Author’s note: This is my first one-shot story since forever. I had issues with tumblr (it seems that it decided not to be friends with me for a long while), but I finally managed to log in to my account again. Anyways, I wrote this short thingie based on what piques my interest atm, and my aspirations. :) I also wanted to cast light on the importance and potential applications of linguistics, and my experience shows that many people aren't aware of its usefulness in many fields. I hope you'll enjoy, and I hope I managed to add everyone who requested to be tagged while I was MIA.
Masterpost
A colleague of mine convinced me arrange a meeting with his university teacher. My abduction case has come to a halt, my team and I haven’t made any progress for about two weeks, and it’s getting more and more bothering for me. This is also the reason why I started to look for other possible ways to kickstart the investigation, and this is how the teacher’s, (y/n)’s name came up. Since I generally can’t see true value in linguistics, I’m sceptical about this lady and her expertise, although Stiles has praised her a lot. The only reason I’m approaching the university is that Stiles’ thinking is eerily similar to mine, so if she managed to break down his scepticism, she has good chances when it comes to mine.
(y/n)’s office is on the third floor. I realise, shocked, that under her name “teacher’s assistant” is written – based on Stiles’ ventilations, I was expecting at least a docent or assistant professor.
There is a quick reply to my knocking; the girl that opens the door for me is surprisingly young, and she looks so small that I feel like she would be too easy to crush.
“May I help you?” she asks. My attention doesn’t miss the way she surveys me subtly.
“Derek Hale, special agent,” I introduce myself, showing my badge at the same time. Realisation flashes up in her eyes momentarily, and I immediately know it’s her I came to visit. She invites me in and offers me a seat on her loveseat and asks if I want coffee. While she proceeds to make the beverage, I sit, unbutton my suit and brush over my tie before beginning to talk about the case.
“You must handle every information discreetly,” I inform her. “My lieutenant gave me the permission to involve an expert, but you must sign this document.” I hand it over to her, and she nods in understanding, telling me she’s already familiar with the process.
“I’ve worked a lot with your colleague, Stiles Stilinski, so I’m aware of the data regulations and their importance,” she says, already giving me back the signed paper. I fold it and carefully tuck it away into the inner pocket of my suit. “So this is an abduction case?”
“Yes,” I assure. I can feel as my lips clench for a second due to the frustration. “It’s a nineteen-year-old university student. Her absence was reported on 17th October, and I was given the case that day. The abductor left us several letters and voice messages. The contents of these are provocative, he basically challenges the police department. He’s proving his superiority, it’s obvious that he looks down on the authorities.”
“Did you get a degree in psychology?” asks (y/n), throwing me for a loop yet again. I try my best to answer while also stifling my surprise; the small tick of the corner of her mouth tells me how unsuccessful I am.
“Yes.”
“I concluded because you immediately reflected on the unsub’s motivations. Men normally aren’t concerned with such things; it’s a sociolinguistic observation that men are more likely to focus on the cold hard facts, and are less prone to analysing motivations.” I have no idea what she can see on my face, but it must be an encouraging expression, because she goes on. “You aren’t from Quantico. You were born in California, but you’ve been living here for a few years now. You were raised in a well-read, educated family.”
“What lead you to that assumption?” I ask. With this question I also let her know that her conclusions are correct.
“The Virginian dialect is scarcely found in your speech, and even if it does, it’s not too prominent. This means you merely put on this dialect, so you must have been living here for over a year, but you certainly weren’t raised in it. Your phonetic-phonologic profile can be described with the characteristics of the Californian dialect. The structure of your sentences and your choice of words mean, for one, that you are educated, and for two, that your family is generally well-read and educated. This latter piece of information is based on statistic likelihood, so this is rather an induction than a deduction.”
The coffee is done, so she stands and makes both of our portions. For the time being, I glance around in her office – the bookshelves are full of books related to her field and file organisers. On her desk, there is a study, presumably her current read. The window above the desk shows the huge park next to the university, which is heavy with fog today. A copy of The Birth of Venus is hung on the wall.
My survey is interrupted when (y/n) hands me my steaming cup of coffee. She drinks her own from a mug with lots of milk. I take a sip before starting to speak.
“The name of the missing girl is Emma Fowles, first-year chemistry student. According to her friends, she’s nice and has no enemies. She’s hard-working and helpful; in her free time, she helped high school students in hard sciences, such as maths, chemistry and physics. Her partner said ‘it was understandable she had been abducted, because she was a special girl in every aspect of the word’,” I quote the boy. I give her the copy of the letters and the pendrive that has the voice recordings. “These are the evidences that need linguistic analysis. Any information may prove useful for the investigation, so I wouldn’t give you bulletpoints, if that’s fine.”
“Fine,” she says easily. “When are you expecting the results?”
“The earlier the better,” I answer immediately. “According to statistics, the longer she’s with him, the more likely it is for us to only find her corpse.” (y/n) instinctively reaches for her necklace, smoothing her fingers over the silver accessory. She’s obviously disturbed by the thought.
“I have one more lecture today,” she says, checking the time on her watch. “It’s less than an hour before it beings, then I can start working on this.”
“Great,” I exclaim, standing up. She follows suit. I give her my contact info, thank her the coffee, then shake hands with her and leave for the headquarters of the FBI.
. o O o .
Eight days later, on Saturday morning, I get a phone call from an unknown number. I’m reluctant to accept it, but as soon as I hear the name (y/n) on the other end of the line, I bolt up in my bed as though I was struck by a lightening. All of my nerves are ready to tackle any and every information that will be provided.
“I’ve finished the analysis. I’ve already sent it to you via e-mail, so I only called to ask how can I give you back the pendrive and the copies.” I don’t reply immediately, because I’m already in front of my computer, browsing my mails.
“Are you at the university on Monday?” I ask. My voice is a bit slurred because I’m reading the attachment to her e-mail simultaneously.
“Yes, but only later in the afternoon,” she says. “Most of the day, I’m going to be at the Neurology Clinic, I’m not even giving any lectures.”
“Why are you going to be on the Clinic?” I ask. I’m taken aback that she mentioned neurology; I even stop reading her analysis.
“It’s because of my doctoral research,” she answers. I don’t react. Within a few seconds, she hears my not-said-aloud request: continue. “I specialise in neurolinguistics, hence I take clinical linguistics tests with patients suffering from a neurodegenerative disease, especially multiple sclerosis. I’m a recurring visitor to both the Neurology and the Psychiatry Clinics.” This explains why her title is ‘teacher’s assistant’.
“Then why forensics?”
“I earned my degree in applied linguistics, and I applied there because of my clinical and forensic interests. I want to become an expert in those two fields.”
“Look, would you mind if I asked you to explain your analysis face to face?” I ask. There’s silence between us for a couple heartbeats’ time, then her voice comes through the mic of my phone again.
“No. When are you free?”
“Can today work out for you?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s meet then in Coffee Company in an hour.”
“All right.”
I’m in the café a few minutes before the arranged time. I took a table next to the window, where we can have a more or less private conversation; the other tables are far enough to prevent anyone from hearing what is said between the two of us. When (y/n) arrives, I wave to her. We make our orders, then I immediately ask her about something that has been bothering me the most.
“What’s the basis of linguistic analysis? Why does it work?”
“You’re with the sceptics, too,” she hedges. She’s smiling which allows me to think that Stiles also asked her this. She makes herself comfortable in her seat before she proceeds to answer. “I’m assuming you’re also interested in its scientific basis, just like Stiles.” I nod. “The basis is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which is basically a modern paraphrasing of Humboldt’s theory. The two main hypotheses are: one, man’s thinking is influenced by the characteristics of their used language(s), and two, we can’t put an equation mark between coded differences or categories in a given language and in another. The first is interesting for linguistic profiling, while the latter is when the scope of study are multilingual individuals.”
“How?”
“They use a lot of neologisms, which can be a telltale sign that someone speaks a language as a second language, so it’s not their mother’s tongue.”
“And do you agree with the hypothesis? Do language and thinking really influence each other?” I ask. I’ve never considered the possibility of this.
“Linguistic tools affect our sense of reality: our sense of time, space, our perception of colours, in cases of languages that have grammatical genders speakers will describe subjects in different ways, and a lot of other things. Sociolinguistic studies have shown that the complexity of syntax correlates positively with the level of education, meaning that the higher one’s education is, the more likely it is for them to use well-composed, complex syntactic structures. This is because the more complex their worldview becomes, the more complex linguistic tools they will need to be able to express exactly how they see it.”
We are given our orders; (y/n) asked for a latte macchiato with a slice of cheesecake, while I requested an espresso with a sandwich.
“So back to the case of Emma Fowles: although the voice recordings are distorted, according to the frequency, two people recorded them. One of them...
“What?” I interrupt her, and I don’t even apologise for it. “Two?”
“Yes,” she replies calmly. “Apart from a small overlapping span, the voice frequency of men and women differ from each other. Even nationalities have their characteristic, general frequencies. According to the phonetic-phonologic characteristics, the woman is from New York, while the man is from Florida.” I’m already opening my mouth to interrupt her again to ask, a man and a woman?! But I refrain from it and allow her to keep speaking to me. Instead, I take a sip from my coffee. “Based on both the quantitative and qualitative analysis, I’m sure neither of them has attended tertiary education, but the woman is more educated than the man. I think she’s finished high school, while the man’s highest education level must be elementary school. The letter was written by the woman, presumably based on the parameters given by the man.”
“As you reflected on it, based on the content of the letter, he looks down on the authorities, more so, he’s nearly provoking you, which is a masculine characteristic. He depersonalises Emma Fowles, puts distance between him and her, he only refers to her by way of common nouns, which is a sign of regret and guilt. There are no signs of caring for Emma, which further supports the idea of the male writer. But...” she bites her lower lip. I can see that this point is making her uncomfortable for some reason. A moment later, she gives voice to this unease. “This confused me. In such cases, I normally start with identifying the gender, then comes age and prediction of the level of education, but I already had a hard time telling the gender: based on the content, I would have said male, but based on the linguistic characteristics, I would have profiled the writer a female. I pondered for a while, then realised that the only explanation to this is that there are two authors. The recordings assured me of this hypothesis.”
“Usage of many adjectives is an explicitly female characteristic, also using a word with a basically negative connotation to express gradation, like ‘awfully great’. A high school graduate can write in such compound sentences as the ones can be read in the letters. Based on the recordings, the man wouldn’t have been able to perform it; his vocabulary is a lot poorer and his thinking isn’t complex enough.” She takes a few beats to consider something before continuing: “This is by no means part of my expertise, but based on the linguistic characteristics, the planner of the ‘how’ must have been the woman. The man is just not organised enough to do that.”
I excuse myself to make a phone call immediately.
. o O o .
Thanks to (y/n)’s contribution, the case is solved within a month. (y/n) helped me with the analysis of authorship once I had suspects and I had them write spontaneous texts, any my team and I managed to get information from the culprits as to where they are keeping Emma Fowles. I’m currently on my way to the university with a bouquet and with an invitation in mind for a candlelit dinner.
Are you even alive???? I am just worried. you haven't been posting anything for so long. I just hope you are okay.
Yes, haha, thank you for asking and for your concern! :) I’m fine, life is generally fine, too, I was just locked out of my account for a long while (forgot my password, then I requested a new one and Tumblr still failed to let me in, etc.), but now I’m here, still wondering how it happened... I’m happy that I got back my account tho :)
Hi! I’m not even sure if your still on this page since it’s been about 4 years 🤦🏻♀️ But can you please put up all the links to your stories in the master post ? :) I’m completely obsessed and not all the links are there. Thank you!
Hi! I know some are missing (the italic ones), but that's because they have been under process :) I'm fairly sure that every link for my stories are available :) Thank you for your support and kind words! You brightened my day :)
here's a flower to show my appreciation to you for being such a wonderful person 🌹 i hope you're enjoying your day! feel free to send this to 10 other bloggers to add some positivity to their inbox 💞
I just found your blog and holy shit I'm hooked. I was wondering if you could add me to the tag list for Flashes?
Thank you for the compliments, Honey!! Of course I’m adding you to the list, I’m honoured to do that anytime for anyone. I’m grateful for that request, too ❤️
(I was the person who asked about sharing ideas). In eventide what if Kate is Dereks master and Dueclion (idk how to spell it) is a friend of hers and has his pack go after Derek because he never finished the job. So he sends the twins in to try and gain their trust so they can attack but they find how great they are and decide to help them. Sorry if its weird I had a sudden thought at like 2 am but I figured I check to make sure you were okay with ideas and stuff
Thank you for the idea!!
Part of it is actually already included in the story, but Eventide is the one that I have plotted out in extreme detail. I’m not intend to get into too many details here (I don’t want to spoil anything, for I hate to unveil the surprises and twists I add beforehand), but I can tell you that even the number of the chapters have a meaning. Basically the entire story is a complex symbol (perhaps rather allegory, but whatever).
But if I were to share one thing about it… ever heard of the Golden Ratio? Well, thing is that the key chapter (no. #9), in which everything is flipped and twisted, is in the middle of this ratio, therefore it’s highlighted (even if people don’t tend to recognise that). Then the mystery of the box revolves around this observation, too, so… idk, I might have to write a follow-up essay on Eventide, but really, if you knew how many subtle symbols I include in all of my stories… (I’m a hardcore fan of symbols.)
I literally physically can’t keep myself from adding symbols to all the things I write. (And yes, in the 15th chapter, it will also be cleared up why the title is Eventide. If you pay attention, you should realise that most of my titles are symbolic, too – e.g. Incandescence: incandescence means ‘light produced by high temperatures’, and the story, albeit short, describes what Derek feels when he’s around his family; he’s happy, and he knows he’s loved. Therefore, the ‘high temperature’ is what symbolises the love Derek is given, which fills up the dark void that Kate left in him – and this is where the light comes in the picture. Basically it symbolises how Derek’ soul is healed.)
Thank you for the offer, though! I’m open to any ideas you have for any of the ongoing series :) Have a nice day, sweetie! ❤️
Do you find it rude if someone has ideas for one of your stories and tells you or do you think that thats passing boundaries?
Oh my God, absolutely not! I’m open to any new ideas you have. I’ll just need to find a way to incorporate it, but I have a pack of great Betas to help me along the brainstorming process. :) Share, Love ❤️
FLASHES WAS SO AMAZING OH MY GOODNESS!!! The emotions were just so on point over the course of the entire chapter. Ugggh. And that tension! Perfect. Incredible. I can't wait to see what happens next. Well done, love. Just well done.
Thank you sweetheart!! I’m glad to read you enjoyed it so much, and the compliments you wrote really made my day (I read your message in the morning, right after waking up, still in bed). Thank you for this, really ❤️
Eventually yes, but not at the moment. Each of the stories are individual, and I want to be in the right mood for them to make them all authentic and likable to you.
jacobvanloon
kianamaiart
pixelskylines
germansingergirl
izzy806
baratheonpilled
dededos