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jeremys-blogs · 4 years ago

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The Last Unicorn: Unhappy Fantasy

Everybody loves a happy ending. We all love the idea that, no matter what bad things come about, everything will turn out all right when it's all over. That good will triumph over evil, true love will win out and that everything that could go right will go right. But as you get older, you come to realise that this won't always be the case. Bad things will happen, and they will happen to good people at that. But you don't always need to be an adult to come to realise that, as children too can grasp this concept. Media aimed at them will usually try to go for the more upbeat of tones and stories, but every once in a while you'll get a story that just won't want to sugarcoat things. A story that will look at its young target audience and let them know that we won't always get wat we want. For me, the first film to truly do this, to make me realise that not every ending would be a happy one, was the 1982 Rankin/Bass film, The Last Unicorn, an adaptation of the book by the same name by Peter S. Beagle. This movie was unlike anything else I'd seen up to that point, and as I'll say here, it's also unlike most of what I saw afterwards too.

Our story, which I first encountered via an old VHS lent to me by a family friend way back in the early 90s, stars a nameless unicorn who, after an encounter with some humans, begins to feel that she might be the only one of her kind left in all the world. Worried, she sets out from her forest in search of others like her, and along the way she comes across a number of dangers, including witches and bandits, all while picking up a couple of human allies, Schmendrick the magician and Molly Grue. Together they journey to the castle of King Haggard, the man responsible for taking unicorns from the world through the power of his beast, the red bull. But this endeavour takes its toll on the unicorn, as magic forces her into the form of a human girl before her arrival into the castle, which eventually leads to her falling in love with the King's son, Lir. After much time searching, the group once more face off against the red bull, and after resuming her unicorn form, our heroine fights it off, releasing all other unicorns from their imprisonment in the sea. The evil King is vanquished, unicorns have returned, and the party go their separate ways, with their journey now complete.

Now, to this day, I can't recall another animated film meant for children that has this kind of feel to it as I watch it, and bear in mind that I've known it for the better part of thirty years now. It's a kind of melancholy that just sits there in every moment. This is a fantasy world, yes, but it's also a fantasy world where a lot of the wonder and majesty that you might find has come and gone. A world where all the truly great things have faded. The unicorn we see is truly the last of her kind in the world, to the point where even two random human can recognise it. The fantastical creatures locked up in the cages of the witch? Unreal illusions hoaxed by her to fool gullible carnival-goers. The land King Haggard rules over is barren and dead, a far cry from the lush place it supposedly used to be before his rule. Even characters like Molly are those who feel like their best days are behind them, to the point where she feels initially quite bitter to see the unicorn at this point of her life, rather than as the young maiden she used to be. This whole world just feel worn down, past its prime, which was really quite something for someone as young as I was when I first saw it.

And it's not just the overall world that has this feel to it. Characters both ordinary and fantastic just struggle with feeling happy a lot of the time, or even optimistic. Schemndrick is constantly frustrated over his lack of magical talent, Molly, as I said, has grown up disillusioned with the supposedly romantic life of an outlaw's wife, and as for the Unicorn herself, she undergoes more than a few bad times. The transformation into a human girl utterly horrifies her, and it's something which puts her in a truly unenviable situation during the final act. A choice between her original life and her newfound love for Lir is put before her, and in the end it's not even her that makes the choice. She returns to being a unicorn and, as a result, can no longer be with the Prince she's come to care for. When the movie is on its last moments, she laments what has happened, that she regrets returning back to her original form as she will no longer experience love, which is something unicorns apparently can't feel naturally. She's given a happiness and it's taken away from her, and while she's grateful that her kind are back in the world again, this is a sting that's going to stay with her all the same.

And you know, there's one line in this movie that perfectly sums up exactly why it feels the way that it does. It happens towards the end, and Molly wonders if their journey is going to have a happy ending. Schmendrick responds by saying "there ARE no happy endings, because nothing ever ends". This, I think, is a perfect example of just what kind of mindset this story has. It's not trying to be some classic fairy tale of good triumphing over evil with its heroes riding off into the sunset. Good may score a victory over a terrible person and his beast, and yes a force for good is returned to the world, but it comes at a loss. When Schmendrick says this, you feel as though this really isn't the end, that this is just one moment of the much wider story. Good wins today, but tomorrow there might be something else, something where the other side is victorious. When Lir rides off, he'll likely go and do other things, have other adventures of which this was only one, so too will Molly and Schmendrick. It's fascinating to me that one line, only a few seconds long, can conjure up all these worries about what might happen after the curtain falls on our cast, but there it is.

Now I realise that this must make the movie sound incredibly pessimistic, and yeah, it's hard not to come away with that feeling when you finish watching it. This isn't a "happily ever after" kind of story, despite the fact that the goal of the quest was fulfilled. The dour tone of the story is so prevalent that, even as you see a whole herd of unicorn riding free, there's this feeling that something was lost along the way to making it happen. But, despite the story's clear stance of criticising or undermining certain classic ideas of fairy tales and other fantasy tropes, there's nevertheless a spark of hopefulness in here. Despite the hardships, the unicorn triumphs, restoring her kind to the world, even if it cost her something personal. Schmendrick, having gone through his own difficulties, emerges at the end as a fully-fledged wizard. Molly gets to presumably spend her remaining days with someone who treats her well, in stark contrast to the life she had prior to meeting the unicorn. Success arrives to all our main characters, so the film clearly thinks that good things can happen to good people in spite of the glass-half-empty tone it appeared to have, even if those characters had to be put through the wringer to get there.

The Last Unicorn, it must be said, is not a movie to watch if what you're looking for is an unambiguous good time. The mood is sombre, the designs are not exactly appealing with the obvious exception of the title character, and if you're like me you'll likely find yourself finishing this movie with a big scream at the screen saying something like "WHY CAN'T THE UNIVERSE LET THIS UNICORN BE HAPPY FOR FIVE MINUTES?!?!?!" But let it never be said that the film is ineffective at making you feel exactly what it wants you to feel. It set out to create a bittersweet children's fantasy story, and by God it made one. Maybe it was because I first saw it at a young and impressionable age, but subsequent viewings through my life nevertheless made me feel exactly as I did that first time, that I'd just watched something unique and memorable. It's hard to say whether this film deserves to be on any lists of the greatest animated movies of all time, but there's no denying that it did things kids' movies just don't normally try to do, and certainly not back then. It's a sad movie a lot of the time, but if the likes of Inside Out taught us anything, it's that it's okay to be sad every once in a while 😉

#essay #writing #my stuff #the last unicorn #rankin bass #amalthea #unicorn

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happy-party-train · 7 years ago

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Hi, I was wondering what relics do you think could potentially added to the symphogear universe. I saw Sharur (on Phoenix-gear's blog which I thought was cool). I'm thinking about starting an RP but I'm just stumped on ideas for relics. Thanks for much for the help and I hope u have a wonderful day :)

This is such a great question and I will do my best to help you out!!

Your best bet it to look up mythological objects or beings and then draw inspiration from them. You can pick the more common, easier route of picking a pre-existing relic such as the Mjolnir etc., or be a bit out there and create one yourself.

What do I mean by that? Ok, let’s say you really like vampires and you want a vampire-inspired relic but there’s nothing you can find online relating to vampire-related objects. You can come up with your own relics, for example, have your character stumble across a fragment of a vampire’s fang or something and call it a relic. Call it Dracula’s Fang or something and there you go ! OK, the example I just gave it the most horrible example ever, so please don’t make a vampire-based relic, unless you come up with something that is actually cool and makes sense…. Ignoring the crappy vampire example, just apply the rule to anything in folklore or mythology and you’ve got yourself a relic. I’ll try to give you a second (hopefully less ridiculous) example.

The story of Children of Lir is a popular old Irish legend about children that were turned into swans. It’s as simple as stating that your character’s relic is the feather of one of those swans, and voila, you’ve got yourself an elegant, swan-inspired relic.

Once you have a relic, remember that you also need a battle style to go with it. Let’s stick with the Lir Feather relic we just came up with. How would that function in battle? You’re not just gonna slap someone with a feather, are you? How about a feather-shaped fan capable of creating a small tornado? And what if the fan could open up and release bird-like projectile attacks? It’s as easy as that! Once you have a weapon type in mind, then you can complete the process by looking up different designs and getting even more inspiration.

I personally go the lazy/normal route for my Symphogear OC’s, and I have 6 of them. The relics I chose are actually pretty common ones and I’ve seen 2 other OC’s use the same relics I’ve chosen for my characters. Did I bother to change them to make the characters more original? No, I didn’t I actually kept my relics and I’m simply headcanoning that those other OC’s that use the same relics as mine, are from a parallel world. XD Unlimited certainly supports alternate universes, so there’s no point in me altering my long-established OC’s for the sake of someone else’s OC’s. We can share relics! Sharing is caring, so without further ado, here’s my relics and my interpretation on how my OC’s use them in battle.

Relic: TrishulaForm: A powerful Trident that can also be manipulated into shrinking into comb-like form in close-quarters combat.The wielder of this relic can use their song to affect the minds of others and have them do their bidding. Color scheme: main part - white, accents - teal, orangeMusic genre: Gothic rockBattle song: Guiding Trident - TrishulaAttacks:-Siren Leap-Doomsday Abyss-Curse Lullaby

Relic: Lightning BoltForm: A powerful weapon once used by Zeus. It takes the form of two trumpet guns which serve as vessels to store the lightning bolt.The wielder can use the guns in many different ways such as charging the guns for maximum impact or combining the two guns intoa giant one for maximum damage outputColor scheme: main part - white, accents - navyMusic genre: Third wave skaBattle song: Twin Bolts of JusticeAttacks:-Twin Trumpets-Static Stampede-Shocking Shame

Relic: SvalinnForm: A large, sharp-edged shield with the power to blind others. The shield can reconstruct itself into a jet platformwhich can support up to 3 people (including the user), granting flying capability. It can also absorb solar energy and convert itinto powerful beam attacks.Color scheme: main part - white, accents - brown, redMusic genre: Alternative rockBattle song: Blinding Shield - SvalinnAttacks: -Final Dawn-Icing Draught -Fire Heartbreak

Relic: VajraForm: A small symmetrical club-like weapon but capable of projectile-based attacks. It can also extend into a small dagger upon close-quarters combat orexpand its claw-like tip to push back the opponent. Color scheme: main part - white, accents - gold, lavenderMusic genre: TranceBattle song: Judge of Principles - VajraAttacks:-Revelation of Indra-Wisdom Duality-Diamond of Godhood

Relic: Rod of Asclepius (cursed)Form: The rod attaches itself to the wielder’s head, forming a single, long, armored pony-tail like strand resembling a snake. It servesboth offensively and defensively. It can spin, giving the wielder incredible speed.Color scheme: main part - grey, accents - lime green, violetMusic genre: Symphonic metalBattle song: Poisoned Staff - AsclepiusAttacks: -Venom Populis-Lux Destroyer-Wrath of Medusa -Serpent Promise

Relic: Rod of Asclepius (blessed)Form: The blessed variant can use the Rod’s true power which include healing capabilities. The armed gear can finally be formedas a beautiful, sleek staff, surrounded by a spectral coiled ribbon which resembles a serpent. Both the staff and the ribbon can workseparately or in unison.Color scheme: main part - white, accents - lime green, pastel pinkMusic genre: Symphonic rockBattle song: Healing Staff - AsclepiusAttacks:-Star of Life-Serpent Deliverance -Rejuvenation

#symphogear #oc guide #senki zesshou symphogear

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rposervices · 5 years ago

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Visualizing Data for Power Sourcing

This article is a summary of my presentation from the great Sourcing Summit that was held in Tallinn in June and in Amsterdam in October. I shared my thoughts on data visualization and how it can help to your sourcing success. There are multiple tools that can enable you to visualize data and I am going to tackle some of them in this blog post. You might ask yourself why should you be interested in this topic. The answer is that data visualization can help you to understand various elements in your sourcing process and help you to design your sourcing strategy. The business wants us not only to deliver a top talent but also wants us to predict what is going to happen in the recruitment process and why. Data Visualization can also help you to reveal patterns & trends. Another advantage is the simplification of the information. There are multiple data that you can visualize including data from your ATS, Keywords and various connections among them, search results, data from your social networks and last but not least the labour market. Let's take a look at each of these cases. I use the following tools for the data visualization - Linkedin Recruiter Search insights, Search Explorer, Kumu, Tableau, Google Trends and Pin Leads. 1.Keyword Visualization Below you can see an example of the word Javascript and how is it interpreted by Search Explorer:

Let's keep aside for a while that you know that javascript is associated with jQuery and other displayed technologies. All of these words on the screenshot are clickable and the whole infographic will adjust according to your clicks and connection among these keywords. You are able to reveal very quickly which keywords are related to each other and how the semantic connection works. This tool is very useful if you get a new project and you are not so much familiar with the terminology. 2.Linkedin Network Visualization

Do you want to visualize your Linkedin data and see where most of your connections are working and what their profession is? You can use Kumu to visualize your Linkedin network. You can see on the left side how my network looks like. The whole process is very simple. You just upload a csv file with your connections from Linkedin and then you can play around with them in Kumu and create various visualizations. You can highlight various connections and nods, zoom in, zoom out, filter your connections etc. This process is very useful because we as sourcers sometimes don't know how our network looks like from the global perspective, especially in the case when our network is too big. Kumu can answer most of the questions that you ask yourself regarding your own Linkedin network. 3. Data from your ATS This topic is for a separated article because it's more complexed in terms of creating the data model. Each company uses a different ATS, technologies etc. If you want to visualize data from your ATS you can either use internal reporting/infographics or you can use tools like Tableau which is for free with some limited features. Most of the modern ATS solutions use some kind of web data connector which will enable you to connect ATS to Tableau. Web data connector is in this case just a web link that is generated by the administrator of your ATS. In the case that your ATS does not offer you some reporting, you can create beautiful reports and again to see some connections, trends that you might have omitted in your data analysis. 4. Data from your searches Below you can see a screenshot from my presentation in Tallinn. It displays search results from Google Trends. I asked Google to show me the search trends on these 3 companies in Estonia. This process is very useful when you want to know some facts about a specific market which you are not familiar with. The same approach can be applied to job titles. You can notice increasing or decreasing tendency and estimate the "popularity" also in various counties of the same country.

5. Visualization of your Linkedin research results It's interesting that the feature Linkedin search insights is still one of the underutilized features in Linkedin Recruiter. (update: it is not accessible in the new LIR UI) If you have a Linkedin Recruiter license you should check out the data before starting to engage your talent. You can see on the screenshot below how the IT market in Estonia looks like. You can see that Linkedin brought me almost 8000 results even including typos and Estonian variants of these keywords. All of these bars are clickable so when you click on the "past company" you can see where people are going to work. You can check out which university in the country produces the most graduates or which location is the best for your hiring activities.

When you are mapping your desired market you want to collect also some of the valuable information for example like email addresses. I use Pin Leads for these activities. You just install a chrome extension and run your search on Google.com and Pin Leads will send you working email addresses of employees who are working in these companies. You can see it on the screenshot on the left side. This process is very simple and you can have an overview of the targeted market very quickly. Alternatively, you can also select only some of these companies which you are interested in. Pin Leads is not solely for free but if you need to find out some of the information this is definitely the place to go to. There are multiple other tools that you can use for visualizing your data so this article is definitely not exhaustive. What other tools do you use? Read the full article

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matthew-trs · 7 years ago

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Part 6: Various Names

These are all bullet-pointed, and the first part will be translated in Kaga’s own voice, since that’s how they’re written.

I also decided to include my own notes on the origin of various names. This post is also crazy long, and mostly just exists so I can keep all my ideas and facts straight.

Berwick Saga

The “Bren” (ブレン) of Brenthunder (ブレンサンダー) and the Bren Crossbow (ブレンクロスボウ) is from the famous English Bren Light Machine Gun. Military enthusiasts probably immediately recognized this.

Gorzevalus (ゴーゼワロス) was named by the designer who wrote that map’s scenario. I don’t know where he got the name, but he’s a very serious person, so I doubt he intended it to be funny.

A derrick (デリック) is a type of large crane. Since they can be used to lift heavy items as well as help survey undersea wrecks, I wanted Professor Almuth’s first name to give the impression of historical site exploration.

Things like Critical Knife and Wallenstein were simply abbreviated (クリティカルナイフ > クリテカルナイフ, and ヴァレンシュタイン > ワレンスタイン) due to a 7-character limit we had early in development. I must’ve simply missed them when I double-checked later. Similarly, we abbreviated Composite Bow (コンポジットボウ > コンジットボウ).

[Note: this won’t apply to the translation patch, since there’s no character limit.]

Sherpa (シェルパ) are a tribe of mountain guides at the base of Mt. Everest. I chose the name to parallel “Highlanders.” As for Highlanders (ハイランダー), they’re a historical ethnic group from Scotland who were renowned as brave warriors in history. I’ve been told that the Sherpa’s appearance closely resembles the hero of a certain manga, but I’ve never read it, so it’s just a coincidence.

I chose the name Kramer (クレイマー) because it’s close to “climber,” since he’s got a natural gift for climbing cliffs as a skill. I’m on the fence whether it should be to be a nickname or not... I guess it’s probably a nickname he picked himself.

Sapphire (サフィア) and Ruby (ルヴィ) are named after the precious stones, naturally.

Names like Roswick (ロズオーク), Vanmilion (バンミリオン), Shirrock (̪シロック), Quescria (クエスクリア), and the like I just made up. I didn’t take them from anywhere in particular.

[Note: in the patch, “Shirrock” will be Sherlock, which is a real name.]

Faramir (ファラミア) and Olwen (オルウェン) are from The Lord of the Rings.

[Note: I’m not sure which LotR character Olwen is supposed to be. The closest one it matches is Arwen (アルウェン), but that’s a woman...]

Faramir’s class name Wanderer (渡り戦士) is borrowed from a certain manga. Sorry, Ms. Hikawa!

Sylvis (シルウィス), Larentia (ラレンティア), Pfeizal (ファイサル), etc. are mythological/historical people; I also sometimes used the names of mythological weapons for people, too.

Most other proper names are original or just common names, like Lynette, Reese, Bernard, etc.

TearRing Saga

It’s hardly worth mentioning, but Katri (カトリ) is just a plain ranch girl’s name. Back in the day, a lot of people thought it had something to do with baseball pitching. It’s from an old anime based on a very old children’s story from Finland, so it’s natural people wouldn’t recognize where it came from.

[Note: I have no clue what Kaga means about the baseball thing.]

Ente (エンテ) is German for “duck,” while Möwe (メーヴェ) means “seagull.” In other words, it’s an play on words where if you add eyes (メ) to a duck (カモ), you get a seagull (カモメ), meant to parallel that when Ente awakens to her true self, she becomes Möwe. Naturally, there’s also the added meaning that she wants to fly in the skies freely like a seagull, not be a duck that hides itself underwater.

[Note: I had these names as “Enteh” and “Maeve” in the TRS patch. The official romanization of エンテ is definitely “Enteh,” too. Oh well...]

Neyfa (ネイファ) was the name of a character in a short story I wrote a long time ago.

Tia (ティーエ) is from Aul Toba Tieh (アウル・トバティーエ), a character from a certain fantasy novel.

Lionheart (レオンハート), of course, means “lion-hearted.” Historically, it was the epithet of the King Richard I of England. While being Lionheart’s name, this was also the source of Richard’s title the Lion Prince of Mahl (マールの獅子王子)... though I will admit now that this was pretty lazy naming on my part.

The mamluks (マムルーク) were medieval Arab slave warriors renowned for their elite archery, who later conquered Egypt and Syria. Therefore, by calling Lionheart’s class “mamluk,” I wanted to convey the imagery of a strong, elite horseman leading his own unique regiment.

[Note: this was “Nomadic Trooper” in the TRS patch.]

Translator’s Additions

Names of People:

Playable:

Aegina: Αἴγινα, a nymph in Greek myth, the great-grandmother of Achilles and Ajax the Great.

Paramythis: Paramythia (Παραμυθιά, “comforter”) is an epithet of the Virgin Mary.

Perceval: also spelled Percival; knight of the Round Table

Bosses/NPCs:

Cordova: Cordova/Córdoba, a city in Spain that was historically the capital of a large Islamic state, the Emirate (and later Caliphate) of Córdoba.

Arcturus: a star in the constellation Boötes; called the “bear-watcher” in Greek astronomy, and むぎぼし (“wheat star”) in Japanese astronomy. Kaga says these names are meant to represent Arcturus’s character as both strong and reliable.

Zephyrus: Ζέφυρος, god of the western wind in Greek myth. Kaga notes elsewhere that this pseudonym was chosen for Friedrich because of the character’s desire to eventually return home to the west, even though it was impossible for so long.

Rasputin: Grigorij Yefimovič Rasputin (Григорий Ефимович Распутин), Russian mystic and advisor to Emperor Nicholas II, later assassinated by nobles worried about his influence, especially over Empress Aleksandra Fjodorovna.

Red Baron (Richthofen in the translation): Manfred von Richthofen, German lord and fighter pilot from WWI, nicknamed “the Red Baron” due to his status as a Freiherr (”baron”) and his plane that he famously painted red.

Wallenstein: Albrecht von Wallenstein (Albrecht z Valdštejna), supreme commander of the Holy Roman Empire’s military during the Thirty Years’ War

Krishna: कृष्ण, god of love and compassion in Hinduism. Also the name of a character from TearRing Saga 1.

Sakhalin: an island just north of Hokkaido, currently owned by Russia.

Shagaal: Chagall (シャガール), king of Agustria in FE4.

Chebyshev: Pafnutij L’vovič Čjebyšjov (Пафну́тий Льво́вич Чебышёв), a Russian mathematician.

Fermat: Pierre de Fermat, a French mathematician and lawyer.

Lebesgue: Henri Léon Lebesgue, a French mathematician

Palitzsch: Johann Georg Palitzsch, a German astronomer

Weyl: Hermann Klaus Hugo Weyl, a German mathematician and physicist

Euclid: Εὐκλείδης, an ancient Greek mathematician

Jung: Carl Gustav Jung, a Swiss psychologist

Grimm: possibly from the Brothers Grimm, German linguists and authors of Grimm’s Fairy Tales

Gibbs: possibly from Josiah Willard Gibbs, American physicist and chemist

Rodin: François Auguste René Rodin, a French sculptor

Wagner: possibly Wilhelm Richard Wagner, German composer, writer, and director, most famous for Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Windsor: the currently reigning dynasty of British monarchs, ultimately descended from the Germanic House of Wettin

Pizarro: Francisco Pizarro-González, Spanish conquistador

Eisenhower: Dwight David Eisenhower, general and 34th president of the United States.

Cromwell: Oliver Cromwell, major leader of the Parliamentarian side of the English Civil War

Rockefeller: John David Rockefeller Sr., American business magnate and philanthropist, and inflation-adjusted richest person in modern history.

Goebbels: Paul Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda for the Third Reich.

Goering: Hermann Wilhelm Göring, Vice-Chancellor of Germany during the Third Reich.

Mahatma: Mahātmā (महात्मा, “venerable”), a title most associated with Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Gomorrah: עֲמֹרָה‎‎, one of the legendary cities destroyed by God in the Biblical book of Genesis.

ha-Yadh (”God Hand” in Japanese): הַיָד, Hebrew for “the hand.”

Enoch: חֲנוֹךְ, ancestor of Noah in Genesis, said to have “walked with God” rather than died. Subject of several apocryphal books.

Gilgamesh: 𒄑𒂆𒈦, a semi-historical ancient king of Sumer and protagonist of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Nazgul: Nazgûl, the ringwraiths from The Lord of the Rings.

Manaclir: corruption of Manannán mac Lir, a sea god in Irish myth.

Urbanus IV: Urbanus (anglicized as Urban) has been the papal name of eight different popes.

Arless: Ares (Ἄρης), god of war in Greek myth

Alecto: Ἀληκτώ, goddess of unstoppable rage in Greek myth

Names of Places

Berwick Isle: Berwick-upon-Tweed, a historically long-disputed territory on the border between Scotland and England

Altesia (what the Lazberians call the continent of Lieberia): Artesia, the Latin name for the county of Artois, France.

Izmil: İzmir, the Turkish name of the city classical known as Smyrna

Leoglard: corruption of Beograd, the native name for Belgrade, the capital of Serbia

Diana: goddess of the moon and hunt in Roman myth, equivalent of Greek Artemis

Valemtine: corruption of Valentine, anglicized form of the name Valentinus

Mineva: possibly from Minerva, goddess of war and wisdom in Roman myth, equivalent of Greek Athena

Sinon: possibly from Sinon (Σίνων), a Greek spy from the Iliad who helped convince the Trojans to move the Trojan Horse into their city.

Danae: Danaë (Δανάη), mother of Perseus in Greek myth

Ausonia (one of the five marches): Αυσονία, the ancient Greek name for the southern Italian peninsula

Badonia: possibly from Badon Hill (Latin Mons Badonicus/Badonis, Welsh Mynydd Baddon), the legendary location of a battle of King Arthur against the invading Anglo-Saxons.

Lombard (one of the five marches): the Lombards, a Germanic tribe who conquered parts of Italy during the 6th century.

Anatolia (an unidentified location where certain wines are from): also called Asia Minor, an ancient region corresponding with modern central and western Turkey.

Wallachia (mentioned in the description of the Tiger Pelt item): one of the three major constituents of early Romania, alongside Transylvania and Moldavia.

Pyrene: the Pyrenees, a mountain range separating the Iberian Peninsula with the rest of continental Europe

Seydlitz: Frederich Wilhelm von Seydlitz, a general serving under Frederick II of Prussia; or the German WWI battle cruiser named after him, the SMS Seydlitz.

Fort Remagen: Remagen, a town in Germany famous for the Battle of Remagen in WWII, where Allied forces temporarily captured Ludendorff Bridge, one of the last bridges over the Rhine.

Myuhen: possibly from München, the German name of Munich.

Ruan: Rouen, capital of the Normandy region of France.

Ishs: possibly from Isis, goddess of motherhood and nature in Egyptian myth.

Item Names: Original (may or may not overlap with translation)

Knives:

Vespa: Latin for “wasp”

Crotalus: the scientific name for the rattlesnake genus, itself from Greek κρόταλον (”rattle”)

Swords:

Holy Sword Vritra (”Vritra” in the translation): serpent and adversary of Indra in Hinduism.

Sakushīdo/Succeed (”Nothung” in the translation): likely from the English word “succeed.”

Dangerous Blade Albatross (”Albatross” in the translation): from the legend about a sailor shooting an albatross, a bird thought to signify good luck, who was forced by his shipmates to wear the dead bird around his neck to ensure that only he received the bad luck from killing it.

Grimhildr: queen of Burgundy in Norse myth.

Lord Gram (”Gramr” in the translation): sword of the Germanic hero Sigurðr, used to kill the dragon Fáfnir.

Harperia: possibly from harpē (ἅρπη), a type of sickle-like sword in Greek myth, most famously used to castrate Cronus and kill Medusa.

Holy Sword Vajra (”Vajra” in the translation): means “diamond” or “thunderbolt”, the weapon of Indra in Hinduism

Adrasteia: Ἀδράστεια “inescapable”, the name of two different characters in Greek myth: a nymph who nursed Zeus, and a daughter of Ares and Aphrodite.

Balmung: the name for the sword Gramr (see above) given in the Nibelungenlied.

Spears

Brionac: a spear of the god Lugh in Irish myth

Phalanx (”Doru” in the translation): a type of ancient Greek heavy infantry famous for their battle formation, where shields would be arranged to make a wall lined with protruding spears.

Wotan Spear (”Angon” in the translation): Wotan, Old High German name of the god Odin (Óðinn) from Norse myth

Axes

Gigas Axe: γίγας, Greek for “giant.” Suitably, it’s only usable by Gigas Knights in the game.

Būji (”Bhuj” in the translation): possibly from bhuj (भुज), also called an axe-knife, a type of short- but wide-bladed weapon with a very long grip.

Thorhammer (”Mjollnir” in the translation): Thor, thunder god in Norse myth, who wielded the hammer Mjǫllnir.

Gullveig: a figure from Norse mythology who is killed three times, then reborn the third time as the powerful shamaness Heiðr.

Bows/Crossbows

Holy Bow Rossweisse (”Rossweisse” in the translation): Roßweiße, German for “white horse,” one of the eight valkyries in Richard Wagner’s opera Die Walküre.

Sylph Bow (”Killer Bow” in the translation): Sylph, wind elementals from classical alchemy, invented by Paracelsus.

Magic Bow Apeiron (”Apeiron” in the translation): ἄπειρον (”limitless”), a concept in certain ancient Greek cosmologies and philosophies.

Apollo Bow (”Argyrotoxus” in the translation): Apollo, god of light in Greek myth, twin brother of Artemis, goddess of the hunt

Otinus Crossbow (”Ollerus” in the translation): possibly a faux-latinization of Óðinn

Magic

Pallas Leia/Serenia/Riana: Pallas (Παλλὰς), an epithet of the Greek goddess Athena

Starlight: from Starlight in FE1/FE3

Janura (”Nosferatu” in the translation): from the Japanese words ja (蛇, “snake”) and nurunuru (ヌルヌル, “smooth, slippery”)

Scylla: Σκύλλα, a monster in Greek myth

Bau Crash (”Kishar’s Wrath” in the translation): possibly (but not likely) from Bau (𒀭𒁀𒌑, also called “Gula” by the Babylonians, among other names), goddess of healing from Akkado-Babylonian myth.

Shields

Ajax’s Shield (”Sakos Aiantos” in the translation): the shield of the Greek hero Ajax the Great in the Iliad, made of seven layers of oxhide and one of bronze. Most famously, it could even block the javelin of the Trojan hero Hector, which pierced only the first six layers.

Aspis: ἀσπίς, a heavy wooden shield used by ancient Greek infantry

Flame Shield Hestia (”Hestia” in the translation): Hestia, goddess of the hearth and architecture in Greek myth

Materials

Celica Steel (”Zerika Steel” in the translation): possibly from Celica, a protagonist in FE2/FE15

Toneriko Wood (”Ash Wood” in the translation): とねりこ, Japanese for the Manchurian ash tree, Fraxinus mandschurica.

Jugud Wood (”Yggdra Wood” in the translation): a reference to Jugdral, itself a reference to Yggdrasil, the world-tree in Norse myth

Tilia Wood (”Linden Wood” in the translation): Tilia, the genus name for linden/basswood trees.

Ichii Wood (”Yew Wood” in the translation): いちい, Japanese for the Japanese yew tree, Taxis cuspidata.

Antilope Skin (”Antelope Pelt” in the translation): Antilope, German for “antelope”

Schwein Skin (”Boar Pelt” in the translation): Schwein, German for “swine”

Stier Skin (”Bull Pelt” in the translation): Stier, German for “steer”

Löwe Skin (”Lion Pelt” in the translation): Löwe, German for “lion”

Tigris Skin (”Tiger Pelt” in the translation): tigris, Latin for “tiger”

Lúkos Skin (”Wolf Pelt” in the translation): λύκος, Greek for “wolf”

Simurgh Feather: sīmurğ (سیمرغ), a bird from Iranian myth

Ariadne Thread: Ἀριάδνη, a woman from Greek myth who helped Theseus traverse the Labyrinth using a spool of thread

Eye of Balor: Balor, king of the Fomorians in Irish myth, who had a third eye on his forehead that wrought destruction on any it looked at.

Item Names: Translation

Swords

Succeed → Nothung: the name of Gramr (see above) given in Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen. “Succeed” is a crappy name for a sword, and it’s Reese’s final weapon, so I wanted a theme naming with his earlier personal sword, Gramr.

Spears

Phalanx → Doru: δόρυ, the type of spear that Greek hoplites utilized in phalanx formation. Changed, naturally, because “phalanx” is a military formation/unit rather than a weapon.

Wotan Spear → Angon: Angon, a type of javelin used by Germanic peoples. I would’ve used “Gungnir,” since that’s the spear of Wotan/ Óðinn, but the Wotan Spear isn’t a high-tier weapon, or even the strongest thrown spear.

Bows/Crossbows

Sylph Bow → Killer Bow: I didn’t want to use “Sylph,” since there are wind-element weapons in Berwick Saga, but this isn’t one of them.

Magic Bow Aperion → Abaddon: Assuming “Aperion” is indeed a corruption of “Apollyon” (see above), I prefer the sound of the Hebrew name, Abaddon.

Apollo Bow → Argyrotoxus: Ἀργυρότοξος, an epithet of Apollo meaning “of the silver bow.”

Otinus Crossbow → Ollerus: Assuming “Otinus” is indeed a faux-latinization of “Óðinn,“ I didn’t think that Óðinn was a very fitting god to associate with a bow. Instead, I chose Ollerus, which is the latinization of the name of Ullr, Norse god of archery. As a bonus, Ullr/Ollerus is closely associated with Óðinn: during the episode where Óðinn is exiled for ten years for not being manly enough, Ullr is the one who rules the gods temporarily in his stead (during which time Ullr even uses the name Óðinn).

Gatling Bow → Chu-ko-nu: Following the tradition of the TRS1 translation, since guns aren’t in TRS, and Richard Gatling isn’t a TRS character.

Bren Crossbow → Rapid Crossbow: Similarly, guns aren’t in TRS, so “Bren” is out.

Dora → Espringal: While “ballista” and “scorpio” are both names of siege weapons, I have no idea what a “dora” is supposed to be... so I chose an actual one.

Dark Magic (I wanted the names of these spells to all be mythological references like they are in FE)

Black Meteo → Wormwood: a falling star that ruins the waters of the Earth in the Biblical book Revelation.

Berserk → Lyssa: Λύσσα, goddess of mad frenzy and rabies in Greek myth.

Sleep → Oneiroi: Ὄνειροι, the gods of dreams in Greek myth

Bau Crash → Kishar’s Wrath: Kišar (𒀭𒆠𒊹), the personified Earth in Babylonian myth. Since Bau (see above) is a goddess of motherhood rather than the earth, Kishar is more appropriate. I chose Kishar rather than the more ancient and well-established goddess Ki (also an earth goddess), since the name Ki is too short for players to reasonably identify. Even though I’m probably misunderstanding バウ as the goddess Bau, I stuck with it.

Janura → Nosferatu: to fit in line with FE’s Nosferatu; from adaptations of Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Tumahann → Saehrimnir: Sæhrímnir, the beast killed and eaten--then resurrected--by the Æsir and einherjar every evening in Norse myth. I wanted to use something bestial or related to eating, since this spell drains the EXP of its victim.

Hellworm → Jormungandr: to fit in line with FE’s Jormungandr; from Jǫrmungandr, the serpent surrounding Miðgarðr in Norse myth

Shields

Perushīda → Perseid: I’m not really sure what Perushīda is supposed to be, so I picked something that sounded close. The Perseids are a meteor shower occurring in late summer; named after the Perseid dynasty said to descend from the mythological hero Perseus

Ajax’s Shield → Sakos Aiantos: σᾰ́κος Αἴᾰντος, Epic Greek for “Ajax’s shield.” Fun Fact: Ajax’s shield in particular is called a sakos (”leather shield”) rather than an aspis (the general word for “shield”) in the Iliad. I didn’t want to use the English words, since I didn’t want to assert that Ajax was a person in the TRS universe. I’m even considering making it just Sakos, actually.

Fire-God Shield → Kojin Shield: Sanbō-Kōjin (三宝荒神, “wild god of the three treasures”), or just Kōjin, a Shinto god of fire, cooking, and the hearth. I used “Kōjin” rather than “Kagu-Tsuchi” (the god of fire in general) in order to nicely parallel the names of the related Fūjin Shield and Raijin Shield.

Accessories, etc.

Sun Charm → Dawn Charm: While the original name is a reference to the skill FE Sol, that name doesn’t fit with what the charm really does. It gives +10 Hit, so it makes it easier to see, hence “dawn.”

Meteor Charm → Dusk Charm: While the original name is a reference to the FE skill Astra, that name doesn’t fit with what the charm really does. It gives +10 Avoid, so it makes it harder be seen, hence “dusk.”

Moonlight Charm → Vanish Charm: While the original name is a reference to the FE skill Luna, that name doesn’t fit with what the charm really does. It activates the skill Hide, hence “vanish.”

Purgatory Bracelet → Gambler’s Brace: This brace lowers Hit and Avoid by 10 but increases Strength and Defense by 2, so it’s risky. I assume “purgatory” was meant to refer to the in-between-good-and-bad-for-you stat bonus given. The thing is, nobody who’s non-Catholic seems to understand that purgatory is a good place; hence, the old name is just plain dumb.

Ligan/Ishian Racehorse: These horses increase your Movement, hence “racehorse.”

Ligan Warhorse: This horse increases your Damage, hence “warhorse.”

Ishian/Sinonan Stallion: This horse increases your Speed, and the word “stallion” evokes an imagery of a wild, quick horse.

#yes i know this is disorganized and crazy you don't have to remind me

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thepaganstudygrouppage · 8 years ago

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I'm interested in Irish polytheism; specifically, I want to begin worshiping Manannán mac Lir. I can't easily have a shrine or give offerings because I currently live in a dorm room with a roommate, so I don't have a lot of privacy. Is it okay for me to just pray to him silently? Also, is there a specific way that I should end prayers, like how Christians end prayers with "amen"? Thank you.

I don’t know of any prescribed prayer endings in Irish polytheism, though many of us have our own, sometimes in English and sometimes in Irish. I usually stick with a simple, “Blessings and hail, [deity name/epithet/title].”

If praying silently is effective for you, Anon, then go ahead, and all the more power to you. I don’t know of any deities who require a shrine, but my UPG perceives that some deities do seem to prefer it while others are more flexible.

Consider what the purpose of having one is: this can change between people and gods, but I see shrines as a space specifically set aside for the god’s hospitality, rest, and devotion. Shrines can be temporary if necessary, being set up and then boxed away again when needed, or they can be outdoor spaces you visit when you need to go that extra length for communication. (Our “broom cupboard” tag should have ideas for shrines that are disguised as curio shelves or designed to be temporary set-ups.) I have a shrine to Manannán mac Lir, but the nature of my relationship with him makes it feel…heavy and pinned down, so I’m planning to replace it with something I can hang from my car’s rearview mirror to see if having a point of devotion in a moving vehicle works better. Edit: the thing is made of shells and other bits from the sea and, quite honestly, just looks like an extremely hippie accessory rather than an obvious point of devotion. If you decide you do want a focal point for him but can’t do a formal shrine, you can hang a necklace or other dangly thing that makes you think of him from a mirror or on the wall, or hang a themed suncatcher in the window, or anything else that facilitates what you need. Don’t be afraid to experiment! SPG suggests that he has a unique sense of humor about lots of things. :)

Ultimately I’d recommend poking around the community to see what people with stronger relationships with him, like @nicstoirm, have to say about it. Does anyone with a relationship with Manannán mac Lirhave anything to add or correct?

- mountain hound

#pagan #paganism #irish polytheism #manannan mac lir #celtic polytheism #broom cupboard #anonymous #mountain hound

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lisabelkin-yahoonews · 8 years ago

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‘We promised to help them’: One congregation’s struggle to bring a Syrian family to America

yahoo

On the night when the nearly 200 volunteers from the Holy Trinity Catholic Church should have been greeting their family of refugees at the airport, they were at a candlelight vigil instead, praying for the two parents and their six young children, whose flight to a new life had been canceled by a presidential executive order.

The next day, when the volunteers had planned to settle the displaced Syrians into a home filled with furniture they’d collected over months of scrounging, and offering food they’d cooked that would be familiar and comforting, they were walking the halls of Congress instead, pleading their case to anyone in the House or Senate who would listen.

And in the coming days, instead of enrolling the children in school, and helping the father find work, and explaining how to navigate the bus system, enroll in English lessons and find a local mosque, they will be following statements by federal lawyers and judges and White House officials, hoping the legal door stays open long enough for them to get the strangers they all call “our family” onto another plane.

Despite all the talk of refugees since the Trump administration order freezing entry from seven predominantly Muslim countries, little attention has been paid to the Americans who are waiting to welcome them. By law, no refugee can be admitted to the United States without a volunteer organization to sponsor them and nurture them toward self-sufficiency.

When the president’s executive order blocked the arrival of all Syrian refugees indefinitely, canceling the family’s flight, the parish held a prayer vigil at the moment they would have been landing. (Photo: Lisa Belkin/Yahoo News)

At Holy Trinity, a Jesuit parish in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, that group is more than ready, like adoptive parents pacing outside the fully stocked nursery for the child they have never met but already love.

“These are our people, they are our family,” they repeated over and over from one congressional office to the next this week, as well as to each other, almost like a prayer. “We made a promise to help them. Help us keep that promise.”

—–

It all began with that photo — the one taken in late August of 2015, of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi, in his red shirt, blue shirt and tiny sneakers, face down in the surf on a Turkish beach, after the rubber raft carrying his fleeing family flipped in the waves.

Twenty-five-year-old Chris Crawford saw that photo and decided he had to do something. He was already embarked on a life of service, active in pro-life marches and helping to run a youth ministry at Holy Trinity, which he’d joined soon after college graduation, when he was considering becoming a Jesuit priest himself. After meeting his girlfriend at the church he chose not to enter the priesthood, but he remains committed to Pope Francis’ declarations that being pro-life means protecting all life, particularly and specifically including refugees.

Lauren Ray saw the same photo and was also moved to help. “This breaks my heart,” she told her husband over breakfast that morning. “We need to do something, something real. What can we do?” The couple, both raised and schooled at a Jesuit parish in Seattle, joined Holy Trinity when they moved to Washington in 2008, hoping to raise their five daughters in the same tradition. That afternoon she called Kate Tromble, the pastoral associate for social justice at Holy Trinity, and offered her basement as a new home for any refugee who might need it.

Eighteen months later, Crawford, Ray and Tromble are the coordinators of the Refugee Welcome Project at Holy Trinity, and the first thing they learned was that it’s not as simple as offering your basement. There are nine national voluntary agencies authorized by joint agreement of the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security to resettle refugees in the United States. Anyone entering the country as a refugee must go through one of the nine: the Church World Service Immigration and Refugee Program, the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA, the Ethiopian Community Development Council, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the International Rescue Committee, the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS), the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, and the World Relief and Corporation of National Association of Evangelicals.

A Turkish paramilitary police officer carries the lifeless body of 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi from the seashore, near the beach resort of Bodrum, Turkey, Sept. 2, 2015. (Photo: Nilufer Demir /AFP/Getty Images)

The groups prefer to settle refugees in neighborhoods where the cost of living is low enough to give a newcomer a good chance at becoming self-sufficient. The greatest number of Holy Trinity’s congregants live in the Virginia suburbs outside of D.C., where rents are more expensive than in much of the rest of the country, but lower than other parts of the area. Tromble called around and learned that the only refugee group working there was Lutheran Social Services (LSS), an affiliate of the LIRS, which settles about 600 refugees in the area every year. So the LSS became their designated partner in this effort.

The next step was to decide what level of commitment the congregation was looking for. There are four, ranging from three months of involvement that mostly includes collecting home furnishings and conducting food drives before arrival, to a full year of involvement, which involves everything from finding and funding housing to offering friendship and help adapting to a new culture.

The Holy Trinity group quickly decided they were in at the highest level. It was “clear pretty early on that accompaniment, walking side by side with a family, was what people felt called to do,” Tromble says. Word spread, and soon they were signing up the first of an eventual 200 volunteers and raising a sum that would reach $60,000, several times the minimum required by the LSS.

Next the congregation had to prove itself capable of meeting the needs of a family that would arrive with next to nothing — a process that included a legal contract signed on behalf of the Archdiocese of Washington, and an orientation and security screening for all congregants who would come into contact with the newcomers. They were taught the philosophical underpinnings of the program — to make a family self-sufficient, able to pay their own bills and pay back within a year the loan the U.S. government provides upon entry. And they were taught practical matters as well: not to collect a lot of clothes in advance, allowing the family to dress in keeping with their own tastes, traditions and sizes, but to have coats ready at the airport for refugees arriving in winter from warm climates.

Once they were accepted as a co-sponsor, the Holy Trinity team ramped up. The volunteers were divided into committees for housing, transportation, education and food. Arabic speakers appeared from within the congregation, many of them former Foreign Service workers or current language students, who offered to serve as translators. Furniture donations poured in: a law firm that was remodeling its conference room offered what could serve as a large dining table with chairs; a congregant selling a condo provided three cars’ worth of bookcases, desks and rugs; there were bunk beds, and futons, and chests of drawers crammed into congregants’ storage units, basements and garages. An Amazon Wish List, with such items as garbage bags, garbage pails and laundry detergent, was bought out almost as soon as it was posted.

All this preparing took place against the backdrop of the 2016 presidential campaign, as Republican nominee Donald Trump began to speak out against refugees with increasing volume and venom.

“We don’t know anything about them,” he said regularly on the stump. “We don’t know where they come from, who they are. There’s no documentation. Lock your doors, folks!”

The talk worried Crawford. He describes himself as a “single-issue pro-life voter”; he organized for John McCain in 2008 (before he was even old enough to vote) and Mitt Romney in 2012, and he attended the March for Life in Washington every year. But Trump’s statements on immigration, he says, made him realize he could not vote Republican that year.

A message on the wall of the multi-purpose room in the rectory, where the parishioners prepared to lobby for their family on Capitol Hill. (Photo: Lisa Belkin/Yahoo News)

“He kept promising ‘extreme vetting,’ but I knew all the levels of scrutiny these families were going through, and it was already extreme,” Crawford says. “Only a small percentage meet the existing standards, they have to produce paperwork and documentation and spend years passing interviews and tests,” he says. “I am pro-life, but the pope makes it clear that means all of life. Welcoming the most vulnerable is pro-life.”

It was one thing to decide not to vote Republican, and another to back a candidate who supported the right to abortion. “I went back and forth for weeks,” he said. “Do I vote for Clinton, or do I not vote at all?” Crawford wrote two essays, one defending each option, and sent them to friends whose opinions he respected to debate the merits. In the end, he voted Democratic.

—–

On November 14, six days after the election, the call came. Their case manager at the LSS had news — Holy Trinity had been matched with a specific family. And it was not just any family.

“They said, ‘it’s big, two parents and six children, and the father has a disability and uses a wheelchair,’” Tromble recalls. “Some congregations wouldn’t have the resources to support this large a group, but they thought we could do it. They wanted to know if we were up for it.”

It was as if a prospective adoptive couple got the call that it was twins, or triplets. “We took a deep breath and then decided, ‘Yes, we were called to do this,’” Crawford says.

So now their family had names (which they have asked Yahoo News not to share, to protect their privacy) and ages (the children were 9 months through 12 years when the call came) and the outlines of a life story. They were Kurds who fled to Iraq from Syria in 2014 and registered as refugees with the United Nations. Their application had been in process for more than two years.

“We added them by name to our prayers,” Crawford says. “Until then we had just prayed for ‘our future refugee family.’”

“We started looking for bunk beds, diapers and a crib,” Ray says. “And a wheelchair-accessible home.”

On January 23, three days after the inauguration, the LSS let Tromble know that the family had airline tickets in hand and would be arriving at Washington Dulles International Airport in exactly two weeks. The planning became granular. Who among the group’s members would be part of the welcoming committee at the airport? What foods should be cooked for their first dinner? And there was still the challenge of a home, big enough for eight people and accessible to a wheelchair, that could be rented for $2,500 a month. They had a few possibilities, but each had a flaw; they had not signed a lease yet.

But, four days after that call, the president signed his executive order that severely restricted the entry of passport holders from seven predominantly Muslim countries, stopped all refugee admission for 120 days, and specifically barred the admission of Syrian refugees “indefinitely.”

A sign in front of the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown, a Jesuit congregation, which has been working for more than a year to bring a Syrian refugee family to the U.S. (Photo: Lisa Belkin/Yahoo News)

On an emotional call with their case manager, the Holy Trinity group learned that the family’s tickets had been canceled completely. Since the congregants had made all these preparations, they were asked, might they consider taking another family instead?

“It was like a punch in the gut, a loss, almost like a death,” Tromble says. “We didn’t want another family — we wanted our family.”

“If there was anyone who didn’t think they were ‘ours’ back when we found out who they were,” Crawford says, “the executive order solidified it.”

The day the order was issued, Crawford attended the March for Life on the National Mall, holding a sign that said, “I stand with people who are: unborn, undocumented, unemployed, undereducated, unhoused.” The next day he rented a car and drove to Dulles airport to join in the protests. He held a sign there too, which read, “No matter where you are from, we’re glad you’re our neighbor” in Spanish, English and Arabic.

Then he went back to his community and joined the rest of the group in fighting for their family.

Among the requirements for a refugee visa is a connection to someone in the United States. The father in this family had a friend in Arlington, Va. Through that friend Tromble found a cell phone number for the family, now in Iraq, and called it, finally talking directly to the man who until then had been just a name on a paper and a symbol of faith.

The father explained how he had given up the place where he had been living, taken his children out of school and sold everything the family could not carry, all in preparation for their departure for America. He did not know where he might live or how he might survive, now that Syrian refugees were barred “indefinitely.”

“We expected death,” he told Tromble of his journey from Syria. “We didn’t expect this.”

—–

On Feb. 3 a federal judge in Seattle issued a stay against the executive order, which means that had the family arrived on their originally planned date of Feb. 6, they would have been permitted to enter. But because their tickets had been canceled on the ground in Erbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan, as soon as the executive order was issued, they had to wait for the next available flight, which, they were told, was not until Feb. 16.

So at 7 p.m. on Monday the 6th, at the time the original flight was to land, the parish held a candlelight vigil, where an overflow crowd prayed for the family’s safety.

And the next day a group of 20 congregants walked several miles back and forth between the House and the Senate, meeting with aides in six different congressional offices. From Sen. John McCain to Rep. Barbara Comstock to Sen. Patrick Leahy to Sen. Richard Burr, they asked specifically for help in getting the family an earlier flight and more generally that the door be kept open to these refugees and others.

A group of two dozen representatives of the Holy Trinity Church visited John McCain’s office, among others, during an all day visit to Capitol Hill. (Photo: Lisa Belkin/Yahoo News)

They polished their appeal from one meeting to the next, telling the family’s tale, stressing that they had passed every conceivable barrier and test, including the extra layers already added for Syrian nationals — like retinal scans to insure that the applicant who has been vetted is actually the person getting on the plane.

Linda Weissler-Hughes, a congregant who retired from intelligence work after 33 years, the last part of which was spent in antiterrorism and antiradicalization work, stressed that no American has been killed in a terrorist attack by any refugee from any of the banned countries.

“Refugees can be our best friends. They are our best way of knowing what is happening in the Muslin community, our best eyes and ears,” she said. “They are also our best ambassadors,” she added. “They spread the word back to their countries that America is a welcoming place.”

And Annemarie Harthun, a lawyer who stepped away from practice to raise her children, stressed that by not being allowed “to care for the most vulnerable,” she and others like her were being “denied the freedom to practice our religion.” After the photo of Aylan Kurdi made its way around the world, Pope Francis urged every parish to shelter a refugee family, and he himself brought a dozen Syrian refugees back on his plane with him after a visit to Lesbos, Greece. “Resettling refugees is how we demonstrate our faith — that is what we are called to do,” Harthun said.

The last stop for the group of 20 was the office of Sen. Tim Kaine. If a rental could be found in Virginia — at this point they had still not found the right home — it would be in Kaine’s state, and the congregants were particularly looking forward to this visit.

They were standing in the hallway before the appointment when the senator himself walked up and said hello. He listened to their story. He agreed that the ban was “outrageous,” and the disruption it was causing was “heartbreaking,” and he promised that his staff would help in any they could.

“We’re Catholics,” he told them. “To call refugees the enemy when you won’t even hold a floor debate on whether ISIL is the enemy, but to call those fleeing for their lives from ISIL the enemy, that is just wrong,” he said. Then he posed for a photo with everyone.

As Kaine had promised, his staff offered to contact the American Consulate in Erbil to try and secure an earlier travel date for the family, but given that there were eight of them, and flights were few, Kaine’s staff was not optimistic.

“Is there anything else we can do to help you help them?” one of the Holy Trinity group asked as hands were shaken and goodbyes were said at the end.

“Pray,” came the reply.

The group bumped into Sen. Tim Kaine in a hallway, and told him the story of their family of Syrian refugees who had been blocked from entry to the U.S. by executive order. (Photo: Lisa Belkin/Yahoo News)

—–

Crawford was up much of the night Wednesday, fielding some emails to prepare for the scheduled arrival of the family the following week, and other emails fretting that a ruling by a court between now and then might upend the plan yet again.

He was so tired at work on Thursday that he left early for home, where he sprawled, exhausted, on his sofa. There were details to be tended to in his inbox — most urgently the fact that a lease had not yet been signed — and a Plan B was forming to use hotels or Airbnb rentals should the family arrive before a more permanent place could be found.

At 6:15 his phone began to buzz with news that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, in San Francisco, had denied the government’s appeal to reinstate the ban. So Crawford stood himself up and got back to work on his computer, newly energized.

“This is a good development, but it’s not over yet,” he said. “I’m not going to exhale until they land next week.” Then he corrected himself. “I’m not going to exhale until we leave the airport and bring them home.”

—–