#while struggling to remember how to spell in french | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

coralinnii · 2 years

Text

Rook Hunt (slit mouthed woman!Reader x ghost hunter!Rook)

genre: minor horror

note: borderline obsessive/possessive behavior, (less) inaccurate French

summary: You missed the days where your immortal life was easier, when most people run at the sight of you. But, this creepy hunter keeps chasing you!

series index

“Ahh, ma belle tristesse! I found you~”

You felt a shiver down your spine. You dreaded that this may happen but you were so sure he would leave you after months without an attack. You cursed at this man’s persistence.

“Hunt”

“Oh, I’m honored that the renowned beauty of horror remembers me~”

You let out a sigh as you looked to see an empty alleyway. Your target must have ran off while you were distracted by the strange ghost hunter. It has been so long since the edge of your scissors met the flesh of some foolish human, to slice through their cheek to their ear with sadistic delight as the victim pitifully tried to claw at your grip.

Oh, those were the days

“How did you know I was here?” You asked him, wary of his next move. “I thought you would be bored after months of silence”

Rook came to your hunting ground half a year ago after hearing about a string of attacks that left some scarred and/or dead and left many citizens of the town frightened for their lives. He was not the first ghost hunter to come in search of you (although he is the longest to have survived), but he was certainly the strangest.

“How sneaky of you, ma trickster!” He smiled with a flourish of his hands towards you “After months of what seems to be a peaceful ceasing of attacks in the town, the folks have seemed to believe you have either moved on or perished at my hands. They almost have me to believe you have moved on peacefully.”

“However…”

You felt the nerves in your body stand in alert but it was too late. In a flash, you were trapped within the hunter’s arms, one arm around your waist while the other carefully but firmly held your chin, forcing your eyes to stare into your captor. Be it some powerful spell or his unnaturally strong disposition, his strength leaves you as helpless as those wretched humans.

If anyone were to see you in such a position, they would think of two lovers in a loving embrace, seemingly lost in each other’s presence.

“My dear, I know you too well.” Rook calmly spoke to you, unbothered by your attempts to escape his hold. “After centuries of haunting the living through sheer will and rage, there was not a possibility that all of those feelings would just disappear.”

You felt the rage and indignation in your soul flare as you desperately tried to claw and scratch your way out from this unbelievable man. Who is he to act as if he knew anything about you? You glared at the blond man with murder in your eyes, fully intent on making this man’s last days in his fleeting life as painful as possible.

But Rook was reveling in your struggle. His eyes glimmer with excitement to be the object of your wrath.

“Ah, c'est merveilleux~ Such a thing of rare beauty to see the vibrant flame of emotion in such cold lifeless eyes, an intense rage and resentment for the world that remains so dangerously dazzling even after centuries of wandering. You are truly a wondrous demon fatale, my dear!”

With his gloved fingers, Rook gently traced the scar from your lips to the top of your cheek before resting his hand down to your neck. Despite your fury, you couldn’t help the shiver that crawled throughout your spine. No one but Rook was brave or mad enough to touch you, let alone your infamous scars. But he does so without fear or disgust as he pulled you unbelievably close to him, leaving you flustered as this was the first time in a long time since you have felt the warmth of a living body, especially one as well built as Rook from what you could feel (and you feel a lot right now).

Rook took the chance during your stunned condition to lean to your ear, close enough that your body become aware of the heat from his breath before he spoke.

“How can I leave before I get the chance to see you at your most vulnerable? I will not relinquish you until I see all of your emotions and actions that no ghoul has the capacity of feeling anymore, no ghoul but you. I crave to see that never before seen side of your beauty. I crave it so much!”

I crave you

#twisted wonderland #twst #twisted wonderland x reader #twst x reader #twst imagines #rook hunt #rook x reader #twisted halloween series

438 notes · View notes

daveyfvckingjacobs · 9 months

Note

Little things about Morris. (Mostly HCs)

climbs on everything. was probably a leash kid in the modern au.

runs/walks away randomly. Perfectly happy to do his own thing when he gets distracted.

will either eat everything or nothing all day no in between

Reads but had a hard time writing

will melt if you touch his hair

bewildered by compliments. bros makin this face :0 when you say smth nice

(Os is behind him makin this face tho >:0)

clothes are always too big

despises carrots

dancing around the house bc stimming and no I’m not projecting shhh

hates being told what to do but can’t function without instructions

Just wants Oscar to be happy

hates that Oscar destroys himself to keep him happy

feels useless bc of this ^

Always cold

still visits Medda sometimes but only when one’s absolutely sure Oscar is out of commission and won’t come after him. And bolts if Jack is there.

doesn’t love the taste of alcohol but drinks it anyway cuz he doesn’t have to think about anything when he drunk.

he n is have both had moments when hungover where they look into the mirror and wonder if they’re becoming like their father

wonders if he n os will ever find a better life

provably has wanted to hug a newsie before but remembered how mad os would be and didnt

and finishing on a happier note: Steals Oscar’s stuff just to see how long it takes for him to notice. - 🤠anon

I’m like those videos of dogs with twelve tennis balls rn just grabbing these trying to stuff as many in my mouth at one time as possible and then promptly abandoning them for the rest endlessly

just gotta dump thoughts for a bit in no particular order now and you can connect them to the hcs like a french worksheet

“why are you so cold?” “why are you so hot?”

morris has no perception of actual praise when it comes to complements on stuff he’s doing/says, he just assumes it’s sarcasm and then if they’re reinforced buffers for an age also has no awareness that he’s attractive asf and genuinely does not compute when he gets looks/comments on his appearance it’s very cute

morris, age 8, on top of a carriage: :]

oscar, age 10, looked away for fifteen seconds: oh for fuck-

on that note, george morris climbiest boy ever on the banisters and railings and stairs just levering himself everywhere while oscar trails after all sensible and Boring

oscar: where the fuck is my cap-

morris, wearing it: no idea lol that’s so weird

(like that one video of jacob with jbs necktie)

medda medda medda. when oscar is hungover or sick or injured he’ll just slip away, and sometimes it’s just to sit in the corner of the theatre and have that comfort/familiarity without ever actually seeing her, sometimes he’ll sit and talk a little. not much, never anything personal or detailed but he’ll talk and it hurts medda’s heart how different he is and the way oscar is never there

he holds a pencil like a fucking freak I don’t make the rules, also left handed so the actual act of writing is generally Hard and when he has to properly focus on spelling he struggles a lot

oscar broke the mirror after that and morris kept a little piece to still see his reflection, remind him who he is when he feels himself getting hopeful, even though he hates it

#this is the best representation of what my brain looks like honestly #never as cohesive as I make out #I just Lobe Him #what a bbg #newsies #newsies the musical #anonymous #daveyfvckingjacobs #newsies hc #the delancey brothers #morris delancey

32 notes · View notes

beevean · 4 months

Text

Since I got volume 2 of the Media Factory manga way earlier than intended, I decided to re-translate it to find any oddities, mistakes or general trivia :) and I did find. A lot.

I'll also redirect you to @radiant-featherball's own post about the Japanese version of the whole manga, and @the-crow-binary's hilarious dissection of the French translation that seems to have more in common with this one.

A typical mistake: the translation keeps "Rosaly-nee-chan" as "Sister Rosaly", implying that Ted or all the children she's taking care of are her actual siblings. It confused me the first time around :P

English: "Adrian... Not just Hector, but now you too. Foolish betrayers..."

Japanese: "アドリアン…　ヘクターのみならず貴様までが。愚かな裏切り者どもめ…"

The translation is 1:1, but it's one that contains multiple nuances. Dracula calls Alucard kisama, the suffix ども implies a higher status of the speaker, and the suffix め is even more derogatory. Dracula is mad :)

English: "A great many of us will be coming..."

Japanese: "ほどなく、奴が来る"

"He will be coming soon."

I like the implication that Hector is lumping himself with the demons, but he's clearly talking about Isaac here.

English: "And what do you mean by 'us'?! Are you a devil, too?!"

Japanese: "「我らの」ってどういう意味だよ、あんたも悪魔なのかよ⁉"

"What did he mean by 'our'? Are you a demon too?!"

In Japanese, Ted is referring to something the werewolf says way back in volume 1: "You're one of our...!" ("我らの！"). Perhaps the translator thought that it would be hard to remember such a small line from the previous volume, and this is why they changed the exchange in this scene.

English: "I am the Devil's Sorcerer. At an evil castle to the east of here... I immersed myself in evil, and I commanded evil. My powers attract the ways of the darkness. They are cursed. Although I am human, I acquired the art of creating devils... and there is no doubt that they inflict harm on humanity."

Japanese: "俺は悪魔精錬師。ここより東、魔の城で…　魔を帯び、魔を従え、悪魔を作り出す術を身につけた。俺の力は闇の眷属を引きつける呪われた力だ。人の身であれど、人に害為す存在には違いないな…"

"I am a Devil Forgemaster. To the east of here, in the Demon Castle… I was entrusted with demons and I subdued them: I acquired the art of creating devils. Mine is a cursed power that attracts the followers of darkness. Although I am a human being, there is no doubt that I am a creature that causes harm to people…"

(sadly "followers of darkness" is not quite a reference to the tracks in CoD, the word is different)

The words are rearranged, but they are more or less the same. There are however some significantly different nuances.

One, "evil"/"demon". As far as I know, 魔 means exclusively "devil/demon/evil spirit", so I went with that. This changes the meaning of the verb 帯びる from "being tinged with, being imbued with" to "being entrusted with" (although it is canon that Hector was imbued with evil energy, so both interpretations are technically correct).

Two, the ambiguity of the subject in the last line changes the meaning. In the official translation, 存在 was assumed to mean the devils, and so they are the ones who inflict harm on humanity. But personally, considering the previous "although I am a human"... I think Hector is calling himself a creature that causes harm. Remember: he's really struggling to see himself as a human being :)

A bit of a funny detail: 悪魔精錬士 (akuma seirenshi, Devil Forgemaster) is spelled here as 悪魔精錬師. It's read the same, but the last kanji actually means "master" as in master of a craft, while 士 most commonly means "warrior" and in a suffix it merely means "person with a license". I wonder why this change.

English: "Hector! You disgusting child!"

Japanese: “ヘクター！忌み子め！”

1:1, but TIL that 忌み子 is an actual word that means "unwanted child, shunned child". Which hits even harder :)

English: "He's cursed... poor kid. How horrifying..."

Japanese: “呪われた…不吉な子。恐ろしい…”

"He's cursed... a sinister child. Terrible..."

不吉 means "unlucky", but in the sense that he brings back luck: he's a bad omen.

English: "And you brought home another black cat?! [...] I never should have given birth to you!!"

Japanese: "また黒猫なんて拾ってきて…　[...] お前なんて産むんじゃなかった…！！"

1:1, but Hector's mother uses the expression なんて, which roughly means "something like" and expresses disdain. In case it didn't hurt enough :)

Hector's father is an alchemist, but by looking up the word, I learned that in Japan "alchemist" is also used to disparangingly describe people who want to make easy money, without morals or shame. And the story says that the man was so concerned about power and wealth that the other villagers hated Hector also because of his dad. Huh.

(@the-crow-binary proposed a headcanon that in the past the father swindled a witch to gain money, and she placed a curse on him, which is why Hector was born with his powers.)

English: "When my heart grows weak... the devil comes speaking to me."

Japanese: "心が弱まれば悪魔は語りかけてくる。"

"If my heart grows weak, the demons come speaking to me."

Surprisingly, the nuances of the English translation are vaguer than the original, stemming from how akuma is liberally translated between "demon" and "devil" and the confusion between singular and plural: it's unclear if Hector is talking about the Devil as in Satan, the demon who caused him the nightmare, or even the fairy. The latter is because the word 使い魔 ("familiar") was translated as "servant devil", further muddying the terminology. In Japanese, it's much clearer that Hector is referring to the demons who torment him.

Also this is more of a nitpick, but the ば form implies a more hypothetical condition than "when". It's not a common occurrence: it's Hector's fear.

English: "For someone reputed to be the greatest sorcerer of the dark arts, you look pretty pitiful. I've been wanting to see you, General Hector!"

Japanese: "最強の悪魔精錬師ともあろう者がずいぶん情けない姿じゃあないか。会いたかったぞ、ヘクター！"

"For someone of your standing, the strongest Devil Forgemaster, you look quite pathetic. I missed you, Hector!"

Someone should have given the translator the proper terminology used in the game because they clearly struggled :P

I never liked how in English Isaac sounds as if he never met Hector and he's finally getting the chance to do so, not helped by the mocking "General". The Japanese version goes to the polar opposite: 会いたかった literally means "I wanted to see/meet you", but it can also mean "I missed you", which IMO fits Isaac's way of speaking much more and implies a former closer relationship. i'm saying that he had such an obvious crush that there is no other way to read it

English: "Why? Why do you attach yourself so much to these people? [...] They turned their back on Lord Dracula, who has protected that land for so long. Traitors who bit the hand that fed them!!"

Japanese: "何故だ？何故お前はそんなにも「人」に固執… [...] 長らくあの地を守ってきたドラキュラ様に背き、奥方に手をかけて裏切り者ども！！"

"Why? Why are you so fixated on those humans? [...] They are traitors who went against Lord Dracula, who has protected that land for so long, and laid hands on his wife!"

The English translation has a slightly different nuance: it almost implies that Hector grew fond of certain people, which is not true... yet :P in Japanese, it's more clear that Isaac is just taunting Hector's mercy for humankind as a whole, judging by his emphasis.

Also, as it was already noted, he specifically mentions Lisa in his speech, who was mysteriously cut in the translation.

English: "Otherwise... you'll fall victim to my spear right now, Hector."

Japanese: "さもなくば、今ここで我が槍のサビになれ、ヘクター。"

"Otherwise, become the rust on my spear, Hector."

The English translation works well enough. I just think that expression is raw :P it's expressed even better in French.

English: "It can't be true... there's no way. There's no way Count Dracula could be defeated."

Japanese: “そうだ…　そんな、ドラキュラ様が敗れるはず…”

"That’s right… Lord Dracula must have been defeated…"

... either I'm misunderstanding something, or the translator took some liberties. Not that it doesn't work, actually it might be better... but I'm confused.

A minor note: when Hector is invested by the waves of the Curse, and he hears what appear to be demonic voices, they say "you killed it", as in his cursed power. In Japanese it has no object, it's just "お前が殺した", "you killed". Killing a power doesn't sound very natural, so I believe it's actually Dracula, shown in the vision, accusing Hector of killing him.

English: "Hector, damn you! You, I'll never forgive!"

Japanese: “ヘクター！貴様だけは許さん！”

The English translation always sounded off to me, but now I understand the intent. Isaac is specifically singling Hector out: he's saying that he is the only one (だけ) he won't forgive, even though he has realized that Trevor has killed Dracula. But without italics it's hard to convey this emphasis on "you", so I can't blame the translator too much.

I just noticed that the official translation, when describing the aftermath of Trevor's victory on Dracula, calls him "the young lord of Belmont". In Japanese it's simply "若きベルモンド家の英雄", "the young hero of the Belmont family". accidental nfcv foreshadowing?

English: "You alone always kept yourself looking human!"

Japanese! "お前は昔から…　自分だけいつまでも人間のような顔をして！"

The English translation is very literal. I think I would translate this as "You always were the only one who kept yourself human!", even if literally it means "you alone always had a human-like face!" lmao

(an interesting note. Isaac here is more parsimonious with the use of kisama towards Hector than I expected: he only insults him when particularly angry, like after he insulted Dracula or while he was falling. In every other instance he sticks to the casual omae. Even when he's saying that if they had been with Dracula, Belmont wouldn't have killed him. Food for thought.)

English: "You possessed more powerful sorcery than I! And you were able to get closer to Count Dracula over me!!"

Japanese: “俺より強い魔力を持ち、俺よりドラキュラ様の近くにいながら...!”

"Even though your magic is stronger than mine, and you were closer to Lord Dracula than me...!"

That "even though" (ながら) subtly changes the nuance. Isaac isn't just venting: he's confused as to why Hector, despite being Dracula's special boy, insisted on "looking human", or clinging onto his humanity.

As I pointed out here, chapter 4 is not called "redemption", but "atonement". The two words have slightly different nuances :)

When Rosaly tells Hector that the priest has spread the news that Trevor saved everyone, she speaks in a respectful way. She calls Trevor "Belmont-sama", calls him an exorcist, ("悪魔払い") and uses keigo when talking about his feats ("救って下さった"). It's cute and it shows how much Trevor is respected for his feats :)

English: "It might not be a bad idea to stay here for a while in this sunny place..."

Japanese: "ほんの少しだけこの日だまりに身を置くのも悪くはない。"

"It wouldn't be bad to stay under the sun for a little while..."

Kind of. 日だまり means "sunny spot". The translation works perfectly fine, and it paints Rosaly's house as a warm, happy home... but I think this is meant to be a callback to the first page of this scene, Hector standing under the shadow and Rosaly dragging him to the light. Hector is finally accepting to stand under the sunlight :)

These are nitpicks so forgive me for being nitpicky :P

English: "No. You've let me stay a long time. This is the least I could do."

Japanese: "いや。長居させてもらってるんだ、これくらい。"

"It’s fine. You've let me stay for so long."

As lovely as this is, I don't think there was any need to make the sentiment explicit. Also "no" as a response to "I'm sorry, I turned you into a porter" feels unnatural.

Also, Rosaly gets offended when Hector asks if she's going to eat all the apples, but "How insulting!" is very literal. She says "失礼ね！", and it could have been a much more natural "Rude!".

English: "So... it's been a big help with you helping me with everything."

Japanese: "だから、ヘクターがいろいろ手伝ってくれてとても心強いのよ。"

"That's why it's so reassuring to have you helping me with all sorts of things."

Hector is not just helping. His kindness is reassuring to Rosaly in these turbulent times :) even if the world is getting scarier, so much that even she is getting worried, having Hector at her side puts her at peace :)

During Hector's big nightmare, when demons assault him to tell him that he can't stay with Rosaly, they say "we cannot be with humans". They use 僕たち for themselves. 僕 is the same pronoun Hector used as a child, which is nothing odd in on itself... but child Hector is often equated to a demon, and even speaks like one in Hector's nightmares. Makes you think :)

English: "But if my willpower weakens as it has now... I might end up repeating the same mistake again."

Japanese: "だが今のようにタガが外れれば、俺はまた同じ事を繰り返してしまうかもしれない。"

"However, if I lose all control like right now, I might end up repeating the same thing again."

I don't know, the English version isn't wrong but doesn't quite have the same impact to me. Perhaps because "losing control" fits more with him having a breakdown in this scene, and it makes clearer that Hector has to actively struggle to not let the demons nearby.

Hector says "You and the children will realize that I'm something to be detested". The wording is 忌むべき存在, which literally mean "abominable creature", but it could be condensed into a more natural "abomination".

Two similar examples where past and present are mixed.

English: "I was hated and avoided by people. And chased away. The power I acquired didn't bring me peace. But I could not get rid of it. I didn't know what would happen to me. What am I supposed to do now?"

Japanese: "人に忌み嫌われ、追われるのが、手に入れた力は俺に平穏はもたらさなかった。それでも、捨てられない、捨てればまた俺はどうなるかわからない。どうしたら良かったというのだ。"

"I was hated and chased away by people, but the power I gained didn't bring me peace. Even so, I can't throw it away, and if I do, I don't know what will happen to me again. What should I have done?"

Of course Hector speaks in the present. He's still struggling with his powers and his self-loathing related to them.

English: "The only ones who came to speak to me were the demons."

Japanese: "俺に語りかけてくるのはいつも悪魔だけだ。"

"Demons are the only ones who always come to speak to me."

This whole breakdown was caused by demons, so yes, this is something that is still going on. It also ties better with Rosaly asking if he can also hear her voice.

English: "The one place that recognized my powers and accepted me..."

Japanese: "ただ一つ力を認め、受け入れてくれた場所…"

"The only place where my powers were accepted and welcomed…"

So I have some disagreements on the exact meaning of 認める in this context. Among the many translations of this word, there are "to recognize" and "to accept, allow". The official translation went with the former, but to me it doesn't sound very natural, and it doesn't fit with the emotional weight the castle has for Hector. "Recognize" almost implies that it's a mere matter of pride. "Accept" really emphasized that Hector thought he had found his home.

(also yes, by changing 認め to "accept", I had to change the translation of 受け入れる. It has the connotations of accepting a request, receiving something, so I think "welcomed" sounds fine here)

English: "Count Dracula... My powers were recognized and needed by you. There were times where such things gave me joy, but... perhaps you also fell victim to your own curse."

Japanese: "ドラキュラ様…　かつて貴方に認められ必要とされた力。その事に喜びを覚えた事もあったが...　貴方もまた自らの呪いに負けたのか。"

"Lord Dracula… you once accepted and needed my powers. There was a time when such a thing gave me joy, but… Have you also succumbed to your own curse?"

And this scene is the reason I am positive that "to accept" is the correct meaning of 認める in this context :) it makes much more sense that being accepted by Dracula, not merely recognized, would fill Hector with joy.

By the way, Hector refers to Dracula as anata but not with polite language, just like in CoD when Drac gets resurrected again. He has cut ties with his Lord so he no longer needs to be formal, but he still keeps at least a hint of respect :) and shout out to the literal only time Hector bothers to call him "Lord" after his defection.

English: "First, I have to get a taste of what happiness is for other people. That way, it'll be more... fun."

Japanese: "お前がもっと人の幸せというやつを味わってから、その方がきっと…　おもしろい。"

"Once you get even more of a taste of human happiness, it will surely be more… fun."

... no idea where that "I have to" comes from, when the omae is right there.

(an odd quirk I just noticed. Hector and Isaac speak more or less in the same way - masculine, casual, contract negative forms - but Isaac alone tends to say じゃあない instead of じゃない: it's longer. I find it funny, I can just hear the mocking tone)

So this one got long! The official translation is pretty good, save for a few "unnatural" moments, but the nuances in the Japanese version make this story even more interesting for me. Here's to a similarly interesting post for volume 1 if I get it!

#castlevania #akumajou dracula #curse of darkness #curse of darkness manga #hector castlevania #isaac laforeze #dracula castlevania #rosaly castlevania #happy new year! here's my brainrot to celebrate

16 notes · View notes

scruffyplayssonic · 5 months

Text

Are the ArchieSonic comics actually an 80's/90's syndicated cartoon? Episode 57: Can't eat favourite food

Welcome back to my look at the ArchieSonic comic series, and how it shared a lot of the same story tropes as a typical ‘80s or ‘90s syndicated cartoon! We’re getting close to the end of the series now, so what classic cartoon trope are we looking at today?

Episode 57: Can't eat favourite food

Ahh, okay. I feel like this one’s a little less common in mainstream media, to be honest. When it does show up, it’s often used to signal to either the audience or the other characters that there’s something seriously wrong with that character. They could be sick, or under the effects of a curse or spell, or could even be a villain disguised as the main character.

That being said, I can think of two instances when Sonic couldn’t stomach the idea of eating his trademark favourite food (and one instance when everyone else couldn’t stomach it either), and none of them were used to hint that there was something wrong with Sonic. In fact, our first instance went in the exact opposite direction. That would be when Sonic and Tails wound up in Sandblast City in issues #62 and 63. I’ll be covering this one in a bit more detail in an upcoming episode, but the long story short is that Sonic and Tails found themselves in a city full of people who idolised Sonic for defeating Robotnik, and were hoping to trick him into staying with them full time to fight the constant robot attacks on their city. How did they go about trying to convince Sonic to stay?

By pampering him with around the clock massages and chilli dogs, of course!

At first Sonic seemed thrilled at all the attention he was getting, while Tails was eager to just leave Sandblast City and get back to their mission of hunting down the evil wizard Ixis Naugus. However at some point Sonic realised that he was being played, but kept up the charade so that the Sandblasters wouldn’t figure out that he was on to them.

When even Sonic the Hedgehog thinks he’s had too many chilli dogs, that’s when you know you’ve crossed a line.

An earlier instance of Sonic not being able to stomach the idea of eating chilli dogs happened way back in issue #11.

This extremely trippy story once again saw Sonic gorge himself on too many chilli dogs, and this time it caused him to have a bad dream.

Like, really bad.

When Sonic awoke he solemnly vowed to eat more responsibly.

…that vow lasted all of thirty seconds. xD

I’m reluctant to bring up this last story again, but I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t. You may remember in a previous episode that I discussed how Sonic #33 is an issue that lives in infamy, and its plot kicks off once again because of chilli dogs.

Yup, the Freedom Fighters were so sick of chilli dogs that they fell for the most obvious trap ever. Seriously, Team Rocket had traps that were more subtle, and the Freedom Fighters still fell for this. That said, I would like to acknowledge that this comic was decades ahead of its time, showing both the importance of wearing masks to help prevent spreading disease (although Rotor really ought to be wearing a mask too) and the dangers of ordering from fast food delivery companies like Doordash and Uber Eats. 😛

Now if Tails or Rotor had been spared from the French Fryrus, they probably would have gotten to work trying to synthesise a vaccine. Sonic isn’t really brainy enough to do that, so he settled for the next best thing:

Yup, shrinking himself down to a size small enough to run down Rotor’s throat and try to punch the virus into submission. And it was here that he met…

…I can’t. I can’t with this stupid issue, I just can’t. 😛 The puns by themselves are bad enough, but the idea of all the Freedom Fighters’ immune systems being sentient creatures who just couldn’t be bothered fighting this disease annoys me.

Anyway, Sonic was able to fight off the grunts easily enough, but struggled a bit more when he got to the boss fights, Paris-site (sigh) and Fever.

Fortunately for him, Rotor’s (SIGH) Auntie Bodies was inspired to take up the fight again.

She also called her counterparts in the other Freedom Fighters and told them to get off their lazy butts and do their jobs too.

So in the end the day was saved, and Sonic gave everyone the perfect food for when you’re sick:

Well, close enough.

Were there any other instances of Sonic or other characters in ArchieSonic not being able to eat their favourite foods? Remind me of any that I missed in the comments! The next episode I'll be looking at is one that arguably fits the entire Sonic franchise: “We have to save the environment, and so do you!” See you then!

#archiesonic syndicated

13 notes · View notes

vague-and-aloof · 8 days

Text

SNEAK PEEK OF GETTING TO KNOW YOU CHAPTER 10

I'M STILL ALIVE!!!

I know it's been forever since I've written anything for this story and I am so sorry for leaving you hanging. Been working on the next chapter lately and want to get back into writing again, as I've been busy with work and school.

But I also want to give you a little something to those still reading and wanting to see what happens next in the story. So here I am, giving you a little sneak peek for the next chapter which hopefully will be done soon.

Enjoy! -----------------

Today’s lesson consisted of making two books change positions with each other, then their colors, then switch the covers out while leaving the pages where they were and so on. But it was hard to maintain his focus as the words from his dreams kept popping up uninvited.

He muttered a low “presto” and the books before him changed. However, instead of the covers changing places, the pages were switched out, making the history book now contain algebra and trigonometry on the inside and the math book now telling about the french revolution and world war 1.

Mistoffelees groaned in frustration and mentally chastised himself for messing up again. ‘You’re not paying attention, Misto! Old Deuteronomy has better things to do with his time than waste it on someone who isn’t trying. Remember, he’s doing this for YOUR benefit! Get your act together already!’

“Don’t be discouraged Mistoffelees.” Old Deuteronomy said gently, even as he looked over the books and turned the pages to see the effects of the spell. “These things take practice and time to master. And every step you take is a step closer to mastering your powers. Even if it doesn’t always turn out the way you want it to.”

Mistoffelees tried to smile back at Old Deuteronomy but didn’t feel much better with these words. He’d been asked to switch the covers out, not the pages, which meant he had gotten it wrong. And Mistoffelees didn’t do well with getting homework and schoolwork wrong, he never had.

It took a few more attempts to get the desired effect, first to switch the books back to normal and then try again to switch the covers, but eventually he got it right, which made him feel a little better. But the feeling of ‘not good enough’ still chipped at his brain, as well as the images from last night’s nightmare.

Old Deuteronomy eyed Mistoffelees with ever-growing concern. The boy had seemed distracted from the moment he walked into the room and it was also clear that his heart and head wasn’t entirely in his actions. He was sloppy, making small mistakes he normally wouldn’t and his mind seemed to be elsewhere. And despite this, everytime he did make a mistake, Old Deuteronomy could practically see the boy scold himself for not getting it right.

It was concerning to say the least and not very like Mistoffelees.

As the hour came to an end and Mistoffelees was packing up his things to leave for lunch, Old Deuteronomy stopped him before he stood up. “So, Mistoffelees, how are you doing?”

Mistoffelees looked up, a bit taken aback, then tried to smile. “Oh, um, I’m fine, Old Deuteronomy. I think I’m starting to get used to being here now.” Which wasn’t exactly a lie, but something Mistoffelees tended to say when he didn’t know what else to say when people asked him this question. Old Deuteronomy smiled warmly. “I’m glad to hear that. I’m happy to hear you’re finding your place here. I realize it has been quite an adjustment for you. I know Munkustrap also struggled with going from a regular public school to here and it can be quite taxing, mentally and physically to adjust. Just know that you can always come to us and ask for help if you ever need it. Even if it’s just to talk about how it’s going for you.”

Mistoffelees smiled and nodded, though Old Deuteronomy saw how he clenched the strap of his bag tighter as he did. ”Of course, I will. Thank you.” Polite and gentle as always, but once again, Old Deuteronomy saw and heard that this was a very common response from the boy. It almost felt like he always said the same thing, over and over again, only with slight variations of words.

Again, a bit concerning but not necessarily strange behavior from a teenager.

So he just smiled and carried on the conversation. The best thing he could do as a teacher and adult in this situation was make himself available for his students and try to show that they could trust him to look after and care for them. Let them come to him rather than try to force them to talk.

“Tugger also tells me that you two will be performing at the Anniversary Celebration in a few weeks. Is this true?” Mistoffelees nodded, prompting Old Deuteronomy to smile wider. Though he also noted how uncomfortable and nervous Mistoffelees became when asked this question.

“Yes, we are. He asked me to perform with him after showing this new song he was writing. I sort of helped him with it, and since I helped him get a good grade on our last test he wants to return the favor, I guess.”

“And how does that feel? I know my son has a tendency to get carried away and wanting to put on a big show, but I do hope he listens to your input and isn’t going too big too fast for you.”

Mistoffelees shook his head, though his smile became a bit more plastic as he did. “No sir, he isn’t. We’ve mainly been practicing the song together and taking it slow. Nothing too big so far.”

Old Deuteronomy raised his eyebrow a little at suddenly being called sir, as well as how clinical Mistoffelees suddenly sounded. Most students at the school were comfortable calling him Old Deuteronomy, very few ever called him sir, and this was by design. He wanted the kids to feel comfortable talking to him and not see him as a scary authority figure in their lives.

He still smiled at Mistoffelees and leaned a little closer over the table, gently placing a paw on Mistoffelees’ arm. “Well, I’m happy to hear this. I am very happy to see and hear you’re finding your place at our school. And we’re happy to have you here. But I hope you know that if you ever feel you need it, my door is always open if you need someone to talk to about it.”

Mistoffelees looked at him, raising both eyebrows a little and his eyes darted from side to side before smiling tentatively back. Old Deuteronomy had said that several times during this day’s lesson and every time he did it felt like he saw right through him. Mistoffelees had never been someone who wore his heart on his sleeve and considered himself very good at hiding his deepest emotions and thoughts after all the years of practice and the advice he got from his father. But under the watchful gaze of the older cat in front of him he suddenly felt completely transparent and all his thoughts, feelings and fears were an open book for Old Deuteronomy to read through. And what a terrifying concept that was.

He swallowed and nodded, smiling a little wider and tried to look casual. “Yes, of course. I will remember that. Thank you.”

He felt strange after having left Old Deuteronomy’s office, staring down at the floor as a million thoughts ran through his head.

@uppastthejelliclemoon @soh-da-meatball @rainbowratsstuff @storyweaverofgondor @roxycake @i-overanalyze-musicals @shysidekicks @tigerstripes-and-leopardspots @rain-bow-donkey @tigertail94 @sybright

#jellicle arts for jellicle cats #getting to know you #cats the musical #cats musical #my writing #my fic #sneak peak

3 notes · View notes

sovietpostcards · 2 years

Note

Hi! I’ve had this question for a while… maybe it’s a bit silly, but I’m still curious nonetheless.

Since the Russian language uses the Cyrillic alphabet and not the Latin Alphabet, do Russians have a notion of how the Latin alphabet is and can they read it? Or is it not necessary at all? I’m thinking, for instance, of all the western brands in Russia, that have names using the Latin alphabet. So are those translated into your alphabet or do they stay in their original form?

Of course there are those who must learn the Latin alphabet if they want to learn English, French, etc… but I’m thinking more perhaps of those who speak Russian and Russian only. In those cases, are they taught the Latin alphabet at school or each person learns it on their own if they want to?

I hope you don’t mind if it’s a bit of an ignorant question haha, but since you were so nice replying to the other asks, I thought perhaps you could make this a little bit more clear to me :) thanks!!

That's a good question actually! English is a compulsory subject in Russian schools, and while the knowledge given may be patchy I think it's safe to say that most people know the alphabet to some extent. Younger, educated, travelled people are more likely to know it.

I remember a few years ago there was a sheet of paper in our post office with transliteration rules for international letters. Many times I witnessed people struggling with it (I had to help a bunch, too). Postal clerks are not very friendly with the alphabet. I ship a lot of international mail and for letters, clerks have to manually add recepient's name into the system. I always laugh at what they put in! Sometimes it only vaguely resembles original names. :D

We have quite a few shop banners in English too, most international chains keep their English-language name (before they left Russia anyway). Some brands prefer to russify their names though, Ikea - Икеа, Auchan - Ашан, Marvel - Марвел, McDonald's - Макдоналдс etc. Band names on posters are in original language, although in private chats they will mostly be spelled in Cyrillic. Film posters are translated, movies dubbed and blockbusters would often be localized.

Exposure to English alphabet is infinitely bigger in large cities. But in general, you absolutely don't have to know it. You can live your life happily only knowing Russian.

92 notes · View notes

emma-is-swaggy-and-epic · 1 year

Text

Y'know...while i struggle to start up my next drawing, i'd like to share some old art with you guys as filler. The characters in this image are all taken directly from my dreams!

Character 1

Some kind of alien hedgehog/lion thing, basically in the dream i was playing animal crossing NH and i found out all my villagers moved out and someone changed my entire island's aesthetic to gothic. This character appeared next to a crashed spaceship and gave me some cryptic message about ice cream or something. Also axel was there despite not being one of the islanders i had when i still played the game, he was sleeping on a bed outside and upon interacting with him he woke up, gave another cryptic message and fell back asleep (idr what the messages were)

Character 2

I was playing a hat in time and i tried to go to subcon but instead i ended up on a weird low-poly floating island with a shed on it and everything looked desaturated, this creature was an NPC and they had a weird goofy voice that didn't fit them. When i went into the shed i got transported to a black void with black/white checkered platforms in a stair formation leading to an entryway with a blue sky outside (looked a lot like this but reversed)

When i left the area, the creature congratulated me on making it out of the shed and for some reason i thought it was a good idea to go back INTO the shed and suddenly i was in hat kid's POV and she started panicing and hyperventilating. That's when i woke up.

Character 3

I don't remember anything about the dream other than this character was a humanized version of the planet saturn and she was a character in a wattpad book i liked

Character 4

This last character was a mascot for a mid-late 2000's kids' website called "PerfectWitch dot com" (i have to spell it like that to avoid creating a URL on accident) the website was similar to girlsgogames or moviestar planet but halloween/fantasy-themed and in the dream, my sister showed it to me when i was a kid and i was trying to find it again but couldn't remember the name of the website until i watched a danny gonzalez video where he visits the website (iirc a fan recommended it to him) after i visited the website for myself i found a weird comic i made when i was 4 that was basically the intro scene when you visit the website but with a weird bunny man talking to a younger bunny and the whole thing was in french for some reason (i don't speak french IRL)

Also yes i know the character's skin looks kinda ashy, that's literally just how he looked in the dream

#artists on tumblr #digital art #art #digital illustration #dream #dreams #my dreams #panic attack mention #dream journal #dream diary #animal crossing #a hat in time #dream characters #dream creature #purple #weirdcore #dreamcore #witches #surreal

6 notes · View notes

lexstellaris · 1 year

Text

Daily Draw - 10/5/23 - Sacred Rebels Oracle (Alana Fairchild)

20 - Softly, Softly, The Tender Touch

I've drawn this card a few times tbh. It's about embracing gentleness and radiating the energy of what you want to manifest or draw to you, which in some ways, yeah, I get. But in other ways, bc I don't really feel energy in any kind of tangible way, I really don't get. And the idea of like, it's not quite that 'law of attraction' bs, but it's certainly in the ballpark. I'm never entirely sure how to feel about that, bc it's not really how I've grown to understand magic.

For me, magic is mundane, mundane is magic. The two work together. I can't just think of a bike and how much I want one, and miraculously, the universe gives me a bike without me having to do anything more than that. If I want a bike, sure, sending that energy out can help, but if I don't then look at my savings, and finding the right bike for me, and follow that up with testing them out and seeing what one works best for me, it's not going to be effective. I could wish for a bike, and end up with something totally inappropriate for me.

It's like. It's like the specificity you need when doing spellwork. I could do some spellwork for a new job. But if I don't specify anything more than a new job, it's likely I'll end up with something I don't want, or wouldn't have wished for. But if I specify qualities of the job I want, as well as the hours and pay I would be looking for, the location, the kind of colleagues I would want to work with, my spell will be much more likely to give me what I want. Otherwise, if I cast a spell for a cat, I may just end up with someone giving me a toy cat, bc I wasn't clear enough.

But I also think this card is highlighting something else for me as well. I'm... not good at resting and being gentle with myself. As I'm dealing with some health issues rn, being reminded to be kind and gentle to myself is a good message to get. Be gentle as I make adjustments to my life and my routines to support better health outcomes. Be gentle as I have more tests and treatments. Let myself heal and recover and get back to better health.

I also had Djehuty chatting to me during meditation. He reminded me of a lot of things I'd been struggling with. Giving me words I do need to internalise. I struggle a lot with feeling like I know shit. Like I'm actually smart and know stuff I can share with others. I know it's mostly from just getting shit grades most of my life, but it sticks after a while. I never learned to strive for anything better because no one ever believed in my academic potential. I was just the quiet, well-behaved kid at the back of the class no one really paid any attention to. Looking back, I can see so many ways in which I was unsupported in ways I probably needed to be supported. And it stings. I hate it. bc I can't change any of that shit. But moving on from that, getting to the point where I can feel confident in myself and what I know, that's the hard part.

As a Kemetic pagan especially, I feel that. I'm not always good at doing academic writing and research. I don't know French or German. I can't easily read texts others are able to because they know those languages. I haven't always had the energy to write up things, let alone research them. I know it's not required for every Kemetic pagan to be academic like that. I don't need to do that stuff. But so much of my path would not have turned out like this if I hadn't done any research into Sobek at all. It's necessary. It's just hard. And seeing others, for whom this stuff is much easier to do, write essays and books and have sources ready to reference, makes me feel like I'm just not good enough. I know that's not true. I really do. My brain is just dumb about this stuff. Plus, I have a not great memory for remembering stuff I've learned, not just for Kemetic stuff, but academic stuff in general.

idk. idk where this is going. I think I will leave this here now, though, and be gentle with myself. Djehuty wants me to read, and so I will go and read for a while. Maybe I will have more thoughts on this later.

#daily draws #sacred rebels oracle #reflective writing #sobek #research #idk a whole bunch of personal shit #health stuff #self-care #self-love #self-confidnce

1 note · View note

globalteachonline · 2 years

Text

What you'll learn Remember by heart the 501 most important French wordsUnderstand 60% of any French ConversationsIncrease confidenceEnjoy the reward of knowing another languageEnjoy the snow ball effects and be really goodHave the opportunity to access our Elite TrainingLearning French and rehearsing is becoming easy, and it is making all the difference. Discover how you can take out the struggles and absorb the most important French words ! Rehearse your french effortlessly, while building your best foundations. Tim Ferriss says it in his Blog, you can Learn any language in less then 3 Months and we absolutely believe that. 'Repetition is the mother of learning, the father of action, which makes it the architect of accomplishment.' - Zig Ziglar As a result of taking this course, imaging being able to understand most of any french conversation and any article within few weeks. Yes, people around you are going to be impressed. Are you going to be really thrilled ? So what’s in it for you: The course contains everything you need to start learning the right vocabulary [100+ downloadable resources]. Anytime you have few minutes, you can use them wisely,The spelling technic applied - Words and “phrases with the words in context”,The selection of the most useful and relevant words because they are the one we use the most (Accirding to the French Government Education),The explanation on how to maximise your results,Motivation and 'hands on' tips to boost your motivation. Our aim is to give you the opportunity to quickly understand and recognise French words automaticaly. And because you are going to recognise these words in everyday conversations, your speaking and writing skills are improving drastically. The sooner your start, the sooner you can see yourself becoming fluent. We made these sessions extremely practical so you can take the knowledge to real life experiences and be rewarded in multiple ways. Everyone can take this course that comes in your pocket. Hurry up, you could hold a conversation by now :) Enjoy! StephWho this course is for:Anyone who want to improve their vocabulary level in a very short period of time.Anyone interested in reducing their learning timeAnyone including professionals who have no previous knowledge of French or anyone who want to revise the fundamentalsThis course is not about French grammar or French conjugation

0 notes

ruhua-langblr · 2 years

Text

Myth of “Easy to learn languages”

(Alternatively: Just another perspective)

So, I always see that people and institutions rank the difficulty of a language and it’s never felt completely true to me. There is something to be said about things that help such as same roots (ex: germanic languages) and even more so having full cognates. The following is anecdotal to my experience and has factors that may not apply to others!

I started seriously learning French first as my second language. As an English speaker, this is classified as an “easy” (using the Foreign Institute Service as my guide here). After about ~6 years while some things did come very easily, there were a few things that just didn’t stick! I have mild dyslexia and that made spelling hard and found verb tenses to be very difficult to remember as they added up—and so did their rules.

Eventually, to make a story short, I gave up. I had reached a level where I could read most things and that satisfied me. I also became friends with some of my Chinese classmates and wanted to speak with them in their own language. Mandarin Chinese is ranked in the hardest class of languages for English speakers and there’s truth to this. Characters to memorize and a tonal language make the initial dive into learning it jarring.

However, to me it felt easier! I’m an artist so learning to copy strokes and identify radicals was easy. Learning tones wasn’t too hard either since I’m already a more “melodic” speaker and the inflections that we use in English make it easy to understand how to pronounce tones. Also, I only needed to learn to spell some pinyin—most of which are very short words—and no character needs to be conjugated*! This isn’t to say that everything was easy, my tones are still rough when I have to string sentences together and I still form sentences that feel awkward to native speakers. I’ve never been amazing at memorization, but that’s unavoidable in learning a language. But all of this has exceeded my French is a faster time.

There was one more thing that helped (maybe more than anything else) —I was able to have friends to help me learn, something I never had with French. Obviously talking with native speakers helps, but having ones that you have a bond with is a good motivator.

So in the end, here’s my recommendations for finding a good language to learn: How do your skills and weaknesses translate to this language? What’s your motivation/Do you have a support system? If you have a high motivation to learn and a support system you can power through struggles. Don’t be afraid to try “difficult” languages and don’t feel bad if a language doesn’t “click” either.

#astrick for things that do modify verbs like compliments but you get what im saying #sorry that this is long but i cant give it the proper tag bc tumblr literally blocked it #langblr #also b4 anyone says but chinese is your third language ofc its faster! i really never attained fluency in french!#where i am is uncharted territory for me #ill say that it did make it easy to self teach at points but thats probably it

65 notes · View notes

theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin · 3 years

Note

One thing that has always bothered me about the magical system in HP is how much it... doesn’t exist? No one questions anything, there’s almost no theoretical exploration, and Hermione Granger (someone I’ve always found to be of average intelligence at best) is the brightest witch of her age.

Some characters seem to be inexplicably more powerful, but I wonder if it isn’t simply a matter of discipline and will-power.

What are your thoughts on magic? We never really see what light vs. dark entails, so fanfic authors tend to make it up as they go along, but do you have any head-canons about how magic works in HP?

I mean, to be fair, it wasn’t really the point of JKR’s series. She just wanted to write about a kid going to a magic boarding school in Scotland with this quirky witch aesthetic.

No need for her to placate us uber nerds who demand a sensible explanation to the minutia of her magical system.

Right, but yes, it clearly bothers me too. No one questions anything, there’s no understanding of why wands and spells even work, or why it has to be in this weird pseudo-Latin. No one even bothers to learn Latin, for that matter, and you think they would given the damn spells.

Hermione Granger is the brightest witch of her age given that “her age” is either around 30 people (the amount of people in her year) or else around 300 (the population of Hogwarts at a given time) which is a pitiful amount. She also is an extremely hard worker and actually reads her textbooks, sadly I think this gets you ahead of 95% of the population.

Part of the reason I think the Wizarding World thinks like this is that they’re this incredibly tiny, cut off, insular society. Generally, when you have a small society cut off like that you tend to lose innovation or even understanding of technology you have.

But that’s not what you asked. Right.

Personally, I think there is no light and dark magic. Magic is just this part of the natural universe that muggles, for whatever reason, are not able to directly access. It’s neither good nor bad, it just is. For that matter, I don’t think spells themselves really exist, or rather, they’re not what magic really is in its purest form but instead a way that humans can easily access and control magic to perform a certain task. Kind of a glorified API if you will.

So, dark magic and light magic are instead arbitrary labels that wizards apply to their own tool box based on the functions of that tool. If you have a tool that is only designed for/can be used for the murder and torture of sentient beings: well, that’s bad, we’ll call that dark. That said, do I think the spells themselves are inherently evil? No. It’s like if you open up your tool box, pick out a sledgehammer, and go, “This, my child, is an instrument of pure evil and you must never touch it.” Well, that’s a bad comparison, it’d be like taking a handgun out of your tool box and saying “this is a dark weapon”. Now, this gets into a debate I don’t want to get into, but to me dark spells are a lot like handguns (they’re designed for only one purpose and there’s no squirming your way out of what that purpose is).

Now, I think wizards have forgotten this (mostly because they don’t understand what spells or magic is), and so they get very hung up on the labels of spells or even just your odd genetic trait (i.e. parseltongue). So, we have these weird moments where someone uses, say, the severing charm to cut somebody open in the middle of the street. And it’s less bad than if they had used the killing curse to kill them painlessly and easily, because the severing charm’s not dark magic.

It’s like... If someone were to walk out and bash someone over the head with a sledgehammer until it kills them it’s less evil than if they shot them in the head with a handgun.

Wizards seem to miss the point of this.

As for what magic is, I believe it’s... direct energy that wizards are able to access in a way that muggles (thus far) cannot. What do I mean by thus far? Well, look at electricity. In ye olden days, I’m sure that if you asked a wizard they would say that making artificial light without flame is a property solely done by magic and muggles are not capable of it. Well, muggles then did it, and suddenly the definition and parameters of magic change. Wizards are kind of like chess grand masters who suddenly lose to your AI du jour, who say that it doesn’t count because the AI didn’t really do it like a human would. It’s not real intelligence.

I don’t believe people have magic in and of themselves, any more than anyone else does at any rate, because we see too little differences between powerful and mediocre wizards. You’re either a squib or you’re not, there doesn’t really seem to be a spectrum, and those who struggle with spells appear to do so for other reasons (Neville has severe confidence issues and is traumatized, Harry’s an idiot, etc.)

I think what separates the great wizards from the rest is hard work, the ability to read books and learn from them, even an inkling of understanding of how spells really work and how to create them (and this makes you Voldemort level right here), and a good ear to be able to pronounce your ridiculous pseudo Latin.

The wand is a tool specifically designed so that, with repeatable easy to understand steps, you can perform a whole array of tasks and even use them as building blocks to develop a new spell (combine swishes, flicks, and various garbled sentences together in such a way and BAM new spell).

Your wand, in other words, is your API to direct and access untold amounts of energy from the universe.

But people have forgotten that so instead what you memorize are very specific function calls that will prove useful in your daily life.

As for the wand and spells themselves, well, here’s my hokey ridiculous theory on how that came about. A long time ago, a brilliant foreigner enters the Roman Empire with a revolutionary idea that puts him on the level of Einstein/Newton/Feynman Name Your Stupidly Brilliant Physicist. He says, hey, how about instead of doing these time consuming magical rituals we develop a tool that, in a matter of seconds, allows us to perform truly complicated and powerful magic any time we want. No more relying on having the right ingredients about, virgin sacrifices, the full moon, etc.

Everyone probably laughs at him, but then he goes off and designs a rudimentary wand, and through probably some uber ritual that was dangerous as hell implements this system by which by flicking your wand a certain way and saying basic commands like “levitate”, “repair”, etc. you can perform these tasks.

Only, the guy’s foreign and Good Will Hunting (no formal education in the empire), so he doesn’t actually speak Latin. So what you have instead is this weird half-Latin like, “Leviupwards Fly”, “Repair-o”, etc.

It sounds dumb as hell, but goddammit it works, and more it gives Roman wizards an unheard of advantage against their enemy wizards who are all stuck doing these stupid rituals. They suddenly have a vast military might, so long as they use these wands and spells this guy came up with.

Everybody who’s anybody, who wants to win a fight, is now using wands. Wandcraft becomes a huge deal and people specialize in fine tuning these things exactly so as to get the maximum efficiency for a particular user.

And they probably go up to our guy and say, “Hey, buddy, can you make this in actual Latin? I can barely remember what it is I’m supposed to say to get this to work” and after the hours, and hours, and hours he spent making this thing that nobody helped him with he goes, “DO IT YOURSELF, BITCH”. And they never do because they’re too damn lazy/have no idea how he actually did it and any attempt to recreate it ends up with something that’s pitiful and doesn’t work.

So, they’re all stuck with it, and thousands of years later they forget this guy even existed and while there’s a recognition that not all magic has to be performed by wands there’s just this feeling that the wand is the magic. And so no one will ever come up with an English/French/Whatever version where when you say “Up” the thing goes up.

And that’s “The History of Magic” as brought to you by The Carnivorous Muffin.

#ask #harry potter #magic #headcanons #anti hermione granger #anti harry potter

376 notes · View notes

sakura-83 · 3 years

Text

Things from Anne with an e that I feel like writing down

Season 1 Episode 7: Wherever You Are Is My Home

⚠️WARNING!!!⚠️ this episode not only talks about suicidal thoughts but also a character trying to commit such acts, of you are sensitive to this I suggest you just skip this post or at least skip #75-77

1. Anne calling it comforting that no two snowflakes are alike, as well as calling snow a sign of gods forgiveness as he blankets the dead world in a beautiful frost

2. Josie gossiping about her while she’s RIGHT THERE

3. Her and moody just talking

4. “And I love Christmas, don’t you?” “I don’t know, but I plan to.” “Did you not have Christmas at the orphanage?” “There wasn’t much to it really. I’m not sure why Father Christmas wasn’t able to stop there, maybe the matron scared him off.”

5. “Do you at least know if they’re going to keep you?” “Keep me!?”

6. Anne trying to sing with the others but the other voices quickly fading out as she panics and rushes home

7. “They’re not going to send you back, you’re in the Bible and everything!”

8. Marilla has every right to be angry that Matthew rushed their home without even discussing it

9. “I knew you’d lose your head-“ “Oh, I oughta smack yours right off your shoulders!”

10. Matthew is prone to heart attacks, the very same thing causing his death in the books

11. “He’s had an episode of the heart” just a funny way to say heart attack, sort of long winded

12. Marilla not understanding the complex math because she had to leave school when she was young

13. Anne helping her with it because she’s top of her class

14. “Not keeping you? You’re a Cuthbert, for better or for worse! No getting out of it now.”

15. The awful bank not relenting on the payback schedule despite the fact that Matthew cannot work. Corporations are cruel and ungiving despite the human struggles and needs of its clients and it hurts. I know the bank invested that money and they need it back but Matthew was indisposed by a tragic event and to not only not extent but to SHORTEN the payback schedule is just unfeeling

16. Marilla putting out an ad to the mainland to take in borders

17. The terrifying idea that you must sell everything you have in order to survive

18. Marilla being desperate yet still too prideful to accept charity

19. The fact that it not only effects the family but also Jerry, as they can’t afford to pay him. It puts him out of a job and lowers his families income

20. A reoccurring theme I love in this show is the idea that the characters will give up their belongings, no matter how sentimental, in the name of family. Matthew selling his dead brothers watch, Marilla selling her grandmothers brooch, Anne selling the dress of her dreams, all because no matter how important these items are, they are just things. That family is more important, so even though it pains you to have to give those things up, you do it in the name of love for others

21. “Theyre just things.”

22. Anne feeling sorrow and yet being excited to stay at aunt Josephine’s

23. Despite being told she can keep the dress, Anne insists on selling it back because it’s a family effort

24. Anne being exited for a solo adventure and then getting stuck with jerry

25. Jerry has to be there to get money Anne his family is hungry :(

26. “I don’t actually need your help.” “When’s the last time you drove a sleigh? Auctioned a horse? Let’s go.”

27. Diana giving her things to sell as well

28. Jerry knows how to drive a sleigh?????

29. “It’s not so bad to ask for help sometimes, y’know?” “If I needed help I would say so.” “No you wouldn’t.” “Yes, I would.” “Wouldn’t.” “Would! Times infinity.” “What???”

30. Jerry singing in French

31. “No singing. I mean it. I’m serious, Jerry! This is an important journey! I WILL KILL YOU WITH MY BEAR HANDS!”

32. Jerry grinning as she gets madder

33. Anne bring mystified by the dress shop

34. “I’m here to return a dress.” Is something wrong with it?” “Not a thing.” “Do you not like it?” “It is my very favorite thing that I have ever possessed in life. But I need to return it to help my family.” “You’re Anne, Matthew’s Anne!” “I am! How nice it is to hear it said that way.”

35. Anne being upbeat until Jeannie asks what’s wrong and then ask just breaks down

36. Poor Jerry waiting outside in the snow for her

37. Either Matthew spent some much money on Anne’s dress or Jeannie gave her extra, or both

38. “Did Matthew really spend this much?..” “You’re worth a lot to him.”

39. “I hate to say goodbye…” “😏 I won’t be so long~” “To the HORSE, Jerry. Why are you so annoying.”

40. “You’re a good horse Birdie, try to remember that. Someone will be very lucky to have you.”

41. Birdie really is a beautiful horse though

42. Anne’s little “my parents are spies” act she uses on the pawn broker

43. The pawn broker is so understandable rude because of his profession, it makes him equally annoying and funny

44. “What a piece of work you are.”

45. Anne is so good at making up stories on the spot

46. “If you can’t afford it I completely understand.”

47. I love how snide remarks of “being a good Christian” are frequent and effective insults in the 1800’s

48. Poor Jerry doesn’t just get beaten up and robbed, he gets brutally beaten by two grown men and there’s nothing he can do despite that being… his last paycheck. That was the last income he was going to give his family and he’s so ashamed of himself that he keeps apologizing for it despite most of the money being his. He apologizes to Anne, to Matthew, it bothers him for months to come

49. Gilbert’s back!!

50. “Still seems unreal. Even though I just sold all our… everything.”

51. “He’s a good man.” “I love him with all my heart. I don’t know what if do if…”

52. Them arguing over not arguing

53. Anne apologizing

54. “Anyway…” “Anyway..”

55. I genuinely didn’t realize that the men who beat up Jerry are the same men that took in borders at green gables, I got the same face blindness as Jerry himself

56. “I’ve missed you.” “Yeah?” “At school, theres.. no one to compete with.” “”You want to spell out a few words for old times sake?” “How about… truce?”

57. Jerry thinking Gilbert was going to hurt Anne and take her money and immediately jumping in to stop him despite swaying on his feet

58. When Anne asks him if he’s okay he immediately starts apologizing about the money

59. “I don’t like the city.”

60. “Just take care of yourself, and come home someday.”

61. Anne and Gilbert staring at each other quietly

62. “This is a palace, not a house.”

63. Jerry assuming that they’ll make him sleep in the stable instead of inside the massive house

64. “I’ll look after belle.”

65. “This city is rife with ruffians!”

66. Aunt Josephine insisting on helping

67. Matthew lamenting his own life, talking of how his life insurance will give them a sizable sum and how he drags them down despite them needing him

68. “Anne loves you, you have to remember that.” “But her future…” “Which do you think she would choose, this house or you?”

69. Jerry bring terrified to stay in a room by himself because he’s always had his family around him

70. Anne making room for him only for him to sleep upside down

71. “Don’t worry, I don’t kick like my sisters.” “Yeah, you’d better not.”

72. “Everything will be alright. It’ll be alright..”

73. Aunt Josephine helping by paying for Jerry to work at Green Gables, as well as giving Anne books

74. “We’ve been together all these years, thick or thin, so don’t think I’ll put up with you slipping away now. Anne will be home today, and she’ll be very happy to see you.”

75. Matthew trying to kill himself because the life insurance would pay off the debt he caused

76. Jeannie happening to show up and find Matthew with the gun just in time as he tries to hide what he’s almost done from her, realizing what he’s done

77. The way they stress how his passing would effect Anne the most because of what they mean to each other, that she will suffer without him despite what he’s trying to do

78. “Don’t ever get old…” “Too late for that.”

79. “You would’ve left us that way!? Left me?..”

80. “Give it back. I won’t take charity.” “But.. love isn’t charity.” “I won’t take it.” “Nay I ask why not?” “We will not be pitied! I don’t want people thinking we can’t fend for ourselves.” “Well at the moment we can’t, and I’d sure give my last bit of strength or my last dollar to help a friend. Then I know that friend would feel grateful and loved above all else. And I do. I feel very grateful to have such a dear friend as Miss Barry. Sometimes you just have to let people love you Marilla.”

81. Anne selling her cleaning services to make steady income

82. “We’re rich, aren’t we Matthew?”

83. Jerry carving a star for the Christmas tree!!!!!!

84. Anne’s friends coming to sing carols at their house

85. Anne helping Matthew walk outside

86. Not Nate :(

87. Nathaniel, the bane of my existence

#renew awae #awae #anne shirly cuthbert #jerry baynard #mathew cuthbert #marilla cuthbert #josephine barry

29 notes · View notes

meichenxi · 3 years

Text

<j q x> and <zh ch sh>: an in-depth pronunciation guide

Help! I can’t pronounce <j q x>! AM I FOREVER CURSED??

No! You shall rise from the void of bad pronunciation! The gleaming ladder of linguistics beckons and shall guide you to success!

Alright, let’s go!

This, below, is your mouth! (simplified, in paint, please use your imagination) The pointy bits are your teeth - the dangly bit at the back is your velum. The bits that are relevant for us today are the alveolar ridge, post-alveolar space and the palate.

<j q x> are all technically 'alveolo-palatal' sounds. Your alveolar ridge in your mouth is the bit behind your teeth that is very hard, before it goes upwards and gets softer. Your palate is divided into your hard palate and soft palate - the hard palate is the bit that burns when you eat pizza!

Alveolar sounds in English are /t d s z n l/ etc - feel how your tongue is tapping off that hard ridge in the first two. We just have one palatal sound in English, made when your tongue approaches the hard palate - <y>, which is usually written /j/ in linguistics. (<this> means spelling, and /this/ means phonemic pronunciation).

Post-alveolar sounds are sounds which are made when you retract your tongue a bit from the hard alveolar ridge. We have quite a few - /ʃ/ as in 'shot' <sh>, /ʒ/ as in 'vision' <s>, /tʃ/ as in 'church', and /dʒ/ as in <j>, 'jam'. Congratulations, because these all exist in Chinese! If you're a proficient English speaker or your language has them, pinyin <zh> , <ch> and <sh> should be straightforward (though <sh> especially is a little bit more retroflex, i.e. your tongue curled back, than the English). T

Alveolo-palatal sounds are made with your lips spread wide, with the back of your tongue raised to your palate (like in <yes> as in ‘yes’) and the tip of your tongue resting along the back of the teeth.

Compare the two pictures. The first is the pronunciation of the post-alveolar sounds, so pinyin <zh ch sh>, and the second is the pronunciation of <j q x>. Notice how in the second picture the body of the tongue is much higher, and the tip of the tongue isn’t curled back, but resting behind the teeth.

In the picture for the English sounds above, please note that this isn’t totally accurate - Chinese <zh ch sh> as well as <r> are more retroflex - they are pronounced with the tongue curled further back in the mouth - but while your accent may sound ‘off’ if you pronounce them in the English way, it’s close enough that it’s unlikely to be mistaken for anything else, so we’ll leave it there for now. The picture below shows the difference.

In pinyin, <j> <q> and <x> are written with separate letters to <zh> <ch> <sh>. This is really helpful for us, because they are different sounds, but technically speaking we could write them all the same. What?? Because they are actually linguistically speaking in complementary distribution with each other.

Think about it.

Do you ever say ch+iang or q+ang? Or q+an or ch+ian? Or pronounce ch+u with the German umlaut vowel ü, or q+u with the normal ? You never do!

The consonants <jqx> and <zh ch sh> are always followed by different vowels to each other. Knowing these vowels will help you tell them apart in listening, and aid you, eventually, in production.

Look at this diagram below of standard Chinese monophthongs (single vowels). The pointy bit is the front of our mouth, and the lines represent height and ‘backness’. The dots are where the highest point of your tongue in your mouth is when you pronounce the vowel. We only need to worry about and <y> for now.

The /u/ is the we get after <zh ch sh> - e.g. chū. This is familiar to most people with knowledge of Romance languages - it’s a long, clear sound without any change of the vowel (careful native English speakers; we’re not very good at this one). The /y/ is the German <ü> or French .

The /I/ here is the high ‘ee’ sound that we get in qi, ji, xi etc. This sound doesn’t exist after <zh ch sh>, but also <s r>. Instead, we have what’s often analysed as a ‘syllabic consonant’ - if you think about it, there really isn’t much ‘vowel’ in 是 shì or 日 rì. The first is just a long <shhh> sound - but this is a complex topic best left for another day.

Why do we get the high sounds (if you make the sounds in your mouth, you can feel that ‘eeee’ and ‘üüü’ move your tongue higher up than the other two) after the alveolo-palatal consonants and not the others? If you remember, <y> or /j/ as in ‘yes’ is a palatal consonant. This sound is actually incredibly similar to that high ‘eee’ - try saying ‘eee’ and then ‘ehhh’ (as in ‘yes’) and notice that when you switch vowel, you automatically say a <y> sound without even trying. If you are making a palatal sound like <y>, or like <j q x>, your tongue is already in the position to make <ü> and high ‘ee’ very easily. And humans are lazy - it’s much easier to follow a consonant with a vowel that’s in the same place, than to change the place completely. Technically speaking this is called ‘ease of articulation’. So when we want to say <qu>, the gains some of the characteristics and is pronounced more similarly to the <q>.

And if you think about the rest of the pinyin table - this pattern of <q j x> being associated with ‘high’ vowels doesn’t stop with and . You get <chang>, but you don’t get <*qang> (* means ‘wrong’), but <qiang> with an extra palatal <y> /j/ sound in there. You get <zhang>, but not <*jang>, but <jiang>. You get <shang> but <xiang> etc etc. There are essentially no overlapping areas where only the consonants and different, but the vowels are the same. This is hugely helpful for learning to recognise the difference between the two sets of consonants, and also for people understanding you, the terrible, unforgivable second language learner - since there are no contexts in which the two sets can be confused with each other, as long as you pronounce the vowel afterwards correctly, what you want to say should be clear.

With that in mind, let’s get onto the actual pronunciation!

This is where you want to pronounce <x>. It’s similar to, but not quite the same as, the German palatal fricative written <ch> as in ‘ich’ (NOT as in ‘ach’), so if you have this sound in your inventory, you’re already winning! When you pronounce <sh>, the body of the tongue (the middle bit) is sunk down quite low; when you pronounce <x>, you need to raise the tongue towards your palate (the ‘palatal’ bit of the sound) and bring the front of your tongue under the back of your teeth, almost like you’re going to whistle. It’s helpful for all of these to put your tongue behind your lower front teeth, though you can also make the sound with it behind your upper front teeth as in the diagram below.

When you say <x>, without any vowels following it, it should sound higher pitched, and your lips should be spread wide. When you say <sh>, it sounds lower pitched and your lips are not stretched - in fact, they’re bunched. Watch videos of native speakers pronouncing them in isolation, and try to copy their mouth shapes.

Most people can get away with some approximation of <x> because of the difference in vowel sounds, and while it may be wrong, if the rest of your pronunciation is ok, it won’t make a huge difference to people’s understanding of you. Many people, however, struggle hugely with <q> and <j> - and there’s no handy vowels to tell these apart.

First: Chinese doesn’t make the distinction between voiced and voiceless consonants like many languages like Spanish or Russian, but instead between non-aspirated and aspirated consonants, a little like English. This means that English natives often actually sound more natural when they are pronouncing te de or bo po than other foreigners. For speakers of languages without this aspiration difference (the difference between a consonant with a puff of air and without), this is difficult to get used to, but doesn’t usually cause difficulties with comprehension. What it does mean, though, is that the biggest difference between <q> and <j> is aspiration - <q> is aspirated, while <j> is not. Hold out your hand and try to feel the difference. You should feel a thin stream of air hit your hand in consonants like <t p q>.

Youtube for practicing:

Grace Mandarin - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05BMKdxHjp8 Mandarin Blueprint - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxIL11PcNXE Yoyo Chinese - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K1RTPxWiI0

BUT - BUT IT’S STILL SO HARD!!! HOW CAN I MAKE IT EASIER??

Firstly, this vowel difference afterwards is incredibly important. Your pronunciation won’t be CORRECT if you only make this vowel difference, but it will go a LONG way towards helping you a) distinguish the correct pronunciation of other speakers, and b) copying them more accurately. What we’re all doing now, as second language learners or learners who have grown up without as much input as we’d like, is retraining our brain to the contrasts that are important. English doesn’t have a contrast between <q> and <ch>, or <sh> and <x>, so naturally if you’re a monolingual native English speaker it’s going to take some time. Be patient with yourselves. When we’re very young babies, we can make a difference between all phonemic distinctions in the world. And then at about 10 months we just lose that ability essentially instantly, because we’ve already established which contrasts are important and which aren’t. That’s not to say kids can’t learn it - because they clearly do - or adults can’t, but that you are LITERALLY RETRAINING YOUR BRAIN.

It’s not just about where to put your tongue, how to shape your mouth. Our brains are effective - they only store which information is necessary for the language, nothing extraneous. Technically speaking the /k/ in <kit> and <car> are two very different sounds, and in some languages they count as different phonemes and are written with different letters - but you probably never even noticed they were different at all! Because in English, all the extra information that says ‘this sound is pronounced more palatal’ and ‘this sound is pronounced more velar’ just doesn’t matter. So when you’re trying to learn these contrasts that don’t exist in your native language, it doesn’t matter if you can make the sound correctly once. What you actually need to do is convince your brain that every single time you hear or pronounce <j q x zh ch sh> you need to pay attention to contrast it previously filed under ‘not important’.

Lastly: be kind to yourself!!!

This takes babies about 10 months to get down - 10 months of solid, constant input with caregivers that are very focused on them. And you’re fighting how your brain has wired itself to disregard that contrast. How can you fix this? Input. INPUT IS KING. You need to present your brain with enough Chinese, enough different voices and speakers, to make it realise that there’s a crucial, important difference between all <qiang> and <chang> and so on. This will take time, but as long as you have enough input you’ll get there. But be kind to yourself. YOU ARE RESHAPING YOUR BRAIN.

加油！

- 梅晨曦

#pronunciation #chinese #chinese langblr #chinese studyblr #chinese pronunciation #pinyin #langblr #studyblr #linguistics #lingblr #phonetics #phonology #tongueblr #polyglot #hate this tagging game but guess it's gotta be done

177 notes · View notes

milliedazzledust · 3 years

Text

Turning Pages (Kol Mikaelson imagine)

Request by @scallisonbaby : Could you write an imagine for Kol, she’s the daughter of one of his main enemies, she tried to keep it a secret but he finds out and klaus tries to kill her saying she’s probably spying on us but Kol proctects the reader.

Words: 2858 words

A/N: this doesn’t follow the chronology or history of the show. Kinda felt inspired, this is long

Y/N knew she was screwed the moment she saw him. The brown eyes, disheveled hair, handsome smile and smartass attitude, not to mention this british accent that could make her swoon. Yes, Kol Mikaleson really was her weakness. She suspected he knew it and played with it anytime he could. She hadn’t known the Mikaelsons for long but had helped them countless times.

Several years ago, before the family came back to New Orleans, she had come to seek shelter. Her path had crossed Marcel’s. He had come to her rescue before some vampire could kill her one night and she confided a whole part of her story she wished she could forget to him. She had expected him to ask her to leave and never come back to his city, but instead, he had agreed to help and hide her.

Ever since, she had kept that secret and had sworn no one would ever find out. Before New Orleans, she had another life, another name. A one she despised more than anything with a man she no longer considered family. She’d learn of his implication with Klaus himself later on when the man she had succeeded to avoid for years came back, hellbent on revenge against the Mikaelsons.

« How exactly do you think this is gonna go when they’ll find out ? » Marcel asked her, handing her a bottle of beer.

She sighed. Sitting on the couch in his living room, her feet crossed on the table, she took the beverage and leaned back, staring at the ceiling.

« I think Kol is gonna kill me » She answered.

« Kol isn’t the brother you should be worried about »

She gave him a side look and pursed her lips before taking a sip from her bottle.

« Family’s a real bitch sometimes, huh ? » She half heartedly joked.

« He’s not your family, not anymore. Not since you came to New Orleans »

She smiled at her friend.

« But your father has become powerful enough to kill an original over the past couple of weeks and you know he’s gonna try to destroy them »

Again, she sighed.

« What am I suppose to do ? »

« I know you don’t want to see him, but you might just be the only one who can stop him »

« Do you really think he’ll listen to me ? After all I’ve told you ? »

« Lucien is … well … complicated, but not beyond reason »

She chuckled.

« Complicated ? Is that your definition of psychotic maniac killer ? »

Marcel stood up then turned to the girl, offering her his hand.

« You owe it to yourself to at least try »

She rolled her eyes.

« Damn you and your moral Marcel » She muttered, taking his hand and getting up.

With a heavy heart, she let him take her to the compound. So far as she could remember, she always had felt scared of her father. When she was a child, often she felt like she couldn’t breathe. Her heart would race at the simplest sound of his feet approaching. Countless times she cried herself to sleep, hoping he wouldn’t hear, otherwise he’d come to show her what it was to be strong and not weak, as he would put it.

Marcel took her to the French Quarter, knowing whatever Klaus was planning, it was certainly to lure Lucien into the compound. He wasn’t wrong. The moment they step foot inside the Mikaelson’s mansion, one of them was already flying across the room, landing with a loud noise on the staircase. The vampire she had once known as her father was standing in front of Niklaus as his brother got back on his feet.

« You should’ve ran while you still could » Klaus threatened him.

« And miss an opportunity to kill you ? » Lucien laughed.

Klaus grinned, taking a step back. He silently nodded at his sister Freya. She instantly started chanting ancient words, a grimoire in one hand, the other raised in defense against him. In a matter of seconds, Lucien was on the ground, screaming in pain.

All this time, Y/N stayed behind Marcel. It was her way to shield herself from him. No one except Kol acknowledged their presence. Instinctively, after a quick look at her, he put himself in front of her. For a moment she thought it was to allow his brothers to attack, but when she felt his hand clasped around hers, she knew he was trying to protect her from the fight to come.

Suddenly, almost as quick as it started, her father stopped screaming and laughed. She’d recognize that evil, wicked sound anywhere.

« Did you really think this would work ? » Lucien proudly stated, standing up.

Freya took a step back, glancing at Klaus. Whatever spell they had planned, it wasn’t working on him. They all looked tense when he casually crossed the magic border around him with ease.

« Let’s get this show on the road, shall we? » He grinned.

The Mikaelsons spun in a defensive stance. Elijah launched himself first and made Lucien fall, but the vampire was quick to get back on his feet. Klaus used his speed to attack but the other creature anticipated his move and threw him against a wall. Angry, he got back up, breaking a chair and stabbed him with it. Lucien took the weapon out of his chest and Elijah used this distraction to get behind him and try to strike. It was no use. The other vampire turned before he could do anything and grabbed his arm, breaking it in the process. Seeing his brother struggling, Kol glanced behind him at Y/N before rushing to help him.

« Don’t move » He warned her.

He squeezed her hand one last time and ran to Lucien, punching him and making him lose his grip on his brother. Y/N watched in horror her worst nightmare happening. Soon, Marcel joined the fight and the violent dance started against the vampires. Her breath suddenly got caught in her lungs when she saw her father twist Kol’s arm, making his knees hit the floor. When Elijah and Klaus tried to get closer, he pulled harder on his shoulder. Kol winced in pain and his brothers stopped dead in their tracks.

When Y/N saw her father’s fangs retracting and the black veins running on his face, she swore her heart stopped beating. Right then, out of pure fear for the man she loved, she deciding she could no longer stay back.

« Enough! » She yelled.

His mouth wide opened, close to Kol’s arm, he looked up at her and smirked. For a moment it all sounded quiet. Everyone was completely still and no one moved over the silence of the room. The invisible tension was almost palpable as she took a tentative step toward him.

« Let him go » She told him, her voice quivering.

Still wearing that god awful smile, he looked back at her, pleased by her intervention.

« Stay back, Y/N » Kol warned her before, worried she would try to come closer.

She stopped in her track. As she looked around the room, she could see the questioning stares around her and she knew this moment would change everything, but she couldn’t let him hurt this family.

« Please … stop » She whispered, her eyes watery.

« Why would I ? » He darkly chuckled.

« Because I’m asking you »

Her lips quivered as she forced herself to take a breath.

« Y/N, step back. He is dangerous » Elijah advised her.

Lucien let out a sinister chuckle, raising an eyebrow.

« They don’t know, do they ? »

She pursed her lips, silently answering his question. Once again he loudly laughed, finding the situation amusing.

« Marvelous ! »

From the corner of her eyes, she could see Klaus started to put the puzzle into pieces. She was screwed and she knew it.

« I’ll come back if you let them go » She offered, ignoring Kol gaze on her.

He bitterly smirked.

« You chose your side when you fled my home, Y/N. And for that you will die too »

He tightened his hold on the vampire beneath him when he started to fight back at his words.

« And your pathetic lover with it » He spitted.

« You left me no other choices ! »

« You were supposed to rule by my side! » He screamed. « You were suppose to defeat the Mikaelsons with me ! »

« Those were your plans, not mine » She cried.

Again, she saw his fangs retracting and she felt the fear growing in the pit of her stomach.

« I’ll teach you what happens when you betray your own father, Y/N ! »

This was it. They finally knew. She saw each Mikaelsons widened their eyes in surprise. Marcel took a defensive step toward her when she noticed Klaus starting to shift, angry. What hurt her the most was the way Kol stared back at her. His jaw tightened, his fist clenched, he looked betrayed and it broke her heart. Before any of them could process the news or react, she watched her father plugged his fangs into the arm of the man she loved, making him scream in agony.

« No! » She shouted, running to them in a vain effort to save him.

Before she could even reach Kol, she felt her body being pushed and her back violently smacking a wall. The force of the impact made her close her eyes just for a second but when she opened them back, she noticed her father had fled. Ignoring the physical pain she felt, she tried to stand up.

« I’ll kill you! » She heard Klaus yelled at her.

He reached her at an impressive speed, clasping his hands around her neck. With all the power he could, he strangled her, and the girl was no match against Klaus Mikaelson. Marcel was quick to come to her rescue and threw the vampire attacking her across the room.

All Y/N could focus on was Kol cries. The man was on the ground, Freya and Elijah by his side, fighting an invisible force trying to kill him, fighting a fate brought by her father. He screamed in agony as his brother tried to hold him still while their witch sister had already started to gather ingredients for a spell.

« We don’t have long » She told them.

« Why are you protecting her ?! » Klaus shouted to Marcel. « That wicked woman lied to us! »

« She had no choice, Klaus! »

« So you knew ! You knew she was a spy send to destroy my family and you said nothing! »

« She’s not with him ! »

« Do I care about terminology ?! He is her father ! »

Elijah watched Y/N as she tightly shut her eyes at his brother’s words.

« Enough, Niklaus! » He shouted at his brother. « This is not the place, nor the time »

Kol was still restless on the ground, the spasms making it harder for Elijah to hold him still. His skin had started to become sickly pale. Y/N stared at him, a few feet away. Never had she felt so guilty and ashamed. She could see his misery and knew the mere sight of it would haunt her for the rest of her life.

« Freya, do something ! » Klaus urged her when his brother stared to violently shake.

« I’m trying ! » She responded.

She quickly gathered everything she needed around her, working as fast as she could.

« I’m gonna need Lucien’s blood » She informed them.

The brothers shared a look. They knew wherever the man was, they wouldn’t reach him in time.

« Would … would mine work ? » Y/N softly suggested.

« Yes »

« You’re not coming anywhere near him! » The hybrid shouted back.

« Niklaus, let the woman help! » Elijah answered him.

He nodded at her and she almost ran to Freya, offering her arm to her. She winced when the witch cut her skin but her eyes never left Kol. Freya finished her spell and mixed all her ingredients, adding Y/N’s blood then handed a cup to Elijah. He brought it to his brother’s mouth, forcing him to drink. The girl waited by his side, anxious. She hadn’t noticed the tears on her face, nor her hands trembling. She let out a breath of relief when she saw the man stopped shivering.

« Leave, now » Klaus firmly ordered.

« Are you serious ? She just saved your brother! » Marcel warned him.

« It’s … it’s alright, I’ll go »

She stood up, shaking with emotions, ready to collapse in tears, and walked to the door. She took a look back, needing to make sure he was alive.

« He’s gonna be alright » Elijah reassured her.

She nodded, glad he at least wasn’t showing any sign of anger toward her then glanced one last time at Niklaus.

« You and I share one thing in commun, we didn’t choose to have a crappy father. I thought you of all people would’ve understood that »

He pursed his lips, holding himself back from answering.

« I’ll leave New Orleans tomorrow » She told them. « I’ll try to draw him out of the city »

« You don’t need to go » Marcel told her.

« Just … tell him I’m sorry, okay ? » She asked, looking one last time at Kol.

Marcel sadly nodded at the girl before she disappeared. For a while, she just wandered around the streets, enjoying the eery atmosphere of New Orleans one last time before going home and packing.

Leaning over the balcony of her home later that night, she stared at the life still roaring so late in the city. A man on the street was playing the sax while some people danced to it. She could hear the noise from Rousseau’s, the laugh, the music, the chatter. Bourbon street and its live music and vibrant people felt so alive and inviting, a chaotic contrast to what she was feeling. Time seemed to slow as she tried to photograph this memory, a keepsake to give her strength in the rough times she knew would come against her father. She felt a sudden gush of air behind her and shivered, knowing what it was before he even spoke.

« Were you really expecting me to let you go that easily, love ? »

She closed her eyes, a tear rolling down her cheek. All the noises around her disappeared. All she could hear was the loud silence and his heavy presence. She tensed when she felt him take a step closer, scared he might say something that would definitely hurt her.

« Kol… » She whispered.

« Why ? » He simply asked.

She pursed her lips, trying to come up with an answer that would be enough to make him understand.

« I was scared »

« Of what ?! »

« My father has done terrible things »

He grabbed her wrist, making her sharply turned to face him.

« Y/N, have you seen my family ? » He argued. « Did you think I would judge you ? Do you think so low of me ? »

« Are you alright ? » She suddenly asked, not acknowledging any of his questions, her eyes scanning his body for any sign of injury.

« What ? »

He seemed lost for a moment.

« Your wound » She explained. « Has it healed ? »

« That’s beside the point, Y/N »

« You almost died because of me »

« Because of him » He corrected her.

In a second he was in front of her and entangled his hand in her hair, his thumb softly stroking her cheek.

« Why, Y/N ? » He asked in a whisper, his eyes pouring into hers.

She felt small under his gaze, unarmed and vulnerable.

« I didn’t want to remember » She admitted. « I just wanted to forget him, forget he existed, forget the years of … »

She stopped herself and he knew why. He didn’t need her to say it to know Lucien had hurt her, badly.

« I didn’t think I’d see him again » She kept going, a lump forming in her throat. « I thought I was free, Kol »

She starred right back at him, a sob escaping her throat.

« I thought I was finally free » She told him, her shoulders shaking with every word.

He dragged her to him, squeezing her as she melt down in his arms. It was more than crying, it was the kind of desolate sobbing that comes from a person drained of all hope. He felt her sank to her knees before she could touch the ground and tightened his hold of her. He waited patiently until she was calm enough to take a step back.

« There’s no way I’m letting you leave the city, Y/N »

« I have to make him go. Besides, your brother will have be beheaded if I don’t disappear »

« The hell with Niklaus, he can go fuck himself for all I care »

She rolled her eyes at him.

« I’m not letting you go » He vehemently stated, cupping her cheeks.

« He’ll come back for you. All of you » She muttered.

« Well good. We’ll be waiting for him »

« Kol … »

« Mark my words, Y/N ; I am NOT letting you go » He repeated.

He leaned into her and kissed her forehead, then her nose, then softly, her lips.

« I can’t let him get to you » She confessed.

« And I can’t let you go near him. This is a dead end, love, and you’re not winning this argument »

She chuckled.

« I really thought I’d lost you for a moment »

He smirked.

« Never. You’re stuck with me for an eternity »

#kol mikaelson #kol mikaelson x reader #kol mikaelson imagine #kol mikaelson fanfiction #kol mikaelson imagines #kol mikaelson fanfic #elijah mikaelson #klaus mikaelson #the originals

259 notes · View notes

lady-divine-writes · 3 years

Text

Good Omens - A Historic Blunder (Rated NC17)

Summary: Crowley shows up in the Bastille to rescue Aziraphale, but for some reason, when he snaps his fingers, it doesn't only release Aziraphale from his chains, it switches their places. Miffed at all of Crowley's mean comments about his beautiful suit, Aziraphale doesn't just opt to free Crowley, but forces him to earn his way out of his chains by putting his smart mouth and sharp tongue to better use. (1999 words)

Notes: Written for the @coldomenszine - nsfw digital-only edition. Warning for bondage and oral.

Read on AO3.

“What in the …?" Crowley glares at the shackles clamped around his wrists and Aziraphale's gold brocade suit miraculously tailored to his body. His eyes dart over to Aziraphale, clothed in the burgundy coat he arrived in. "Why am I wearing your clothes? And your chains? How the Heaven did this happen?"

"I don't know," Aziraphale says, massaging his wrists, rubbed raw by the shackles he'd been locked in. Indeed, how did this happen? Just moments ago, between pleasant banter and derisive remarks in regard to Aziraphale's unfortunate clothing choices, Crowley had snapped his fingers, performing a demonic miracle to set Aziraphale free. Which he did, so, of course, well done him. But now Crowley is the one in chains ...

... while Aziraphale is dressed like a peasant.

"Are you losing your touch?"

"Very funny.” Crowley snaps his fingers again. And again. And again. But no matter what he does, he can’t break free.

Most of what he'd intended when he snapped his fingers happened. Aziraphale is unbound, and the guard who had been sent to fetch him standing paralyzed in the corner. Other than that, nothing else worked the way it was supposed to.

It's almost as if his spell backfired.

"Could this be a punishment from Hell for you rescuing me?" Aziraphale asks with genuine confusion. "You said your lot don't send rude notes. Could they have taken away your power instead?"

“Don’t know," Crowley says, examining his hands for answers. "Does seem like something they'd do.”

Aziraphale gasps. "Maybe they know you're here, and this was a test! Or maybe this isn't Hell's doing at all! Maybe this is Heaven's!" He looks up and around, trying to sense any Holy influence in their midst. If he finds any, he's going to be very put off, seeing as they made no move whatsoever to aid him.

"All interesting theories," Crowley agrees, giving the shackles a tug, checking their strength. "Theories I would love to discuss with you at length somewhere other than here. So why don't you get me out of this mess?"

Aziraphale tuts at Crowley's tone. He's every inch a demon of Hell, with demon manners, too. "What's the magic word?"

Crowley rolls his eyes. He considers not saying it out of spite, but what other option has he?��"Please."

"Could you possibly say it nicer?"

Crowley fixes Aziraphale with the fire of his fierce, yellow eyes. "No."

"Fine." Aziraphale raises a hand to snap his fingers, but he hesitates.

"Wot?" Crowley shakes the chains to remind Aziraphale what he should be doing. "Wot's the matter?"

“I don't know."

"Wot do you mean you don't know?"

"It was nice of you to sweep in here and help me, but you're being mean to me."

"I'm being mean to you?"

"You made fun of my clothes!”

Crowley sputters like a car struggling to start. “You’re ... you're ... you're going to let me get discorporated because I made a comment about your outfit?”

“It was rude! I'll have you know that suit was a gift from Marie Antoinette herself!”

"Pfft. Fitting you'd be wearing it here then."

Aziraphale tsks in disgust. "Was that really necessary?"

Footsteps overhead, coupled with the sounds of cells opening and shrill cries for mercy, draw Crowley's attention away, make him swallow hard. "Okay, look, none of that matters right now! I got you out of your chains, yes? Tit for tat, angel. Bust me out!"

"Quite right, quite right. I could do that. Bust you out, as you say. But what’s in it for me?”

"Aside from you not losing your head?"

"Yes. Obviously. Aside from that."

“I’ll take you to lunch," Crowley offers.

Aziraphale shrugs. “Alas, I’ve already eaten.”

Crowley pulls a face. “That’s never mattered before!”

“Yes ..." Aziraphale grins "... but today it does.”

"Wot else could you possibly want?"

"What are you willing to give me?"

Crowley crosses his arms over his chest, fumbling with the cumbersome metal links so he can manage it. "I know you've got something on your mind, angel. So could you help me out? Give me a hint?"

"Well ..." Aziraphale rolls his eyes to the ceiling, stalling in the hopes Crowley might figure it out "... it's been terribly stressful here, locked up by myself, waiting to be executed ..." He busies himself picking nonexistent lint from Crowley's jacket, feigning nonchalance. He has no intention of letting Crowley lose his head. He's having a bit of fun with him.

But maybe he can finagle a little something more.

"So you're wanting something to relieve your stress, is that it?"

"Perhaps ..."

Crowley smirks. "The stress of being locked up or the stress of being an arsehole?"

Aziraphale huffs. “Remember, my dear, I can’t stop time the way you can so we don’t have a lot to play around with.”

“How much time are we talking about exactly?” Crowley asks, dropping to his knees. Aziraphale hides his triumphant grin behind a scowl when he sees the immaculate hem of his pants and the toes of his satin shoes come in contact with the grimy floor.

“There are guards strolling the halls, checking on prisoners several floors above us. There’s one a few floors down doing the same, coming up this way. So I’d say you have roughly twenty minutes.”

"Twenty minutes!?”

“Nineteen now.”

“Knowing the response time of your cock when faced with my tongue, I’d say that’s more time than I need.”

Aziraphale glowers. "Eighteen ..."

"Alright, alright! Help me out! Undo your trousers!"

"You're already down there. I'd say you're in a better position to undo them, don't you?"

"Bastard!" Crowley growls. He snaps his fingers, quadruple checking that it won't work. Wouldn't it be the dog's bollocks if his magic came back in time to shove Aziraphale's snarky attitude right back in his face?

But it doesn't.

Crowley unfastens the fall-front of Aziraphale's trousers, the rough metal of the shackles doing no favors for his wrists in this position, but that barely fazes him, focused on this particular task.

It's been ages since he's seen angel's cock.

He removes it from the confines of angel's trousers, holds it in his hand, and wonders - has it gotten bigger since? Has Aziraphale been putting extra effort into this part of his anatomy since the last time they were together?

Or is he doing this now for Crowley's benefit?

To make Crowley desire him?

Crowley opens wide, takes him in his mouth, but slowly. More slowly than usual. They might be pressed for time, but Crowley feels a need for vengeance. He's going to drag this out, use all of the eighteen - no, seventeen - minutes they have to frustrate the Hell out of Aziraphale.

Teach him a lesson he won't forget anytime soon.

Crowley's lips around Aziraphale's cock nearly discorporate Aziraphale in an instant. It's been too long since he's sampled this demon's pleasures - his warm mouth, his quick wit.

His exquisite company.

"That's is," Aziraphale moans as Crowley wraps his serpent tongue around him, then drags it down his length. "That definitely hits the spot."

Crowley pulls away. "I'm glad you're enjoying yourself. My knees are aching like Christ on the cross."

"Too soon, my dear," Aziraphale mutters, eyelids fluttering shut to block out sounds of clattering chains, guards coming ever closer, screams of prisoners dragged to their deaths, the ominous drop of the guillotine. "Too soon."

This is the way things have been between them for as long as Crowley can remember. These small indiscretions, stolen taboos, are all they're allowed. They never know when they will have time together, so they relish it whenever it comes along. As fun as it is riling angel up, Crowley can't help wishing he could do things up proper: in the quiet of his flat, on a bed of rose petals, with a bottle of champagne, a bowl of fresh cream, and all the time in the world to enjoy it.

“Crowley!" Aziraphale whines, hips bucking, desperation saturating every breath. "They're coming!"

"Are you?"

"This isn't the time for humor!"

"How much time do we have left?"

"We don't have any left!”

As if on cue, the guards Aziraphale has been sensing arrive, going on loudly about what could have happened to their companion (Marcel - the man stuck in the corner). They stop, do a double-take, then go bug-eyed when they spot Crowley, dressed like a member of the haut monde, on his knees in front of Aziraphale.

At first, they don't know what to make of it. They would chalk it up as a victory if not for the fact that, even dressed like one of them, they have no idea who Aziraphale is. And though they recognize the fancy suit Crowley is sporting, they have no clue how the man inside went from plump and pale to thin with flaming red hair and dark glasses.

They try to think up a practical explanation, but as former men of faith, they come to the conclusion that what's going on inside the cell is the work of the Devil. They hurry off, presumably to summon back-up, screaming about witchcraft and perversion. Aziraphale doesn't know for sure. They could be yelling about the weather. His grasp of conversational French isn't as good as it should be. He could ask Crowley to translate, but he wouldn't remove his mouth from his cock for anything.

Tragically, Crowley does so himself. "I think we've been spotted."

"How did you guess?"

"Are you even close?"

"Yes! Yes, I am! I ... oh, let me! May I?" Aziraphale grabs Crowley's head but waits for a consenting nod before he holds him still and fucks his mouth to the finish. And Crowley lets him. He may as well have some fun with his mouth before he and his head become strangers. Not that he thinks Aziraphale would leave him there to be beheaded.

But would he?

"Oh! Oh, dear! Oh for Heaven's ...!" Aziraphale comes down Crowley's throat in a wash of Holy light enough to burn straight through to his stomach, but that's part of what he enjoys about letting angel use him.

That taste of Heaven that accompanies his orgasm.

"Oh my goodness!" Aziraphale pants. "That was exceptional, my dear. Bravo. You really know how to rise to a challenge."

"I'm glad you're satisfied." Crowley wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, then licks up every last drop. "But there's still the matter of you breaking me out."

"Yes ..." Aziraphale awkwardly clears his throat "... that."

"You are going to free me, right?"

Aziraphale shoots Crowley an offended look. "Of course, I am! I'm an angel of my word!"

"A-ha. And how do you intend on doing that when you didn't want to use a miracle to free yourself?" Crowley asks, kicking himself for not considering that at the beginning of all this.

"Oh! Well, you see, I nicked the key from that chap over there ..." Aziraphale pats down the pockets of Crowley's coat, then the pockets of his own, chirping a tiny, "A-ha!" when he finds it.

"Why didn't you tell me!?"

"You didn't ask!"

"How did you get it off him without his noticing?"

"Nu-uh." Aziraphale sticks the key in the lock and gives it a twist. "A magician never reveals his secrets."

"Wait! That means you could have gotten yourself ... and me ... out of those chains this entire time!?" Crowley hisses, shaking out the throbbing in his wrists as the chains fall to the ground. But Aziraphale sidesteps Crowley's question and helps him to his feet.

"Come come now! Let's get moving!" With a snap of Aziraphale's fingers, Crowley is re-dressed in his original clothes while Aziraphale reluctantly switches outfits with the still frozen guard. "We mustn't hang about!"

When the guards return, there's only one prisoner in the cell.

The aristocrat on his knees and the revolutionary he was servicing are gone.

#good omens #good omens fanfiction #ineffable husbands #ineffable idiots #crowley x aziraphale #aziraphale x crowley #aziraphale #Crowley

55 notes · View notes