#it's FASCINATING to me

[neversetyoufree]

I just had a thought. What if our lovely Machina's real name is Carmilla? It definitely fits the lady-loving vampire theme we've got there.

Oh, interesting thought!

Besides being very wlw, Carmilla is also quite an early example of vampires in literature. It has predecessors, but aside from The Vampyre by Polidori (which kicked off literary vamps in the first place), the only one generally cited as having a major influence on the genre is the penny dreadful Varney the Vampire, the source for the name Francis Varney. In other words, August Ruthven and Francis Varney currently have names pulled from just about the earliest possible examples of literary vampires. That means that making Francis's real name Carmilla, Varney's immediate followup in the timeline of major pre-Dracula vampire works, would be a nice touch to keep all that consistent.

I can't think of many connections yet between Machina and the story of Carmilla itself yet besides the queerness, but still. Fun theory!

[semperama]

Is it really a Buddie fic if there isn't a post-kiss spit string?

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

you never know what you'll get (the weather report is always wrong)

sometimes I feel like I could spontaneously combust

light up and let go

burn for a while and maybe it'll be so hot it gets cold

cool off and set it free

nobody in the world with me but me

freeze to death and burn back to life

dawn of the final days

when everything else is gonna fade away

the ambiguity is the charm, third season around

for once I'm the one who stays

what will the weather be like today?

either I end up burnt to a crisp or with frostbitten hands

one way is a light

the other just happens in the night

~ xoxo, Love yoU

[anaalnathrakhs]

nobody understands edancy like i do. it’s about a guy who feels like hot shit for not living up to the real world VS a girl who showed up to the real world with a shotgun and full intent to use it. it’s about growing up and leaving the small world you’ve been constrained in but struggle to let go of. it’s about learning from one another. it’s about admiration, jealousy, envy. it’s about slowly learning to understand and respect each other. it’s about the mismatched paces of self-actualization they go through. it’s about love, it’s all about love, it’s about loving someone, it’s about unrequited love, it’s about the bond that forms between people who match like two incredibly fucked up jigsaw pieces, it’s about looking up, and looking forward, and hoping, and bettering oneself, it’s about hate and rage and freaking out. it’s about big emotions and catharsis and changing irrevocably for better or for worse. it’s about two people looking into each other’s eyes from afar and sharing that fleeting moment of recognition.

[intcritus]

this old man has taken over my brain.

[asteracaea]

trying to compose a post about haylor lore and their continued (presumed) references to each other but my brain isn't cooperating tonight

[moonmoonthecrabking]

cinderella has the lowest high note of all the disney princesses and like. doesn't that just sound fake? you'd think that because she's the second disney princess, and sandwiched by the two highest singers (snow white and aurora), she'd also sing pretty high but. no. she is the most solidly an alto of all of them. anyway i stan my alto queen.

[hearts-hunger]

YOUR TAGS ABOUT SAM ON THAT VIDEO IS 100% CORRECT AND YOU SHOULD SAY IT LOUDER

THANK YOU KAIT I KNEW SOMEBODY WOULD BE ON MY WAVELENGTH ABOUT THAT <333

[goldensunset]

did you know? if you do your laundry you can get your clothes back

[aparticularbandit]

Based on this post, I just want to pop off a little bit on translation. Specifically in reference to Bible translation.

Because like - the reason you see so many Bible translations comes down to whether the translators are word-for-word or whether they're going for translating the idea (which can come with a lot of bias based on what they think the idea is supposed to be, although word choice in a word-for-word can also be biased). And there's a wide spectrum of this, right? So some people will read segments across multiple translations to understand what's being said better.

And like you can run into footnotes that explain things!

I'm gonna pick on a specific instance because I've been in John 12 recently and this helped me a lot (now that I've actually, you know, the math of the thing).

So - in John 12:3, Mary annoints Jesus feet with "a pound of fragrant oil—pure and expensive nard" (HCSB). In John 12:4, Judas asks why she didn't sell it for 300 denarii, and the note says that a denarii is equal to a day's wage for a common laborer. Another states that 300 denarii is about a year's wages.

And like. I'd read the first note and think that's 300 days of work and then the second and if I was paying attention (I have not been, apparently), that's a year's worth of work. And it flies over my head.

But like.

The federal minimum wage is $7.25. Think of that as the base, the lowest we can get legally. (I know there are people who are paid less. I'm still using this as my base.) I don't know how much higher on the totem pole a common laborer would be, but so like - again, that's a base. It could be more! It also could be less. We're estimating here.

Assuming 52 weeks a year. 5 days a week. 8 hours a day. For a full year.

$7.25 × 8 hrs = $58 a day.

$58 × 5 days = $290 a week.

$290 × 52 weeks = $15,080 a year.

(That's before taxes and also 7 days a week over 52 weeks is only 364 days. But you get the point.)

Mary did what now.

Mary annointed Jesus' feet with oil that cost how much.

And this is like me making an estimate, please don't take my estimate as Scripture (when translating I tend to word-to-word for mental health reasons because I don't want to feel like I'm changing Scripture, you know).

But like - that's the difference between word-to-word and footnotes and localization.

And it is really about - what's the point of your translation? If its point is to help your reader have the greatest understanding of what's being written, how do you do that? How do you help your reader understand, to the greatest extent, what is going on here? What's its purpose?

And when translating Scripture, it's really hard to say what the best way of doing that is, particularly if you're wanting to avoid bias in a translation. Word-to-word might be better for that, but it can be rough to understand. As a reader, what are you sacrificing, what are you losing? Etc.

Anyway.

Thoughts.

[theglizzardwizard]

The parasocial longing to take her hand and tell her that she doesn't have to live like this. The equally strong parasocial longing to tell her what her "friends" said to me on anon about her. And then the stronger desire to hit her with a car.

[eydilily]

would you bite the hand that feeds you?

[bookshelfpassageway]

yknow i dont go here but sometimes i gotta go: seriously respect clowns. they have the worst pop culture representation in the world and also the best most thorough honor code. they're just here to be silly little guys who bring joy and are very conscientious about doing so responsibly. let them to their merriment in peace you dont hafta take potshots. i dont go here but like maybe i should, you all seem super chill

[notherpuppet]

How the old timey prick got his pet

[valtsv]

obsessed with the idea of time as a physical location. the way you can use "back then" and "back there" interchangeably. time "travel". old memories being described as "distant", as if where they took place corresponds with when. the way that being unable to let go of the past is referred to as an inability to "move on". death, the cessation of motion of both body and time for the affected individual, being a point of "rest". the past is another country; they do things differently there.

[platoapproved]

armand & louis playing out echoes of his relationship with marius