#her. like ive NEVER done that before

[thebigqueer]

I saw your response to the other anon, was there really no indication that she wanted to break up before she did? In my experience, people can be really good at pretending... Which sucks to say, but I just find your situation really baffling, so I'm curious

yeah there was genuinely no indication at all!!!! which is why im so shocked and hurt about it. and youre right people definitely can be good at pretending but i guess its just so sad to me because the entirety of summer she was so genuine about wanting to spend time together during fall sem & she seemed so excited to do so many things together this sem which is why me & all my friends (and even her friends) are so surprised by it because literally everyone knew how much we liked each other. i know she has a tendency to overthink and the day she broke up with me she said "ideally i would have brought it up earlier in teh summer but it was something id really been thinking about for the past week" which is also why i guess im a little irrittaed? because if it was something shed seriously been considering for only a week (and mind you, this was like the one week we werent able to consistently talk over video call) then how did she know it wouldnt get resolved over the fall semester when we ACTUALLY get to spend tiem together you know?? like i really wish shed maybe given us a chance to work it out??? instead of just ending it before we could even get a chance??? she said she didnt feel an emotional connection and we could work it out over fall but she didnt think it was fair for me to put in effort cuz that would feel unfair but its like. she doesnt even know half the things id do for her. if she told me she was felling this way i would have tried my best to do whatever it was to make her feel more comfortable. all of this to say im not trying to send any hate her way & for anyone on here who actually cares about this (im surprised im getting anons about this lol - not in a bad way im just surprised people are actually reading these posts) i dont want anyone to think that im pissed at her about all this. im just generally irritated at the situation but i dont mean any harm her way and i really care about her and i know she cared about me too. i can overthink as much as i want but at the end of the day i know she meant it when she said she cared about me and shes never been bad to me at all so im not trying to spread rumors or speculate about her thinking process in any way, its just my own feelings about the whole break up. the entire situation is just so like... shocking. like NO ONE saw this coming - i dont even think she saw this coming until the end of the summer.

[choccy-milky]

herbology class 🌹🌿 (from chap 2 of my fic!)

[shkika]

and then the memories is all you have

[soriastrider]

john and jane! i don't draw them very often so i figured it was their turn :)

[rivalmelty]

experimental higugin

[vigilskeep]

gotta get on with broken circle

[rewritingcanon]

merula’s response after seeing mc get mad at her:

…fruity as hell

[lucydacusgirl]

🧛‍♀️Vogues 73 questions with the vampire 🧛‍♀️

I bought this 2012 signature draculaura off vinted without clothes so I recreated her original signature outfit (with creative liberties) because I’ve always wanted this doll <3 I got the shoes off vinted as well and used sharpie to add the silver bits. I drafted the pattern for her top myself using a basic pattern for a tight fitting blouse. I used fabric samples to make the top and the tights and I made the skirt using ribbons and trim. The earrings are some wire and some charms that I bought on etsy :) I’m v happy with her I feel like I’ve fulfilled a childhood dream.

[theonlyle]

Concepts im working on for my SVTFOE au:3

[longagoitwastuesday]

So so indebted to u for posting those lovely illustrations from Cyrano <333 & even more so for yr tags!! I'm completely in love w yr analysis, please feel free to ramble as long as u wish! Browsing through yr Cyrano de Bergerac tag has given me glimpses of so many adaptations & translations I'd never heard of before! I'll be watching the Solès version next, which I have only discovered today through u ^_^ As for translations, have u read many/all of them? I've only encountered the Renauld & Burgess translations in the wild, & I was curious to hear yr translation thoughts that they might guide my decision on which one I buy first (not necessarily Renauld or Burgess ofc). Have a splendid day & sorry for the likespam! 💙

Sorry for the delay. Don't mind the likespam, I'm glad you enjoyed my tags about Cyrano, and that they could contribute a bit to a further appreciation of the play. I loved it a lot, I got obsessed with it for months. It's always nice to know other people deeply love too that which is loved haha I hope you enjoy the Solès version, it may well be my favourite one!

About translations, I'm touched you're asking me, but I don't really know whether mine is the best opinion to ask. I have read... four or five English translations iirc, the ones I could find online, and I do (and especially did, back when I was reading them) have a lot of opinions about them. However, nor English nor French are my first languages (they are third and fourth respectively, so not even close). I just read and compare translations because that's one of my favourite things to do.

The fact is that no translation is perfect, of course. I barely remember Renauld's, but I think it was quite literal; that's good for understanding the basics of the text, concepts and characters, but form is subject, and there's always something that escapes too literal translations. Thomas and Guillemard's if I recall correctly is similar to Hooker's in cadence. It had some beautiful fragments, some I preferred over Hooker's, but overall I think to recall I liked Hooker's more. If memory serves, Hooker's was the most traditionally poetic and beautiful in my opinion. Burgess' is a whole different thing, with its perks and drawbacks.

Something noticeable in the other translations is that they are too... "epic". They do well the poetic, sorrowful, grief stricken, crushed by regrets aspects of Cyrano and the play in general, but they fall quite short in the funny and even pathetic aspects, and that too is key in Cyrano, both character and play. Given the characteristics of both languages, following the cadence of the French too literally, with those long verses, makes an English version sound far too solemn at times when the French text isn't. Thus Burgess changes the very cadence of the text, adapting it more to the English language. This translation is the one that best sets the different moods in the play, and as I said before form is subject, and that too is key: after all, the poetic aspect of Cyrano is as much true as his angry facet and his goofy one. If Cyrano isn't funny he isn't Cyrano, just as he wouldn't be Cyrano without his devotion to Roxane or his insecurities; Cyrano is who he is precisely because he has all these facets, because one side covers the other, because one trait is born from another, because one facet is used as weapon to protect the others, like a game of mirrors and smoke. We see them at different points through the play, often converging. Burgess' enhances that. He plays with the language itself in form and musicality, with words and absences, with truths masking other truths, with things stated but untold, much like Cyrano does. And the stage directions, poetic and with literary value in their own right in a way that reminded me of Valle Inclán and Oscar Wilde, interact with the text at times in an almost metatextual dimension that enhances that bond Cyrano has with words, giving them a sort of liminal air and strengthening that constant in the play: that words both conceal and unveil Cyrano, that in words he hides and words give him away.

But not all is good, at all. Unlike Hooker, Burgess reads to me as not entirely understanding every facet of the characters, and as if he didn't even like the play all that much, as if he had a bit of a disdainful attitude towards it, and found it too mushy. Which I can understand, but then why do you translate it? In my opinion the Burgess' translation does well bending English to transmit the different moods the French text does, and does pretty well understanding the more solemn, cool, funny, angry, poetic aspects of Cyrano, but less so his devotion, vulnerability, insecurities and his pathetism. It doesn't seem to get Roxane at all, how similar she is to Cyrano, nor why she has so many admirers. It does a very poor job at understanding Christian and his value, and writes him off as stupid imo. While I enjoyed the language aspect of the Burgess translation, I remember being quite angry at certain points reading it because of what it did to the characters and some changes he introduces. I think he did something very questionable with Le Bret and Castel-Jaloux, and I remember being incensed because of Roxane at times (for instance, she doesn't go to Arras in his version, which is a key scene to show just how much fire Roxane has, and that establishes several parallels with Cyrano, in attitude and words, but even in act since she does a bit what Cyrano later does with the nuns in the last act), and being very angry at several choices about Christian too. While not explicitly stated, I think the McAvoy production and the musical both follow this translation, because they too introduce these changes, and they make Christian as a character, and to an extent the entire play, not make sense.

For instance, once such change is that Christian is afraid that Roxane will be cultured (McAvoy's version has that infamous "shit"/"fuck" that I detest), when in the original French it's literally the opposite. He is not afraid she will be cultured, he is afraid she won't, because he does love and appreciate and admires those aspects of her, as he appreciates and admires them in Cyrano. That's key! Just as Cyrano longs to have what Christian has, Christian wants the same! That words escape him doesn't mean he doesn't understand or appreciate them. The dynamics make no sense without this aspect, and Burgess (and the productions that directly or indirectly follow him) constantly erases this core trait of Christian.

Another key moment of Christian Burgess butchers is the scene in Arras in which Christian discovers the truth. Burgess writes their discussion masterfully in form, it's both funny and poignant, but it falls short in concept: when Cyrano tells him the whole discussion about who does Roxane love and what will happen, what they'll do, is academic because they're both going to die, Christian states that dying is his role now. This destroys entirely the thing with Christian wanting Roxane to have the right to know, and the freedom to choose, or to refuse them both. As much as Cyrano proclaims his love for truth and not mincing words even in the face of authority, Cyrano is constantly drunk on lies and mirages, masks and metaphors. It's Christian who wants it all to end, the one who wants real things, the one who wants to risk his own happiness for the chance of his friend's, as well as for the woman he loves to stop living in a lie. That is a very interesting aspect of Christian, and another aspect in which he is written as both paralleling and contrasting Cyrano. It's interesting from a moral perspective and how that works with the characters, but it's also interesting from a conceptual point of view, both in text and metatextually: what they hold most dear, what they most want, what most fulfills them, what they most fear, their different approaches to life, but also metatextually another instance of that tears/blood motif and its ramifications constant through the whole text. Erasing that climatic decision and making him just simply suicidal erases those aspects of Christian and his place in the Christian/Cyrano/Roxane dynamic, all for plain superficial angst, that perhaps hits more in the moment, but holds less meaning.

Being more literal, and more solemn, Hooker's translation (or any of the others, but Hooker's seems to love the characters and understand them) doesn't make these conceptual mistakes. Now, would I not recommend reading Burgess' translation? I can't also say that. I had a lot of fun reading it, despite the occasional anger and indignation haha Would I recommend buying it? I recommend you give an eye to it first, if you're tempted and can initially only buy one.

You can read Burgess' translation entirely in archive.com. You can also find online the complete translations of Renauld, Hooker and Thomas and Guillemard. I also found a fifth one, iirc, but I can't recall it right now (I could give a look). You could read them before choosing, or read your favourite scenes and fragments in the different translations, and choose the one in which you like them better. That's often what I do.

Edit: I've checked to make sure and Roxane does appear in Arras in the translation. It's in the introduction in which it is stated that she doesn't appear in the production for which the translation was made. The conceptualisation of Roxane I criticise and that in my opinion is constant through the text does stay, though.

[britneyshakespeare]

My toxic trait is that I like how my incomplete drawings look better than the finished things

[nerdie-faerie]

Just when I think the day's going well, I crash a golf cart

[nihilismtrcit]

new legacy founder for @acuar-io‘s zodiac challenge? it’s more likely than you think

[murdleandmarot]

hai!! 11, 12, and 28 for the character ask game if youre still doin it!!! i love to hear about bluebelle any day :3

hi hello!!! I am still doing the ask game :)) thank you for sending something in and showing interest in Bluebelle 🥺 it means a lot lol

11. Bluebelle LOVES to dance. It would probably border on obsessive if not for Victoria, but it’s just genuinely her favorite thing to do in the world. Another habit or hobby she has is wandering around. This happened a lot before the music box fiasco, but she used to love exploring the city and poking around inside empty buildings.

12. Bluebelle doesn’t usually have a temper? She’s patient with her friends and other people, but not so much with herself, especially when it comes to dancing. She hates conflict a lot, so even if she has reached the end of her fuse, it would take a lot to get her to snap and say something.

28. When Bluebelle gets nervous she fidgets with her braids. Pulling at them, running them between her fingers, etc. if she’s really stressed about something she might chew on the ends of them, but only when she’s nervous to the point of tears.

A coping mechanism of hers is dancing, but this isn’t always the healthiest, because, as mentioned before, it can really quickly become obsessive for her. But if she has Victoria there to regular and help her calm down, (Vicci has that effect in general), she’ll be alright :)

[tar-quin]

it only took 28 years but i was finally asked if i wanted to go grab a coffee

[citrlet]

very sad this morning seeing Ryan and Shane leaving youtube to start yet another exclusive subscription service :/