#you just need a good dictionary the source material and a lot of time and patience

[woundedheartwithin]

An ash I know stands, Yggdrasil by name, a high tree, drenched with bright white mud; from there come the dews that drop in the dales, it always stands green over Destiny’s well.

The Poetic Edda, Völuspá 19 Andy Orchard’s translation, 2011

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[dailyshowchica]

Loki Cosplay Part 8

Previously on Loki Cosplay: https://www.tumblr.com/dailyshowchica/761376032329777152/loki-cosplay-part-7?source=share

So with Halloween rapidly approaching, I have been working on the detail work for Loki's trousers, tunic, and coat. I am not done yet, but I am making progress.

First, the trousers. These were the easiest to do, since all I had to do was cut out a bunch of small rectangles out of metallic silver craft foam.

One of these I used E6000, and the other, I used a hot glue gun. The E6000 discolored some of the squares. Since E6000 doesn't dry right away, I covered my work with a plastic bag and weighted it down with a few large books overnight. In pulling away the plastic, I lost some silver.

I also used a lot more adhesive than I thought I would, so for the other leg, I used hot glue. That dries almost instantly, but I'm not sure it's as secure. It'll be fine for pictures, but if I were to wear this to a con, I might want to use E6000 just be to sure it stays together. It worked perfectly for my sister's dance costumes, after all.

Next up, the tunic. That is two pieces that I'll snap on, a chest piece, and a stomach/skirt piece.

I had to think for awhile about how to make the chest piece. In the end, I went with craft foam, and the gold lining fabric I had gotten for the skirt jacket. I cut out the fabric and glued it to a heavy paper template. But as you can see, the E6000 bled through. So, I made another necklet out of fabric. This was double-layered and treated like a ribbon, or waist tie, with finished edges. This fabric frays like crazy, so the edges had to be sewn. Then I sewed the all-fabric necklet in place. I lost more than I expected to in seam allowance, so it's not a perfect match. But it covers the glue stains, and looks pretty good. And Pretty Good is Good Enough. Time to move on.

This is where the scrap pieces of the black vinyl/faux leather came in handy. I looked at pictures of Loki and copied the shapes as best as I could. The vinyl doesn't fray, but I've tried to finish these edges anyway, if only for a bit more security. Plus, the skirt part of the tunic has matching trim to the coat. While the original may have metal trim, I'm just using gold ribbon in a decorative stitch at the edge.

The coat trim is the most work by volume, and work that has to be done by hand. From the Marvel Studios Visual Dictionary, I was able to see the metallic trim on the inside and outside of Loki's coat. And I luckily had SOME of that material handy- it was also thee scarf/tie Crowley used in his Heavenly disguise in Good Omens Season 2. But I don't have a lot of it. Also, this stuff can snag on other fabrics if you're not careful, so I decided it was only going on the outside. The inside trim was a gold-colored fabric remnant I found at Joann fabrics.

Using legal paper, I determined the positioning of the trim stripes. And as I was working, Ruthie cat came to supervise. She loves a good tent, and the coat, hanging on a tall chair with the skirt panels spread out, makes a pretty good tent.

I made the inner trim by cutting the strips maybe half an inch wider than needed, ironed nonwoven fusible interfacing to the back, and rolled back the edges. As I said above, this fabric frays like crazy, so I was very careful yo make sure there were no raw edges.

I have a bracelet of that same chainmail material in blue, so I used that and a scrap of the vinyl fabric to test sewing the mail in place. It works, but given how small the holes in the mail are, I have to move the needle straight up and down, which means there's going to be visible stitching on the inside. Not too big a problem, but it does mean the outer trim has to go on first. Then I can cover the stitching with the inner trim.

I also can't really pin the outer trim in place. Luckily for me, my mom worked for a magnet company for a few years, and I have lots of small, very strong magnets. Those work very well to hold the mail in place as I sew.

The gold embroidery thread was something I bought for my God of Stories costume, but it's too fine for what I had planned. So, to use it up, I'm using it to sew the inner trim in place- it's too thick/prone to snagging to be used on the outer trim.

I opted to sew in a zigzag pattern when attaching the trim. That way it's secure along the whole length and at the edges without me needing to go all the way around, as I will need to with the inner trim. But I can use invisible hem stitching on the inner hem, so it all evens out.

But then Ruthie decided I had worked long enough. But I've got the path mapped out, and sooner or later, I'll get it finished.

See ya next time!

[translationwala]

Linguistic Harmony: Mastering English to Gujarati Translation

The way a language sounds can open up a world of information and understanding. But what do you do when the beat you’re used to meets with another beat? This is where the art of translation comes in, especially for people who speak Gujarati and need to find their way through the huge amount of English knowledge. Learning how to English to Gujarati Translation is more than just replacing words with their equivalents. It’s about making the two languages work together like a symphony.

Unveiling the Significance: Why Flawless English to Gujarati Translation Matters

Gujarati has a lot of past and great writing, so it should be used to help people learn, not get in the way. Why it’s important to do a great job translating from English to Gujarati:

Empowering Education: Imagine a student who is trying to understand difficult science ideas in a language other than their own. A rich trove of educational materials in their native Gujarati can be accessed through flawless translation. This helps kids understand things better, sparks their intellectual interest, and gives them the tools they need to do well in school.

Bridging Cultural Divides: Language shows us what a culture is really like. People who understand Gujarati can enjoy the beauty of English writing, movies, and music thanks to excellent versions. They can enjoy the subtleties of fun and the full range of feelings, and they can learn more about the world around them.

Fueling Economic Growth: Businesses need to be able to talk to each other clearly in today’s international world. Gujarati customers and companies can talk to each other through flawless translation of marketing materials, legal papers, and customer service calls. This encourages people to join the economy, makes the market bigger, and helps the economy grow.

Cultivating Linguistic Harmony: The Cornerstones of Flawless Translation

Learning how to English to Gujarati Translation is a process that takes time and a mix of skills and information. Here are the most important tools that will help you make a good translation:

The Maestro of Languages: The base is a deep knowledge of both English and Gujarati. This means learning the rules of grammar, words, and sentence organization in both languages. Also, knowing regional differences and slang words in Gujarati gives your versions more meaning and credibility.

The Subject Matter Specialist: There are different kinds of versions. For technical papers like medical reports or legal contracts, you need to know a lot about the subject. Knowing about the subject makes sure that the right words are used and that complicated ideas are explained correctly.

The Cultural Conductor: Language is tied to society in a lot of ways. A good translator can pick up on regional differences and makes changes to the text as needed. In Gujarati, jokes that are funny in English might need a different twist, and metaphors or words might need to be changed in creative ways to keep their meaning.

The Detail Detective: As a translator, you need to be able to pay close attention to details. Punctuation, sentence structure, and even font choice can have a big effect on how easy it is to read and understand a translated text.

The Fluency Finisher: The finished piece shouldn’t read exactly like the English source; it should sound like a well-written work of Gujarati writing. Try to keep the original style and flow, but make sure the point is clear to people who speak Gujarati.

Resources to Refine Your Craft: Tools for Aspiring Translators

If you want to become a master at English to Gujarati Translation, you have to keep learning and practicing. Here are some useful tools to help you get better:

Bilingual Dictionaries: Spend money on good multilingual books that have detailed definitions and descriptions that fit the situation.

Translation Memory Tools: You can make technology work for you. Use translation memory tools to save parts that have already been transformed. This will help you be consistent and save you time.

Immerse Yourself in Gujarati: Spend time with the beautiful weave of Gujarati writing. Read newspapers, books, and songs to learn more about the subtleties and artistic differences in the language.

Engage with the Translation Community: Join groups of interpreters both online and off. Talk about problems, share what works best, and learn from the experiences of pros who have been doing this for a long time.

The Ethical Obligation: Ensuring Accuracy in Translation

In a world full of data, precision is very important. A single mistake in a medical record or a formal contract can have huge effects on people’s lives. As a matter of ethics, translators should carefully check their work for truth and sincerity.

The Evolving Symphony: The Future of English to Gujarati Translation

The field of translation is always changing, and new developments in machine translation tools are opening up lots of exciting new opportunities. That being said, the human touch will always be valuable. The future of English to Gujarati Translation is a joint method in which technology helps human translators be even more efficient and make perfect translations.

Conclusion

Learning how to translate from English to Gujarati isn’t just about learning the language; it’s also about making sure that everyone understands each other. By improving your skills, being open to learning new things all the time, and always acting in the most moral way, you can become an important link between countries and give people who speak Gujarati access to the vast information that is out there.

Source: https://translationwala.wordpress.com/2024/03/05/linguistic-harmony-mastering-english-to-gujarati-translation/

[mirai-studies-languages]

How to learn vocabulary in a foreign language

Vocabulary is an essential part of language learning, and if your memory is not particularly good, then you might struggle with it. In this post I’m going to offer some advice on how you can learn new vocabulary in a foreign language!

First, I’m going to talk about where you should get your vocabulary from.  When you are a beginner, there are three sources I think you should get vocabulary from. First, a textbook or online course, or various learners materials. Second, an app of some sort (like Duolingo, Lingodeer and Memrise). Thirdly, I would suggest gaining vocabulary from immersion. Do NOT memorise every word you come across, only the ones that you need to know. I also would not suggest using a frequency list to choose words to know. It is much better to learn vocabulary through context. Try writing down all the new words you discover in a notebook. When you are an intermediate learner, I would suggest focusing on extensive reading and listening (i.e. reading or listening to lots of content without looking up words you don’t know) rather than intensive reading and listening (i.e. reading and listening to content, and looking up every word you don’t understand). You could learn the vocabulary from a textbook, specification, immersion or various vocabulary lists from the internet. An upper intermediate learner might want to focus on intensive reading and listening, instead. An advanced learner might just absorb new vocabulary from advanced native material and conversations (e.g. textbooks made for native speakers, talking about politics, historical texts and dramas). At this stage, it would be handy to use a dictionary in the target language, instead of translating it. You can also look up synonyms of the word.

Use flashcards! Maybe create paper ones, or use apps like Quizlet, Anki and Memrise.

Create your own example sentences! It is important that you actually know how to use the word or phrase in a sentence, so try and write down or say a few sentences with the word in it. Make sure you get corrections!

Say it out loud! When you come across it, check the pronunciation with an application like Forvo, and repeat after it. Say it again and again, until you feel comfortable, and then test yourself on it.

Actually use it! When your speaking and writing, try and use as diverse a vocabulary as you can. Try and sneak in a recently learnt word into conversation, and don’t be embarrassed if you use it wrong.

Don’t use transliterations! They do not help with pronunciation at all. Memorise at least some approximation of the script, along with the pronunciation of each sound in the language, and learn the word using that instead of transliteration.

Test yourself both to and from the target language! This is important as you want to be able to both produce and understand the word.

Maybe use images instead of translations! It could help stop you from translating in your head.

Memorise set phrases! When you hear or read something which sounds good, then learn it. This will really enrich your vocabulary when you speak or write.

Sound it out to memorise spelling! Remember reading when you were a kid, and take on that kind of mindset. Try to over pronounce each syllable as you read it, and say it multiple times.

Look up words as you go! When you don’t know a particular word or phrase when speaking or writing, then look it up. Same when you’re reading and listening (this is how we learn words in our native language after all).

Write it multiple times! This also helps with spelling!

Read and listen a lot! Input. Is. Everything. So read and listen to as much diverse content as you can. It doesn’t matter if you don’t remember it the first time you see it, you’ll get it eventually. Imitate what you see yourself. Remember, more often than not we get our own speech patterns and vocabulary from input - think of how people who read more tend to have a broader vocabulary, even in their native language.

Regularly review! When you memorise a word, write it down, and later on test yourself on it. Try going through your vocabulary notebook once a month, or if that’s too much, then set up a system, like with flashcards and spaced repetition. Maybe write the next date you will review a particular list of vocabulary on the top of the page?

Thank you for reading this post! I hope it was useful to you!

[sabakos]

so you appear to be studying Ancient Greek—that’s really cool and I have to ask, 1. why and 2. how

I am! Mostly out of necessity, because I'm also interested in ancient Greek philosophy, especially metaphysics, so I've been picking it up mostly as I go along reading the source material - I'm nowhere good enough at the grammar to read it on my own but I can usually recognize enough of the vocabulary to read the greek and english in parallel and get a rough idea of what it says. It's especially helpful when the english is really awkward, which is usually just a butchered translation / situation where it's hard to convey the exact meaning of the Greek in English. Also, I find that now that I know enough to realize how misleading the English can be it's almost impossible to read a translation again without having a million questions about what the text is actually saying, it's as if I never really read any Greek philosophy before so much as a bad interpretation of it.

As for the how, I don't actually know very much Greek yet, so I lean pretty heavily on Perseus to look up words in LSJ when I want to just translate a passage. I also occasionally refer to Greek: An Intensive Course by Hansen and Quinn, which is probably what I'll eventually sit down and work my way through if I decide to learn it "for real." If you want to learn it, that's where I'd recommend starting, it has a lot of translations exercises and goes through the finer details of unusual tenses and grammatical cases we don't have in English, noun declensions, etc. There's also a youtube lecture series by Harvard's Ancient Greek department that runs through that whole book. It's definitely what I would do if my primary interest was the Ancient Greek language itself.

I've mostly only gotten away with not doing that yet because I'm primarily interested in pre-Socratic philosophy at the moment, and most of the surviving fragments from anything before Plato are pretty short. They also often use rare words (or common words in weird, archaic ways) so half the time there's debate about what exactly some given word means anyway. So I haven't learned much "Attic" Greek really like I would through the book because the things I want to read the most aren't written in it. I'd absolutely need to do that before tackling Plato or Aristotle though.

For example, I'm reading the fragments of Parmenides' poem "On Nature" right now and there's a lot of words where the example reference (and sometimes the only use of the word) is... Parmenides himself. So i need to look it up anyway and even look at the etymology sometimes to get a better sense of what it's really saying. That's also where the grumbling about γίγνομαι comes from - "come into being" implies a much closer link to εἰμί/εἶναι, "to be" than someone in the early 5th century BCE might have intended. Or it only took on that later meaning because of Parmenides or interpretations of him. basically it's really complicated even with very simple, common words like that.

My tumblr url is another example of that kind of archaic word, other than the Philodemus poem I translated where I rendered it as "brittle" the only uses of it are two mentions in Hippocrates' On the Sacred Disease (i.e. epilepsy) and a byzantine dictionary of rare words by Hesychius. The few things like that I've actually gone and translated have been pretty good practice, but it takes a really long time - I think even after I could read that poem, for example, it took me a good 10 hours or so to render it in English so that it makes any sense. It's really worth it to learn though - there's a lot of structure, wordplay and, ambiguity in Greek poetry that just disappears in translation.

If you're also interested in philosophical works in greek, I've also found the philosophical lexicon by F.E. Peters pretty useful (though it's kind of dated) and also Beekes' etymlogical dictionary especially for older works and rare words. everything i mentioned is on library genesis too, I pretty much never buy books.

[classicslesbianopinions]

Hi, I am an undergrad classics student in my 6th year. Had lots of failings and barely making it atm. I want to get better and I really want to engage with the subjects and everything but I didn't have a good high school education so basically have no clue about the general outline of studying and being a student. My profs aren't any help and my uni is the only one with a classics major in my country. How does one become a better classicist? What do I do? I feel very lost.

oh nooo i’m sorry anon. classics can be really inaccessible sometimes, and i will say like i had a great high school education but i have never spent more time studying for anything than i spent studying for greek tests in undergrad. i don’t know what it’s like in your country/at your uni but like. it can be a really brutal field and it is even harder if you don’t have a background in latin or greek going in or if you’ve got any kind of societal disadvantage or if literally any extenuating circumstances come up while you’re doing your degree.

so i guess first i’d say that it’s okay that you’re struggling, it’s not your fault the field is super inaccessible, and don’t let anyone make you feel inadequate. a lot of people have a lot of advantages going in that it sounds like you didn’t have, and you’re truly doing your best with what you’ve got. which is amazing in itself.

i am honestly myself absolutely terrible at studying, but what works for me is often using quizlet or memrise to make flash cards and really drilling with those. sometimes you can find a set someone else has made too. another good strategy is copying out the stuff you need to study onto another sheet of paper— writing stuff helps it stick in your brain. and then challenging yourself to summarize the material without looking can help too.

and learning to take my time reading and really look for details etc was something that really helped me in high school! i usually underline in my texts which works if you own yours and don’t mind writing in books, but you can also take notes on a separate sheet of paper or use sticky notes inside the book.

if you’ve got the sort of language test where you have to sight translate a random passage of a work, unfortunately the best way i know of to study is just to translate the whole section the test might cover, which honestly always took me an unreasonable amount of time (but again i’m awful at studying so it might be a very normal amount of time and i just am not good at time management in general). my professor would tell me to translate it once with the dictionary and once without but i never had time for that second translation. but also the first translation with the dictionary helped a LOT when it came to the test!

and my strategy to keep myself doing stuff is to set a timer for half an hour or so and work non stop for that half hour— something about having a timer going overrides the part of my brain that would rather die than concentrate for five minutes.

the other good thing to know is that writing papers is literally just about writing down whatever you think. like you’ve got to give it a bit of structure eventually but the best place to start is by typing out whatever your opinion is like you’re talking to a friend, and then you can refine and organize it from there into something that looks academic and polished. i think it can be easy to be intimidated by papers in general but like every academic paper is just someone going on about their opinion. and your opinion is important and legitimate and don’t be afraid to state it! especially if you can back it up with sources! like it’s 50% about confidence sometimes. you may be struggling but you do belong and you have to act like you know you belong even if you don’t feel like you do. (this applies to everything but it helps me a lot with papers.)

so i don’t know if any of this helps but those are my thoughts. if anyone else has advice for anon with the studying or with anything else in classics please put it in the reblogs or replies! i feel like our followers probably have some good wisdom here. some of them have probably been in similar situations. and i feel like i don’t have that much help but i really feel for you anon and i want you to be successful. classics is hard to break into but it is possible for someone like you to do well.

[autumnslance]

About Plagiarism

I left a long, planned essay on Twitter tonight. I will copy the meat of it here for y’all, as recently a friend was copied (a rarer ship in the fandom, so very noticeable by the writer and their regular beta reader) and it seems we need a Talk, kids. Links and screenshots and my rambling underway.

------

Apparently we need to discuss what is and isn’t plagiarism. Especially in FanFic where we're interacting with the same characters, settings, ideas. Let’s start with the dictionary and continue the thread from there (I like the word origin/history personally):

Definition of plagiarize

transitive verb  : to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source

intransitive verb : to commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source

The Kidnapping Roots of Plagiarize

If schools wish to impress upon their students how serious an offense plagiarism is, they might start with an explanation of the word’s history. Plagiarize (and plagiarism) comes from the Latin plagiarius “kidnapper.” This word, derived from the Latin plaga (“a net used by hunters to catch game”), extended its meaning in Latin to include a person who stole the words, rather than the children, of another. When plagiarius first entered English in the form plagiary, it kept its original reference to kidnapping, a sense that is now quite obsolete.

“Ideas” is fuzzy in the Merriam-Webster definition. There are story archetypes that exist in many forms. Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth/Hero's Journey outlines many famous stories. And it's popular to say that “Avatar” is “Dances with Wolves” is “Pocahontas” is “The Last Samurai” etc.

But note how while those films have similar plotlines--”Military Guy falls for Native woman, learns to appreciate her Culture, stands up to Evil Bosses”--none of them execute those ideas in the same way. Sully’s story is different from Dunbar’s not just cuz one’s a Science Fiction epic and the other a Western. Disney's “Pocahontas” Very Loosely takes history and uses the same story beats. The Last Samurai uses the Meiji era Westernization. Same ideas, different executions, even beyond settings.

None of these are plagiarizing each other though the ideas are similar. They’re told in their own ways, own language; both in the genres they belong to (Western, Pseudo-History, SciFi, Animated) and how characters interact with each other and settings. Original dialogues (variable quality).

We also see this in books as similar novel plots get published in waves so we end up with bunches of post-apocalypse teen revolutionaries or various vampires or lots of young wizard stories all at once. Sometimes ideas just happen like this; multiple discovery, simultaneous invention, concurrent inspiration, cognitive emergence are all phrases I’ve seen for it. So it happens in original content as well, and legality gets fuzzy (Also why you don't send authors your fanfic ideas).

In existing properties, this gets trickier but even “Elementary”’s Holmes and Watson are nothing like the BBC’s “Sherlock” characters. Who are nothing like other versions of the Detective and his Doctor pal over the decades in various media properties.

FanFic's in a similar position where like Sherlock Holmes we play with the same characters, setting, and storyarcs but give our own spin to them. People can and will have similar ideas about plots. Trick is to use your own words. Take the characters and make the story your own.

I have a good example courtesy of @raelly-writing​. We both ship Wolcred. We both wrote soft post-Paglth’an scenes with Thancred and our WoLs. Both features the couples helping each other undress, examining injuries, bathing, bantering. My fic was written soon after 5.5 part 1 came out. Dara’s is much more recent. Yet at no point reading hers did I feel she was copying my words. The PoVs differ. Our characters focus on different things. Mine has a mini-arc concerning the Nutkin.

The links for comparison’s sake (and maybe leave kudos/comments if so inclined please and thanks). Note while the scenes are very similar no phrases are written in the same way. Mine: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25417882/chapters/76059467 Dara’s: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26067565/chapters/81832915

Dara and I both hang out in certain Discords and I know conversations about Thancred and WoL caring for each other post-battle has come up in those channels and we've both participated. It’s a stock FanFic scene to boot. Cuz it's soft and feels warm and snuggly.

I HAVE been copied before, back in WoW. My case is pretty clear cut so here are the images of my old RP Haven profile (1st, old RP website) and the plagiarist’s RSP (2nd, an in game mod to share descriptions and basic info). 

This was a decade ago on Shadow Council and I think the character deleted so any Availa’s in WoW now aren’t the same person. I left the names to point out what changed. Just the names and a word or 2 to make sense for the class changes as well. Otherwise lifted directly from my RP profile.

The funny part is how the person got caught. Literally walked into our weekly RP Guild meeting that I was running and asked to join. Folks noticed right away the similar backstory; after all there may have been more Outland-born Azerothians. My initial excitement at a character I could weave into our story turned to gut-twisting rage and grief as I recognized my own exact words though. Words I’d carefully crafted and constantly iterated on to improve over time (before and after this incident, until the site died).

When caught they tried to claim their significant other had leveled the character for them and made up the backstory based on Skyrim. If you know WoW’s Outland story and Skyrim’s plot you know how ridiculous that is. Also tried to lie about other drama I knew about thanks to roommate's characters but hey. I had to be blunt that I’d shared the info with Haven mods and other guild officers Alliance and Horde. That we would not “laugh about this” one day though lucky this was “just” RP not original or academic work. Cuz if it'd been monetized or academic I would've raked them through the coals.

I felt violated. Hurt. Had anxiety attacks. They took MY WORDS and tried to claim them as theirs. Have another character born in Outland trained by Draenei; Awesome! Our characters have an instant connect in similarities and differences of that experience. Don’t steal my characters wholesale!

Then the audacity of trying to come into my guild as if no one would notice. ShC wasn’t a large server by then, still active but not nearly Wyrmrest Accord or Moon Guard big. My character was well known due to my writing and RP. Speaking of how easy it is to get caught in specific spaces...A case of a self-published novelist getting noticed for plagiarizing fanfic was discovered recently (explicit erotica examples through the thread).

One way they got noticed was how much content they put out in only a year, lifted from fandom. The examples in Kokom’s threads show how the material was altered but still recognizable. In some cases, just the names are changed as in my experience. In other passages more has changed but you can still see the bones of the original fic poking through in the descriptions and character interactions, even with adjustments made.

Similar ideas happen. Similar plots exist. Same 'ships with friends are fun! In FanFic we’re working with the same material. It’s possible to write a similar scene differently. To make that scene and characters your own. All we’re asking is not to copy others' words. Others' characters. Others' specific phrases and descriptions used to bring those words, those characters, to life. Use your own. In the end you’ll be happier.

I get wanting to have what the perceived “popular people” have. I get seeing concepts others succeed with and wanting some of that too. We all get a bit jealous now and then for various reasons. Sometimes we don't even realize it, consciously. But do it in your own way. Maybe check to see if you’re getting a bit too close to the “inspiration” you admired, maybe reread often. Don’t hurt your fellow creatives. If you do and get caught don’t try to double down. Have the grace to be abashed at least and work to do better. Eventually you WILL get caught. All it takes is once to throw all else you've done into question. Ao3 doesn’t take kindly to plagiarists. Nor do a lot of fan communities focused on writing and RP. Getting back that trust is hard. The internet doesn’t forget easily, for good or ill.

[rallamajoop]

How (not) to say ‘fuck’ in Etruscan (and other things I cannot believe I spent so much time tracking down for a throwaway joke in a Witcher slash-fic)

Buried in chapter 4 of my fic Something Nice is a joke which, as much as it amused me, no-one else is going to get unless I explain it. So here we go.

For the last few people in this fandom who haven't heard yet: The Witcher 3's vampire-language is Etruscan. To my knowledge, there's never been an official statement from CDPR to confirm this, but the evidence (ie. that basically all the vampire vocab can be found in online Etruscan sources) seems pretty solid. To explain why this made me go oooooh that's so NEAT, we need a little context.

Context!

The Etruscans (in my admittedly far-from-expert understanding) were a people who lived in Italy back before the Romans got around to conquering-slash-assimilating the rest of the peninsula, and the language they spoke is one of the most frustratingly mysterious of the ancient world. Most dead languages are at least related to something modern linguists have a decent handle on, but Etruscan seems to have been related to almost nothing else spoken – it may even have pre-Indo-European roots (a whoooole other tangent I am in no way qualified to cover).

Surprisingly, we do owe our modern Latin alphabet in part to the Etruscans, since the earliest Roman alphabets were adapted from the Etruscan (who got it from the Greeks, who got it from from the Phoneticians, and so on). The Etruscans may even be the reason we're stuck with so many weirdly redundant K-sounds (not only K and C, but X and Q, which are really just 'ks' and 'kw' with an overblown sense of superiority).

But being able to sound out every surplus K-word from an Etruscan inscription isn't much help nowadays when there are no surviving Etruscan dictionaries to tell us what it actually means – not even a decent Etruscan Rosetta stone to give us a push-start. So while modern linguists may rattle off Ancient Greek fluently or puzzle out Egyptian hieroglyphs from thousands of years before the Etruscans even had an alphabet, the Etruscan vocabulary available to us nowadays remains embarrassingly limited. Bits have been figured out from context or thanks to loanword exchanges with their neighbours (plenty of ancient Greeks and Romans certainly spoke Etruscan, even if they failed to write it down), but a lot is still as mysterious to the experts as it would be to you and me.

So why to I love the idea of using Etruscan as the Witcher’s vampire-language so much? Basically, if you want a language that will sound both old and reliably alien to anyone listening to it – be they the mainstream English-speaking market or the original Polish-language audience – Etruscan is a damn good call. You're not going to have much vocabulary to draw from, but it's not like there's a lot of vampire-chatter in the game anyway. It's a cool little easter egg for fans nerdy enough to try and figure out what they're saying.

Translations and Sources

You aren’t going to find a lot of great Etruscan language sources on the web – few of the easily-discovered online sources on Etruscan vocab appear to have been updated within the last ten years, and lord knows how consistent some of these are with current scholarship (let alone how sure linguists can be about anything with a task like this). All the same, have some links you may find useful:

Etruscology �� Brief, but more readable than most

Lexicons.ru Etruscan Glossary – Probably one of the best collections of many terms in one place

Maravot.com Etruscan Language pages – Hard to navigate, but gosh there are a lot of vocab here I have not seen elsewhere

Old, Tripod-hosted Etruscan Glossary – I think these are mostly just the same terms from the Lexicons page, but in harder-to-use format

Etruscan word search – Decent, but not the most extensive vocab

Introduction to the Etruscan Language – Looks to be from Maravot.com, but in pdf format

Paleoglot.com’s Etruscan tag – Blog by an actual linguist who regularly discusses Etruscan material, and who even created their own translation applet! – which was, unfortunately, in flash, and is thus no longer usable. (There is a certain irony that even the tools available online to help you understand Etruscan are written in a language that is now no longer supported or understood by any modern browser.)

Not that translating what’s in the game is going to be easy, oh no. Take, for example, the oh-god-please-don't-kill-me ceremonial greeting Geralt has to offer to the Unseen Elder to survive that meeting – "Eclthi, lautni ama".

'Eclthi' is apparently a "demonstrative (locative)" (’here’, ‘there’, etc). "Lautni" is trickier – it means a freed slave, but may also imply a familial relationship or a client of sorts, while the root “lautn” apparently designates simply “possession.” House slaves in the ancient world were often considered part of the family, and freed slaves were an important class in many ancient cultures, who often maintained relationships with their former masters, so you can see the internal logic, but what sense was the Witcher using it in? It’s hard to know.

"Ama" is possibly worse – most translations seem to have taken it as "to be", but sometimes also “to love”, or even "now" or  "meanwhile." Then you hit the question of Etruscan grammar, and I have no idea where I’d even start. So, with a little creativity, you could probably translate that phrase as anything from "take this and consider me a friend" to "meanwhile, this is family" to "a demonstration of love from your slave." I mean, you've got the same general theme going there regardless, but there's a lot of ambiguity in the inflection.

For what it's worth, I feel garasham's translation efforts are easily the most convincing I've seen – they have the above line as “Here I am a slave / a friend / kindred” FWIW. (Mind you, given the wiki doesn't even try to do more than offer you one possible meaning for each word, there's not exactly much competition out there).

So, bringing this all back to that fic and how to say ‘fuck’ in Etruscan...

I've already gone to the web's Etruscan dictionaries once while I was writing Forget-Me-Not, seeking inspiration for a 'real' name for "the Queen of the Night" from the first Witcher game. Neither 'queen' or 'night' got me far, but the Etruscans did apparently have a goddess of the moon called 'Aritimi, Artume or Artames', which worked pretty well. If anything it's almost too close to the better-known Greek goddess Artimis, who was obviously a relative (ancient cultures bleed into each other even when they're not bleeding all over each other, nothing new there), but I'm not going to be picky.

However, being a) a giant nerd, who b) writes a lot of smut, and c) is no more mature deep down inside than the rest of us, I couldn't resist seeing if I could find some slightly more obscene vocabulary. Did the Etruscans have a word for, say, 'fuck'?

Alas, if they did (and I mean, they totally did, c'mon), the web wouldn't tell me about it. Nor could I find much else relating to sex or genitalia (male or female), or even a decent word for 'thrust'.

On the flipside, there were a couple of different terms meaning 'plough'. And anyone who's played – well, any of the games, but especially Witcher 2 – would probably realise exactly why that filled me with so much glee.

Speaking of which, here, have a picture which is in no way related:

The fact that the various Etruscan terms meaning ‘plough’ could also apparently be translated as things like “to worship“ or “to act through movement, including ritual acts,” or that an important mythological figure was “a prophetic child who sprang from a freshly plowed furrow” was in no way discouraging.

The word I ultimately picked was 'esari'. Admittedly, variations on the prefix ‘ar-’/‘ara-’/’aras’ were much more consistently attested to throughout the various online Etruscan dictionaries as ‘terms meaning plow’, but figuring out how to convert an Etruscan prefix into a satisfying word is officially where even my enthusiasm for all this nonsense gives out. Esari was, by comparison, already a much more solid-sounding term, so let’s go with that.

Why go to all this trouble anyway? Well, the honest answer is “entirely for my own amusement”, but the nominal excuse comes right back to “so I could give Regis and Geralt this little exchange during a sex scene.”

"Unless you have any particular objection," said Regis, moving to straddle Geralt's body, "I thought we might engage in some esari... hm, what was the equivalent term in your language again?" The vampire leaned in close to Geralt's ear as he made a show of remembering his answer, "Ah, yes—I thought I'd fuck you."

Never let anyone tell you you never learnt anything from porn!

[shinymixedbag]

So. About Given.

My social battery is constantly running on fumes. Hence the long periods of absence from tumblr ♥

I tried to ignore it but I heard seriously disturbing stuff about people warping the story however they see fit since the release of volume 4 in English... and fighting and spreading lies... :| 

Yes, I’m gonna talk about the controversial chapter 20 of Given -.- 

Honestly it’s sad that I even have to do this but things are getting out of hand I hear. Reading some stuff, it felt like being asked in sugar-coated words, to apologize for fucking up the translation -.- Hate it to break it to you, but the fantrans is more accurate ♥

I ask my followers to please help spread the word and get people to stop spreading lies, hate and misinformation. But please DO NOT land yourselves in trouble. You don’t owe it to anyone to change their mind. Put the facts out there. Whether they take it or not, it’s entirely up to them. 

And do not take my words out of context, please.

In this first part, I’ll just talk about stuff. In part 2, I’ll explain the literal translations of the few “problematic” pages... and in part 3… well, even if you skip one and two, make sure you read part 3.

I had high hopes for the official translations by Sublime, but they’ve taken so many liberties and hasn’t really stuck to what Sensei’s written. It’s not all bad, but not great either.. It’s a shame because it takes away a lot from what’s being said. (I’ll include examples.) BUT, it’s not unexpected, nor is it a huge offence, because when a company licenses a manga, I hear the translators don’t get to choose which projects they work on? So to them, this is a JOB with HARD DEADLINES. In the case of Given, that’s translating, editing and printing an entire volume in less than 8 weeks. That’s not an awful lot of time. 

Scanlation teams however, specifically choose the projects they work on and any decent scanlation team will INSIST on not diverging too much from the source material. (Meaning; most teams absolutely love the projects they work on, and think it’s disrespectful to change what the author has written.) Fan translators can be strict that way. I for one am loath to change dialogues, and prefer to do literal translations. So, you can be sure that most of the time, fan translations of any manga worked on by a decent scan team WILL be more accurate ^^ (or you can say, closer to the original) Folks seem to be under the mistaken impression that official=100% perfect. It isn’t... More often than not, it’ll have at least slightly skewed what’s actually being said. They are more concerned with deadlines and presenting a story in proper English(or whichever target language) This is common knowledge. Thought people knew??

If you didn’t, well now you do.

From experience, scanlating Given involves a lot of brainstorming and throwing ideas about. It’s crucial to make sure what sensei intended is not twisted. To phrase text in a way that wouldn’t cause misunderstandings :| ...THE IRONY.

Enough with the trashing on fan translations. Nobody begged you to read it?? Thanks are not needed but have the decency to not crap all over it. If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything?  If it doesn’t serve the purpose of meeting your own personal agenda, DON’T READ IT. Regardless of the issue with accuracy of official translations, if you want to use that as gospel, by all means, feel free to do so. 

As I understand, the problem here is that a group of people want to show that Akihiko is not “wrong” or “bad” or a “rapist”? While the intentions are good, the way they’ve gone about trying to achieve it, is not... Starting a war online? FR..?? You might only want to prove you are “correct” and the others are “wrong”... But yelling and shit-talking is not gonna help your cause.

Those of you who think Haruki was okay with what happened...... Smh.

And those of you who think Akihiko is a rapist... please use a dictionary. Learn the difference between rape and assault. While they’re used interchangeably, rape is rape, and sexual assault can be violence of a sexual nature... being forcibly kissed against his will, having his pants pulled down and sucked off—counts as sexual assault.

Sorry, I am a little annoyed. I’m here to explain. So I’ll get on with that... in part 2 of my post.

[lils-writes-stuff]

Divining Rod

spencer reid x reader

Best years part ten | part nine | part eight | part seven | part six | part five | part four | part three |part two |part one

Summary: The death of a serial killer rises another and the team must stop it.

warnings: normal criminal minds things,

A/N: based on season 7 episode 21

 “A row house in Demount Circle wow,” Penelope said, astonished at the news Emily just gave. 

 “I can’t believe I’m doing it.” Emily shook her head in disbelief at the news also. “I mean, it’s probably not gonna work out anyway, right?” 

 “That’s what I said before I found out I got my apartment so, you probably will,” Y/N said, laughing at the end of her sentence. 

 “Well, there are five other sealed bids, and I offered way below what the owners are asking,” Emily spoke, standing up from her chair and began walking. JJ, Y/N, Penelope, and Spencer stood up and followed her. 

 “Uh-huh, sounds to me like someone’s hoping they don’t get it.” JJ’s voice was filled with sass as she side-eyed Emily. 

 “Orthophobia, fear of owning personal property,” Spencer said from in front of the four women. He was intently looking over the case file in his hands as they walked to the round table room. 

 “No- I don’t have a fear of owning stuff, turn me loose in a shoe store, I’ll prove that,” Emily defended herself. “My fear is owning personal property that weighs three hundred tons.”

 “Actually, depending on materials used, square footage, and horizontal versus vertical construction, the average house only weighs sixty tons,” Spencer retorted, spewing off his knowledge without even a second thought. 

 “Well, thanks for that Reid, I feel light as a bird,” Emily said sarcastically. 

 “It’s okay Em, it took me months before I could even settle into my apartment because I couldn’t feel at home, it just takes time.” Truly Y/N felt uncomfortable because the last place she lived in by herself all her friends were tormented in, but Emily didn’t need to know or worry about that.

 “What‘ve we got, baby girl?” Derek asked, breaking up the conversation to bring it to the case at hand.

 “We have a killing in Enid, Oklahoma, and not the capital punishment one you are thinking of right now.” Penelope walked over to her chair and took a seat before she continued. “I’m talking about a woman named Cara Smith, who was murdered in her apartment minutes after the execution of Rodney Garret.” 

 “Neighbors saw her front door open and discovered the body,” Hotch added.  

 “Look Familiar?” Rossi asked directing everyone’s attention to the victim on the screen. Her appearance is the same as all of Garret’s victims. 

 “Young, pretty, short blonde hair,” JJ said, examining the photo.

 “And stabbed directly through the heart.” Y/N brought her pen up in the air, showing that she realized what Rossi was saying. 

 “That’s exactly the way Garret killed his victims,” Spencer said as he remembered back to the Garret murders. 

 “So are we looking at a copycat?” Derek asked looking at those around the table. 

 “Or someone creating doubt the right person was executed,” JJ countered, looking at Derek next to her. 

 “In Garret’s case there was no doubt,” Rossi corrected. “His guilt was the slam dunk of all slam dunks. Prints, DNA, a confession…”

 “He even led the police to where he buried two of his victims,” Spencer added to the list Rossi was creating. 

 “Garret killed 25 women before he was caught. If this new unsub is a copycat, the body count’s just getting started,” Emily said. 

 “Which is why we can’t waste time, wheels up in thirty.” 

----------

 “Firing squad? That’s new,” Y/N said after hearing Garret’s choice of execution. 

 “It’s definitely not something you see every day,” JJ agreed.

 “Well, Garret had the option of lethal injection, but he chose this instead,” Derek responded. 

 “Flair for the dramatic,” Rossi stated. 

 “No kidding.” Y/N let out a breathy laugh with her words. 

 “Initial reports indicate no forensic evidence at the crime scene,” Hotch said looking at the file in his hand. 

 “What about the ice pick?” JJ asked. 

 “It was generic, no serial number or unique metallurgy,” Derek answered looking at the paper that gave more detail on the pick. 

 “Well, now, it says here-” Emily pointed to a page in her file- “that there were water droplets and a half-filled flower vase on top of the chest drawers, but no flowers. Not in the vase, not in the garbage, nowhere.” 

 “Maybe the unsub took them,” Y/N posed, looking up from her folder. 

 A pinging sound came from the laptop as Penelope popped up on the screen. 

 “Hey, say it like you mean it, baby,” Derek greeted her. 

 “You know I’m gonna,” she replied before giving what she found. “So if you look in the dictionary, the word ‘normal’-” she held her hands up to show quotation marks- “you will see Cara Smith. College student, well-liked, straight A’s, English lit major- oh speaking of which I just got a transcript of Rodney Garret’s last words, hot off the press and a gold star to the first person who can identify the source of this: ‘She comes like fullest moon on a happy night, taper of waist-” 

 “‘With shape of magic might,’ it’s from the Thousand and One Nights, not the exact translation I would have used, but it’s got its own merits,” Spencer finished the last of the poem. 

 “And in a shocking non-upset, we have a winner,” Emily said, hopefully stopping Spencer before he would go on a spew of insight of the story. 

 “Garret was a sixth-grade dropout, an unlikely guy to be quoting from a Harvard classic,” Rossi said. 

 “The choice of material does make sense though,” Spencer began. “The book is all about how a Scheherazade forestalled her own death at the hands of the king by regaling him night after night with stories.” 

 “In the end, he won him over right?” JJ asked. 

 “Yes, the king found a love for her and decided not to execute her,” Y/N answered, looking at JJ. “Although I wouldn’t say that would be a strategy that would work with the Oklahoma Department of corrections.”

 “Another body’s been found half a mile from the first victim, same M.O.” Hotch had stepped away to answer the phone and was now relaying the information he was just given to the team. 

 “That's six hours later, this guy’s not wasting a lot of time,” Derek said.

 “We land in twenty minutes, Reid, you and Y/N go to the latest crime scene, Rossi, you JJ and Prentiss go talk to Garret’s widow. Morgan and I will go to the prison.” Y/N saluted Hotch at his order. “If Garret’s got a disciple, we need to find out who he is and fast.” 

----------------  

 “Such a beautiful day for such a terrible thing to happen.” Y/N’s eyes looked up to the sky, observing the blue of it and the bright sun. She wasn’t really thinking about the case until she walked up the steps, always trying to fit the last of the good in before she saw the bad.

 “I don’t think serial killers stop because of the weather, sweets,” Spencer said, raising an eyebrow at the thought. 

 “Hey, what did I say about nicknames at crime scenes,” Y/N said turning to Spencer who was slightly behind her.

 He laughed lightly. “Not to use them, because you’re afraid they’ll be ruined,” he answered her remark. 

 “Exactly.” She pulled her credentials out of her back pocket to show the officer at the door. Walking into the house, a tall man turned around to greet the two.

 “Hey, I’m detective Childers,” the tall man said walking up to Y/N to shake her hand. “You must be with the FBI.” 

 “Yes, I’m Agent Y/L/N, and this is Dr.Reid.” Y/N pointed to her right to the lanky brunette. 

 “Hi,” Childers said, holding his hand out for Spencer to shake. Spencer offered the man a small wave, as usual, opting out of the handshake. 

 Y/N offered a smile to the detective in hopes of trying to make the awkward moment go away. “How about you show us the scene.” Y/N changed the subject. 

 “Yeah, why don’t y’all follow me back here,” Childers said as he led the two over to the bedroom. “It’s unbelievable this is happening all over again.”  

 “Who is she?” Spencer asked as they entered the bedroom. 

 “Jodie Armstrong, single, works a cosmetic counter at a department store downtown,” Childers answered. 

 The body laid in the exact position it was found. Duct tape still on the mouth and wrists, and the ice pick stabbed into her heart.

 “Young, pretty, short blond hair,” Y/N said as she looked at the victim’s appearance. “That’s the same victimology as the others.” She turned her head to look at Spencer, who’s eyes had been wandering the room around them.

 “Who discovered the body?” Spencer asked. 

 “Apartment manager. A neighbor called to complain that a teapot in the kitchen kept on whistling,” Childers explained.

 “So he surprised her.” Y/N said, turning as she watched the struggle play out around her. She pictured the unsub pushing her down and tying her onto the bed. 

 The three separated as Childers went to go handle something out front and Spencer and Y/N stayed to look around the scene more. Y/N gloved her hands and squatted down next to the bed, looking closely at the victim’s head. Pushing her head to the side, she moved her hair to and fro as she examined the hair cut. She noticed it’s unevenness and well, basically, it was a shitty hair cut for such a pretty young girl to have.

 “Hey, Spence, come look at this.” Spencer looked over at Y/N who was across the room from him. 

 “What is it?” He asked, setting down the CD he had been looking at to walk over. 

 “This girl is young and she obviously cares about her appearance, she’s fit, her nails are done,” she said, laying one finger on top of the other as the listed off the things she’s noticed. “But her hair, look at it, it’s uneven.” She picked up the phone that had headphones plugged into the jack and turned it on. 

 “Could it maybe be a fashion statement, you know, look bad on purpose?” Spencer asked looking next to him at Y/N.

 She shook her head, looking through the phone in her hand. She began to look through some things in her photos before she found a selfie of Jodie and some of her friends. “Look at this,” she leaned over to show Spencer the photo. 

 With two of her fingers on the screen, she zoomed in on Jodie, who in the photo had very long blonde hair. “It was taken last night,” she said after pointing to the timestamp at the bottom corner of the photo. “The unsub cut her hair.”

--------------   

 In the station, the mood was serious. Two bulletin boards stood side by side with large maps placed on the. Spencer, Hotch, Y/N, and Derek sat in swivel chairs from desks in the area they were in. Behind them sat JJ, Emily, and Rossi, who were looking through letters that were sent to Rodney Garret’s home. 

 “This new guy’s hunting in a different neighborhood,” Childer’s spoke after looking at the map. 

 “He must be comfortable in the area, he knew the victims’ routines,” Derek stated.

 “His method of ingress and egress is quiet and unnoticeable,” JJ said, leaning back in her chair. 

 “Get a load of this one,” Emily began as she turned in her chair with a letter. “Dear Mr. Garret: It took a lot of courage to do what you did. Most people are cowards and don’t do what they feel inside them. You are an inspiration, and I applaud you.” 

 When Emily had finished the letter, Y/N barked out a laugh. “I’m sorry for laughing but ‘I applaud you’?” She just shook her head, the letter being very funny to her in a weird way. 

 “These are supposed to be the non-wacko letters,” Rossi said. 

 Everyone raised their brows in question. A computer beeping signaling the arrival of Penelope’s on a screen got everyone’s attention. 

 “Hey guess what, Y/N’s genius has struck again,” Penelope began as she popped up on the screen. “The hunch about the hair was right, I’m sending you an ATM image of Cara Smith. She’s the first victim, this was taken ten hours before her murder check it out.” 

 At that, everyone’s attention was brought to a screen. The video showing Cara walking up to the machine with very long hair compared to what was left on her body. 

 “The unsub cut her hair too,” Childers said as he looked at the video. 

 “You know, there could be a sexual element involved. Trichophilia is a fetish where one becomes aroused by the removal of hair,” Spencer said. 

 “Yeah, but, either way, this is starting to look less like a copycat,” Y/N said looking next to her at Spencer. 

 “The unsub’s deviating too much from Garret’s M.O., Garret never took trophies,” Derek said in agreement. 

 “He’s also choosing low-risk victims, Garret’s stayed with high-risk target- prostitutes, runaways--” Spencer said but was cut off by JJ. 

 “Garret also got sloppy and left clues that eventually nailed him, this guy’s careful and meticulous,” JJ said.

 “He’s not that careful,” Childers corrected. “He leaves doors open, teapots boiling.” 

 “I think it’s intentional. He wants the bodies found so we know when and where he’s killing,” Hotch said.     

 The room fell silent again, everyone getting back to their work. Little conversation was made, Emily or Rossi reading off an obscure letter or Y/N saying something about the geographical profile to Spencer. All conversation halted due to Childers getting a call that there was another body. 

 “Reid and Y/N, come with me to the scene.” Hotch stood up, Y/N and Spencer following his request out of the room and to the scene. 

 Walking into the house, Y/N took note of how it was kept and lived in by the victim. She did so in hopes of gathering something for victimology. After noticing she fell behind Hotch and Spencer, she quickly caught up to them as they entered the bedroom. 

 The blonde woman laid on her back, her arms duct-taped to the foot of the bed. Her eyes were closed, and she almost looked peaceful, but the ice pick in her heart told them otherwise.

 Hotch squatted down to the bedside and examined the side of her head that was exposed. 

 “He shaved her head,” Hotch commented. Y/N and Spencer stood on either side of him, looking over the body from behind their unit chief. 

 “That’s even more humiliation and disrespect,” Y/N said. She turned her head sideways as she looked at the poor and almost frantic shaved spot. 

 “He didn’t do it to the other victims.” Hotch stood up as he spoke, looking at Childers who was on the other side of the bed. 

 “Detective when was the body discovered?” Y/N asked. 

 “Half hour ago, the killer left the front and back doors open,” Childers responded. “And there’s no indication of any contact on the wine glasses swabbed for DNA.” He gestured to the CSI unit that was brushing the wine glass behind him. 

 “Not even the victims?” Spencer asked. His face doing its normal twist as he thought.

 “The unsub probably wiped it clean,” Y/N said. The upper half of her body turned to her left to look at Hotch and Spencer.

 “Has anyone found an open or empty wine bottle in the house?” Hotch asked, turning back to the detective after looking at Y/N. 

 “We haven’t found one yet.” Childers shook his head. 

 “He probably took it with him, like the flowers of his first victim,” Spencer commented. 

 “He’s killed at six A.M., noon, and now six P.M.,” Hotch said, looking between Y/N and Spencer. 

 “That’s not a long cooling-off period.” Y/N spook with a sigh as she stuffed her hands in her pockets. 

 “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not feeling so good about the stroke of midnight.” Spencer’s eyes bounced between the three in front of him. All of them nodding their heads in agreement at the comment. 

-------------         

 “We believe we’re looking for a white male between the ages of thirty and forty who is strong enough to subdue physically fit young women with minimum resistance,” Hotch said. The team stood in front of a crowd of local officers as they told the profile. Rossi and Emily had found out that the same man that wrote the letter Emily had read to them were some of Garret’s favorites. Taking that, they presumed that the man who wrote the letters was more than likely the unsub.

 “He’s forensically sophisticated and evidence-conscious,” Derek added. 

 “He targets his victims in advance and leaves no trail.” Y/N stepped forward as she spoke, coming into line with Derek. 

 “This person is also confident.” Emily paused, then continued. “He’s been taunting us by revealing his crime scene quickly.”

 “Because of his ability to plan and flawlessly execute his crimes, we’re looking for someone capable of holding down a job. Even though it’s probably menial and unfulfilling,” Rossi said. His hands stuffed into his pockets as his shoulder shrugged when he spoke.

 “The victims have all been young, blonde, and pretty. As such, they reflect a certain societal standard of perfection that may actually represent the type of women that are unattainable to this unsub,” Spencer explained. 

 “He cuts his victims’ hair, and then he takes it with him, this could be another way for him to possess a part of them,” Y/N said, bouncing off of Spencer’s statement.

 “Or to degrade these unattainable women, make them uglier,” JJ added on to Y/N’s words. 

 “The killer has been murdering in six-hour increments. He is, in effect, time-stamping his victims, there’s no reason to believe he will deviate from that now,” Rossi said. 

 “Which means the next kill will be at midnight.” Y/N emphasized her words as she spoke. 

 “The public needs to be alerted to stay off the streets for all non-essential activities,” JJ said. “Single women should not be in their homes alone,” she continued, her warning to the people relaying its importance.

 “Every available officer will be out in full force tonight, we need to blanket this city,” Emily commanded. The officer’s around the room nodding that they understood.   

 “We do have one advantage,” Hotch began. “A killer who uses this kind of precise timing and specificity is easy to disrupt. We can use his own M.O. against him,” he explained. The officer’s around the room were then dismissed and went to get ready for the night out.

 As the sunset fell over the city of Enid, the officers suited up and began to canvas the town. Emily and Derek joined them while the others stayed back and helped run point. While they waited, they had Penelope do some more digging into Garret to find out who the unsub might be.    

 “What you got, Garcia?” JJ asked as she answered the call from Penelope. 

 “I have found a thing of interest regarding these shanking attempts made on Garret in prison,” Penelope began. 

 “What is it?” Hotch asked, curious as to what she found. 

 “The timing, see, the first time Garret was attacked was May 25, 2008, the day before that, May 24, for those of you keeping score, Garret’s imminent execution date was postponed, right?” Penelope’s question was rhetorical so everyone stayed quiet as she continued. 

 “So then if you flash forward to the second shanking attempt of stabby-ness, that would be November 15, 2010. The day before that, his next execution date, also postponed.” When Penelope had finished her explanation everyone was basically one the same page of what was happening. 

 “Okay, so I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say someone decided to take matters into their own hands,” Y/N said. She crossed her arms across her chest and popped her hip to the side, the resting position she stood in when she thought. 

 “Thanks, Garcia,” JJ said, her finger hovering over the hang-up button on the computer. 

 “Ever welcome, my comrades.” JJ hung up the call and turned back to those behind her. 

 “Well, that sounds like what you would think of somebody on the outside wanting a little revenge,” Childers said, his head turning to Rossi and Hotch beside him.        

 “They wouldn’t wait five years, give it two tires, and then toss in the towel,” Rossi stated, his head shaking as he didn’t believe that theory. 

 “It sounds to me like someone just needed Rod Garret out of the way,” JJ said, adding in her own theory. 

 “But Garret was on death row, confined to his cell 23 hours a day. How was he in anybody’s way?” Hotch questioned, both theories not making sense now. 

 “Since we’re on the subject of things that don’t make sense, the unsub left the doors open after the murders,” Y/N said, bringing in a new topic in hopes of coming up with something new. 

 “Okay, that’s directed at law enforcement-- catch me if you can,” Rossi responded to Y/N’s thought. 

 “But the cutting of the hair,” Y/N said her voice trailing off in question. 

 “That’s for Garret,” Hotch finished, knowing what Y/N was thinking now. 

 Rossi nodded agreeing with Y/N. 

 “Well, what makes you think that?” Childers asked her. 

 “Well, Garret chose victims who were easy prey-- drug addicts and prostitutes. But this unsub has chosen more difficult targets but gone to the trouble of making them look like Garret’s victims,” Hotch answered, turning to Childers. 

 “That’s his way of telling Garret, ‘I can do better than you’,” Rossi elaborated. 

 “Okay, but why wait until after the execution to start killing? If the unsub really wanted to thumb his nose at Garret, wouldn’t he want him to be alive to see it?” JJ asked, not fully understanding this theory. 

 “Exactly, that’s the part that doesn’t make sense.” Y/N pointed as she spoke. 

 “Them we’re missing something,” Hotch said. 

-------------

 When the sun rose, the team had been at the station all night. In the early morning hours, another victim was found with a different M.O., stab wounds. Since the unsub could not kill his victim properly, this led them to believe that the killer could go on a spree. The unsub also removed her scalp this time, taking away most of her hair. 

 The clock on the table flipped to 9:44 A.M., and Y/N’s eyes were heavy. She laid on a bench, her head resting on Spencer’s thigh. His hand rested on his arm that was propped on the railing of the bench. The two sat peacefully, Y/N was not totally asleep, but her mind was in and out of full consciousness from the long night. She wasn’t totally sure if Spencer was asleep either, his body not moving which she was grateful for. His warmth was what kept her so at peace, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to stay like that for long. 

 “I never could do that,” Rossi stated as he looked at Y/N and Spencer who had their eyes closed. 

 “Do what?” Emily asked, her eyes following Rossi’s over to the sleepy couple. She let out a small ‘awe’ as she noticed the two.   

 “Take a nap, it never felt natural,” Rossi answered, not appreciating the cute moment.

 “I’m actually wide awake,” Spencer said, sitting up from his position. His movement stirred Y/N as she moved to get comfortable again, but never opening her eyes. 

 “But for future reference, polyphasic sleep is completely natural. Quite common in the animal world, and highly beneficial.” His eyes panned to Y/N who was still, he believed, asleep on his lap. “However, I believe Y/N is very much taking a real nap.” 

 “Shhhh.” Y/N reached one of her hands to her lips sleepily, placing her index finger on her lips. She sighed after a second and sat up, realizing she was now fully awake and there was no going back to whatever state of sleep she was in before. “Okay, I give I’m awake.” 

 “All right, six o’clock’s way come and gone, if our guys killed again, he’s not leaving the front door open,” JJ said after looking at the clock. 

 “Or he could just be taking a breather,” Derek posed the counter. “I mean, even the unsub has to realize he can’t keep up this pace indefinitely.” 

 “Maybe the last murder completed some sort of cycle,” Rossi said, saying his thoughts aloud. 

 “What do you mean?” Y/N asked, leaning her forearms on her thighs. 

 “A day and a night have passed, the sun rises for the first time in a world without Rod Garret,” Rossi answered, his hands moving as he spoke. 

 “There could also be a more mundane reason, our guys got a job, and yesterday was his day off,” Emily said. 

 “He killed his first three victims in their homes-” Hotch pointed to the markers on the map where the homes were- “But the last victims, Emily Sisk, he tried to but he couldn’t. SO he abducted her, took her somewhere else, and then brought her all the way back to dump her body in front of her apartment building.” Hotch’s voice got slightly aggressive as he spoke, irritated as to why he didn’t know how that happened. 

 “That’s incredibly risky considering all the increased police presence,” Y/N said, agreeing with Hotch.  

 “There’s gotta be a geographic component to the unsub’s design,” Hotch said turning back to the map on the board. 

 “Let’s connect the dots, literally.” Spencer stood up from his seat next to Y/N and walked to the board. He pulled a red marker out of his pocket and drew lines to connect all four homes. 

 The lines formed an upside-down arrow almost.

 “A tip of a spear,” Emily guessed, turning this into a game of Pictionary. 

 Y/N walked up to the board to get a closer look at the design. Her head cocked to the side as she thought. 

 “Maybe it’s an arrow pointing south? Could he be steering us to his next victim?” Derek asked as he pointed to the bottom of the arrow. 

 “It’s a quadrilateral, but there’s nothing particularly symbolic about a four-sided concave polygon,” Spencer said, pointing out the math of the shape.

 “Spence, can I?” Y/N said reaching for the marker in his hand. Spencer nodded, handing her the red marker. “Look what happens when you curve the lines.” She drew curves over the lines the Spencer drew, forming something in the shape of a heart. 

 “A heart,” Emily said, eyes trained on the drawing. 

 “Well, Garret and the unsub both killed their victims using stab wounds through the heart,” Derek said. 

 “And Garret was executed by a shot through the heart,” Rossi continued the theory. 

 Hotch then moved the clear map of all the roads and homes over the heart drawing on the board. In the center of the heart sat the home of Rod Garret’s wife, Helen Garret. 

 “Helen Garret,” Emily realized as Hotch put the map on top of the other.  

 “It’s all about her,” Hotch said, confirming the speculation Emily made. 

-------------

 After JJ, Rossi, and Hotch established that Helen was probably at the prison since she was not home, the rest of the team made their way there. When the others met up with them, all of them in their kevlar’s ready to take action, they met outside the gates of the prison to talk. 

 “So nobody saw what happened, but Helen’s car is still in the parking lot,” JJ said walking up to the group with Rossi and the warden. 

 “He’s got her,” Hotch said. 

 “The driver’s name is Dylan Kohler, he lives at 4488 Harmony Court,” the Warden said identifying the unsub. 

 “Did he work yesterday, Warden?” Y/N asked. 

 “No, he arranged for someone else to take his shift,” the Warden answered.

 “I’ll have Garcia check into Kohler, but now that he’s tipped his hand, I doubt if he’s going back home,” Rossi stated, pulling out his phone to call Penelope.

 “All right, Morgan, take Reid, Y/N, and Prentiss to the house of Kohler, see if they’re there just in case.” Derek nodded, then gestured for the three to follow him to a car to go to the home. 

 When they arrived at the home of Dylan Kohler, there was no sign of him or Helen. They headed out of the house to go back to the prison. 

 “Yeah, Hotch, they’re not here,” Derek said to Hotch when he answered the phone.

 “Where the hell could they be?” Y/N asked looking to Spencer next to her as she holstered her gun. He shrugged his shoulders, opening the door for Y/N. She climbed in hoping to the seat on the left and Spencer sitting on the one on the right.  

------------

 After finding Garret’s secret hideout, the team wrapped up the case, saving Helen Garret and were now on their way home. Y/N sat in the seat across from Spencer, eyes glancing at him every once and a while as he read. His finger trailing down the page, his steady breathing, and the curve of his nose entranced her as she looked at him. 

 She was sleepy, there was no doubt about it. Yet, her eyes couldn’t close as she looked at him, too caught up in his domestic feel to let it be intruded on by sleep that she desperately needed. 

 Tell him, the voice in her head whispered. Tell him how much you love him.   

 She couldn’t, at least not yet. Not until she knew that Caroline was out of sight, or if he said it first. But something in her told her that he knew she loved him. Simple acts like saying you need sleep or hold my hand was ways she was able to say she loved and cared for him without having to voice it. 

 Y/N’s thoughts were interrupted though by the beeping of a computer from behind her in.

 “Oh, hey, guys, hey,” Penelope said with a sleepy voice. Y/N turned in her chair to listen to the conversation. “I just wanted to see what was going on.” 

 “This better be important, Garcia,” Emily said irritated as she was woken from her slumber. 

 “Oh, it’s nothing.” Penelope was playing it off, the excitement in her voice giving it away. “It’s just that a messenger came by the office today with some papers from Escrow!” Her voice was sing-song at the end. 

 Emily’s face became very surprised. “No!” She said, astonished and not believing the blonde on the screen. 

 “Oh, yes, the house in Dupont Circle-- you got it! Whoo!” Penelope was throwing confetti at the screen in excitement. 

 “Oh my God, Em, that’s so exciting!” Y/N said happily as she sat on her knees in her chair to face Emily. 

 “Congratulations,” Hotch said with a smile.

 Then, Emily’s face fell and she looked like she was going to be sick. Y/N and Spencer stood up to sit on the couch so they could be closer to the conversation. 

 “Six seconds, fastest case of buyers remorse ever,” Rossi said, looking down at his watch then at Emily.

 “Well, I say the moment we land, we all head over to Ziggy’s and clear out the champaign inventory,” Derek said sitting next to JJ. 

 “And talk Prentiss down off the ledge,” JJ chuckled as she looked at Emily’s horrified face. 

 “Oh, my stomach doesn’t feel so hot.” Emily clutched her stomach. 

 They all let out a small laugh at Emily’s reaction. 

 “I was in the middle of the best dream,” JJ said changing the topic. “I dreamt that I was at this exclusive salon getting my hair done.” 

 The toll from the event of the last two days pressing themselves on her dreams. The thought of having a wig made of human scalp and hair placed on her head made Y/N shudder at the thought when she was told.   

 “Ah, the psychotherapeutic benefits of dreams-- purging unpleasant images and replacing them with good ones,” Spencer said, giving insight on to why we dream things like that. 

 “Yeah, ‘unpleasant’ is putting it mildly, bub,” Y/N said looking at Spencer next to her.

 “If someone put a bloody wig on my head, I would have ripped that thing off and kept it off.” JJ thought back to how Helen let the wig sit on her head when they found her.

 “Well, you’d think instinct would take over,” Derek said agreeing with JJ. 

 “Oh, hey, Rossi, I meant to ask you, what did Helen mean at the end when she said ‘daddy was right’?” JJ asked turning to look at Rossi across from her. 

 Rossi let out an annoyed sigh. “He once told her that she was a divining rod for the evil in men. That she could sniff it out when nobody else could.”  

 “There was definitely something a little strange about her,” Emily said as she recalled the time she and Rossi had to speak with her. 

 “It’s curious, one woman at the center of two serial killers.” Hotch’s voice was low as he voiced his thought. 

 “Yeah, what are the odds of that?” Y/N said, her question being rhetorical but she knew Spencer would answer.

 “Astronomical.” 

 Ah, there’s the answer, Y/N thought. 

 “Removing from the calculations serial killer groupies--” Spencer was cut off by Hotch lightly hitting her arm to have him stop. 

 “Y/N, why’d you ask?” JJ laughed. Y/N just shrugged, knowing she’d get the answer she kinda wanted to hear later. 

 “You know, whether she knew it or not, maybe Helen Garret did give Dylan something,” Derek said as he thought more into it. “I mean someone once said that every seed, even malignant ones, they won’t grow unless they get water from someplace.” 

-------------

 That night, after going out to celebrate Emily’s new house, Y/N walked into her home. Stumbling as her lips were connected to Spencer's. The impromptu makeout session starting at the door when Spencer started to say goodnight, but Y/N had a little too much champaign and really wanted a good ‘ole fashion junior-high makeout session. 

 She pushed him back to her couch, the two giggling like thirteen-year-olds as they kissed. She straddled his lap as they continued to kiss. It was childish and full of smiles and teeth as they giggled. Still, the kiss was full of love and tenderness as Spencer would caress the side of her face with his large hands. Or when she would grab the front of his sweater to pull him closer to her.

 “I really need to go home,” Spencer said. His lips brushing against Y/N’s as he spoke. 

 She didn’t listen and kept placing pecks on his lips before she let their lips mold together in bliss. 

 “No,” she protested quietly as she pulled away, then went back to his lips. 

 He chuckled, trying to pull back again to speak, but her lips chased his. “I’m not taking advantage of you, sweets,” he said gentlemanly. 

 She sighed, knowing that she was slightly drunk and he wasn’t going to keep going since she was. “Fine, but you owe me.” She poked his chest with every word. “Always a gentleman, even when I’m horny, but it’s fine.” Her words were a slur of mutters under her breath, but he heard her and laughed. 

 “Always.” He pecked her lips one more time as she stood up and led him to the door.     

 Once Spencer had given her one more kiss goodnight, promising her a coffee in the morning at work, she closed the door and turned to the inside of her apartment. A sigh of relief leaving her as she stepped further into her safe environment. She took her boots off and placed them by the door and moved her keys she dropped on the floor in the bowl on the table. She began to walk to her kitchen but stopped when her eyes caught glimpse of a letter. 

 She hastily pulled the wax seal back to open it, but became confused as she looked at the note. 

 Ashes, ashes, we all fall down. 

 She laughed, it was a pathetic line to spook her that wouldn’t work. She put the note back in the envelope and placed it with others. 

 She thought nothing of it. She didn’t think she would need too, but everything Caroline did had meaning. This too would show it’s meaning soon.

Tag List (let me know if you want to be added!!):

@throughparisallthroughrome​ @word-scribbless​ @nintendumbfuck​ @confused-and-really-hungry​ @justine-en​ @andiebeaword​ @itsarayofsunshine​ @baby-i-am-fireproof​ @abitofeverythinggg​ @nanocoool​ @marceline-is-my-spirit-animal​ @fancyfaucet​ @im-a-raging-gay​ @atletino @mo-whore @peterparkersdestiny​ @bandsandjill​ @mbowles23-blog​ @sarcasm-n-insomnia​ @citrussirus​ @nerual222 @april-14-blog​ @reidloversisforever @heavenlyholland​ 

[shadow-kings-legacy]

"We're wide awake now, our eyes are wide open" Definition of hero

1a : a mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent endowed with great strength or ability b : an illustrious warrior c : a person admired for achievements and noble qualities d : one who shows great courage source: Meriam Webster online dictionary

The dictionary definition of a hero paints quite a fantastic picture of an ideal good character, something my players and I have put aside for the PCs, who all have flaws, goals and needs. It makes me really proud everytime someone does something incredible and in-character when we play. But I digress, it's time to introduce the main characters of our journey. In order of appearence and color coded for your benefit: 🟡 Alyssa (the paladin) 🌞 🟠 Joshiro (the monk) ⚓ 🔵 Korinn (the warlock) 🌊 🎀 Nonemi (the artificer) 🔫 🟢 Ozthen (the rogue) 🍀 🟣 Vesper (the bard) 💄 ⚫ Cassius (the warlock) 📚 🔴 Phybble (the (villain) wizard) 🍵 (Not shown) Dakreg (the fighter) 💪 I'll go into detail about their backstories and my thoughts about them in individual posts. For now, I'd like to make a synopsis of the story and a little bit of the process of how I came up with it.

"Have you heard about the Warlock King?" "Shh! Don't call him that, least you'll anger him!" "Alright, how about Shadow King?" -Whispers amoung a Waterdeep tavern crowd It all started in our starting campaing, where our local tabaxi warlock Korinn chose Larloch, the Shadow King to be her patron. This is nothing new of course, he is a popular choice for he is know as an incredibly powerful archmage in the DnD lore, his existence stretching back for centuries, having been a powerful mage in the ancient Netheril empire. Always the naive woman, Korinn made a deal with the lich, and in exchange, she would bring him magical items and offer him interesting subjects for his research. But in her chaotic nature, Korinn chose to defy his orders at the end of Lost Mines of Phandelver, this being the starting point of our next plot, and the birth of our new BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy). Now, for anyone who has read a bit about Larloch, you'll know he's not really "evil" by canon lore, he's a lawful (but still kinda evil, he kills anyone not of interest to him without a second thought, come on) crature, one who wants to be left alone to read and experiment by his lonesome like the nerd he is, he simps for the goddess of magic Mystra (he calls her The Lady, tips fedora) and makes the ocassional ground breaking new magical item / spell of the moment. That said, the wiki gave me a juicy hook to use him as a villain:

"But he was also insane, his mind affected by his extreme age. Sometimes he could be calm and even whimsical. Other times he was crazed, snarling and launching spells at random" -Forgotten Realms Wiki

"Well now, ain't that interesting" thought the me of the past. You're telling me this stupidly powerful being, who is presumed to have planned to every single variant that could occur, Dr Strange style, is a unstable old man? Sweet. So the magical equivalent of an atomic bomb's trigger was being held by this dude, let's just make the small sliver of sanity he has left realize he is loosing himself, that time is running out and he has to secure his legacy, to go out with a boom. But Larloch is not that selfish, he knows whatever plan he comes up with will affect Faerûn as a whole, so why not try to change the continet for good? Start a new era, an age of magic. Sweet lady Mystra, as much as she likes him, would not approve of him messing with her precious Weave of course, so his first step, deal with the meddling (but oh so beautiful) goddess of magic. He would not kill her, as he is no fool, gods can not be slayed (or can they...? Let's put a pin in that as well); so he'll just trap her, sealing her powers and keeping her safe in the safest place he knows, his phylactery. One deceitful invitation later, and with the help of his ol' "pals" Szass Tam, Zulkir of Necromancy and leader of the Thay nation; and the ancient black dragon (I know, he's cannonicaly green, but as I said, this is semi-homebrewed to fit the needs of my table) Vorgansharax, better know as the The Maimed Virulence, Mystra finds herself trapped and helpless at the hand of one of the few mortals she admired. Ain't life funny.

"Wait, so you're telling me a goddess, and not just any goddess, the misstress of fucking magic got trapped and no one noticed?!" Well, not quite dear reader, the other gods of the pantheon of course noticed, particulary god of justice Torm and his fiance (again, homebrewed) goddess of beauty Sune. The latter being the first to realized the absence of her dear friend, who went and told her man something smelled fishy (or dead, considering Larloch's an undead?). Both set out to investigate, and considering not many beings in the realm could be a danger to a god, the trail let to our lich friend quite fast. Torm, being a bit of a hot-head jumped at the chance to teach justice to this creature, while Tyr, the old god of justice begged him to reconsider, to think things through before taking actions. "A mortal capable of making Mystra dissapear is not to be taken lightly my friend" he said to deaf ears.

And so, with Sune helping him, Torm met with quite the surprise. Larloch had prepared for the interferance of other gods, so he ran a little experiment, he knew gods couldn't be killed, but why was that? The church would tell you it's because the gods live on all of us, as long as we believe in them, so even if they were to be struck down, the faith of the believers would bring them back. "The hypothesis is set, it is time to test it". And test it he did. With the raw power of two ancient liches and a black dragon, they were struck down in all of their inmortal arrogance. Larloch tracked the massive magical energies to two mortals in the Material Plane. "Interesting". The gods, after the mess that the Spellplague caused in the mortal's plane, had decided to not pick "champions" to control again it seemed, but still designed "vessels" of high faith and compatibility with their characteristics to recuperate their strenght at a faster rate if something were to happen to them. "So it is true, gods cannot die as long as their faith exist in mortals... Well now, what would happen if we removed this faith? Time for a new experiment. How intriguing". And so, the Shadow King set out to do the impossible, again. I'll tell more about the backstory and start tyring to tie in the PCs in the next posts. it is quite a lot of information, so putting everything together is a bit overwhelming, but so fun. Makes me realize how much work I've put into this. I'm proud of myself, take that depression! Stay tunned, and beware of the shadows 💀 Credit of the Faerûn map goes to Johnovick on Reddit.

[darkpoisonouslove]

I'm offering you an empty salt shaker - asks 2, 5, 6, 15 (go ahead, I know you have something XD), 16, 20, 25 (about Bloom searching for her parents storyline)

Starting this again because guess who accidentally hit the key combination for undo and lost half an answered ask! This bitch right here.

I answered 2 here.

5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?*

Not that I can think of. It’s usually the source material that ruins things and fandom is tasked with fixing them later.

6. Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?*

I didn’t hate it but Bloom x Icy was incomprehensible to me. Fics helped a lot and so did other posts from here and there and I can see it now. Also, I totally couldn’t see Griffin x Codatorta but that changed, too. Though, that was less fandom and more trashcankitty12 with an ask that made me think about it a little more in-depth so it was pretty much me roping up myself into yet another ship. But ooh, I also don’t think I had considered Palladium x Avalon before fandom but, yes, indeed, it is right there in canon. And I was so puzzled over the Riven x Nabu content I was seeing but after watching seasons 3 and 4, I can totally see where this is coming from. The people are right. That is a bromance right there.

15. Unpopular opinion about the manga/show?

I have no idea what is popular and what isn’t (but you’re right that I have something aka A LOT) so I’ll just list my strong opinionsTM, okay? I will try not to dump on Bloom too much also because it is not a secret that I don’t like her so there is no need for me to go in too much detail.

4kids is the superior dub. That is probably the most controversial opinion I hold. But don’t worry, I’ll try to top it and up the ante. XD

I love Enchantix but it has so many flaws as a concept and even more as an execution and the thing that is really pissing me off is how obviously centered around Bloom’s arc it is. It was clearly created for the advancement of her character and the other girls’ stories came as an afterthought which is why Tecna’s Enchantix was total bullshit. And for having a transformation that is specifically created around Bloom, hers was bullshit as well. I think they should have let her reearn it in order for her to be able to use all of its functions like miniaturizing. Also also, at so many points it totally sounds like Bloom is not upset about the fact that Domino and all of its people were destroyed but about the fact that that means she won’t get her Enchantix. Which btw was a hasty conclusion because at the time Enchantix became a thing, she was still on a mission to find her parents which would have definitely been a way to earn her Enchantix and she had a sign that they were alive. So her angsting over not getting an Enchantix because of what happened on Domino was bad form on the writers’ part.

That spell for good decisions in 1x05 was one of the show’s lowest and most ridiculous moments. It was only included to flaunt in your face how naturally being a leader comes to Bloom because “See? See!!!!!! She can make a good decision without using magic to help her!” So can the majority of the population (note that we are talking about ONE good decision, not an unbreakable sequence of such). She ain’t all that special. Plus, Tecna was written wildly OOC there in order to boost Bloom’s stats so to speak. I’m sorry but Tecna would’ve known that three against four doesn’t give them advantage since they are freshmen and the Trix were seniors at the time. God, that scene was stupid.

Flora is the most boring character in seasons 1-3, fight me about it.

The writers totally had no idea what they were doing with the witches throughout most of season 1 which is why Griffin’s characterization in that season is so inconsistent. Also, wtf was that in 1x06? She straight up tried to kill a bunch of 15-year-old girls. Take a chill pill! I’m glad they figured out a much better balance with her later on.

Not using the fact that Cloud Tower is a living organism more was a fucking wasted opportunity. Especially in season 3 when Valtor took over it. That could have made everything so much better. Also, the witches should have been used more. They were interesting but deserved so much better in terms of development.

Sky should have just fucking died in 2x10. What were these resurrections and Bloom getting healing powers out of nowhere for a total of 5 seconds? You know, that could have been a good setup for a Bloom x Diaspro romance. It would have been so much better if they’d gotten together right after 1x17 and dumped Sky’s sorry ass. Also, Diaspro deserved better.

Riven is the best Specialist but he is especially better than Sky. Remember 1x22 when he was trying to escape CT? He was trapped deep in enemy territory with monsters everywhere and so high above the ground, yet he found his way out. Sky would’ve fucking died out in the open at Magix against one single monster if Bloom hadn’t shown up to rescue him. And the show has the gall to imply that Sky is a better Specialist than Riven is? Please!

The teachers should be fined and sued for emotional and physical damage they haven’t protected their students from. Especially the Alfea teachers who in 1x02 practically admitted that the witches might maim a fairy and they still won’t do shit about it. Nice one!

Griffin and Valtor is canonical subtext and I have nothing more to say about this. It is all there.

Valtor up until 3x18 and Valtor from 3x19 to 3x26 are two different people and the prior is superior in every way. The show ruined him in the last third of the season because there was no other way for Winx to defeat him.

Speaking about Valtor, his whole thing with the Trix is despicable and I hate it so much. It is extremely cringy on their part and extremely underhanded on his and I can’t stand it. Not to mention that it is wildly OOC for the Trix because they are obviously better than that.

I cannot understand saying that Bloom x Valtor is love-hate. I see only hate.

It is ridiculous how easily the Trix beat Griffin in season 6 and how they nearly take control over CT in season 2. And it is also ridiculous that she had to wait for Winx to unspell CT in season 3. She is a teacher, the headmistress of the most prestigious school for witches, a veteran and has been Valtor’s partner (and he himself admitted that together they were unstoppable which means that she has to be pretty powerful and even somewhere close to his level of power). Can the show stop acting like she is defenseless?

The teachers should have been used more. It would’ve been so much better if they were there to at least help Winx if not lead their battles. And it would have made much more sense. Also, how come Ediltrude and Zarathustra literally disappear when it’s convenient and then reappear again (like they did in season 1 when the witches went to Alfea)? That’s just bad writing.

Sky is adopted. He doesn’t resemble Erendor or Samara neither in appearance, nor in character and I hate them enough to headcanon that he was adopted but nobody knows because they don’t want to have claims that he is not an “official” heir of the throne because he isn’t part of the bloodline.

Mike and Vanessa are much more parents to Bloom than Marion and Oritel are, especially when the latter were first released from Obsidian, and the fact that Bloom starts calling them Mike and Vanessa instead of mom and dad after she learns she has other parents is abysmal. Also, they are literally the best parents ever and I love them to death. (I also like Marion and Oritel but Mike and Vanessa are definitely the superior pair of parents if we’re ranking them. I like the idea that the two couples are actually super close and love each other like relatives, in fact.)

What the fuck is up with the magic in this show? There is literally, like, NO FUCKING CONSISTENCY WHATSOEVER! You can’t blink without the rules of it changing in some way. But what am I saying? That would imply that there are any rules which is just not true. Also, there is no clear distinction of how powerful anyone is after season 1. The balance of powers especially between Winx and the Trix is pretty much whatever works for the episode. Same for Winx vs Valtor. The fuckery on that account is unreal. Plus, some of Bloom’s major power explosions happen due to her getting angry. According to the official Wiki - “While practicing or harnessing positive magic, one must keep a compassionate heart, primarily by keeping their thoughts and feelings clear of all negativity, making them capable of attracting positive energy more easily. Thus, if one is plagued with negative thoughts or feelings such as sadness, anger or fear, then their magic will grow   weaker until they may even be left incapable of casting magic until said feelings pass.“ Read that and then read it again, let it sink in. According to the rules of the Winx universe, during some of Bloom’s most powerful moments she was actually using dark magic, not light such because it was fueled by rage. Way to keep it fucking consistent. And that is not just Bloom! FLORA out of all people attacks the Trix in rage in 3x12 when they hurt her sister aka she was also using dark magic at that situation (and then you have Wizgiz scolding Mirta for it in SotLK like it is a sin to use dark magic, smh). In some instances I would argue that it was more of determination to protect rather than anger which I would say would still result in light magic. But The Flora thing, Bloom vs Stormy in 1x09 (Bloom even says she got so angry so that was not a case of protectiveness), Bloom vs Icy in 1x26 and Bloom vs Valtor in 3x14 were definitely rage aka dark magic. And then Bloom is all “fairies don’t have any demons”. Guess again, bitch! Also, writers, you need a dictionary to start comprehending the words you are actually writing?

Now that I think of it, the whole arc in the Resort Realm was bullshit. If it is a magic-free realm, nobody should have any magic in it, period! What is this bullshit that you can use Charmix and Gloomix there because they have higher magical energy? That absolutely doesn’t matter! If there isn’t any magic in the entire realm, having a higher amount of magic in you will not matter because you still can’t use it... because there isn’t any in the realm!!!!!! What the hell! Honestly, the writers can’t comprehend what words mean and that is not the only instance in which it shows.

Someone told me that SotLK is better than Magical Adventure and I don’t mean to offend but that is simply not true. Magical Adventure is leagues above SotLK even if it has some structural problems. Like, literally everything is better. Bloom and Sky are even likable and communicate!!!!!!!! Literally when have you ever seen a better moment for their relationship than in Magical Adventure? If it had been all like that, I would have liked them as a couple.

I think I got everything that comes to mind rn out. Might think of more at some point. I was done and then came back to rage some more because I remembered I had more material.

16. If you could change anything in the show, what would you change?

I would have them make smart decisions because 99% of the shit they pull is so stupid it is unreal. I literally cannot tell how they are still alive. Oh, no wait! Plot armor. Yep, that’s it.

But if I had to pick something specific? Bring Nabu back. I sure as hell wouldn’t have killed him. That was an asshole move and I have no idea what the hell the writers were thinking when they wrote that.

And my second choice is - implement a magical system into the series because there isn’t one. Magic always works the way the writers need it to work to pull off their bullshit plot even if it contradicts everything that we’ve seen before. Please, for the love of god! Consistency is already dead; stop stabbing its corpse!!!!

20. What is the purest ship in the fandom?

Purest ship? Lmao, asking me this question is underhanded. XD If you mean no drama, then Flora and Helia Mike and Vanessa. But I think my actual answer would be Griffin x Faragonda because they have been through so much that we know of or we can deduce and they still stuck together. Sure, they had their ups and downs but it is obviously a love for life that has lasted through so many obstacles and keeps lasting. The reason why I can’t say the same for Mike and Vanessa is because we don’t really know that much about their relationship with each other. But anyway I love both these ships so much.

If you’re talking about a canon ship, though, then Brandon and Stella (I do not recognize the stupid relationship drama in season 4 as canon). He did lie to her about his identity in season 1 but it was for his friendship with Sky (alternatively, for his job and duty as Sky’s squire). I just love how obviously in love Brandon is with Stella and how much Stella doesn’t care about anything but him. She didn’t care that he was a “commoner” and - one of my fave moments - in 1x08 she only cared about his well-being rather than the competition. It was adorable and they are adorable and I love them so much. Pure serotonin, right there!

25. How would you end the Bloom searching for her parents storyline/Would you change the ending?

I would certainly change the logistics of the whole thing because, boy, did it make no sense at all. As for the actual ending, I’d argue that physically finding them is not the end of that storyline and she needs to “find” them emotionally as well which would definitely take more time than SotLK cared to address. Like, she got them out of Obsidian and boom, everything’s fine! She literally doesn’t know them! Those are her parents and she doesn’t know anything about them! Their touch and their voices are unfamiliar to her even and they have missed on so much that they will never be able to get back and you’re saying that everything is fine? Yeah, right.

I would have had her spend a year on Domino with them before season 4. The school year that started in SotLK? She spends that with them. Possibly even the one that starts in Magical Adventure as well. She learns everything she can about them and the family history. She also learns how to be a proper royal because she is the Crown Princess now and she has no idea what the fuck she is doing. I would have made seasons 4 and possibly 5 about that and added more politics in it. Layla and Stella are also princesses who will run their kingdoms one day so we could have had adventures in political relations with Winx Club. They are pretty famous so I am sure there would be rulers of other lands that see them as threats and don’t like them. There could have been tension about that and the whole thing with Domino being the planet of the Dragon Fire could have been addressed. Who would dare oppose them when they are the most powerful force? Are they the most powerful force after the 17 years the planet spent as an ice block? Are there old alliances to be reforged? What is the political climate in the Magic Dimension? All absolutely fascinating questions that would have helped the worldbuilding and made place for Marion and Oritel in Bloom’s life and in the show. We could’ve gone back to the feel of season 1 when they also had other things going on besides the big baddie of the season and it could have been a little more episodical with a loose theme to connect the season and the overarching story of Bloom finding her parents and her place in the world she was born in. That could have been positively epic... And a great way to retain the cast because the Company of Light were allegedly friends so we could have seen Marion and Oritel reconnecting with Griffin, Faragonda, Saladin and Hagen. There could have been resurfacing debates left over from the war. Kingdoms angry at Domino for something that happened back then in order to include flashbacks with the events. AND that would work out with the fact that the Ancestral Witches were still around and could have led to another epic battle that wouldn’t end with the destruction of a whole planet. Like I said, there were amazing possibilities... and they were all wasted.

Well, this was long... and just what I needed. I hope some (civilized) discussion will spark out of that because I am tired of screaming in a void and I want people to talk to me.

[onlinehomeswork]

5e Best Languages - The Importance of Learning Deep Speech

D&D (dungeon & Dragon) are a family of game-writing methods including AD&D (adders & treasures), Swords and Shields (martial arts), and more. D&D has many different versions over the years, varying depending on who was writing and how they defined the rules. The most popular D&D method today is the fifth edition D&D (fifth edition is when most of the material was done and published), and it continues to be one of the most popular games for use with both new and old players alike. In this article, we'll go over some of the reasons why you might play D&D, as well as how to get started.

One of the greatest things about fifth edition D&D is that you can play characters from all backgrounds, races, and stat ranges, which give you a lot more options for your DM. By using one or more of your extra languages for character generation (usually Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma), you give your character backgrounds an extra element. For example, if you choose to play a gnome wizard, your character might also have knowledge in spellcasting. This doesn't mean, however, that you can't play a half orc/half gnome wizard if you'd like; it's just that every class can use at least one language, so your character becomes versatile.

One of the biggest reasons that people start playing a D&D game is because they are looking for an experience that will make them feel creative. Learning 5e DMs can give you that experience, but it's going to require some work on your part. Since you won't be using any of your extra skills or classes on the first few nights of play, you'll have to learn to use the tools that your character is inherently fitted to have. So, how do you go about learning 5e DMs? There are a few different options, and here's a look at some of the popular ones Get and Online Homes Work.

First, you have to know the five basic DMs. These are arcane, herbal, spiritual, nature, and valor. You should already be familiar with these mechanics by now, if you're playing a PC. Each of these styles of play will require different skills, so you should spend some time learning your character's strengths, weaknesses, and other traits. This will give you some idea as to how you need to be spending your time when learning 5e languages then your character can use them effectively.

Next, you'll need to get started with studying the standard books and articles that you'll need for each style of play. Since you can't read many of the articles used in 5e DMs, you'll want to take a look at an online dictionary first. This should give you plenty of examples of proper nouns, proper verbs, and other things that you need to learn to properly use with your DM's. Another option is to read through several adventure books that you'll probably want to run out and buy after you finish all of your research in dnd languages 5e. These books will teach you lots about adventure gaming, what the settings are like, and how you can use the knowledge you've gained to create exciting stories.

Lastly, there's the option of playing several virtual tabletop RPGs. There are several DMs available today, so you can jump right into a game and start developing a character right away. The problem with this option is that you can't learn many of the skills that you'll need to use effectively when using your DM. However, this type of learning environment is ideal for someone who is just getting started with creating characters, because they can choose their own equipment and start using abilities right away. For those who are interested in more traditional role playing games, such as the Age of Conan, you'll likely want to stick to one of the many online sources where you can pick up several tips and tricks that you can use to create exciting characters and interesting situations. A good online dictionary, a dose of adventure games, and a role playing campaign using deep speech may be just the thing you need to take your 5e best languages to the next level.

[rigelmejo]

sometimes it is a bit frustrating how purist some language learning forums can be about their learning method being best and unquestionable, unable to find resources from more. like, i get liking a study method that works for you, we all do! i do not get shooting down resources that can and already helped someone, just because they didn’t help you personally (or you don’t like using them particularly), so it makes it hard for another person to find those resources and discourages using them in the first place.

the post (featuring some interesting links) by Strong-Philosophy-46 : https://www.reddit.com/r/Refold/comments/n09cxk/i_think_shadowing_should_be_used_in_the_early/

from all what I've read, shadowing seems to improve phonemic awareness (the ability to hear phonemes), listening comprehension and even pitch accent in Japanese. Which all seem to be the whole point of doing an only input/no output period in the beginning.

I was on the Refold reddit again (used to be massiveimmersionapproach). And someone mentioned that shadowing may have benefits earlier on in language study - compared to Refold, which does do shadowing but not until you are basically passively able to comprehend most things to all overall things in a language (so 1-2 years into study at least). Refold insists it is efficient (I would argue while it certainly is, it amounts to srs flashcards to speed up memorization and lots of comprehensible input and ambiguous input which generally will help learners at any stage improve comprehension skills). And that its goal in mind is to learn effectively.

I sort of think, to a degree, some people who do Refold appreciate the fact there’s no encouraged output early on - either they don’t like talking, practicing with people, don’t feel comfortable writing grammar until they have a much more solid foundation compared to when textbooks make you from day 1 (that last reason’s a big reason I tend to put off output until I know more grammar). Now its great to do what you prefer! Because it will get you to KEEP studying, and that’s always more effective and efficient than what makes you give up/avoid the language. So in that sense yes avoiding output until later, if you desire, is probably the more effective choice to make. 

But at the same time? Refold encourages NOT doing output sooner, even if you feel the urge and even if some Refold studiers outputted sooner, the general consensus is ‘you will mess up accent, build bad habits, sacrifice your eventual output quality’ so people tend to discourage it. By earlier I mean like 5 months, in 10 months in - not day 1 of study. So if research happened to find, that shadowing at those earlier stages of 5 months etc actually Improves long term output skills? Then that’s great! It shows Refold’s tendency to discourage output until excellent passive comprehension fluency is achieved is unnecessary, and if you desire to output sooner (and it will motivate you, since what’s most effective is always what you’ll DO versus quit), then it would be great to know shadowing is something you can do sooner! And that it may even help your goals faster!

As I mentioned, Refold still eventually encourages shadowing after you’ve reached a high level of comprehension fluency - and at that point, you still have to do all the same shadowing techniques and work (you don’t get to skip steps, though the sounds might be more familiar). So ultimately Refold does use shadowing and already knows its helpful. I do wonder though if some people feel they need to justify their desire to not output earlier as ‘its better for my skills to Wait.” When like... in some ways that sounds to me just like perhaps a textbook/classroom learner who refuses to try to read target language novels for 2 years because they haven’t learned “the skills yet” and might misinterpret the grammar of what they read or reinforce fuzzy understanding - even though no matter how long its put off, immersion in target language content will eventually have to happen and be practiced. 

Like, the unwillingness to do shadowing earlier even if it proves to be more effective - especially if the arguement is “oh well despite proof i think it will be less effective” just rings to me like people trying to avoid what they dislike. And i think its fine to avoid what one dislikes, because for an individual it IS going to be more effective always than quitting. I just also think that Reason is good enough on its Own - there is no reason to belittle other learning approaches and strategies as less effective (especially if its proven they are more effective, but even just if someone finds them useful they’re effective to the person who will do them), when your reason of ‘i prefer not to yet’ is really good enough. Its good enough.

Just to emphasize, I’ve seen the exact opposite - traditional learners claiming ‘refold’ is ineffective and should be avoided and it ‘slows’ progress and is inefficient and a waste of time. I really do think those kinds of discouragements just keep learners who might learn or simply prefer to study DIFFERENT from you from finding wonderful ideas/materials/resources that may suit them much better, simply because a person would rather shoot down offering more resources rather than just say “well that’s useful to someone, but for me I hated doing it so I do it this way since it works better for me/I can stay motivated.” 

When I started studying chinese, I looked up lots of “how to read chinese” articles and forum posts. Since I wanted to read asap. I found some good advice. I also found a lot of angry posts. There were some people on chinese learner forums who insisted one must learn up to HSK 6 vocabulary (some were huge proponents of using anki, some hated anki - i relate to the can’t do flashcards crowd lol). And then even after that, start with graded readers, learn 3000+ hanzi before being able to tackle target language novels made for natives with a dictionary. Its pretty clear from what I describe, they probably had a personal preference for little ambiguity when engaging with chinese (too much incomprehensible input would cause them to want to quit/burn out and that’s perfectly understandable since most people generally don’t like tolerating under 95-98% comprehension). 

They were very opposite of the Refold method’s idea of immersing in content from day 1, so huge amount of ambiguity for many months. Well these people on this forum really insisted reading in chinese even with a dictionary was an insurmountable task without years of study. I obviously ended up not following their preference. But they didn’t talk about it like “oh I dislike ambiguity so I prefer to prepare this much to make the material tolerable to immerse with” they instead talked about it like “doing it any other way is hopeless and will result in needing to do this anyway.”

I ended up following the advice of people who wanted to learn like I like learning - I found examples of people who did it more like I would, knew they succeeded so I’d have some success, and copied them. There really are all kinds of methods for different people and needs/wants. I read an article of a guy who read some radical basics (me too), learned 2000 common words in memrise with a linked deck (I did it too it took 2 months, but I spread it out over 4 months of a month on then a break then another month on). Then they said they just started reading, with a dictionary, learning more words from there. I did that too - it worked for me too. I also knew from prior japanese study I needed hanzi learning help so i read a reference for maybe 500 hanzi during those months. I knew from french prior study I did better reading a grammar summary ahead of reading, so I did that too (before the common words, it took 2 weeks). I did NOT end up having to wait for years, to learn up to HSK 6, to start reading with a dictionary (my initial goal). It took about 8-10 months for the grammar to click enough that vocab lookup became the only issue, and one month burst studying about 500 more hanzi in a Hanzi Mnemonic Anki deck to quickly learn some hanzi I was running into in reading and just wanted to remember easier. So about a year in, I could move to just reading for enjoyment and looking up words with a dictionary without new hanzi frustrating me (learning them the same as words now just looking them up) and without grammar confusing me. So that base goal, that some people’s experiences learning up to HSK 6 I read - they could not even tackle some graded readers by HSK 6. 

I think part of what held back their progress there was just... not wanting to immerse and insisting it would be ‘too hard’ to try sooner. While its fine if it kept them studying, for people like me who need to engage right away? It could’ve been discouraging and caused some people to feel less motivated if they happened to be setting up such expectations. I still don’t know a lot of HSK 6 words, and about 2/3 maybe of HSK 5 words? After HSK 4 the common 2000 words I studied didn’t match up as much to HSK, and also I started picking up words mainly in my reading and shows so now what words I know is much more related to the genres I engage with.  I’ve read some stats that The Little Prince has a low unique word count but about 50% of the words aren’t in HSK - so if you learned only from HSK without outside sources, its still not necessarily 98% comprehensible. Whatever smattering I learned from must have shared more words than 50% (though not 98% either I don’t think - not quite that easy). 

My point is just like... yeah I am aware the lack of listening i did in french held me back, the lack of shadowing/producing in chinese is now my weaker area. I know i avoid them more because i’m less interested and mainly just would not be as motivated to write a journal/talk regularly right now as i am in other things. But i also think if people learn differently? Things may work better for them, we all have different preferences. Anything useful, that might get someone To study, I think is worthwhile to share. 

[oh-boleyn]

overdramatic and true (words)

words: 2902, one shot, language: english. f/f (parrlyn)

tw: swearing

Catherine Parr was a writer; she had always been.

She was a writer because she loved the sweet feeling of release she could gain after a poem, or a short story. She was a writer because there was something so unique and magical about escaping her world and go to another. She was a writer because she wanted to save memories of a lost world, to save history in a way other could later go back to it.

But mostly, before anything, Catherine Parr was a writer because she loved words.

It was as simple as it, just for words.

Word, or plural, words is a noun. It means a speech sound or series of speech sounds that symbolizes and communicates a meaning usually without being divisible into smaller units capable of independent use.

Any free time Catherine had in her new life would be used to use her laptop and write.

Sometimes she did research, about her old life, to try to find anything she could have missed the first time. Nowadays there was a lot of information everywhere, no need to even move from your house even when she truly, honestly loved going to the library.

Library is also a noun. It means a place in which literary, musical, artistic, or reference materials are kept for use but not for sale.

Other times her research wasn’t about her previous life but rather about the things that were oddly still there nowadays, and even when they changed, they didn’t change enough. Such as languages. For example, her favorites words in every language.

“Cada loco con su tema” is a Spanish idiom. It can be translated as “Every crazy person with their own thing” and it’s used for when someone does something weird, meaning that everyone has their own (odd) thing. This quote also can imply that everyone is crazy.

At night she usually would write fairytales or short night lullabies. In her old life she did so while pregnant, wiling to teach Mae how to write, and read her a different story every night. Now she did it to herself when nights were too dark and she couldn’t sleep.

Insomnia is a prolonged and usually abnormal inability to get enough sleep. It can become serious depending on how much time the patient has it.

In the morning she loved playing rather than just working. Every one needed break, and crazy geniuses did too. Parr liked words so much she loved doing crosswords. After the first few weeks, Katherine (Not with a C, but with a K. It happened when some names were translated, or for a mistake when someone was writing.) started doing them too. It was their way of bonding.

“Ten. Extravagant.” Katherine says one morning, while drinking her half coffee half milk, and a ton of sugar.

“Flamboyant.” Catherine easily says, drinking her black coffee, no sugar.

“No.” Katherine says.

“What do you mean no?”

“It doesn’t match the other words. It has to start with an O.”

“Outlandish.” Anne easily slides into the conversation, while serving herself a chocolate milk.

Outlandish is not a noun, but an adjective. It can mean of or relating to another country, synonym of foreign. But it can also mean strikingly out of the ordinary, such as bizarre.

“Thank you, Anne, it matches really well.”

Anne is a name. Alternatively, spelled Ann, is a form of the Latin female given name Anna. This in turn is a representation of the Hebrew Hannah, which means 'favour' or 'grace.'

“How did you know it?” Parr asks.

“I know English.” Anne laughs.

For Parr, Anne used to just be an echo of a name nobody says. People would talk about Catherine’s namesake, the first queen. But nobody dared to speak even a word about Anne Boleyn. Strange enough, for a ghost, everyone knew her story. Born into a noble house, moved to the France court when she was young. Enchanted everyone there, came back to England later in life. Her sister was one of the king’s mistresses, and as such she was married to a fellow noble. But Anne wanted more, and she could just have it all.

Charming means extremely pleasing or delightful.

Things went wrong as everyone knew. You don’t have to argue with a king, but she did. And it costed her head.

Getting to know Anne was weird. There was just a light in her, something captivating. You couldn’t just take your eyes away from her. She didn’t even need words sometime to make you feel enchanted by her presence. You would just know when she walked into a room because it was impossible not to see her.

Attractive means having or relating to the power to attract. For example, “attractive forces between molecules”. Carl Sagan (an American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, science popularizer, and science communicator) once said: “But the essence of life is not so much the atoms and simple molecules that make us up as the way in which they are put together.”. What leads us to other meaning of the word, which is arousing interest or pleasure, appealing.

The way Anne molecules and atoms were put together was really appealing, Cathy would say. That could give the conclusion that Anne Boleyn was an arousing interest or pleasure, what people would like to describe as attractive.

Catherine Parr thought Anne Boleyn was attractive.

Crush is a transitive verb, that means to squeeze or force by pressure so as to alter or destroy structure.

Crush, described by Urban Dictionary meant a person who gives you butterflies and makes your heart beat faster. A person that you can’t describe in a word, but multiple words. A person you can’t get off your mind.

Maybe Catherine had a crush on Anne. And maybe that’s why she couldn’t pick up a word for her, but the problem was that even choosing a thousand different words, she still couldn’t describe the queen. It wasn’t a matter of quantity, but rather quality. There was no word good enough for Anne, even if Catherine loved words, she loved Anne even more.

(…)

Catherine of Aragon was wardship.

Wardship means care and protection of a ward.

It was an elegant word, not so used nowadays, that made Cathy think about her past life.

Mary was four years younger than Cathy. And Catherine was twenty-seven years older. Maybe that’s why when they reincarnated Catherine took Cathy like the daughter she lost. Giving her protection, even when Parr was the second more aware of what went down in history, the first being Anna.

Catherine really became in that life the godmother she wasn’t in the past one, helping Cathy and taking care of her. Buying gifts and planning short trips. Talking her out of bad decisions and offering advice.

Her word was wardship, because it was an echo of an old life, but turned into the new one. It was her word because she made Cathy thought of her as someone she could go to and be safe.

(…)

Jane Seymour was loving.

Loving could mean affectionate (feeling or showing affection or warm regard) or painstaking (taking pains: expending, showing, or involving diligent care and effort).

In a first life, Catherine would have added a self before that word. After all, deep, really deep down they knew Jane loved Henry, even if he was gruesome, hideous, repulsive, poor excuse of a man, Jane did. And she did what she had to do to get him. That included Anne’s execution.

But now Jane had changed. The love of a mother some might say, even if she wasn’t a mother for a long time. She sure acted like a mother to Katherine, helping her through nightmares and panic attacks.

Jane tried to show her love to everyone. She was open about her feelings. Loved to make gifts that demonstrated how much thought she put into it.

Her word was loving because of the sweet warm that emanated from her. Not exactly a mother to Parr, but definitely someone she could go after a long night and know she would receive the attention she sometimes craved.

(…)

Anna of Cleves was a bitch.

Bitch is informal, often offensive: a malicious, spiteful, or overbearing woman.

Anna was a total bitch because she could see through Catherine’s feelings. And totally mocked her about her crush on Boleyn.

Anna of Cleve’s word was bitch, and there is no need explanation.

(…)

Katherine Howard’s word was shatterable.

Shatterable means capable of being shattered. To break at once into pieces.

Catherine saw Howard break too many times, into too many pieces, into too many times.

Howard shattered in two pieces, her body and her head. Luckily beheading was not a thing in modern times.

But outside that, Parr always feared for Kat. She wanted nothing more to try to help and protect her from any harm that might come to her. Too many bad things had already happened to the young girl, she didn’t deserve anymore harm.

Katherine’s word was shatterable because Catherine always feared she might shatter at any moment.

(…)

None of them were just a word, of course. It would be offensive and totally not okay. But for Catherine they could still be described by the words she knew. Not even in the new words she found out the world created.

Internet says there are one hundred seventy-one thousand four hundred seventy-six words in use nowadays and forty-seven thousand one hundred fifty-six obsolete words. That just being in English. In Spanish there are about one hundred fifty thousand words. This leads to a total of at least three hundred sixty-eight thousand six hundred thirty-two words. And still it wasn’t enough for Parr to describe Anne Boleyn.

Impossible means incapable of being or of occurring.

(…)

Working in her research at night was something that she noticed helped her. Tiring her brain after reading a lot of new sources of material was what she usually needed before a peaceful sleep. If she wasn’t tired enough, nightmares were a normal occurrence.

That’s why she was awake and could hear steps in the kitchen, so she decided to investigate.

Unsettling means having the effect of upsetting, disturbing, or discomposing.

Luckily, it wasn’t a ghost. Just Anne grabbing a snack.

“Why are you awake?” Boleyn asks, taking a bite of her chocolate bar.

“I don’t sleep a lot.” Parr replies, sitting beside the woman. “Why are you awake?”

“Just can’t sleep, my mind doesn’t let me.” She takes a deep breath.

“Why don’t we go to bed and I will sing you a song.”

They both laughed lightly, but Anne nodded. They headed to her room, and in the dark of the night Catherine started thinking.

Lullaby can be a noun or a verb. The noun lullaby means a song to quiet children or lull them to sleep. The verb lullaby means to quiet with or as if with a lullaby.

“There is this really dark lullaby, called duermete niño, it’s in Spanish as you can imagine.”

“Isn’t it like ‘Sleep, child’?” Anne questions. “My Spanish is really rusty.”

“Yes, it’s that. Except that the lyrics are ‘duérmete ya, que viene el coco y te comerá’ which is basically ‘sleep now, or a monster will come and eat you’.”

“It sounds terrifying for kids.” Boleyn waits a minute before talking. “I used to sing French lullabies to Elizabeth.”

“She loved lullabies.”

“Really?”

“Yes, her favourite was a French one.”

Añoranza is a Spanish word. It is a feeling of sadness about the remoteness, absence, privation or loss of someone or something dear. Synonyms in English could be nostalgia, yearning, longing. Sense of loss.

(…)

Catherine Parr loved words, because words hold so much power.

That is something she learnt in her past life.

"Off with their heads!” is a phrase spoken by the Queen of Hearts in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Somebody who also knew the power of words was Anna of Cleves. What someone says to you, even if that person is the embodiment of stupidity, can cause problems. Maybe that’s why she was the one who liked make-up the most in their group.

“You should tell Boleyn how you feel about her” Parr denies with her head.

“No, no way.”

“I thought it was Aragon’s quote.” Cleves mocks. “But really, you should tell her. It’s painful to watch you following her around as if she was, I don’t know, the queen.”

“Funny” Catherine says, rolling her eyes. “I don’t know how to say it.”

“Yes, you do.”

“I really don’t.” Cathy stares at the nothing, trying to process thoughts into words. “It’s like when she in front of me I go totally numb. I have no way to move, or talk, or thinking. Every single part of her is distracting, and I can’t take my eyes or my brain away from her. I start searching for words but nothing is enough. She is more of what I can explain.”

“Then, my friend, you are in deep shit.”

Deep shit means to be in trouble.

Cleves stands up to leave the room.

“Anna” Catherine calls. “Can you not tell this to anyone?”

There is nervousness in her voice, she can totally feel it.

“I wasn’t planning telling anyone.”

“Thank you.”

“That’s what friends are for.”

Friendship means the state of being friends.

Catherine Parr considered Anna a bitch, but she also considered her a friend, a close friend, if not the closest. Once upon a time she would think it was weird to think of someone as both of those things, but it was as simply as that. You can love to pieces and still know that they have flaws.

Realism is the theory or practice of fidelity in art and literature to nature or to real life and to accurate representation without idealization.

And if Catherine was going to be honest, she knew that Anna was just making what she thought was correct, even when it bothered Parr. Anna always tried to do the good, right thing, and that’s what they all loved her.

(…)

Writing has always been her thing, but when her mind could not longer escape the thoughts about Anne, she decided it was a time to stop. Of course, she tried writing to Anne, but nothing convinced her to send it. So now, with everyone asleep, was the perfect moment to tell her.

Or maybe it wasn’t, but she couldn’t wait.

Midnight is the middle of the night, more specifically, 12 o’clock at night.

Parr knocks the door twice. “Anne?”

She hears nothing, and is about to go back to her room, just as the door opens.

Unexpected means not expected. Expect means to consider probable or certain. Probable means establishing a probability. Probability means something (such as an event or circumstance) that is probable.

“Cathy? Are you here?” Anne is moving a hand in front of her eyes. “You zoomed out.”

“I- Yes- Sorry- Just-“

“Breathe Catherine, come in.”

She opens the door to let her in and then closes, trying not to make noise.

“What’s going on?”

“I have to tell you something.”

There is some tension in the air. Something not said between them.

“I’m in love with you.” Anne says first.

Unexpected, could be use for example as: “Anne Boleyn being in love with her was totally unexpected for Catherine Parr.”

“Good.” Catherine does not smile, instead looks at Anne.

“Just good? That’s all?” her face falls.

Catherine makes a sudden move, kissing Anne. At first, she doesn’t respond, but after a second she does. Soon it starts getting more, and more comfortable, relaxing into the kiss. Anne’s hands go to Cathy’s hair and neck, while Parr’s goes to Boleyn’s waist. They break the kiss laughing.

They let themselves fall into the bed once again.

Probability means a logical relation between statements such that evidence confirming one confirms the other to some degree.

“I came to tell you that I am in love with you” Catherine says, she moved forward to cup Anne’s cheek with her hand. “I am so in love with you that I have no words to describe it, I can’t explain how much I admire you. I think that you are smart, and kind, and so, so beautiful. You are also sarcastic, and can be bloody difficult to deal with, but I still love when you are like that. Because I am in love with every single piece of you. I love the good, the bad, the neutral things. I love your eyes, and I love it when you are mad and your crinkle. I love you truly, the real you. Not what you show, or what you like of you. I love everything, and I want to have the chance to keep loving you. Because, Anne Boleyn, I’m head over heels for you.”

Head over heels means in love. Love can mean attraction based on sexual desire: affection and tenderness felt by lovers.

Love is also what Catherine Parr feels for Anne Boleyn, and love is not something you plan or define like words. Intense love can’t be defined by just words, so they define it every day, with actions, with kisses, with thoughts, and sometimes, they also rely in words.

Catherine Parr was a writer; has always been.

She is also a lover; Anne Boleyn turned her into one.

[aethelar]

The shooting star that careers through the night sky and crashes, quite spectacularly, into the muddy lake is not, in fact, a shooting star. The man that pushes open the emergency hatch and hauls himself, gasping and wheezing, onto the ruptured ship is not, in fact, a man. And the emergency response comm he aims at the stars and swears at in a harsh and alien language is not, in fact, working.

Graves would like very much to know which utter dipshit in Transfers had managed to screw up his warp jump quite this badly and whether Graves was allowed to throw them out of an airlock when he got back.

Then the heavens open and Graves discovers that the delightful little planet in the middle of delightful fucking nowhere has a working water cycle, one that brings with it a great deal of cold, a side helping of misery, and a whopping dollop of wet.

Oh, and apparently when he crashed he broke several ribs, fried the electrical connections to his left knee, and rolled in a pile of broken glass. Grand.

He retreats into his broken spaceship and cannibalises a control panel to fix his knee. It… mostly works. That done, he digs through enough old textbooks to identify where he is (backwater, uncivilised, and uncontacted - glorious), what language he needs to program into the translator (there are a ridiculous number to choose from, more than any one planet should reasonably need; he goes for the first seven in the list and hopes that’s enough) and what basic field-notes he needs to add to his mental database (far too many, most of them gathered from a distance, at least half of them marked with question marks and sounding blatantly ridiculous). And, because he’s currently hurting and light-headed, he says screw it to health and safety and just uploads the whole lot at once. The resulting headache has him staggering into the wall, missing the wall and tumbling through the breach in the hull, flailing and half drowning his way through the lake, and fetching up somewhere on the bank. And he’s still getting rained on.

“Fuck this planet,” he coughs through a mouthful of lake-water, and faints.

He manages, somehow, to survive undrowned until morning and it’s Newt that finds him, sprawled unconscious in the mud. Well, Niffler that finds him, Newt that scrambles after Niffler and almost trips over him in the process, but that’s just semantics, really. Newt’s the one that asks, hesitantly, if he’s alive; when he doesn’t get a response, Newt’s the one that manhandles him into the case and cleans his wounds as best he can.

When Graves rejoins the land of the living, Newt’s the one who stutters to a halt, blushes lithium red, and throws a sheet his way while backtracking pronto out of the room.

“I’ll get clothes!” he squeaks from halfway up the suitcase ladder. “There’s food in the kitchen, see you soon, don’t let Niffler out thank you bye!”

Graves blinks. “Illgetclothes,” he repeats. “Thankyoubye.” Then, switching back to a more familiar language, “Identify and translate. Please.”

Whirr. Beep. Whirr whirr. Ding! English, the text across his vision reads. Activate real time translate Y/N

Feck it. The headache can’t get worse. “Activate,” he agrees. “Yes, that means yes. Yes. Activate - Y. I want the Y option.”

Activating real time translate. Target language: English. Please note minor vocal edits required for accurate pronunciation.

“Minor vocal what now - glerk.” Graves lifts a hand to his throat, frowning the disturbed and confused frown of someone who’s just had their voice box rearranged without sufficient warning. And, from the feel of it, the back of his throat as well. Maybe? He opens and closes his mouth a few times to get used to the new sensations. “That will never not be weird,” he mutters to himself. It comes out in English and translates itself back into real words by the time his ears pass it back to his brain and the double-overlap does exactly squat for his headache.

Graves predicts direly that he’s going to hate this planet and distracts himself by turning his attention to what’s around him.

The room is soft, muted colours with strongly yellow-orange tinted lighting. The basic set-up is surprisingly familiar - he doesn’t need the fieldnotes ticking over in the back of his mind to identify that he’s on a bed, or that the primary building material is some kind of local plant matter. The assorted objects strewn around the room are less familiar and Graves takes a minute to run through the new words that flash up for each one (chair is obvious, but what’s book or slippers and why does the door have handle is that the keypad? There’s no control panel on it, and this place really doesn’t look advanced enough for motion sensing so what?)

Bored with the room, he turns back to himself. He’s wearing a clean bandage, wrapped tight around his chest, and part of him wants to unravel it to see how his back is doing underneath. It hadn’t seemed so bad, but he had passed out so there was a potential that one of his internal systems was wonky; based on what he’d seen so far of the planet it was doubtful the Earth-inhabitant who found him had known how to fix them. On the other hand, he feels surprisingly fine for a ship-wreck survivor.

He rests a hand on the neatly tucked end of the dressing for a long moment before shaking his head. “Food,” he says instead. “Food, kitchen, no niffler.” They seem simple enough instructions to follow.

Error, the translator warns. No entry for “Niffler”. Update dictionary when possible.

Error, the fieldnotes warn. Nudity detected. Local customs require nudity to be dealt with before proceeding.

Graves groans.

It takes some trial and error to work out what, exactly, the nudity problem entails, but he finally narrows it down to his lower back and the tops of his legs. That sorted, he winds the sheet round his waist and shuffles his way out of the bedroom into what is either a kitchen or a health hazard, or quite possibly both. The field notes haven’t yet given him the intricate understanding of Earth culture he needs to tell the difference, but there’s something about the haphazard way pans and bottles and jars are stacked on the shelves that seems a bit unstable to him. He proceeds with caution.

After about five minutes of careful study he slumps down on a stool and confesses to himself that he has no idea what he’s looking for. The small four-legged creature that had followed him around the kitchen hauls herself onto the table and tips her head with a curious chirp, and Graves decides, somewhat desperately, that she looks like she might know.

“What,” he asks her, “What, precisely, is food?”

She chirps. It’s not English. Life wouldn’t be that simple.

“Identify,” Graves says tiredly. “Translate. Please.”

Language not supported. Download new language Y/N

“Screw it, why not.”

Four and a half minutes later, with a headache to rival a nova-shot hangover, Graves repeats his question.

Lots of things, the creature answers with a series of drawn out squeaks. Things that smell nice. Things that look nice. Things you want to eat.

Ah. Fuel. Graves reaches for the nearest bottle of thing that smells nice. He thinks. He doesn’t have much to compare it to, not of Earth smells, and it’s very different from anything he’s familiar with. It looks nice, that at least he’s more certain on, but wanting to eat is a stage he and the unfamiliar food-fuel haven’t yet reached in their relationship.

“Is this food?” he asks.

The creature wrinkles her nose. Not for me, she says, and Graves nearly puts it back - but Mummy eats strange things. It could be food.

Mummy, Graves assumes, is the blushing human. He squints at the bottle. It’s labelled, and it takes a second for the unfamiliar script to resolve itself into something Graves can read. Lavender, it says, which the fieldnotes classify as colour and plant. Graves squints further. How can a colour be bottled. Electromagnetic radiation doesn’t listen to cork stoppers. Are the fieldnotes sure about this.

Plant, the fieldnotes insist petulantly, and Graves allows that ‘colour’ may be a translation error - he’s stuffed a lot of data into his brain in the last eighteen hours, he can’t expect it all to go right. Plants, though. Plants are carbon. Carbon is a (primitive, but workable) energy source. Plants are probably food.

“Bottoms up,” he mumbles, and removes the stopper.

Lavender, he decides, is a bit dry, a bit difficult to swallow - and yes, he can now confirm that his throat has definitely been modified to speak English, he’s only glad it didn’t need further modification to speak the small creature’s squeaking language as well - but other than that, perfectly good enough. He toasts the creature with his bottle, and she makes a hopeful gesture at the door and asks if Graves is going out.

“Ah,” Graves guesses. “Niffler. Mummy said not to let you out.”

Mummy’s a killjoy, Niffler grumbles, and crawls her way into Graves lap to curl up and sulk. Graves shrugs; Mummy has also taken him in and, from the feel of his back, poured far too much time and effort into healing him. Even his hastily-repaired knee feels better. He’s happy enough to keep Niffler in the kitchen if that’s all Mummy asks in payment.

He’s two thirds of the way through the lavender by the time Newt returns.

“Hello?” Newt calls from somewhere down a corridor. “Are you in the - oh, hello, potions lab. That’s. That’s fine. Hello.”

Graves smiles. It feels awkward. Are smiles always awkward? Maybe he’ll ask Niffler later. “I found food,” he says, holding up the mostly empty bottle of dried lavender.

Newt manfully holds his tongue about potions ingredients and food and not really quite the same. “I found clothes,” he replies, holding out the bundle. Graves puts the lavender aside and stands up to take them, toppling Niffler to the floor as he does so.

Naturally, she digs in her claws and takes the sheet with her.

Newt eeps, bright red again as he all but throws the clothes at Graves. “Wasn’t sure about your size, hope you like them, do you want tea I’ll put the kettle on kitchen down the hall,” he babbles, and flees.

Graves stares at the empty doorway, completely bemused. “Mummy is odd,” he tells Niffler.

Well obviously, she grumps, wriggling backwards out of the sheet. He’s Mummy. It’s what he does.

Graves absorbs the new information while he struggles his way into the clothes. Unlike the sheet, they don’t seem willing to stay if he wraps them round, and there seem to be too many of them for the number of limbs he has. What, he wants to know, is wrong with skin-tight nano suits. Who thought clothes were a better idea and are they still alive for Graves to explain why exactly they’re not. “Fieldnotes,” he finally says. “Help?”

The fieldnotes give him a barrage of images. The translator helpfully annotates each one; petticoat, gauntlet, jumpsuit, scuba tank.

“Ok. Niffler. Clothes go how?”

She grumbles something about clothes being ridiculous (Graves privately agrees) but manages to talk him through the way Mummy wears clothes until they make some vague amount of sense.

Buttons, on the other hand, do not. Graves admits defeat and gives up. The trousers probably are the right size but without the buttons done up they hang low and almost falling off his hips; as for the shirt, Graves is lucky to have worked out the arm holes but he leaves the front open over his bandaged chest.

The belt, he abandons. No clue. Some sort of restraint, a collar of some kind? The fieldnotes suggest using it to tie his hands to a bedpost which seems highly counterproductive. He’ll ask later.

Niffler paws imperiously at his bare foot until he bends down and lets her climb to his shoulder. Get me a sugar cube, she demands. Mummy puts them in tea. I want one.

“More food?” Graves asks. Sugarcane the translator tells him is another plant, as is sugar beet but there doesn’t seem to be an entry for sugar cube.

You won’t like them, Niffler hurries to tell him. Kitchen is through that door.

Graves hums and follows. He suspects he may have to try a sugar cube for himself before he decides if he’ll like it or not.

“Hello Mummy,” he says politely as he comes into the kitchen.

Newt spins round with wide eyes, takes in Graves’ rather lax approach to getting dressed, and brandishes a teapot in distress.

Graves pauses and frowns, confused. He has clothes. He’s found the kitchen (it’s not much less of a hazard than the potions lab). He’s not yet let Niffler escape. He’s not sure what’s wrong, but Newt is bright red again, and all but hyperventilates as Graves steps nearer to cage him against the counter.

Error, the fieldnotes protest. Data suggests current breathing method is inefficient. Lack of oxygen fatal to earth residents.

“What are you doing,” Newt asks in a rushed, high pitched breath.

Graves presses their foreheads together. Newt’s skin feels hot against his, even moreso than their different biology can account for. Fever, the translator supplies worriedly. Sign of sickness and ill health. Then the fieldnotes chime in with increasing panic: Error: sickness leads to death. Reduce fever where possible.

“I’m helping,” Graves says out loud to all three of them, and modulates his skin temperature to be cool and soothing. It costs more energy than he’d hoped and it’s unnerving to see the proof of how weak he is, but when he leans back Newt’s sudden fever is gone.

He’s still flushed, and now his pupils are wide and his breathing has stopped altogether. The fieldnotes begin to bleep in distress but the translator shushes them. Earth phrase identified: take my breath away, it says soothingly, to which the fieldnotes start shrilling about giving it back. Graves deems him probably not in danger anymore and nods in satisfaction as he steps away.

“Better?” he asks.

“Newt,” Newt blurts (semi-aquatic, pond dwelling, small creature similar in size to a finger), which is an odd thing to answer with, but then he goes on to clarify, “My name is Newt.”

He lies, Niffler says. His name is Mummy. Don’t believe him.

Newt seems a lot larger than a finger, but he was near a lake when he found Graves so Graves elects to ignore Niffler in this. “My name is unpronounceable on your planet and may vibrate your vocal chords to shreds if you tried,” he says to Newt. “But I don’t mind if you call me Graves.”

Newt stares for a long moment. “Ok,” he finally says. “Graves. Ok. Vibrate my - ok, that’s. Ok.”

Graves smiles, and, potentially, it’s less awkward than before. Maybe. Graves is working on it.

Niffler pokes him in the ear and comes dangerously close to short circuiting his auditory processors. Sugar cubes, she reminds him.

Graves scans the table for something Mummy puts in tea and solemnly hands her a teaspoon.

It’s ok, she says, patting his hand. You’ll learn.