kunstmull

[kunstmull]

Théâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels (by nomaderaleur).

[kunstmull]

Art from Soft Ballet Body to Body Doujinshi

my scans!!

[kunstmull]

Death of the Reader

Forgive me, I need to have a moan about something that is so endemic in fandom culture these days that this is not about the person, it's about an ignorant mindset that really winds me up. Identities obscured so please do not take this to the person if you recognise the post. Just consider it more of an 'if you do this kind of thing, please reconsider' type of thing.

THE CHARACTER IS NOT THE AUTHOR. THE AUTHOR IS NOT THE AUTHOR. Come on, this is like basic reading comprehension that even Americans are supposed to get taught in about Grade 6.

If a character says something repeatedly, maybe the author is trying to tell you something about that character, about the narrator, about the situation, the world, etc. This goes double in Sci-fi where language is a huge part of the worldbuilding.

There are literally a couple of clues in the paragraph that has been screengrabbed here. First, the narrator (Doll) states that the obvious profanity is in a language that they don't even recognise. Hence why Doll refers to it as 'Kyokutou profanity' - they don't even know enough about Imai or the native language he lapses into to identify it beyond 'East Asian'.

Second, it is in italics. This is another clue that Imai is speaking a different language. (Most of their conversation is in Galactech, one of two international business Pidgins in this universe, the other being Interlang.)

Doll does not know what the exact swear is, but recognises it as profantiy. So Doll swaps in a similar word from their own native language: balls.

Ironically, this is actually foreshadowing, if you're paying attention. Balls / baws / bollocks is a common British swear. At this point in the story, Doll actually has amnesia and doesn't know their own origin or nationality. But the fact that Doll reaches for a British slang term to translate Imai's Nihongo profanity is giving you a big clue about who Doll is, and where they come from.

It's just annoying. I spent quite a lot of time working on worldbuilding, and the language, even down to the swearwords, was something I wrote so specifically. 'Galactech' is supposed to be a pidgin of Japanese and Chinese technological language - which is why Galactech has no word for 'soul'. Interlang, on the other hand, is supposed to be internet English projected thousands of years into the future. Imai speaks perfect Galactech in addition to Nihongo because he trained at the Galactech Centre, but his Interlang is rudimentary because he was a rube who grew up on a trash planet in the backwaters of the Gunma System. The fact that Doll initially greets Imai in Interlang before switching to Galachtech is also significant.

In a spacefaring civilisation based on East Asian culture, what would the swears be? It's a fun thing to think about - without Christianity, what would replace the casual 'Jeez!' or 'Christ' that American characters would throw about? I went with 'Stars' (a Becky Chambers-ism) for casual amazement, and 'balls' for more earthy profanities. The only person who uses 'Jesus Christ!' as an exclamation is the lone Brit, Watts. Once Doll recovers their full memory, a careful reader might notice them start to use 'Christ' instead of 'stars'.

I don't actually know enough conversational Japanese to come up with the specific Nihongo term that Imai would be using, that Doll interprets as 'balls'. I like to think it's actually possible that future sci-fi Imai is as much of an anglophile as the original, in which case balls / baws / bollocks would be a good guess as to what the actual profanity is!

[kunstmull]

Stars in full bloom.

[kunstmull]

[kunstmull]

marant00 on Instagram

[kunstmull]

[kunstmull]

Barcelona, 1902

[kunstmull]

[kunstmull]

[kunstmull]

Genuinely thought this was Sakurai Atsushi for a full minute and was like 'oh wow new 90s pics' before realising the microphone was a CARROT

Marina Perez by Claudia Knoepfel & Stefan Indlekofer for 10 Magazine

[kunstmull]

Three Black Cats, Carl Kahler

[kunstmull]

[kunstmull]

[kunstmull]

~ Jewel Tones ~

[kunstmull]

[kunstmull]

A cottage by a lil babbling brook now that's a dream come true