#thinking of useless cases

[aurorangen]

Travelling from the big city all the way to the English countryside to solve the missing lettuce case. Bless this old lady!

Transcript:

[Noah holds in his laughter and avoids eye contact with the old lady while Renee, looking down, is too shocked to speak, Like the team leader he is, only Darius keeps a serious face and continues the questioning] Darius: Excuse me, Ma'am. Please could you repeat that for us? [very confused] What exactly happened?

Carla: I woke up and brushed my teeth. Put the kettle on for a morning brew. Ah! Do you fancy a cuppa dear? Darius: [politely declines] We are fine thank you. Ma'am, could you skip to when you found out? Carla: Of course [thinks back carefully] I'm devastated to say someone has stolen my prized possession.

Carla: My giant lettuce is missing.

[bixels]

Learning that fans hated Applejack and called her "boring" is crazyyy to me because I genuinely, unironically believe AJ's the most complex character in the main six.

Backstory-wise, she was born into a family of famers/blue collar workers who helped found the town she lives in. She grew up a habitual liar until she had the bad habit traumatized outta her. She lost both her parents and was orphaned at a young age, having to step up as her baby sister's mother figure. She's the only person in the main gang who's experienced this level of loss and grief (A Royal Problem reveals that AJ dreams about memories of being held by her parents as a baby). She moved to Manhattan to live with her wealthy family members, only to realize she'll never fit in or be accepted, even amongst her own family. The earlier seasons imply she and her family had money problems too (In The Ticket Master, AJ wants to go to the gala to earn money to buy new farm equipment and afford hip surgery for her grandma).

Personality-wise, she's a total people-pleaser/steamroller (with an occasional savior complex) who places her self worth on her independence and usefulness for other people, causing her to become a complete workaholic. In Applebuck Season, AJ stops taking care of herself because of her obsessive responsibilities for others and becomes completely dysfunctional. In Apple Family Reunion, AJ has a tearful breakdown because in she thinks she dishonored her family and tarnished her reputation as a potential leader –– an expectation and anxiety that's directly tied to her deceased parents, as shown in the episode's ending scene. In The Last Roundup, AJ abandons her family and friends out of shame because believes she failed them by not earning 1st place in a rodeo competition. She completely spirals emotionally when she isn't able to fulfill her duties toward others. Her need to be the best manifests in intense pride and competitiveness when others challenge her. And when her pride's broken, she cowers and physically hides herself.

Moreover, it's strongly implied that AJ has a deep-seated anger. The comics explore her ranting outbursts more. EQG also obviously has AJ yelling at and insulting Rarity in a jealous fit just to hurt her feelings (with a line that I could write a whole dissection on). And I'm certain I read in a post somewhere that in a Gameloft event, AJ's negative traits are listed as anger.

Subtextually, a lot of these flaws and anxieties can be (retroactively) linked to her parents' death, forcing her to grow up too quickly to become the adult/caregiver of the family (especially after her big brother becomes semiverbal). Notice how throughout the series, she's constantly acting as the "mom friend" of the group (despite everything, she manages to be the most emotionally mature of the bunch). Notice how AJ'll switch to a quieter, calmer tone when her friends are panicking and use soothing prompts and questions to talk them through their emotions/problems; something she'd definitely pick up while raising a child. Same with her stoicism and reluctance at crying or releasing emotions (something Pinkie explicitly points out). She also had a childhood relationship with Rara (which, if you were to give a queer reading, could easy be interpreted as her first 'aha' crush), who eventually left her life. (Interestingly enough, AJ also has an angry outburst with Rara for the same exact reasons as with EQG Rarity; jealous, upset that someone else is using and changing her). It's not hard to imagine an AJ with separation anxiety stemming from her mother and childhood friend/crush leaving. I'm also not above reading into AJ's relationship with her little sister (Y'all ever think about how AB never got to know her parents, even though she shares her father's colors and her mother's curly hair?).

AJ's stubbornness is a symptom of growing up too quickly as well. Who else to play with your baby sister when your brother goes nonverbal (not to discount Big Mac's role in raising AB)? Who else to wake up in the middle of the night to care for your crying baby sister when your grandma needs her rest? When you need to be 100% all the time for your family, you tend to become hard-stuck with a sense of moral superiority. You know what's best because you have to be your best because if you're aren't your best, then everything'll inevitably fall apart and it'll be your fault. And if you don't know what's best –– if you've been wrong the whole time –– that means you haven't been your best, which means you've failed the people who rely on you, which means you can't fulfill your role in the family/society, which makes you worthless . We've seen time and time again how this compulsive need to be right for the sake of others becomes self-destructive (Apple Family Reunion, Sound of Silence, all competitions against RD). We've seen in The Last Roundup how, when no longer at her best, AJ would rather remove herself from her community than confront them because she no longer feels of use to them.

But I guess it is kinda weird that AJ has "masculine" traits and isn't interested in men at all. It's totally justified that an aggressively straight, misogynistic male fandom would characterize her as a "boring background character." /s

At the time of writing this, it's 4:46AM.

[geodenes]

can someone PLEASE be insane with me about them

[enjoythepetrichor]

"ohhh they look so similar, they're both in love with their childhood best friend and have a secret identity that they hide from her"

fellas I think the key factor that connects Kaito and Shinichi is their absolutely batshit insane, very hot mums 😌

[chaosinterlude]

you guys ever think about levi liking games so much because a lot of games require strategy, quick thinking, problem-solving skills, etc. and those are things levi is good at due to his past as a general / grand admiral and now that he isn’t really active in those ranks anymore games are his way to cope with that and keep doing what he loved and devoted himself to for such a long time

[weepycat]

the full email is posted here but this paragraph from rachel corrie's last email to her mother in 2003 before she was killed by an israeli bulldozer is absolutely fucking harrowing over 20 years later.

I look forward to seeing more and more people willing to resist the direction the world is moving in: a direction where our personal experiences are irrelevant, that we are defective, that our communities are not important, that we are powerless, that the future is determined, and that the highest level of humanity is expressed through what we choose to buy at the mall.

[moeblob]

Amazing, take some of the side character demons from Evil Bound.

Vincie is a menace to Chuck and Chuck alone so in Hell, Chuck hexes his hand behind his back so that he isn't grabbed as much (and it's harder to pet him). Chuck is like the most irresponsible older sibling ever to demons though so Kelvin recruits him (as an older sibling vibe) to go help him get his ACTUAL older sibling from Earth. Chuck agrees. And then drags Vincie from Hell with them because no one else wants to babysit him and he refuses to unbind the hex just to re-hex when he returns to Hell.

In Hell, Kelvin actually doesn't appear much different than his human form! Like Kronos, the lines under his eyes are red in Hell but black on earth. Chuck however? In Hell he has wolf-ish ears and has a fur lining his neck (note the neck scars in human form). In addition to that he has four eyes in Hell (note the scars under his eyes in human form). Vincie just has horns in Hell. And! In Hell the hex doesn't have a silly looking "tied up" look, it's invisible unless Vincie strains it with movement and then its red text. But it shifts on earth to be visible.

Vincie's biggest agony for the entirety on earth is "dude it's colder here than in Hell I want a jacket to slip my arms into BUT I CANT BECAUSE IM BOUND".

[gregoftom]

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pretty sure i’ve seen romance movies with scenes like this

[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.

[pttucker]

Han Sooyoung who had to endure the time frame of 50 years – could she still maintain a normal, functioning mind? Was she able to maintain the ego of the Han Sooyoung that I know of? "This is all because I made a deal with the 'King of Reincarnators'." ⸢It 'd b een be tter if I sac rificed myself ins tead.⸥ I turned my head to discover Yoo Joonghyuk glaring at me as if I was a pathetic fool. His lips bobbed up and down several times, but then, squeezed his eyes shut as if to suppress his anger and leaned his back against the couch's cushions. "I'd like to say something, but it seems that someone else will do that for me, instead." "What?" Right in that next instant, fiery pain shot up from the back of my head.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Joonghyuk just swallowing his anger and letting Sooyoung smack Dokja upside the head and yell at him while he just sits there and silently seethes is everything I never knew I wanted.

Ughhhh, and Dokja once again thinking that it should have been him to sacrifice himself. Dokja, you have such a "sacrificing yourself for other people" thing going on, and I know that cannot be healthy mindset as noble as it may be.

Not that Joonghyuk's plan was stellar in comparison. Joonghyuk, my guy, you are hundreds of years old and Dokja is like...thirty. And completely and utterly softhearted. As you well know. Please forgive him if he rejects the "let's spend who knows how long in this roleplay scenario orchestrating the perfect succession while everyone's minds continue to degrade" plan.

Sooyoung literally said that these idiots were gonna mess everything up and she was right. I swear, she can't take these two anywhere.

.

.

.

These three mean everything to me, guys. There is currently nothing I want more from ORV than to see them interact as much as humanly possible.

[badley]

i recommend. Personally. watching international court cases and being in a removed part of your brain fucking terrified and horrified while you try and remain focused on the facts in the front of your mind so that you can know what the fuck is going on. and then letting that stew to make a list of things you find suspicious or dubious. also recommend then watching a bunch of philosophy all night and going hm fair point and well no i don't think that's true. and then doing the writing three pages thing your good friend suggested to you. and knowing your own naivete intimately. and then i recommend grabbing the a3 newsprint block so that you may make some inconsequential art. which inevitably will help you think. and then i recommend writing again to find out what you think. happy monday guys

[theflyingfeeling]

...💩

[stupid-sloot-headcanons]

Jokes and memes aside you guys DO know that the only way to determine if someone is a top or bottom is like. Asking them right. It's not a personality trait and top =/= dominant in the same way bottom =/= submissive, that's just a cultural norm tied to misogyny and the belief that to be penetrated and submissive is feminine. And conversely the patriarchal cultural belief that to be masculine is to be dominant and thus the one penetrating

[end-orfino]

i think one of the worst realizations i came to in terms of creative stuff is the fact that people just coming up with things in their stories etc. as they go along in making it is far more common and accepted than i would have expected. I thought (and still kinda do) that it's a clear sign that the thing's gonna have flaws that could be easily fixed by just planning ahead, like plotholes or contradictions or retconning stuff. But apparently it's frequent?? Especially with situations where something was well-liked, so the creator kept it going, like FNAF or.... I don't fucking know, Bolesław Prus's Lalka, or various TV shows and such. I understand eg. only having a vague sketch of what's supposed to happen in the future of the story as you start making it, and only making it clearer as it comes closer, I get that. That's still planning out the story. But some people don't do that at all and just jump right into stuff without actually thinking of what to do in the long run.

But then again, even if these things suck, I guess they were still made. I can't say the same for my things, so maybe there's some method in this insanity. Even if it can result in some significant flaws

[greenishness]

my brother booked a flight to the us not two weeks after he begged 200 € off me to pay his debts to the bank and it's pissing me off bad ngl. i'm usually happy to give money to my siblings and friends but at this point he is using me it's not like i have that kind of money just lying around like i was struggling this month bc i gave it to him and he decides to invest into an impulsive trip to fucking arizona?? also don't get me started on the way he pulls the same shit on our sister. he heard that she was working full time and decided this was a good opportunity to ask her to cover his semester fees. asking his LITTLE SISTER for the money SHE earned working a job she hates because she was saving up for her own apartment... he really has no shame omfg

[burinazar]

unfortunately i have caught myself again mired of my own volition in in a lengthy frustrating-ass exchange trying to politely explain basic narrative facts about my favorite characters to someone who manifested some strange unsupportable misunderstanding and won't budge on hearing otherwise. why do i do this sometimes. [hypothetical question, i know why.] i will stop replying now lol