

Catweazle was a popular British children’s TV series of the early 1970s. He’s an 11th century bumbling wizard who, when pursued by soldiers through a wood, says a spell as he jumps into a pond. When he emerges, he believes he’s made the soldiers and the wood disappear; in fact he has jumped 900 years into the future. He arrives on a farm in rural England in the year 1969 and befriends a farmer's son, a ginger teenager named Edward Bennet, nicknamed Carrot, who spends most of the rest of the series attempting to hide the wizard from his father and the farmhand Sam. Catweazle searches for a way to return to his own time while hiding in a disused water tower. Whenever he is spotted, he uses his magic amulet to hypnotise people into forgetting that they saw him. He also has a toad called Touchwood (who’s featured in the screenshots above).

There was a second series shown in 1971 in which Catweazle has moved to a stately home, where he befriends the son of the unhinged gentry family living there. Frankly, series one is much better and more fondly remembered (especially by me—I loved this show as a boy!). A third series was planned but never came to fruition.

These screenshots are taken from Series 1, Episode 12—The Wisdom of Solomon. A housekeeper called Mrs Skinner has moved into the farm along with her obnoxious son Arthur. He and Carrot do not get along. This is the only episode to feature school uniforms, so it’s good to see one of the characters is wearing grey short trousers. Carrot is supposed to be around 14, so I think Arthur is meant to be younger, say 12/13. It’s a contemporary production, so the uniforms (complete with school caps!) are authentic for the period, and boys didn’t generally continue wearing shorts to school much past 12 (in state schools anyway—although I stand to be corrected). Did you spot that Arthur’s shorts are fully lined?

In reality, Robin Davies who played Carrot was 15 at the time of filming. Feddy Foote, meanwhile, who played Arthur, was actually older than him at 16 years old. Both boys would still have been at school when the episode was shot, so I wonder how young Freddy reacted when he first saw his costume—or what the other boys at his school thought when it was transmitted?

Catweazle was played by Geoffrey Bayldon, who enjoyed a substantial TV, film and stage career. The series featured a host of famous faces, such as Patricia Hayes, Peter Sallis, John Junkin, Peter Butterworth, Hattie Jacques, Neil McCarthy, Moray Watson, Bernard Hepton… It’s a veritable who’s who of popular British actors and comedy talent of the time. You can find most of the episodes on YouTube but I’ve included a link to the one with the two boys in their uniforms below.

Master Davies will be returning to this blog wearing a different school uniform (still with a cap though!) and with a short-trousered younger brother in tow in And Mother Makes Three. As a final note, he died his hair for Catweazle, so that his character could better live up to his nickname.

youtube

#Youtube

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measuringbliss · 3 months ago

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So one thing I suddenly started thinking about with my insomnia-ridden single braincell was translation in Harry Potter. Not translation of the books (although it IS fascinating), but translation of books, in-universe. And speech-translation, and presumably translation of everything.

Is translation a job in HP's magical world?

You could argue that there's probably a spell, a potion or any type of thing that supposedly provides translations. A very quick search throughout the wikia doesn't provide me with an example, but let's suppose so.

I see two main ways of doing translation, which I will compare with IRL processes:

The Human Way

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) Way

The first method implies some degree of conscience, where the translator understands the languages comprised in the interaction and the cultures they're associated with. The human can interpret, have opinions, deliberate, be influenced, and overall use their judgment. In the magical world, the direct equivalent would be identical: a human translator.

Now, the second method is different. It bases itself a canon of sorts (usually constituted of legal texts), where human translations have been executed, and the process checks what comes back again and again. It remembers that, for example, "Monsieur" is often (but not always! We immediately get a nuance) translated as "Sir" from French. If the machine sees that word, it will translate it that way. It won't take the cultural context into account (Does it take place in France? Is the character French? What's the social status of everyone involved? In which era?), it will just see the word, the sentence as a whole if it's not too terrible, and will repeat what it saw dozens and dozens of time.

An immediate issue with this method is that a lot of languages rarely interact with each other. English and French are common pairs, but Turkish and Afrikaans? Not so much. If the machine doesn't have enough data, it has to rely on intermediary translation, for example by first translating the text from Language A to Language B, then from Language B to Language C, which can be highly inaccurate.

In the magical world, a similar thing would simply be magic.

Magic is an interesting concept if you get in the nitty-gritty. We know that human translators, thanks to their humanness, their conscience, are better translators than AI (and that will never change).

So the question is: how would magic work?

Does it have a conscience? It doesn't seem so. It does help kids by revealing itself, but it seems to stop there. It's not all-powerful; any reader of Harry Potter knows that food can't be conjured from nothing. What stops magic from doing so: technical limitations (laws of nature?) or a simple, thought-out refusal?

There's no evidence to support the second theory, so we must assume that magic not only doesn't have conscience, but also has limits.

Now, we already determined that to translate accurately, you need a conscience. If magic doesn't seem to interpret anything (it seems to simply receive instructions and execute the command; think of how the wand movements and pronunciations need to be precise! How does that go for non-British wizards? Does everybody in the world need to have a British accent to say Latin formulas?), it's very comparable to an AI--at least, it doesn't try to pass off as human. At least, not without human intervention, whereas AI, once created, does have some autonomy.

Ergo, the magical world absolutely needs human translators and is probably aware of that fact to a better degree than the human world of 2024.

#harry potter #meta #translation #harry potter meta #translation meta #worldbuilding #analysis #theory

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lollipencil · 1 year ago

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In The Pale Moonlight: Part 4

Ok, I can't really think of any great full scenes right now for this one, so we're bouncing around the timeline this time around. @harleyification, let's do some introductions! Enjoy and be gentle

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(Commissioner Gordon (Marc)) A faint drizzle dotted the figure on the GCPD rooftop. Commissioner Gordon stood next to the lit Bat-Signal, looking up at the shape it cast into the ever-present clouds. Sometimes, he swore he could see that light in his dreams.

The familar sound of an ever so slight rustle was his cue. "Batman, Poison Ivy's been acting up again near Ace Chemicals," Commissoner Gordon began as he turned to face his friend, "She's been-"

The Commissioner stared. Blinked as if to dispel what he saw. Standing next to Batman, carefully watching Robin as he cartwheeled about the rooftop, was a caped mummy only a head taller than Robin himself. "Commissioner?" Batman asked, as if he couldn't tell what the problem was. "Is that another kid?" Gordon hissed, pointing at the trick or treater. "This is Moon Knight," Batman introduced, "He and his brothers will be assisting us from now on." "There's more of them?!"

---

(Damian Wayne (Steven))

Damian was polishing one of his knifes when a knock came on his bedroom door. Silently he slipt the knife up his sleeve, ready to deploy at a moment's notice, and opened the door. One of Father's "children" was standing there, thankfully not Drake. Damian had not interacted much with this one, Spector he'd heard his name was. Although, curiosly, they had personally been introduced as "the Triplets".

"Hello Damian," he greeted, his accent and expression far different than before, "Do you have anything planned for today?" "Why do you ask?" Damian kept his guard up. "There's a travelling exhibit at the Gotham Museum of Antiquities," Spector elaborated, "It's on ancient weapons. I'm going, and thought I'd extend an invitation."

"Tt, Mother taught me of many cultures' weaponry." "Yeah, but have you ever held any of them?" Damian paused. Idly, his eyes drifted to the bracelet Spector was wearing.

Father had indicated to pay attention to it. It was light grey and white at their first meeting. It was blue and black now. "Tell you what," Spector continued, "If you promise not to verbally or physically attack anyone, and to not steal the weapons, I'll take you with me. If you're good, I'll pay for a few things from the gift shop."

There was something going on with Spector, and Father had clearly intended in Damian working it out himself. To prove his skills. Plus, he'd always wanted to hold a khopesh. "I concede to these terms."

---

(Zatanna Zatara (Everyone))

Out of everything Zatanna Zatara was expected at midnight, the Batman knocking on her hotel window was fairly low down on the list. She had been in Gotham a mere three hours. "And how can I help you?" she greeted with a smile anyway. The Bat seemed intimidated by Zatanna's peppiness. "Moon Knight and his brothers have been hit by a spell," he muttered.

The drive to the Batcave was...something. At least, the dim lights were easy to adjust to. "Ok," Zatanna clapped her hands, "So, where are they?" "Right this way," an elderly gentleman in a domino mask held a curtain open for her.

Slipping in, she quickly had to hold back a coo. There, curled around each other and mewling loudly, were three cats. The white one hissed at Zatanna's entrance, while the dark and light brown and white cat next to him chided him, and went back to grooming his brother's. The grey and black striped one simpily stared at her. "Oh, this is an easy fix," Zatanna waved to herself, "emoceb namuh niaga."

Between blinks, it took effect. But not in the way Zatanna expected. "That sucked," moaned the single human sitting before her, "Need anything else?" "I've done it wrong," Zatanna slowly admitted, "Let me just fix it-" "Nope, nothing to fix here," Moon Knight popped up to his feet, british accent replacing american, "Thank you so much, we're off to bed."

Nobody stopped him as he darted straight to the elevator. "Miss Zatara," the gentleman intercepted before she could follow them, "While I understand your concern, I can assure you that their condition is back to their usual." "...oh."

#my fics #crossover fic #moon knight (2022)#batman #james gordon #bruce wayne #dick grayson #marc spector #damian wayne #steven grant #zatanna zatara #alfred pennyworth #jake lockley

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quill-of-thoth · 2 years ago

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Letters from Watson, catching up

The Speckled Band: Crimes in Context Inheritance The Speckled Band is the first example we’re getting in this reading order of a sub-genre of Holmes’ cases: inheritance crimes against women, so to understand it we’re going to have to take a look at the structure of Victorian inheritance. Thankfully, it is usually spelled out what each woman in canon is entitled to - unfortunately this is because the law could not be relied upon to guarantee her anything. Modernly, inheritance is something that someone might get when a relative dies: It was a more common concern in the victorian era, where the life expectancy for anyone who survived to the age of five is cited by papers I was able to find as anything from 60 to 75, (Compared to pre-covid numbers of early 80′s - 79 for males, 83 for females - in the UK, according to the ONS [Office of National Statistics], and 79 in the US according to the CDC.) Infectious disease prior to antibiotics, the number of wars that the British empire was waging at any given time, and a maternal mortality rate of around five percent meant that adults dying young, or suddenly, was more common than today. It was also not expected that middle and upper class women would work outside the home: if they did it was usually a sign that the family was not doing well, and in danger of no longer being middle class. A number of Holmes’ clients are women in this specific economic position: with less economic security or control over their finances because they were unmarried, often working as a governess, one of the jobs considered appropriate for unmarried middle class women. The majority of them have some sort of inheritance or trust that they have extremely limited access to until they marry - at which point the money is legally theirs, and they can set up trusts for their children as they see fit. The structure of these trusts and inheritances makes them ripe for abuse by male guardians: while a parent might leave their daughters a hefty sum, they might also leave the money somewhat accessible by other male relatives to provide for the daughters’ schooling, social opportunities, etc. Since the daughters would have no means of securing more money of their own (due to not working) this custodial arrangement could last indefinitely. Helen Stoner’s mother had, either via a trust or inheritance, a thousand pounds (92,000 pounds / 113,000 USD) per year. She was married to an officer, and widowed when her twins were less than a year old (inferring from the two year mourning period.) Likely she didn’t know Dr. Roylott very well at the time of their marriage, but a marriage would mean that she and her children didn’t have to find their own way back from India. Dr. Roylott had an estate but not the money to support it - a thousand pounds a year plus whatever he made while in India, would definitely help in that regard.

About ten years ago Dr. Roylott murdered a member of their household staff in India, and only barely escaped execution for it. Possibly because the man he murdered was Indian rather than British, possibly because the Roylotts were pretty rich by the standards of where they were residing and the murdered man was a servant. Either way, the family returned to England legally and financially in the power of a very violent man, and although the Stoner twins were in their late teens or early twenties at the time they were as powerless to leave the household as their mother, who had signed over her entire fortune to the man until her daughters’ marriage. Mrs. Roylott died in an accident shortly after their return. I can only infer that her husband having sole control of six figures (four figures at the time) except for a post-marriage portion for each daughter was only in effect until her death. Therefore, Dr. Roylott decides to return to his hereditary estates and isolate his stepdaughters there - much less chance of their getting married if they’re removed from London society and all the neighbors are terrified of him. Family Abuse Helen doesn’t go into a lot of detail about Dr. Roylott’s behavior to herself, her sister, and their mother, but based on what we know modernly about men who are constantly committing violent acts in their community, and the evidence that he abused Helen, it is very likely that Dr. Roylott abused his wife. While Watson records Helen as saying that her mother died in a train accident while the family lived in London, he would have had a motive to fictionalize that - if Mrs. Roylott was killed, likely beaten to death like his previous victim, by her husband it would be more scandalous than him beating a servant to death in India, more traceable by acquaintances of the family, and less suitable material for a family magazine. A man murdering his stepdaughters via snake may have felt more appropriate to the Victorian audience than spousal abuse. Murder, and Milk-Drinking Snakes Dr. Roylott definitely murdered Julia Stoner, is attempting to murder Helen, and for the purposes of Watson’s story, the murder weapon is a venomous snake. There are a lot of inconsistencies surrounding the snake. Julia’s autopsy found no trace of poison, but it’s always possible that faced with a venomous snake from India, the coroner didn’t know what to look for. There are no obvious snakebite marks, but it’s also possible to miss those. The snake is apparently trained to respond to whistles and rewarded by drinking milk. Snakes, are, however, reptiles: while you can train them to be accustomed to human handling, training them to enter a vent and return is very implausible. They also don’t digest lactose, and don’t even need to drink very often. There’s also the fact that you can’t just throw a snake in a room with a sleeping person and be sure that it will bite them, and that it will deliver a fatal dose of venom if it does. This is a lot of implausibilities, bordering on impossibilities. It makes a person wonder if one of the alleged “impossibilities” that were previously examined is possible after all. Particularly if one has coincidentally been reading how locks work. The modern door lock is not infallible, but it is significantly more complex than the late victorian door lock: we have better precision machining, so on average there are more springs and pins inside the lock, and more and smaller teeth on the key. Meaning that it takes longer to pick a lock using little tools to press each pin into the correct position, and also that you have to be more precise about the position. Because Stoke Moran is an old manor that was uninhabited for approximately twenty years while the Roylott-Stoner family lived in India, and the family fortunes were low since the regency, it’s unlikely to have modern (for the era) locks. At a guess, the latest the locks could have been updated is the 1810′s. It is extremely possible for a doctor, who presumably has some skill with surgical tools, and who has plotted for several months to murder his stepdaughter to prevent her marriage, to spend that time learning to pick a by then obsolete lock, instead of importing and training a snake. It’s equally possible for him to have access to a variety of poisons, whether they were thought to have any medical use or not, since the Victorian household used a lot of poisons as pesticides. Then too, he receives goods from India regularly - it doesn’t have to be a common poison. It could even actually be snake venom: though the first process of milking snakes for venom in order to test antidotes was published in 1891, it’s possible that there were significantly earlier, unrecorded attempts. Especially considering how many people throughout history have wanted to poison each other. A more plausible scenario is that Julia was murdered in the following way: Dr. Roylott looked through the vent, which must be large enough to try to see through if a decently sized snake can squeeze through it, to check that she was asleep, making a slight noise and shedding just enough light that he could see if she was lying awake in the dark or not, and on the nights that it did not wake her, he opened the door, possibly by picking the lock, possibly because the doors to his stepdaughters’ bedrooms were never actually secure, administered some kind of poison, possibly by injection, and left her there to die. Julia woke up as the poison ran its course, tried to light a candle, screamed, and was found by her sister. Dr. Roylott gave her brandy, knowing that it would do nothing, and waited. When the time came to murder Helen, he first attempted to intimidate her. “Livid” bruises, or bluish black ones, are two days to around a week old. Dr. Roylott, if the housekeeper leaves once Helen is gone, cannot maintain the family home on his own - as a landed gentleman he would not know how, and when he attempted to hire servants they left immediately. Helen is doing some, possibly still a full half, of the work of the house that keeps him comfortable. She also worked her hardest to keep the family name in acceptable shape whenever he attacked another person in their community, it’s possible that made life much easier for him. And a coroner faced with two mysterious deaths in the same household in two years is going to be suspicious, even if the official cause of Julia’s death is basically listed as fright. Maybe he tried a similar tactic on Julia, maybe he didn’t: both twins were slightly old for a first marriage, with Julia dead at thirty and Helen now thirty two. If he could scare either into calling it off, the chances of their marrying would decrease every year.

The intimidation of Helen failed - he had her moved into the bedroom he could most easily access. He checked whether she was asleep. She wasn’t: she lit the lamp immediately, but he had plenty of time. He was already going to london on business in the morning, possibly even to make sure he would have no trouble accessing her inheritance (though likely under the pretense of checking in on it so it would properly be distributed to her upon her marriage). If he’d managed to administer the poison that night, an early morning trip to the city might even give him an alibi - of course he hadn’t seen her since a decent hour the night before, he was up early to do business in town! He assumed the dear girl was still asleep. She works so hard, you know, and with her wedding coming up - and remembering her sister’s tragic demise only two years ago - she must be exhausted. Either the housekeeper would discover her death at some point in the day while he was gone, or he could “discover” her death quite late upon his return, leaving even less for the coroner to conclude, but that won’t stop him from trying again tomorrow night, since he can always adjust his story, with only the elderly housekeeper able to deny it. Imagine his surprise when he finds that she’s gone to London - to see a detective, no less! She has no evidence, and even if Holmes sees her bruises it’s not like he has any standing to intervene, but Roylott rages and threatens him anyway. And when Roylott finds Holmes and Watson on his estate at night, investigating, with his stepdaughter missing, he attacks them: one of them shoots him in self defense. It’s also possible that he did meet his end because of one of his exotic pets, loose in the night, while pursuing them. Nearly a decade later, perhaps immediately after successfully publishing a dramatic tale regarding he and Holmes coming to the aid of a young woman connected with exotic crimes in India, Watson recalls the adventure, begins to write it up, and realizes halfway through that it’s a simple tale of greed and cruelty. Eventually, he inserts the snake for a dash of the fantastic, obscures Helen’s identity further, and publishes it anyway, because although Helen is dead, he’s still proud of the work he and Holmes did saving her life, freeing her from her abusive stepfather, and allowing her to spend her too-brief married life in relative peace. If he had to, he’d do it again.

#Letters from Watson #inheritance crimes #murder #inferred racism #financial abuse #physical abuse #familial abuse #crimes in context

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braveclementine · 6 months ago

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Chapter 24

Warnings: None. However, future chapters will contain sexual content so readers that are under the age of 18 may have to skip those chapters (Please keep note of the warnings).

Copyright: I do not own any Wizarding World characters that J.K. Rowling wrote. I do however own Elizabeth Kane (main character) and Trang Nyguen (best friend). There should be no use of these two names without my permission. I also do not condone any copying of this.

🤎🤎🤎🤎🤎🤎

𝕴 𝖍𝖊𝖑𝖉 𝕽𝖊𝖒𝖚𝖘 in my arms, standing somewhere near Hagrid as we watched (with many younger students) as a powder-blue carriage the size of a house pulled by a dozen winged palominos soared through the last afternoon sky, settling down near Hagrid's cabin.

I watched as the large door opened and Madam Maxine walked from the house, throwing herself into Hagrid's waiting arms. There was a polite introduction, though of course, she recognized me from sight.

Trang was quite stunned at the sight of her, the carriage, and the horses. "Is that Hagrid's. . . well anything?"

I chuckled quietly, shifting my wait so that I could hold Remus more favorably. "Dating? Something like that."

"Wow." Trang said and we watched the two of them walk off into the woods.

"Hospital wing?" I asked.

"Hospital wing." Trang said.

We walked back up the slope to go and see Bill. Fleur was chattering happily about Bill's newest craving: rare steaks.

"Eet ees lucky 'e is marrying me, because ze British overcook thier meat, I 'ave always said this." Fleur said, fluffing Bill's pillow.

"Hey Eliza, Trang." Bill greeted us. I handed over Remus because I knew that Bill liked holding him.

"Rare steaks are good." Trang said, taking a chair near Hermione.

I scoffed, "How would you know?"

Trang grinned mysteriously and I rolled my eyes.

"I have something for you Harry." I said, reaching into my shoulder bag and pulling out a set of seven drawings and handed them over.

"This is Tom Riddles diary. . ." Harry said slowly and then stopped talking as he shifted through the drawings and then looked up, "Thanks Liz."

I simply nodded. Bill and Fleur were deep in another conversation and I sat closer to the rest of them.

"You wouldn't happen to know who R.A.B. is do you?" Hermione whispered.

I nodded, "Regulus Black."

"Sirius brother?" Harry whispered.

I nodded but said nothing as Bill and Fleur had finished their conversation and I said, "You were going to find out after their wedding." I said this in barely a whisper, jerking my head to mean Bill and Fleur. "You'll know what I mean when they day comes."

The next day came as a mournful one. Everyone woke up at around the same time which was early, dressing in mourning dress robes, and made their way down to the Great Hall for breakfast that most of us would not eat.

I'd packed last night after leaving Bill in the hospital wing. Nearly all my things were in Severus' room so it was simple to pack and grab just a few things from the Hufflepuff common room. Trang picked up my drawings of swords and keys and bees and all the other things and places and people from the art studio, putting them into a folder but left all my other drawings there on the walls and tables and easels. If I came back, I wanted something to come back to.

I stood in front of the Great Hall, holding Remus in my arms, looking at the drawing across the room behind the teacher's chairs, confused.

I had never colored the drawing, but now, Dumbledore's character was in color, flawless color too. So was Quirrell's, which I did not understand. Professor Binns was also somewhat colored although he looked more shimmery than anything. Perhaps because the drawing would've been translucent as he was a ghost, I wasn't sure.

"I did a spell." Hermione's voice said at my shoulder. She came to stand next to me. Students passed us into the Great Hall. "When a teacher dies, their character on the drawing is filled in with color, giving them life in death."

"Thank you." I whispered. "It's wonderful."

"I wished only Dumbledore's was colored but the spell stuck, so unfortunately Quirrell will be standing out today as well." Hermione said.

"And so many more will be colored in in the next year." I whispered sadly. Professor Moody, Professor Burbage. . . Professor Snape. . . Professor Lupin. I smiled grimly and then headed to the Hufflepuff table to stare at food on the table.

Rufus Scrimgeour was sitting where Severus should have been sitting. I noticed that Hagrid was not at the table either. I assumed he couldn't have faced breakfast, not today.

Some of the students were talking amongst each other, making the Great Hall seem as though more people were talking than there really were.

Ernie stared down at the bacon and Hannah was picking at a muffin.

"Eat something." Susan said, pushing food in front of me.

"None of you are eating." I protested.

"I feel nauseous to say the least." Justin said. He did look a little green.

Ernie scowled.

"Something wrong Ernie?" I asked gently, biting off a piece of bacon. I knew Susan was making me eat because of Remus and that was alright.

"Smith." Ernie scowled, apparently to disgusted with Zacharias to say his first name.

"Ah!" Rose piped up from Justin's other side. I hadn't seen her.

I shook my head, "Zacharias. . . has. . . well there's really nothing that can be said to defend his actions. He didn't want to fight and his father took him away. He'll do the same thing the next time a fight comes."

Ernie scowled deeper. "He's a coward."

"I think he uses the word self-preservation." I said lightly. I wasn't really sure why I was defending him but I was. Perhaps I just didn't want someone to not be defended for their actions, no matter how wrong. "How was the battle? I missed some of it."

"It was boring on our end." Justin said, eager apparently to tell his story. "We waited in the entrance hall, you know? Around midnight we heard loud noises and shouts and we got ready but the Death Eaters didn't appear for almost thirty or so minutes after the first shouts. The battle seemed really one sided, they were more trying to get away than fight us."

I ate more food in silence while the others stared morosely at their plates. I wished for more details like what had happened to Katie and Dean and the Patil twins and Hannah and Terry and Anthony, but I asked no more. What I didn't know didn't hurt me.

"When did you color in the drawings?" Hannah asked suddenly.

"I didn't." I said, giving the credit where it was due. "It's a spell of Hermione's. When a Professor in the drawing passes away, life is brought to the drawing."

Ernie chuckled, "Smart girl."

"Only wish I'd thought of it." I said, smiling.

Professor McGonagall rose to her feet and the talk in the Great Hall died away at once. "It is nearly time, please follow your Heads of Houses out into the grounds. Gryffindors, after me."

Professor Sprout rose, wearing clean robes of yellow. There wasn't a speck of dirt, dust, or patches on any of her clothes. I'd never seen her look so clean and it was like looking at a walking, talking character from the opposite Professor portraits I'd drawn what seemed like years ago.

As we passed through the entrance hall, I saw Madam Pince standing besides Mr. Filch. I remembered a conversation that had to of been at the start of the year about a possible love between the two of them. Hermione and Harry had been part of that conversation.

We stepped out through the front door and light hit our faces. Remus held a tiny hand up, trying to grab the sunbeams. I had shaded his head with a small hat and I angled him in my arms so that he couldn't stare directly into the sun.

There were hundreds of chairs, set out in a row by the lake and forest. There was an aisle down the center, like a wedding rather. There was a marble table standing at the front which I knew was probably the coffin because all of the chairs were facing it.

The weather was to beautiful, to wrong.

There were many people already in the front half of the chairs.

Kingsley approached, much to my pleasure, to give me a hug and say hello to Remus, taking him from my hands and holding him above his head.

"Careful." I chastised.

"I won't drop him." Kingsley said, giving me a large smile. "His name?"

"Remus Sirius." I said. I didn't know what Kingsley did or did not know but he clarified for me, giving a low chuckle.

"Snape let that name slide?"

I grinned reluctantly but said nothing as Uncle Moody stomped over to say hello.

I recognized many other people. Tonks hair was back to pink, sitting with dad and holding hands. Fred and George were there too, who also greeted me and took interest in Remus. I noticed there were many shopkeepers from both Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley. Aberforth, Dumbledore's brother sat there, anonymous, simply known as the bartender of Hog's Head.

Outside the windows, nearly invisible in the sunlight were the Hogwarts ghosts. I could pick out Nearly Headless Nick, the Fat Friar, Moaning Myrtle, and the Bloody Baron amongst many, many other ghosts. All of them were somber.

Even Peeves had shown up, slightly more visible than the ghosts. For once (and I'm sure it would never happen again) he looked somber. There was no smile on his face and there was nothing in his hands that suggested he would make a prank. He was simply sitting on a windowsill outside the castle, looking down on all of us.

I made my way to stand next to Firenze who was standing by the water's edge.

"Elizabeth Kane." Firenze said softly in a slightly hoarse voice.

"Firenze." I said.

"That is your child?"

"Remus Sirius Snape." I whispered.

"He's handsome." Firenze said. He seemed sad and another emotion I didn't recognize on his face. He seemed. . . almost. . . jealous? But perhaps I was reading his face wrong.

"Thank you."

We watched as Cornelius Fudge walked by. He looked miserable and I knew that he, for one, regretted that Dumbledore was dead. Some of the other Ministry wizards and witches had only feigned looks of sadness.

Rita Skeeter was here too, though I wasn't nearly as upset to see her than to see that Dolores Umbridge was here.

Yes, I had drawn her into the photo but that didn't mean I liked her. I hadn't liked Quirrell or Lockhart either, but there were certain respects you had to pay. But the fact that she was here at Dumbledore's funeral when she'd done nothing by try and get rid of him pissed me off. It made my blood boil.

She nearly sat down near dad and then when she saw him, hurried away. Even funnier was when she caught sight of Firenze and me and looked at Remus and nearly fainted. I snorted with laughter.

"I think," Firenze said slowly, "She believes the child to be ours."

"Yes." I said, slightly amused. "It was quite a lovely reaction."

Firenze chuckled and grew solemn again.

"I'm sorry." I said suddenly.

"For?"

"Dumbledore was the one who pulled you from the forest, from your home. I know you were doing him a favor, but in a way, he's the reason you were exiled from the forest. In a way, you might be mad Dumbledore died only a year later." I said slowly. "I don't mean to offend you though, if I am wrong."

"You have never offended me." Firenze said in a quiet voice. "You understand far more than the average wizard but then again, there really never was anything average about you."

I smiled a little bit and then he continued, "I suppose I am a little bitter, but I do not regret the decisions I have made, nor do I blame Dumbledore for me making the decision. It was my choice of course. I would have served Dumbledore to my death. I still would."

We fell silent as everyone became seated. I wondered briefly if it was even possible for a human and a Centaur to have a child and what the result would be. I fancied myself with Firenze for a moment, imaging what our child would look like. It kept my mind off other things.

I was one of the only people left standing, and though Trang and a few other people had obviously saved seats for me, I preferred standing here next to Firenze.

A strange music started to float through the air. At first, I thought it might be Fawkes again, but it came from somewhere else. I turned and slightly nudged Firenze and pointed to the water. The merpeople were singing below the surface.

Remus looked at them, probably not really able to see them for what they were. I was suddenly worried he'd start crying. Could silencing charms be used on babies or was that bad? And did contemplating that make me a bad mother?

But Remus did not cry and simply continued to stare on in curiosity, or maybe just in nothing as the Merpeople sung about loss and despair.

They continued to sing as Hagrid walked up the aisle between the chairs. He was crying silently, his face gleaming with tears. There was a large object wrapped in purple velvet that was embroidered with golden stars. It reminded me of one of the cloaks I'd drawn at an inn from the secret drawings with the sun and the moon.

I started to cry, tears falling down my face. Looking at many of the girls and women here, they were all doing the same. I reached out and took Firenze's hand for comfort, squeezing it. He squeezed back gently.

Hagrid placed the body carefully on the table and then walked back down the aisle, blowing his nose loudly. The noise drew scandalized and annoyed looks, almost all of them from the Ministry officials. I smiled a little. Dumbledore would've liked that. He knew how soft Hagrid was.

Grawp was in the very back, though some yards away from where Firenze and I stood at the waters edge. Hagrid sat down and Grawp patted Hagrid hard on the head, the chair legs of Hagrid's chair sank into the ground.

I laughed quietly under my breath.

The merpeople stopped singing.

There was a small tufty-haired man in plain black robes that had gotten to his feet and moved to stand in front of Dumbledore's body. He couldn't have been much taller than Professor Flitwick. His voice must've been high-pitched and squeaky like Professor Flitwick's too because from where we stood, we could not hear much of the speech.

Firenze probably heard more with his hearing.

There was a soft splashing noise and I looked over to see that the merpeople's heads had broken above water to listen. I smiled briefly at them before turning back to the small man up front as though I could hear his words.

Dumbledore had known Mermish. I wondered where he had learned it, how fluent he had been in it, and if he had ever taught it. I wondered if I could ever learn it.

"The centaurs are coming." I whispered up to Firenze, letting go of his hand carefully. If they saw us, I did not want them to see him holding my hand- the hand of a human. I smiled up at him gently.

"Yes." He said softly, giving me an understanding look, "They are in the trees."

Indeed, there seemed to be movement in the trees, though none of the Centaurs showed themselves.

I felt as though someone was watching me and I looked across from where I was standing but no one was looking at me. The hot air was just shimmering on the grass. I moved Remus Sirius to my other hip.

Finally, the small man stopped speaking and resumed his seat. No one moved, not even Professor McGonagall, who I thought would make some sort of speech, or the Minister. But no one moved an inch.

Then, bright white flames erupted around Dumbledore's body. A couple of people screamed. They were probably the Muggle born students or the parents of the Muggle born students. The ones who weren't expecting a body to catch on fire.

The flames also lit the table he was laying on, on fire too. The flames rose higher and higher. White smoke started to spiral through the air, making shapes. For a moment, it seemed as though a phoenix flew from the smoke into the blue but the flames were out a moment later and there was no phoenix in the sky. There was now a white marble coffin that Dumbledore was laying inside.

A shower of arrows soared gracefully through the air in neat, symmetrical arcs and landed a few feet from the coffin. It was the Centaurs' tribute. I saw the briefest glance of Ivagio's face before the Centaur's turned tail, heading back into the forest. The merpeople went back down into their lake.

People started to stand, talking to people they hadn't talked to prior to the funeral. Hands being shaken, conversations starting.

Firenze took my hand and squeezed it. "Until we meet again Elizabeth Kane."

I hugged him tightly before letting him go. He ran a hand over Remus' head before moving away from us.

He trotted back up to the castle, careful to pass by Dolores Umbridge, who jumped back with a shriek. I smiled.

Hermione and Ron joined me, Hermione taking Remus from my arms. I hadn't realized how sore they were. Her face was glazed with tears, Ron's arm around her. There were tearstains dropped all down the back of his dress robes. Hermione had obviously been crying all over him today.

Harry made his way towards us, to make a circuit around the lake. He got close, though not close enough to talk to us yet when behind him came Rufus Scrimgeour. "Harry!"

Harry turned, though not before we saw the briefest flash of annoyance cross his face.

"I've been hoping to have a word... do you mind if I walk a little way with you?"

"No." Harry said shortly, continuing on his way towards us.

"Harry, this was a dreadful tragedy. I cannot tell you how appalled I was to hear of it. Dumbledore was a very great wizard. We had our disagreements, as you know, but no one knows better than I-"

"What do you want?" Harry asked, having finally reached us.

"You are, of course, devastated. I know that you were very close to Dumbledore. I think you may have been his favorite pupil ever. The bond between the two of you-" Scrimgeour said, ignoring the rest of us completely. I saw over his shoulder that Kingsley, Mad-Eye, Tonks, and Dad were eyeing us with curiosity.

"What do you want?" Harry asked again.

Scrimgeour stopped, leaning on his walking stick, glancing at us. Professor McGonagall slowed to a stop near Kingsley.

"Say what you have to." Harry said, "But you'll have to say it in front of them."

"The word is that you were with him when he left the school the night that he died."

"Whose word?" Harry asked.

"Somebody Stupefied a Death Eater on top of the tower after Dumbledore died. There were also two broomsticks up there. The Ministry can add two and two, Harry."

"Glad to hear it. Well, where I went with Dumbledore and what we did is my business. He didn't want people to know." Harry said flatly.

"Such loyalty is admirable, of course, but Dumbledore is gone, Harry. He's gone."

"He will only be gone from the school when none here are loyal to him." Harry said, smiling.

"My dear boy. . . even Dumbledore cannot return from the-"

"It's what Harry said before killing the ghost of Tom Riddle in the Chamber of Secrets." I said before I could stop myself. "It's what Dumbledore said before he was taken away by the Governors. Dumbledore's spirit lives on whether you believe that or not and so Harry will always be tied to that loyalty of him."

Harry and I exchanged a knowing glance, a good one. We were always going to stick to each other's sides now.

Scrimgeour hesitated and then said, "The Ministry can offer you all sorts of protection, you know, Harry. I would be delighted to place a couple of my Aurors at your service-"

Harry laughed which startled even me. "Voldemort wants to kill me himself, and Aurors won't stop him. So thanks for the offer, but no thanks."

"And you?" Scrimgeour asked, looking at me and then Remus in Hermione's arms. "You do have a, ah, child now."

"Like Harry said, Voldemort wants me, a few Aurors won't stop him. I can take care of myself, I know how to disappear off the grid." I said confidently.

"Because your father's a werewolf?" Scrimgeour asked.

My face flushed and I took a step towards him. Harry grabbed my arm, "Take that back!" I snapped. Tonks squeezed Dad's hand. Uncle Moody was now leaning on his walking stick, having stopped by Kingsley's side, eyeing Rufus with dislike. Professor McGonagall looked rather nervous, watching my face.

Scrimgeour seemed unfazed. "It was a comment, not a criticism." He turned to Harry. "So, the request I made of you at Christmas-"

"What request? Oh yeah. . . the one where I tell the world what a great job you're doing in exchange for-"

"-for raising everyone's morale!" Scrimgeour snapped. He'd finally lost his delicate, sorrowful tone and I bit my tongue to keep from commenting.

"Released Stan Shunpike yet?" Harry asked.

"I see you are-"

"Dumbledore's man through and through. That's right." Harry said.

Scrimgeour stared at the four of us for a moment and then stomped back to where Percy and a few of the other Ministry delegation, waiting for him near Hagrid and Grawp.

"Let me go back and hit Percy." Ron said.

Hermione grabbed his arm. "No!"

"It'll make me feel better!"

Harry and I laughed. Hermione grinned a little, her smiled faded though, looking back up at the castle.

"I can't bear the idea that we might never come back. How can Hogwarts close?" she asked.

"Maybe it won't. We're not in any more danger here than we are at home, are we? Everywhere's the same now. I'd even say Hogwarts is safer, there are more wizards inside to defend the place. What d'you reckon, Harry?" Ron asked.

"I'm not coming back even if it does reopen." Harry said.

"I knew you were going to say that. But then what will you do?" Hermione asked sadly.

"I'm going back to the Dursley's once more, because Dumbledore wanted me to. But it'll be a short visit, and then I'll be gone for good." Harry stated.

Remus started to fuss and Hermione handed him over.

"But where will you go if you don't come back to school?" Ron asked.

"I though I might go back to Godric's Hollow." Harry said. "For me, it started there, all of it. I've just got a feeling I need to go there. And I can visit my parents' graves, I'd like that."

"And then what?" Ron asked.

"Then I've got to track down the rest of the Horcruxes, haven't I?" Harry asked. "I've got a list of them right now. That's what he wanted me to do, that's why he told me all about them. If Dumbledore was right- and I'm sure he was- there are still four of them out there. I've got to find them and destroy them, and then I've got to go after the seventh bit of Voldemort's soul, the bit that's still in his body, and I'm the one who's going to kill him. And if-" Harry stopped and cleared his throat and said nothing more.

There was a long silence, many of the stragglers were finally starting to make their way out except for Kingsley, Mad-Eye, Tonks, and Dad who were still watching us.

"We'll be there, Harry." Ron said.

"What?" Harry asked, taken aback.

"At your aunt and uncle's house. And then we'll go with you wherever you're going."

"No." Harry said quickly.

"You said to us once before that there was time to turn back if we wanted to. We've had time, haven't we?" Hermione asked softly and both Hermione and Ron looked at me.

I shook my head, "I'm sorry, I can't."

"Why?" Ron demanded.

"Because. . ." I said softly. "Remus. I can't leave him, not now and. . . and. . . I see all the people who. . . who die next year and. . . and let's just say. . . say I'm close to a few of them and I. . . I'm going to try and prevent them from dying. . . formulate a plan, make more Felix Felicis. And if I'm. . . not successful. . ." I drew in a deep breath, more tears falling down my face, "Then at least I spent time with them, you know?" My voice cracked.

"I understand." Harry said. "And I'm glad."

"I believe your words would have been, 'No parent should leave their child if they have a choice'." I said with a smile.

"I said that?" Harry asked, seeming surprised.

"Yes." I said. "Or, you will."

"Well," Ron said, "You're going to have to come round my mum and dad's house before we do anything else, even Godric's Hollow."

"Why?" Harry and I both asked.

"Bill and Fleur's wedding, remember?"

I stared at Ron for a moment and then started to laugh and the other three joined in with me and when we were finally able to stop laughing Harry said, "Yeah, we shouldn't miss that."

⬅️➡️

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browneyeddevil · 1 year ago

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Spellings

Hi everyone! Long time no see lol

Here's a question for all my friends across the pond.

How jarring do you find it in a piece of fiction when something is spelt in the British English way? For instance 'Mum' instead of 'Mom'.

Because I know when I first started to read American fiction and fan fiction seeing the word 'pants' used instead of 'trousers' would genuinely crack me up (and when I was younger, have me very... concerned 😅).

I ask you this because, although I know THG is set in America, and Twelve in the southern states at that, having Katniss or Prim call their mother 'Mom' instead of 'Mum' feels... icky to me.

So yeah, would you say that would be distracting and pull you out of the story or it's 'eh whatever 🤷‍♀️'?

Anyone feel free to chip in - I need to knowwww :)

#writing things #spelling #thg #quesion

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ashtrologys · 2 years ago

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Here is the Echo alphabet!! :))

It's a little late because I've been busy but its done now - It's SFW too

(If you think there are any spelling mistakes I will put a disclaimer here that I'm British lmao)

A is for Adventure: something they haven’t done but have always wanted to

Although Echo would much rather endlessly help out with the Resistance and save clones, one of his life goals had been to go swimming. Now he was more or less incapable due to his cybernetic parts, but it didn't stop him from imagining the feeling from time to time. The only time he did get close was slipping on the way back to the ship in escape of the crabs

B is for Butterflies: How they act when they’re nervous

Echo would be very withdrawn and quiet. It mostly stems from what happened on Skako Minor, and you'd found that he was a lot more nervous after that. But you'd find your ways around those nervous feelings and adapt to make sure when you're around him he doesn't have to feel so nervous and unsafe. You do your best to help his nervous habits

C is for Crush: what is it like when they have a crush? How do they know/act?

Awkward glances and stares across the room/ship. He can't admit his emotions properly due to the fear of you not liking him back, so he marvels at you from afar. When he is around you he gets clumsy and sheepish, which made it pretty easy for you to pinpoint he must like you

D is for Date: describe an ideal date for them

He'd prefer something a lot more quiet and something that felt more intimate. Probably a walk on Pabu beach due to the lack of people during the times the sunsets. It'd just be him and you, and he'd bring his own picnic too, although he forgets to put the sandwiches in a box, so when he opened the basket the sandwiches were mushed up

E is for Essential: what is one thing they could NEVER go without

More of a headcanon, but I'd like to think he has Fives' helmet stored somewhere where he can always see it and just think about all his brothers. He makes sure it's in the Marauder if they're on missions, and in their room back on Kamino (before it was destroyed)

F is for Favorite: a favorite anything- food, place, smell, book, etc.

He's grown keen of the smell around the Batch. It's a throwback to "The smell's getting worse' and he's just slowly gotten used to it like Hunter said. You wish you could say the same thing about yourself, you're still slowly adapting to him but Echo helps you out through it. Also convinced his favourite place would be Pabu, just so he can rest and escape the pressures of everything around him

G is for Giggle: how they laugh/what makes them laugh

He laughs at bad jokes. Its not an outright laugh, it's more of a soft chuckle he does occasionally when he finds something funny. Which is why you have a long list of terrible jokes you crack in terrible situations just to hear the chuckle. He can't help it. He'd laugh at something like: What do you call a fly with no wings? A walk

H is for Holding Hands: Do they like holding hands? Are their hands warm or cold? Pinky promises?

Mainly cold because of his cybernetic body, and you can only hold one hand. However you don't mind the cold, you always warm up his hand and make his day. He's taken aback whenever you come along and just scoop his hand up in yours, but he finds your touch comforting

I is for Inside Joke: something they do that everyone thinks is funny but they don’t understand

Echo. His name literally. Its funny to you when he repeats things and gets all confused when he wonders why you're laughing. Like the time he admitted he liked you: but then five minutes later came back saying it again, forgetting he had told you earlier on

J is for Jinx: Are they Superstitious?

Very superstitious. He's made it this far, with surviving the Citadel miraculously and saving all the other wacky and weird missions he'd been assigned whilst with the batch

K is for Kiss: how do they kiss?

Quick and soft. He doesn't want to waste your time and he's scared he'll overdo it if he drags it on longer. You don't think that, but you partake in the quick and soft kisses too just to make sure he feels comfortable. He would love to try and become more confident with longer one's though

L is for Love Languge: what is their love language? How do they give and how would they like to receive love?

Soft and compassionate compliments. He always comes up with different nicknames or adds a loving word at the very end of his sentences when addressing you. You think it's cute. You like to joke and be cute around him, and he loves that you do that. He's trying to get used to a more joky side of himself

M is for Meant to be: how/when they know someone is “the one”

I don't think he'll know for certain because he's worried he could be wrong, but if he thinks someone may stick in his life for a bit he's not too afraid to approach them and engage in conversation. He'd done the same thing with you, and he's overjoyed he did

N is for Nickname: a nickname they would have or their favorite thing to be called

Definitely not Killjoy - coming for Cid for that comment.

I think Echo would love to be called dear or love. Its basic but he loves the basics and traditions

O is for Organization: are they clean or messy?

I feel like he'd be much more clean, however he's messy sometimes too. He'll keep tabs on everyone and make sure they're doing their part and making sure they're doing their cleaning, but then he'll realise he's super behind on his own. Then the puppy eyes ensue as he begs you to help him with his cleaning and you just can't say no

P is for Pet Peeve: What’s something they absolutely CAN’T stand?

Not exactly a pet peeve, but he cannot handle the silence and there needs to be some sort of noise otherwise he'll feel like he's isolated at Skako Minor again. A lot of the times you have to softly talk to him to make sure he falls asleep, and then you can go to sleep too. It fills you with peace and mind that he'll sleep, and it also helps him sleep

Q is for Quiet: What do they do for peace of mind

He likes to talk about his brothers from Domino. He'll tell you stories about how Hevy slipped during training, how Droidbait got absolutely wrecked by the droids and so on. Talking gives him peace of mind. He just wants to let things go

R is for Rainy Day: Do they like rain? What about storms? How would they spend a rainy day?

He hates rain. Mainly because of the whole prosthetic thing but also because of the constant raining on Kamino. He couldn't remember it much though. On stormy days you'd find him and Omega snuggled together, him reading her a book or telling her about clone commands, reciting them from his head like he'd done with his brothers. When Omega would jump because of lightning or thunder Echo would be there to give her a slight squeeze as if to say he's there to protect her

S is for Soft: Describe their softest feature

His softest feature is his hand. Although it's cold, it's also really soft to the touch. You have no idea how he does it but that's why you love holding his hand so much

T is for Telephone: are they a talker or a texter? How often do they use their phone?

He uses comms a lot, so his main method of contact is talking. He's also just used to that because that's what they did during the clone wars. He avoids using the comm often, but most of the time when he does use it hes either warning everyone, or making sure you're safe

U is for Unique: a random quirk they have

Mentioned it before, but the way he repeats things. Its super cute and he's not aware of it unless someone complains. And it's how he got his name so it's very unique

V is for Valentine: Are they the type to celebrate or not?

He would celebrate, I just think you'd be the main initiator. He just needs a little push, because he's still pretty shy. You don't mind it though, you love to dee his confidence grow

W is for Wholesome: something extremely pure about them that makes you just *uwu*

His smile. He has the purest smile and it makes you smile, but also fills you with butterflies because of how soft it is. He doesn't smile much, but when he does you savour every moment

X is for Xenia: How they would entertain a guest/show hospitality

He'd very welcoming but on edge. If it were a stranger he'd watch from afar before approaching. The last thing he wants is to make friends and they turn out to be evil. When he does realise they're okay he ends up chatting with them non-stop about things, just random things

Y is for Youth: A fond childhood memory they have

Most likely a time when he was growing up with his brothers in Domino Squad. He doesn't have a specific one but he enjoyed most of the time with his squad

Z is for Zzz: Sleep habits. Do they cuddle in their sleep? Talk? What do they dream about?

When he sleeps he takes off his prosthetics before just to avoid hurting you. You're the main cuddler, and in the mornings you help him get them back on. He does try his best to cuddle with you. He has his fair share of nightmares caused by things such as the Citadel, but all you need to do is give him a reassuring cuddle and he's back to dreaming

#bad batch #disney #star wars #tbb echo #echo clone wars #the bad batch #bb echo #alphabet

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