#Don't trust Wikipedia
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So I know you were the historical consultant for the Netflix "Alexander: Making of a God." I just read a post that said this, and wondered if you can comment on it?
"Btw, not the documentary commented by professors in history and archeaology, saying Stateira, wife of Darius III, died giving birth to Alexander's son (and that Alexander rubbed it in Darius' face) because Plutarch - who was born 369 years after Alexander's death - said so. Other sources invalidate this theory (like the age of the child, being 4 to 7 years old when Stateira died, meaning he was already born when Alexander first met her). And other sources say Alexander only met her once, when he took Darius' camp and that was it.
However her daughter Strateira II (who might have been Barsine or her sister) did marry him but had no children with him.
He had 1 known son from Roxana, that's all. That's in part why his empire was so easily taken apart by his diadochi.
So I don't know why, except for drama) they went for that version nor why the professor corroborate it when it's the least likely."
Yes, this quoted bit suffers from some mix-ups. I’ve not seen the full post, although I have read a few others with similar misunderstandings. Most of these seem to arise from reading (bad) online potted entries about Statiera and/or Alexander. At least go for Heckel’s Who’s Who in the Age of Alexander the Great or The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Anyway, apologies if the below sounds overly critical. It’s obviously not personal. I’m just cutting through the confusion.
We’re told about Statiera’s death only by Plutarch, Justin, and Curtius, and all probably owe to the lost source Kleitarchos. Even if Plutarch isn’t (technically) part of the vulgate while Diodoros is (who doesn’t mention it), Plutarch still used some of the same sources. (Diodoros no doubt left it out as part of his typical telescoping.) Yet all three disagree on the cause of her death, even if they do agree it wasn’t long before Gaugamela and Alexander gave her a sumptuous funeral. But the timing means, if she were pregnant, it couldn’t have been Darius’s child. I’ve discussed Statiera’s possible pregnancy before, so won’t again here, but it boils down to: if not Darius, it had to be Alexander. He wouldn’t have let anybody else touch the Queen of Persia.
In any case, ALL our surviving sources are late. The OP doesn’t seem aware the other source alluded to (Curtius) dates to the same period as Plutarch: late Julio-Claudians/early Flavians.* I checked Wikipedia, which gives a date for Plutarch’s birth (46 CE); I assume that’s where the OP got it, as it lines up with their estimate of “369.” But we don’t know his birth year except during the reign of Claudius after the acquisition of Britain and that he died early in Hadrian’s reign (see Lamberton 2001, 1). Anyway, Curtius probably lived a little before him, and Justin somewhat after.
Ergo, none of these sources are any closer to Alexander’s day, and trying to say one is less reliable than the other based on their dating only underscores the OP’s unfamiliarity with them.
Justin and Plutarch suggest Statiera died from complications related to pregnancy. Plutarch (30.1) says she died giving birth, while Justin (11.12.6) calls it a miscarriage. Only Curtius (4.10.18-19) says she died of, essentially, exhaustion. That’s the “other sources” the OP mentions, not realizing it’s just one. Only in Curtius do we hear about a young son of Darius named Ochus. The OP seems to have conflated that child with the baby born before Gaugamela. Looking at Wikipedia’s entry on Statiera, it mistakenly calls the baby that killed her a boy, but in fact, Plutarch doesn’t say (ἀποθανούσης ἐν ὠδῖσι). Again, a good example of why Wikipedia is unreliable as a resource.
In any case, these are two different children, and there may not have been a son. Either Curtius made him up or Alexander quietly did away with him not long after their capture, as the child disappears from Curtius after and is never mentioned by other sources, which might not be a surprise. But I’m a bit more inclined to think Curtius simply invented him as part of his “Good Alexander” pre-Gaugamela narrative arc. Ochus is used as a comparative to his father (3.12.26). The son is unafraid of Alexander and lets him pick him up while the father lost his nerve and fled the battle. See what Curtius did there?
In addition, Barsine/Statiera, not just Roxana, was pregnant at ATG’s death, which is why Roxana offed her. And there’s the supposed bastard, Herakles, from Barsine, Memnon’s widow. So, the OP is missing a couple (possible) kids who Alexander also fathered.
They seems to assume drama is the reason for the choice to make Statiera his lover. This, I’d like to address, as I happen to know why they did do it, and it’s something I support.
They were very, very interested in the fact Persian women had authority, and wanted to portray them as strong, even as advisors to their husbands (which they were). That becomes Statiera’s role with Alexander, too. This is part of their larger goal NOT to portray the Persians as just fall-guys for Alexander. Because they couldn’t show all the women—both for reasons of cost as well as to avoid confusing viewers with too many unfamiliar names/people—they settled on Statiera as representative, axing Barsine as his mistress, and Sisygambus as well. Statiera’s pregnancy, which is present in the sources, added context, not just “drama.” Historically speaking, it suggests the Chivalrous Alexander trope in both Plutarch and Curtius is more mythos than Realpolitik. Although see my earlier post on Statiera’s pregnancy, linked above. I don’t necessarily assume Alexander raped her.
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* If an earlier date for Curtius is correct, then he was active under the later Julio-Claudians and may have written his history during the reign of Claudius—the same emperor under whom Plutarch was born. The Lives are later works, so probably date to the Flavians, or even Trajan. For more on Curtius, see Elizabeth Baynham (1988) and for Plutarch, Robert Lamberton has a more recent study (2001) than Hamilton’s classic commentary (1969).
#asks#Statiera wife of Darius#alexander: the making of a god#Alexander the Great#Statiera's pregnancy#Plutarch#Curtius#Ochus son of Darius#Alexander the Great and women#children of Alexander the Great#Classics#tagamemnon#ancient Persia#Alexander in film#Don't trust Wikipedia
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There's something incredibly strange and funny about the FIRE DEMON from Ingary who somehow managed to work at some random Welsh school for at least a couple of weeks, maybe even longer and not get caught.
Like, did WoTW just lecture ms. Angorian about stuff like printers, photocopies or, well, the whole English Literature program she was supposed to teach for a good amount of time? Or was it just a kind of scripted info for the new form the demon was taking?
And — most importantly — how did WoTW (who, again, lives in Ingary with little to no connection to our world at all) get all this info about Welsh education in a matter of days?
Wikipedia page informs me that she kidnapped Suliman to ask him about it and she did, in fact, asked Sophie about Wales as well. But I cannot believe any of this guys can tell her enough to make a whole fire demon an English teacher, unless Ben was one himself and did willingly tell her the school curriculum — wich is no less hilarious of a concept.
And If she didn't, how couldn't anyone, kids or other schools staff, notice she has no clue about any English literature besides John Dohn and one (1) poem.
I have so many questions.
#WotW looking on Suliman tied with ropes: So you have to tell me about this... *squints at the paper* Shakes-pee-r of yours.#no rly I don't trust Wikipedia on this one#how to hell did he teach a fire demon about school??? and also other stuff like for phones or TVs or CDs#so that she won't freak about when interviewers ask her for a phone number#(she obviously doesn't have)#ALSO SHE?? MANAGED TO RENT A HOUSE? WICH MEANS SHE HAD _DOCUMENTS_ TO YK SIGN THE AGREEMENT#or did she just killed everyone with magic and ppl didn't bet an eye???#SHE ALSO MANAGED TO FAKE THE WHOLE MARRIAGE??????????#like it's obviously WoTW's fire demon was not Ben's wife from Wales#ever#HOW TO HELL PPL FROM INGARY WHOSE ONLY SOURSE MATERIALS ARE *looks at the list* her ex#this random royal wizard who left Wales years ago#and...the other girl from Ingary connected to her ex#MANAGED TO PULL UP ALL OF THIS#it's not impossible but so crazy to think about#howl pendragon#howl's moving castle#sophie hatter#howell jenkins#hmc#hmc book#howl's moving castle book#witch of the waste#lily angorian#ben sullivan#wizard suliman
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this author has implanted so many north american exclusive species onto her fictional remote swedish island that i'm 60 pages from the end of the book being like well there's not like a Zero percent chance that there's a last minute reveal that this island is actually off the coast of canada and this is some kind of the village situation
#i have not seen the village#coyotes. raccoons. wild orange poppies. chokecherry. rose pogonia.#i don't trust her about anything now i wouldn't be species checking everything if she hadn't put in COYOTES and RACCOONS#babbles#they have visited the mainland a few times so probably not a the village situation but oh my god#she has to have looked at wikipedia at least ONCE in order to justify the mention of a lute in the 1830s#but not any flora or fauna.
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I feel like the folks who are like 'yeah but queer has been an actual slur whereas gay and homosexual have not' should maybe learn some queer history.
They were both considered such slurs for such a long time that university papers couldn't use them, because they were too derogatory. They had to say 'men who have sex with other men' because gay and homosexual were too derogatory, too much of a *clears throat* slur if you will, to put them in academic papers as anything other than hate speech.
I beg. Please learn some queer history. No word for us has ever not been a slur against us. We reclaim. We move on.
#personal#queer culture#queer history#like you don't have to use a term for yourself#but there is no 'yeah but this one is an *actual* slur'#the only difference there is what *you* were called vs. other people#and trust me#people got bashed and put to death for their oppressed sexualities and gender/s without the word queer ever being shouted at them#and instead it was the words you choose to use now#and find more 'acceptable'#they've all been slurs at some point#gay is considered a slur by dictionary and wiktionary and wikipedia standards#and is still in the list of LGBT slurs#(homosexual has been removed)#anyway#use the words you want#but know your history too
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Queerness in Indian Media
↳Film: DON (1978, Hindi) dir. CHANDRA BAROT
Don follows two characters: Roma (Zeenat Aman), a woman who is out for revenge against the crime boss Don, who killed her brother and sister-in-law, and Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan), a street performer who looks exactly like Don and is recruited to help take down his gang.
In an era where women characters wore long hair and dresses and were often in the narrative simply to be romanced, Roma learns karate and judo, chops off her hair, dons a suit, and infiltrates Don's gang. While she does trade in these more masculine traits for feminine clothes and longer hair at later points in the movie, it is always with the intent of disguise--and in the climactic scene, she is back in her suit, punching and kicking the bad guys right alongside the men.
In contrast, Vijay is far more feminine than the average male action hero. However, he is never ridiculed by the narrative for these qualities--he is comic relief at times, but the joke is never his femininity. Furthermore, he is guardian to two children while their father, Jasjit (Pran), serves a prison sentence. Vijay is a caring substitute father who will do anything to ensure that the children are happy, healthy, safe, and educated--a delightful characterization given society's disinclination to allow gender non conforming people around children. While disguised as Don, Vijay adopts more masculine mannerisms (something he has to learn how to do since, as he says, 'Don shoots at the drop of a hat, while I don't even know how to play marbles!'), but he often reverts to his old style as well.
Most surprising, however, is the end of the movie, when Roma, Vijay, Jasjit, and the children all walk off into the sunset together--a family that would be considered extremely unusual in today's times, much less the 1970s.
#bollywood#don#queerness in indian media#this movie is just shenanigans from start to finish and I love it#don't think about the logic. shhh. just have fun.#the wikipedia page has some interesting facts about the making of it and the songs#anyway I love roma and vijay. I love when they find out each other's secret and it's all like#ohhh I felt so drawn to you....I felt that you were like myself.....I felt I can trust you.....#gays recognizing each other. if I do say so myself!#the metaphor is there! it's a salim-javed movie too so! I see it! I see the vision!
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stop-that-fool's ICEMAV timeline for Your jeep. Your Teeth. The coffee that you bought me.
AKA where my icemav's story sticks to canon and where it diverges/changes-- all while trying to make it align with real military/historical events.
Also, thank you @sliderkerner for indulging me and saying that you wanted my timeline posted here!
DISCLAIMER! I am in no way an expert of the US Military. This whole 'timeline' should not be taken as fact or canon regarding TOP GUN. I am making this for my own understanding of my icemav story and to help myself and anyone reading keep track of the timeline. This is just for fun and mostly for me.
Quick note about the time off US Military members get. According to this website, people accumulate leave-- 2.5 days per month of work. I don't think that either Mav or Ice are eager to take time off. I can only see them wanting to take time off to visit Carole and Bradley (as Val Kilmer stated, I also believe that Ice does not have the ideal family). That's why a lot of their work seems back-to-back/never ending.
1986-
-The movie stays the same (Goose dies, intense amounts of sexual tension between Ice and Mav, "You can be my wingman anytime" etc., etc.)
-The FIRST change in canon is when Mav states that he's going to try teaching at TOP GUN. In TGM, Mav said he barely lasted one class. Within my story, Mav lasts until 1988.
Between '87 and '88-
-Ice comes to teach at TOP GUN (entirely for the purpose of his career/'resume' for working his way up for promotions etc., etc.)
-While Ice is there (for around 2 TOP GUN classes) that is when Ice and Mav start getting involved romantically.
-But Ice hates teaching. He leaves mid '88 and joins the Iran-Iraq War aboard USS Enterprise.
Late 1988-
-Mav completes one last TOP GUN class after Ice leaves and follows Ice to the USS Enterprise (a happy accident that they were stationed on the same ship). This then allows them to continue their 'involvement' and allow them to fly together again ("Bullshit, you can be mine" blah blah blah).
1990-
-The Gulf War. According to Fandom Wiki both Mav and Ice have the Kuwait Liberation Medal-- meaning they both fought in the Gulf War around this time. (Btw they are no longer on the USS Enterprise as she was no longer involved in the Gulf War past 1989 (I think))
-In my TOP GUN universe, Mav gets another 'kill' during the Gulf War (I have no idea if any naval aviators did this in 1990 (Mav didn't do this canonically) but it happens within the stop-that-fool fanfic universe). Merlin is also Mav's RIO throughout the the Gulf War.
1991-
-BUT Ice has the Kuwait Liberation Medal (Saudi Arabia) while Mav does not. Mav has the Southwest Asia Service Medal. So, for my story this time in between 1991-92 is when Mav pisses someone off and is moved squadrons/carriers to somewhere in Southwest Asia.
-Both of them, according to these medals, participated in Operation Desert Storm. (Mav also could have participated in Operation Desert Shield due to his Southwest Asia Service Medal.)
-Throughout 1991 they are able to see each other a couple times, but the fact that Mav keeps pissing people off makes it difficult. This is also because Navy deployments on average last between 6-7 months (according to a quick Google search) and for the sake of the story, their deployments and time off in between rarely overlap.
1992-
-This difficulty continues into 1992 where it all comes to a head on Dec. 31st 1992 (Ice's birthday! (Ice does not have a 'canon' birthday, but Dec. 31st is Val Kilmer's and I thought that bday also made sense for Ice)). Que the car scene in ch.4 and the aftermath the next morning.
-Throughout '92, Mav was in Iraq participating in the Iraqi no-fly zones. (I think. I find this UN mandate difficult to understand, especially whether or not the US Navy was involved or not.)
1993-
-Mav and Ice do not see each other in person at all in '93. But as said in ch.4 they-- "...talk about nothing on the phone. Ice never picks him up from the airport again."
-The US Navy also provided air cover for cargo planes that were bringing relief supplies during the Bosnian War. This is where Mav was placed in '93 (pissed off some captain or higher up or something).
-Ice and Mav don't see each other (in person) until '94.
The UNITED NATIONS MEDAL- In the TOP GUN fandom wiki page, both Ice and Mav are listed to have a United Nations Medal. What it does not state, and what I cannot find anywhere online, is what conflict they were a part specifically of for them to receive this medal. There are multiple options throughout the 1990's and 2000's that could have led to this award. BUT for the sake of my story, I will only be considering/applying conflicts that took place between 1994-98.
Between 1994 and '96-
-I think Ice received the UNPROFOR United Nations Medal for his service during the Yugoslav Wars. This is where he was between 1994-95. As I stated in ch.3 he was stationed somewhere in Europe after he and Mav 'break up' (I can't figure out what United Nations Medal Mav could have received-- it's difficult to figure out US Navy specific peacekeeping missions he could been involved in besides UNPROFOR.))
1997-
-It's around this year that Mav uses some of his accumulated vacation days to spend a longer period with Carole and Bradley. Ice is still stationed in Europe (workaholic).
1998-
-After Mav's time off, he's deployed again to Iraq.
As I mentioned in a previous post, not a lot of things happen in early to mid 1998 in regards to military conflicts, BUT Operation Desert Fox happens in December of 1998. I think the military would need to have people around before the operation before completing something of that scale. AKA that's why Mav is there in June.
-Then on an undisclosed date in early June, Mav crashes as stated in ch.1 (“You dodged some crazy bastards up there, then hit a bird. The plane crashed into the ground, and you ejected and landed on some rocks...").
-Mav is transferred to a hospital in California as he needs special surgery for his shattered knee cap.
-Ice has been in California for a couple days when Mav gets there because his paternal grandfather is dying (another happy accident that his grandfather is in the same hospital as Mav (god i love plot armour)). Ice had previously been permanently stationed somewhere in Europe (to get away from his family, Mav, and to work up to a promotion).
-Carole dies a couple days after Mav is released from the hospital. Bradley is now under Mav's legal guardianship. They move into military provided family housing on the Lemoore Naval Air Station with Mav teaching at the SFWSPAC (Strike Fighter Weapons School Pacific) once his injuries heal.
-Ice then reveals that he has requested to be stationed in California with Mav (the request was approved, Ice is now near both his family AND Mav... he's so silly).
-On June 21st 1998, Mav, Ice and Bradley drive out to West California to the beach cottage Mav rented (courtesy of Viper) with the plans of celebrating Bradley's birthday on June 27th (finally someone with a canon bday thank u Bradley).
Anyway, that's all we got so far! I would just like to say again that I am in no way claiming that this is accurate or canon. I also can't guarantee that I understand all of the wars, conflicts, operations, and details of the US military that I stated previously. So if I got something wrong; any of the language I used, details of the wars and conflicts stated, I apologize! Very deeply. From the depths of my soul.
#this is proof that i am a productive member of society#I AM NOT AN EXPERT#this is just for fun#all my info is basically from Wikipedia plz do not trust me#i tried to hyperlink everything that i referenced.. which is mostly Wikipedia#sorry about that.. but i don't care THAT much to find 'reliable' sources#like this is a military propaganda movie after all.. therefore i'm not like... dying to make this as accurate as possible#who am i kidding here#this is literally for a fanfiction#do u think tom cruise would combust on the spot if he saw this... all this for a gay fanfiction....#again this is mostly for me to reference-- my scattered notes and floating thoughts in my brain were not working anymore#so i made this for myself and then i thought i would post it#because sharing is caring#i got the fanfic name right#finally#the military propaganda got to me. IT GOT ME.#icemav#icemav fanfic#top gun 1986#top gun#maverick#iceman#pete maverick mitchell#tom iceman kazansky#top gun fanfiction#thank u ily bye#ao3#stopthatfool writes
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mentioned this in my last post under the cut but you have no idea how much it irked me as a physicist to read about how gege consulted a FUCKING ENGINEER about limitless. an engineer. an ENGINGEERRRRRR. i just. not even a mathematician? engineers don't work with theoretical physics. engineers hardly even work with nonreal math! you're out here designing a guy whose powers involve imaginary mass and divergent series and you DON'T even go to like the two fields that actually work with those things on a semi regular basis...an engineer.......what's he telling you....how to build a bridge?????????????
#jujutsu kaisen#limitless#gojo satoru#gege akutami#sorry everyone i feel strongly about this i was screaming and scrabbling at the screen to get involved in that conversation#x#EVERY day im doing some shit with infinite sums.......i understand a good portion of the tachyon wikipedia page....................please..#there are physicists even more fit than me for this too because i don't really do particle physics#which limitless isn't necessarily particle physics but like.#i cannot stress this enough 'imaginary apple/mass' that draws things in (red) is LITERALLY what a tachyon is#which has some really interesting implications for limitless re:time#because tachyons by virtue of their imaginary mass technically go faster than light and travel backwards in time#(they're hypothetical particles but jjk is also a work of fiction so)#and divergence of an infinite series into reality (blue) is sick as hell dude and engineers do learn the math to work with these#but it's still hypothetical theoretical math to say what that would actually be in real life#and you would be better off asking a mathematician or a physicist because we actually do that shit#sorry for the rant DHKJFGHJDF limitless was made for me im so obsessed with it#like come on man........when physicists encounter division by zero we're more likely to treat it as infinity than discard it.#trust me we know the forbidden math.
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i wanted to post this for rosh hashanah but i forgot and i'm lazy. however, i hope that my favorite fictional "old jewish men" had a nice new year 🍯🍎🍏. (they are all canonically jewish, trust me this is 100% real haha don't look them up to verify, just believe me.)
also i can only remember these ones... are they my six (seven if you count runge/lunge from monster but he's not celebrating rosh hashanah, or anything, so i don't put him on this post) OJMs characters i can think of ? probably not but i've really searched a lot inside my brain and i can't really think of others... maybe i'll do a second post because i know i forgot some..
#john turturro is algerian jewish btw (don't look up the early life section of his wikipedia page just choose to believe me without question)#irving and burt are actually sephardic/ashkenaze solidarity#frank vernon is literally played by an old jewish man he's the most legit of them i'm crying#also mr rosso monster and dr julius r/leichwein monster jewish because i said so (i want them as paternal figures)#i should add runge from monster too but that man is jewish but the most secular man you could find. like SECULAR.#also kinda crackship but i kinda ship leichwein and rosso because it would be “old jewish man yaoi” and i love both terms so much#like whoever coined the terms old man/woman yaoi/yuri did an incredible association of words to me. modern times poetry.#also milan from that one episode of monster but i'm still grieving him. (czech jewish trust me (with some romani vibes if you ask me) !!)#irving bailiff#burt goodman#frank vernon#mr rosso monster#julius reichwein#julius leichwein#severance#succession#naoki urasawa's monster#monster#john turturro#christopher walken#peter friedman#edit before the posting but i already wrote all the tags :#oliver putnam#martin short#only murders in the building#omitb
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people underestimate the degree to which I do NOT know what is going on. E.g. I found out what the Unabomber was YESTERDAY.
#Like. i'd heard the term#Knew it was something American.#A bomber#Probably#And a guy. Perhaps. Perhaps I knew it was a guy.#Anyway I read his Wikipedia page yesterday. My conclusion: Weird guy#I have another stupider opinion but I shan't say it here#I was just. Never curious enough to look it up#Turns out that's information u can 100% live without#Post inspired by seeing someone say “skill issue ”#Realising that i had seen the phrase many times but didn't know its origins.#only sort of knew its meaning#And that I was not going to look it up#Me Fein#Anyway. Remember: don't trust confident charismatic or articulate ppl#None of those things are the same as knowing stuff
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The wikipedia article describing my nation's clans reads like a vampire the masquerade or werewolf the apocalypse clan summery and is extremely funny and badly researched. Peak "Wikipedia is not a source" energy.
#indigenous racism I guess#bad wolf biology strikes again#this is why you don't trust wikipedia to talk about anyone that isn't white
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Unimportant fact worth knowing is that brands cannot use the OU sign without getting into serious legal trouble because it is legally a trademark. Random places can definitely call themselves Kosher or have their own hechshers etc but you will very very very rarely see anyone use OU if they don’t have a legal right to because they will get sued to hell and back for it.
I wonder if the same applies to halal certifications, it's something I rarely - if ever - see in my part of the country, which is why it was really surprising to me to see both, and kind of nice as well
#ask#but very interesting regardless!#i do trust that the certifications are legit - especially when its like OU - but i do wonder if the same applies to halal#and seeing as i am not muslim amd don't observe that particular custom i'm not knowledgeable#i did use that OU as an example but i know that plenty of companies may have their own symbols which i probably should have said LOL#i'm bad with wprds which seems interesting considering that i like writing and like written forms of self-expression#and typos are my friend <3#in my research about the certifications for kosher i somehow did not read that part even though... it's on the wikipedia. huh. 💀
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me: the clans wouldn't know what pokemon ingo is, so they'd have to decide on a name or title to call him by. i know, i can use the Japanese name for the species to keep it in theme, it's simple but efficient and effective, awesome!
bulbapedia: Absol, known as Absol in Japan-
#*muffled screaming*#it's not just Japan every single country besides Korea uses absol. and theirs is essentially just a letter difference#and the words combined to make it in Japanese is just 'disaster-disaster'. we'll fuckin moon-moon this man i guess#I'm probably gonna go with some translation of guardian or protector#would like to use like. 'protector spirit' but I want to keep it to one word (with or without suffix) and don't trust random translators#for more than direct translation of single words on their own. I'm not risking a horseplay/ponyplay situation here thank you#and im hesitant to use the actual name of a kami without knowing more than just whatever is on the wikipedia page of the few I pulled up
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being a history nerd sucks cuz i'm gonna have to full on avoid tumblr tomorrow just because it's gonna be insufferable for me personally
#personal#the problem is that this is a part of roman history i know reallllllllllllllly well#and the inaccuracies in the memes are gonna drive me mad#'but they're just memes' i KNOW#trust me i don't like being this way anymore than the rest of you like me being this way either#and i love the memes but sometimes the memes are just Too Much#(and then also people take the memery and start spouting off nonsense as objective fact)#(yes i'm still angry at the stupid 'the ides are popular on tumblr because we like the idea of the masses rising up against an oppressor')#(like cool quick question have you ever even looked at the wikipedia summary of the ides of march ever no or no)
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Personally, when I'm really annoyed and want to convey just... nuclear amounts of disdain, I don't even link them Wikipedia.
I link them to Simple English Wikipedia.
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Xiè Lián: My surname is Xiè, my first name is Lián. Huā Chéng: You can call me your third husband. Xiè Lián: What happened to my first two husbands?!
I learned Huā Chéng was having Xiè Lián call him "husband" from Ty the Canasian on Kictor's YouTube, I found this when I was trying to corroborate the linguistics, and I indulged and bought the official Seven Seas Entertainment (translator and editor are on Tumblr!) English translations of the books so here's further confirmation from Volume 1:
ETA:
I made this post private because I was unhappy with it (misspelling/misformatting Wúmíng, knowing I wouldn't have good reach for larger and less biased sample size even if I could have tagged better for the fandoms and characters if Tumblr organized by more than the first five tags), but I'm making it public again since it finished and so did the similar poll that fun-mxtx-polls was kind enough to make for me.
Not to bias towards the first option, just to explain it, the first option and why I wanted this poll come from the naming pattern trivia for MXTX's love interests/male leads/gongs, which I think you can best read on Huā Chéng's page on the Heaven Official's Blessing/Tiān Guān Cì Fú wikia. I'm just using that as my citation given:
I'm not sure if MXTX has discussed this meta in-joke somewhere and if so, where.
The SSE Glossary: Terminology note (all volumes of all three MXTX novels) only explains the second and third gongs, and implies MXTX is doing this purposefully. Lán Wàngjī's wikia page explains only the three published gongs, and implies this started from fandom phenomena creating a proto-stage pattern (if you subscribe to "one is chance, two is coincidence, three is a pattern"). Huā Chéng's page linked above is the odd man out and so probably incorrect about Lán-èr-gē vs. Lán-èr-gēge, but it goes above and beyond by explaining the fourth gong, and it uses the most neutral language regarding this trivia.
I think citation is unnecessary for "gē" (哥 | 哥) meaning "big brother" and in certain contexts having the connotation or meaning of "eldest brother" (admittedly my unverified inference), "èr" (二 | 二) meaning "two", and "sān" (三 | 三) meaning "three".
I actually like so much because I like to think if it could use more wordplay and less literalism. Please forgive me for being a poor reader not remembering exactly, not buying the TGCF raws yet, not being able to buy the SVSSS and MDZS raws, and only being able to find old fan translations/interpretations of MXTX's fourth novel preview, but let me explain:
I believe Luò Bīnghé isn't being called "Luò Bīnghé-gē" (or rather "Bīng-gē" since I think? it's more usual to use the suffix with the single/first character of a person's given name, not with their full name, especially when the full name is three (or more? some of my reading has mentioned two-character last names but I didn't find if culture was strict about then making the given name be only one character) characters) for the usual reasons to address someone with "gē", but actually the PIDW!Luò Bīnghé is being called Luò Bīnggē (or "Bīng-gē") because he's more aggressive than canon/SVSSS!Luò Bīnggē who when being differentiated gets called Luò Bīngmèi (or "Bīng-mèi"), and I love that "very fitting reasoning for the naming, not strictly literal and not so bound to literal".
Then with Lán Wàngjī, I see the opportunity that his nickname could have used the natural naming of "erhua is used as a diminutive suffix", and the "er" would have been homophonous with "èr" (二 | 二) for "two" for him being the second gong, and homophonous to the potential "proper address for him as the second Lán son/brother".
In the most literal sense, you'll notice that the gongs so far have had their nicknames be using "(big) brother" and Huā Chéng's uses láng (郎 | 郎) "son" (his stated meaning, although it can also mean "man" and "husband" and the latter is how we can interpret he wanted it to be when coming from Xiè Lián). There's nothing wrong with that and the numbers are perfectly probable, and would still be so as they grow, but also they could feel more like "contrived" coincidence, which is part of my wanting to get away from literalism a little bit, not just my loving clever wordplay. With Huā Chéng, I don't have a homophone I can use for punning like with Lán Wàngjī, or really the "cultural language use where literal suffixes/honorifics get used figuratively for XYZ purposes", but I can make it fit with character interpretation. To me, Sān Láng doesn't have to be "Third Son" because "he has two older brothers" and in fact we aren't sure that he was telling the truth about that—instead, I think Huā Chéng could be being clever with not just getting Xiè Lián to call him (Third/surname "Three") Husband but in saying his name is "Third Man" because this is the third alias he gives Xiè Lián. (Some additional feels this gives me: It's like he's saying he's the same person Xiè Lián met before, that they shared all of that experience and it mattered, that he's the final form of that person wanting to be with Xiè Lián, that he's like a fairy-tale character with many names and forms and a true name and form and all along there was a trick or thread to follow in knowing and identifying him.) It just works out so perfectly because of the third way he introduces himself to Xiè Lián matching him being the third gong, and also the fairy-tale significant number of "three".
Finally, with the fourth gong, I've looked at Suika's TGCF Afterword translation, a NovelUpdates MDZS spoilers forum post by K.san crossposted to the Grim Reapers Have No Days Off spoilers forum by alexfilia, a reply to this post in r/tianguancifu by u/chenmochou, and also this post in r/tianguancifu by u/Loud_Daikon6167 which cites a TikTok I can't see either because of TikTok's thing about opening to a random page/the homepage or I assume the TikTok being removed or locked. Given the first NovelUpdates post maybe having more of a direct translation compared to the first Reddit post, it's still not definitive to me whether this is "actually more of a fandom thing, with MXTX acknowledging and participating in it enough to help make it possible" or it's "MXTX doing this on purpose with her name choices and character traits, whether she meant to have the pattern from the start or later, and yes could have been influenced by fandom" because I think "Other: 四少" is probably about the male lead(s) compared to it following "Protagonist: the uke's name is not determined yet" so it doesn't seem like the fandom came up with a nickname out of whole cloth. "Four young masters" is perfectly probable and could be equally reasonable, and "four ikemen" could even follow in reasonability; in fact it could be more likely and realistic since this is a modern setting, which would have different use of "young master" to me, and because we believe the gong to be the regular human and the shou to be the grim reaper. But for the wordplay, I would have liked it if the gong were the grim reaper and the "four theme naming" came from the famous "sì" (四 | 四) meaning "four" is homophonous with "sǐ" (死 | 死) meaning "die/death" and the latter being used in the Chinese for "grim reaper"/"death god".
#Tian Guan Ci Fu#TGCF#Heaven Official's Blessing#Mo Xiang Tong Xiu#MXTX#I'm sure this joke has already been made since I'm late to fandom as always#but congrats MXTX this is so perfect and I have to make this joke even if it's me jumping on a bandwagon and beating a dead horse#Thank you Netflix subtitles for having the perfect dialogue to make this joke work as compared to the Seven Seas Entertainment publication#and my research says this makes Xiè Lián’s dialogue match how a Chinese person would introduce themself so that's awesome!#Thank you to fandom.com for having more character name information than Wikipedia. I'm trusting the characters are right#and trusting Google Translate which matched the diacritics for the tones#I learned barely any Chinese from my parents so I'm not touching whether I think 儿 should be the full character or what I think of as#smaller writing for phonetic diminutive suffix and I'm not touching that Wikipedia gives it the rising tone diacritic so it's ér#And if that's a thing for which my parents were like “that's something interesting and complicated we're not going to explain at this level#then spacing and punctuation were also not really formalized for hanyu pinyin for me so I'm also not touching whether that dash#should be a space (I don't actually think this one) or no space or an apostrophe#To be clear the official translation also uses the hyphen but I can't trust the neutral vowel because the novels only use diacritics for th#and that's only for Book 1 they don't even do that for Book 2 where I confirmed -er#Book 3 with Hua Cheng as an unnamed soldier actually gives tonal marks for the whole Pronunciation Guide though!#main characters in the Pronunciation Guide and not in the rest of the book or even the appendices#Argh I forgot to remove the space for Wúmíng according to what I figured the spacing convention for names was and that Book 6 supports#What I WILL touch is PLEASE think of the vowel sound in gege as being on the eugh end of the spectrum as opposed to#uh or ugh and their different pronunciations#OR EVEN BETTER please just pronounce the phoneme gh#Forget the silent h after g given to you by Flemish typesetters working English printing presses#If I ask you to pronounce gh or to pronounce both letters in gh#what you think of for that is approximately how you should say ge for older brother/male friend#Yes I do feel bad for using fandom.com wikias instead of trying to find wikis#But I'm sorry I wasn't going to hunt for what the wiki URLs might be given the given translation and fandom#and what I could immediately see from Wikipedia and TVTropes
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once again inflicting whatever song i'm currently fixated on on you. go listen to this excellent song from an excellent band that released one (1) album in 2009 then went on a singing competition in 2019 and did some banger genre shift covers yet still got disqualified abt halfway through and for some reason i'm super into them lately
#the lyrics are extremely silly you're just gonna have to trust me on this one bc it's not quite translateable#they really like making breakup songs or like abt cutting off Bad relationships which is right up my alley as you already know#also they're just extremely good songs. i don't understand how they haven't released more stuff#update: read through their entire wikipedia page and apparently they released some singles between these 2 events. interesting!
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