#as far as linguistics and history of language go it's fascinating to me

[youhavereachedtheendofpie]

Thinking about how both the Latin 'librum' and the Greek 'βιβλίον' (bíblios) have survived and filtered through the modern European languages but in such different ways and not always both alongside the other

[etirabys]

Apologies if this is personal and you don't want to answer (or you don't want to answer for any other reason!); if that is the case no worries. But anyway by virtue of the fact that I am (sort of) a linguist I often get curious about people's language situation. You speak English obviously but spent your childhood in Korea, and often went to the English language book store while there? What is like, your personal linguistic history? Like, what language(s) did you grow up speaking, which ones did you learn later and when, etc? How fluent do you consider yourself in both English and Korean? If you don't mind my asking.

Haha, this is a dream scenario for me (someone asking about a situation I find fascinating about myself because I've never met anyone else with that background, but is probably boring to most people). Here's a longer story than you probably want:

My parents emigrated to the US before I was born, stayed for a decade, and moved back to Korea right after I was born. They're conversational in English, and my sister (12 years my elder) is fluent. Speaking English is valuable in Korea, so they raised me to be bilingual. They taught me the alphabet, bought me English language children's books, and sent me to an English language school run by Christian missionaries for preschool, kindergarten, and part of first grade.

My sister left the country when I was three to go to a boarding school in the US, but she came back every year for holidays, spoke exclusively in English to me, and refused to let the conversation move on if I mispronounced a word.

When I was six, my parents moved further away from the missionaries' school and switched me to a neighborhood public elementary school. At this point I was mildly more fluent in English than in Korean. Reading (English books) was a self-sustaining reaction I spent every free hour on. There were fewer interesting Korean books for children. Korea had industrialized ~30 years prior, and the hangeul writing system had only been in full use ~50 years at that point. As far as I knew, there was no CS Lewis of Korea, no Tolkien, no Diana Wynne Jones. In Korean bookstores, many of the prominent books on display were translated – The Little Prince was popular for children, and there was a children's fiction fad around another French author (who afaik never made a splash in the States) whose name I forget.

So I'm reading like 10 hours a day, at the dinner table, on the escalator when my mom takes me while she's shopping, sometimes under the desk at school flipping the pages with my toes, because the teachers don't care. (This is a huge W as far as I'm concerned for Korea – public school teaching is a somewhat competitive and standardized government job, it attracts people who lack great passion for either teaching or controlling children.) Meanwhile my peers don't like me much because my vibes are rancid: I have a compulsive laugh tic I haven't gotten under control, and I don't seem to understand their preferences very well or actively seek to understand them. Fair enough. I have one friend at any given time and she's usually on the fence about me.

When I'm old enough to take the train on my own, some weekends my mom gives me 5000 won for the train ticket + lunch, and I go into Seoul to visit one bookstore that has a 10-shelf English section. I pick a book, spend the day finishing it, and go home. Instead of my English language skills lapsing and being overtaken by the language I'm immersed in, I'm going deeper into English. Which increased the disconnect between me and my peers. I remember overhearing a conversation about an anime (The Black Cat) and eagerly asking if they'd also read the Edgar Allen Poe short story. I wanted to much to talk about shared interests, but it didn't occur to me to "invite myself into their interests" by picking up the manga they talked about.

...this all made my childhood weird in ways that have shaped me hugely but are difficult to describe. I was isolated and not, happy and not, stimulated and not, developing unevenly...

At eleven I discover fanfiction.net, probably one of the most impactful events of my life. I'm running out of physical books, I've read everything five or ten times, but then the computer! has made a deal with me! It contains INFINITE LITERATURE, although sometimes people seemed to misspell things on purpose and I didn't know why. (I had, approximately, never encountered misspellings in written material before.) In return the internet would take MY SOUL FOREVER although I didn't realize this at the time. I post a 100K Harry Potter epic over the next year where Harry is trained by a special assassin cult that lives under a mountain.

My parents have no idea what is on the internet. They're on a new temporal continent with no clue there's a parasite that can turn your daughter into a fujoshi. They do know that they have a worrying child. But! Her grades are really good, especially when she's testing in English. Good enough that although they originally intended not to send me to the US (my sister got depressed and burned out, and they attributed it to sending her to a different country for school), it made much more sense for me to go. I was on track to get a full ride at an Ivy, a carrot they were Not Immune to, and I obviously despised Korea and wanted to leave.

When I arrived in the States, I was terrified of speaking English to real native speakers. My language experience was "reading/writing: 95% English, speaking/listening: 90% Korean". I could perfectly pronounce any English sentence when I tried, but I'd occasionally and bizarrely mix up R and L, or the vowel sounds "ih" and "eeh" if I weren't paying attention. This went away after a year but I felt extra shy and didn't talk much. I'd guess 80% of my social cachet in freshman year came from writing funny Facebook posts.

I remember my time in Korea without feeling bothered by any single aspect, but overall I still have a big sense of "wow I didn't like that", have avoided non-Americanized Korean people since getting here (ten years ago), and now speak Korean haltingly. I'll try to teach it to my children so that they have the option of that cultural connection, but I don't think I can do a good job. It's feels 90% true thinking/speaking Korean is just a normal skill, a thing I do sometimes on the phone – and 10% true that the happier and more whole I become in the US, the more unsettling it feels to speak Korean at all.

[nocompromise-noregrets]

five good things

Because I still have a cold and I'm feeling sorry for myself, so let's see if I can cheer myself up...

It's not Covid, at least! I did a test earlier and it was nicely and solidly negative.

Two more days at work and then I'm off for two and a half whole weeks! I'm taking Wednesday as a flex day because I've built up a lot of flex time and I could do with an extra day for packing/hair dyeing/sorting myself out/etc etc etc, and then Thursday I have my coach up to London, crashing at a hotel near Heathrow overnight and then flight at stupid o'clock on Friday morning - I shall be in Helsinki by lunchtime, YAY.

Japa's band have cancelled their show next Saturday, boo (and hadn't announced that it was cancelled - I only found out because I was checking the FB page for the bar where it was supposedly happening and they suddenly had a different event on for that night, so I commented on the original show announcement to ask, and no, it's cancelled, next show is on 8 November, by which point I shall be at home) - but I still have two shows to go to, Japa's old band on the second Saturday, and Michael Monroe my absolute HERO on the second Friday so that's still good!

I have my itinerarerarerarery well and truly sorted - I have an app and also a very colour-coded spreadsheet (I am indebted to @wauryd for the revelation some ten-odd years ago (HOW LONG?) that one can colour-code one's spreadsheets) to help me work out what's open when and what to go to on each day, and I also have a Museokortti (museum card) which cost me about €70 but will get me in to pretty much every museum and gallery in Finland for free and will probably save me about €300 for the amount of places I'm planning to go to (50-odd over the eleven days XDDD )

I have finished (npi) the Finnish course on Duolingo - only two sections and nowhere near enough language, but along with the previous bits of learning-Finnish I've done, I could probably now do more than order a beer and a coffee and apologise for being English XD but we'll see how I get on. At least I should be able to understand a bit more, even if I don't actually manage to be brave enough to actually speak. And I've really rather enjoyed it. The funny phrases and cultural references (there is a woman in the song who is running up that hill, the grey wizard is walking in the forest etc) have really ticked the old intertextuality boxes, and I wish there was more! Might have to go back to Danish or Czech next, or maybe pick up something new!

@mihrsuri and I have been pinging ideas back and forth again, this time in a Rings of Power AU in which Sauron captured Galadriel and Elrond as well as Celebrimbor, but they eventually managed to escape; so far it's been the twins who've been talking and I love them so much, they're always so delightfully feral. :D I so enjoy this sort of writing, I used to do it so much with friends last time I was in the fandom and I've missed it enormously. Lil I wish we lived closer so we could go sit by a river or somewhere and just talk it all out in person!

It's @sigrielweek! I have been spectacularly bad at posting the last couple of days, thanks to the cold of doom and destruction, but I am so enjoying collaborating with @thatonetimetraveller and other people are posting too (thank you so much @verecunda and @myeaglesong and @unendingwanderlust!) and our tiny little liferaft of a ship is getting more content and I am DELIGHTED for our girls! <333333

My new OU course has begun and so far I'm really enjoying it! It's definitely harder than what I've done before, but in a fairly-easy-step-up sort of a way, and it's introducing us to external academic writing in a way that the previous courses didn't, and there is some fascinating stuff going on out there. So far I've been meaning to read more about the history of women in linguistics, and a few other things - haven't quite had the brainspace yet, but I'm about five weeks ahead with the course (gained access to it in mid-September and got started straight away, although it only began officially last Saturday, because I knew I was going to have to take two weeks out) so I've got time. Also my favourite person from the English Grammar course two years ago is on the course and in my tutor group and I'm so looking forward to his contributions - he's the sort of person who asks the really interesting questions and gets the complicated stuff explained, and he also draws the most adorable cartoons to help him (and us!) get his head round the points that are being made, featuring two lions called Lexis and Rexis and a whole load of dad jokes, and I absolutely love them. I hailed him in the forum when we were all introducing ourselves and he came back with a Lexis and Rexis cartoon and I just instantly felt at home again. :D

Aaaaaaand it is just over two weeks until I finally FINALLY meet @lemurious IRL and I cannot wait! So much nerdery and squeeing awaits!

Oh yeah, and someone very lovely is working their way through Empty Vessel at the moment and leaving lots of awesome comments :D :D :D I am hoping to have the spoons this weekend to have a proper comment-answering spree ( @seagull-energy I have been wanting to respond to your lovely comments on the TRSB fic for ages at this point and the mental energy keeps eluding me >.< but thank you SO MUCH! <3333333 )

Oh yeah and I have been bonding with lovely James at t'pub (one of the bar staff) over Rings of Power, and persuading equally lovely Amelie (another of the bar staff) that she needs to watch it - James and I have basically been tag-teaming her XD and she also hasn't watched the films (I think she maybe wasn't born when Fellowship came out, but then again neither was James XD ) so we're thinking that it would be super interesting if she started with the series, to see how different an experience it might be...anyway it is a joy to have someone to flail with IRL! I miss lovely Tom (also bar staff at t'pub) who has moved on, who I used to flail with about series 1, but James is just as keen and it is just as much of a joy :D :D :D

Right then. I think that will do. Time to sink back into the plague pit. XD

[mask131]

The book of all books

If you are an avid reader, if you are a book lover, if you are a recurrent visitor of libraries and bookshops, if you are a collector of rare books, or if you are a fan of the hilarious literary comic strips of @myjetpack​ , this book is for you and I cannot advise you enough to try to read it at least once.

“The City of Dreaming Books”. A wonderful, hilarious, fascinating, bizarre fantasy adventure created by famous German author and illustrator Walter Moers. I read it in French, but an English translation exists - and you, lucky English-speakers, can even read the sequel to this wonderful novel, “The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books”, which is currently unavailable to non-German speaking Frenchies like me. Of course, if you can read German, I also suggest you try to enjoy these marvelous tomes in their original language - but even if you do not understand the text the bizarre, crazy, demented but deeply charming and hypnotizing illustrations of Moers are enough to plunge you into a twisted, inventive, genius world of puns, obsessions, beauties and treacheries. 

What is the story of “The City of Dreaming Books”? It is quite simple. They are the memoirs of an elderly lindworm scholar, Optimus Yarnspinner, retelling the greatest adventure he lived in his youth (I am using the English translations for the names - given everything is a pun in this world, the names change from language to language - in French it is Hildegunst Taillemythes, Hildegunst Myth-carver, and in German Hildegunst von Mythenmetz). As a young dinosaur-man of barely 77 years, Optimus is an avid bibliophile and aspiring author, who, on the death-bed of his mentor, inherits a manuscript. Not any manuscript: the manuscript of the best novel ever written in the history of the fantasy world of Zamonia. Reading this breaks you soul, makes you feel every emotions in the most intense way possible, and leaves you a forever changed being. 

This discovery prompts Optimus to search for the mysterious author of this manuscript - a brilliant young man that was last seen decades and decades ago, trying to have his novel published, in a town called Bookholm, where Optimus goes to investigate. Begins a exploration and investigation tale in this grand city at the center of the book industry, a quest of unnerving discoveries, hilarious encounters, heart-breaking tragedies, goofy plot twists and sordid crimes, in the beating heart of the literary arts - in the City of Dreaming Books, where reading can kill, and authors can become gods... or devils. 

The most intense pleasure brought by this novel is the universe of the titular City, the fabulous, fantastical, mind-blowing creation of Bookholm (Bouquinbourg in French, Buchhaim in German), a fantasy city that is all about books. Five hundred second hands bookshops, a million or so semi-legal book shops, with six hundred different publishing houses, fifty-five printing businesses and twelve paper factories. It is the city where all young authors go to get published, where all famous authors go to be recognized, praised and criticized, where all old authors go to die. All the books of history passed at one point by this wonderful city, where all the shops are centered around reading.

The opticians only give prescriptions for the best reading-glasses. All the alcohol and drugs sold are designe to enhance the reading experience. The pastries are shaped like books, the wood-carvers specialize in building bookshelves and book-holders, every pub has a public reading instead of an happy hour, and there are entire shops merely selling bookmarks. Linguists work in laboratories, dissecting words like animals, and book-binders are this city’s equivalent of trained surgeons. Scientists of Bookholm even go as far as to practice their psychological or biological projects in relation to literature - such as how one species’ literature was influenced by their biology, or the reverse. There are no big sports match - but rhyming competitions in literary salons. And the firemen are excepted to save the books first, the people afterward. 

The other great charm of this novel being the whimsical, medieval bestiary-like, borderline-surrealist fantasy world it takes place in. Zamonia is a recurring setting of Moers, who wrote other fantasy books taking place in this “time of myths and legends” supposedly taking place millenias and millenias before the history of the world as we know it today - when there was more continents than today, and when mankind was but a planetary minority believed to be more legend than reality. In this book every character is unique, ranging from talking animals, humanoid reptiles, yetis and giant worms to extremely alien and cartoonesque species that could be coming out of a UFO. Being familiar with the Germanic European folklore can help, since many mythological and fairytale creatures can be found back in those pages (the very protagonist is a lindworm, and in other places German bogeymen such as the rye-wolves can be encountered). All of course, with the unique and strangely superb illustrations of Moers, of which I offer you a quick sample. 

But let’s return to the books! Because this book is about books, all books, and literature, and book-selling, and the love and hate of books. Everything is described with such lavish details and such an imaginative mind - it is the most book-loving fantasy work I have ever read. And it is not without its dark side... Because in this world, there are demonology books, and cursed books, and trap-books designed to kill those that open them, and poisoned pages straight out of “The Name of the Rose”, and obscure literary-alchemists practicing strange editing experiences in the depths of the night, summoning golems of paper and demons of inks... And many of these forbidden and dangerous books are locked up in the catacombs below the city, a gigantic and ancient labyrinth that is regularly visited by the Book-Hunters, terrifying and deadly warriors trained to survive the treacherous paths and many deadly traps of the catacombs, so talented in their quest for books they can identify the nature of a tome merely by its smell. 

Because the catacombs of Bookholm are filled with some of the most precious treasures one can imagine. Books of times so ancient they are forgotten ; first editions thought to be lost to the world ; manuscripts that never saw the printing press ; prints with typos so rare they become worth a lot of money... These are precious treasures for a city where dubious dwarfs sell the blood of authors under their coat, and where the finest and most renowned book-shops sell books the same way high-class, luxury-brand clothes sell their products. 

And even beyond books, Moers keeps sliding here and there absolutely fantastic little stories, fleshing out the world - ghost legends and fairytales and imaginary geography - to keep us entertained while our sympathetic but also very unfit for adventure (he is a young author after all) has to make his way throughout scheming critics, bloodthirsty book-hunters, excentric dragon-witches, toasts of bees, haunted wines and criminal book-collectors.

And all that I describe... IS BUT THE FIRST PART OF THE BOOK!

I do not dare say more of it, out of fear of spoiling the surprise for you - but if you are a bibliophile, go check this beautiful novel. Let yourself sink in a world where books are law, justice, art, food, drugs and life, let yourself sink into a fantasy adventure with an ordinary bibliophile and aspiring author as a hero for once, and fall deep, deep into the depths of the labyrinthine catacombs of the books that dream but never die... 

[sunnymoon-sunshine]

I’ve been thinking lately about Darkstalker, and the two thousand year gap between his childhood and his awakening. I don’t think it can be stated enough how long a time that is.

Dragons grow quickly in Wings of Fire, with typically dragons being able to reach to 100 years old, if not hampered by violence or disease. This doesn’t make 2,000 years any less a huge gap. The Romans founded Londinium in 47 AD, and occupied it until 410 AD. 2,021 years ago, Caesar was Ides of March’d. 2,000 years ago, Augustus was Roman emperor. Much of western Europe is scattered Germanic and Celtic tribes. The world is so vastly different. China has the highest population of some 60 million people. The first written mention of Japan was recorded in the first century AD. English wasn’t even a language, at least not in any form but a proto one.

And I find it fascinating because I know it’s on purpose! Tui is a history major (you can tell from her grasp on science and linguistics) and you can see the Roman influence especially, the mentions of trade routes, the way technology clearly has high points and low points and lost arts. We’ve only recently realized that Roman statues were painted and not just white. The RainWing/NightWing tribe is going to have such a time studying the language. The loss and discovery of language and culture is something that I think will be beneficial for them, but man they are so many steps removed from their ancestors. They’ve been living on that volcanic island since before Britain had a royal family (by some 800 years).

I don’t know, I just think it’s something I have a hard time wrapping my head around until I put it in real world terms. NightWings haven’t had powers for so long - the Great Fire of Rome happened roughly 2,000 years ago. Nero was (not) playing his little instrument while NightWings purposefully chose to give up their cool powers. That’s crazy.

Not to mention The Scorching. That’s around 5,000 years ago - so about the time humanity was leaving the Stone Age. Webs mentions all the myths about that time because THATS PROBABLY ALL THEY HAD. Writing systems were only just beginning to emerge. Egypt entered Old Kingdom period. Dragon historians yanking on their horns in frustration because written accounts of the Scorching are few and far between and they don’t trust oral history because OF COURSE the scavengers couldn’t be that smart. And all those best friends and all that.

I bet each tribe has their own account of their history and how they came to be and each one has a different period of time that they can research up to. I bet there’s so many tales and religions that have come and gone. I bet someone has a King Arthur-esque tale of a hero returning in their time of need.

I bet IceWings have the most carefully recorded history. They seem to be the ones that have the most need to, considering ancient tales of doom and animus dragons.

Anyway this has been a whole history ramble, but suffice to say that man, as much as I’d like NightWings to rediscover aspects of their culture seen in Darkstalker, they’re so far divorced from it that it would be.. really difficult. Makes me want to know what life was like After Darkstalker, but before the volcano really ramped up to try and kill them all. Imagine not knowing where a whole tribe is for like, as long as Caesar has been stabbed. That’s crazy.

[rallis-fatalis]

The Price of Freedom - Chapter 6

Summoning, it turned out, was far easier than the other aspects of linguistics.

Months passed since Silenthe’s offer to teach Astrath reading and writing, and during those months Astrath became quite the accomplished dragon. On the summoning front, they breezed through medium-class familiars, mastering the taming of cockatrices, minotaurs, terrorbirds, bunyips, and dozens more. Their latest successful summon had been a rather surly talon beast, a creature the dragon would likely not summon often given its propensity to scream so loudly it would cause others to faint.

As for reading and writing, Astrath was surprised to see how easily reading came to them, save the odd words that simply threw all rules of the Common language out the window. Writing, however, was a chore. Holding any writing utensil was difficult to the point of being painful, their hand cramping after only a few sentences at a time. But they pushed through, determined to learn this simple skill.

By the end of those months of practice, they had skill enough to write a letter, with Silenthe’s help of course. They wrote to Marianne, telling her about their trek across the mountains and their adventures in Taverley. They wrote how they hoped she was doing well and perhaps one day she could even come visit. Silenthe addressed the letter and introduced Astrath to a friendly skeletal head named Pete who would deliver the letter personally, ensuring it could not fall into the Krawleys’ hands and lead them to the town.

Astrath found themselves thoroughly enjoying reading, especially books about the history of the world and the roles the gods played in it. They would often pester Silenthe with facts they learned from passages they read; ‘Did you know Guthix banished all other gods from Gielinor?,’ ‘Did you know most of the gods were actually once mortals or were even born from dreams?,’ ‘Did you know there was an entire land mass turned to ash because of the gods fighting?,’ and so on. Silenthe always smiled and hid a laugh, saying yes he did indeed know given the dragon was reading his own book collection. It was rather amusing to watch this scary stoic beast curl up on the rug on the floor with wide eyes reading the day away.

The dragon found themself enraptured by the god Armadyl in Silenthe’s books. Astrath was already hooked on the god’s appearance alone, more close to an animal than a human, and then reading that the god was known as the god of justice and learning about all the good and noble things the bird god had done across the centuries solidified him as an idol in Astrath’s eyes. If the gods were real they hoped to meet Armadyl one day. They bet a god like that wouldn’t stand for the injustices Astrath and their kin faced from humans.

One day, Astrath came up to the druid and very simply said “I have read all your books. Where can I get more?”

“You’ve read all of them?” Silenthe asked incredulously. “Granted, I don’t have terribly many, but there were at least twenty on my shelf!”

“27 to be exact,” Astrath corrected. 

“You read 27 books in four months?!”

“Indeed. They were all so fascinating I simply could not put them down! Where can I find more to read?”

Silenthe scratched his chin in thought. “Geez, I’m not entirely sure. Varrock has a rather large public library but that’s a good distance away and they don’t usually let people take the books out anymore. Something about adventurers ‘borrowing’ them and discarding them instead of returning them properly when they’re done.”

“I’m not ready to leave Taverley for that long yet, so perhaps Varrock will be a future adventure,” Astrath nodded.

“Hm… Let me think.” Silenthe rattled off ideas in his head, muttering to himself, when he landed on a possibility. “Perhaps Port Sarim. Sometimes there are market days on the docks where trader ships from across the world all make land to trade and sell goods. There could be books for sale there.”

“When can we go?” Astrath smiled.

“Whoa there, hold your unicorns. I have no idea when the next market day is. I’d have to ask. Be patient and I’ll get back to you on it.”

Astrath’s tail twitched impatiently. Ah waiting, truly one of the most difficult endeavors in the entire world.

One week later, Silenthe informed the dragon the next market gathering in Port Sarim would be in exactly five weeks. Astrath hid a groan. Five weeks?! They would go insane before they could get their claws on more books. It only took three days for Astrath’s antsiness to start driving Silenthe insane.

“I have an idea for you,” the druid told them. “You will need money to buy anything that sparks your interest at the port. Do you have any?”

Astrath dumped the contents of the pouch Marianne gave them onto the table. In total, it still had about 300 coins in it.

“That’s not bad actually,” Silenthe said. “But it would be a good idea to get more. Let’s teach you how to get jobs and earn some gold.”

“A job? Like a servant or a guard?” Astrath certainly hoped not. They never wanted to work such demeaning positions for humans again.

“No, no, more like delivering goods or providing aid to others who need it. Burthorpe is always looking for hired help ever since the White Knights stopped providing them aid, and I believe Rimmington is currently in the market for some miners willing to help them expand their mines.”

“I assume helping Burthorpe would entail slaying trolls or other such creatures,” Astrath grimaced. “I’d rather not. I’ve never mined before. I suppose I could try it.”

“It’s definitely hard work, but the pay isn’t half bad. Why don’t I show you to Rimmington tomorrow morning?”

“I would appreciate that. Thank you.”

And so, bright and early the next morning, Astrath, Silenthe, and Rojaw left town for Rimmington. They followed a path south of town, past the Taverley Dungeon entrance and small bits of farmland, and continued on into brand new territory for the two dragons. To the east was a gigantic wall of white stone which Silenthe informed was the defensive wall for the city of Falador.

They passed a few pop-up shops, such as a photographer and potion seller, and a wide open field where wizards were practicing spells, until they reached a more nicely paved path of stone heading farther south. Rojaw sniffed the air hungrily as the trio passed by more farmland with fresh vegetables growing, and Astrath had to stop the drake from eating potatoes and onions that weren’t theirs.

Rimmington soon came into view. It was a small town, more a village really, up against the sea. The air was cold and damp, making the pair of dragons shudder. The wooden buildings warped from years of seawater in the air, and the populace had a rather dour aura about them, save one crazed drunkard screaming about sea monsters collapsed against the public well.

“If I remember correctly, the workers’ office is right over here,” Silenthe said, leading the dragons to a large building by the entrance to town. Beams of lumber and stone were neatly stacked against the far wall, much more clean and pristine than the weathered stuff currently in use. An overworked tired-looking portly man sat over a well-worn desk sorting paperwork and calculating pay. Silenthe cleared his throat.

The man jolted, started. “Ah! Hello! Can I help you?”

“Good day. I’ve come from Taverley to offer some assistance with your mining work if you’re still in need of workers.”

The man smiled. “We are! Thank you for the offer! How many workers can you provide?”

“Just one, but I know they’ll be of great help.” Silenthe stood aside to present Astrath. The man yelled and nearly fell out of his chair.

“Are you mad?! That’s a monster!”

Astrath glared, making the man squeak a scared eep.

“My companion is no monster, sir, and they would simply like to help you in return for some coin.”

“You– You want us to not only work with that thing but pay it too?! You’ve gone mad, druid!”

“Your workload is too great to be so vocally racist,” Astrath hissed. The man sucked in a gasp at the sound of the dragon speaking. “I did not come here to be belittled and insulted to my face. What a waste of time; I regret offering assistance.”

The dragon angrily turned tail and made for the door.

“W-Wait!” the man said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean– You just– Monsters, you know?” he sighed in frustration, not making himself clear. “We’ve had a fair few monster run-ins here. We don’t take kindly to them, and having one just waltz into town is a bit of a culture shock. But we need all the help we can get, no matter where it comes from, so…”

Astrath looked down their snout at the man with a scowl. “Just show me what to do and pay me and I won’t cause you any problems. Not that I intended to anyway.”

“Right… Of course. Follow me. Oh, and you can grab a pickaxe from out back.”

The man led the trio to the quarry close to town. Many empty ores veins and holes in the ground spotted its surface. Inside, a handful of workers were mining away at roped off areas in search of new ore veins.

“I’d like you over here,” the man led Astrath to the far side of the quarry that lay untouched. A rectangular rope barricade outlined a section of earth about fifteen feet long and ten feet wide. “All you need to do is dig ten feet deep into this entire area and let us know if you find any ore. You’ll know when you do; it’s shiny and differently colored. How does 250 coins for the work sound?”

Astrath glanced at Silenthe to see if that was a good deal, to which the druid nodded. “Sounds good. I’ll get to work then.” The dragon picked up the pickaxe and swung it down, immediately shattering a large rock in half.

“Good Saradomin!” the man flinched. “Don’t waste all your energy immediately; this work is hard.”

“They’re just strong,” Silenthe said. “Don’t worry about them. Astrath, do you know how to get back to Taverley from here?”

The dragon nodded. “I have the route memorized.”

“Then I’ll be heading back. But before I go,” he addressed the supervisor, “Have the monster problems still been an issue in Rimmington?”

The man sighed. “I swear it’s a different beast every other month! The mogres are gone, the jellies are dealt with, the crazed pelicans made good dinner, and the goblin raids are more half-hearted threat displays than anything serious anymore, but now we have a potentially new threat.”

“Oh dear, what now?”

“We have no idea! Some grotesque worm wriggled out of the quarry while we were digging for ore. One of the workers dug into a decent-sized chasm and found a pocket of ore, but before anyone could dig farther, this foul pale worm attacked the miner. Its drool was acidic and burned the poor man’s arm so badly he had to be rushed to the medic!”

Astrath listened in between swings. A worm that drooled acid? That was certainly new to them. No creatures like that existed in the Krawley zoo.

“That’s disturbing,” Silenthe muttered. “Do you have the body? We could be able to identify it.”

“No can do,” the man shook his head. “We didn’t manage to kill the thing. It scurried back into the hole we dug out and we sealed it before any more could come out. But the thing was huge if that helps, like nearly the size of a small bear!”

“We’ll look into it back in Taverley,” Silenthe promised. “Though do you think it’s wise to continue mining here, knowing there could be a nest of these things directly underfoot?”

The man shuddered at the thought. “Gods, don’t say such a thing! And even so, we need the ore. We’re short on the supplies we need to trade for the rest of the housing rebuild. We just have to pray no more beasties come crawling out of the stoneworks.”

Astrath swung the pickaxe and cracked a hole into the ground, revealing a pocket into a small tunnel. “Well, if they are here, I can always try speaking with them. I do have a knack for that, being a vicious monster and all.” They side-eyed the supervisor who looked away with a shameful expression.

“You’ll be safe then?” Silenthe asked the dragon.

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry. A toxic worm is hardly the scariest thing I’ve faced.”

With that, they bid goodbye, Silenthe heading back to Taverley and the supervisor back to his desk, leaving Astrath to dig the hole. 

The work was mind-numbingly boring, leaving the black dragon alone with their thoughts as they dug dirt out of the hole they made faster than any previous miner. Rojaw at least provided some fun mental breaks, watching the drakeling help dig as well or taste the different ore scraps and rocks or chase the bugs overhead. At one point, Rojaw had run off for nearly an hour and returned with a goblin skull, which he promptly buried and proudly stood over.

After only a few hours, Astrath had finished. The supervisor was beyond surprised, but when he went to look, the dragon had indeed done the job asked of them. Sadly, there was no ore to be found. The man handed over a sack of coins and offered another plot for the dragon to dig, which they accepted. The more coins, the more things they could buy!

This time, the man led Astrath over to a much thicker rock face on the southern-facing outskirts of the quarry with the task to dig fifteen feet into its surface and report findings back. The dragon got to work. Hours passed. Rojaw came and went, doing whatever little drakes did, sometimes scratching at the rock to help Astrath. The other workers eventually finished and went home, leaving the dragon alone in the setting sun, close to finishing their second job.

As they smacked their pickaxe into the deepest part of the rockface, a sharper clinking sound resonated. Astrath brushed the loose rock and dirt away with their hand to find something made of a far different stone than the natural rock of the quarry. It was pale and smooth, as if sanded into tile. They clawed away the surrounding dirt and pried the stone out. Between their hands was a small piece of tile, broken and cracked and missing pieces. A symbol was carefully carved into one of its faces, like a piece of  star melding into half of a sphere. It was fascinating to look over, and it was certainly no ore. Perhaps they could pocket the piece as their own personal trophy to investigate later.

With only a couple feet to go, Astrath gave the rock face a hefty swing, slamming the pickaxe head completely into the earth. They pulled it back and yelped as they fell back  on their tail and the entire rock face crumbled with an incredible rocky roar. The section Astrath carved out had just crumbled into a cavern opening.

Unable to hold back their curiosity, Astrath poked their head into the cave. It absolutely reeked, a foul sour taste hitting the back of their throat like bile. They covered their nose and looked farther inside. Ominous pinkish purple lights glowed deeper within the cave, lighting pockets of shimmering ore and crystal clusters. They had indeed found what the people of Rimmington were looking for. But what sat before them would certainly prove to be a challenge. A massive pit of acid, vibrant yellow-green and bubbling noxiously, blocked the path, far too large to leap across or skirt around. They exited the cavern.

The sound of footsteps hurried over to Astrath, the supervisor with a panicked look on his face. “Oh my goodness! Is anyone hurt?”

“No, sir,” Astrath said. “The earth caved in as I dug. It leads to a cavern you might be interested in.”

The dragon led the man inside and pointed out the ore and gemstones glittering inside, as well as the obvious pit of acid. Despite the acid, the man grinned wide. This dragon had just found the town supplies for their trades and then some! The man took Astrath back to the office and paid them twice as much for finding such an incredible loot stash, leaving the dragon to head home 750 gold richer. 

Working felt… good, for once. Sure, Astrath was exhausted and their arms ached like crazy, but they would mine an entire mountain before they cleaned another kitchen sink or made another bedroom. Funny how far a little independence and pay went to making someone not hate the idea of work.

Silenthe made the dragons a huge dinner, always delicious of course, and the two scarfed it down. Astrath hadn’t realized just how hungry they were until the smell of fresh cooking hit their nose. After dinner, they showed Silenthe the chipped stone they pocketed, asking if he had ever seen such a symbol before, but alas the druid had not. Hopefully they would find some book that explained more. The dragon went to sleep that night content and surprisingly eager for what the next day held. Yet, unbeknownst to them, and because of them, something ancient and powerful slithered deep under the surface of the Rimmington quarry, something beginning to awaken after an endless slumber… and it was hungry…

[borkthemork]

So, a little late for me to ask but how much has that Braly interview influenced your theories on Marcy's parents in terms of him revealing her family is Taiwanese and the parents are second or third generation immigrants (in other words, they're more integrated in USA than Anne's parents, which is why they lack accents)?

It's actually one of the most fascinating details about Marcy's family. Like, when I first read up that her family is probably second to third generation Taiwanese, and that Marcy is basically third (or fourth) generation, it starts to add more details to the theory about the Wu family even more in retrospect.

Especially if you consider the dynamics of immigrant generations and how they adjust to a new country like the USA.

If anyone doesn't know the context toward what Anon is talking about, months ago, Matt Braly had an interview with Darya Baj. about the discussion of immigration, ethnicity, and representation in Amphibia. Within this interview, there had been details talking about the girls and their specific identities.

One of the things that struck out was that Marcy Wu is implied to be a third or-so generation of her family depending on which number we go off on.

Via extension of linguistic barriers, [Darya Baj.] asked another question regarding Marcy’s parents’ voices that we hear towards the end of Season 2, which do not have Taiwanese accents, and the deliberate casting of Mr. and Ms. Boonchuy’s voice actors with audible Thai accents.

“The Boonchuys having accents is to clarify that they are 1st generation immigrants. Marcy’s parents not having accents is to clarify that they are 2nd or 3rd generation [Taiwanese]— so yes, it is to demonstrate that the Boonchuys are less integrated into American culture than Marcy’s folks.” (Braly qtd. Baj. par. 5-6)

Compared to the rest of the interview, a lot of what Matt had been talking and interpreting came through very uncertain language. A lot of it can be seen as  Matt attempting to remain ambiguous on what is part of the canon or just a headcanon, so certain paragraphs aren't confirmed but mainly formed as an interpretation. Stuff such as "I think" and "possibly" are used to help give the idea that certain ideas are not forged in stone, but still can be supported with the texts of the show itself.

However, in this interview, there aren't any words used to add uncertainty. Matt Braly seems pretty clear that Marcy's family is of Taiwanese descent, that they're not 1st generation immigrants, and are more integrated into American culture/language than the Boonchuys.

A few months before this interview came out, I made a theory post about the Wus and what their family structure was like. The first and second sections are now debunked, but the third section — which details the talk of Marcy’s family being low-income and struggling financially — still is probable in how it reasons as to why Marcy interacts with others the way she does.

It’s a very old theory, I’m still proud of it despite getting debunked a few times, and I always wanted to go back to it to see what has changed and what has ultimately swerved with the new information we have gotten.

In doing so, I want to see how far this specific detail could affect not only the family dynamic...

But give a potential glimpse into what it means to be Marcy Wu in a 2nd/3rd generation household.

To clarify, I myself am a 1st generation Filipino, so that means a lot of what I shall dive into has the potential to risk error in some second-to-third immigrant experiences no matter how much I try to research the topic at hand. Especially since the definition of who counts as 1st gen or 2nd gen can vary a lot, so I’ll go with the US’s Census Bureau’s description of foreign-born people to make this easier for myself.

Another thing is that I will be very broad with the talk of Taiwanese history. I have taken the time to research it for the sake of having a good understanding, but since Matt seems uncertain on whether Marcy’s parents are a specific generation, I’ll only just mention it briefly. However, if I do get anything wrong, do feel to tell me since I love learning about this stuff.

If you yourself are a 2nd-or-so generation immigrant, I would love to hear your guys' opinions about this topic from a more personalized manner and possibly open discussion to these specific subjects.

And with that, let us begin!

[Word Count: 2,700~]

Overview - The Analysis of Marcy’s Disposition

If we want to really deep dive into the implication of Marcy’s 2nd/3rd generation background, we will have to look through the current information we have on her and her family. With doing so, we’ll have a great jumping point in how to discuss and theorize Marcy’s home situation.

What we shall cover shall be listed here:

1) Reasons of Home Leave

2) State of Education

3) Marcy’s Current Mindset

So let’s start off with the big elephant in the room, being that of the reason as to why Marcy’s family has to leave.

The fandom had been theorizing about why the family had to leave in the first place and why Marcy reacted harshly, and the theories ranged from talking of abusive parents to Marcy’s fears of abandonment. However, in discussing this topic, I want to go a bit deeper on the subject of the parents.

Especially a specific piece of dialogue that her dad said before Marcy left.

Because it then begs the question of what her dad meant when it came to having her understand the reason for why they were leaving. We know from Marcy that they’re moving out-of-state, but actions like those come out of financial security; if a family decided to exit a state, there comes an origin of fear through personal instability and what it means to the family overall.

Money is the main problem here. And we’re going to talk about it.

To Asian-Americans, a lot of contention when it comes to finance is how integral it is to our experiences as immigrants. We are basically going from one country to another, and usually it’s to get a better life and to supply finance for our families that do need said money. And to be fair this same concept doesn’t have to be for one group but the whole spectrum of immigrants, from the Irish to Latino families to many others.

Of course, there are financial differences. For one, if you’re, let’s say, a Filipino there is a long and convoluted set of instructions in being able to get to the United States by secure means. One can become a doctor and get assigned to a specific part of the world, and that does mean they could potentially get a higher financial state then let’s say a family displaced from Korea, Taiwan, or Cambodia during intense political times, then they will have less financial support. Regardless, a lot of values that are understood to many communities would be the feeling of expectations that are pressed to the generations after relating to those experiences.

For the later generations, their story is carved out of the foundation of trauma that comes in finding stability throughout alienation and xenophobia. In Lisa Sun-Hee Park’s words,

“The immigrant narrative, as articulated by the second generation, is more about themselves than of their immigrant parents...There are two basic elements that exist in each rendition of this story: (1) the parents came to the United States for better opportunity and/or education for their children; and (2) once here, the parents experienced hardships, which they overcame to a certain extent.” (Sun-Hee Park 137)

That certain extent then becomes the basis of what the many other generations will have to face for the coming years, creating newfound expectations that will need to be fulfilled. If the 1st generation didn’t get themselves out financially or fit in socially, then the 2nd generation will. And if they don’t, then the 3rd generation.

And even if one seemingly looks stable, that expectation of stable living will continue on to the children if no self-awareness is established of these behaviors.

Heck, we could even see that between Anne and her mom too with less frequency.

Alright, so that brings us to Marcy then. What type of expectations does Marcy have in her personal life?

Well...

Education Blues - The Signs of Expectations

So with education standards, we know that Marcy Wu is one of the more defined ‘prodigies’ in the show.

She’s told by numerous characters that she is smart and highly skilled. She took classes in Newtopia, has been an essential character to fixing numerous projects within the city and outside of it, and overall has shown to be extremely capable in intellect.

You even get Marcy finding a lot of pride and identity when it comes to her ability to excel in brain-oriented activities, such as chess, Real-Time Strategy, and many others.

On the surface it seems to be a pretty healthy confidence.

Marcy knows that she is smart. She uses her capabilities to help and reassure others that she is fit to do massive deeds of triumph. However, the implications of True Colors (alongside episodes like New Wartwood) brings up certain questions of this mindset, and starts to mend into a bigger picture the more we ponder on her specifically.

True Colors as an episode has always been an interesting spectacle to tackle when it came to the potential details of Marcy’s backstory. You have an opening shot of Marcy being in the library, mentions of studying and the PSATs have been planted out in the first few seconds, and, based on what Sasha said, it’s implied that Marcy has studied numerous times like this before without fail. To the point of almost forgetting her friend’s birthday.

In New Wartwood and The First Temple, you even get glimpses into Marcy’s thoughts when it comes to her skills and capabilities, and one of the big things people can hone in on was how extensive her insistence is on making sure people like her.

More importantly, how her skills translate to giving to other people, and in giving, she wants respect, love, and worth as a result of that hard work.

To the point that Marcy even gets discomforted and downright tense in the middle of the night just because she wanted to commit to a full town loving her presence.

There’s an anxiety in not being able to appeal to people. She worked hours with Newtopian marble just so the townies could approve of her, she worked so many hours of going along with the mayor to make something that she would believe would give her the same adoration, and then it starts to dawn that this reaction came from somewhere.

Somewhere deeper.

In Jerry Z. Park’s “Second-Generation Asian American Pan-Ethnic Identity”, the basis of Asian American education can be described like so:

“Being Asian American, people have certain expectations from us. For example, in school they expect us to be in the top percent. They expect us to be good students, not rebellious, listen to [our] parents. Follow the norms that exist in this society...I think that puts a lot of pressure on us as far as who we want to be and choosing a major. Not only do your parents give you the pressure...but I think society itself has made this pre-set road as far as what you should do.” (Helen qtd. Park 552)

With 2nd gen-or-so immigrants, there comes even more pressure in attempting to pull one’s self out of the financial slump — the financial slump where expectations come from a circumstantial and even cultural standpoint — makes it pretty clear that the pressures of escaping low-income or alienation then begins a cycle of pressure on the kids before them.

No one wants their family to get hurt by economic instability. No one wants their family to suffer or struggle or be out on the streets. This is Los Angeles, for Heaven’s sake, in 2020. Any family in LA would be fretting over these circumstances, however, this means that a lot of the parents’ decisions become even more important when we talk about them taking care of their children.

Because if a parent chooses to mainly put their attention on excellency, academia, and capability, then the child will notice.

The child will notice that skills and capability are essential in getting affection and appreciation from the people around them.

And they will connect usefulness to love.

It All Comes Together - The Fear of Loss Raises the Bar 

“The pursuit of higher education for young adults would require tremendous human capital and financial resources and often the delay of marriage and family formation. Those who were already trailing behind would have to surmount extra hurdles to succeed” (Zhou et al. 1134)

Expectations bring about sacrifice and loss to a person. After all, one is either carrying the family to better living or carrying the approval of an entire community. With Marcy, if we put everything we know about her together, the puzzle pieces start to fit even more into this interpretation.

Marcy Wu is a character who fears direct confrontation emotionally. She is afraid of not only being seen as worthless to the people around her, but of being alone, perceiving herself unloved because if she’s not working her butt off to get that validation then it’s never gonna be enough.

She runs from her parents because the idea of being separated from her support systems is unbearable. She omits information out of guilt and fear of what will happen in the end, she tries to keep the trio stable by not taking sides or even shouting out her opinions, and hopes that things will work in the end because they’ve got to, right?

She has worked hard — from her education, to her skill sets, to everything else she has under her repertoire — to get out of the cycle, to ultimately be with the people who cared for her. She’s worked hard to make the ending a good one in her eyes.

And it becomes clear that Marcy Wu is working hard out of survival at this point.

In a fellow friend’s words: “All she wanted was to stay. And all she had to do was be good enough...so in a way, losing her friends became a survival tactic. Because if she failed, if she wasn’t smart enough, then [she’d] move away.” (Pyroclastic, par. 7)

Amphibia has never been her intention in the beginning. She never expected Amphibia to work, but in a moment one gets to see a pressured girl find an escape from that responsibility and dread.

She is able to blend her daily life with fantasy. She has befriended different kooky characters who allow her to discover new bits of confidence outside of the pressures of Earth. She can be with her friends, away from the threat of everything falling apart around her, and she can supposedly grow into a better person as a result.

Despite the fact Andrias has enabled her wanting to be loved. Despite the fact Andrias became the main source of consolation and pure concentrated happiness in her life all to throw it away in the end. Despite the fact she has people who care for her, but she’s not able to see them due to the big man taking advantage of her.

And it makes this specific line from Marcy at the Gates even more bittersweet in retrospect.

Because in the end, Marcy was happy. We could argue a lot on the means of how she tackled that happiness or even how it’s all fueled by a man who manipulated her, but she truly was happy at this moment.

Because if we go by this theory, or some portions of the interpretation, Marcy didn’t want to go through pain.

And it’s tragic to see that she somehow found it again despite her best effort.

Works Cited

Park, Jerry Z. “Second-Generation Asian American Pan-Ethnic Identity: Pluralized Meanings of a Racial Label.” Sociological Perspectives, vol. 51, no. 3, Sage Publications, Inc., 2008, pp. 541–61, https://doi.org/10.1525/sop.2008.51.3.541.

Park, Lisa Sun-Hee. “Continuing Significance of the Model Minority Myth: The Second Generation.” Social Justice, vol. 35, no. 2 (112), Social Justice/Global Options, 2008, pp. 134–44, http://www.jstor.org/stable/29768492.

Zhou, Min & Xiong, Yang. (2005). The Multifaceted American Experiences of the Children of Asian Immigrants. Ethnic and Racial Studies - ETHN RACIAL STUD. 28. 10.1080/01419870500224455.

[goodvibesandsunglasses]

depayse-flaneuse​:

Mention of Amelia nearly made Nia falter, a deep flush staining her cheeks down to her chest as memories of their interview clouded her thoughts. The entire situation had been very spontaneous to say the least and entirely her doing even if he’d been willing. Gently clearing her throat she attempted to focus on his words only to find her gaze dipping to his lips. It had started with little more than a kiss before the switch flipped and she’d found herself testing his limits. I wonder how easy it would be to see him flustered again? Swallowing, she attempted to force those pesky thoughts away only for them to creep back. If she wasn’t mistaken he’d almost kissed her at least once, but then didn’t. Is he waiting for me to make a move? Or is he teetering? Or maybe he’s a switch? With a bite of seaweed rise she mulled it over. I thought American men were supposed to be easy to read…Leaning closer to better see his ink she brushed her fingers against healed skin. “It’s gorgeous.” Thinking back on it she only vaguely remembered his tattoo in the haze of everything- a fact she elected to to keep private.

Hearing him talk about his life was fascinating both in how easily he spoke of it and it being so different from what she would have guessed. From her time in the orphanage she’d been conditioned to rarely speak of her past or let lingering effects show- because no one wants a sad child. Still, she adored hearing the stories of others whether positive or negative. “Of course there is!” Nia answered as if it were obvious. “Do you speak Tagalog?” As a linguist herself she couldn’t help but ask, eyes lighting up at the prospect of learning a new language. “Do you ever go back to the Philippines? Where did you go abroad? What was it like living on a ship?” Counting each question on her hand she continued. “Are you close with your sisters? Do your sisters live nearby? What’s the best road trip you’ve been on? And…” Biting her lip she racked her brain for anything missed, “What’s your most embarrassing or outrageous story?” A bit intrusive although she felt he deserved it with how he was always teasing her.

“This”, he smiled while pointing at an area on his arm “represents snake skin. It’s supposed to protect you. These are plants because my grandfather was a small farmer and this is water because my mom crossed the ocean to come here. I wanted to get something that reflects my family’s history”. And he was very proud of his tattoo, proud to show it to her as well. Her touch, light as a feather, once again had him thinking about pulling her in for a kiss but the things he would do for this woman. It was incredible. “I wish I spoke Tagalog”, he simply said “my older sisters do know a few words but as far as I can remember, our mom only ever spoke English to us”. He’d been curious, had asked questions about her childhood but the answers never seemed to live up to his expectations, except when it came to the family members she’d left behind. She was nostalgic when talking about them and all the love she had for them was written all over her face. There was pain as well from time to time so Ryan eventually understood that his mother had left her country at a very difficult time and that it had been hard for her to fit in when she got here. “I went just once. My sisters and I managed to spend an entire week there. It was short but it’s kind of strange when you realize that your ancestors have lived there and that there’s so much more to your history than you thought”. Although he wasn’t prepared for the flow of questions, he gladly welcomed them and tried to keep up with his answers. Besides he was genuinely happy to share all these details with her because it didn’t happen often.

“I went to Indonesia and The Bahamas to build houses. I went to Hawaii, Mexico, Thailand, Singapore and the food is amazing there. My sisters and I are really close. The youngest is a little more independent if you know, kids these days… they do live nearby and I don’t think we could ever really live far away from each other. The best road trip? Hm… college years. We drove from Seattle to San Diego and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Did I miss anything? Oh right…” cleverly inserted as the last question was one he didn’t want to answer. It wasn’t like she didn’t know though; she just didn’t know that she knew. He pointed at her with the chopsticks and offered a wry smile. Though he was willing to laugh to about it, there was still shame attached to that story, and of course it brought back some sensations he could do without right at this moment. “Don’t pretend you don’t know about my most embarrassing moment”.

[glittergummicandypeach]

Fake Hafez: How a supreme Persian poet of love was erased | Religion | Al Jazeera

This is the time of the year where every day I get a handful of requests to track down the original, authentic versions of some famed Muslim poet, usually Hafez or Rumi. The requests start off the same way: "I am getting married next month, and my fiance and I wanted to celebrate our Muslim background, and we have always loved this poem by Hafez. Could you send us the original?" Or, "My daughter is graduating this month, and I know she loves this quote from Hafez. Can you send me the original so I can recite it to her at the ceremony we are holding for her?"

It is heartbreaking to have to write back time after time and say the words that bring disappointment: The poems that they have come to love so much and that are ubiquitous on the internet are forgeries. Fake. Made up. No relationship to the original poetry of the beloved and popular Hafez of Shiraz.

How did this come to be? How can it be that about 99.9 percent of the quotes and poems attributed to one the most popular and influential of all the Persian poets and Muslim sages ever, one who is seen as a member of the pantheon of "universal" spirituality on the internet are ... fake? It turns out that it is a fascinating story of Western exotification and appropriation of Muslim spirituality.

Let us take a look at some of these quotes attributed to Hafez:

Even after all this time, the sun never says to the earth, 'you owe me.' Look what happens with a love like that! It lights up the whole sky.

You like that one from Hafez? Too bad. Fake Hafez.

Your heart and my heart Are very very old friends.

Like that one from Hafez too? Also Fake Hafez.

Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions.

Beautiful. Again, not Hafez.

And the next one you were going to ask about? Also fake. So where do all these fake Hafez quotes come from?

An American poet, named Daniel Ladinsky, has been publishing books under the name of the famed Persian poet Hafez for more than 20 years. These books have become bestsellers. You are likely to find them on the shelves of your local bookstore under the "Sufism" section, alongside books of Rumi, Khalil Gibran, Idries Shah, etc.

It hurts me to say this, because I know so many people love these "Hafez" translations. They are beautiful poetry in English, and do contain some profound wisdom. Yet if you love a tradition, you have to speak the truth: Ladinsky's translations have no earthly connection to what the historical Hafez of Shiraz, the 14th-century Persian sage, ever said.

He is making it up. Ladinsky himself admitted that they are not "translations", or "accurate", and in fact denied having any knowledge of Persian in his 1996 best-selling book, I Heard God Laughing. Ladinsky has another bestseller, The Subject Tonight Is Love.

Persians take poetry seriously. For many, it is their singular contribution to world civilisation: What the Greeks are to philosophy, Persians are to poetry. And in the great pantheon of Persian poetry where Hafez, Rumi, Saadi, 'Attar, Nezami, and Ferdowsi might be the immortals, there is perhaps none whose mastery of the Persian language is as refined as that of Hafez.

In the introduction to a recent book on Hafez, I said that Rumi (whose poetic output is in the tens of thousands) comes at you like you an ocean, pulling you in until you surrender to his mystical wave and are washed back to the ocean. Hafez, on the other hand, is like a luminous diamond, with each facet being a perfect cut. You cannot add or take away a word from his sonnets. So, pray tell, how is someone who admits that they do not know the language going to be translating the language?

Ladinsky is not translating from the Persian original of Hafez. And unlike some "versioners" (Coleman Barks is by far the most gifted here) who translate Rumi by taking the Victorian literal translations and rendering them into American free verse, Ladinsky's relationship with the text of Hafez's poetry is nonexistent. Ladinsky claims that Hafez appeared to him in a dream and handed him the English "translations" he is publishing:

"About six months into this work I had an astounding dream in which I saw Hafiz as an Infinite Fountaining Sun (I saw him as God), who sang hundreds of lines of his poetry to me in English, asking me to give that message to 'my artists and seekers'."

It is not my place to argue with people and their dreams, but I am fairly certain that this is not how translation works. A great scholar of Persian and Urdu literature, Christopher Shackle, describes Ladinsky's output as "not so much a paraphrase as a parody of the wondrously wrought style of the greatest master of Persian art-poetry." Another critic, Murat Nemet-Nejat, described Ladinsky's poems as what they are: original poems of Ladinsky masquerading as a "translation."

I want to give credit where credit is due: I do like Ladinsky's poetry. And they do contain mystical insights. Some of the statements that Ladinsky attributes to Hafez are, in fact, mystical truths that we hear from many different mystics. And he is indeed a gifted poet. See this line, for example:

I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being.

That is good stuff. Powerful. And many mystics, including the 20th-century Sufi master Pir Vilayat, would cast his powerful glance at his students, stating that he would long for them to be able to see themselves and their own worth as he sees them. So yes, Ladinsky's poetry is mystical. And it is great poetry. So good that it is listed on Good Reads as the wisdom of "Hafez of Shiraz." The problem is, Hafez of Shiraz said nothing like that. Daniel Ladinsky of St Louis did. 

The poems are indeed beautiful. They are just not ... Hafez. They are ... Hafez-ish? Hafez-esque? So many of us wish that Ladinsky had just published his work under his own name, rather than appropriating Hafez's. 

Ladinsky's "translations" have been passed on by Oprah, the BBC, and others. Government officials have used them on occasions where they have wanted to include Persian speakers and Iranians. It is now part of the spiritual wisdom of the East shared in Western circles. Which is great for Ladinsky, but we are missing the chance to hear from the actual, real Hafez. And that is a shame.

So, who was the real Hafez (1315-1390)?

He was a Muslim, Persian-speaking sage whose collection of love poetry rivals only Mawlana Rumi in terms of its popularity and influence. Hafez's given name was Muhammad, and he was called Shams al-Din (The Sun of Religion). Hafez was his honorific because he had memorised the whole of the Quran. His poetry collection, the Divan, was referred to as Lesan al-Ghayb (the Tongue of the Unseen Realms).

A great scholar of Islam, the late Shahab Ahmed, referred to Hafez's Divan as: "the most widely-copied, widely-circulated, widely-read, widely-memorized, widely-recited, widely-invoked, and widely-proverbialized book of poetry in Islamic history." Even accounting for a slight debate, that gives some indication of his immense following. Hafez's poetry is considered the very epitome of Persian in the Ghazal tradition.

Hafez's worldview is inseparable from the world of Medieval Islam, the genre of Persian love poetry, and more. And yet he is deliciously impossible to pin down. He is a mystic, though he pokes fun at ostentatious mystics. His own name is "he who has committed the Quran to heart", yet he loathes religious hypocrisy. He shows his own piety while his poetry is filled with references to intoxication and wine that may be literal or may be symbolic.

The most sublime part of Hafez's poetry is its ambiguity. It is like a Rorschach psychological test in poetry. The mystics see it as a sign of their own yearning, and so do the wine-drinkers, and the anti-religious types. It is perhaps a futile exercise to impose one definitive meaning on Hafez. It would rob him of what makes him ... Hafez.

The tomb of Hafez in Shiraz, a magnificent city in Iran, is a popular pilgrimage site and the honeymoon destination of choice for many Iranian newlyweds. His poetry, alongside that of Rumi and Saadi, are main staples of vocalists in Iran to this day, including beautiful covers by leading maestros like Shahram Nazeri and Mohammadreza Shajarian.

Like many other Persian poets and mystics, the influence of Hafez extended far beyond contemporary Iran and can be felt wherever Persianate culture was a presence, including India and Pakistan, Central Asia, Afghanistan, and the Ottoman realms. Persian was the literary language par excellence from Bengal to Bosnia for almost a millennium, a reality that sadly has been buried under more recent nationalistic and linguistic barrages.

Part of what is going on here is what we also see, to a lesser extent, with Rumi: the voice and genius of the Persian speaking, Muslim, mystical, sensual sage of Shiraz are usurped and erased, and taken over by a white American with no connection to Hafez's Islam or Persian tradition. This is erasure and spiritual colonialism. Which is a shame, because Hafez's poetry deserves to be read worldwide alongside Shakespeare and Toni Morrison, Tagore and Whitman, Pablo Neruda and the real Rumi, Tao Te Ching and the Gita, Mahmoud Darwish, and the like.

In a 2013 interview, Ladinsky said of his poems published under the name of Hafez: "Is it Hafez or Danny? I don't know. Does it really matter?" I think it matters a great deal. There are larger issues of language, community, and power involved here.

It is not simply a matter of a translation dispute, nor of alternate models of translations. This is a matter of power, privilege and erasure. There is limited shelf space in any bookstore. Will we see the real Rumi, the real Hafez, or something appropriating their name? How did publishers publish books under the name of Hafez without having someone, anyone, with a modicum of familiarity check these purported translations against the original to see if there is a relationship? Was there anyone in the room when these decisions were made who was connected in a meaningful way to the communities who have lived through Hafez for centuries?

Hafez's poetry has not been sitting idly on a shelf gathering dust. It has been, and continues to be, the lifeline of the poetic and religious imagination of tens of millions of human beings. Hafez has something to say, and to sing, to the whole world, but bypassing these tens of millions who have kept Hafez in their heart as Hafez kept the Quran in his heart is tantamount to erasure and appropriation.

We live in an age where the president of the United States ran on an Islamophobic campaign of "Islam hates us" and establishing a cruel Muslim ban immediately upon taking office. As Edward Said and other theorists have reminded us, the world of culture is inseparable from the world of politics. So there is something sinister about keeping Muslims out of our borders while stealing their crown jewels and appropriating them not by translating them but simply as decor for poetry that bears no relationship to the original. Without equating the two, the dynamic here is reminiscent of white America's endless fascination with Black culture and music while continuing to perpetuate systems and institutions that leave Black folk unable to breathe.

There is one last element: It is indeed an act of violence to take the Islam out of Rumi and Hafez, as Ladinsky has done. It is another thing to take Rumi and Hafez out of Islam. That is a separate matter, and a mandate for Muslims to reimagine a faith that is steeped in the world of poetry, nuance, mercy, love, spirit, and beauty. Far from merely being content to criticise those who appropriate Muslim sages and erase Muslims' own presence in their legacy, it is also up to us to reimagine Islam where figures like Rumi and Hafez are central voices. This has been part of what many of feel called to, and are pursuing through initiatives like Illuminated Courses.

Oh, and one last thing: It is Haaaaafez, not Hafeeeeez. Please.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.

This content was originally published here.

[oceansmelodysblog]

Hyrule High School

Promotional fiction for @zelquiwi​ ‘s fanart on Twitter

Chapter 1

Zelda said goodbye to her ballet coach and stepped out into the sultry evening sun. A cooling breeze blew into her face and dried her sweaty face. She undid her braid and let the breeze blow through her hair. Zelda relaxed mentally and walked along the pavement. Bicyclists sped past her, twirling her white polka-dotted red summer dress. She shyly held her hem so as not to expose too much, as the dress only covered half of her thigh. She wore a white short shirt under her dress, white sporty shoes and a small bag with her ballet clothes.

The roar of cars and motorbikes deafened her ears, pedestrians shouted at each other, the paths were too crowded. Fathers and mothers with prams and people in wheelchairs were disregarded and jostled.

Dogs barked at each other while being held back with difficulty by their owners.

Zelda found the chaos too much, so she decided to take a diversion today, away from the main roads.

Fascinated, she watched the retro facades of the narrow streets, the colourful hubbub of the restaurants and the welcome invitations from the waiters to take Zelda to the restaurant. She smiled off gratefully and walked briskly along the paths.

She loved to stroll the streets after her hard ballet practice before returning home bored. As the 15-year-old pubescent daughter of a diplomat and a lawyer, the highest discipline was expected of her. It was tough, but she couldn't complain as it opened many doors for her.

When Zelda finally arrived at her front door, she sighed loudly. She knew the summer holidays were coming to an end and with it her freedom to devote herself fully to her hobbies.

Zelda moved gracefully through the corridors of the school to her classroom in her white blouse, navy blue school uniform blazer and matching skirt and was greeted warmly by her classmates, although she treated everyone equally, she felt most comfortable in the presence of her best friends Impa and Purah. The two were siblings with a year's difference, though they could be as different as night and day. While Purah was older than Impa, she was still a bright and fashionable model student in science. Impa, on the other hand, was the more sensible of the two, very well-versed in languages, politics, history and the subject of Hylia's teachings. While Zelda excelled in all subjects, the poor marks in the teachings of Hylia cast a mocking shadow over her report cards every time.

While Mipha, Robbie and Revali joined them, they were talking about their experiences of the summer holidays when the other students suddenly fell silent. It was still too early for one of the teachers, so the troop turned around curiously.

A young man about their age with blond spiky hair tied back stood in front of the blackboard and greeted everyone curtly.  He stood there with his chest erect and sporting clothes, scratching the back of his head nervously.

" Are you lost Link?" asked Revali mockingly.

"Revali don't be so rude. I hope you are all right." intervened Mipha. A girl who was always sweet and polite to everyone.

"Where the heck have you been all these holidays!" blurted out Impa.

"I'm fine, thanks," Link said, giving Mipha a smile without bothering to give Revali a glance. "I've been helping out in the countryside all summer." His gaze drifted from Impa to Zelda, who paid him no attention. "Hope you didn't miss me too much." He winked at Paya , Impa's and Purah's cousin, who blushed every time Link flirted with her.

He immediately noticed that the rest of the girls were also looking in his direction, whispering and giggling amongst themselves. They couldn't be blamed, because Link had an attractive charisma, fascinating blue eyes, an athletic figure and above all something mysterious about him, which was attractive to many girls.

"Don't pretend you'll be missed, you poor beggar have to sweep up cows' shit on your farm."

He whirled around and stared renegade at Revali, running towards him, but when both grabbed each other by the collar, Sakasai intervened while Cado and Dorian held them back.

"The holidays are only over, yet you are feuding blood. Let's enjoy this year peacefully!", Sakasai soothingly talked to them. His poetic expression was able to melt even ice-cold icebergs.

 Just when the situation had defused, the bell rang for the start of class and the teacher, Mr Daruk, entered the room.

"Link, Revali. As soon as you make eye contact, you bark like dogs fighting for territory in the street. I have a new seating plan here that will make sure you two sit far apart."

Mr Daruk was the linguistics and labour teacher. He was dark-skinned, broad-shouldered, with a muscular chest and a round beer belly. His white hair pointed in all directions and his full white beard went down to his stomach. He always prepared us, apart from the lessons, for the hard life after school. For which Link was particularly grateful, as he had to struggle especially hard in his neighbourhood.

"Revali, you will sit in the front row next to Mipha. Sakasai, please sit next to Paya. Link, you will sit next to Zelda." As an indignant murmur went through the class, the teacher thumped the teacher's desk, creating a silence that had never existed before. "I demand discipline! Now sit down at your assigned seats. You will see that you and your new neighbours will complement each other. Now to the order of the day..."

As he sat down, he felt how uncomfortable it was to sit next to Zelda, as she obviously couldn't stand him.

Therefore, he slid as far as he could to the edge of his chair so as not to get too close to her.

Link barely caught what the teacher was saying, he was too taken with her closeness. To keep a clear mind, he pulled his hood over his head and rested his head on his arms, which were folded on the table. He sighed. It was going to be a busy day at school, he thought to himself.

  "Hey bro, you alright? Up for basketball?" asked Sidon, who was his best friend, despite the fact that he was in a different class from his year. He was a hunk and towered over him by several heads. He had red hair, like his sister Mipha, but gold-shimmering eyes. Despite his imposing and intimidating manner, he was the most likeable Hylian he knew.

"Ayyo Bro, how you doin'? Throw me the ball!"

Link took off his hoodie and bared his muscular torso. He wanted to clear his head and stop thinking about how annoyed Zelda was at his presence. He wasn't even sure why she was and assumed she was looking down on him with her domineering appearance.

The mere fact that he had put his head down on the table and was boredly playing with his pens made her breathe an annoyed sigh and tap her foot impatiently. She was also the first to immediately pack up her utensils and disappear out the door without giving him a glance.

While he was shooting baskets with his best buddies, he was joined by the rest of his friends, including Cado and Dorian, one slim and athletic, the other broadly built. More boys gathered around him, whom he knew from his neighbourhood or from his sports clubs. He greets them all with a handshake and a brotherly hug: a fist to the brother's shoulders. This is how they signal solidarity and friendship to each other.

Sometimes they were joined by Impa, who would then go up against the boys and single-handedly finish them off in every game. Impa was a girl Link liked to have around because she was unbeatable. She was like a second sister to him, whom he respected and wanted to protect at the same time.

But when Link looked out for her, he found her agog with Zelda Purah and Paya discussing something and smirked. He could only guess what they were so animatedly discussing at the moment.

 "Phew, Link put some clothes on, your armpits stink big time."

Abruptly Link's mood changed, as if someone had hit him in the head with a shovel.

"It only started to smell when you got here, Revali."

The young Revali was not much taller than Link, had his hair braided into a boxer braid while two white dyed strands hung out of his braided hair. He had the eye shape of a snake and his eye colour and character were just as venomous. He was always out to make Link's life difficult and to flaunt his parents' wealth.

"Do you want to mess with me? You street dog have nothing to say to me, is that clear?" said Revali provocatively. Just like Link, he was surrounded by his boys waiting to bash each other's heads in.

"You can't do anything but play hardball, come on get lost with your wannabe gangsters."

A horde of girls from different years, cheered Link's and Revali's names as if it was some kind of competition.

Link wrinkled his nose contemptuously and stared renegiously into Revali's eyes. As a final sign of warning.

Sidon noticed the sparkling fire in the eyes of the two rivals and walked between them and stood protectively in front of Link.

"Hey yo bro, how about we settle this problem between you with a contest".

The girls who were just now cheering and gushing for Revali or Link were now screeching Sidon's name together as if his presence could put all disputes aside.

"A competition? Only if I choose the discipline. ", Revali said, but Link was about to intervene when his best friend held him back.

"We will choose three disciplines. Everyone will get one discipline they are particularly good at, while the third will remain neutral. Okay?" asked Sidon. Link nodded in agreement. Now it was up to Revali.

"On one condition, we're going to put this competition out to the whole school so everyone can watch me kick the shit out of that son of a bitch."

"Be careful what you say, we don't want your ego to be hurt anymore." Countered Link and turned away. It was already a foregone conclusion for him that he had to face his rival and win.

  Zelda watched the action of the rival boys while Impa and Purah argued about which motto would be more appropriate as a house party. She squinted over at the silent Paya looking distressed at the tense troop of boys on the basketball court. Zelda followed her gaze and immediately understood her expression. It was Link, who moved away from the group and sat down on a wooden bench, running his hands through his hair.

"Paya, go to him. He will be very happy to receive emotional affection from a pretty girl, like you. He might fall in love with you after all," Zelda said hopefully.

She shyly looked Zelda in the eye and turned bright red in the face. Purah and Impa interrupted their discussion and listened in wonder.

"That's right, Paya! Go get him!" Purah, Paya's eldest cousin, motivated her. Everyone knew that Paya was crazy about Link but was too shy to talk to him.

When Paya finally decided to go to him, Impa was about to stop her, but Zelda and Purah held her back. Impa didn't like it, because she knew Link very well and also knew what his heart was like. Her gaze rested on Zelda, who was looking contentedly behind Paya. Maybe she had to get involved after all and a house party by the pool would be the best option.

[omoi-no-hoka]

Moderately Interesting Japanese Ep. 8 Hokkaido Dialect

The typical winter scenery of Hokkaido.

One of my favorite aspects of language learning is studying dialects. I am fascinated by how language branches and adapts to new environments like some form of linguistic natural selection. Japanese is rife with interesting dialects, some of which are so different from the standard that they can sound like a totally different language to the untrained ear. I thought I’d make a series of posts highlighting different dialects in Japanese. Since this sort of post will take a bit more research on my end and I plan to find native speakers of the dialect to confirm with, they won’t be very regular, but I hope that you enjoy them!

What are some of the main Japanese dialects?

Firstly, let me tell you how to say “dialect” in Japanese, because I know I’m gonna use it and I don’t want to cause any confusion. 

方言 (hougen) Dialect

___弁 (__-ben) __ Dialect, so “Osaka Dialect” is “Osaka-ben.” 

I daresay that just about 100% of all Japanese learners are familiar with Tokyo-ben, because it is Standard Japanese. The next most popular dialect is Kansai-ben, which is spoken in the Kansai region (Osaka, Hiroshima, etc.). The Kansai Dialect can be broken down into several smaller, regional dialects. Next would probably be Okinawa-ben. 

(Caution! Some people, particularly Okinawans, consider Okinawan Japanese to be a language independent from Japanese, and they can be offended if you refer to it as a dialect. Japan’s official stance is that Okinawan is a dialect, though, so I am calling it a dialect in my posts.) 

Now without further ado, let’s actually start learning about one of these dialects!

Hokkaido-ben, namara ii!

Hokkaido is the island in green. It’s the biggest prefecture in Japan by far.

I am a foreigner and Japanese is not my native language, but I have been living on the island of Hokkaido for 5 years now and am very comfortable with the Hokkaido dialect, so I chose to introduce it to you first. Also, it’s not one that gets talked about a lot, so I figured maybe there weren’t many posts about it. 

Hokkaido is the northernmost island of Japan, and it wasn’t settled and officially incorporated as part of Japan until the late 1800′s. There is a group of indigenous people here called the Ainu who speak a language completely different from Japanese, but their language has not bled into Hokkaido-ben. (Many place names in Hokkaido are from Ainu, though).

Because Hokkaido was settled so late in history compared to the other islands of Japan, their dialect doesn’t differ drastically from Tokyo-ben. There are some minor intonation differences that, frankly, I don’t feel confident explaining. I have internalized the intonations through exposure, but I’ve never been taught it and don’t really know what is correct. So I’m not going to talk about tonal differences, and instead focus on the different words and a wee bit of grammar.

投げる　Nageru

Standard Japanese: 捨てる suteru

English: to dispose of (lit. “to throw/toss”)

To an English speaker, “throw away” feels just as natural as “dispose of.” But to people outside of Hokkaido, it sounds very unusual and the image it conjures is comedic, like someone is hurling trash into the garbage can like it’s the opening pitch at the World Series. 

Example: そこの古い新聞を投げていいよ。 Romaji: Soko no furui shinbun wo nagete ii yo.

Standard: そこの古い新聞を捨てていいよ。 Romaji: Soko no furui shinbun wo sutete ii yo.

English: You can throw away those old newspapers there. 

おっかない　Okkanai

Standard: 危ない abunai

English: dangerous, scary, a “close call”

My hostmom uses this with me, like, all the time. According to her, I’m always doing okkanai things, like walking alone at night or *gasp* going outside with wet hair. I love her so much haha. 

Example: うちの子が熊のぬいぐるみだと思って遊んでいたのは本当の子グマだった。おっかなかったわ！ Romaji: Uchi no ko ga kuma no nuigurumi da to omotte asonde ita noha hontou no koguma datta. Okkanakatta wa!

Standard: うちの子が熊のぬいぐるみだと思って遊んでいたのは本当の子グマだった。危なかったわ！ Romaji: Uchi no ko ga kuma no nuigurumi da to omotte asonde ita noha hontou no koguma datta. Abunakatta wa!

English: Our kid thought he was playing with a teddy bear, but it was actually a live bear cub. What a close call!

（手袋を）履く　(Tebukuro wo) haku

Standard:（手袋を）はめる (tebukuro wo) hameru

English: to put on (gloves)

Winter in Hokkaido is long and cold. Gloves are one of the most essential articles of clothing here, and I have heard/used “haku” so much that “hameru” sounds incorrect to me. The “haku” sounds funny to other Japanese people because it is used for putting on socks, underwear, and pants, and they will imagine you putting socks or panties on your hands instead of gloves. 

Example: 外は寒いから、手袋を履きなさい。 Romaji: Soto ha samui kara, tebukuro wo hakinasai.

Standard: 外は寒いから、手袋をはめなさい。 Romaji: Soto ha samui kara, tebukuro wo hamenasai. 

English: It’s cold out, so put on your gloves. 

めんこい　Menkoi

Standard Japanese: 可愛い kawaii

English: cute

I included this because it’s one of the famous aspects of Hokkaido-ben, but I actually don’t hear it used that much. I tend to see it on souvenir shirts for tourists more than in actual conversations.

Example: この子猫はめっちゃめんこい！ Romaji: Kono koneko ha meccha menkoi!

Standard: この子猫はめっちゃかわいい！ Romaji: Kono koneko ha meccha kawaii!

English: This kitten is super cute!

Note: Even though it is functioning as an adjective and ends with an “i,” it is not an “i” adjective. It is a “na” adjective. 

あずましくない　Azumashikunai

Standard: 居心地が悪い、嫌 igokochi ga warui, iya

English: uncomfortable (surroundings), unpleasant

This is a word that many Hokkaido people use but struggle to explain. Azumashikunai describes any place that you find unpleasant or uncomfortable, maybe due to it being too crowded, or too empty, or because it’s very cramped, for example. 

Example: 日曜日の札幌駅が人混みであずましくない。 Romaji. Nichiyoubi no Sapporo-eki ga hitogomi de azumashikunai.

Standard: 日曜日の札幌駅が人混みで嫌だ。 Romaji: Nichiyoubi no Sapporo-eki ga hitogomi de iya da.

English: Sapporo Station is always crowded on Sundays and I don’t like it.

いずい　Izui

Standard: none

English: different (in a bad way), off-kilter, something is “off”

Hokkaido people really struggle to explain izui because Standard Japanese doesn’t have an equivalent for it, but I think it can be likened to “off” in English. You got something in your eye but can’t find it and your eye feels funny? Your eye is izui. You have a hair in your shirt and can’t find it? That feels izui. Sometimes it can be a mysterious ache not painful enough to warrant a visit to the doctor, or sometimes it can just be a sense that something is “off.” 

Example: 目にゴミが入って、いずい。 Romaji: Me ni gomi ga haitte, izui. 

Standard:目にゴミが入って、痛い。 Romaji: Me ni gomi ga haitte, itai.

English: Something got in my eye and now it feels off. 

汽車　Kisha

Standard: 電車 densha 

English: (train, lit. “steam engine”)

The first time I came to Japan, I could just barely hold down an everyday conversation in Japanese. My hostparents (hostdad especially) both spoke very strong Hokkaido-ben, and during my first meal with them my hostdad asked if I had traveled from the airport to their city by “steam engine,” and I was just baffled. Wait, did he just say locomotive? What year is it? Are steam engines still a thing in Japan?! Then my kind hostmother explained that he meant regular, modern trains. 

Example: すみません、函館ゆきの汽車はいつ出発しますか？ Romaji: Sumimasen, Hakodate-yuki no kisha ha itsu shuppatsu shimasu ka?

Standard: すみません、函館ゆきの電車はいつ出発しますか？ Romaji: Sumimsaen, Hakodate-yuki no densha ha itsu shuppatsu shimasuka?

English: Excuse me, when does the train bound for Hakodate leave the station?

しゃっこい　Shakkoi

Standard: 冷たい Tsumetai

English: Cold

Being the northernmost prefecture and next door to Russia, it’s only natural that Hokkaido-ben have its own word for “cold.” 

Example: このかき氷ってめっちゃしゃっこい！ Romaji; Kono kakigoori tte meccha shakkoi!

Standard: このかき氷ってめっちゃ冷たい！ Romaji: Kono kakigoori tte meccha tsumetai!

English: This shaved ice is super cold!

とうきび　Toukibi

Standard: とうもろこし Toumorokoshi

English: corn

Hokkaido is famous for their sweet corn, and “toukibi” is a word you will hear a lot here as a result. A popular summer snack is corn on the cob with soy sauce and butter, and it’s made just like in the gif above! Japanese people tend to eat it using a toothpick, picking off kernel by kernel. So when I just rocked up, grabbed an ear and started going to town on it, they thought I was a barbarian hahaha.

Example: やっぱり、とうきびに醤油だね！ Romaji: Yappari, toukibi ni shouyu da ne!

Standard: やっぱり、とうもろこしに醤油だね！ Romaji: Yappri, toumorokoshi ni shouyu da ne!

English: Soy sauce really does go good with corn!

なまら　Namara

Standard: とても totemo、結構 kekkou

English: very, super, rather

This word is like “menkoi,” in that it is famous throughout Japan for being Hokkaido-ben, but I rarely hear it in actual conversations. I hear people use it when they are surprised by something. “Namara oishii” has a nuance of “It’s (actually) very tasty.”

Example: 曇ってるけど、今日の天気はなまらいい。 Romaji: Kumotteru kedo, kyou no tenki ha namara ii.

Standard: 曇ってるけど、今日の天気はけっこういい。 Romaji: Kumotteru kedo, kyou no tenki ha kekkou ii.

English: It’s cloudy today, but it’s still pretty good weather.

なんぼ？　Nanbo?

Standard: いくら？ Ikura?

English: How much?

My friend asked me to go get a couple drinks from the convenience store. I came back with a bottle for her and for me and she asked, “Nanbo datta?” I thought that bo was maybe a counter for things, and desperately tried to figure out what we were supposed to be counting. Then she explained that, for whatever reason, “nanbo” means “how much (does something cost)?”

Example: そのお弁当はめっちゃ美味しそう！なんぼだった？ Romaji: Sono obentou ha meccha oishisou! Nanbo datta?

Standard: そのお弁当はめっちゃ美味しそう！いくらだった？ Romaji: Sono obentou ha meccha oishisou! Ikura datta?

English: That bento looks super good! How much was it?

ボケる　Bokeru (for produce)

Standard: 腐る kusaru

English: go bad (produce)

In standard Japanese, “bokeru” means “to go senile” or “to develop dementia/Alzheimer's.” While I wouldn’t say it’s a slur bad enough that it would be bleeped out, it certainly isn’t a kind way to refer to aging. 

So when my host mom told me, “I would give you some apples, but they’re all senile” I had no clue what she was going on about. But then she showed them to me, and they were all wrinkled like this:

Not exactly the most appetizing, but also not entirely rotten. I’m really not sure why Hokkaido-ben likens produce to senility, but if I had to guess, I’d say it’s because pretty much every single person with Alzheimer’s/dementia is wrinkled.

Example: このリンゴはボケてるから、パイでも作ろうか… Romaji: Kono ringo ha boketeru kara, pai demo tsukurou ka...

Standard: このリンゴは腐りかけてるから、パイでも作ろうか… Romaji: Kono ringo ha kusarikaketeru kara, pai demo tsukurou ka...

English: These apples are about to go bad, so I guess I’ll make a pie...

～べ　~be

Standard ～だろう、～でしょう darou, deshou

English: ..., right?

This is probably the most famous aspect of Hokkaido-ben. Japanese people get a real kick out of it when this white girl uses it haha. “~be” is a sentence-ending particle that functions about the same as “darou” or “deshou” in that it:

asserts the speaker’s confidence in the likelihood of something

asks for the listener’s confirmation

This sentence-final particle has its roots in the particle ～べし (~beshi) found in Classical Japanese, which had a similar purpose. Other forms of ~beshi survive in Modern Standard Japanese with the words べき (beki) and すべく (subeku). 

Here are two examples, one for each function ~be fulfills. 

Example 1: 君の飛行機はあと5分に出発するって？間に合わないべ！ Romaji: Kimi no hikouki ha ato 5 fun ni shuppatsu suru tte? Maniawanai be!

Standard: 君の飛行機はあと5分に出発するって？間に合わないでしょう！  Romaji: Kimi no hikouki ha ato 5 fun ni shuppatsu suru tte? Maniawanai deshou!

English: You said your plane takes off in 5 minutes? There’s no way you’ll make it! 

Example 2: このサラダに白菜も入ってたべ？ Romaji: Kono sarada ni hakusai mo haitteta be?

Standard: このサラダに白菜も入ってたでしょう？ Romaji: Kono sarada ni hakusai mo haitteta deshou?

Standard: There was napa cabbage in this salad too, wasn’t there?

～れ　~re

Standard: ～なさい ~nasai

English: imperative command

I really don’t like giving grammar explanations because it’s been a long time since I’ve formally studied Japanese grammar and I’m scared of explaining something poorly or incorrectly. But an upper-elementary level Japanese learner should know that there are many different levels of imperatives in Japanese that vary in politeness. In order of rude to polite, we have:

Imperatives that end in an “e” sound or ろ, as in:

死ね！Shine! Die!

待て！Mate! Wait!

食べろ！Tabero! Eat!

Imperatives that end in tte, te, or de and are not followed by kudasai

死んで Shinde. Die.

待って Matte. Wait.

食べて Tabete. Tabete.

Imperatives that end in nasai. (These are most often used by parents/teachers to their children.)

死になさい Shininasai. Die.

待ちなさい Machinasai. Wait.

食べなさい Tabenasai. Eat.

Imperatives that end in tte, te, or de and have kudasai after them. 

And then there’s super formal Japanese, but that’s a whole other kettle of fish.

Anyways. Back to the Hokkaido-ben. I went to a picnic here with a Japanese friend’s family, and her aunt gave me a plate of food and said, “Tabere!” I knew that this had to be an imperative, but I had never studied it before. It felt like it was the same as the rudest imperative, and I spent the whole rest of the picnic wondering what on earth I had done to have her family speak to me like that. Conventionally, they should have been using the -tte form or -nasai form with me.

After the party, I asked her, “Dude, what’s the ~re stuff for? Do they not like me?” I was close to tears I was so hurt and confused.

And that when she laughed and explained that the ~re is a facet of Hokkaido-ben, and it is the same in politeness and nuance as the ~nasai imperative used by parents and teachers to their children.

So I had spent several hours thinking that her family hated me, when really they were treating me like I was their own child! 

Example: ちゃんと野菜を食べれ！ Romaji: Chanto yasai wo tabere!

Standard: ちゃんと野菜を食べなさい！ Romaji: Chanto yasai wo tabenasai! 

English: Eat all of your vegetables properly.

The End!

This was a monster of a post. There are actually a few more words I wanted to introduce, but I had to cut it off at some point haha. I hope that you enjoyed this segment of Moderately Interesting Japanese. I plan to make more on the other dialects within Japanese, but they will take a considerable amount of time so they won’t be very often. 

Thanks for reading!

[xtruss]

The Amazon’s ‘Mouth-Watering’ Fifth Flavour

— By Catherine Balston | BBC Travel | November 23, 2020

The ancestral sauce of black tucupi is making its way onto the menus of some of South America’s best restaurants, bringing a new sense of pride to an age-old tradition.

It all started with a bottle of chilli sauce. It was so fiery it makes my eyes water just thinking about it. I had bought it in 2014 from an old woman in Paraitepuy, a Venezuelan village near the base of Monte Roraima. It was the end of a seven-day hike up the table-top mountain, a sacred place for the local Pemon people, from which waterfalls spill over the edge in dizzying vertical drops. The sauce came home with me where it stayed, lurking unused in my kitchen cupboard for the next four years as it was far too hot for my palate.

A couple of years later, I discovered that this sauce was in fact black tucupi, a thick, dark sauce rich in the satisfying savouriness of umami, the so-called “fifth flavour”. Little-known beyond indigenous communities in the Amazon, it is being discovered by high-profile chefs in São Paulo, Lima, Bogotá and even Paris. Curious to know more, I began to dig into its origins, and what emerged was a tale of ancestral wisdom, rare Amazonian languages, poison and layers of intrigue that thickened, just like the sauce, the deeper I dug.

I am not the first person to be fascinated by black tucupi. The first written record of the sauce dates to 1929, in a posthumous publication by the Italian explorer and ethnographer Ermanno Stradelli: “To my taste, it is the king of sauces,” he wrote, “as much for game as for fish… and to which extraordinary cures can be attributed.”

Black tucupi, a thick, umani-rich sauce, has been made by indigenous communities across the Amazon for thousands of years (Credit: rchphotos/Getty Images)

Stradelli had discovered black tucupi during one of a number of expeditions deep into the Amazon rainforest in the 1880s and 1890s. The unique flavours of the Amazon enchanted him, as they had the Dutch, English and Portuguese explorers who had been shipping their “discoveries” back to Europe as far back as the 16th Century. When writing about this king of sauces, Stradelli referred to it as tucupi pixuna (pronounced “pishuna”) – pixuna meaning “black” in Nheengatu, a now-severely endangered language that was spoken all across the Amazon region until the late 1800s.

Tucupi pixuna, tucupi negro, kumaji, ají negro, kanyzi pudidy and cassareep are all different names for the same sauce. It’s a linguistic register of some of the indigenous nations that still make black tucupi right across the Amazon as far and wide as Guyana, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador. “When was black tucupi discovered? Who discovered it? No-one will ever know because it was thousands of years ago,” explained Sandra Baré, from the Baré people that live in the Upper Rio Negro region, one of a handful of ethnic groups who still speak Nheengatu and whose tucupi pixuna is sold in markets around São Gabriel da Cachoeira, on the banks of the Rio Negro.

As for how it is made, that is one question Baré can answer, and I happily listened to her explain the process as part of a cooking class on manioc, a root vegetable (also known as cassava, or tapioca when in its pure starch form) that is now the staple food for hundreds of millions of people across the world. “Manioc has been sustaining indigenous nations for many years,” said Baré. She detailed the various techniques for turning bitter manioc into breads and flours, as well as the process by which bitter manioc juice is simmered down from a yellow liquid into dark and syrupy black tucupi.

Manioc, which is a staple food for hundreds of millions of people across the World, is packed with toxic cyanide (Credit: Tina Leme Scott)

“You have to be really careful cooking black tucupi because bitter manioc kills,” Baré warned. “Anyone who drinks the raw juice won’t take two steps before falling down dead.” It turns out bitter manioc is packed with toxic cyanide, and I wonder how many people over the years have literally fallen at that first hurdle. None hopefully, at least not for a couple of millennia, as bitter manioc has been cultivated and cooked (which brings the cyanide down to safe levels) by the Amazon’s indigenous nations as far back as 4,000 years.

Denise Rohnelt de Araújo, a Brazilian cook and food writer, first came across Stradelli’s reference to tucupi pixuna 10 years ago in História da Alimentação no Brasil, an encyclopaedic register of Brazil’s diverse culinary history that was first published in 1963 by the historian Luís da Câmara Cascudo. She’s been on its trail ever since, collecting samples from all over the Amazon. Late last year, when I visited her home in Boa Vista in Brazil’s northernmost state of Roraima, she presented me with a box full of bottles in all shapes and sizes.

“When I read Stradelli’s description of this king of sauces, I had to find out more,” de Araújo told me. “There are various different ways to make black tucupi and none of them are the same. The only thing they have in common is that it’s a reduction of bitter manioc juice. Some remove the manioc starch, others don’t. Some are fermented. Others add ants. The Venezuelans add chilli. In Guyana you have clove and cinnamon. Some have a slight bitterness or smokiness. Every ethnic group does it their own way.”

Boa Vista was my jumping-off point into the interior of Roraima to see for myself how different indigenous peoples make black tucupi. Here in the heart of the Amazonian savannah on the triple border of Brazil, Venezuela and Guyana, hot, dry air blows across a mainly grassy landscape. At Tabalascada, about 24km outside Boa Vista, a Wapichana community are fighting to preserve their land and their culture. Monoculture crop farming and urban development encroach from all sides. I hiked from the village into the forest with a community leader, Marcolino da Silva, to see their manioc plantation. The young plants were only five months old and nearly twice my height already, with leaves fanning out at the top of thin stems.

To prepare black tucupi, manioc has to be peeled and grated and the juice squeezed out (Credit: Tina Leme Scott)

Back in the village, a long table was being laid for lunch under the shade of some tall mango trees with parakeets screeching overhead. The shy but lively 62-year old Dona Carol, da Silva’s mother, is the village expert in making black tucupi, and she busied about bringing dishes to the table and clapping a nosy cockerel away. Everything she laid out was made with manioc, from the bread (beiju) to a manioc and fish stew (damorida) and a jug of boozy fermented manioc (caxiri). The prints of trainers, bare feet and animal claws in the dry earth charted the afternoon’s comings and goings, and as the sun started its downward slide and the caxiri went to my head, I eyed up a nearby hammock. Dona Carol has been teaching the younger generation her black tucupi recipe. “They have to learn to do this to not forget our Wapichana culture,” she said. “I am here today but who knows about tomorrow. Death knows no age.”

My next stop, Yupukari, was just over the border in Guyana’s Rupununi region. In a small Macuxi village, home to about 100 families, I was spending three days learning how to make black tucupi. I met the team at Caiman House, an eco-lodge in the village and one of a dozen or so eco-lodges run by indigenous peoples in the interior wilderness of Guyana. Nature lovers come here to explore the “land of the giants”, as it has been called; the world’s largest otters, spiders, anteaters, rodents and eagles can all be spotted here.

I had my sights set on black tucupi, however, known in Guyana as cassareep, or cassava sauce. This is the only country in the Amazon Basin where black tucupi has made its way into the national cuisine. It’s an essential ingredient in pepperpot, a meat stew in which black tucupi mingles with the cloves and cinnamon of Guyana’s Caribbean heritage. Industrially made cassareep is sold everywhere in Guyana, but I’d come to learn the traditional, artisanal way.

The resulting manioc juice is decanted and then simmered for several hours until it becomes dark and syrupy (Credit: Tina Leme Scott)

My next two days were spent with two local women as they harvested, peeled and grated nearly 100kg of manioc. The grated manioc was stuffed into a plaited palm tube called a matapi (or tipiti in Brazil), which looks like the engorged belly of an anaconda before it is stretched out thin, squeezing the manioc juice into a bowl below. Next, the juice rests for a few hours to let the solid starch (tapioca) decant, and the juice was then poured into a cauldron and left to simmer over a wood fire for around four or five hours.

In the meantime, the women transformed the grated manioc into toasted flour and flatbread. A crowd of onlookers shuffled around the space to avoid the smoke as it curled up and around. Things got tense in the final minutes as the simmering manioc juice begins to camarelise, turning red and then dark brown, then as thick as molasses and hastily whipped off the fire before it burned. Once it had cooled we all dipped the flatbread into the sauce and tasted the flavour bomb: intense, sweet and mildly sour.

The next day, it was added to a fragrant bowl of tuma pot – a traditional fish stew – served for lunch on my last day. I also took a bottle home with me, all the more valuable having seen the backbreaking work in making it.

Outside of indigenous communities, black tucupi evangelists in some of South America’s best restaurants are getting excited about its umami potential, glazing meats with it, adding it to dressings, broths and sauces, and even mixing it in Bloody Marys.

Black tucupi is making its way onto the menus of South America’s best restaurants due to its rich umami flavour (Credit: Tina Leme Scott)

In São Paulo, chef Helena Rizzo glazes fish with black tucupi at Maní restaurant; while Carla Pernambuco served confit duck with a black tucupi sauce at Carlota. On the far side of the continent in the Peruvian capital, Lima, high-profile chefs have been experimenting with black tucupi on their menus for a few years already. Their supply, sold in elegant glass bottles in Lima’s upmarket delis, comes from Bora and Huitito women near Iquitos in the Peruvian Amazon thanks to a partnership with NGO Despensa Amazónica. Pedro Miguel Schiaffino has put it at the heart of his menu at new casual diner Boa Street Food, infusing tomato sauce, pirarucu (fish) sausages and smoked pork tacos with its richness; while Gaston Acúrio brushes it on roasted cauliflower at Astrid y Gastón.

“Some people compare it to soy, some to Worcestershire sauce, but chefs simply see it as something unique,” said Joanna Martins, whose Brazilian food company Manioca sells black tucupi to retailers. She supplies some of Brazil’s top chefs with her version and is testing out the US market, too.

The Wapichana community in Tabalascada has plans to launch a certified, branded version to Brazilian retailers next year. They sell it locally and informally for now but are building up their capacity through a partnership with Brazilian NGO Instituto Socioambiental (ISA) as well as government funding thanks to Joênia Wapichana (the first indigenous woman to be voted into the Brazilian congress).

Manioc is also turned into flours and bread, as well as traditional alcoholic beverages (Credit: Tina Leme Scott)

“Black tucupi is an incredible product that respects the Wapichana way of life and their traditional agricultural systems, and that in turn helps protect biodiversity and the forest,” said ISA’s Amanda Latosinski. “For the youngsters, the chance to earn an income is an incentive to not leave for the city, and to resist the pressures of destructive activities like mining.”

It’s a win-win for the indigenous communities. And it’s a win-win for those who can get their hands on a precious bottle – the chance to try a unique, umami flavour and support a tradition that runs deep into the heart of the Amazon. I can still only handle a few drops at a time of the fiery black tucupi bought all those years ago in Venezuela, but the treacle-like cassareep from Guyana is black gold, used in my cooking as sparingly as my willpower allows.

[sternbilder]

Camille Has Many KDrama Thoughts

As some of you have possibly noticed, I have recently fallen into a KDrama hole and I can’t get up, and I have just finished my 10th drama, which seems like less of an accomplishment than I thought now that I say it out loud, but anyway,

As a checkpoint/thinly veiled plug of some shows I love very much, here is a very long post with some of my thoughts on all the KDramas I’ve seen so far, as well as what’s next on my list, in case you too were interested in joining me in nonexistent fandom hell!

So firstly, all of the dramas I have watched to completion, in the order of how much I like them. First, my top five:

1. Sungkyunkwan Scandal (2010). My #1 favorite drama to date. I’ve probably watched it in full 4-5 times, and it’s still an absolute treat every time. Is it the best drama I’ve ever seen? Probably not. But it’s so fun and charming that it’s just gotta be at the top of my list. 

The best way I can describe this drama is Ouran High School Host Club, except in Joseon era Korea, and instead of flirting with girls the main characters learn about Confucianism and solve mysteries and play sports (twice) and end up accidentally involved in a complicated political scandal. Also, that one text post about how Shang from Mulan is bi because he falls for Mulan while he thinks she’s a man...This drama has that, except actually canon. And while I won’t pretend this is show is a shining beacon of representation, there are multiple main characters who are explicitly not heterosexual and several others with very plausible queer readings, which earns it a very special place in my heart.

As for the actual premise of the show, it’s basically about a wonderfully determined and kind and clever but lower-class girl whose writing skills catch the eye of the most stubbornly strait-laced but idealistic aspiring politician-type on the planet. She ends up getting a one-way ticket to the most prestigious school in the country, except she has to pretend to be a man the entire time because women aren’t allowed to be educated at this time. 

It’s a bit of a silly, cheesy show, and here are many wacky shenanigans, but the main cast is full of incredibly highly endearing and multifaceted characters, there is a lot of sexual confusion, the slowburn roommate romance has an incredible payoff, and it’s also full of deeply moving social commentary about class, privilege, and gender roles. This drama is a blast and I could go on and on about what I love about it, I absolutely adore it to pieces.

2. Six Flying Dragons (2015-2016). I debated between this and Tree With Deep Roots (next on my list, to which SFD is a prequel) as my #2 but I do think I want to place SFD higher just because it's the drama that I keep thinking about even after finishing it. of course, it has the dual advantages of 1) being released chronologically later (and having better production value, etc., because of this) and 2) being twice as long, but there’s just so much stuff to unpack with SFD that it makes me want to keep coming back to it. 

The show is about the founding of the Joseon dynasty, and six individuals (half of whom are based on real historical figures and half fictional) whose lives are closely tied to the fall of the old regime and the revolution that brought in the new. It has an intricate, intensely political plotline based on the actual events that happened during this time, and though this may sound kind of boring if you’re like me and not super into history (admittedly, the pacing in the beginning is a tiny bit slow), it quickly picks up and becomes this dense web of character relations and political maneuvering. Though none of the major events should come as a surprise if you’ve seen TWDR or if you happen to already know the history it was based on, the show adds such a depth of humanity and emotion to every event and character that nothing ever feels boring or predictable. As a matter of fact, there are several events that were alluded to in TWDR that, when they actually happened in SFD, left me breathless--because although I 100% knew these were foregone conclusions that were coming up at some point, I still had a visceral moment of, “oh no, so that’s how that came to happen.” 

But though I really enjoyed following the story of SFD and learning about the history behind it, the highlight of the show for me is definitely the great character arcs. I loved TWDR’s characters, too (especially Yi Do, So Yi, and obviously Moo Hyul), but with double the episode count SFD just has so much time for rich, dynamic character development, and I absolutely loved seeing how these characters grew and changed over time when their ideologies and fates collided in this turbulent and violent age: How young and ambitious Yi Bang Won eventually spiraled into a ruthless tyrant, how the naive and kind-hearted Moo Hyul struggled to retain his humanity in a bloody revolution that challenged his values and loyalties to the core, how the fiercely determined and idealistic Boon Yi grew into a pragmatic and capable leader who comes to realize what politics and power mean for her and her loved ones. 

SFD was also everything I wanted as a prequel to TWDR--I loved seeing the contrasts between some of the TWDR characters and their younger selves in the SFD timeline: The hardened and ruthless Bang Won as a passionate and righteous adolescent, the cynical and resigned Bang Ji as a cowardly boy who grows into a traumatized and bitter young man, and my personal favorite character, the comically serious bodyguard Moo Hyul as the very model of the dopey, lovable himbo archetype. And though the ending was controversial among fans (particularly those who watched SFD first), I loved how it closed all the loops and tied it back to the events of TWDR, both providing that transition I wanted but also recontextualizing and adding new meaning to the original work. I think it's still a very good drama on its own, but this hand-off is what really sealed the deal for me personally, because it was not only super emotionally satisfying to watch how the stories connected, but it elevated TWDR to something even greater (suggesting that Yi Do and the events of TWDR was the culmination of everything the six dragons fought so long and hard for), which is exactly what I expect from a good prequel. 

I’ve already talked so much about this drama but I also do need to mention that the soundtrack to SFD is A+, and the sword fights are sick as hell. There is also some romance, though it’s not really a focus--and all the pairings that do exist are extremely tragic, which is exactly up my alley. Overall, this is a hell of a historical drama, coming of age, villain origin story, and martial arts film in one, and I highly recommend it.

3. Tree With Deep Roots (2011). The sequel to SFD, though it aired first chronologically. Although this show isn’t one of those shows that I could rewatch once a year like SKKS or keep ruminating on like SFD, TWDR (much like Les Mis, or Fata Morgana) is thematically the kind of story that just makes my heart sing.

The story centers around the creation of Hangul, the Korean alphabet, by Yi Do (a.k.a., King Sejong the Great, who is the son and successor of Yi Bang Won, the main character of SFD) as well as two fictional childhood friends whose backstories and ambitions become central to the story of how and why this alphabet came to exist. Not only is the actual process of creating this alphabet absolutely fascinating from a linguistic and scientific POV, but the show dramatizes Yi Do’s motivations in a way that’s so incredibly touching and human--portraying the king as a soft-hearted and extremely charismatic yet fundamentally flawed and conflicted figure who tries so desperately to do right by his people. 

The show explores both a number of personal themes like redemption, atonement, and vengeance, as well as broader societal themes such as the ethics of authority, the democratization of knowledge, and the power of language and literacy. Though the show never forgets to remind the audience of the bitter reality of actual history, it’s still a deeply idealistic show whose musings on social change and how to use privilege and power to make the world better are both elegant and poignant. 

Romance definitely takes a backseat in TWDR, even more so than SFD, though this isn’t something I personally mind. There are, however, a lot of interesting politics surrounding the promulgation of the alphabet, including a string of high-profile assassinations--if SFD is historical/political-thriller-meets-action-film, then TWDR is historical/political-thriller-meets-murder-mystery, and it’s an incredibly tightly written and satisfying story whose pieces fall into place perfectly. Though not the sprawling epic that SFD is, TWDR is an emotional journey and an extremely well-written story with a TON of goodies if you’re as excited about linguistics as I am. 

4. White Christmas (2011). My first non-sageuk on this list! White Christmas is, in a lot of ways, an odd drama. It’s an 8-episode special, and featured largely (at the time) new talent. it’s also neither a historical work nor romance-focused, but instead a short but intense psychological thriller/murder mystery. 

The premise is this: Seven students at a super elite boarding school tucked away in the mountains receive mysterious black letters that compel them to remain on campus during the one vacation of the year. The letters describe various “sins” that the author accuses the students of committing, as well as the threat of a “curse” as well as an impending death. The students quickly find that they’re stranded alone at the school with a murderer in their midst, as they are forced to confront their shared histories and individual traumas to figure out 1) why they’ve been sent the letters, and 2) how to make it out alive. At the center of the survival game the characters find themselves in is a recurring question: “Are monsters born, or can they be made?”

If you’ve been following me for a while, it’s easy to see why I was drawn to this drama. In terms of setup and tone, it’s Zero Escape. In theme, it’s Naoki Urasawa’s Monster. It’s Lord of the Flies meets Dead Poets Society. or as one of my mutuals swyrs@ put it, Breakfast Club meets Agatha Christie. The story is flawlessly paced with not a scene wasted. There’s so much good foreshadowing and use of symbolic imagery, and though I’ve watched it at least 3-4 times, I always find interesting new details to analyze. The plot twists (though not so meta-breaking as ZE) are absolutely nuts, and aside from the somewhat questionable ending, the story is just really masterfully written.

Above all, though, WC is excellent for its character studies. Though I typically tend to stay away from shows that center around teenagers because I don’t find their struggles and experiences particularly relatable, WC does such an excellent job of picking apart every character psychologically, showing their traumas, their desires, their fears, and their insecurities. We see these kids at their most violent and cruel, but also their most vulnerable and honest. Their stories and motivations are so profoundly human that I found even the worst and most despicable characters painfully sympathetic at times, as cowardly and hypocritical and unhinged as they became. 

Like I said, it’s only 8 episodes long with probably the best rewatch value on this list. My only complaints about it are its ending, as well as its relative lack of female characters, but otherwise I would absolutely recommend.

5. Signal (2016). Okay, this might be the recency bias talking because I just finished this series but I'm sure but I'm still reeling at the mind-screw of an ending and I feel like it deserves a place on this spot just for that.

Signal is a crime thriller based on a number of real-life incidents that happened in Korea in the last 30 or so years. In short, a young profiler from the year 2015, who has a grudge against the police after witnessing their incompetence and corruption twice as a child, happens to find a mysterious walkie-talkie that seems to be able to send and receive messages from the past. on the other end is an older detective from 2000 who tells him that he’s about to start receiving messages from his younger self, back in 1989. Through the seemingly sporadic radio communications, the two men work together to solve a series of cold cases, which begin to change the past and alter the timeline.

As they solve these cases, expose corruption within the police department, and correct past injustices, the two men (along with a third, female detective who has connections to both of them) also begin to unravel the mysteries of their pasts, as well as why and how they came to share this connection.

Like WC, the story and pacing of this drama were flawless, reminding me of an extended movie rather than a TV series. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time, and the 16-episode run went by in no time at all. I always love timeline shenanigans and explorations of causality and fate and the consequences of changing the past, and this show has oodles of that peppered with the heartbreakingly tragic human connections and stories that the main characters share. The main pairing has great chemistry and gave me exactly the pain I crave from a doomed timeline romance, and the cinematography and soundtrack were also beautiful, which also contributed to the polished, cinema-like feel.

My only complaint is that I wish that the ending felt more like an ending, such that the drama could stand on its own. I do realize this is because there’s a second season coming, but right now the show feels somewhat incomplete, ending on a huge, ambiguous cliffhanger/sequel hook and with several loose ends. I obviously can’t give a final verdict until the entire thing airs (and I typically don’t like multi-season shows, so I will wait for the next season to come out both reluctantly and begrudgingly), but even where the show leaves off I still did enjoy it immensely.

...And now, some brief thoughts on the other 5 shows I’ve watched, because I ran out of steam and have less to say about these:

6. Healer (2014-2015). It’s been a few years since I’ve seen this show, but I remember being really impressed by this drama at the time, especially the storyline. Unfortunately though I don’t remember too much about the drama itself, which is a shame. It’s a mystery/thriller, I think, and there is hacking and crimes involved? The main character is a very cute and sweet tabloid writer and she falls in love with a mysterious and cool action boy who helps her uncover the truth behind a tragic incident that relates to her past, or something. Judging from my liveblog it seems like this was an extremely emotional journey, and I enjoyed the main couple (who are both very attractive) a lot, and it was just overall a cathartic and feel-good experience. I feel like I should rewatch this drama at some point?

7. Rooftop Prince (2012). It’s also been forever since I watched this show but I remember thinking it was hilarious and delightful and I definitely cried a lot though I do not remember why (probably something something time travel, something something reincarnation/fated lovers??). I do remember that the premise is that a Joseon-era prince and several of his servants accidentally time travel into modern-day Seoul and end up meeting the main character who is the future reincarnation of his love (?) and he is hilariously anachronistic and also insufferably pretentious, which the MC absolutely does not cut him any slack for, and they have an extremely good dynamic.

8. Coffee Prince (2007). I watched this around the same time as Rooftop Prince and I remember really enjoying it! it’s basically just SKKS, but the modern cafe AU, and I mean that in the best way possible? It definitely shares a lot of the same tropes--crossdressing/tomboy female lead, sexually questioning male lead who falls in love with her despite being “straight,” very good chemistry and also extremely charming secondary characters.

9. Shut Up Flower Boy Band (2012). This show...Was just OK. I enjoyed it at the time, but I can’t say I found it particularly memorable. As I said, I don’t typically find stories about high school students particularly relatable, and the battle of the bands-type plot was interesting enough at the time but didn’t really leave a lasting impression. As expected, the music was pretty good. I kind of watched this mostly to hear Sung Joon sing tbh?

10. Rebel: Thief Who Stole the People (2017). I wanted to like this show. I really did. I wouldn’t say it was bad, but the beginning was painfully slow, and I only really enjoyed the last 10 episodes or so, when the vive la révolution arc finally started kicking off. The pacing was challenging--the pre-timeskip dragged on about twice as long as it needed to, and I just wasn’t really interested in the Amogae/Yiquari storyline very much. I also really, really disliked all the romances in the show, especially the main pairing, since I didn’t particularly love either the male or the female leads until pretty late in the show. Overall I think I would have enjoyed the show more if the first 2/3 of it was about half as long, and it either developed the romance better or cut it out altogether.

What I’m thinking of watching next:

1. Chuno (2010). Mostly because the soundtrack to this show is so goddamn good, but also because I’m craving more historical dramas with good sword fights after SFD. I was kind of hoping Rebel would fill that need but I was a little disappointed tbh?

2. Warrior Baek Dong Soo (2011). Same reasons as above, honestly. also has a very good soundtrack, and Ji Chang Wook, who is a known nice face-haver, doing many very cool sword fights.

3. Mr. Sunshine (2018). Late Joseon era is something I’ve never really seen before in media so I’m pretty intrigued? Also Byun Yo Han was one of my favorites from SFD and I definitely want to see him in more things.

4. Rookie Historian Goo Hae Ryung (2019). A coworker recommended this to me and the trailer looks delightful. first of all it’s a sageuk with the gorgeous and talented Shin Se Kyoung in it playing a smart and plucky female lead, which have historically been extremely good to me, but also it gives me massive SKKS vibes, so how could I not.

5. My Country: The New Age (2019). This caught my attention because it’s based on the same historical events as SFD, so it features some of the same characters. I am very very interested in Jang Hyuk’s take on Yi Bang Won, even if he is less of a main character here compared to SFD, and he’s already an adult so he’ll already be well on his way to bastardhood. I also hear it’s very heartbreaking, which is instant eyes emoji for me?

6. Chicago Typewriter (2017). It’s about freedom fighters from the colonization era, which I’m very intrigued by after The Handmaiden and Pachinko, plus a reincarnation romance. I am very predictable in my choice of tropes. Also, Yoo Ah In is in it.

7. Arthdal Chronicles (2019-). Ok, it’s a gorgeous-looking historical fantasy set in Korea written by the same writers as TWDR and SFD, plus it has not just one but TWO Song Joong Ki characters, one of which is a pure, doe-eyed soft boy and the other an evil long-haired fae prince looking asshole who I hear is a complete and utter Unhinged Bastard Supreme. Nothing has ever been more Camille Bait than this, but unfortunately this show hasn’t finished airing, which does pain me deeply. speaking of,

8. Kingdom (2019-). It’s a fantasy sageuk with zombies, is about the extent I know about this show. The fact that it also hasn’t finished airing turns me off a bit but it looks absolutely gorgeous and I also just found out it was written by the same writer as Signal, so,,,,,,,,,

9. Gunman in Joseon (2014). I honestly don’t expect too much from this drama but I just enjoy its premise a lot? From what I understand it’s just Percy from Critical Role, but make it Joseon era.......Like, they just straight up took a Shadow the Hedgehog, “let’s make a sageuk, but guns,” approach, and I kind of unironically love that. Also the soundtrack kicks ass, which like...you can really see where my priorities lie here, huh,

10. Misaeng (2014). I don’t remember at this point why this is on my list but I found it in the Keep note I have of all the media I want to watch?? I have no idea what this show is about, except that it takes place in an office. Apparently Byun Yo Han is also in this one? I’m sorry this is the only non-sageuk or sageuk-adjacent show in this list, I know what I’m about, and it’s fancy old-timey costumes and cool braids.

[keepcalmandstudy]

My Oxford Finals Papers

Hello! Here’s a much requested run-down of the papers I took for my finals! There are 2 streams you can choose between after your first year of Oxford English - Course 1 and Course 2. I went for Course 2 - chosen far less than Course 1 but I found it to be incredibly rewarding! 

Paper 1 - Literature in English, 650-1100 (Old English)

- Exam in Trinity Term (3rd and final term), 3rd year, 3 essays in 3 hours

- College taught in Michaelmas Term (1st term) of 2nd year and then revisited for revision 

- Focus: Cynewulf's runic signatures concluding his female saints' lives (Juliana and Elene), Ælfric's Catholic Homilies (particular focus on his life of Cuthbert), Old English metrical charms (particularly those found in the margins of MS CCCC 41)

- I LOVE OLD ENGLISH!!!! That is all I have to say about this one, I looooove it

Paper 2 - Medieval English and Related Literatures, 1066-1550 (Romance)

- Exam in Trinity Term, 3rd year, 2 essays in 3 hours

- Faculty taught in Hilary term (2nd term), 2nd year, and then revisited for revision 

- Focus: Magic and the supernatural in the First Branch of the Mabinogi (medieval welsh), Marie de France's Lais (particularly Lanval and Milun; medieval French) and Walter Map's King Herla (Latin); The flexibility of the Middle English Sir Gowther in its varying manuscript contexts

- This paper was a challenge because it’s completely unlike anything I’ve done before. Because it was 2 essays in 3 hours (rather than the usual 3), topics had to be much broader and explored in greater depth. You’re also handling different languages too (although you can work with them in translation, but that does make the way you approach analysis different to the way it would be approached if you’re working with the original) and it’s a genre (rather than time period) paper. This is one of the reasons that I really liked Course 2 - while with Course 1 all the papers are time period ones, Course 2 spices things up a bit and I think that enables you to develop a broader skillset.

Paper 3 - Literature in English, 1350-1550 (Middle English)

- Exam in Trinity Term, 3rd year, 2 essays and 1 commentary in 3 hours

- College taught in Michaelmas and Hilary Term, 2nd year and then revisited for revision

- Focus: Authority and translation in Robert Henryson's Morall Fabillis, Gavin Douglas' Eneados and David Lindsay's 'The Testament and Complaynt of Our Soverane Lordis Papyngo'; Affective piety in Middle English Marian lyrics and related material culture; Set commentary passage from Chaucer's ‘Troilus and Criseyde’

- The topics I explored for this paper were really interesting - I thoroughly enjoyed it. I messed up my timing in the exam but hey ho, these things happen! 

Paper 4 - The History of the English Language to c1800

- Coursework, submitted Trinity Term, 2nd year

- An essay and a commentary, both 2000-2500

- Formatted like a 'take-home exam' - questions are released and you choose 2 and have about 2.5 weeks to write and submit

- Faculty taught in Hilary and Trinity Term, 2nd year

- Chosen Questions:

Essay - In historical research, there are no 'bad documents' (HIPPOLYTE TAINE). Discuss.

Commentary - 'Nothing reveals the deficiencies of a language more surely than translating into it' (CHRISTIAN KAY). Provide a close analysis of the language of TWO texts which seem to you to reveal or contest that claim.

- Similar to the Romance paper, this one was unlike anything I’ve done before! It was a bloody challenge at first because of it being such an enormous leap up, especially having never done any linguistics before. In the end though, I loved it and I explored some really interesting topics!

Paper 5 - The Material Text

- Coursework, submitted Hilary Term, 3rd year

- A commentary and an essay, both 2000-2500 words

- Formatted in the same way as the English Language paper, but they're considering changing this to be more like your standard coursework

- Faculty taught in Trinity Term, 2nd year, and Michaelmas Term, 3rd year

- Chosen commentary folio:

- Chosen essay question: 'The introduction of error into the transmitted text is often regarded as a random and unpredictable phenomenon related to human frailty' (L. NEIDORF). What other alternatives are there? Give specific examples.

- I loved this paper (are you spotting a pattern here? haha) - getting to see so many real manuscripts up close was fascinating and I feel so lucky to have gotten to see some of the collection in Oxford! Perhaps controversially I chose this option over Shakespeare (!) but I’m so glad I did. I figured I could go back to Shakespeare at any time during my life, but seeing these manuscripts was a one-time opportunity.

Paper 6 - Special Options: Writing Lives

- Coursework, submitted Michaelmas Term, 3rd year

- A 6000 word essay

- Taught by 2 tutors running this specific option (there were a bunch of options released and you had to submit your top 5 - you’d then hopefully be given your 1st choice)

- Focus: The extent to which a writer's temporal moment affects the way they approach writing about mental health. Helen Macdonald's H is for Hawk; Thomas Hoccleve's Complaint and Dialogue

- Ironically, my own mental health went a bit haywire during the term in which I took this paper which was a shame, but hey ho, ya win some ya lose some, and I really enjoyed the texts we got to read for it. I kind of wish I’d chosen a more medieval option but I did manage to incorporate some medieval stuff in there with Hoccleve. The teaching and submission all being in 1 term is a bit ridiculous in my opinion too.

Paper 7 - Dissertation

- Coursework, submitted Hilary Term, 3rd year

- An 8000 word essay

- Undertaken from the end of 2nd year

- Abstract: 'For my dissertation, I will be examining twelfth-century texts (such as Instructions for Christians and the First Worcester Fragment) that speak back to those from the Anglo-Saxon past, considering inheritance from the poetic and homiletic traditions. Building on and developing from the work of Hugh Magennis, I will look at the way light imagery in such late Old English and Post-Conquest texts functions both literally and metaphorically, and how these two functions intersect. I will also consider how such texts engage in dialogue with material culture, examining artefacts such as The Gloucester Candlestick.'

- It was cool being able to research my own topic and produce something from that research. My supervisor was amazing too!

Overall, I really enjoyed the course. My tutoring, especially from my Balliol tutor, was outstanding - she really did go above and beyond for me. I didn't enjoy the writing of the longer pieces so much but I did enjoy the texts I looked at and it's definitely worthwhile to develop the skill of writing longer pieces I think. I loved the rest of my papers, especially Old English! On the whole it was a great course!

If you have any questions about any of this, feel free to ask!

[oppressiveliberator]

Have you ever been to Sinnoh? Any people or places of interest?

Years of Life Experience | Ask 'Have You Ever’ Questions!

“I’ve been to most every region!  Certainly some are off limits to foreigners, or they were when I was still travelling, but when possible I tried to visit anywhere I could.  The world is a fascinating place--so much to learn, to do, to experience, to discover. . . .

“But, yes, I have been to Sinnoh!  Perhaps. . .20* years ago. . .?  I’ve met plenty of interesting people, but that’s always quite a personal matter, isn’t it?  I’m certain that some of the people I’ve met have led interesting and productive lives. . .but I haven’t exactly checked in recently.  I would, but. . .my current. . .circumstances make doing so somewhat difficult.  But I think I can speak more on places than people.

“Sinnoh is full of mythology--sometimes it seems like it’s even moreso than other regions!  They’re quite religious there, so there are plenty of beautiful cathedrals and other places of worship to see.  I recommend joining them for services if you may--do be respectful, of course, but I personally enjoy such things.  Churches and temples have a wonderful atmosphere of devotion and belief--and sometimes trust, and sometimes fear of the supposed higher powers they stand for. . . .

“Ah, but I digress!  The three lakes--actually said to possibly be connected to Unova in their deepest parts!--are beautiful and make for an interesting trip. . .though I’ve heard that there’d been an incident perhaps ten years ago. . .but surely things have settled some by now. Reaching the caves that are in the center of these lakes is something one will mostly have to attempt on their own, as their being the homes of the lake spirits in Sinnoh--as opposed to the ones here in Unova--make them a sort of sacred place, though they’re unguarded as far as I recall, and when I entered I didn’t find anything, myself.  But mythical and legendary Pokémon are almost always hidden away, aren’t they.  That’s why they’re the stuff of myths and legends and not even believed to exist by many.

“Mt. Coronet and Stark Mountain also make for pleasant trips, and Stark Mountain in particular is good to visit if you grow tired of the cold, myahaha.  If you can make the hike, the Spear Pillar, where Sinnoh Myths say the world began, is fascinating--well, if you like ruins, that is.  It’s quite high up as well--higher than the clouds, even, which keeps it clear of snow despite the snow elsewhere on Mt. Coronet--so do take caution when visiting.  Air density is very, very low when you’re that high up, which means there’s less oxygen to go around.  I imagine that such oxygen deprivation prompted some of the myths that are told of it.

“There’s another interesting, mythological place, but. . .most of the locals seem keen on keeping it quiet and keeping people out of it for fears of what’s supposedly within. . .perhaps it would be wrong of me to tell you to look for it? Myahaha.

“But do be adventurous as with any region!  Sinnoh has many Pokémon you’ll likely find scarce in other regions if you’re a collector or trainer--or somebody who wishes to ‘befriend’ Pokémon, I suppose--so be prepared to explore if that’s what you’re visiting for. The Great Marsh, as I recall, is home to many Pokémon--I believe they'd received approval from the Global League to make it into a Safari zone, so that should surely be done by now.

“The further north you go in Sinnoh, particularly on the east side of the region as it is split by Mt. Coronet, the more you’ll find a greater difference in the regions, culturally and linguistically.  While they primarily share most of the mainland culture and language--the mainland being where Kanto and Johto and so on are--the northern and eastern areas are heavily, and in some places entirely, culturally and linguistically influenced by Russia!  The Battle Zone--an island off the north end of Sinnoh itself--especially shares this connection and is decidedly more Russian than Sinnohan.  While you’ll most certainly find speakers of “West Sinnohan” there, do be aware that you may struggle with communication as many of the towns and cities there speak only in Russian and “East Sinnohan” and they’re unsurprisingly different dialects.“Hm, I believe I went somewhat offtrack there. . . . My apologies.  The combined cultural experience is an amazing one, and I highly recommend visiting the east side of Sinnoh with a guide if you plan on going further north.  And I do recommend going towards Snowpoint, if only to see Lake Acuity and the Snowpoint Temple--although, you’re not permitted to enter the latter unless you’re “chosen.”  The temple guardians will teach you plenty of things, however, and the exterior and surrounding area are beautiful and well-maintained.

“If you’re a battler or a coordinator, the aforementioned Battle Zone is likely where you’d like to visit.  Despite its name battling isn’t the only matter handled there as it is an entire settlement, though with heavy focus on its perhaps most marketable areas.  The Fight and Survival areas are for battlers--the Fight Area is an ideal visit if you’re more of a viewer of battles than a participant, as they do allow audiences to witness many battles within.

“As for Coordinators, the Resort Area is likely more their speed--and surprisingly tropical.  The Ribbon Syndicate is off limits to but the most skilled of coordinators, but it does host audience-attended Pokémon Contests now and then. . .for a modest fee.  I assume it’s one of those places coordinators dream of performing in, though I will admit I don’t know much about the culture and industry behind Pokémon contests, and am more of a casual fan of Beauty and Cleverness Contests.  Of course, there are Contest Halls all about Sinnoh as well!  There’s no need to go to the Battle Zone to see them.

“Truthfully what places of interest you may want to look out for depend on your own interests!  I’m certain I could name many places to go, but they may not be of interest to you.  For example, Route 224 is a largely irrelevant peninsula which ends on a cliff overlooking the sea.  But at a certain time of year, flowers grow on the otherwise rocky cliff and the pollen and overgrowth turns the rock an interesting shade of white.  Among both certain religions and simply local custom, it’s common practice to come to this rock when it’s in its white form, and leave charms and notes of thanks to Shaymin, the Gratitude Pokémon, which are theorized to live there in some capacity.  Of course, I do love my myths and legends, so I find such a place to be a fantastic visit.  Even visitors are welcomed to leave their words of thanks, so it’s something of local culture to be explored.“I’ll also add that, at times, it appears there are flowers in the ocean itself just off the cliff, uninhibited in their growth by the seawater.  They must come quite a ways up to reach the sunlight, given that the sea there is quite deep.  Perhaps they’re expressing their gratitude as well.“Ah!  And on the note of Shaymin! They’re also said to make their home somewhere near Floaroma Town--which I don’t recommend you visit if you have allergies, myahahahaha!  Flowers are in bloom here all throughout the year, supposedly because of Shaymin’s efforts when it was previously barren.  These days, it’s a farming area and produces some of the most fantastic crops and honey one can find in the world--not to mention the variety of flowers!  I remember hearing talk of using the mystically fertile land to hopefully regrow long extinct plants and grass-type Pokémon from all around the world, though I wonder if that ideal ever saw the light of day.

“Celestic Town, the oldest city in Sinnoh, is as traditionally Sinnohan as a place could be.  It’s the best place to go about learning Sinnoh’s history, although it’s such a traditional town in most places that it could be jarring for most modern visitors. . . .”

He exhales, taking in a few breaths.  He hadn’t been talking nonstop or particularly rambling, but he had spoken a lot. . .which he loved to do, but he was beginning to tire of it.  After a long drink, he ended his little recollections.  “Goodness me, I’ve said quite a bit. . .hopefully you can find something you like if you go to Sinnoh.  Your average visitor seems to have mixed feelings about it, but if you know what you’re after and where to look, and you’re prepared for the cultural and linguistic leap across the mountains, you should have a splendid time.”

((*I’m going off real life years just to be lazy because the timeline a GameFreak employee gave us is hard to work with lmao, take this number with a grain of salt?  DPPt released in 2007--Cyrus was 27 in DPPT.  DPPT was roughly 12 years ago real time, so Cyrus would be 39 at present, and he’s implying he met Cyrus when Cyrus was 18 or so years old, when Cyrus was in college.))

[abadzone]

A Weekly Song: Episode 8 - Joe Hisaishi

A Weekly Song: Episode 8

Joe Hisaishi – Procession of the Gods

“When’s he going to do a movie composer?”

“He’s always going on about film soundtracks.”

It’s true, I am, I do. The reason is this – I listen to a hell of a lot of them. I’m an aficionado. When you’re writing and drawing all day and night, whether it’s writing articles for magazines or scripts for other artists, or just drawing your own comics and illustrations, you listen to a lot of music.

About five years ago, other than corporate work, I changed my professional emphasis from both writing and drawing to predominantly writing (largely because I make more money from writing than from doing both. Making comics and graphic novels is slow, hard work where you do about ten jobs for the price of one. Plus, anyone in comics publishing will tell you how little most artists make, but that is not the purpose of this essay so I’ll leave that story and observations on same for another time).

I’ve always found that I can’t listen to music with lyrics or indeed a human voice of any kind while writing – I find it distracting. This leaves instrumental music – Jazz and Classical, sure, Ambient definitely, but most often – soundtracks. Film and TV scores.

Perhaps the reason for this is that the part of my brain that I use to create stories and voices of characters is also the part that listens to and processes speech and singing. I don’t know that for sure, but whatever the reason, because most of my time is now spent writing, there’s much less time to listen to listen to podcasts, talk radio and the like.

When I was doing the more “automatic” tasks in the creation of a page of comics, like lettering, inking or colouring, I always found myself listening to something with a human voice – a play, a podcast, radio documentaries. My inking was actually better, both looser and slicker, if I was slightly distracted by listening to radio plays or discussion of some kind. (Hi, BBC Radio 4, NPR and Big Finish. I miss you.)

Correspondingly, my appetite for soundtracks has increased, but they’ve always been an important – nay, essential part of my creative process. They are both mood setters and emotional emollient, both starting points and helpful compositional markers in the creation of a story.

It goes something like this: you think of a scene, what the purpose of it is, how you want it to play, what the characters are saying and doing and you choose a piece of music that sets the temperature of that set of incidents. I think every book and every comic I’ve ever written has had a temp-track of sorts, a tracklisting that serves as a guide for the mood and atmosphere I’m looking for.

In many cases, this temp-track evolves and changes as the story does, with some pieces of music being dropped in favour of others as the shape of the narrative develops. I imagine it’s a similar process in an editing suite; as you revise and modify the focus of different elements of a story, the linguistic accompaniments necessarily change too. In film or TV, it might be the Foley sounds, a change of emphasis in lighting via colour grading; in comics it might be the layout, the way the guttering of a page affects the pace at which a reader scans it, and where their eye is led; the tempo at which it subtextually guides a reader to the turn of the page and an emotional turning point, all the while preserving a sense of immersion. Every small detail the author employs affects everything else, and everything has to be right and constantly rejigged to create the illusion of the real world within the story.

This is the kind of constant balancing act common to all forms of visual storytelling. While comics don’t have the luxury of sound and motion, it is still a supremely nuanced and sophisticated language in its own right. What I always liked about comics as both art form and means of expression is how accessible they are and that they can be created relatively cheaply in comparison to film or TV. Anyone can make a comic; you really can be a sole creator, whereas film and TV are collaborative media. A graphic novel really can be one person’s creative vision, unlike a film, which although it may be steered by one overall captain, the authorship really is shared by many (despite what the director’s credit would have you believe: “A Film By…”)

I digress. The point is, one art form and means of cultural expression runs into the next; none of them stand alone. Everything influences everything else and in my case, I’d go so far as to say, these days, music probably influences me more in terms of the kinds of stories I like to tell than many other comics do. Storytelling is a free-flowing activity that inhabits every possible mode of human expression.

Obviously, all this means I have a lot of favourite soundtracks and film composers. How to pick one, and just one track from so many, for this week’s song?

Well, first time around, I’m gonna do the easy thing. I’m going straight to someone who supplies music for one of the greats in a related field: animation. The greatest living animator, in my humble opinion, is Hayao Miyazaki. One of Miyazaki’s constant and most consistent collaborators is Mamoru Fujisawa AKA Joe Hisaishi, who has composed scores for every Miyazaki movie but one. Not to compare Miyazaki to a Spielberg or a Lucas, but Hisashi is Miyazaki’s John Williams.

It’s really difficult to pick a favourite Miyazaki film, and equally difficult to pick a Hisaishi score. He is, predictably, a composer who can match the depth, vision and moods of Miyazaki, one who seems as comfortable with experimental electronica as he is with the orchestra.

My admiration for Hisaishi is a fairly usual reaction to his music; sometimes it’s interesting to look at exactly why a composer is beloved. His association with one of the best storytellers in the world is partially the reason, but composers are of course storytellers in their own right. There is a line of thinking that viewers shouldn’t really notice movie music – that it’s a subtextual support to the emotion and action of the story being told onscreen. While there’s an element of truth in that, there are just as many examples to the opposite. What I think a good film score should do is complement and highlight the story, help make it an immersive emotional experience; be textural as opposed to specific. It should help you, the viewer, get caught up in the characters and story without necessarily calling attention to itself, which calls for a lot of nuance and is a very neat balancing act. You can still notice it – I sometimes do, but what’s fascinating about it is that, when it’s working well, I often don’t do it consciously. The opposite is true also – I notice it when it’s intrusive or overly sentimental, signposting emotions rather than being an integral part of them.

Something that interests me is that Hisaishi is on record as thinking many modern Hollywood soundtracks don’t have enough “space” or silence in them – that quiet is as much a tool of the composer as loud is. This is a man whose comprehension of emotional colour and silence as a tone in his palette is second to none. I love his work in film and beyond it (which is why I’m also going to cheat a bit and also recommend his Minima Rhythm series, the first of which you can listen to here).

That’s not today’s pick though, which I agonised over. I almost went for the opening of Princes Mononoke, Attack of the Tatari-Gami, which is both great action music and one of the most sinister themes in animation history. In the end, I settled upon a piece from Spirited Away, which is possibly one of Hisaishi’s most sweeping, yearning scores. 

Variously known as Procession of the Gods (on the US pressing of the soundtrack I have), Procession of the Spirits and The Procession of Celestial Beings, the cue is actually seriously truncated in the movie and not allowed to fully bloom the way it does on the soundtrack album. You’re going to have to take my word for that, because unfortunately there is no official Studio Ghibli channel that I can find on YouTube that showcases Hisaishi’s work, but you can do a search and find several cover versions that attempt to recapture its ominous majesty. Here’s a link to how it sounds in the film, but I’d encourage you to seek out the soundtrack album and listen to it in all its pomp, 

The scene it accompanies is shortly after the main character, a ten-year old girl called Chihiro, finds herself stranded in a magical world. Her parents have turned into pigs (yes) and she attempts to find the tunnel that is a gateway back to her reality, only to find that she is now separated from it by a newly-appeared river. A boat begins crossing the water towards her and this music begins to play, all string-plucked notes and magical portent. There are no visible passengers until the boat hits the shore, where Chihiro stands watching. Doors open, the music swells, heralding the arrival of beings that no human child should witness. They appear as masks that float around head height and, floating above the deck, file off the boat one by one. As they disembark, cloaks flow from the masks, like paint tipped from a bucket, flowing down to describe the shapes of their intangible bodies…

…And Chihiro flees, the music fades. On the soundtrack album it reaches a magnificent crescendo and ends on a playful note, punctuated by human voices. It’s a scene that goes from a foreboding menace to awe and wonder, from fear to celebration and back again.

If you’ve never seen the film, see it. It is far, far from being merely a children’s entertainment and occupies a place among the most visionary films ever made.

I have another version of Procession from the Spirited Away Image Album, which I think might be a demo rather than the more usual “song in character” pieces you get on those kinds of tie-ins (but I can’t read Japanese, so I might be completely wrong about that. Feel free to correct me if so via Twitter or email or if you have any further information about this particularly sumptuous film score).

To get a flavour of Joe Hisaishi’s imaginative brilliance, you can watch and listen to a whole concert here.

More info on Studio Ghibli (n English) available here.