#this might be too incomprehensible even to linguists

[sewi-li-suwi]

i love palatal fricatives. like. [çɪːɹ] it is!

#i love this sound lol #here and human and hippy #gotta be the best allophone of /h/ fr #linguistics #sewi's stuff #this is a terrible shitpost but i do not care lmao #transcribing the [ɹ] bc of the sandi rules with vowels lol #and bc i feel like it #it wouldn't have [ɹ] before a consonant or a pause lol #this might be too incomprehensible even to linguists #and if it is i apologise

[itsclydebitches]

OFMD Party Drabble #6

Prompt: Man vs. Self

Yes I’m still doing this series WHO CAN STOP ME MUHAHAHA anyway here’s Part One and Two.

Edward was his own worst enemy and after thirty years of putting up with the fucker’s nonsense, Izzy was this close to strangling him.

Of course, he’d been saying that for thirty years, so.

Just text him you absolute, utterly deranged sHITSTAIN

Izzy’s fingers flew across the keyboard of his phone. To his left a woman with a baby snuck a look at his ill-tempered texting, whatever expression he’d contorted his face into, and determinedly stood to find another seat. Izzy pressed ‘send’ with the vicious satisfaction of a warrior descending with his sword.

The reply was immediate:

thats not a nice way to talk to your boyfriend :(

YOU’RE NOT GONNA HAVE A FUCKING BOYFRIEND ANYMORE IF YOU KEEP DOING THIS TO ME, EDWARD

you dont mean that 😭😭😭 i just dont know what to say!!! i mean shit Iz he’s a fancy-pants museum curator and i’m slinging burgers all day. how the fuck do i even start that conversation? ‘hi hello i know Iz and he says youre cute wanna go on a fucking date with us’?????

Izzy resisted the urge to lean forward and bash his head against the pole. He didn’t even know where to begin with that. The fact that Edward had never lacked words in his entire, chatty life? That his job was far from just ‘slinging burgers,’ given that Blackbeard’s Bar & Grill was a multi-award winning restaurant with a Food Network spot and a legion of devoted customers? That Izzy had not once, ever, said that Bonnet was cute?

The fact that ‘disgustingly adorable’ might have been a better descriptor was entirely beside the point.

Originally, Izzy had intended to text Bonnet himself, act as the bridge between him and Edward’s rather... unique personality — though he suspected that these two were weird enough that they’d get along like a house on fire. He’d cooled his heels for a day after that absurd miscommunication, got wrapped up in running the restaurant, and then by the time the weekend had rolled around, Edward had decided that he wanted to reach out himself. Great! Less work for Izzy to do.

Except then the idiot had decided he was too chicken to pull it off, leaving them in a weird fucking limbo where Izzy vaguely feared for his life. That Lucius boy might just have been insane enough to follow through on his threats and that was not the kind of Wednesday morning Izzy was looking to suffer through.

Yes, he texted back. Say that exactly.

Iz i can’t say that!!

Sure you can. Put me out of my misery, Edward.

so mean. meanest. meanie. mean-pants :( :( :(

Actually, he should just screenshot all this and send it to Bonnet. Either he’d would fall hopelessly in love with the man like, god help him, Izzy had, or he’d run for the proverbial hills. At this point either option sounded wonderful.

Fuck, but he needed more coffee.

Izzy was just considering whether it was worth getting off a stop earlier and walking the rest of the way to work so he could stop by Ivan’s cafe when a thread of conversation — previously indistinguishable from the rest of the tube’s background noise — hit him like a fucking freight train.

“Hasn’t changed a bit! Wee Baby Bonnet looks like he’s ready to piss his pants...”

Izzy shut his eyes. Surely the world wasn’t populated by acquaintances of Stede Fucking Bonnet, all of whom ended up on his morning route? That was insane. Incomprehensibly annoying. Izzy hadn’t exactly been a saint throughout his life, but did he really deserve this?

Then again, how many people in the city had a predominantly French surname that, depending on its origin, might just derive from a synonym of ‘attractive’?

Sometimes he fucking hated his linguistics degree.

The man who’d spoken sat across from Izzy, just a few seats down, and after a double-take he realized that he didn’t need his eyes checked (again), they were just identical twins. Smarmy looking guys if you asked him, but then Izzy couldn’t exactly throw stones when it came to appearances.

He should ignore it. Really he should. Edward was waiting for a response, Ivan’s coffee was calling, and if he got off now there might even by a blueberry muffin in his future.

Ignore it, Izzy told himself firmly. Just leave, take the scenic route for once —

— and then the cries of ‘Baby Bonnet’ grew louder, accompanied by laughter that was too familiar to ignore.

Izzy closed his eyes and cursed. You sentimental twat.

“Hey.”

The twins looked up, the mirth dying in the face of Izzy’s expression and — while not towering figure — definitely threatening as they sat and he stood, leaning menacingly into their space. So he couldn’t discourage a flirty asshole half his age, but he could still intimidate some identical goons. Good to know.

“Lemme see,” Izzy said and snatched the phone before either could protest. Sure enough, there was Stede, those curls and a bright blue suit — good god with teal lapels? — absolutely unmistakable, even as whoever was filming shook with laughter of their own. It looked like Stede was getting reamed out by some visitor, his hands held up in awkward surrender, protests inaudible against the woman’s yelling. The video ended when she threw whatever was in her takeaway cup across Stede’s shirt. He stumbled back, landing on his ass — hands flying up towards his eyes. Whatever it was had been hot.

What a waste of a good drink. Thank god the suit was ruined.

Izzy wanted to bash that woman’s head in.

He kept his expression neutral as he handed the phone back, the twins sharing wary glances.

“You know that idiot?” Izzy asked — and the smiles bloomed again, identical.

That was all he needed.

“Oh yeah,” the one on the left said, digging himself a deeper hole. “Baby Bonnet was in prep with us. Total fucking pushover.”

“Thought he’d be dead by now,” the one on the right picked up. “Or committed somewhere. Ran him off of Facebook a few years ago, he dropped off the map, but then this gem popped up on Reddit — ”

“I’m sorry,” Izzy interrupted. He removed his jacket and laid it carefully over a nearby seat. The black shirt underneath was rolled to the elbows.

“Sorry?” they echoed.

“Not you,” Izzy sneered. He quickly caught the gaze of everyone else in the car, their attention drawn to the growing electricity in the air. The woman with the baby sighed and got up to leave. Izzy inclined his head at her retreating back.

Then he slammed his fist into the first twin’s nose.

They even went down the same, all bloody spurts and pathetic whimpers. Izzy might not have been as young as he once was, but it would take a lot more than these weak fucks to provide a challenge. Back-alley brawls and two decades of fencing had given him the reflexes of a cat and Izzy’s blood sang at the whoop of approval a few seats down. That’s why he was doing this. It was good to expend the energy on occasion.

It had absolutely nothing to do with Bonnet’s stricken expression in the vid.

When he was done and the twins had fled, with very pretty pictures painted for them about what would happen if the cops got involved, Izzy dabbed his knuckles with an old napkin and rearranged his clothes. The dude who’d whooped finished recording — because everyone recorded everything nowadays, the fucking degenerates — and shot him a small, hesitant smile. Izzy whistled him over.

“Send that to me,” he said, rattling off his number.

Izzy had long since passed his stop, but that was okay. If he was going to be late, might as well be late with a halfway decent breakfast. As he re-planned his route, Izzy attached the vid for Edward, easily imaging the glee on his face when he saw it.

“Had worse mornings,” Izzy acknowledged, pulling up his texts.

Stop being a self-sabotaging twat, you TWAT. Send this to Bonnet with my regards. If we can fight for him, we can sure as fuck invite him to dinner.

#OFMD #Our Flag Means Death #GentleHands #SteddyHands #OFMD Party #OFMDfic

[best-non-english-word-torunament]

I just wanted to point out that Bavarian is not only spoken in Austria but also, as the name suggests, in Bavaria (one of the German federal states) and other nearby regions like South Tyrol in Italy. There aren't even 14,5Mio people living in Austria so the "14,5Mio people speaking Bavarian in Austria part" is a factually wrong and that's not even counting all the people who live in Austria and don't speak this language, since for people whose first language isn't a variant of German they mostly speak Austrian Standard German there, which is very closely related to the Standard German spoken in Germany and mutually intelligible. The classification of Bavarian as it's own separate language is also highly contentious, most would consider it a dialect, I would think for political reasons, although I do grant you that it can be very hard to near impossible for Standard High Germans to understand sometimes. I hope I'm not coming across as too harsh, I'm just fascinated and passionate about the German languages XD love the bracket, keep up the good work <3

Hi! You're not coming across as too harsh and some of these corrections are very valid.

When looking it up again, I did get the number wrong. I used ethnologue, one of the two big catalogs of language, and I did use the numbers wrong. This is the quote since it's paywalled: "Population: 8,310,000 in Austria (European Commission 2012). Total users in all countries: 14,569,000". I don't know why I wrote it like that, Bavarian was the first language I wrote about so maybe confusion? Oachkatzlschwoaf was submitted as Bavarian/Austrian dialects of German, so that might have affected my perception too.

As for area, I will update for that too. It's a little bit misleading that languages are classed as originating in one country on ethnologue and significant populations in other countries being shown further down on the page. Anyways, it lists the number of speakers in Germany as 6 million as well as 250 000 in Italy and 9 000 in Czechia. Which areas a language is spoken in is also listed further up, but unless I know the names of provinces in other countries it's not always evident.

I also want to comment on the separate language thing. The classification I'm using for what is and isn't a language is Glottolog, which is good at classification and language family. It doesn't show more information though, just sources like grammars and papers on the language. I also know that Glottlog tends to split languages into smaller groups rather than lump together. It mostly uses the criterion of mutual intelligibility but also some sociopolitical reasoning, so while I use language in the linguistic sense, it might not be the same as what speakers would classify as a dialect or language.

On Ethnologue, Standard German speakers in Austria is listed as "182,000 in Austria (2017 Eurostat), based on nationality", so my guess is that the Austrian dialect is part of what they mean by Bavarian, and it can be incomprehensible to Germans or not, but they consider it similar enough to be the same thing. Everything about German is a continuum, so I'm not surprised that the borders you have to draw might be drawn based on country. I don't know exactly why they did the distinctions they did, but I'll keep it as a language spoken by 8,3 million in Austria (and add things about the other places).

Thank you!

#questions and answers #bavarian

[soraka-in-warhammer40k]

Meme Culture in 40K

The Guard: regular shitposting. Often about eccentric characters of the "I knew that guy back in..." variant. Everyone knows the guy who shot his nuts off with a modded lasgun. Names change, often there is no official record, but everyone says they knew the guy. Also a lot of shitposting about certain commisars that is just vague enough to not get them shot on the spot.

Strapping your lasgun to your body so it looks like you are shooting with your dick is an evergreen joke that has not died down for centuries.

Space Marines: in its thematic combat and training focussed for obvious reasons, but utterly incomprehensible to outsiders. Some of the in-jokes and references date back centuries and sometimes puns include several generations of lingual drift to make sense. The events referenced might already be entriely gone from living mortal memory. One of their favourites is "funny mortals I met during a mission"-stories that they swap. Guard officers who just don't give a shit. Civillians who tried their best to "help". Sometimes just humans who just were not intimidated and treated them like any other person, which is very unusual for them. Some people have become meme-characters in their own right by now, even if they have been dead for centuries.

The Inquisition/Officio Assassinorum: No Fun Allowed. If you feel a fun-neuron in your brain firing off report to your superior for mental reconditioning.

Sisters of Battle: Officially also no fun allowed, but when they know no one's looking there is SO much religious shitposting. Sometimes it is bordeline blasphemy, but they usually stop before it goes full heresy. Fire jokes are always in style, and as with any zealot group there are also sub-groups that have their own eccentricities, and oh do they love roasting each other.

Grey Knights: Overly serious and will never be caught making a joke in public. Internally there is a lot of "I punched a Slaanesh demon its dicks with a powerfist once" jokes.

Custodes: Space Marines but x10 worse. Imagine memes that reference minor events in the unification wars. They are essentially a very small club of isolated weirdoes.

Knights: Very dependant on the household, but expect a lot of references to obscure family history. Also every now and so often someone takes a knight arm weapon and makes it look like its firing from where the mecha's genitals would be. That joke is just a human constant by now.

Adeptus Mechanicus: Madness. Utter madness. Their entire binary language is a mess of references and memes piled onto each other, combined with code and mathematical concepts pressed into linguistics. Within all that incomprehensibleness it is almost absurd that "I replaced my dick with a neutron laser" is still an evergreen joke.

Tyrannids: the Overmind is pretty sure that a "meme" was something it ate last week.

Genestealer Cults: they literally just post propaganda. They are genetically conditioned to only find that funny. Quite sad when you think about it.

Demons: are memes. Literally. Chaos is a memetic danger. The trouble is just that they are sentient with their own agency. They definetly have a preference for things that get people killed, such as weird challenges and so on.

Orks: Stories. So many stories about warbosses and the like. Half of them don't make any sense but as long enough Orks agree they do... well... you know the drill.

Craftworld Eldar: Very sensible humor, nothing too exciting. Quite polite. Often with a very melanchonic and depressive undertone. Looking at craftworld memes for too long as been cited as a cause for clinical depression.

Dark Eldar: a weird mirror-universe scenario: if you want to be really punk and edgy in their society, you post on "wholesome memes boards".

Harlequins: Shitposters Surpreme, Clown God and all. However a bit too self-referencial so it gets boring quite fast.

Exodite Eldar: every now and so often someone straps a laser gun to a dinosaur to make it look like it fires with a place where on a mammal there would be genitals.

Necrons: a bunch of royality who literally has nothing left but weird hobbies and shitposting. 90% of memes is someone roasting someone else, somtimes in a very roundabout way. Leads to multi-system civil war sometimes, especially when grudges are held for millenia. Often utterly incomprehensible to outsiders.

T'au: masters of the optimistic meme, also loves throwing shade on Imperial living conditions. Their favourite sort of comedy enjoyed by T'au and auxilliary races alike is essentially auxilliary races or very eccentric T'au driving the Ethereals insane with actions of the "they are a bit confused but they got the spirit" category - the characters definetly do their best for the Greater Good, but in entriely diferent ways the Ethereals would have wanted or planned them to act.

Every now and so often, someone submits blueprints for a battlesuit or Stormsurge that has its massive cannon in a rather peculiar spot. The recent increase of such submissions has been blamed on the humans.

#Warhammer 40k #wh40k #meme

[scorchedhearth]

i hear everyone talking about how the couples have their own languages but can you imagine the one they speak as a group?? not even talking about weird references and inside jokes like the "Sao paulo 34" but plain linguistics. a mix of 4 different grammar systems at least, vocabulary from a dozen different languages + dialects. andy's first words, proto indo european, greek, south asian languages like khmer, viet or even maybe sanskrit for quynh, lykon's first language, depends on where you place him but it would be around the nile river/east african horn so afroasiatic roots. add arabic, italian and langa franca, latin, french and occitan and that's counting first languages not the ones they might have learned and incorporated too through their trips and just for kicks because they liked the sound of that word or structure. and old or even first version of those languages, not the modern version. and english now too, i bet andy still uses a lot of australian english (andy says naur agenda). just that, hearing them speak to each other must be incomprehensible to literally anyone that's not them, you might pick up a word from it but no way you understand. imagine what nile is going to add to that with aave and maybe even other languages she learned and will learn through her life??

(i maintain that they don't actually speak english when it's just them and that movie logic translate for us the audience, they only speak english when nile arrives)

#my personnal headcanon for lykon is nubian/kingom of kush so that's what i'm putting down #tog #immortal family #hold on i'm having more feelings about this

[ariadne-mouse]

This week's WIP Wednesday noodling was of a linguistic nature. Namely, how fast would Common emerge and evolve in Exandria, and at what point in the past would it be difficult or impossible to understand compared to the Common of "present day"? I am curious. For reasons. Fic reasons.

I'm well aware there's not really a correct answer to this, since Exandria is at its heart a setting for an improv storytelling game and not a real place with recorded history or observable language changes over time. But I enjoy these kinds of questions, so here goes!

We have some CR canon examples of people from long ago talking to the campaign protagonists and being intelligible, such as Halas in C2, but due to a magical artifact being the conduit one could hand wave away any language barriers with "it's magic". There are lots of examples of writing from the far past being incomprehensible (see: everything in Aeor) but that wasn't established to be Archaic Common or similar, so it could have been another language entirely, or even something as mundane as spelling/orthographic changes being the problem. We do know that the floating city of Zemniaz is where Zemnian comes from, so Aeor may have had its own language or dialect too rather than using Common.

So, what else to consider that might influence Common? Language changes because of all kinds of reasons.

Migration and movement of peoples that results in mixing of language features, accents, swapping of loan words, and other influences. Common seems to be a fairly ubiquitous lingua franca all across Exandria where it isn't a vernacular (first language - possibly to humans more often than other races), so it's hard to say where the most prominent and lasting change would be driven from. We also hear different Common accents that seem determined by the speakers' first language or their region (see: Kryn speakers of Common like Essek influenced by their native Undercommon, or the accent distinctive to the Menagerie Coast)

New or lost technologies, social constructs, and other major societal changes, since language evolves with the needs of its users describing their world. Were any language aspects lost when the Age of Arcanum fell? Was anything new born from the ashes? What are Exandrians describing today that they weren't a thousand years ago, and vice versa?

Major conflicts that destroy populations and culture (the Calamity, but also the Marrow War and any wars since), shifts of power, class differences, structures of power enforcing or "legitimizing" certain uses and features of language (that's in air quotes for a reason, I am and will always be a descriptivist). Basically - who are/were the dictatorial prescriptivists of Exandria regarding Common? Not sure. Possibly the Julous Dominion in PD, which was founded by humans and halflings.

Generational turnover: this is pure speculation for DnD-verse, extrapolating from the real-world tendency for older folks to be more linguistically conservative, while the youngins are more likely to drive innovation and adopt change more easily. DnD races have wildly different lifespans, so the age composition of any society might be allll over the place. Longer lived races like elves, firbolgs, dragons, etc, with lifespans in the hundreds, might have a slowing effect on the evolution of language and Common in particular since they may perpetuate what they've learned for a longer amount of time. Shorter-lived races may innovate or change faster as elders are not around as long to influence younger people, and there are more children coming into the world more often. The only conclusion I can draw from this regarding Common is "it's complicated".

A rambling set of musings to say - did the wizards in the Age of Arcanum speak Common at all? If we were to pluck one of these wizards from the past and bring them into the "present day" of Exandria, would their use of Common be mutually intelligible with present day Common-speakers? Or would it be like a modern English speaker trying to understand Old or Middle English?

Ultimately I'll have to just make a decision for the WIP that works best for the story and stick with it, but it's been fun to ponder.

#critical role #linguistics #language #op #WIP wednesday #(a day late because i lost my first draft of this to a computer crash - RIP)

[polaristranslations]

Shinobu Mustard Episode 4

028

"Kanbaru. Do you mind becoming a slave for tonight? Also, lend me your house."

"All right!"

Second slave, secured.

"Oikura. Tonight, become my slave, and cook for me."

"Don't think you'll be able to live until tonight."

Third slave, failed to secure.

The reason for that failure was most likely because I'd been a hurry and said "my slave"... Well, it wasn't like I could tell her to become the slave of a golden-haired, golden-eyed girl.

And because of her connections with Gaen-san, I couldn't exactly get Kanbaru fully involved in this either, so renting her house for one night should be good enough.

As the "citadel" of the king of oddities.

I'd heard yesterday that her grandparents were out on a trip, so Kanbaru could stay over at Higasa-chan's house or even Karen's room in the Araragi house and hold a pajama party there, while I was allowed to do whatever I liked in the meantime.

I knew it made me sound like an outlaw, but it was a decision I couldn't avoid—the only building I could think of in this town that could serve as a vampire's stronghold was Kanbaru's mansion.

Just as the death-prepared, death-inevitable, death-certain vampire, Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster, had once taken up residence in the "Castle of Corpses", the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, cold-blooded vampire, Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, needed a building of suitable pedigree in which to take up residence.

It was fairly Japanese-style for a castle—or rather it was just a Japanese mansion—but hopefully, this being Suicidemaster's first visit to Japan, she wouldn't be able to differentiate between castles and mansions in Japan... Not that I, a Japanese person, could.

"But no, I didn't say that just because I wanted to show off. If Suicidemaster were to learn that her former thrall who she came to visit had been rendered harmless and sealed in the shadow of a pervert—nay, human—she may close herself off entirely. We won't be able to hear a single shred of information. In the worst case, you might even be killed. Would you be fine with that?"

"No, I wouldn't, but..."

"In that case, become my slave again like you were in last year's spring break, and prepare a castle and a banquet. To make my reign more convincing. If you can secure two or three more fake thralls, then that would be great."

The slave sealed in my shadow stuck out her chest in pride and ordered me as such from the child seat.

Erm...

"So basically, you want to greet your old pal with a master-servant relationship in that sort of fashion?"

"Fashion is important in hospitality. I'm pretty strict on fashion. Like a Parisienne."

"No, rather than a Parisienne, you're more like a putting-on-airs-ienne. Respectfully speaking, Shinobu. Wouldn't a petty trick like this just be found out immediately..."

"Oh, you're already getting into it. 'Respectfully speaking', you say? Ka ka, you're an expert at acting like a slave already! Have you done this before? Wait, of course you have! Ka ka, keep it up for the real thing!"

With a loud laugh as if she'd already gotten accustomed to being the master, Shinobu sunk back into the shadows... It almost looked like she was assimilating with the child seat.

What a mess. She'd appeared as if she was going to listen to my concerns, but then she just said whatever she wanted to—however, as soon as I parked my New Beetle in the parking lot, before I went inside, it was then that I called Kanbaru, who'd been in the middle of her morning run, and Oikura, who'd been indulging in her slumber at her lodgings.

Kanbaru had eagerly agreed (it was scary how eager she was, but I decided to call her back and discuss it properly, as well as other things), while Oikura had refused (if I left her alone, she'd probably call me back, so at that point, I'll more or less apologize from the bottom of my heart... and ask for her home cooking separately).

Well, Shinobu putting on airs was the same as always.

I almost wanted to tell her to be more show-offy towards me, but considering the way she was cooperating for this case, I couldn't bluntly refuse that honesty... I had better properly inform Gaen-san about this, too.

Thinking about it, Kanbaru was the "niece of that Gaen-san", but in reverse, Gaen-san was the "aunt of that Kanbaru". What if Gaen-san casually went, "I'll do it, too! Let me be a slave, too!" after I went to her with our plans?... I didn't want to see Gaen-san like that.

What an odd family they were.

On the other hand, even though my parents were ordinary, upright public servants, why had all their children turned out like that?

Speaking of which, the fact that only the members of the girls' basketball team of Naoetsu High were being attacked could be rephrased as "only Kanbaru's juniors were being attacked", so maybe it was a good idea to think about things with her as the focal point.

Even if the gourmet Suicidemaster were only able to dine on "Princess Beauty", Kanbaru Suruga was the daughter (in other words, the direct descendant) of Gaen Tooe, who's practically talked about as if she were a legend—so for the club members that were under her influence, the possibility of them being targeted is...

Although, in that case, maybe Kanbaru herself would be targeted? Actually, it was fairly possible that that was the case—and if so, then using Kanbaru's house as a meeting place wasn't a bad idea, if only to see Suicidemaster's reaction, but Kanbaru herself should probably be kept far away.

That was what ran through my mind as I wandered around the campus of Manase University to kill time, having arrived earlier than expected (it was a fairly expansive university, and I still hadn't seen all of the campus yet. Supposedly, it would take over four years to check out all of the facilities—what was this, the British Museum?), but once it got close to 7:45 am, I knocked on the door to the lecture hall for my international linguistics class.

Although it was called "linguistics", it was different from classes on foreign languages in that it put languages from all over the world, both famous and unknown, on equal footing and compared them in detail. Ultimately, an unproductive course with no destination in sight—there were many incomprehensible courses like this in college.

But I liked that sort of incomprehensible stuff. Could this be Ougi-chan's influence?

It was a liberal arts course unusual for someone in the mathematics department to take, and it was hard to say that the course was particularly popular even taking into account how early in the morning it was, but for Meniko, whose goal was to work with codes in the future, there was no way she couldn't take this course—well, for her, international linguistics probably wasn't even an "incomprehensible course" (in exchange, Meniko was bad with normal foreign language study).

"Hola. Araragi-chan, you're ea~arly. How diligent of you~u."

"I dunno about being called early when you're here in your seat before me. Hola."

Not to mention, I planned on skipping class after this. Unfortunately (or not), today's lecture hadn't been canceled.

It seemed I'd have to borrow Meniko's notes another day—the number of favors I was asking her was increasing. Someday, I'd better do something for her in return.

I bumped fists with Meniko and sat down next to her, and then asked, "Do you mind if I asked you to decipher another code?", showing her the sequence of numbers that I had displayed on my cell phone.

"Hmm. Hmm, hmm?"

A normal person, after being asked to solve codes like these two days in a row, would find it strange and ask for my intentions before even trying, but this was Hamukai Meniko—she couldn't not solve a code that was put before her.

It was a difficult personality, but I liked that about her... It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but neither I nor my proud network of friends from high school were people that moved without some reason or purpose.

Even Hanekawa and Oshino.

And even the violent onmyouji Kagenui-san that was heading towards this town was actually a person of reason—she moved according to her own, unique logic.

As a result, there had been a time when I'd thought that people were just like that, but after becoming friends with Meniko, I came to learn that there were people who weren't like that—I'd been enlightened.

Meniko also seemed to be rather interested in the fact that I was (in a rough estimate) rather logical about things, so I suppose it was a mutual thing.

In order to maintain this relationship, I didn't dare introduce Meniko to any of my other connections, such as Oikura, even by mistake—of course, I had absolutely no intention of breaking off my connection with Oikura, who I had reconnected with after entering university, but as for her... Rather than our connection being broken off, it could be more like she herself would snap.

"A cell phone, huh. Was the code recorded in a cell phone?"

"Yep. Although I don't know if that holds any meaning..."

"That's tru~ue. These days, cell phones are like a part of our brains now, aren't they? Some people criticize the fact that when you go on a trip, you end up looking at the scenery through the small screen of your smartphone, but looking at something with the camera of your smartphone is basically the same as looking at it with your own eyes. Maybe when people complain about train passengers playing with their cell phones, it's a sign that they've failed to pair their phones with themselves?"

I hadn't exactly mastered the use of a cell phone myself, so it was hard for me to wholeheartedly agree, but, well, it wasn't like I didn't understand what she was saying.

"Anyway, this time it's only numbers, huh. Hm. I did solve it, bu~ut."

"Already? You're really the one that's early to things, aren't you. The truth is, I didn't have the slightest idea."

It wasn't like I didn't feel helpless when delegating the whole thing to Meniko, so I'd thought that I'd challenge it on my own in the period of time before I took it to her, but I'd spent most of that time on Shinobu's matter.

"It doesn't seem like putting it on a phone and not on paper really mattered? But numbers are easy to make into a code, aren't the~ey. Languages can vary from region to region, depending on grammar and culture, but numbers are worldwi~ide. No matter where in the universe you are, one plus one is two, and a prime number is a prime number, ri~ight?"

"That's not actually the case. For example, in Nepalese, the representations for '1' and '9' look similar, so when a Japanese person sees them, the math wouldn't add up at a glance. The logic would look completely wrong. Also, it's only in Japan where people use the '正' kanji to count to five, and for someone like me, the little horizontal bar used to distinguish a '7' from a '1' is enough to make me not think of it as a '7'".

"I see. For someone like me, a '7' with a horizontal bar looks kind of like the kanji for seven [七] upside down, so I end up getting those confu~used. So you're above me when it comes to that, huh, Araragi-cha~an."

There wasn't really an above or a below in this exchange, but aah, I wanted to have a conversation like this.

I suddenly realized.

When Shinobu—when Princess Acerola, as "Princess Beauty"—went about destroying countries... When she was a human, did she feel the same way as this when she met a vampire?

Even though it was a relationship of eat or be eaten.

The interpretation that they were vampire and thrall, or master and slave, was at odds with the lighthearted way in which she spoke of her as an "old pal".

She had said that she'd reflected from that time with Shishirui Seishirou, so I'd interpreted it as the master-slave relationship having been reversed, but what if it wasn't that? What if Suicidemaster really was just a "friend" to Shinobu?

Like, for example, Kanbaru and Higasa-chan.

According to Hachikuji, Suicidemaster had called Shinobu a friend as well.

A friend, huh.

There had been a fiercely determined class representative who had declared, "If I can't die for someone, I wouldn't call that person a friend". But what if Shinobu wanted to meet Suicidemaster with that in mind?

Did I have the qualification to stop her?

Talking about qualifications at this point was what made me, me—regret may always come too late, but logic always took precedence. If I ultimately acted upon my emotions, then I would most likely act too late to a disgusting extent.

I should learn a bit from my new friend.

What I wanted was not qualifications, but qualities.

"Hmm. Araragi-chan, what's the matter? Thinking about something?"

"No, I'm trying hard not to think about something. So, what's the answer to the code?"

"Like yesterday, I managed to solve it, but it's a dead-end that isn't really refreshing. Even though I managed to decode it, it just leaves me stressed aga~ain. But it ended up being letters of the alphabet aga~ain."

"Alphabet—then, 'D/V/S'?"

"No~ope. This time, it's 'F/C'."

"F/C"?

029

"If 'F/C' are also initials, I wonder if there's someone from the girls' basketball team who has those initials," said Gaen-san, the human representative of logic, after hearing my report.

We were once again in Naoetsu General Hospital, in yet another hospital room different from the three we'd been in earlier—the hospital room where Kanguu Misago-chan's mummy had been put up.

"I wonder if the message was left on a cell phone to hint at that. Since they had matching straps with their initials."

"Aah... That's right, they did have those," I said.

In that sense, I would've had more hints to decipher it than Meniko did.

It wasn't really a contest, but I did find it a bit frustrating.

"By the way, Kanguu-chan also had a strap. Since she's Kanguu Misago, it was 'M K'."

"Eh? But wait, Gaen-san. Wouldn't that mean that the vampire that we're looking for is actually among the members of the girls' basketball team?"

If, not the dying message, but the living message was indicating a specific member's initials, and Suicidemaster was being falsely accused of a crime, then that would be it.

"F C".

"Not necessarily. It could be that Kanguu-chan, in a hazy state of mind, was just trying to write the name of a friend she thought of. Or it's an act of deception to make us think that way. In other words, diversionary tactics by Suicidemaster."

A vampire trying to blame a human for their vampirism—it seemed a little narrow-minded, almost pitiful at that, and not at all in line with the image of a vampire. Well, if we can consider the possibility that the crime is being pinned on Suicidemaster, why can't we consider the opposite?

Taking it to extremes, it was even possible now that this was a diversionary tactic to make us think that everything was fabricated, like a deduction in a honkaku mystery.

Us people of logic.

"You're right. It would be too unexpected a truth for there to be a vampire among the club members."

"I don't remember explicitly denying that possibility. You can't say for sure that there aren't more oddities like you, Koyomin, that put on an air of innocence and casually attend school, right?"

"Again with the jokes."

And this was a bad joke, at that.

The phrasing of "air of innocence" felt like biting words.

"It's not entirely a joke, though. Well, this is just a brute force through all the possibilities at the moment. Like a canvassing operation done by throwing more people at the problem. It's true that, as a result of last night's events, the suspicion placed on Suicidemaster has faded. 'F C' seems like it would be fairly rare for initials, so I'm sure we'll be able to narrow it down to just a few girls out of the hundred on the basketball team..."

As she spoke, Gaen-san began flipping through the register of names borrowed from Higasa-chan, beginning her check. I'd promised not to make any copies of it, so it was the original document.

"For reference, do you mind if I ask, Koyomin? About how the code was deciphered. It's possible that the method can also provide a hint for us."

"Understood. However, I don't think it'll be very relevant."

"I'd like to hear it anyway. I may not exactly be a sciences person, but it's not like I hate number puzzles. It's a great way to exercise the mind and relax."

Relax?

Putting aside exercising the mind... She didn't really look like it, but was Gaen-san actually stressed right now? With this incident taking longer than expected, Kagenui-san drawing closer to the town with every moment, and my betrayal that must not be forgotten, well, there were plenty of things that could be cause for concern.

Well, if revealing the trick is somehow relaxing, then I'll gladly do so.

It's atonement for my infidelity.

"However, this code ended up not being a number puzzle. It had nothing to do with prime numbers, either—though it's still in the sciences, it was not mathematics, but the field of natural sciences."

"Natural sciences? If we're talking about fields, in middle school, they'd divide the natural sciences into the 'first field' for physics and chemistry, and the 'second field' for biology and geology."

"In that respect, it would be the first field—Celsius and Fahrenheit."

In other words, temperature notation.

Like numbers, temperature was the same throughout the world, or perhaps even throughout the universe, and high temperatures were high, low temperatures were low, and absolute zero was absolute zero—but temperature wasn't notated in the same way everywhere. The units differed.

And that difference was Celsius and Fahrenheit.

"Ah—that's why it's 'F' and 'C'?"

As expected of a logical person, she caught on fast. After speaking, Gaen-san flipped the register shut—it seemed she'd finished checking it all.

She was even fast at reading.

"But how does '820/280/610/160' become Celsius and Fahrenheit? Although, since Celsius is 'C' and Fahrenheit is 'F', perhaps I should ask how it becomes Fahrenheit and Celsius."

"For both Celsius and Fahrenheit, a '°' is placed in the top right direction to denote 'degrees'. In the same place where you would write an exponent."

"Do an explanation like that for a science major. I got it just from you saying 'in the top right direction'—don't go off in a completely different direction, Koyomin. And?"

"We look at the '0' in the code and interpret it as a '°'—basically, the '0' in '820', the '0' in '280', the '0' in '610', and the '0' in '160', all the zeroes at the end of the numbers, should not be taken as numbers but as symbols. Then, '820/280/610/160' becomes '82°/28°/61°/16°'."

"Aha. Highest and lowest temperatures, huh?"

That was exactly it.

The code that had been left behind was showing yesterday's temperature, represented in both Celsius and Fahrenheit—just like the Rosetta Stone, which could be described as the originator of cryptanalysis.

However, the essential letters of the alphabet were missing—"F" and "C".

"That's why, 'F/C' becomes the deciphered text to the code. Oh, but if they're initials, you can't really call that a text. But I see. It's amazing that someone could come up with something like that."

"Yes. Checking the daily high and low temperatures may be natural for an athletic person, but even then, I don't think they would have been able to come up with that in their hazy state of mind."

"No, my intention was to praise your friend, Koyomin."

It would be a bit troublesome if you show too much interest in her.

If you point your finger at her.

This was entirely my own self-interest, but I'd like to settle this case before I needed to ask for help with a third code...

But after relying on Hachikuji and getting Shinobu's cooperation and borrowing Kanbaru's house, I'd strayed pretty far from what I'd originally intended, so maybe next time I'd just give up and go to Ougi-chan for help with the cryptanalysis... Although, that girl likes to be befuddling, so she definitely wouldn't just give me the answer straight up like Meniko.

She was also a person of logic. A mysterious form of logic.

But anyway, let's return to the main subject.

For the sake of protecting Meniko, and for the sake of resolving this case.

"But anyway, how many people in the girls' basketball club have the initials 'F C'? Although we'd probably need to check whether that girl has a strap or not..."

Since the first mummy, Harimaze Kie-chan, didn't have a strap on her phone, it wasn't a given that everyone had a matching strap. Perhaps, within the club, that small level of resistance against peer pressure was allowed.

"There were as much as zero people."

"Eh? What did you say?"

"Sorry, that was a weird way to put it. Zero. There were none, is what I meant. Girls with 'F C' as their initials, that is."

030

"Have you looked for the reverse order? You know, when representing the name of a Japanese person, there's the pattern of 'first/last name' and 'last/first name'."

"Of course. There were none like that, either."

Could Meniko's solution have been wrong?

No, there was no way.

"I wonder if we should expand the range of possibilities. Should we include the third-years that have already retired as candidates?"

"Umm..."

It wasn't impossible to ask Higasa-chan through Kanbaru for a list of the OG members, but I wasn't sure. If we expanded it that far, it felt like the possibilities would be endless.

It didn't seem too productive to force the solution into the initials 'F C' and look for a person that matched, either... Rare as the initials might be, it wasn't like there was nobody with those initials.

"We did figure out that the victims were members of the girls' basketball team using the straps as the hint, but like with 'D/V/S', maybe there's a famous vampire with those initials?"

"The vampires here are from overseas, after all. It's normal to add a middle name... It's unnatural to have initials with just two letters."

"Is that so..."

I'd ended up bothering Meniko with this (though she'd been happy about it) and I'd ended up skipping class (though I probably would have skipped class anyway), but it didn't end up being that much of a hint... Well, even Oshino had said that fieldwork was a cycle of futility.

It was important not to dwell on it.

"By the way, Gaen-san. You don't seem to be in that good of a mood, so is it possible that you received more unpleasant news while I was out?"

"Hm? Did it seem that way to you? I was trying to act calm about it, but this onee-san that knows everything must be losing face to receive your concern, Koyomin. Even though I want to be an onee-san you can always rely on."

"No, no. Gaen-san, you're always an older woman that I can rely on..."

"I'm not trying to be a dependable older woman. No, but anyway, Koyomin. Your worries were right on the mark. The contents of a high school girl's cell phone weren't something we should have looked at."

And the fact that it hasn't produced any good results so far is nearly breaking my heart, said Gaen-san as she laid eyes upon the mummy on the bed—the owner of the cell phone, Kanguu Misago-chan.

Having been made to wear a patient gown and laid to rest on the bed... I didn't want to say I was getting familiar with the sight, but I was getting used to it.

When humans become nothing but skin and bones, it's hard to distinguish between them—their height became ambiguous when laid down, and since they were in a sports club, their hair was fairly short, so it was hard to distinguish them that way, too.

Kanbaru had also had a short haircut when she'd been active... Don't tell me it wasn't just because they were in a sports club, but because they were following after Kanbaru...?

Everyone doing the same thing... Hm?

"Even so, this onee-san won't be surprised any more. Seriously, after being shown the ugly side of human relations, I won't even be scared of vampires."

"Being shown? Gaen-san, you're the one who went and looked at it yourself."

"And I have nothing to say in response to that. They say you're not supposed to check your partner's phone, and that's completely true. If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."

What was in that phone, exactly?

Honestly, if she said it like that, it made me even more curious... However, it probably was better to not ask. For the sake of respecting their privacy, and for the sake of my own health... If Gaen-san ended up like that, I might even end up hospitalized as a result.

And if it wasn't producing any good results, then all the more reason not to.

"Well, I suppose the girls' basketball team is pretty unique. If this sort of thing was commonplace... Well, it's not something I want to think about, as an adult. Their club activities are certainly strange. It felt like they were bullying themselves."

"But aren't all athletic clubs more or less like that? Even more so if you're a powerhouse."

Or rather, a former powerhouse. In the case of Naoetsu High.

Of course, that may have intensified that athletic mindset...

"Mm. I've always had a commander-like nature since I was in high school, but even then, I was still pretty incompatible with those sports-minded people."

"So there was a time when you were a high school girl, Gaen-san."

"It's not like this onee-san was always an onee-san from the moment she was born. Or an older woman."

"That wasn't what I meant... But even so, the hardest person to imagine as a high school girl would probably be Kagenui-san."

She didn't seem like she would be in the liberal arts or the sciences, or in a cultural club or a sports club... What kind of high school girl would she have been?

"That girl was actually a surprisingly diligent student. Although I only knew her as a college student, not a high school student. She's the only one from that trio to graduate without dropping out."

Is that so.

Human beings really couldn't be described one-sidedly, huh.

"Oh nooo. While I carelessly stepped into a colony of high school girls and got my feet stuck in a murky, bottomless swamp, Kagenui will probably arri~ive!"

Even if you lament the word "arri~ive" all cutely like that, that in itself seemed more lamentable.

Please remain a reliable older woman.

"It may be fine for me to think this way, but Gaen-san, aren't you being a little too cautious regarding your junior? She may be a bit uncontrollable, but it's not like she completely ignores the orders you give her, right?"

In the first place, Kagenui-san was coming all the way back from the North Pole because she was called by Gaen-san—plus, if she were truly uncontrollable, she would've ignored any sort of harmless certification and gotten rid of Shinobu and me.

Though she was infinitely violent, that was just a matter of the way she did things, and it should be possible to talk things out—she was a person of logic, too.

"That's right. It's true that, if I explain the circumstances, she might understand the reasoning behind why it's not necessary to exterminate Suicidemaster. It might even be possible to certify her as harmless, with how much of a little girl she's become."

Even while stuck in a bottomless swamp of high school girls, it seemed she'd long since considered the things I'd thought of, with the way she spoke.

"Yes. In fact, as soon as I'd heard that Suicidemaster had broken through Hachikuji-chan's mayoi-ushi barrier, those thoughts had already crossed my mind. It wasn't that Suicidemaster had broken through the barrier with brute force, but simply that she had been weakened to the point that the barrier didn't even react."

"......"

Was that even possible?

It sounded pretty painful and distressing, considering that she was the progenitor who birthed and named the legendary oddity.

"Even in that state, she should still be able to suck the blood of high school girls, so just by being in this town, nothing has changed regarding her being the prime suspect. However, the reason she became a mummy might not be because she was attacked by someone, but because she'd weakened to the point that she entered cryptobiosis by herself."

"In that case, would that mean she was the one to bury herself in the mountain?"

"Yes, it would be safer in the dirt, after all. The cryptobiotic-sleep, hibernation-sleep, dozing-sleep vampire. In that case, perhaps she was attempting to make her way back to Hachikuji-chan who was in charge of immigration control, and collapsed along the way. Well, we're still just brute forcing the possibilities here—the strongest possibility is still that she grew so hungry that she attacked a high school girl, but for now, we can apply the principle of innocent until proven guilty. But the problem is, that won't work on Kagenui."

"...Why is that?"

She sure was stubborn in a weird way.

In a sense, she was pretty laid-back to even put her faith in someone like me, but right now, Gaen-san was being weirdly obstinate in regards to Kagenui-san.

"Well, this is just between us, but they share a bit of a past. The problem at hand, Suicidemaster, and the even bigger problem, Kagenui."

"The problem—and the bigger problem."

"Even if Suicidemaster happened to not be the culprit for this case, and even if it's possible for her to be certified as harmless after not having harmed a human for the past six hundred years—even then, they share a past that makes it impossible to stop Kagenui. Though justice is the only thing that can put that unorthodox onmyouji in check, she's very likely to move out of a personal grudge for this time alone."

G—grudge?

That bundle of justice?

"If I make the wrong move, I may find myself having to excommunicate yet another junior. And I don't want to do that."

031

Kagenui-san's personal grudge probably wasn't something that other people should be prying into, so let's return to the main subject. Although the main subject was a ghost story with intense pressure. But anyway, back to the main subject.

The risk of intruding into her private life had been clearly demonstrated, and Gaen-san, who had hinted at it, didn't dare tell me the details of her past—perhaps she'd let it slip after being embroiled in the high school girls' darkness.

Speaking of being embroiled, it seemed that the reason Gaen-san associated the initials "F C" with the members of the girls' basketball team was not only because of the alphabet strap, but because she'd looked into the darkness of the club displayed on Kanguu Misago-chan's cell phone and had been influenced by it (it seemed she even considered the possibility that, in her dazed state, Kanguu-chan thought she could pin the crime on a team member that she had some friction with). But in the register, there was no one with those initials—and, as long as there was no initial for a middle name included, it likely wasn't the vampire's signature, either.

Before expanding our reach to the OG girls, one more possibility came to my mind.

"What if these aren't initials, but an abbreviation for something in English?"

"Abbreviation? ...In other words, something other than a person's name?"

Normally, Gaen-san would have come up with something in an instant, but at the moment, she'd been caught up in the murky mires of those high school girls... And it could be even more damaging to her as an adult.

I've learned that the private life of others is nothing but poison.

"It probably isn't 'franchise (FC)'—then maybe it's something like 'football club (FC)'?"

It seemed appropriate.

First a basketball club, now a football club.

It also wasn't impossible to interpret it as a franchise of making vampire thralls, forced as it was—but there was no need to twist it that much.

But before we went to Naoetsu High's soccer team, we couldn't forget the other organization in that high school that we should consider.

"'Fan club (FC)'."

"Hm?"

"There was something like that. In the past—well, it wasn't that far in the past—an unofficial fan club for the superstar Kanbaru Suruga."

It was an organization separate from the girls' basketball team, yet was an organization that was strongly influenced by Kanbaru, in a way different from the girls' basketball team.

It was something that came to mind after thinking that all the mummies' hairstyles were the same—let's see, as I recall, that fan club's name was "Kanbaru Soeurs"?

"What's that? Is it something like the Rukawa Kaede Imperial Guard?"

"Exactly. But somehow they ended up getting involved with me and I forced them into disbanding—"

"That's something really scary you're saying as just an introduction, Koyomin. Forced them into disbanding. You really are a delinquent like the rumors say, aren'tcha?"

"I think the remnants of that fan club could be related to this case."

As much as the hypothesis that there was a vampire among the girls' basketball team members was incredible to believe, the possibility that there was a vampire mixed in with Kanbaru Suruga's fan club was just as ridiculous.

But we weren't in a situation where we could afford not to consider ridiculous possibilities just because they were ridiculous.

"That's a fact that this onee-san that knows everything didn't exactly need to know. Ah, yes, but my dear sister had a cheerleading squad like that when she was in high school, too."

"It doesn’t seem like it will have much of a connection, but I suppose I should do something now that I've thought of it. She wasn't a member of the fan club herself, but my little sister is pretty close with that organization, so I'll look into it just a teeny bit."

"Your little sister?"

I looked at Gaen-san's clouded expression.

"My little sister (the bigger one)," I amended.

After hearing that, Gaen-san seemed to relax, smiling.

"You mean Karen-chan. Okay, do as you see fit. But, out of concern—from this old lady's point of view—please don't bring Tsukihi-chan into this. Of course, Koyomin, you were originally the one who said you didn't want to cause trouble for your family, but even discounting the thing with Yozuru, things that go well just don't go well when Tsukihi-chan is involved."

She's talking about you in a pretty amazing way, my little sister (the smaller one).

"And, I apologize for the late report, but Shinobu laid out some conditions for her cooperation in Suicidemaster's interrogation."

I presented an outline of the master-servant reversal to Gaen-san. Even though the plan seemed like it would be laughable regardless of the time, place, or occasion...

"Right, that sounds good."

I received the commander's approval.

Of course, she didn't say anything like "I'll do it, too! Let me be a slave, too!"

"Although, rather than an interrogation, it's practically an undercover operation at this point—but if Suicidemaster mistakenly sees that Shinobu-chan is doing well in this country, then she might end up chattering away without any caution."

Mistakenly. Well, she would certainly be mistaken.

Rather than "doing well", she'd been on the verge of being exterminated, on the verge of being killed, and on the verge of death, and in the end failed to die, turned into a little girl, and then ended up sealed in a teenager's shadow.

At any rate, seeing as I'd gotten the go-ahead to put the plan into action, it was inevitable—I wasn't sure if I could pull off the part of a slave, but I would do what I could.

"In that case, even if it didn't have to do with the fan club, I figure I should have a proper discussion with Kanbaru about this, but is there anything I should be careful about when talking to her? The situation has completely changed from yesterday."

"Something to be careful about... I'd like if you could avoid the storm entirely. I know you might feel a sense of duty, but don't go poking your nose into the murky depths of your juniors."

Her advice was not as a specialist but as a person with more seniority in life, but I wanted Kanbaru, too, to follow these words of Gaen-san, who was called a senior by various people.

Even if I couldn't mention Gaen-san's name.

Even if I doubted that Kanbaru would actually follow them.

"I'll stay at this hospital and do my best with the cell phone analysis while waiting for a report from the search party and preparing for the night."

"I'll meet up with Karen-chan and Kanbaru, and if I have some spare time I'll go drop in on Oikura."

"Putting aside your childhood friend, when it comes to your little sister and Suruga, there's no need to wait up until they come back from school. Koyomin, I think you should go back home at least once for a nap. Though I know all-nighters aren't hard on you thanks to your vampire constitution, you must still be at your limit, right?"

That was true.

Thinking about it, vampires, being nocturnal, did go to sleep in the daytime... Just as Shinobu was doing right now.

The truth was, I'd been working out a plan to drop in on Oikura's place until school let out for the day, but it seemed I'd have to abandon that idea.

Even sleeping was work.

Well, if it was around this time, that mathematics maniac was probably in class, too...

"Ah. I know. I'll split the difference and go to Oikura's place to sleep. I have a spare key, after all."

"Childhood friendships are pretty hard for other people to pry into, huh."

032

I decided to just go to my own home. Of course I needed to catch up on sleep, but I wanted to take a bath, too. Alas, I didn't have any clothes to change into at Oikura's place. I'll do something about that later.

Afterwards, I thought about saying thanks to Ononoki-chan for last night—since I'd left in a hurry, I hadn't been able to talk to her about how she relayed Hachikuji's message to me, or how she called over Gaen-san to the mountain after that.

From Ononoki-chan's point of view, I'd gotten a fortune slip and left all of a sudden, and then decided to go to hell—I probably seemed pretty weird to her... I couldn't bear being thought of as a weird guy by Ononoki-chan.

With both parents working, the first daughter a high schooler, and the second daughter a middle schooler, the Araragi house was generally empty in the daytime—I would be able to speak to Ononoki-chan, who'd infiltrated the house as a stuffed doll, without reservations.

It was one thing to give my thanks, but I figured I may as well tell her that Kagenui-san was approaching this town like a hurricane—for Gaen-san and me, it was an approach that was currently fairly inconvenient, but it could be good news for Ononoki-chan, who idolizes (?) Kagenui-san as an "onee-chan".

Because Ononoki-chan was busy with something else, she wasn't participating in this incident, but it wasn't like she was intentionally left out of the loop, unlike Shinobu until she found out—if the conversation went well, perhaps I'd be able to learn about the past between Suicidemaster and Kagenui-san, which I had failed to ask about, or rather, which I had wanted to hear but didn't want to hear.

Perhaps those ulterior motives led to my ruin, for when I arrived home, it was not just my parents and sisters but also that expressionless, frilly-dressed stuffed doll that was absent.

It seemed that young girl was even busier than public servants and middle school students, though not college students.

Well, I'd like to hear as much as what she had to say, but I didn't think it was a past that I wanted to dig into myself... If anything, maybe what I should be doing is to let the foreshadowing die so that her past doesn't get revealed?

Araragi Koyomi, killing the foreshadowing.

With that, feeling a mix of disappointment and relief, I took a shower and crawled into bed.

It seemed I'd been more tired than I realized (perhaps out of worry, too), so I slept soundly until the afternoon, waking only to the sound of Karen's return—despite her training in martial arts, she was a lot noisier in her movements, so it was easy to hear.

"Yo, Karen-chan. By the way, I wanted to ask about Kanbaru's fan club."

"That's way too direct. I haven't even taken off my shoes yet! At least welcome me back. You gotta have some sort of introduction before starting off the main topic with a 'by the way'. What happened?"

Araragi Karen. 16 years old.

She was super tall. My bigger little sister.

Tsuganoki Private High School first-year. She did not take part in any clubs, and continued to attend a martial arts dojo—something like that.

Also, her hairstyle returned to a ponytail.

"Kanbaru-sensei's fan club? Ah, aah. The one that nii-chan smashed up, huh."

"If I didn't break them up, they would've broken me. Just remembering it now, it's super scary."

The fact that she was still calling her Kanbaru-sensei was pretty considerable, but then again, the way Karen yearned for Kanbaru was... pretty unique.

I couldn't exactly give a thorough explanation of the circumstances, so I simply said, "Have you heard anything about, say, them having resumed activities?" and continued the conversation without explaining my reasons.

"Mmm. No, I don't think they have. When an organization like that comes apart once, it's pretty hard to reorganize."

"Is that so?"

"The crux, Kanbaru-sensei, retired, after all. Fans easily heat up and easily cool down."

I see... I guess it was like that.

Just as Karen said, if Kanbaru had continued to be active, then perhaps the fan club could have been passed down to the next generation, but now that the target of their admiration had retired, it was probably hard to gather new members.

And Kanbaru herself wasn't the kind of person that liked attracting that kind of attention, too—I had to admit I felt a bit elated at the inspiration of reading the deciphered code "F/C" as fan club... But I guess it wasn't that easy.

When comparing the girls' basketball team, of which Kanbaru had been a member, with the fan club, which was unofficial and separate... The quality was certainly different—if it became a fan club full of stoicism that could enforce ironclad laws without the actual person in question, it would be one of the best in Japan.

If only it had been "C/F", then it could at least have been read as "center forward", a basketball position...

Well, whether the culprit was in the girls' basketball team or in the fan club, it didn't change the reality that the vampire might be nonchalantly attending Naoetsu High—if that was even possible.

Of course, even though Gaen-san had been trying to implicate me, there were quite a few students that had gotten entangled with oddities, like Senjougahara Hitagi, Hanekawa Tsubasa, Kanbaru Suruga, or Oshino Ougi.

Well, a high school girl being a vampire did make for a prettier picture than a high school boy being a vampire—oh yeah.

"Karen-chan. You're a high school girl now, right?"

"What's with that, all of a sudden? But, that's right. I've become able to get married."

"That's not because you're a high school girl, it's because you've turned 16 years old. If anything, you've gotten harder to marry. Especially for me."

"Nii-chan, for you I'm the most difficult person in the world to marry. I'm your little sister!"

"How does it feel to be a high school girl? Is everything going well with your new friends?"

Regrettably, I pretended to be an overprotective older brother and started a survey to try and collect some live opinions—could even Karen be mired in the murky depths that had been a downer for the easygoing Gaen-san?

"I dunno what sort of school life you mean by 'going well', but this new world is pretty fun. I almost want to go to school on the weekends, too."

That's pretty insane.

But that's true, it's not like all high school girls have a dark side to them. There are individual differences, and it depends on the environment and the situation.

To put it in a good way, Karen's personality was endlessly bright, and to put it in a bad way, she was endlessly idiotic, but that wasn't just it—when surrounded by a stiff atmosphere, even the brightest idiot would lose some of that excitement. However, Karen was a follower of Kanbaru—

"—Oh yeah. Can I ask one more thing, Karen-chan?"

"What is it now? Today, it's all questions and no groping my boobs, huh."

"Don't talk like groping your boobs is a regular occurrence. I'm not going to touch them. This year."

"It was a problem when you've been touching them for the last year. Touching a girl's boobs like you were kneading clay. And? What's the question you were gonna ask?"

"You know the Fire Sisters, that you and Tsukihi-chan were a part of? You guys disbanded after you graduated, right? What happened after that?"

"Whaddya mean what happened. I told you, didn't I? Now, Tsukihi-chan's working hard on her own as Moon Fire."

I may have heard that before, but regrettably, the information she had on her sister was a bit vague.

Not that I could speak for others, considering I was the same way when it came to that sister.

What I wanted to ask was how the community of Tsuganoki 2nd Middle School changed after Karen, the mainstay and core of the school, left, like with the girls' basketball team—wasn't there anything like a war to be the replacement for Tsukihi's partner, or any sort of factional strife?

"Oh, for that, Tsukihi-chan, as the staff officer, handled it pretty well. For better or worse, Tsukihi-chan thinks she's so special that she doesn't expect anyone else, including me, to be able to imitate her."

I see. I'd been worried about my youngest sister's (excessive) self-consciousness, but that was an insight.

As is often the case with hard-working superstars, Kanbaru's self-esteem was quite low, and she had a tendency to believe that "anyone can do what I can do if they work hard enough"—that was something I could appreciate from a human perspective. However, if someone that was charismatic on a national level said such empty words as "if you work hard, your dreams will come true", then it would lead to a generation of people that actually buy into it.

Even though it wasn't Kanbaru's fault, the current state of the girls' basketball team was probably a climate formed by such a belief in hard work.

If I had to say it, when Kanbaru retired from the club because of her left arm, she should've picked a proper successor instead of leaving everything to Higasa-chan—though it was useless to say that now.

"Tsukihi-chan is basically a 'wasted effort is wasted' kind of girl. She'll say stuff like, 'Instead of hard work, just do what needs to be done!' 'If you put in wasted effort, you'll get even farther away from your dreams!'"

"I can't say that leaves a good impression..."

"She'd always insist, 'Find a way to make yourself a lucky boy or Cinderella girl!'"

"Tsukihi-chan probably shouldn't publish any business books. Speaking of which, it worries me that Tsukihi-chan, a middle school student, is coming home later than you, a high school student. Rub rub. What in the world is Moon Fire up to now that she's gone independent?"

"I dunno either. Rather than being independent, Tsukihi-chan's always been a dependent person with an independent spirit. Nii-chan, what were those rubbing sound effects you tried to mix in for the first time this year, without even trying to get them lost in the confusion? And I've heard rumors that you were helping out a magical girl, but how much of that is true?"

"Hmm."

Especially with Kagenui-san's return, I wanted Tsukihi to stay quiet, but she wasn't exactly the kind of sister that listened to her brother.

If I'd been able to talk with Ononoki-chan, I could've asked for her to do something about that... Rather than worry, it made me a little anxious.

Being a big brother was a lifetime job.

"Then, Karen-chan. I'm going to leave the house now, and I don't think I'll be coming back today, so in the meantime, watch over Tsukihi-chan carefully, all right?"

"You mean, today also, right? College students shouldn't be so flashy with their playing around at night. Your new life is an important time for you, too, nii-chan. I don't want to see you get burned like you did when you became a high schooler."

"Those are useful words. Worthy of engraving onto a chest."

"Don't engrave them on my chest!"

033

My fearless (of even a god) strategy to get Hachikuji to sit in the child seat ended in failure.

In transporting the ancient vampire from the Kitashirahebi Shrine to Kanbaru's house while waiting for her awakening (sunset), I'd proposed the formation of putting Hachikuji in the passenger seat and Suicidemaster in the back seat, but considering the size of the target of transportation, I was defeated by the logic that it would be legally safer to secure Suicidemaster, a six-year-old girl, in the child seat.

Well, considering that, in terms of outward appearance, Hachikuji was fixed in the form of a ten-year-old in fifth grade, it was already kind of impossible to fit her in a child seat—and Hachikuji was fairly grown for a ten-year-old. Over the past year, I'd directly felt her measurements with my own hands, so this was for certain. Of course, if the child seat itself were to break, it would be the end of everything.

It was a child seat I hoped to use for many years to come.

However, I'd been worried that Suicidemaster would suddenly go berserk in the middle of the day after being taken out of the shrine and lowered from the sacred mountain, so I consulted with Gaen-san on the phone and ended up applying further seals before securing her in the child seat.

The seals that Hachikuji applied as instructed by Gaen-san were, in simple terms, a blindfold and shackles on her arms and legs, but the image of a blindfolded, shackled little girl in white clothes fastened to a child seat honestly did not make me feel the slightest bit of safety in the legal sense.

If I were to go through police questioning, it wouldn't just end with my license being revoked.

My life would be revoked. Societally.

"A~ah. It was fairly controversial for Araragi-san, who loved his bicycle, to start riding around in a car, but I have to admit that the mobility of a car is certainly different. You can go all over the place, in every direction!"

Hachikuji herself seemed rather happy-go-lucky from the back seat—incidentally, she was in outing mode, which meant she'd changed from her white clothing to her clothes for an outing through the town, with her rucksack on her back.

She was sitting backwards, looking out the rear window, and flapping her legs—was it like a field trip for her?

"Hachikuji. Did your daytime stroll have any results? If you went around looking but couldn't find it, then that would mean the fifth mummy has yet to be made—maybe?"

"I'm not sure. If my godly eyes were able to reach every corner of this town without any problems, you could say this incident would not have happened in the first place. Although it's not that I regret allowing Suicidemaster-san to pass through without security."

"Well, sure."

From Hachikuji's point of view, she might even be a lifesaver—upon Suicidemaster-chan's arrival in Japan, it wouldn't have been odd if she had trampled Hachikuji underfoot, mountain and all.

Even though she was a god, our Hachiku-jin wasn't all-powerful—even in her weakened state, it could be possible for Suicidemaster to defeat even an athletic high school girl in a single blow.

"Hachiku-jin? Please stop. Don't give me a weird nickname. It seems your respect for gods is lacking, you know?"

Hachikuji did a half-turn and took her seat in the normal position.

"I knew that, with the case of Shishirui Seishirou-san, Shinobu-san had messed up twice, after all. I hoped that this could be an opportunity to wipe away that irreversible trauma—although, it would be a lie to say that I wasn't worried about letting Suicidemaster-san meet Shinobu-san, who was currently practically enslaved by a human."

That's why I'm all for the master-servant reversal, said Hachikuji.

"Although, I think it would be better to be honest about it afterwards. It would be sad to lose a friendship because of vanity. When I was alive, there was a boy in my class that I was close to, but because I'd been too vain—"

"Let's save that story for another time, Hachikuji. When Gaen-san called earlier and taught us about the sealing methods, I tried probing a bit, but it doesn't seem like they've found the fifth mummy yet."

"You seem way too uninterested in my flashback scene, Araragi-san."

"The analysis of the cell phone is still in progress, but it doesn't seem like there's any traces of her having made a call or sent a text or used an app since Kanguu-chan went missing, so it's hard to pin down the time of the crime. In other words, we still don't have proof of Suicidemaster's alibi."

I glanced at the little girl in the passenger seat.

The golden-haired little girl fixed in the child seat, in white clothing, blindfolded, arms and legs shackled.

"Is that so? Well, my credibility is at stake, too. I'll cooperate to the full extent of my power. Is it fine if I pretend to be a slave, too? Uhehehe."

"You sound less like a vampire's slave and more like a slave to money. Mm, I've thought about it, but..."

"So you've thought about it? Turning Hachikuji Mayoi into a slave?"

"But ultimately, a vampire's slave should be at least a little vampiric, or the lie will be found out. If it were Ononoki-chan, I may have just barely asked her to, but she's on bad terms with Shinobu. Plus, she's away at the moment, so it seems I'll have to be the only slave. If anything, Hachikuji, you can act as the local deity and be a guarantor for the relationship between Shinobu and me."

Not a bondsman, but a bondsgod.

It seemed rather apt.

Just as we were about to arrive at Kanbaru's house, the cell phone that I had left in the cup holder between the driver and passenger seats buzzed. This time, a call from Gaen-san—had the fifth mummy, Kiseki-chan's mummy, finally been discovered?

I felt slightly nervous, but I was driving, after all, so there was no way I could be the one to pick it up.

I'll leave it to my secretary.

"Who are you calling your secretary? Yes, hello? This is Hachikuji."

Seems like you've taken a liking to it.

"Araragi is currently driving. Yes. Yes. —Yes, I see. Understood. I'll let him know."

Finishing up the short phone call, Hachikuji returned the cell phone to its original position.

"What was it. Did we make any progress?"

"Rather than progress, it's more like we've fallen backwards."

That was Hachikuji's response.

"Putting aside the 'F C' initials, it seems they've completed their brute-force investigation of the remaining members of the girls' basketball team who were on the register, but everyone has been confirmed to be safe."

Everyone was confirmed to be safe?

"Isn't that a good thing? It's the first good news we've heard in a while. What's so backward about good news that's really worth celebrating?"

"The fact that they're safe means that they're also innocent—the results of the investigation made it clear that there is no vampire among the remaining members of the basketball team."

Back to square one.

034

The girls' basketball team members were cleared of suspicion, the fan club was also cleared of suspicion, and there were no signs of another vampire that could be associated with "F/C".

With this, Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster wasn't just the prime suspect, she was the only suspect—the only reason that could lead me to believe that she was innocent would be Shinobu's testimony that "Suicidemaster, whose diet is unbalanced to the point of refusing food, would never suck the blood of an immature high school girl".

Tonight's interrogation was becoming increasingly important—it wasn't an exaggeration to say that everything depended on my ability to act as a slave.

I never thought that I would get the opportunity to become a slave to a little girl and deceive another little girl, but I guess I never really know where life will go.

There were many things that made me think that my high school years were the peak of my life, but as I lived on, there were many more interesting things occurring.

And with that, a greeting to my sponsor, Kanbaru.

The sealed little girl and the deified girl had been left in the New Beetle parked in the parking lot of Kanbaru's home—of course, I'd made sure the air conditioner was left on. It certainly wouldn't do if I left two children in a car and came back to find that they'd been mummified.

"Hiya, Araragi-senpai. We only just saw each other yesterday, but it feels like it's been so long ago."

"It hasn't been that long!"

"Yes, now here, the key to the house. Use it however you like."

I figured it was impossible for an ordinary person to imitate this sort of openness—if you tried too hard to act simple, you'd crumble under the stress.

However, they say a person is only as unhappy as the number of keys they have... I wonder how many keys I will have in my lifetime.

"Tonight, we decided to hold a pajama party at Higasa's place. If you've made any progress with the matter from yesterday, I can pass it onto her."

It wasn't progress, but falling backwards.

But it was a bit hard to say that.

However, I couldn't turn back now, and I was committed to it—I wasn't going to pretend that I didn't know anything about the girls' basketball team now.

Regardless of the outcome of this case, I should work together with Kanbaru and Higasa to come up with a plan to reform, or perhaps break down, the current situation. Without going against Gaen-san. She'd called it a pajama party, but it seemed it was actually a gathering of the OGs of the girls' basketball team to brainstorm about the current situation of the younger team members...

This had nothing to do with Karen's remarks, but as a former near-dropout of that high school, I couldn't just leave behind the students that seemed like they would drop out. Even if it was odd to speak of me, who nearly dropped out on my own, and the club members, who were about to drop out because of their stranglehold from club activities, in the same breath.

"Oh yeah, Kanbaru. When you ended up reuniting with Hitagi-san, the senior that you yearned for, at Naoetsu High, what kind of airs did you put on?"

"Airs? What do you mean by that?"

Of course.

Even if the person she was talking to was a senior she admired, she wasn't the type to pretend to be something that she wasn't—she was the type of person to charge in just as she was. If anything, it was maybe Hitagi-san that was likely to put on airs at the time.

Or display her stubbornness.

As a result, it would end up taking over a year before Senjougahara Hitagi and Kanbaru Suruga, the Valhalla Combination, would reunite.

"Huh. You're talking as if you're looking for wisdom in regards to Shinobu-chan reuniting with an old acquaintance!"

"I didn't talk like that!"

I didn't even bring up Shinobu's name!

She certainly was Gaen-san's niece, and I couldn't let down my guard—if I let something slip, this capable junior might decide to get involved all on her own.

She might decide to pretend to be a slave all on her own.

As someone who felt badly about the fact that I'd gotten her involved in the case of Shishirui Seishirou because of my own personal circumstances, this was a situation I wanted to avoid.

I needed to make up some reason to change the subject and get rid of her as soon as possible.

"Oh yeah, Kanbaru."

"Araragi-senpai, you sure come up with things frequently, don't you. What is it?"

"There's one more thing I wanted to ask of you—"

035

Though we'd settled on Kanbaru's place for our choice of location, it would be effectively impossible to clean up my junior's disastrously messy room before sunset, and, even if she'd told me to use the house however I liked, it certainly wouldn't do to infringe upon the territory of her grandfather and grandmother, so we ultimately decided upon using the Japanese mansion's garden for the revival of Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster.

Much like at Ryōan-ji, it was a Japanese rock garden.

Well, even if it was a measure of desperation, the mansion gave off much more of a castle-like impression when viewed from outside rather than being inside.

Yesterday, it had felt like I'd greeted nightfall feeling like I'd run out of time without doing everything I had to do, but today, it felt like I'd done everything I could and was greeting the night having run out of material. Now, I wonder what will happen?

"Thanks for waiting. So, shall we begin?"

At the moment the sun had set about halfway, Gaen-san appeared with a one shou bottle—the ones to welcome her were me; Shinobu, who had woken up early and crawled out of my shadow; Hachiku-jin, our witness; and Suicidemaster, who had been laid down—it seemed a little too pitiful to lay a restrained little girl on the bare ground, so I'd put down a rush mat (I'd found the rush mat in Kanbaru's room—why did she have something like that?).

All the actors were in place.

The show must go on.

"I've set up a barrier going all the way around the mansion, so if by some chance a battle breaks out, we'll be fine."

"That 'some chance' is what I'd like to avoid... But, Gaen-san. What's with that bottle?"

"Well, I am a specialist, after all. Wine would be better for vampires, but I figured we could do this the Japanese way, with sacred sake for a demon."

I guess I couldn't rely on crosses and holy water in a Japanese mansion with a shrine's god present... Her behavior was as if she'd come to a late-night drinking party, but in this Japanese mansion it held an air of sophistication.

"You should've come in full dress, then."

"Did you want to see me in shrine maiden's clothes, Koyomin? Unfortunately, I don't respect formalities and ceremonies as much as Meme does. I may be a pacifist, but at the same time, I'm a rationalist."

Indeed, now that I thought about it, that careless-seeming middle-aged Hawaiian shirt guy was surprisingly pretty picky about arrangements and whatnot to the point of irrationality... And looking closely, Gaen-san's bottle was just a bottle of cheap sake from a discount store... It was a bit difficult to call that sacred sake.

I guess it's the Gaen way to push through what's difficult.

"Goodness, I never thought I'd be visiting the Kanbaru house that rejected my dear sister like this—the wheel of fate sure turns."

As she spoke in an amused manner, Gaen-san casually turned over the one shou bottle and poured it over the body of the little girl.

Rather than occult ceremony, if anything, it seemed more like the "magic kettle" thing they did in rugby clubs.

Good, judging from that composed demeanor of hers, it seemed Gaen-san had managed to safely get through the murky swamp of the high school girls.

"Ooh. White clothing getting wet and sticking to a little girl's body... Kind of erotic, don't you think?"

Hachikuji made a vulgar remark, unbecoming of a god—for the record, though I hadn't touched upon it (double meaning) out of kindness, when you were meditating under a waterfall for a joke yesterday, you looked the same way, y'know?

Putting that aside.

"By the way, Shinobu-sama."

"...... Hm? Ah, you mean me, my master?"

She wasn't getting into her role at all.

Her servile disposition was so deeply ingrained in her.

"I mean, my servant. What is it?"

"Even if you catch it right away... Well, it's fine. Listen, Shinobu-sama. My master. Would you allow me the honor of inquiring something of you?"

"If you bring that quality of acting to the real thing, it'll be your fault if we get found out, my mast... my servant."

I think it would be both our faults.

But since we didn't have time, I continued instead of retorting.

"I haven't really thought too deeply about this until now, but... What's it like, living for six hundred years?"

"Huh?"

"I mean, if I may be permitted to speak for myself, I believe I have undergone quite a few changes, just looking back over the past year."

"Speak normally. I can't tell what you're saying at all."

Right.

I didn't even know what I was saying at all.

"In the course of our lives, we change our opinions, change our minds, realize our mistakes, and learn right from wrong, right? I won't make friends, because my strength as a human would decrease—when I used to say that, I really believed it, and I don't think I could have believed back then that I would have normal friends in college."

And that was in just a single year.

If that had been six hundred years—I'd ended up suddenly wondering how I would feel when I looked back on the past.

"I can't tell what you're saying at all, even when you're talking normally—after all, I've been quick to cast away the past that I can't remember."

Was it because she couldn't remember, or because she didn't want to remember? She probably didn't even remember that.

Well, it's fine. I just wanted something to say at the last minute—not even I, speaking normally, could tell what I was saying at all.

Just because they were meeting again after six hundred years, didn't mean they had to make the same decisions they made six hundred years ago—is that what I wanted to say? However—if I ran into Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade on the verge of death in an alleyway again, what if I would offer up my neck again, just like I had done a year ago?

"In the first place, before oddities are immortal, they're unchanging, universal. They don't change so frequently, like humans do."

"Then, let me ask you the same thing I did in that spring break. Shinobu, to you..."

To you, what are humans?

When Oshino Shinobu had not been Oshino Shinobu, when she had been the vampire, Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, she had responded immediately.

She'd responded—"food".

But for Shinobu now, that was incorrect.

Even under the premise that she was sealed—but when you took that out, it was still incorrect.

However, what she would respond was another matter entirely—and it was as if Shinobu had been caught off guard, because for a moment, she fell silent. But, as if aiming for that moment...

"O devourer, o imbiber, o lurker! Now that the holy sun has set, tear open the coffin and rise! Boil the flesh in blood, and stir it with the bones!"

Gaen-san started chanting something like a magic spell that had taken the world by storm a few decades ago—it seemed like a joke, but it was for real, right?

"Come together with the night! Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster!"

It seemed like the sort of hackneyed incantation that I would've been convinced if she'd said, "Just kidding," but in that instant, the little girl soaked in cheap sake began to glow gold—or so it seemed.

But it was just my imagination, and my misunderstanding.

In actuality, the girl who had been sleeping as if she were dead had suddenly opened her eyes—the blindfold flew open, revealing two eyes as golden as her hair, and it had felt to me as if they were glowing.

Miss Suicidemaster's facial features, who had previously appeared as expressionless as Ononoki-chan's, became clearer as she awoke—though they had the same golden hair and golden eyes, she gave off a different impression from Shinobu.

The sake that had been sprinkled over her evaporated in an instant—not only the shackles on her arms and legs, but even the sash of her white clothing flew off, just like her blindfold.

Had Gaen-san broken the seal, or had the little girl herself broken it? It wasn't clear from afar—but if anything, my impressions were more towards the latter, and I couldn't help but think, "What part of her is weakened?"

I was just beginning to regret my thoughtless act of treatment, which made me recall my actions last spring break, and was wondering if it would have been better to leave her as a mummy, but then...

Creak!

The little girl's face turned towards me.

Lying on her side, only her head turned to look towards me—no.

Not me. Those golden eyes had fixed their gaze upon the one standing on my shadow, the other little girl in this garden—within moments of waking up, the ancient vampire had sensed her former thrall.

And then.

"Ha."

She said.

"Ha." "Ha."

She said.

"Ha." "Ha." "Ha."

She said.

"Ha! Ha ha! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!" "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

She said—sprawled out on the ground, from the lowest position imaginable, her laugh rang out louder than I could have imagined.

And in response to that loud laugh, Shinobu, who had borne vivid witness to her former "master"'s revival—

"Ha."

She said.

"Ha." "Ha."

She said.

"Ha." "Ha." "Ha."

She said.

"Ha! Ha ha! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!" "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

She—laughed in return.

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

If it weren't for the barrier, their loud exchange laughter would surely have disturbed the neighbors—it was like microphone feedback. How long had it gone for?

Six hundred years. A thousand years.

Did it go on for eternity?

It was quite the uproarious bout of laughter, as if Gaen-san and Hachikuji and I weren't even there in that garden, but it was finally brought to an end.

"Somehow or other, it seems I've died again."

That was the remark from the little girl on her back.

And, hearing that, Shinobu shrugged her shoulders.

"It seems we've both grown old," she said.

The two little girls had reunited for the first time in six hundred years.

[elenothar]

Tolkien Gen Week Drabble #6 - Finrod learning the language of Men

Written for @tolkiengenweek. The sixth of my vaguely connected seven character studies of Finrod Felagund, who I have far too many feelings about.

DAY SIX: group dynamic

It had taken Finrod three weeks to become fluent enough in this language of men to communicate with them on a meaningful level.

The first week had mostly consisted of him pointing at things listening carefully to the corresponding word. That process had brought surprising amounts of joy to everyone in the camp, but particularly the young ones. For several days, Finrod was often surrounded by a gaggle of children, enthusiastically pointing at everything they could see and shouting words. They were hard not to adore, particularly for an elf – he couldn’t even remember the last time he had seen this many children in one place. Even in peaceful Aman, elves rarely had many children close together.

So he indulged them, even when the words started repeating, since there were only so many novel things to point at or mime easily. And while they laughed when his pronunciation of terms was strange, they did so joyfully, without malice.

Once a day, while most of the humans slept, Finrod settled himself under a tree and walked through the memories of his day and sorted through all the words he had learned until he started understanding the structure of different words, could differentiate nouns and verbs by their endings and put together much of the conjugations and declensions of this mannish language.

The next week was dedicated to more abstract concepts and required many gestures and broken sentences from him, trying to explain his meaning with the limited vocabulary he’d already acquired. Most of the children lost interest then, since many of those words were new to them, too, but some lingered in his presence while he talked to their elders.

One little girl, distantly related to Balan, whom Finrod had met first, asked shyly whether she might braid his hair, and that day Finrod walked around with flowers woven into a slightly lop-sided braid that fell over his shoulder.

Sometimes he was distracted from his linguistic studies by requests for music, which he was always happy to indulge. Whenever he sang and played the harp, Balan’s people gathered around him and listened with rapt attention, like their own music could not compare.

In the third week, Finrod worked on mastering the pronunciation – he would always sound “elvish” compared to any human speaking it, or so Balan told him with a smile (though he said it was a good thing, and then entirely failed to explain what he meant by it), but not to the extent that he should fear laughter. Now that his vocabulary had grown, he could also ask about aspects of grammar that he hadn’t been able to deduce on his own, though often the answer was incomprehension of the question. For Balan’s people language just was – they didn’t bother giving aspects of it names like the Eldar had.

In fact, his rapid learning had caused more than a little awe. Balan informed him that it was not uncommon for other men to need a year or more to grasp a language they had not spoken from childhood fully, and Finrod was well on his way within weeks.

When he asked around, others just shrugged and said they’d chalked it down to yet more of his elvish strangeness.

Balan, for his part, was still determined to learn Finrod’s tongue – Sindarin would be more useful for him, Finrod reasoned – but his progress was indeed much slower than Finrod’s own, though less hampered by lack of understanding between them.

A full moon journey after Finrod had first encountered the camp of Men, he sat at the fire and sang one of their long songs with them, understanding more than just the spirit of its music.

#fanfic #tolkiengenweek #finrod #finrod felagund #elves #beor #minific #silmarillion

[celestialholz]

Tony Bennett - Close Enough for Love (Audio)

... So I’ve seen y’all recently, with your lovely Qcard song suggestions, all of which are very valid and I adore you for them, but if you’ll allow to wade in, mes captaines, I’ll raise you: space jazz, on their anniversary, with a twist chucked in because it’s me. This was a date idea at one point for the side blog (come say hi to some galactic idiots over at @ask-q-and-picard, if you’re up for such things ^_^), but this narrative was far too sprawling, so here we are! Welcome to around a thousand words of softness, a sprinkling of angst, a side order of introspection, and a god who can’t dance to save his own immortal essence.

(This isn’t a songfic as such guys, but you’ll get the most from it if you have a listen to the above whilst reading, thematically as well as lyrically. Let Tony Bennett melt your soul with his deeply appropriate words and delightful voice. <3)

* Also, as promised, ma’am - @q-card, have fun with this cosmic romance!

“Left foot first, Q.”

“Dammit, Jean-Luc, I don’t -” His footsteps are automatically corrected, the movement vexingly smooth, and he barely represses a snarl at his lover’s grin.

“You’re omniscient, my dear - how can you be so awful at waltzing?” He queries, voice a teasing lilt.

Q sniffs haughtily, offended.

“You know how to have fun,” he points out dryly. “Hardly makes you a natural at it. I’m not used to coordinated movements, man - I just sort of... saunter, and everyone’s just naturally impressed.”

“That’s why I’m trying to lead you,” Picard exclaims patiently, tightening his grip as he encourages the god backwards, deliberately slowing their pace. “You’re improving, if it means anything.”

“How the hell did you -” He sucks in an unnecessary breath as he’s swept against that broad chest, sprinkle of salt and pepper hair so maddeningly concealed by a jet-black tuxedo. “Where the hell did you learn how to do this, anyway?”

“I’m French,” he says, as though that explains everything, or indeed anything at all. Q blinks, baffled.

“The waltz is Austrian, you entire -”

 “European, then - it’s popular everywhere. Now, stop talking, will you?” Picard levels him with a stern exasperation. “It really doesn’t matter how poor your steps, Q - it’s all about the ambience.”

His deity grudgingly obliges, directing a glare to the old-school record player that rests off to their right; he snaps softly to restart the jazz track, attempting to absorb the steps as comprehensively as the words sink into falsely human skin, penetrate the entity thrumming in contentment beneath.

“You and I, an unmatched pair, took the time to touch, to share. Worlds apart the night we met, we braved the odds and won the bet...”

Gods, how long had he spent assuming this completely unattainable, this easy contact, the gentle heat now strewn through their acquaintance? Mere shards of cosmic time, but evocative of forever to a lonely, uninspired deity; a multitude of ultimately meaningless instances he’d tried so very hard to infuse with grander purpose, to express in a thousand universal languages that his beloved couldn’t hope to understand precisely what he couldn’t say…

His precious human had gotten there eventually, and as damned as he’d be to admit it aloud, it’s all the sweeter and warmer for the wait. He’d been expecting it to dull over the years, this calm sharing of his life, led in tender movements across the cosmic landscape; his captain is the introvert to his eccentricity, the tempered observer to his mischief-making, the mortal to his eternal: always quiet, always stalwart. Their ethics fail to align even now, and yet that silent yearning for adventure, to be more than they ought to be, continues to lead them as easily as Picard in their silly dance.

... It isn’t supposed to be so enchanting. His siblings think him quite mad, and perhaps he is, but he’d sooner tear the universe asunder than lack this wondrous connection.

 “How old-fashioned, pure romance; shared a kiss, we shared a dance...”

They’re slowing down, he acknowledges vaguely, as though Jean-Luc Picard doesn’t lack enough haste as it is; he takes a brief moment to awkwardly rest his chin upon his lover’s scalp before they’re gently pulled apart by kinetic flow, and the human smiles up at him tenderly.

“See, you’re not so bad when you aren’t overthinking it.”

“Shame we can’t all be idiots,” he bites back harmlessly, smirking. Picard draws them apart just enough to roll his eyes at the tease.

 “Oh do get off your high horse, mon dieu. At least I understand basic movements.”

Q laughs softly, steps lighter for the repetition through an advanced mind; he shifts snappily, avoids crushing a toe or two. It’s hardly conducive to the mood, after all, having to fix broken bones mid-routine, though it’s perhaps a more appropriate metaphor for their overall relationship than their now smoother performance.

The piece soldiers on blithely, suitably suave as a scene-setter.

“Not just lovers, more than friends - who knows where one starts and one ends? Tracing lights through sleepless nights that I’ll remember always, always…”

Q clasps their joined hand more firmly, so beautifully unified; their relationship has been the merest moment of his existence, yet it’s been more fulfilling than every fragment of the millions of years that have preceded it. He’s whole, finally, yet it’s all so very fleeting – all he’ll be left with within the blink of an eye is a frosted emptiness, colder than the space they occupy, and it’s enough to freeze him prematurely solid.

“Long goodbyes and tearful looks hold up well in poems and in books, but you and I have life to hold the greatest story never told…”

Live in the moment, you complete fool, he scolds himself silently, swaying elegantly now against his captain, hoping his sudden melancholy isn’t as visible as he fears it may be at Picard’s quizzical glance upwards.

“I can’t help but feel that anyone waltzing their way across the Magallenic Stream ought not to be so pensive,” comes the tranquil observation, grey eyes sporting a dash of worry, and the god allows a lightly bitter smile to coat human lips for a moment; a twenty light year-long dancefloor impossibly forms their stage, a flattened covering to the stellar river that connects the Milky Way to the vastness beyond stands as his grandiose anniversary gift, when all he longs to do is present him the universe on a silver platter.

“I hasten to remind you, mon capitaine, that you were quite content to do this in your quarters,” he points out in exasperation. “A tragedy, truly.”

A forehead meets his neck, their dance once more stilted to a simplified, vaguely rhythmic sway, and a gentle curl of a chuckle rises up in a vibration.

“Yes, well,” he mutters, “I’m rather unimaginative, as you’ve so enjoyed exclaiming for the past decade.”

A decade is nothing, less than, even. Why, then, does it feel like everything? He swallows ice, ripple running through his lover.

“It’s been a good decade,” he murmurs faintly. “Really quite an exceptional one, actually. The best, undoubtedly.”

Even fully versed in the linguistics of Picardian romance, he’s still evading the eloquent depth that comes so naturally to him.

The future’s for another day, not for tonight, he reminds himself sternly. We don’t ruin tonight, Q.

“The most wondrous,” Picard concedes warmly, “though I feel I’m at risk of seeming distinctly ungrateful. I’ve yet to give you a gift.”

Q can’t help a bark of disbelieving laughter – an absurd notion, honestly.

“Not sure what else you’re referring to the past ten years as,” he breathes, to a soft sigh.

“A gift to myself as much as to you,” he replies truthfully, and stars, he knows his Jean-Luc is a man of words, but must they always burn so delightfully? “No, I was thinking something far more… permanent.”

He doesn’t need to breathe, however biologically accurate his masquerade, though the absolute lack of oxygen that permeates open space suddenly seems a notable problem.

“… What?” It’s barely a blurted whisper, strangled by the purest hope and the deepest despair, because he can’t mean -

“You heard me,” Picard replies tenderly, and they’ve stopped dancing entirely now, though the embrace is no less fierce, the stare no less richly sincere. “I’ve been thinking on it, and… well, I’ve never been especially keen on the idea of ceasing to exist in the first place, and though forever is utterly incomprehensible to me currently, I believe it might not be so nightmarish –”

He doesn’t get any further for a good while; the breathlessness is spontaneously a problem shared and halved at the same time as they kiss, only the innate capacities of godhood keeping one of them alive.

“If you’ll have me, of course,” the captain adds eventually, the moment he’s freed, lips brushed rouge and eyes hazed, and by the galaxies if it isn’t the most precious thing a deity could ever hope to see; Q bursts into giddy laughter, runs a soft thumb down a smooth cheek, barely deigns to believe his own superlative good fortune.

“You really are stupid, aren’t you?” He answers, beaming, and he couldn’t mean anything less if it was bidden so by his own omnipotence. 

“Well, if we’re speaking comparatively -”

“Hush, you wondrous being,” Q whispers, lips upon his cheek, and he’s never feel so desperately enamoured by anything, anyone. “Ambience, darling - jazz is restarting.”

“Ah. Of course.” Picard grins, and a god spontaneously decides that he’s going to spend the next ten decades weaving sonnets dedicated solely to this evening across the literature of space-time as they retake their stances, and he snaps fingers through a distinct visual blur.

... He isn’t going to cry. He’s a damned Q, however frighteningly unimportant that seems in the arms of the mortal he adores.

“Not perfect yet, but close enough for love...”

Omniscience will give an entity the knowledge of there being no such concept as karma, so perhaps it’s irony instead that has his learned skill fly instantly from his brilliant mind as he stumbles over thin air, before almost immediately straightening, tux magically unruffled, beloved human so dreadfully amused.

“Shut up, okay? I’m emotionally compromised, and frankly allowed to be. It’s my anniversary.”

Picard chuckles in utter warmth, and concedes the point - perfection has no place here, or wherever they will ever happen to be.

#wherein celestial loves her some goddamned jazz #qcard #q #picard #tng #writing #drabbles #this is their anthem guys #I'm sorry I don't make the rules #I have a serious kink for adorable picard right now and I'm living for it truly #kinkshamers don't interact

[jcdenton40]

The Visitation

For what was supposed to be the most monumental event in the history of human civilization it was actually pretty anticlimactic. No giant mothership; no shadowy figure emerging from the mist; no tense standoff with guns drawn... Hell, we never even saw him coming.

The morning of 12/12 was really just like any other, other than the fact that there he was, standing outside the White House, just waiting for us to show up. We found out later he'd actually arrived before sunrise and had been waiting out there for exactly two hours and twenty-nine minutes before anyone saw him. Not that he was trying to hide; he was just too polite to even try knocking.

If it had been some kind of crazy giant alien ship, I'm sure he wouldn't have had to wait so long. But right there next to the bushes just a few yards outside the front door to the White House was the most basic landing pod you could possibly imagine. At least we all assumed it was just a landing pod; we didn't find out until later that it was his actual ship, which he'd actually used to travel the entire 32+ light years from his home planet even though it was nothing more than a tube, barely big enough for him to fit in, with no apparent means of propulsion or external features whatsoever. And even later, when he showed us the interior, it was just completely empty; no apparent life support systems, no avionics, no control systems, no instrumentation, nothing.

And I wish I could say it was due to its hyper-advanced stealth technology or some kind of undetectable cloaking device that it was out there for so long before anyone saw it. But even if it did have something like that (and we still don't know if it did), that really wasn't why; as crazy as this sounds, it was just too small, and came in too fast, for any of our systems to even detect it on its way in. And by sheer coincidence, it just so happened to land in a "dead spot" where the security cameras could barely see it. It still should have been spotted right away, sure. But I saw the footage myself and can't say I would have spotted it either.

As for the lack of a "tense standoff" (or any standoff), the fact that he spoke perfect English had a lot to do with that. That plus the fact that he looked just barely humanoid enough that the Secret Service guy who first saw him thought it must have been a guy in a suit.

We later learned that his perfect English was actually due to the translation device attached to his mouth (which appeared to be his mouth). It turns out he knew how to speak and understand English with complete mastery—learned from nothing but the TV and radio transmissions they were able to pick up from halfway across the galaxy—but their species was simply incapable of actually speaking in any way that a human could actually understand due to the inherent limitations of their vocal systems, and physical inability to reproduce enough of the sounds necessary for human language. The perfectly understandable assumption from that, of course, would be that they had already evolved far beyond vocal communication (i.e., to telepathy). But no, they still spoke with each other with words, more or less like we do.

He later explained that their vocal limitations were a fairly recent development, at least from an evolutionary standpoint; it was just a few thousand years prior that they had vocal capabilities much like ours, with the capacity to speak countless native languages, some of which were quite similar to English. But at one point they had decided to standardize upon one global language, and it was from then onward that as their language continued to evolve over time, so did their vocal systems. Eventually, through a combination of evolution and bioengineering, their species came to be uniquely and perfectly suited for the reproduction of their one language with near-perfect clarity, though at the expense of all other potential languages.

Oddly enough, their language (and language in general) was one of the things he was most interested in talking about. Not how to speak it per-se, though he did teach us some of that (fortunately the limitation only went one way, and we were able to at least reproduce the basic sounds well enough to say words and phrases that he could understand—just barely). Rather, his primary interest was in sharing some of the features that their language possessed, possibly with the idea that we might someday decide to incorporate some of those elements into our own.

One of the things he spoke about at-length was how their language had gone through several "redesigns" throughout its history, where its vocabulary, pronunciation, and even its most fundamental rules were altered and simplified in order to enhance its efficiency at conveying information as accurately as possible while eliminating virtually any possibility for misunderstanding (or misrepresentation).

From the way he described the process, I can't say we have anything comparable when it comes to written/spoken languages, though I suppose the closest analogy would be the way computer programming languages go through intentional revisions over time, or the way that computer operating systems might be rewritten and revamped dramatically from one version to the next while fixing bugs and improving efficiency.

One of the first things they did, in in the earliest of their "major" revisions, was something which made their language unlike any on Earth: the complete elimination of homonyms (different words that sound the same), homographs (words that are spelled the same but mean different things), and synonyms (different words which share the same meaning).

Think about that for a moment; what they did was essentially recraft their entire language in such a way that every single word was unique in spelling, pronunciation, and meaning. And not only did this require the modification (or outright elimination) of most of the words in their entire vocabulary, but it also necessitated the creation of an almost incomprehensible number of entirely new words in order to serve the same functions as those which had been eliminated due to lack of uniqueness, but were not redundant to any "surviving" words.

On top of that, a smaller (yet still fairly vast) number of new words was also needed for cases where a word with multiple definitions was standardized to its primary (now, only) definition, but where no surviving words could accurately convey those eliminated definitions.

And adding even further to this herculean undertaking was the simple linguistic inevitability that in order to maintain the uniqueness of every single word in an entire language, you would need to use some combination of longer words (both letters and syllables); more letters that can be chosen from; more possible spoken sounds, accents, and intonations; or, in their case, all of the above.

To use an example from English, let's take the words "so", "sew", and "sow". All three are homonyms since they're pronounced identically, but "sow" also has an additional pronunciation which has a different meaning (a female pig, as opposed to the act of planting seeds), while "so" has one pronunciation but two different meanings (either to emphasize the extent of something, or as a conjunction).

Thus:

1. "Sew" would be eliminated and replaced.

2. Only one of the two definitions of "so" survives while the other must be replaced.

3. The female-pig definition of "sow" can remain (due to its unique spelling and pronunciation) while the planting-seeds definition must be replaced (due to its non-unique pronunciation).

The final tally: two words survive, one word eliminated and replaced, and three new words created.

But there's also another, less drastic option for #1: Since the spelling of "sew" is already unique, you could keep its spelling unchanged and simply modify its pronunciation to something unique (e.g. "soo"). And that's exactly what they did, where practical, to keep as many of their original words as possible, or at least as familiar as possible, either with just a slight tweak to the spelling or by appending an extra syllable.

But in most cases a simple "tweak" was simply not an option, due to an inviolable rule that they established before even the first change was made: None of the changes to any words could violate their universal, standardized rules for spelling and pronunciation (and this rule was retroactive as well, thereby requiring a rejiggering of all previous words which violated these rules).

This meant that they couldn't simply change the spelling or pronunciation of words arbitrarily, nor could they, in most cases, change one without that directly impacting the other. And by imposing this rule on themselves, they dramatically limited the number of options available for modifying existing words—at least not without adding more syllables.

Thus for all of their linguistic genius, it didn't take long after this first phase was implemented (which, almost inconceivably, they were able to complete within just a few years) that they ran headlong into a fairly serious problem: Their language now required vastly more syllables to be spoken, and vastly more letters to be written, in order to convey the exact same amount of information as before.

But this was something they had fully anticipated, and out of necessity had planned to address in their second major revision which came a few years later, now that the vast majority of the population had become fully fluent with what was essentially an entirely new language.

It was at this point—after putting up with several years of extreme linguistic inefficiency (during which they suffered tremendous losses in global productivity, albeit with the lowest unemployment levels in their recorded history)—that they finally implemented the solution via the Second Revision. To do so, they borrowed a concept which was also straight out of computer languages (including our own): a concept known to us as "single instruction multiple data" (SIMD).

The basic premise of SIMD is that you take a frequently-used combination of computer instructions and replace them with a new  which performs exactly the same tasks; then, any time you need to use that same set of instructions, you simply use the new one which does all of the exact same "work", but in a single step.

In their case, they did the same thing but for words, taking their most frequently-used combinations of words (even in some cases fairly complex concepts) and "grouping" them into a single new word which conveyed all of the meaning and nuance of what would have taken multiple words and far more syllables to convey. And not only did this solve their problem, but once the Second Revision was completed they found that their speaking and writing/reading rates were actually even faster than ever before.

Since then, they've continued to implement even more of these "grouped" words over time (based on real-world frequency of use) and in some cases even created grouped words which contain previously-grouped words. So far, the most densely-grouped of these go three "levels" deep, though there is theoretically no limit to how many "levels" of meaning could potentially be consolidated into a single word.

These First and Second Revisions were clearly the most significant, both in effect and the sheer magnitude of their undertakings, but it was actually the Third Revision which I found most interesting; it was then that they implemented two features which had, to some extent, always been present in their language, but not in the universal and standardized way that it would eventually become.

The first was what could be considered a complete integration of mathematics into their language. Which actually sounds more complicated than it is; essentially they established clear grammatical rules which stated that any time there is a potential range of conceptual values to what someone is attempting to communicate, that value must be quantified—not just with vague words like "few", "many", or "most"—but numerically, with an actual mathematical value, every single time.

And this rule applies even to situations that we probably wouldn't even think of as being mathematical in nature. To use some examples from English, let's say something will "protect" you, or "prevent" you from being harmed; does that mean it offers total protection and prevents harm completely? Or just partially? And if just partial, at what point of the infinite points along the spectrum do you qualify as being "protected" vs unprotected?

Or how about a more common example; if you express that something "doesn't work", does that mean it's completely non-functional and isn't working at all? Or just that it's not functioning at a level of performance that you would consider acceptable?

Situations like these simply do not exist in their language since in every potential instance, the available words that they can choose from have either been firmly established as expressing absolutes, or there would always be an expression of quantification accompanying it to eliminate ambiguity.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that a precise number must always be given, even when a precise number isn't warranted, or simply isn't feasible. Because that's where the second feature comes into play: if the numerical value conveyed is intended to be just a rough estimate, that would also be directly incorporated into their syntax, thereby pairing every numerical quantification with an indication of confidence/precision. So if you want to say, "most", i.e. "more than 50% but less than 100%", you can still do so; or you can just as easily convey "somewhere in the 55-65% range", or "exactly 70%" and do so while using far fewer letters and syllables than it would take in any human language.

And it was soon after they came up with this idea that they also very quickly realized it would be equally useful in non-mathematical contexts, as a general "confidence" indicator in order to express whether something is being stated as absolute fact, as pure opinion/speculation, or anywhere in between.

Once all of these features were implemented (subsequent revisions did occur every few years, but they were far less wide-ranging in scope), their intended effects became very quickly realized; virtually all misunderstandings, miscommunications, and the inevitable conflicts and pseudo-disagreements which inevitably arise from them became a thing of the past. He was very careful not to overstate his point here, and made clear that arguments remained plentiful throughout their society; however, after these changes such arguments only occurred as a result of actual disagreements, not just people "talking past" each other or simply saying the same thing in different ways.

Just think: How many times have you seen two people arguing over a particular idea or concept where they were clearly operating under different definitions, and thus it was entirely possible that they did not even actually disagree on the matter being discussed?

And how many pitiful arguments have you seen in your lifetime which essentially consisted of nothing more than one side saying, "Not all [noun] are [adjective], but some are!", and the other saying, "Some [noun] are [adjective], but not all!"

Too many. And it is exactly those kinds of pseudo-arguments which simply never occur in their society, since their language has essentially been inoculated from the toxic effects of such rhetoric.

And perhaps most importantly, once these first three Revisions were in place, propagandistic bad-faith misrepresentation and rhetorical sleights-of-hand became, if not impossible, far more difficult to attempt and far easier for anyone to see. With every word having one clear-cut meaning, equivocation fallacies became, quite simply, impossible; after all, how can you try to exploit the fact that one word has multiple definitions in order to mislead, when there are no longer any words with multiple definitions to exploit?

Just take a moment to imagine where might our state of scientific progress be today—and whether the 21st century Science Riots would have even occurred—had our language been like theirs? Or just imagine the ripple effects throughout history if just ONE of our words had this feature, i.e. the one which has been exploited through equivocation more than any other, with at-times devastating consequences, i.e. "theory"?

Anyway, enough about that. It was after almost a full month of discussing nothing but their language that we eventually moved onto other topics like their culture, beliefs, and philosophy.

And at this point I know exactly what you're wondering: What was his take on "war"?

I guess you're wondering how I knew that. Well, we actually had some surveys done in those first few days after he arrived (all conducted via third parties, of course) just to get a feel for what kinds of questions the general public might eventually have, and maybe even get some ideas for questions we should ask him that we might otherwise have not considered (which turned out to be hopelessly optimistic; the grand total of useful ideas we got from those surveys: zero).

But one of the common threads that came up over and over—being the first mention in almost 100% of the surveys—was this notion that he (or any hypothetical alien visitor) would find the very concept of "war" to be utterly preposterous, possibly even to the point that he would be completely baffled that such a thing could possibly exist.

Unfortunately that wasn't anything close to the reality, for reasons which should have been fairly obvious. I mean, sure, on his home planet his species no longer practiced anything remotely resembling "war", and hadn't in countless generations. But certainly they had engaged in war throughout much of their recorded history, and had even come close to global self-annihilation on multiple occasions.

But even if that hadn't been the case, he revealed to us that war is something which virtually every single advanced alien civilization they have ever observed or encountered had clearly engaged in on a frequent basis, in the past if not currently, thus making it one of the most universal of all societal concepts.

The only exceptions? He said there were actually a handful of civilizations throughout the galaxy–though these were vanishingly rare–where the entirety of their archaeological and recorded histories had absolutely no record of war. But, he noted, in every one of these cases their histories also had suspicious and clearly unnatural "gaps"–just total voids where it's as if literally nothing happened for years, decades, even centuries. Most likely, they concluded, these histories were either systematically erased in order to hide something in their past, or that everything prior to those points–all history, all archaeological evidence–had been completely annihilated... most likely by war.

Oh, and speaking of those surveys? The second most common response, regarding human behaviors that an alien might be baffled by: laughter. And when we told him about that, and asked if their species has anything like laughter? Well... he laughed (not that we knew that's what it was at the time, we actually thought we had pissed him off).

It turns out that laughter (or the alien equivalent), rather than being some kind of nonsensical, bizarre quirk of human behavior, is also virtually universal among alien civilizations. He explained that its evolutionary value in any kind of social/communal society is so great that they have never observed a single advanced species which doesn't possess it. Essentially, he confirmed that our theories about the purpose of laughter are correct: originally evolving as a means to indicate that an apparent threat actually isn't one (or that an apparently dire situation isn't as serious as it appears to be), then eventually evolving to become a means for establishing rapport, bonding, and trust.

As for something which wasn't universal, but would actually make their culture unique among Earth societies? Well, how should I put this... Are you familiar with the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment? It's one of the oldest of all psychological experiments, which in its original form presented each of its participants (all children) with two options: Have one marshmallow now, or wait 15 minutes (while that marshmallow sits within reach), at which point they would be given that marshmallow plus another one. Just a simple test of delayed gratification, to see whether the kids were able and willing to forego immediate reward for the prospect of double the benefit. And as you might expect, about one-third of the kids ate the first marshmallow right away, about one-third tried waiting but eventually ate it, and about one-third waited the full 15 minutes and were rewarded with two.

Which sounds pretty mundane, maybe even fairly ridiculous as far as experiments go. But the interesting part is what came later–far later–as they tracked the progress of these children throughout their childhoods, and in some cases even into adulthood. And what they found was that the last set of kids–the ones who were willing to wait for that second marshmallow–turned out to have significantly better test scores, better grades, better health, and even, as adults, more-successful careers than the other kids, whereas those in the first group fared these worst.

So what does all of this have to do with him, and his culture? Well, imagine a society in which every single person–kids and adults alike–fall into the latter category, but to the greatest theoretical extreme imaginable. So not just a society in which procrastination and short-term thinking no longer exist, but one in which present and future have essentially ceased to have any meaningful distinction, and where every decision made–from the grand to the day-to-day mundane–is based on the pure calculation of total benefit, from now until eternity.

This was a natural progression over the course of their civilization's development as they became more and more forward-thinking over time, but it wasn't until what could be loosely translated as their "Renaissance" that they fully completed this philosophical transformation on a complete societal level over a period of just a few years. And the effects of this transformation became immediately evident, with dramatic improvements in crime reduction, health (particularly addictions, which were virtually eradicated), productivity, education, scientific advancement, and general happiness.

It was then a few decades after that, perhaps as an inevitable consequence, that they went through a Second Renaissance–one which also involved the near-total dissolution of another distinction, this time not between present vs. future but between the well-being of self vs. the well-being of others.

Essentially it was during this time that they came to the society-wide realization that there is ultimately no moral justification to put your own interests above those of anyone else's, particularly since—as he put it—the person you happened to be "born into" was ultimately decided by sheer chance, and you could just as easily been born as anyone else, past or present, living or dead.

Which isn't to say that every member of their society places everyone else's interests on perfectly equal footing with their own; as he explained it, it is simply not possible to know anyone's needs and desires better than you intimately know yours, and thus they still consider society's interests best served by doing your best to fulfill your needs and desires, and to strive for personal improvement to the fullest extent possible. And nor was it the case that this caused them to become some kind of collective "hive mind" where they lost all sense of individuality; if anything, the degree of freedoms and the range of avenues for complete self-expression/realization available to each member in their society went far beyond anything ever observed on Earth.

But the effect of this Second Renaissance was at least equally profound as the first, as all decision-making became pure cost/benefit analyses of what would result in the greatest total benefit, whether to the individual or society at large. And this was achieved through no coercion, and without even any change in laws (in fact, a tremendous number of laws were ultimately eliminated since they no longer served any purpose).

And it wasn't long after this Second Renaissance that they began reaching out to the other civilizations throughout the galaxy that they had previously just observed from afar, and began sending out emissaries in their speed-of-light ships, like the one they sent to visit us.

You know, it's funny... As I'm recording this, I can't help but think about all the time I've spent arguing with crackpots online, ridiculing and debunking the biggest, craziest conspiracy theories: That the Moon Landings were faked. That the Mars Landings were faked. 9/11 was an inside job (or faked). The 2020 Election... But the 12/12 Visitation is the one I never touched. Go back and check out my social media archive and my entire posting history if you don't believe me. And here I am, 32 years later, not debunking a conspiracy, but confirming the biggest one of all.

So why am I doing this? I'm not sure, really. But I think more than anything else, I just feel bad for how much we did him wrong. He was completely up-front with us, right from the beginning: He didn't come here to share anything about their technology—just their culture, beliefs, and way of life. And he was 100% clear that this was for our benefit, not theirs. He even clued us is in to the fact that of all the alien civilizations they had ever monitored, the only ones that had ever suffered total irreversible extinction did so as a result of their own technologies gone awry (or, in a few cases, the technologies of other planets' civilizations, if you know what I mean).

Of all the rest–even those which faced extinction-level events on a scale that our planet has never even seen in its history (gamma ray bursts, direct comet strikes, even in one case a micro-black hole which tore right through the center of their planet)–all of these civilizations managed to survive, and in some cases eventually recover.

As for us specifically, he said our current level of technological progress is already far beyond what they would consider our capability to responsibly handle, and thus anything they could possibly contribute to that technological progress—no matter how seemingly benign such technologies may be—would only serve to further increase that divide and further magnify our chances of complete self-annihilation.

And we were OK with that stipulation at first, or at least we pretended to be. After about six months with him, during which he shared everything he could (or would) for 24 hours a day (one thing I forgot to mention earlier: he had no need for sleep), we eventually exhausted things to ask him about. And yet after all that, we still knew no more about their technology than we did on day one.

Even his ship was a complete non-starter. Had it been anything even remotely similar to our own, I'm sure we could have reverse-engineered it, or at least gleaned something from it that could have put us light years ahead of any other county on the planet. But there was absolutely nothing about it that had even the slightest corollary to what we currently have, or had ever even theoretically conceived of. It was basically the equivalent of taking the most advanced supercomputer on the planet and sending it back in time to the Stone Age. Or to an ant colony.

Maybe someday we'll be able to unlock its secrets, but my guess is we're at least hundreds of years from even having a chance at cracking its most basic functions (at which point, maybe we'll realize it really was just a landing pod).

So of course, it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone what we did next. Now, I say "we" loosely, since I certainly had no say in it. Which I'm sure might seem incredibly self-serving at this point, but all I can give you is the truth: The day we got everything we could out of him and he refused to divulge any more secrets, we finally resorted to what we've always resorted to. Enhanced interrogation techniques. Coercive interrogation. Learned helplessness. Torture.

And do I even need to say that this turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes of all time? First off, it didn't work; months of almost non-stop torture using every method we could possibly come up with, and we got nothing more out of him. He was completely unfazed, and not because it didn't hurt him; some of the... methods we used sent his biometric readings off the charts. He was clearly experiencing tremendous physical distress, vastly more than any human could conceivably handle.

But no matter what we did, he just took it. And if he even cared, he kept it completely internalized. Just completely stoic, from beginning to end. Even his demeanor and attitude towards us never changed; after all of that—45 days of almost non-stop agony—he still wanted to tell us more about their language. And he was still just as polite as that first day waiting patiently outside the White House.

It's always been rather amusing to me... Of all the many believers in the 12/12 Visitation, how many wildly different, even completely contradictory reasons they've come up with for why it would've been kept under wraps all this time.

Either, "It would cause a total collapse of the world's organized religions", or "It would cause unprecedented numbers of people to turn towards God, and away from The State".

Either, "It would cause mass chaos and a total breakdown of society", or "It would cause everyone to unite behind our common humanity, and thus end all war and conflict which would cause a total collapse of the military-industrial complex".

The truth is, it wasn't originally anyone's plan to keep it under wraps. Some of the details, sure. But we all figured we would make the big announcement eventually. We even commissioned a task force of some of the brightest minds on the planet—under the guise of a purely hypothetical scenario, of course—and they all came to the same general conclusion: Of all the possible reasons for why a government might keep an alien visit a secret, those fears were pretty much completely overblown.

Realistically, they figured, there would be no mass chaos, no mass peace, no collapse of religion or of society or really anything else just because an alien decided to come visit us. A hundred years ago maybe that would have been a different story. But after everything we've seen in our lifetimes? I think we could have handled it. And all of the experts did too.

But how the hell could we have revealed him to the world after all that? After everything we did to him?

And I still can't help but wonder... What if it was all a test? I mean, clearly, in a figurative sense it certainly was—and one we failed horrifically. But what if it was actually a test?

I just can't get past the question of why they would even bother sending a representative in-the-flesh, instead of just some kind of A.I. or digital representation or even just a recording with all of the information that he shared with us.

Were they just trying to see how we would treat him?

And if we had treated him humanely, and respected his stipulations (as any reasonably-civilized people would have), what then? Would he have opened up to us with their technological secrets? Would he still be sharing them with us today? And more importantly, would we still have—metaphorically speaking—our souls?

Ultimately, I suppose this is all fairly moot anyway, given what's coming next. By our calculations it's just five days away, give or take a day. And all I can hope for at this point is that some of us make it, and that maybe what I'm recording here makes it through. And maybe someday we can recover, countless generations from now, and maybe they'll give us another shot.

But if not, I can't say it wasn't deserved.

Photo: "they are alien" by son.delorian is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

#alien #conspiracy #coverup #linguistics #short story #scifi #sci-fi #science fiction #language #conspiracy theory #ufo #ufology #writing #fiction

[namjoonchronicles]

not about angels | three

↳ genre crime, thriller, angst, romance, psychological

↳ words 5.5k

↳ description --after learning that Jungkook somewhat knows the history behind the house he newly purchased, Namjoon begins to realize the weight that he shoulders all these years may be not have been entirely his to carry

↳ characters Jungkook, Seokjin, Namjoon

↳ warnings mentions of blood, domestic violence, corruption

↳ glossary *grant, legal: meaning a grant of public land, especially to an institution, organization, or to particular groups of people.

↳ namjoonchronicles’ tag list @kai-tashi @septemberalien @joon94net @yourlocalalien @snugglemejeon @yoongiseesaw @majestikblue

↳ parts one | two | three | four | five

Kim Namjoon.

Static screams in his mind. It’s hard to comprehend the lack of warmth when he was showered with it when you were around.

It’s easy to spot Namjoon. He’s the one everyone stayed away from. Through the eyes of a new inmate, Namjoon is described as, “Relentless, unforgiving, fist-first kind of guy” and apart from that, he is also “the lunatic who killed his own wife”. He has heard all kinds of versions of his alleged crime. From burying his wife in concrete, to plastering his wife’s body to the walls of the house he built; he’s heard it all. The mystery to his background adds onto the fuel. Namjoon was not imprisoned along with the other inmates. He has his own isolated cell. Rumour has it that he was given a 5 star meal despite his crime because he was the son of someone important who didn’t know what to do with their schizophrenic son. Some say he was mentally ill and wasn’t fit to be tried, that’s why there was no trial.

And to these rumours, Namjoon had said nothing. When he walks past the metal bars where the other inmates were leisuring around, always escorted by two prison wardens, they avoid staring. When he catches the new inmates’ eyes, his eyes turns dark, hooded and evil. Then he smirks. From the warden’s perspective, Namjoon was seen as charming. With his immaculate way of words, he is manipulative. He engages in a methodical approach of turning the words that came from others against themselves instead of directing them to himself.

He continues to baffle the so-called psychologist and psychiatrist with his disturbing logic.

The psychiatrist asks, “Hurting people is not normal, Namjoon.” To which he replies, “Ted Bundy wrote to Kloepfer in 1977, quote ‘I have known people who radiate...vulnerability. Their facial expression say ‘I am afraid of you’. These people invite abuse… by expecting to be hurt, do they subtly encourage it? End quote.”

Lie detectors didn’t work on him, and it was proven when he was asked if he had eaten or not; which he had calmly answered: No.

The lie detector dictates that it was true. But he did.

Thus, when he was asked if he has killed or not;

“Did you kill your wife on July 2nd, 2016?” “Yes.”

The lie detector expert says, “True.” Namjoon shot his head up and smiled eerily, “Ask me again.” “Did you kill your wife on July 2nd, 2016?” “No.”

The expert gulps nervously but Namjoon remains calm. “True.”

Mind jumbling sessions, the vast incomprehensible mind of his ushers many experts to turn away from their theories, concluding sessions with him as : inconclusive and or, undefined. They ran MRI, CT, CAT scans on him and found nothing else but extreme intelligence quotient beyond comprehension.

Namjoon is a genius.

He had spun around switching fluent foreign languages he had heard only once on the radio in the prison, mastered several other slangs, and had linguistic intelligence levels higher than the current known competitor. His actual number of estimated IQ, EQ and SQ was kept a secret. One of the reports about him, written by the nationwide acclaimed neurosurgeon concluded: incredible. That’s why he was kept in an isolated cell. Even though so, he doesn’t show any signs of aggression, or even any attempts to escape.

Namjoon is one of those ‘friends’ who seemed like they don’t belong there, but at the same time, does.

Always with books, Namjoon is a pretty easy inmate to take care of. So easy, that he was given much space when he works. Usually designing a new machine the government requires him.

His fingers are stained with oil lubricant almost always, twisting the spanner until it went past its cycles. He begins welding the metals with a welding machine, securing the bolts together. Make sure it’s stronger than his will to continue living. Given his engineering background and machinery know-hows, Namjoon has been stationed to help create metal frames and fixing any machines that goes out of service. It had been three years, so it was something routine for him.

Today however, a visit has delayed his work. The warden calls him out and told him he had a visitor. At first, he refused if it was Kim Seokjin. Or if it was another quack wanting to prove that he knows Namjoon’s brain more than the others that came before him. Namjoon isn’t in the mood. That was an amenity that Namjoon has: to turn away visitors as he’d like. He has another book to finish and he is waiting for lunch because they said it was going to be potato stew. He loves potato stew. Imagine his surprise when he heard some other name that rang no bell to him. A total stranger. He entered the room in a relaxed stride, his orange overall and striking gaze was what Jungkook caught first. He stood up at the presence of that men and stretched an arm out for a shake. Namjoon might have been an accused killer, but he is most certainly not rude. He takes the hand and gave it a firm grip.

“I’m Jeon Jungkook, I bought your house…” Jungkook introduced himself with a polite lopsided smile, unsure how to bring forth what he was planning to. Namjoon was taller, buffer, and far more experienced than he was. Judging from the age difference. Namjoon took the seat the same time he did, but unlike the psychiatrist, psychologist, quacks and lie detector experts, Jungkook was very humane-like. No disturbing smile, no creepy remarks like the warden who took him here had claimed. Namjoon was actually, in a sense of aura, quite pleasant.

Jungkook was reminded by the officer who granted Jungkook’s entrance who said, “That’s how all serial killers’ are, they’re all charming.”

“How do you find the house so far?” Namjoon engages with a gentle smile, but all he planned to do was read Jungkook from the top of his head to the tip of his toe. The only way to do that is to seem welcoming. “It’s tranquil, peaceful and…” Jungkook chooses his words carefully, provided his own linguistic skills, “outstandingly engineered.”

Namjoon’s lips parted as he smiled, reclining to his seat in a smug manner. Flattery, first impression is important. Namjoon could already see that Jungkook was curious. It seemed that he had found something that he couldn’t explain.

“Which news are you from?” Namjoon flicks his nails, with the other. “I’m sorry?” Jungkook’s face contorted in confusion. “You have a pen on your left breast pocket, your hands are far too soft for a mechanic, and you have a very small voice. You’re a writer,” Namjoon shot his eyes straight at him, drilling through the young men’s skull. Also, the fact that he had come all the way means that Jungkook had used the study room, where there was traces of blood behind the bookshelf. And the fact that he is here, suggests that Kim Seokjin has told him something. Or he has found something. Or both.

Jungkook refuses to fill into the pride that Namjoon must have felt when he guesses his job correctly. So he changed the topic by sliding his fist onto the table in front of Namjoon. When he opens them, a metallic cling resounded across the room. Namjoon’s wedding band.

“You loved your wife, you wouldn’t have killed her…” Jungkook dug into his breast pocket for a stack of polaroid. Showing Namjoon with his wife, eating ice cream, riding bicycles, pictures of her sleeping, picture of her working, with children, of him sleeping next to her that she took, at the beach, in the snow, strolling autumn park, buying white carnation bouquets. This was different. Namjoon looks away.

“If you did, why did you kill her?” Jungkook tilt his head to one side. “This visit is over,” Namjoon pushes the chair back and left.

The longer the memory resides, the more likely it becomes deceptive. This is where the line between reality and delusion begins to blur. The truth and lies becomes a concoction of Machiavellian turmoil. Namjoon starts to confuse the truth of the past and the lies he had created in his mind. Namjoon’s brain was so powerful that it could create a memory with a feeling that isn’t there. To Namjoon, it was the simplicity of ‘being in someone else’s shoe’ concept. But the scientists call it brilliant. Not only was he able to convert a scrap of the recollection into a complete lie, he was able to incorporate the emotional expense that goes in it. He can make a happy memory to be sad or tragic when it wasn’t; and make a sad remembrance to a happy one--there was no telling which part is a lie, and which isn’t.

We all lie.

But tonight he didn't want to lie. As he lay on his thin mattress and the dim light from the moon, his loyal companion, he begins talking to it. Maybe it was loneliness, maybe it was longing, maybe it was regret. But Namjoon spoke in hushes.

“Mine, forever...and always.”

2013. Summer.

He had been folding, unfolding, repeatedly the silk tie he was told to use. After two knocks, the door reveals his mother walking in with an envelope. She slide them on the bedside table, muttering, “The invitation is inside, don’t forget this…” She reminded him with nasally voice, crumpled tissue in her hand. She did a quick glance of her son’s spacious room, and had a seat on the bench by the bed, next to the large window. Unable to bear the sight of him fiddling with the tie, she raises from her seat and craned her head back. Namjoon’s eyes stuck to the left and then to the right, unable to focus.

“Don’t worry, you’ll represent your father well,” her voice soothing him. The nervous splayed over her son’s face isn’t easy to ignore. Namjoon was exceptionally cautious in terms of hiding his fears, but not when he is home, like this. Heart on his sleeves, he is almost transparent in the eyes of his mother. “You like charity events,” she added.

“Yes,” Namjoon inhaled and held his breath, “When they don’t involve money.”

“Nonsense,” his mother spat with a secretive smile, “Charity events always involve money.”

“Mom, I’ve never done bidding before…” Namjoon confessed. Only 19, what does he know? “It’s not about the bidding, my child,” she pauses, smoothing her hand over his shoulders, and handing him his suit, “It’s about showing that you bid. Didn’t Seokjin ever tell you how?” “I hadn’t spoke to him in ages,” Namjoon shrugs and looked into the mirror. The suit fit snugly and comfortably. His tall stature emphasize the amount of charisma he holds. “Why not?” his mother asked. “Seokjin...well,” he stopped, shut his eyes and fasten the tie clip onto his tie, the thought of Seokjin drinking and clubbing flashes his mind briefly, “We have different principles to live by when it comes to things not involving business.”

His mom sends him to the porch where a Black Sedan is waiting with the doors’ open. He gave his mother a half hug and unbuttoned his suit before he climbs into the car. The helper shuts the door for him and the car window draws down after his mother made gestures to speak.

“Even though he’s not here, he’d want you to do well. I’m sorry we couldn’t come with you,” his mother sighed, feeling guilty. “It’s okay, I’ll be home as soon as I can. You can depend on me,” Namjoon beams. Pushing his full rimmed glasses higher up the bridge of his nose. His mother pats his hand twice.

In the car, his knees couldn’t stop shaking. Feeling his lips dry as time passes, he grabs his lip balm and applied some. The driver threw a glance at him with a smile, but didn’t utter any words of comforts. Namjoon had an aura of leadership, where he is almost always seen as someone who could take care of themselves well. That’s why his father wanted him to pursue the family business without asking him of his dreams. He was so capable. Stands tall, with magnetizing presence, excellent mannerism and fluent in many languages. Charismatic, charming, chivalrous and purposeful. But Namjoon, on the inside is anything but.

He arrives in style, the door is opened for him, he exits the car and re-fastened his buttons back on, he realises another car stops just behind his. It was Seokjin, in his black turtleneck top and beige long coat. The medias are pooled at the foot of the event, as always. The camera flashes when Namjoon walks forward, he posed for the picture and gave a little wave where soon after, Seokjin skips to him and gave a handshake. He gave a salesman smile at the cameras while muttering at Namjoon, “You punk, you changed your number without telling me.”

“Didn’t think you’d need my number now that you have the Jung Corp. only son in your best friend list,” Namjoon smiles politely back. “If you’re jealous, you should have just said so,” Seokjin wrapped one arm around Namjoon’s shoulder and again, waved at the flashing camera.

A rush of wind suddenly tickled Namjoon’s ear. That’s when he glanced over his shoulder to see far behind the luxurious hall. Another entrance, and on that entrance, there’s a school bus pulling to a stop. Children both big and small, boys and girls, exits from them, all giggly and laughing excitedly. Their clothes far too thin for the weather, colors are faded and their shoe soles were worn out. It was easy to deduce that these children were not the kind Seokjin and Namjoon grew up with. At this spot, where he stood, facing the flashes by the thirsty media who wanted to know what his lunch was and if or not he bought a car, was so different from the kids who left the school bus felt.

We were here to do a charity event for them, but those kids walk behind because their clothes aren’t pretty enough for tomorrow’s news first page. In his thoughts.

Namjoon already hated being there. Capitalism had once again shown how ridiculously merciless it is to those who are simply aren’t enough. Namjoon looks at Seokjin posing for the camera, the clickers non-stop, applauding him for his good looks, and his social status. And here Namjoon was, incredibly seen and yet… unseen.

Dinner is a full course meal, beginning with appetizers. The higher social status you are, the further up stage your seat is. It didn’t matter what your age is, if your family is influential or massive economy provider, your status rises. Namjoon sat in between Korean Airline owner, Mr. Cho Yang Ho and socialite, Ms. Han Ji Sook, whose family owns a luxury jewellery brand. Namjoon’s family has a car business and real estates around Asia while Seokjin, seated at the neighboring table, owns a fishing company. He is going to start a delivery company soon and wanted to be on the same table as Namjoon next year, that was his goals.

Another two, sharing the table with Namjoon is Jung Corporation, Chief Financial Operator, Jung Young and wife. They are owners of mobile communication company and had just started Scholarships for students aspiring to be Programmers. Namjoon’s family isn’t a shy away from all those success. Their net worth isn’t disclosed to the public because it is too large. But the organizer, Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development must have a record on all that. On the bright side, the event is to enlightened the hardships subdued by charity homes that runs welfare, free health check ups for the homeless, orphanage and families living poverties, to request financial aids from these big companies.

However, the children who were invited and ‘celebrated’ are placed in the back of the hall and sat on the floor. There are no tables or chairs for them. Namjoon looks at the children, so well behaved, sitting quietly, waiting. Some of them are sneezing because the weather is too cold. Namjoon captures the arms of a waiter, asking if the heater can be increased a bit more. The waiter replies, “No, there’s no heater in that part of the hall…The portable one hasn’t been fixed.”

And there, the children are passing one piece of tissue each, to one another. Shrugging in place to fight the cold. The audience, continues the chatter, gleefully laughing, crossing their legs underneath the table, keeping up with their friends, not noticing the things the children’s are going through. Oblivious. Not noticing, or refuse to notice?

The emcee taps the microphone and began his welcoming speech. Cho Yangho, uninterested to know the objectives of the event, leans to Namjoon to snicker, “Just say you want our money, why make it sound nice…”

Apart from an awkward smile, Namjoon didn’t say anything else. He was already placed in such uncomfortable position where the press could start a wildfire rumor of him dating 40 year-old socialite Ms. Han Ji Sook just by sitting next to her, and the person on the left isn’t any less prejudicial. He just wants to be home, but his stomach grumbles. He glances to the back where he saw the children, and a lady was passing them blankets. The gesture oddly relieved Namjoon. Finishing the welcoming speech, the dinner begins with appetizers for the VIP attendees. Well-served, well cooked. A chef probably.

While Namjoon was eating, he heard them.

“I specifically wrote on the forms that there will be 30 children, how come there’s not enough food for them?” “Look, Miss,” the waiter sighs, “We got you 20 packs of food because if we give more, we will be out of budget for the other invitees. The 10 children can share.”

Namjoon fidgets his eyes to the direction where the conversation took place. But he wasn't able to see the woman that told the waiter about the food that wasn't enough. As he was scooping another spoonful of soup, he glanced at the children and saw  that they were eating food taken out from a nearby restaurant. A fast food restaurant. Only fried rice and bottled water.

At that moment he felt guilty. Namjoon was unable to explain the guilt that he felt as he sat so comfortably on the chair while the children from the Orphanage were on the floor. And the only reason why they are placed there is because they had no parents, no social status, and no money. His table, filled with the rich, left their food unfinished and taken away while the children ensured not even one grain of rice left. Namjoon himself couldn’t find his appetite to eat anymore. Not when he is witnessing unfairness took place. Without his parents around, he found himself even more aware of his surroundings. The things that he grew up to see and the consequences of the lands they took. Money is power.

Then, a female voice came from the stage. It’s the same lady who handed them blankets. Beginning by introducing yourself, you smiled pleasantly at the audience. Your eyes were glimmering with tears but you blinked them away. It wasn’t hard for Namjoon to tell.

“I help run an orphanage in the neighborhood I lived in. I was taken away from my home at the death of my grandmother and placed in the orphanage I came from. In this house, I studied, ate and eventually got accepted to college. This year is my first year… you must be wondering why I would tell you this… We came here to live, these children we care for are, like it or not, part of our future. There are potentials, skills and talents that are not yet polished due to their shortcomings, and situations. Charity events such as these has high hopes to continue the ongoing of financial expenses that these houses handles every month. Some of them don’t go to school because we couldn’t afford school fees. We haven’t even spoken about food coupons, transportation, let alone talk about uniforms.”

“Where are these kids from?” Cho Yangho raises his voice, interrupting your speech.

“Excuse me sir?” you asked.

“You heard me. Where are they from?” He cockily smiled.

“Baby boxes, neglected children from parents who relies on medications, children whose parents are in high school, children who gets left behind because their family couldn’t care for them, physically, financially and sometimes, mentally.” Each word she stressed with a delicate power resembling a spark that could consume the hall if it wanted to

“Trash...Their parents are trash,” Cho Yangho spat, chuckling.

You feel your cheeks heating up, not from embarrassment but from anger. Whispering, you spoke through the microphone, “Get the kids out of the hall, right now please…” your helper was hesitant, but he did as told. One by one, the kids left the hall. At the sight of the last child leaving, a toddler barely two, you cleared your throat. Namjoon felt tense all of a sudden.

You looked so brave. Something, he could never be.

Balling fist and glaring eyes, you maintained a smile when he glances back to the stage where you stand.

You inhaled, “And like trash they sit on the floor,” the microphone is turned off because they wanted the millionaire to save face, so you stepped down from the podium and used only your voice to resonate through the hall,

“And like trash, they sit on the floor, eating from the floor, shivering in the cold of their cleanest clothes they could find. Like trash, they waddled inside this forsaken hall filled with the so-called ‘Nation’s Finest’, asking, no. Begging for security that they are not looked past of. I came here, entrusting the ministry to stop raising the rent for the house they owned just because they’re saving nobodies. Yes, we are trash. We are trash to breath, to live, to simply have become human. The world you created has made it impossible for these children to live. And if their petite bodies lay on the street when the government took control, their blood will be on your hands… Sir.”

Don’t call him sir. He doesn’t deserve that.

“You sure have a lot to say for someone who is asking for financial aids. I shall remember your name,” Cho Yangho said from his seat and two guards grabbed you by the arm and you were told to leave the stage. Namjoon witnessed you ridding yourself of the harsh grasp and growled, “I can walk.”

The emcee resumes the event with a small performance by the local trot singers. Namjoon threw his napkin on the table and excused himself to leave the hall for a bit.

“Charity event? More like ‘let’s cuss at poor people’ event. Treated like animals,” you grumbled. It didn’t sound clear at first, but slowly, the fast steps approaching from behind made you turn around. It was the young man from the table Yangho was on. You didn’t want to have a conversation after that outburst, not at all. You begin to move away after glancing saltily at him.

“Tell him, he can sue me tomorrow,” you dashed and that’s when Namjoon realised you thought he was in the team of crazy balding owner of Korean Airlines. He sidestepped and got in front of you with ease, provided his long legs.

“...I’m Kim Namjoon, Gangneung Motors & Real Estates,” he set out his hand for a handshake as a habit but you left it hanging and instead, gave a passive-aggressive reply, “Congratulations.” And a fake smile. Moving on. “I saw what they did to you and the children,” Namjoon sputters quickly to gain your attention. But you seem to be in a hurry. “Sir, Mr. Kim…” you collected your thoughts and smacked your lips out of annoyance, “It’s a very cold night and the children have thin clothes on, I need to bring them home as quickly as I can before one of them fall sick. Will you please���”

Namjoon appears to let you go but he asked, “Which orphanage are you from?” He’d do anything to talk to you.

His question made you halt at the door of the bus, and you responded by pointing your chin at the body of the bus where it states, passing, “Didn’t they teach you how to read in rich boys’ school?”

“Take a good look at it, the bus is going to be sold no later than next Friday.” You hummed and walked in, avoiding your helpers eyes. He caught you by the coat and you had no choice but to take the seat next to him. “You know we needed the money,” Jimin huffed.

“Can’t you put your righteousness away for one night?” He whines in a husky voice, keeping his sounds low because the children were beginning to fall asleep. “They called us trash, Jimin... “ you ran your fingers through your hair, looking over your shoulders at the kids, “They don’t deserve that. They didn’t ask for this life.” Jimin took your hand and squeezed it, looking ahead to the destination.

“I sold my car to pay the bills this month. What are you going to sell?” he lands his head on your shoulder. “I’ll see what I can find,” you grinned tiredly.

Washed over tiredness, Jimin begins to drift away to his much needed sleep. But before he was gone completely, he asked, “Who was that guy just now, asking about our home?” You couldn’t answer Jimin, because you yourself didn’t know.

He is still standing there where you left him be. He hopes that the cold night can kill him and therefore he doesn’t need to re-enter that hell of a event, knowing Seokjin will be curious as to why he needed to run after the girl. He types in Naver, the web search engine, with his nimble thumbs, “Camelia Orphanage.”

Present day.

Namjoon startles awake. Sweat beading on his forehead, heart and lungs going separate ways. His warden knocks on his cell asking, “Namjoon, is everything okay?”

He nods. “Always the same dream, over and over again.”

The glass shatters upon contact on the floor. His hand grips into a neck of a woman while her hands fumbles for release. The sound of her restricted airways was the only thing he could hear. She falls to the floor and coughing, touching her neck, he went to her and delivered a slap with the back of his hands. With the broken glass, he strikes the side of her head.

And Namjoon jolts awake.

He massages his temples with one hand, eating his happy pills and went for a morning exercise. Today, instead of doing three rounds on the field, Namjoon is in his cell, given a pen and a paper. He is writing a letter, addressed to: Jeon Jungkook.

It begins with:

“You were right. I loved her. In fact, I love her, still. Before I even saw her face, I heard her words. She has a lovely, sophisticated and well-mannered voice. And there’s so many things words can say about a person. They tell us what hearts they have. She, she has a kind one. When I first laid my eyes on her, it’s like the sun came out. She was on that stage alone, standing on that podium, bravely, determined. Unlike me. That’s what I thought, how she was unlike me. She was all I wanted. I wanted to give her everything, but I didn’t know how. Funny how we are taught everything, but to love.

It was difficult at first, I researched the Orphanage she ran. I provided food they needed, financial aids, whatever they might need with the money my dad gave me for allowance. I didn’t need the half a million won in my bank. My cheques reached her closer than I ever was, but my heart was hers. Until one day, the bank said the account I transferred money to, was closed. I went to visit her college on my semester break and watched her work as a waitress, mascot, passing out flyers, as a cashier all the while studying, herself. An evening after so many evenings before, I finally muster up courage to meet her. I didn’t know how to introduce myself.

When I saw her serving grilled fish, wearing that dirty apron, wearing that tacky cap and in the same shoes she was wearing on that day I first saw her, I choked on my words, staring, eyes focusing on her. What was I doing? I’m a rich man in love with a waitress. Then the lights in that tiny canopy stall by the streets turns off. Light from the emergency rod lit up and I saw her. I saw her smiling. Smiling in the middle of mishap, assuring everyone around her that everything is alright, like she is used to this. And it struck something in me. The strength she has. To make most of what she has within her hold.

Again, I walked in that shabby pop up stall that stench of oily cheap beef, into a crowd who knew each other like families. In my expensive suit, I couldn’t fit in but my desire was strong. She looked at me, in the gaze so clear that I could see myself, familiarity sinks in, and she calls my name. My full name. I couldn’t express how happy I was to know she remembered me. There was no time for all the romantic stuff I planned, and the confession was rushed and in haste. I remember her smirking at me, I was scared for the life of me. And she asked me, to prove it. Prove that I love her. Not by my money, not by my status, but as me. As Kim Namjoon. And it silenced me, because I don’t know who that was.

Jungkook, I can call you that, right? To many, the ideas of love at first sight is often romanticized in movies. But my love to her had to be earned. And I have never earned anything in my life, on my own. So I took on part times jobs with her. Around her, always close to her. Those were our dates. Meeting during lunch hours, running into each other on the streets. Cycling on Han River, eating shared ice creams, fighting over skewers, running to the nearest bus stop in the heavy rain. You were right. I loved her. I love her.

I married her. Despite the protests from my parents. I married the love of my life, along with her sorrows, her despair, her pain and soul. I married her, with a promise… to love her, until she wants me to stop.

That day, I stopped. I think I did.”

Namjoon, in that letter continues to tell Jungkook word by word how he fell for his wife slowly, almost effortlessly. How refreshing she was to him. Compared to everything he had been raised with. He never had to worry about the future because he has his parents, knowing her, has made him realised how flawed the system was. Not only was he ready to devote himself to her, he was learning. As enthusiastic he was to understand the things he couldn’t, his parents didn't share the same excitement towards you. They were weary of letting someone ordinary into their spectacular family. The top 1% don’t simply allow any commoners in, especially without business benefits. They had plans for Namjoon already.

But quite literally, the future seems bleak because Namjoon is helplessly in love. With his brilliance, he was able to be a part of the construction and under discreet orders, had commanded a third house on that street to be erected on his behalf. Namjoon held the original blueprints to the construction while the developers held the ones he traded with. You knew nothing about it. He said he bought the place. It had only walls and floorings. Both of you built it, from the ground up. The house was yours and his. Sitting on the floor with warm mugs of coffee, the only mattress in the centre of the room, Namjoon remembered how cozy it felt. He shared dreams of the future with you. Held you tight and gently. The smell of brewed coffee filled the air. And he was home.

“I had a bad feeling about this,” was what she said. The day the letters from the government came, that the orphanage was being demolished and the children were being adopted one by one. You held him tightly in a hug that was meant to sooth you. Resting his cheek on the side of your head, Namjoon consoled, “I’m sure it’s just your mistrusting nature talking. The kids will be okay.”

All Namjoon’s defenses become construed because one day, the bad feel came true. A boy, around 13, ran to your house barefooted. His lips bloodied, face swollen and bruised, clothes torn—neglected. You turned the main door knob in a hurry and sped to the street, holding this boy before he falls to his knees. Weak, and unable.

You stared at Namjoon as he stood at the balcony. In those eyes, were hatred, distrusting and disappointment. Because even though you’re his wife, you don’t belong in this community.

Another question lingers into Namjoon’s mind, Who was that boy running from?

.

.

.

.

copyright © 2019 namjoonchronicles do not repost

#not about angels | three #kimnamjoonnet #hyunglinenetwork #bangtanarmynet #btsguild #namjoon #knj #rm #bangtanboys #bangtan fics #bangtan fanfic #namjoon fanfic #namjoon fics #rm fanfic #rm fics #bangtan fanfiction #kpop #kpop fanfiction #knj ff #namjoon x reader #namjoon x y/n #reader insert #namjoon angst #namjoon fluff #bts fluff #bts angst #bts

[eisbecherovka]

hello this is me again, thank you very much for your tips for learning german! ♥ i'm really sorry to bother you again but do you have any tips for learning austrian german too? i live in austria and whenever i think my german is getting good, someone speaks austrian to me and my world shatters lol. it's pretty frustrating and there are no textbooks ugh. how do you cope with it? (and btw as a czech native i must say that i'm incredibly impressed by your czech, keep going!) sorry for the spam!!

no problem! austrian german as a foreign language is a topic i’m kind of into and rarely get to talk about :D

apart from practicing dialect irl with people (which is really very very very important), the most helpful thing for me has been listening to austrian music. songtexte.com often has the original lyrics and then a “german translation” of the song in hochdeutsch. compare, say, the original and the translation of something like brenna tuats guat (which is highkey incomprehensible when you don’t know dialect) by hubert von goisern:

Aber hoazen domma en woazen / Und de ruabn und den kukuruz=Aber heizen tun wir mit Weizen / und Rüben und mit Mais

etc. some bands to check out are seiler & speer, eav, voodoo jürgens. some of falco’s stuff veers into wienerisch and you should be listening to falco anyway because he’s a legend. there are more austrian musicians who use dialekt but these are the ones i know and can recommend in good faith 

HERE is an austrian-german dictionary: http://www.ostarrichi.org/ 

finally, some simple tips that i think are applicable to most of austria that might help you out. i’m assuming you don’t live in vorarlberg. god help you if you do.

disclaimer: i am not a linguist, i am not a professional austrian, i am not fluent in any austrian dialect. these are just my own observations and as such they might be wrong. additionally, austrian dialects are highly regional and as such some of my tips might only apply to carinthian. feel free to correct me but please be nice about it lol

a -> o or oa, depending. was -> wos

“schau ma” constructions. schauen wir -> schaun mia -> schau ma. common are ha(u)mma (as in hamma des? - haben wir das?) gemma/geh ma (let’s go!) schau ma mal (we’ll see/let’s see), red ma (später) let’s talk later

al -> oi, most famous is alter -> oida. also halb -> hoibe. this is not done in carinthia, we say olta and holbe 

ö -> e(a). hörst du -> heast, österreich -> estareich

du is often optional especially in (rhetorical) questions

adding -e to numbers for some reason? um 7 uhr -> um siebene, halb acht -> holbe acht

will -> wü, viel -> vü

u -> ua sometimes, see hubert above. very common is gut -> guat

ist -> is (isch(t) in tirol and vorarlberg)

-ch dropped at ends of pronouns. ich -> i, mich -> mi, dich -> di

r -> a, especially at ends of words. again alter -> olta, kurz -> kuaz

ei -> a or oa. heim -> ham, heiß -> haß, zwei -> zwa (sometimes zwo(a)). also applies to the articles ein/e/n etc.

ein/e -> a, einen -> (o)an

tun + infinitive (i’m sure there’s a rule as to when to do this, but i haven’t figured it out, maybe it’s like present progressive in english?). essen wir geschwind -> tu ma gschwind essen. sie produzieren milch -> sie tun milch produzieren. lorena schläft -> die lorena tut schlofn

ge- -> g-. geschwind -> gschwind, gekauft -> gkaft (Carinthian?), gegangen -> gangan

kommen -> kumman, gekommen -> kumman

articles in front of people’s names all the time, whether it’s your family, friends, coworkers, colleagues, pets, livestock, disgraced ex-vice chancellor… all of them get a der or a die in front of their name. don’t do this in writing

der -> da, die -> de

prepositions of movement. this might be carinthia/styria specific, idk. hinauf -> aufe or aufi, hinab -> obe/obi, ume/umi is like to the side, hinaus -> ause/ausi (i know in vorarlberg they say ufi and usi)

and there’s more but this post is getting too long

apart from that, austrian german has a different speech rhythm than german german, even a little different from austrian standard german that you might be learning in classes, if you’re taking any. this one depends big time on where you are in the country - salzburger don’t talk like viennese who don’t talk like styrians who don’t talk like carinthians, etc. this sounds pretty bad, but eavesdropping on people on public transit can be a good way to learn this. barring that, go to a cafe, bar, restaurant, shopping center, event, whatever, where you can hear people and listen to them talk. and try to do some talking yourself.

if you keep your ears open for dialect, you WILL get better at it, it just might take a little while, so be patient and again good luck :)

#feel free to write again if you want <3 #Anonymous #answered

[ckgalloway]

Five Reasons to Live In Egypt

As our time in Egypt is coming to an end, I though I would write about some of the best aspects of living here. We’ve lived in Kafr Abdou, Alexandria for almost two years, and although we are very much looking forward to starting a new life in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, there are many things we will miss about Egypt.

1. The People

The people in Egypt are, on the whole, quite friendly. They are quick to laughter and often enjoy interacting with foreigners. Of course, you get the odd looney tune, like anywhere. Wherever we go in Egypt, the common greeting is some variation of, “welcome to Egypt.” Egyptians are often genuinely interested in where we come from, and what we think of their country. Being from Canada, I’ve noticed almost every Egyptian has at least one relative who has moved to the great white north. Many return to Egypt - too cold for them. 

Another positive trait is that if you’re ever confounded by something incomprehensible (this happens often) you can be fairly confident that someone will rush to your aid. We were once on the train to Cairo and found our tickets were a week out of date. A family quickly came to our rescue, translated for the ticket collector, found us seats, guided us through the Cairo Station and even booked us a Careem (Egyptian Uber) to our destination. This kind of thing happens a lot. Just act befuddled and help will appear.

Also, Egyptians LOVE children. Unlike the Yukon, where we’ve been kicked out of restaurants at lunchtime because we have our seven-year-old with us, in Egypt children are welcome everywhere. They are also very much fussed over. In a good way. Most of the time. Blond kids are subject to a lot of hair mussing action.

2. The Language

Most Egyptians in the cities speak at least some English, but if you like languages, Arabic is certainly fun to try. I took two Arabic lessons a week for my first year in Egypt, however, even if you only have a smattering, any attempt to speak Arabic will generally garner a positive reaction. Even, my husband, whose Arabic is limited to yimeen (left) and shimaal (right) is generally rewarded with cheery smiles from the taxi driver. **Note: My husband had read this and wants me to amend that he also knows alatool (straight ahead) and he can mispronounce sabah el kheer (good morning). My most humble apologies to you, Richard, you are indeed a linguist.**

It’s a tricky language, but very rewarding to learn. For me, not only is it fun to speak, but the script is super fun to write. Almost any phrase looks elegant in Arabic. It feels great to be able a read a signpost, or a price label in writing that at first glance, looks like nothing more than squiggles (or a doctor’s prescription). Living in Egypt means that you will always have someone to practise with. And you get better prices at the market if you order in Arabic. 

3. Travel

Egypt is littered with historical sites and stunning vistas. We’ve seen moray eels and pufferfish snorkelling the Red Sea, we’ve spent many an afternoon playing in the waves of the Mediterranean, we’ve climbed sandy dunes in a 4X4, floated in salt pools, unwound in hot springs and sailed on the Nile. Then there are the historic sites. We’ve touched pyramids dating from as far back as 2500 BC (they were built when mammoths still walked the earth), we’ve visited temples that are ghostly quiet, and we’ve tread softly in ancient tombs, wondering at the intricate paintings and hieroglyphs. And then there are the times we just chilled by the pool. All without breaking the bank. Our favourite poolside spot only cost 25USD per night to stay.

4. The Weather

I’m always a bit thrown when people refer to the winter here in Egypt. With temperature lows of about 15C, it feels more like Yukon summer (meanwhile Yukon winter temperatures were often in the -30C range). Most of the time I can walk straight out of our apartment - no need for coats, scarves, mittens and all the paraphernalia of a Canadian winter. And then, in the fall and spring, when Egyptians still consider it to be cold (maybe 24C), we go to the beach and have it all to ourselves. Bliss.

Rain is a big event here. The kids at school go wild. Sometimes they need to be picked up from school early, kinda like a snow day. Once I picked my son up from karate in the rain, and his instructor was aghast that I was going to walk five minutes in the rain. Meanwhile, summer here is way to hot for my comfort. That’s when we usually escape to the UK. But hey, three out of four seasons ain’t bad.

5. The Vegetables

You might think this one is a bit weird, but honestly, the veggies here are just better. It might have something to do with how fresh they are. I mean, they get picked, get loaded onto a cart, pulled by horse into town, and you can buy the veggies right from the cart. Can’t get much fresher than that. The UK gets about 12% of it’s vegetables from Egypt, but they have to wait until it gets there. I get it the same day it’s picked. Oh yeah, and they are cheap. Sometimes when I pick up a few kilos of veggies and fruits, I feel weird just paying 20 EGP (about 1 pound). But hey, I’ll take it.

Egypt may sound great to you right about now, but I feel I must warn you, it’s not all sunshine and roses. Okay, well there is quite a lot of sunshine. But many aspects of life here are difficult to get used to. Namely the pollution, litter, crowds, casual sexual harassment, terrible internet, the green water week of 2018, instant summer sweat and the plethora of bad drivers (who constantly feel the need to serenade others with their car horns). But you certainly can’t say it’s not memorable. We will remember our time here with some frustration, but a lot of fondness. 

If you are thinking of moving to Egypt, I hope this helped. Please check out the rest of the blog for more information.

#expat #Egypt #moving abroad

[ashfaqqahmad]

Can religion be logical 2

Role of religion was also to operate large societies

Click here to previous part of this article

One of the roles of religion was to eliminate the uncertainty and insecurity from human life and many rules were fixed for it so that systemic operation could be determined in organized religions which further resulted into ‘Code of Hammurabi‘, ‘Manusmriti‘ and ‘Shara‘.

And if we talk about that period, then religion or rather superstition according to the modern era was initiated as an experiment which was intended to frighten people to keep them under control. There used to be exorcists in the clans who were the navigators of this series and the lord or the prophets of that time were mostly amongst the head of the clans or the king who used to exist as well as those who were imaginary and were worshipped by just telling their stories and inducting their idols. As all the clans of Arabia had their own deities with their idols enshrined since Abraham to the origin of Islam.

How did humans start their journey on earth

If you study the civilizations like the Inca, Maya, Sumer or Mesopotamia, you will find similar deities and similar trends in them. Or explore the ancient history of the tribals of your country, you will find everything in this style.

At that time (especially in the Egyptian civilization, which was also very advanced in science), this religious fear was also used on the labourers gathered for the construction of the huge pyramids so that they work silently considering it will of God. Otherwise, imagine how many monumental constructions like huge pyramids are possible even today without the support of heavy machinery. However, one of the strong reasons for this can be the power and wealth of a ruler in many cases.

By this time, apart from fear, greed factor had also been added in religion and many rituals including yajna and offering animals were also started. In that era many small religions came into existence, but in the Eurasian region, Pagan and Abrahamic religion were the most recognised in brief. While Paganism was based on polytheism and idol worship, Abrahamism was opposed to idol worship and based on monotheism.

Pagan and Abrahamic religions: Opposite yet parallel

In the rituals of Pagan religion, much will be found in today’s Indian religion, rather worship, yajna, offering, etc. all continued from Abraham to the descent of Islam as a contradiction to the Semitic religions. And after the conquest of Mecca not only all the existing statues in Arabia were demolished but all the temples were also demolished and they disassociated themselves from previous rituals up to a great extent but still rituals like hajj, Qurbani, circumcision were adopted from there.

what possibilities are there in the universe outside our planet

The basis of the Paganism was idol worship, nature worship and polytheism. You can call it the mythological part of the Hindus. Its place of origin is said to be Germany of today, but it spread like a transition to Europe and Arabia etc. at that time. The one who was not Abrahamic was Pagan. Though all their books, texts etc. were burnt.

This cannot be claimed, but presumably Vedic culture and Aryans were derived from this section spread further in the name of Zoroastrianism. You can deduce similarities with Germans/Zoroastrians right from the colloquial style up to the symbols.

Considering incomprehensible things as miracles and assuming ’unknown power’ behind the destructive forces of nature may have been from the early stages of journey of mankind but saying that they used to recognize any heavenly God for all this would be completely wrong because many contradictory things are found in later history.

However, among the Pagans and Abrahamics who emerged as a widespread identity, the Pagans will be matched by the ideology of Zarathustra and all the Avesta literature of Zarathustra will be filled with Vedic knowledge. They used to call themselves Aryans and the rest (especially Semitic ones) non-Aryans.

If God is there then how can it be from the point of view of science

The physiolatry, idolatry and polytheism of Pagans were similar to modern Hindutva today, but the principle of Zarathustra will be found similar to the Vedic one who though considers a formless God but also recognizes his natural forms. They worshipped fire in this form and used to wear sacred thread (Janeu). You will find a big similarity between Zarathustra’s Avesta literature and Vedic Sanskrit so that you can guess what their relationship would have been.

The paradox of Pagans and Abrahamics

One strange paradox, you will find is that while the Pagans believed in polytheism and also believed in the natural forms of divine power, the Abrahamic concept recognized monotheism as a centre of all powers. But in the period were expanded from the Pagans itself, monotheism was established amongst the Aryans, the Abrahamics believed in polytheism within a few hundred years.

However, a branch was separated from the Abrahamics during the time of Moses which upheld the doctrine of monotheism, accepting his messengers to be incarnations or prophets and later, on the same track, during the time of Christ another branch separated from it and adopted monotheism in a bit strange way by believing their messenger as the son of God.

Whereas in the Arabic world, there were imaginary deities of different clans which were associated with nature and whose idols were installed in the outers of the Kaaba whereas, in the inner sides, Syrian Moon God Hubal was established with Al-Lat, Al Manat, Al-Uzza together as a family and they were regularly worshipped.

what are the possibilities for new writers

This was clearly polytheism. Though after prophet Muhammad’s conquest of Mecca, many previous traditions (like Hajj, Qurbani) were adopted, there was a return of monotheism which is still prevalent among the Muslims, i.e. the people of Abrahamic ideology returned to their basic concept.  

Later on, Persia (Iran) also came under their control, so Zarathustra was also almost finished and its followers were left only a few. But the followers of Abrahamic ideology may have been Muslims by name for fourteen hundred years, but there were also many divisions among them, such as Sunni, Shia Ahmadiyya, Deobandi, Barelvi, etc.

Whereas, probably two thousand years before Christ, those Aryans entered India through the Indus and later spread in entire India. They had brains and resources so they did not have much difficulty in establishing themselves. They blended their culture with the local culture. For example, Lord Shiva was one of the most Revered God in the Indian culture so they also became a devotee of Shiva while they used to laugh at Shivlinga worshipers at once.

Linguistic roots of Aryan culture

It can’t be claimed that those who call themselves Aryans came from the west but if we search for the linguistic background then according to historians and linguists the written pieces of evidence of the very first use of earliest form of Sanskrit, which we call Rigvedic Sanskrit is found in north Syria. Historians state that from 1500 to 1350 BC, there was a dynasty named Mitanni in the upper Euphrates and Tigris river basins, with each king being named in Sanskrit. This region is divided into present-day Syria, Iraq and Turkey. Their kings and local feudatories were named as Purush, Dushrat, Suvardatta, Subandhu, etc. Washukanni i.e. Washukhanni was the capital of their kingdom.

Like the Vedic civilization, chariot warfare held an important role in the Mitanni culture too, and the bibliography of this culture on the training of horses to be engaged in these chariots is considered to be the oldest document in the world. Interestingly, in this book which is believed to be ancient than Vedas also, the words like Ek (one), traya (three) and ashwa (horse) are mentioned which are derived from Sanskrit. Besides some local Gods, Indra, Mitra, Varuna and Nasatya (one of the Ashwini Kumars) were also included among the Gods they followed. The reference of this is also found in a treaty of Mitanni’s dated 1380 BC with a rival king. On this basis, author David Anthony, in his book ‘The Horse, the Wheel and Language‘, says that not only the Rigvedic Sanskrit was spoken in northwestern India before the Rigveda was written but also the religious deities mentioned in it had existed already.

How to write a book in Microsoft word  

We can understand this in the way that the basis of the language family from which Sanskrit originated as a primitive language called Proto Indo European. With time, this language gave birth to another language called Proto Indo-Iranian. It is evident from its name that it developed in the region of northern India and Iran. According to one belief, about two thousand years BC the people who spoke the Proto Indo-Iranian language initially lived in present-day Kazakhstan and its surroundings. A branch gradually separated from the society of these people who settled in this region of Central Asia, leaving Proto Indo-Iranian and started speaking in earlier form of Sanskrit. Some of these people moved towards west to the area that is present-day Syria and some people moved towards the east and reached the area of Punjab.

Sanskrit speakers moving towards the east were called Aryans

According to David Anthony, those who moved towards the west might have been made allies by the ruling power in the Syrian territory. These people, proficient in chariot fight spoke the same language that other companions of their community towards the east were speaking and which later appeared in the Rigveda. These warriors were called Marya, the same word is found in the Rigveda for Indra’s allied warriors. It is believed that these Rigvedic Sanskrit speakers later revolted and established the Mitanni dynasty. Gradually they settled into the local culture. They also started speaking the language named Hurrian. But some royal names, technical jargon associated with chariot scripture and gods like Indra, Varuna, Mitra and Nasatya remained important in their life.

On the other hand, the group which moved towards the east and who later composed the Rigveda succeeded in preserving their culture. The language and religion that they brought to this continent rooted and over time these roots became so strong that Sanskrit began to be spoken in a large part of this territory.

In a way, we use the word Aryans for these people. They did not face any difficulty in adjusting to the tribal population of North India, but they have had a long war with the people of South India and the differences between them will be found even today in disputes like Lingayat.

Nevertheless, they flourished to the eastern countries disputedly but due to not being able to adjust to their principles later Jain, Buddhist and Sikh got divided into separate branches of which Buddhism flourished and even today it is the major religion in Eastern Asia.

Click here to read the next part of this article

इस लेख को हिंदी में पढ़ने के लिये यहाँ क्लिक करें

#islam #religion and science #faith and logic #aryans

[dwarf-from-erebor]

Legolas pretty quickly gets in the habit of venting about his travelling companions in Elvish, so long as Gandalf & Aragorn aren’t in earshot they’ll never know right?

Then about a week into their journey like

Legolas: *in Elvish, for approximately the 20th time* ugh fucking hobbits, so annoying

Frodo: *also in Elvish, deadpan* yeah we’re the worst

Legolas:

[tangle-of-ivy]

Legolas pretty quickly gets in the habit of venting about his travelling companions in Elvish, so long as Gandalf & Aragorn aren’t in earshot they’ll never know right?

Then about a week into their journey like

Legolas: *in Elvish, for approximately the 20th time* ugh fucking hobbits, so annoying

Frodo: *also in Elvish, deadpan* yeah we’re the worst

Legolas: