#i'm not even welsh lmao

[cloud-based-and-rainpilled]

Somehow I left Welsh subtitles on so YouTube decided to translate English > Welsh for Bar Rescue compilations and honestly I feel so Seen ™

[there-will-be-a-way]

Fucked up even more than I thought I would. The weed person wasn't rechable today (neither by knocking at her door twice a day nor by calling her) so I ended up compromising by drinking enough beer and wine to make me feel like throwing up. So much about sobriety. While spending time with my roommate I thought, "Well, this'll end in the ER again." Not today, but in the long run. Because I've reached the point in addiction where one drop of beer ends with me drinking for days and days, while using other substances, until I'm so physically addicted that going cold turkey is dangerous 🙃

[ieatwormsandtheytasteverygood]

Fuck yuo *introduces self(s) again* (and then updates it again. the silly ppl in my head decided to shift around a lil)

Apparently we go by Áesgirr here. so I'll be doing that too. We use he/him, hey/hem/here/heren/hem self, and 'e/'em/'er/'ers/'emself. We're a transgender genderqueer man, bisexual, and aromantic. Bodily 18, Irish & South African. We're physically disabled, have autism, ADHD, psychosis and a few special extras to make life interesting (read: painful). We plan on converting to Judaism when/if possible, but can't for at least a while yet.

We're pretty inactive just because we forget that tumblr exists. Repeatedly.

Our autism decided to make a special left swing right back to Jirt & the Silmarillion, but we've still quite some fondness for mediæval history, and naturally for philology & other linguistics.

Fluent in (Modern) English, Middle English, and Afrikaans (albeit getting out of practise). Vaguely conversational at German, Swedish and Zulu. Quite terrible at Irish, Welsh, Setswana and Middle Scots. And we can understand quite a bit of Modern Scots, (written) French, Dutch, Old English, Ecclesiastical Latin, and various related languages.

We're eternally trapped in the hellscape that is the Silmarillion fandom, but also Doctor Who & its associates, Star Trek, Our Flag Means Death, Shakespeare (we love the political plays), Good Omens, and probably some others. It's a thing.

We have so many pets and we love them to bits. <333

We also like art and writing, but unfortunately our art blog is completely separate to this (irl people know about our art blog), so no art here alas. We might post some of our calligraphy however! We love love love music, and we sing tenor, and play the violin and cello. Please send obscure folk music to us!!

The main lads (gender neutral) that're currently active are:

Ruthuifin/Rúthuifim - he/him, e/em. Aro neu, cassgender. Ñoldo (elf). Far too old and far too good at making terrible jokes. You don't want to know what e has to say about Eldarin marital law. It's terrifying. And he's probably actually tax-fraud-romantic for all he goes on about it /j

Orchalon - no pronouns (auxiliary he/him). Anattractional, cassgender/agender (masculine or neutral terms preferred). Cursed to be Ruthuifin's brother, and Malto's cousin. Vaguely elvish, vaguely draconic.

Malto/Cólðir/Cóleblein/Maltalain - he/him. Probably aspec? Also an elf. He's the reason why we spent R4000 on all 12 volumes of HoME. Don't ask about the vat of wine incident.

Roquén(/Rochir/Rochen/Rocen) - hen/han/tîn/tîn/anhen (auxiliary it/its). non-binary. quoisexual, aromantic (cupioromantic), toric/NBLM, oriented aroace. yet another elf. burdened by tîn relation to ruthuifin and malto (much more tolerant of orchalon, for Obvious Reasons). music enjoyer, persecutor, and the Only Sane One Left.

Minyafaramo - he/him. male, aroace. elf (are we even surprised at this point). related to the other elves (what a shocker). is plotting alongside malto, tatyo and nelyo (not that nelyo) to find a way for us to do horseback archery. he still hasnt forgiven nelyo for straining a muscle doing HEMA a few weeks ago. loves animals and music as well as hitting people and objects with swords and/or bows.

Tatyafaramo - he/him. male, anattractional. you can guess the species. yes, he chose to go by this name. loves archery, but also animals, music, and literature. i suspect he enjoys hitting people with swords, too.

Nelyafaramo - he/him. male, aroace. he likes HEMA (archery & mediæval swordplay. dont ask him to do fencing. he will hit you over the head with the hilt of his foil.), and wroth. he's the one who gets to have anger over our daddy issues instead of Melancholic Thoughts.

Caliwe - they/them. we tried to name them Caliweg, but apparently "i am not shiny-ful". orangegender, yellowgender, bluegender, purplegender, gemder. aromantic (etc.), but ma-æsthetic. aids and abets malto and ruthuifin. for all they're an elf, they act remarkably like a golden retriever /aff. big sociology & anthropology nerd.

Loup - it/its. unhuman. no opinion on gender or sexuality. friends(?) with nelyafaramo et al.

cat - it/its. name must be pronounced as /ˈʔːːːːːːː/ (NB: really focus on the not breathing!!). my gender is whatever pisses u off the most, and my sexuality is painful to look at. unfortunate "babysitter" of malto. i have also aided and abetted malto. i do not apologise.

Pádraig - he/him. The One True Pope. Pan-oriented aroace, cassgender (or something like that). Formerly human, now a horror beyond your comprehension. His hobbies are insomnia and hating the British.

Obligatory DNI list: pædos, animal abusers, people who post using entirely inaccessible fonts (think faux cyrillic kind of thing). If you're going to be a dick about our identity please just move on. We can & will block liberally, especially when it comes to sexybots. If you're not in fact a sexybot and we end up blocking you, send us an anonymous ask with your username & we shall unblock.

Have a great Tuesday, and may you never experience the horrors of Malto spouting cursed Silmarillion facts.

[tapeworrmart]

Baffled at how long it's taken me to actually properly draw smth to do with parasites..... Given my username...

I need to draw more fucked up shit. I've gone soft.

[sandinmybed]

CARDIFF TIT N2: SHIT I REMEMBER

- during preshow someone asked Dan and Phil to say the name of that long Welsh town and Dan said "llanfairCHKKHKCHK*gagging sounds*" lmao

- two cards in a row called them Mr and Mr games

- Dan thought Nosferatu was horny

- Phil fumbled like his third line in the show bless him but they didn't noticeably mess up at any other point!

- during the doll segment Phil accidentally threw one of the finished/discarded dolls on the wrong side of their little table thing and had to sneak back and put it back up lol

- I SLAPPED THE SLIME. I put my hand up to slap it because I was on the end of my row and Dan was like "COME CLOSER" and I slapped it and he was like AGAIN so I slapped three times lmfao. the slime is curiously lukewarm and shallow and it's fucking big there's like 5 slime colours in there I guess they just fill a bowl with random shop slime lol

- I mentioned this in the group chat and apparently several people could see me very well and think I'm hot LOVE THAT

- sister Daniel has great legs

- I got hit by the confession water a few times lol

- towards the end of the show me and the people behind me ended up being Dan's Designated Eye Contact People lmfao

- the conspiracies were Vegas, tour bus bed, joint shitties, and clothes sharing

- Phil made a bad dragon joke because Wales = dragon and Dan was like WAY TOO MANY OF YOU GOT THAT

- they referenced phan Vs jedus like 3 times guys we have made them SO smug with that one fjfjfndj

- the yap for a minute topic was sleep and Phil said he had a dream about Dan walking down a corridor just making tongue pop noises. Dan said "I used to have such crazy dreams when I was a kid and now I just have dreams that I'm two minutes late for a bus! The infinite multiverse of creativity that my brain can create and I dream about That and this is because Phil doesn't let us eat cheese before bed!! I could have the craziest cheddar nightmares!" (Dan babe you can eat cheese even if phil can't fnfjfn)

- the role model game had "CUM CUM CUM CUM CUM CUM CUM" as the answer to "Phil helps old ladies ..."

- linguist Phil has a basement full of twinks!

- lawyer Dan outlawed the queen (last time Dan was in Cardiff for WAD it was the queen's fucking funeral lol) and writes erotic fanfiction about jesus (Dan says he writes jedus fic)

- both real Phil and real Dan got murdered by the audience rip dads

- sister Daniel has great legs. did I say that already we went to karaoke after I'm drunk I had 4 desperados. she was wearing the beige shorts no phussy today

- the camera feed wasn't working well during the wrestling so when they ran around the theatre I don't think people saw much unless they were on the bottom floor (stalls) lol rip

- I'm so fucking obsessed with the song

[birdiebirdjay]

what are your thoughts on Severus Snape?

AW HECK YEAH I FREAKING LOVE SEVERUS SNAPE!!!

I've talked about him a lot on my blog lol- not as much recently, but rest assured I still love him <3

He's one of my favorite dudes!! Percy is awesome because he is me and I am him sometimes but Snape is awesome because HOLY SHIT the amount of trauma this man went through just to become one of the saviors of the wizarding world?? holy shit it's insane

I have so much love and admiration for him as a character. He's the most heroic hero to ever hero tbh (overexaggeration I know.. but still)

Also, honestly, no I don't really care about the whole thing with Neville. In the most polite way possible, canonically, that kid was either a cowardly idiot or a kid who didn't listen in class and needed to get straightened out. Signed, an autistic nerd who would have hated him in real life. I'm sorry but I just cannot listen to any argument that basically goes 'ohh but he BULLIED CHILDREN!!' like no he was a strict teacher and Neville was a bad student who endangered others 😭😭

Oh also I absolutely love the John Nettleship lore!! (Basically Snape was based off JKR's old chemistry teacher, who she hated for like no reason lmao. He was super nice and everyone else loved him and he dressed up as a wizard and sang songs in Welsh. He was also most likely autistic and most definitely a mega feminist!! Absolutely based dude tbh. He even had disability accomodations installed in their building for JKR's mother!) Anyways book!Snape is autistic and you can't convince me otherwise <3

OH!! ANOTHER THING!! I love Alan Rickman, think he was an awesome actor, but movie!Snape is inferior to book!Snape in every way to me. He makes me shudder. Canon Snape is screamy and rough around the edges and mentally unstable and traumatized AND IT SHOWS! Movie!Snape is... smooth speaking... and calm... and slaps student... and is NOT book!Snape in any way shape or form!!!

Oh speaking of (can you tell I love yapping about Snape?), despite being pronounced a student-hating abusive bully by a certain side of the fandom, he's actually one of the only teachers that canonically never put the students in physical danger, and I think that's very snexy of him.

Anyways yeah I love Snape :) there's literally only one thing he's done in canon that I can't defend. Ask me questions about him anytime <3

[skarloeyspa]

it's finally here! RWS-inspired uniforms for my SR main six! Also wanna thank @/glowynviator for the inspiration! Go check out their designs they're super lovely!!!!!

Design notes below as always!

1864 - 1910s

Taking heavy inspiration from the dude in the blue hat and purple/pink vest in all these illustrations

Their uniforms are fancier based on the initial reason for Skarloey and Rheneas' purchase - developing Skarloey as a tourist attraction, namely a spa (wonder where I've heard that before...)

1910s - 1960s

(goofy dudes in the first pic lmao)

So the tourism thing didn't last very long and the railway became more reliant on its original venture, which was its quarries

This was also the time when the railway's main income came from its quarries

Their uniforms became more quarry-appropriate. But since they still had the occasional passenger train, they still had finer clothing like a blazer and tie and hat

The gloves are cotton! Intended for outdoor work!

The pictures featured are Welsh slate workers and I have no idea where the overalls idea came from

1960s - Present

Revenue began increasing during this era with the newfound slate and Book of Sir Harald, which brought in more passenger traffic

With more passenger traffic the railway reintroduced more formal uniforms for their engines

I had a lot of fun doing Skarloey and Rheneas because this was basically the whole reason I took on these designs hehe

So obviously the colors! Bright red livery and blue lining! It wouldn't look too nice if I just made everything bright blood red so!

Buttons are buffers! Their painted names are golden embroidery! Ties are their TVS liveries (because I said so!)

Speaking of TVS, Sir Handel, Rusty, and Duncan are wearing their TVS boots! Having regained their footing, the SR introduced a more formal uniform but they still had some freedom in their uniform (as demonstrated by Duncan)

Sir Handel's blazer is a bit long...not because he's short or anything!

Peter Sam wears a knitted vest instead of the waistcoat that everyone else has because...it just suits him...Duncan isn't even wearing a vest so there you go!

Everyone's number is a badge on their hat. Since Rusty's hat is more functional than decoration, they wear their number as a little badge on their lapel! Their name is still embroidered tho :)

I promise the railway can afford whatever nice shirt Rusty is wearing BECAUSE I SAID SO I WILL IT TO BE I'M THE RAILWAY MASCOT I AM (miscellaneous rodent scritching)

Engines with longer hair are required to tie them up for tidiness! Big L for Sir Handel as always.

Skarloey is wearing a ring! Because of the brass ring on his funnel!! I will make you aware of this detail!!!

And that's it I think! Thank you as always for reading to the very end :] It means a lot to me that people find my designs interesting enough to want to read my rambles on them lmao

Anyway!! Since you're here...I'll tease a bit about my planned projects! I want to share some refs for other standard gauge characters I've designed! I also have some ideas for an animatic or two similar to the one I made for Ryan last year :]

[panelshowsource]

it's a reference to this nursery rhyme!

i remember this !!

this is simply my suspicion and not shade whatsoever, but if john wasn't doing/hadn't done the golf channel with alex then i suspect elis would have been asked (first?) — he's got a much bigger online following, has more panel show experience, more radio dj experience, the intense welshness can be argued as a favourable "something different" in the eyes of the network. at the same time, nick fills the slot that elis would have otherwise had on this series, so it works out for john! either way it doesn't surprise me john is on :)

i'd also mention that in this clip john makes a point that few people want to acknowledge, which is that alex ultimately doesn't get final say over who is cast — even if he is collaborating with the network, recommending people, whatever. there are other bossman at the network who work full time on casting strategy and make those final casting calls. so i hope people don't hold alex totally responsible for who is and isn't on the show — it's complicated!

btw i would die for elis on taskmaster or anything else, i just adore the man

hahahahaha this is not creepy YOU ARE MY SOULMATE

and LOOK AT THEM!!! when are we getting meet the osmans pls...

LMAO thank you for bringing this back to my attention

i got a bunch of requests for a follow up to this post so i'll add it on my next reblog?

everyone has those musical moments they keep with them — mine are probably shakira, what's your favourite season, and bagface — and i love the idea that THIS of all things is yours 😂

gotchu!! sorry for the delay but hope u like them<3

i'm not hosting these atm but you can get them super easily by making a request here! someone actually just shared the inbetweeners commentary episodes here which is pretty cool :)

lmk if you have any issues :)

[froggyfroo-art]

Gwilym

It's been a loooong May for me, and yesterday sucked majorly so I drew this that evening to try and relax. I'm not happy with how anime-esque the face looks despite specifically trying NOT to draw in that style, but the anatomy is surprisngly alright.

Gwilym is one of a a few characters who mainly exist in my head specifically so i can imagine music videos while I'm walking along (as you do), and Gwilym formed while I was listening to the bands Fleur De Lys, Sŵnami and Gwilym among others (the latter being their namesake.) I've only really started developing them properly, so I don't want to explain who they are too much in case it changes, but here's some general stuff:

Gwilym goes by he/they (he/she/they to trusted friends and family) and is gay. They are a linguist (PHD) who speaks Welsh, English, Cornish and Breton (as well as a bit of BSL for a friend theirs), a Celtic historian and a musician. Their band is called Llewod Rampant, which is a four piece rock band (exact genre pending lmao) that they front as the lead singer and guitarist. Their personality is a bit serious, and they can be pretty stubborn and even antagonistic at times due to their Hidden Depths�� (still a WIP but the basics are there). Despite this they are surprisingly good with children, and present very friendly and playful whenever they interact with them. They were originally meant to be a Spawn character but I'm not sure if that's still gonna be a thing or not (they do not have an animal design yet, anyway) because I want to have a go at making other stories. Will still add an STS tag just in case.

[the-crow-binary]

Looking up CV names' meanings :)

Joachim: Established by God (Hebrew)

Walter: Commander of the army / Powerful warrior / Ruler of the world (derived from Old High German Walthari)

Leon: Lion (Greek. Fun fact: its meaning is said to be steeped in heroism and bravery)

Mathias: Gift of God (fucking LMAO) (Hebrew)

Elisabetha: My God is an oath, my God is abundance (Hebrew)

Rinaldo: Ruler's advisor (Latin/German)

Sonia: Wisdom (Greek)

Trevor: Great (or large) settlement / The large village / Wise (Welsh)

Or

Ralph: Wolf counsel / A courageous counselor (Scandinavian)

Dracula: Son of Dracul / The devil (Romanian)

Isaac: He will laugh, he will rejoice (or "one who laughs or rejoices") / Laughter (Hebrew)

Julia: Youthful (Latin)

Sypha / Syfa / Cipher: The sword / Caring, Master of their own destiny, charisma / Freedom-loving, free-spirited individual (???)

Hector: Steadfast / To have / To hold / To possess (Greek)

Rosaly/Rosalie: Rose / Rose garden (French, derived from the latin word for rose)

Grant: Tall / Big (ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THAT) (English, French and Scottish)

St Germain: Holy Brother (French)

Christopher: Christ bearer / Christ within (Greek)

Soleil: Literally the french word for "sun" (...french)

Simon: To hear, be heard / reputation (Hebrew and Greek)

Juste: Just, upright, righteous (french, literally, like Soleil)

Maxim: Greatest (Roman)

Lydie: The seller of purple / (a maiden) From Lydia (French)

Richter: Judge / To make right (German)

Maria: Beloved / Bitter / Rebellious (Latin)

Annette: Grace / Favor (French)

Shanoa: Black cat (Castlevania???)

Albus: White (lol) (Latin)

John: God is gracious (English)

Eric: Sole ruler / Eternal ruler (Old Norse)

Elizabeth: God's promise / God is my oath (Hebrew)

Drolta: Knowledgeful / Inventive / Elegant (??)

Nathan: Gift of god / He gave / Given (Hebrew)

Hugh: Soul / Mind / Intellect (British)

Camilla: Servant for the temple / Free-born / Noble (Latin)

Jonathan: God has given / Gift of God (Hebrew)

Charlotte: Free man / Petite (French)

Julius: Youthful / Downy; soft and tender hair (Latin)

Yoko: Sun child / Ocean child / Good, positive child (Japanese)

Soma: Lunar nectar /Moon (Indian, though its mostly feminine) / Creation, genesis, origin + truth, reality, genuine (Japanese, can't find one precise meaning) (It can also have a Hungarian origin wich in this case means "dogwood tree" lmao)

Mina: Royalty (Greek) / Protection/Protector (German) / Eternity, permanence (Japanese, chose the simplest meaning but i'm not even sure about it because. Kanji. Someone help)

Bonus: Belmont means Beautiful Mountain in french <3 (very fitting)

Feel free to add more! Or correct me because some of them were very confusing to me :')

[eldritchsurveys]

1274.

How many books did you read this year? >> 27.

Did you have any reading goals? if yes, did you complete them? >> I don't set reading goals, that feels weird for me. I'm just not a goal/achievement-oriented person. I'm driven by whim and caprice and the tidal rhythms of desire. To put arbitrary demands on myself is against my nature.

What was the first book you read this year? >> PDA by PDAers: From Anxiety to Avoidance and Masking to Meltdowns, edited by Sally Cat.

What was/will be the last book you read this year? >> The last book I finished was Woom by Duncan Ralston.

The longest book you read this year >> The Witching Hour (Anne Rice), by far. Like, no other book I read this year comes even close (except Lasher, which is that book's sequel, lol).

The shortest book you read this year >> The Necrophiliac, Gabrielle Wittkop. Damn, I don't even remember that one. I read the synopsis and... yeah, no, I just don't remember it at all.

The oldest book you read this year >> Earth Abides, George Stewart (1949). The newest release of the year >> I didn't read anything that was released this year.

A book that was better than you expected it to be >> I didn't expect to enjoy Kristin Hannah's The Great Alone or Irvine Welsh's Marabou Stork Nightmares nearly as much as I did. Although I must say that "enjoy" is a strange word to use for both of those books. They were... harrowing.

A book that didn’t live up to your expectations >> Probably, you know, the 11 DNFs.

A book that was most out of your comfort zone >> I don't think any of them were out of my comfort zone, except maybe how The Witching Hour is much longer than I prefer my books to be. But I'd also read it before so I was prepared for that. What was the most unexpected book you read this year? >> I don't know what would make a book unexpected. Or, more unexpected than any other book I randomly decide to read.

The funniest book you read this year

lmao, none of them.

A book that made you cry >> CJ Leede's Maeve Fly not only made me angry-cry to the point of feeling nauseous but had me fighting off depression for like 3 straight days. That fucking ending ruined me. I also cried during The Great Alone, Marabou Stork Nightmares, and at least two of the stories in Rajesh Parameswaran's I am an Executioner: Love Stories.

What was the book you were most excited about before you started reading it? >> The Anne Rice books because I was revisiting a formative series. Also, Laurell K Hamilton's A Kiss of Shadows because... I was revisiting a formative series.

A book you already want to reread >> Episode Thirteen by Craig DiLouie.

Top five books of the year >> Episode Thirteen, The Vaster Wilds (Lauren Groff), Marabou Stork Nightmares, Last Breath: Cautionary Tales from the Limits of Human Endurance (Peter Stark), I Am an Executioner: Love Stories. Also, Feed Them Silence (Lee Mandelo). Least favourite books of the year >> Again, the ones I DNF'd. Not gonna bother devoting energy to talking about them when I need that energy to talk about the ones I did like.

Best non-fiction book(s) you read this year >> Last Breath is like... kind of nonfictional? It's written in a fictional style. The stories are made up but the scenarios are cobbled together from real shit that happened to real people. It's honestly my favourite way to have information like that presented to me and I wish there were more examples of books like that. I feel like I retain the information so much more readily when there's an engaging lil scenario. Oh, I also read A Slow Death: 83 Days of Radiation Sickness, which is straight nonfiction. What a story.

Best fiction you read this year >> Same as my top five books, barring Last Breath.

Best book you read for uni/college/school .

Worst book you read for uni/college/school .

The book with the prettiest cover >> Honestly, none of these covers stand out at all except Maeve Fly's, which is... well, it's kind of pretty, I guess. Depends on how you feel about eyeballs and teeth.

The book with the best title >> The Vaster Wilds, or Feed Them Silence, or The Country Will Bring Us No Peace.

Did you discover any new authors? >> Most of the authors I read this year were new to me.

What was your top genre for the year? >> Horror, by a landslide.

Did you discover any new genres? >> I did not. Did you start any new series? >> I did, as mentioned earlier.

Did you finish any series? >> I did not.

Did you reread anything? >> The two Anne Rice books, the LKH book, and Blake Crouch's Dark Matter, which I read ahead of the new TV adaptation dropping, but found I didn't like as much as I did when I first read it. I meant to reread Recursion, which was the first book by his I read and which I think is probably the better of the two, but then I forgot. I'll try to remember next year.

Did you read any translations? >> I did not. Unless I'm unaware.

Were there any books you planned on reading but didn’t end up reading/finishing? >> Story of my life.

Did you DNF anything? >> I DNF'd 11 books. A couple of them I might revisit (I just didn't have time/energy for them, or whatever), but most of them I just lost interest in.

What’s a book you’ve recommended the most this year? .

Did you use your library? >> I did not use the library.

How many books did you buy? >> I did not buy any of these books either.

Are there any books you want to finish before the year is over? >> The year will be over in 45 minutes, I think I'm good.

Releases you’re looking forward to next year .

Five books you absolutely want to read next year? >> Well. The aforementioned Recursion, of course, then... well, I want to finish Kushiel's Dart (which I'm currently on), and I have In My Time of Dying by Sebastian Junger queued up next, and I'd like to reread Dune, and that's quite enough on my plate for now.

Do you have any reading goals for next year? >> Absolutely not 🖤

[skaruresonic]

How does Welsh compare to Skau:re?

Skaruręʔkyéha·ʔ and Cymraeg: shaking hands over Anglophones making fun of our supposedly impossible-to-read-and-hear languages full of sesquipedalians and consonant clusters, oh no where are the vowels, ugggh I can't make that sound it's too haaaard ;A; kwęhs akaʔčtęríhsthek and does dim ots gyda fi, motherfuckers. Git Gud™

I'm actually having a lot of fun with it, even though as a native Anglophone just dipping my toes in the water, it's difficult to pronounce some of the sounds. That seems to be a matter of practice, however. You need to build up your throat muscles for any language.

you have no idea how fucking funny this is to me, though. Welsh has a lot more resources available online than Skarù·ręʔ, AND our requirements for speaking fluency are, at minimum, 300 hours higher than that, meaning we need to accomplish a lot more with a lot less. and yet we scrape by just fine - we're practically carving out the tunnel as we go - while English speakers whine and moan about how haaaard Welsh is because they can't make the "ch" sound. monolingual Anglophones are weak and will not survive the winter And actually, Welsh has seven vowels compared to English's five, so all the memes about "muh no vowels" aren't even accurate lmao.

Anyway...

First impressions, it bears a few similarities. It seems to be an agglutinative language, (though I could be wrong, ofc) and since Skarù·ręʔ is a similar polysynthetic language with a very different flow and cadence than English, I feel better equipped to understand Welsh now than if I'd just started off from a completely English-language perspective, if that makes sense. I can understand "Celyn dw i" means "I am Celyn" a lot better now that I've become accustomed to loosey-goosey object-first word order in Skarù·ręʔ. You also introduce yourself name-first, then the "I am called," "I am," "my name is," whatever follows. You speak object-first when you want to place emphasis on The Thing, to answer a question, or just whenever it sounds better idk lol. So like. I Get It. I get that "Dw i wedi blino" can mean "I am tired" while "Dyn dw i" means "I am a man" without my brain struggling to comprehend how these arrangements can coexist. I'm not so married to the concept of rigid English subject-verb-object order anymore that it's all that foreign to me. I'm just nodding along like Kermit the Frog. In fact, for some "arrange the English translation" questions, I accidentally arranged the word order into "man I am," "Celyn I am" because that's just how we tend to think in Skarù·ręʔ sometimes.

[seriousbrat]

What do you think the marauders voices sound like?

In terms of pitch or accent? lmao a difficult question to answer through text but I'll give it a go.

Remus is perhaps the most obvious in that he's Welsh. Personally I always have him as being from north wales but that's just my bias because that's where my family's from. And obviously wales has a variety of accents, in my official character guide I have him as being from Flintshire. Which again, that's roughly where my family's from so I'm used to it lol. Personally, I don't believe that he'd speak much welsh and I don't inject random welsh words into his speech when I write him because even though I love Cymraeg as a language I don't think that's realistic. Mae’n ddrwg gen i I guess. Diolch!

James and Sirius I'm going to group together because they have pretty generic southern accents. Sirius might skewed more RP as a kid, as befits a posh pureblood, but I think he'd have adapted quickly to speaking the way James did. I also see Sirius as trying to sound a bit more working class than how he was brought up lol. I'll be honest, I have a great time writing Fleamont Potter and his best friend Dedalus Diggle as basically two Bertie Woosters but that's not the voice I hear for James in my head. Let's say just a generic estuary for James and Sirius.

The thing is all these children were together for most of the year, so whatever accent was predominant in their peer group would probably be mostly adopted by a lot of them. For this reason I think even Remus's accent would have become more southern over time. Though he'd always say words like "bath" the correct way

Peter's the wildcard. One can go crazyyy with Peter. In my official character notes I have him as being from Somerset but I'm not wholly attached to that. Like let's just have fun. Let's go wild. He could be a geordie or something

As for pitch, I don't think anyone has extremely deep or high pitched voices. I feel like Remus and Sirius would be on the lower end, whereas James and Peter might be more nasally and higher. But not a huge range. Lol I haven't thought about this as much-- I do hear their voices in my head when I write their dialogue, and generally I enjoy writing different accents.

Btw one major gripe I have with JKR's writing is that she often writes out accents phonetically and I hate that. I believe Hagrid's meant to have a west country accent and whenever I write Hagrid I dutifully follow her conventions but I'm seething constantly. However I personally do enjoy trying to capture different accents. My main advice (I'm mostly spanish and haven't lived in the UK for many years so take my familiarity with different british accents with a grain of salt) is to make sure that you can hear the exact cadence of the particular accent that you're trying to write in your head, and try to capture that while sprinkling in a few specific terms rather than writing it out phonetically. Like in my head I can hear a perfect scouse, for example, but scousers still generally spell words the same as everyone else. In general. Alright la?

[transbeamrooikat]

the sillays <3 read ATYD a week ago and I've been gripped by a deep hyperfixation ever since lmao

ramblings about them + transcriptions under the cut :3

OKAY OKAY SO HCS:

Remus:

the tallest & lankiest of the group <3

he's a sweater cunt through and through (I would say it's a pain during summer but I've been to wales in summer and it's not cold enough that it'd be an issue)

I think he's welsh <33 idk if he'd be able to speak the language tho (I do kinda project onto him a little in the sense that I hc that he spoke it as his first language as a kid but was forced to stop speaking it to "better assimilate" to living in England + learning English, and now he struggles to speak it but really wishes he was still fluent/is actively trying to re-learn it)

he and Peter attempted to give themselves muggle dye jobs for the shits and giggles (I'd say sometime around year 4 or 5, the year I've drawn these in is deliberately ambiguous tho - sometime around the latter years (post year 5 I think? around then))

obviously scaring all over, he tries to hide it (at least on his face) for a while before giving up (when he did try to hide it Sirius helped him out as he's really experienced with beauty charms that cover scars)

has some acne, but not as much as Sirius and James - when he gets more comfortable with them, he jokes that its good, cause he "already has his fair share of scars"

Light brown hair, verging on blonde - begins to curl once he hits puberty, and gradually becomes even curlier than Sirius'

wears his hair somewhat long, in a shag – goes through cycles of cutting it, hating how it looks, thinking this time will be different and cutting it again, ect

like Sirius, he has "wolf-like" behaviors, but goes to lengths to hid them, and so they only come out when he's comfortable or really tired

has freckles in the summer

can't decide on whether he'd have a hooked or a straight nose

I hc him as trans to a certain extent (up yours jk rowling) but i also dunno how he'd have done that in the 70s... I see him as being pretty removed from his family, if not an orphan, so maybe in going to hogwarts he saw an opportunity and took it? he's obviously trying very hard to be stealthy tho, and researches magic to hid that he's going through AFAB puberty/especially go on T (although I don't think he'd necessarily know about HRT) (I figure Sirius would help him out once he finds out)

yellow stained teeth

Sirius:

Aquiline nose – or, a prominent nose in some way

Obviously black hair, curly - i don't think he'd let it grow much past his shoulders tho (maybe to point where he can feel a little on his back?)

I don't think that he'd like to tie it up, I think that'd freak him out (meeee core)

ACNE!! I feel that they all had acne to some extent, but Sirius covered it with a beauty charm (he keeps this secret till Remus find out, and Remus teases him for it) (I think his neck + lapels would be especially pimpled, given the hair)

blue eyes, but a muted kinda blue, with green and gold specks

sticks his tongue put when tired – doglike 

pops his acne as a form of SH/rebellion – he's ashamed of his scars, unless he wants to upset his parents (once Remus knows about it, he confides in him that they seem to care about it more than he does sometimes) 

was invited to join Remus and Peter on their their dying expedition but refused b/c he didnt wanna fuck up his hair, as it's something he's really proud of (which fair enough - there was a bit of an exploding bleach situation in their dorm room bathroom)

James:

he wears silver rimmed glasses, much to Remus' horror – he stops when he finds out Remus is a werewolf, and he first trys to wear a gold pair, but doesn't like it – he ends up trying out a copper framed pair and loving them

his acne is just as bad as Sirius', but he doesn't hide it, he thinks it "adds to his charms"

unlike Sirius tho, his ache goes away when they grow up

freckles!!!

I don't think he'd be white – i think of him as more white and Indian mixed? I'm not incredibly fussed about any of their races though 

His hair is a much darker brown than Remus', but he wears it in a similar cut, although it looks quite different on his wavy hair

He doesn't take care of his hair at first, horrifying Sirius (yk that one fluttershy meme? yeah lmao)

His acne is worse around his nose, where his glasses rest

He's got a significantly stronger build than the other marauders, despite being the shortest of the group – in fourth year, they placed bets on whether he or Peter would end up being shortest (they find it very funny that his deer form ends up being the tallest in the end, and he jokingly insists that they pay him back for the bet)

really nice dark brown eyes :D (not Hazel tho)

Peter:

not many hcs for him... difficult to put my thoughts to words

I think he's the least acne prone of the group, much to Sirius' confusion ("i SWEAR he doesn't even wash his face in the morning Moony–")

I don't mind the hc that's he's fat, but I do worry it can sometimes cross into jkr's weird fatphobia 

I think he has very short straw blonde hair, and that he keeps it in a military cut - he doesn't like to let it grow out

green eyes (Sirius often jokes that he looks a bit like a Malfoy)

straight nose

TRANSCRIPT:

text around Remus:

teeth get sharper closer to/around the moon -> (unlike Sirius', who's stay the same)

Animalistic-type eyes (like Sirius') bc, yk, werewolf

text around Sirius:

idk something about his face i cannot get right...

has the eye-courners I normally reserve for animal-esque characters

(note: he tends to cover his acne & the scaring from it w/ beauty charm [sic] unless he's relaxed/around the marauders)

cainins [sic] become more pronounced after he becomes an animagi

text around James:

sticky up hair pieces is ESENSIAL [sic]

his glasses are... I don't wanna give him 70s glasses

has more acne around his glasses (just like me fr fr)

text around Peter:

as much as I love characterizations of him like in "just lovers (like we were supposed to be)" [sic (?) here - I forgor to write 'and'] there is obviously space for how he's characterized in ATYD (and I love those characterizations too!!) - but I feel either way he lacks depth :(

he's very... plain? I think his conformitizm [sic] would have him be hesitant to join in w/ the marauders when they fuck with their appearances [which, just to add, doesn't mean he never does, he just has more caution around it]

he is SUCH an interesting character to me... m8 wdym you've betrayed the friends you've had since YEAR 7?? [note - year 7 is equivalent to hogwart's first year] i wanna get in his headdddd

okay Mr. Eyebags

him being named Peter is also so interesting to me - is the reference to the disciple intentional? In a way I kinda disagree with it. fuck you jkr (choke and die) I know better <3

[sunshinemoonrx]

I've been thinking about the original folkloric Arthur

Not a king, not a knight, but a great hunter and a humble soldier.

I'm not really an artist but I spent all yesterday filled with the urge to draw this version of the character, so here's a post that's 50/50 doodles and historiographical rambles about him.

I wanted to do scenes depicting the feats this earliest 9th-century Welsh folklore describes him doing, so first I needed a design for the guy.

Notes on my choices and historicity:

-These earliest local Arthur legends are recorded in an appendix to the Historia Brittonum (c. 830), where he is referred to as simply "Arthur miles" ("the soldier"), a protector-figure in south Wales. The name Arthur is thought to derive from the Latin "Artorius", so I've just written it here to create a consistent Latin version of the name and title. That doesn't mean it was his "real name"; there probably wasn't a specific real guy. Some have floated a 2nd-century Roman general named Lucius Artorius Castus as the "real king Arthur", but there's a 600-year gap between his life and any mention of Arthur, so that's extremely unlikely.

-The visuals are a mix of historic (he wears a tunic, a mail shirt and a cloak with an early medieval brooch) and the kind of anime boy that appeals to me personally. I can't tell you why I was so sure he had to be black-haired, it just felt right. I tried to avoid depicting him as too elite a warrior; I imagine the necklace was obtained as plunder from a raid. For his build, I wanted him to have some mass but not to look like a modern gym bro, and that crashed headfirst into my predilection for messy twinks, and I ended up drawing him (and the other characters here) with kinda "curvy anime babe" proportions, I guess, lmao

-The 10th-century Annales Cambriae say that at the battle of Badon, "Arthur carried the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ for three days and three nights on his shoulders and the Britons were the victors". This is probably referring to to a shield design, but I thought it'd be fun to interpret it as a back tattoo. The practice is attested as being practiced in the north of Britain from a 786 synod in Northumbria. The English clergy weren't fond of it and actually tattooing a cross isn't attested until the crusading era, plus from a modern perspective the vibes of a guy with just a big Christian tattoo are a bit questionable, so I decided to pair it with something else. Earlier Roman accounts of Briton tattoos mention animal shapes, and Welsh legends often depict people or their souls becoming birds (early modern Cornish folklore even held that Arthur survived in the form of a bird), so I went with a wing-pattern.

-The precursor to Excalibur, Arthur's sword Caledfwlch ("hard-cleaver", Caliburnus in Latin, Calesvol in Cornish) isn't magic yet, and his spear and dagger are given equal prominence, so I depicted it as the kind of straight sword common at the time, derived from the Roman spatha design.

-One of the two prior stories recorded in the HB is Arthur's fighting and killing his son Amr ("fab Arthur", "son of Arthur", is my translation into Welsh); I drew Amr in a half-tunic/half-dress because, again, I just kinda wanted to

The other story involves Arthur hunting the great boar Twrch Trwyth (Troit/Troynt), so that was the next thing to design:

This is very cool to see referred to this early, because the hunt of the Trwyth is the climactic set-piece of Culhwch ac Olwen (c. 1100), the most complete Arthurian tale we have from the period after the Historia Brittonum transformed him from a minor local figure into a magical warrior-hero for all the Britons and centrepiece of Welsh legend, but before Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae further began his transformation into the chivalric king popular in France and across Europe.

In Culhwch, Trwyth is a king who was turned into a boar by God as punishment for his sins, so I came up with a human design as well as a big pig design. The king in question was probably intended as a Briton, but I thought it would be fun to depict him as a Saxon, Arthur's enemies in the HB, especially as Saxon warriors often wore boar-crests on their helmets. I did one take with a mostly historic boar-helmet, and one more fantastical, almost like a boar-themed Kamen Rider helmet, as if rather than becoming an actual boar he became this more fearsome but still humanoid warrior.

I also made his sword slightly asymmetrical, to mirror the seax knives that gave the Saxons their name. Their actual main battle swords were straight, but I thought it was a fun touch for this magical tyrant.

As for the boar-form design, I like depicting monsters with sketchy outlines, like they aren't fully solid creatures of this world.

And that's how we get our first scene proper!

The legend recorded in HB says that when Cabal (Latinisation of Welsh "Cafall"), Arthur's dog, was hunting Troynt (Trwyth), he left a paw-print in a stone, which Arthur then assembled a cairn under, and if the paw-print stone is ever removed, within 24 hours it returns to the mound. (Cafall is also featured in the version of the hunt in Culhwch!)

Anyway, I can't really draw animals that aren't big scary creatures, so I didn't want to draw an actual dog. So since I'd already turned Trwyth into a guy, I figured why not just turn Cafall into a guy too? Plus, I get to draw a guy in a collar with a dog-tail and a little fangy. So win-win, really.

I also wanted to draw a version with the human Trwyth, and I figured I'd combine that with the story of Amr, and just do a page of swordfights:

"...on fatal field / we fended our lives, as the ranks clashed in battle / and the boar-crests rang..." -Beowulf

The Amr (or Amhar) story relates that Arthur built a tomb for his son, and that every time it is measured it comes up as a different length.

The fact this is such an early story is also very interesting, because one of the most famous parts of post-HRB chivalric Arthur is the killing of his son Mordred. Early Welsh references to Mordred (Medraut or Medrawd) portray him entirely positively. I do wonder if when Mordred became the more famous son of Arthur the story of Amr got folded into his, but we don't have evidence to do more than speculate.

I also now realise that my human Trwyth looks a lot like a Ringwraith, and honestly the more medieval lit I delve through the more moments of "oh that's why that bit of Tolkien is like that" I have.

Those were what I originally wanted to depict, but in doing them two more ideas occurred to me. One was depicting the Arthur of the Historia Brittonum itself (not just the pre-existing folklore it recorded), this local hero plucked into a much grander stage, cast as a pseudohistorical general leading his people against the Saxons.

This one came out very "edgy teenager on Deviantart", but fuck it, kill the part of you that cringes and be free, right:

The title comes from one of the medieval Welsh "triad" texts, each one a short line listing the "three great X of the Isle of Britain" to help bards remember. Arthur is referred to in many of them, here as one of the "Three Red Reapers of the Isle of Britain". I thought that was a good fit for his war-hero portrayal here. Also I tried moving the cross-tattoo lower down to make it sluttier.

HB's Arthur is an interesting middle ground. He's leading the Britons as a whole, but he still has one foot in his humble origins. He's named as Dux Bellorum, "battle-leader", and it's specified that the kings of the Britons were under his leadership although he was less noble than them. It's only somewhere between the grander Welsh legends that sprung up after this and the HRB that he would get upgraded to king.

For the final picture, I was inspired by a much more recent piece of Breton verse, a 19th-century gwerz (ballad) telling of Arthur arriving in Brittany (on account of being king of all Britons) to slay a dragon and getting help from Saint Efflam. The core story, though, is remarkably consistently preserved from the Vita Euflami, the original saint's life written around 1100. I was captivated in particular by the verse in the gwerz where Arthur announces himself:

Me zo roué ar Bretonet Artur an terrub lessanvet Deut aman deus a Lannion Evit tistruji ann Dragon.

I am the king of the Britons/Bretons Arthur, known as the terrible Come here from Lannion To destroy the dragon.

For one, the way the lyrics flow in the Breton just kinda goes hard, but the bombastic tone and the length of time the story was transmitted across brought a scene vividly to my mind, inspired by the persistent story of Arthur's prophesised return: Modern travellers in the Breton countryside being set upon by a dragon, only for Arthur to miraculously appear with this declaration, defeat the beast and vanish, his original task as hunter and protector fulfilled once more.

So I drew that! Once again, I like sketchy impressionistic monsters. Also, I think the people in the back are lesbians, but that's less of a conscious decision and more just what happens when you ask me to draw two people.

And that's what's been occupying my mind for the past few days! There's a couple more things I could do. Cai and Gwenhwyfar (precusors to Sir Kay and Guinivere) are characters I'd love to whip up designs for, and there's a bunch of really wild scenes in Culhwch. But that'll only be if I'm still feeling this specific creative energy.

Thanks for reading!

[georgieluz]

Hiiii!! How are you? 7, 10 and 22 for the nationality ask game please??

hellloooo!!

7. three words from your native language that you like the most

ok i have a lot but lemme try and narrow it down... i both love and hate that our word for 'ironing' is 'smwddio' pronounced similarly to "smoothio". our word for ladybird is 'buwch goch gota' which translates to 'little red cow' and hamster is 'bochdew' which means 'fat cheeks'.. actually most of our words for animals are pretty great... raven is 'cigfran' which translates to 'meat crow' lmao. some more fun ones are 'ychafi' which is the welsh version of 'yuck' or 'eww'. all welsh kids hear this on the regular bc mums will constantly use it as a way of saying "please do not do that gross thing again". 'spigoglys' means spinach, and 'sglodion' was my favourite word as a kid, it means chips! "dwi'n hoffi coffi" is every non-welsh person's favourite welsh sentence ("i like coffee") because of the rhyming, but "dwi'n hoffi sglodion" was my fave as a kid. i don't even like chips much tbh, but it just sounds so right on a welsh person's tongue!

and i guess to finish up 'cwtch' and 'cariad' are perfect welsh words in my opinion. cwtch is unique to the welsh language, it kind of describes a type of hug/cuddle that's more warm and intimate than both of them and invokes a cosiness and homeliness that can only come from Your Person/People. it's not romantic, though can be used that way too, but is for times with close friends and family and anyone special to you. cariad means love but it's also a term of endearment. i guess in the same way 'love' can be used as a term of endearment too, but it has a bit more affection and warmth to it than "hey, love". but yeah, people will often call each other cariad here as an endearing thing and it's something i still think is cute even as a fully grown cynical adult

10. most enjoyable swear word in your native language?

i answered this one already over here :)

22. what makes you proud about your country? what makes you ashamed?

proud: that we've never voted for a tory government ever? lmao, but yeah, our resistance against the tories, especially thatcher, definitely makes me proud of wales. also, how we've kept our language alive despite all of england's attempts at eradicating it. bc that's not an easy feat and it very nearly wasn't the case

ashamed: our national performance in rugby and football this year? obviously, there are more serious things that make me ashamed but this would end up being way too long, and i'm not in a great place mental health wise, so maybe i'll talk about those things another time when i can go into them in more depth, etc!

for this ask game!