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linklethehistorian · 3 years

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New Working Link to DarkestJay’s English Translation of Fifteen & Commentary on the Discrepancies Therein (PLEASE READ)

Information below the cut for length, as well as spoiler information relating to my article.

If recently you’ve tried to access DarkestJay8686’s English Translation of Fifteen on WattPad through the link I provided at the beginning of my article, you’ve probably already noticed that that link is, unfortunately, very dead; the reason that this has happened is because, sadly, as of late, they — and other translators in the fandom who also post their works to WattPad — have been facing a struggle with their works constantly being flagged on the site and forcibly removed for copyright reasons multiple times over, forcing them to eventually give up and move their content somewhere else where it would be safe from harm.

Upon learning of their arrival on a new, safer platform, I had considered simply exchanging the old link out for the new one at the beginning of my article, where it was before, and altering my notes to reflect this, and I’m sure that I still will as soon as I can find the time to rework everything properly, but in the meanwhile, there’s something I’ve also badly needed to discuss with you all about these translations for some time, and what better time and way, I thought, than to do it in this post where I provide you with the new link?

I’m sure that many of you reading both my article and their translation have noticed that back in the Arcade scene, there was something I had mentioned happening in the novel that didn’t quite match up with DarkestJay’s presentation of those events — namely, Sheep being the first to leave the building, instead of Dazai and Chuuya; well, that difference is actually quite important as one of the main reasons why, while their work may overall be excellent and I do encourage everyone to read it regardless, I still personally would never recommend making it the only thing you read if you want to truly understand Fifteen and all of its events 100% correctly.

Yes, I am saying exactly what you think I’m saying: my information within my article was NOT incorrect — Jay’s translation of the scene, however, was, and if you don’t believe me, you can go read Lea’s translation of the scene and see it for yourself.

Now, before I say anything else, I want to make this 100% clear: I in no way am intending to imply that Jay’s work on the whole is anything but exceptional, nor am I even remotely saying that you shouldn’t read at all; in fact, I highly recommend you do read it in its entirety, because despite a few small mis-steps, as someone who owns two copies of the original Japanese light novel, has read many an English translation, and knows this story extensively well, I will be the first to very enthusiastically say that this translation is actually quite good and very, very helpful overall — an absolutely essential resource for anyone who does not speak the original language but still wants to read, experience and understand Fifteen as if they could. I am extremely, extremely grateful and appreciative of their hard work in making that possible for all English speakers, and I don’t ever want to come across as anything else or make it seem like any of that is any less than true.

That being said, though, it nevertheless absolutely cannot and should not be your only resource on the matter, because if it is, you will unavoidably end up being misled on some matters — unintentionally, of course, but still misled all the same.

Because this was translated well after the anime came out — unlike Lea’s partial but nonetheless equally wonderful translation, which came into existence very shortly after the novel was first handed out in theaters alongside DEAD APPLE, a whole year before the animated adaption was even a concept — DarkestJay’s translation does have some points where it is extremely clear that said television show’s rather poorly handled and highly inaccurate interpretation very heavily affected the OP’s perception of things, and thus caused the OP, Jay, to incorrectly interpret and translate certain parts of some scenes and/or dialogue that otherwise might not have been super clear to someone not fully, extensively familiar with the language.

Specifically, as I mentioned above, there is the one particular instance among the many that I can easily point out: due to the pre-knowledge of the anime’s awful take on the story, there is a point in this translation where Jay simply assumes it to be true that Dazai and Chuuya were the ones to leave the Arcade, with Sheep calling out to their retreating backs, and thus incorrectly translates it as such, when in fact it unfolds in exactly the opposite manner in the original version of the tale; likewise, there are also many bits of dialogue throughout the entirety of the book where the perceived “understanding” of the characters’ nature’s as the show wrongly presented them caused Jay to take the liberty of wording things in certain different ways, or make certain alterations to the type of punctuation used that Jay believed suited them, rather than leaving them in their unaltered states, as they were intended to be read.

This is the major issue with going into a project like this with this kind of confirmation bias; no matter how good your intentions may be, because you expect that you already understand something or know what’s going to happen, you’re much more likely to think it’s safe to cut corners, and rather than carefully researching the context, tone, and other specifics and particulars of every line before you write it out and post it — the way you would if you started with a completely blank slate and no idea of what would happen in it — you will more often than not just assume that it plays out in the way you expect it to if it seems close enough, and quickly go with that presumption as if it is fact without bothering to make 100% sure of it.

Again, no offense to OP, because translation work is very hard, and as I said, overall, it is a wonderful translation and I do think it’s well worth the read, but problems like this are why I personally recommend anyone reading this to also check out Lea’s translated summary with excerpts and translation of the bonus chapter in conjunction with Jay’s, as Lea’s came out long before a Fifteen anime was even a concept and, as such, was completely unbiased — therefore being an excellent source to check facts against where possible.

Of course, there are definitely also some points where both translations are different but neither is actually wrong — as while Lea’s is less literal about every phrasing so it’s not super awkward sounding in English and flows better to read, Jay’s is almost always more literal instead, and thus differences in personal preference for wording can easily diverge while still getting the point across fine in both — but these instances are much different from the ones where it is clear Jay actually slipped up, so I’m sure you won’t have trouble defining them. As much as I would like to be of help in this regard, I must sadly inform you that I will not personally be pointing out all of these slip-ups here at this time, nor do I have any plan to do so at any time in the foreseeable future. for I have neither the time nor the desire to go about critiquing a fellow fan’s work when I’m already dedicating enough time and energy just to writing about the mountain of mistakes that the anime made without also adding more difficult and unnecessary extra work onto that.

If you have any questions about a particular line in the translation and if it indeed is correct, you can absolutely feel free to send me an ask about it and I will try to help you with it to the best of my ability, but beyond that, I will not be engaging with the matter much farther than I already have.

(However, on one last note, I will, for now, add that — as I expect this might become a point of much contention and is something that will come up in my article later on, anyway — the “it must be because I love you” scene that you will find in Jay’s translation is actually not exactly one such instance where a mistake was made, at least in regards to the “‘I love you” bit; if you’re curious about the exact details of how that all works, you can read about it in my post here. So yes, that does indeed exist, and you are free to take it in whatever way you want. I’m not personally an SKK shipper myself, but if that’s your thing, then good for you — go for it and enjoy it; it can be canon support for your ship if you want it to be.)

Thank you for reading, and, as promised, here is the link to Jay’s new account, as well as their Twitter, and where you can currently access their translation of Fifteen. Enjoy.

[See the recent related addendum]

[View the masterlist of my article]

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nonbinarychaoticstupid · 3 years

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I'll Never forgive twitter who spread like wildfire that Noelle, a trans person who feels connection to shapeshifters, of being "nbphobic" because "DT is the only nb character and is morally gray and non human shapeshifter".

Oh and that them being a chameleon isn't because salamanders and chameleons are known for blending with their environment by deceiving predators, it's because Noelle wanted to make a lizard person because he hates Jews?? Sooo many goyim kept telling me this shit.

KJSHBNSKJJIDBNSJKHBNDDHBSHJSBH YEAH goyim need to shut up and let us speak for ourselves! like. we’re all entitled to our own opinions. but i REALLY don’t need someone who knows next to nothing about jews or what it’s like to be trans telling me how to feel about a character.

it’s the same thing as neurotypicals deciding they’re suddenly The Expert On Autism and writing whole threads on why s5 ep 2 is ableist and at the same time managing to imply that autistic people are stupid and can’t think for themselves and speaking directly over autistic people and treating us like we’re stupid and can’t think for ourselves and ‘don’t understand when we’re being oppressed’... hhh

twitter is a MESS tbh kjHGjHJnh like i can definitely understand why a nby person might have issues w dt (and you’re so valid btw) but i am not going to criticise or demonise a transgender person for making a character they feel is an accurate representation of their gender, or making a character something they identify with (and ngl double trouble is a pretty accurate representation of my gender, too).

this is why i do my best to stay neutral in most fandom issues, mostly because 99% of them are fuelled by people who don’t GET to have a say in them (like the whole livestream thing being blown out of proportion specifically by white people exaggerating the issue to the point where suddenly noelle was ableist towards physically disabled people please lmk if i phrased that incorrectly /gen and nbyphobic AGAIN).

we also need to talk about the whole passive vs active thing - noelle is perfectly capable of making genuine mistakes, but they aren’t a racist, antisemitic, nbyphobic, or otherwise prejudiced person.

note: i say all of this with full understanding that people are capable having internalised prejudices towards their community (eg its fully possible to be butch and perpetuate butchphobic stereotypes, etc). but i also want to point out that in some (NOT ALL) cases, it becomes a matter of perspective. people have different viewpoints/opinions and those are all valid, unless they come from refusing to accept other people’s views/a place of prejudice. personally, i don’t have an issue with dt, but i can understand why other jews + nby people do, and i am willing to listen and give support to them, and i think their opinions are valid.

you probably shouldn’t be having an opinion on what is nbyphobic and.or antisemitic if you aren’t trans or jewish, unless it comes from being genuinely informed on the subject and you’ve actually listened to the opinions of trans and jewish people on the topic itself. otherwise, you’re at risk of coming off as antisemitic/nbyphobic yourself. you start to prove that you prioritise being critical of the media you consume over the opinions and perspectives of real people. you also need to remember that not everyone is going to have the same opinion, and you should listen to as many different (INFORMED) takes on the topic as you can before making an informed decision on what to believe, and even then do NOT speak over the communities directly involved

this is very rambly but. tl;dr it is not your business to tell people what is/isn’t prejudiced against their community when you are not part of their community and doing so in fandom spaces can spread misinformation, which leads to people often stopping paying attention to said community and then treating them like they’re stupid and,,, h.

it’s okay to be supportive of and help out communities but PLEASE i’m BEGGING YOU learn to let us speak for ourselves. PLEASE learn to at least wait for an actual consensus from members of the community before you start to discuss this. we’re grateful for your allyship, but you have to learn that that includes LISTENING TO US. we are not some endangered species, we aren’t stupid, we are real people who know how to recognise our own oppression.

i have a LOT more thoughts on this but uhhh if you want to add to this/correct anything i’ve said/provide a different take/summarise this mess, go ahead!!!

#sep texxt #ask #anon #ask to tag #uhhh i have no idea what i wrote

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siswritesyanderes · 4 years

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omg could you p l e as e write that no-nonsense reader that's a literature junkie with a yandere percy weasley that absolutely adores how she corrects his love letters and grades them??? pretty please, with a cherry on top?

Initially, he had sat at your table in the library for two quite pragmatic reasons: because you were generally unobtrusive as you read, and because sitting next to another person meant that when people inevitably bothered him for homework answers, he could make the excuse that he didn’t want to be noisy and bother the person beside him. Those were the only reasons, at first.

After that, he supposed it was a matter of habit; if he didn’t see you at the usual table, he always wandered the library to find where you were sitting, and seat himself the usual distance of one seat away from you. That was the pull of routine, though, he reasoned; you had proven yourself a nice, quiet study partner, so of course he sought you out. There was no reason to sentimentalize the fact that he was drawn to you.

Then came the day a boy from Percy’s Transfiguration class asked to copy his notes. Demanded, really, with the excuse that he had missed class because he was ill. (Granted, Percy didn’t doubt the truth of this, so much. He just didn’t hand over his notes lightly.) When Percy suggested that he speak to McGonagall and get the information from her, the boy merely doubled down on his excuse, this time describing his illness (and the color and consistency of his vomit) graphically enough that Percy was, at a point, prompted to say:

“Thank you for that factoid; not at all disgusting. Anything else that will make me nauseous?”

“Nauseated,” you interjected suddenly.

“What?”

“I believe you meant ’nauseated’. ’Nauseous’ describes the stimulus, not the reaction. A nauseous smell will make you feel nauseated. If you yourself are nauseous, then you are causing nausea in someone else. Also, you’ve misused factoid.”

Percy blinked. “Have I?”

A crisp nod. “It means something that resembles a fact but is not; note the suffix ‘oid’, as used in ‘humanoid’. I suppose you aren’t entirely misusing it if you meant to imply that you didn’t believe he was telling the truth, but that wasn’t the impression I’d gotten. Also, it would be more fitting to just call it a lie, in that case; the connotations are different.”

In that moment, he felt inexcusably stupid for not having spoken to you sooner. He knew that some of his peers were clever; there was a whole House for those who valued cleverness, after all. And he knew that some of his peers were probably smarter than him; statistically, they had to be. But…well, he liked to learn. Being taught new things he might never have otherwise known (like definitions of commonly misused words) felt different from being corrected on any old homework assignment. And the frank, casual way you had said it was just so terribly attractive and seemed to imply that there was plenty more where that came from.

Like you had answers to questions he didn’t even know to ask.

He paid more attention to you, from then on.

It was honestly distracting. Just committing to listening to you speak, in class and to your classmates, had been expanding his vocabulary little by little; he often found himself jotting down words that you used, approximating the spelling as best he could, to look up later.

Not just words- facts.

Weird, obscure things that you would bring up with minimal prompting, about the etymology of the word “defenestration” or the statistical likelihood of dying from an incorrectly brewed potion.

And sometimes you were just smiling, or just soberly nodding in agreement to one of your potions partner’s many venting sessions, and as the days passed he became entranced with that, too. All of your little moments and expressions and words seemed to drag him deeper and deeper, until it became unbearable not to say anything.

He wrote out a letter explaining his affection; it was better than telling you in person, because in a letter he could plan and proofread. He spent two days poring over his own wording to be sure that he’d avoided any mistakes, and then he slipped the parchment into your bag. His heart beating in his throat.

The next time he sat with you in the library, you set a folded parchment down in front of him. He couldn’t breathe for a moment, but when he unfolded it, he saw his own handwriting and his own words.

With things crossed out.

His eyes hungrily raked over the tiny annotations you’d made on his letter.

There was a bracket drawn around a phrase and the word “redundant” jotted in the nearest margin. A whole sentence was underlined and called “bombastic”, and Percy quickly put one of his books in his lap because he was having a Reaction and he was pretty sure he was in love.

At the very bottom of the page, below his signature, you had written: “Good spelling, and good use of the word ‘limerent’. On the whole, though, I think that you could do better.”

Pride and affection and determination flooded him. He took out a parchment and began to compose another letter. This one he scoured for any of the same mistakes he had made in the first one; he would not be redundant or bombastic or have a “strange use of passive voice here”. He took another two days, this time not even listening in class as he wrote and edited and rewrote (an otherwise perfect page had to be thrown out because a stray ink mark too closely resembled an apostrophe) before finally slipping the finished product to you.

This one you handed back with fewer structural complaints, but more thematic ones. In multiple places, you merely underlined a phrase and wrote “cliche”. So he was being graded for originality, too. You had high standards, which only made the chance of meeting them more enticing.

He was going to earn your approval. Approval would turn to love. One day, you were going to love him; he’d make sure of it. You would be with him, the two of you would be together, you would love him. Like he loved you.

“Hasty conclusion; insufficient evidence,” you jotted on his next one, with an arrow to the word love.

Evidence. Of course, you wouldn’t just accept that he loved you with no sub-points to back it up.

Merlin, you were so endearing. He had to earn your trust, prove himself. His whole next letter expounded on his feelings for you, as concretely as he could. He avoided subjective descriptors, as he knew that you would critique any use of words like “beautiful”, and focused on specific qualities you had and how they made him feel. Once he had tapped into that well, it seemed he couldn’t stop; he wrote out all of the things he had noticed about you that no one else had, and how it annoyed him that your friends were so inattentive to your feelings, and all of the details of the future he imagined for the two of you.

That letter he did not receive back for several days.

He spent those days in a daze of mixed anxiety and excitement. He imagined that you hated the letter. He imagined you loved it. He imagined that you were tearing it to shreds. He imagined that you read it to yourself every night.

He couldn’t catch your gaze in or between classes; you didn’t study in the library anymore. He didn’t notice that he had taken to following you in the hallways until one of your friends spotted him and whispered to you, and his anxiety spiked; he sprinted in the opposite direction, hoping you hadn’t turned around in time to see him.

The next day (by which time a torturous week had passed), you set a folded parchment in front of him on your way to your seat in Charms class.

It was not his letter; it was a note of your own, inscribed with only the words, “You are very observant. Thank you for the conversation, but I don’t know that I am interested.”

His heartbeat raced. His eyes looped over the words, fixating on different ones each time. He did not feel despair, nor defeat; how could he, when he knew the kind of people you had already settled for. You were brilliant, but your friends weren’t nearly as smart as he was. They didn’t care for you as much as he did. They wouldn’t be as successful as he would, provide for you like he would. The people you chose to surround yourself with would never deserve you, but he could come to. He had just failed to get that across, but soon he would succeed.

His eyes tightened their loop, now focused only on the words “I don’t know”.

That was the most important part, he decided. You had not been blunt in your rejection; you were unsure. He could fix that, could explain himself, could teach you how to accept his love, the way you had taught him so much.

Slowly, so as not to break the reverie he found himself in, Percy withdrew his quill, inkwell, and parchment from his bag. He would write you again. A letter a day, two letters a day, as many as needed. As many observations and declarations as it would take. He just needed to prove himself.

...

(Caught myself referencing the song “Other Friends” towards the end, then just kinda went with it. Hope you enjoyed this one!)

#male yandere #possessive #obsession #yandere percy weasley

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scripttorture · 4 years

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I'm writing a human character in sci-fi setting who has been betrayed by his friend and is then kidnapped and phycologically tortured by the friend to the point after he escapes he has severe PTSD. I'm struggling to write it though as I'm not sure what kind of mental torture he could be put through without going over the top. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

I’m going to start off with a possibly obvious point: kidnapping is traumatic. If the main thing you want from this sub-plot is to give a character PTSD you don’t need to go any further then that. Not everyone who is kidnapped will develop PTSD but it’s a realistic outcome.

So…. Phycology is the study of algae, I’m assuming that’s not what’s meant here. But if it is then please correct me and I will happily spend some time reading up on algae to help you out. (That is not sarcasm, teach me about algae.) :)

I am guessing that this is a misspelling of ‘psychologically’ and this is someone new to the blog who hasn’t heard The Talk about ‘psychological torture’ yet.

So going forward: Anon it’s OK to make mistakes. I’m here because I understand how hard it is to find good quality information on torture. And because I understand how much misinformation is popularised in both fictional and allegedly-factual media.

I strongly advise that you don’t use the phrase ‘psychological torture’ in your writing.

Torture isn’t psychological. There’s nothing clever or psychological about hitting someone’s feet with a stick.

And the phrase ‘psychological torture’ has been used for years by torture apologists. They use it as a way to dismiss survivors and belittle their experience. They do that by declaring that some types of torture are ‘just’ psychological; using this term to suggest particular tortures don’t cause physical harm and that survivors are faking their responses.

This is bullshit. Don’t buy into it. Don’t support it.

Torture is physical abuse and physical harm. The lasting psychological symptoms and effects are due to underlying changes in the structure of the brain which happen in response to extreme pain and stress.

O’Mara, the neuroscientist who wrote about torture, likened it to brain damage. He also went so far as to argue that it’s deliberately inflicted organ failure. And you know what, I’m not a neuroscientist, so I’m not gonna argue with that assessment.

I don’t know what you’re picturing when you say ‘psychological torture’. You haven’t given me a time frame for how long this character is held or information on the kind of culture this fictional world has. Which makes it hard for me to suggest specific things.

What I can do is give you an idea of what torture looks like now and what sort of effects you’d expect in survivors. You can then consider whether torture is right for your story.

Most torture nowadays is ‘clean’. Now different researchers use different terms for this (I use Rejali’s term) but what it essentially means is: a form of physical abuse that is extremely unlikely to leave obvious physical marks on the victim’s body.

Lest you get the idea that is represents ‘advancement’ most of the clean torture techniques currently used are hundreds of years old. Some of them are thousands of years old.

There’s been quite a bit of debate in the field about why clean torture is currently so common and why so many organisations have abandoned scarring torture. You can read more about that over here. Or if you feel you have a wealth of time on your hands you can try tackling all 800 pages of Rejali’s Torture and Democracy (highly recommended, also very large).

The theory Rejali puts forward is that the shift is about evidence. Obvious physical injuries make it easier to build up cases against torturers.

And a lack of obvious physical injuries can be used to discredit survivors.

These are the sort of torture techniques that get labelled ‘psychological’ as a way to dismiss them: the ones that are being used around the world today.

If you’re wondering what sort of thing I’m talking about things like sleep deprivation, beatings (yes this can be done without leaving obvious marks), near-drowning, forcing someone to exercise until they collapse, Tasers.

I have a post here on typical torture practices in different countries in the modern era.

While the physical effects of clean tortures are hard to definitively prove we’re still taking about incredibly dangerous things.

Tasers, used according to the instructions, leave no mark on the skin. They can also cause heart attacks, seizures (in vulnerable individuals) and often cause death by falling injuries. Forced exercise, beatings and stress positions all cause kidney failure. In the case of stress positions that’s after the swelling in extremities that gets to the point of popping the skin open in massive ulcers.

Sleep deprivation causes a whole slew of interestingly awful physical and psychological effects before (according to studies in mice) leading to death from multiple organ failure as the microbes in the gut take over the entire body.

What I’m trying to say here is that if you’re looking for something dignified, without the vomit and pus and shit, then torture probably doesn’t fit the bill.

And clean tortures can still cause physically disabling injuries.

Drowning and choking tortures (such as water boarding) can cause brain damage. Incorrectly applied restraints can lead to a limb needing to be amputated.

On top of all this are the long term psychological effects which I have a post on here. Memory problems are discussed in more detail here.

PTSD is a possible symptom but it’s not guaranteed. The truth is that while we know the possible symptoms different individual survivors develop different symptoms and we don’t know why.

If you’ve thought about it and you want to use PTSD because it adds something to your story then by all means do so. But don’t feel that it is your only option.

Survivors do recover. They are not ‘broken’ and unable to live or enjoy life. They’re mentally ill and often disabled and recovery is a process of learning to live with their conditions.

Wrapping this up: think about what you’re writing.

I am not saying that you shouldn’t write torture. I am not saying that you should. I’m asking that you, and every other writer who comes here, consider what you’re committing to.

If you don’t want a character to be dealing with multiple complex mental health problems for the rest of every story you use them in, it’s probably not a good fit.

If you want something that doesn’t have even a chance of causing lasting physical damage, torture is probably not a good fit.

Picture where the story is going. If you think the narrative could be the same without torture then you’re probably not capturing the scale of the impact torture has.

I have a post on common inaccurate tropes here. I have a post on researching torture here. I have a list of sources over here. I also have a lot of asks tagged as sci fi.

Consider why you want to write torture in this story. What is it adding to your narrative? What is it doing?

If the main thing you want is this character to have PTSD afterwards that is possible with kidnapping alone. Physical attacks make PTSD more likely but they’re not necessary for its development.

Kidnap and imprisonment is betrayal enough. It is reason enough for all the big, powerful emotions you want to put into this relationship. Ask yourself if torture really does add any more to that.

I hope that helps. :)

Available on Wordpress.

Disclaimer

#writing advice #tw torture #torture apologia #torture does not work #torture survivors are not broken #torture is not safe #clean torture #scarring torture #modern torture #writing torture #writing survivors #ptsd #effects of torture #sci fi ask #educate me about algae

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pellucidity-is-me · 3 years

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Did it Hurt the Pig?

Summary: Remus has a very important question about Transfiguration as it pertains to living things. This is from chapter 23 in my longer fanfiction (Flirting with Ghosts), and I figured it would work as a very sad little one-shot. Link in bio description if you want to read the whole thing.

Wordcount: 1441

Remus loved Hogwarts.

His friends—yes, he had actual, real-live friends—were named James and Sirius, and they each accumulated two detentions before double Transfiguration that afternoon. They were troublemakers, and now they seemed to be drunk on mischief.

Remus had not known that mischief was alcoholic, but he seemed to be a bit tipsy himself. He had laughed so hard in the past couple of hours that his head felt buzzy and his brain felt light. He’d never laughed this hard—not ever.

The Marauders ambled down the corridor, casually bumping into each other and joking as they went, and then took their seats in Transfiguration. They sat next to each other, as usual, and the feeling of being so close and casual with his friends was pure euphoria in Remus' eyes. Nothing could spoil it—though Remus knew that saying such a phrase, even in his own head, was bound to be awful foreshadowing. "That toad of yours—wouldn't it be great if he found himself in the bed of a first-year girl one morning?" asked James with glee.

Remus, who loved his pet toad very much, immediately sobered. He'd been right; it had been foreshadowing. "No. You are not using Bufo to prank people. They might squish him."

"You're no fun," Sirius pouted.

"Least I don't mumble to myself about what an amazing person I am when I fly broomsticks."

James groaned and punched Remus' arm lightly. "You are an awful person, Remus Lupin," he said, and Remus began to feel tipsy again.

"All right, settle down," said McGonagall sharply. Remus stopped giggling (with much effort). "Today we are going to be discussing transforming living things," continued McGonagall: "Watch carefully, now."

She pulled her wand out from her robes and pointed it at her desk. The desk seemed to pulse and twist—less than two seconds later, it had fully transformed into a living, breathing pig. James gasped a little from Remus' right. Remus gasped too, but for a very different reason. His head was beginning to get buzzy again... and laughter was no longer the cause of his symptoms.

McGonagall waved her wand again, and then the pig was once more a desk. "Brilliant," James muttered. McGonagall heard him, but she granted him a tight, pleased smile instead of reprimanding him.

Remus felt a little ill.

"We won't be doing anything like this until the end of the year, when we transform mice to snuffboxes," said McGonagall. "Living transfigurations are extraordinarily difficult. I'd like to discuss the theory, though. Open your textbooks to page eighty-one."

Remus did not move.

"Come on, Rem," said James. He reached over and flipped Remus' textbook open for him. "Are you ill or something? This is so cool!"

Remus did not think so.

McGonagall lectured and wrote on the board in chalk; Remus heard James scribbling notes on a piece of parchment fervently and Sirius teasing James for taking notes like a "dumb schoolgirl". Remus was amazed that he could hear anything, though, given the ocean noises dominating his ears.

The image of the poor pig, his legs folding in, his bones melting and reforming, his whole body turning to wood in the span of a few seconds, the odd liquifying of his pink body... it would not leave Remus' vision.

He vaguely heard McGonagall stop lecturing. "Mr. Lupin, are you quite all right?"

Remus shook his head to rid it of the ocean noises. He realized too late that it had seemed that he had been shaking his head no to McGonagall's question.

"What's wrong, then?" McGonagall asked.

"Er," said Remus. He needed to ask. He needed to ask without giving himself away, but he didn't know how. "Er, Professor..." He tried to come up with just the right phrasing, but the quest was fruitless. It was useless. Remus decided—against his better judgement—to throw caution to the wind.

"Did that hurt the pig?"

McGonagall's eyes narrowed, and Sirius snickered under his breath. Remus realized that Sirius thought that he was joking; trying to waste time so that the class would have to do less work... Remus decided that Sirius' assumption was better than the alternative, so he let a weak laugh of his own escape his lips. It sounded very forced, much to his chagrin.

McGonagall's features suddenly softened, and Remus hoped with all his heart that she did not realize why he was asking. Oh, who was he kidding? Of course she realized why he was asking! In the eyes of the Hogwarts staff, the fact that Remus transformed into a wolf every month was his defining trait.

"No," said McGonagall slowly.

"How do you know?" Remus said, pushing his luck. He had to know. "I mean, it's got to hurt. Pigs' skin isn't meant to turn into wood. Pigs are very different from desks... their bone structure and all. And desks are inanimate objects. Why wouldn't it hurt? Pigs are... pigs. Not desks..."

Remus mentally slapped himself. Here he was, admitting to McGonagall that the transformation every month was literally torture. He felt his cheeks grow red, and the ocean noises returned with vigor. "Just... just wondering, that's all," he said, and faked another laugh in order to keep his cover in front of his peers. He didn't think that it had worked, but perhaps...?

McGonagall seemed to be thinking very hard. "That... is a good question, Lupin. Compassionate, and with sound reasoning." At long last, she looked him in the eyes, and Remus looked away in spite of himself. "Ten points to Gryffindor." It seemed that all the points that Remus was receiving for Gryffindor were out of pity. Remus felt ashamed, even though he knew that shame wasn't the proper response to earning points for his House.

"I think I can take a few minutes to explain the answer." McGonagall walked up to the blackboard and erased it as she spoke. "There are a few different types of magic, as you've learned in Defense Against the Dark Arts. There's light magic, and then there's jinxes, hexes, and... curses." Remus noted her hesitation and tapped his finger under his desk anxiously.

"Transfiguration spells are known as light magic purely because they are not harmful in nature. They do not hurt the transformee because they are designed as such. Spell design is a complicated process, as is the process of transfiguration itself. It takes much focus and intention; painful unintended consequences, therefore, are very rare. We will only use light magic in this class, Lupin. You don't have to worry about any of the spells harming the recipient in any way—in fact, I go through all of the incorrectly-transformed animals myself after every class and correct the transfiguration. No animals will ever be harmed in my class... unless a student is not careful and steps on a beetle during our beetle-to-buttons unit in second year. That has, I'm afraid, happened before."

Some of the students giggled. Remus knew that they were laughing at the beetle comment, but he felt as if they were laughing at him... he sunk lower in his chair ever so slightly. He hated talking about—or even alluding to—his transformations. "That makes sense, Professor; thank you."

McGonagall was now carefully studying Remus' face, which was even worse than the previous awkward avoidance. Remus tried to look nonchalant. After a very uncomfortable moment (that was probably less than three seconds, but felt like three hours), James raised his hand. "So there are types of transfiguration that are Dark, and do hurt the subject?" he asked, and Remus froze. He mentally begged McGonagall to avoid the subject. Maybe if he thought hard enough, he would discover himself to be a Legilimens....

"Yes, Mr. Potter, but we will not be learning about such magic in this class," she said. "I don't believe that magic like that is ever acceptable. Most Dark Transfigurations, though, work by... by forcing the recipient to transform without magic... as a biological process, rather than a magical one. It is complicated, and you may research it on your own if you so desire."

Remus winced. I've done enough practical research to last me a lifetime, thanks.

"Thank you for the excellent question, Lupin. Have I satisfied your curiosity?"

"Yes, Professor," Remus said quietly. "I do believe that I shall be able to transform pigs to desks morally from now on."

The class tittered, and Professor McGonagall allowed herself a forced smile before continuing the lesson.

Remus vaguely wanted to transfigure himself into a pig. The life of a pig, he thought, would be much simpler than that of a werewolf.

#marauders fanfiction #angst #remus lupin #young remus lupin #marauders #harry potter fanfiction #scene from my fanfiction #ao3 #made me sad to write it honestly

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fioletowa-krowa · 3 years

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So I’ve had to deal with the absolute worst customer in my entire working career ever this past week. (It’s Rose at the Notre Dame university bookstore in case anyone was wondering) apologies in advance, it’s going to be long

So for this school we have two “titles” that are basically just boxes of lab equipment. There’s a lock, goggles, a lab coat, a notebook, and an access card for the online book. These are shipped as individual boxes since there’s a good amount of materials. This is different from what we usually send to stores, which would be boxes of multiple notebooks. I mention this bc the store manager, Rose made such a damned big deal about it.

So the whole ordeal started at the beginning of the month when my boss CC-ed me on an email conversation with Rose letting her know that she was going to be out of town so to contact me with any questions or requests for her order of the two bundles we had for the school. She ended the email with “hopefully things go smoothly this year” so already I have a bad feeling that this is going to be difficult.

Rose emails me to let me know that this is a time when they receive a lot of deliveries at their store (she specifically mentioned receiving football equipment in addition to books and school supplies) so she wanted to make sure that their order of nearly 1000 bundles could be split into smaller orders with only one order arriving per day to make sure that they weren’t overwhelmed at the store. A bit of an annoying request, but not impossible for us to attempt to accommodate. The only thing being that once an order leaves our warehouse we have zero control over how long it takes to deliver or when it gets delivered so I told Rose that I was putting notes on her orders so that they would hopefully ship on different days and then be delivered on different days. And she again reminded me that they needed the orders to arrive just as she specified. Okay, fine, I’m doing what I can.

Now, unfortunately, we’ve been having delays it’s getting materials and books in stock on time this season bc our printers are all short staffed and they can only print and ship so much at a time. So the bundles are already going to be a little later than expected. We had a team of people putting the boxes together at our satellite warehouse last last week so we could get them shipped out last week.

So we finally get things together and get the first order shipped out Tuesday. This first order was for 85 boxes of one title (11181) and 150 copies of the other (11171) and the manager at the satellite warehouse gets it shipped out Tuesday last week. On Wednesday I send Rose an email with the tracking information (I had to wait for our regular warehouse manager to get me the info bc the satellite manager was out all of last week after Tuesday) and at 4:56 Wednesday evening I get the following email from Rose:

“Beth, do you realize we already got three skids today? You sent a skid of 11181 when we only wanted 85 and two skids of 11171. Please do not send any more of 11181 and I will write up everything tomorrow and you can arrange a call tag to pick up the others. This is a hot mess and the paperwork the driver had was wrong and we have damaged cases as well. Way to go..........................”

So I was about to lose my mind at this. Not only was it at the end of the day, but she was incredibly rude over something that was genuinely a mistake and moreso, not my fault! The editor in charge of the projects wanted to respond to her that evening, but I told her that, quite frankly, I was off for the day and Rose didn’t deserve any of my unpaid time. Plus i wanted to hear back from the warehouse to see their end in case something happened so they sent out more than they were supposed to or if Rose was just stupid and we did what we said we would and it just wasn’t exactly what she was expecting. So the editor sent Rose a message saying that I’d get back to her in the morning with more information and I went to dinner w my parents and papa so that I wouldn’t punch a hold thru a wall in anger

So Thursday morning I get in to an email from our main warehouse manager (since the satellite manager was out the rest of the week) letting me know that we had sent three skids for the order. Because each skid holds 96 boxes. So, since the order was for 235 boxes, it physically had to ship as three skids. I was fucking giddy as I typed my response to Rose, spelling out why she received three skids and letting her know that I would be holding her remaining four orders for 150 of 11171 each until I got the go-ahead from her that she was okay with the fact that the orders would be one and a half skids each.

Well, Rose emails back that we actually sent three full skids instead of one full and two partials. She included the phrase “believe it or not, I can count” and then after reiterating how she wanted her orders sent said, “My next suggestion would be to fulfill my orders as requested going forward.” And asked if they’d be getting another order that day. So I typed up a very off-color response to her informing her how obnoxious and cunty I thought she was being and how her attitude was helping exactly zero people and quite honestly making me feel less inclined to be helpful at all. And then I typed up a nicer response and asked my boss for read it over to make sure that it was professional and appropriate. In my email i let her know that we only had the paperwork to go off of as the warehouse manager who put the shipment out was out of the office, so we legitimately did not know that she received more than what was on her order and that, no I had held her other orders to make sure that she was okay with how they were going to be shipped, but I could put them in and hopefully get the next one shipped out that day or Friday.

At that point, she got the other manager at their store involved who emailed Friday morning to ask me to confirm they’d be getting the rest of their order that day as they had students arriving on campus who would need them. I informed her that no, we hadn’t shipped anything else yet and said that it was bc our satellite warehouse was short staffed (which is essentially true. There’s one person who works in that warehouse— the manager— and he’d been out all week) so Rose jumped back in to say “Just to make certain I understand correctly, there hasn't been another order shipped since the first delivery? We need to get on the ball with this order short staffed or not folks!!”

At that point i was beyond pissed. They were asking for something above and beyond what we do normally, and we were doing everything we could to keep them placated, including shipping the rest of their orders for free, but there’s literally only so much we can do with the staff that we have. So, after venting into an empty word doc, I responded with “That is correct. We wanted to make sure that we wouldn't overwhelm you with multiple orders in a day, like you asked, and since the first shipment went out incorrectly, we wanted to be sure that it didn't happen again. Unfortunately that means that we aren't able to schedule a pickup from the shipper until Monday as it took some time to confirm that the rest of the shipments were okay to go forward per your instructions. The remaining shipments will be going out all of next week, but if you need us to send more than one order at a time, please let me know and I can coordinate with our warehouse team to make sure that happens.” (Also I’m now realizing that rose never actually confirmed that we could/should ship the rest of the orders so that’s a fun thing) as this was going on, I was trying to coordinate with our warehouse manager to see if we could get the next order out and (as my dad who works in that warehouse told me) they were basically running around asking every shipper who came by that day if they could take the order bc the store’s preferred shipper wasn’t available to pick it up. But we finally managed to get it picked up and shipped around 1 Friday afternoon

So, Rose, in all of her Karen-ness responds “In what world would it be, as the buyer, my fault for making and having confirmation of shipping directions the reason why your company has failed??” Funnily enough, that email sent me passed pissed off to just calm and I’d started typing a response when a message from my boss (who had been CC-ed on the entire conversation) popped up saying “take a minute, step away from your computer, then respond” so I laughed to myself and explained to Rose that I wasn’t trying to blame her (yes I was) but that I was only trying to explain why I was being so cautious and why there would be a gap in their shipments. Of course, then I get an email from the other store manager saying that she wished we had communicated the delay in shipments ahead of time and that if that had happened they would have been able to tell us that it mattered more that they received the boxes on time, not that they were received separately as originally requested, ending with “I would have thought this would be a logical conclusion on your part, so the mistake was mine in thinking that.”

And that’s when I realized that this manager (Becky) hadn’t been informed of everything that actually had happened and most likely just got the bitching from Rose that we’d messed up and it was all our fault that they wouldn’t be getting the boxes on time. So I got to inform her that I had told Rose immediately that we were going to be holding the remainder of her orders until we got the ok from her to ship since she’d been so upset with how the first shipment had arrived.

So once I’d gotten that all explained and smoothed out, I got an email from the freaking Macmillan rep for the area who’s been “filled in” on the situation and wanted to make sure that we were going to be able to get the store what they needed and when 🙄 and she followed up this morning to make sure that we’d done what we said. So we got the order delivered today, another one that’s either been delivered since or is being delivered tomorrow, a third that’s either tomorrow or Wednesday, and the last order that’s shipping tomorrow being delivered Wednesday or Thursday depending on shipping times.

Behind the scenes, I wasn’t aware, but my boss’s boss and his (new) boss had also been filled in about the situation and my boss had explained our half of the story, so I got a message from my boss’s boss thanking me for handling the situation and that he thought it had handled the situation well and professionally and that it was “100% the fault of an extremely difficult customer”

I’m just so Done with this and I hope to God I don’t ever have to deal with this store in the future

#beth rambles about her life #Beth rambles about her job #I legit did a shot in the middle of the day Friday bc I was so fed up with everything #bc on top of dealings with this store #I’ve got like 50 other stores and schools placing orders and getting info all day long #on the other side of the coin #I have a different store that wanted to order a total of 1100 of our spiral bound notebooks over two orders #that they’d placed one two weeks ago one last week #but I’d been a little late in putting the first order in and by the time I got to it we were out of that notebook #which is another stupid story #so we were completely out of the notebook and won’t be getting more for at least a week probably more #but we do have another of the same binding and page count #just that the original copy is tear-out instead of the copy page #and she was so nice to me #saying that she’d be okay with the sub and that it’s not the end of the world that the shipments won’t go out until today #it’s like freaking night and day between her and how Rose handled things

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theredscreech · 4 years

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Grammar Tips That Are Actually Useful #2

So I honestly didn’t expect to do another one of these, but ever since my first GTTAAU post got a whole bunch of hits over the last few days, I decided to do another one about a popular piece of grammar that I notice is often misused.

Writers, gather ‘round as we explore the dreadful and terrible aspect of writing that is the...

Epithet.

Dun, dun, duuuuuuuun!

I first want to preface this by saying that I was notorious for this. I am so sorry to everyone who read my TMNT fics from 2016; I didn’t know better and I apologise profusely!! I went entire pages without naming a character in the narrative and I have no one to blame but my own ignorance, which has now been remedied - Hallelujah!

To explain: An epithet has a few definitions, so let’s take a look at them. (Definitions courtesy of dictionary.com.)

1. Any word or phrase applied to a person or thing to describe an actual or attributed quality: “Richard the Lion-Hearted” is an epithet of Richard I.

2. A characterizing word or phrase firmly associated with a person or thing and often used in place of an actual name, title, or the like, as “man's best friend” for “dog.”

3. A word, phrase, or expression used invectively as a term of abuse or contempt, to express hostility, etc.

In other words, an epithet is an adjective or noun to describe or name someone without using their proper name.

(There’s a ton more under the Keep Reading, so buckle up.)

Epithets are used in a variety of ways to describe a variety of any character’s characteristics (haha). Most common examples for this are:

hair - the blond, the blonde, the black-haired person, etc.

eye-colour - the green-eyed person, the brown-eyed person, etc.

skin-colour - the pale-skinned person, the dark-skinned person, etc. (Side note: NEVER use food to describe skin colour/tone (eg. olive-skinned). It is offensive and wrong, so just don’t. If you have any questions, I’d encourage you to follow @writingwithcolor (which I do). They have excellent commentary for writers who write characters of varying ethnicities, religions, etc. Check out their FAQ before asking anything, though, because they’ve answered a ton of different questions already.)

status - the child, the teen, my boyfriend, his husband, etc.

profession - the engineer, the doctor, the ninja, etc.

species - the dwarf, the human, the dragon, etc.

or any combination - the green-haired teen (I saw this one in a fic from Izuku’s own POV), the orange-masked turtle (this one is mine and also from Mikey’s POV, and I am sooooo sorry.), etc.

There are, of course, dozens more of examples, but these are the most common ones, especially in fanfiction, so let’s leave it at that.

So why do writers use epithets so often?

Honestly, it becomes tedious and repetitive to write out the characters’ names all the time. It looks odd, too, all those ‘Mikeys’ and ‘Izukus’ and ‘Natasha Romanovas’ and what-nots. They’re just prancy-dancing all over your page and it looks. so. off. There’s just something about seeing characters’ names that, for whatever reason, some writers don’t like. And I kid you not, I had to train myself out of this way of thinking.

I had to train myself because as soon as I learned about epithets, I saw that I was using them absolutely everywhere. I would write literal pages without using anyone’s name, and four years later, I look back at those stories I wrote and posted publicly, and I cringe. But it’s the good kind of cringing because it lets me know how far I’ve come in my writing craft, that even though I’ve been writing for years and years, there’s always something new to learn. There’s always something to improve upon.

“Good for you, Red, but why are epithets so bad?”

Well, technically they’re not bad. They’re just used poorly or overused or both (as was my case).

We’ve already talked a bit about over usage (unless you missed the parts where I confessed to writing pages without using names), so let’s talk about poor usage.

Poor usage of epithets is when epithets are used incorrectly.

Here’s an example: Mikey looked at his red-masked brother.

Gah, that physically pained me to write! Okay, so what’s wrong with this sentence? Well, unless we’re writing for Mirage Studios’ comic (1984) where all four turtles of the TMNT wore red masks, then we’ve got a pretty good idea that ‘red-masked brother’ actually means ‘Raphael’.

Okay, great, so we know ‘red-masked brother’ is Raph, so why is this an example of poor epithet usage?

Answer: Because we already know Raph has a red mask. It is set. It is eternal. It’s a part of who he is, just like his skin or his shell. If you are at all familiar with this character, you will know that Raph is the ‘red-masked turtle’.

Here’s the thing epithets do. Epithets estrange characters from each other. This is why they’re most commonly and properly used for characters whom either we as the audience/narrator or the characters themselves do not know.

This is why phrases like ‘the dark-clad figure’ or ‘the blonde cashier’ are so popular - because we do not know who the people are! Sure, we can always go up to the dark-clad figure and introduce ourselves, or we can look at the blonde cashier’s name tag, and that’s sort of the point because we do not know who these people are yet. Epithets are used, more often than not, for unknowns until they are made known.

There are exceptions to this, of course, of course, most commonly of which are status ones: my husband, his son, their niece, etc.

These are fine, but use them wisely and sparingly (tying into the over usage part again).

Here’s a better example: I walked into the kitchen and found my husband already there and making breakfast for all three children.

‘My husband’ and ‘all three children’ are epithets, but they don’t estrange the characters, per se, because they’re letting us know who’s who and their importance to the narrator/character. That being said, you should still use ‘my husband’ sparingly because if you’re ‘my husband’-ing your husband, whose name is Henry, all over kingdom come, it begins to sound...not good. Like, why would you need to remind yourself Henry is your husband all the time? Do you have amnesia? Are you just forgetful? Are you insecure? Maybe he was unfaithful at some point and he’s doing better, but you’re internalising that and reinforcing the fact that he’s yours? Maybe you just don’t like his name? Or don’t know his name?

Hard to say.

The fact of the matter is this: the closer the characters are in terms of their relationship (platonic, romantic, as friends, as siblings, whatever), the less they will use epithets for each other.

For example: I, personally, have never thought of my mother as ‘the brown-haired woman’. She has always been mom or mum or other such derivatives. It never crosses my mind.

Contrarily, when I’m working at the book store and I’ve taken a few things up to the cash desk for a customer, I’ll let the cashier know that the items are for ‘the curly-haired woman with sunglasses’. Because she is a stranger to me.

Consider Disney’s film Lady and the Tramp (1955). I haven’t seen the live action, so I can’t make a comparison, but the 1955 version fits for what I want to talk about here.

Please name Lady’s owners.

If you said, ‘Jim Dear’ and ‘Darling’, you would be absolutely correct! While we can safely assume that ‘Jim Dear’ is actually ‘Jim’ or even ‘James’, we have no idea of Darling’s real name. Some pet names and nicknames are technically epithets if we’re being especially pedantic today (please see Disney’s Tangled’s character Flynn Ryder’s nickname for Rapunzel), but let’s say for the sake of argument that all pet names fall into the category of proper names, particularly since we’re talking about Lady and the Tramp (1955).

If you listen closely, you will notice that not once - not a single time, ever - do any of the characters that know Jim Dear and Darling call them by anything else (except for Jim Dear’s men friends at the baby shower; they all call him ‘Jim’). Even Darling’s friends call her ‘Darling’. Jock and Trusty both call Lady’s owners/masters ‘Jim Dear’ and ‘Darling’. Never ‘Lady’s owners’ or whatever else.

This is a perfect example of using names instead of epithets. It helps immensely that they aren’t main characters - secondary characters, certainly, but not main - but the point remains.

“But, Red, the Tramp never calls Lady by her name!”

And you’re right! But there’s a reason for that: Lady never formally introduced herself. The story begins in December of 1909 (thank you, Wikipedia). So by the time Lady is six months old, we’re well into 1910. Conventions in this era, as far as I know, not that I am an expert, dictate that ladies/women introduce themselves so that men could then address them (or something like that? Someone please correct me if I’m wrong). Since Lady never does that, Tramp is reduced to giving her the pet name ‘Pigeon’ or ‘Pige (Pidge?)’. Also, Lady doesn’t find out Tramp’s name until the dogs at the pound tell her.

Either way, Tramp is forced to use a pet name, but it is not an epithet simply because ‘Pigeon’ isn’t describing Lady’s characteristics.

Now, Tramp on the other hand...is a characteristic, and someone can definitely win the argument of whether this is an epithet or not. Hint: it is because it’s preceded by ‘the’. He is literally introduced as ‘the Tramp’ (Bull, the bulldog, says it first in a scene with him, Peg and the Tramp, and then Toughy drops it at the pound in front of Lady). This is his epithet, his defining characteristic, because he is introduced as it: The Tramp.

But this is not his only characteristic. He’s helpful and compassionate (the entire scene when he fights off three alley dogs chasing Lady and then proceeds to help her get the muzzle off), he’s also playful (shows Lady there’s more to life than “life on a leash”), courageous (he fights a rat), and respectful of Lady’s choices (tries to persuade her to run away with him but pursues the matter no further when she tells him ‘no’, and he also backs off when she’s mad at him).

This is what epithets do. Not only do they estrange the characters, but they also reduce the characters to a base level. Those well-rounded, complex babies you so carefully crafted become one-dimensional and flat in the span of a single phrase. They become ‘black-haired men’ and ‘green-eyed teens’ and ‘red-masked brothers’ and in that moment, that is all they are and when you continue to reinforce that, that is all the readers will see them as. Besides the fact that readers might very well forget their names entirely, especially if it’s an original work where the audience is not as familiar with the characters as they would be with fanfiction.

This is why Lady never addresses Tramp directly in the film. If she’s speaking to him, she’s looking at him so he knows she’s addressing him. It’s a subtle nuance in the film because Lady refuses to reduce Tramp to his epithet (once she learns it) because he isn’t that basic. (Another reason why Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp’s Adventure bugs me because I swear she actually calls him ‘Tramp’ and it feels so wrong for her to address him like that.) But Tramp gives Lady a nickname. See the difference?

So, yes. While epithets are not strictly bad, they are best when used properly and sparingly. Like, yes, please, feel free to remind us that Mikey loves his brothers and that Katsuki calls his friends ‘Spiky-hair’ or whatever. These are descriptive and good and should be used, just be aware of when and how often you use them, not to mention why. If you’re simply using an epithet for the sake of avoiding saying someone’s name, then it’s poor usage.

And holy freaking wow, this thing is ginormous! I’m going to stop here because I don’t think I can write another word about epithets and how important they are.

Thank you for reading! I hope this helps. And a reminder: check out RavenshellRorschach on DeviantArt for comprehensive how-to’s on some of English’s toughest homophones and grammar points.

Cheers, y’all!

~ Red

#writing advice #grammar #gttaau #this might become a series #epithets

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btsficfinds · 4 years

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google searching: a step-by-step guide (with examples)

hey guys, admin rumu here~ we’ve already provided a fairly straightforward guide to google searching in our tips, but it seems some people are still having some issues. if you needed something a little more in-depth or if you were just curious about the process, this is for you! this will be very lengthy as i will be going through every step with different asks. i will not be addressing searching with google cache but if you’d like to see how that's done, dawn has already explained it in this post.

our searches are based on what you send us. if you’re looking for a fic but are confused about what terms to use in your search, write an ask like you’re going to send it to us (but don’t actually send it yet). i’ll be showing you how asks get turned into google searches using some of the asks we’ve previously received, so try this with your own!

general rules (these apply to all examples except example 1)

1. as you might have seen in the google section of the tips, there are some keywords that every search should have:

-the pairing (namjoon/seokjin/yoongi/jimin/taehyung/jungkook) (if you don’t remember the pairing, use the generic ‘bts’) -the platform (tumblr/ao3/etc.) (*if you don’t know where you read it, do not include this) *IF YOU READ THE FIC ON AO3, YOU MAY NOT FIND IT ON GOOGLE. you can (and should) still try, but google gets weird searching for ao3 fics. you might have better luck using ao3′s fic searching system first.

2. USE QUOTES IN APPROPRIATE SITUATIONS. quotes are only useful if used correctly, but they can make a HUGE difference. conversely, use them incorrectly and your search will not work.

3. make sure to actually read through your search results! don’t just assume it’s not what you’re looking for. if it looks like it could be a potential match, click on it and find out.

now let’s take a look at some examples:

*example 1: looking for a specific blog

we already have a tutorial on how to find lost blogs (you can find the link for that in the tips) but maybe you still can’t find it. thinking about asking us? try tumblr search/tags first, then google, then check our lost blogs list (link also in the tips), THEN ask us.

for these asks, you would search the blog name in quotes followed by ‘tumblr’ (e.g. “mintedmango” tumblr or “bluesxde” tumblr)

example 2: you remember...something (it’s extremely vague)

maybe you sent an ask without reading our tips (specifically the part showing how to write an ask for the best results), or maybe you did read them and unfortunately this is really all you remember. we hate to say this, but if you send us an ask like this your chances are slim to none.

the fic relevant parts are highlighted. based off of that, you would know the following: pairing: seokjin/reader fic type: one shot au: best friend

as you can see, there is little to no information here. even if we’ve read the fic they’re looking for, we probably wouldn’t have any idea what you’re talking about. in these situations, we probably would not make any suggestions because there are far too many to list. if you don’t send us more details, then there’s nothing we can do :(

example 3: you remember the title

depending on how unique the title is and how accurate your memory is, this should be fairly easy.

the fic relevant parts are highlighted. based off of that, you would know the following: title: somebody else pairing: taehyung/reader writer: aiscka

unless you misremembered the title or the title is an extremely common word/phrase, you should be able to find the fic simply by using quotation marks. if the title is a common word/phrase it would help to include other details in your search, but if the title is unique enough you probably wouldn’t need it. for this example, you could search: “somebody else” taehyung bts fanfic tumblr and you would be able to find this:

this is one of the top results but maybe you don’t feel like clicking through all the potential options to find the right one. the anon knew the author is this case, so they could also find the fic by searching: “somebody else” aiscka taehyung bts fanfic tumblr which would allow them to find a reblog from the writer’s previous name.

having more details will narrow your search down and make it faster for you to find what you’re looking for.

example 4: you remember the plot and specific/unique keywords (best case scenario)

the more details we have, the better chances we have of finding it. we are not exaggerating when we say we want you to send us EVERYTHING YOU REMEMBER. think we can find it even without all that? or perhaps you aren’t sure if it’ll help? maybe so but it doesn’t matter, we want it anyway!

the fic relevant parts are highlighted. based off of that, you would know the following: pairing: namjoon/reader au: aquarium, veterinarian/doctor, single parent, twins plot: reader meets namjoon and his sons at the aquarium while working

more specific details = more search options but this is enough for us to work with because these details have unique keywords (note: we would still prefer you give us more details than we need than not enough. PLEASE SEND US EVERYTHING YOU REMEMBER). my first search for this would be: namjoon reader tumblr fanfic "aquarium" i can immediately find:

i’ll still skim through the fic to double check, but just based off this i can already tell this is probably what we’re looking for! some other searches we could have tried are: namjoon reader tumblr fanfic "aquarium" vet namjoon reader tumblr fanfic veterinarian “twins” namjoon reader tumblr fanfic single father veterinarian all of these would find the fic we want, and i’m sure you could try other combinations as well. notice that some words have quotes around them and some don’t. how do you know which ones to use quotes for? if you are SURE that those are the exact word/words, put them in quotes. if you don’t know for sure how it was phrased, consider trying searches with and without quotes. ‘single father’ with quotes will only search for ‘single father’. ‘single father’ without quotes will give you results for ‘single dad’, ‘single parent’, ‘single fathers’, etc. in this example, you can see that the correct phrase was ‘single dad’, so not using quotes was the right idea!

example 5: you remember the plot and a name

searching for names is tricky. keep in mind that names must be exact. if you get the spelling wrong, a name will be useless as a keyword and will probably ruin your search.

the fic relevant parts are highlighted. based off of that, you would know the following: pairing: taehyung/reader au: best friend, fuckboy(?) plot: reader is best friends with taehyung, taehyung is blowing reader off for his girlfriend named vicktoria

there are a couple of issues with searching for this: -there is no universal spelling for fuckboy/fuckboi/fuqboii/etc. we all know they mean the same thing, but people can spell it however they want. unfortunately, google doesn’t know how to handle that. it’s also possible that the fic was not tagged with fuckboy, but there was fuckboy behavior present. either way, very difficult to google. -plot events can be hard to search for since it could happen over the span of multiple chapters and/or be explained different ways and google doesn’t know how to search for that either. plot points are useful for fic verifying, but not so much for fic searching. -the aus for this fic are very common. if not for one keyword, this would have been near impossible to search for and to verify.

you could probably guess what the initial search would be: taehyung “vicktoria” bts fanfic tumblr from that you would get:

based on the description, this search result is worth checking out. note that if they had remembered the name as ‘victoria’ or ‘something starting with a v’, this probably would not have worked.

example 6: you vaguely remember the premise, but nothing in detail

unfortunately there isn’t much you can do without specifics. there are TONS of fics out there and we simply cannot find what you’re looking for if there isn’t enough detail. we will try our best, but just know that you should not expect much.

the fic relevant parts are highlighted. based off of that, you would know the following: pairing: taehyung/reader/? fic type: multiple chapters au: yandere plot: reader is in some kind of danger and is saved by taehyung

not very specific, which is why we ask that people try to be as detailed as possible! this ask is pretty vague and it’s difficult to search for a fic without concrete details. ‘yandere’ is a pretty unique keyword so you might want to put it in quotes (some yandere fics aren’t tagged as yandere, but i’m going to assume it was in this case). NOTE: each exact term/phrase should get its own quotes. for example, it would be “taehyung” “yandere”, not “taehyung yandere” so from there you could have: tumblr taehyung “yandere” reader fanfic this search is still extremely broad so there will be a lot of irrelevant results. if you have the patience to check all the pages on google you can, but it would definitely take a while and you might not even find it. too many terms could confuse your search but less terms means more to look through. unfortunately everything from here would be guesswork. if it’s not in quotes, google will include results that are a match for synonyms and/or different tenses. let’s say my search is: tumblr taehyung “yandere” reader fanfic die rescued you can tell i’ve chosen those words based off of the plot detail. from the term ‘rescued’, google could give me results for ‘saved’ (synonym) or ‘rescue’ (word tense variation). click through the google pages and scan through your results. if the google summaries seem like they could be a match, check it out. if not, try a different search. from that search, i found:

it seems like a potential match since it’s a yandere taehyung fic involving another member, so i skim through the fic and check the details (reader is involved in a life or death situation and is saved by taehyung, fic is not a oneshot). this fic is only a suggestion as it’s possible this isn’t the right fic. from there we would ask for confirmation/denial, and unfortunately a lot of fics get left as pending. if your fic is pending, PLEASE let us know if it’s correct or not!

*edit: this fic was not the fic the anon was looking for, but we’ve received a potential fic suggestion from another anon. if this was your ask, please check back in!

example 7: you remember the plot and details, but you don’t remember the pairing

this might be tough since the pairing really helps narrow the search results down, but it’s not a deal breaker if you have enough unique keywords.

the fic relevant parts are highlighted. based off of that, you would know the following: pairing: jungkook/?(taehyung/hoseok/jimin) platform: ao3 au/genre: soulmate (red string), demons(?) plot: jungkook can manipulate his string, jungkook cuts his string, jin and namjoon are in a relationship, jungkook gets sick at jin and namjoon’s house, alex(?) is a demon(?), jungkook gets tricked by alex(?)

lots of information so lots of potential searches, but unfortunately a lot of unsurety. the concrete words here are going to be ‘jungkook’, ‘soulmate’, and ‘red string’, but everything else is up in the air. it’s even more complicated because it’s an ao3 fic and like i said before, google gets weird with ao3.

my first search for this would be: jungkook fanfic “soulmate” “red string” “alex” note that i did not include the other half of the pairing in my search terms. if you want to take a guess for the pairing you can (i would have guessed taehyung because taekook is the most popular pairing for jungkook on ao3), but it’s best not to take too many leaps in logic from the very start. i usually save that for the end when i’m just trying my luck with different searches. i also chose not to include the platform in this search in case it was crossposted and could be found elsewhere. the initial search does not provide any promising results. after that i might try searches like: jungkook fanfic “soulmate” “red string” “manipulate” jungkook fanfic “soulmate” “red string” “alex” jungkook fanfic “red string” manipulate sick jungkook fanfic “red string” “soulmate” demon but unfortunately the fic doesn’t turn up for these either. now we’ve got to start guessing. i won’t lie, this is pretty difficult. i typically try to think about how the fic might be written/consider the most obvious or common way for them to say something and make guesses from that. i might try something like: jungkook fanfic “soulmate” “won this round” that doesn’t work, so i try: jungkook fanfic "cut his string" "soulmate" from that i get this:

looks like it could be the fic, so i skim through it for the details in the description and it is! obviously this will not always work, but sometimes you’ll get lucky.

example 8: you remember a quote (word for word)

the success of finding a fic based on a quote is dependent on how accurately you remember it. if the quote is unique to the story and you know the exact wording, you have a very high chance of being able to find it! *if you DO NOT know an EXACT quote, this probably will not help. i would advise searching using your other details instead of a partial quote because misremembering even a few words will ruin a quote search.

the fic relevant parts are highlighted. based off of that, you would know the following: pairing: jungkook/reader au/genre: college, f2l plot: jungkook asks reader for a pencil, reader remembers him from high school, jungkook remembers reader from kindergarten, reader defended jungkook when he was bullied for his knockoff ninja turtle shirt

lots of information here, but what stands out is the quotes! it’s SO specific that it would be surprising if other fics had them. assuming you didn’t misremember the phrasing, you 100% want to use quotation marks for this. my first google search would be: jungkook “it’s morphine time” bts fanfic tumblr

as we thought, there it is! alternatively you could have used the other quote (the search would have been jungkook “it’s morphin time” bts fanfic tumblr) and found it as well.

example 9: you remember lots of plot but no unique keywords

this kind of ask probably won’t be found through google searching (or if it is, there is a LOT of guesswork involved). hopefully the community remembers it or one of the admins will read it somewhere and recognize it (i’m always on the lookout for old asks!), but unfortunately google isn’t your friend this time.

the fic relevant parts are highlighted. based off of that, you would know the following: pairing: jungkook/reader au: established relationship, cheating plot: reader is dating taehyung or jimin, jungkook is dating someone, reader goes to taehyung/jimin’s apartment to give them food and sees jungkook in the hallway, jungkook’s girlfriend is in taehyung/jimin’s apartment, jungkook and reader sit outside and eat the food that was supposed to be for taehyung/jimin and jungkook’s girlfriend, taehyung/jimin and jungkook’s gf leave the apartment and see jungkook and reader together, taehyung/jimin is pushed back by jungkook

this is a very specific plot, but unfortunately there’s nothing concrete we can search for. these google searches would be all guessing, so i’ve tried variations such as: jungkook reader tumblr fanfic cheating "hallway" eating food jungkook reader tumblr fanfic "his girlfriend" eating food cheating jungkook reader tumblr fanfic "eating" "apartment" pushed and a lot of others, but none of those worked (as expected).

we’re still looking for this one so if anyone knows this fic or has other information please let us know!

JUST A REMINDER: please try all your search options BEFORE sending us an ask! i would recommend trying google first, then our tags, then the search bar for our blog, and if all of those don’t work, THEN try us.

if you send us an ask, PLEASE GIVE US ALL THE DETAILS. it doesn’t matter if it’s super long or you think the detail might not help, the more the better. maybe we might end up not needing everything you sent, but it increases your chances of the fic being found and helps us confirm what you’re looking for. so assuming you really want to reread it, tell us everything you know! if you aren’t sure what to write, you can check the ‘be detailed’ section of the tips for the best way to write an ask.

hopefully this cleared up some things about googling :)

#info

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ogaforogaalskling · 4 years

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I LOVED YOUR SWEDES ONESHOT OMG IT'S PERFEEEECT *chef's kiss* i have a fear of getting lost and i always get nigtmes about it so this just felt so good to read it was brilliantly done. i wish i could understand the swedish phrases though 💔

Hello, älskling! I am so happy that you enjoyed it! I’m so sorry for forgetting to add translation notes! I’ll fix it later, but I’ll also put them here for you! 🤍

‘En förlorad kattunge’ - ‘A lost kitten’

‘Vad ska vi göra med dig?’ - ‘What are we going to do with you?’

‘Låt mig ta dig hem’ - Let’s take you home

‘Min förlorade kattunge, du är säker här nu. Ingen kommer att skada dig’ - My lost kitten, you are safe now. I won’t let anyone hurt you

Aaaaah, I don’t know how proper the Swedish used is, I really don’t understand it that well, but I did my best! (If I wrote anything incorrectly, please feel free to correct me!)

On another note, I am glad that I wrote something that you can relate to, and if it brings you comfort, I am glad 🤍 Take care of yourself, älskling! 🤍

#text #asks #answered #ily

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xiubaek-13 · 5 years

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Request: Can you make an EXO reaction when you try to speak Korean but you mistake a word and the sentence turns out being smutty? Please? Thank you!

D.O. – He would help you improve your Korean by teaching you words for different foods and things in the kitchen. He’d be cooking you dinner and then he’d point at an object or ingredient and you tried to name it. He would feel so proud of you when you got the right words for object and ingredients he pointed at, the knife “Kal.”, and the chicken “Tak-gogi.” He would be torn between correcting you and laughing when you misspoke because he found it cute and endearing. There was one exception and that was when you misspoke and said something rude. Then he had to either laugh or respond with something ever dirtier, like the time you tried to compliment his cooking and said “Neo gochu joha-hae” and he choked on his drink, his eyes almost bugging out of his head. After he finally stopped laughing he finally explained to you that whilst gochu does mean pepper it’s also slang for penis so you had pretty much told him that you like his penis.

Kris – He would try to teach you Chinese as well as Korean and when he went into teacher mode he refused to utter a word of English until you worked out the words. He’d take you to China with him when he visited and show you the places he loved and teach you small phrases then laugh as you struggled with the pronunciations. He knew you were still trying to grasp Korean so throwing Mandarin in the mix was just cruel. When you flew back to Korea he’d be the one to pass out in your bed and forget which country he was in. You would try everything to wake him, poke him, shake him, call his name, kiss his forehead and even take the blankets off him but he would refuse to get out of bed until you told him to wake up in the correct language. He wouldn’t respond to Korean or English because he’d still think he was in China until the jetlag wore off. When you whined “Yah! Kris! Jiào chuáng shēng! (to moan during sex)” he’d be awake fast and would roll over and pull you into bed with him. “I think what you mean to say was jiào xǐng (to wake someone up) but I think I need to show you the difference so you learn only to say jiào chuáng shēng around me.”

Suho - He would constantly correct your Korean and try to come up with fun ways for you to remember how to pronounce things correctly. When you would misspeak he’d let you know what you said wrong and how to fix it in the future. Sometimes you’d have to remind him to take a step back from being a teacher and just be there for you. So sometimes he’d bite his tongue and let you say the wrong thing, but that would be very rare. He’d try to be funny instead of correcting you but when the words you misspoke had a double meaning or could be interpreted in a more adult way he’d flirt with you. It worked like a charm the time he’d taken you out for a walk in a park and you’d commented on the scenery. You’d said “Meosjin dali” meaning nice bridge but the same words also meant nice legs so Suho had turned on the charm and responded with “Yes they are” whilst running his hand down your leg.

Sehun – He would mess with you and play along with your misspeaking. He loved that you tried to learn and speak more Korean around him but he’d find endless fun teasing you for messing up words or saying something rude unintentionally. He’d sometimes be serious and correct you if you were in public and he’d apologise for you if you were speaking with someone when you messed up but as soon as you were in the privacy of your home he’d laugh and tease you endlessly. He still wasn’t over the time you were in a department store and you asked a storeperson to take you to the mops but you’d said “Geolle delyeoda jwo” which was technically correct but it could also mean ‘take me to the sluts.’ The look the poor store assistant had given you before he shook his head and led you to the cleaning aisle was priceless so Sehun constantly brought it up. “Jagi, why are you looking for sluts? Are you trying to spoil me? It’s not even my birthday yet.”

Kai – He was the type to forget to correct you because he was too busy laughing at what you’d said. He’d be frozen in place, clutching his sides as he laughed at whatever incorrect words came out of your mouth. If you laughed he’d keep laughing but if you pouted he’d try to calm himself down to explain what you’d said wrong but it would take him a few attempts because he’d keep laughing whenever he tried to explain your mistake to you. There was the time you had tried to tell him about how you’d seen a transformation in him but instead of saying byunsin you’d said byungsin (a very strong swear word for idiot). He’d looked at you, crestfallen while you tried to work out what you’d said wrong. When you finally got him to understand that you had meant a change not whatever you’d actually said he perked up then broke out in a fit of laughter.

Tao – Since Korean wasn’t his first language he’d only be able to correct you occasionally. When he’d lived in Korea he had studied hard and had learned from his own mistakes (That one time when he called Xiumin oppa was embarrassment enough that he was much more careful with his words and pronunciations. When you told him you were trying to learn Korean he’d started to speak more Korean around you even though he was a bit rusty. Most of the time he would encourage you to learn but when you got it wrong he was definitely the guy who would laugh, loudly. When he’d gotten out of the shower one night you tried to use your Korean skills to compliment his body. You had placed your hand on his chest and said “Jjookjookpangpang” when he giggled and shook his head. “No, that isn’t for guys.” He’d pull you close and run his hands down your sides as he spoke. “It’s to compliment a female's curves. So Y/N, the term applies to you. Now allow me to show you just how much I appreciate your curves.”

Chanyeol – The reaction king could not hide it when you said the wrong thing. He would try his hardest to keep a straight face but more often than not he’d drop to the floor in a fit of laughter. If you said the wrong thing in public he’d try to cover for you instead and then he’d take charge of the conversation until it was back on track. He was never prepared for when you misspoke and it was dirty. He’d get flustered and try to form a response but he’d be the one to blush and then he’d avoid telling you what you’d said. You affected him so even though you didn’t mean to say it, his mind went to the gutter when you misspoke like that. Slowly he would flirt back until you worked out that you’d said something dirty instead of what you meant to say. The day you asked him to help you nail something was when he lost it. You had said “Baghida” which was wrong since it meant ‘to be nailed’ but it was a term he associated more with sex than with DIY home repairs as it also meant ‘to be fucked’. He pressed you against the wall and explained exactly how he would nail you.

Chen – In public, especially in formal situations he’d look out for you and would cover for you whenever you misspoke or pronounced something incorrectly but in less formal situations or when it was just the two of you he would be an endless tease. Forever cheeky and insinuating something from anything you said incorrectly, no matter how minor. You weren’t safe if the word had more than one meaning as well, even if it was slang that you had no way of knowing. He teased because he cared, and also because he found your reactions hilarious. One night when you’d gotten home from a seafood restaurant you put on a sing song voice and sang “Jongdae jogae joh-ahae!” He knew you were trying to be cute and sing Jongdae likes clams but he was not going to let the double meaning pass. Not when it was this perfect. He pushed you back on the bed and lowered himself between your legs. “Jagi, you are right. I really do like vagina. Let me show you just how much I love it.”

Lay – With his sense of humour he’d have some fun with you messing up the language since he does it a lot as well. He’d smile and chuckle at you and sometimes even play dumb about your mistakes. He’d tricked you once into saying Juraji in front of the guys which sent them back into fits of laughter as they remembered how that broke them when they were filming. There would be times when he would misinterpret what you were saying like the time the two of you went camping and you asked “Nan maltagi haeboja?” You’d literally asked if he wanted to try horse riding but because he lived with a group of testosterone filled guys he only knew the slang for that term so he thought you’d asked if he’d like to try with you being on top. He rolled you over so that you were straddling him before he responded with “Nan maltagi joahae.” You’d work out what you’d said wrong later.

Luhan – Even though Korean is not his first language he had a better grasp on it that the other Chinese members. He’d send you off to his tutor and help you out when he could. He’d watch as the others laughed when you got something wrong and he’d laugh if it was a really funny misspeak but mos of the time he’d just let you know that you’d gotten it wrong and patiently wait while you tried to figure it out before he helped you. When you accidentally swore he’d scold you and tell you his lady shouldn’t swear in public. There was the time he’d taken you to a restaurant and he asked you which dish you wanted. You replied with “Ssibal” while pointing at number 18 and the look on his face was priceless. He apologised to the server and correctly ordered “Sipal.” He groaned and then scolded you for swearing at the server, reminding you just how important pronunciation was. When you’d gotten home he’d wandered off to his studio to work and after a couple of hours you entered and asked “Neoji spotsi eohdiya? (What are you doing?)” He knew what you meant but he felt like teaching you a lesson since you’d misspoken a lot today. He smirked and pulled you down to his lap “Jagi, why don’t I remind you where yours is instead then maybe you’ll work out what you just asked me?”

Baekhyun – The wordiest member of the group would find your misspeaking adorable and hilarious. He’d make up words to teach you just to mess with the members. He would earnestly try to correct you and teach you once he’d stopped laughing but he’d start to mess with you once he got bored. Euphemism king that he is he’d exaggerate whenever you said anything with a double meaning or a slang meaning. He would watch as you got frustrated over your fumbling of the language and he’d try to cheer you up with simple word play. Every now and again you’d render him speechless when you said something that had much dirtier connotations. There was a day when you’d struggled so much with speaking that you blurted out at him “Aish, ibeulo haejwo! (I need your mouth)” Baekhyun tried so hard to keep his face neutral as he worked out where you went wrong since you’d basically just yelled ‘go down on me’ at him. Eventually he figured out that you meant you needed his linguistic abilities but his mind was definitely elsewhere as he licked his lips and dragged you to his room.

Xiumin – He would act serious in public, the perfect gentleman. He would apologise profusely to whoever you were talking to when you misspoke and explain that you were still learning. For the most part the two of you had a system when you were in public so that you refrained from giving him a small heart attack by unintentionally saying something rude. It was a completely different story when it was just the two of you though. Away from the public he would smirk and act out whatever phrase you said to show you when your words would be appropriate to use. You had picked up on this game pretty quickly but he always held the upper hand. He made sure you knew what tone to use when saying “Bballi bballi hae” or “ssege hae” He’d enjoyed showing you the results of accidentally implying you wanted him to do it faster and harder. That resulted in you not being able to walk properly the next day. His favourite one of your slip ups so far had to be “Nan eolgurae ssaneungirl joahae*.” He’d pushed you down on your knees and told you “Sweet girl, that is not the correct way to ask for a face to face talk. I’m going to show you what you told me you liked instead.” Then he unzipped his pants.

*it’s a slang term for I like cumming on the face.

#exowritersnet #exo fic #exo scenario #exo imagine #exo smut #exo reaction

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cyn-00 · 4 years

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disclaimer: this is long and tedious but if you are someone who generally """follows""" my fics and/or my long digressions on random stuff here on Tumblr I think you should take a second to read this thank you ❤️

here we go: I received a private message from a person. I blocked them because their interaction with me started as a seemingly good-hearted, constructive and useful comment on my writing but quickly escalated into some sort of mocking/bullying/I don't even know how to define it I just know it bothered me (and take in consideration that I'm generally someone who wipes her ass with other people's negative/unrequested judgments so,,,)

anyway point is: this person - whose blog was also...odd?? I won't get into that because it's not important - started off by pointing out that I basically always spell wrong a certain word in my fics (which is: apologize instead of apologise. The person didn't bother explaining so I had to do some research and yeah, apologise is more correct and a lot of people mistakenly change the S with a Z, and that goes for a lot of other words. Ok, point taken), they were nice about it and honestly no one had ever told me so I was extremely thankful to them because I wrote 20 works spelling the word wrong in each one of them so! Thank you!

but. It soon became a subtle "game" of...rude? comments about the fact that I shouldn't be posting works that contain mistakes such as that one and blablabla, I won't quote them because it wouldn't serve any better the scope of proving my point. I stopped replying at some point, and blocked them because again, the way they were commenting was inconclusive and mocking and was making me feel out of place in this "writers' world"

MORAL : this post isn't supposed to spread awareness on bad people on Tumblr or whatever. This is strictly related to ME as a "writer": I feel like I've clarified this so many times that you guys probably want to punch me in the face, but, apparently so, some people that read my stuff still haven't quite understood that English is not my first language. I used to study it in school as almost every european student does, then I simply decided to get better at it with the usual stuff like social media, videos on YouTube, tv shows etc.

this is NOT to justify myself from spelling words wrong or using the wrong terms or confusing words like peek and peak and stuff like that, this is NOT me using the fact that I'm a non-native speaker as an excuse to dwell on eternal ignorance and never get better at this language (I got exponentially better even just in the last month), this is me saying:

you shouldn't be rude if someone spells wrong in general, but especially since this is my second language, please, tell me POLITELY if I spell wrong/use wrong terms that don't make sense/phrase something incorrectly/arrange the sentence in an odd way etc - and please do tell me, because otherwise I'll forever get it wrong, convinced that I'm actually doing it right, because no matter how many hours I've spent (if I had to add it all together we really are talking hours) researching words and synonyms and phrasal verbs and sayings and terms specific to a certain field: the information you'll find on the internet can only do so much, a REAL native speaker explaining things makes it x1000 more matter-of-fact and easy and reliable

so please, correct me

politely

not "lmao bitch if u don't know how to write u shouldn't be writing"

thank you ❤️

#writer #writing issues #fanfic writer #rant #fanfiction writer #personal but not really tbh #be polite #constructive criticism #bear with me #bilingual issues #i've been learning english for like 8 years but writing or speaking are very different from watching Vine compilations on youtube #i've never actually had the occasion to practice conversation #but aside from school assignments i've been writing 'seriously' for 6 months at most #as usual i hope i didn't come off as arrogant or whatever but this really bothered me #plus if we really wanna spill the tea #the person who criticized me wrote the messages in a barely comprehensible way #they used a million abbreviations and zero commas or anything of the sort

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maaaaarveeeeel · 4 years

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So for Halloween this year I'm going as pre-serum Steve and I was kinda debating not doing it because I have really big boobs and am kinda chunky, and he's supposed to be skinny. Then it hit me, Steve was bullied and one of the reasons was he had different ideas. What if he was trans? Born in a girl's body, but was a boy? And that's a reason he was bullied?

So with this I'm thinking

Bucky and his mom 100% support him

He tapes his chest

Cuts his hair

After awhile everyone forgets he was born a girl and actually think he's a boy

Girls still don't like him because they know something is off with him, but don't know what it is exactly

He's still really sick a lot

He applies so many different places because he's hoping one won't notice he was born a girl and immediately kick him out, plus health issues

When he gets the serum it turns his body into a male one (because serum and science)

Buuuuut, because he had a big chest it sorta left that behind, hence his HUGE pecs

Basically everything is the same except Steve is trans and once he gets the serum it turns his body male as well

(I'm really sorry if I used any terms or words or phrases incorrectly, please let me know and correct me.)

#steve rogers #steve rogers headcanon #captain america #captain america headcanon #pre serum!steve #pre serum steve

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ladyhistorypod · 4 years

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Episode 16: Ms. Conceptions

Sources:

Bra Burning

Time

Carol Hanish (dot) org

Further learning: Florynce Kennedy (Harvard), NPR, BBC

Harriet Tubman

Time

National Women’s History Museum

National Parks Service

History Channel

Smithsonian Magazine

Monica Lewinsky

The Clinton Affair

CNN

News 24

Further learning: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (YouTube), Vanity Fair

Attributions: Commercial for Playtex Cross Your Heart Bra, Railway to Freedom, Pure T Saxophone Sample by Stan Rams

Click below for a transcript of this episode!

Alana: Yeah my sister is here. Erika: It’s me I’m here. Haley: I can't believe you’re both sitting in the goddamn closet. Sure the acoustics are better but you could’ve cleaned it up. Alana: The whole point is that the clothes do the soundproofing. Lexi: This is high end professional podcasting. Haley: What do you study, because this is like how I’m gonna judge you now. Erika: I'm a television radio film major. Alana: But I'm the one with the podcast. Haley We like this. She can stay. I was ready for you to say like– Erika: I really like TV. I really like movies, so I decided to make a career out of it. Lexi: That would have been me if I'd had balls. Except then I went to another pointless moneyless career so what's the deal? Alana: What are we doing? Lexi: Well, I don't have a sister. No just kidding, I have three thousand five hundred and two sisters. Actually I think that number's been updated since I memorized it because it's been a whole semester and there are new sisters. Alana you tell them what you think about my sisters. Alana: Every single time Lexi talks about a sister, I always think… she'll be like oh my sister Kate… Lexi you don’t have a sister. Haley: I completely agree but she doesn't say, or she went through this phase where she didn't say the people's names. She’d be like one of my sisters blah blah blah. And that will lead into like my next– like the other banter because I have a motherfucking story for you. Lexi: Okay, I love it. What about your sister Haley? Haley: Lou Lou? She's about to graduate from NYU and she's like writing a thesis right now and internally I'm just so happy that she has to like write this because I need her to feel this type of pain. Erika: That's sisterhood. Haley: I needed her to like feel this type of… Because for some reason I feel like her undergraduate time has just flown the freak by and she studied abroad three different times and I always feel like study abroad is always like some bullshit thing from like all the times for GW kids that come back and they're like well it's not graded you just have to pass the class. Lexi: All my friends who studied abroad in Korea and my sisters who studied abroad in Korea just like drunk and… Drank? Drank. Just drunk drank the whole time. Haley: Because she was out of like NYU London or NYU Madrid or NYU Abu Dhabi. Lexi: So it's like real classes from your school. Haley: I think so, yeah. Erika: Yeah that’s how it is for Syracuse. Alana: Yeah. Erika: Two of my roommates in– when I was in London last semester were from GW and we all– it was me and two other girls from Syracuse and two girls from GW and all the Syracuse girls were like are you kidding me. Like, are you for real? Because I was taking classes for my major and for my minors and they were just like well we're gonna mess around we're gonna like not try on this paper because we need a C. Lexi: Yeah. GW’s like go for the experience. Alana: Let’s talk about brothers for a sec. Lexi is the only one who has a brother. Lexi: Yes. I am the only one who's experienced the brother and let me tell you… Erika: I always wanted one. Alana: Okay well fuck off. Erika: I wanted an older one– Alana, louder: Okay fuck off! Erika: An older than you one. Like an old, old one. Haley: My sister’s like I wish I had an older brother and I'm like okay I didn't want you either. Erika: I didn’t mean it like that! Haley: I wanted to be a child so fucking badly. Erika: She wanted to be an only child. Alana: I was supposed to be an only child. Lexi: I literally cried. I locked myself in the bathroom and cried. [INTRO MUSIC] Alana: Hello and welcome to Lady History; the good, the bad, and the ugly ladies you missed in history class. Back on Zoom is Lexi. Lexi, what’s something you wish people knew about your field? Lexi: I guess I'll say about archaeology. I wish people knew that archaeologists do not dig up dinosaurs. Alana: And my other zoom companion is Haley. Haley, what's something most people incorrectly assume about you? Haley: Did you really fucking set me up for that one? Everyone thinks I'm gay. Alana: And if I'm a little echo-y today it's because we have a very special guest. My sister Dave is here. Dave, what's your actual name and why do I call you Dave? Erika: My name is Erika. It’s not Dave. The Dave joke started because way back really really long ago there was a Staples commercial for like a one man running his own business. Alana: The tagline was in a small business it's all you. Erika: right so with all Dave and it was just a bunch of Dave's around the office. Like one guy was like making copies, one was walking around with papers or whatever. Then it’s just like hey Dave, how you doing Dave, how's it going Dave and we thought that was so funny. Alana: Uproariously funny. Erika: I remember like crying on the couch laughing for like twenty minutes. Alana: And I'm Alana and it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out that wax is the part of the candle that burns. Haley: So I thought of this in the shower where all my great thoughts come but since we're doing misconceptions– I did not have a misconception of Alana, but my first impression of Lexi was the furthest thing from Lexi possible. Lexi: What? I've never heard this before. Haley: I never accurately told the story– or like actually told this story to anyone. I like kept it in, but secretly chuckle from time to time. So like our group of friends didn't have Lexi immediately. Like I knew Cece and Kelsie from class, and I knew Cece from freshman year even. This is like second semester sophomore year so I kind of knew Alana. But for Lexi, I just knew Lexi from this one guy who we won't mention– we just won’t mention they're not important– and our lovely Holly. And Holly described Lexi as a girl from like rural Pennsylvania who was like really smart. Like I was ready for a fun loving friend because Holly's great and like I trusted Holly on personality like recommendations and just life choices to an extent. And I was like cool great let's meet this gal, we're all going to be like taking this one class together. Let's rock and roll. And then Lexi comes in, she's wearing like this bird– you were definitely wearing a skirt, like a long flowy skirt and had some sort of animal bird or whatever on your shirt or like on you. Speaker 0: And literally within five minutes you were talking about your sisters. I'm in my head thinking oh crap do we have like another nineteen kids and counting? Like who the fuck is this girl? Alana: Oh my god. Haley: Because like I called out Lexi, fifty fifty she may not say like sorority sister. But she may not even say like her sister's name. Like enter sorority sister name but using my sister and then… But at this point, she also used the phrase also commonly use and does commonly use is one of my sisters. So she said “one of my sisters,” “and other sisters,” “so a group of my sisters are hanging out.” So I was like this did this whole family just fucking come to GW? Speaker 0: Like either we have like Weasley but in reverse of like six girls and one bro, or like nineteen kids and counting coming on in. And I… Straight three weeks at least I was trying to figure Lexi out because I knew I was going to instantly love her but I was like scared to get like deep dive in like all her siblings. Lexi: So you thought I was like from a rural Pennsylvanian Amish family with thirty kids? Haley: Literally.

[Archival Audio of a 1960s bra commercial] Lexi: In my opinion, this is the biggest misconception in modern women's history because even I believed it until very much into my adulthood of so far my adulthood. And I was definitely told this in a history class in high school as being true, the lie. So we'll get right into it. The Women's Liberation Movement of the sixties and seventies granted women many rights, reforming policies surrounding work, education, and medicine. So overall, pretty good move. Today, the efforts of mid century feminists are often lumped into other stories and are not granted their own lesson plans in schools or their own sections of museums. Instead, stories like the suffrage movement are rehashed time and again and the more modern efforts of women fighting for equality are brushed aside. I mean even we are guilty of this, covering many more suffragists than twentieth century feminists so in keeping with our mission– Alana: Hold on. Lexi: Yeah? Alana: This is episode sixteen. Lexi: Yeah. Alana: There haven’t been many episodes! We haven’t had a chance to talk about twentieth century feminists! Lexi: Valid. So the story I'm about to tell you it's just a small piece of the larger movement, but considering someone could start an entire podcast series covering just the events of this movement and probably go on for like five seasons, who knows, I think it does make the most sense to give a small snippet of the efforts of these women here on our show, and maybe in the future we can cover other snippets as they relate to other things we're doing, so stay tuned. In 1968, a group of women gathered to protest the Miss America pageant. You know, we all know Miss America, women come from each state and I think also territories now, they get together they compete and one becomes Miss America. Carol Hanisch, whose name I might be saying wrong so please correct me if you know, the feminist scholar and activist who coined the phrase “the personal is political” conceived the protest as a way of bringing the Women's Liberation Movement to the mainstream. The pageant itself had a tradition of using white single childless women's beauty to make money, which is not exactly a very cash money thing to do or a very feminist thing to do. Actually it is a super cash money thing to do because it makes a lot of money. Alana, singing: Capitalism Lexi: Yes. So Carol and her fellow activists of the New York Radical Women organization decided the pageant was the perfect institution for them to protest. Women of all political backgrounds were invited to join in the protest which took place on the Atlantic City boardwalk outside the pageant venue, and the pageant venue was one of the Atlantic City casinos, so they were just on the boardwalk outside of it. And they had a permit, and they were doing it with permission, just in case anyone tries to come at them about that. They did have a permit for a protest on the boardwalk. These women rejected the idea of the massive air quotes ideal woman perpetuated by the Miss America pageant. Reporters arrived at the scene. The women spoke only to other women who were reporters and refused to speak to reporters who were men. The women issued a document to everyone in attendance outlining the ten reasons they decided to protest Miss America. One such reason was the fact that women of color had never won and a Black contestant had never even been allowed to participate, so the feminists believed the pageant was racist and they were calling out it as a racist institution. And we love to see intersectional feminism, so this is why that's the specific reason I wanted to point out. The women were also protesting the consumerism promoted by the event which was fueled by corporate sponsorships. They protested it as a symbol of military industrial complex, asserting that Miss America's role in entertaining troops made her a death mascot, you know those are just a few. Protesters also engaged in performance art. One protester Florynce “Flo” Kennedy, a Black woman who worked as a reproductive rights lawyer, chained herself to a doll depicting Miss America, invoking metaphors of enslavement. In an interview she said “the Atlantic City action is comparable to peeing on an expensive rug at a polite cocktail party. The Man never expects that kind of protest, and very often that's the one that really gets him uptight.” And she means the Man like capital M The Man, just in case that wasn't clear. Side note, five years later Flo hosted what she called a “pee in” at Harvard University to protest the lack of women's restrooms on the campus because women had to walk out of one of their academic buildings into another when they needed to pee, so I think Flo had a thing for peeing on rich people’s shit. And that's a mood because she just went into the quad and she just had people poor jars of yellow liquid which may or may not have been pee down the steps and that was the demonstration, so… Alana: I like that her name is Flo. Lexi: It's a very fun name. I love it. I like that her name is Flo and she's doing all of this like… (Laughing) Lexi: The women’s work. Simultaneously, women across the country in support the movement boycotted companies who were sponsoring the pageant. So this wasn't just contained to the New York Radical Women, it involves lots of people. Yet, the iconic image of the protest is the “Freedom Trash Can” and you might see pictures of this around on the interwebs it's like a barrel, a can, and it says “Freedom Trash Can” painted on the side. Protesters filled it with objects of oppression such as girdles, bras, wigs, fake eyelashes, hair curlers and homemaking magazines- so like “Country Woman” and “Women’s Day” and that kind of stuff. Then, they lit it on fire. Just kidding. Nothing was set on fire. No burning, no fire, not even the tiny candle, not even a tiny spark, no one pulled out a lighter. They just filled up a trash can and presumably took all the stuff out of the trash can after they were done. It was performance art. That's literally it. But this powerful, falsified visual leads to a myth that perpetuates to this day, of feminists gathering around, burning their bras as if they're participating in some sort of religious ceremony. It was a perfect visual to sell to the American people; don't support these radical angry women, who run around braless, unshaven, burning their undergarments, and worshipping like witches. Frustrated men argued that by burning their beauty products the protesters were making themselves less appealing to men, which is a hot take no one gives a shit about. So, the truth is a group of a few hundred women in Atlantic City in 1968 threw their bras and other items in the trash. They tossed away objects representative of consumerism and oppression, the two things they were protesting. The myth of bra burning lives as an anti-feminist propaganda piece, boiling a strong political and intellectual movement down to a visual of air quotes “Nasty Women,” a stereotype that continues to this day and myth even young women believe until learning the truth because it's literally taught in schools and exists in some textbooks that you can still buy. According to many historians, this protest event ushered in mainstream second wave feminism. The next day just down the boardwalk the first Miss Black America competition was held, which Oprah would go on to compete in in 1971 as Miss Tennessee. Just a few months later, Carol expressed that she regretted protesting Miss America saying “one of the biggest mistakes of the whole pageant was our anti-womanism...Miss America and all beautiful women came off as our enemy instead of our sisters who suffer with us.” The fight continues today. Yes all women. Alana: We love that, acknowledging mistakes. We love intersectional feminism. We love including all kinds of women in the feminism. Lexi: And since all the pictures are copyright, I can't put them on our Instagram but they are in the articles, so please go enjoy. They’re fantastic pictures of the performance art. Haley: When you started talking, I was having such flashbacks to like middle school/high school. The women around me, and I won't name names in case they ever listen to this, but just like their attitude towards how I and other budding females should act and like dress. Alana: I totally was that feminist bitch in high school. Everyone was like going to parties and I was like no one wants to fuck you when you're that feminist bitch. [Archival Audio: Railway to Freedom] Haley: This next story on Lady History, we're gonna be talking about Harriet Tubman and for a brief content warning topics like slavery, racism, and violence will be discussed. Alright friends bear with me because I've been very sick, not the coronas, no fever or whatever, just exhaustion, isolation dust hitting my asthma, and I've just been in the pits. So, anywho, when creating like the master spreadsheet of ladies that we had Harriet Tubman was on this list, but I think I switched her around… Alana: Who recommended Harriet Tubman? Haley: Excellent question, it was your sister Erika. I actually moved Harriet Tubman, so I had her originally, I think it was one of the earlier episodes, it was definitely before this episode. Yes I had her for heroines but I was gonna move her down the list because I wanted to do Selena. And then Erika was like let's do Harriet Tubman so I was like sweet, had some notes on her already, got sick, decided to do a radical change because I love testing out different methods of storytelling. I love narrations and for Harriet I think this would be a good opportunity to like pick a new style because she is very well known but mainly because of slavery, her being an enslaved human being, and then quote the conductor of the Underground Railroad where– where she was given the nickname “Moses of her people” because of all the people she helped. I would say ninety percent of the time, there's some article or book that I read and that's kind of like my aha moment of what I want to shape a full on story around, besides doing like our usual intros. So I found that article and it's kind of like… It’s got me going I kind of liked doing it that research way even though I'm sweaty and tired but my eyeballs still were like we're sweaty and tired but we like this article. So cracking open this history book to 1820 Maryland where Harriet Tubman was born, and we don't know her exact age so she may have also been born in 1822 if your ears are perking up and being like this lady got her dates wrong. So I didn't know this and this was kind of like one of my misconceptions for Harriet Tubman, but her name is not actually Harriet Tubman, or like the name her parents gave her, like birth name was Araminta Ross and I just love the name Araminta, like I think that's just a lovely name, you could have some stellar nicknames. And besides the point, we're gonna go back to just some deep dark history and by the age of five she was quote “rented” by her quote “owners” as a quote “domestic servant.” I'm gonna be using a lot of quotes because I really hate some of the terms used across some sources and just that's also a misconception for history is that you have to use X. Y. Z. term, like yes they should be taught in the sense of vocabulary, but like we don't… I don't want to be teaching five year olds or like elementary school kids that like… “rented by her owners.” Talk about the dichotomy but I don't I don't know it makes me– Lexi: Kidnapped by the people who enslaved her. Haley: Yeah, yes. I like that way more. And by age twelve we see her resistance to slavery blossom because she intervened a fight/quarrel/scuffle between very bad slave owner and a man who was trying to like escape slavery, and she kind of like came on in. So that was one of the many moments where she was like “I'm standing up for myself, I'm standing up for others, slavery is very very bad.” So now you get to the article because of course, of course, and it ties into also the movie Harriet that came out, starring Cynthia Erivo as Harriet. This was actually the first movie dedicated solely to this American icon. So like that was also a surprise to me. This Time Magazine opinion piece by Erica Armstrong Dunbar was ran exactly a year ago, when also the movie Harriet came out, and of course it's in the show notes, and it's called The True Story of Harriet Tubman Shows That Sometimes Running is Brave as Fighting. There are a lot of little misconceptions like the Underground Railroad wasn't actually a railroad, that's a big one I see many times. Also with the movie Harriet, I watched half of it, it's on HBO. So like every biopic… it's not a documentary, people are acting. Like I'm obviously people who are way more in depth into the American Civil War, Harriet Tubman history than I am will be like this misconception, this inconsistency. I'm gonna be– I'm gonna agree with you. So I'll just come out right there and say it like when you have actors portraying a character and just movies like this, they have to add some sprinkle of fiction. However, what this article really talks about is that how we have this whole misconception that fight or flight. So if you fight your battles, you’re coming up to a quarrel or scuffle and you fight them, you're seen as brave. You are seen as like this alpha human, alpha wolf. If you flee, if you fly, with your little wings, you are seen as like a coward, and that's just not true of Harriet Tubman because she literally ran away, but that was like the brave thing she could do. Also with this misconception, what the article also kind of nodded to was like if you're running into battle… like that’s still brave. Like that’s seen as heroic. But running towards like another route… because like it wasn't like if you left the South, you passed like northern Maryland, going into like up past the Mason Dixon line you were like Scot free. It wasn’t like this magical like utopia. You're running away from one battle into another battle. It was not black and white for this, so like her running away was not running away from the situation and that was like one misconception I never really thought about but after reading this article, reading more about Harriet it's like oh, that's a hundred percent true. And then the last misconception was how I perceived her as like an elusive person. Like I truly thought that the reason why we have pictures of Harriet Tubman was that she got caught, not in a great way. Like she got caught and like she had to like weasel her way out like but she was still free and like when she was free it was– she was just free because she happened to be in like the northern part and not like the part where she could go back to being a slave. I'm explaining this horribly wrong but this is me trying to remember back to like early middle school/late elementary school history. So like I– and this was also a misconception for just history, and I thought it was more like if you were a bad important, we would have a picture to remember your face. So that was kind of like I knew Harriet Tubman was like the hero and the good guy in this whole scenario, like I thought the reason why she was photographed and talked about was because she got caught and didn't want to be in the public eye. That is not necessarily true; she was an elusive person who tried to keep to herself, however she did do speaking engagements. Like she would talk about like her life in the North and then go back into the shadows and just like taking time away from society. And I don't know if she I can't like find out like what she did talk about the talks, like specifically, but I know that in the speaking engagements she obviously condemned slavery, and she would also condemned like the lawmakers, and like for the lawmakers who condemned slavery but didn't do anything about it she was still like you're not as good at like– you're not good or better… or you’re not better, you're still doing a shitty job. And in the end, she made twelve to thirteen trips to Maryland rescuing nearly seventy people and by doing that each of those trips she was breaking federal law each and every time. [Saxophone music because Lexi thought it would be funny] Alana: This is the first time we're covering someone who is still like active in the world, and I'm very nervous, but I’m gonna do my best. So this story it has a content warning for sexual assault and a brief mention of suicide that I'll note when it comes up so just in case sexual assault isn't triggering for you but maybe suicide is I will let you know when to hit that skippy boi. So I am talking about Monica Lewinsky, who was born July 23, 1973 that makes her a Leo. A lot of my notes come from the 2018 so kind of recent docuseries called The Clinton Affair, which I watched all of it, I binged it, it was exhausting. It features Monica herself actually and so in further reading I have included a Vanity Fair article that she wrote about why she decided to participate. One of the reasons was that she really liked that so many women were involved, whereas until that point a lot of the biographies of Bill Clinton and like the books about that whole time were written by men and she was like oh this is really cool that a lot of women are so heavily involved so she agreed to participate in the docuseries and I thought that was really cool of her. So after she graduated college, we're going back in time to 1995, she graduated college, and she had initially wanted to get a PhD in forensic psychology but she didn't score high enough on one section of the GRE. She was very interested in where psychology and the law kind of meet, but she wasn't really into politics. But also she like didn't know what to do since she wasn't going into a PhD program. She had a family friend who had done the White House summer internship, he put in a good word for her, and so she got the summer internship for the summer of 1995. At one point she had a conversation with one of the other interns who was like “oh, isn’t President Clinton so handsome” and she was like “no.” But then they were in the same room together and he was hypnotically charismatic and she developed like a celebrity crush kind of on him. There were a couple of flirtatious interactions during the internship but nothing like serious. She had been hired full time after the internship was over and so that's when the affair began, in November of 1995. Except here's the thing, 1996 was an election year, and Clinton was running for reelection. This would have been, and ended up being, very scandalous and could have cost him his reelection. So she was transferred to the Pentagon with the promise that she'd be back at the White House when the election was over. Except then the election was over and Monica was still at the Pentagon. She made a joke about how she was so underqualified to be at the Pentagon but there she was. She confided in her colleague named Linda Tripp, and what is the first thing that this bitch Linda Tripp does? She calls a literary agent and starts taping their conversations. I would like to note that Linda Tripp did not participate in the docuseries; she also died in April, but as previously mentioned this docuseries came out two years ago. So that timeline doesn’t work. I don't know if they asked her but I feel like… The literary agent participated. Let me take a second and put all of this in context. There was an ongoing sexual harassment lawsuit against President Clinton by a woman named Paula Jones who said that he assaulted her when he was governor of Arkansas and there were a lot of other accusers involved. So calling it The Lewinsky Scandal– as it kind of has been– is bad, but you also can't really call it The Clinton Scandal because there are just too many of them. There was this thing called like Whitewater about banking that I didn't really understand… it's fine. I'll touch back on that at the end. And so someone leaked to Ken Starr, who was the investigator, that President Clinton was having a– currently having an affair with a young intern. On January 16, 1998 the FBI like held her in custody at the Ritz Carlton in Pentagon City. They didn't really arrest her, but they also– it was pretty clear that she wasn't allowed to go anywhere. They teased her for wanting her to call her mom, and then manipulated her into not calling her lawyer, and lied about an immunity deal. And this is the suicide mention, so maybe skip forward fifteen seconds. She was so distraught and scared that she thought the only way to protect her loved ones and the president was to jump out the window. Like that was a serious thought she had. There was some back and forth between Ken Starr, who sucks, just objectively– I guess not to Ken Starr and his family, but he's the worst. So there's some back and forth between him and Monica's lawyers if she can have an immunity deal or not and she finally gets one in writing in July of 1998. The lawyers in the docuseries said that they probably wouldn't have charged her with anything anyway. Frustration noises. Part of the immunity deal was answering very specific and very detailed questions about the nature of the sex that they had had directly to Ken Starr and she was very uncomfortable and so she made a chart, and wrote it all down instead of saying it. Later Starr said that he didn't want the president getting asked pornographic questions. Except hold the fucking phone, there’s a horrible relatively new thing out there called the internet. And in September, the House Judiciary Committee releases the Starr Report on the internet. And this is where we get to the horrible way that late night shows and the news treated Monica Lewinsky. She was slutshamed, she became a caricature, all of the late night shows have their go at her, and just say horrible things. Fuck Jay Leno, all my homies hate Jay Leno. He was the worst of them and has yet to apologize and even called for like civility to return to late night TV and I was like MM. Also fuck Bill Maher, I hate Bill Maher, not just because of this but also in general, sorry Dad, I hate him. But Bill Clinton, President Clinton, had encouraged Monica to lie during the Jones investigation and that was what came up and caused the impeachment trial. Not the assaults, not the affair, the quote “obstruction of justice.” Fun fact for my fellow DC friends, my favorite place in the whole world Kramerbooks and Afterwords Cafe which is now just Kramers and that makes me feel weird, is kind of tangentially involved in this because Monica bought a book on phone sex from them and the investigation subpoenad those records. Lexi: Are you kidding me? Alana: I am not kidding you. Lexi: I guess the point is for twenty five years young women in DC have been going to Kramer's and buying suspicious books. Alana: Totally! So could all of this have been avoided if Bill Clinton was just honest the first time he was asked because there was like years and years of denying this, and if he just said he had an inappropriate relationship with her? Maybe. Monica probably would have still been ridiculed and slutshamed though, but I guess certain semen stained dresses would not have come to light. For context there's this very famous blue dress that Monica wore during one of their encounters that had Bill Clinton’s semen on it. Fun fact, Linda Tripp encouraged her not to wash the dress. On the tape of that conversation Tripp says that she just has this nagging feeling that it'll come up later. Also all the women who accused Bill Clinton in the nineties of sexual misconduct went on to support Trump in 2016. Lexi: Like, like advocate– like publicly tell people? Alana: Yeah. There's this whole panel of them. He did– in 2016 he did a whole panel with all of Bill Clinton's accusers because that was relevant to Hillary’s run, I guess. Lexi: Did he pay them for that? Alana: I don't know. Lexi: Or they just really– they just– they hated him so much they had to just yeet HIllary? Alana: I mean the alternative title for this is “The Way in Which Bill Clinton is Democratic Donald Trump.” If you, if you're not seeing parallels… Like I watched this in 2018 I was like oh my god… Or, I watched it now but that it took place in 2018. Haley: I've trick or treated at Bill and Hill's house. I've met them on various occasions, we grew up in– I grew up in Chappaqua, New York and that's the town they live in. Alana: My cousin has prayed with Jared and Ivanka because they're Jewish. So Monica today is a goddamn delight. She's so much fun. She is an anti bullying and anti public shaming activist. Her Twitter bio includes “rap song muse” which is hilarious because according to a John Oliver piece from 2019, which I have linked in the show notes because he is also a goddamn delight, her name is featured in 193 rap songs as of 2019. There was this Twitter meme a while ago that was “what pop culture thing ruined your first name” and she was like “am I even allowed to play?” If you want to know more, I do recommend The Clinton Affair docuseries, but maybe don't binge it like I did. You might want some time to recover. It also has snippets of info about the other Clinton scandals, like Hillary's involvement in one of them, a little bit about Hillary, how Newt Gingrich and his Republican Party pretty much single handedly made politics the vitriolic cesspit that is and definitely made space for Trumpism to rise, an actual right wing conspiracy and a lot of things that I just couldn't cover because we're only talking about Monica and we don't have a lot of time. Basically, society was shitty to Monica Lewinsky and we have a lot of repenting to do and we should do better. I say that like I wasn't literally born in 1998, like right in the middle of all this, but like in general we need to call bad people on their shit and believe survivors. Lexi: You can find this podcast on Twitter and Instagram at LadyHistoryPod. Our show notes and a transcript of this episode will be on ladyhistorypod dot tumblr dot com. If you like the show, leave us a review, or tell your friends, and if you don't like the show, keep it to yourself. Alana: Our logo is by Alexia Ibarra you can find her on Twitter and Instagram at LexiBDraws. Our theme music is by me, GarageBand, and Amelia Earhart. Lexi is doing the editing. You will not see us, and we will not see you, but you will hear us, next time, on Lady History. [OUTRO MUSIC] Haley: Next week on Lady History, you'll see Alana crap herself because we have such a special guest. Alana: I have a burger waiting for me. Lexi: Go. We love you. Haley: Bye. Lexi: We’ll talk later. Okay bye.

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