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sxnshxnxxnddxxsxxs · 22 days

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why do people always have damian refer to talia as mother or talia?

now i’m gonna preface this by saying i don’t speak arabic nor am i arab but arab people feel beyond free to just tell me to stay in my lane.

that being said it makes zero sense to me that damian refers to talia as mother or her first name. this goes for both canon and fanon.

mother makes no sense to me because he wouldn’t have grown up saying mother, like you expect me to believe that in nanda parbat damian was referring to his mother in english absolutely not. and while i understand the idea that once he moves to gotham he tries to assimilate i don’t think he would do that my addressing talia as mother. like he might say my mother when referring to her in general. but when actually speaking to her or about her to her family that just feels very unnatural to me.

talia also makes no sense to me. like is to showcase their tumultuous relationship sure okay but i have never in my life seen or heard of a brown person or a poc in general directly refer to their parents as their first name. like when they’re not around sure but as a direct address never. i say this as a poc myself. like you expect me to just believe that talia would allow that. absolutely not. like no matter your stance on respectability politics i feel like addressing your elders with the appropriate respect is a pretty universal thing especially among poc. and you can still portray a tumultuous relationship between parents and children without having an element that’s so aberrative.

i think it especially pisses me off in fanon because people love to have damian refer to bruce or dick as baba as like evidence of their improving relationship but then have talia be called talia or mother. and if the reasoning is that damian and talia’s relationship is so bad that he’s doing this purposefully to put this space between them then that should be demonstrated in the narrative. that this is a recent change, an unnatural one, it isn’t instinctual, but it is purposeful. i mean there are also other issues with talia and damian having a horrible relationship but i find that most of that comes down to talias post 2001 characterisation so i wont go into it but i defo think writers should keep in mind. no media is ever created in a vacuum.

anyway from a little bit of research i’ve done i’ve found that yumma, ommah and omm are all very common ways to say mother. there are loads of different ways to say mother because arabic has so many different dialects. i’ve also found out that ommi el-habiba means my beloved mother which i could totally see damian saying really bitingly if he is fighting with talia.

once again arab people feel free to correct me or tell me to mind my business. but also i think about this a lot like even mama makes far more sense to me than mother or talia

#damian wayne #damian wayne al ghul #talia al ghul #dc batfam #batfamily #bruce wayne #dick grayson #robin #batman #batfamily headcanons #batman meta #batfam meta

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queenie-blackthorn · 18 days

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Do you have a favorite passage of the Quran?

i dont have favorite passages as much as i have favorite ayat (verses)

so, surely with hardship comes ease.

Surely with ˹that˺ hardship comes ˹more˺ ease

these two verses from 94:5-6 has helped me calm down more than you can imagine. i cant explain the calming effect that remembering these two has on me.

do not let their words grieve you.

as someone who got bullied, 10:65 helped a lot.

Allah is the Guardian of the believers—He brings them out of darkness and into light.

this is 2:257 and also rlly comforted me

then this one is kinda different:

and We have put a barrier before them and a barrier behind them, and have covered them up, so they are unable to see.

(side note: the "we" here is the royal we, just in case thats confusing lol)

this is a verse that protected muhammad pbuh from being killed when he was fleeing mecca, and it has protected me from my parents. whenever i notice my parents starting to get angry and i get scared, i just whisper this verse (but in arabic – this is the pronunciation if anyone at all wants it) and they always, always get distracted. either my brothers start fighting and my mom has to attend to them, or my dad gets a phone call from work, i swear it works (for me at least). its become my mantra atp <3

oh and theres one more; the entire surah (chapter) of ad-duha (the morning hours). this ones a long story

abt a year ago (back when i was at the lowest point of my life, sh'ing, having regular panic attacks at school) i dreamt of being in a cave, and there was an old man with a long white beard wearing a thobe next to me, but he was focused on something and mumbling to himself. i focused and i saw he was compiling the quran into a book, and i looked in front of me and i saw scattered pages of the quran. i started compiling it with him, but it kinda compiled itself and then flipped open to a random page, which was open to ad-duha

for reference, ad-duha is short, so this is what it looked like:

its that big block in the middle, it fits comfortably on a single page with room for other chapters above and below.

so i told this dream to my moms friend whos good at interpreting dreams, and she told me to read the surah. so i did.

this surah came down on the prophet pbuh in a low point in his life when he thought he was abandoned by god bc he hadnt received any messages from the angel gabriel in over six months. in this short 11-verse chapter, here are a few of the verses:

Your Lord has not abandoned you, nor has He become hateful ˹of you˺. (verse 3)

And the next life is certainly far better for you than this one. (verse 4)

And ˹surely˺ your Lord will give so much to you that you will be pleased. (verse 5)

Did He not find you unguided then guided you? (verse 7)

i cannot explain the feeling i got when i read these verses. i cannot properly formulate into words the effect that reading this had on me.

keep in mind, this surah is taught to us as children bc its short. ages 8 and below. i had memorized this long ago but i never really focused on the words? cause its classical arabic, which is largely different from my dialect of arabic, so mostly i know the words but not their meanings iykwim. like i know the word "qala" but i dont know what it means.

so i dont think it was my mind grasping for things of comfort in order to make me feel better; i didnt know that this surah was meant to be reassuring until after the dream.

to this day, i read it whenever i feel kinda low<3

#now that i think abt it #a lot of these are comforting #maybe its bc im usually the one who does the comforting #so its nice having something / someone comfort ME for a change #quran #holy quran #quran kareem #quran ayah #prophet muhammad #muslim #islam #islamicpost #allah #islamic #allahswt #quran quotes #quran translation

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7amaspayrollmanager · 6 months

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I think that when you engage with zionists even liberal zionists (which you shouldnt) you get an understanding that they are looking at things on the ground from a completely other dimension.

You see it in the way they talk about the occupation or the apartheid laws and rebut the reality by saying "we let arabs into our hospitals or schools but israelis are not allowed in arabs hospitals or schools. Is that not apartheid" and that is an argument I heard years ago and even to this day and it's funny as hell because why would an israeli want to go to a palestinian hospital?? Totally ignores the power dynamics at play

But that rhetoric ALSO implies a complete reframing of history. That it was in fact israel that allowed the palestinian population into their country to begin with and the zionist invasion never happened and in fact it was israelis facing imminent expulsion at the hands of arabs and the Arabs left over did not really inhabit most of palestine they were never really attached to the land to begin with. They never had a national struggle like we did until after 1948.

You don't need to have a history degree to know how fundamentally inaccurate that is. When palestinian historians say that the Palestinian identity became more concrete, more official after 1948 they are not saying that palestinians did not exist they are saying that a national identity and struggle was solidified with the Expulsion (Nakba). Zionists tend to ignore that there was in the formations a national palestinian identity before 1948 decades before under British occupation (and under Ottoman rule). We know there was attempts to overthrow the British that was violently stamped out (and as many palestinian historians pointed out that that the scale of British violence essentially let palestinians be vulnerable to the nakba and allowed the zionist state to come about). We can see this early form of national identity in the palestinian newspapers and the records of historical palestinian figures calling to all people living in palestine to fight against British occupation.

And even if there was not this evidenced national struggle, the proof of a palestinian identity intrinsic to the region of palestine is found in the dialects, in the clothes (tatreez), in variations of food that although similar to the rest of the Levant you can find unique palestinian aspects to the recipes, in the folktales, in the style of homes, in the cultivation of orchards and gardens that have to have taken decades if not hundreds of years to do.

"Where was your flag in 1948? Where are your artifacts? You are no different than Jordanians" except that if I say "waqtaish" most Jordanians have no idea what I said because that is a uniquely palestinian expression. A palestinian expression from the peasant villages that may be lost on palestinians in the cities because palestinian culture is not homogenous and was and is rich and continuously developing even now.

A long essay to say that identity in relation to land is not stagnant and and not enshrined in "blood."

#And in response to israeli national identity #quite literally invented in 1948 they manufactured it and tried to homogenize the many jewish people under this #identity and simultaneously ban judeo arabic and yiddish #and that homogenization comes to exclusion of black and arab jewish israelis when you look at the yemenite child affair and the #sterilization of black asylum seekers #they manufactured an identity and try to make this straight line between the modern israel and the biblical one that ignores #that even biblical israel had many peoples living in it

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full-on-sam · 5 months

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Hello! You said you'd be accepting WBW/STS asks, so: here's an ask! Happy WBW!!

What's art like in your WIP's world? How does it differ from place to place, what form does it take, what subjects does it portray, etc.? You don't need to answer all of these, just ramble to your heart's content!

And, if you don't have a lot of worldbuilding around art, tell me about your world's language(s)! I'd be just as interested in hearing that!

Let's pretend it's still Wednesday please. And thanks fir the ask! I really missed these exchanges, they were my life all summer and I'm super sad it kinda died down and that I disappeared. But I'm trying to get back on track! So!

As for art, I am kinda in a slump right now, because that is a part of the worldbuilding I jave absolutely not flashed out. I think I will try to stay true to the historical settings, but maybe adding some more fantasy elements here and there.

As fir languages OH BOY. I love languages. I am studying them, and their mechanics 24/7. I made that my uni major. I feed on linguistics, all the throats movement to articulate the sounds. The structures of every sentence broken down. The language learning aspect.

I am pretty sure this book is born 69% because I wanted an outlet for all that.

There are actually a lot lot lot of languages. First of, the one that is called Common. Is a superlanguage that is kinda spoken all around Unyon'he. Obviously though not everyone can speak it properly. Think Latin in the middle ages. It was spoken by ecclesiastical people and whatnot, but commoners could not speak it at all. Except that at least 4/5 of my charachters have recieved higher education so they can. What makes it worse though, is that all the countries that spoke Latin where of the same linguistic roots, that us Indo European.

My five countries instead speak all different languages, based on real world Arabic, German, Chinese, Portuguese/Spanish, and Finnic/Swedish. So all of a different root. At this point I think I should reconsider Commin language as a whole core concept because it is just so fucking difficult.

Unless I make it a god given language which yeah. Could work.

MOREOVER! Think about dialects. So each country is divided in regions, and more or less they all have different dialects. And what about all the nomad merchants in Tijara? Yep. Complicated.

And then there are sign languages of course, which are very important bc Nayeli is very much deaf, thank you, and it is the only way she can communicate with the rest of the Squad.

So how many languages are there? 30/40 I guess. Yay for me!

#creative writing #writeblr #writing #ask answered #wbw #writers on tumblr #wbw ask

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sentistrange · 2 years

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Conlang Tips & Info

@typotripprr asked about this, but it would be way too long to comment (lol).

Some Basic Notes

I think the first thing you should ask yourself is this : will it be for a fictional world or for the modern day?

This is important because if it's used for a nation/group in a fictional setting, you need to think about what sounds speakers can make (pitch for rodent-inspired characters, clicks for aliens, etc.). And if you are solely using this language for specific scenes, then you really only need to create words for those moments. You’d need words specific for that world, probably without a direct translation for extra realism.

If you're using this for the modern world and everyday use, then you'll need to add words we use day-to-day in the present (car, computer, soda, etc.). However, you can make combo words to make something new or the same words with multiple meanings.

You can also take inspiration from a lot of languages, but don't clutter them. My first conlang, Sukoig Nohaas (lit. Star Sound/Language) has been described as sounding like Japanese, Russian, Arabic, Polish, and quite a few others, but I actually didn't take inspiration from any of them. But it is a language that can be used IRL.

The Letters & Sounds

This is something you should start with, as it's the foundation of your words.

You can start with these kinds of charts :

But personally, they're too complex and complicated for me, so I stick with basic, "a = ah, e = eh, i = ee, etc." which works fine.

Think about the sounds letters make. In English, "c" can be "k" or "s", but in Indonesian, "c" is "ch", and in Chinese, "c" is a mix of "s" and "z" (but that depends on dialect). You can choose to have certain letters with the same sound, but how the word is spelt changes which one is used. Or you can remove one entirely. In Gaelic, there is no "k", and they always use "c" for that sound.

If you can't decide what letters you want, you can do a couple things. If you have Scrabble, grab a random bunch of pieces and use those letters or find random letter generators/assign numbers to letters and use a random number generator. You can also choose words/names and take those letters. My second conlang, Kikke Molmi (lit. Name Language), only uses the letters in my full name : a, e, i, o, u, j, k, l, m, r, s.

Also, we have letters that make different sounds when put together. In Gaelic, "bh" makes a "v" sound. In Sukoig Nohaas, "sg" makes "sh", "vg" makes "th", and "gh" makes "ch".

But if you're making your own alphabet or using a non-Latin real script, you can have separate letters for the sounds. In Japanese, "し" is "shi" and "ち" is "chi".

While it doesn’t have special letters, this is Kikke Molmi’s script (based on things I like) :

Letter Order

This can be important or it can’t matter at all. Having a specific formula for letter order helps the language stay congruent, but your language doesn't need to be.

For making new words with a specific order, there is a website called Awkwords that a lot of people use. Using Kikke Molmi as an example, it looks like this :

(Note : V = Vowel, C = Consonant, N = Nasal, but you can add/remove.)

And by doing this, you can choose words in that order or random.

Some people just make up random orders. Using Sukoig Nohaas as an example :

Stet angha nen biirn'mius nen. Gholu stet haram sgapa ferharma nen yaun opur sgri (lyrics from a cover I made of a song called Still (Piano Ver.) by Rua feat. K. It's 1:15-1:25).

Grammar, Pt. 1

Okay, this part's a bit tricky.

You'll see examples using "S", "O", and "V", which means "Subject", "Object", "Verb". They'll be in the form of SVO, SOV, OVS, etc.

Examples :

English, SVO : The woman plays the piano.

Japanese, SOV : 私は猫が好きです。(lit. I cat like. Means, "I like cats".)

Ancient Middle Egyptian, VSO (some are supposed to stack) : 𓇋𓅱𓅠𓅓𓈖𓀀𓋴𓏭𓏞𓀀 (lit. Found the scribe her. Means, "The scribe found her".)

Sukoig Nohaas uses OVS and Kikke Molmi uses VOS.

Additionally, if you're using a new alphabet, which way do you write it? Latin sentences are left-to-right, up-to-down, but Chinese sentences are (traditionally) up-to-down, right-to-left. Sukoig Nohaas is written in Latin order, but Kikke Molmi is written left-to-right, down, right-to-left, down, and so on. This was inspired by Atlantean from Atlantis: The Lost Empire (my favorite Disney movie).

(This is the sentence shown in Grammar Pt. 2.)

Grammar, Pt. 2

Next, you need to think about when things like time/tense, adjectives, prepositions, and amounts. Using Kikke Molmi as an example, the full order is :

Time - Location - Verb - Amount (+1, +2) - Adjective - Object - Amount - Adjective - Subject.

So a full sentence would be :

Liklu osura rasja orki aska askok ku (lit. Lunchtime eat dead dog happy cat. Means, “During lunchtime, the happy cat eats the dead dog”).

But are you going to form these things? Maybe you don't need adjectives or tenses or pronouns. Kikke Molmi has no tense (as you may have noticed) nor pronouns, as it uses names only and a term for the "unknown person" if the name is unknown. So no I/you/us/he/she/they/it.

As opposed to Sukoig Nohaas, which depends on root words and affixes.

For example, the root word "zusiefaur" means "romantic love", so "le'zusiefaur" is "lover" (le' is a person), "me'zusiefaur" is "to love" (me' is a verb marker, and then uses a suffix for tense) and ner’zusiefaur means “romantically lovable” (ner’ is an adjective marker). So these two languages are very different when it comes to that.

Also, Kikke Molmi’s number system are in the form of +1, +2, +3, but use symbols with 1 stroke for +1, 2 strokes for +2, etc., which can be confusing

Creating a Lexicon

When creating your lexicon, think about *what* it's for. In fantasy/sci-fi languages, focus on specific scenes and terminology. As for everyday use, I personally make words as I need them or find a list of words and fill them all out. You should definitely keep them on an online document or notebook and if you want to use it IRL, it's a good idea to make flashcards/quizzes to memorize.

Slang is a good thing to add. English uses “fruity” in reference to being gay, while Spanish uses, “Tener pluma.”

An example of Sukoig Nohaas slang is, “ner’nemmia ner’nuun fomaasg,” which means, “a dusty old book.” This is slang for someone who is outdated and shuns modern technology-- basically a boomer.

Actually Writing Things

You can easily look up "conlang exercises" and poems, but if you want a *real* challenge, translate a book.

As I showed before, you can also make song covers. Keeping the same amount of syllables is hard, though, so I separate each syllable, count them, and find my own words that match and share the meaning. It's tricky, though, and you'll need a decent amount of words to do so. Sometimes you need to make new words to fit it.

It's tough at the beginning, but it definitely gets easier the more you practice.

Prompts

Here are some prompts to get you started :

Pick 3 random vowels and 8 random consonants.

Choose 5 random or your favorite Pokémon and use those letters.

Start every syllable with a vowel and end it with 2 consonants (same or different).

Take real words and invert/scramble for a new word.

Use the first 2 letters of 6 people you know.

Only use the letters of your full name. (Credit : @/conlangprompts)

Find three random items and use those letters for a word.

And prompts for scripts :

Use your favorite things as letters.

Make every letter have a swirl.

Only use boxes and circles.

Draw shapes with your eyes closed and use those as letters.

Helpful Sources for Info, Prompts & Help

(YouTube) Biblaridion

(YouTube) Artifexian (Inspired Sukoig Nohaas)

(Tumblr) conlangprompts (Inspired Kikke Molmi)

(Site) Awkwords

(Site) Ogden's Basic English

(Site) Arth(aey)

r/conlangs

Conclusion

Making a conlang seems daunting and intimidating at first, but it's super fun! I came up with Kikke Molmi in less than 10 minutes. Creating a language for a fictional world can be a lot harder because you need to obey certain rules, but Awkwords really helps with that! Don't stress and work at your own pace. Let your creativity flow, even if you don't see yourself as creative.

I hope this helps. And remember, don't stress and have fun!

#conlang #constructed language #fictional language #conlang tips #conlang prompts #conlang guide #ask #somewhat sorta

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prognostik-a2 · 1 year

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things about alice that i think about a lot;

her healing factor and physical resilience are genuinely insane. alice can survive a number of things: gunshots to the head, high-power ammo tearing her apart only for her body to rebuild her again, tasers going straight to her neck or head and not even passing out, even bites from those infected with the t-virus and other strains of it. granted, despite the accelerated healing, if you continue to inflict enough damage, she will be hindered and will go into a sort of “hibernative” state in order for her body to heal itself. she will also go into a similar hibernative state if it is held down in water for a prolonged period of time, and this is arguably the easiest way to keep it incapacitated. umbrella utilized this strategy when project alice was still young.

it actually died when the t-virus was first introduced into it’s body, only to be reanimated by the virus itself.

her jaws are actually really powerful! she can tear a chunk out of somebody, but she tries not to do this as she’s not particularly fond of seeing what her own strain of the t-virus does to other people. ( because that’s how it spreads, y’know. saliva ) when desperate times call for desperate measures, she will utilize this, though.

speaking of, anyone she reanimates is entirely at it’s beck and call. she is the undead’s hivemind, similar in the way eveline from re7 can control the people around her. she can tell the undead whether or not someone is an enemy or a friend; they can recognize their allies and foes.

alice is actually really good at makeup! she often utilizes it for the purpose of making herself look … less off-putting? the translucency of her veins can cause a lot of stares ( especially since these veins spider out to her face and arms especially ) so she covers this up with foundation.

severe claustrophobia, severe hydrophobia, severe aversion to anything medical. she hates bodies of water, she hates hospitals. she hates needles especially. it brings back too many bad memories.

when it comes to her living situation, she tends to survive off of money she steals from any of the people she kills. she cannot rent out an apartment. she cannot buy a home. all of her IDs are false and she doesn’t have a bank account to her name. she is quite literally homeless and it’s probably going to stay like that for as long as she lives. as for where she lives, where ever she’s prowling, she lives in a car. if the situation calls for it, she’ll get a hotel room to last her a couple days.

it styles it’s hair a number of ways, mainly to throw off whoever is looking for it. sometimes she’ll wear it natural, sometimes she’ll twist it into locs, other times she’ll braid it down and utilize a wig. i think in recent times, she’s begun to keep her hair in locs, as she likes the look of it !

it has barely aged in the last two decades. if you pull up a photo of alice now and compare to her in the late 1990s, you will notice no difference except for some bags under her eyes. the t-virus is constantly rebuilding her cells and inhibits cell damage, therefore staving off aging. it does hate this factor of the virus, though. the thought of outlasting everything around it has gotten to her, and it’s even scarier because the virus within her has shown no signs of weakening or even waning.

polyglot. outside of english and her native ukrainian and russian ( which she found she just … naturally knows ), she knows german, spanish, french, japanese, mandarin, and arabic. she also knows a few other dialects specific to a region.

it has a slight accent! tends to roll her r’s, broader intonation. it can be recognized as distinctively ukrainian. however, she can also force her voice to omit her accent entirely, making her sound more like the average american.

#♱ ⁺ . ⋆ ˙ * 𝙰𝙻𝙸𝙲𝙴. / dressed in all the rings of past fatalities.#gore /#injury /#needles /#medical themes /#medical mention /#ask to tag /#just in case. as always #anyways she is so neat to me im so happy to think of her again

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elytrafemme · 6 months

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i'm justtt putting this into asks rather than reblogging to reply bc. idk i think you might be asleep now thinking emoji and in asks the notif might be easier to see

on felps' lives channel he usually splits the streams up per game so it's easier to like.. pick a specific game and then watch through all the eps of it i guess? the auto-translate is usually pretty good too :]

i got nab/nap bc i train of thoughted my way onto the word kidnap and then went "hey isn't it weird that it's nap and not nab?" and then just went on a google spree bc like.. idk! very interesting ^_^ (<- also probably the adhd or whatevrr) nd the "you" thing is SO fun to me.... i've def heard of it being used for plural first before but i never really heard about it as liiike a formal only thing and then gradually getting less formal. and "y'all" filling the spot of it as a plural word instead is very fun !! "y'all" and "g'day" are like brothers to me. or cousins maybe idk. different but similar ^_^

i have a coworker who i talk about language with a lot and he's learning arabic!! it seems like a very interesting language i love hearing about it :] srsly if you ever want to talk about it my askbox/dms are always open!

anddd actively i'm learning brpt but i'd also like to multiclass into spanish ^_^ just trying to keep them . a little separate rn because i keep forgetting which words are from which language hashtag memory problems</3 bc some of them are similar (with: com versus con for eg) etc etc. other than that i'm trying to keep up with auslan but it's difficult when all the Good resources that keep my attention long term are paid/time consuming (which is fair since it's ppl actively teaching but it's just a little sad how little resources there are.. that i can Find at least) ALSO!! a jellyfish... this is so epic i don't think i've seen this emoji before :]!! ty ty!

HIII yes u are very right it is a lot easier to see ask notifs :]

OOOOH OKAY VERY IMPORTANT INFO TY!! im glad he splits it up like that it'll make my life easier :D i will deffo try to check it out <333

Y'ALL AND G'DAY ARE BROTHERS SO TRUE!!! i love y'all so much which like, i know it's a popular thing but i've met a lot of northerners at my school and it's strange how many people haven't acclimated to using y'all as a default. like that's just what i call people man i don't fucking know what to tell u. you all are sooooo y'all to me

OOOH NICE!!!!!! thank u for the offer my friend :3 it's deffo interesting! the dialects and stuff are very fascinating and one thing i want to learn more about is all different languages' dialects because like, i'm so interested in the diff dialects of spanish for example! i think it's very interesting and i wish people taught more aobut that piece in language learning

NICE NICE NICE! yeah double learning languages is hard i so many times wanted to speak arabic in my spanish class (those two languages have a decent number of similarities actually!! in like, loan words :3) memory problems will do it to u yeah </3 ur so brave ... and no yeah i absolutely feel that with the resources thing it's so hard to find ones that are actually effective? wish there was like a khan academy just for languages, since i know duolingo is a little spotty and most of the other ones i am at least familiar with are like, locally offered things and whatnot

JELLYFISH :3 i thought you'd like him he's such a friend innit he

#nightmare.ask #brackett tag :]

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prenvii-moved · 3 years

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ME WHEN CYPHER

#OK OK #so he knows arabic.. but like. general speaking arabic yk #and ik the reason for that is bc riot wanting to make him more accessible #but IM adding it to his background fuck you #anyway general speaking arabic is different then what is mainly spoken in morocco #which is where cypher is from so like....#morrocon arabic is like. darija #i think it's called it's like a dialect that really differs from arabic #bc of its past influence yk..#anyway cypher can speak darija along with standard arabic which is what we actually hear him talk in in game #he also knows a bit of french which is actually taught in a lot of morrocon schools #ramble #valthoughts #i think itd be more comfortable for him to speak darija but he decides to speak standard arabic now #orrr maybe in his backstory even tho he is morrocon darija wasn't his first language #but standard arabic was instead #BEGGING riot to give me more cypher lore here im dying

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what-even-is-thiss · 2 years

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Hey Roman, quick question. What is it like to live in California. As a foreigner I only ever see USA stuff in movies and series so I'd like to know what it's like.

No. I don't plan on moving to the USA. Why would I go away from my failing democracy to a country where I will bankrupt myself to death because of illnesses that I have no control over.

Well that sounds harsh.

It’s a place. It’s not inherently good or bad. It’s a big place. Asking what it’s like to live in California is kind of asking what it’s like to live in a medium to large-ish country.

There’s tiny mountain towns where it snows in the winter, there’s a giant sprawling endless city down south made of many cities, there’s short mountains covered in dead grass, there’s tall mountains covered in giant trees and snow, there’s deserts, there’s wetlands, there’s forests, there’s bays. There’s warm beaches and cold beaches, poor towns and rich towns. Towns made up of only elites and towns made up of migrant farm workers.

There’s highways that wind down a rocky mountainous coast and highways that drive in a straight line for hours and hours in a flat valley past farm after farm that never seems to end. There’s cold rainforests and hot deserts.

There’s almond orchards and lettuce and garlic and garlic processing plants. And when you drive past those and you put the windows down the whole world smells like garlic. There’s cows crammed into kfos and cows wandering the grasslands. There’s fishing and tourism and barren wastelands.

There’s English, Spanish, Hmong, Mandarin, Chuckchanci dialects, Cantonese, Armenian, Arabic, Vietnamese, Russian, Tagalog, Korean, Persian.

It’s a place. A big place. With every kind of person you can imagine inside of it. Some people hate it. I love it with my whole heart.

Also despite what you hear on the news it’s not a guarantee that people will go bankrupt in the US when they have a big health problem. It’s way way more common than it should be, but it’s not guaranteed to happen. A lot of folks do okay. I still think that we need to fix literally everything about the healthcare system though. Don’t misunderstand me. I just find it extremely off putting that you asked me to talk about where I consider home, a place I love, and ended it with that. I don’t think I would’ve assumed you’re going to move there.

Anyways, I really can’t explain what it’s like to live in California specifically because there’s so much stuff there. Like 12% of the US population lives in that one state. LA is a completely different place from San Francisco which is different from Fresno which is different from Monterey which is different from Sacramento which is different from Auburn.

Like… I guess most places you’ll need a car to get around but that’s not even universally true. There’s good food most places I guess. I’m from one of the inland areas so what I have personally experienced as California probably looks way different from what you might picture.

Um… there’s cowboys there I guess but that doesn’t really play a large role in the life of the average person unless you yourself are a cowboy.

I’m just rambling at this point. I dunno, man. Los Angeles has traffic but Fresno doesn’t as much and Sacramento has some traffic but not as bad as LA and San Francisco has traffic but you can get around pretty easily on public transit. Uh… the small beach towns don’t have traffic. We call highways and freeways stuff like “the 101” or “the 99” instead of just 101 or 99. That’s a linguistic thing. If you go down south people will say the word like and have vocal trills instead of saying um or hmmm and up north they do that less. I guess Californians generally talk fast. Sometimes people use random Spanish words when they’re talking.

I dunno, man. It’s a complicated place. Just like any other place. I could be here literally all day and this post is already way too long.

It’s a place. Have you been to places before? It’s one of those.

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bcitisthelight · 3 years

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So.Where to begin.

What you should know is, this isn’t my fault. It’s @misskirby who is to blame for this. She has this AMAZING fic, it’s called Benediction. I like to read it weekly, for sustenance. Go read that first if you want...literally any of this to make sense. So there’s this passage which stole every marble I had, wherein Anakin is explaining the etymology of the Huttese he uses to refer to his children (with a really thorough explanation on Luke’s name.

Anakin scrubbed the back of his neck. “Huttese doesn’t have—words of love. It doesn’t have… benedictions. It’s kind of a cruel language. There’s a whole case for groveling and then—there’s really only the word for love.”

“And that’s abiya?” Obi-Wan said.

Anakin’s grin was crooked. “No. That’s luke. In the Tatooine dialect, at least, it’s luke. We used—things, mostly, to—you know.”

“Luke,” Obi-Wan said, tasting the word, looking down at the sleeping child he’d just been holding, one who carried his parents’ love for him in his name. For the first time in all his life, he wondered what his own name meant, and who it was who had given it to him.

“Abiya is the milk from a flowering cactus,” Anakin said. “It’s very sweet. And rare. I only ever had it once, with my—my mother.”

Obi-Wan turned to look at Anakin again. The expression on Anakin’s face was raw, intense, but Obi-Wan forced himself to look at it, out of respect for the memories of a woman he owed all of Anakin to; the one who had protected him, loved him, when Obi-Wan hadn’t known he had existed at all.

“It also means the morning rain,” Anakin said, waving a hand. “A lot of words in Huttese have many definitions. Abiya, though—it’s a relief. A respite. Pure joy.”

Obi-Wan swallowed around the burning in his throat. “I see,” he said, strangled.

Anakin looked away, his throat bobbing. “Luke only has the one definition, though. There’s only one word derived from it, too, lukkali. Noun and a verb. A krayt dragon whelp, or—krayt dragons, the mothers, their carry their whelps in their mouths, because there’s no place on Tatooine that’s safer, so it’s also the act of doing that.”

I LOVE this passage. I love all of the work it does emotionally, narratively, etc. It’s the best. And yesterday morning, I zeroed in on a specific line. “In the Tatooine dialect” Except hold on, I thought to myself. Anakin was born a slave. What if, when he says the Tatooine dialect, what he means is...the dialect of the slave class?

So here’s the thing. The Hutt society is based on the idea that the Hutts are the prime race, there was the whole Hutt empire thing, I mean the holiday the Boonta Eve Classic is supposed to commemorate is literal holiday that commemorates a Hutt ascending to godhood, during the process of which all of his slaves renew their vows of fealty. It’s not just a class system, where you can you know, in theory move between classes. This is a strict caste system, which you are born into or are captured into. Which got me thinking - what if the language of Huttese has a dialect system...based on caste? We see examples of this sort of socio-linguistic pattern in actual real life!! Tamil and Arabic are some pretty famous examples where certain historical societies who use that language break down that language based on caste, with their different varieties having all sorts of different meanings and cultural connotations, but there’s a ton of them. And in fact, there’s tons of societies which base their dialects on social or other cultural factors.

There’s even a name for it: diglossia, where a society as a whole uses one language but different parts use radically different dialects and forms of that language in different circumstances. Now, strictly historically, how diglossia typically works is that one dialect is seen as a low (L) dialect and one is seen as a high (H) dialect. And get this - in diglossic societies which also contain really severe social inequality - in some cases the dialects can seem almost unintelligible to those who speak the opposite dialect And then based on that passage I posted above, I thought...what if the unintelligibility in this certain case, specifically the unintelligibility between “high” huttese and the dialect spoken by slaves wasn’t surrounding the actual words or structure...what if it was /context/.

So basically in the last thirty six hours I’ve....I’ve made an entire headcanon on Huttese as a trifold diglossic dialect system. I’m putting it under the cut because God its, its a lot guys. Its a lot. Also? It’s written as though its an entry in sociolinguistic glossary of sort, because of course it is. Who wrote that glossary? Space nerds. Nerds in space. Nerds in space from Coruscant University who need research credits for their space masters degrees.

For the purposes of this glossary, the modern caste system of the Hutt Clan has been recorded below. 1. Masters 2. Servants* 3. Slaves The reader should be aware that there is technically a high caste called “Grand Masters”, which historically was comprised of members of the Grand Hutt Council and their families. This caste used a dialect usually referred to as “Archaic Huttese”, and is the source dialect of Huttese, originally developed on the Hutt home planet of Nal Hutta. However, this language has long fallen out of common use. The reader should also note that belonging to the Servant caste does not imply any quality of servitude per se. Rather, this is the caste of all ordinary free people who live under Hutt Rule. This designation is believed to have originated in the understanding within the ancient Hutt empire that any being who lived under Hutt dominion was by rights a servant to any Hutt who should need them. The dialects of the castes are as follows. 1. The dialect of the master class is also known as “High Huttese”. The common dialect of all high-born Hutts, and widely adopted by non-Hutts who own slaves or hold positions of authority within Hutt society. This dialect is used in all interactions involving a master, whether between a group of masters or a master and a lower-caste member. With Hutt families whose bloodlines have been regarded as a part of the master class for several centuries, there is a curious strain of monolinguism in an otherwise highly polylinguistic society, with many high born Hutt families refusing to learn even the fundamentals of standard Basic. The reasoning for this seems to be a cultural belief held by the masters that any person of a lower caste bends to the needs of the masters, rather than the other way around. The historical risk of a master’s displeasure upon improper address has led to this dialect becoming the default in conversation unless you are absolutely sure of another person’s caste, since historically the risk of offense should you choose wrong was often very high. There are at least three different cases of blood feuds between members of Hutt Master families which involved the use of a lower caste dialect as a cause of offense.

This default status of this dialect means that when a person in the Republic references “Huttese”, they are almost always referencing the master dialect. The master dialect is what is taught in the schools of the Republic. This has led to a sort of self-perpetuating cycle. As interactions with the rest of the galaxy have shifted to singular dialect, the use of the master dialect has become more solidified within common Hutt Society, even when the speaker is aware that Low Huttese would be acceptable.

It should be noted that this exception applies only to free people. Slaves are required by Hutt law to use this dialect when speaking Huttese to any non-slave they interact with, even if that person does not belong to the Hutt caste system. The Hutt law imposing this requirement famously reads, “Because all beings are above a slave, a slave should speak to every being in the tongue of their masters.” The penalty for a slave addressing a master in anything but the high dialect is often some sort of physical punishment. A rather gruesome tradition which is kept in force to this day. 2. The servant dialect is also called “Low Huttese”. While originally it was relatively distinct from both the dialect spoken by the masters and the dialect spoken by the slaves of Hutt Society, it has since suffered a bit of stagnation. There are many factors which could cause this to occur. As the Republic opened up more and more channels of commerce to Hutt Space, and the Master dialect has become the norm outside of Hutt Society, true enforcement of the linguistic standard for non-enslaved beings has fallen much to the wayside in the last two standard centuries or so. Modern Low Huttese dialect is thus mostly similar to the Master dialect in grammar and generally accepted vocabulary. However, a remaining diversion exists which is based on pronunciation, and a significant reliance on rather course slang on the part of those who speak Low Huttese. It has been said by Huttese linguistic scholars that while High Huttese is a an excellent dialect for threats, Low Huttese is an excellent dialect for swearing. 3. The slave dialect has no name in any official Hutt or Republic record. It is not recognized by any authority in either written or spoken form. In fact, generally the only beings who know or speak the slave dialect are those who are or who once were enslaved, and their loved ones. The dialect differs rather severely from high huttese - though primarily through meaning and cultural context, rather than actual structure.

It seems that this “hidden” diversion was born of necessity, rather than choice. The masters didn’t like the idea of their slaves having a way of communication the masters were not privy to, and so would punish any slave caught speaking a dialect which was immediately recognizable as being outside of the master dialect. The slave class in the ancient Hutt empire adapted to this by taking the dialect forced upon them, and manipulating a large portion of it for their use. Rather ingeniously, they seem to have developed an entire dialect specifically ordered so that they could express themselves freely without being automatically targeted by a passing master or authority figure. This is the vital distinction: words in the master dialect often have vastly different or even opposite meanings when used in the slave dialect. Added to this complexity are the wide range of connotations and contexts for each word. An interesting note to the slave dialect is that generally, the more abstract a word is, the fewer meanings or connotations it has, whereas often the most culturally impactful words and concepts are taken from simple or every day words. There is only one word for love in the slave dialect - “Luke” - because it is seen as pure, and when given, unconditional. When this word is used, there is no linguistic distinction between platonic or romantic love - the slave class instead relies on idioms or proverbs to express the difference in feeling. In direct contrast, there are nine different ways a person can use the verb which means “to attach”, ranging from the mundane (“Attach these two machine parts together”) to the taboo (“to cause another person to be enslaved”) There are some words which are unique to this dialect, however. One example is the word for “freedom”, which in the slave dialect is “telena”.

The master dialect’s word for freedom is the same as their word for authoritarian power. Freedom within the master caste, then, was specifically associated with the ability to exercise dominion over the world around them. Members of the slave class, as individuals who constantly suffered under that same authoritarian power, showed a collective repugnance for the association between freedom and the very dehumanization they themselves suffered. Drawing from the use of the anakin plant as one of the most culturally and spiritually significant symbols in the caste (See entry on Anakin, a flowering plant which originated in the deserts of Tatooine but which has since been domesticated throughout the Outer Rim) they instead chose to develop a word based off the Hutt verb “to bloom” One common expression amongst the slave class is “Telena telen ali anakin” - “Freedom blooms with the anakin” Those interested in the study of this dialect, then, are well warned that they should take great care in attempting to communicate in this dialect (if they can find a teacher, that is - many slaves or even those who were formally enslaved are understandably reluctant to give up what is likely one of the only means of expression of not only agency, but of caste solidarity. I have seen two former slaves go from total strangers to kindred spirits in the space of five minutes, upon discovering by means of dialect each others mutual experience.)

#I made an entire headcanon on Huttese as a trifold diglossic dialect system #she said #like a LOSER #do you ever write a sentence so insane it immediately deals you psychic damage #and what makes it worse is that #this is something i did in my free time today #this is what i do for FUN #anyways #I will be writing more to come lmao #Huttese #star wars #conlang #sociolinguistics #but you know #in space #please don't take the actual structure too seriously i am strictly here for the social connotations #i dont know linguistics #and frankly #i dont care

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mountain-man-cumeth · 2 years

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What did you mean by devs being American causing an issue with worldbuilding? Your essay was good reading, I'm just a little confused. Can't an American write fantasy inspired by roman history?

ofc they can, i didnt wanna go off on a tangent as the post was long enough but i can elaborate here:

vesuvia is not rome. i mean when you look at bgs, the visage seemed to be lifted from greek/persian architecture 600 BC-400 AD. blending of these two characteristics is actually very fascinating and accurate to how civilizations evolve. the time period they were going for cant really be pin pointed as easily tho, since some inspiration seem to be taken from 1400 AD baroque (palace gardens, sign posts, etc) and i dont think its an issue either, there are 2000 y/o structures that people still inhabit to this day with modern modifications and i think its fine on its own. the problem arises not from the aesthetics but with the application, imo:

- gladiatorial fights or combat as the entertainment of masses ended at around 200 AD (could be earlier, but it was after christianity made it roots at roman empire)

- some things like the stove and teapot became a thing at 15th century and it even then stoves werent a common household item for another hundred of years or so i believe.

now this matters a Whole Lot. there is a society in the mindset that is A THOUSAND YEARS behind its technology at the very least. dont get me wrong, violence as entertainment persists to this day but here we have a very specific sort of entertainment that is most primitive, using very primitive tools. its like depicting early 2000's having public hangings as a pass-time.

a non-american likely wouldnt have made this mistake solely due to exposition. because we have a general idea of what falls where, as we have museums and monuments full of our history. we keep seeing remnant in our everyday life

on top of that, vesuvia being depicted as this busy city bustling with different cultures still FEELS like its forcing the reader to assume that POC are minority. as we don't get to meet any "vesuvian" that is not white-coded. and the main cast that is foreigner never speak in any dialect or use different mannerisms, they feel assimilated in a dystopian kind of way even, which is and has never been the case for any metropole. they look diverse but they dont act diverse. theres no colour as to their customs aside from decor. muriel having tapestries, nadia's sister dancing in a certain way etc. is new to MC but its left there. and this separation of cultures as all or nothing is a strictly american issue, north american even. i cant even understand eastern turks and this indian, arab, kazakh, slav and scandinavian understand eachother perfectly at all times. when i log in to raid w my mates we argue for 5 hours over the proper way to drink tea. i havent been able to comprehend any word our serbian gm said in 5 years.

this is just an observation and i may be wrong since i only interact w american culture thru media/internet but i get the feeling that left leaning american society in general is too reluctant to get their hands dirty. by this i mean meddling with foreign cultures. the white people are not allowed in certain communities (often for rightful reasons) and the immediate assumption is that its same everywhere. its not though. in most places people are happy to share their cultures, customs, make fun of eachother for their traditions... its more like an awkward family reunion. some have vendettas and some are just vibing. when its not at the verge of extinction, you dont have to protect these values with your life, they can be played with. when my partner calls it "greek coffee" i get riled up but its not offensive, its all abit of fun. Bcs neither him nor czech ppl are personally responsible for the erasure of my culture or anything. my culture still persists.

in truth, to be true to a culture will sometimes have to make others feel uncomfortable. some parts of foreign customs are odd, it makes sense to the people exercising them as its a normal part of their life but for an outsider it can be grotesque or absurd. it can range from taking your shoes off on your way in to chopping of lambs' heads in the streets. but no, vesuvia doesnt feel remotely as chaotic, it doesnt feel like it has its own deep rooted identity in the world of arcana. cast looks like those diversity pamphlets of universities. they don't have any variety, they dont smell odd(yes, its a thing. the smell of peoples sweat differs by diet), they dont cook/eat weird shit, listen annoying music, they are just... american with a very british kinda aristocratic twist on satrinavas.

feel free to correct me, i am not too familiar with every which culture or anything, these ramblings are more of an observation than legit reconstruction

#personal #long post #the arcana

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nemowrites · 3 years

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So y'all have probably seen a lot of authors get lots of hate, mostly from anons, over the fact that they're "copying" twc, now the thing is my lovelies, there is a difference between "copying" and "this is a famous trope", and here it is:

First of all, similarities in the characters:

For example, if I made a character, called her Farah, gave her the same appearance and personality as Farah from twc, then we're entering the "oof this is kinda sus territory (I can't believe I just said that, I sound like a Chad :))" but if they're nothing alike then where is the problem.

Fun fact: I'm giving this example because I actually wanted a main character in Frostford's Mystery to be called Farah but was afraid to get shit for it from toxic twc fans, since the main character is also a detective, despite knowing a helluva lot of Farahs due to (fun fact by the way) Farah being a name of Arabic origins, and a very commonly used word in multiple Arabic dialects (and the word directly translates to happiness by the way), and me being half Arab as I mentioned before several times, so me adding a character called Farah would have been fitting but I was literally afraid to do so, as I would have gotten shit over it

Also, remember that not everyone who writes about a detective is copying twc (projects own fear due to having a detective character :))

Tropes:

Hey, toxic twc fans, popular tropes exist, get over it, if you really think that anyone who writes about a "stoic closed-off leader" or "soulmates" is copying twc, then just download Wattpad and open it for just five seconds, is everyone there also copying twc? how big of a coincidence is that?

Tropes exist, some are more commonly used than others, and that's completely fine, it's what everyone has been doing since the beginning of time (dramatic much? but the point still stands)

Usually, I keep my posts a general mess with a lot of jokes but I literally cannot stand seeing another author get shit for writing amazing stuff just because some people don't think that tropes even exist.

#interactive fiction #interactive novel #this is important #send love to everyone who has been attacked by toxic anons #and to all non-toxic twc fans who understand what I'm talking about y'all are cool #I'm addressing the very lovely toxic ones

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my-terrible-life · 4 years

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I wanted to say some things about the Arabic used in Community.

I'm not sure what the point the point of this post is but I just wanted to get the thoughts out of my head because they've been there ever since I first watched Community like a million years ago and found out one of the main characters is half Arab.

Long post I'm sorry!!

So in Community Abed is Polish Palestinian. My very first thoughts on this, so long ago, was huh what an unusual name! Because it is. Abed is not a common Arab name at all, it's pretty weird actually. The name itself means "Worshipper" which I guess should fit in with the ~theme~ of Arab Muslim names but it doesn't because in Arabic it sounds incomplete.

Boys names that follow the "theme" of Worship tend to be 2-parters, the Worship part and then the What part. What is he worshipping? God obviously, but God in Islam has many names and many descriptions, so the trend is 'pick one of the names/descriptors and put it right after the word that means worship' so we end up with names like Abdullah (for example). Abdullah in Arabic is a 2 word name, it is Abd then Allah, combined it means worshipper of Allah. We can have a name like Abdulrahman, which is a 2 word name that is Abd then Al Rahman, which combined means worshipper of the most merciful. The list can go on and on and they all mostly follow that pattern: Abd + God's name. That's the convention and that's what male Arabic Muslim names have followed for hundreds of years. So Abed alone is pretty odd, but not impossible I guess.

Now the writers could have consulted with an Arab at any point, there's Arabs literally everywhere in America, but okay it was during the time when casual racism was still something the audience didn't know we could be very vocal about, or that's how I think about it anyway.

Danny Pudi himself is not Arab so I don't think he could have accurately weighed in on this but again I don't know what it was like working as a brown actor on US television at the time. (We'll get back to Danny Pudi later)

Nevertheless, the initial oddness of Abed's name aside, I grew used to it and grew to really like the character. He's one of my 3 favorites ❤ and I don't have to repeat why he's awesome and how his stories are not stereotypes etc etc.

But the eps were his Arabic heritage and language come up were beefed. Hard.

You can split Arabic up into 2 umbrellas I guess: Standard Arabic called Fus'ha, and the common tongue or dialect of the specific Arab country you're in/writing about.

Most of us know and understand Standard Arabic because it's taught in schools and it is the language of the Qur'an so we learn it. It's also the language used for subtitles in film and TV, as well as any formal/official document, and when presidents give speeches in foreign countries so the instant translators can do their jobs without having to learn more than 1 Arabic dialect.

But here's a very big point guys... no one Speaks in Standard Arabic. As beautiful and flowery and vast as it can be we just don't use it like That.

Think of it like your everyday English you speak vs. Shakespearian English. No one talks like that unless they're on stage or they're trying to be funny.

So, it was very obvious when Abed and his Dad were talking that they put the script into Google translate and just went with that. They could have asked an Arab 🤦‍♀️ any Arab! There's so many of us everywhere just grab one off the street like a madman and ask 'em, they'll tell you. We Love correcting wrong Arabic 😂

Anyway, they had Abed speak in Standard Arabic.... cringe kingdom thanks... but Abed is Palestinian, which means his dialog should have been in Palestinian Arabic and that's hella different. (Now I'm personally Egyptian and while I would be able to understand Palestinian very well I would not be able to re-write his lines to reflect the dialect accurately, so I won't)

Of course their pronunciation was incredibly off as neither actor who play Abed or Gubi (weird name) are Arabs or speak Arabic. It just made me cringe so hard.

Now let's briefly talk about those yellow subtitles Community used for Abed and his Dad in that episode where they're fighting about Abed taking film classes... 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ yeah, not pretty, not only did just use Google translate, it was also unedited. I remember back then Google translate was still being filled up with vocabulary and different possible translations so for Arabic sometimes we'd get a very literal translation that made a whole sentence wrong. And boy did they mess that up!

The line was "The wrong person just left" and the translation was "الشخص الخطأ يسار" which is literally "the wrong person left", well what's wrong with that? Oh just that they used Left as in the direction.... the wrong person LEFT (direcrion) as in ur left hand as in let's go left instead of right 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ never mind that the entire phrase would not be translated that way to begin with but that they couldn't even bother to just double check their translation

Oh you guys know who sounded like they actually knew Arabic??? Abra! Her pronunciation was correct. Even if her lines were still in Standard Arabic her pronunciation and delivery showed she knew Arabic. (Another note on the name... I don't know what the hell Abra is, that's not an Arabic name I'm sorry) (neither is Gubi)

The last thing I wanna mention is from the Christmas ep, where Jeff gets in a fight, and Abed comes to their gathering with a dish from his culture, and he says "It's a traditional Muslim dish".....okay, Danny Pudi is not Arabic okay but he is Muslim and he should know there is no such thing as a Muslim dish, but fine okay maybe he couldn't say anything whatever who cares...

There is no such thing as a Muslim dish, or Muslim food. Or even Arab food, that doesn't exist... it should have been "it's a traditional Palestinian dish".

The Arab World is 22 countries, each very different from each other in culture, customs, food, language, whatever you can think of. We have similarities, we understand each other, we have a shitton of shared history but we are not a monolith.

Back to the Language aspect

Arabic is hard, Standard or otherwise, but especially Standard. The sounds you'd need to be able to make Arabic happen have to be trained into your mouth and throat, and it takes a long time. (I was lucky to grow up with it, not knowing the struggle, and major respect to those who want and try to learn it, whatever variation of it)

I was just spewing my frustrations here about a couple scenes and I'm glad there weren't any more tbh.

but I do hope this helps anyone who was curious about Abed's language.

Anyone writing about Abed or characters like Abed, I hope this can give a hint into what to research.

Also it's not pronounced Nadeer (with the emphasis on the second part) it's Naader (with emphasis on the first part)

Thanks for reading through this!

#abed nadir #community #trobed #arabic language in american media

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spencer-reids-adventures · 3 years

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I would love to see some add emily prentiss! it's like adhd but without the hyperactivity so your brain is going a million miles a minute and all you can do is sit there and maybe bounce your leg but it doesn't help and sometimes you just need to go somewhere there aren't people breathing and making noise and generally existing and if I can't be alone I get really bad tension headaches! anyways I love your writing, feel free to ignore this prompt

a/n: thank you and also I could never skip this prompt, especially when i'm in the middle of switching meds for my own inattentive adhd lol

In kindergarten, Emily can't stop squirming. She's distracted by the people and the colors and the sounds of announcements and crayons on paper and laughter.

She does her very best on everything, trying to color within the lines, learn her ABCs, and make friends. She gets in trouble for zoning out and losing her things.

They label her a daydreamer, and her mother tries not to let her see how disappointed she is that her little girl just doesn't care enough to do what she's supposed to.

In fourth grade, they're living in their third Middle Eastern country, and Emily has dedicated herself to learning different dialects of Arabic.

She sits for hours at a time, poring over texts and listening closely to the adhan called from the minaret at prayer time. It's the only thing that's interesting to her, so she puts all of her focus into it, forgetting even to eat or drink or go to the bathroom because she's so engrossed.

Her parents are proud of her for learning about the local culture, and her schoolwork is so far below her skill level, she can practically do her homework in her sleep.

When Emily is fifteen she's bored and understimulated and desperate for any kind of interaction, any sort of belonging, and that's how she falls into bed with a boy, and makes a decision that changes her life forever.

She starts getting headaches, and hides in her closet or under her bed, the only places she can find peace and quiet, because it's like she can hear the sound of ever appliance, every car on the street, every nonna shouting at her grandchildren while she hangs the laundry.

She wonders if life has always felt so busy, so loud, so too much.

In college, she crashes her car, and then she crashes it again, and when she finds herself in therapy to deal with things she never dealt with in adolescence, her therapist asks what she knows about ADHD.

Emily says she's never been hyperactive, and the therapist tells her that the disorder is separated into inattentive, hyperactive, and combined types. She asks Emily if she's easily distracted, if she's forgetful, if she has trouble completing tasks.

Emily cries from the relief of finally being understood, and she leaves with a prescription and some tips that make her realize that maybe she can accomplish her goals. That she's not just broken.

When she joins the BAU, she's learned to deal with a lot of the things that are harder for her than most people. She's properly medicated, and she takes steps to keep herself on top of things, to remain functional and even exceptional. Still, though, she has her moments.

Penelope finds her huddled on the floor of the bathroom one afternoon, attempting to cover both her eyes and her ears with her hands.

"Are you okay, Em?" she asks softly, and Emily just shakes her head. "Tell me how I can help?"

"Can't stop thinking," Emily groans. "Giving me a headache. And it's so fucking loud out there, I can't--" She buries her face in her hands.

"Okay," Penelope says. "Okay, Emily, it's gonna be okay. Can you come to my office?"

Emily lets Penelope help her up and settles her in a chair in her office, dimming the lights and putting a blanket around her shoulders. She hands her a pair of headphones.

"Am I right in guessing silence probably won't help right now?" she asks, and Emily nods. "Find something soothing to listen to, then." She hands Emily an mp3 player. "Now just relax, okay? And let me know if you need anything else?"

Emily nods and pulls the blanket tighter around herself, willing herself to relax, and soon enough, she does. She stays with Penelope until the end of the day and thanks her profusely as she gets ready to head home.

"How did you know?" she asks, and Penelope blushes.

"I don't try to go into your medical records unless it's an emergency," she says. "But I just happened to see a prescription for Adderall, so I figured..." She shrugs. "Sorry for violating your privacy."

"It's okay," Emily says. "This time, I'm glad you did. Just don't do it again!"

"Scout's honor," Penelope says, holding three fingers up. "Now, go home and get some rest."

#adhd emily prentiss #penelope garcia #maya writes more than 5 sentences

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fuckyeahisawthat · 4 years

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Ok now I can’t stop thinking about Good Omens and The Old Guard taking place in the same universe. Both sets of immortals canonically hung around some of the same places and events at the same times, and over a long enough time scale I think they’d have to notice each other.

- I think Aziraphale and Nicky meet first, maybe on the way to the Holy Land, maybe in Jerusalem. The Crusades seem like the kind of self-righteous project GO Heaven would 100% be on board with and Aziraphale would absolutely fucking hate, but he does what he’s told. Maybe he notices there is something...different...about this particular holy warrior, but he doesn’t want to interfere. Maybe they meet after Nicky’s already discovered he’s immortal.

- Neither of them wants to reveal what they are but maybe Aziraphale sees something that Nicky doesn’t want anyone to see, Nicky panics and tries to kill him, that doesn’t go well obviously, and then they have to sit down and have a chat.

- Honestly when you’ve had multiple core components of your worldview completely upended all at once, meeting a literal fucking angel is not even that weird. Sure why not.

- The fact that this angel knows all the best schwarma spots and seems surprisingly enthusiastic about your newfound gay love is somehow the weirdest bit.

- Tbh I don’t think either Nicky or Joe would find "hi I’m an angel” that much of a challenge to their worldview. Nicky was a priest and there are angels in the Quran and honestly their lives are weird enough at this point so they just roll with it.

- When Aziraphale invites them to have dinner with him and his friend who is also definitely not human it has some weird double date vibes but there’s not really a polite way to inquire further about that.

- As they get to know each other better, Nicky and Aziraphale start having long conversations about what it means to be a soldier of God and how do you know that your side is really the good side and various intricacies of theology and metaphysics and ethics. Aziraphale tells himself he is giving comfort and wise counsel to a questioning human but these conversations always leave him deeply unsettled.

- Whenever Aziraphale crosses paths with Nicky and Joe, who seem to just fall more ridiculously in love as the decades pass, the two humans leave with a quiet angelic blessing for peace and safety wrapped around them. He knows they are quite capable of taking care of themselves. But still.

- Eventually Andy meets the two of them. She doesn’t really believe they’re an angel and a demon in the Abrahamic sense, but they’re clearly some kind of powerful immortal beings and they’re surprisingly chill about her lack of commitment to monotheism. And hey, she let people call her a god so if they want to call themselves an angel and a demon, whatever. And, loath as she is to admit it, she sort of gets on with Crowley. He’s angry and cynical and weary in a way she understands, and yet somehow maintains a spark of hope in humanity in a way that she would never admit she envies sometimes. He’s also the only being she’s ever met who can drink her under the table. So. Respect on that front.

- And at the end of the day there are only so many people you can talk to about the mundane problems of immortality, and everyone else is sick of hearing her complaints about how nobody makes That Thing from 5th century Beijing anymore.

- So she doesn’t exactly seek them out, but if they happen to cross paths (and the two of them seem to be together an awful lot more than you’d think an alleged angel and demon would go in for) she can be convinced to have a drink or seventeen with them.

- And she has to admit that not-angel has an uncanny ability to procure rare first editions when she happens to be looking for them.

- A number of people over the years have noticed that the dusty antiquarian bookshop on a particular corner in Soho looks like it hasn’t changed since the early 19th century. A much smaller number of people are around long enough to notice that the owner also looks likes like that.

- Nicky and Joe are the ones most likely to stop by when the team is in London, and Aziraphale always greets them with a smile like the sun and the culturally appropriate number of cheek kisses, and he can chatter away all day in 12th century Genoese or Maghrebi Arabic with a smattering of Jerusalem dialect, and he’s the only person they’ve ever met who can follow the meandering combination of the two they use with each other.

- Sometimes Crowley is there when they visit, sometimes not. On the most recent visit, not only is he there but he and Aziraphale are sitting next to each other, their knees comfortably brushing and Crowley leaning into Aziraphale’s arm on the back of the couch, and the two humans think fucking FINALLY.

- Andy visits the shop a lot less frequently. But they all remember the time someone mentioned lost dessert recipes and Andy and Aziraphale went off on a joint multi-millennial baklava reminisce that lasted until four in the morning.

#good omens #the old guard #crossover #tumblr fic #problems of immortality

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