i’m so into reading tags like 500 of y’all could be reblogging my stuff and tag it as ‘me’ and ‘mood’ and nothing else and i’d still read every single one of y’alls tags
consider this tho: gwendoline christie plays rey and daisy ridley plays phasma bc a) have u seen that vid of oscar isaac and john boyega and gwendoline christie jamming all together to a led zeppelin song and b) small! terrifying! absolutely do not fuck with! phasma and c) rey using her size and strength to make dragging shit from wrecks easier and despite being able to beat junk selling food guy up does not bc she has no other way of getting food? pls consider
*gasp*
Anon.
Dearheart.
This…this is so beautiful…
I love this immediately, wholeheartedly, and entirely without shame.
Tall!Rey looming over Poe and Finn!
Small!Phasma staring Han down totally unimpressed!
*LONG GASP*
TALL REY BENDING OVER TO HUG FINN AND LOOKING SO AWESTRUCK THAT HE CAME BACK FOR HER.
bdsm ask anon here: thanks for that lovely, in-depth and polite reply (sincerely). tone's sometimes hard to carry through when it's just text, so thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt! that was quite an interesting read and i definitely have a better grasp on the concept now. cheers, vodka aunt!
No problem, anon! I’m glad to help.
Also, a short story for your good will.
My dad, upon coming across my answer to your previous ask: So…my question, as your father, is how you know so much about the BDSM scene.
What people think it means when we say "Language is evolving":
This pejorative term isn't bad anymore because it's funny to me and I say so.
What it actually means when we say "Language is evolving":
English has developed a specific verb for tricking people into listening to Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up"
Part of your big spring break plans involve going to the costo where you can get all that shit they don’t carry anywhere up here.
Being able to ethically source your food AND reduce your grocery bill because FARM CO-OPS ARE AMAZING.
Rez Dog is a Real Breed and your Eurocentrism can eat my ass Linda.
Wind Chill Factor? You mean people live in places without constant wind???? that sounds fake but ok?
Meeting your flatlander friends at the airport and driving straight into the mountains to the highest point you can to see what altitude they pass out at.
Blaming literally EVERYTHING on the Altitude. “This weather is weird” “It’s the altitude”/”This steak tastes great!” “It’s the altitude”/ “My husband is a lyin’ cheatin’ son of a bitch” “It’s the altitude.”
In a similar vein, all precipitation from a light drizzle to six feet of snow is greeted with “we need the Moisture”
The four seasons are Winter, Still Winter, Those Two Nice Weeks In May, Tourist and Fire.
Being able to identify animal tracks not because you were in scouts but because you want to know what knocked over the dumpster and spread trash all over the parking lot this week.
The Ravens are practically citizens of your town and better customers than most humans.
MORE RURAL MOUNTAIN THINGS:
Knowing *exactly* what percentage above or below annual snowpack you’re at and worrying about it either way.
Sleeping with the Door Open so you can hear if a bear tries to break into your house again.
they’re a lot quieter than you’d think
Three-Dog-Nights are REAL and you’d better have enough canine to go around.
Three hour drives for supplies you can’t get in your town are now “adventures”, and you plan to see a movie while you’re out there because the local place can only Pick Two to show and they picked Fifty Shades and one of the outdated Star Treks for some reason.
There is ONE neuropharmacologist within five hours of you, but her schedule is depressingly open because the culture out here prefers shotguns to medication.
Watching Flatlanders lose their shit when you tell them the cute lil prairie dogs have Black Plague.
Is It Spring Yet? *20 inches of snow* I’m gonna take that as a Maybe.
Having your dog eat something off the ground, jamming your hand into his mouth before he swallows it, pulling it out and finding out you’re holding a Live Tarantula.
Your housing development backs up on to ranching land, and therefore there are sometimes Cows. This is fine, but the East Cost Transplants complain about it, While the West Coast ones try to feed them Quinoa.
yelling at the neighbors kids to quit playing in the gully while it’s flooding, dipshits.
That one neighbor with the prominently displayed Gun Collection that is meant to be seen from the front yard.
The tactile silence, cool and heavy like watermelon, late at night when you get to the edge of the neighborhood and there’s nothing but you, the stars and the dog and for a few minutes, you can see eternity in either direction and you know that one way or another, it’s going to be OK.
i’ve been thinking about that “a spell makes everyone fall in love with character A and character B doesn’t act any differently” AU trope idea and honestly it would work so well with enjolras/grantaire. like imagine an ABC meeting the day after eponine puts the love potion in the wine or something and everyone’s tripping over themselves to do things for enjolras and it’s freaking him out and it’s so weird but then R just strolls in and falls into a chair like “sup losers” and they all just stare at him and it’s like…
“grantaire, you drank the wine last night, didn’t you? you drank the vast majority of the wine…”
I just realized I haven’t told you guys about how 3rd President of the United States Thomas Jefferson haunts my dorm room.
Okay so basically at the beginning of the year, weird shit began happening in our dorm room, me and my roommate would hear/see things, TVs and phones and computers would start on there own and do other weird things.
We decided jokingly that the room was haunted and named the ghost Jeff and even made it a door tag.
Me and my roommate began to notice a trend it the activity of “Jeff” He always seemed to act up most when I talked shit about Thomas Jefferson or James Madison’s personality/policies/etc.
We began to joke that it was Thomas Jefferson or James Madison (hell we even joked it might be Dolley)
Well the other day, our ghost confirmed himself as “Thomas Jefferson.”
After a particularly rude attack on Thomas Jefferson character (I claimed the best thing he ever did was die.) A fucking giant ass jumbo size box of Mac and Cheese fell off of the tallest shelf in our dorm room.
I’m talking one of these babies but it’s like a 20 pack. To me it’s obviously that this is obviously proof that “inventor” of mac and cheese, 3rd President of the United States who was born and died in Virginia travelled to Upstate New York in an area he never even came close to in his life to haunt my dorm
My roommate is not convinced though: She still thinks it could be James Madison.
But a Madison-sized ghost couldn’t have reached the mac and cheese (We conducted an experiment to see if Madison would have been able to reach it when he was only 5′4″ and being 5′4″, I couldn’t even reach it jumping up and down.)
So yes, me and my roommate have proved undeniable that Thomas Jefferson haunts our dorm room.
Also she pointed out that we randomly named the ghost “Jeff” which is pretty fucking close to Jefferson. Coincidence? OBVIOUSLY NOT.
“But a Madison-sized ghost couldn’t have reached the mac and cheese”
I’m so glad I was alive to see this sentence written.
Why were you regularly shit talking founding fathers tho
So human babies REALLY need to be touched. Its totally critical for development. Small babies can literally die if you don’t cuddle them enough.
But imagine that the aliens are more like reptiles, in that they just sort of hatch and their parents feed them or stay around (and presumably, like, educate them, since they’re intelligent aliens), but don’t carry them around or cuddle in the same way.
So one of them gets stuck with a human baby that they’re responsible for and of course, they go ask a xenobiologist or someone ‘what do you do for a human baby, they’re all weird and squishy’.
And the scientist says: well, you have to stroke them. Like actually pick them up and stroke their skin.
Why, says the alien, what could that possibly accomplish. Does it make their skin tougher. Will they grow proper scales.
No, no, that’s just what human skin is like, you just… you have stroke them or they won’t grow right. They get a stroking-deficiency and can die.
Suddenly our obsession with petting everything makes sense to them.
“Why do they ask to pet our fur? Why do they touch every animal we find? Humans are so strange!”
“No, no, Pod Leader, we have discovered the reason for this. Humans require tactile contact for health. Their young will actually die without frequent touchings of skin, Even as adults, their health deteriorates if they are isolated from touch. Human Technical Adjunct Rupert is trying to nurture us and preserve our healthfulness with this touching they offer.”
“… they actually believe that touching our fur with their grubby paws is healthful?”
“For humans, Pod Leader, it is.A little unsanitary, we are understanding the reservations, but it is kindly meant. We think it is actually very nice of Human Technical Adjunct Rupert to be so concerned with our healthfulness.”
“We are still not sure we believe this. That sounds like a weak attempt at deceit to us.”
“Let us show you this vid of humans nurturing their young, it is very instructive.”
Some time later, Human Technical Adjunct Rupert is bewildered but pleased to find that fur-petting is now encouraged provided they have washed their paws. This seems reasonable to Human Technical Adjunct Rupert.
So because I like Dying and Being Dead, I was talking to @lathori about how every universe needs more time loop AU’s (like Groundhog Day but with more murder, given the kind of things I like), and that sort of led into her being like “Well, come up with a few then, be the content you want to see in the world,” and naturally the first thing I came up with since I’m rereading The Captive Prince was an AU where Laurent’s life resets every time he or Damen dies. Soooo…this is the first loop.
Laurent is drunk when the doors open and the
slave is marched through. It is possible
that this does dangerous things to his judgement.
He looks at the slave, dressed in the brief
silks of his barbarian homeland with his face ornamented with gold paint. The collar and chain are anything but decorative,
and the slave’s carefully blank expression does not hide the revulsion in his
eyes.
The slave is broad through his shoulders and
trim through the waist, with the muscles of a soldier and a handsome face under
the black curls. Sharp jaw, full mouth,
dark eyes that gleam under a strong brow.
A scar, ragged and bold even in comparison to the others littering the
slave’s body, rests at his shoulder.
Laurent feels something strike his chest,
like being slammed with an open palm and pinned to the ground, and the room seems
to vanish from around him. All he hears
is a ringing in his ears, and all he sees is the man in front of him, being
pushed to his knees with a look of raw, hot hatred flashing over his face. Laurent sympathizes.
He stands and walks forward, stops just paces
from the Akeilon, and savors the words on his tongue.
“I knew the King of Akeilos had sent me a
gift,” Laurent says, almost a purr, the most seductive voice he can put on. He tilts his head, lets his hair fall away
from his face and throat, summons every scrap of his brother’s proud nobility
that he can touch. “But I didn’t think
even the barbarian king would send me his own brother, shackled and painted
like a common whore.”
There’s a beat of silence, shock radiating
palpably from the courtiers and guards. Laurent and Prince Damianos stare each other
down.
Damianos surges to his feet, shrugging off
the guards, and Laurent moves.
His hand closes around a blade hidden in the
stiff material of his collar, draws, and thrusts it unerringly into Damianos’
exposed throat. Skin parts like silk, flesh like water. Blood gushes out in a
fountain over Laurent’s hands, the gleaming dark eyes wide as the Akeilon’s
bound hands make an aborted grab for his throat. Laurent drops to the floor with him, kneeling
over Damianos as blood pools and stains their clothing. Damianos jerks and shudders under Laurent’s
hands, gasping, blood bursting red over his lips and tongue as if he’s been
eating berries, or pomegranates.
The triumph that burns in Laurent’s chest is as
hot and sick-making as the grief that floored him when they brought Auguste’s
body back. He revels in it.
He feels the moment Damianos dies, the sudden
shivering loss of tension, and Laurent—
ok so the great wall is literally just two hours of helms deep crossed with attack on titan but with really cool dragons, the most beautiful army i’ve ever seen (led by jing tian), spine tingling drum scenes, and matt damon being literally married to pedro pascal. that’s it, that’s the movie. also jing tian saves all of china and matt damon’s sorry ass, willem dafoe gets blown up, and matt damon rides into the sunset with pedro pascal after sacrificing inestimable wealth and status for a life with him. please consider seeing this ridiculous flm. it’s literally worth it just for the drums and jing tian.
DID YOU WATCH SPIRIT: STALLION OF THE CIMARRON BECAUSE THAT MOVIE AND BALTO WERE MY CHILDHOOD
Okay…so.
My relationship with a lot of movies I watched as a little kid is messy. Spirit being one of them. On the one hand, I think I recall liking it quite a lot. On the other hand, I watched it with my cousins, which is pretty much a knee-jerk hate response because my cousins took their mother and grandmother’s perspective on me. There’s a lot of movies that fall into this category, or, alternatively, the category of “I was too fucked up to deal with this movie as a kid” like for example Spirited Away. It’s a pretty benign movie that I inexplicably had screaming nightmares about. All of these movies fall into the much larger category of ‘very vaguely recalled because they were casualties of memory repression.’
So…I guess the end result is: yeah, I watched it, but like…it’s complicated and I’ll probably rewatch it now that I’m an adult on the other side of some therapy and get a lot more out of it. Sorry this got kind of weirdly personal rather than being a response to the movie.
hey, if you're up for discussion: i noticed a lot of the arguments re: bdsm were the kind of arguments that in other situations might be used against queer relationships. what would the difference be between a bdsm couple having a leash in a grocery store aisle as opposed to two gay men kissing? is it that theres a stigma against choking (man, that sounds weird put like that)? arent they doing their thing wituout asking other ppl to be involved? id love to know ur thoughts if u dont mind.
Oh…kay.
*pours self
a drink*
There’s a
lot to cover here, so everyone buckle up while your queer dom vodka auntie discusses some stuff.
This is regarding this post for anyone who wants to follow along. Here’s the
major points we’re going to hit:
BDSM etiquette
Consent
Sexual vs sensual behavior, AKA sex
vs romance
First off,
we’re going to talk about BDSM—as it should be done, not the exploitative
imitation in 50 Shades. The core of BDSM
is trust: the sub trusts the dom to stop if they safeword out, and the dom
trusts the sub to know their limits and use
that safeword. The three major tenets of
BDSM are Safe, Sane, and Consensual, meaning that everyone in the scene feels
safe because they trust the person they’re with, everyone in the scene knows
what they’re getting into and what they’re doing, and, most critically, they
have agreed to those things clearly
and explicitly. Safe and Sane are pretty
predicated on the people involved knowing what they’re doing, but Consensual is
non-negotiable.
Which brings
us rapidly to point two, consent. This is the major problem with couples
practicing any sort of overt BDSM in public.
The public, merely by their presence, is part of the scene—you don’t do
stuff in public unless the response of the public, the feeling of being watched is somehow part of it, so the
public is involved in the scene—but they have not consented to participation.
Consent in BDSM is (or should be) an intricate thing, based on negotiations
of what people are or are not willing to do, discussion and acknowledgement of
their personal history, and establishing a safeword, a word used to indicate “everything
needs to stop now” that can be used
by anyone involved without protest from other parties. So, for example, if it was me, I might be
like “I have a history of abuse, so I’m not comfortable humiliating a sub or acting
like I’m punishing them,” and the person I was talking with might be like “I’m
not comfortable with being choked, but I’ve always wanted to be tied up.” And then we would go from there with those ground
rules in place, and establish a safeword.
Before we ever discussed a
scene, all of that would be hashed out, and then when we did discuss a scene, it would be something we’d already agreed that
everyone involved was interested in doing and had the option to opt out of.
So, this is
where public BDSM sort of falls apart, yeah?
Because the bystanders have not discussed their boundaries or their
histories, they have not negotiated what they’re interested in, and they do not
have a safeword that will let them opt out of the scene. Suppose one of the bystanders goes up to the
couple and asks, “Hey, could you not choke your girlfriend in public? You’re really freaking my son out.” The couple hasn’t had that discussion with
that bystander, they are not obligated by the BDSM contract to honor that bystander’s
request. Now, it’s the decent thing to
do, to respect someone’s request for what’s really an easy thing, but people…uh,
suck. People suck. Honoring the request to not choke your girlfriend in public actually takes less effort than
doing it anyway, but people suck, so they’re almost inevitably going to go “fuck
you” and do it anyway. Which is NOT how BDSM is supposed to work,
because see above re: Safe, Sane, and Consensual. So, like, there’s that. BDSM is about consent and trust. The bystanders don’t have that foundation of
trust, and they haven’t consented to being part of the scene, so everything
else aside it fundamentally violates the contract implicit in BDSM. If a couple does want to do that sort of public BDSM stuff, that’s what fetish
parties are for, they can pay the necessary money to do it with people who have
agreed and consented to being their audience.
Otherwise, it’s more like catcalling—you
might be getting off on it, but the other people involved just feel creeped out
and vaguely violated.
But here’s
the core of your question: the difference between sexual and sensual behavior.
Okay, so,
sexual behavior is exactly what it says on the tin, it’s about sex. Sensual behavior
is about physical touch and showing affection with no expectation that those
touches lead to sex, it’s about romance. This is where the analogy between BDSM and
queer couples falls apart, because it’s this simple.
Queer couples want to express
romantic affection through hand-holding, hugging, kissing, etc.
BDSM couples want to engage in
something that’s intrinsically for sexual pleasure.
And I don’t
want to hear debate about this, kiddos. I
know that BDSM can be nonsexual, I know that some people find it a deep relief
to let someone else take control or to take control themselves, but that’s not
the kind of BDSM relationship that gets flashily displayed in public. Let me posit a scenario, in which I have a
friend with whom I have a platonic dom/sub arrangement. When they’re under stress, they let me take charge,
and let’s suppose that during one of these agreed-upon scenes we’re going
grocery shopping. I might have an arm
through theirs, or I might hold their hand, while I do most of the talking and
instruct them on what to put in the cart.
Any passerby wouldn’t notice anything unusual there—my friend might be
tired, I might be a chatterbox, we might be doing a grocery run so I can make
dinner, hell, maybe I’m just a bossy person.
That’s not something that engages the public in any way, shape, or form. On the other hand, let’s take the example of
a couple who goes grocery shopping in the same way, but one of them has the
other on a collar and chain. That’s about the exhibition, it’s about the two
of them getting off on being seen to
have that power dynamic and all the trappings.
And that’s about sex. It’s about
being titillated by bringing something that’s normally private into the open.
A pair of
gay men kissing in public? That’s not
about sex. That’s about being
romantically attached. And it’s something
that straight couples get away with all
the time, is the thing here. Whereas
it doesn’t matter if that hypothetical couple with the collar and chain is two
women, a man and a woman, or three tentacle aliens and a grizzly bear, that’s
still about sex and therefore still inappropriate to be pushed onto the public
without consent. It’s not about our
culture having a stigma on choking, which…real fast, let me establish that
there’s a very serious difference between having a stigma on, say, tattoos, as
opposed to something like choking. The reason
we have a cultural stigma about choking is because it’s frequently used to hurt
or kill people. America, at the very
least, could stand to have some stricter stigmas about other things used to
hurt or kill people. Like guns. The reason overt BDSM like what’s described
above is inappropriate in public is because it is sexual and it does
disregard the right of the bystanders to consent to their own sexual experiences.
As long as
we’re on the subject, I want to hit one more thing. I think your ask is talking specifically
about the remark that used to be made about “Well, how am I going to explain
two men kissing to my kids?” And kids
are important here. Because, okay, let’s
suppose a four-year-old is presented with these two situations. The two men kissing is easy. That kid has definitely seen someone kissing their partner before, just tell
them that the two men love each other and kissing someone is a way to show that
you love them. Easy-peasy. However, explaining BDSM to anyone involves a
pretty in-depth discussion of human sexuality, and…like, listen. There is a reason that showing children porn
is considered abuse. By exposing the
public to intense BDSM play, you are also exposing kids to a sexual act,
without their consent or full understanding of what’s going on. And we have
pretty much agreed that pulling that stunt is Wrong.
TL;DR: BDSM
of the variety being discussed here is inherently sexual, whereas queer couples
engaging in affectionate contact is not.
Sex acts require consent, and the general public has not consented to
being part of your BDSM scene. Don’t be
an asshole, and if you really want to carry your power dynamics out of the
bedroom, do it in a way that doesn’t force everyone else to be part of
something they have not agreed to and cannot opt out of. I can do a separate post on that if you’re
interested.
Aaaaaaaaall
righty then. I think that covers everything. I hope you’ve all enjoyed this journey into
good BDSM etiquette and the fine art of consent.
so i was watching cinderella while doing my nails and waiting for them to dry which was clearly a Mistake because now i can’t help but think -
the evil stepmother was always evil, okay. say her abuse of her own daughters was different than that of cinderella’s - but it was still abuse. giving them impossible expectations, telling them they were never good enough, never pretty enough, never smart enough. and then she gets married, and anastasia and drizella are ecstatic because this man seems kind and warm and maybe just maybe he can temper their mother, maybe with him around she won’t be so cruel. so they’re on their very best behavior in the beginning, they do just as their mother taught - they trot out their best upper court manners in an attempt to get their new stepfather to like them. but it just comes off as cold and snooty and they’re trying, they are, they’re just bad at it. and they see how he is with cinderella, the smiling girl their own age, and they are jealous. they don’t mean to be, they try not to be, they know it isn’t becoming of young ladies. but she gets hugs and kisses and affection and they get rulers slapped on their hands when they reach for desert and sharp jabs to their sides when they slouch and - soon they hate cinderella, not for anything she’s done, but for what she has and they dont
but then her father dies. and it’s all a tumble of things and cinderella is crying and they’ve lost their only chance at escaping their mother’s clutches and it’s terrible. and everything settles and there’s no reason to be jealous anymore but resentment is hard to let go of and they don’t know what to do. they’re only kids too after all. and they’re so terribly bad at comforting people, they can do flowery words and know all the right bows but cinderella is so sad and they just don’t know what to do with that, because they’re supposed to be sisters but they’re not even friends
and slowly but surely their mother starts abusing cinderella, starts making her a maid in her own home, and she’s their mother, what are anastasia and drizella supposed to do? she rules them with an iron fist, and cinderella doesn’t even like them anyway, it’s none of their business.
except one night anastasia crawls into her sister’s bed in the middle of the night and wakes her up. “i was thirsty,” she explains, eyes wide and shiny, and they’re bad at this with other people but drizella has no problems with pulling anastasia into her arms. the younger girl clutches her sister and continues, “i was thirsty and i went down to the kitchen to get some water and - and cinderella is still up! she’s doing the dishes, and she should be asleep, mom is going to make her make breakfast in the morning and -” she cuts herself off with a hiccup and whispers, “it’s not fair.”
“life isn’t fair,” drizella says, echoing one of their mother’s favorite phrases. but her sister is staring at her with wet eyes, and it’s not like their mother is likely to get up before sunrise anyway, she hates waking up, so she pulls herself and anastasia out of bed and off they go.
the thing you need to realize about localization is that japanese and english are such vastly different languages that a straight translation is always going to be worse than the original script. nuance is going to be lost and, if you give a shit about your job, you should fill the gaps left with equivalent nuance in english. take ff6, my personal favorite localization of all time: in the original japanese cefca was memorable primarily for his manic, childish speaking style - but since english speaking styles arent nearly as expressive, woolsey adapted that by making the localized english kefka much more prone to making outright jokes. cefca/kefka is beloved in both regions as a result - hell, hes even more popular here
yes this
a literal translation is an inaccurate translation.
localization’s job is to create a meaningful experience for a different audience which has a different language and different culture. they translate ideas and concepts, not words and sentences. often this means choosing new ideas that will be more meaningful and contribute to the experience more for a different audience.
There was an example during late Tokugawa period in Japan where the translator translated, "Я люблю Вас” (I love you), to “I could die for you,” while translating
Ася, (
Asya) a novel by Ivan Turgenev. This was because a woman saying, “I love you,” to a man was considered a very hard thing to do in Japanese society.
In a more well-known example,
Natsume Soseki, a great writer who wrote, I am a Cat, had his students translate “I love you,” to “the moon is beautiful [because of] having you beside tonight,” because Japanese men would not say such strong emotions right away. He said that it would be weird and Japanese men would have more elegance.
Both of these are great examples of localization that wasn’t a straight up translation and both of these are valid. I feel like a lot of people forget the nuances in language and culture and how damn hard a translator’s job is and how knowledgeable the person has to be about both cultures. [x]
Important stuff about translation!
Note that you can apply this to your own translations even if they aren’t big pieces of literature or something. Don’t feel bad about not translating word for word. An everyday sentence may sound odd translated literally - it’s okay to edit a little bit so it feels right!
Oh my god, I’m about to go on a ramble, I’m sorry, I can’t help it, the inner translation nerd is coming out. I’m so sorry. The thing is–there is actually no such thing as an accurate translation.
It’s literally an impossible endeavor. Word for word doesn’t cut it. Sense for sense doesn’t cut it, because then you’re potentially missing cool stuff like context and nuance and rhyme and humor. Even localization doesn’t really cut it, because that means you’re prioritizing the audience over the author, and you’re missing out on the original context, and the possibility of bringing something new and exciting to your host language. Foreignization, which aims to replicate the rhythms of the original language, or to use terminology that will be unfamiliar to the target culture–(for example: the first few American-published Harry Potter books domesticated the English, and traded “trousers” for “pants”, and “Mom” for “Mum”. Later on they stopped, and let the American children view such foreignizing words as “snog” and “porridge.”)–also doesn’t cut it, because you risk alienating the target readers, or obscuring meaning.
Another cool example is Dante, and the words written above the gates of hell: Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.
In the original Italian, that’s Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate. Speranza, like most nouns in latinate languages, has a gender: la. Hope, in Italian, is gendered female. Abandon hope, who is female. Abandon hope, who is a woman. When the original Dante enters hell, searching for Beatrice, he is doomed, subtly, from the start. That’s beautiful, subtle, the kind of delicate poetic move literature nerds gorge themselves on, and you can’t keep it in English. Literally, how do you preserve it? We don’t have a gendered hope. It doesn’t work, can’t work. So how do you compensate? Can you sneak in a reference to Beatrice in a different line? Or do you chalk her up as a loss and move onto the next problem?
You’re always going to miss something–the cool part is that, knowing you’re going to fail, you get to decide how to fail. Ortega y Gasset called this The Misery and Splendor of Translation. Basically, translation is impossible–so why not make it a beautiful failure?
My point is that literary translation is creative writing, full of as many creative decisions as any original poem or short story. It has more limitations, rules, and structures to consider, for sure–but sometimes the best artistic decision is going to be the one that breaks the rules.
My favorite breakdown of this is Le Ton Beau De Marot, a beautiful brick of a translator’s joke, in which the author tries over and over again to create a “perfect” translation of “A une Damoyselle Malade”, an itsy bitsy poem Clement Marot dashed off to his patron’s daughter, who was sick, in 1537.
This is the poem:
Ma mignonne, Je vous donne Le bon jour; Le séjour C’est prison. Guérison Recouvrez, Puis ouvrez Votre porte Et qu’on sorte Vitement, Car Clément Le vous mande. Va, friande De ta bouche, Qui se couche En danger Pour manger Confitures; Si tu dures Trop malade, Couleur fade Tu prendras, Et perdras L’embonpoint. Dieu te doint Santé bonne, Ma mignonne.
Seems simple enough, right? But it’s got a huge host of challenges: the rhyme, the tone, the archaic language (if you’re translating something old, do you want it to sound old in the target language, too? or are you translating not just across language, but across time?)
Le Ton Beau De Marot is a monster of a book that compiles all of Hofstader’s “failed” translations of Ma Mignonne, as well as the “failed” translations of his friends, and his students, and hundreds of strangers who were given the translation challenge (which you can play here, should you like!)
The end result is a hilarious archive of Sweet Damosels, Malingering Ladies, Chickadees, Fairest Friends, and Cutie Pies. It’s the clearest, funniest, best example of what I think is true of all literary translations: that they’re a thing you make up, not a thing you discover. There is no magic bridge between languages, or magic window, or magic vessel to pour the poem from one language to another–translation is always subjective, it’s always individual, it’s always inaccurate, it’s always a failure.
It’s always, in other words, art.
Which, as a translator, I find incredibly reassuring! You’re definitely, one hundred percent absolutely, gonna fuck up. Which means you can’t fuck up. You can take risks! You can experiment! You can do cool stuff like bilingual translations, or footnote translations! You write your own code of honor, your own rules that your translations will hold inviolable, and fuck it if that code doesn’t match everyone else’s*. The translations they hold inviolable are also flawed, are failures at the core, from the King James Bible right on down to No Fear Shakespeare. So have fun! It’s all in your hands, miseries and splendors both.
Speaking as someone who’s fucked around with a couple languages and translating them into English, nothing has ever driven this home as hard as translating the Aeneid, or Terence. One word in Latin can require ten to explain it, or have five possible translations. So if you want to preserve the drama (Aeneid) or the humor (Terence) there’s a lot of creative thinking that has to go into it.
Going off of other tumblr posts about humans being survivor space orcs and humans being loving frienddog pet buddies to other alien ships, what if the ability to attach to things was a trait of earth critters.
As long as a behaviour helps achieve the same end, evolution doesn’t care what the behaviour is. So you get both bats and birds with entirely different structures, methods, and styles to flight for different niche purposes (long distance vs. nimble acrobatics) but they both succeed at flying. The same can happen for social structures and space travel.
For most other life in the universe, social bonding isn’t a thing. You get people that you get well along with or don’t. Property isn’t necessary if it doesn’t have a function, people don’t get attached to objects. People strive to increase their station/power and therefore overall happiness, whatever that means to them, which is what encourages a group of them to work together for efficiency and shared earnings. (For example, that is. There are lots of things that could encourage life to reach spaceflight. Like spite. Or blind chance.)
On earth a few animals have evolved favoritism behaviour. Getting attached to objects, other animals, and ideas for no reason other than they like them. This helps ensure the survival of a group, so it encourages repetition. Humans are the only spacefaring creature that has favourite ROCKS because of this. Imagine having a favourite pebble out of the entire universe full of mineable minerals!
It’s just common sense that if you want to survive, add a human to your crew. Because of the space orc endurance toughness thing, being able to survive things others can’t, and being determined to keep going. Combine that with the happy space dog thing where, essentially, you put a Kirk in with a hundred Spocks. The dog Kirk is the one who’s always happy to explore and meet people and make friends and likes everyone. So if you have a being who enjoys your presence for no material reward AND extends their instincts for survival to things they’ve bonded on, you’ve basically got a big bodyguard for your entire crew. For free. You don’t have to pay it. You just have to say ‘thank you’ when it gifts you useless trinkets it found or made.
So you get these ships, and you can always tell which room is the human’s room. It’s the one full of hoarded junk. There’s sheets and dry film stuck to the walls that it ensures you is coded with dyes to make a message. The message isn’t really important, just nice. The human likes it. The human collects lumps of polycarbons that it tells you represent icons of aesthetic and memory. You don’t understand, because your memory works just fine without a visual reminder, but you learn that apparently there are different kinds of lumps and they mean different things.
The human has clothes it prefers when all its body coverings function about the same. It has days it prefers. It has abstract concepts it prefers. It has noise it prefers, and carries the noise around with it.
How would that affect a creature that prefers nothing? A species that constantly strives for a better station would have ambitions and goals for being transported to higher ranks on better ships. Logically, it would also prefer the smartest, strongest, nicest humans to protect their investments. A creature like that would check the stats on available and working humans for hire and want the best one they can afford.
But if you asked a crew which human they would want to work with? If you give them enough time, they’ll start saying their own.
“But isn’t the one on ship 4-aNui 0.93s faster at achieving the emergency fire plan escape?”
“Yes, but ours likes us more and would be more efficient at helping us, specifically.”
“That’s what humans do. They’ll like anyone they’re introduced to.”
“Yes, but ours likes us.”
“The better one will like you too if you give it enough time. I thought you knew this?”
“But I like it.”
No really I’m pissed as hell, listen to me for a second. I have Thoughts.
Like, sure, okay, it’s a little strange and inconsistent that he’s so skeptical of Aragorn after he was the one to raise him (*grabs Peter Jackson by the ear* ESTEL WAS RAISED AT IMLADRIS), but let’s put that aside for a second.
But the whole Arwen thing. FUCK the whole Arwen thing, tbh.
So, what, Elrond pushes Aragorn into dumping Arwen, and then tricks his daughter into leaving for the Undying Lands.
Um, WHAT.
First and foremost, this makes him a dick in the movies and he’s really…not a dick in the books, so like there’s that. But I have more.
Now, see, here’s a critical thing about Elrond. His whole family except for Arwen and Elladan and Elrohir is gone. His mother was a bird and his father was a star (No. Really.), so anyone could tell you right off the bat he was destined for nothing but tragedy. Which pans out nicely when his mother throws herself into the sea to protect one of the Silmarils (thus the bird thing), but I digress. And then he and his brother Elros were kidnapped, and of course their kidnappers got fond of them eventually and let them go, but…um, yeah. But then his brother and he are free, and all is well, and everything is copacetic–right up until he and his brother are given the choice of Luthien, to either remain immortal Elves or to choose the Fate of Men and die.
And here lies the point. Elrond chooses to be counted among the Elves. Elros, his twin brother, chooses the Fate of Men, and becomes the first High King of Numenor. And Elrond lets him make that choice.
And then there’s Celebrian, the daughter of Galadriel. So Elrond falls in love with her, as you do (and I firmly believe he makes a complete dork of himself because Elrond seems the type), and it’s all good, his parents are long gone (not dead, though) and he’s the Lord of Rivendell so he’s free to marry whomever he wants. He and Celebrian are really legitimately happy for a few years, they have a set of twins (Elladan and Elrohir) and a daughter (Arwen), and then…everything goes entirely predictably to shit. Celebrian gets captured by orcs and tortured horribly, and after her rescue she can’t recover. So she chooses to go into the West where she’ll be able to heal, leaving her husband and her three children behind.
And Elrond lets her make that choice.
So flash forward.
You’re telling me that guy, who is willing to sacrifice his happiness for his loved ones and who knows what it feels like to lose them, is not only going to force his daughter, who he loves, to abandon the people she loves in Middle-Earth, but he’s going to lie to her to do it?
pornhub: the government is doing a bad job of sex education. we’ll do it properly.
public: applause
pornhub: the government is doing a bad job of snow plowing. we’ll do it properly.
public: confused applause
About your Thranduil cartoon commentary, couldn't find if anyone had said so already, so if redundant pls ignore: But Dain II Ironfoot is of the line of Durin, and precedes Gimli in succession. Thorin and Dain share a great-grandfather, Dain I, while Balin, Dwalin, Oin, and Gloin are Dain I's brother's descendants.
Basically: yes, Dain Ironfoot is an Erebor king of the line of Erebor kings, descendant of Durin, this is not questioned by anyone ever. But Dain wants to go back to His Damn Hills out of Thorin’s ex-dragon-infested mountain, but his cousin went and got his entire line killed before Dain could get out of range.
You can bet your ass that the Erebor dwarves are very aware that their king is an Iron Hills dwarf to the core–they love Dain! They do! (So do I!) And he does a great job as king! He leads them successfully for many years!
But they want him to be happy, because they care about him. And they know that he looks up at the inside of his great arching throne room and goes out to the battlements to look down the rock face of the mountain, and he misses his home. There’s a certain tragedy to a homesick king.
The point is that Dain is an Erebor king who longs for a home that isn’t his kingdom, and whose people know it. And that’s not a reflection on his skills or his lineage, merely on the fact that he’s not an EREBOR KING in the way that, say, Thorin (who fought his way back to the Mountain for his entire life) was.
So now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I’d like to point out that there are two ways for Dain’s death in battle to pan out:
He is interred in the stone halls of Erebor, a home not his own, and his son the Stonehelm is reminded, every time he pays homage to his father, that Dain is still not home.
His people, who love the king who fought for them in the throne room all these years and died fighting for them still, make the pilgrimage to bury their king at home.
Donald dumbass signed the wall order today... at least that is what all of my triatwd news sites are saying and I am so angry. I dont know how our country is going to survive. My father is such a big fan of his and whenever I try to say something against him he tells at me and I can't just leave because he pays for my college and he will not allow me to get a job and I am very frustrated.
First of all, it’s been goddamn forever since this came in and I’m really sorry, my inbox ate it.
And…I wish I knew what to tell you, honey. The loud yam is a disaster, both personally and in the sense of a tornado. The country will survive it, but that’s cold comfort to those of us who are looking down the barrel of four years of this.
Just know that you’re not alone, even though I know it probably feels like it sometimes. Especially living in a house with someone who supports him. But there are a lot of us out there, and people are doing things. I’m not going to tell you not to be angry–embrace it, honey. Know that you don’t stand alone in your anger. We are each other’s greatest strength for the next four years.
The reason that people are concerned about vaccines causing autism is because they’re not thinking of the long-term. Here’s the truth: when you are choosing to not having your child vaccinated because you’re afraid of autism, you are actively choosing death over a neurodevelopmental disorder. Let me phrase that in another way – you are either picking autism or death. It doesn’t have to be the death of your child. It can be literally any child. And death is the worst case scenario. Autism is not the worst case scenario. Death is always and will constantly be the worst case scenario.
There are children who are too young to get vaccines. There are kids who have compromised immune systems that cannot get vaccines. Your child getting vaccinated prevents these illnesses from spreading and keeps those children safe. It’s called community immunity and it’s important to maintain that so people don’t die.
tl;dr - Stop being a selfish asshole and get your kids vaccinated. There are worse things in the world than autism.
And before anyone starts coming to my inbox screaming about how “I don’t know how bad autism can be”, I know. Not only do I have a neurodevelopmental disorder, but I also had a friend with a severely autistic brother that could not talk when he was fifteen. I know. And even after witnessing him and being through my own shit, I would still get my kids vaccinated because I want them, and other kids, to live.
WTF, people.
Why the fuck do you think that your fear of autism (ungrounded, btw), beats someone else’s RIGHT TO LIVE?!?!
You don’t want to vaccinate your kid. Goody gumdrops.
You expose your godchild - who’s too young to be vaccinated.
You expose your sister-in-law - who is going through chemo (because having cancer isn’t bad enough), and immunocompromised.
You expose everyone they come in contact with - BECAUSE MEASLES STAYS ACTIVE FOR UP TO TWO HOURS ON SURFACES AND IN THE AIR OF A SPACE.
Number of people killed by symptoms associated with autism diagnoses: 0.
Number of people killed by measles in 2015: 134,000
Number of people killed per annum before vaccination became widespread in 1980: 2,600,000 (paraphrased from WHO).
Measles is not harmless. Researchers noticed that after the measles vaccine came out, kids started dying less from other diseases as well. It turns out that measles suppresses your immune system for YEARS (and no, no amount of vitamin C or zinc is going to make up for that).
Supercarrier: fandom flagship. Everybody and their dog ships it. The fandom is glutted with artwork and fic. You cannot escape this ship.
Dreadnought: massively popular. Nearly everybody ships it. You can, with dedication, in theory, reach the end of the AO3 archive for the ship’s tag, but it’ll take a long time.
Cruiser: pretty popular ship. Not everyone ships it, but everyone knows about it. Has a good amount of fic/art, and probably multiple ask blogs.
Frigate: just plain popular. Feels like it could use more fanworks. New people to the fandom might not know about it, but they’ll stumble across it sooner rather than later.
Gunboat: bit of a rarepair. It might have an ask blog or two. A couple big name fans ship it. Probably only takes a few weeks to get through the entire AO3 backlog, and one new fic gets added during that time.
Tugboat: rarepair. Almost never seen except as a side pairing to a more popular ship. You can usually get through everything on AO3 in a matter of days. You’ve forgotten what it is to be picky about what you read.
Rowboat: less than a dozen people ship it. You all know each other. You exist in an endless cycle of the same five people desperately producing art and fic and one person who constantly contributes headcanons.
Canoe: you are one of maybe three people who ship it, and there’s a not-insignificant chance you’ve never encountered those other two hypothetical shippers. You spend your days paddling furiously in hopes of keeping the ship afloat, dreaming of the day you upgrade to a rowboat so you can finally rest.
Submarine: Quite a few people ship it, but nobody wants to admit to shipping it. Will randomly appear and throw the other ships into confusion.
Pontoon: that random crossover ship with that one black dress character/trope/fandom everyone will ship with everything else. Has the potential to turn into a massive party until someone gets sick and everyone goes home.
Paddleboat: There is you, and the one person you talked into it. There is no one else. Attempting to make progress is very awkward.
“Funny. I don’t recall that I was allowed to do much talking
about it at all.” Tony met his gaze briefly, mouth twisted in an
unhappy frown, angry-looking dark circles under his eyes. His eyes
were dull and tired and Steve fought back the urge to wince. He’d
never wanted to hurt Tony, that had never been the plan, but they’d
been together for three years and things could only be so painless
after that much time.
“Yes, I’m sure. I may be a jerk, but it’s not because I don’t listen.” It was because his superhero secret identity caused him to bail on plans at a bank robbery’s notice and gave him a predisposition to what could be called compulsive lying, but hey.
Sue gave Peter an amused look, but gave his arm a gentle squeeze. “At least you’re self-aware.”
He wrapped his arms around Bilbo and hugged him, and he thought that if he didn’t hug anyone else apart from the hobbit ever again, it would not be a terrible thing. Hugging Bilbo was like coming home. Thorin had lost too many homes; he wanted to keep this one till the end of days.
“How is he, anyway?” says Obi-wan.
“Dude, can’t you use the Force to check?” says Darcy. “Or, you know, you could just ask him.”
“The Force does not work that way,” says Obi-wan, depositing her cup of coffee in front of her with a sniff.
Grantaire lets out a slow breath and
scrubs his hands back through his hair, feeling tangled curls catch at his
fingers and yank at his scalp.
“Okay. I’m going to go take a
shower until I feel less like I’m going to have a panic attack. Help yourself to coffee or whatever’s in the
fridge.”
“Give me your phone,” Éponine
says, and doesn’t move from where she’s sitting in a ball on the floor. Instead she holds out her hand, palm up, with
a stern arch to her eyebrows—like she’s reclaiming something that’s already
hers rather than blatantly
commandeering Grantaire’s personal property.
name | Moran online, although people usually call me Starlight and I’m considering just giving up and switching to that ‘cause it’s nice.
nicknames | I answer to Moran IRL, people also call me R (yes, like Grantaire). Also apparently I am now Vodka Tia Moran, which I am down with.
zodiac sign | LISTEN. I flunk the zodiac. I just do. I am the worst at being a Pisces ever, literally EVER, and have been for my whole life. And before you get clever and think “oh, well, what’s your ascendant/moon/sun/WHATEVER” just trust me, trust your resident ex-cult tia, someone has DONE THAT FIRST and drawn up my WHOLE DAMN CHART and I am The Worst At Zodiacking. So just no. Shhhhh. Let it go.
height | Five-fucking-nothing and salty as hell
orientation | Queer, and yes I’ll fight you
nationality | American and living in fear
favorite fruit | Pomegranates. I will buy, peel, and eat an entire pomegranate for my own damn self and I don’t even care that it takes me forever to peel the damn things.
favorite season | I like all four seasons as long as they’re doing what they’re supposed to. I do NOT like the messy in-between bits.
favorite book | WHAT KIND OF BULLSHIT CHEATING QUESTION IS THIS. THERE ARE FOUR BOOKSHELVES IN MY LIVING ROOM ALONE AND FOUR MORE IN MY BEDROOM. TO SAY NOTHING OF EVERY OTHER ROOM IN THE HOUSE.
favorite flower | Roses. Also lilacs.
favorite scent | Earth and asphalt after a rain, roses under hot sunlight, honey and rising bread, the ozone after a lightning bolt.
favorite color | Jewel tones–blood red, royal purple, sapphire blue, satin black. I like colors that commit to something.
favorite animal | Horses and wolves and cats and dogs and snakes and turtles, in no particular order.
coffee, tea, or hot cocoa | Ahaha, me and caffeine don’t get along so great. Either it’s DO ALL THE THINGS or immediate sleep. And I can’t stand coffee well enough to drink it without the advantage of caffeine. Jasmine tea with lots of honey is where it’s at, my dudes. And hot cocoa if it’s cold out.
average sleep hours | …fewer than I should. Maybe five.
cat or dog person | BOTH. But also Charles (HIM BIG) and my own dear beasties demand that, for the moment, I am primarily a dog person.
favorite fictional character | …Jamethiel Priest’s-bane. And Rachel. And Kitsune Yukiko. And everyone on the Enterprise. And Storm and Rogue and–look, we could be here all day.
number of blankets you sleep with | Whatever means I am warm but not physically dying. This number is distinctly different between bedtime and getting up, because my body temperature spikes the second I fall asleep and then I die from heatstroke. (You think I’m joking. I have, in the past, actually given myself heatstroke if I have too many blankets on me while feverish.)
dream trip | OUT OF THE DAMN COUNTRY. Shockingly this is not predicated on the existence of the loud yam, I’ve just never been out of the country. I think it would be really cool to go to Wales, and to do the whole Arthuriana tour of the Celtic Isles, and also to see if I can find out where my family is from in Hungary and go there, and go to Mexico to test out my Spanish in the real world. Also Rome. Always wanted to go to Rome.
blog created | Halfway through sophomore year, so…wow, about two and a half years? Maybe more like three?
number of followers | 525 and I forgot to put up a piece of original writing for 500 because I’m a mess, someone remind me to send around some kind of poll or send in a specific request.
On the one hand: her whole plot of going rogue against what she was designed to be and living her life backward relative to the proper timeline and fighting for what she believes in and being badass and snarky with the hair and the heels and the guns and the rest? INTO IT. INTO IT UP TO MY EYEBALLS ANON. HERE. FOR. IT. HONESTLY KIND OF BITTER I DIDN’T COME UP WITH THE WHOLE ‘LIVING TIME BACKWARD’ THING MYSELF.
On the other hand: A, I don’t like the way the narrative handles her, B, I don’t like the change toward companions needing to be Special, and C, I’ve never been able to get into her and the Doctor as a thing. This got long.
“A clinic in Ohio recently started screening women for the ground-breaking procedure, which would allow women to transplant their uterus into a woman who doesn’t have one.
The transplant could be conducted on a woman ‘born without a uterus, or who had it removed or have uterine damage’ – this would make trans women eligible for the procedure.
A 26-year-old woman who is undergoing the screening process told The Times: ‘I crave that experience.
‘I want the morning sickness, the backaches, the feet swelling. I want to feel the baby move. That is something I’ve wanted for as long as I can remember.’
Dr Christine McGinn, a plastic surgeon, told Yahoo News: ‘The human drive to be a mother for a woman is a very serious thing.
I have spring break next week and I am legit terrified because on campus I dont have a scale but at home I do and I dont know how I am going to deal if I become obsessed with trying to watch the numbers drop again. I have spent this whole school year trying to overcome my eating disorder and I haven't been home since August but my dad wants me home for spring break and I dont know what to do. I have the worst anxiety about this and I know it's bad but it is like a habit when I am home.
Okay, sweetie, the first thing I want you to know is that I’m really proud of you for fighting against this. What I always tell people is that free fall is effortless–whether it’s free fall into depression or anxiety or an ED or whatever. Climbing back up is work, and I’m really impressed with how tough you are to apply yourself to that work.
Second of all, everything you’re saying makes complete sense. You’re not crazy, it’s so easy to slip back into a habit, I know it. But the fact that you’re aware enough to recognize the habit, and recognize the threat of slipping back into it, that means you’ve already made incredible progress, sweetie. And I want you to know that you’re not crazy to worry–the human brain really likes its patterns and habits, it’s wired to click back into old ruts and it takes a lot of strength to be wary of that.
So, as far as coping goes, I have a couple of suggestions.
The easiest and most direct would be to get rid of the scale at home if you can. If you feel like you can’t do it yourself, maybe you could ask someone else to come and take it instead. If your dad is aware of your situation, he might be able to help you. Asking will be hard–really hard. But you’ve been really strong to work to recover so far, and if you’re that committed, I believe in your ability to ask.
If that’s not an option, or if that’s not enough–and absolutely no judgement on either of those–it might help to have someone to keep you accountable. Someone to talk to, or message, every day and say “I didn’t check my weight at all” or “I ate three meals today” or “I’m really struggling today” or whatever it is that you feel like you need in order to be supported. If you have a close friend who’s aware of the situation, you might be able to ask them. If not, you can feel absolutely free to message me instead, on or off anon, whichever makes you more at ease.
Finally, I’m going to give you the advice I dole out to everyone I know who’s struggling with a mental illness. Go easy on yourself. Don’t hang yourself out to dry for missing a meal, when that energy could be applied to the next challenge. Have some sympathy for yourself. Be gentle, if you can, and cut yourself some slack. This is hard. This is work. Be willing to acknowledge that, and be aware of how much you’ve accomplished already. If there’s anything I can do for you, honey, don’t be afraid to ask.
Don't do crushes but I have the most enormous squish on you! You seem like a brilliant and passionate person with an incredible creative mind and a lot of love and enthusiasm for a lot of things you are always willing to share. I just think you're neat.
THANK YOU SO MUCH, oh wow, that’s so nice of you, you too are very neat, dear anon.
i mean i dont have a crush on u but ill take this opportunity to say that i admire u bc u r very passionate and i feel u do things and want to do things with ur whole heart. its inspiring.
hello yes i came in here ages ago to talk abt the farseer trilogy but i just realised i didnt mention triggers so off the top of my head: child abuse, child neglect, bullying, alcohol/alcoholism, detailed blood/gore/injury, broken family, violence, drugs, bodily fluids, weapons, illness, poison, animal death, torture, character death, prison/cells, emotional manipulation, rape mention, suicide, murder, homophobia, mental illness, depression, suicidal tendencies, pregnancy.
(2) anyway im sorry i know its out of the blue but a recent post on my dash reminded me to warn for triggers when i rec stuff so here i am. as i said, those were off the top of my head, but feel free to ask after other triggers and ill answer to the best of my ability. cheers!
HATE CRIMES I FORGOT HATE CRIMES (and discrimination and prejudice, but all three kinda come hand in hand i guess)
So this book rec was a while ago, but it was a great book rec and I intend to get these books once I’m done with my thesis (cries in the corner about my thesis), AND ALL Y’ALL SHOULD LOOK INTO IT ALSO.
