#and obsess over singular vs plural

[daddy-ul]

I know I'm not posting much lately but I started a new job and--yeah

And it's not that I don't think abt Metallica, it's more like that my thoughts go like

"king nothing > memory. Which is not a unpopular opinion, per se, but like. Memory won the continuity live war till 2023. What a world we live in"

And

"WELCOME TO THIS LIFE

BORN INTO THE FIGHT

HERE TO CLAIM YOUR DREAM

Dreams..... No?

Dream SIGULAR. I forgot that it was singular, I sang it plural, here to claim your dreams. Usually in English don't you say "claim your dreamS"? Ohhhhhh, but it's singular bc for james it can't be anything else.

>>>>>'there was no plan b. Plan b, c, d was making plan a work'

This is autobiographical as UN1, which also starts with birth seen as something immediately difficult. But screaming Suicide is more Abt yourself -you, your voice- and something external giving you a hand; while UN1 is others, what others do to you-- till it transforms you"

[jajanvm-imbi]

⚠️Long Post Alert⚠️

Alright I've seen a lot of (negative) buzz around Disney's new show "Primos" so I'm gonna put my 2 cents in

According to the Primos wiki, the show is about "Tater, an eccentric 10-year-old girl with big dreams and, unbeknownst to her, a certain “it factor” that makes her exceptional. When her 12 cousins (“primos” in Spanish) move in for the summer, they help her discover just what it is. Tater’s aspirations and larger-than-life imagination are seen via entries in her super-secret diary, which turn her deepest thoughts into grandiose animation sequences."

FIRST, it's yet ANOTHER piece of children's media about the main character + their large Latin American family.

Upon doing some research apparently this show is about the creator's personal experiences, which okay valid. But when creating media that meant to represent a community it would be better to offer a DIFFERENT perspective rather than give us the same trope that has been done to DEATH.

And I'm gonna be real with yall, I LOVE Coco and Encanto, but both movies also fall under this trope. Not all Latin American families live with their extended family, we don't need ANOTHER piece of media perpetuating the stereotype.

Also, Disney has been putting out a few shows on Disney Channel and Disney Junior that are clear knock offs of Nickelodeon shows. Some examples:

And...hm....lemme think....a kids TV show about a Mexican girl and her quirky large Mexican family getting into some Mexican™️ shenanigans...where have I seen that before...?

Oh right

Yeah the premises are slightly different, but it's essentially the same trope so already right off the bat Primos feels like a knock off version of The Casagrandes.

SECOND, there are many stereotypes already present in the series just from tbe opening theme. Many of the cousins fall into stereotypes themselves, particularly the names. Some the names of the cousins are Gordita, Big Nacho, Nachito, and Cookita. I've seen people justify the use of these names by saying many Latin Americans are given these names as nicknames, which is true. But then again, having a characters named Nacho and Gordita in a show that's supposed to be about LatAm representation is just in bad taste. It's giving "Marco Diaz from Star vs. the Forces of Evil being half Mexican and being obsessed with nachos for some reason but not representing his Latino heritage in any other way other than him wearing that Day of the Dead themed costume in The Blood Moon Ball ep." It feels lazy, and of course, stereotypical.

On TOP of this, the word "Cookita" in many LatAm countries is slang for pussy and the suffix "-ita" means small. And the character with this name is the BABY. So yeah maybe naming the B A B Y character something that to many Spanish speakers means "little pussy" in a show ABOUT Spanish speaking Latin Americans probably isn't the wisest decision.

Another detail people have been pointing out leans into negative Mexican stereotypes is the use of the "yellow filter".

Now I'm gonna be real and say I'm not 100% convinced about the yellow filter being used here. The show takes place over the summer, so the use of yellow might may be used to give the feeling of how hot it is, but I can totally see why Latin Americans would find this offensive.

Also the name "Terremoto Heights" has been heavily criticized. Terremoto means "earthquake" in Spanish and the earthquakes are common in LatAm countries. Then again, show takes place in LA, where a lot of earthquakes occur too. So Im not 100% convinced that this is flat out racist either, but it's definitely in poor taste.

THIRD, the thing that is being SLAMMED at the most, is the improper Spanish grammar and the creator's response to people pointing it out.

In the theme song, the phrase "¡Oye! Primos" is used a lot, which means "Hey cousins!" The issue with this phrase is that "Oye" means hey but in the singular tense, and "Primos" is plural. If you plug in "¡Oye! Primos" to Google translate you'll get Hey Cousins regardless, but in Spanish the phrase is not grammatically correct. In order for it to be grammatically correct the phrase would either need to be changed to "¡Oigan! Primos", "oigan" being the plural word for Hey, or "¡Oye! Primo" and make primo singular. People have been telling this to the creators of the series and well...they haven't exactly been taking it well.

Here's what the voice actress of the main character Tater, Myrna Garcia Velasco said her on social media (Instagram I think, I could be wrong) in response to the bad Spanish:

(If you can't listen to it I'll just summarize. Velasco says that Spanish is the language of the Spanish conquistadors and the only reason why Latinos are LATIN American and not indigenous is because of the Spanish, and to stay mad if you think her incorrect Spanish is an issue. She also brings up how they're "trying to make a good show" for kids who "don't have a grasp on any language" or something?? Idk that's pretty much what she's saying")

Basically this response doesn't make any fucking sense. "Spanish isn't our original language so it doesn't matter if I speak it correctly or not. I'm a NATIVE Mexican so it doesn't matter if I speak Spanish correctly or not"

???????

Girl what the fuck does this mean??? News flash, but the majority of Latin America has been speaking Spanish for CENTURIES. You go to Mexico or most other Latin American countries and you'll find them speaking SPANISH. Yes it's because of the Spanish but it's part of our culture now whether you like it or not. It's like saying "oh it doesn't matter if I speak English correctly or not cause English isn't the US' ORIGINAL language anyway" ?????

Now, the story IS about a mixed kid. Tater is half white half Mexican, so if Tater is a Latina girl who doesn't know Spanish fluently (otherwise known as a "No-Sabo" kid), then the imperfect Spanish would make sense. If the idea behind Primos is to represent the Latin American kids who don't speak Spanish, then yeah thats fine and it was a directoral choice. But judging by Velasco's response, that doesn't seem like thats the idea?? She immediately got defensive and brought up the Spanish colonizers?? Which is relevant??? HOW???

On top of that, one member of the creative team, (not 100% sure who) called someone a "Grammar N@zi" for pointing out the grammatical errors and, well...

That's def not helping their case.

How the HELL are you gonna make show about a Spanish speaking Latin American family and NOT SPEAK SPANISH PROPERLY??? How the HELL are you gonna start beef with SPANISH SPEAKERS over whether or not it's important to speak Spanish CORRECTLY when portraying SPANISH SPEAKING PEOPLE IN MEDIA??? Yes slang exists, yes different LatAm countries speak Spanish differently, but grammar still exists??

OVERALL: Do I think Primos is this horribly racist dumpster fire? No. Are there MANY choices in this show that are just in poor taste? Absolutely 100%. Are the responses from the creative team outta pocket? Yes of course.

If you ask me, I think the main reason why people are so outraged over Primos is because the stereotypes and tropes are tired and dated, and people KNOW what writers are capable of. The response of this teaser, sandwiched between The Owl House ending and the premier of Across the Spiderverse, which have STELLAR LatAm rep, is proof of that. Luz Noceda, Miles Morales and Miguel O'Hara are SHINING examples of good SPANISH SPEAKING LatAm representation in children's media. We CAN have good LatAm protagonists in mediation, we've SEEN IT. We don't need all the stereotypes and overused tropes, so it makes sense why so many LatAm people feel like Primos is offensive and a step backwards.

Disney is getting lazy, they need to get their shit together

[tonyglowheart]

okay here’s.. where I get a lil bitchy lmfao,,

so tbh I am? in fact? really happy that there are alternate TLs of MDZS out there? Like I am honestly very unsatisfied with the ExR translation, and I think their tl is part of what kept me from really enjoying the mdzs novel as much.

for example the chap I just rb’ed. I don’t think it’s perfect; there’s some grammar points I’d change but for example from boat-full-of-lotus-pods’ translation:

The battle had taken a huge blow on every sect involved. It had taken the Four Great Sects three full months of recuperation, reorganization and planning before they’d finally become ready to take seize upon Burial Mound in retaliation; at last “exterminating” the last remnants of the Wen Sect along with the deranged Yiling Patriarch himself.

compared to ExR’s:

Due to this battle, the cultivation world was quite badly wounded. And since this was the case, after nearly three months of conserving energy and scheming plans, the Four Great Sects were finally able to successfully pull off a siege on the demon’s den, Burial Mound, returning the word ‘massacre’ to the Wen Sect’s remnants and the maddened YiLing Patriarch.

this one reads to me more like a literal translation, and not really narrativized into English very well.

another example:

ExR:

Wei WuXian, “Now it’s time to ask just whom it is that treasures it so much. It’s like Wen Ning. Back then, some certain sects or so were scared to death of the Ghost General. They said they’d kill him on the surface, but behind their backs they hid him for over ten years. How strange. Who was the one that said his ashes had been scattered back then?”

boat-full-of-lotus-pods:

Wei WuXian, “I think the real question to ask here is who’s the ones obsessed with it. Just like the Ghoul General. Hadn’t some sect once screamed loudly for his annihilation, yet somehow managed to secretly hide him up for over a decade? Strange. Who were the ones who’d claimed to have already scattered his ashes back in the days again?”

vs the google doc tl from the tl’s post:

“As for this question then we’d have to ask who exactly wants it so badly. Just like Wen Ning, a certain sect seemed to be scared to death of the Ghost General, calling for his destruction, yet keeping him in secret for over ten years. Strange, who was it back then who had insisted that he had already burnt the Ghost General to ashes?”

I mean even grammar issues aside, and TL differences aside, I just find the other two so much more readable in EN? I think with ExR sometimes I feel like I’m constantly reading garden path sentences, where I have to be readjusting my understanding as more words are read, as opposed to just reading. so like... rip lmao

Plus, ExR was so vocally against other translation groups lol and insisting that theirs was really great quality and that part of their concern/anger at other ppl translating is that the quality is bad? And of course, I don’t know what specific TL they’re talking about, maybe it was a rough TL they’re reacting to. But like I’d been going through their TL, as laborious a process as that was for me, because I wanted to enjoy the novel, and structural awkwardness aside, there’s a lot of grammatical awkwardness too with off tenses, or plural vs singular issues, or whatever. And those are ones that, if you copy it into a word doc, have already been marked out by the machine as issues, let alone someone reading through.

I know it’s bad form to criticize fan translations since like, I get it, we’re all doing this not for profit (well except for ExR’s patreon I guess lmfao) and for fun, so being critical is seen as mean. but they were SO vocally against other TL’s lol, as if other translations will be infringing on the quality or nobility of the art of translating or something. And I guess they apologized, but the fact that they did was. ugh. Plus, they’re fan translators? It’s not like they’re a licensee protecting their license? so I don’t know where an individual or individual group feels like they’re the only ones who can be fan-translating something and that since they called dibs, everyone else should back off. Especially if like... and I”m going to be honest, I don’t think their TL’s are that high quality.

so yeah here’s where I’m skirting fandom etiquette, but I mean I’m only tossing this here and it’s untagged and under a cut, it’s not like I’m mass-publicizing any sort of denunciation, so I’m going to voice my unpopular(?) critical opinion here.

 and also like... ExR’s vibe has done a lot to kill part of my enthusiasm for MDZS the novel and I have salty with them for that

[dimples-of-discontent]

There’s always a sequel: post-watching notes for 14x04

AHHHHHHHHH!!! I LOVE THIS EPISODE!!! I may never be over how much I enjoyed it, not least because I was eating pizza and drinking beer while watching it just like my dear nerd Dean Winchester. Anyway, I’m sure most people are going to hit the big ones right away but just so I know what I might want to return to:

This was Mirrors 101, as others have said elsewhere, since the Sam mirror was actually named “Sam” and the Dean mirror was named “Dirk,” in outfits that were so Salmon Dean letter-perfect that we had been speculating that they were cosplaying as Sam and Dean. Oh, and the Cas mirror was unconscious for most of the episode. 

Little Dean Mirror was so cute and so brave and, in a way, the kind of kid/young man that Dean never allowed himself to be. It was so sweet to see them together and I loved their interactions. I especially enjoyed him stepping up to defend his friend the Cas mirror and saying, “He’s my friend. He’s our friend” to show that Davy knew exactly what he was doing when he FREAKING WROTE 12X12 and had Cas say “I love you. I love all of you.” Davy was like “Hey, just in case you were thinking that this wasn’t being used to make a meaningful distinction, here it is in another iteration to show you that it means singular vs. plural and, what’s more, that it’s about Dean and Cas.” Brilliant.

Davy’s repeated dragging a certain corner of the fandom was actually one of the best parts of the whole episode. From “the Internet...where everyone can be a dick” to the Sam n Dean convo about costumes where Sam’s face told us all about what they think of the idea of them in couples’ costumes it was just so delicious. Also, the bad Yelp review that they got for a stupid argument about who might or might not beat up Superman? That was a great parody of the kind of online fandom drama that can happen. *hat tip*

I want a separate number for Sam’s face as they discuss things that are, and are not, couples’ costumes. Dean is reasonable enough to recognize that Bert and Ernie would be “weird” (AHHHHH SO MUCH VINDICATION!!) because they are brothers, but he ends by suggesting Thelma and Louise! Not only does Sam’s face convey that “oh God, Dean has fundamentally misunderstood Thelma and Louise and somehow Doesn’t Know the subtext” (actually the queerness of that movie isn’t even subtext but let’s be generous to Dean here), but it also tells us a little about how he might feel about this as an ending for them. Sam didn’t look too enthused at the idea, even aside from him clearly thinking of his brother in drag. Now, I don’t think Dean was serious in this suggestion about throwing the car into drive and hurling themselves off a cliff (no mention of the kiss...hmmm), but he’s been serious before both in the scene where he actually mentions Thelma and Louise (the one with the thick, leaden Deancas sexual tension) and in S7 when Cas was dead and he threatened to drive himself and his “beautiful mind brother” off a cliff. This is a response that Dean has when things get Really Bad and it’s also, not coincidentally, an ending that Jared and Jensen have talked about for the show, though they too have generally moved away from it. To suggest it to Sam in a playful way is still slightly concerning because of the valence that it has for Dean generally. 

The intercut chase scene where we switch back and forth between the Final Girl vs. the movie slasher and the Dean Mirror vs. MOTW. It’s funny and clever and comments on commenting on cultural artifacts (the two guards watching the movie are exactly the wrong kind of viewers in so far as they are missing things that are happening in real life. These dudes think they’d be movie heroes and are happy to criticize the one they are watching but, actually, when the same thing is happening in their world they are just oblivious viewers who THINK they would be heroes; the real hero is actually an obsessive nerdy viewer who takes on the role instead of commenting on it. Love it. (I want to do more later with Dean as the Final Girl and what that role means within horror movies.)

Ok, this is going to need expanding, but I want to relate this to 13x05 and I need some time but I think it’s worth it. 13x05 which, obviously, Perez knew well because it set up “Tombstone” and brought Cas back. It was also an episode that dealt with ghost possession in the wake of the death of one of a group of friends (two of whom were Dean and Cas mirrors). The ghost in that case was also a masked villain. The Dean mirror came back traumatized by his inability to save the Cas mirror (the Sam mirror didn’t even turn up to the haunted house) and then later, possessed by the ghost, returned to the scene of the haunting and died. Dean himself died in that episode and, even by the end, recounted his motivation being unable to save his mom, Cas, or even “a scared little kid.” He was clearly haunted by Cas’s death. Dean was prepared to let the ghost kill him in 13x05, making a surprised face when Sam stepped in to stop it and then doing the job himself. Dean in 14x04 was actually similarly braced for the axe until the Dean mirror (part of himself) stepped in to save him. That’s progress! Dean’s haunted in 14x04 too, by his own possession (which he says he’ll never be over), but it looks symbolically like he may be able to step in and save himself. 

Obviously we’ve got yet another possession narrative going, which ties into this season’s overall theme/concern with possession and its aftereffects. Because, yeah, we know that Michael isn’t gone, just like we know that at the end of a horror movie when a Jason or a Michael Myers is killed he isn’t really dead. The reanimated dummy of the movie villain even shows us this at the end in the scene with the guard. It may look like the Winchesters took care of the possessing entity-- “Is that it?” asked Sam and they said yes, just as they had said yes about Michael being vanished, but, well, what about the sequel?

All in all, I loved this and it was just SO much fun!! I’d like to do more with the titles and plots of the “All Saints’” films that Dean describes but I’ll need to rewatch for that. Hope you all had fun too!!

[driftwalker-fr]

conlangs are cool

some copy-pastes to give you guys an idea of how complicated and unnecessary I’m talking about:

I is always short. AI sounds like a long I. O is always long. E by itself sounds like “ay”. EE sounds like “ay ee.” R is three different letters, all vowels, which are used practically interchangeably in the modern form. it creates a very fluid language that fits such a fast-growing society.

Dictionary:

Tel : is/are (singular only, not including “singular” groups)

Teler : is/are (plural, including “singular” groups)

Kai : he/she/it/they/xxx (singular)

Kai-er : he/she/it/they/xxx (plural)

Martee-ach : awake. “tee-ach” means ��to wake”, adding the “Mar“ prefix mean “it has already been done” (“is awake” vs. “has woken”)

Ee-ia : yet/before/after/when. “ee” means “now”, “ia” is just a modifier.

Ih : I

Iher : you

(the ai suffix is a formal diminutive modifier. “Iher-ai” means “hon”, “love”, etc. The ona suffix turns the word negative. “Iher-ona” means “you bastard”, “you asshole”, etc.)

Onaima : don’t know/is not known/can not be known(found out) [ima means know, knowledge, smarts (slang). “intelligence” is imaih. “ona” prefix is negative modifier]

examples of sentences:

“Dhachi iheri sonnar-a!” [On the life of your sword (a figure of speech meaning HELL YES)]

”Tel kai martee-ach ee-ia?” [Is he awake yet?]

“Ih onaima. Mah sidhach ee.” [I don’t know. Go check.]

there’s not a lot of conjugation, and all pronouns are the same. Roj is a language very much obsessed with the present (ironically, considering it’s the ancient version of the language) and the rudimentary, basic meaning you’re trying to get across. It’s like saying “You go then” to be the past tense of “You go now.”

Not only was i a nerd and did all of that, I also made very rudimentary rules for other languages in the same universe in case it ever came up. The others are called Kii’novah (or Knsta) and Magorim. Kii’novah is special because it has the V sound,  which Roj does not; Magorim is a lot of closed-mouth sounds.

Guys, this is only a fraction of what i’ve created for this language over the last two years. man. 2014 was a wild ride