#song be province

[chaosgenasi]

You exist and it doesn’t. You outlived Valor.

[bmpmp3]

i was watching a music video for a japanese song and it had built in youtube english captions so i went to turn those on but then i saw that there was like an option for "English" and then a second option for "English (Canada)" and i realized in a few seconds it was just a workaround to having two sets of english captions, one with colour changes in the lettering and one without for accessibility (the canada one was the non-fancy lettering) but for a moment i was living in a world where they were making dedicated canadian english translations for things..... measuring temperature in celsius and height in feet...... paying with loonies and toonies... going to the WASHROOM

[7oranges]

prepped and ready for normal september

[ruedesfillesducalvaire]

sorry I'm having Post-Seine feelings about these lyrics and idk if anyone else is deranged enough to care but i'm gonna translate for you just in case:

Despite the old bitterness And loves that pass Friends we lose in the fog And ideals that are broken Life clings on and is reborn Like each spring returns In a breath of fresh air That soothes hearts in pain So if it happens that tonight you'd like to stay With me, the night is soft, we can walk And even if we know that everything only lasts a little while I'd like you to be, for a moment, My falling star

notes:

'amertumes' is actually plural, so, 'bitternesses', but that's not a word in English, so....

'la nuit est douce' means 'the night is mild', but the word 'douce' literally means 'soft', and I love that

'mon étoile filante' means 'shooting star' or 'falling star'; I guess 'shooting star' is more common, but 'be my shooting star' in English sounds a bit ridiculous. 'Étoile filante' is so good, shame it doesn't translate the best.

[its-nanse]

my office is hiring a bunch of new people and a lot of them are Russians who recently came into the country to avoid getting drafted to Ukraine. Anyway the guy who's showing them around (also Russian) doesn't bother keeping his voice down and I heard him say "a lot of the employees here are locals unfortunately but it's tolerable"

[chadlesbianjasontodd]

having to calculate and pay quarterly city taxes has to bestow permission to treat the rich suburbs like they are the absolute ass end of nowhere backwardsville. in my opinion.

[she-toadmask]

I have this great amount of respect and affection for massive fan projects.

Like I wander through TVTropes sometimes and there are these musical projects for some video games and pieces of media. Like there's an Ace Attourney musical (not talking about Random Encounters talking about something else), there's a Portal 2 musical, there is some Game of Thrones fan work titled Westeros, I don't remember how I learned about it but some group of people is working on an opera about Majora's Mask. I think there's a fanmade Pokemon theater thing but I might just be thinking about Pokemon Live. I have not listened to any of these but I have so much love in my heart that they exist.

Fan music in general is something worth so much. If it's original you have someone who cares about something enough to create lyrics and music and share it with the world and even parodies have the love put into finding something that matches the lyrics enough to fit in the original timing and sometimes people make new instrumentals to work with.

Anyway where the fuck is the Transformers fan music

[better-inthe-rearview]

the chaos happening rn i can’t

[queeringthethumbring]

alina, in the midst of getting arrested (again): *shakes her ass at fucking yin vaisra*

vaisra: someone please get that bitch under control

nezha: oh now i'm really going to kill you

[ihatetheinternetandeveryoneonit]

How I HC Valenwood

[aideshou]

Someone badly translated Ah Guai Lo

[iamthedukeofurl]

Scott Pilgrim is, I think, the best example I can think of for establishing a setting's Nonsense Limit. The setting's Nonsense Limit isn't quite "How high-fantasy is this". It's mostly a question of presentation, to what degree does the audience feel that they know the rules the world operates by, such that they are primed to accept a random new element being introduced. A setting with a Nonsense Limit of 0 is, like, an everyday story. Something larger than life, but theoretically taking place in our world, like your standard spy thriller action movie has a limit of 1. Some sort of hidden world urban fantasy with wizards and stuff operating in secret has a nonsense limit around 3 or 4. A Superhero setting, presenting an alternate version of our world, is a 5 or 6. High fantasy comes in around a 7 or so, "Oh yeah, Wizards exist and they can do crazy stuff" is pretty commonly accepted. Scott Pilgrim comes in at a 10. If you read the Scott Pilgrim book, it starts off looking like a purely mundane slice of life. The first hint at the fantastical is Ramona appearing repeatedly in Scott's Dreams, and then later showing up in real life. When we finally get an explanation, it's this:

Apparently Subspace Highways are a thing? And they go through people's heads? And Ramona treats this like it's obscure, but not secret knowledge. Ramona doesn't think she's doing anything weird here. At this point, it's not clear if Scott is accepting Ramona's explanation or not, things kind of move on as mundane as ever until their Date, when Ramona takes Scott through subspace, and he doesn't act like his world was just blown open or anything, although I guess that could have been a metaphor. there's a couple other moments, but everything with Ramona could be a metaphor, or Scott not recognizing what's going on. Maybe Ramona is uniquely fantastical in this otherwise normal world. And then, this happens

Suddenly, a fantastical element (A shitty local indie band finishing their set with a song that knocks out most of the audience) is introduced unrelated to Ramona, and undeniably literal. We see the crowd knocked out by Crash and The Boys. but the story doesn't linger on the implications of that, the whole point of that sequence is to raise the Nonsense Level, such that you accept it when This happens

Matthew Patel comes flying down onto the stage, Scott, who until this point is presented as a terrible person and a loser, but otherwise is extremely ordinary, proceeds to flawlessly block and counter him before doing a 64-hit air juggle combo. Scott's friends treat this like Scott is showing off a mildly interesting party trick, like being really good at darts. The establish that Scott is the "Best Fighter in the Province", not only are street-fighter battles a thing, Scott is Very Good at it, but they're so unimportant that being the best fighter in the province doesn't make Scott NOT a loser. So when Matthew Patel shows off his magic powers and then explodes into a pile of coins, we've established "Oh, this is how silly the setting gets". It's not about establishing the RULES of the setting so much as it is about establishing a lack of rules. Scott's skill at street-fighter battles doesn't translate to any sort of social prestige. Ramona can access Subspace Highways and she uses it to do a basic delivery job. It doesn't make sense and it's clear that it's not supposed to. So later on, when Todd Ingram starts throwing around telekinesis, and the explanation we're given is "He's a Vegan" , you're already so primed by the mixture of weirdness and mundanity that rather than trying to incorporate this new knowledge into any sort of coherent setting ruleset, you just go "Ah, yeah, Vegans".

[allisonreader]

4, 5, 12, 13, 48? :)

48. Who’s an artist you think it’s criminally underrated and deserves more recognition?

Not a single artist per say, but Home Free as an entire group I would say are. They're an acapella group who are country, they have some pretty incredible song writers within the group. I enjoy their original music more than their covers, and their covers are incredible. Tim Foust; the bass singer of the group has written the hilarious song Champagne Taste on a Beer Budget. And I don't remember which one of them wrote it, but on their mostly original album Dive Bar Saints, my absolute favourite song of theirs is Catch Me if You Can. They have some original Christmas music that's fun too, like Full of Cheer and Cold Hard Cash. Both are rather funny, and Cold Hard Cash is extremely catchy.

13. Who’s the most popular/mainstream artist you listen to?

Perhaps Shania Twain. Unless we go even further back, but Shania is probably the most frequent and broadest of who's music I listen to. (But none of her stuff newer than her album Now. I don't really care for her newer stuff.)

12. Who’s the most obscure artist you listen to?

It might be Home Free. Maybe Colter Wall, but I don't listen to him a lot. Home Free is probably more accurate.

5. Is there a song you don't like but like its music video?

Probably Safe and Sound by Capital Cities. The song annoys me greatly for some reason. Mainly the refrain of safe and sound throughout the song. My annoyance does feel a little irrational, but it's there. The music video is more enjoyable than the song, but still not my favourite.

4. Is there a song you love but don't like its music video?

There's always the possibility of one being out there, but I wouldn't be able to tell you at this moment.

[gladiatordonut]

there are lots of hot takes on the subject of "americans being completely uninterested in the rest of the world" subject but mine is that in addition to just learning basic world geography they should at least look into learning about the provinces of canada and states of mexico because we share land borders with you + are massive trading partners

[niteshade925]

April 20, Beijing, China, National Museum of China/中国国家博物馆 (Part 1 - Dehua white porcelain exhibition/德化白瓷展):

Aaand finally, the National Museum of China/中国国家博物馆! I was lucky enough to see the famed Dehua white porcelain exhibition/德化白瓷展 here. Some of you may recognize some of these pieces already, since pictures and shorts of them have been circulating online way before I went on this trip, but there are many many other pieces too. The pieces I post here are only a small portion of the entire exhibition, so if you ever get a chance to see the exhibition elsewhere in person, don't hesitate. This stuff is amazing.

First up is one of the two that has been gaining popularity online, the piece named 神话 or "Legend".

The first time I saw a porcelain piece like this, I thought that the clothing part was made with paper? But no, the light fabric of the clothing, the hair, it's all porcelain. Keep in mind when looking through these pictures: every part of every piece is porcelain.

This piece is the other one that was becoming popular, the piece named simply 纸, or "Paper". If you don't look up close and see the glossy surface, you can't tell it's actually porcelain. I cannot for the life of me imagine the kind of magic that was used to turn clay into this

Anyway, this is a good point to introduce Dehua porcelain a little bit. Dehua porcelain is a regional specialty of Dehua/德化, which is located in Fujian province, and is known for its expressiveness and white color. For this reason it's also known in the West as "Blanc de Chine" (French: "white of China"), and this should be the reason why this exhibition is named 中国白, which basically means the same thing. The history of Dehua porcelain goes back to Song dynasty (960 - 1279), and it is still being produced today. Many of the pieces I'm posting here are modern pieces.

But Dehua white porcelain can be colored too (I imagine the color must be painted on later, because the white comes from the clay itself), and when it is colored, it looks like it came right out of a painting

This piece is especially amazing to me. Look at the texture, look at those details. Zoom in and you will find that there are actually a bunch of porcelain ants on this porcelain tree stump. Porcelain ants. I never expected to use porcelain as an adjective when describing ants. Wtf. It's like a manifestation of a scene from an older animated movie.

Peanuts are called 花生 in Chinese, which literally means "flower grow", and because it also has a long shelf life, it symbolizes longevity and a happy marriage. Also a fun fact: because Watson of Sherlock Holmes is usually phoenetically translated as 华生 (huá shēng) in Chinese and sounds similar to 花生 (huā shēng), you will find that many in the Chinese SH fandom refers to Watson as "peanut".

This piece is titled 春色满园, or "garden filled with spring scenery". This is also a common 4-character word used to describe gardens in spring. I'm guessing the figure depicted here is one of the flower gods. It is one of my personal favorites because of its superb depiction of movement, it's as if the flower god will really fly away on clouds at any moment

More depictions of traditional Chinese deities, specifically Chang'e/嫦娥, the moon goddess. That moon rabbit is too cute.

Depictions of what I'm assuming is the Four Heavenly Kings/四大天王, based on the items they are holding. The Four Heavenly Kings are Buddhist deities.

Look at her clothing! That porcelain is so thin it's almost see-through! Also is it depicting Li Qingzhao/李清照, the famous female poet from Song dynasty? She does have a famous ci poem that's about paddling a boat in a lake full of lotuses while drunk

The piece titled 锦绣前程, or "future as vibrant and prosperous as silk brocade". This is also a common 4-character word used in well wishing. The figure in this piece is holding a xiuqiu/绣球, a ball made of silk, which was usually seen as a token of love

Somewhat more modern-themed pieces:

Among the hundreds of amazing pieces, this one caught my attention for its unique texture. When everyone else was trying to turn the clay into these thin sheets representing fabric or paper or flower petals, this artist took the noodle approach. Not many visitors seemed to like it, but I think it's pretty cool

Piece titled 运势如虹, or "fortune like the rainbow", also a 4-character word used in well wishing. Traditionally horses symbolize vitality and success, hence why many people use the words 马到成功 ("horse's arrival brings success") and 龙马精神 ("vitality of dragons and horses") in well wishes during Year of the Horse

Stay tuned for Part 2 of the Dehua white porcelain exhibition!

[harbingrs]

It's best to make the time up, you spent it lost Like I wasn't waiting, honest to god

I tried to join your lines up, you let me not Like I wasn't saying, honest to god

Hear me out Lay low

Let it be static Be without Let go