this is the first audiobook I've listened to in years and having these unbearable pretentious boys talking in my ears makes me want to tear my skin off

The ups and downs of a young, queer, homoerotic friendship my god. If my highschool self would have found this book back when I was in the trenches 10 years ago (wow), I would've crashed out so severely but also would've felt seen.

I found this reader-made glossary on reddit and thought id post it here! a few others have been posted from tik-tok and instagram, but some of the links no longer work, or so you don't have to scroll through instagram here is a (no spoiler) guide!!!

link to the original post (it has even more info, but I thought id just include the main bits here) will be at the bottom

Real words and their definitions:

Necro: death (eg. necromancy = manipulating the corpses of the dead, in Alchemised’s context) Vivi: life, alive (eg. vivisection = surgery / cutting up living animals for experiments, as opposed to dissection on deceased bodies) Anim: mind or spirit (eg. unanimous = all in agreement, ie. one mind) Pyro: fire (eg. pyromaniac = someone obsessed with setting fire to things) In a fantasy world where characters have one or more different elemental powers, having a specific power is often presented as which element(s) you resonate with -ium: common ending for elements on the periodic table (eg. calcium, titanium, helium) Luminous: producing or reflecting bright light, especially in the dark Array: a structure for displaying or organizing things (eg. a matrix is a rectangular array in which you can organize numbers, to perform computations—you don’t need to understand this wiki page at all; this is just the first example of an array that came to mind) Transfer: to move from one place to another Mutation: a change, often used in the context of a living organism Paladin: a very brave knight (yes, this is actually the copy-pasted Cambridge dictionary definition lol) / (derived from) a title given to close retainers (Wikipedia) / a holy knight who fights for justice and righteousness (D&D) Principal: the person in charge of a school Pulpit: a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church Lich (plural: liches): a type of undead creature with magical powers Leech (plural: leeches): a type of parasitic worm / a hanger-on who seeks advantage or gain Thrall: an enslaved person who performs the duties of a servant Mithridatism: a process of taking non-lethal amounts of poison to build immunity, named after Mithridates VI, the king of Pontus, because he feared being assassinated via poisoning like his father had been There are a few words that just sound like a fancy archaic version (eg. chymiatry: chemistry used in alchemy; Februa: February)

New made-up words:

Necrothrall: an enslaved corpse, often used as servants Vivimancy: manipulating the bodies of the living Animancy: manipulating minds/brains (of the living) Resonance: energy inside someone that enables them to manipulate/perform alchemy on specific elements (think: what element(s) you resonate with), or in rare cases, on people. So, having resonance is genetic and what makes you an alchemist (and not everyone is), but characters have different elemental powers. Lumithia: goddess of war and alchemy, represented by a very bright moon, which perfectly fits the dictionary definition of luminous: “producing or reflecting bright light, especially in the dark.” (Actually, unlike suns, moons only reflect light and don’t produce it themselves.) Lumithium: element (-ium) associated with Lumithia which causes people to have resonance (and is important and powerful), thus named after the goddess of alchemy Transference: the transferring of a soul into somone else’s (living) body Transmutation: the changing (ie. mutating) of someone or something via alchemy Principate: head of the school (principal) and the religion (pulpit). Edit: Thank you to u/aristifer for correcting me! Principate IS a real word but with a different meaning. I guess I’ll just leave “pulpit” as an unintentional memory aid. 😅

https://www.reddit.com/r/fantasyromance/comments/1orcuyf/alchemised_glossary_alternative_name_origins_so/