#dodder

[bogleech]

I was walking by a river in Portland and saw this from far away:

There's a lot of dead yellow plant life but the yellow here looked so intense! And stringy?! So I thought "haha what if it's my favorite plant that I've never seen in person that's be neat but probably not!"

Well it WAS!!!

The tapeworm of wildflowers!!!

I can recognize dodder a mile away apparently just from having seen photos but I couldn't possibly tell you what the normal green plant is that it's sucking on

[strangekindstudio]

Happy Women's Day to all women, femmes, and femme-adjacent friends 💕

The femmes of KIND spent the day eating samgyeopsal (Ilana made the most superior lettuce wraps), getting sloppy drunk off Anything Goes, and doing mock executions with Dana's sword collection (watermelon was used for visceral effect). This inevitably turned into testing Olivia, Ilana, and Clover's physical sturdiness Mythbusters style, which Giv quickly had to put a stop to.

[nikofortuna]

JTTW Chapter 14 Thoughts

Chapter 14 for the @journeythroughjourneytothewest Reading Group! Another nature heavy one! Potential TW: under the cut is a parasitic plant that kind of looks like yellow spiderwebbing or something similar.

Though first a little by the by as I have mentioned before I actually prefer this aspect of the German translation, which translates Xin as heart instead of mind.

Anyway it’s flower symbolism time! Wisterias in Buddhism stand for humility and reflection, which is very fitting for our monkey to be overgrown by under the mountain.

Additionally if we go with the saying ‘somebody has something coming out of his ears’ which means that someone had enough of something, the detail of those flowers growing out of Sun Wukong’s ears is even more fitting. Though I’m not sure if it’s the same in English, but that’s how the saying goes in German.

Wisterias are also very pretty and grow very abundantly which is just a gorgeous sight to behold.

However there is actually some discrepancy found between translations about which plants grow out of his ears and growing on the mountain for that matter.

In the German translation the “creepers and vines” are actually specific plants. The first is called creeping fig or climbing fig (ficus pumila or 薜 bì), which is also the one mentioned in the J.F. Jenner translation.

They can grow to cover entire surfaces too! Like this wall for example.

Dodder or amarbel or how I like to call them ‘forbidden spaghetti’ (cuscuta or 蘿 luó) is the second one.

They have little flowers too.

Those two plants stand for eremitic life in Chinese symbolism. As that note is citing the Chinese characters, I’m inclined to take this for the accurate translation.

Regardless both plants function equally well in terms of symbolism in my opinion.

Continuing with translation shenanigans “axe or drill” in the Anthony C. Yu translation is “axe or chisel” in both other translations, which sounds more natural to me. Though “drill” does bring to my mind a funny little picture of Tang Sanzang with a hard hat and a handheld drill trying to drill away the mountain above Sun Wukong.

Checking out the original Chinese with Google translate I’ve also come across something interesting. 斧鑿 fǔzáo when separated from the rest just gets translated to “axe + chisel”, but together with the full section it gets translated as “axe to chisel” instead. However when translated as part of the complete speech it’s just “But I don't have an axe.”

“Only when he […] saw the handsome features of Tripitaka” an early instance of Tang Sanzang looks having a greater influence on people.

Love to see Sun Wukong getting along with people!

A little side note because I just find it to be a really cute detail regarding the whole “sugar man or honey man”, in the German translation specific sweets are mentioned because they start with the same letter. I just think that’s neat.

I love when a bit of Slice of Life is sprinkled in and attention to detail is paid for everyday things, I hope we see some more in the future!

Ah, the first time Tang Sanzang falls from his horse.

I must admit that the names of the six bandits are more straightforward and easier to understand in the J.F. Jenner and German translation. For the J.F. Jenner translation specifically they are translated as “Eye−seeing Happiness, Ear−hearing Anger, Nose−smelling Love, Tongue−tasting Thought, Mind−born Desire, and Body−based Sorrow”. This also makes the reactions of them easier to understand as they are actually matched to one bandit each! “This made the bandits happy, angry, loving, thoughtful, desirous, and sorrowful respectively” as in the J.F. Jenner translation again. It barely comes across that those are matched in the Anthony C. Yu translation.

The bit about monks looking out even for insects is very sweet! Especially since I am a moth enjoyer, they are so fluffy and adorable.

Shigong’s shoe-based shenanigans made me briefly try to link it to Cinderella. Journey to the West is known for starting a bunch of tropes, so it makes sense my brain would try to link it with a lot of stuff, but Cinderella is probably not related. A humorous thing to imagine still.

Closing this post with another note on Tang Sanzang. Ohoho so our dear monk is able to lie. And right after telling Sun Wukong that a monk should not lie as well. He has flaws! Very neat, I quite like that actually. Character development will be something very interesting to keep an eye out for.

[cassowary-rapture]

Weird orange vine I initially mistook for twine

[aq2003]

please do yourself a favor and listen to david tennant malvolio reading the fake love letter to him (act 2 scene 5 of twelfth night). im going to actually start sobbing. oh my GOD

[magnuspanoptes]

mag 1 anglerfish. god he's so annoying. started shaming the dead woman unprompted less than five minutes in. king.

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Old Blue Eyes….

Cormorant on the River Dodder in Dublin

By Dave Hanley

[quantumlogician]

continued » @doddering-egoist

Given the very few rumors Starscream had heard of this mech in particular, he anticipated a more hesitant, repulsed reaction to such a claim. Maybe no strokes of violence, but certainly the passing thought of so.

" Mm, " the previously pleased, self-satisfied smug falls into a pensive one, " companionship.... Against your will. "

Yes, that will surely draw a funnier reaction.

[giantmonstermash]

Y'know, something just clicked in my head about Lancer, thanks to something i read in the tags on a reblog (thank you, @commiedalek-blog!):

How Non-Human are Non-Human Persons/N.H.P.s?

For instance: Would they have likes or hobbies like many humans do?

Does the ever-eager and bloodthirsty Sehkmet-Class N.H.P. in someone's mech secretly watch cheesy TV-Dramas as a guilty pleasure, or does it communicate in auditory hallucinations: The growl of a chain-axe, the splattering hiss and shriek of rending metal and coolants from a struck enemy, and the insatiable, ever-ready rumbling afterwards?

Does the Osiris-Class N.H.P. partnered to someone communicate in staticky flickers of code on nearby monitors, whispering a binary chant only its "Chosen" could hear? Or does it act like a sh#t-posting gremlin and rib the ever-loving Hell out of its "follower" when they mess up in a small way?

In a way, it reflects the sort of character you want to play: A more serious take would lean more into just how Non-Human an N.H.P. can be, while a more lighthearted take would lean on them being surprisingly human, for all their power and potential horror.

It's always a fascinating question to ask and answer, whether you're the player fleshing out your character and how they interact with N.H.P.s, or the GMs setting up interesting plot-hooks and missions involving them.

[a-life-revised]

{ @doddering-egoist } The Temple was coming along nicely. Megatron brushed the dust from his palms, and braced his knuckles against his hips, peering out at more of the springs he'd dug out.

Already, more mosaics had been unearthed, as well as a few fountains, some artwork..

Rung would be pleased.

As he was waiting around, however, there was a.. a spot in the distance. He squinted a little at it, before realizing it was moving. Another mech, perhaps, coming to look at the work they were doing? Someone who wanted to make use of the showers and springs? Whoever they were, as long as they minded the non-violence rules. Nothing to do but wait. ..and maybe lift a servo in greeting at the approaching figure.

[ilions-end]

i keep meaning to make an effortpost about nestor's role in the iliad. that book i read a year ago about iliadic paranarratives completely changed my view of that ancient prattler and i'm still thinking about it

[smspikyhampster]

Sleeptober 2024 Day 7: Antlers

"Entwined in a Chokehold"

Featuring flowering dodder plant and non flowering dodder plant!

[iaconsavior]

Ew. Miners DNI

[stoicmike]

The members of a gerontocracy are deluded that they aren’t like all the other doddering old fools... -- Michael Lipsey

[sitting-on-me-bum]

A fox among blooming daffodils on the banks of the Dodder River in Dublin, Ireland

Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA

[quantumlogician]

It was mid-afternoon. The lone sun of this single star system hung lazily in the pit of the sky, dragging over the circumference in its slow descent towards the horizon. After vorns of desolation away from living Cybertronian kind, the atmosphere healed over: thick smoke stacks of ever-burning factories dissipated, and the orange hazy smog that once layered thick the entirety of Kaon vanished. Mid-day heat was no longer a sweltering, miserable affair that burned into top plating and seeped right into the groves and seams.

Shockwave finds that traveling through the city and its perimeter to be less taxing on his frame. Before, it was impossible to step outside and return without a layer of ash and dust veiling his featureless mask for a face, obscuring his already limited vision. Now, he was granted full visibility well over 20 meters on his forward path, bypassing the need to waste power on directional sensors. Clearing the full length of Neo-Kaon, he crossed over the border to travel down into a neighboring land: the Deadman's. An entire sector carved out into a straight fixture of mining facilities entrenched into the topography of the desert.

What was once empty flatlands now steeply dropped into a subsurface plateau. A sophisticated network of tunnels and refineries winding even deeper than what could be seen.

Stepping dangerously close to the corner edge, the logician peered down into the caverns, casting a wide glance over the forgotten architecture that forever sleeps in this hole. He could still hear the loud crash-bang of the drill pips dropping their full weight into the pits with their strapped pulleys laboring them up the derrick for another plunge.

His destination lies within the middle building, beyond the refinery, and deep into the caverns itself. There existed no functional electric grid, leaving the facility to lay dead as Shockwave passed through it, forcing him to cram a crowbar into air-tight locks and break the seals for prohibited entry. There exists enough strength in his only working arm to jam the curved end of his tool into hydraulic doors and pry them open wide for his broad form to slip through. He repeated this process several times before he dipped into the actual mineral deposit. No need for any gadget to ping the strong, chemical scent of raw energon that his own starved body could recognize.

A faint iridescent glow shined over one of the drops in this cavern, leading Shockwave towards it. He only intended to carve a sizable batch to synthesize for a half vorn. At least, he had outlined this straightforward plan up until he crossed the threshold of when the glow saturated the cavern walls to meet a dark rigid shape disturbing the ethereal ambience.

There was no mistake — it was a bot. Shockwave couldn't discern any visual specifics other than they were present and it appears they were not a new arrival, on account of their lax, non-urgent frame language.

Cradling what meager amount he managed to gather into a single servo, he ripped his vocoder to life with an alerting scratch before his voice projected from it, " what are you doing here? "

Closed — @doddering-egoist