#also dying at how different their perspectives on don quixote would be

[skitskatdacat63]

How about 2 + 70 Vettonso?

Royal AU x Locked in a Room

Keke I'm assuming you're asking for boy king au? 🤭🤭 I feel like they often get locked in rooms together because everyone is so done with their bickering. Like oh noooo we lost the key, you guys are gonna have to wait in there. Together. Alone. Unfortunately the locksmith lives across Vienna. Btw he’s scared of horse carriages. Oh no.  Don’t worry, Mark makes sure to lock them in a room with a notable lack of sharp objects. I think when they’re away from everyone else, away from their situation, they feel a lot more comfortable with each other. They’re stuck in a room for the foreseeable future with no one else watching, what is the real point of putting up a front anymore in this situation; this is the man they’re going to be stuck with forever after all, just not in the confines of this specific room. They are both a very specific breed of ultra competitive and devoted, so even though they’re having a perfectly “normal” conversation about literature they enjoyed(Fernando: Machiavelli’s The Prince, he says it's a very good, relatable and interesting guide. Seb: Don Quixote, he told Fernando it reminds him of a certain someone), to everyone outside, it’s like “oh god what is that muffled yelling, are they scuffling???” When they’re not being scrutinized by the rest of the palace and court, I think they can have very calm constructive conversations about running the kingdom(no matter how seemingly competitive they sound.)  Also even if Seb cares less about image than Fernando, I think he still definitely puts up a front, it’s just a lot less negative than Fernando; so this situation gives them a situation where they can be their most free and open selves. Yeah yeah they spend time alone together often, like in their bedchamber, but that still has a notable time limit most of the time, and technically one of them could just dip at any moment. So everytime they get conveniently stuck in a room, they come out of it a lot closer and a lot more aligned, and a lot more fond of each other. I say “come out of the room” but more often than not, they’re found passed out, cuddled together on some surface, the furniture and their clothes in disaray. I’ll leave it up to your imagination how they ended up there, and what their state of undress is 🤭

[mod--soul]

I’m having language thoughts again after going back down the One Piece maelstrom ...

Anyway, languages in One Piece are weird and I have come across a few Fics that explore this, which is awesome, love them, if you have recommendations send them my way!

The world has such a confusing mix of languages that from a world building perspective it doesn't make sense at all as it seems like there actually are as many languages as we have (names with "English" surnames and "Japanese" first names, "Spanish", "French" or "English" attack names and so forth ... ), yet no one acknowledges it and there does not seem to be a language barrier between any of the characters? Yeah, I am mostly scraping by, by ignoring that part of the storytelling ...

Still, it’s interesting to look at a few things a bit closer, like the prime example for all of this combined: Trafalgar D. Water Law

Let’s look at his name first:

Even if Laws creation was pantsed, the idea to connect him to Dofy must have been there, as his name pretty much declares it. I mean, Trafalgar is a cape in Spain, the story Dofy's and Roci's names are based (you know: The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha) on is Spanish. It also is the place of the battle that resulted in the death (by musket) of one of the most famous Navy Admirals in British history (Admiral Nelson, you know, the one with the statue/column on Trafalgar Square in London?), hinting at Cora-san's demise

Besides that his first names don’t exactly make sense to any native speaker, do they? Though Water Law, the Law of the Water is quite a name for someone who can’t swim ... I know it’s Wateru Rou in the Romanized Japanese version, but let’s focus on the English version for this - by the way: Apparently the combination is also a play on “Waterloo” another decisive (the final even) battle during the Napoleonic wars. (Curiously enough the pirate “Edward Low” was an inspiration for that as well, though through this a last name became a first name)

In addition to that Law is supposed to be German in our world, which might mean that he actually has an entirely different name - if we go by the theory that different islands have different languages - but chose to “anglicize” it like his attacks (and tattoos).

Just had the urge to see if there were any old German dictionaries around with words that would make more sense than “Wasser Gesetz” or “Wasser Recht” (law as in “the right to do something”) - which I really hope no German speaking person would ever call their child ... though there is a child out there called Solarfred ... people are weird ...

Anyway! I found: Fenni/Venn (swamp, standing water) and ewa/ēwa (right/rules, but also eternity - with ēwin and ēwo more in the direction of eternal, which seems fitting considering the eternal youth operation) ...

So, whose to say Law’s name isn’t actually something along the lines of Venn Ēwo? (There is a German name “Ivo” that is a variation of Iwan/John, but also means “archer”)

Side Note: It is also interesting to see that the Heart Pirates are using the English word and not the Japanese one for their crews name.

His attacks:

While using nearly entirely English attack names, he “recently” developed two with grammatically questionable German names ... and I’m not sure how much of that is due to the translations.

One was the “Sterben Blade” he used when whirling his detached arm against Trebol. While “Sterben” is the correct translation for “Dying Blade” as, well, he was pretty much dying and didn’t know the limb was actually salvageable, it doesn’t make sense to a native speaker as “sterben” is the act of dying itself ... That would be “Todesklinge” “Death Blade” - which incidently would create a connection to his tattoos, but well ... sterben it was ...

The other was used in the fight against Big Mom, which was in one version translated as “Shock Wille” and another put it as “Shock Wave” making it “Shock Welle”, which makes much more sense - both language and attack-style-wise. (Wille means Will, Welle Wave), though complete German name would include a c in the Shock (Schock).

It’ll be interesting to see, if “he” comes up with more variations of this and if this means he gets more comfortable acknowledging his heritage?

Real world implication:

The whole “being German” thing also creates quite heavy subtext that I’m not sure if Oda put it there intentionally ... I mean, a part of the “German” population entirely annihilated for their wealth and constantly lied about in political propaganda? Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who sees this for the potentially antisemitism reference it is, even if the “nun” in the backstory kind of contradicts it, but maybe that is just to make it less obvious ..

If you have any additional thoughts on this, feel free to add them!

[swisscgny]

MEET JEAN-COSME DELALOYE

FILMMAKER, PRODUCER AND REPORTER

Image: Jean-Cosme Delaloye © Axel Dupeux

Jean-Cosme Delaloye is a New York-based Swiss director, producer, and U.S. correspondent for Tribune de Genève and 24 Heures. He recently produced the documentary Corona Hotspot New York - Im Epizentrum der Pandemie for Swiss Television featuring Swiss stories in New York at the height of the pandemic, and has been using his social media channels to document the protests. Through his observing lens he captures his subjects with great sensitivity and understanding. We caught up with Jean-Cosme Delaloye to discuss his movie Stray Bullet, about a family’s quest for justice after their twelve-year old daughter gets killed by a stray bullet, and Harley, a movie about a criminal defense attorney from Patterson NJ, which was meant to premiere at Tribeca Film Festival this year.

New York is in turmoil, grappling with the impact of the pandemic and the outbreak of the protests. As a journalist closely following the situation, what are you seeing and observing?

I’m seeing exhaustion, anger but also resilience and a profound awareness that things have to change. I have been filming in the inner city of Paterson, NJ, for six years and I have been observing what happens when you are an African-American kid growing up and coming of age in those streets. “I can’t breathe”, the words spoken by George Floyd as he lay dying under Derek Chauvin’s knee do not have the same meaning for African-Americans as they do for a white man like me living in Brooklyn. For months, “I can’t breathe” epitomized our common fear to catch Covid-19 and end up intubated in a hospital. I witnessed this fear from up close making a film on the coronavirus crisis in New York at the height of the pandemic.

For African-Americans and other minorities, "I can’t breathe” symbolizes the systemic racism they have to deal with. Chelsea Miller, a young black protester I met while covering a protest on May 31, described having to deal with a “double pandemic”: Covid-19 and racism. “Racism has been killing a lot longer”, she told me that night.

Based on what I am witnessing, I believe that this movement is deeply rooted and will go on, even if takes different forms than the marches. As Chelsea Miller told the large crowd protesting in front of City Hall on May 31: “Tonight, we mobilize. Tomorrow, we organize. And on November 3, we vote”. It has been fascinating to witness New York City first lose its face and go to sleep in the earlier days of the pandemic. And then, as the city came out of its confinement, it decided it did not want to have the same face it had before the pandemic and before the death of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. It is truly historic.  

Image: Tyreek © Jean-Cosme Delaloye

How has your relationship to the city changed since the start of the lockdown in March?

It really hurt me to see the city that has been my home for the past eighteen years and that made me a filmmaker suffer so much. The pandemic made the city’s beauty but also its weaknesses all the more apparent. The confinement would probably have been very different if we had lived in a house in the suburbs. I could feel that when I went to Paterson to film during the past few months of the pandemic, driving through some New Jersey suburbs. The pandemic there felt like a very different experience than in New York City. That being said, I could not imagine leaving New York City after what we went through, there is a grit and creativity in the city that is hard to match.

Image: Sue Mathys © Jean-Cosme Delaloye

You worked with Swiss Television (SRF) on a documentary about Swiss stories in New York. What are some of the most compelling moments from the making of the documentary?

It is hard to say, because the protagonists had really compelling stories to share. It is incredible to witness Harley Breite, a lawyer from Paterson in New Jersey and the protagonist of my new film HARLEY that was scheduled to premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in April, spend $1500 to buy 600 pounds of meat in order to deliver it to people in need. Especially when one of them, suffering from ALS, first tells him he doesn’t want the meat. When Harley asks why, the man admits it is because he is not strong enough to carry it.

It also hits you hard when Fortina, a Mexican immigrant who lives with her two teenage daughters across the street from a hospital striken by the pandemic, tells you that she can’t afford to cross the street and go to the hospital if she falls ill. One of my favorite scenes was Sue Mathys singing one of her Broadway songs in an eerily empty Times Square.

Watch the documentary Corona Hotspot New York – Im Epizentrum der Pandemie here:

Film and photography have long been used as tools of documenting society. How have you been using social media in the processing of current events?

I have been very busy on Twitter and on Instagram because I believe it is important to document what is happening. On Instagram, I focus more on portraits. I strive to show the faces of the pandemic, the faces of the protests, the faces of the stories I cover.

On Twitter, it’s more immediate. I was tweeting live when the protests turned into clashes with the police and into riots. I believe that my role as a journalist and as a filmmaker is to show as much as I can of what is happening so that people can trust their own eyes again. Among the many shots I published, one stands out: it is a picture I took of nine year-old Tyreek standing on the roof of his mom’s car and holding an American flag and a flower in his hands. To me, this shot of a young black kid protesting peacefully with his family is emblematic of the vast majority of rallies I covered since George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis.

Your film Stray Bullet is streaming on Netflix. How does the movie connect to your other work? Can you share why you wanted to make this movie?

I spent most of my career making films about courageous people fighting for justice. Stray Bullet is no different. When twelve year-old Genesis Rincon was killed by a stray bullet on July 5, 2014, her father Alexis embarked on a long and difficult quest for justice. To me, Alexis was especially interesting, because he was a former gang member who had just graduated from college. He therefore knew both sides of the problem, and as a result, the compassion he shows in the film to the young black men who were charged with his daughter’s killing, is even more powerful.

With this film, I wanted to give a 360-degree perspective on a deadly stray bullet. I wanted to show how the family of the victim, the family of the defendants, police officers, defense lawyers, gang members, the community, the justice system and ultimately our society as a whole dealt with a bullet that had no name and that killed, in broad daylight, one of the most vulnerable members of our society. Stray Bullet was not meant to be a militant film advocating for gun control. I am a reporter by trade. I believe in giving the audience the elements of a story and then let people draw their own conclusions. I believe this film is very current, because it shows the reality of kids growing up in poor, black neighborhoods in America.

Watch the trailer to Stray Bullet here:

Your movie Harley was meant to premiere at TRIBECA film festival, which was cancelled due to COVID-19. Can you tell us more about the protagonist Harley and the film in general?

This documentary film tells the story of Harley Breite, a criminal defense attorney from Paterson, NJ. On the outside, Harley is a confident, brash, Ferrari-driving 51-year-old lawyer, who relishes taking the side of the underdog and fighting prosecutors and police officers. On the inside, he is a middle-aged man living with his mother. He is consumed by his hate for the government rooted in the fact that his father and grandfather were put in concentration camps. He is still deeply scarred by the bully who antagonized him in high-school and is disappointed in himself for his lack of physical fitness.

When Harley meets the woman of his dreams online, he embarks on a quest to prove to her that he is the man for her. Inspired by his childhood hero Rocky Balboa, he decides to get in shape to fight in a mixed martial art competition in Brazil against a much younger and stronger fighter.

In a way, this film is the sequel or the prequel to Stray Bullet, because Harley was also featured in Stray Bullet. More importantly, this film is my take on Don Quixote, one of my favorite books. The postponement of Tribeca has forced us to rethink the distribution strategy of the film but it should come out soon.

Watch the trailer to Harley here: