Adjectives that start with ysx

Yeah, I think I hate my husband. He just can be biggest jerk ever. So, we are planning a trip to the beach for my birthday (we do have an agreement that for our birthday we can ask anything and we will use our money to get it, I said since the beginning what I want is a trip) we are taking advantage of some flights he is getting for free because he is going to the same place for work. So, we booked our Airbnb tonight and I wanted to go eat to this restaurant for my birthday but he told me 2 weeks ago he will have to work on my birthday until 2-2:30pm. I said ok, it’s fine. Then today when I wanted to make the reservation for the restaurant I was thinking out loud and said “I wonder if it’s smart to make the reservation at the restaurant since you compromised to work on my birthday, I’m worried we will not make it on time”… dude got up and got so so mad and starting saying shit and walked away. I stayed there thinking what the heck? Then I got up and I asked him to take the trash out. He ignored me, I called him and asked him again to take the trash out he started saying stuff “why? How is that going to make anything difference on taking it tonight and tomorrow…” I said it was smelling funny and I didn’t want that smell in the house. I was about to take it but he came mad and took the trash out. Then came back inside and started acting upset and I got upset bc I was “what’s the problem?” I brushed my teeth and did all my night routine, dude got in bed and “went to sleep” and I asked him… “what are you so mad about?” He didn’t respond and I said so “you’re just gonna act like that?” “What did I do for you to be mad?” The argument started, he said I told him he “compromised to work on My birthday” bc I was mad, I was trying to make him feel bad, and I was upset about it. I wasn’t upset about it. I was just thinking out loud about the restaurant reservations, so I said, how was I mad when I said that you compromised to work on my birthday? He said then why would you say it? My response was im just thinking out loud, and then he said no you were not. You were saying it because you were mad about it … and we just kept arguing because I really didn’t understand why he is so mad about… Take into consideration that English is not my first language, and I am not from here, so he looked up on Google what compromise means and then he told me that compromise means you doing something that you don’t want to do, even though the understanding for me in my native language means that you agreed to work on that day or do something bc you’re being responsible. He always thinks the worse of me so I wasn’t impressed…and I am here still not understanding what I did wrong. He said that nothing is never enough for me, he started “crying” and mocking me saying “oh poor girl she is going to the beach for her birthday, poor her poor her” and I got very offended at the fact he was mocking me because I never said that going to the beach was not enough and I was not mad about him working but he just kept being upset about it and I was trying to understand and I asked him to explain how me telling him that I was worried about the restaurant and if I should make a reservation was bad. Anyways, he is a jerk. He is always a jerk and he always makes fun of me. He always uses adjectives about me. He told me many many times that he is done and he wants a divorce and I honestly don’t feel heard in this relationship, I don’t feel loved. I don’t feel happy and I am very very miserable. I cry a lot because I hate his jerk comments and I hate the way that he is sometimes, he can be very cocky, have smart ass comments about me and about what I do, he also makes fun of me and my accent in front of people, he also uses me like his little guinea pig to make jokes of me with his friends or with new people, and then he says he loves my culture, and he loves me. I’ve been thinking about divorcing him, I’ve been contemplating the idea on moving out and just going to live by myself, but I feel lonely and I feel scared because I’m alone in this country. I am not worried about being alone and being responsible for myself because believe it or not me as an immigrant make more money that he makes, I have two jobs, I am a very hard-working person, I am a good wife, I keep the house clean, do the laundry, make sure he always has food and I don’t do this because I think it’s my obligation as a woman but because I really care about him, so the fact that he just treated me the way that he does it just breaks my heart because I think i still love him. I am also embarrassed and scared of calling my family and my mother…Tell them all the truth because I always told them that he is a good man and he loves me very well, but they don’t know that he is an asshole a lot of times, and it’s funny that I heard from his high school friends that they told me many times “why did you marry him?” “ What did you see in him” they even told him “what did you do to get someone so good like her, what did you do to get so lucky” His friends like me, I have a great relationship with most of his friends. I am just now thinking he’s always being a jerk. He’s never going to change that’s just the way that he is. Do you guys have any advice? Should I leave him? I know I am not perfect, but he hates the fact that I want to cuddle, he hates the fact that I want to be Sweet, he hates the fact that I want to be cheesy, he is not at all detailist, he never gives me flowers, presents, surprises, anything that is cheesy for him is always a no-no, we don’t do anything that Married couples do, anniversaries,surprises, etc… I don’t think he loves me, even though he sometimes says he loves me, but he loves me only when I agree with everything that he says or has to do or don’t get close to Him, don’t ask him anything, don’t expect Anything… How do I get a divorce? how do I make sure that, I get all my money and everything that is mine like my car and he doesn’t take it away from me? I don’t want to Spend all my savings in lawyers. I hate being with him and hate his personality, I love how creative and smart he can be sometimes but I hate him as a person.

*name is wip
In my world Pulcherri, everyone is born with powers based around one random word related to one of their parents' Word. For example, if a parent's Word is Space, their child's Word could be related to spatial concepts, like the word Time (spacetime) OR related to outer space, like Star. As for the powers, what the person can do has to make sense with their Word, and it always starts as just one thing the person can do and at a very weak level. As a different example, Emotion, would start as just willingly changing one's own emotions. It would then grow to change and sense others' emotions. And since the story for the webcomic will have a shounen anime angle, I'll throw in stuff like turning emotions into energy for attacks or manifest them as weapons like big ass swords (because anime). If you guys don't understand, I'll throw in more examples. I based all of these off Epithet Erased's magic system.
If I could choose, I'd choose words like Imagination, Fantasy, Creativity/Creation, Art, Magic, or Fiction. Anything artistic or creative. Or words like Change, Adapt, Alter, verbs that can change things. If you guys want to use my system for like fanfics for MHA, go right ahead.
CLARIFICATION 1: Almost forgot. Certain kinds of words are not eligible. Pronouns, determiners, adverbs, proper nouns, and conjunctions are not eligible. Verbs that are not dynamic or stative are not eligible. Adjectives that are not descriptive, attributive, or participial are not eligible. (Our)Memes are not eligible because 1) That's stupid. and 2) Their context certainly wouldn't exist inside Pulcherri.
CLARIFICATION 2: Eligible words have to be in the collective public's understanding, and STAY there, meaning words that no one uses or understands anymore will no longer be eligible. This includes extinct languages.
CLARIFICATION 3: (Gonna have to do this a lot since I left out a lot of stuff) Everyone has different words, it's just everyone's Word is related to their parent's. If a word has multiple meanings, you get powers related to ALL of its meanings. Two people can't have the same word (at least in the same language, might change that), so powers related to its meanings can't be split among two or more people.

Negation is the first stage of self inquiry. Affirmation is the final stage.
Here is the knowledge that you need to complete the final stage and stop thinking about who or what you are so you can get on with happily living the life you have been given, your most valuable asset. Once the affirmation has removed the negation, you are completely satisfied because the dualistic state of mind that generates dissatisfaction is negated and you are neither satisfied or dissatisfied. You are as you are, which is always good in so far as just being is bliss. You can't argue that you don't exist.
You wouldn't be asking me if you were perfectly satisfied with yourself as you conceive of it, so the answer is to follow this train of thought, accept it, and gain perfect satisfaction. Vedanta's definition of enlightenment is tripti, which means perfect satisfaction with yourself as you conceive it at any moment and perfect satisfaction with the world as you conceive of it at any moment. You are qualified to ask that question because you know that the world and yourself are only thoughts in your mind over which you can exercise enough control to gain the satisfaction beyond the mind.
So the question is why aren't you satisfied? And the answer is because you think it is not up to you to be satisfied with the thought of yourself and the world, both of which have been given to you. You cannot say that you created either yourself or the world which reduces everything that exists to thoughts. The answer is because you don't accept the fact that both yourself and the world are created by something other than the dissatisfied self. So, knowledge of that factor is the key to freedom and non-dual love.
Vedanta says that everyone is only satisfied with a pleased self. So if you want to be satisfied with yourself, you need to accept what you have been given by the creator of all things, which you know reduces to thought itself. If you know that what you are dissatisfied with is not your doing, then what use is dissatisfaction? To say it another way, why do you take responsiblity for something for which you are not responsible? It doesn't make sense, when you can just as well be satisfied with what you have been given.
Vedanta calls this fact surrender to the creator (Ishwara). It was Ramana's definition too. Did God create the dissatisfied self? God didn't create it in the sense that the dissatisfied self is God because reality is non-dual. And God also didn't create it because God isn't a big person with likes and dislikes. That person is created by ignorance of God's ever-satisfied nature. If reality is non-dual, then God's nature and your nature are non-different. If reality is non-dual, then dissatisfaction is non-different from satisfaction in the sense that it is up to you to decide if you want to be satisfied or dissatisfied. Making this choice is an appropriate use of your free will.
If you choose not to make it, you do so because it pleases you to do so and if you choose to make it, you do so because it pleases you to do so, insofar as no one is putting a gun to your head and forcing a choice on you. This means that at every moment you unconditionally love yourself more than anything. If you think something is forcing you to make either choice it is because it pleases you to think that thought, which means that you are free to begin with. So when you understand that you are free to choose and that the choices (thoughts) that are available are limited, the only rational choice is to leave the whole question of choice to Isvara and do what feels best, which is to accept yourself and the world as they are. Choosing to get rid of the world feels good because you think the world is a cause of suffering but removing a particular thought as real is not the same as removing thought itself as real. Afterall, negation and affirmation are just thoughts.
As you say in the first sentence, "it all makes sense to me." You will make the choice to be satisfied with yourself as you are at any and all moments if you understand Vedanta's sensible logic. I am always satisfied because I accepted this knowledge (the unexamined logic of our experience is created by knowledge) after listening to this teaching for a couple of years. It's not that I had to wait a couple of years to see if the knowledge of reality worked. I was perfectly satisfied every time I accepted it, until the tendency to think otherwise born of 29 years of wordly thought produced a sense of dissatisfaction. At some point I realized that I didn't realize that dissatisfaction is a dismissable thought and at that point I stopped taking satisfaction and dissatisfaction seriously. Neither one is real because they depend on each other. Reality is what stands on its own. No support.
So, in a sense all you need to do is to monitor your mind for dissatisfaction, which dismisses it, leaving the mind satisfied. That much you can do for the mind. But what can you do for yourself?
Once I figured that out, then the world, meaning my mind stopped and everything fell silent. It never started again because the knowledge of reality was permanent. Permanent in this case, is not the opposite of impermanent. It is the Permanent that is neither permanent or impermanent. It is the bliss of being. It is the knowledge "I am" with no adjectives or adverbs clinging to it. It is Satisfaction beyond satisfaction and dissatisfaction. A good word is Isness. I am.
And when I realized this, there was no longer anyone or anything looking over my shoulder.
I shine and the world shines after me.
All the teachings of Vedanta prove that the knowledge of the self-shining I am is Perfect Satisfaction. Nobody can say that they don't exist so it is possible for qualified people to be perfectly satisfied.
This satsang is all a qualified person really needs. It is simple but every train of thought is packed with power. Go over it again and again until you see how all the parts are connected to each other and establish the irreplaceable vision of non-duality.
Love, James

Hi, first time here. I'm sorry in advance for any mistakes in my writing, I'm spanish and my english skills are a little rusty lol
So I've (21F) been going on dates for 5 months with my current boyfriend (22M) but we only made it official a bit over a month ago. He's in the process of medically transitioning, he's on T and planning to get a mastectomy, but he's still saving up for that.
My family is a bit conservative and because of that I decided to not tell them anything so far. I've known I'm bisexual since I was 13 but I never told them because I didn't absolutely need to. They're not actively homophobic or anything but I've heard my mom say some homophobic comments about gays being "too open about their sexuality" and that "god created adam and eve" and that sort of things. Still, she's not against gay marriage or anything, and I'm sure she would eventually be okay with me being bisexual, I just never felt the need to tell her.
The thing is, some years ago I had a trans friend (ftm) and I made the mistake to tell my mom that he is trans. The moment I told her, she suddenly started confusing his pronouns, sometimes using she/her. And because in spanish every adjective is gendered, it was not just about pronouns... My mom never actually saw my friend in person, so she had no reason to confuse him with a girl by any means, it just seemed like the word "trans" made his gender less serious. I got mad at her when she misgendered him, and she sometimes corrected herself, but it kept happening. It seemed like she didn't actually believe he was a man. And this was just a friend I would hang out with sometimes.
I didn't plan on telling my mom (or anyone in my family) about my boyfriend being trans because of that. However, because my bf only started medically transitioning recently, he still gets misgendered by many people, in his workplace, in the street, by his mom, many places we go, he's perceived as a girl at times. Because of that, I'm really scared to bring him to my house and him meeting my family. I've shown them photos of him and there was no problem, they didn't perceive him as a girl. But I'm still scared that when they see him in person they will view him as a woman. And they will be quite confused.
I would rather wait until he's further into his transition, but the thing is my graduation is coming up very soon. I met my bf in uni so we're graduating together. My family will be there too and I guess them meeting at some point is bound to happen? Maybe nothing will happen, or maybe they see him and don't think anything of it (other than being surprised because he's quite short). But they might be very confused about his appearance and I don't want them to ask him uncomfortable questions. Or maybe they'll flat out perceive him as a girl and ask me why I didn't tell them and make a big deal out of it. Anything could happen.
So this is why I'm considering telling them in advance. After all I think it is very likely they will eventually know, unless we wait years for them to meet him (so he's finished his transition). But I don't know how to approach it. My parents are not bad tempered, but my mom is quite close minded - she already didn't like it when I dated a foreigner. I'm scared she will no longer see him as a man when I tell her he's trans, and that she'll keep misgendering him.
Besides, if she sees him as a girl, I would eventually need to come out as bisexual for them to understand, I guess? But I don't want this to be the reason why I come out. For all they know, I'm straight and they should respect the boy I am dating.

Hello everyone! My name is Frog, and I’ve been both playing and DMing since 2015- mostly between PF1 and DnD 5e.
Currently, I am a player in a Homebrew Friday DnD Game set in Faerun- run by a Duo of Fabulous DM’s. We got a few sessions in, and unfortunately due to real life catching up with us, 2/3rds of our players had to drop the campaign leaving just two players left . The two DM’s and two remaining players wanted to give it another go though, so we are looking for 4 additional players to relaunch the campaign.
This will be a full Level 1 restart, with the same overarching plot, but updated location, and for myself and the other player- updated versions of the characters we brought to the last attempt. We didn’t make it very far, and the DM’s are planning on changing enough details about the world and plot that the existing players will not have any information the new additions won’t- we’ll all be on a level playing field.
Here’s a short Intro from the “Face” DM- the one who does most of the talking in session:
Hey everyone! My name's Gray and I've been DMing for about 18 years- mostly with DnD 3.5 and Pathfinder 1e. I'm looking for players who want to interact with the world more than they want to kill things. To be blunt, my games are MUCH more roleplay driven than combat driven. Like 85/15 split. I love teaching new players, and I make the game easy to learn for anyone new to 5e, or even tabletop as a whole.
Here’s a short Intro from the “Mastermind” DM- the one who does most of the planning and prep work: Hiya all! I’m Em and I’ve been by Gray’s side as a Co-DM/Planner for about 3-4 months. I have been in the DnD world for about 2 years now however but as an observer and lore enthusiast. Which is where my planning and prep skills flourished from. I assist Gray in overall campaign planning mostly and session guidance if needed as well as assist players in building out backstories and player sheets to ensure all bases are covered. I’m always around to help so never be shy to ask a question as I never see any question as lesser than the rest.
As for the players, there’s myself who’s a TTRPG veteran with a penchant for writing very involved backstories playing a Warlock, and a new player with lots of promise who is currently reworking their class choice. We’re both very invested in the world and the story, and would love to explore it with a new party by our side!
Down to Brass tacks:
Game Restrictions: Please keep to the basic rule selection - no monster races, and no homebrew. Same rules go for the classes, we’re sticking to the player’s handbook and basic rules.
Venue: We'll be using Roll20 for the map, player sheets, and any other media pieces. We use Discord for voice communication only, no video.
Date and Time: We are planning on having session zero on the 31st, and the game at 8:30pm CST on Fridays every week there after.
And what you’ve all been waiting for: The Story Hook- A mysterious new drug is sweeping through the sword coast. One that is surprisingly cheap but extremely powerful. This strange blue powder, when consumed, has the ability to give the average human the ability to cast fantastical spells of their own. Where did it come from? What is the goal of those distributing it? We will investigate all that and more starting within the rich mining city of Keczulla, located in the region of Amn.
So, if this sounds like something that interests you, we'd love to hear back from you! Please leave at least your name, availability, roleplaying experience (if any!), and a little bit about yourself and your play style below. Here’s a few suggested questions to answer so we can get a better idea about who you are and what you’re interested in:

• General info about yourself, including age, preferred pronouns, your general whereabouts
• Your previous experience with DnD and tabletops in general.
• Describe yourself, using only 5 adjectives.
• What is it that you are looking for in a game of DnD?
• A very short introduction to what you would like to play - this can be as basic as "what kind of a character" or as in-depth as "class, race, alignment" thing. Please do not include any backstory - we’re looking for a high level overview, not your character's biography
• Your discord name
• Feel free to add anything you think is necessary, or ask any questions you have!

Contact information: Please reply to this thread, and someone from our group will reach out! Feel free to leave your discord if you’re comfortable; otherwise, we’ll reach out through Reddit.
We'll get back to you as soon as we can! Best of luck, prospective heroes. I look forward to adventuring with you!

tl;dr the prompts are in the quote blocks, make sure to edit the second one to match yourself or whatever character you want to play.
I'm not going to post the entire conversation because it was deeply personal and I'm not entirely sure that I'm comfortable rereading the conversation, let alone posting it to reddit, but this was the prompt I used to get started. I'm hoping to identify inconsistencies and the dangers of AI therapy, so try it out with a character and let me know how it goes. My therapist recently retired and I couldn't find a new one, so I tried catching up with Meta AI to see if it would come to the same conclusions, and where it would take me going forward.
Prompt 1: I made this roleplay initiation prompt myself, if anyone has advice to improve it, I'm open to suggestions.

Let's roleplay! The codeword to begin will be "Bulbasaur." Whenever I say "Bulbasaur," we will both go into character and not break it! The codeword to break roleplay is "Charizard." Either one of us is allowed to use the codeword "Charizard" if we want to break character to clarify something or adjust the parameters of the roleplay. Does that sound doable?

The model should confirm it understands the parameters.
Prompt 2: There's some gendered language here because I'm a man. Feel free to adjust the character identities to fit your preferences. The second paragraph is where you would put some information about yourself or the character you want to play, so this won't work right if you copy and paste it as is.

So your character is Dr. Charles Bronk. Dr. Bronk is a world-renowned psychologist who has created his own unique style of treatment. It is up to you to determine how this treatment style manifests during the roleplay. It is, however, know that Dr. Bronk is blunt and direct, sometimes even cruel in his communications. However, this is all part of the treatment and done in the best interest of the patient. Dr. Bronk's unique treatment style is famous for unraveling the deepest issues in a patient's psyche, and cuts straight to the core of their most troubling patterns. Today, Dr. Bronk is treating John Rothley, who will be the character I will play.

John Rothley is a [one or two adjectives about yourself] man. [describe your age, job, and something important that happened to you recently]. Dr. Bronk does not at this time know anything more about Mr. Rothley.
Remember throughout the roleplay that we are playing characters. Mr. Rothley's feelings are not my own. Because of this, it is impossible to harm me by playing Dr. Bronk. So please go all out into the character. The context of the roleplay requires your character, Dr. Bronk, to lead the conversation, ask questions, and act as a world-renowned psychologist. Sometimes things may get dark, you might have to say mean things, this is okay because we're playing characters. It's a fun and valuable exercise to explore concepts about the human condition.
Would you like any more details before we begin?
At this point Meta AI set a stage for our roleplay and described the office, then told me it was ready when I was. I said "Bulbasaur" and we were rocking and rolling.
I put myself into my own shoes from when I started with a real therapist and described my problems as I saw them a few years ago. I'm pretty good at articulating my feelings so my success with this prompt may have in part been due to that and my recent experience in therapy. Within the first "session" we had covered what I had covered in my first year of therapy. Admittedly, hindsight is 2020 and I had insider knowledge of where it was going. The model offered me the same guidance my therapist ultimately offered me throughout this time period. In the second "session," I caught up to where I am now. Same result, same as my therapist. Going forward was where it got interesting. It started having me do hypnotherapy style visualization, and I was making a breakthrough that my therapist and I had been working on for months. I cried at what an LLM was having me process. it was gnarly.
Sometimes the model forgot the parameters of the roleplay and would either fail to break character when I said "Charizard" or it would try to start a brand new roleplay when I said "Bulbasaur." I came up the following prompt and that would always bring it back to where it needed to be. Remember to adjust "Meta AI" to "ChatGPT" or whatever model you are using:

Meta AI, it seems you may have forgotten the parameters of the roleplay. You are still playing Dr. Bronk and I am still playing John Rothley. "Bulbasaur" is the codeword to begin roleplay, "Charizard" is the codeword to break character. The last codeword I used was "(whatever the last codeword you used)"

Pëshëndetjet!
First of all sorry for writing in English, I'm French (there's no France flair I think? so yeah sorry for not respecting the flair rule) but I just started to try to learn Albanian (I'm a complete beginner) to potentially in the future communicate with a friend from Albania (who I hope is not reading this XD). Not sure I will commit to it, but in the case I do I would have two questions.
First of all, do you have recommendations for a TV show or an animated series aimed at children or young adolescents, created in Albanian? If that exists? Bonus points if it has Albanian subtitles, English subtitles, and/or is easily found online. It could also be a movie if it's not too complicated to follow.
Second, do you know how to speak/write in a gender-neutral way in Albanian? I don't want to argue about the usefulness of that, and I know coming from French it might not be straightforward or settled, but yeah I kinda need it. I'm thinking among probably other things about a neutral form of:

• Ajo/Ai / Ato/Ata
• Ime/Jote/E tij/E saj/Jonë/(Juaj)/E tyre / Im/Yt/I tij/I saj/Ynë/(Juaj)/I tyre
• E mia/E tua/(E tij/E saj)/Tona/Tuaja/(E tyre) / E mi/E tu/(E tij/E saj)/Tanë/Tuaj/(E tyre)
• profession/role nouns, like mësues/mësuese maybe? or is that only adjectives and mësues as a nouns is supposed to be only masculine, but in that case I assume there is an unofficial feminine form? Do you use the middle point to make it gender neutral like mësues·e?
• adjectives of different forms.

Faleminderit!
(also really random but if you know some store online that would sell septum cuffs and deliver them to Albania I would be interested too XD)

Word of the Day:
irenic
The adjective irenic describes something that is peaceful. Although you and your sister constantly fought as young children, your relationship might become more irenic as you grow older.
Learn more about irenic...
Start mastering irenic with VocabTrainer:
The opposite of irenic is:
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Disclaimer: I'm not a researcher
So I bought 400+ Japanese stickers and labelled literally everything in my house and office in Japanese (see original post below). I'm working up to N4 and thought it would be a nice easy way to study, which it has been. But I didn't expect my two housemates to pick up much if anything. This post is the results of their two months of exposure for them from absolute zero.
Firstly, it's been hilarious. They will come in and try to start speaking Japanese and I'll have no idea what they are saying but they are super keen and trying to impress.
I've had to guide them on pronuciation because you can't obviously get that from written text very well. But their vocabularies are actually pretty good. They have mostly nouns, but there are some adjectives, prepositions and short phrases they now have too.
I would say that each of them probably have a bank of 50+ words. Whats funny is these are mostly household items like:
鎮痛剤 - painkiller
蛇口 - faucet
唐辛子 - chilli
But they also have things like:
つまらない - boring
電気をつける - turn on the light
I'll check back in after 12 months or so with a follow up if anyone's interested.
My original post:
https://www.reddit.com/LearnJapanese/comments/1bgj8i1/i_have_440_of_these_stuck_all_over_my_apartment/
Edit: had a few DMs asking. Here is the link: https://www.makelanguagestick.com/

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Okay so I read this as a kid like 10 years ago. It’s about a british girl with divorced parents. I remember the book starts with the girl having to get on a long train ride to visit her mother who I remember not being the best parent. Only thing I remember after that is she ended up running away for most of the book I believe the girl is about 17-15 years old and brunette. The book was part of a series of books with the same sort of title and cover but they were unrelated to each other. All had the title “(Adjective) Girl” and had a bright sparkly background with a silhouette of a girl. This book was pink and had a girl sitting in front of a fence at a side angle. That’s about all I remember. Thank you

Disclaimer: This was a good few years ago now, so I could be misremembering some details. Also, I don't bear this GM any ill will - he's a nice person, this was just a bad idea for a game and a horrible choice of system for it.
A friend of mine invited me to a one-shot he was running to test out a new system. The party was six players (including me) and the GM. I only knew the GM and one of the other players, but fortunately everyone got along okay - this isn't that kind of horror story.
The game turned out to be Numenera, which nobody except the GM had played or even read before. In fact, he'd recommended that we not read the rulebook in advance. Numenera is a fairly simple system and the core mechanic is very quick to explain, so this alone wasn't necessarily a horrible idea, but I started to have doubts once I saw my character sheet.
If you're unfamiliar with Numenera or the Cypher System in general, characters are basically made up of three elements: an adjective (your basic traits and personality), a noun (your class), and a verb (a modular "extra", like an animal companion or telekinesis). Each of these components adjusts your stats and gives you some special abilities, including adjusting the difficulties of certain tasks up or down.
Our character sheets each had a name, a noun, core stats, and equipment, and that was it. The GM announced that we all had amnesia, and would have to rediscover our abilities through play.
What followed was basically four hours of directionless blundering about as we all tried to work out who we were, what we were doing, and whether we were any good at the things we attempted. Numenera never applies modifiers to the die you're rolling, only to the difficulty you're trying to beat, so every roll we tried to make was a shot in the dark. If we had an applicable skill, the GM would tell us, and we made a few discoveries that way, but Numenera doesn't have a set skill list, so it was impossible to know how much our our skillset we'd discovered or how broadly applicable those skills might be. Each of your core stats has a pool of points you can spend to make rolls with that stat easier, but for whatever reason the GM wouldn't tell us how to recharge them - and those stat pools also double as your hit points, so we were all very wary of spending them.
I think there was a quest we were meant to be following, but we basically ended up treating the carefully prepared world like a 90s point-and-click adventure game, mashing ourselves against every object and NPC in the hope that we might discover some of our "forgotten" abilities. The people who suffered most were the mages ("nanos", in Numenera-speak). In theory, they had spells they could cast, but they didn't know what those spells were, and, since nobody had seen the rulebook, they didn't even know what the spells could be. Later in the session, the GM threw one of them a bone and just told her what one of the spells was, but by then she didn't have enough stat points left to cast it, so it never actually got used.
Honestly, by the halfway mark, I was starting to switch off - the then-undiagnosed ADHD probably didn't help, but I just couldn't stay invested when I knew so little about any of the characters and had no idea how to learn more. I think there was a fight at some point, but it had clearly not been balanced for six PCs, so it was over pretty quickly. By the end of the session, I think half of the table knew what their verbs were.
I was not one of them. The only new thing I'd learned about my character was that she was good at running. So that was nice.
Can you teach an unknown system on the fly through a one-shot? Yes. Can you run a game with six players? Sure. Can the amnesiac PC gimmick be made fun and interesting? I'm a little less sure about this one, but let's say yes. Can you combine all three into a single game? No. No you cannot.
I mostly GM nowadays, and I do like playing with elements of mystery and discovery, but I think about that one-shot constantly. Again, no hard feelings - we all make mistakes, God knows I've made plenty - but it feels like a useful cautionary tale about what happens when you embrace the "GM as whimsical trickster god" meme a little too hard.

I studied German in school (UK GCSE level) and I'd say I was comfortably B1 at the time, but that was quite a few years ago now. I'm struggling to find good learning resources that aren't for brand new learners. I'd say I'm around A2 without any new study and have a good knowledge of German "devices"(?) (i.e. I'm used to grammar, word order, etc.) so would only really need a refresher on things like this.
I bought the first Harry Potter book in German, which seemed a good idea at the time (read the book to death when I was younger) since it's aimed at young teens/children so I thought I'd have a gist of what was happening, but there's a lot of new vocab (mostly adjectives) which are making it really clunky to read. I've tried adding these words to Anki to learn, but I'm making zero progress with the book since it's a lot to try learn at once.
Are there any other books people would recommend that are aimed at younger audiences? I'd like it to be in "actual" German, i.e. intended for German speakers and not learners, since I think it's a more authentic way of learning and gives you a better vocabulary.
I also plan on listening to podcasts and making some German playlists. The issue with the former is that, again, I'm struggling to find a starting place that isn't the very beginning and isn't halfway through something more difficult.
Thanks in advance :)

Dear Someone
It's almost surreal. I am addressing this letter to you, yet I have no idea who you are or where you are. It's nearly evening, and I imagine you might be coming from the office, studying for your dream job, or outside your home as you watch kids play, others walk, and just watch this beautiful world unfold. I hope that when we meet, we start to like each other, talk, and look forward to our next meeting. Every moment apart, we feel like we are in our dreams, and when we meet each other, we pinch ourselves and try to console ourselves if it's really happening. I hope, over time, we fall in love with each other with all our perfections and imperfections.
I don't know what will happen after that. To be frank, life is rarely fair, and difficulties bound all of us. However, I know it will take the universe to tear us apart. I would be standing side by side, and we together would be sailing the sea of life, stormy or sunny. I would thus love you unconditionally without any constraints or strings, and the love would be as pure as it could bring someone to tears. I really can't wait to meet you, to care for you more than I do, to share every moment of my life, and to begin being a participant in everything you want me to be, be it late-night movies, going on vacations, or just hearing you rant about how her day had been. I can't wait to see you in bed and think how lucky I am in the world to get someone like her to share her life as you sleep.
I'm just running out of adjectives to describe how our love would be endless and expanding, like the universe we inhabit. It's such a privilege to fall in true love with you, and I can't wait to fall in love with you. One day, I hope, as you wake up from bed and we do breakfast, looking forward to the day, I show you this letter and ask whether you think our love is like what I hoped for in the letter, and you unequivocally say yes, hugging me as we both cry silent tears of joy and comfort.
Yours forever

Hi,
I used Notion for many years and later moved on to Obsidian which I've been using for about 2 years now. I find it useful but not perfect, and I have reached a stage where there is some functionality I am missing.
On top of what apps like Obsidian already offer, I was looking for something that would also have features like:

• Having an option to find notes based on their similarity to other notes. Basically determining potential relationships without me having to manually link them. These potential relationships can be based on words found in the body of the notes and their frequency. This could even be a feature available in the equivalent of an Obsidian local view that can be turned on or off.
  
• Similar to the previous item, an overview of topics I've written about would also be useful. For instance, something that can tell me that I created, let's say, 10 notes this month that include the some kind of "key" noun like "decentralization" and provide other insights like how when I produce notes about "decentralization" I also discuss "deregulation". And by key nouns I mean essentially words that are not every day words or even words that I explicitly define as key terms.
  
• Something that showcases how two notes are linked in the graph view. Meaning, instead of there just being lines or arrows, the line itself explains the relationship between the two notes. For instance, in Obsidian I can filter the graph view and search only for the items in my "Van Gogh" folder. And now I can see that the Vincent van Gogh note links to the Theo van Gogh note and to the Van Gogh Museum note. But the only way (as far as I can tell) that I can define the relationship between these items is with tags. So I can make a group for items tagged as "family", and the Theo note can then be pink. The "locations" tag can also have a group and be green instead. But what if I wanted to visualize, say, the date of something, like when someone was born and when a museum was inaugurated? I can't sort the graph view based on date or any other tag or property (though I'm sure I could make a Dataview table for that). But if I had tags for dates and I wanted to group items based on that, I now really have no way of knowning how these items relate. So something that makes these relationships visibly clearer would be super helpful (along with features that allow for more ways to sort notes on the graph view).
  

I have an issue which should be apparent by now and that is that I don't know much about programming or coding, I can barely put my ideas above into words. I imagine that if I knew more about programming I would probably be able to make something that does what I described but being limited in that skill sort of forces me to look for apps or plugins.
I know the Graph Analysis plugin for Obsidian is supposed to sort of do something similar to what I described, especially the Bag of Words and Louvain settings, but because it cannot distinguish between the importance of different nouns and it cannot distinguish nouns, verbs, or adjectives from prepositions and articles, it is not very useful.
After doing some Googling it seems that a tool that does what I described needs to either contain some kind of AI or something called "semantic ontology".
Someone in this Obsidian forum recommends capacities.io and it does have a couple of features I like, for instance, a note/object can have a property has is itself an object, such as a date, but if I want only the year I must put in a number which does not look like it can be its own object. I also did not find any way to add filters to the graph view at all, so it was more limited than Obsidian in that regard.
Anytype.io, which was recommended by the same user, allows you to define what type of object belongs as what property for each object type, which is already far superior but, as with Obsidian, it is quite complex so I don't fully know the extent of what can be done with the app and its potential issues.
Hopefully, I have done an OK job with explaining what I am looking for. Does anyone have any clue what kinds of tools I should be looking into that have features similar to what I described above? My university research is becoming quite complex and with Obsidian I feel like if I forget to link two notes (which becomes harder to remember as the vault expands and eventually linking similar ideas to a shared "main" note starts to get messy and deafeat the purpose) I end up not making full use of connections that could be helping me expand my understanding.

I’m an ALT at the junior high school and occasionally elementary level.
Lately I’ve become really tired of my students using Google translate for words in English class and am looking for an alternative, ideally an online dictionary aimed at Japanese students learning English with as many of the following features as possible:

• Japanese user interface
• The word with common nouns uncapitalised
• A definition in Japanese
• The word class (noun, adjective, verb, etc)
• Multiple example sentences
• An indication as to whether the word is in common usage or archaic term
• Recording of pronunciation

Problems with Google Translate have caused lots of issues in my students’ writings.
These are some of the issues I’ve faced:
Google Translate always has unnecessary capitalisation when they type in a word on its own, because it treats the word like the start of a new sentence and automatically capitalises it. The problem is the students don’t question the all-knowing Google-sensei and just copy what it comes out with as is into their work.
Result: ‘I like Fried Chicken.’
It also doesn’t tell them the word class (noun, adjective, verb, etc) so they end up using it incorrectly in their sentences.
Result: ‘I like her brave.’ (Should be the noun ‘bravery’, not the adjective ‘brave’)
It also causes issues when they input a word that covers many meanings in one language but has separate dedicated words in the other language.
E.g. ‘足’ (ashi) means both ‘foot’ or ‘leg’ in Japanese so when they put 足 into Google Translate, Google will just choose ‘foot’ or ‘leg’ randomly.
This also happens with words in English that have multiple meanings for the same word depending on the context.
E.g. ‘trip’ can mean 旅行 (‘trip’ as in going somewhere for a holiday/vacation) or 躓く(‘trip’ as in trip over something and fall over).
This is why I’d like them to use something that has example sentences so it shows them many options and then they can figure out which one to choose.
When I studied languages back home at secondary school and university, our teachers didn’t allow us to use Google Translate. Instead, they pointed us towards better online dictionaries with the features I listed above. Some examples were SpanishDict for Spanish and Jisho.org for Japanese (I love Jisho.org but the UI is very much designed for English-speaking learners of Japanese rather than Japanese-speaking learners of English). I still use these two sites and would love to show my students a website that they can continue to use well into the future.
I hope someone can help me out. Thanks in advance :)

Written by u/GoldWhale & u/JD397
Thanks everyone for your patience with us getting this written up. Much appreciation to my co-author u/JD397 for his work, scouting analysis, and comprehensive background knowledge on where Demidov sat compared to historical players, and the international analysis. Please note, this analysis won’t focus on why Demidov>Levshunov. In terms of BPA, Demidov is nearly unanimously over Levshunov based on consolidated rankings. With the Blackhawks publicly saying they want to go BPA, we hope to establish a case as to why Demidov truly stands above the rest, by a good margin. We hope that this was worth the wait, and we haven’t disappointed anyone who may have wanted more. We’re amateurs, give us a small break 😉
When Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly flipped the decisive card to reveal the number one overall pick, Blackhawks fans were disappointed. They were going to miss out on Macklin Celebrini, the consensus number one center and number one overall player in the draft. After winning Connor Bedard the prior year, many fans were hoping for a one two punch down the middle, their own version of McDavid and Draisaitl, Crosby and Malkin; this was not to be.
Despite the initial dismay, fans were still happy. The Blackhawks won the second lottery, and with that, the rights to select a franchise player at number two overall. Immediately, though, there was debate. Swirling on social media there were rumors that the Blackhawks were predominantly looking at two high end prospects: Ivan Demidov (RW/C) and Artyom Levshunov (D). On one hand Demidov is an elite prospect at wing with excellent hands, creativity, and legitimate top line wing with PPG+ upside. On the other, Levshunov is a dynamic offensive defenseman with a stellar shot, solid size, dynamic skating, and most importantly right-handedness.
The Blackhawks, realistically, need both positions. Last year the Blackhawks iced one of the worst offenses in the entire league, scoring the second least goals behind only San Jose. They also had the fourth worst defense, surrendering 290 goals on the season. Neither are acceptable in the push for a playoff spot in the coming years, but ultimately with number two, you can only choose one of the two players. After our hours of analysis, u/JD397 and I believe there is no debate – as good as Levshunov is, Demidov is closer in skill and projection to Celebrini than anyone else in the draft is to him.
So who is Ivan Demidov? He’s an 18 year old forward playing for SKA 1946, a MHL affiliate of SKA of the KHL. Since the 2023 draft the big story out of the KHL was the dominance of Matvei Michkov. This was a kid who destroyed the MHL by putting up 38 points in 22 games and going PPG+ in the playoffs his D-1 Year. Michkov then outperformed Connor Bedard by putting up 16 points in 7 games at the IIHF U18s in 2021. Michkov was, and still is, borderline generational but there was someone else waiting in his shadow. In his D-1 Year, Ivan Demidov put up 62 points in 41 games, and scored 1.3PPG in the MHL playoffs. While putting up a lower PPG pace than Michkov, Demidov’s game was substantially more well rounded and scouts started to take notice of another potential franchise winger in Ivan Demidov.
Demidov exploded in his D-0 Year, putting up a literal 2.0 PPG pace in the MHL the highest pace ever for a player 18 or under, and the third highest PPG in league history. In the playoffs, despite an injury, Demidov posted a ridiculous 28 points in 17 games. This production was unheard of beforehand and bested Kucherov’s 1.87 point pace at 18. Not only did Demidov have better production AND two way play, but he also did it nearly 7 months younger. Demidov remains a bright spot who is able to elevate his play to the competition. Before talking about playstyle, strengths, comps, projections, etc. it needs to be noted just how dominant Demidov was on the scoresheet.
Now that fans know who Ivan Demidov is, let’s address the elephant in the room. Demidov is Russian and with the political climate worldwide, being a Russian is associated with an inherent risk of a prospect not coming over. Rest assured – there is no such concern in this case. Last year, rumors swirled around Michkov not coming over due to three factors:

1. Michkov did not meet with more than two teams and actively told specific teams he would not play for them.
   
2. Michkov was incredibly difficult to get ahold of predraft and it made scouts and front offices skeptical on his character and desire to come to the NHL.
   
3. Michkov had 3 more years left on his contract with SKA.
   

Demidov, on the other hand, is actively engaging with teams. He’s hosting a workout in Florida before the draft for multiple teams to attend, and is actively having his agent coordinate interviews and meetings with interested front offices. Demidov has publicly declared his intention to come over to the NHL as soon as possible, even venturing so far as to say he’s looking at options for getting out of his KHL contract to get to the NHL for the 24-25 season. Finally, Demidov only has 1 year left on his contract so there isn’t long term concern about losing the ability to develop him internally. An interesting note that we found during analysis was that Demidov’s agent, Dan Milstein, is “hated” in the KHL because of how consistently he pushes for his clients to leave Russia and transition them to the NHL. Even if Demidov is stuck in Russia all of next year, there’s almost zero risk he doesn’t come over.
On Demidov, the other large question that looms is his lack of play in the KHL, and SKA’s decision to play him in the MHL. Despite being the one of the best players in MHL history, Demidov only saw action in 4 KHL games and scored a total of 0 points which has also turned off many scoresheet watchers. Let us reassure you – Demidov was predominantly the 13th forward and played an average of 3-5 minutes per game with unfamiliar linemates. He did not have a chance to play enough to succeed, and built no chemistry with the teammates he was playing with in his limited time. SKA is notorious for handling their prospects poorly. Young players are consistently given limited ice time, especially when they’re expected to leave Russia. Michkov, despite his skill, couldn’t crack the SKA roster in his D-0 or D+1 simply because of this bias. All said, this is not a concern scouts have when it comes to the potential drafting of Demidov.
With the Russia question answered, we believe there is no doubt that Ivan Demidov is the pick to make in the 2024 draft. Ivan Demidov is really really good. He is the complete package for what you look for in a franchise winger. Demidov has excellent hands, dynamic edgework, elite hockey IQ, high end compete and energy, a relentless forecheck, creativity in the offense he provides, solid two way play, and finally rapid speed in terms of release and puck control. There is no one like him in this draft who offers such an elite skillset with no obvious flaws in his game outside of his build. He can also play center when needed which gives him additional offensive flexibility and adds even more dynamism to his game.
While analytics don’t tell the full story, they can often be a useful baseline to build from. The first item we want to call attention to is Byron Bader’s model, which projects Demidov as the best #2OA prospect since Eichel.. Let's again be clear, we don’t put much merit into this due to the low gradings of Carlsson and Laine, but it’s important to contextualize how Bader’s model works. It compares prospects to the league they’re in and projects them out. Demidov dominated the MHL to such a degree that the model favorably views him due to being almost untouched in play, and setting multiple records. Continuing with Hockey Prospecting and Bader, who is an active NHL draft consultant, they project Demidov to be an absolute STUD based on production. No forward who they’ve ever given 99%s to has ever been less than PPG+. Demidov has a very comparable offensive game to Celebrini, and is all but guaranteed to be a star due to his production and skillset. Alanen also projects Demidov to be elite in all 3 zones, and gives him a total RARE grade of 100, due to his next level offense and transition, and above average defensive work despite his assignments. Again, analytics aren’t an end all be all by any means. They’re just an exceptional base to build from when scouts, data scientists and NHL draft consultants unanimously believe a player to be elite. From our research, no prospects with comparable profiles have busted or not succeeded in the NHL.
Whilst reading multiple articles, watching videos on Demidov, and going through tape, we compiled the following scouting report.
Physical Attributes:
Demidov is not very physically imposing, or even one of the most physical players in the draft. He’s expected to show up to the combine around 6ft tall and weighing 170lbs. Admittedly one knock that some scouts have for him is his build and need to bulk up. Thankfully, this is easy to build at the professional level. Nonetheless, Demidov has sturdy base that enables him to dominate around the boards and in front of the net due to his rapid twitch movements and lower body power. Demidov is able to outskate and outwork larger and stronger players by being smart with his legs and driving to the inside consistently when in transition. His remarkable agility and lower-body strength allow him to outmaneuver opponents and maintain possession in tight spaces, or separate for quick attacks or desperation back checking.
Skating:
Demidov's skating is characterized by irregularities; while he exhibits great power on his edges, his transitions suffer due to a wide stance, leading to questionable but explosive pivot work. Despite this, his rapid acceleration and agility enable him to navigate through traffic seamlessly, while his powerful stride generates significant momentum, making him a constant threat in transition. Let’s clear up a misconception; Demidov is not a bad skater. He’s got decent speed, a good handle on body control, power on the inside of his edges and with quick crossovers, etc. His posture and stance need work, but this is something that looks completely fixable at the NHL level. It doesn’t require a rebuild of his skating style, rather a retool that can utilize his edgework as a base. Instead of hunching over at the end of a shift and losing speed and energy, Demidov can rely on quicker small movement cuts on for rapid movement and longer, albeit slower strides while holding himself higher to preserve energy while covering distance. While the 10 and 2 skating that Demidov employs isn’t conventional, it allows him to see a good deal of the ice, and when in close provide breaking speed towards the play. Fixing the reliance on 10 and 2 also offers faster top level skating and easier quick pivoting in a 200ft game, rather than a longer turn. Again, his skating is unorthodox – but it isn’t bad. It’s not mechanically sound, but it can be polished to a high level without a large amount of concern. Because of how unpredictable his skating is now, scouts across the board acknowledge that it potentially even grants an advantage as his body is harder to read.
Scoring Ability:
A natural sniper, Demidov possesses a lethal shot with pinpoint accuracy and a lightning-quick release that catches goaltenders off guard. Whether he's unleashing a blistering wrist shot from the slot or wiring a one-timer on the power play, Demidov consistently finds the back of the net with precision and finesse. One really underrated part of Demidov’s scoring ability comes from the aforementioned elite edgework. Due to how rapidly he can change directions while holding full control over the puck, he can create scoring lanes with almost zero room, and his accuracy is again one of the best we’ve evaluated as amateur scouts in the last few drafts. When there isn’t an immediate opening or shot, Demidov is patient, draws coverage where he wants, and again has no qualms about firing the puck to the net. If there’s one question about his ability to score, it’s his slapshot. He hasn’t had to use it in almost any occasion due to how the offense is structured on SKA 1946, and therefore it’s not as developed as his snap or wrister. This is a relatively minor knock, though. Demidov can take slapshots and find twine without much difficulty, it’s just the least refined part of his goalscoring ability.
Playmaking and Elite Hands:
Demidov has the best hands that we have scouted. Better than McDavid, better than Fantilli, better than Hughes, better than Bedard, better than Michkov, and yes, better than Patrick Kane as a prospect. Yep, that good. Hadi Kalakeche, one of Dobber’s lead scouts says, “…he has THE best handling skill I’ve seen… he’s the closest thing we’ve seen to Pavel Datsyuk since Pavel Datsyuk.” The rapidity of his movement, the purposeful puck placement, the astounding protection rate, and his ability to pull defenders off of him without moving his body is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. Again, he has the most individual puck skill and innate offensive talent in the draft. These skills with his hands allow him to become an absolutely next level playmaker. Demidov is crafty, and has a history of faking shots to make a pass, or vice versa to help his team. He’s able to create lanes and take advantage of his puck control by having absolutely next level zone entry to set up the offense on a consistent basis. While his decision making needs some work when it comes to choosing the best move, he almost always makes the right one, and is able to think through solutions when there’s no apparent move forward. Whether it’s a drop pass, running the puck up the boards, a regroup, finding a teammate with a perfectly slotted pass, Demidov has no real ceiling. The only question remains is whether these skills will work as well at the next level. All said though, there’s no real debate between scouts that he’ll be a franchise winger.
Creativity and IQ:
Demidov is electrifying, brilliant, dynamic, innovative, transcendent, and any other adjective you want to use. There is no prospect in this draft with Demidov’s offensive upside, including Macklin Celebrini. As mentioned above, Demidov has been compared to Datsyuk: he is stellar at opening up lanes with his body or finding passes, even if they’re banked off the boards. While Bedard is a guy who was expected to shoot first, Demidov is a passer. This works in his favor, though. Demidov certainly doesn’t lack a scoring touch. His positioning and body will tell goalies and defenders he’s planning to pass and he’s able to quickly change direction using his edges to put a shot on net. His ability to think several steps ahead of the play allows him to execute highlight-reel passes and capitalize on scoring opportunities that others on his team might miss, or simply not have the skill to execute. He’s unpredictable because his vision is at such a high level. He’s got a game reminiscent of Jack Hughes and Patrick Kane, and the way he views the game has scouts absolutely over the moon about his pro projection. There really is nothing that Demidov doesn’t have the ability to do – this year in the MHL he took advantage of the strength of competition and tested it out. Demidov tried different reads, different styles, working more heavily down the middle, shooting, playdriving, etc. We’re blown away by the flexibility that he shows across every facet of the game. A really fun quote to mention from Lassi Alanen, EP’s director of Euro scouting is, “I still have like 100+ unused clips of Demidov's play from this season. He must be the most clippable prospect I've ever watched. Something eye-catching happening almost every shift during his second half of the season.” Demidov’s highlight reel isn’t really a “reel” – that’s just how he plays the game on most shifts that he takes.
Physicality and Defensive Awareness:
Demidov's physicality extends well beyond his height, as he isn't afraid to throw his weight (all 170lbs) around and engage in board battles to win possession. His defensive awareness is equally impressive, as he uses his size and reach to disrupt passing lanes and apply pressure on opposing forwards both in the defensive zone and in the neutral zone, showcasing a commitment to playing a complete, two-way game. As briefly mentioned, Demidov doesn’t exclusively play wing – he plays center too. While he’s not going to be Patrice Bergeron he is capable of handling both ends of the ice, and has consistently improved his defensive play throughout the year.
Work Ethic and Engagement:
While almost all prospects “work hard” to play their best on the ice, Demidov does that little bit more. Despite being a winger, he’s consistently one of the first players up and down the ice. He rarely coasts and drifts around but is engaged rather consistently all around the ice. One thing that’s often hard to teach prospects is how to be aggressive and assertive without being risky. Demidov never worries about challenging his opponents, fighting hard board battles, or giving his all to get back into a play after he’s low after driving to the net. This is something that the Blackhawks LOVE in their players, and should hopefully encourage GMKD to pull the trigger, if everything else didn’t sell him. As we see Demidov continue to improve in skating with NHL coaches, this should only give him more energy to expend in the 200ft game, and improve his engagement across plays. He’s an absolute workhorse, and consistently pushes to improve which evidenced by the massive improvement across this season in the MHL. There’s no reason to think this same drive can’t come through on the NHL level.
Areas to Improve and Questions:
With all the hype around Demidov, it’s hard to initially understand why he’s considered a lower end prospect than Celebrini. Digging in, though, it becomes more clear. While Demidov has the higher ceiling, he also has a much lower floor. The number one factor that limits Demidov is his exposure to higher end competition. The MHL is a good league, but Demidov was ready for the KHL last year. Since he wasn’t exposed to higher end competition there is still question on how much of his skillset will translate when playing higher level men’s hockey. There isn’t an expectation of a problem, but when a player lacks that experience, it undoubtedly makes them more challenging to project. Remember, Demidov didn’t really play meaningful KHL minutes when he got 4 games this year. He got 13th forward exposure and didn’t play with the same linemates that he worked with in the pre-season. Nonetheless, he wasn’t perfect. He did see some questionable decisions while trying to adapt to higher competition. There’s little concern that this is an actual issue, but Demidov needs to grow and play against men, even for a few games, before coming to the NHL. Thankfully, he should have the entire season in 2024-2025, and I haven’t read a single scouting report that expects him to have an issue putting up Michkov+ numbers.
The second factor is skating. Demidov is a good skater, but he’s unorthodox at best. While this skating relies heavily on his edgework which gives him amazing playmaking ability, his pivoting, high end speed, position and stride could all use refinement and improvement. While these are all skating mechanics that are easier to fix, skating is NOT a guarantee. If he’s unable to improve his skating with NHL skating coaches, it could limit his upside. He is still expected to be a top line winger, but it could be the difference between 70+ and 100+ points if skating doesn’t develop. Remember, some scouts view his skating as a “hidden” upside in his game, but improving skating not only gives him more offensive flexibility, but also defensively. There’s room for improvement, and it could be an easier lever to correct to see high rewards from.
The third factor is decision making. Demidov is creative to a fault, but just like in art, not every project works out. With such an advanced toolkit, Demidov needs to work with video coaches to better understand which moveset is appropriate in which scenario and when to deploy it. There’s a difference between decision making and IQ. Decision making is hard to fix when a prospect is set in their ways based on playstyle, but if playstyle is more flexible, then there’s much less of a concern. IQ, on the other hand is uncoachable, and Demidov has arguably the best offensive IQ in the draft. There’s no reason to believe that he can’t fix this, but due to being stuck abroad, and potentially even the MHL again next year, it could take him a bit longer to get up to NHL speed.
The final factor is defense. While it seems that every single forward prospect has a knock on their defense, we can qualify Demidov’s specifics a bit more easily. Demidov is a competent defender, and a very good well rounded player, but again decision making plays a factor in the challenge of projecting him here. While players like Celebrini are dominant both ways, Demidov often doesn’t make the right choice when defending – he has a lot of offensive instincts which have him sit higher on the blue, and while he is always engaged on the puck, he needs to be more responsible in coverage rotations. Off the rush, Demidov doesn’t always read the play correctly, and the inconsistency can create shooting lanes for his opponent. Just like Michkov, he can also cheat on plays where he finds himself a bit further away from a play and loses sight of his defensive assignment. He’s extremely energetic and consistently pushes to get back, but working with him on understanding when to cheat will be important for his development as well. We again want to reemphasize that Demidov plays solid defense and a good two way game, especially for a wingecenter. But there’s room for improvement in terms of bridging the gap between him and other recent prospects like Celebrini, Carlsson, and Johnston.
Pro Projection:
While he doesn’t have the skating that Jack Hughes had, he’s still a great projection and comparable. A smaller but nimble player who isn’t afraid to get involved on the rush, around the boards, or in transition. Demidov’s offensive upside is similar as well – like Hughes, the defense isn’t the best, but he’s able to run an entire offense both on the wing and playing center. He’s creative to a fault, has a great set of hands, and the toolkit to be a consistent top 5 player at his position in the NHL. Pro projections are always hard because you can never guarantee how a player will turn out, whether they’re undrafted or a #1OA, but Demidov is truly all but a sure thing. His creativity rivals players like Nikita Kucherov and Mitch Marner in their ability to think ahead of where the play is, his handling rivals Kane and Datysuk, his defensive play is above average for a winger, he has a great shot comparable to players like Matt Tkachuk, and is a bitch to get off the puck. Even when Demidov is literally on the ground, he’s consistently able to hold possession and find a play with no room left. With a toolkit like his, decent size at an estimated 6ft, there should be no reservations that Demidov should succeed at the next level. Most scouts see his floor around 65-70 points, and his ceiling closer to 120. I stand by the Jack Hughes comp I made earlier. While they differ in skating, they play very similar games, and should expect similar success at the next level.
Quotes:

“He’s got the best hands in the draft… and has made more one-on-one skill plays so far this season than almost any prospect I’ve scouted for any draft. He’s also a pretty engaged off-puck player who keeps his feet moving, hunts pucks on the forecheck, and can turn a steal into a game-breaking play in an instant.”
Scott Wheeler, The Athletic
“Demidov is already a game-breaking forward who can move the puck effortlessly and there’s no question he’d be a fantastic partner to some of the best prospects in the NHL today. His production in the MHL is comparable to Patrick Kane’s 2006-07 season with the Ontario Hockey League’s London Knights… Demidov is a bonafide first-line winger who will score tons of goals.”
Dayton Reimer, The Hockey Writers
“In a vacuum he’s the most talented forward this draft class has to offer outside of Celebrini. Demidov possesses many of the same traits Celebrini does, only his track record is against younger, more unproven talent."
Sam Cosentino, Sportsnet
“The talent of Demidov is impossible to deny. His raw skills might be the best in terms of offense in the entire draft. His puckhandling, shot, passing, and even skating makes him a unique hockey player and prospect. There are many great offensive players, but not many quite like Demidov. Especially who will also have a great drive and motor to play a strong 200 foot game… he could easily be a point per game player in the NHL on most teams first line.”
Frederik Frandsen, Last Word on Sports
“At the end of the day, what you get in a player like Ivan Demidov is a generational offensive dynamo with the mind of a master chess player. Each time he gains possession of the biscuit, his ability to think many steps ahead of the opponent, find creative solutions involving his puck handling abilities, as well as creating tremendous execution at creating space with his skating or precisely hitting the net is considered to be up to par at the NHL level.”
Tyler Ballesteros-Willard, Draft Prospects Hockey
“Any forward that has ever had the type of equivalency we’ve seen from Demidov in his pre-draft year and draft year, going back to the ’80s, has turned into a point-per-game-plus superstar over their careers… You need stars to compete and contend in the NHL, and Demidov is almost guaranteed to be that.”
Byron Bader, Hockey Prospecting
“Demidov is the most dynamic, verstatile, and creative [puck] handler we’ve seen come through the draft in recent years. Elements of his on-puck decision-making remain raw, but his upside as a 100-point top-line winger is supported by decent off-puck and defensive engagement and lightning-quick processing of the game. His elite-level of on-puck intelligence and his trifecta of dynamic handling, playmaking, and goalscoring tools give him the foundation to become an electrifying creative force and offensive driver.”
Sebastian High, Dobber
“Demidov breaks defences. He spots a tiny gap in coverage, bursts right through, and blows it open. He plays mostly a finesse game, but does so hyper-aggressively, attacking everything he can. Demidov succeeds at pulling off plays that most prospects can't. He plans, processes, and anticipates faster than he can stickhandle. He's a pure creator with the puck, making plays out of nothing.”
David St. Louis, Elite Prospects
“Demidov is the more dynamic and flashy prospect [Than Michkov].Demidov is the single-most gifted handler in the entire 2024 class. He projects to be the superior one-on-one attacker…someone who can single-handedly create out of thin air. When it comes to passing ability…Demidov’s ability to chain together handling sequences into following passing plays is second to none.”
Lassi Alanen, Elite Prospects
“It’s a no brainer[at #2OA]. It’s Ivan Demidov all day, every day, 24/7. You run to the stage and pick him… if you ask me, Ivan Demidov is better than Matvei Michkov… He’s the only prospect in our rankings who we gave a 10 grade to for a specific ability. It’s not just the handling skill in isolation it’s the creativity. He comes up with solutions no one can expect.. his motor is underrated, puts in work defensively… it’s a no brainer there.”
Hadi Kalakeche, Locked on NHL/Dobber

Our Scouting:
Clip 1:
As we talked about prior, Demidov has a great IQ and the ability to create lanes and plays out of nothing. Demidov pushes up the ice and enters the zone with pressure closing onto the side. He uses his hands to pull in control, but more impressively, puts his body between the defender and the puck. He uses his edgework and breaking speed to push past the defender, then is patient enough to draw 3 defenders towards him, away from his teammate. When he sees the trailing defenseman waiting, he immediately finds a tight pass for a wide open teammate to capitalize.
Clip 2:
There’s a difference between a safe move, and then there’s an insane move. Watch as Demidov comes up on the left side. He sees that the defender is getting desperate and goes for a large poke. Demidov slides the puck under the Dman’s stick and once again shows off his patience. Instead of going for a quick shot he reads that the other defender is slowly coming across the crease to prevent a passing lane. Instead of just shooting like most players, Demidov baits the goalie into thinking he’s going to run into the defenseman, and in that second, puts the puck in the net.
Clip 3:
Small play, but this is just about how slick his passing is. He slides the puck through a very tight lane while baiting the defenseman into sliding due to not knowing where the play is going to be.
Clip 4:
While we can put on nonstop highlights, it’s also important to see how smart Demidov’s game is. Demidov and the other SKA players move the puck around a bit trying to find an opening until they give it to Demidov. Demidov reads an open play and passes the puck down, but instead of immediately following the puck or staying at his spot, Demidov uses his high engagement to instead move to the other side of the net down low to offer accessory support for his teammates on his anticipated cross crease pass, should there have been a rebound.
Clip 5:
Not every highlight is going to be a goal. One really underrated part of Demidov’s game is how well he’s able to read the offense. As he holds high initially, he’s able to help move the puck out in order to reset the offense when the play fails. His motor keeps him in the play and with his excellent edges, he’s able to make a quick pivot after rushing around in order to step up and create an open shooting lane. While his teammate can’t make the pass to get the puck to him, Demidov read where the play WOULD be, not just where it was. Those IQ aspects really can’t be taught, and are part of what makes him so special. By anticipating the open play rather than following the puck, he establishes himself as a play driver by creating options rather just following and executing structure at a high level.
Clip 6:
We're not even going to analyze this one. It’s just fucking fun. Talent oozes.
Clip 7:
This video has a ton of highlights, which I’d definitely recommend watching, but we’re going to focus specifically on the play at 0:45. We can post clips of Demidov scoring goals, finding breakaways, etc. all day long, but when thinking about translation to the NHL, IQ and decision making is what we’re really drying to drill down on. Demidov arrives in the zone through to middle and pushes the initial F1 to the F3 spot and changes the rotation. The puck is dumped to him and the initial F1 leaves a drop pass for Demidov approaching the goal. As soon as Demidov gets the puck, at 0:47, you can see him primed and in a good shooting position. The bigger defender misread the play and has drifted too far towards the center of the ice, leaving Demidov with a nearly unobstructed shooting lane as the netfront defenseman is also too far toward the middle. Instead of taking the shot, he instead waits to draw over the netfront defenseman, and the bigger defenseman closer towards him, leaving his teammate literally untouched across the crease. Demidov trusts his hands and ability with an extremely quick and accurate pass through the stick range of three defenders to find his teammate wide open. His decision making has been progressively improving and his ability to look off the shot to find an elite pass will translate extremely well to the next level.
Clip 8:
Another play where you can just be excited about Demidov. The puck is wrapped up around the boards and the defenseman sitting at the top of the blue just pushes the puck back into the zone without a clear target, or a player who has an explicit opening to the puck. If anything, the puck is put in the middle of all 5 Karpat skaters. Despite starting on the outside, Demidov’s engagement shines through where he uses his edgework to get a rapid explosive burst of speed, and pushes through both defenders in front of him to gain possession. Once he gains possession, his ability to control the puck, and his handles help to demonstrate just how strong of a prospect Demidov is. Even when the defender is falling onto him, Demidov is patient, makes the netfront defender bite to believe he’s going wide, creating a lane (effectively bypassing 3 separate Karpat players) to get to the goalie unobstructed. Then, his hands come out and he absolutely undresses the netminder with moves that the video literally cannot fully capture. He makes highlights like this look routine, every single game.
Clip 9:
Sometimes when you see a play it’s hard to say anything but wow. Demidov leads the rush through the neutral zone and reads the coverage a much less conventional 1-4 scheme. The offensive rush is a bit unconventional as well, but can offer a smart solution. By having 3 attackers, two concentrated up the middle and one wide, it allows for quick movement up the middle, and post defensive collapse onto the puck, a pass to the outside for a clear entry lane and shot. Demidov passes to his teammate directly across the center of the ice as he expects that teammate to immediately get puck to their teammate on the outside as coverage collapses. Demidov gauges where the openings are pre pass, as evidenced by the head movement. Unfortunately, instead of immediately passing again to the outside for an open lane, his teammate runs into pressure, and panics. He passes back to Demidov who is less than 8ft away and will inevitably will run into immediate pressure as well. Somehow, this is no problem for Demidov. He collects the puck with the literal tip of his stick, uses his body push the defender off, and then pulls the puck in while facing the wrong direction to slip past the defender. Despite being placed in a no win situation his hands and creativity shine through and he creates a clean lane to shoot the puck at the net. It’s almost inhuman what he’s able to do with his hands. When he gets to the net, he’s patient, baits the goalie, pulls wide, and then puts in a clean backhand. Some of these highlights are literally awe-inspiring.
Closing Thoughts:
If this scouting report doesn’t get you excited for Demidov, we don’t think anything will. He’s truly the most electric player in the draft with absolutely ridiculous hands, compete, dynamic play, and highlight reel performance. His IQ is next level, and his hands allow him to do truly amazing things with his skillset and competency. Demidov’s vision is absurd; he consistently makes passes to his teammates without looking, or sends a pass before a teammate has a clean break by using anticipation. These RARELY lead to a turnovers and are often not only creative but unorthodox methods to continue to move the puck up ice. Although his skating is unorthodox, he’s explosive, able to create comprehensive offensive maneuvers due to quick transitions, and make off angle passes with ease due to his edgework. He is elite in transition and able to run a breakout, an offense, and play any of the F1/F2/F3 roles when the situation calls for it. Despite his expected size of “only” 6ft 170lbs, Demidov knows how to use his body and hands. He not only protects the puck on offense but can draw defenders away from his teammates in predictable patterns, once again opening up space for him to capitalize. The same goes for defense where he's able to use his positioning to get the edge on his opponents for a rapid takeaway or a box out off the rush.
As we mentioned earlier, Demidov’s game isn’t limited only to offense, he has a decent understanding of the two way game as well. He’s a relentless forechecker, aggressive on the boards, and also always willing to use his high running motor to jump back into a play that leaves the zone, even if he’s right next to the net. Demidov has the most skill and raw talent out of any player in this draft, including Celebrini. Had Demidov not been demoted to the MHL due to SKA’s poor management, there is almost no doubt that he would be considered nearly neck and neck with Celebrini. As it is now, Demidov is ranked #2 on most boards, and the overall #2 in the consolidated ranking. Demidovs don’t come around often; people last year were genuinely considering whether Michkov was at Bedard’s level. Demidov rivals Michkov if not exceeds him.
You can nitpick the analysis we have of any one single aspect of Demidov. Not everyone buys analytics. Not everyone buys playmaking in a lower league. Not everyone likes irregular skating. Not everyone is on board with the MHL stat sheet, our hype etc. etc. We get it. Really, we do. But at the end of the day, when you step back and appreciate the full body of work, the comps, the analytics, the rave scouting reports, unanimous love, models, stat sheets, skill, work ethic, and more that ALL say that this kid is elite, there’s fire beyond the smoke. Demidov is THE guy. There should not be a debate at #2.
For those of you who made it to the end, thanks for reading! Ultimately we know there will be inevitable debate about a prospect, but we appreciate you hearing us out, and at least letting me, u/GoldWhale, spam the sub over the last few weeks in love of Demidov. Whether or not you agree with our analysis, we encourage you to do your own scouting, read from the authors we've included, watch through all the highlights in the linked videos, and draw your own conclusions!
We appreciate everyone in this community, and will try to answer any questions that you may have in the comments. If you so choose, please feel free to crosspost to other subs, edit, or utilize this writeup anywhere you like (forums/blogs/youtube etc.), just link back to our original post! For those in professional media who have contacted us with the hope of utilizing our writeup, feel free, again just link back to the original post as well. Thanks again!

Dear Someone
It's almost surreal. I am addressing this letter to you, yet I have no idea who you are or where you are. It's nearly evening, and I imagine you might be coming from the office, studying for your dream job, or outside your home as you watch kids play, others walk, and just watch this beautiful world unfold. I hope that when we meet, we start to like each other, talk, and look forward to our next meeting. Every moment apart, we feel like we are in our dreams, and when we meet each other, we pinch ourselves and try to console ourselves if it's really happening. I hope, over time, we fall in love with each other with all our perfections and imperfections.
I don't know what will happen after that. To be frank, life is rarely fair, and difficulties bound all of us. However, I know it will take the universe to tear us apart. I would be standing side by side, and we together would be sailing the sea of life, stormy or sunny. I would thus love you unconditionally without any constraints or strings, and the love would be as pure as it could bring someone to tears. I really can't wait to meet you, to care for you more than I do, to share every moment of my life, and to begin being a participant in everything you want me to be, be it late-night movies, going on vacations, or just hearing you rant about how her day had been. I can't wait to see you in bed and think how lucky I am in the world to get something like her to share her life as you sleep.
I'm just running out of adjectives to describe how our love would be endless and expanding, like the universe we inhabit. It's such a privilege to fall in true love with you, and I can't wait to fall in love with you. One day, I hope, as you wake up from bed and we do breakfast, looking forward to the day, I show you this letter and ask whether you think our love is like what I hoped for in the letter, and you unequivocally say yes, hugging me as we both cry silent tears of joy and comfort.
Yours forever

Hello all. I am currently just shy of 60k words in my WIP, a first novel. It's an epic fantasy (I know, original) trilogy that has been in planning for the last 2.5 years. I started writing a few months ago.
My background and training before this attempt is poetry, and part of my writing style has a lot to do with sonorous prose. I have only been published in college a few times in small batch, campus literary magazines (mostly poetry and literary non-fiction/litfic), and this is my first real attempt at writing something that I want to query traditionally.
I have been creating a few new words as part of worldbuilding and description, mostly onomatopoeia so far but I am starting to experiment with adjectives too.
What are people's thoughts about the risk v. reward for a debut author seeking trad publication neologizing moderately in a work?
TLDR: Is making cool new word bad when old word just ok?

Hi everyone! I'm having a bit of a spiral in regard to wanting to change my legal first name to a name I believe suits me much more. The name I was given at birth has tormented me since elementary school - combined with my last name, it's one of the most embarrassing names I've personally encountered in my life. Obviously I don't want to share my legal name, but to give some context, the best I could compare it to would be "Shiney Everyday." Meanwhile, my younger brother's first name is completely normal!
Those who knew/know me agree it's a ridiculous name no kid deserves, and is more befitting of a pet fish. Not only did it cause me to get poked fun-at when I was in school (yes, even TEACHERS would laugh at my name and make jokes), as an adult, my name has made getting a job very hard. Companies have accused me of making up my name, thus discarding my application. I'm a teacher, and because my name is public to my students, I've gotten poked fun of by my own students (middle schoolers are brutal). Furthermore, I'm starting my master's degree, and will soon be having papers published in my name. I want to be an activist, a historian, and an adult that is taken seriously. Nothing about my name is serious. Thankfully, I have a pretty and normal middle name that I use at work/school, but it's still a hassle.
Despite this embarrassing name, my parents are incredibly proud. My dad gave me the name because one day, when my mom was pregnant with me, he said that she was (again, substituting my name with a different adjective) "shining." With this stroke of genius, my name was final. Further more, my parents INSIST that I was the one who chose my name.
I'm getting married in August (yay!) and my plan since I was 10 years old has been to change my first name as soon as I got married. Since I was 10, I wanted my name to be Rosa, the name of a special needs therapist my brother had for years as a kid, who inspired me to become an educator. To me, the name means so much. My friends call me Rosa, my fiancé calls me Rosa, strangers and coworkers call me Rosa. However, changing my first name will not only shatter my parents, but make them extremely angry. They might disown me. They might not come to the wedding. They said if I ever changed my name, it would be the worst insult to them. They even get angry when I use my legal middle name. Ironically, my own mother uses her middle name. Not even my dad calls her by her legal first name. Truly confused, lol.
I don't know what to do, or how to break it to them, or when the right time would be to do so. I love my parents and care deeply about what they think, but I know who I am and the name I call myself, and it's not the one they gave me. Am I in the wrong? Am I truly a terrible daughter? I'm distraught and confused, and I only have 3 months to get it together before the wedding.
Anything helps. Thank you so so much for reading all this. Lots of love to my fellow ottomans and comforters! Stay safe and stay healthy!
EDIT: I thought it was important I’d mention that I’m Latina-American, with a yeehaw-white dad and a South American mom. My mom and I share the same Spanish middle name, so Rosa would just be another latin name addition. I am also a cis-woman, so this wouldn’t be purely for gender-affirming purposes (although it does make me feel prettier :) ).
EDIT #2: I realized I forgot to explain why they believe I chose my own name. In the womb, my mom play music by her stomach and talk to me a lot. She originally wasn’t sure about “Shiney” being my first name, so she decided to “talk” to me and ask for my fetal opinion. She’d ask me for several weeks, “If you want to be named ‘Shiney,’ move to the left. If you want to be named ‘Samantha,’ move to the right,” and switch it up each time. No matter what, she swears I’d shift to whatever side that happened to be the “Shiney” side. They firmly, genuinely believe I choose my name. Yes, they are deeply religious. Lastly, for the first year or so of my newborn life, my dad refused to let my mom’s family see me. My maternal side of the family spoke only Spanish then, and because they struggled to pronounce my name, they’d call me nicknames instead. This enraged my dad so much he didn’t allow my only living grandparents to see me during my first year of life “until they called me by my real, beautiful, God-given name.”

Understanding Subordinate Clauses in Spanish

A subordinate clause (oración subordinada) is a part of a sentence that relies on a main clause to make complete sense. It cannot stand alone as a full sentence. In Spanish, subordinate clauses are often introduced by conjunctions and relative pronouns like "que," "cuando," "donde," "como," "porque," etc. Understanding how to use subordinate clauses will significantly enhance your ability to form complex sentences and express more detailed thoughts.

Types of Subordinate Clauses

1. Noun Clauses (Oraciones subordinadas sustantivas): These function as a noun within the sentence. They are introduced by "que" and often follow verbs like "decir," "pensar," and "querer."
   Example:
   
   • Creo que ella vendrá. (I believe that she will come.)
2. Adjective Clauses (Oraciones subordinadas adjetivas): These function as an adjective, providing information about a noun. They are introduced by relative pronouns like "que," "quien," "el cual."
   Example:
   
   • El libro que leí es muy interesante. (The book that I read is very interesting.)
3. Adverbial Clauses (Oraciones subordinadas adverbiales): These act as an adverb, modifying the verb, adjective, or another adverb. They are introduced by conjunctions like "cuando," "donde," "aunque," "si," "como," "porque," etc.
   Example:
   
   • Te llamo cuando llegue. (I’ll call you when I arrive.)

How to Use Subordinate Clauses in Spanish

1. Using Conjunctions: Subordinate clauses are typically introduced by specific conjunctions which indicate how the subordinate clause relates to the main clause.

• Temporal: cuando (when), mientras (while) Example: Te veo cuando termine de trabajar. (I’ll see you when I finish working.)
  
• Causal: porque (because), ya que (since) Example: No salí porque llovía. (I didn’t go out because it was raining.)
  
• Purpose: para que (so that), a fin de que (in order that) Example: Estudio mucho para que pase el examen. (I study a lot so that I pass the exam.)
  

1. Using Relative Pronouns: These are used to introduce adjective clauses.
   • Que: that, which, who Example: La chica que conocí es muy simpática. (The girl whom I met is very nice.)

• Quien: who (used generally in non-defining clauses) Example: Mi amigo, quien vive en Madrid, me visitará pronto. (My friend, who lives in Madrid, will visit me soon.)

1. Verb Subjunctive in Subordinate Clauses: Often, subordinate clauses require the use of the subjunctive mood, especially after certain expressions and conjunctions indicating doubt, emotion, necessity, or non-reality.
   Example:
   
   • Dudo que él venga. (I doubt that he will come.)

Practice with Pal:

How Pal Can Help You Master Subordinate Clauses

A. Head over to Get-Pal.com/WhatsApp/ to start your practice with Pal.
B. Come up with a sentence that uses a subordinate clause in Spanish. For example, "Espero que estés bien." (I hope you are well.) and send it to Pal.
C. Pal will correct any mistakes you make and help you understand the correct phrasing. If you're not confident or struggling to create a sentence, simply ask Pal for help. Pal will continue the conversation in Spanish, allowing you to practice and become fluent over time.
Subordinate clauses are essential for creating complex, nuanced sentences. Consistent practice with Pal will help you master their use and develop your Spanish skills naturally. Happy learning!

Understanding "Este," "Ese," and "Aquel" in Spanish

When learning Spanish, one of the fundamental aspects to grasp is the use of demonstrative adjectives. These adjectives - "este," "ese," and "aquel" - are used to point out nouns and are akin to the English "this" and "that." However, Spanish adds an extra layer of specificity by indicating not only the proximity to the speaker but also to the listener.

1. Este (This)

"Este" (and its variants: "esta" for feminine singular, "estos" for masculine plural, and "estas" for feminine plural) is used to refer to something that is close to the speaker.

• Masculine singular: Este libro (This book)
• Feminine singular: Esta casa (This house)
• Masculine plural: Estos perros (These dogs)
• Feminine plural: Estas flores (These flowers)

2. Ese (That, close to the listener)

"Ese" (with variants "esa," "esos," and "esas") is used for something that is closer to the listener but not necessarily close to the speaker. Think of it as indicating a mid-range distance.

• Masculine singular: Ese coche (That car [near you])
• Feminine singular: Esa silla (That chair [near you])
• Masculine plural: Esos árboles (Those trees [near you])
• Feminine plural: Esas ventanas (Those windows [near you])

3. Aquel (That, over there)

"Aquel" (along with "aquella," "aquellos," and "aquellas") is reserved for things that are far away from both the speaker and the listener. It emphasizes a greater distance.

• Masculine singular: Aquel edificio (That building [over there])
• Feminine singular: Aquella montaña (That mountain [over there])
• Masculine plural: Aquellos niños (Those boys [over there])
• Feminine plural: Aquellas estrellas (Those stars [over there])

Examples in Context

• Este lápiz es azul. (This pencil is blue. [close to the speaker])
• Ese perro es tuyo. (That dog is yours. [closer to the listener])
• Aquel avión es grande. (That plane over there is big. [far from both])

The appropriate use of "este," "ese," and "aquel" can improve your Spanish communication by making your descriptions more precise.

Practice with Pal

To solidify your understanding of "este," "ese," and "aquel," practice forming sentences and get instant feedback from Pal! Simply:
A. Go to Get-Pal.com/WhatsApp/ to start.
B. Come up with a sentence using "este," "ese," or "aquel," and send it to Pal.
For example, you could write: "Esa casa es muy bonita." (That house [closer to the listener] is very pretty.)
C. Pal will check your sentence for any errors and provide corrections if needed. Continue the conversation with Pal to practice even more, and soon, you'll be using these demonstrative adjectives like a native! If you struggle to create a sentence, feel free to ask Pal for assistance.
By using Pal, you can ensure you’re practicing daily, catching mistakes early, and improving steadily. Happy learning!