#long ask is long

[shinyzango]

may i ask you an Italian-language question? there's a name im trying to blend together with Italian, and i could use some guidance if youre willing

i wanted to explore the idea (not married to it, i may end up not even doing anything with it, and im sure im not the first to think of this anyway— but i find it a fun thought-experiment and id love your help if youd be willing to offer it?) of merging Pinocchio and the Nutcracker as both a character and their plots. for funsies✨️

and i just would like some help with how to blend the name idea i had. and to get said help from someone who is, not only fluent in Italian, but is also a fellow Nutcracker nerd (i love your work btw!!) would be so lovely. and also you can tell me tell me if i accidentally am doing a dirty word/bad word/worse or any similar "don't, just stop" thing since im tragically monolingual. i just wanted to see if it's possible for this name to not be clunky or in poor form, would love your help if you're up to it. (if you or anyone reading ever want to use any name/s here, assuming they turn out to perhaps NOT be awful blendings of Pinocchio×Nutcracker?? then, yeah, feel free use as far as i care. i dont own jack shit)

also no worries if you dont want to help for any reason at all, you dont need to explain it to me, i can take a simple "I'd rather not help with this" and be respectful about the rejection. truly, no worries. just wanted your help IF youre willing to offer it

also apologies this is so long. i blame my ADHD mostly (tho i doubt my autism helps, i think its mostly the ADHD) with me going "eVERYTHING IS IMPORTANT" and my lifelong inability at being succinct

-

now, Pinocchio as a name, according to various sources such as but not limited to Wikipedia (who i will be quoting, bc copy and paste is easier since a lot of this Ask will be me transcribing from books 😭) and my copy of Pinocchio's own Foreward: is "possibly derived from the rare Tuscan form pinocchio ('pine nut') or constructed from pino ('pine tree, pine wood') and occhio ('eye')"

i don't know Tuscan forms of Italian for the rest of this, i only know what my dad's two Italian-English dictionaries told me for the rest of this ("Oh, your dad speaks Italian?" no, he does not. he tried to learn! he gave up. but he still has the books. mostly bc he's a hoarder, our home is VERY cluttered with his many things. but he used to go to Italy a lot, for a specific multi-year project that has long-since ended. we are not culturally/ethnically of Italian heritage, as far as i am aware. but still cool to look through these books!). and you're going to call me either stupid or smart, but at first, let's be clear: i was definitely stupid. i did not follow up my learning about Pinocchio's name-meaning with "What's a nutcracker/The Nutcracker in Italian? Surely the title of the book has been translated into Italian. What is the title in its Tuscan form?". i went straight to my dad's dictionaries to look up "crack" and its branches, said branches including the word "cracker". i wanted to see if i could take "Pino-" and add the Italian form of "Cracker, Cracking, Cracked, or similar" at the end. because, again, i was stupid, and i was taking the long and hard way for an easy answer

since, my dad's dictionaries didn't have "Pino" for ne to verify the alleged Wikipedia meaning with (fair enough, how often does "pine" come into conversation? idk), i had to google this because i wanted to make sure i knew if "Pino" was/wasn't the equivalent of "nuts" in English (as in a "Dude! You kicked me in my nuts!" slang or "Deez nuts" meme type of way) or was a slur or something else that i Do Not Want (with the margin of error that i am still monolingual and inexperienced in Italian and Italy's culture, and most websites for translating ive heard refer only to formal meanings and not so much slang. unless its multi-generational slang, like "cool" on English as a slang term would be likely in a Other Language-To-English website guide, since its a prime example of multi-generational slang. but "Skibidi rizz"? not so much). you never know nuances when youre monolingual, doing your best to navigate a foreign language (even if it's "just" for a name), i just wanted to check

i tried to see if i could see anything specific about the Tuscan variation of Italian's definition of "Pino" was, but all i got was stuff about pine in Tuscany and an artist by the name of Pino Daeni's painting titled "Tuscan Stroll". youd think that'd tell me "well, as least you know Pino can't be bad if it's this guy's name", to which i will remind you, up until recent decades, the name "Gay" was as common as the name "Joy", and English-users stopped using it as a name once the meaning became more synonymous with "queer" than "happy" (i say this as a queer person btw, dont mistake me saying "this name isnt common for obvious reasons" as me being queerphobic please, im just stating the fact thats its declined and we all know why). so Pino Daeni, born in either the 1930s or 1950s (sources differed on the same painting when he was born?), COULD have a name that is akin to "Gay" in the sense that it is NOW out of the possible-names-that-wont-get-your-kid-bullied category. oooorrr it could also be the equivalent timelessness as "Richard" (a name i chose specifically bc one of its nickname is "Dick" in English, and i still dont know if "Pino" or how any other word i discuss here is used in Italian slang. again, shinyzango, if youre willing, please help lol) i far as google and a few sites would tell me about "Pino" in Italian-Spanish sense specifically (and idk if that means it is the same in Italian AND Spanish or if Italian-Spanish is specific fusion/variant of the languages/s, im so sorry), "Pino" could be used in Italian to reference "Pine nuts" (YAY, I THINK WE MAYBE GOT AN IMPLIED "NUTS" FOR THIS NUTCRACKER-FUSION'S NAME EVERYBODY), "Pine wood" (as in the logs, the branches, specifically. though idk if that includes the tree's bark but i assume yes?), "Pine leaves", "the Pine tree itself", and, finally, the all-encompassing elusiveness of "Pine" in general. im really boping the "Pino" = "Pine (Nuts)" is accurate to what im trying to accomplish here, but what can you do, i dont have Tuscan forms of Italian stuff and google isnt coughing it up either

which i did TRY to look up Tuscan-forms of Italian words. and i was told it was a dialect, a still-living one at that (as opposed to the term: archiac dialect). but nothing is telling me its dictionary of how its vocabulary branches off and/or overlaps with the standard Italian language. the closest i could find on my own was Wikipedia's "Dialectal Features" section under its Tuscan Dialect article. and that is too above my pay-grade, it went into phoemes and graphemes and all that, i got Fs in those classes despite my best efforts and it's been at least 3+ years since my last class in that. nope. i am just accepting the Tuscan dialect of Italian is inaccessible to me rn (unless shinyzango (a) knows it for whatever reason and (b) wants to help with that. but this isnt me trying to pressure you. this is me acknowledging that idk your life, maybe you know the Tuscan form. and if you do know it and yet dont wanna help for whatever reason, all good, no bad blood). so, no matter how much research and thought i am trying to put in here, im still very lost and just doing my best. so, shinyzango, please be forgiving if i am making any faux-pas throughout this. i know "Pinocchio" is theorized to be a blend of two Tuscan-specific Italian words, but i just got "Pino-" and whatever i find that can come next for the Nutcracker half of this (hopefully successful? idk. im paranoid im fucking up somehow lol 💀) name-blending of these two wooden boys

anyway. so i continued to be stupid by thoughtlessly NOT choosing the easy and obvious method of looking up "a nutcracker/the Nutcracker" in Italian for this name-blend's second half. and yet?? somehow, my dad's two English-Italian dictionaries were nice to me and i got super lucky i wasnt told an alternative word. i was essentially given the one the Easy Method wouldve brought me. albeit the easy method wouldve brought me to it faster.. anyway, i got lucky. because within "crack"'s long list of Italian-specifities, i came across "(nut:) to crack — schiacciàre", which that shorthand meant "within the term 'to crack', for reference wanting to crack nuts specifically, you would use the word schiacciàre and its branches in Italian". i then went to schiacciàre's page in my dad's other Italian dictionary and saw the different forms of "schiacciàre"

the second dictionary confirmed most of the first dictionary. i was a little bit concerned that maybe schiacciàre was inaccurate? (obviously, this feeling went away when i did eventually do The Obvious and look up what "a nutcracker/The Nutcracker" was in Italian, but i didnt know that at the time when i was looking at this entry). because this dictionary said "Schiacciàre (Transitive) - (1.) To crush, to crack, to mash. Used in cooking. Per schiacciàre lo zenzero si può usare un coltello piatto. To crush the ginger, you can use a knife flat." which you can see in this first definition block, "to crack" being the second meaning and not in the example sentence made me a little bit worried on if this was the best word or not. again, i know now i didnt need to be worried, i now know the Italian word for "nutcracker/Nutcracker". but i was sticking by the path i was on for a bit longer, thought i might as well read the branches

which included its inflection term, the word everyone was waiting for— schiacchia! meaning "(a) cracker"! to which i did, after i was done reading the entire word's list of different forms, think "oh, i should look up a nutcracker, in general/The Nutcracker & The Mouse King's specific title in Italian". to which i got both the relief (bc i didnt choose the wrong word!) and the frustration (bc i maDE THIS SO MUCH HARDER ON MYSELF FOR NO REASON!) of seeing "a nutcracker" in Italian is lo schiaccianoci and "The Nutcracker & The Mouse King" is (Lo) Schiaccianoci e il Re dei topi (which i find the nuance of the grammar of fascinating! to translate it back to English, and with the matching capitalization included, the title would be "(The) Nutcracker and the King of mice". bc "The King of Mice" gives off a slightly different vibe as opposed to "The Mouse King". like, The Mouse King feels like epithet anyone with influence over mice could gain whereas the other (The King of Mice) feels both mundane and more legitimately royal, like this is definitely a political position, like "The Queen of England". at least thats the vibes diffentiating between the two in English. idk if my impression for "the vibes" of the Italian title is accurate in Italian. god, i wish i wasnt monolingual). anyway. so you think that'd be it, huh! i found the Italian form of "(a) cracker"! that's gotta be the other half of this proposed fusion name!

...but no, i do have a second option im kinda into. bc, again, i looked up "a nutcracker/The Nutcracker" AFTER looking through the WHOLE list. and what grabbed my attention reading the branches of the word "schiacciàre" was also the first-person singular present term that is schiàccio, which in English would assumedly be the equivalent means "(I) crack". as first-person singular present terms in English are as follows: "Am I?", "I am", "I go", "I write", "I weep". so, like, it's a present-tense verb + "I". that's all that "first-person singular present"-specific terms mean as far as i am aware. hence, my assumption that "schiàccio"'s English equivalent would be "(I) crack". and the Italian form of "I" isn't present, but i think it's implied??? (im so unsure, im so sorry lol) some stuff i read said the "I" doesn't have to be literally present to be explicit in Italian? so it's not in English, where something like "Wasn't thinking" has the missing-"I" that can be assumed to be present p easily despite its lack of literal presence— BUT in English, the lack of "I" makes that an improper sentence. it can said colloquially. but it isnt correct grammatically. and im saying i was lead to believe that the Italian-equivalent-of-"Wasn't thinking" would be considered a proper sentence and gramatically correct? so itd be more like "(I) Wasn't thinking", in a sense? and furthermore, i was lead to believe the specific conjagation of schiàccio in Italian would not need the "I" unless you were adding an "I" for emphasis? like "No, I cracked the nuts, not him" kind of emphasis? i feel like im making less sense the more i try to explain it. but that was my reasoning to structure "(I)" like that within "(I) crack"?? again, im doing my best amidst my Italian ignorance 😭

and, shinyzango, under the assumption youve decided to help me, if i have totally misunderstood Italian grammar, you can just say "you were lead astray about the (I)-thing you wrote up, that's not accurate" or "it's more complicated than that" and leave it at that. you dont have to give me an Italian grammar lesson. mostly bc i assume you dO NOT want to give me one lol i p much just wanna know if im right, wrong, or got mixed results. asking you to be an Italian grammar teacher is not something you advertise, i just was fascinated with how much presence does the "I"/"(I)" have in schiàccio because of the POTENTIAL(? BC I COULDVE BEEN WRONG ABOUT ALL THE "I"/(I)" STUFF, IM SO SORRY) thematic analysis potentially then within the name, as i discuss in the following paragraph

but i think, not only would the implied gramatical aspect of the Pinocchio-Nutcracker fusion having verb-form of "cracking" apart even in its very name would be neat as well as it being neat— but also the potential of applying personhood to themself in that said very name with the potentially-"invisible yet explicit" "(I)" i aforementioned (with great confusion and lack or sureness, but yeah, as i aforementioned) would possibly be a very important thematic element for a fusion of a puppet-boy who wants to be "a real boy" × a man who had his personhood stripped away from him through transforming into a nutcracker??? and to have it perist anyway? have his personhood remain silently within his name? to have it, invisible yet hold weight in his very identity-moniker itself?? that could be very powerful of such a little word like schiàccio to do, assuming it even can do that "(I)" thing it may/may not be able to do (and, again, all of this assuming i am not missing any nuance in Italian here and i doubt that. i doubt that very much. i definitely a missing something, i just know it)

OH but ALSO, with schiàccio, we get this implication of being overwhelmed of "cracking" under the pressure (idk if my understanding of that potential translation is at all correct in Italian. i apologize if my dad's dictionary is leading me astray in any of these definitions). because there was another entry in my dad's dictionary, "Schiacciàre (Transitive) - (2.) To crush, to overwhelm, to crack, to snap, to flatten. A figuritive form of speech. Lui lo rifiuto schiacciato. The rejection crushed him". so it could(?) refer to a type of ego-death, maybe? thats usually an incidental yet pivotal pillar of a theme in transformation-stories. y'know, the ship of Theseus thought-experiment personification of it all. but when we now apply schiàccio's "(I) crack" outside of the kitchen-definition of literal cracks, and instead into that second definition's figuritive form, we now get this type of mental-breakdown implication? this Italian-specific warning for angst up ahead, literally tied to the guy's name? i think thats neat, assuming im understanding it correctly. foreshadows to the tragedy and hardships lol

plus, we also get the "-o" at the end of "schiàccio", assuming it's workable with "Pino-" without any problems. and that ending "-o", i think, links a bit more of the paralleism to Pinocchio's original name, at least visually? idk. maybe thats just me. that's a nit-pick of a bonus anyway

so this was a very long ask, all to beg the question/s, under the assumption youre willing to help me here (no worries if not, shinyzango, you do not have to help me at all if you dont wish to) is there something in your Italian fluency that sees a "anon, no, you dont want that" nonsense nuance-meaning in either of these Pinocchio-Nutcracker blended names im missing? a hidden dirty joke im fully unaware of?? is there one that flows better than the other? is the format weird? are they both shitty? lol idk what to ask specifically for what could be wrong here, but?? please? and thank you??

Pinoschiaccio

Pinoschiaccia

but yeah, any help you can offer would be much appreciated. dont worry if you dont have any help, if you dont want to give me any, eithet way, we're all good. i just hope i didnt commit any faux-pas in asking you all this. thank you so much for your time

Don't worry, thank you for asking me.

I just have to warn you that while I am native Italian, my grammar is also very bad LOL But I'll still try to give my input at the best of my capabilites.

Also while I'm not going to go through each single point of your ask to save up some time, do tell me if I missed something important to answer, as sadly big wall of texts tend to fry my brain and I end up missing on some parts as I read through (NOT YOUT FAULT! It's just my brain being dumb ksjdgn)

Anyways, onto your ask:

first of all, welcome to the world of learning a different language that do not share the same lingual roots LOL

Sadly I can't help much with the Tuscan language as I'm not from Tuscany and I'm not a linguist, but I can tell you that Pinocchio, while including the common Italian male name "Pino", to me it feels like it's may also be because the doll was sculpted with pine wood, which has the charateristic of having many knots (eyes, so "occhi") in its pattern. Buuuuut apparently in the original book by Collodi, he was named Pinocchio after a rich family of the same name, as a way to grant him good luck. So at this point I don't know LOL

And yeah nutcracker in italian is "schiaccianoci", which literally translates to "crack walnuts" althought it's meant for nuts in general. (fun fact: as a generic name for nuts we use "frutta secca", which translates to "dry fruits", which is not to be confused with "frutta essicata", which is "dried fruits".)

As for the other grammar notions:

yeah we almost never put adjectives before the subjects. In such case as the Mouse King, the correct way is "Re dei Topi", aka "King of the Mice". We could also use "Topo Re", but it's usually as a title/name said to make more of an effect.

For the whole "I" debate, yes in Italian we can easily drop the subject in our sentences because the verbs have all the variants that are specific to the person (I, you, them) and the quantity referred to (singular, plural). I do have to admit that I still tend to drop the subject when I speak in english out of habit because of this pffff.

And one last notion just to add more madness to this mess of a language, accents on vowels can drastically change words' meaning. For example, "schiaccio" and "schiacciò", while still having the same meaning of "crack", it's actually different tenses and subject. "schiaccio" is "I crack" (present). "schiacciò" is "They (singular) cracked" (past).

(btw I'm not writing "schiàccio" because it's not normally written with the à, in case you were wondering. the more common accents are not written unless you specifically need it to differentiate which one you're intending)

So yeah, I don't blame anyone who get incredibly confused when trying to understand Italian dkgnsdkj

Also yeah the verb "schiacciare" can have a bunch of different meanings depending on the context, both literally and figuratively, although I can't really tell any at the top of my head;;

Anyways, putting this whole Italian notion aside, let's get to the real point of the ask:

I can see why you came to the conclusion of going with Pinoschiaccio/a, which is completely fair. But if I were you, I would switch them around as it would sound more natural.

So personally, I would go with Schiacciapino.

And if it can help with anything, I can also add this extra italian notion: while we have a bunch of words that end in "-ino" such as Pino, it is one of the suffixes we use to change the "adjective" of the word. In this case, "-ino" is used to indicate something small (ie. "Gatto - Gattino" = "Cat - Small Cat/Kitten", or "Topo - Topino" = "Mouse - Small Mouse". And also yes another fun fact, "Topolino" is another way to say small mouse, althought in a cuter way. And it's what we call Mickey Mouse here in Italy. Same with Donald Duck, which we call "Paperino", aka "Small Duck". The more you know :V) Anyways yeah, just a small extra information in case it could be of any use for your story.

BIT OF A DISCLAIMER: sadly I can't tell you if this does in fact lead into ambiguity territory as sadly if there is any, I am not aware of it. I would have to ask other fellow Italians to give their own opinion about it.

--

Anyways I'm ending this rambling of mine. I'm not that better after all SDLGKNB

I hope I was able to clear up your doubts and questions! And again, if I ended up missing some points, do let me know!

[valdotpng]

an accomplice turned victim his apology, long overdue

[aroaceleovaldez]

i had a thought of "do people not know what AUs are anymore?" and then i remembered nobody explains fandom stuff to new people anymore so it is entirely plausible people genuinely don't know what AUs are and nobody has explained it to them, so for today's lucky 10,000:

"AU" stands for "Alternate Universe" or "Alternative Universe" (same difference) and is basically any thought scenario for a fandom that isn't canon and can't fit within the canon universe. If it takes place in the canon universe but something is notably different, that is typically what's known as a "Canon divergent AU," because it diverges from canon.

an AU can be absolutely anything. There's a couple of widespread pan-fandom au scenarios that often get thrown around, like coffee shop aus, genderbend aus, hanahaki aus (hanahaki is a whole thing in itself i'd recommend researching on your own), etc. One you might hear sometimes is "crossover AU" which is when you have characters from one fandom interacting with characters from another.

You can have as many aus as you want. They can be whatever you want and you can do whatever you want in them. It's a sandbox for you to play around in and explore how things would be different or how the characters would act in those circumstances or environments. Maybe they have different relationships with each other. Maybe they behave slightly differently. Or you can just say "Okay, [x] is true. How did they get here? How would things have to be different for this to occur?" which can also be fun.

If you are ever confused about why people ship something that seems completely out of the blue or doesn't make sense to you in the canon setting, there's a good chance they like it in an AU setting! Not everything everybody is interacting with is necessarily the canon! Not everybody wants things to exist in canon and just want to explore playing dolls in a different sandbox and that's okay. And their sandbox might look a lot different than yours, and that's also okay. You have the freedom to make your sandbox whatever you please. Do whatever you want forever. Get funky with it. AUs are fun.

Okay that's my schpeal. everybody go have fun and play nice now.

[claypigeonpottery]

@unwanted-dandelion-seeds

(about this guy)

a kiln god is a small clay sculptural creature that stays on/in/near a kiln while it’s firing, to watch over the pottery inside and protect it

mine are all vaguely humanoid and holding pottery, but they can be anything

a lot of people leave their kiln gods unglazed, and only ever make one or two. because I work with a shared kiln, my kiln gods have to be inside the kiln so they don’t get bumped or broken, so it makes more sense to glaze them and keep making more

(^this one I kept, she lives on my pottery desk)

people have lots of little traditions around kilns and pottery. there are so many variables to successfully finishing a piece of pottery, and many of the steps are out of our control. it’s nice to have a kiln god watching over our work

if you take a pottery class, your teacher might mention the kiln gods. for some potters/studios they’re more of a concept than anything physical

what can I say, humans just love to make little guys

[thefangirl-16-blog]

WHO WILL WIN

[noodles-and-tea]

I love non verbal Dick's HC so much!

What do you think was the case at his first gala? Was he able to speak yet, or did he still rely on Bruce to communicate?

[bigfatbreak]

Patreon request: Superman/Feralnette crossover

I went unnecessarily hard on this for some reason?? anyway, I might play more with this later~

[lokh]

communication is key 💪

[mumblesplash]

i’ve started getting so unreasonably cranky at those posts that are like ‘i’m sick of [aspect of popular media] someone should make [opposite thing]!!!’ by people who don’t seem invested in the idea they’re pitching as anything beyond a subversion of the norm. like ok. i see where you’re coming from but where are you actually going. look me in the eyes and give me one good reason you think that story concept is possible to pull off

[soapbbox]

your art makes me very happy. Very scumptis. 👍 Put those men in situations yesss

Thank you!!! You have now put them at the bottom of the ocean

[egophiliac]

once again, don't think I'm not still obsessing over 7-12

(eventually I will get back to being less scribbly, whoops)

[duckysprouts]

if you were at your worst, if you’re a villain or a screwup or whatever, there is a goth man dressed as a giant bat who keeps coming after you, bothering you. he sabotages your journey of self destruction over and over. ur ready to give up but he won’t let you. you think, today he won’t come. today he will give up on me too. he never does.

[shopwitchvamp]

“Omg, I love these! They go up to size 6X AND they have pockets?! Wow!! But do you have anything longer?”

Sure do, no problem!!

“YES these are great!!! But what about.. longer?”

I gotcha!! Comin’ right up!

“Perfect! But I have just one more question… what if I’m feeling spicy? How about skirts that are even shorter than the first ones?!”

Oh, you’re in luck! We’ve got minis now.

*wild cheering* /scene

🖤witchvamp.com🖤

[fantastic-nonsense]

[feliville]

Thank you for black girl trans woman…….. The world is quite beautiful 🌈✨

Thank YOU for liking my Paulina : -] !!💜

[count-pudding]

Leon trying to get Merlin out and succeeding(at last!)

Merlin complaining

Cafe

The inspiration meme