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tuttle-4077 · 4 months

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Find the Word!

Find the words from the list in your WIPs and post the paragraph they belong to.

Thanks for the tag @benevolenterrancy. I've been working hard to clean out my WIPs, but I still have a few kicking around. I don't know how many words I'm going to find, but I'll see what's up.

Accident

“Now, you might remember that, after we rescued Miss Newkirk, we unsealed a new set of codes and couriered them to Papa Bear for immediate use,” Campbell continued. The other men nodded. “Gentlemen, those codes were found in the possession of the men we just arrested.”

There was a stunned silence. “But how?” O’Malley demanded. “It’s only been four days!” His face hardened. “Who had access to those codes?”

“The men in this room,” Sinclair answered. “And, of course, the couriers, I suppose.”

“And where are they?”

“We have them in interrogation now,” Campbell informed him. “But, so far, they seem legitimate.”

“Anyone else?” O’Malley asked.

Sinclair shook his head. “Not to my knowledge, sir. The codes were sealed and under lock and key. And Major Campbell and I drafted them in private.” It had been a brilliant code if he did say so himself. It was a shame that it was now compromised.

“Well Jerry didn’t get them by accident,” O’Malley said.

“We’re questioning the German agents,” Campbell reported. “But they, ah, will require more persuasive techniques.”

--From the as of yet untitled sequel to Papa Bear's List

Okay, that's more than a paragraph, but dialogue is funny that way.

Hope

“Perfectly,” he said stiffly while mentally cursing. He hoped she didn’t notice the tremble in his hand even while he ordered it to stop. “I really ought to be asking you that,” he continued. “How are you holding up, Miss Newkirk?”

--Another snippet from the PBL sequel

Touch

Carter gingerly touched his knee and gagged from the pain. He sucked in several quick breaths and looked down. He couldn’t see much in the darkness, but he could feel blood covering his hand and soaking his pant leg. The fact that he wasn’t dead yet and that the blood wasn’t squirting out of him meant the bullet hadn’t hit an artery, but Carter had to stem the flow of blood anyway. Awkwardly, he shucked off his shirt, wincing a little as he pulled his hand through the sleeve. He had had to break his thumb to free himself from the cuffs. All for nothing, he reminded himself sourly. And now his chances of escape were altogether abysmal even with the fact that Hochstetter hadn't bothered to cuff his hands again.

--From Hochstetter's Revenge. This bit is technically not a WIP since it's posted, but the story itself is a WIP

Sweet

"How sweet,” Hochstetter said. “You must be a proud father. I’d hate for anything to happen to your children. So young.” He turned a dangerous eye to Carter. “On the couch, Sergeant," he ordered. Carter slowly backed up until he was seated. Hochstetter stayed near the entrance and surveyed the room.

--Another (posted) snippet from Hochstetter's Revenge

Yell Anger (no yell in my WIPs, so I used a word from a previous post)

Once he got over being mad at himself, he turned his anger towards London. They must have known the old mines were there—someone had told Hogan before he arrived—and they didn’t do anything about it. They could have started up the operation long before. Surely there was a British officer who was just as capable as Hogan. Why did they have to wait for him, of all people? There were times that Newkirk fancied that he could have been the leader. He was undoubtedly cunning enough to pull it off. One didn’t grow up on the streets of London without learning a trick or two.

--From As the Romans Do, a sequel to Distant Sun

Ummmm. Okay. I don't know who's who on tumblr but let's see. @belphegor1982 and @yeaaaaaa-faebee and @frau-wilhelm-klink do you want to play? Do have WIPs?

Okay, here are some words: sigh, hint, heart, toast, operation

#I want to get excited for your stories #Show me the WIPs!!!#All my WIPs are for LONG stories #I posted all my shorter WIPs #As long as it doesn't take ten years to finish them I'm doing good

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7potato7 · 5 months

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So, Xie Lian descends from Heaven without stopping to let Ling Wen get even a single word in. He goes back to doing what he normally does, completely unaware that he just turned literally all of Heaven upside down. He spends several years this way (maybe even decades?? he has an excellent track record hiding from people) but Feng Xin and/or Mu Qing eventually find him and go wtf dude. So, since he's technically a fugitive now (Heaven saw him ascending, destroying everything, then rapidly descending similarly to a terrorist (except terrorism as a term doesn’t exist yet, so the xianxia equivalent ig) attack, oops. Speculation is that he works for Hua Cheng!!! which makes the man himself feel a certain type of way ofc) he flees down the Silk Road and ends up in Rome. He DID spend the time he was still in China (or the territories that would become China, since I'm estimating this at around 0 CE for my own sanity) trying to defeat random ghosts to repay his debt, but quickly realized it was futile.

ofc Feng Xin and Mu Qing now realize that this wasn't a terrorist attack! They already knew that, but Xie Lian's reaction is only proof! They go to Jun Wu, who decides that "Xianle" should be reinstated to his rightful position in Heaven. Yay! Except now they can't find Xie Lian Anywhere. Cue manhunt.

Meanwhile Xie Lian has been enlisted to the Roman army. Which, hey, he'd rather not do that. So he manages to finagle himself into a position on a small northern island which shouldn't see too much conflict. However, this is very much not the case! The Britons relied on the Roman army to defend themselves from the Saxons! So, Xie Lian just deserted and quietly retreated to gather scraps in some forgotten corner of the island. He gets caught in a storm and winds up in Ireland. He's still there when the Romans leave the island in 410 and when St. Patrick comes in 433. Turns out St. Patrick isn't actually an ascended official! How disappointing. For unrelated reasons, Xie Lian returns to Briton, now thoroughly "invaded" (read: culturally integrated) by the Angles and Saxons. He putters around the island for a while longer before heading back to the mainland (read: was exiled to the mainland. For witchcraft. In a boat with rocks in the bottom (very pseudo-historical, as far as I know the 5th century Britons were most definitely not executing people for witchcraft. Witchcraft was a fun hobby they did on the side, not a crime. However, I’d like to see you see someone stand up after being shot in the eye and not throw him in the sea. Yeah, that’s what I thought)).

He hitches up with the Merovingians, who deeply appreciate his rockin' haircut. Clovis (famously brutal and murderous, but then again who isn't), however, Did Not appreciate his ability to walk off a stabbing. Clovis stabs Xie Lian a couple extra times to be sure, then cuts his head off and sets him on fire. It takes Xie Lian about a decade to come back from that, so now it’s 511 and Clovis is dead. Xie Lian decides that he should try some other place on for size.

He ends up in a catholic monastery in Spain. This is where he learns to read Latin, which will later help him learn to read Spanish, French, German, English, you name it. Obviously, he can't pay the entrance fee, so he's a lay brother doing grunt work. He's fine with this. Although he has gathered some knowledge of the local religion, it's not something he can afford to be questioned on (thankfully, literally no peasant ever was educated in the scriptures so he was fine). The atmosphere vaguely reminds him of Mt. Taicang (in literally the vaguest possible sense), and he wonders if this is what Mu Qing had to deal with.

Then the abbot notices he hasn't aged and decides that he's an angel sent by God. Xie Lian decides it's about time for a change of scenery. They've probably forgotten about him in Briton, right?

Unfortunately, he's not that lucky. The abbot isn't willing to let him go that easily, and he and his successors chase him around Spain until 711, at which point they have other problems. Xie Lian reaches Briton and joins another monastery because that was nice. Poverty, chastity, obedience, thy name is Xie Lian!

Fortunately, this monastery is more willing to "overlook" his lack of aging. Unfortunately, this monastery is Lindisfarne, and is destroyed by Vikings in 793. Noticing that Xie Lian doesn't die when killed, the Vikings decide that he's the mortal incarnation of Thor, obviously. They take him with them, fit him out with armor and weapons, and bring him back when they sack Westphalia. He doesn't like killing anyone, but that's fine with them! They're just glad to have the mortal incarnation of... probably not Thor with them! While Xie Lian is still upset that they killed all those monks, he's gotta admit this is the best people have treated him since... his first ascension... ah, shit, he's gotta get out of here. He’s been having too much fun, this was supposed to be penance, mental spiral, etc etc. Maybe just in a bit, though.

They keep asking him to stay just a bit longer, kill just one more sea monster, please, your holiness, until suddenly it's 911 and Rollo is sacking what will become Normandy. When the French king gives it to them as a "please stop, thanks," Xie Lian goes there with Rollo. Then he leaves. The newly dubbed Normans are sad, of course, but they can't keep holding their god back! In reality, Xie Lian is worried that his bad luck is going to catch up to him.

For a while, he falls back into his scrap collecting ways -except, it isn't as easy in medieval Europe. They live in small, insular communities that don't much like strangers. So he eventually decides to just... hide in the woods.

At this point, Feng Xin and Mu Qing have obviously realized that Xie Lian isn't in China anymore (if you're wondering how it took that long, it's because they got distracted by the Warring States Period and the trail went cold). So they follow legends of a strange looking man who didn't die when stabbed to Spain. However, Xie Lian isn't in Spain. He's in the part of the world that will eventually become Germany, trying to avoid being pressed into a Crusade. Yes, it is already 1096. Keep up.

He does end up going on the Crusade as a cook. That lasts a day before they decide to throw him on the frontlines to "soften up the Moors." Xie Lian fakes his death. I could choose a specific battle, but I don't particularly care to. It was probably Antioch. Fine, it was Antioch.

He spends some time in the Byzantine Empire, which is rapidly crumbling. He flees after the Sack of Constantinople in 1204, thankfully with only minimal injuries this time. But on his way out, he briefly sees Feng Xin and Mu Qing in the chaos, fighting on the side of the Byzantine Empire. They also see him, but he leaves before they can do anything about it.

So Xie Lian fucks off to a random island in the Mediterranean. This ends up being the Island of Rhodes. He stays there doing his little scrap collecting do da until 1306, when the Hospitallers move in. Shortly after that, they themselves are booted off to Malta in another invasion. Xie Lian goes with them, bc what the hell, these guys kinda suck, they deserve the bad luck.

Xie Lian is still in Malta when the Black Plague hits in 1349. It... brings some old wounds back up to the surface. Best to just forget about it. He sticks around, anyways.

The Inquisition begins in 1478. The Hospitallers start to give him funny looks. However, he is widely viewed as a living saint, so they don’t really do anything. Xie Lian fakes his death, then barricades himself into a cave and meditates for around fifty years before coming back out. No one recognizes him. He does this a couple more times, with varying lengths of meditation. He should probably just move on, but it’s awfully difficult to get on and off Malta. Also, it’s kind of nice there.

In 1565, Xie Lian almost single-handedly holds off the siege of Malta with the aid of the inhabitants while the Hospitallers cower in their monastery. Really, these monk guys have gone downhill over the centuries. Of course, the Hospitallers and Ottomans rewrite the narrative, but who would expect any less? The truth is just embarrassing for everyone involved.

In a rare stroke of luck, Xie Lian leaves the island after the siege. Just a few short years later, in 1573, the Inquisition moves in.

It is now 1615. Xie Lian is very tired. He returns to the mainland after the siege, and now everyone is fighting over something called "indulgences." He wants to go home. He does go home! Jun Wu finds him immediately, oops. He'd been watching Mt. Taicang (insane behavior, it's been 2,000 years bro) and obviously noticed when Xie Lian went to pay respects to his parents. Xie Lian narrowly escapes and runs as far as he possibly can. Your pick whether it’s just because of the stalker-ish behavior or a Bai Wuxiang reveal. Either way, he runs all the way to the New World.

Of course, he doesn’t have the money to just... book a ship there. He signs on as an indentured servant. What are a few years off his life anyways? Unfortunately, before that can happen, he gets mugged and accidentally murders the guy. Instead of being an indentured servant in exchange for land, he is instead working off his debt to the guy's family. Which is fine, of course.

It's not, in fact, fine. After his service is done, he once more fucks off to the woods. At this point, however, most Native Americans know to be wary of foreigners, so he keeps to himself. If he gets shot by mistake a few times, it's fine, he shakes it off. At least they aren't guns. In most cases. He'll take what he can get.

He finds a cave. He meditates in the cave. He doesn't come out until 1850. It's almost being in the coffin again, except he can leave anytime. He just. Doesn't.

The shackle around his neck cracks slightly under the force of spiritual power he’s cultivated. He doesn’t notice.

The world of 1850 is very different than the world of 1650. Manifest Destiny is real and thriving. Suddenly the relatively friendly local tribes have been replaced by a bunch of other, less friendly people. The mountain used to be called Maskwa Wac, but now it’s Bear Mountain and Xie Lian is in Connecticut, apparently??? Mostly people call him strange names when he tries to ask questions, so he avoids them.

He isn’t used to people anymore. They aren’t exactly willing to get used to him, either. Centuries of dirt don’t wash out with a single bath. After two centuries in a cave, he has to relearn how to talk, write, and generally interact with the world. Culture has changed, language has changed, the entire world has changed. Xie Lian is exactly the same.

In 1863, Xie Lian finally manages to get a job. It’s gotten significantly harder to live without a job, so that’s good (maybe he should invest in this newfangled “identification” thing). Building the trans-continental railroad is a great gig for someone like Xie Lian. He’s strong and more than willing to work. The pay isn’t bad.

Unfortunately, some boulders fall on him after a misplaced TNT blast and his coworkers leave him for dead. But hey, hadn’t he heard of something called a “Gold Rush” talked about nostalgically in bars? He’s pretty sure it’s over now, but it’s worth a shot. He’s already partway there.

He only gets mauled by like three bears on the way over. It was good that he’d seen a few before at that point, or else he’d probably think they were yao. He also got shot several more times, whether by Native Americans or settlers.

The people out West hadn’t gotten a forty-niner in decades, but they’re willing to give him odd jobs mopping at bars and fixing fences and such. It’s almost nostalgic. They hear news about the South seceding and the war that follows, but it isn’t something that really affects them all the way out here. Xie Lian is glad to avoid it.

After only a couple years, he decides to go back to the East Coast. He doesn’t want to bring bad luck on these people’s heads, after all. He accidentally zig-zags down into Mexico and into South America, then overcompensates back up into Canada before finally making it to New York City.

It’s 1910. Almost the moment he steps foot in the city, he gets hit by a car. Somewhat delirious, he mistakes the car for a demon(?) and tries to kill it.

Insane asylums are not fun.

The important part is that he eventually gets out (or that’s what he tells himself). He doesn’t have the motivation to bother with a job anymore, so he bums it on the streets collecting scraps like he used to. Problem is, there’s a lot more homeless people in the post-Industrial world than the pre-Industrial one. Lots of competition for food and shelter. Usually, if it comes to a fight, Xie Lian just lets the other guy have whatever it is. It’s not like it’s life or death for Xie Lian, after all.

He gets picked up by the police, who aren’t so bad yet. Corrupt, yes, but this isn’t the Gilded Age anymore. They drop him off with a referral to work in a car factory (Xie Lian didn’t know whether to laugh or cry) and only a few bruises.

Machinery, ah... it tends to... break around him. He doesn’t last long at his new job. Neither does his job last long with him as an employee. The factory burns down. The owner has Xie Lian dropped in a river with rocks tied to his ankles. What goes around comes around, really.

In 1917, Xie Lian is drafted into WWI. So, of course, he ends up in the trenches. He’s just glad that he’s basically immune to every disease known to man. Most of his comrades aren’t so lucky.

This isn’t the type of war Xie Lian remembers fighting in -though his memories are a bit blurry at this point. They fight for inches of ground in exchange for hundreds of lives in muddy, dismal conditions. The mud kills almost more than the bombs do.

The despair is the same. That much never changes.

Xie Lian leaves. He had to. No amount of martial prowess could help stop this war. Perhaps strategy would, but even if they let some random soldier into the war room, Xie Lian wouldn’t know how to strategize with modern guns, let alone tear gas.

Feng Xin and Mu Qing are still looking for Xie Lian, of course. But the trail went cold years ago.

Hua Cheng is holding on to his existence by his fingernails these days. He’s expanded his influence globally, but he still can’t find His Highness anywhere. Ghosts everywhere tread on eggshells. In one night, he replaces every single carving and painting of Jesus in Europe with one of Xie Lian. The papacy is in an uproar, taking it as a sign from God Himself. The only person who doesn’t find it funny is Xie Lian, who is very confused. Also white supremacists. They don’t like it very much either (that just makes it funnier). It turns out that Xie Lian has been canonized as a saint a few separate times over the centuries. “His bones”/relics are in six separate churches. People start freaking out. A large portion of the Catholic church believes that Xie Lian is either Jesus (and that the rapture had already happened centuries ago) or the Antichrist. This causes a massive schism in Protestant and Catholic churches alike. Islam becomes the main Abrahamic religion. Xie Lian does his level best to ignore the people bowing to him in the streets and shaves his hair off with a bowie knife.

On another note, Jun Wu gave up on finding Xie Lian centuries ago. Turns out Xianle was just a spot of mud on his Heavenly canvas after all.

This is good. It means when Xie Lian sprints his way back across the world, Jun Wu isn’t watching Mt. Taicang anymore. Xie Lian, still a martial god, makes it there in a week at top speed. However, Mt. Taicang isn’t the same as it used to be. There’s a fence around the base, and big fancy houses everywhere. When Xie Lian touches the fence, it shocks him as if he’s been struck by lightning and he blacks out for a second. His first thought is that it’s some type of array (that some other cultivation sect has set up there, an optimistic voice whispers deep in his heart), but it’s just an electric fence of course. He climbs over.

His parents’ well is full of cement.

Xie Lian returns to the trenches. He was only gone for three weeks. His excuse is that there was a messed-up transfer. No one believes him, so he gets court martialed for desertion. It doesn’t go through. If he’d deserted, why would he ever go back to the trenches?

Eventually, he goes back to America. It was the furthest he could possibly get from his problems, after all.

It’s nice to be able to write “homeless veteran” on his signs. The police bother him less. Well, slightly less. People keep saying the economy is bad, but it’s always been bad for Xie Lian. He barely notices the differences anymore. He barely notices anything.

Then another war starts. Eventually, in 1942, Xie Lian is picked up and thrown into an internment camp. He isn’t Japanese, but he can’t exactly say he’s from Xianle, a long dead country no one has ever heard of. This is actually a massive turn in luck, because he meets Banyue and Pei Xiu in the camp. They’ve also been mistaken for Japanese, because that’s what a... misinformed forger put on their green cards when they got off Angel Island.

They all got out in 1946. Pei Xiu manages to get a low-paying job, but Banyue struggles to find work for her skillset (snakes) and Xie Lian still doesn’t have any identification. Pei Xiu quickly loses his job, and they all end up homeless again.

They’re at Stonewall when the riots start in 1969. The first brick was thrown by Marsha P. Johnson, the second by Sylvia Rivera, and the third by Shi Qingxuan, who now goes by Shi Xuan. They’ve had a bit of a rough time of it over the centuries since his brother was killed and they were knocked from Heaven, even losing an arm and leg, but they were kept immortal by her Ghost King. They don’t ever talk to each other, but Shi Xuan knows he’s watching. How else is she still alive? (If she keeps his camps close to waterfronts... well, that’s just their preference. Nothing to do with the head she can sometimes spy poking over the waves).

Shi Xuan recognizes Pei Xiu, but he recognizes nothing of the once-glorious Wind Master in them. She hits it off with Xie Lian and joins their group.

Technology is changing. Everything in the world is closer than it used to be. Privacy is quickly becoming a non-concept, especially for homeless people. There are cameras everywhere. Xie Lian, Banyue, Pei Xiu, and Shi Xuan don’t have access to this sort of technology.

Jun Wu, Feng Xin, Mu Qing, and Hua Cheng do. In 2003, a video of a homeless man telling a police officer off goes viral on LiveJournal and MySpace. On a completely unrelated note, several immortals show up in various American cities. Jun Wu is contemplating moving the Heavenly Court. Scientists are calling the sudden outburst of silver butterflies an invasive species.

It’s 2005, and Xie Lian hops onto the subway. It has been 2,803 years since he was banished. In an empty subway car, he meets a Ghost King in red.

#please don't take this too seriously #this is crack thinly veiled with angst #or angst thinly veiled with crack?#one of those #tgcf #modern au #canon divergence #if anyone sees any timeline mistake lmk #it's been a while since I got my history minor and Wikipedia is only so helpful

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nachoaveragejoe234 · 2 years

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Monster High characters if their names were normal:

Claudine Leclerq (Clawdeen) - She's half Haitian in my headcanon

Francine "Frankie" Frankenstein - Frankie's name is fine

Laura Dracul (born Laura Aurelius) - Born in Roman Italy

Sheena Blair (Lagoona) - Couldn't think of a name that sounded similar to Lagoona

Cleo Mohammed

Giulia De Carlo - Ghoulia is Italian Canadian

Abigail Barandova (Abbey) - Of course I see her as Russian even if she technically isn't

Demitrios Argopolis (Deuce) - Gorgon isn't really a surname (I don't think)

Michelle Dubois (Rochelle) - I am now being informed Rochelle is a legit name, I'm sorry Frenchies

Tammy Harrington (Twyla) - I see her as a Tammy for some reason

Rebecca Raj (Robecca) - Indian British

Christine "Operetta" Daae II - Named after her mother

Jennifer Wong

Elizabeth Constsntinescu (Elissabat)

Vanessa McBride (Venus) - She's Scottish-American

Lorelei Schweiz (Toralei) - Her name, but less catty

Persephone and Melody Danielson - I don't know why Danielson, I just did

Jane Doolittle

Iris Diamantis

Lorna McAlester

Zainab Farooq (Gigi) - Wanted her to have an actually Arabic name

Betsy Claro

Sarah O'Shea

Serena Von Berg - She's German-American

Kjersti Kristoffson

Kiyomi Takahashi

Bonita Ford

Silvi MacDougall - She's super Scottish

Ariana "Ari" Huntington - Named after Ariana Grande

Monica de la Rosca (Moanica) - Latina

Mercedes King

Luna Mathews

Elle Edelman Devon = Edelman Devon, or E.D.

Honey Swann

Glory Mantel

Gilda Papandreou

Freyja Magnusdóttir (Kala) - She's Icelandic

Finnegan Ioannadis - He's actually Greek, believe it or not, not Irish, in G3 he seems to be a siren, so I went with Greek for him

Anisa Perbesi (Amanita) - Amanita is Indonesian

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flaresanimedump · 1 year

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Is it Ranpo or Rampo? PSA since the spelling is different between subs:

The real life author Edogawa Ranpo/Rampo was a very cool person. There are lots of fun stories about him, but the thing to know is that he liked Edgar Allan Poe and could speak English. (He liked Poe's mystery stories specifically, Poe having created the proto-Sherlock in his stories about character C. Auguste Dupin).

Why RaNpo: The original author based his pen name on Edgar Allan Poe. Because of the Japanese phonetic system, the first O is considered "soft" and can be skipped over when talking fast, and the W sound is so soft it's often omitted from translation altogether. The Rs are a little more complicated but for the purposes of this explanation I'll just say that soft Rs at the ends of English words are often omitted in their Japanese counterparts (i.e. "computer" is pronounced "computa"), and Japanese doesn't have an L sound exactly, so the R in Ranpo is a stand-in. Thus:

Edgar Allan Poe -> Edga aran po -> Edgaa ranpo -> Edogawa Ranpo -> えどがわ•らんぽ ->　江戸川•乱歩

So this makes it seem like a no-brainer to spell it Ranpo. I'll give another point in Ranpo's favor: Japanese does not have a stand-alone character for M. Each Japanese character has at least two letter sounds in it and one is always a vowel (thus "do" instead of just "d" in Edogawa). Vowel-only sounds are an exception to this rule. They have characters that represent solo A, E, I, O, U sounds - and one for N. ん is just the letter N. They do have the M sound of course, and Ranpo is written "Ra-n-po" so this must mean it's Ranpo, right?

Why RaMpo:

Now it gets complicated. As previously mentioned, Edogawa Rampo could read and speak English. He couldn't write it, however, and so in the 1950s he collaborated with a translator to translate his works into English. His chosen romanization of his pen name? Edogawa Rampo.

Now we KNOW he knew better. He can read English and he's a huge Poe fan, he knows this isn't how Allan is spelled. I haven't been able to find anything on his reasoning, but nobody in the US even realizes this is a play on Poe's name upon hearing it, so I doubt copyright had anything to do with the spelling (and they got way fewer claims for that in the 1950s anyway). I will say that I've seen quite a few Japanese people choose handles related to things they like in German/English and then choose to spell it differently in the romanization, so it might just be for fun. But whatever the reason, the fact remains that Edogawa Rampo himself spelled it Rampo.

On the use of ん, a translator friend of mine once explained the phonetics of the ん character to me. If you're an avid weeb you might have seen "senpai" spelled "sempai" on occasion. You know how the letter A has long and short pronunciations (denoted by "ā" and "ă" respectively)? Similarly, ん has 4 different pronunciations depending on the sounds around it. The most common one is indeed the N sound English-speakers are familiar with, but if ん comes before a sound where your lips press together (such as M, B, or P) it's pronounced like an M. Rampo has one of these sounds following the ん. Certain style guides advise using the letter M in this case.

Since these style guides are prevalent in Japan, it's possible that Edogawa was just following one of those in his chosen translation. Or he might have been being artistic. Someone out there may know but I sure don't.

As a final note for Rampo, all of the official Japanese merch uses the M spelling. I take any and all official merch spellings with a grain of salt, but in this case it's very consistent. Funimation's written romanization has been Rampo (check season 2), but Yen Press has used Ranpo.

So what's the answer?

Technically both are "right," it just depends on your style guide (and, personally, I like Ranpo better), so the answer is... use whichever you like! Such is the way of romanization in anime fandoms.

#edogawa ranpo #ranpo edogawa #bungo stray dogs #bungou stray dogs #but sadly there's more evidence for RaMpo #I will be ignoring it #update: I blame dyslexia for not noticing the Yen Press translation of the manga uses Ranpo #as do the scans #THAT is how the spelling got popular lol #analysis

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haljathefangirlcat · 1 month

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Sorry for the spam. I have a lot of Volsung-Nibelung-Dietrich Cycle thoughts. But what do you think Volker's early life was like? His job is minstrel, which means two things in a medieval context: a knight with no real estate who was someone else's retainer, and traveling musician, and very often these two meanings would overlap, because knights with no independent income would take up music to make ends meet. However, the official establishment of minstrels/ministerialis as a social institution was around the Carolinian empire, which is later than original historical inspiration for the death of the Nibelung Dynasty or Attila. And I think the German is Volker Spielman, so he's technically just a musician? Volker is also called THE Minstrel, so was he the official court poet for the Burgundians? Scops of England and Skalds of Scandinvia had a fairly prominent position at court, where they not only entertained and recounted the deeds of their leaders, but also recited oral history and use satirical songs to spur people into action on the eve of battles or quests, so do you think Volker was filling this role for the Burgundians?

Aww, don't worry about it! Sure, it was a bit... unexpected, I guess, but that's mostly because I'm not used that many asks, in a row or not, on any topic. XD Also, I totally get the excitement of meeting someone else on here willing to talk about all of this. ;)

As for Volker... you know, I've often wondered about it, too. In the Nibelungenlied, at least, he seems to be placed pretty firmly in Gunther's court, but then again, we don't actually see that much of him before the Burgundians travel to Attila's court and the story starts (imo) zeroing in on Hagen's relationships and connections.

I'm pretty sure "Spielman" is the right term, but on the other hand, I'm not sure if that would indicate a very specific/well-defined role or be more of a "he's the Music Guy in our group, we identify him by his music before of any other achievement or title."

Later representations/adaptations of him may not be very relevant to the question, but now that I'm thinking about it, he seems to be THE court poet in Worms in both Lang's and Reinl's Die Nibelungen movies. (Although, frankly, I've always thought he doesn't get enough space or importance in the former.) Stephan Grundy, too, gives him that kind of role in Rhinegold and Attila's Treasure, even if, due to setting his story in Late Antiquity, complete with Germanic migrations, foederati, and wary Romans, he puts more emphasis on him being not just a musician but a keeper of the Burgundians' mythological, historical, and genealogical lore. He also has him act as a messenger and an ambassador of sort between tribes.

I'm also thinking back to this one academic paper... "Volker von Alzey - the figure of the minstrel and standard~bearer in medieval Nibeîungen tradition and in German literature from 1819 to 1968" by David Noble. Bear with me because I read it ages ago, but iirc, at one point the author considered, among other theories on Volker's origins as a literary figure, the hypothesis that the Volker von Alzey we get specifically in the Nibelungenlied might have inspired by an historical nobleman from the Rhine area who was an Imperial administrator (or seneschal?) and standard-bearer who might have just happened to have a talent for music.

In my headcanons, I kind of always go for an aristocrat warrior/court poet angle, as it seems the neatest solution to me, but no matter what prominence and sway on other nobles and royals through his talents, eloquence, and wit I think up for him, I also generally picture him as... like, lower nobility, in a sense? Or at least, lower than, say, Hagen, who gets the "his ancestors totally descended from the Trojans" treatment in the Waltharius. Both because I enjoy the idea of Volker being just a bit of a self-made man, and because I really, really like the idea of the Volker/Hagen friendship (... or "friendship" ;)) and, more than that, their respect for each other and ability to discuss things as equals (like the "we should stand from the bench for Kriemhild" thing or, later, the "please don't go fight a bunch of Huns on your own" thing during the night watch... both arguments Hagen wins in the end, but he does that by convincing Volker and appealing to the affection they feel for each other, not by ordering Volker around) going easily beyond that kind of stuff.

... also, I thiiiiiink there's a little bit in Adventure 33, or anyway during the fight between the Burgundians and the Huns, where Hagen mentions to Gunther that he has a higher position than Volker when they all sit at a table together, and that he thinks Volker should get to wear finer clothes than he currently does? But I might be misremembering (or misinterpreting!) either the phrasing or the intention of that. So take that with a grain of salt, lol.

#ask #fate-magical-girls #nibelungenlied #volker von alzey #hagen x volker #< because i can't help myself

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milkywayan · 11 months

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hi. could you recommend medieval literature? thank you :)

uuh, yes i can but that really depends on the fact if you can understand german! i dont know if there are english translations of it (i read them in dual language editions, with middle high german and new high german) - i only have read one book that is not german

But in case you can, here are the ones i read in the past year (the not german one is the last one):

Collection of poems by Walther von der Vogelweide - one of the most famous german speaking minnesänger, lived from 1170 - 1230, and has stolen my heart with his diss tracks to the pope; author of the Famous 'Palästinalied' written as propaganda during the crusades

Collection of poems by Neidhart von Reuental - another important german speaking minnesänger, born around 1180/90, so a younger contemporary of Walther, sings a lot about the 'stupid peasants' and how they try to emulate life of the nobles (great fun, the peasants hated him); the Neidhart persona was very self depricating, depticting an unlucky knight; my favourite song of his is 'Meie din liechter schin'

Der Ackermann by Johannes von Tepl - probably one of my absolute favourite books ever, written in the early 15th century as a story for a friend of Johannes von Tepl, who himself was an educated man from northern bohemia; technically already early new high german and not middle high german; the story is a dialogue between a man and death - the mans wife has just died and he starts insulting death, demanding to bring her back. it goes back and forth, and they discuss life, death, humanity creation, god and grief. i loved it

Ein kurtzweilig Lesen von Dil Ulenspiegel - written around 1515 by an anonymous author in early new low german; german speaking people are more familiar with the modern name Til Eulenspiegel. I grew up with the modern adaptations of the story, but the late medieval ones are so, so much more crude. it is a collection of short stories, telling the tale of Dil Ulenspiegel, a silly boy/young man who does silly things. a medieval comedy, nothing profound. the original print has nice wood cut illustrations. it was widely popular, because medieval people could read (although they couldn't necessarily write)

Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach - written around 1200-1210 in southern germany, picks up athurian legend. i am half way through and have personal beef with wolfram. but it is good, a lot of depictions of noble life and medieval morals and ideas. makes A LOT of references to other writers of the time, including Walther von der Vogelweide, Gottfried von Straßburg (see next book) and Hartmann von Aue (see below)

Tristan by Gottfriend von Straßburg - written around 1210, is the german adaptation of the tale of Tristan and Isolde. I have not read it yet, but the books are on my shelf to be read as soon as I am done with Parzival

Erec by Hartmann von Aue - written around 1180/90 is said to be the first arthurian story written in german and an adaptation of the old french Erec et Enide - same as above have not read it yet

Iwein by Hartmann von Aue - second arthurian story, written around 1200, also adaptation of the old french story - same as above i have to still read it

The tale of the two lovers by Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (future Pope Pius II) - written in latin (there are english translations!) in the mid 15th century for a friend while at the court of Vienna, this is the most famous medieval erotic novel we have! It is about a married woman falling in love with one of the holy roman emperors men while they visit the town in italy she lives in, and the spicy affair they end up having, probably based on a similar story that happened. Aeneas lived a wild life and was old beyond his age, having 2 kids with two different women in two different countries out of wedlock and being a well travelled poet. he also hated women, like, A LOT. after he became pope he wanted to supress the circulation of the book, but is was a best-seller so it didnt work evidently, as i have read it in the 21st century

In addition to that, as a historical fencer I also read the sources, but these will be boring to people who dont care, but here are some anyways:

The Art of Swordsmanship by Hans Lecküchner - most famous source for Langes Messer techniques

Das Fechtbuch by Albrecht Dürer - yes, THE Dürer wrote a fencing book, completely in verse with nice illustrations!

Jude Lew - his fencing manuals are also nice, no illustrations only text

Hope this helps in a way.. again, i read mostly german medieval literature, so idk if this is useful as idk if any of these books have been translated

#personal #medieval literature #middle high german #medieval studies #any real medievalists could add something that is more useful #i am just a hobbyist reenactor

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artwithoutblood · 5 months

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for reference, here is one from the arms & armour inc

Hehehe... I had one off bronzecannons.net that inspired a particular redesign, it's half drawn.

Technically what I’ve done to it makes it no longer count as a bec de corbin but another type of war hammer… but shhh. Rule of cool. Birds.

you know, i made that his weapon on purpose and completely forgot that i did. feel free to spill about the theories.

There are wild theories about two known tattoos but I'll just start with one. Apparently Dorian has a tattoo in Latin on one of his arms and he won't tell you what it says.

It could likely be a personal motto, sentimental, or cult related. Or a punishment before his final drastic one.

But tattoos were stigmatized in ancient Rome, associated with criminals, slaves, or soldiers/mercenaries (as dogtags or to make it harder to desert). Tattoos were even seen as a mark of disgrace or punishment. They were also considered barbaric.

People considered to be barbarians eg. the Germanic tribes were heavily tattooed. It could be cultural as Dorian was from a Germanic region (Austria) but it’s unlikely for him to have had a tattoo when he emigrated as a four year old. (I hope.) It also mentions that was for the pre-Christian tribes, which I think would have been a lot earlier than Dorian’s time. Plus he would have got the crescent moon tattoo later in life after forming the cult in Rome.

But pursuing the military angle. I can't be sure of historical accuracy (thanks 'Gladiator' movie) but by specifically looking for SPQR tattoos in Latin there are some pictures of Latin phrases on arms. Some mottoes from statesmen/philosophers might maybe be relevant.

And the horseman's pick was not a discreet weapon. Rather than being carried for self defence it was used in battle to pull soldiers off their horses and puncture armour.

(The theory does fall apart a bit here though because I don't know if the Roman army used this type of weapon. It would be more typical for them to have spears, lances, javelins, pikes.

The bec de corbin is described as being of Middle Eastern origin and in the reference picture I used the weapon was French. It is described as being used in medieval Europe though, and the transition to the Middle Ages (late antiquity) began when Rome fell so maybe this was in the early middle Ages/early Byzantine period?

Some Germanic people did expand and settle into Rome, allied with Rome and served as auxiliary forces. Perhaps this is why Dorian's family came, to settle on land and get rewards. And perhaps Dorian inherited his father's weapon. But warhammers were popular in the late Medieval period after Dorian had probably died so idk. Perhaps Dorian acquired it after his death, but with his power I can't think why he would have needed it.)

Still. I'm not great on history but apparently Dorian was about (or died?) around the fall of Rome and the rise of Byzantine (lots of external attacks from invaders, war, and the military turning on the government), and apparently he was much scarier in life. Relished cruelty.

Gilles de Rais vibes - different time and place but both men (and Joan of Arc) were executed for heresy in a similar way. Burned at the stake. From hints about who Dorian worshiped and his rites, I suspect both men were also accused of being in league with the Devil.

There are definitely some other very plausible explanations for the Latin arm tattoo and some big plot holes but yeah. Based on small crumbs I'm wondering if Dorian ever fought as a mercenary in life.

(Dorian's very poor vision may make it less likely, but there may not have been formal eye tests and that wouldn't necessarily have barred him from fighting if he signed up or was conscripted. Especially among those being used as disposable 'fodder', and/or in more desperate times when the invading tribes were relentless and the ranks may have been thinned. The late Roman army actually was forced to rely mainly on conscription in the 3rd century crisis, when food supply issues meant fewer volunteers.

I'm getting conflicting info suggesting the pick has been used both on horseback and on foot, so bad eyesight might not have been as much of a problem if he had been fighting in melee. And yes, barbarian-born soldiers fought as allies. There were only really conflicts of loyalty when fighting against their own particular tribe.)

If it's not something personal to Dorian the tattoo implication really depends on when he got it.

From skimming info, in earlier Roman times it was more for slaves or punishment and in the late Roman Empire to Byzantine era it was more for military purposes.

i'll start you off by saying the bec de corbin was picked up later in his demonhood. someone showed it to him and he thought it was cool as hell, and so a custom one was gifted to him that runs red in its veins with a hunger.

him being some sort of mercenary turned cult leader is actually really, really fun, and if i wasn't the person i am i would've stolen that. that's fucking brilliant.

in the reality of 10:16, the tattoo on his arm is of the player's name. while 10:16 is part of the awb-verse, it is not canon in awb, to say. the scenario is, but this situation with the fallen is not. if you want to think of it that way, please feel free.

in the context of awb itself, it is a list of reminders.

#dorian ask

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one-coming-is-enough · 9 months

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Why is half of your fanbase so annoying 😔😔 like please- yk you could have added a little footnote that said "be gay do crime" to your biography, right?

I feel like I said that, like, all the time.

Or like, I told people how to break the very specific laws of the Roman empire in a way that would get the noble Romans and the soldiers in trouble, not the Jews or the slaves or your average baker dude.

And I told people not to worry about outdated food restrictions and who's "impure" or whatever because, like, everyone is a person, bro? Even lepers could use some kindness. You aren't gonna catch anything from a prostitute just sitting across from the table and sharing a basket of fried shrimp with her.

I didn't just sit there and say "Do crimes, it's cool!" because people are going to be like, "Let's do all the murders now!" because unfortunately, a lot of people are just, like.

*deep breath*

They do not think about the kind of world they are creating with their actions, just whether their own immediate desires can be justified in any way.

*big toke*

Gahhh.

Also, did nobody notice Me saying "There is no male or female in Me" or what? I wasn't saying that I don't bottom (cause I do). I was saying that I don't think we should be divvying up labor or inheritance laws or pretty much any laws between men and women, same as you shouldn't be using slaves to do your dirty work or hiring Jews at a cut rate because it's technically legal. Fuck that, compensate people fairly for their labor and recognize skill where it lays. I don't think that's so hard to do.

And yeah, sex stuff pertains to that, too. Those laws in the Torah were written way back when there weren't that many people on Earth at all and Mother needed everyone to breed. And then She added some when She was fighting with the Greeks.

"Don't bring your Greek twink home and fuck him in your wife's bed or she'll kill you and nobody will blame her for it, they'll probably even help." That was real specific, Mother. No wonder I never got married.

(I'm not saying I think She killed Her husband before She even created the Universe, but... I think She killed Her husband before She even created the Universe and that's why I have two Mommies and a very patient step-dad instead.)

(It's just a theory. And a big reason I've been slacking off really hard for a couple millennia.)

I also told people not to use words like "raca" for guys even if they're really femme because that's just fuckin' rude, man. Or what is it now, "sissy"? Same with "ergi" or calling stuff you don't like "gay".

(Sorry, this phone automatically translates everything to what I speak and read, which is a pretty informal mix of Hebrew, Latin, and Koine Greek, so some things I have to translate myself. I'm literally learning English by teaching myself Yiddish and going back through German, it's really funky and I'm still getting used to it.)

I even healed a completely paralyzed guy because I thought it was really sweet that his Roman boyfriend loved him enough to come seek Me out even though he would have definitely gotten into big trouble with his garrison leader if anyone had found out. I had my boys write that down specifically.

I also can't just say "Be gay" because then everybody would be gay regardless of how they actually felt about it, and that's not good either. Plus, very few babies born, and that's like the exact opposite of what any of Us want.

So. Do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law? And Love is the Law, Love under Will?

(I think I said that to someone about a hundred years ago, but I was drinking and blazing a lot then. Shit was not going well on Earth and I was not taking it well. I don't know if he wrote it down or if anything ever came of it.)

#good omens rp #the other A. Crowley #christianity #homosexuality #be gay do crimes #leviticus

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krabmeat · 2 years

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WHAT IS FEUDALISM

OMGOMGOMGOMG I AM SOOOOOOO GLAF YOU ASKED BITING BITIBG BITING

OKOKOK SO FEUDALISM WAS A SYSTEM THAT WAS MAINKY PROMINENT BEFORE THE RENAISSANCE IN EUROPE !!!

it was a system that was kinda weak in terms of stability because ot relied on the subjects loyalty in the king. BUT THERES A POWER TRIANGKR TEEHEE !!! okokok so basically kings are at the tippy top of the pyramid right??? king give a bunch of rich people land and shit (theyre called lords) and is basically like "ill give yoy guys a shit ton of land as long as you be my sugar daddy and give me profit and food and shit"

so THEN the lords higher knights that look over the lords and the land INCLUDING the bottom of the pyramid- the peasants !!! the peasants are the fellas that do all the labor for their lords like farm, mine, make clothes, that kinda shit but it was kinda like a form of slavery because they were bound to the land and essentially worked til they DIED

BUT NOW HOLD ON !!!! CAUSE THERES ALSO TUE CHURCH AND THE BISHOPS AND THOSE FUCKERS LOOOOVE THEIR RICH PEOPLE !!! THEY CATERED TO THE RICH AND MADE THE POOR BELIEVE THAT IF THEY DID ANYTHING WRONG THEUD BE DOOMED TO DAMNATION !!!

and yknow youd THINK that since the king is at the tippy top of the pyramid then he would be the most powerful, right?? well i mean TECHNICALLY since hes the one providing land and shit and mansions or whatever BUT!!! remember at the beginning how i said it was very much so a loyalty based system??? yeah, that means a lord coukd basically be like "ayo king heres all the food my people harvested and shit (but teehee!!! you dont know that i am NOT loyal to you and im keeping a lot of the food to myself cause i do nit care about you!!!silly!)" yeah lords could basically just like NOT be loyal and if the king didnt find oit then theyd have a shiiiit ton of power.

AND ALSO!!!!!

IVE BEEN SO UPSET THAT PEOLKE DONT KNOW WHAT A SHITTING KING IS TO AN EMPEROR

okay so a king is the punier one of the two. kings rule over ONE kingdom, maybe two, three is a stretch. kings rule over their OWN people. so like if youre a say, roman king and you rule over some romans and shit.

now an EMPEROR is where the BADDIE SHIT starts going down. emperors are the fuckin big dogs of ruling shit, think of em like the ceo of a company, and the king a mere regional manager. emperors rule a BUNCCHHH of different people at once, thats why emperors dont rule kingdoms, those bitches have EMPIRES. BIGASS MOTHERFUCKERS!!! like if you were a roman king but oh!! you also rule over some french!! and say, some germans or some british. THATS when youre an emperor, my friend.

(just so you know i got obsessive over the difference between king and emperor because i read this fic where demon!darkiplier was a dictator and demons infiltrated earth and took over and dark became "king of the world" because he was the most powerful and im assuming took out most of the puny human world leaders EVEN THOUGH HE WOULD TECHNICALLY BE CONSIDERED A FUCKING EMPEROR BECAUSE HE RULES OVER THE WHOLE ASS WORLD!!!!! IT MADE ME SO SHITTING WACKY FOR SOME REASON AND IT IS A BIG PART OF THE REASON AS TO WHY THIS IS MY CURRENT HYPERFIXATION)

#krabs kommunicating #tw caps #moot pog #INK MY BELOVEDDD #tw religion mention #IM SORRH UTS SO LONG I JUST REALLY WANTED TO TALK ABOUT FEUDALISM #IVE BEEN ITCHING FOR LITERAL DAYS LIKE YOU DONT UNDERSTAND

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deep-hearts-core · 2 years

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2014 - final

originally posted 5/29/20

Germany I've always found Is It Right a solidly unpleasant song. I'm not fond of the musical style they're using (polka, maybe?), and Ela's voice is just... she doesn't seem to have much control over it. Beyond that, the staging is sparse, the other two band members look incredibly out of place onstage, and Ela's outfit confuses the heck out of me. France As much of a trip as this one is, I really enjoy it. It's lighthearted and fun... even though it's at times atrocious to look at. I don't usually like songs I can't take seriously, but there's something so excited about this one. I think that this entry (along with the Latvian and Greek ones) are products of Alcohol is Free from the year before... just a bunch of free, unconstrained fun times on the stage. Idk I just really like the chorus of this. Italy The live performance really brings this song to life. Emma's live vocals might not be as strong or supported as some of the other contestants, but she's rocking out all over the stage, working an attitude that perfectly meshes with the rock vibes of the song. I guess I have some questions for whoever thought white and gold faux-Roman stage outfits were a good idea but honestly, I don't hate it, I just feel like it wasn't as effective as another choice might have been. La Mia Citta is a really fun song, great to rock out to, just as Emma does onstage. Spain This has to be one of my favorite recent Spanish entries. Ruth Lorenzo's power vocals really hit during the bridge, it's a good song, and the staging here... there were times where it actually looked like it was raining on stage. Pretty incredible, and a shame that Spain has lost this touch in recent years. Miki and Barei are nice and all, but when will Spain send a song like this again? Denmark The Danish Bruno Mars has come to Eurovision! Cliche Love Song is delightfully tongue-in-cheek for the usually ultra-serious host entries. It's a really great song but sadly Basim's live performance doesn't do anything for me. Like, it's solidly just alright. There's nothing especially bad about the staging, I just feel that Basim doesn't pull it off well. United Kingdom File under: songs that technically aren't about socialism but are, like, totally about socialism. The "power to the people" bit is so catchy, and so telling once you know what you're looking for! Yeah, so this is a great song and Molly is performing the hell out of it, but there were aspects of the live performance that just seemed a bit off. Molly's stage outfit and the henna she had on, the asymmetrical prechoruses, parts of the staging... this was actually really strong for a UK entry but it definitely could have been executed a lot better. My top 37

Norway

Spain

Malta

Netherlands

Ukraine

Austria

Hungary

Finland

Switzerland

Iceland

Sweden

Russia

Italy

United Kingdom

Montenegro

Ireland

Armenia

Romania

Poland

Slovenia

France

San Marino

Greece

Denmark

Israel

Albania

Georgia

Estonia

Azerbaijan

Latvia

Belarus

Belgium

North Macedonia

Moldova

Lithuania

Germany

Portugal

How did Switzerland get all the way up there... what... This is, I think, the first top ten of the one posted here that doesn't include a song left in the semis? 2014 was a really strong year musically for the most part so I enjoy a lot of the songs, even those I ranked in the 20s. Voting/intervals The section thanking the commentators was really funny because, firstly, Graham Norton is always hilarious to hear, but also the German commentator Peter Urban totally didn't know that the fireworks were coming and was so surprised he started swearing a blue streak. I love that. The political implications of that Ode to Joy performance... I read a paper once about how Ode to Joy is basically the unofficial national anthem of Europe/the EU and so it was interesting to see Denmark literally throw it in with their hosting like yeah, all y'all are European, yes even you Israel and the Caucasus nations. The 12 points song was cute. While I found Pilou's China references funny I do wonder if it was a little bit... not to taste. Although the hosts seem to acknowledge this with Nikolaj telling him to shut up and later telling him that not all of the things he named were actually Chinese. Between this and the other skits where Pilou features I'm pretty sure he's the planned gagman to make fun of things like "the host city has to be perfect!" and the whole Eurovision museum sketch... yeah so this was planned and was probably a very tongue-in-cheek joke about the globalization of the contest and whatnot but it just came off kind of wrong. I also caught a shot of the JESC girl from Malta hanging out with the Maltese delegation... that was so cute... I love love love the idea of having all the finalists perform Rainmaker with Emmelie. I really enjoyed seeing the contestants jamming out all together, and you could even see who were friends - I noticed, for example, the singer from Iceland and one of the guys from France dancing together. Much love to the Tolmachevy twins, girlies stayed positive all through the voting even though they were getting booed left and right. And they were only 17 too. Honestly, one of my goals in life is to be one of the cool spokespeople who greets in the language of the host country, and not just hello either, delivering like full-on sentences. They're icons. I CANNOT with the Finnish guy who, when asked to present his points, just started full on rapping, entirely unrelated to ESC, and got Pilou and Nikolaj to dance along. Thoughts after watching 2014 has another of my absolute favorite stage designs. I really love the hosts (even if Pilou's gags sometimes go too far) and the postcard concept this year was really innovative. Like 2015, again, this was a high-quality year in terms of song composition - 2013-2015 were really solid Eurovision years, I think.

#esc reviews

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tetsunabouquet · 6 months

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I am reading articles before going to bed but the comment section of one is keeping me awake.

Its an article about the decline of America, and cue the stupid Americans defending their country. There was literally one comment about 'how great the US is', listing all the great things that they have bestowed the world, like Facebook, Instagram and FRENCH fries.

How stupid can you be to see the term 'French' and be like, 'yeah that is American'. Technically there are a few countries claiming they were the first but none of them is the US

It's especially epic cringe levels every time they are trying to discuss and compare themselves to other countries. There are not one, but two comments from people saying stuff about Japan's 'lack of cultural influence' when Japan's comic and animation industries have been beating the Americans for the past few years.

Don't even get me started on them comparing the US to historical European empires. There is one in particular that is talking about the fall of the Roman empire, but its not what happened at all, they literally mention nothing of Germanic tribes and the dawn of the Frankish empire which is what primarily caused their fall. I mention before I was raised and have roots in the Dutch south, where the tribe who initiated the start of the Germanic rebellion lived. 2000 years later and we are still proud of being their descendants. You do not talk about the fall of the Roman empire without mentioning my ancestors as their cry for all tribes to gather and beat the Romans oppressing them was instrumental to their downfall.

Their downfall was a plan orchestrated by an oppressed tribe who wanted to be free, pretending anything different is a lie.

But then again, with people like Candace Owens making educational videos about slavery where she literally denies that Romans even had slaves, its no wonder Americans don't know what actually happened to the Roman Empire and that it was slavery that actually caused their downfall due to the aforementioned rebellion literally being the tribal chief becoming enslaved under some kind of false suspisions. That the Romans sent him back after they realized they made a mistake and that he was wrongfully enslaved didn't matter, it was all the proof the tribe needed to have that the Romans would enslave them at any given opportunity. So they rebelled.

I could continue on, but I fear I will be ranting endlessly because of how stupid Americans are.

EDIT: Thank the angels for that American apologizing. As there actually is an American apologizing that they are usually exporting their worst products instead of their best ones and how they haven't been this ashamed of their nation since the Iraq invasion. I want to agree but at the same time I'd like to give them a hug for having to bear the shame for stuff like gun export and their recent flopping pop culture.

EDIT 2: Alright this might keep me up all night but oh my, an American just unknowingly roasted themselves by saying in an argument how culture is the better dressed sibling of religion. Now I understand why Americans whose country on an average is more religious then a bunch of European nations combined, have such poor fashion sense.

#tetsutalk #americans are idiots #americans are stupid #Americans are ignorant #Thats part of why your precious US is declining actually #You dont know friend or foe

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astridstorm · 1 year

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Easter Sunday 2023

For an audio version of this sermon, click here.

Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen Indeed, alleluia.

Good morning on this glorious spring Easter Day. It's always so nice to see your faces, parishioners, friends, and family, people from afar. If you’re visiting for the first time, a special welcome to you. After the service we have a coffee hour and I hope you'll join us for that, and also come back. This is a great parish, and a great time to be part of it.

Today, we celebrate our happiest day, the very reason we exist, as a church, and as Christians, Easter Day. It happens to fall, this year, on the same day as the feast of someone in our calendar of saints that you may or may not have heard of. His name is Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Now, technically all Sundays and especially Easter Sunday override lesser commemorations like saints’ days. But I always check the calendar for interesting convergences like this, to see what they might teach us.

Bonhoeffer was a German pastor and theologian who was part of the resistance to the Nazis. He began speaking out in the early 1930s, and soon became part of an organized resistance movement. Many of its members were arrested and put into prison camps. Some survived; some did not. Bonhoeffer was executed just months before the war ended in 1945. Today his feast is honored each year on April 9 by churches all over the world.

He also made a visit right here to Scarsdale, in 1941, and spoke at the Greenville Community church just over the hill, on Ardsley Rd. A week from now they’ll be hosting a symposium on the 75th anniversary of that visit (delayed because of Covid).

Many here also know that the local Baptist Church, Scarsdale Baptist (just down Popham Rd towards the village), once hosted Dr. Martin Luther King. We, many of us, including St. James, have incredible stories to tell of times when our churches have stood on the right side of history.

The coincidence of Bonhoeffer’s feast with Easter Day is meaningful. Because his life modeled the central truth of Easter: that to get to today, with its trumpets and flowers and joy; to reach the fullness of what we’re called to be by God, we have to first pass through Good Friday, and the cross. There is no other way. Struggle and freedom, death and resurrection--are inextricably bound together.

Some of you were able this past week to spend time here walking through the last days of Jesus’ life, which we act out liturgically--and have done for almost 2000 years. On Thursday we gathered to remember the night Jesus was betrayed by one of his disciples, then taken away by the Roman guards. That service ended with one of the most striking moments in the church year, the stripping of the altar where we removed everything--every candle, cross, even the linens and kneelers from the high altar and chancel around it. The cold marble altar and its bleak surroundings recall a tomb.

On Friday, many came back to hear St. John’s Passion sung, in which was told the final hours of Jesus at his trial, and his death on the cross. We consumed the remaining sacrament, and extinguished the candle signifying Christ’s presence.

Easter doesn’t come out of the blue. It follows a process of pain and death. It’s hard won. And I wonder, looking each of us at our lives, and the lives of our loved ones, and of the institutions and societies we belong to: If we’re not engaged in some struggle, are we claiming the fullness of life that was promised us that first Easter morning?

Struggle, even death--Big D, but also small “d” death as in the the things that have to die to free us up for new ways, new friendships, new patterns of thinking and living, new life--struggle and death, far from being signs something is heading in the wrong direction, may well be signs they’re going in the right direction. That a fuller life lies ahead, if we can just pass through and get to the other side.

We English speakers are among the few who call this day “Easter,” which actually (I didn’t know this until this year) derives from the name of an old pre-Christian pagan goddess Aestre. The majority of the Christian world uses a word for today that comes from the Hebrew festival underlying our celebration: Pesach, Passover. So Greek Christians call today Pascha, the French Paques, Spanish Pascua, in Dutch Pasen, in Swedish Pask. And so on. We’re the odd ones out. And so we miss the sense of it being a passing through trial to get to freedom. Passing through death, to get to life.

So What does an Easter life look like for you, a life “fully alive”? What must you overcome, pass through, to get there? Christ, and so many of the saints (like Bonhoeffer) made better lives and worlds by taking this Easter journey. The journey to which God calls us every year, all over again, so that one of these times, or once again, we’ll stand up and claim our life in Christ, the life (to quote St. Paul) that really is life.

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ryunumber · 2 years

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Rufus from Deponia

Rufus has a Ryu Number of 2/3/4.

(clarification below)

Some might say the above is proof of indecision. I choose to say that the above is proof of comprehensiveness.

There are four characters that I’ve chosen to highlight above as connections to Rufus.

Mario: I’m generally fairly loathe to count dubious Mario cameos, but Goodbye Deponia does take it step further by making interacting with the plumber mandatory for progress. More specifically, you have to give him mushroom swill, upon which he immediately strikes a jumping pose midair then talks about how he feels taller and bigger, then gets enamored with a blond patron.

And the achievement you get for doing so?

Still, it’s worth finding a route that’s a bit more bulletproof. To that end, thanks to Daedalic Entertainment’s tendency to sneak in cameos in all of their games, Rufus can be spotted falling into a stack of hay in Anna’s Quest, a game that’s filled to the brim with references to German folklore, mythology, and literature.

From Anna’s Quest, I’ve singled out three characters of interest:

Mephistopheles: Technically speaking, the character in question is only ever officially named as “Devil”, which is vague enough that making specific connections to other devil figures is questionable. However, in Chapter 3, talking to the priest Theodor has him bring up a very specific name for the lord of dark.

Combined with Mephistopheles usually being the devil most strongly associated with the German legend of Faust, it’s not too much of a stretch to say that in this game, made by German developers, bursting at the seams with references to German storytelling, the devil in question is Mephistopheles.

That being the case, the route then connects to Fate/Grand Order, where Mephistopheles appears as part of Arc 1′s London Singularity and is also a clown.

Cinderella: In Chapter 5, you come across a servant girl named Cindy who makes some fairly obvious references to the Cinderella story.

If you grant this is Cinderella, besides her life pretty clearly not reflecting how most Cinderella stories go, there’s an interesting twist in that this is specifically Cinderella as retold by the Brothers Grimm, since the fairy godmother is completely absent and replaced with a tree spirit, referencing the hazel tree in Aschenputtel.

I haven’t found any other game that includes the Brothers Grimm take on Cinderella, so if you consider that to be meaningful different from the more well-known Perrault version, then this is a dead end. But if you don’t, the route goes through Cinderella’s presence as a Princess of Heart in Kingdom Hearts.

(And if there’s a decent reason to treat Disney’s Cinderella as a separate entity from other Cinderellas, there’s also a route through NIS’s The Guided Fate Paradox, because why not. We’re already splitting far too many hairs, might as well preemptively split a few more.)

Minerva: While not German, near the end of Anna’s Quest, a Minerva is summoned via ritual, and given the association with wisdom and straight up Latin speech, it’s reasonable to assume the Minerva in question is the Roman goddess.

All fine and dandy, but where you go from there depends very heavily on what you make of Greco-Roman mythology; namely, whether or not Minerva and Athena are the same mythological entity.

If the answer is “definitely”, then the Minecraft route through the Greek Mythology Mash-up gives 2.

If the answer is “definitely not“, then the Assassin’s Creed II route gives 4, as long as you’re willing to paper over Minerva being part of a progenitor race that came to be deified and also being encountered as a probably sentient projection of a consciousness. (You know, Assassin’s Creed.)

If the answer is “maybe?”, then as a result of SMITE treating them as the same (explicitly, in the supplemental lore to the Odyssey 2018 event, as long as Manerva is just an alternate spelling of Minerva), the SMITE route can give 3 by splitting the characters into “definitely Minerva” and “definitely Athena”.

#rufus #rufus deponia #deponia #daedalic entertainment #ryu number

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