By way of the lines about "together we're unlimited" and "You can do anything" thinking about this one again led me to the Reading Rainbow song, and wondering what it might do for Doug, if anything.
I was thinking it might generate a prop book, which shoots out a rainbow when he opens it that drops little glowing sprinkles of light on the book end - the arch extends well beyond his normal AoE if there's room in the current space, buut it's just light and doesn't do anything except maybe add dim illumination in a blacked-out cave or warehouse - but close to (as in, within normal effect radius
of) Doug anyone who fails to defend against a neutral (as in, not hostile, not allied, unless they ARE allies, and this is the sort of thing you'd usually tell people about first so they don't resist anyway) telepathic contact will have a functional level of literacy in any one language he knows downloaded into their brain over the course of the (pretty short as I recall) song.
This does not confer any ability to form the sounds associated with the words or even recognise them, or for that matter the concept of sound if the subject is completely deaf and lacks it, but as long as they're intelligent enough to have a language and have some way to perceive written or embossed letters of the language as he knows it and create those shapes in some way themselves, they can read and write fluently. Another thing it doesn't do is add foreign concepts for the words themselves i the subject is lacking them - an alien who only sees in black and white won't know what "green" is just because he can spell it any more than a human blind form birth would.
Anyway, just thought I'd put it out there, maybe it could be useful on the Potter step for a minor scene to get the wizzy kiddies to realise that some of these "magical beasts" are a lot smarter than they look even if they don't speak in human languages, or to resolve the question of who spiked the thestral chow with firewhiskey when only the thestrals saw, or something like that.
- CD, because telling the firsties that there's a herd of Nightmares behind Hagrid's shack when there's a bunch of dimly-outlined flaming horse-shapes staggering around may be funny, but shoveling out the stalls of sick obligate carnivores that size is not
Edited for clarity, now I'll look for a link.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
I was thinking it might generate a prop book, which shoots out a rainbow when he opens it that drops little glowing sprinkles of light on the book end - the arch extends well beyond his normal AoE if there's room in the current space, buut it's just light and doesn't do anything except maybe add dim illumination in a blacked-out cave or warehouse - but close to (as in, within normal effect radius
of) Doug anyone who fails to defend against a neutral (as in, not hostile, not allied, unless they ARE allies, and this is the sort of thing you'd usually tell people about first so they don't resist anyway) telepathic contact will have a functional level of literacy in any one language he knows downloaded into their brain over the course of the (pretty short as I recall) song. This does not confer any ability to form the sounds associated with the words or even recognise them, or for that matter the concept of sound if the subject is completely deaf and lacks it, but as long as they're intelligent enough to have a language and have some way to perceive written or embossed letters of the language as he knows it and create those shapes in some way themselves, they can read and write fluently. Another thing it doesn't do is add foreign concepts for the words themselves i the subject is lacking them - an alien who only sees in black and white won't know what "green" is just because he can spell it any more than a human blind form birth would.
Anyway, just thought I'd put it out there, maybe it could be useful on the Potter step for a minor scene to get the wizzy kiddies to realise that some of these "magical beasts" are a lot smarter than they look even if they don't speak in human languages, or to resolve the question of who spiked the thestral chow with firewhiskey when only the thestrals saw, or something like that.
- CD, because telling the firsties that there's a herd of Nightmares behind Hagrid's shack when there's a bunch of dimly-outlined flaming horse-shapes staggering around may be funny, but shoveling out the stalls of sick obligate carnivores that size is not
Edited for clarity, now I'll look for a link.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows