#obscure i know

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Knowledge Revenge.

#dungeon meshi #chilchuk tims #senshi #Somewhat of an unofficial sequel to the Dragon Comic. I promise I have more versatility in my jokes. I just had to take this opportunity. #Senshi is pretty much a recluse. I think he would know a few of these 'gottems' but not all. #Chilchuck would know gottems that are nearly lost to time. The deep cuts. The ones that you fall for because they are that obscure. #I would also like to take a moment to confess that after the last comic in which I posed a gottem - #I fell victim to a Mind Goblin Attack. I was thoroughly got. I will be on higher alert this time. #So NOBODY be funny in the tags. I am gullible and I like to share things with my friends. Who are *ruthless*. #I have a mild resistance to Vicious Mockery at this point but I can only take so much. #Happy Thistle Thursday Everyone! See you next week!

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

#due to the Great Data Decay academics write viciously argumentative articles on which episodes aired in what order #at conferences professors have known to engage in physically violent altercations whilst debating the air date number of household viewers #90% of the couch gags have been lost and there is a billion dollar trade in counterfeit “lost copies” #serious note: i'll be honest i always assumed it was english imperialism that made shakespeare so inescapable in the 19th/20th cent #like his writing should have become obscure at the same level of his contemporaries #but british imperialists needed an ENGLISH LANGUAGE (and BRITISH) writer to venerate #and shakespeare wrote so many damn things that there was a humongous body of work just sitting there waiting to be culturally exploited... #i know it didn't happen like this but i imagine a English Parliament House Committee Member For The Education Of The Masses or something #cartoonishly stumbling over a dusty cobwebbed crate labelled the Complete Works of Shakespeare #and going 'Eureka! this shall make excellent propoganda for fabricating a national identity in a time of great social unrest. #it will be a cornerstone of our elitist educational institutions for centuries to come! long live our decaying empire!' #'what good fortune that this used to be accessible and entertaining to mainstream illiterate audience members... #..but now we can strip that away and make it a difficult & alienating foundation of a Classical Education! just like the latin language :)' #anyway maybe there's no such thing as the 'greatest writer of x language' in ANY language? #maybe there are just different styles and yes levels of expertise and skill but also a high degree of subjectivity #and variance in the way that we as individuals and members of different cultures/time periods experience any work of media #and that's okay! and should be acknowledged!!! and allow us to give ourselves permission to broaden our horizons #and explore the stories of marginalized/underappreciated creators #instead of worshiping the List of Top 10 Best (aka Most Famous) Whatevers Of All Time/A Certain Time Period #anyways things are famous for a reason and that reason has little to do with innate “value” #and much more to do with how it plays into the interests of powerful institutions motivated to influence our shared cultural narratives #so i'm not saying 'stop teaching shakespeare'. but like...maybe classrooms should stop using it as busy work that (by accident or designs) #happens to alienate a large number of students who could otherwise be engaging critically with works that feel more relevant to their world #(by merit of not being 4 centuries old or lacking necessary historical context or requiring untaught translation skills) #and yeah...MAYBE our educational institutions could spend less time/money on shakespeare critical analysis and more on... #...any of thousands of underfunded areas of literary research i literally (pun!) don't know where to begin #oh and p.s. the modern publishing world is in shambles and it would be neat if schoolwork could include modern works? #beautiful complicated socially relevant works of literature are published every year. it's not just the 'classics' that have value #and actually modern publications are probably an easier way for students to learn the basics. since lesson plans don't have to include the #important historical/cultural context many teens need for 20+ year old media (which is older than their entire lived experience fyi)

[the-worms-in-your-bones]

Someone: *mentions doctor who*

Me, vibrating with the effort it’s taking to not talk about something no average show watcher would even have heard of: oh yeah cool show

#it’s so easy to get me to talk about obscure doctor who shit #I will bring up looms #and my options on time lords #doctor who #this is nothing against people who have only watched the show or don’t know any lore I am just insane

[sheriffofmagic]

a dimension 20 themed um actually episode where they have all the intrepid heroes on and they have to answer trivia questions about their own campaigns. brennan is trapped in a soundproofed glass box to the side banging on the walls desperately trying to answer questions but is not allowed to participate

#ally gets one question right. emily knows everything. lou is busting out the most obscure bits of lore ever known. sioban breaks her buzzer #murph is there #i think zach would win but only because of technicalities and point stealing #d20

[unpretty]

society is spiraling and culture is a wasteland. i know this because i looked and most people prefer things that are fun and easy, making fun and easy things extremely popular. this is the first time that's ever happened, historically.

#original #why is every post about books and movies and music and food like this #also the posts are always about tiktok like it's a mystery why the most popular app's most popular posts are about popular interests #please learn to accept when you are simply out of step with popular culture which i know you are because you are on tumblr #i know everyone hated hipsters and their interests being more obscure than yours but at least they recognized that they were the outliers #'hipsters suck because they think their taste is sooo much better than everyone else smh' #'my tastes are extremely normal which is why i can say definitively that popular things must be popular due to a conspiracy of some kind'

[rachel-614]

Okay, let me tell you a story:

Once upon a time, there was a prose translation of the Pearl Poet’s Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It was wonderfully charming and lyrical and perfect for use in a high school, and so a clever English teacher (as one did in the 70s) made a scan of the book for her students, saved it as a pdf, and printed copies off for her students every year. In true teacher tradition, she shared the file with her colleagues, and so for many years the students of the high school all studied Sir Gawain and the Green Knight from the same (very badly scanned) version of this wonderful prose translation.

In time, a new teacher became head of the English Department, and while he agreed that the prose translation was very wonderful he felt that the quality of the scan was much less so. Also in true teacher tradition, he then spent hours typing up the scan into a word processor, with a few typos here and there and a few places where he was genuinely just guessing wildly at what the scan actually said. This completed word document was much cleaner and easier for the students to read, and so of course he shared it with his colleagues, including his very new wide-eyed faculty member who was teaching British Literature for the first time (this was me).

As teachers sometimes do, he moved on for greener (ie, better paying) pastures, leaving behind the word document, but not the original pdf scan. This of course meant that as I was attempting to verify whether a weird word was a typo or a genuine artifact of the original translation, I had no other version to compare it to. Being a good card-holding gen zillenial I of course turned to google, making good use of the super secret plagiarism-checking teacher technique “Quotation Marks”, with an astonishing result:

By which I mean literally one result.

For my purposes, this was precisely what I needed: a very clean and crisp scan that allowed me to make corrections to my typed edition: a happily ever after, amen.

But beware, for deep within my soul a terrible Monster was stirring. Bane of procrastinators everywhere, my Curiosity had found a likely looking rabbit hole. See, this wonderfully clear and crisp scan was lacking in two rather important pieces of identifying information: the title of the book from which the scan was taken, and the name of the translator. The only identifying features were the section title “Precursors” (and no, that is not the title of the book, believe me I looked) and this little leaf-like motif by the page numbers:

(Remember the leaf. This will be important later.)

We shall not dwell at length on the hours of internet research that ensued—how the sun slowly dipped behind the horizon, grading abandoned in shadows half-lit by the the blue glow of the computer screen—how google search after search racked up, until an email warning of “unusual activity on your account” flashed into momentary existence before being consigned immediately and with some prejudice to the digital void—how one third of the way through a “comprehensive but not exhaustive” list of Sir Gawain translators despair crept in until I was left in utter darkness, screen black and eyes staring dully at the wall.

Above all, let us not admit to the fact that such an afternoon occurred not once, not twice, but three times.

Suffice to say, many hours had been spent in fruitless pursuit before a new thought crept in: if this book was so mysterious, so obscure as to defeat the modern search engine, perhaps the answer lay not in the technologies of today, but the wisdom of the past. Fingers trembling, I pulled up the last blast email that had been sent to current and former faculty and staff, and began to compose an email to the timeless and indomitable woman who had taught English to me when I was a student, and who had, after nearly fifty years, retired from teaching just before I returned to my alma mater.

After staring at the email for approximately five or so minutes, I winced, pressed send, and let my plea sail out into the void. I cannot adequately describe for you the instinctive reverence I possess towards this teacher; suffice to say that Ms English was and is a woman of remarkable character, as much a legend as an institution as a woman of flesh and blood whose enduring influence inspired countless students. There is not a student taught by Ms. English who does not have a story to tell about her, and her decline in her last years of teaching and eventual retirement in the face of COVID was the end of an era. She still remembers me, and every couple months one of her contemporaries and dear friends who still works as a guidance counsellor stops me in the hall to tell me that Ms. English says hello and that she is thrilled that I am teaching here—thrilled that I am teaching honors students—thrilled that I am now teaching the AP students. “Tell her I said hello back,” I always say, and smile.

Ms. English is a legend, and one does not expect legends to respond to you immediately. Who knows when a woman of her generation would next think to check her email? Who knows if she would remember?

The day after I sent the email I got this response:

My friends, I was shaken. I was stunned. Imagine asking God a question and he turns to you and says, “Hold on one moment, let me check with my predecessor.”

The idea that even Ms. English had inherited this mysterious translation had never even occurred to me as a possibility, not when Ms. English had been a faculty member since the early days of the school. How wonderful, I thought to myself. What a great thing, that this translation is so obscure and mysterious that it defeats even Ms. English.

A few days later, Ms. English emailed me again:

(I had, in fact searched through both the English office and the Annex—a dark, weirdly shaped concrete storage area containing a great deal of dust and many aging copies of various books—a few days prior. I had no luck, sadly.)

At last, though, I had a title and a description! I returned to my internet search, only to find to my dismay that there was no book that exactly matched the title. I found THE BRITISH TRADITION: POETRY, PROSE, AND DRAMA (which was not black and the table of contents I found did not include Sir Gawain) and THE ENGLISH TRADITION, a super early edition of the Prentice Hall textbooks we use today, which did have a black cover but there were absolutely zero images I could find of the table of contents or the interior and so I had no way of determining if it was the correct book short of laying out an unfortunate amount of cold hard cash for a potential dead end.

So I sighed, and relinquished my dreams of solving the mystery. Perhaps someday 30 years from now, I thought, I’ll be wandering through one of those mysterious bookshops filled with out of print books and I’ll pick up a book and there will be the translation, found out last!

So I sighed, and told the whole story to my colleagues for a laugh. I sent screenshots of Ms. English’s emails to my siblings who were also taught by her. I told the story to my Dad over dinner as my Great Adventure of the Week.

…my friends. I come by my rabbit-hole curiosity honestly, but my Dad is of a different generation of computer literacy and knows a few Deep Secrets that I have never learned. He asked me the title that Ms. English gave me, pulled up some mysterious catalogue site, and within ten minutes found a title card. There are apparently two copies available in libraries worldwide, one in Philadelphia and the other in British Columbia. I said, “sure, Dad,” and went upstairs. He texted me a link. Rolling my eyes, I opened it and looked at the description.

Huh, I thought. Four volumes, just like Ms. English said. I wonder…

Armed with a slightly different title and a publisher, I looked up “The English Tradition: Fiction macmillan” and the first entry is an eBay sale that had picture of the interior and LO AND BEHOLD:

THE LEAF. LOOK AT THE LEAF.

My dad found it! He found the book!!

Except for one teensy tiny problem which is that the cover of the book is uh a very bright green and not at all black like Ms. English said. Alas, it was a case of mistaken identity, because The English Tradition: Poetry does have a black cover, although it is the fiction volume which contains Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

And so having found the book at last, I have decided to purchase it for the sum of $8, that ever after the origins of this translation may once more be known.

In this year of 2022 this adventure took place, as this post bears witness, the end, amen.

(Edit: See here for part 2!)

#sir gawain and the green knight #translations #internet research #english literature #teaching things #dads are the best #long post #story telling #I STILL don’t know the name of the translator but I WILL find out #obscure books

[wasyago]

random question

not a tea expert, just curious

#yagotalk #god knows if i made every poll i ever wanted this acc would be nothing but obscure polls... #normally i hold back but im on my 3rd cup of tea for today and the tea to selfcontrol ratio is all sorts of out of propotrion now

[ellmovy]

no way! I actually did it!! here's all 93 hetalia characters, my beloved

the last time I did one of these was like 7 years ago 🥲 here's the previous ones: 2016//Sept 2015//Feb 2015

hope you all enjoy, this is my little treat to the hetalia fandom, also the last digital art I'll do for the next 5 months but I've got something else big to post in a while plus sketchbook stuff!

#hetalia #hetalia fanart #aph everyone #my art #included all the very obscure characters this time! #no humans and also not the german states or japanese provinces or whatever the hell else exists #was gonna label them all but didn't have time feel free to ask who someone is #it's actually forbidden knowledge to know all of them #anyway this was genuinely SO much fun i love these idiots

[anna-scribbles]

calling all miraculous fans who watched anime in middle school

PLEASE tell me what you think adrien’s favorite anime is. bonus points for characters you think he would relate to / want to be friends with

#i’m doing fanfiction research #i wasn’t an anime kid but i know in my heart adrien is. #i feel like he has to be a magical girl anime kind of guy #but i don’t think he likes anything that obscure #i just don’t know enough about anime to write authentically here #ml #anna rambles #looking for real quintissential middle school anime here

[hajihiko]

Multilingual 🌍

Fuyuhiko: its beneficial to understand when rivals are talking in secret

Sonia: diplomacy is easier when you speak their language too

Hajime: duolingo library forced speedrun

Akane: worked in customer service

Kazuichi is just more of a Language of Numbera guy 😋

#Fuyuhiko kuzuryu #Hajime hinata #Kazuichi Souda #Sonia nevermind #Akane owari #Sdr2 #Super danganronpa 2 #Danganronpa 2 #Danganronpa #super danganronpa 2 goodbye despair #If Fuyuhiko and Hajime need to talk something sensitive they can switch to Italian #Hajime and Sonia can talk in Novosel together (and often do when she's feeling homesick) #Everyone but Kazuichi speaks fairly fluent English lol but he can sorta keep up (he knows mechanic speak better than anyone tho) #Kaz gets jealous and wants his own Hajime language. They end up with broken Swedish or something obscure like that #An art #First time I've had the danganronpa art spark in a WHILE feels like #Japanese isnt exactly heavy in swear words so I imagine it feels good to let out a little CURWA MAC every once in a while #(That's probably not written right lol sorry polish ppl) #Any errors in writing are because. I had to look it all up

[aroaceleovaldez]

Do u still have that height chart u made of all the characters? Im trying to find references, no prblem if u dont!!!

You might be referring to my old one, but this is my updated one! Forgive the hastily doodled on clothes - this is also my body type/scar/tattoo/etc/general ref sheet, and while I've posted it without the colors before, it feels weird posting it with colors cause for some reason then it looks like theyre all naked, lol. Ref sheets are funny that way. So doodled on clothes it is.

#pjo #riordanverse #my art #Anonymous #ask #ugh hold on tags. #percy jackson #nico di angelo #leo valdez #hazel levesque #will solace #annabeth chase #piper mclean #drew tanaka #thalia grace #jason grace #juniper pjo #frank zhang #reyna ramírez-arellano #calypso pjo #PHEW also yeah i know like Grover and Clarisse and several others are not in there i apologize #this is my ref for deadangelos (theres an alt version of the ref with Leo's prosthetic and some alt colors for like. Nico but he gets a tan #so it mostly focuses on characters on deadangelos that crop up a lot. or that i have strong height hcs about #grover i unfortunately still have not decided how tall he is [pensive emoji] #with calypso on the doodled clothes you can tell i didnt wanna draw another dress lol #but yeah hard to make a body type ref sheet with clothes. kind of obscures it and defeats the purpose

[sergle]

When ppl will create a "curvy" girl character and get pretty much the whole body's proportions right, obviously they're putting emphasis on bust/hips but it seems like it's being executed well--- except that they completely, fully, and deliberately, skip the stomach entirely. Just nothin there. Not even a whisper. I'm like. Just sack up, make it make sense and be honest with yourself by making it official and say it's canon that they got a tummy tuck. You cowardly ass, yellow bellied, wet brained, upside-down dog mouthed dirty bitch.

#it'll look so uncanny bc it'll be like oh this more or less looks like it could be a body type I've seen on a real pers--- oh wait #you TOTALLY flattened the stomach for like no goddamn reason and you still want points for making her curvy. pass. #if ppl clown on this post I will not hesitate to turn off rbs and call a bomb threat to your house #sergle.txt #do you know what I mean though. like actually #you want EVERY aspect of a body type that does in fact. exist. very commonly actually. in the proportions you want #you want it all but you are so allergic to ANY substance on the stomach. so what now. #anything but the stomach. literally impossible to draw apparently #I'll be like ah maybe it's obscured with the clothing or pose but I see other art and I'm like oh no nvm it's on purpy. #''why does it have to be a plausible body type'' why put in any effort at all. why draw. why depict women ever. why wake up in the morning #nut up or shut up.

[laurasbailey]

ONE CRITICAL ROLE SCENE PER EPISODE C3E13: A Dance of Deception

#critteredit #criticalroleedit #matthew mercer #travis willingham #sam riegel #marisha ray #laura bailey #liam o'brien #ashley johnson #critical role #c1 #c3 #~ #crscene3 #i love when someone in the cast immediately picks up on an obscure past reference #bc then i feel less like an obsessed clown for also knowing it 🤡 #also matt's little smirk kdjfgdk

[werewolfhooligan]

it is halloween

#vinsmoke sanji #monkey d. luffy #one piece usopp #one piece nami #roronoa zoro #nico robin #tony tony chopper #one piece #me trying to determine the tag order knowing that tumblr prioritizes the first five: who are my favorites. among these shipmates #alternately who do i think are the funniest. which bits make me laugh the hardest #how many sanji girlies can i upset by giving his character tag pride of place while he's obscured entirely by fish #sanji girlies (honorary) im one of you i promise #im srry to robin in particular i could not for the life of me decide how to dress her

[sappho-ilmarinen]

The connetions I'm making...

#ilmarinen.txt #the magnus archives #tma #fallen london #return of the obra dinn #obra dinn #i know at least two of these are very obscure but i swear it makes sense

[nathanielthecurious]

hey ancient languages fans remember last year when we all voted on the thesaurus linguae latinae word of the year and my post about it got more notes than the actual poll got votes and the winner was rescellula ‘little little thing, esp. shabby article of clothing’?

they’re doing it again for 2023 and y’all should vote.

#tagamemnon #lingua latina #tll #i just want to share the joy of obscure words #I voted restinctor. im intrigued by the fact that one epitaph says a guy was a restinctor #and we don’t know if that meant he was a firefighter or a lamplighter or what