#i think it's calling me out for writing archaic english???

[arx-aru]

phone keeps autocorrecting finlenia to "fi kentucky" and 1) what the fuck 2) true tho u right the lesbians ARE fi kentucky arent they

fi, kentucky . quake at the gay. quake. thy day of sapphic judgment is nigh at hand. fi, for the friends of dorothy be at thy. kentuckian door. in search thine accursed hoards of spice

[haru-dipthong]

Really good anime translation: コタローは一人暮らし

I complained in a post a while ago about how I mostly think english translations of anime aren’t very good, and @japanwords asked me if there were any anime I know of that have good translations. I don’t actually watch that much anime so I didn’t have a good answer, but recently I found one that really fit the bill: 『コタローは一人暮らし』or “Kotaro lives alone”

For those who haven’t seen it, it’s a show about a 5 year old kid who lives alone without any parents or guardians, and makes friends with his neighbours in the apartment complex (a lazy manga artist, a woman who’s a hostess at a local nightclub, and a scary yakuza who finds Kotaro unbelievably cute). These friends end up helping Kotaro when he needs someone to act as a guardian, such as when he enrols at the local kindergarten.

The other thing you have to know about Kotaro is he speaks like a Japanese feudal lord.

This really is the crux of what makes the translation so good, because how the hell do you translate that?! The way they chose to do it is by using archaic english phrases. He kinda speaks like a Victorian era gentleman, and he sometimes even verges on sounding like a stereotypical medieval knight. This works perfectly, because Kotaro is actually imitating a character from his favourite cartoon: a samurai hero/feudal lord. Let’s look at some examples:

「放すである」 "Unhand me!"

A simple example to start with, I thought it might be interesting to compare how a 5 year old might actually say this, and how I would translate that:

「放してー！😭"」 "Let goooo! 😭"

Even though the japanese uses the same verb (放す), the english translation is completely different. The choice here to make it “unhand me” (much more evocative of a time period) instead of just “let go of me” (simply a longer way of saying it) is a perfect example of the care this anime puts into its translation.

狩野：「美月さん、アイス食べます？…… あれ？」 “Hey, Mizuki. Would you like an ice cream cone? …… Hello?” 美月：「アイスをもらうけど私、狩野くん誘ってないんだよなぁ」 “While I appreciate the ice cream, you know you weren’t actually invited, Karino.” コタロー：「お邪魔である」 “Interloper.”

邪魔 is a notoriously difficult word to translate, and the natural-sounding corresponding english phrase will vary quite wildly depending on the situation. In non-feudal lord speech, it usually gets translated to something like “you’re getting in my way” or “get out of here” or even “you’re a burden” (my least favourite).

Here, it’s creatively translated as “interloper”! A great way of sneaking in some archaic english while deftly handling a classically difficult-to-translate word.

コタロー：「わらわは写真が大の苦手なのだ」 “I am ill-disposed to having my picture taken!”

Here we have a slightly longer sentence which shows us a bit more of Kotaro’s unusual speech pattern. He uses the archaic first-person pronoun わらわ（妾）and often ends his sentences in なのだ. なのだ is not a particularly odd grammar structure to use, but it is unusual to use it unabbreviated (i.e. not shortening it to なんだ and/or adding よ to the end) especially when using it in speech rather than in writing. Not abbreviating it (as would be expected in a formal situation), but immediately contrasting that formality with the informal だ rather than です causes the speech to sound archaic without actually using any archaic vocabulary.

Now, if this show only translated the old-timey speech pattern well, I’d still call it a good translation. But the attention to detail and focus on natural sounding language extends to the other characters too!

Let’s take a look at an example of Karino’s speech. This is from ep 3; we already know a fair bit about who he is - a manga artist who doesn’t leave the house much (mostly works from home), usually wears comfortable clothes around, leaves things til the last minute and is generally a pretty lazy guy. I say this because the following translation doesn’t “work” (that is, the english and japanese wouldn’t mean the same thing) if it was spoken by a different kind of character.

phone rings 狩野：「担当さんかー」 “Oh great, it’s my editor” 狩野：「お疲れ様です、狩野です。… はい … 今日原稿を？はい、わかりました。じゃあ、後で」 “Hello, this is Karino. How may I help you? … Yes … Wait. Now, now? … Uh-huh, yes. Okay, thank you, I’ll be there soon.” コタロー：「どこか行くのか？」 “Do you need to go somewhere?” 狩野：「仕事。出版社に行く。今回もダメ出しされんのかな？」 “Yeah, I gotta go to work. There goes my day. … I’m sure he’ll just rip it apart like he always does.” 狩野：「あの人結構グサグサ刺さる事言うんだよなぁ」 “The way he criticises, it’s actually pretty hurtful.”

I really like this translation, it feels very clever and results in very natural sounding english. I said this wouldn’t work for a different character, but I think even for the same character, this translation wouldn’t work on ep 1 - the audience wouldn’t have the context for the translation to omit the specific words it does and get away with it.

For example, the line 「今日原稿を？」 directly refers to a manga draft, but the draft isn’t directly referred to in the english. But it ends up being ok, because we can infer that he’s handing in some sort of draft for review from a later line (”I’m sure he’ll just rip it apart…”). Also, 「出版社に行く」 directly states that he’s going to the publishing house, but the english simply refers to it as “work”. But we can infer this too - he’s going to see his editor, and since most of his work is drawing and writing, which he does at home, we know that when he says he’s “going to work”, he’s actually going to the publishing offices.

Prioritising the natural sound of the script over the specific details is a bold choice that really pays off, imo. This is some of the most natural english I’ve ever seen in an anime translation. I recommend checking it out if you’re interested!

[petermorwood]

Word changes...

All of the following is IMO, so YMMV. :->

*****

Anyone noticed how "weaponry" is used nowadays in places where "weapons" would work just fine (and is often more correct)?

Yes, they ARE interchangeable, sort-of, but it's clunky and sounds to me either slightly journo-pompous or like a failure to remember the right word so plugging the most similar one into its place.

ETA: I checked one of my dictionaries, and while "weapons" is more modern, "weaponry" is an obsolete word which has come back into favour. I wonder why...?

*****

"Decimate" turns up all the time, usually when the correct word is "devastate".

Merriam-Webster says: "It's totally fine to use 'decimate' as a synonym for 'devastate'. This is why."

Beg to differ.

As the M-W article points out, "decimate" originally meant a Roman military punishment applied to one man in ten of a guilty unit. (Initially execution, but this had a rotten effect on unit morale, so it was reduced in severity to fatigues, extra drill or restricted rations.)

That's now considered a far too specific meaning and only linguistic pedants dig their heels in. Quite right too, and I speak here as a (bit of a) linguistic pedant...

However, it remains a useful word for more generalised incomplete destruction of living things - saying a regiment, flock, herd or population was "decimated" implies there are some survivors without quibbling over how many tenths. If totally wiped out, however, that's when words like "destroyed" or "obliterated" are more appropriate.

On the other hand something inanimate like a factory, city or region would be "devastated" - and in addition, saying someone is emotionally devastated is understandable, but saying they're emotionally decimated is peculiar.

Two words, several meanings.

It's like cutlery: a spork can replace knife, fork and spoon, but individual utensils give a lot more precision and variation of use.

*****

There are also a couple of real howlers, not just transposed words but actual errors.

One I've heard several times is using "siege" (a noun, or thing) instead of "besiege" (a verb, or action).

For reference, there's a term called noun-verbing, and the practice is quite old: "table the motion / pencil you in / butter him up / he tasks me", but all are either when there isn't already a verb-form of the word, or as a more picturesque way of saying something.

(Interesting side-note about "table the motion": in US English, it means "to postpone discussion" while in UK, CA and I think AU English, it means the complete opposite, "to begin discussion". Why there's this difference, I have no idea, but it's worth remembering as a Brit-fix when writing, also in a real-life business context.)

There IS an existing verb for the action of surrounding a castle and cutting it off from outside help, and that verb isn't "sieged". It's "besieged" or "under siege". Anywhere using "sieged" as a verb is wrong. The Firefox spellchecker in Tumblr Edit Mode is telling me it's wrong right now.

Merriam-Webster, I'm looking at you again.

*****

There's also "coronate" used as a verb. "The King was coronated at Westminster Abbey". Nope. He was CROWNED.

Coronate is an adjective (meaning crown-shaped) and was coined in in the 1600s by a botanist, as a word to describe the shape of certain plants.

The current Royal-associated usage seems to be a bastard back-formation from "coronation", because the act of putting on a crown is the verb "to crown".

This is almost identical in German, French, Italian and Spanish, with noun and verb the same. The only difference is that their verbs have, what a surprise, verb-endings (-en, -er, -re and -ar) on the noun while English does not.

Because English doesn't like to make things that easy...

"Coronated" might be people trying to sound archaic, or those who've bought into the dopey "said-is-dead" school, who perform any linguistic contortion to avoid common words, and who've been taught that repetition in a sentence - "crowned with a crown" - is BAD.

Is "coronated at a coronation" in some way better?

Guess what's got uncritical examples...

If that's M-W scholarship, I'll stick to the OED and my old but utterly reliable New Elizabethan Dictionary, thanks very much.

*****

Language is funny: sometimes funny ha-ha, sometimes funny annoying, but often just funny peculiar, because English etc. etc...

[alatismeni-theitsa]

Submission:

Γεία σας, ο θεία μου! Ο Ελληνικά μου δεν είναι καλο, επομένος λεω συγνώμη.

Στα αγγλικα: Are there resources for studying Koine Greek (and maybe the Bible) with Greek culture in mind? The internet feels saturated with English people making a fuss out of Greek terms, and instances like the "four types of love" have made me skeptical of people making theology out of a language they don't understand.

(One time, while reading in church, I heard this guy who explained that φιλεω was for sentimental love while αγαπάω was not love but care)

Also, how can I improve my study of modern Greek, beyond Duolingo?

Love,

ένας ξένος

=============

Γεια σου 💖💖 Χαίρομαι που μαθαίνεις Ελληνικά! Μπράβο σου!! For future reference and for your own knowledge I think it's worth saying that it would be more correct to write "Γεια σου, ω, θεία μου!" ;) Ω/ω is used for calling someone, usually in an archaic style. When you're using the archaic style you don't use the politeness plural (hence it is γεια σου, and not γεια σας) And especially since you're using the endearing "μου" you don't have to use any politeness plural. In a religious context Greeks always addressed their gods or Abrahamic god in the singular. "Ω, Ζευ, βοήθη μι" or "Θεέ μου, σώσον με".

I think the best source for studying the Koine Greek with Greek culture in mind would be the theological Greek Orthodox studies. The most known text in Koine Greek is the New Testament after all.

You can see what various Greek Orthodox videos and blogs say about New Testament passages. Indeed both φιλέω/-ώ and αγαπάω/-ώ denote some type of "love" but as you said in the ancient context the first had a more sentimental tint to it while the second had also the element of care. However it doesn't mean that with φιλέω you couldn't show care, or that with αγαπώ you couldn't show sentimentality. There's of course the ancient phrase "αγαπάτε αλλήλους (ως εαυτόν)" which tell us to care about and love each other (like we do for ourselves). Also there are other Greek verbs to more exclusively show "care". (In the way of "I care for the well-being of a baby")

For more resources apart from Duolingo, you can check my tag #learn Greek where you can find many organizations and channels that will help you in your journey!

Let me know if I can help more :)

[oneinathousand]

For a while now, the ending of Gadget Past as Future where Louis has an expanded version of his cryptic opening lines slightly infuriated me because the subpar audio mixing in that part makes it so that it’s difficult to understand some of what he’s saying, which I thought could give clues as to what’s going on, especially since there’s no subtitles for any of the spoken dialogue in the game. 

Although I lack any knowledge of audio engineering that would allow me to try and isolate the voice acting from the music, I do have one asset, and that’s months of practice trying to parse as much of Drowned God: Conspiracy of the Ages’ horrible audio mixing as I could by ear alone, and so I listened to Louis’s ending monologue over and over again while writing down what I thought he was saying.

I also had the realization that in the Japanese release, the English voice acting would be the same, so that version would include subtitles. I found a Japanese playthrough of the game, took screenshots of the subtitles, then put them through Google Translate, and although the Japanese naturally didn’t exactly match the English word-for-word, it did help slightly. 

My transcription isn’t going to be 100% accurate, because there’s still a couple of words that I couldn’t understand, and the subtitle translation couldn’t pick up on them. For example, it seems that for Louis’s voice actor, the Sensorama was translated as something like “Cyclorama” or “Psychorama”, because I definitely hear a hard ‘c’ sound in the middle, while the subtitles translated it as “panorama”, so I’ll just render it as Sensorama anyway, because I think there was some translation mistake. 

Still feverish.

From the beginning on, never moved a step. 

Nothing at all is beginning. 

So who’s Slowslop?

No way of knowing now. 

The Sensorama show is about to start. 

Bells should ring pretty soon.

Blinding lights spin round.

An image flickers into view and out.

No matter how the scenery changes, no matter the characters’ mutterings,

If the fuse blows and the power fails,

In that instant, it all melts in darkness. 

A face leers out from behind the Sensorama, cyclopedia* in hand.

It clutches my skull, tries twisting off my head.

From eyeball to planet and beyond to the secret unknown,

At this moment it begins,

The endless unknown voyage.

* This was one of the words I’m still most unsure of, the Japanese translation said Cyclops which I’m sure isn’t it, but I don’t hear an -en- in front of the word, so I chose the word “cyclopedia” which is just an archaic synonym of encyclopedia, anyway. 

One more interesting thing to note about the subtitle translation is that it referred to Slowslop as “Slowthrop”, and if he was originally called Slowthrop in Japanese, his name would sound more similar to the character Tyrone Slothrop from Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, which I’ve seen some speculate as the inspiration for Slowslop’s name like how Horselover Frost is definitely named after Horselover Fat from VALIS. The Slowslop/Slowthrop difference is like the whole Aeris/Aerith from FFVII or Mars/Marth from Fire Emblem deal.

[i-left-my-room-tidy]

I'm also confused now mhmm

I mean... i'm still very indecisive about how I personally want to view the human mind, its consciousness, and realities... especially in regards to manifestation and reality shifting.

I must say i don't know that much about the writings of those people you mentioned. i'm currently reading neville goddard's books. English isn't my mother tongue. So, the archaic english parts REALLY confuse me sometimes but his way of interpreting the bible is really interesting.

Before getting into law of assumption and reality shifting, I was generally into spirituality and witchcraft. I even had a huge tumblr blog for tarot readings lol... yk through channeling my spirit guides and 'predicting' things so to say. Though, my way of viewing myself and the world I'm in changed a lot over the past view years.

But it's kinda like wanting to set puzzle pieces together but there are puzzles pieces from different pictures and some fit together (physically) that are not really meant to be together (image-wise) iykwim? And later on, you find out that some parts were wrongly put together so you have to revise it (your beliefs) and start again from zero... it's a difficult and really confusing journey imo.

And as i'm not really able to grasp the concept of this reality yet and what role my consciousness in all this plays, it's also really difficult to decide what role other people's souls and 'soulmates' play in this.

Oftentimes, I just want to simplify everything for me just because it all seems so overwhelmingly complicated. (Thats also why i wrote a very vague explanation in that soulmates ask - i tried to keep it simple.) Which reminds of what neville goddard keeps mentioning that humans always try to analyse everything even the simplest things and therefore always end up with complicated 'conclusions' which in turn makes them stray afar from the (very simple) quintessence. (idk if that made sense now lol)

I know this whole rant was probably completely useless to you, it just shows my confusion... sorry once again my mind is very scatterbrained and i don't know where im going with all those thoughts most of the time :')

Anyways, I still have plans to shift to a (what I like to call) 'spirit cafe dr' which is just a dr in a 'otherworldly' caféshop setting where I can talk with my spirit guides and other entities. And I plan to ask them about all this (and more)/to learn from them. I don't know when I will do it, probably not anytime soon because i'm busy with university but I definitely need answers lol

Btw have you already shifted to your jesus dr?

[thanks for this ask!]

and don't apologise for the rant! while i won't claim to understand everything that you've said, i do think you make a point with goddard's belief of analyses. i myself fall subject to that 😭😭

sometimes, we want to understand the world so much—and it's as if each change needs to be predicted, just so we fulfill our desire for knowing. i think that's where your experience with your worldview shifting and my habit of theorising fall under. as you've mentioned, the journey is a puzzle, and in some cases, the pieces never always fit together as expected. we both want to know what would be of us, and why; we want to know when, where, and how it would happen.

my best guess is that it's merely human nature at play. certainty isn't always guaranteed, as can be depicted by the presence of change itself. so, we try to make solutions for a problem that should have been left alone. I'm not saying it's inherently wrong, but the processes we take make it our lives harder than we need to. call it a lapse in judgement, if you will.

I'm not as versed with the concept of spirit guides nor do i always try to seek them out, but i do know they're very significant to everyone's journeys. that's mostly a matter of opinion, but don't let it stop you. i hope you get the answers that you seek!

and don't be shy about the rant! it's refreshing to see someone else's thoughts on the matter, actually. it usually takes me some time to respond, but i love long-winded discussions.

as for my jesus DR, not yet, because it's not that urgent for me as of the moment. I'm currently focused on my fame DR. but i do hope to shift (or mini-shift) to my jesus DR at least once this year, on or before christmas [just to celebrate it in time lmao].

[incarnateirony]

HERE SHEA, SINCE YOUR LAZY ASS IS INCAPABLE OF READING MORE THAN A PAGE OF TEXT AT A TIME, I'VE SEPARATED YOU BEING IGNORANT ABOUT LOKI, TOO.

(wrt: your post confessing you're the entire problem, clinging to your own cage, and about to get euthanized)

You... you realize not even Loki was The Entire Problem, right? If you separate him? There's an entire thing called the Lokasenna where he spends a wholeass story pointing out everyone blames him for everything when all the gods were as flawed as he was. And uses language that would Hurt Your Precious Feelings. Whether or not it was his fault, it was Make Loki Fix It.

He still brought the cure, even if he's among the more troublesome tricksters, as much as you woobify him. Even his part in the murder of Baldur fell into Odin knowing he would revive apotheosized as a stronger better god, and whispering in his ear despite being "dead." Hence the stick murdering matching sacrifices to Odin for safe travel. Wait this sounds familiar where have I heard this bef-

I point this out because I'm certain she thinks Loki told her to post it, or that it was funny, or that it would flatter Loki, or show what a great servant of his ethics she thinks she is, instead of insult him.

Loki. A christ figure, actually, now that we're on that. The confusion of him with Satan came much later, but the earliest known writings of Loki put him in a position where he by christendom felled the corrupt old pantheon to bring in a new one blahblah. Funny story, that. Oh, and a part of or reflex of Odin that otherwise didn't exist independently until then and only came into Norse mythology near the end, at least as a main figure. Oops. Wait, who did philosophers say Odin was in Greece? Some dude with the same rockin' hat-staff combo, I could have sworn... OOPS. Right. Hence Mercury presiding on WODENSDAY. Motherfuckin MC-OOPS, SHEA.

No seriously you motherfucking retard, it's The Same Picture. You're talking about multiple faces of the same dude as if they're motherfuckin different because he's speaking another language and performing a different social role perceived by a people that were about Actions more than Concepts and thus rendered differently.

BECAUSE YOU AREN'T TALKING TO ANYONE BUT YOUR OWN DISASSOCIATED VOICES.

well, and sometimes somewhat muffled echos of me now that I'm using your disassociation against you.

durhurhurhur today i talk to hermes durhurhur today it's odin durhurhurhur today it's loki [picks nose] oh and pan on some days [eats the boogers] LAST YEAR MY CAT WAS ATHENA BUT NOW SHE'S FREYJA ONCE I TRY TO RUN TO GERMANIC, WONDER WHY THAT IS.

It'd be like me saying, "Today, I insulted Crackbear, but yesterday, I insulted Walmart Lilith, and tomorrow, I'm gonna call Celestia a retard" and pretending they're different people. If I start posting in French and change my blog name, am I a different dude? Yeah sure sis the shapeshifting trickster god of language and travel stops in greece and greek. Except when they wander into America to speak English for you while filling your cat bowl with Anubis or whatever.

Loki is a reflex of Odin as Hermes is a reflex of the archaic root form of Pan. From Pan/Pushan [Vedic] and Peh2son in indoeuropean culture. Hence Akrida [secret royal garden, Vedic] and Arcadia [Of Greece, Pan-Hermes both connected to it.] Hence there also being the Young and Old hermes. And Hermes is Mercury, and Pan-Hermes, or Pan of the Piled Boundaries, is Odin, and-- like sis. It's The Same Guy but because you're a shadow worshipping schizophrenic by choice, you don't know this, because you're talking to yourself, not gods.

No seriously, Loki's name isn't even a fucking name. LOKI IS NOT A NAME, IT IS A TITLE. LOKI IS NOT A NAME IT IS A TITLE!! THAT'S WHY THERE'S LOKI OF THE OUTYARDS TOO. AND NO I PROMISE YOU'RE NOT TALKING TO THAT MOTHERFUCKER EITHER. THE PRIMARY LOKI OF NORDIC TRADITION IS A TITLE FOR A REFLEX OF ODIN, BUT A FEW OTHER PEOPLE HAVE BEEN LOKIS. YOU COULDN'T EVEN DEFINE WHICH FUCKIN ONE YOU TALK TO IF YOU TRIED. JUST. SOME DUDE. LOKIING AROUND. marvel got you motherfuckers ALL fucked up. this bitch half a step from worshipping the X-men and talking about the divine wisdom she channels from professor x. THE POWER OF DEADPOOL COMPELS YOU!

That last one done near assassinated Noiz while we were on VC while watching yugioh, he's been choking on his lungs.

Sorry the AI devices aren't working, Burn My Dread got hot in my hand. Decode Retarded-ass. Alert Mega-Thoth. Whoop a local Karen today!!! There is no horizon I cannot-

EXODO FLAME, motherfucker. Fuckin Mind Crush. Next on Yu-Gi-Oh, the Illusionist's Faceless Mage's Trap!

We gotta know. Have you figured it out yet??

Less Bien.

[wyrmfedgrave]

Pics: Lovecraft, the teetotaler¹ - no doubt surprised by 'his legacy' of alcoholic drinks!!

1. There's a story that's been going around for a while - in which Howard drank spiked juice at a friend's party & became happier, more friendly & verbose...

More talkative?!!

We forget that HPL was actually out- going with his friends, while writing his letters & with the folk that he worked for.

Howard could be witty, sarcastic, etc in normal English. He saved most of the convoluted language & archaic spelling for his stories & poems.

But, it's true that Lovecraft did hide away for some time.

(Something that's already been discussed in earlier posts.)

Yet, once Howard began socializing with people - even some minorities - he came 'somewhat' out of his shell.

Not enough to give up his ingrained racism but, (according to ST Joshi) he became 'somewhat' more tolerant of others.

2. Beautiful themed beer goblet? Or, a Stein?!

Wassail...

3. Poster for the release party for Lovecraft Hopped Whiskey.

Sadly, though the month & date are included, no year is given.

Maybe it's a nod to HPL's timeless appeal?!!

Yeah...

I'll go with that.

4 to 6. Some of the 7 brands of the Narragansett Beer Company's Lovecraft series.

7 to 9. We also have a peek of the Lovecraft Brewing Company's various brands.

10. Finally, this 1 was a surprise to me.

Don't know if it's a brand from the companies already mentioned.

Or, if it's a new company's product...

PS: There's also a book on cocktail recipes based on Lovecraftian lore.

1914: Output.

Quote: "I think drink is ugly &... have nothing to do with it."

(HPL - in a letter to Zelia Bishop, 1 of his revision clients.)

Intro: Whipple, Howard's grandad, might have influenced the young Lovecraft concerning alcohol.

This would explain how HPL learned that wine had been banished in his family - for 3 generations!

Lovecraft took issue with drinking in some of his early writings.

Howard saw drinking as a 'curse' on mankind. To him, alcohol dulled the intellect & called forth the beast in all of us.

As a teetotaler, HPL tried to influence his readers thru various essays on this subject.²

Yet, his strict "dry" philosophy did soften (on many subjects) as he aged.

And, he stopped writing about it.

Notes:

1. Teetotaler is from a speech given by a Richard Turner, a member of the Preston Temperance Society in England.

During his speech, Turner stammered or stuttered "T-t-total abstinence" & a new word was born...

2. In the U.S., temperance was about moderation in drinking - not total abstinence.

Until a Dr. Benjamin Rush published his popular "Inquiry into the Effects of... Liquors."

Rush argued that alcohol was dangerous to human health & to democracy itself!!

Drunkenness, Rush continued, made all other social problems worse!

And, drinking led to drunken folk who made for bad voters!!

But, as other people agreed with this attitude, temperance gave way to the more extreme view of total abstinence.

The American Temperance Society (in Boston) teamed up with the religious Quakers, Methodists & Baptists.

They all came to require a total pledge against their members drinking.

In 1851, the Independent Order of Good Templars (7 million members strong!) stood up against the alcohol drinking Freemasons...

Total abstinence spread into the political field & produced several statewide bans - but, just in New England & various other states.

But, this "practice run" - for the later national Prohibition - only lasted from 1851 to 1855.

Next: Part 2, the Work itself...

[ketilsfarm]

Preface and PSA, I write Torgrim/Atli and Thorgil/Olmar :) as in the ships :) but my information is accurate! If you don’t like what I ship you’re free to block me instead of whining.

I thought I would write a little something about the various sibling terms used in VS, as Japanese has so many different ones that tell you a little bit about the relationships that doesn’t necessarily translate into English.

In Japanese, as in many Asian cultures, younger siblings don’t call their older siblings by their first name alone; they’ll use one of the words meaning “older sibling”, or sometimes “[name]” followed by an older sibling suffix. For example, if your older brother is named Tarou, you wouldn’t call him that, but “nii-san” or “Tarou-niisan”. Older siblings will use just their younger sibling’s name, but referring to them in conversation they’ll always use a word meaning “my younger sibling”; there is no option that excludes age entirely. We will see one option in this post that doesn’t specify age at all, but this wouldn’t be used between real siblings since there’s an inherent hierarchy of respect based on age.

Th0rfinn and Ylva. Th0rfinn calls her ane-ue, which is an older formal term of address that isn’t really in use today. He uses the matching chichi-ue and haha-ue for his parents, which is basically the equivalent of using Father and Mother vs. Dad and Mom today, very proper words that hint at Th0rs’ and Helga’s origins and suggest they’re from wealth or nobility. (As the older sibling, Ylva just uses Th0rfinn’s name.)

Atli and Torgrim. Atli uses anija most of the time. This is another archaic word for an older brother that’s no longer in use today. Its use is more due to the historical setting, and because of the informal way Atli speaks, it doesn’t carry the same high-class connotations as Th0rfinn’s ane-ue. He also uses aniki once in the third person (kono aniki, “my big bro here”), and the anime expands this to have him shout “Aniki!” in their younger days when Torgrim gets knocked out. Aniki is a very informal and masculine term for a big brother, similar to “bro”.

In their first scene together, Torgrim addresses him only as otouto (”little brother”)—as the older sibling he would usually use Atli’s name with no honorific, so this deliberately hides Atli’s name from the reader. In the third person, Torgrim uses koitsu (”this guy”) instead of kare (”him”). This can be dismissive or derogatory, but in the context of their relationship and style of speech it’s more like “This guy! My buddy!” They actually have no names at all until Askel4dd calls them up to chop down the bridge, and possibly they weren’t meant to be recurring characters originally; they’re just “the older brother” and “the younger brother” in their talk with Willibald.

(Side note: I say that Atli speaks informally, which is what he does during the prologue arc. When we see him much later begging the Jomsvikings for his freedom, he’s using very formal language because that’s how one addresses one’s social superiors. He’s basically throwing himself on his knees and abandoning all pride.)

One oddity is that he does, in fact, use Torgrim’s name once with no honorific! This doesn't really happen in manga/anime, even for characters who aren’t supposed to be Japanese. Like, for example, if you’re in middle school and your teacher suddenly collapses, you’re not gonna yell out their first name no matter how surprised you are. The honorific is just how you think of them in your head. It’s an odd thing to do, even in a dire situation. Either Yukimura threw it in because he’s aware that Westerners do this, or it’s just to remind us of Torgrim’s name after he’s been gone for a few chapters.

Gunnar and Ragnar. In the manga, Gunnar uses ラグナル兄, which today would most likely be read as “Ragnar-nii”! This is pretty cute and informal, and would be odd for characters of their age and status. It could also be “Ragnar-ani”. Ani is normal, but using it as a suffix is pretty nonstandard in my anime experience. (Notice that though he does use Ragnar’s name, he still adds an honorific automatically even in a moment of shock, in contrast to Atli’s weird moment.)

In the anime, they remove his use of Ragnar’s name entirely so he says just ani (normal way to refer to a big brother in third person) and then “Anija…” after learning of his death. I think this hints that the manga’s intention was “Ragnar-ani”, but again it’s just somewhat uncommon to use [name]-ani. Maybe it’s an old-timey thing.

Estrid, Canut3 and Harald. Estrid uses niisama for both, sometimes distinguishing them with “Canute-niisama” and “Harald-niisama”—an extremely respectful “big brother”, so royalty stuff. Canut3 uses ani-ou-heika, “my elder brother, His Majesty the King”, and Harald-ou: “King Harald”. Obviously very few people have reason to use those terms for their siblings.

Olmar and Thorgil. This is a really weird one: Olmar uses niichan, which is very informal and affectionate, and not at all something you’d expect to hear from a character with such pretensions to toughness. Aniki would be the default for someone like him, and I actually assumed without question that he was using aniki until I looked at the raws, saw niichan instead, and had to stare at the wall to calm down.

See, Olmar is from the Japanese delinquent archetype, and while it’s not unheard of for a tough guy or delinquent to use niichan, it usually implies a very close and mutually respectful relationship—or else the younger character is incredibly disrespectful and basically making fun of the older one. Obviously neither is the case here, so my assumption is that Thorgil just left home when Olmar was an actual small child who would reasonably use niichan, and hasn’t been back at all until the visit we see in canon. By way of comparison: when Snorri starts speaking (assuming everyone makes it out alive!), niichan is probably what he'll be calling Karli. For his parents, Olmar does use the more standard tough-guy terms oyaji and ofukuro (as does Thorgil).

Olmar also uses niichan in front of Canute, which is not something you would ever do even if you’re a more mild-mannered person who uses niichan regularly. This is too informal a word for any adult to use when speaking to his high-status brother’s boss, who also happens to be the king. Doing this is just… as weird and cringe and childish as the rest of his behavior in that scene. Perhaps the only endearing part of their relationship is that Thorgil doesn’t seem to mind. Again, I just can’t describe how odd it is for a character like him to be called niichan by an adult sibling with such a masculine, informal style of speech. The overall effect is to hint very blatantly that Olmar is nowhere near as tough as he pretends to be, and that his admiration for his brother is something very immature.

Ketil's daughter: Unknown! Olmar would presumably use the neechan, the equivalent of niichan, especially if she left home when he was young. She never appears and has no name, but yes, she's the canon middle child and they're all full siblings from the same mother. She would've been married into another rich family to help forge alliances, presumably at a rather young age. All we know is she's gone by the time Olmar's 17, and at that point is somewhere between 17 and Thorgil's age at the time, 24.

Aske1add and his brothers: He calls them all aniki when he's talking about them in the third person. He might have used something different when he was a child.

Th0rfinn and Einar. So, fun fact, they are not related! As such, they both call each other kyoudai after becoming sworn brothers. This word contains the characters for both “older sibling” and “younger sibling”, and can actually be written several different ways depending on the gender combination of the siblings. Their version, 兄弟, is “big brother + little brother”, and as a term of address this would never be used between real siblings, because it doesn’t label either “brother” as the older one. In Japanese even twins separated by a matter of minutes are designated the older sibling/younger sibling for their entire lives. Kyoudai as a term of address is used only between sworn siblings. It signifies that they’re 100% outside the age hierarchy, with no expectations of formality or deference on either side.

So yeah, no, they aren’t using any language associated with actual blood or adoptive relationships. It’s an expression of super ultra friendship that uses family metaphors because in ancient societies (including both Japanese and Norse culture) swearing these vows created the same obligation of lifelong support, protection and loyalty that one would owe to a family member. It’s not the same as getting adopted and having memories of being raised together.

Hrefna and H1ld: Onee-chan. Nothing special, totally normal for two young girls.

Unnamed guy and Eirik (BSW guy who gets shot in the head): Another moment similar to Atli’s here: The younger brother calls out both “Eirik!” and "aniki" separately. Again, Yukimura seems to be aware that Westerners use first names for their older siblings, but the majority of siblings in VS still stick to the Japanese rules predominantly.

Styrk and Ivar: This is downright freakish. As far as I know, Styrk uses only Ivar’s name without honorifics, up until he suddenly calls him "big bro" out of nowhere. (I don’t have the raws for later chapters, but based on some searching it looks like he uses aniki.) This basically doesn’t happen in Japanese, and my guess is its only purpose was for this reveal. It might hint that they’re actively trying to hide the fact that they’re related from other people? Aniki can be used for an older male friend you admire (Snake's men call him aniki, and he in turn used this for the real Iron Fist Ketil), but Japanese readers seem to be assuming that they are in fact blood related, and there wouldn’t be any purpose in waiting so long to use the word if they’re not.

They both address Ganglati by name only, and if he’s the third brother, this would usually tell us that he’s the youngest. But since Styrk is being weird about things, Ganglati could be the middle brother or even the oldest somehow! Or he might not be related at all. We’ll see.

[akira-med]

As a trans man, Yamato isn't trans.

Yes, I said it. I don't believe that Yamato is canonically trans, and here's why (LONG POST).

*I will be referring to Yamato with they/them pronouns in order to avoid anyone taking offense to my criticism, and also so this doesn't age poorly if Yamato does turn out to be trans.

Exhibit A: Pronouns

Everybody's biggest argument for Yamato being trans is that Yamato uses he/him pronouns in the official translation for the manga, so obviously Yamato must be a guy, right? Actually, I think this is just translator's misunderstanding of how Japanese pronouns work.

In Japanese, there aren't really strict pronouns. Usually when you refer to another person, you just use their name instead of some pronouns like "he" or "she". The only really "gendered" pronouns are first person pronouns like watashi (neutral), atashi (feminine) and boku (masculine).

While these do have masculine and feminine connotations like English pronouns, they are not strictly binary. It's a common trope for effeminate men to use atashi (this is called onee kotoba, or "big sister speech") and for women (usually young spunky girls) to use boku (this is called bokukko). This doesn't usually mean that they are transgender, but it could.

In Yamato's case, they quite frequently use bokukko in both the manga and anime. Obviously a translator's first instinct would be to use he/him pronouns for this, since it's the closest English equivalent, however I think they really jumped the gun on this one.

Yamato being a bokukko would also explain why Kaidou (their abusive shitty dad) still respects their pronouns for some reason. In English, it would come across as a weird thing to do, since Kaidou doesn't exactly respect Yamato at all. However, when given the context of Yamato being a bokukko, it makes more sense. He isn't respecting Yamato's pronouns, he's just referring to Yamato with masculine Japanese pronouns, because they are a bokukko. Again, this doesn't necessarily mean that Yamato is trans. It would also explain why Yamato is referred to as the "Daughter of Kaidou". If Yamato were actually trans, this would be kind of an ignorant and shitty thing to include on Oda's part.

Exhibit B: Kikunojo

Kikunojo (who I will refer to as Kiku from now on) is another character introduced alongside Yamato in the Wano Country arc, and she is a transgender woman, no doubt about it. She is shown to go through a transition, as she used to dress more masculine and was referred to as "most beautiful swordsman in Wano Country". Now, she dresses femininely, and whenever somebody asked if she was male, she replied with "I have the heart of a woman."

Kiku uses the archaic japanese first-person pronoun "sessha", which is masculine. You may think, "Well, you said Yamato uses masculine pronouns, but they aren't trans, so what's the big deal?" Sessha is a pronoun that was usually exclusively used by samurai, which was a distinctly male dominated field (however, there were a few female samurai as well). Kiku is a samurai, so while she is using a more masculine pronoun in this case, I don't think it has anything to do with her being transgender.

Back to the part about Kiku "having the heart of a woman". As far as I'm concerned, Kiku is never referred to as male or a man, however the bathhouse scene (I'll talk about that later) does confirm that she is trans.

However, Yamato is never referred to in this way. In fact, Yamato is referred to many times as a daughter ("daughter of Kaidou") and a princess ("onihime" lit. ogre princess). Why would Oda write Kuki with "the heart of a woman" and not write Yamato to have the heart of a man, if they were trans? Oda clearly understands how to write a good trans character, and Yamato is not written in this way.

The only instance in which Yamato comments on their gender is when they say "If Oden is a man, then I will become a man too", which leads me to my next point.

Exhibit C: Oden

Because this post is getting way too long, I'm just going to cite the One Piece fandom wiki.

"Kozuki Oden was the daimyo of Kuri in Wano Country and the son of the former shogun  Kozuki Sukiyaki, being a member of the Kozuki Family [...] He was the leader of a group of legendary and powerful samurai known as the Nine Red Scabbards, with all of them serving as his retainers and most trusted allies."

So basically, Oden is a really legendary stand-up guy, and Yamato looks up to him a lot. In fact, Yamato looks up to him so much that they basically obsess over him, going as far as to take his name, basically cosplay as him, and they also want to live up to his name by doing things that Oden wanted to do, such as opening the borders to Wano Country.

Yamato also goes as far as to proclaim that they are a man, and that they are the son of Kaidou, simply because Oden is also a man. Yamato also uses the men's section of the bathhouse in the latest chapter, which is what struck up the topic of Yamato being trans again recently. A lot of people use this as their main basis for calling Yamato a trans man, however I just don't think this is the case.

Yamato doesn't want to be a man, they just want to be Oden. If Oden was a woman instead, I think Yamato wouldn't want to be a man, but to stay a woman, simply because that's what Oden would be.

Yamato doesn't have dysphoria, or a discomfort in their body (or at least, they haven't been written to, unlike Kiku [however briefly]). Yamato has not gone through a transition, nor faced discrimination, nor has been shown to struggle with gender in the slightest, which are all key components of the transgender experience. When writing a character, you cannot just slap on the trans label and call it a day. There are experiences that every trans person goes through that Yamato clearly has not, which is why I believe they aren't trans, just obsessed with Oden. I would say it as, Yamato isn't transgender, they are Odengender.

Exhibit D: Design

If you read any of this at all, I would say that this is the most important and solid part.

1. Her outfit

Yamato's design is clearly inspired by a mix of Japanese Kabuki and Noh theater. Noh theater was higher class and appealed heavily to samurai.

Yamato's outfit features a large, exaggerated nio-dasuki (ropes used to tie back kimono sleeves when working) often seen in Kabuki costumes, and the mask Yamato used to wear is a hannya mask used in Noh theater, which represents a jealous or obsessive female demon. A white mask, as seen on Yamato, represents a woman with a refined character.

2. Inspirations

Yamato was also most likely inspired by Lady Oscar François de Jarjayes, the main character of the 1972 manga series The Rose of Versailles, written and illustrated by Riyoko Ikeda. The series is a historical drama set before and during the French Revolution, following the lives of Lady Oscar—the youngest of six daughters raised as a boy from birth to succeed her military general father as the commander of the royal guard—and Marie Antoinette, the future queen of France and Lady Oscar's love interest.

I say that Yamato is most likely inspired by Lady Oscar because Oda's author's note on Chapter 945 notes how he had read The Rose of Versailles for the first time and was shocked when Oscar was revealed to be a woman.

3. Yamato's name

Yamato is an ancient name for Japan and could also refer to the Yamato period of Japanese history.

Yamato Takeru is a legendary Japanese prince of the Yamato dynasty. Yamato's (the character) kanabo being named Takeru makes it nearly certain that the name was based on this figure.

Yamato nadeshiko is a phrase that refers to the idealized image of a Japanese female.

Yamato has also been included in heroine specific events and artwork collaborations.

Conclusions

In conclusion, these are all of my reasons why I, as a trans man, believe that Yamato is not canonically a trans man. However, if it is officially stated by Oda that Yamato is a trans man, I will continue to believe that Yamato is not a well written trans character, because that is my personal opinion.

However, if you do believe or personally headcanon Yamato as trans—that's awesome! You do you. But stop attacking other people that respectfully disagree with you.

I hope you can see that my criticism comes not from a place of transphobia, but from a place of respect for Oda's work, and that I wish for genuinely good representation for transgender men in anime and manga.

Before you comment or reblog, please make sure to stay civil and present your points in a civilized manner. Death threats and insults will not be tolerated.

[twstarchives]

the anon who keeps mentioning about Grim's little "dazo"/"yanno" catchphrase thing made me a little curious. Some characters do have specific ways of talking or a characteristic in their speech (like Cater's use of -chan and maybe Lilia's sort of archaic/old fashioned way of talking) and I see that you've translated them as best that you can - thank you for that! - but I'm curious if any other characters have little quirks in their speech too?

Absolutely!! A character’s speech mannerisms can tell so much of their personality in JP compared to EN. I fully believe every character could have an entire paragraph dedicated to listing the specifics of their speech habits, but I don’t feel that one person is equipped to write all that ;; This doesn’t nearly cover everything but I think it has the most noticeable mannerisms

Please keep in mind that this isn’t a native speaker’s interpretation (JP is my 2nd language) and I did this mostly off of memory 🙏💦

Riddle

Sometimes sounds very feminine & queenly

If you know his “o-wakari dane?” or “You understand, don’t you?” this sounds very feminine

But also uses formal masculine speech ends (like ~dai and ~kai)

Either way usually elegant speech, although sometimes drops the formalities/speaks more like his age

Ace

Tends to use the word “papatto” (quickly) a lot, if you pay attention 😂

Deuce 

Slips into yankee speech when his bad boy mode turns on

Ruggie

Ends sentences with “~ssu.” This is a shortened version of “desu” and is popular masculine speech, it’s like you’re trying to be polite but a little lazy/casual about it. I think it used to be considered less refined too.

Azul

Courteous and polite (sometimes rude undertones)

He will usually call others by “anata” (polite version of “you”) but it’s really noticeable when he sometimes goes with “omae” (ruder version)

They call this style of speech ingin burei -- very polite but superficially so. (It makes sense for him)

Jade

Very formal, like a butler (sometimes shady undertones)

“Oya oya”

Always using respectful language

Vil

Always feminine, queen-like/oneesan speech

1st person pronoun: atashi (feminine)*

But as a child he used “boku” (masculine)

“Ara ara”

Sentence ends: ~wa, ~kashira

Gives commands in the “nasai��� form (sounds very motherly)

*I’ve seen conversations about how this transfers to English pronouns, and I just want to clarify that atashi ≠ she/her. Atashi is a way to say I/me; third person pronouns aren’t very prominent in JP.

1st person pronouns convey personality and formality (you sometimes change which one you use depending on who you’re speaking to), so it doesn’t necessarily specify one’s gender. Vil’s has yet to be explained.

Epel

Slips into his village’s dialect sometimes, but he tries his best to speak “properly.”

Has a habit of adding “...kana” at the end of his sentences. This has a “I wonder...” kind of uncertain nuance and makes you sound more agreeable rather than assertive (whereas he sounds very assertive in his village dialect). His usage of it is so frequent and sometimes feels out of place.

Rook

Masculine speech but sometimes gets poetic/literary

~dai and ~kai question sentence ends

Idia

Otaku speech. Basically his speech habits are all archaic and what a samurai would use. His honorific for everyone is “-shi,” he ends sentences with “~de gozaru” (this has same meaning as “desu” but again super outdated. Its polite form “gozaimasu” is still common though)

He’s hard to understand sometimes...

He also uses “~dewa?” and “~zo” (I feel like these make you sound really cocky)

Ortho

Textbook-standard speech most of the time, sometimes leaning more informal and other times more robotic (?)

Calls everyone by their full name (with -san at the end)

Lilia

Typical old person speech:

“Washi” pronoun

Sentence ends are like ~noja, ~jaro (usually they would be ~noda, ~daro-- the J sound gives it that old person feel)

The ~nu negative conjugation (not very common in modern speak)

But sometimes he sprinkles internet slang into his speech too 😂

[aiweirdness]

My Name is Bot

Text-generating neural networks can do a lot more now than they used to. When I first started generating things with neural networks, sentences and even simple phrases were mostly beyond them (that didn’t stop me from trying, with hilariously inept results). But now programs like GPT-3 can keep track of much larger blocks of text, capable of writing multi-question personality quizzes (as long as you don’t mind that the tests make no darn sense).

Now here’s one I’ve wanted to do for a while: there’s a form of poetry called bredlik, introduced in late 2016 CE by Sam Garland after a cow was discovered licking the loaves at a bakery:

my name is Cow, and wen its nite, or wen the moon is shiyning brite, and all the men haf gon to bed - i stay up late. i lik the bred.

With its pseudo-Chaucerian spelling and meter of strict iambic diameter, bredlik is one of my favorite things the internet has produced. And, now that the interest in bredlik has declined from “very niche” to “virtually none”, it’s the perfect time for me to see how a state-of-the-art neural net does at generating bredlik poems.

I gave GPT-3 15 example bredlik poems, focusing on those that stuck to the standard 8-line length. I also included a (subject, verb, object) header to each poem so I could specify the topic. The cow poem above, for example, got (cow, lick, bread) as a header. Then I gave GPT-3 a few headers to add to, and here’s what it produced:

(giraffe, trick, bot) my name's giraf, and on the veld i lik to pley with bouncing gait but when it's cold i shiver, no. my tunge wil bach, i trip the bot.

(bot, make, memes) my name is bot and wen i memz i go into the street i maek the sound lik dok dok dok lik boom boom boom but all at once i see a meme and i can't meme.

It’s close. It’s soooo close. Terrible, though. It does make an effort to match my prompt, even when I sabotage it with way too many syllables or something:

(cat, eat, broccoli) my name is cat, and wen i feel the smell of treat, i jump up fast from box or seat, and run and leap and seize the feep, and say, yum, meep!

(moon, moon, moon) my name is moon and wen it’s night and stars are out and you don’t see a single sound I am the one to set your heart I moon the moon

It occasionally gets the rhythm right, though it’s curiously bad at counting lines. It tries to do the pseudo-Chaucerian spelling but some of its misspellings are so weird that I suspect it’s just making up words. Other times it uses real archaic English, which is not the point of bredlik but it’s still kinda cool that it drew the parallel. Note that it is also almost following the rhyming scheme, especially if you take some liberties with how you pronounce the made-up words. For the rest of the poems in this post, GPT-3 generated not just the poem, but the prompt as well.

(Sheep, graze, name) My name is Sheep and wen it’s nyght i like to bleepe with shut and ee and munch upon the buettom green of grounges fourm i lik the name

(fish, lick, thing) my name is fish, and wen i see the mote that doth bestow upon me the gift of life and givith unto me a watery strife i thank the fen i lik the thing

(bell, scare, doom) my name is bell and wen you kno the wyld dark nere to Hell’s abyss and in the mire the dead a roon you think it’s naym the bells will toon i scare the doom

I’m surprised at how often GPT-3 did manage to get close to bredlik, since AI-generated poetry is notoriously hard, and even careful scripting can produce glitchy poems with unexpected odes to mining company Alusuisse. Still, in this post I’m only showing a few of the generated poems - most of them not only fail to fit bredlik, but do so in a boring or unsatisfying way. The exception is this poem, which has definitely strayed from bredlik, but on the flip side contains the phrase “beely might”.

(Bee, use, thief) My name is Bee and wen I see a moth upon a tree I use my beely might and steal it from its fight And then I lik the thieft

Subscribers get bonus content: more neural net bredlik poems than would fit in this post, including many that are for some reason quite unsettling.

My book on AI, You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why it’s Making the World a Weirder Place, is available wherever books are sold: Amazon - Barnes & Noble - Indiebound - Tattered Cover - Powell’s - Boulder Bookstore

[welshoot]

Genshin Impact Traveler analysis/theory: What we know part 1 (Names)

I just started playing Genshin Impact and, you know me, I must analyze and theorize at least a tiny bit about this. I probably won’t write much for this game since there is already so much information out there that I am having to get caught up on. Anyway, I wanted to analyze and theorize a bit about our travelers, Lumine and Aether. I intend to look at them both in their positions as protagonist and member of the Abyss Order. I will try to stay unbiased since I rather like both characters in both positions and who is who is decided by each player individually.  Also, this is gonna be a series because doing this as one post was just too long. This will be under the cut for length and potential spoilers.

The traveler, unsurprisingly, has different names for each localization. Interestingly, these names typically reflect the same or at least a similar meaning. So for the Chinese version their names are, according to the Genshin Impact wiki,  Kōng ( 空) for the guy and Yíng (荧)  for the girl. I used Google translate, not the best translation so correct me if I am wrong on these meanings, to find out a vague name meaning. Kōng can apparently be a noun or an adjective. As a noun it means air, sky or leisure. As an adjective it means bare or in vain. Yíng can also be a noun or adjective but it has way more meanings. As a noun it means glimmering. As an adjective it can mean fluorescent, alluring, amazing, astounding, baffled, bewildered, confounded, confused, dazzling, glittering, or glittery. In the Japanese version the guy is named Sora (空) and the girl is named Hotaru (蛍). Sora mirrors the Chinese name meanings well since it means sky, emptiness, or void. I’m pretty sure sky is the more common meaning but I am not positive. Hotaru means firefly and I think the Japanese have some firefly symbolism but I genuinely have no idea what that may be. The other languages are simply a version of the English names so we have come down to Aether (the guy) and Lumine (the girl). Aether is sort of interesting, it has several basic meanings. In Greek Mythology Aether was the Primordial god of light and the bright, blue ether of the heavens . This god did have a sister/wife known as Hemera who was the primordial goddess of day which could me a Lumine connection but could also just be a coincidence. In chemistry aether was a medium that was once thought to fill all space and support the propagation of electromagnetic waves. In medical or archaic science aether was the material that filled the region of the universe above earth. Aether was also thought of as the fifth element used to explain several phenomena such as the traveling of light and gravity. Thus, Aether has a name meaning that ties in nicely to the siblings unexplained ability to travel the universe. Finally in the Japanese philosophy of Godai, aether is a fifth element which can loosely be described as void. It represents things beyond yet with our everyday comprehension. In fictional tales its name was invoked to connect to the quintessential creative energy of the world.  Lumine is a bit tougher. Lumine is an obsolete verb that means to illuminate. There is also the Latin word, “lūmine,” which means “the light.” So Aether, as I shall call him from now on, always has a name linking him to the sky and emptiness. Lumine always has a name linking her to light or illumination with firefly being a slight but adorable outlier that does still have light connotations. 

Just based on their names Aether seems like a good fit for the Abyss order sibling. I mean come on, emptiness and the void? Abysses are typically void-like and empty. Nonetheless, there is still a lot to look at. However, Lumine was difficult to analyze for this part. I really wish I could have found out firefly symbolism but I couldn’t so make of it what you will.

[calaisreno]

WiP: The Last Envoy

Coming Soon!

Summary: April 1938. As Europe moves towards another war, a lonely envoy arrives from a distant, dying planet.

Excerpt from Chapter 1: “The first time I saw a tree, I was enchanted. I had, of course, read about them, and other flora as well, but was not prepared for the sheer size, number, and variety of these creatures. They were much larger than I’d anticipated. The sound they made when wind blew through their branches was overwhelming. I had no words, and even now I cannot describe the effect it had on my ears. It took me a while to understand that they were not actually speaking. 

“It was spring, and I was on an island. I had already completed my landing tasks and was taking time to explore the environs. A light rain was falling. Plants were growing so rapidly that I could almost hear them breaking through the soil. The vast sea surrounding the island was in constant movement, not because of the season, but as a result of the moon’s gravitational pull and global air currents. Roughly seventy-one percent of this world is covered with water, more than I’d ever seen in one place. This planet teems with life, all fascinating and so beautiful.

“I did not yet understand very much about the humans of this world. This was, in part, why I was here, to learn about them. I was not aware that my landing had occurred at a critical moment in the planet’s history, when my mere presence could change everything, for either good or bad. My only thought at that time was that I had arrived at my long journey’s end.

“The name of this island is Britain, and the ruling people are the English. I had landed in the northern part of the island, a place called Scotland. In the English calendar, it was the twenty-third day of April in the year A.D. 1938 (I will continue to use their archaic dating system in my report, but will share a system of conversion in an appendix hereto.)

“My feelings compel me to present this information as a story, out of courtesy to those who will eventually hear it and make it part of our Memories. Words are important; they should not be treated as mere data.”

Author Note: This idea has been with me for a long time. It’s a bit of an odd one, but I think you'll find that Sherlock is still Sherlock, and John is still John. Sherlock is the narrator. Mycroft, Lestrade, Mrs Hudson, Mrs Holmes, and Molly all have supporting roles to play. Moriarty is here, too, but he is not the evil mastermind, just an agent of a greater power. 

The inspiration for this story was several things. One of my favorite books is The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula LeGuin. The initial idea of an Envoy, sent alone on a diplomatic mission to a planet much different from his home, comes from that story. I'm sure it owes something to Star Trek as well. But this is not a crossover. 

The idea of the Beta world is my own, gleaned from many science fiction stories and formed by my own imagination. My fascination with language and writing systems, anthropology, culture, genetics, education and collective memory are given some free rein. Any errors are my own. 

This will likely take some time, due to the amount of research required and the number of other unfinished stories sitting in my WiP folder.  

@7-percent  @a-different-equation @pipmer @simplyclockwork @peanitbear @tildathings @shelleysprometheus  @yogaduck @junkenmetel @helloliriels @blogstandbygo @dianadragonfly @keirgreeneyes @the-reading-lemon @loveismyrevolution  @dangeles @bertytravelsfar @thegirlfromthesouth @macgyvershe @raina-at

@totallysilvergirl @reveling-in-mayhem @thetimemoves @otterpuff11 @discordantwords @iamjustreading @missdeliadili @therealsaintscully @sussexinchelsea @jazzthecat00 @chinike @sgam76 @sarahthecoat @shiplocks-of-love  @sherlockwatson-holmesblog @loves-to-read-fanfic @fuxshakes @jobooksncoffee @iris-best-taken-in-small-doses 

[jeannereames]

Hi Dr Reames, I hope you're well! I think I might have asked this before, so sorry if I'm being obnoxious, but do you think there is very much studying left to be done in regards to Alexander/Macedonia? Looking at the field from the outside, it seems a little bit like all that can be said, has been. Would you recommend studying Alexander specifically as a prospective academic path, or would you advocate pursuing other areas of classics?

The problem with studying ANYthing in the ancient world is always a problem of the sources. Unless there’s new material, then we’re all just doing ring-around-the-rosie with what we have. That doesn’t mean new things can’t be said. I’d point to my own work on Hephaistion, or for that matter, Alexander’s bereavement. I wasn’t looking at anything new, just looking differently at what we already had. As someone who’d done bereavement counseling, Alexander’s mourning of Hephaistion didn’t strike me as particular unusual, except in the amount of money he had and power to have his desires put into practice.

Also, scholarship tends to go through “fads,” like anything else. That is, someone makes a splash with a new approach, one that can be applied more broadly, and suddenly, a lot of people jump on board. That’s not necessarily bad, but it can result in oversaturation. Right now, one of the big fads is “reception studies.” So the rise of new directions in the study of old fields can offer alternative approaches to familiar material.

Another thing that can happen is for old fields to give birth to new ones. E.g, Charles Edson, Harry Dell, and then Nick Hammond all started asking questions about the country that produced Philip and Alexander, instead of writing just about them. Edson’s 1939 dissertation at Harvard, “Five Studies in Macedonian History” widened the lens but things really began to churn in the 60s and 70s. In 1972, Nick Hammond published the first volume in that massive A History of Macedonia, after having done Epiros earlier. He got Griffith to work with him on vol. 2, Griffith writing much of the material on Philip (which is still, btw, a pretty damn good summary of Philip’s reign, if you allow for material discovered since), then Walbank, already well-known as a scholar of Philip V, worked with Hammond on Vol. 3, which is the Hellenistic period.

Macedonian Studies was born, and by 1990, 3 different histories had appeared: a short version by Hammond on Macedonian Institutions called The Macedonian State, Gene Borza’s (still) excellent In the Shadow of Olympus, that goes up to Philip II, and Malcolm Errington’s A History of Macedonia that included ATG and the Hellenistic period. What followed (and was in between) involved numerous articles, then companions and conference proceedings. Alexander (and Philip) were still hot property, but many articles had nothing to do with them. New direction had been found.

Yet notice most of those early scholars were English-speakers. Partly, that owed to where it got started: Edson and Dell were Americans. They trained students who were also Americans. So Bill Greenwalt (Dell’s student) would go into Argead Macedonia with an interest in Illyria (and Thrace) because Dell had the same. There were some Greek scholars, such as Miltiades Hatzopoulos and Argyro Tataki doing a lot with epigraphy, and Manolis Andronikos himself, but the field was dominated by English-speakers for a while.

One of the bigger shifts in the last 20-25 years has been an expansion into other languages, plus the Greeks dominating the archaeology. When you take up high-level scholarship, there’s an assumption that you will read material in languages besides your own. When I got my PhD, aside from the ancient languages, common wisdom dictated I learn German and French.

BUT my NUMBER ONE piece of advice to anybody who wants to do ancient Macedonia today is LEARN MODERN GREEK.

Why? Because, as I said, the Greeks have taken back their own archaeology and most of their reports are in Greek. They’re talking to each other, and most (non-Greek) scholars don’t read modern Greek [that well]. That’s not entirely accidental, and some payback for the colonial dominance of the late 1800s and 1900s. (Elgin Marbles anybody?) The best way to keep out “interference” is to write mostly in a language few other scholars read well. That keeps Macedonian history in Greek hands. I would now advise young scholars that modern Greek is more important than French. Just as, if you really want to do Thracian history, learning Bulgarian and/or Russian might be a good idea.

It’s getting increasingly hard, as scholarship expands, to keep up with all the languages one needs. Current work is being done on Macedonia, as well as Alexander and the Hellenistic world in English, Spanish, Italian, German, modern Greek, and even Russian, and that doesn’t look at the wider world outside Europe (and colonial states). We’ve got a ton of talented young scholars on the continent, while jobs are lacking in many English-speaking countries, meaning students just aren’t going into it. English still remains a major language, largely because Americans and Canadians suck at learning other languages while the Europeans might speak 4-5. But English is becoming less relevant. As a grad student, I couldn’t have guessed I’d need Spanish and Italian more than French.

But LEARN MODERN GREEK, as that’s where the NEW stuff is. I doubt we’ll get much (if anything) new in textual evidence. By contrast, archaeology is rewriting what we thought we knew about north Greece. E.g., Methone now vies with Pithokousai for the earliest Greek script. Think about that a minute. Euboian Greeks and Phoenicians weren’t just hanging around off the coast of Cumai in the late 8th century, they were poking about the Thermaic Gulf, too, interacting with whoever the hell was at Pella before the Macedonians moved in (Bottaians, Paionians, somebody else…?). Who [what people] were buried at Archontiko between 650-450 BCE?? What was happening tradewise between Aiani in Elimeia and Corinth? That, to my mind, is where scholarship is going: or it should be. The Early Iron and Archaic Ages…periods before Macedonia even shows up in the written record with Herodotos.

Sure, I love Alexander, and I write about him a lot here, or Hephaistion, but I’m really an Argead specialist. I’m just as curious about how Alexander I used Persian power, then Persian absence to consolidate his own power and create Macedonia as we know it. When I first got to UNO, the Hellenistic Era was the “happenin’” place, but there are now a number of Macedoniasts doing that. Pat Wheatley (Brian Bosworth’s student) and Charlotte Dunn just (2020) published a new (probably definitive) book on Demetrios Poliorketes for instance (I’ve been waiting to see that for years). And there will always be Yet Another book on Alexander or Philip, but the place that is WIDE OPEN for research is the archaeology of Archaic and Early Iron Age Macedonia. That shit is interesting.

Go to Macedonia. Drive around and visit the museums (not just the big ones in Athens and Thessaloniki, or even Vergina). Go to Veroia, go to Pella, go to Aiani, go to Ioannina, go to Florina. See what’s up there. It’s COOL.

[prettytoxicrevolver]

Homework | JJ Maybank

Warnings? None? Swearing 

Requested? Nope 

Summary: JJ distracts you from your homework 

Word Count: 1,898

“Okay but I should seriously get going,” you tell the rest of the pogues while standing. 

“No!!” JJ and Kie whine out and you smile down at them. 

“I still have homework to finish and unlike some people,” you say turning to John B. “I wanna pass high school.” 

“Ouch,” he says, placing a hand over his chest and fake crying. You stick your tongue out at him and the two of you end up laughing together. 

“I’ll come with. I still have English homework I need help with,” Pope says standing to accompany you. 

“Nerds,” JJ remarks and you roll your eyes. 

“Well, this nerd is gonna leave with her actual best friend,” you respond before gesturing for Pope to follow you. 

“Ah ah no no hold on!” 

Before you can get too far, JJ wraps a hand around your wrist and pulls you back to him. Your hands land on his chest as his arms circle your waist effortlessly. He stares down at you before pressing his lips to yours making you weak at the knees. 

“Gross!” John B yells. 

“Get a room!” Kie joins.

You two break apart, smiling wide at each other and you lean up to peck his lips once more. 

“Love ya.” 

“Love you too,” you respond. 

You break from his grip and join Pope once more and head out from the secluded area to your car and start home. 

Ever since joining the pogues, you and Pope had become the resident “nerds” or “bookworms” of the group. You two were always studying together or working hard to get your grades up. You helped him with English and he helped you with Math. You worked as a team and did well. 

Your parents had always encouraged you to do well in school. They reminded you almost every day that if you succeeded, you’d get into a good college, get a scholarship, and be set for life. That’s why you and Pope had bonded pretty quickly. You understood the struggle of needing to get good grades for your future and dealing with strict parents on top of it. 

You both also agreed that the pogues were weirdly a good influence on the both of you sometimes. If the two of you hadn’t found them, you would have most likely spent your high school years locked in your room or a library studying and getting homework done aside from working with Pope at the shop. 

You were especially grateful for meeting JJ, your “bad influence”. On the outside, you two looked like total opposites, you working hard to get good grades and succeed. Everyone looked at JJ as a slacker, the one who didn’t care and was gonna end up working dead-end jobs or like his dad. 

JJ was your world and you always knew he could do amazing things no matter what. If he wanted to stay on the cut and work then you’d be next to him. If he wanted to do more, you’d be there. He was never a slacker or a bad influence to you. 

However, you balanced each other out and brought out the best in each other. He inspired you to let loose every once in a while and enjoy your teen years. You reminded him to take things seriously when it’s important. 

“So what English work do you have?” You ask Pope when you get back to your house. 

“I started writing my essay for my scholarships but I need someone to read it over,” he explains. 

The two of you set to work, you checking Pope’s essay and him reading through your math answers before coming back and slowly showing each other the corrections and how to do them correctly. 

As you work silently, you hear a clicking noise near your window causing the two of you to look up. You pause for a moment when it happens again. You drop your books on your bed and stand up to walk over to your window. When you push back the curtain, you see JJ beneath it smiling widely. 

“Oh my god,” you say rolling your eyes. At this, Pope stands and joins you at your window. 

“He does know you have a front door right?” He asks and you laugh and shake your head. 

“He really should.” 

“I think that’s my cue,” Pope decides. He gathers his stuff and with a quick hug and a promise he’ll text you when he gets home, he heads off. 

Once he’s gone, you pull open your bedroom window and JJ is still grinning below it. He scales his way up the two stories clumsily before he’s landed on your bedroom floor and you’re giggling loudly at him. 

“I have a front door,” you say in-between laughter. 

“Yeah but this way is so much more romantic,” he insists, pulling you in and you smile while wrapping your arms around his neck. 

He pecks your lips affectionately and your heart is soaring instantaneously. You pull him back into you for a long kiss and his arms wrap tighter around your waist as he leads you over to your bed.  

You fall onto your bed with a soft thud and JJ is quick to climb on top, hovering just over you. His hands fall just next to your face as he leans down to connect your lips once more. You instinctively lift your hands to slide through his blonde locks as the kiss deepens. 

You wake up the next day tangled in JJ’s embrace. One leg thrown over his waist while your arm is wrapped loosely around his chest. His arm comes down your side resting lightly, his fingers tangled in your hair. 

“Hi baby,” he whispers when he sees you awake. You tilt your head up and he leans down to peck your lips before a soft smile settles there. 

“Hi J,” you respond. “Did I wake you?” 

“Nah,” he says lifting a hand to run through your hair. 

You two stay in that position for what seems like ages drifting in and out of sleep and trading lazy kisses like it’s your job until eventually you’re interrupted. Your phone rings loudly from your nightstand and you pick it up to hear John B’s voice on the other line. 

“Hey is JJ with you?” he asks before letting you greet him. 

“Where else would he be?” You ask and JJ smirks next to you. 

“Alright sassy, tell him to meet me at the docks in 15?” 

“John B-“ you start but he’s already hung up. You place your phone back on the nightstand before dropping down next to your boyfriend and sighing. 

“Docks in 15?” JJ asks tracing patterns on your arms as he talks. 

“Yup. But he only asked for you?” 

“Weird. I’ll be back later okay?” he asks and you pout at him. 

“Hour or two tops,” he promises before leaning in for a long kiss. 

You smile halfway through it making you two break apart and JJ finally gets up. He grabs his phone and throws on his shoes before pecking your lips once more and finally heading out. 

Once he’s gone, you debate on what to do for the rest of the day but decide on getting ahead on some reading and writing for class. As you start your work, you become enveloped in it, not paying attention to much going around you as you usually do. 

“(Y/N)!! Pope’s here!” You’re pulled out of your work when Pope comes strolling into your room and falls onto your bed. 

“I think if I have to read anymore Shakespeare without your help I’ll die,” he says dramatically and you laugh. 

“Romeo and Juliet?” 

“Oh Romeo, Romeo. Wherefore art thou Romeo?” he quotes throwing a hand on his forehead and now you’re really losing it. 

“Damn you should have done drama, not math club.” 

“Shut up,” he says smiling as wide as you are. 

You two sit next to each other on your bed sorting through the play and the meanings and symbols throughout. As you work you’re entranced by the archaic language while Pope is frustrated. Just when you think he’s about to explode, his phone rings. 

“What’s up JJ?” he asks and you look up at the sound of your boyfriend's name. 

“Kegger? Really? Alright, I'll be down in like 5.” 

Pope hangs up the phone and closes the play causing you to frown as you were getting to your favorite part. 

“JJ wants us to go to a Kegger we’re apparently throwing tonight,” Pope explains putting on his shoes. 

“Ugh,” you groan. The last time you had gone to one of the pogues famous keggers you ended up throwing up for hours and half-dead in the morning. Oh, and your parents found out. 

“There’s no way I’m going. I’ll see you later?” 

“You sure?” Pope asks, surprised to not see you going. 

“Definite. Call me when you get home safe.” 

Pope heads out with one last unsure glance and you lay back down for a minute before deciding to get up and finish the essay you were working on. Not a few minutes later though, you’re interrupted by a knock on the door. 

“Come in.” 

“Darling,” you hear your boyfriend's familiar voice and look up to see JJ with a pout on his lips. 

“Why aren’t you coming to the party?” 

“Cause I wanna finish this and you know what happened last time,” you remind him. 

“Please,” he whines, dragging out the e and you roll your eyes. 

“Nope,” you say and turn back to your computer defiantly. 

You hear JJ sigh from behind you and for a second you think he’s gonna leave. However, he comes up behind you, hands landing on your shoulders and trailing down to your fingertips before going back up again. You shiver slightly at the contact but try to remain focused as he continues trailing his hands up and down your arms. 

As his left-hand reaches your shoulder again, he carefully pulls your hair together in one hand and pushes it to the side. Your loose t-shirt exposes your shoulder and neck to him and he trails his hands up and down once more before leaning down to wrap his arms around you. 

His lips ghost over your shoulder before pressing light kisses across and down your shoulder blade. At this point you’re completely at his will, lost in his touch and all senses are directed towards him. His kisses continue to trail downwards until he drags them back up and hits your neck. 

He carefully tilts your head to the side, completely exposing your neck to him as he presses light kiss after light kiss up and down before hitting your sweet spot and you let out a moan. 

Finally, you can’t take it and you turn towards him, pressing your lips to his which he meets eagerly. He dominates the kiss, pushing you back towards your desk as he snakes an arm around your waist. 

When you break apart, you’re absolutely breathless and certain you have at least a hickey or two from your beloved boyfriend. He smirks at the sight in front of him before standing and fixing his shirt. 

“We can finish this after the party,” he says and winks at you. 

“Fuck,” you whisper but get up and follow him regardless, your homework long forgotten.