#and yes I know that book has problems

[big-edies-sun-hat]

Listening to one of the new Discworld audiobooks, this one read by Colin Morgan. It’s a fun listen but kind of much. He’s reading Interesting Times and giving almost every character an exaggerated voice, creating the impression that every character except Lord Hong and Lord Vetinari is played by a Muppet.

[mercuryferns]

So, my Czech friend was telling me something really interesting about Kaz’s name. Apparently in Czech, “kaz” means a flaw, a defect, if you make an adjective of it, it means "rotten". As he said, it suits the “dirtyhands” persona perfectly.

However, this also made me reflect on the more “Dutch inspired” names of the book, and specifically Wylan van Eck. I speak Afrikaans (a Dutch creole). Dutch people can sound off in the comments if it’s different for them, but these languages are obviously mutually intelligible so I’m going to assume what applies to us applies to Dutch too.

Wylan’s name was an issue for me for a huge reason: It’s spelling is aggressively American English, while the character himself is tentatively “Dutch-coded”:

1.) “W” doesn’t exist as a sound in Afrikaans. The letter represents a “v” sound.

2.) “Y” also doesn’t really exist in the same way as it does in English. In English it seemingly means whatever you want it to be in the given moment. But in Afrikaans, it’s “ay”. As in the word “ray”.

3.) “a” never means “ih”. Depending on accent it’s usually either “ah” or “uh”.

This may seem inconsequential, but let me tell you my surprise when my partner told me that his name is actually “WHY-lin”. WHATTTT??? I’ve been saying “VAY-lahn” this whole time????

(Not to mention his surname also means “of me”, which is clever, but to be honest it reads a bit stupidly to someone who speaks the language being imitated. She succeeded in other ways though!)

[lyculuscaelus]

How easy it was to blame all these misadventures the Achaeans suffered upon their homecoming on a man in revenge for his son.

Yes, we know what Palamedes did, and we know that he deserved it. We know that the disaster near Cape Caphereus did happen, and Nauplius was the one behind this. But we have not learned of anything else about the other part of Nauplius’s revenge from any sources earlier than pseudo-Apollodorus’s Epitome (and we know that the entire chapter 6 of Epitome is very likely tampered by Tzetzes already). Since, to be fair, Homer wasn’t the only one who neglected all this resettlement of Achaean heroes.

There was no mention of the name “Nauplius” in Proclus’s summary of the epic Nostoi, and the only chance for him to show up is in “the description of the storm around the Capherian rocks”. We know that Nauplius would make an appearance in the Nostoi through, again, pseudo-Apollodorus. But nothing more. The corruption of Argive wives did not happen in the Epic Cycle, and both the Nostoi and the Odyssey did not elaborate on any exile of any Achaean leader especially Diomedes.

And Aegialeia was still a steadfast wife of Diomedes in Homer’s epics. And Clytemnestra could still find her justice in her lament for Iphigeneia in Aeschylus’s and Euripides’s plays. Any role Nauplius could play in this would be redundant—prudent Aegialeia simply wouldn’t comply, and Clytemnestra wouldn’t need him to convince her.

So, why the attribution then? A likely explanation would be the attempt to connect the hero with those foundation myths in places outside the Mainland Greece like Magna Graecia. And what better way to get the hero there than exile? And what better way to exile a hero than the betrayal of their wife if they had one? (Well there are better ways but you know what I mean) The thing is, why did it have to be Nauplius? I mean, the tragedy at Cape Caphereus was infamous indeed. I could totally see people blaming Nauplius the Wrecker for more things than simply lighting a false beacon and throwing rocks. So now we have our avenger Nauplius traveling around Greece contriving the corruption of Argive wives and causing shipwreck for the returned fleet and in some versions even bringing false news to Anticleia which led to her suicide (again, not the version in the Odyssey)…Nauplius just seemed to be such a convenient device to connect these events.

But does that have to be the only case for their nostoi? I mean, Homer certainly did not include anything about this exile in his epics, and we could totally have our Nauplius simply causing shipwreck, without messing up with other heroes’ families. Is it tragic? Certainly. But in the meantime, it is cathartic. Heroes like Diomedes, Idomeneus, Philoctetes still get to stay in their homeland, even if it’s just in a few versions—one of them being Homer’s version.

[mourn-and-watch]

one thing that especially irks me about cullen's so-called redemption is the attempts to redeem him through cole's words.

templars' abuses affected cole so badly it damaged his connection to the fade and his own nature. he was a spirit of compassion and witnessing what was happening in white spire turned him into a killer. he murdered lord seeker lambert in cold blood for what he did and most of the time he doesn't regret it — and then he just. drops the "he's not like the other girls" lines about cullen.

and this is such a lazy and annoying move. another thing that is established about cole is that you particularly can't lie to him — about your real feelings and intentions at least. whatever he states about other characters must be true and it is often used as a tool to deepen the characterizations of the main cast and in cullen's case it is just. blatant apologism. there's literally a banter where cole talks about atrocities commited by the templars and then he adds "oh no but cassandra and cullen aren't like that" and never elaborates. the game itself doesn't elaborate either.

like please don't tell me that the spirit who was shaken by knowledge that an innocent boy can die from starving because his jailors simply forgot about him would look in the eyes of a person who used to be meredith fucking stannard's right hand and still thinks that her methods were just a little too harsh but necessary and justified and say yeah. this guy is such a friend of mages. if only there were more templars like him

[cuteniarose]

Personally I find it really funny that based on what the twins said in the Book 2 finale re: having to tell their mom about what happened to Unalaq, it's literally canon that Unalaq's wife a) exists, b) is alive, and c) is just chilling in the Northern Water Tribe

She took one look at all the spirit fuckery her husband was getting up to and went "Well that's none of my business" and honestly I respect that

[faaun]

i feel rly sad and conflicted abt one of my best friends on earth but idk who to ask for advice bc i usually would have consulted her in this situation lmao

[stardustfrin]

i think it's really funny how people just go on the internet and tell lies

[coolspacequips]

Have been reading this sci-fi romance and like UGH u ever really wish a book was just at least a little better??? There's stuff in this that's interesting but also a lot about it that's so... Juvenile and kinda undercooked lol...... But it's so hard finding good romance bc for a lot of romance readers this is enough, except even then not really since they prolly didn't fuck nasty enough in this book for the ppl that just need the merest pretense to read smut (which is fine if that's what u like there's just an oversaturation of this, esp when you can have a light plot/heavy smut story with slightly better writing and internal world building without having to explain and describe the 'boring' parts 😅)

[slut-lord]

i kinda want to write a deep dive essay on silence of the lambs WRT gender and transmisogyny bc it's actually a much more complicated topic than a lot of people realise

[nerdyfangirlingbooks]

Every now and then I remember the times I would mention to my flatmate that I was thinking of buying myself something reasonably expensive (that I had been eyeing up for months and had budgeted for) and she'd tell me that I shouldn't spend that much money on something I didn't need and it would be stupid etc etc while she regularly impulse bought things that cost at least as much and she would use once (while complaining that she was under a lot of financial stress and couldn't afford <$3/week for 2 months for a rental washing machine when ours broke). She is... perhaps not my first call for financial advice

[fingertipsmp3]

Ughhhhhhh I hate writing and I hate not writing and I hate myself

[mildmayfoxe]

the thing about reading so many romance novels is my threshold for what is a decent reading experience is basically on the ground. what in any other genre would be a completely mid to not very good book is often a shining bastion of decency and basically ok grammar in a barren wasteland of like absolutely dogshit literature with half strung together sentences and only the barest wisp of character development and personality. i’ll finish a book that actually deigns to think for half a second about character motivations and has any kind of vaguely assembled plot and be like “wow. that’s reading baby :)”

[twilightarcade]

Hey! I'm the anon from earlier! Can I be your 🐳 anon? I love whales! I love playing videogames, I really love this game I played recently, it's called stray and you play as a cat! 10/10 concept and execution I loved playing as a little cat. I love reading books too, I just read this series called the renegades trilogy by Marissa Meyer and I enjoyed it very much! I love sandwiches and instant ramen they're my favourite foods I think they fuck so hard man!

Also my pronouns are she/her! (and hehe i saw you mentioned this earlier but I'm terrible at discord too like what is even going on there? I've tried joining servers but like what do you do once you've joined a server dude there's like fifty people and a hundred chat like things? and I think I just get shy or something and never talk and eventually leave.) anyways enough about me! Tell me about you (if you'd like to!)

- 🐳 anon

YES YOU CAN BE 🐳 ANON !!

I've heard a bit about stray!! It looks fun from what I remember of it, I like the robot guy. I haven't heard of the renegades (I have not heard of ANYTHING EVER) and not to judge a book by its cover but oh man is the cover art super cool. To be entirely honest I largely read. Completely random books that I pick up. Like there's a handful of AP (trademark) books I've read just for . so college board doesn't hunt me for sport. But otherwise..? Huge fan of libraries but we're inconsistent with actually reading books (can read them in like. A day or two. But that's if we Read Them) so I mooostly buy books or lend them from a friend. That said (as previously mentioned Maybe ?) I love the library's book shop because they're like. 50-25 cents depending on the book, then there's a free shelf of books that have had a Lot of wear (therefore mostly really old books !)

Paragraph break because that paragraph was getting WAY too long free shelf books are uuuusually hit or miss but I like picking them up because like. Never know what you're gonna get. I do feel REALLY bad picking up too many from the free shelf because. What If Someone Else Wanted Those. It's ok though because I usually donate anyway. They don't even know what a devious trickster I am...

umm food I LOVE sandwiches they are actually like. Top ten. If I could only eat one food for the rest of my life ever it would probably be the vague idea of a sandwich both because of their flexibly and because. Sandwich 🥪. Also!! (Asian guy voice) I LOVE rice like a lot and I'm sure I've made some post about it somewhere but like.. actually top ten foods in terms of flexibility. You can eat that guy with anything IMCLUDIBG! eggs which are also a top ten food. Super secret is that I don't really like runny yolks just because they're. Runny. Deep stuff right there. I am also number one water fan. Water for life baby.

okok let's see here what else do I do ,, I'm a huge fan of the arts in general! top ten curses placed on me is that I had 2 decide between pursuing The Arts or pursuing The Sciences which I think was. Hugely messed up of them. But anyway now I'm in The Sciences (because The Arts as a career path was NOT !! smiled upon) and The Arts is just that hobby I'm weirdly obsessed with. Which particular Arts though ? All of them if I'm going to be honest. Gives me something 2 do with my hands;; I mooostly draw Pretty Pictures but I've been fighting for my life to get into like. Writing and music composition aswell. I love game dev baby. We also!! Crochet & needle felt & somethingesle probably on and off.. fun times

[fatal-blow]

trying to be normal and not randomly message everyone in the notes of the subcapularis post with Bonus Facts

[screwzara]

Doodle Dump!

:) and a special one for the Boboiboy fans

Hehe~

[magentagalaxies]

hey so i'm not making a DNI because i don't want to (i initially had a longer attempt at articulating a reason and then i realized i don't have to explain more than "i don't want to") but the past few blogs that have followed me are very harry pottter focused and given the actions and rhetoric of jk rowling i'd appreciate it if any blogs who prominently post harry potter themed content would kindly refrain from following me.

you can probably still reblog my posts, not bc of my moral stance but bc honestly i don't really notice who reblogs from me unless they have a huge red flag in their url, but in terms of following my blog i'd prefer it if harry potter bloggers could just not

and i know there's always the excuse of separating the art from the artist (like people who continue to post about harry potter but end every post with "fuck jkr tho"), and not everyone even knows why jkr is a horrible person bc a lot of the discussion is very online (that's the reason this is worded so empathetically, i'm assuming harry potter fans who follow me are in either of these two camps but if you're just an outright terf then go fuck yourself of course). but even if you're entirely dedicated to balancing every harry potter post with a post about hating terfs, the fact that harry potter is still being promoted in a way that's uncritical of the content itself makes me uncomfortable and by making the harry potter brand maintain relevance that's still supporting jkr no matter how many times you put "fuck terfs" on your blog

disagree with me if you want bc i can't control whether people post about one of the largest fandoms in history, but i can make a statement being like "hey if you follow me and your most recent posts are all harry potter gifsets i will be blocking you so honestly for your own convenience please don't put in the effort of following me"