#stylisation is HARD for no reason bro

[the-gene-mile]

still figuring out how to draw these kids

[positivelybeastly]

X-Men #4

On time for once!

Let's do this.

Hmm. Not quite sure how I feel about this? Admittedly, Illyana is a character about whom I know relatively little in the grand scheme of things, but given that she's been fighting for control of Limbo for a while, been a protege of Scott Summers, and was a War Captain on Krakoa, I would think her tactical skills would be up to snuff enough that she could be half decent at chess?

That being said, the trope that tactical ability can be measured by chess ability isn't one that I think has to be followed. It's as much a test of logic as it is of tactical planning and forethought, and between Illyana's more chaotic nature and her lack of formal schooling, maybe it's just the case that she would rather show you how good she is in the field than go on about chess ability. And I can think of a good reason why she would choose to play chess with the person she has blocked, rather than any other game.

Anyway!

Trevor Fitzroy isn't allowed his weird little gremlin bro-pal possible love interest guy Bantam anymore, because of woke. (I know fuckin' nothing about Fitzroy, incidentally, this is based off of their weird relationship in that one X-Men: TAS episode I watched.)

And yeah, what WAS Krakoa all about, huh? Where DID all those babies that got abandoned go?

. . . Well, anyway!

Hank, chairs are for sitting on, not perching on . . .

It's interesting that we're doing split team issues - clearly, this run is taking cues from New X-Men not just in terms of some of its plot points, but also some of its structure; there were multiple arcs that focused exclusively on Charles and Jean, or Logan, Scott and Fantomex, with the rest of the team in the ether. It's not a bad way to tackle a team of this size, and given the news that both Magik and Psylocke are getting ongoing solo series, I'm less worried about them getting focus in a team book now.

Where is the Marauder, incidentally? I can't imagine you need that for a psychic rescue? Unless Max is using it, I suppose. Something that'll come up in #5, I imagine.

It's a sign of just how poisoned the discourse about Hank McCoy is that I saw multiple comments on Reddit saying that this scene heralded a return to evil Beast, because he also didn't like to go out on field missions and would regard his work as more important.

That being said, this reaction was weird to me, given that this Hank comes from an era where he was at his most pro-active, heroic, and willing to fight for people he didn't know - until I read the Infinity Comics, which made it all make a good degree more sense.

Hank isn't being cowardly or showing a case of poor priorities; no, instead, he appears not to trust himself, and he'd rather not place what he perceives to be a volatile, potentially morally untrustworthy element (himself) into a live situation. Working on Magneto's illness is a cut and dry net good with no downsides, so it makes sense he'd want to keep working on that, especially if Hank has reason to believe a similar condition could affect any one of them at any time.

Not sure I love Illyana's antagonism towards Rogue here? Feels kinda like it came out of nowhere and is just being done to foreshadow the upcoming 4 part crossover where these two teams come to a head. Scott's frustration with Rogue's attack on Graymalkin in #3 felt a bit more naturalistic than this.

Idie icesliding like that really does make me wonder if MacKay also wanted Iceman for this team but he was earmarked for Eve Ewing's Exceptional book. I doubt it, just because MacKay's done some really good, pointed work with Idie, which continues in this issue, but the visual parallel is just hard to get out of my brain.

I missed this Hank, a lot.

Also, good time to note that we do have a different artist here! Netho Diaz's style isn't a million miles away from Ryan Stegman's, so it's not a very jarring shift, and I do like how Diaz renders a lot of these characters - less heavily stylised, but heavily styilised isn't always to everyone's taste, so I feel like this was a good pick of fill-in artist.

Man. Have I mentioned I missed this Hank, a LOT? That happy little smile on his face in the bottom right panel really does delight me.

Still not quite the bouncing effervescence of Defenders Hank, but this is still very solidly 90s Hank, who I do rather enjoy, especially when he's in the hands of a writer who knows when to really let his loquacious qualities out to play, and when to let brevity be the soul of wit.

Idie's really come a long way since Wolverine & the X-Men, and I'm really, honestly, very happy to see it. She's coming from a place of real experience and wisdom and the struggle of loving yourself in what can feel like a loveless world, and I hope MacKay continues to showcase her maturation and development. Considering how worried I was that she'd be wallpaper in this series, this is encouraging stuff.

If you had asked me which member of this team of X-Men I expected to give what amounts to a really popping Batman speech, I would not have picked Cain Marko, but this feels real and earned in light of his genuine Krakoan redemption. The elevation from avatar of destruction to protector, to bodyguard, to living target, is fucking awesome.

Yeah, work that pole, Hank.

That being said, this dialogue does still sound kinda weird for Hank. This feels a little more like X-Force Beast than anything else, so I'm wondering if this is a seed of something, or if Hank is just kinda frustrated that what feels like a side quest popped up just as he was about to progress the main quest and enter act 2. God knows that if I woke up in the morning and found out I had to tangle with Trevor Fitzroy and the Upstarts, I would also be a little annoyed - this feels a little bottom of the barrel for the X-Men.

The X-Men fandom at large just heaved a great sigh and said, in unison, "Oh, this fucker."

Not the AoA geneticist I would have wanted to see in this book, but I'll take it, I suppose. Hopefully we get an explanation about where this guy came from, because I was fairly certain he was dead? Not that that's ever stopped anyone before, but just, you know, so we can put it on the Wiki and all.

Laksa! Apparently a spicy noodle dish, usually made with thick rice noodles, with toppings such as chicken, straw, or fish - that being said, given we were told that Glob is a vegetarian and that he therefore only cooks vegetarian, I have to imagine this might be a coconut soup laksa that might include eggs, deep-fried tofu, beansprouts, and herbs, or some variation thereof.

Hank definitely seems to approve. :)

God, please tell me that Colossus is going to join the team, I would absolutely love for Jed MacKay to get to work on our beefy Russian lad, he deserves some TLC after the trauma conga line that was Krakoa and the years before that.

Interesting that he's a blocked number and yet they're still interacting, but then again, I have a browser extension that blocks Reddit on my computer, and I still go on Reddit, so maybe that rings truer than I'd like to admit.

This leads me to my guess as to the reason of why chess - it's playable long distance, and doesn't require any elaboration on moves. You just say the piece and where you're moving them to. Something easy to play with someone who doesn't feel communicative. A way of talking without really talking.

All in all, a decent issue, but it definitely feels more in line with #2 than #1 or #3 - I almost have to wonder if the edict to double ship issues came down, and MacKay felt more able to decompress things and spread them out across multiple issues as a result, especially since I think that, if this were paced more tightly, we'd be progressing through the plot fairly quickly.

If we're taking New X-Men as the blueprint, Morrison would absolutely have squished the last four issues into two - but they weren't double shipping, so.

If we're looking at odd numbers being the plot heavy, characterisation heavy issues, and the evens being action and a bit more 'filler' issues, then I don't think that's an awful structure - I just think that, in a world where single issues cost $3-4 a pop, people might start skipping the even numbered issues in an effort to save money. This might read better in trades, which feels A) bad to say, and also B) increasingly common about modern comics. Not sure how I feel about it.

[project-paranoia]

Live Watch: S.C.I. Mystery Episode One

I enjoy camp because I've always enjoyed analysis and examination.  I enjoy looking at something from all sides, testing it with my fingertips. When I was a child I would sit for hours just looking at something until I had it all held in my mind and I felt like I understood it.  Camp necessitates that understanding the way that imitation and - good - parody requires it.  To quote Susan Sontag - who articulated what camp is so well - Camp is "a sensibility that revels in artifice, stylisation, theatricalisation, irony, playfulness, and exaggeration rather than content."  Because of this camp takes on head to head gender, sexuality, expectations, any sort of defined norm and sequins it up then shakes it down until understanding comes out.  When understanding something there are three major ways to work your investigation - what it is, what it's imitation is - the close but not quite, and what it isn't.  Camp handles all three, to quote again: "Camp sees everything in quotation marks. It's not a lamp, but a 'lamp; not a woman, but a 'woman.'"

Why are we talking about camp?  Because SCI Mystery is some of the best kind of camp outside of drag or screaming about wire hangers.  It deals a lot with mental illness in a way that would destroy a serious show, but in this one "mental illness" is a metaphor for being marginalised and a way to talk about the mouse and cat in the room.  This show is about being queer.  About being gay loudly and quietly, about resisting specific labels and needing them, about the threat of a cure and the blessing of acceptance.  All the messy realities of queer life as varied as queer people. Like Lil Nas X's Montero, you can appreciate the effort without being comfortable with it. While the show's allegory of mental illness when many queer people are still told they are ill is done well and there is reason to the choices and tone, things are said which can be hard to hear.  Knowing they're there because they're hard to hear and have been heard doesn't help everyone.

With all that said, it's also a fun, silly bl drama.  Don't let the analysis scare you off.  While the information about camp can be something to be aware of, all this show requires to be enjoyed is a willingness to be amused and spooked in turns.

You know the drill, spoilers below!

* I have memorised the youku sound, I have a triggered response with it. Not all triggers are bad, this one reminds me of Guardian

* Welcome to episode one where we just leap in!  But don't worry, one of them has a cute earring and they are colour coordinated.

* Watching from youtube the episode is 38 minutes long while most of the others are 45.  Attach whatever emotion you want to that fact.

* The exposition is handily delivered by asking a question which tells us some things, thank you show, I appreciate it

* First episode and he's already giving his partner an in case I don't come back letter to be opened if he dies

*  Wait for me!~  Go!~~

* Slow walk with dramatic music: 1 (don't make this a drinking game You Will Expire) this time with bonus almost looking back

* I've seen a similar shot on Hawaii Five O

* Don't explain what's happening, just knock everything over with a jump kick in some absolutely spotless white tennies

* Running with dramatic music with bonus looking back: Does it count?  We have yet to hear back from the judges

* They leap into the water with an explosion behind them, we are less than 2 minutes in and I love that for them

* At first I thought the boats were making a big heart before I remembered that I am very silly and they are not doing that

* This one is going to be long

* I can see his pockets through his trousers, why are his trousers so thin?

* It's not kissing to dramatic music in the surf if it's CPR

* Each story line has its own intro and that's very sexy of them

* Slow walk/dramatic music: 2-6

* These people are totally goofy and and yet the Seriousness

* Two Weeks Ago!

* The police school bus has arrived to shoo away the crows circling around Dr. Zhan staring (dramatically) at the body

* Sport scar policeman dresses even more unprofessionally than Zhao Yunlan who at least looks like a detective who was jumped by so many criminals he just gave up wearing a suit and went for jeans. Chief Bai's clothes are so thin, I'm under constant anxiety someone is going to tear them off.

* Also several of the cast pictures on MyDramaList look like the pictures your auntie insists taking to send to your other aunties and I love that for them

* Triple axil spin from the victim, the judges are loving it - this is the camp I'm here for

* The dramatic slo mo and music budget for this show was so big, just as it should be

* He's mad because he's angy

*  Master Psychiatrist can tell all about the killer from crouching by the body, it's a trope and this is one of the few places I like it because it serves the show instead of the show serving it

* When you're almost boyfriend is going away for reasons and it's not your decision but you can't go with him because of your job so you're just low key bitter about it

*  "You can't control me"

* The pettiness between these two

* Professional women who worked hard to get where they are still are constantly obsessed with boys according to most cdramas

*The male posturing in those three second has accidentally circled back around to being gay in the way those bro shows accidentally do and I love that

* I live for this 80s-90s police chief perm

* The Pettiness

* I always tend to like doctor characters, I don't know why.  Even when they aren't my favourites I like them.

* She's kind of adorable, I like her (I've seen a lot of this show and every time I say I like someone it ends badly ;-; )

* "the victems"

* If you love Creative English, this is the show for you!

* Chief Bai's crew is trying so hard to get them back together

* Dr. Zhan is so good at psychology he can tell what someone looks like from some tire tracks - this trope is used all the time in crime shows, but they push it a little farther in SCI and it really helps the viewer know what the rules for the show are

* The scene in the psychiatrist's office hearkens back to queer coded villains and the way they're treated in old black and white horror cinema - but done so artfully it's almost invisible.  It's incredibly well done, and the awareness of tropes and types all throughout the series is tremendously successful as much as it's campy fun.

* There's also the trope of someone who manipulates someone into feeling like they've been "purified" and then weaponises them against the "filthy". And of course the fact that the killer's blade is a mirror - that he's killing in others what he sees in himself. This trope hasn't just been queer-coded but has been applied to any sort of physical or mental disorder. Thesis have been written about this trope and the anxiety attached to it. I can't write them better and this is long enough, it's just a small part of the excellent handling of the themes showing up in this genre and I wanted to point it out because it deserves appreciation for the skill and knowledge in the writing.  

* The whole you need evidence vs you're saying psychoanalysis isn't trustworthy feels very much like a coded angry exes discussion

* I love the establishing shots, so good

* He kind of deserved that door to the face, what was he even doing

* Police violence in crime shows is supposed to be a release for the viewer, but many countries have issues with police violence so it hits wrong.  Here it's far more performative in a way that at least has some awareness

* The weirdest phone call, you call someone to tell them something important and they say two things to you and hang up

* The tongue thing, why always the tongue thing?

* When a serial killer tries to compliment you by calling you a carnivore and you shut down the whole alpha male supposition by calling yourself a vegetarian

* At this point I've written almost fifteen hundred words and taken almost two hours to watch 23 minutes

* This is my life, these are my choices

* Dutch Angles

* You could make this conversation about being gay, I have had this conversation about homosexuality before

* Unfortunately while I had it I was on the bus trapped in a window seat

* The conversation didn't end with me saying something cool and everyone clapping

* They just got off the bus to go to work

* The banality of evil, yo

* Her shorts are Incredibly Short, good for her

* "arrest the perp behind my back" that's his job, broheim

* He doesn't ask why she checked behind their ears

* DUN dun dun!

* Slo mo file drop, and of course the file is blood stained and aged

* Chalk Art of Doom

* Chinese word play!

* Caught almost putting his coat over his crush, embarrassing XD

* Backstory!

*  I love all the little character details, I could quote lines I think are funny all day but that would start getting silly

* Bai Yu Tong is marked as clean and having OCD but we don't see what's apparently a huge character trait at all other than the all white, do love that he's good at cooking

* Dr. Zhan: Brilliant!  Genius!  Cannot feed himself.

* Dr. Gong has indifference level 100% which is true and also I love that for him

* I love that Wang Shao part of the team because he's good at making friends, I love that for him

* Poor Zhao Fu: scared of ghosts and dumb and sweet?  At least he has an 8 pack

* Jiang Lin is very tropey except the mention of her nearsightedness

* Ma Han's height 1.7m and legs 1.8m is hilarious and I love it

* I stopped recording the slo mo walks, but if you were drinking along with them you might be dead so I really appreciate you taking time out of your afterlife to continue reading.  We appreciate all our ghost readers

* And that's the first episode!  Thanks for making it to the end!

[lingthusiasm]

Transcript Episode 49: How translators approach a text

This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm Episode 49: How translators approach a text. It’s been lightly edited for readability. Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. Links to studies mentioned and further reading can be found on the Episode 49 show notes page.

[Music]

Lauren: Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics! I’m Lauren Gawne.

Gretchen: I’m Gretchen McCulloch. Today, we’re getting enthusiastic about the relationship of the translator and the text. But first, we’re heading into Lingthusiasm anniversary month! This is our fourth anniversary of doing Lingthusiasm, and we’re really excited that we’re still doing this four years later.

Lauren: We love a bit of reflection and nostalgia. The month of November is always an opportunity to be grateful that we have another year of Lingthusiasm. We have a whole 12 great main episodes. We have 12 more bonus episodes. As with every year, if you want to share a link to your favourite episode, November is an especially nice time to do it.

Gretchen: There are still people in this world who don’t know that they could be listening to a fun podcast about linguistics that makes them feel like they’re at a linguistics party instead of doing the dishes. You could help people find them. Most people still find podcasts through word of mouth. Every year we’ve done this in November, we see a big spike in people listening to the show and finding the show. If you wanna share on social media, we are very happy to thank you if you tag us in things.

Lauren: If you want to share off social media, please accept our deepest gratitude non-publicly for sharing shows as well.

Gretchen: Or, if you share Lingthusiasm privately and you still wanna be thanked, feel free to tell us about it on social media. We will still give you a little heart thank you comment. Yes, thank you already for all of the support that you’ve given the show over the years.

Lauren: If you like things additional to podcasts, because we are coming up to the holiday season, it’s also a good time to think about some Lingthusiasm merch or a copy of Because Internet. It’s a pretty great book. I like it. It’s available in paperback now. These things make great gifts.

Gretchen: We now also have annual memberships on Patreon. That could make a great gift to gift somebody to listen to more Lingthusiasm episodes as well as access to the Discord for an online linguistics community.

Lauren: Our most recent bonus episode was about honorifics as a way of being polite to someone either through the title you choose or a variety of linguistic strategies.

Gretchen: You get access to the honorifics bonus as well as 43 other bonus episodes and new bonus episodes every month by going to patreon.com/lingthusiasm.

[Music]

Gretchen: So, Lauren, I’m gonna talk to you about Beowulf.

Lauren: I know this because you have been messaging me for weeks about how we have to talk about Beowulf.

Gretchen: There’s a new translation of Beowulf. I’m really excited. This made me want to build an entire episode around the translator’s relationship to the text because this new translation of Beowulf does a really cool job of it, and I wanna talk about it.

Lauren: I don’t think you’ve been this excited about a translated text since Emily Wilson translated The Odyssey. I’m pretty sure that’s what motivated our 18th episode on word translation.

Gretchen: You are not wrong about this. I think there’s a similar excitement that I have which is old texts – texts that are a thousand-plus years old that have been translated so many different times by so many different people – it feels like it’s hard for someone to do something new with a translation of them. And yet, here people are doing that, which is exciting to me. This is the new translation of Beowulf by Maria Dahvana Headley. She’s done some really cool things with translating Beowulf as a feminist text. It’s a text that uses very modern style language in this thousand-year-old epic poem of Old English literature.

Lauren: I feel like when it comes to translating, before you even translate one single word, there’s all these decisions that a translator has to make. In Episode 18, we looked at translation, but we looked at word-to-word translation. And that’s definitely one part of a translator’s job, but they have so many more decisions to make. It is such an impressive job, and it’s why it’s as much an art form as it is a technical skill to translate something well. So, what are some of the big decisions that Headley made before even starting to translate Beowulf?

Gretchen: One of the things about Beowulf is, as an oral poem, it has this intricate rhyme scheme. The Old English rhyme scheme is based on half lines. Each line has two halves and there needs to be an alliterative bit in one half that is repeated in the second half.

Lauren: So, Old English is way more interested in alliteration compared to our modern English obsession with rhyming. That’s one of the stylistic features you find in Old English.

Gretchen: It’s all about the beginning of the words rather than the ends. Trying to figure out, okay, how much am I gonna use alliteration? How much am I gonna try to represent – because we can do alliteration in modern English – how much am I gonna try to represent the existing rhyme scheme? Where am I gonna try to put it in actual rhymes like you would do in modern English – if you’re writing a poem, you might rhyme it? What am I gonna do with the metre? She’s produced this really oral text that uses a certain amount of modern slang as well in ways that are really effective. One example is there’s a dragon in Beowulf, and the dragon at one point is described as “Putting the world on blast.”

Lauren: Nice.

Gretchen: To some extent, this is modern slang, but it’s also a very literal thing that a dragon can do. It’s not using modern slang for gratuitous – like, there’s no “lols” or “omgs” in this text. It’s not like here’s this facile text-speak version of Beowulf. It’s what are the bits here that actually work with the metre and the rhyme scheme but also not shying away from using a modern idiom where a modern idiom really works.

Lauren: It’s interesting to put this in contrast to the other most famous version of Beowulf in translation that I know of which is Seamus Heaney’s from somewhere in the middle of the 20th Century where I feel like he tried to capture the mythical grandeur of Old English and chose very stoic, solid sounding Old English words. I don’t think he would’ve had the dragon “putting the world on blast.”

Gretchen: Well, I don’t think he would’ve – I think it came out in 1999, this translation. In some ways his translation is fairly vernacular, but he tries to do that in a different sense. Can I read you the first bit of the Headley translation and the Heaney translation?

Lauren: Yeah. This is super fun.

Gretchen: Okay. A big thing about Beowulf translations is the first word which in Old English is “Hwaet.” That has gotten repurposed as a meme, which we’re not gonna get into much detail about. Some people translate that as like, “Lo!” or “Hark!” or “Listen!” or something like this. Heaney translates that as “So,” which has already got a certain level of vernacularity to it. His first three lines go, “So, the Spear-Danes in days gone by and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness. We have heard of those princes’ heroic campaigns.” This is very stately and like, “Here’s this thing you’re gonna do.” If you compare that with the first three lines of the Headley translation, the new one, she translates this “Hwaet” as “Bro.”

Lauren: Hm, that’s a very different tone.

Gretchen: It’s a very modern tone. I mean, you could pick a whole bunch of very modern things like “Yo” or “Hey all,” but specifically the reason she picks “Bro” is because she wants to highlight the bro culture-ness of this entire story. You can see that in the next couple lines which is, “Bro, tell me we still know how to speak of kings. In the old days, everyone knew what men were – brave, bold, glory bound. Only stories now, but all sound the Spear-Dane song, hoarded for hungry times.” It just leaps off the page in a way that really excites me.

Lauren: Yeah, no “princes” there.

Gretchen: Right. “Kings who ruled had courage and greatness” – “The men were bold.”

Lauren: The thing I always love about Beowulf is that it’s a millennium-old oral poem that happened to be written down, and a millennium ago people were like, “Let me tell you about the olden days.” [Laughter]

Gretchen: Right, it still takes place in this semi-mythic space, and it uses a certain stylised language that we even think was stylised at the time. You’re always picking between some kind of stylisation. There’s no neutral choice that exists. All of the choices are recreations at some level.

Lauren: I mean, it is kind of weird to think you’re translating from English into English, but it just shows how much the language has moved on because reading Beowulf if you don’t know Old English is an incredibly uncomfortable attempt to just guess some words that have retained some familiarity. I always find it interesting that you have to translate. And then because English went through enough changes by Shakespeare, we kind of put up with all of the features of Shakespeare that aren’t immediately obvious to us.

Gretchen: Right. But Beowulf is really this alien text. Like, “Hwaet. We Gardena” – and “Gardena” is “Spear-Danes,” but we don’t have “Spear-Danes,” and “Gardena” is not obviously related to those. There’s this great miniseries from The History of English Podcast that does a very in-depth line-by-line reading of Beowulf which I enjoyed a while back.

Lauren: My one semantic anecdote from that series is “Gar-Danes” as in “Spear-Danes” – garlic is the “spear-leek.”

Gretchen: Yes, it is!

Lauren: Because it’s like a little spear.

Gretchen: It’s like a little spear-leek. I love that anecdote. It’s interesting to be reading Beowulf at the same time that my book club is actually reading The Tale of Genji.

Lauren: Ah, from like a similar – Genji’s also a millennium old, yeah?

Gretchen: Yeah! In some sense it’s like Beowulf and Genji are kind of contemporaries.

Lauren: But they’re very much not contemporaries. Beowulf is about warrior bro culture in the Old English setting, whereas Genji is a Japanese court drama.

Gretchen: I don’t think they would’ve gotten along. I think they would’ve just found each other completely incomprehensible. Genji’s also one of those classic texts that’s been translated a whole bunch of different times in a whole bunch of different ways. For one thing, you’re translating from a much older version of Japanese. There are modern Japanese translations of The Tale of Genji as well. And then you’re also translating into a different cultural context. But the cultural context for Beowulf is also very weird. Like, I don’t do going and fighting monsters under lakes any more than I do writing haikus about the moon. In fact, I’m probably more likely to write a haiku about the moon than I am to go fight a monster under a lake if we wanna talk about relatability.

Lauren: Everything I know about Genji is because one of my colleagues in the Languages Department at La Trobe is a Genji studies scholar. It’s one of those pieces of work that is so big and so canonical that it has its own literary studies tradition associated with it. I also really love my colleague because the other part of her expertise is cosplay studies. I think it’s such a great combination of Japanese cultural experience there – Genji and cosplay.

Gretchen: I mean, what more do you want? The neat thing about reading Tale of Genji at the moment is because I’m reading it as part of a book club through Argo Bookshop – which is a bookstore that did the book launch party for Because Internet and I really like them – they’re having this Tale of Genji book club, and we’ve been reading it throughout the year a few chapters at a time because it’s over 1,000 pages. It’s huge. So, we’ve been reading it section by section, and different members of the book club have picked different translations into English of the same work.

Lauren: Ah, cool! Are there radical differences between the translations? Or do they all try and go for a literal approach?

Gretchen: They’re really different. One of the big things with Genji is at the time in 11th Century Japan it was considered very rude in the court to refer to people by their actual names. None of the characters in the original Tale of Genji manuscript have names, except for maybe Genji. So, you can imagine reading a thousand-page book where none of the characters have names is a bit of a feat of the imagination.

Lauren: Yes.

Gretchen: Different translations – and a lot of them have conventional names that literary scholars have used to talk about the characters. For example, Lady Fujitsubo lives in the Fujitsubo, which is the western pavilion, and so she gets called in the tradition “Fujitsubo” because that’s where she lives, and this kind of stuff. Or Murasaki gets called that after a flower, I think, the character. In some translations, they just use these conventional use names as if they’re the actual names of the characters. In some translations, they just use descriptions like the original text did, and they don’t really refer to characters by even pretend names or use names.

Lauren: So, one of them is trying to strive for cultural authenticity, and the other one is trying to just help the poor confused reader a little bit more, and that’s choices that each translator has decided to make.

Gretchen: Exactly. You also have other types of decisions like, “Are you going to try to” – because it’s a court drama, you have all these court positions. Are you going try to map those positions onto a western court so that people understand what a chancellor is? Or are you going to try to use those as a more direct translation of what the specific terms were at the time? That’s just different decisions that different translations can use.

Lauren: When you meet as a book club, is everyone following along, or is there a lot of clarifying across translations? Such an interesting little exercise.

Gretchen: Well, the nice thing is, is the division into different chapters is very constant, so we can be like, “Okay, we’re reading Chapters 6 to 10 now. We’re gonna talk about what happens in those.” But sometimes you do pull something up, and you’re like, “Okay, so this bit where this thing was said, do we think Genji is kinda misogynistic here?” And somebody will say, “Well, in my translation, it doesn’t actually seem like he’s misogynistic.” And here’s what’s going on in this particular translation versus that particular translation. And how much of it is the translator bringing their own preconceived notions of how people relate to each other? Because some of these translations are from the 1920s or something. People may have had different politics there. And how much of that is in the original text which was composed by a woman who we don’t know that much about? But it’s the first modern novel. It’s an interesting like, “How much are you going to try to westernise this book for a western audience?” Which some of the older translations do a bit more with the westernisation adaptation because people in the west hadn’t heard of Genji very much before. You do all this adaptation for your English-speaking readers. Whereas, more recent translators, people tend to have a higher degree of expectations of fidelity when it comes to a more modern translation. Sometimes they try to do that. And, you know, how many footnotes do you have? How much do you try to explain additionally? How much do you try to just make the text stand on its own as a story?

Lauren: So many choices to make as a translator. I’m eternally grateful to people who do this and make it appear so effortless while doing so much work bringing all of this context together.

Gretchen: It’s really neat. I’m not gonna read this 1,000-page book five different times in five different translations, but being able to experience portions of those translations vicariously through other people talking about, “Oh, here’s what happened in this one, here’s what happened in this one,” it does let you do this interesting comparative textual study.

Lauren: I’ve been thinking about translation in practice a lot lately because having worked with P. M. Freestone on their Shadowscent books, “The Darkets Bloom” and “Crown of Smoke,” these books have gone into translation in a whole bunch of languages, mostly European languages to date – Spanish, German, French, Russian, and Polish. I’m very excited about the upcoming Hungarian translation which will the first outside of the Indo-European language. But these translations involve a couple of things that are really interesting in that, in these books, I worked on creating the Aramteskan language, and for this language to work across different languages, sometimes it gets technically transliterated, or you need to add a different type of plural. For example, Russian has a different alphabet to English and so you need to fit this language into the Russian Cyrillic alphabet.

Gretchen: You’re not trying to pretend that Aramteskan is always written with the Latin alphabet. Even when the book itself is in Russian, you’re like, we’re gonna transliterate it into Cyrillic?

Lauren: No, translators have very much done what they think is most appropriate. I have a habit of buying these translations now and checking out what they’ve done because they’re not just translating from English into another language, they also have to translate this completely fictional language and this fictional world into that language as well. It’s one thing to maybe study in-depth Old English warrior culture or Japanese court culture and decide what to bring across, but with a fantasy world, there’s all kinds of choices you have to make as a translator as well.

Gretchen: Yeah, like what are you gonna do with the magic system? Or if you’ve invented all of these words for different scents or something, then they have to figure out some sort of equivalent of inventing those words for the other language.

Lauren: There’s a lot of scent vocabulary even in the English that P. M. Freestone has written in, so really taxing that part of the translator’s repertoire. One thing that’s been particularly interesting and that there’s been some discussion on how to manage is that in this world, both in the historical part of the world and the contemporary part of the world, the culture and the grammar allow for gender neutral third person like the English modern use of “they,” which Kirby Conrod gave a great interview about how that works in contemporary English. In fact, I did a little historical evolution of the pronoun system that fits with the story of the world where originally there was no gender distinction in the pronoun system, which fits with the old religious system of the world. And the religious system evolved younger gods that are all gendered, and the pronoun system evolved genders at the same time while still having that scope for gender neutral. Without spoiling too much, but a character that pops up in Book One and is much more a part of Book Two is gender fluid within the world. That works for current English because we have gender neutral singular they, but there are some languages like Czech or like Russian that the book’s being translated into where there isn’t that flexibility in the linguistic system. So, decisions have to be made about how that is negotiated in the translation.

Gretchen: Do you know what they did?

Lauren: I don’t know what they did for Russian yet, but I believe the solution in Czech is at various times this character is overtly identified using masculine and at other times using feminine – being much more flexible about the duality of their relationship with gender.

Gretchen: This reminds me of a thing that I heard Ada Palmer talk about at a conference panel with her book “Too Like the Lightning” and the sequels, which are set in this far future of English – well, far future and they’re written in English – in which singular they is used for everybody except when you’re writing in this faux-archaic style with “thous” and “thees” and “hes” and “shes.” It’s very marked at that point. Ada Palmer was talking about how this was translated into French where in modern English the progressive thing that people do is like, “Oh, we can use singular they. That’s very progressive.” In modern French, the progressive thing that people do is they make feminine versions of all of the professions.

Lauren: Right.

Gretchen: You have feminine versions of “professor” or “doctor” or these kinds of things to try and make the gender more visible. And so erase the gender in the French version wouldn’t have the same effect – where you’d end up using the default masculine or something in the French version – it wouldn’t have the same effect as using singular they all the time in the English version. There are modern French pronouns like “iel” that have been coined to solve this problem of using a gender neutral third person pronoun, but it wouldn’t work to use them in this particular case because the style is supposed to be faux-archaic. What the translator ended up doing was digging out this French pronoun “on,” which in the modern form “on” is used like “we” or like “one does this.” It’s related to like, “One does this.” There’s an older usage of “on” which is like a non-specific third person pronoun as well that – I speak French, but I didn’t know about this archaic form. And the translator went and looked for what other historic pronoun things could I do and ended up doing with “on” thing, which is a really interesting adaptation.

Lauren: The thing I find interesting is if you were – 50 years ago, you didn’t have the grammatical resources in English to use singular they for a specific person. It’s something that’s really only emerged in the last couple of decades. I think the translator has felt frustrated to not have – you know, you sometimes feel like you’ve got this road block because you don’t have resources in one language that you have in another and you have to innovate. I did have a colleague in Italian studies tell me that they read a whole novel once where the gender of one of the characters was deliberately written around and avoided in a way that was an incredibly artful, thoughtful translation. It is possible that you could maybe do this with this character in the Shadowscent books, but it would be such –

Gretchen: But you couldn’t do it with the whole world in the Terra Ignota books because all of the characters would have to have that.

Lauren: Yeah. And you could do that amount of heavy lifting at the cost of some other things, but when you’re doing an efficient translation for a commercial novel, you don’t have the resources to really max out your art and strategy in that way. It’s interesting that, you know, translation is a really resource-intensive activity even to just do a good translation, let alone an incredibly strategic and thoughtful translation.

Gretchen: Even translating one word, like that word at the beginning of Beowulf, involves thinking about, “Okay, what kind of relationship do I want this word to have to the rest of the text? What am I trying to set up here in relationship to the whole text? Where do I see this attention-getting word as going?” Like, what the text as a whole is doing, which is this interesting question. I should say, speaking of translation news, this is very hot off the presses, but I have received news that there are gonna be translations of Because Internet into Persian, Chinese, and Japanese. So, all – well, Persian is an Indo-European language, but it has a different writing system, and then two non-Indo-European languages. I don’t know anything else about the details yet.

Lauren: This is news that I didn’t even know. This is very exciting.

Gretchen: It’s very recent, yes. It’s not – I dunno. I will have official links when they exist. They won’t exist for, I dunno, probably a couple years. I dunno how long it’ll take them to do. I know nothing.

Gretchen: The surreal thing about translation means that you will see you work and not be able to read it. There’s something so amazing and magical about that, that words you have created are finding new audiences – you know, there’s a lot of trust in the translator in those contexts.

Gretchen: Yeah, and I don’t know if I’m gonna get to have any say in who they get to translate it and how much they know about the internet or things like that.

Lauren: Translating non-fiction is an entirely different process because you’re not translating an internal narrative world as much as you are potentially translating something that explains how this world that we live in right now exists, or how a set of historical realities existed. That also takes deftness and skill.

Gretchen: And you’re potentially trying to translate technical vocabulary between one language or another, which isn’t necessarily the same as, “Okay, we need to keep the characters’ names consistent. It’s like, “We need to use this word that has a technical meaning in its technical sense.” Speaking of non-fiction translation, I dunno if you’ve been following in translation news relatively recently, there’s been a lot of things going on with the Scots language Wikipedia.

Lauren: Yes, I did read about this. So, Scots language is a language in the same family as English. It has a lot of similarities with English but is considered its own “variety,” using that very deliberate linguist term where you don’t commit to just how much it’s a dialect or its mutual intelligibility with other varieties that its related to. And it has its own Wikipedia.

Gretchen: Scots is kind of like, as an English speaker, I’ve always been kind of jealous of people who speak Dutch or German or something because they can kind of understand each other a bit. Or Spanish and Portuguese and Italian because they can kind of approximate understanding each other to some extent even if they haven’t formally learned the languages. I’ve always been like, “Why doesn’t English have some closer neighbours?” But I hadn’t been thinking about Scots when I was thinking that. Scots is probably English’s closest neighbour but is still a distinct language and, especially, there are grammatical differences and there are a lot of political reasons as well why people consider it its own language. However, [laughs] the Scots language Wikipedia, which has all of these articles written in Scots, had apparently been being edited for the last seven years by an American teenager who didn’t know any Scots and was just looking up the English articles in a Scots-English dictionary word-by-word and just picking the first word of the translation and subbing that in for the Scots word.

Lauren: This has been such a difficult story to read because everyone throughout this process has acted in the best faith. This teenager wasn’t doing this for any reason other than a passion for sharing knowledge on Wikipedia and a passion for seeing the Scots Wikipedia grow but with a really uncritical approach to translation. You can see where translation really does require this understanding of vocabulary choice and style choice and how it can all go really, really wrong.

Gretchen: Yeah, it’s really painful because this person started when they were, like, 12, and we have all believed very foolish things about the world when we were 12. It’s just many of us didn’t write thousands of Wikipedia articles in a language that is just really not the way anybody who actually speaks this language actually writes because it’s cobbled together badly from a dictionary. It’s this very painful, “Oh, no! You thought you were helping.” And yet Wikipedia is used as the basis of a lot of machine translation, and language detection, various natural language processing tools, and so this has been potentially sabotaging the efforts to try to create other machine tools in Scots because they’ve all been in this weird dictionary-a-fied version of English.

Lauren: It’s been really heartening to see the Scots language community and the Scottish Wikipedia community come together to figure out a strategy for how to approach cleaning house – I guess it’s the biggest spring clean ever, right – how to approach this, like, thousands and thousands of articles with this very strange approach to translation.

Gretchen: It illuminates one of the issues with smaller language Wikipedias in general which is that they may only have a few active editors because to be a Wikipedia editor is to be a volunteer. It takes a long time to translate things or to write articles. If you’re a language like English, you can have tens of thousands of editors. But if you’re a language like Scots which has many fewer speakers, you may only have a dozen active editors of which maybe one of them is a well-meaning but very clueless American teenager.

Lauren: We’ve both done lots of Wikipedia editing. We have run LingWiki events to improve linguistics content on Wikipedia. It’s challenging enough to write these articles in one language that I am proficient in. I’m always in awe of people who choose to translate and support content in their second or third languages because it is a non-trivial task to translate really complicated information in a way that is really clear.

Gretchen: Translation is a technical task that is one of those things that looks at all of the different levels of language where you have some things at the individual word, or even sound, or if you’re trying to translate poetry and you wanna make it beautiful in a very aesthetic sense with the physical properties of language, all the way up to words and sentences and structure and these discourse-y particles like “Hwaet” at the beginning where you’re trying to picture a whole framing device for the structure of an entire tone of a narrative. Or if you’re trying to pick, “Okay, how are we going to treat technical vocabulary that maybe has been borrowed from English?” because its scientific vocabulary that was invented from English, how are you gonna treat that when it gets borrowed into Scots? Trying to figure out how to make these technical decisions is non-trivial. It’s this very interesting train wreck. It can go spectacularly right when you have this very clever decision for a dragon to put the world on blast, and it can also go spectacularly wrong when you just say, “Okay, I’m gonna look through a dictionary and then pick the first word I encounter.”

Lauren: One of the great things about appreciating a good translation is that language never takes a break. Culture continues to change, and we move further away from the era of Beowulf. We move into new cultural settings and new cultural expectations. It means that there is space for new translations that bring new approaches, or try something different, or aim for really capturing something about the language of the era it was created in, or set an old story in a radically new setting. Even when you find a really satisfying translation, you know there’s still possibilities for finding other interesting ways to engage with the text.

Gretchen: I think that’s a thing that’s exciting about both the translations of these thousand-year-old texts, whether Beowulf or Tale of Genji, where they go through lots of different authors who put their own spin on the translation. And also thinking of Wikipedia as a place for translation where you have multiple authors working together on the same shared text, and a bunch of different people – like Scots Wikipedia has been having these Wikipedia edit-a-thons to try to clean the place up. You have a whole bunch of contributors that are finding out about this need because of this story and coming in and working on the text together and contributing to the shared text. In many ways, even though each of these editions of the translations are published as their own book for book-length ones, it’s this very intimate relationship that you can have with a text when you’re trying to render it in a different language or in a different textual interpretation.

[Music]

Gretchen: For more Lingthusiasm and links to all the things mentioned in this episode, go to lingthusiasm.com. You can listen to us on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, YouTube, or wherever else you get your podcasts. You can follow @Lingthusiasm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr. You can get IPA scarves, IPA ties, and other Lingthusiasm merch at lingthusiasm.com/merch. I can be found as @GretchenAMcC on Twitter, my blog is AllThingsLinguistic.com, and my book about internet language is called Because Internet.

Lauren: I tweet and blog as Superlinguo. Have you listened to all the Lingthusiasm episodes and you wish there were more? You can access to 44 bonus episodes right now to listen to at patreon.com/lingthusiasm or follow the links from our website. Patron also get access to our Discord chatroom to talk with other linguistics fans and other rewards as well as helping to keep the show ad-free. Recent bonus topics include pangrams, honorifics, and linguistics with kids. If you can’t afford to pledge, that’s okay, too. We really appreciate it if you can recommend Lingthusiasm to anyone who needs a little more linguistics in their life, especially as it’s the anniversary month.

Gretchen: Lingthusiasm is created and produced by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our editorial producer is Sarah Dopierala, and our music is “Ancient City” by The Triangles.

Lauren: Stay lingthusiastic!

[Music]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

[blackhakumen]

Mini Fanfic #861: A New Witch Look (Super Smash Bros Ultimate)

12:12 p.m. at the Smash Mansion's Living Room.......

Palutena: ('Gasps Happily')

Ren: Woah.

Pit: (Shock in Awe at What is in Front of Him) So pretty......

Dark Pit: Is that you, witch mom?

Bayonetta: ( Does a Model Like Pose While Wearing a New Attire and Hairstyle) The one and only, darlings!~ How's the new look? Amazing, no?~

Palutena: Bayo, you look even more stunning than you were before!~ Did Jeanette stylised it for you while you two were on your outing this morning?

Ren: Who's Jeanne?

Bayonetta: My sister from another mother.

Ren: (Eyes Widened) Holy shit. We have a aunt?

Pit: Yeah. Auntie Jeanne. You... really didn't know about that?

Ren: Not until now. Guess I really was late to the Smash Family party.....

Bayonetta: (Smiles Sheepishly) That one was on me, darling. I.....might've forgotten to tell her about you beforehand. Mostly because she gotten herself quite a busy schedule nowadays. But yes. You and the brothers got yourselves a fashion diva of an auntie. As well as an Uncle Rodin.....(Sighs While Rolling her Eyes) And I guess if you wanna be THAT technical, you got another uncle named Enzo. He's a smart mouthed simpleton, but he has shown himself to be loving family man. So.... there's that to him at least.

Ren: (Smiles Softly) Neat. I hope I get to meet them one of these days.

Bayonetta: (Smiles Brightly at Ren) Well, you're in luck, Renny dear~ Cause you're gonna spend the whole day shopping with your mommy and auntie in the first week of November.

Ren: (Shrugs) Not much of a shopping kind of guy, but I'm still down.

Pit: I'm curious, mom. What's make you wanna change your hairstyle in first place?

Dark Pit: Yeah. Was the short hair wasn't doing it for it you or something?

Bayonetta: Not necessarily. I loved all of my previous looks equally. I just.....felt like paying a homage of sorts.

Palutena: (Raised an Eyebrow in a Bit of Confusion) A Homage? To what?

Bayonetta: To this. (Shows her Family a Picture of a Little Girl with the Same Hairstyle as Her New One)

Palutena: (Gushes Over the Picture) Awwwww~ Who's the little cutie pie in the picture?~

Bayonetta: It's me when I was younger. Or....rather a....Time Displacement of my younger self. I looked after her during one of my past adventures, until I was able to bring her back to her own timeline. We had a rocky start at first, but overtime....(Smiles Fondly on the Memories She Made With her Younger Counterpart) I took a liking to her. Almost saw her as my own daughter....(Giggles Softly) Oddly enough, she's one of the main reasons why I became a Proud, Certified Mommy to tis day.

Dark Pit: (Starts Snickering) That's what you moms call your little group?

Palutena: (Gives Dark Pit a Pouty Look on her Face) Hey, don't make fun of our group name! Your Momma Peach worked very hard to come up with all on her.....For like a day or twice, but still! ('Sigh') But names asides.....(Turns Back to Her Girlfriend with a Smile) I'm happy for your new look, 'hon. I think it's already suiting you well.

Bayonetta: (Smiles Back at Palutena Before Hugging her Lovingly) Thank you, Paulie. It means a lot that you and the boys like it. Which reminds me, I've learned a new technique or two during my outing with Jeanne earlier today.

Palutena: Oh really? What is it?

Bayonetta: (Starts Smirking) Well~ (Begins to Whisper Something into Palutena's Ear)

Palutena: (Hearing Everything Bayonetta is Telling) Oh.....(Eyes Suddenly Widened) Oh!......(Finally Starts Blushing) Ohhhhhhh........

Bayonetta: (Smirk Starts Getting More Seductive) Getting the picture now, my dear goddess?~

Palutena: Yeah. (Starts Smirking as Well) Can't wait for tonight's demonstration~

Bayonetta: (Giggles Softly) Neither can I~

The loving, seductive couple begins to have a make out session with one another.

Pit: Awww~

Ren: Oh boy....(Covers Pit and Dark Pit's Eyes)

Dark Pit: (Already Annoyed) Hey, Certified Moms, your kids are still present!!

@26shann

@keyenuta

@princekirijo

@caleb13frede

@cyber-wildcat

@ma-lemons

@albion-93

[frozendestinywarrior]

Royal Wedding *Future Fic* - WebClaws

I should have uploaded this ages ago, whoops.

T’Challa knocked on Peter’s door, sensing the nervousness and apprehension radiating from the younger male from within his room. Tony had been sceptical and asked T’Challa to talk with Tony while he went to go talk with Shuri—who also was freaking out.

Well, T’Challa couldn’t blame either of them.

It isn’t just a wedding, a royal wedding between the two of them.

The whole world would be watching.

Especially since it isn’t just a royal wedding, but a wedding between a princess and an Avenger.

“Peter, can I come in?” T’Challa asked, after getting no response earlier.

“Yeah.”

The king pushed the door open and stared at Peter who was just staring out the window. His tuxedo’s jacket was thrown haphazardly over the back of a chair, and thankfully his stylised hair was ruffled but, in a way, that it still worked.

T’Challa could tell that the hair stylists would’ve thrown a fit if Peter messed up their hard work.

“Panicking?”

“No.”

T’Challa merely raised an eyebrow, letting his amusement roll off him for Peter to identify.

“Okay, a little bit.” A pause as the younger shifted. “A lot, actually. I’m not just getting married, it’s a public event—to a degree.”

T’Challa chuckled. “Thankfully, Tony, Nakia, Pepper, and my mother are aware about public weddings.”

“Tony and Pepper had a private wedding.” Peter argued, turning to look at T’Challa. “I understand, but seriously, I’m just afraid of stuffing up.”

Placing a hand on Peter’s shoulder, T’Challa rested his forehead against his future brother-in-law’s. Peter stiffened before he relaxed and sighed heavily.

“You’ll be fine, Pete. You and Shuri will breeze through this wedding, and it will be a blink and you’ll miss it moment.”

“I am worried about you and Ned talking with speeches.” Peter laughed.

T’Challa smiled and resisted the urge to ruffle Peter’s hair. “I don’t even have a speech prepared.”

Peter’s eyes sparkled. “So, no speech on you scaring me into submission when you first found out that Shuri even liked me?”

The elder huffed. “I only did that because you were being cheeky and showing off to my dear baby sister. I hear that Nakia has a great speech for Shuri, which is probably going to get Shuri planning revenge.”

“Well, I can keep Shuri distracted from that, until she forgets about it at least.” Peter teased, and T’Challa almost hissed at the younger for his statement.

“While I certainly appreciate it, I do not want to even hear you talking about having sex with Shuri.” T’Challa grumbled.

Peter lowered his head and mumbled. “Is there anything I should be made aware of?”

T’Challa blinked at looked at Spiderman before tilted his head and humming. “Well, nothing that you don’t already know.”

“I’m guessing, dancing and music to begin it.” Peter raised his eyes. “Get the atmosphere started, after all.”

“Well, who is very aware of our culture. I’m not surprised that you and Shuri are having a mix of Wakandan and American weddings, I just hope it goes well.” T’Challa said, guiding Peter out of the room and grabbing the jacket before pulling it over Peter. “First of all, put this on. We need a good presence.”

Peter could hear the loud music from outside the palace and saw huge crowds of Wakandans dancing to the beat. Already there were already some news reporters. Peter felt dread creep through his body and blood, and unease ticked at the back of his mind.

Oh, this is going to be great, as long as he didn’t screw it up.

Peter touched the Wakandan necklace, a spider with silver webs curling around the chain. Shuri had designed and created it for him. It was not for any of his suits, but merely for appearance.

Peter had gifted Shuri with her own necklace as well. It was a necklace that contained rubies in a paw print shape on the side of a panther with diamond eyes. The chain on her necklace was gold, and light weight as Shuri often complained about heavy jewellery.

“You’ll do fine, come. I think Tony has finished talking with my sister.” T’Challa nudged him further down the hallway.

Peter took a deep breath.

It won’t be long now until he and Shuri tied the knot.

Shuri shifted, causing Ramonda to tsk her and forced her to sit still as her make-up was being adjusted.

“I still don’t know why I have to have a huge wedding. Neither Peter nor I wanted one.” Shuri muttered, still annoyed by her wedding plans.

Ramonda watched as one of the Dora Milaje smiled at the princess’ complaints before sighing. “My dear, you are royalty, and so will he by the end of the day. We compromised and allowed for it to be a mixed of both African and American.”

Shuri looked down and almost scowled as her hair was tugged back harshly to properly stylise it.

A knock at the door caused all of the females to look up.

There was soft talking before Nakia, Tony and Pepper poked their heads in. Tony looked around at them.

“I will not stay if this is an all-female meeting. I just wanted to say, I can offer Shuri some advice, as much as I can give any way.” Tony explained, carefully backing out of the room.

Shuri looked confused. “What advice can you give me that I don’t already know?”

Tony shrugged. “Words of confidence.” He leaned slightly against the door frame, obviously getting the hint that he was allowed to be there under Shuri’s orders. “Look, you’re smart and capable. However, the wedding is actually a breeze to go through. It may seem long when leading up to it but believe me. After the whole ‘I proclaim you husband and wife’ you will definitely tune out everything going around you.”

Pepper and Nakia looked at him, prompting him to continue. Shuri could see that Tony was trying to figure out his words.

“It’s not daunting, and it seems so extravagant for something that can be done in private, or just between you and your partner. I can see why you would complain about it, especially since it’s only done to tie you together for legal reasons.” Tony’s eyes were soft. “You are going to look back on this day as one of the best days of your life. Maybe not the best, but definitely up there in the top ten.”

Pepper lightly shoved her husband. “Shouldn’t you be talking to Peter?”

“T’Challa beat me to it.” Tony said but walked away. “Well, I might as well assist him in trying to keep Peter calm.”

Shuri tugged at her hands. “Aw man, I’m beginning to get nervous all over again.”

Ramonda kissed her daughter’s forehead. “You’ll be fine.”

Peter stared at the crowd from where he stood, panic rising up inside him. Ned nudged his best friend and leaned over to whisper to him.

“Hey man, calm down. It’s just a wedding.”

Peter’s eyes widened. “Bro, it’s JUST a wedding? Be thankful yours is gonna be a hell of a lot quieter than this.”

Ned shrugged, eyes gleaming in his usual mischief. “Relax. Sure, you are just getting married in Wakanda with a royal wedding, being watched by millions of eyes. Nothing too big.”

Peter almost whined but caught himself as Tony and T’Challa walked up to them.

“Is Peter freaking out again?” Tony asked, chuckling, watching as Nakia and Pepper stood with Ramonda discussing something to the side.

“Is it that obvious?” Peter murmured, eyes fluttering across and noticing a few news reporters.

He knew that the wedding had been shown for a while now, at least two hours. The actual ceremony was starting relatively soon, and his bit the inside of his cheek to avoid expressing any further panic.

The media would eat it up and claim he was rethinking his choice to marry Shuri, and there was no way in hell that he would allow the media to claim that idiotic statement as fact.

Ned rubbed his hands together. “Just wait until the speech.”

“Oh god.” Peter rolled his eyes, becoming distracted from the venue. “Please, tell you didn’t make it that embarrassing.”

“Aren’t the reception speeches meant to be really embarrassing?” Ned asked, glancing at the two married men behind them. “Regardless, I decided you should have some fun for your wedding. Why do you think Michelle and I decided to help make the soundtrack, it’s the reason why there is pop culture songs, but more will be played later.”

Peter smiled, body relaxing. “Thank you, Ned. You really are the best friend.”

Ned laughed. “Why do you think I’m your best man?”

Peter had to agree with Ned on that front. There was no-one else he wanted as his best man.

The wait was long and tiring, and Peter had to stop himself from shifting out of anticipation. The pastor spoke some Wakandan marriage phrases that Peter had learnt and recognised from T’Challa’s own wedding. He took a deep breath and nodded to Tony who only smiled at him which gave Peter to extra confidence he needed.

He glanced at their major guests. May and Ramonda were seated beside each other, looking disbelieving at the whole wedding actually happening. After all, Ramonda was very expressive around May as both lost their husbands and had to raise children on their own.

Scott and Hope were seated in the front with Cassie beside Clint and his family. Natasha and Bruce were seated on the other side of the Barton family, with Steve, Bucky and Sam (the latter two were thankfully being very civil during the whole event). Thor, Loki and Valkyrie were standing to the side. Heimdall was nowhere to be found but was most likely watching from outside as an over all protector. The Dora Milaje were scattered across the venue.

Peter prayed he wasn’t missing any important words, but everything seemed the usual wedding speeches before the bride was meant to appear. The wedding’s customs had been altered to Shuri and Peter’s taste (they both wanted hints of American culture to it).

A smile twitched on his lips as he saw Nebula, Gamora, Peter Quill, Drax, Mantis, Groot and Rocket seated to the side. He had missed the Guardians, and he should go and see them once it was over. Politeness and all that.

Peter heard a dress brushing against the ground, his heart beat picking up in it’s pace, body almost freezing before he forced himself to relax. No-one else had heard the fabric, obviously, and Peter could only have one thought running through his mind.

In just a few more moments he’ll be a married man to the best person in the world. He still didn’t know how he managed to win Shuri over, especially since she deserved better in his opinion. Now that they are here, he shrugged that thought off.

Shuri was stunning, and his breath caught in his throat. Normally, Shuri hated wearing any kind of head gear, but she wore a crown that held a veil that fell around the sides of her face. Her hair was tied up but was not its normal braids with two strands of curls framing her face. The dress was not pure white, more of a lilac (that she must’ve chosen because of Spider-man’s red and blue colour scheme) and Peter was thankful his suit appeared deep purple in certain light.

The necklace he picked out for her stood out on the dress, and Peter heard whispers of the pendant that he had specifically made for her. His heart leapt, and pride rushed over him. This was his wife, not yet but very soon, and of course Peter would take the time to show her off.

She looked embarrassed but smiled upon meeting Peter’s gaze, her eyes twinkling when Peter realised he had begun to cry. He didn’t even bother trying to wipe the tears away, almost laughing at the incredulity of it all at the moment. Of course, he was going to cry. He is a fucking sap when it came to Shuri.

The speeches went by too slowly and too quickly for Peter’s liking, soon their vows were said, and he could finally feel his bride’s lips on his own.

Her lips twitched upwards, her voice spoken softly. “My big dork.”

“My intelligent princess.” Peter murmured back, eyes closing as he brought their lips back together.

He pulled her closer but had to step away. He whispered directly to her.

“Later, my amore.”

Shuri smirked, keeping her head away from the cameras. “I wonder if I can get you to crack.”

“Good luck.”

Shuri never got to test her ability to crack Peter, as soon enough they were being whisked away to the after party.

Ned chatted with Michelle before standing up to begin to best man speech.

This was still being recorded, because of course it was. However, all of the major guests (the Avengers and Guardians) were seated at one huge table near the family table that housed T’Challa, Nakia, May, Ramonda, Peter and Shuri themselves.

Ned began. “You know. If you told me years ago that I’d be the best man at my best friend’s wedding as he married a princess. I’d never believe you. Heck I thought it would be more likely I’d be at Peter’s wedding with a frog for how incompetent he was at talking to females when he was younger.” That earned laughs and twin smirks from Bucky and Sam. Peter almost shied away but only ducked his head in embarrassment.

“However, I must admit, I had actually never met Shuri straight away and only heard of her in stories and tales Peter would tell me about her grandeur.” Shuri blushed softly at those words. “Except, I realised my best friend’s impulsiveness when he says stuff. This moment was the highlight of everything. You see, Tony had told us teenagers, Shuri was not part of this, that he had some tickets for Coachella that he wanted to give to us. A graduation present of sorts.”

Peter groaned, realising where this story was going. Why of all stories did Ned have to pick this one?

Ned smirked at his best friend, having no intent on stopping. “However, one of our group couldn’t make it. We were debating who to ask to tag along with us when Peter had the smart idea to ask Princess Shuri. Look, when I asked him if he had a death wish I didn’t mean actually plan your death by inviting a princess to Coachella with no adult supervision for a full week in California. I swear that day Peter realised that T’Challa must really respect and trust him to allow Shuri to go with us.”

T’Challa nodded and shot the newly-weds a grin.

“And all this before they got together, if you ask me, T’Challa was planning for them to get together for the longest time. Why else do you think he let Shuri and Peter hang out.” Ned winked. “That or Shuri pleaded with T’Challa who we all know is a sucker for his baby sister.”

T’Challa leaned over Ramonda to muse with Shuri’s hair, only causing her to screech at him. Loud laughter echoed around the dining room.

Ned shrugged. “One final thing though. I could tell immediately that Peter’s crush on Shuri was completely different to all others, and I had a feeling this is the one that either makes Peter or breaks him. Thankfully it was the former, even though I have to admit I don’t know fully what I would’ve done if it was the latter.” He waved his hand. “You aren’t best friends with someone since you are kids and not expect to know when they fall in love.”

Shuri leaned into Peter’s side and he smiled warmly at her.

Soon when the first dance came on, Shuri rested her head on Peter’s shoulder, their fingers interlacing. Their wedding bands stood out against their skin.

Both were made of Vibranium, but Shuri’s were more silver to match a spider’s web while Peter’s was darker to match to fur on a panther. They glinted purple in the light, and even seemed to glow softly when the lights darkened. Peter pressed a kiss to Shuri’s lips.

“I love you.”

“And I love you.”

Their foreheads rested against each other as Quill cheered. “Time for dancing!”

Peter and Shuri could only laugh as they watched their friends and family dance to the pop playlist Michelle and Ned put together, also observing the general populace of Wakanda enjoying the festivities in the streets below.

They both sighed and rested their foreheads together.

Nothing could ruin this.

[kumo-headcanons]

I wanted ask, maybe a few headcanons for the KinGin brothers? I have my own, but you are like the first Kumo orientated blog (and for once a person who doesn't hate them) and I'd love to heat3 yours, as you write such interesting HCs.~ Maybe HCs (before they became criminals) for their sexualities, what they'd like in a person and what would they do if they fell in love with someone? :D

I’m just gonna throw all of these into one post and come up with a kinginkyōdai-mega-answer where I throw buckets of random hcs at all of you. xD

I have a lot of headcanons for the Kingin bro's, especially in the context of Kumo's history but some of them still need fleshing out, so these are not all of my headcanons, just some of them.^^'

Also, s/o to tumblr for being a bitch and eating my asks again. Joke’s on you, tumblr, I keep my email notifs flagged and colour-coded until I get around to answering them! HA.

Clan History

First off, I'm all with A on this one. Ginkaku and Kinkaku are distantly related to the Sage of Six Paths.

Fun fact A: Kinkaku and Ginkaku are apparently based on the Golden Horned Demon King and the Silver Horned Demon King from Wu Cheng'en's Journey to the West. I went ahead and used that novel as a basis for some of my headcanons.

Back when the disciples of the Sage of Six Paths were still spreading the teaching's of Ninshū across the continent a minor side branch of the Ōtsutsuki clan settled in a remote part of the Land of Lightning's central mountain range. They built a compound on Flat Top Mountain (平頂山 heichōsan). As proper shinobi clans are few and far in between in the Land of Lightning, the last name Ōtsutsuki gradually fell out of use. However, people from the surrounding villages quickly took to referring to the mysterious newcomers as "Heichōsan no" in place of a proper last name. Over the generations the nickname got shortened to just "Heichō".

Along with the change in name, the Heichō started considering themlseves a proper clan, separate from the Ōtsutsuki but mindful to preserve awareness of their shared ancestry.

Fun Fact B: The character 角 (kaku) can mean "horn" or "horned".The horned headpieces are a reference to the Heichō's connection to the Ōtsutsuki clan and the horns many of Kaguya's descendents were born with. To this day, members of the Heichō clan have very prominent brow bones or slightly uneven foreheads.

The clan's insignia is a stylised lotus flower referencing the Lotus Cave where the first official clan head of the Heichō and consequently each of his successors had resided.

The Heichō used to be quite striking in appearance due to their unnatural pallor but their skin gradually darkened after generations of intermarriage with the locals.

Along with the daimyō's family, the Chinoike and the Yotsuki, the Heichō were one of the only clans big enough to be of political significance. Their influence increased after the Chinoike's banishment to the Land of Hot Water, however, their place in politics remained precarious as they were often at odds with the daimyō and the Yotsuki who traditionally aligned themselves with the daimyō.

When Kumo was founded, the Heichō gifted the Five Treasured Tools of the Sage to Kumo (and by extension the daimyō's family) as a show of good faith and to gain the other clan's trust.

Their influence continued to decline after the establishment of Kumo. The First Raikage had not come from any of the major clans but married into the daimyō's family via the daimyō's sister. The then clanhead of the Heichō had high hopes for Ginkaku and Kinkaku since they were two of Kumo's most powerful shinobi and Kinkaku a hot contender for the position of Second Raikage.

Officially, the Treasured Tools belonged to the village but as Kinkaku and Ginkaku were the only one's capable of using them and they were a powerful military asset, the Heichō still retained some modicum of control over the tools.

For political reasons and because the First Raikage came to disagree with Kinkaku's methods more and more, Kinkaku was passed over in favour of the First's bodyguard.

The Second Raikage was killed mere months after his inauguration during the coup d'état staged by the Heichō in a fight with Kinkaku and Ginkaku.

Despite the Second Raikage's death, the coup d'état ultimately failed. Many of the rebellious Heichō died fighting. Most of the remaining clan members were either imprisoned or banished. The Heichō who'd remained loyal to the Raikage were allowed to stay in the Land of Lightning but encouraged to abandon the name.

During the coup d'état, Kinkaku and Ginkaku succeeded in stealing back the Treasured Tools. Despite sending out tracking teams, the minute the theft was discovered, Kumo only managed to retrieve the Kohaku no Jōhei. The other tools remained lost even after the brothers' death until the Fourth Shinobi World War.

Personal

Kinkaku and Ginkaku were both exceedingly fond of food and drink, especially after successful missions.

Kinkaku has mild sensory abilities. They're enhanced when he's in Tailed Beast Mode.

Ginkaku is the brasher of the brothers but Kinkaku is the one ultimately calling the shots.

As children they used to be huge troublemakers. They frequently stole fruit at the market just to see if they could get away with it.

Kinkaku and Ginkaku first came in contact with Kakuzu via the black market. They weren't exactly friends but they frequently collaborated on bounty hunts, especially in the months leading up to the coup.

As for relationship headcanons, would it be a dick move to link you back to your own headcanons? I never really thought about the Kingin bros in a sexual context, but I pretty much agree with most of the points you made. I think they'd look for a tough SO who'll take no shit but who's on their side, ride-or-die. Ginkaku might be more prone to jealousy than Kinkaku and more likely to do dumb shit trying to impress someone, while Kinkaku's calmer and more on the rational side of things, but ridiculously stubborn about never ever letting someone he's interested in see his weak side. But tbh, I have a hard time imagining them with anybody at all. 'sides, whoever their SO may be, their SO will have to come to terms with the fact that both, Kinkaku and Ginkaku, will always put their brother first.

Sorry for the wait. I hope, I didn't disappoint.^^'

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

Mob Psycho 100 II 9 - 11 | My Roommate is a Cat 9 - 11 | Spec Ops Asuka 9 - 11 | Shield Hero 9 - 10 | Morose Mononokean 10 | Double Decker! EX 2 | Price of Smiles 10 - 11

Mob Psycho II 9

So…uh…is this the first time we’ve had lyrics for the OP???

For some reason, “you little s***” is a hilarious nickname…in my head.

Is it just me, or did the style of Teruki’s eyes change when he got that stack of hair off his head?

My Roommate is a Cat 9

Please don’t let that random voice be the do-oh no. I was right *sigh* As much as I think dogs are fine and cute and all, this is a show about a cat, so naturally I feel diametrically opposed to dogs when watching.

Long ago, the writer and his cat lived in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Signing attacked! …Yeah. I couldn’t resist the Avatar pun…of course.

Aw…Kawase is a good guy, even if he’s a bit obnoxious to poor Haru.

As someone who’s currently volunteering at a charity store, I forget to say “thanks” all the time. It eats me up, it really does…

That post-credits sequence was funny, but only because I could read the “dying message” (it’s katakana ha <-> kanji hachi -> number 8).

Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka 9

Oh hey, a cheerleader stamp (sticker...?) from the Cheerleader vs Megaton Shark movie!

Wait, whaaaaaaaaat?! I thought Asuka was Tamara’s older sister (metaphorically), but…she’s nottttttttttttttt??? Also, why doesn’t Tamara get creeped out by the fact her stuffed toy could be a Disas in disguise?

Why is everyone so…for lack of a better term…gay for Asuka?! Even Tabira…

Ouch for Tabira. I’m just laughing because it’s like seeing SekaTsuyo or Bikini Warriors being torn up in front of my face – I’m thanking whoever made this for that image alone!

Cenobite. Basically…it’s another horror reference.

The Osprey stands out so much…CGI..it’s so garish…

Garish CGI strikes again, this time in the form of a 4WD!

Shield Hero 9

Naofumi’s such a dad…haha.

It’s a Filo-and-fish! Hahaha! (Update: I’m aware there are some of you who might never have heard of a Fillet-o-fish and so…there you go. It’s a McDonald’s meal name. It makes me hungry just thinking about it, to be honest though.)

Why does Motoyasu even care so much for underage girls? Sure, they have their rights too, but…is he a lolicon???

They talk about “white privilege”…so maybe there’s “hero privilege” as well…hmm…

Motoyasu’s “treasure-protection shields” versus Filo = 0 to 2, Filo’s victory! Hahaha!

Morose Mononokean 10

The idea of Rippou being amused by “a mundane world plank”…amuses me. So does the idea of Abeno and Ashiya walking around as a shingami and witch, respectively…Come to think of it, Ashiya’s always the one who dresses like a woman if the need arises, huh?

I feel sorry for Zenko, to be honest…I mean, she’s wearing what’s meant to be Abeno’s outfit! She’s going to trip, y’know? Where are the OH and S concerns (OH and S = occupational healh and safety, though...yeah, I make that mistake a lot)???

Come to think of it, I wasn’t tracking where Abeno’s book went. So he left it in the Mononokean…I see.

Poor Fuzzy! He got taken by Komon!!!

Smol Itsuki…I swear I’ve seen a similar character in a manga before – and somehow I know it’s a manga, but I don’t remember which one…

Double Decker! EX 2

Couldn’t you just ask “Milla” (even if he’s not a Police Academy graduate)? Pretend Valery is Kirill or something, maybe.

I can’t believe they’re still making jokes about Doug’s laundry…

I feel kind of bad at snickering at this crossdressing thing – you know how the LGBTIQ+ community feels about this stuff, don’t you?

Travis’s pick-up lines are too cheesy for this earth…*shakes head with grin on face*

There’s a police bird mascot on the dashboard of the Seven-O car.

When I realised what Mr Goldman was doing to Kirill (potential sekuhara and disguise reveal, if you know what I mean)…my face went all funny…

I don’t think I’ve seen a Kirill and Valery eyecatch before…hmm.

The fact there were two men making out in the change rooms…I wonder if that was played for humour? If so, that’s nasty to the LGBTIQ+ people, y’know?

“Max, that’s mine. Take good care of it.” – Your…what, Deana? Your target???

The next-ep preview had me laughing! Travis, don’t give yourself away!!! But now I get why Kirill was in a wedding dress.

Price of Smiles 10

Y’know, Lily, you shouldn’t wish for a kid to be confined to their house forever. Kids grow up and then need to make a living…at least, that’s what I’ve learnt.

I honestly (almost…?) thought we’d only see casualties on Yuki’s side…guess I was wrong.

Shield Hero 10

Notably, a lot of Western-inspired fantasy works such as this use “runes” based on stylised English…including the map that appears in this ep.

This knight that’s doing all the talking…his name is Ake, according to the interface.

My Roommate is a Cat 10

The irony of that dog bag of Haru’s (the human girl’s).

Cats and Dreams (Neko to Yume) = a parody of Hana to Yume (Flowers and Dreams).

All these thoughts Subaru has of his mother make me want to hug mine…

“50 inches”, my butt! (The newspaper says there’ll be 50 centimetres of snow...)

I expected Okami to be at the supermarket (Nana, not her brother)…but instead, Hiroto showed up. What a small world it is in this anime…(well, it is all set in the same neighbourhood, with the exception of that signing, so it should be. At least, I guess so.)

F*** it, Hiroto. I thought you were annoying in the past, but you’re nice too! What’s up with this show??? Why do I feel everything Subaru feels??? (Uh…past me, maybe, that’s the point of this show…?)

The cat show is also relatable in how I peel apples…and that would probably carry over to other fruit and veg too…

If there’s one thing I can annoy this show about, it’s how to transition between human and cat perspectives. Aside from that, it’s A-OK!

Morose Mononokean 11

Wait, these birds have one foot (each) and ear wings??? Wuh???

Oh, now that Abeno mentions it, Chungo has a crescent, but one of the other bros has a heart on his belly. Another one has a circular pattern with a round dent where the head is (like a partial moon, with the smaller edge inverted).

One of the “birds” has two dents in his belly pattern (like the one I described just before, but this time with a W shape).

Hmm…in much the same way the police act as a representative of the state, the reason there needs to be a master of the Mononokean is to represent it…and maybe the Legislator. Is that right, people?

Come to think of it…”chun” roughly means “tweet”, hence “Chunichi”, “Chunji” etc.

The name of this episode is Kii (literally, “return to residence” as far as I understand it…I may have misinterpreted that second kanji though).

Is Komon a “she”? It’s hard to tell, really.

Mob Psycho 100 10

“Prime Minister Yabe”, eh?

I think I saw “ONE” written on one of the buildings.

I sort of saw the comparison between Sho and his dad coming as soon as I saw Ritsu and Sho hanging out together.

I found my old first season predictions from summer 2016 and now I just remembr Dimple as a “green cloud”, LOL.

Well…sorry to break it to you guys, but someone’s post was called “Dimple makes the Body Improvement Club PLUS ULTRA” so I sort of know where this is going…

Hmm…this “muscles with psychic power =/= muscles with training” thing reminds me of the tomatoes from s2 ep 1.

Mob Psycho 100 11

(Mob says something along the lines of “you need to rely on others to help you survive.”) - Welp, Mob, that’s a consumerist post-Fordist society for ya.

“…don’t use your psychic powers against others.” Don’t think I’ve corrected any subs in a while.

…and randomly, Reigen.

Post-credits scene. Keep watching!

I just realised these “courses” mentiond in the next-ep previews are related to the Japanese side of things – BDs, DVDs, events and manga.

Egao no Daika 11

Almost done with the season, eh?

Couldn’t Huey have been shown giving the money, rather than keeping it a secre until the rest of the group did it…?

Please say that’s an armistice, Yu-oh no.

I feel like revealing Izana’s death to his family now…is a bit late.

That’s Stella’s fish bowl! Great Scott! (Okay…that was a terrible pun. Y’see, Scott was the one who believed Stella was Layla’s daughter…and he was right.)

Oh…end of credits segment. Keep watching.

Notably, the ep 12 title (”The Price of Smiles”) is written in kanji + hiragana, instead of the katakana of the show title.

Spec Ops Asuka 11

“I don’t want to run.” – Well, with Nozo-chan leaning on her like that, Sayako definitely won’t be running…in more ways than one.

Ken can mean “dog” in certain contexts, y’know. So Kenjou seems like a good name for a dog boi...spirit…thing?

My Roommate is a Cat 11

I’m going to miss this show when it’s gone…

I feel like a better episode title translation would be “Overlapping Feelings”.

Hmm…I never thought he (Subaru) was wearing a tonne of blue because he liked it. I just thought it was a good aesthetic choice on the part of the mangaka…welp, at least there’s a reason for it now.

Rabbiteye blueberries. I’d never heard of them before, to be honest. (Isn’t blue meant to be rare in nature???)

I could tell from the silhouette it was Kawase…

I know that feel…haven’t you seen the meme that goes…oh, I’ll go find it. Then you’ll understand what I mean.

^…This one.

LOL, that image of Haru on Kawase’s computer.

This show makes me wanna hug my parents…Update: Hey, I said that a few episodes ago. That makes me feel really stupid.