#but important to me nonetheless

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

You don’t understand, when I was at my worst with my depression, and every time I looked up at the night sky and grew scared of how small we are, how alone we might be, how short our time is, how I couldn’t comprehend infinity, how everything will end eventually, how everything I see way out there is long gone, I would panic. I would break down. The stars themselves scared me. But one day doctor who was put on Netflix and a comment on a deviant post reminded me of a deal I made with another user. If I watch doctor who they’ll watch the time travel show I thought was cool. I watched it on a whim, I’m not sure I’d even encountered it much on tumblr yet. But it made me feel less small. I began to actually look at the night sky without abject terror. I thought about how if you looked at it more like, idk, a learning adventure? When you heard new things about it, it wasn’t as scary. Something that could inspire writers to create such adventures and have normal people characters tag along… I got less scared. When everything started being galaxy print I thought it was pretty and not horrifying. It’s long been a trendy pattern of the last decade or so, perhaps a bit less, but I still see cool looking art inspired by images from space telescopes that were made to have different colors for invisible wavelengths so that humans could see… idk. It makes me happy. It’s like I’m less scared, and now I don’t even feel like I need there to be life on other planets for me to stop feeling alone, because there is so much life on this one! Even if I was the only human on earth, I still wouldn’t be alone just from being on this life filled planet. And I’m not the only human.

That’s not an experience I’ve had from many stories, it was one of those things that you encounter at just the right time for your view of the world to be changed for the better. Something that lodges itself inside of you and makes you better than you were before. I’ll always remember it fondly because of that. I know there is a lot I never watched and maybe one day I’ll catch up, but the fact is that what I DID see was enough to change me as a person. To make my existential dread just a little bit less all encompassing and inspire more curiosity in me.

[del-stars]

barty and evan have that phineas and ferb dynamic in which barty literally cannot shut the fuck up and evan says maybe 10 words a day to people who aren't barty

[forzathunder]

"I have many fears, most of them about Lucrezia." — Cesare Borgia (The Borgias, 2011-2013) + hints of insecurity

that she adores someone that much / if she will reject his dark nature and act of love and violence as Ursula did / if he truly is not part of her desires / that she easily forgets him

[razberrypuck]

gillion going from "I've always wanted to fight an evil clone of myself" to "everyone can change don't kill him" over the course of the campaign. gillion going from being so excited to fight nightmare gillion (when they went into chip's mind,) to looking at doppelgilly and only seeing himself, and being so sure that if HE of all people can change, then so can doppelgill

[thebisexualwreckoning]

@jegulus-microfic | day 7 - regret | word count - 221

"James Potter, if you touch me I swear you will regret it!"

James smiles, all pretty and innocent, as if he isn't the devil incarnate. Regulus takes a step back and feels the backs of his knees hit the sofa. Fear grips his body and he raises his arms to protect himself against the coming onslaught.

It's too late though, and all he can do is squeal as James' cake smeared hands grip his face. There's chocolate everywhere, from his chin to his bloody curls. He hears the click of Barty's camera somewhere in the background, knows that this moment has been immortalised forever, but the only thing he can pay attention to is the way James is looking at him. Like he's something precious.

"Happy birthday Love," James says, voice soft and adoring and just for them.

Later, when the party's over and Regulus has scrubbed his face raw trying to get the cake off, the two of them lay in bed together. James is nearly asleep, head resting on top of Regulus' stomach as he runs his fingers through his hair.

"Hey James," he whispers, fingers stilling where they are. "You know I love you right?" James only hums in response, too tired to form the proper words.

"Good. Because if you ever pull something like that again I will be divorcing you."

[pencilofawesomeness]

Yui lies awake for an indeterminable amount of time, watching shadows make patterns on the ceiling above them. The heartbeat against her fingertips beats a constant tattoo against her skin, a reminder that she’s not alone, that the body next to her continues to live and breathe and exist in this world. 

—Famous Last Words Chapter 3, from May Death Never Stop You by @slexenskee

-

Okay so I binged this series in about the span of a week and it did things to my brain. The scene where Yui gets Satoru to come home and sleep lives rent-free so I had to draw it. She's the most little sister ever and this scene made me cry from the bittersweet wholesomeness. My utmost respect to slex for this masterpiece of a fic.

[ganondoodle]

the more time goes on the more negative i feel about totk, its got lots of reasons but aside from me thinking about what else they could have easily done instead of what we got its more and more bc its so put on a pedestal like its the best zelda ever and also its affecting botw in retrospect, not just by the lore, but the fact that people have been saying even shortly after totks release that theres 'no point playing botw' anymore, and will see botw as nothing but totks "bad" prototype is just SO infuriating to me

you know when you initially feel neutral (or ignorable dislike) about a character but then the fandom for some reason gets so insanely obsessed with them that you just start disliking them more and more over time ... yeah

[hajihiko]

Is. Is the homestuck reference the pink diamond? Hajime and Fuyuhiko moirails real and true??

So real and so true

[morzowo]

so one character got to learn how to live again, how to reenter society after traumatizing event that will forever impact his life, got to heal and rebuild his relationship with his family even estranged father, reconnected with his old friends and was able to create reliable support system of people that also grew throughout this healing process and now can understand him more and be there for him, got to graduate and start his own business and now can even give inspirational speeches to help others

and the other one had to leave two closest people to him that were his only support after his family death bc 'friends' he had before weren't type of people worth reconnecting with, move out of his country abandoning everything he knew his whole life just to * checks notes * start a job he didn't really want and the main reason he needed higher pay was to establish financial stability for one of two people who he had to leave and that no longer wanted to be with him

okay yea okay sure both cases are about personal 'growth'

[picoday2006]

today was the 20th anniversary of picos unloaded! how fun is that. i dont have much to say other than theres a shop next to my school that looks exactly like the stores pico goes into down to the vaguely suggestive name and shape and everything that i see every day. it makes me think about him and then i smile.

[stinkrascal]

pick 8 pictures from pinterest for standstill!! (a moodboard)

heyyy so im actually really awful at moodboards but i do save pictures of things that inspire standstill so heres some of those! sorry they arent like aesthetically cohesive. standstill talks about a lot of different themes all neatly tied together w the thin thread of a romance plot so sometimes it's hard to describe those in a way that feels coherent, even in picture form. hopefully u get the idea though 👍

[longagoitwastuesday]

So so indebted to u for posting those lovely illustrations from Cyrano <333 & even more so for yr tags!! I'm completely in love w yr analysis, please feel free to ramble as long as u wish! Browsing through yr Cyrano de Bergerac tag has given me glimpses of so many adaptations & translations I'd never heard of before! I'll be watching the Solès version next, which I have only discovered today through u ^_^ As for translations, have u read many/all of them? I've only encountered the Renauld & Burgess translations in the wild, & I was curious to hear yr translation thoughts that they might guide my decision on which one I buy first (not necessarily Renauld or Burgess ofc). Have a splendid day & sorry for the likespam! 💙

Sorry for the delay. Don't mind the likespam, I'm glad you enjoyed my tags about Cyrano, and that they could contribute a bit to a further appreciation of the play. I loved it a lot, I got obsessed with it for months. It's always nice to know other people deeply love too that which is loved haha I hope you enjoy the Solès version, it may well be my favourite one!

About translations, I'm touched you're asking me, but I don't really know whether mine is the best opinion to ask. I have read... four or five English translations iirc, the ones I could find online, and I do (and especially did, back when I was reading them) have a lot of opinions about them. However, nor English nor French are my first languages (they are third and fourth respectively, so not even close). I just read and compare translations because that's one of my favourite things to do.

The fact is that no translation is perfect, of course. I barely remember Renauld's, but I think it was quite literal; that's good for understanding the basics of the text, concepts and characters, but form is subject, and there's always something that escapes too literal translations. Thomas and Guillemard's if I recall correctly is similar to Hooker's in cadence. It had some beautiful fragments, some I preferred over Hooker's, but overall I think to recall I liked Hooker's more. If memory serves, Hooker's was the most traditionally poetic and beautiful in my opinion. Burgess' is a whole different thing, with its perks and drawbacks.

Something noticeable in the other translations is that they are too... "epic". They do well the poetic, sorrowful, grief stricken, crushed by regrets aspects of Cyrano and the play in general, but they fall quite short in the funny and even pathetic aspects, and that too is key in Cyrano, both character and play. Given the characteristics of both languages, following the cadence of the French too literally, with those long verses, makes an English version sound far too solemn at times when the French text isn't. Thus Burgess changes the very cadence of the text, adapting it more to the English language. This translation is the one that best sets the different moods in the play, and as I said before form is subject, and that too is key: after all, the poetic aspect of Cyrano is as much true as his angry facet and his goofy one. If Cyrano isn't funny he isn't Cyrano, just as he wouldn't be Cyrano without his devotion to Roxane or his insecurities; Cyrano is who he is precisely because he has all these facets, because one side covers the other, because one trait is born from another, because one facet is used as weapon to protect the others, like a game of mirrors and smoke. We see them at different points through the play, often converging. Burgess' enhances that. He plays with the language itself in form and musicality, with words and absences, with truths masking other truths, with things stated but untold, much like Cyrano does. And the stage directions, poetic and with literary value in their own right in a way that reminded me of Valle Inclán and Oscar Wilde, interact with the text at times in an almost metatextual dimension that enhances that bond Cyrano has with words, giving them a sort of liminal air and strengthening that constant in the play: that words both conceal and unveil Cyrano, that in words he hides and words give him away.

But not all is good, at all. Unlike Hooker, Burgess reads to me as not entirely understanding every facet of the characters, and as if he didn't even like the play all that much, as if he had a bit of a disdainful attitude towards it, and found it too mushy. Which I can understand, but then why do you translate it? In my opinion the Burgess' translation does well bending English to transmit the different moods the French text does, and does pretty well understanding the more solemn, cool, funny, angry, poetic aspects of Cyrano, but less so his devotion, vulnerability, insecurities and his pathetism. It doesn't seem to get Roxane at all, how similar she is to Cyrano, nor why she has so many admirers. It does a very poor job at understanding Christian and his value, and writes him off as stupid imo. While I enjoyed the language aspect of the Burgess translation, I remember being quite angry at certain points reading it because of what it did to the characters and some changes he introduces. I think he did something very questionable with Le Bret and Castel-Jaloux, and I remember being incensed because of Roxane at times (for instance, she doesn't go to Arras in his version, which is a key scene to show just how much fire Roxane has, and that establishes several parallels with Cyrano, in attitude and words, but even in act since she does a bit what Cyrano later does with the nuns in the last act), and being very angry at several choices about Christian too. While not explicitly stated, I think the McAvoy production and the musical both follow this translation, because they too introduce these changes, and they make Christian as a character, and to an extent the entire play, not make sense.

For instance, once such change is that Christian is afraid that Roxane will be cultured (McAvoy's version has that infamous "shit"/"fuck" that I detest), when in the original French it's literally the opposite. He is not afraid she will be cultured, he is afraid she won't, because he does love and appreciate and admires those aspects of her, as he appreciates and admires them in Cyrano. That's key! Just as Cyrano longs to have what Christian has, Christian wants the same! That words escape him doesn't mean he doesn't understand or appreciate them. The dynamics make no sense without this aspect, and Burgess (and the productions that directly or indirectly follow him) constantly erases this core trait of Christian.

Another key moment of Christian Burgess butchers is the scene in Arras in which Christian discovers the truth. Burgess writes their discussion masterfully in form, it's both funny and poignant, but it falls short in concept: when Cyrano tells him the whole discussion about who does Roxane love and what will happen, what they'll do, is academic because they're both going to die, Christian states that dying is his role now. This destroys entirely the thing with Christian wanting Roxane to have the right to know, and the freedom to choose, or to refuse them both. As much as Cyrano proclaims his love for truth and not mincing words even in the face of authority, Cyrano is constantly drunk on lies and mirages, masks and metaphors. It's Christian who wants it all to end, the one who wants real things, the one who wants to risk his own happiness for the chance of his friend's, as well as for the woman he loves to stop living in a lie. That is a very interesting aspect of Christian, and another aspect in which he is written as both paralleling and contrasting Cyrano. It's interesting from a moral perspective and how that works with the characters, but it's also interesting from a conceptual point of view, both in text and metatextually: what they hold most dear, what they most want, what most fulfills them, what they most fear, their different approaches to life, but also metatextually another instance of that tears/blood motif and its ramifications constant through the whole text. Erasing that climatic decision and making him just simply suicidal erases those aspects of Christian and his place in the Christian/Cyrano/Roxane dynamic, all for plain superficial angst, that perhaps hits more in the moment, but holds less meaning.

Being more literal, and more solemn, Hooker's translation (or any of the others, but Hooker's seems to love the characters and understand them) doesn't make these conceptual mistakes. Now, would I not recommend reading Burgess' translation? I can't also say that. I had a lot of fun reading it, despite the occasional anger and indignation haha Would I recommend buying it? I recommend you give an eye to it first, if you're tempted and can initially only buy one.

You can read Burgess' translation entirely in archive.com. You can also find online the complete translations of Renauld, Hooker and Thomas and Guillemard. I also found a fifth one, iirc, but I can't recall it right now (I could give a look). You could read them before choosing, or read your favourite scenes and fragments in the different translations, and choose the one in which you like them better. That's often what I do.

Edit: I've checked to make sure and Roxane does appear in Arras in the translation. It's in the introduction in which it is stated that she doesn't appear in the production for which the translation was made. The conceptualisation of Roxane I criticise and that in my opinion is constant through the text does stay, though.

[age-of-moonknight]

“Danse Macabre,” Moon Knight (Vol. 9/2021), #25.

Writer: Jed MacKay; Pencilers and Inkers: Alessandro Cappuccio, Alessandro Vitti, and Partha Pratim; Colorist: Rachelle Rosenberg; Letterer: Cory Petit

[copper-dragon-in-disguise]

Why are you not supposed to show your face online?

-?

personal safety. i forget exactly what they said in the online safety classes they made you (me) take in elementary school, but its for the same reason you're not supposed to share your full name (or any name at all! make up a name and stick with it, or hey, its the internet, lie about your name and your age and say you're a math major from connecticut named matt, or something! i ain't gonna stop you! have fun with it!) and address and social security number. so people can't track you down and kidnap you or other horrible things.

In general its just like. don't share information someone could use to identify you online, because people are weird and some of them are shitty and if you say something and they don't like it, and if they can find you or identify you then thats not good!

[lonely--seeker]

For all the shit Twitter was talking about Hazbin hotel... I was not ready for chapter 4

[rackartyg]

in therapy today i just talked about the dark urge and astarion and my therapist was elated about it. it was fantastic. “wow you’ve really been using this story and those characters to process things. that’s amazing!”

the era of being ashamed of my interests is over. it’s apparently Cool and Healthy to use fiction to cope. i wish i could tell fifteen year old me about this it would blow her mind