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Opowieść mi się podobała. Wszystko dobrze brzmi, ogólnie. Jedyny błąd który zauważyłem jest że między kośćmi są "joints" a nie "joins".

It was a lot of fun! You're a good translator! :D

So, as some of you may already know, my biggest dream is to become a translator/interpreter (both, if possible), and earn a living by talking, or writing the same thing twice in two languages :P

But this time I've decided to do something else - translate a short story from Polish to English. I don't ask you to judge how well I did it, since you probably don't know the source material, but I felt like sharing it because maybe you can judge the content of the story itself... and maybe if you enjoy it, and feel like reading more, I may do this more often.

So, without further ado, I give you - Granny's Guide to Disposing of Bodies

Also, I would like to thank Aegis and Tesla for making some crucial SPaG adjustments! You two are the best!

Glad to know that it's just some updates and not a bigger problem. :)

First up, a link to the uncensored version of the Fellowship image, featuring a sketch map of 'Middle-earth'.

Secondly:



(I considered playing Guess Who Too with this, but... didn't. ^_^)

Eowyn and Eomer are modelled on the Serrano people of southern California (ie, Rohan). They wear yucca skirts/aprons, which seems somewhat uncomfortable. They also wear their hair long... because of plot requirements. (Or maybe Eowyn is just particularly flat-chested? Tolkien doesn't really specify.)

Galadriel, meanwhile, is fully-clothed in Noldorin garb from over the Sea. She's Mongolian, actually, which is hilarious in light of Tolkien's description of Orcs: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types. Her robe is embroidered in characteristic Noldorin fashion.

As is Elrond's, though he hails from a different cultural tradition. He's wearing Sindarin clothing, AKA Tlingit (Pacific Northwest, venturing up into Alaska/Beleriand). It's closely related to the Hobbits' garb, which explains why Bilbo and friends feel so comfortable in Rivendell. The main differences are the wool fringes, and - as stated - the Noldorin embroidery to mark the other part of his cultural heritage.

Oh, and the hat. He has a basket-hat.

I've also thumbnailed in a couple of locations. The Last Homely House is a traditional Tlingit plank house: large, with a central fireplace and opening above it, with paintings and carvings on the front. (You can just about make out the Star of Feanor on there, and a pair of swan wings for... wow, about half a dozen things.) It would seem out-of-place and otherworldly in eastern Idaho, where Rivendell was.

As for Lorien... well, Mongols live in yurts. And yurts have big round holes in the middle. And the tallest trees in the western US are redwoods. So yeah, in Mesoamericarda, mallorns are golden redwoods, with houses built around their bases.

At this point I either venture up to Beleriand, start repeating costumes (eg do Denethor, Thorin - I guess Lake-Town would be new?), or delve into the tricky question of Orcs and evil tragically misunderstood people. :-/ Decisions...

hS

But that still asks the question of what their cultural markings would be based on.

Currently I'm looking at the Apache. They were resident in Mordor at one point, but also have origins in the far north, just like the orcs. They wore leather armour, too, which is distinct and different.

So I think I'll try for a fantasy race, based if possible on some manner of Native hobgoblin, wearing Apache-esque dress. All taking place 5000 years before the Apache moved south anyway.

Though I do like the notion of Neolithic European Orcs, too. :D

HS

On Lapis vs. Backslash: That was not planned, at least not initially. The initial argument in "The Gods Must Be Crazy" was basically to get Lapis out of the picture, give her a good reason to show up at FicPsych in her next appearance, and also give Backslash a facet to him to show that he isn't the goody-two-shoes Shulk duplicate he seems to be. It's nice to know that this conflict does work to my advantage to some degree, but I will concede that I may have overdone it in this particular mission. Lapis and Backslash are planned to work together again in the future as I noted in the Author's Notes, but Backslash will probably have more pressing matters to worry about first. Lapis IS scheduled to make one more appearance (once I get some illustrations finished up), and I can assure that her character arc is going to come to a head once I make it public, so hopefully she and Backslash will be able to interact on more peaceful terms afterward.

Lapis is actually speaking in Armenian there. I wanted to find a way to drop her ethnicity at some point, since my brother suggested a while back that it would be interesting if she were partially Middle Eastern due to her middle name, Armenus. Looking back, though, I think I may have forced it here, and I may have to tone down that particular aspect of her in the future. Likewise I may have overdone the "swearing in foreign languages" thing with my agents, because now I have three of them who do that and I guess it's starting to get a bit tiring, even for me. (Though if I end up being dumb enough to make any other agents do the same, I can assure that Falchion won't be one of them - I do know a smattering of Indonesian, but I can't speak it for squat, let alone curse in it.)

Whitney has been known to swear before when she REALLY means business. She's also the kind of person to snap HARD if she hears someone make threats against her partner, she's that possessive of those she cares about. I know a certain psychotic character replacement who learned that the hard way.

I'm honestly flattered that you feel that way about my handling of the respective continua, thank you! ^_^ This is why beta reading is important, folks - as noted in the A/N, I actually ran a lot of the canon information by my brother, who is a much bigger fan of Bleach than I am, and Matt Cipher took care of the rest. I'd have explained the plot a little better, but the badfic itself was so unreadable that I couldn't tell what the heck was going on half the time and ended up wringing a little less plot potential out of it than I would've wanted - which, come to think of it, may have been why I decided that having the agents interact with one another to a greater extent than usual would make the mission slightly more interesting.

However, I'm loath to share it for the same reason Tolkien was weirded out by orcs - an "evil race" doesn't work. And it feels dehumanizing to associate any group with something like the orcs. So I don't know exactly how you'd get around that.

That said, there were several groups who were widely feared for their ferocity in battle. The Toltecs (ancestors in some sense of the Aztecs) were one. And they pledged their allegiance to a king in a hard-to-reach city, so there's that. I'm still not sold on that though.

So, two potential solutions. You could flip the image of "savagery" on its head and make Europeans (Vikings, even - they came earlier than most) the orcs, which is problematic for all its own special reasons, OR you could do what Tolkien did and invent them, with American Indigenous cultural markings instead of European ones.

I have kind of mixed feelings about the grudge between Lapis and Backslash, though I know it doesn't really originate in this story. On the one hand, conflict is good; not all characters will get along, and major issues shouldn't just disappear between stories. On the other, I feel like the amount of tension kind of distracts from the mission itself. There were times when the badfic seemed to have paused itself so the characters could stand around and yell at each other. It also feels a bit... repetitive? No offense, but a lot of your agents seem to have ongoing grudges with one another that make it almost impossible for them to work together.

Another thing I found distracting was the break in the story to explain about Lapis swearing in Arabic and why she does so. It doesn't really feel necessary to include, or even for Backslash to comment on in the first place. It kind of seemed like an excuse to talk about Lapis's history, even though I don't know that it was relevant to the situation. That said, I think the amount of foreign language swearing got a bit gratuitous at times; suddenly hitting a word in a different language tends to throw the reader out of the story. I'm also not sure about Whitney calling Lapis a "s***head" - she seems more like the "calm rage" type to me than the type to swear, especially given Lapis's age. Though my impression of her may just be mistaken.

I do think you did a good job explaining the canons, as someone who was unfamiliar with them. The Bayonetta stuff was fine - I was even able to get a sense of her personality - and the Bleach terminology wasn't too confusing, which was quite a feat given how long the series is. I would have liked a little more explanation/focus on what the actual plot of the badfic was, but I'm not sure that was actually possible.

Lycos, the company that owns Tripod, is updating their servers over the next couple of days. You can follow their progress here, if you're interested. Everything should be back to normal by Monday, if not sooner. Sorry if anyone panicked.

~Neshomeh

But right now, "boats and island-hopping" is actually the most common answer. Depending, of course, on who you ask. But basically, archaeologists have so many sites for indigenous occupancy that go back to . . . I think the most well-established site is 17K, but it's pretty far south, to the extent that it would've required a very intentional fast march south from Beringia, which strains belief rather a lot. The 30K date is somewhat contested, especially in conservative circles, but it's a solid bet- others are making claims for 50,000 or more.

Anyway - yes, that is my instinct. It makes me happy to see someone taking non-Western European cultures seriously in fantasy, even if the details get a bit mushed. And this feels a lot more respectful (with the caveat, of course, that I am white and so my voice shouldn't count for THAT much) than . . . well, anything coming out of Ilvermorny. Or most of the things that come up in fantasy as cameos or "savagery" contrasts.

Partly because the accounts of Caribs as cannibals are questionable (at the very least, to what extent).

As to the Mound-Builders, ie. the early Mississippian chiefdoms (now known as Chickasaw, Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Occaneechi, Shawnee, and several more) - I don't know that they'd be "distant ancestors" so much as in the moment. They were still living around and adding to the mound complexes when the second wave of Spanish conquistadores made landfall. (Hernando de Soto was pretty clear about where they lived.)

Hi! I went to read more of the Original Series today, but for some reason found the link wasn't working. I was just wondering if anyone else has the same problem? I tried clicking from both the wiki and the board link, and pasting the link into my browser.

Thank you
-Tesla

Actualy, Mr. Phobos, diamonds are not very valuable, in fact they're very common. De Beers, a diamond cartel that controls almost the entire world's diamond supply, restricts the supply so they can keep the price up.

((Paraphrased from here))

Once, people couldn't say that I'm "more machine than man". Once, Lump was a terrible person (but hey, he's improving!). Once, I had an elf for a partner. See what I mean?

~Des

...terrorizing new Time Lords. How the mighty fall.

And I agree with you - the Notary is an awful person these days. But... back when we founded the Council, when she was new to the PPC, she was different.

I mean, not that different. She was still pretty bad. But in a crisis, she was... better than you'd think. I kind of respected her, a bit.

How times change.

>M<