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Whilst yes, I do technically agree with the one dude on the news who got REALLY irate about Welsh culture / language / folklore being used in fantasy novels without being researched and being used wrongly, and him wanting anyone who isn’t Welsh to outright STOP using Welsh culture.

How many fantasy writers nowadays are actually welsh?

I feel like by telling people NOT to include Welsh language / folklore / culture in their fantasy books, that kind of actually erases some of our culture.

And that’s *because* we are so engrained in the fantasy genre. I feel strongly attached to elves and the fae because of it (and also because autism but)

Honestly. LOTR did it well. The Witcher had some lovely little surprises that made me squeak - I remember hearing witcher-elven for the first time and it flicked that internal switch of “ooh, I kind of understand this and its scritching the good part of my brain” and also because the Witcher elves are fucking awesome. Dragon Age!! All the Welsh Dalish elves and their song ‘once we were’ incorporating our hiraeth into the game was something really heartfelt to me.

HOWEVER.

And this is a big however. I feel very uncomfortable when all this welsh folklore / language / culture is used… only for the characters to be given ENGLISH accents.

It’s a huge kick in the gut. If you know anything about Welsh history, you’ll instantly know why. And not only that, but I don’t know if anyone else has noticed, but where British TV is concerned…

Filming in Wales? Check. Talking about Welsh things? Check. Welsh person being interviewed? ❌❌ incorrect buzzer.

English reporters literally go to a celtic country and find another English person to put on the TV. And it’s the same with Scotland.

BBC reporter goes to a scottish university to ask the students what they think of something. You’d think they’d ask one of the actual Scottish students, right? Wrong! They pulled up the most rahh wheres my baccy daddy’s trust fund middle to upper class English kids they could, and actually spoke OVER and deleted footage of an interview with a Scottish student who had genuine concerns.

I dare say Northern Ireland gets the same shitty treatment.

So when there’s a fantasy book using all these celtic components, and ALL THE FUCKING CHARACTERS ARE ENGLISH, I GET A BIT IRATE. 👹👹👹👹👹👹

Not to mention that they never pronounce anything right.

I read a book where there is a beautiful incorporation of the welsh language, blended with Irish gaelic, a little peppering kiss of Scots in there too, and I hear it in my head as the fucking gods intended

And then I see the film / series adaptation and there’s English people butchering it. Especially when attempts are made at Welsh letters they don’t have in their alphabets or they try to speak (what’s essentially welsh c’mon) ‘correctly’ with received pronunciation. It makes me want to turn myself inside out.

It’s like being in Rivendell and hearing black speech

Tolkien had good intentions. I know that mfer LOVED my home. Tolkien gets a pass.

Andrej Sapkowski also gets a pass.

The writers of Dragon Age who worked on the Dalish and Solas DEFINITELY get a pass.

… but Acotar. Acotar.

Do not. If you have any sort of love for me, do not.

And that’s my take on it, as an actual Welsh person who was born and raised in Wales.

Whilst I won’t rip your heads off like the dude on the news. I beg of you. I beg; please do your research. And if you are going to use the welsh language, please at least have the decency to give the character a matching accent.

Also desperately begging film studios and series creators to hire actual fucking celtic actors. PLEASE.

Everyone knows once upon a time, but did you know that countless cultures have their variation of how classic stories begin, and one one from Welsh is, "A long time ago," similar to a few others from other cultures that go, "A long long time ago."

But, some, like Lithuanian go: "Beyond nine seas, beyond nine lagoons," similar to the Czech, "Beyond seven mountain ranges, beyond seven rivers."

These are some variations from Arab texts: This happened or maybe it did not. The time is long past and much is forgot.

There was or there was not—is anything sure or certain but the greatness of Allah?—a king so powerful that man and Djinn bowed before him.

This is how many Hausa tales are begun “A story, a story. Let it go, let it come.”

And of course, we have one that is a combination and modern invention that has become part of media culture and storied greatness: "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away." <3

These are just some. But it's been among the most wonderful part of my research before I began putting down the first words for Tales of Tremaine. But the art of storytelling is one of the most human things there is. It's central to us, and it has passed long and far by tongue and time over lands and through cultures. Some beginnings are so similar to each other, some not so much.

But then you see the threads between them in the stories, the themes, tropes, archetypes, motifs. But the traditions span the world. They are old. They are cool. And they are beautiful.

the team that did the Scots Syntax Atlas (incredible tool!!!!) is collecting data in Ireland and Wales!! Please share these links around!

Because that method of trying to "unmask" will always fail, bc it hinges on the assumption that there is a core underlying Self that is being Covered Up with the mask.

In reality, one does not have a chance to develop a true "self" due to the circumstances of their development. this is broadly true for almost all humans (SHOW ME AN UNALTERED TRUE HUMAN SELF,) because of the heavily social nature of how our selfhood intersects with other people's perception of us, but in some people it is much more marked and detrimental than others. What I think is the issue at hand is not the Self, but rather the internal experience. The Self is a construction we build to understand ourselves as beings, and it is heavily informed by our understanding of our own experiencs. understanding of those experiences is the actual issue. Being able to identify and name the effects that moving thru the world have on you. And teasing out how those acknowledgements of one's internal experience have been punished out of us.

Like. I remember back in my grocery store cashier days I did so much crazy shit.

When WIC (Women, infants, and children voucher program to help low income mothers/families with children) people were in my line I would pretty much know who they were. Before the cards they had to tell us upfront they were WIC and show us their vouchers for what they were allowed to get (it was awful some times. Like. 2 gallons of milk. $4 worth of vegetables etc etc). They’d always have items hanging back, waiting to see what the total was and if they would have to take it off the belt.

I began to place the fruits/vegetables a certain way on the register scale so that like 1/2lbs of grapes read as like .28lbs or something. Then act shocked when I said that they still had X amount of lbs left. They got all their fruit and vegetables.

I think it started to kinda? Catch on to the women? Because I would have the same moms in my line month after month. And even after they switched to the cards (they worked like food stamp cards?) I’d still do the same thing. They were able to get more produce for whatever shitty max amount Indiana gave them.