#translations and explanations

[korpikorppi]

Guys, I just now noticed one more interesting little detail in the Untamed!

You know the names of the buildings in the Cloud Recesses: the lecture room/hall Lanshi (兰室, Lánshì, "Orchid Room"); Yashi (雅室, Yǎshì, "Elegant Room") – the reception room/hall; the spirit-summoning room/hall Mingshi (冥室, Míngshì, "Underworld Room" or "Room of Darkness"); Hanshi (寒室, Hánshì, "Frost Room") - Lan Xichen's residence; and Lan Wangji's Jingshi (静室, Jìngshì, "Quiet Room"), right?

The character used to write the "shì", room, in the names is 室, here seen in the Lanshi and the Yashi (the names are read from right to left):

As a side note, the Lan seem to use the traditional rather than the simplified characters, so the "lán" in the Lanshi is written with 蘭 rather than 兰.

BUT. Not so in the Jingshi! Instead of the 室, a slightly different character is used for the "room":

My trusty dictionary did not know the character in question, so I started to look at what was different:

As such, the character 凶 (xiōng) means act of violence, murder, evil. An evildoer. A murderer. And as Lan Xichen told Wei Wuxian, we know who lived in the Jingshi before it became Lan Wangji's residence: "It is the place where our mother lived in the Cloud Recesses".

So, it seems that when the house became Madam Lan's prison, the character was changed to reflect her crime, denoting the place as the quiet room of a murderer. Accentuated by the reversed colours of the sign:

This has probably been quite self-evident to anyone who actually speaks and reads Chinese, but was quite an oooff! to me as I realised. One more killer detail in CQL 😟.

And while I was at it, I just had to check what it says above the gate (seen here when LWJ returns home with the Emperor's Smile):

As far as I can read it, the characters are 影竹堂 (yǐng zhú táng), which I freely translate as "Bamboo Shadow Court". An apt name for the place.

Hopefully it offered some solace to Madam Lan.

And oh, I just have to add! As Hanshi is the Sect Leader's residence, Lan Xichen is living in their father's house, while Lan Wangji is living in their mother's. And the two houses are more or less identical, down to the furnishings (just check the scene where Lan Xichen confronts Wen Chao and his muddy boots in ep8 vs. The Wangxian Scene in ep43). So did Qingheng-jun have the house built for his wife, identical to the house she was not allowed to live in? That is quite plausible, in universe. Out universe, they probably had only so many buildings to shoot in :).

[yazzydream]

The record holder for consecutive Black Flash uses, Nanami Kento, speaks It's not like using Black Flash consecutively is anything amazing. To do so consecutively more than twice in a row… Rather, if not done within the same day it would be difficult. It doesn't matter if the first time is by fluke or skill. Once they land a Black Flash, sorcerers temporarily enter a state athletes call "the zone." The manipulation of cursed energy that is normally done consciously, comes as naturally as breathing. There's a sense of omnipotence, like everything else revolves around you… That might be a good way to put it.

[ruanbaijie]

哎。我现在就能回答你。我愿意。

THE SPIREALM 致命游戏 (2024) 1.39 adapted from the danmei novel Kaleidoscope of Death 死亡万花筒 by Xi Zi Xu 西子绪

[pharawee]

A few notes on Pat and Chot's conversation:

🔹Ke (เกย์) is a neutral expression that is the phonetic adaptation of the English word gay.

🔹Tut (ตุ๊ด) is a vulgar and pejorative expression used to refer to a very effeminate homosexual man and can have multiple translations, as sissy, queen, [or in this case: tootsie] etc. 

🔹Je (เจ๊) is a Thai honorific from 姐 for “elder sister”. Chot uses it to refer to himself. Pat later uses it to address Chot.

🔹krap/kha (ครับ / ค่ะ) are gender-oriented particles. Chot uses the traditionally female particle for himself.

🌈Sources: LGTBIQ+ Enciclopaedia, Thaipod101

[juneviews]

"What's the relationship between you two?"

[soobrownie]

If I gather all my tears, let it all go only into the ocean and hide myself that way I’ll remember, that I’m out at the land Would I be a forest by then?

Forest - Choi Yuree (tr. @/blue_summer814 on tw)

[rongzhi]

The bugs in your teeth

English added by me :)

[fixkuwili]

Hi !

Finally decided to do a digital release of my FFXIV fanzine, Light !

https://fixkuwili.gumroad.com/l/cxkgb

It's 56 pages long, contains drawing, comics, backstory stuff and basically everything I've made around the game since I started :-)

It's 10 euros and FAIR WARNING parts of it are in french. I may do a full english release if people are interested tho !

[crehador]

shen (cv hanachan) speaks mandarin 🥰

they should let him say woc

[pearlcaddy]

otpsource valentine's day event 2023 ♡ word not in the english language

[inaflashimagine]

but what if him saying farewell meant saying farewell to his friends in the afterlife and by walking north that means he’s on the path to renewal and finding a new side to himself and his head wasn’t cut off so maybe he’ll heal up but will have to sacrifice his six eyes and that’s part of the renewal process and him realizing that gojo satoru can be gojo satoru without being the strongest and isn’t that the point of jujutsu kaisen to defy tradition and the roles you’ve been prescribed to since birth and realizing it’s not the strongest but rather ushering in new age of sorcerers who are strong together and—

[stalkiwi]

I don't like to make a blog about the matter, especially because I'm in the middle of my vacations and I would like to enjoy them, but there's just some things I would like to speak about.

Concerning my own opinion on the matter, I am not taking any side for the moment. I won't defend anyone or be against anyone. The reason is simple; I'm just as confused as anyone. There is a lot of misinformation, confusing information, bad or clumsy translations, and there is no way for now to tell who is right or who is wrong without uprighting asking the concerned themselves. So for the moment, I am nothing but just a powerless fan looking at the chaos unfolding in front of me.

But for the time being, I can only say one thing, please stop jumping on conclusions, spread hate speech, or share misinformation. This is already really confusing and stressing enough. It's not about "Project Moon are being misogynistic because they fired a woman", or "The artist is really a radfem TERF", just stop and please, please, just wait before taking a decision or straight out going "Fuck Project Moon, uninstalling the game, boycott", and other threats. Remember they're just an indie company, this might be extremely stressful for them, for the artist who is still young, and for the fans as well, don't make it harder, thank you.

I know I won't change anything, people might hate me for that, I might start controversies or whatever, but I just hope, even a little bit, that some people will share this message. Just please, don't keep adding oil on the fire, be respectful to each other, don't insult or jump to hateful conclusions, that's all I can ask as a simple member of the community and a fan of the game.

Love y'all, I really love the Project Moon community and the games, I'm really attached to it and the universe, so please take care everyone 🧡💛

[robertsbarbie]

the more i read of this book the more is cements in my mind that this was never meant to be a snow apologist book people just don’t have any reading comprehension anymore

[kuririhimitsukichi]

Keroro Movie 4 deleted scene: Shion's Secret, Tamama's Disappearance

This is the scene I've mentioned that had finished animation, there's one version of the movie tie-in credits posted to youtube and you can see one clip there, but they didn't use the exact same mix of clips each week, so there are a couple more shots from the missing scene that were shown.

Removing it must have been a fairly last minute decision, and unfortunately it wasn't included in the bonus features for the DVD, not even the special release. My guess is it was either cut for time, or that it was decided it gave away too much of the story too early, but I wish we could have seen the whole scene in some way, it feels like it would have been really spectacular to see.

This part takes place right after the guest house scene, in the final movie after Tamama runs out of the room it cuts to Momoka waking up, and this scene would have happened between those two points.

Once again, the translation from the novel is under the cut:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the quiet night on the outskirts of Paris, a faint singing voice could be heard. It was such a quiet sound that if you weren't warned of it, you might not notice it, even so, if you listened closely, you could just understand the song.

The singing voice quietly, quietly echoed through the garden where afternoon tea time had been spent, the outer wall of Shion's castle......as well as the guest room on the interior of that, where Momoka & Tamama were sleeping. Nonetheless the two were firmly in the world of dreams. You'd expect they wouldn't notice the singing voice at all.

However.

The sleeping Tamama's eyes suddenly snapped open. The colour of his eyes was different from usual. They were lit up like jewels showered in moonlight. Suddenly waking up, Tamama agilely jumped out of bed. He moved carefully like a child trying to avoid being thought of as bad for waking up in the middle of the night. And so, like that he exited and left the room with soft footfalls.

And closed the door with a click.

Still in her bed, Momoka muttered "Ngh" in response before immediately returning to the world of dreams again. As for the other, now empty bed...... Just where could Tamama be going to?

Tamama ran with tapping steps through the lush, densely growing forest on the other side of Shion's castle. With a blank expression as if he were sleeping with his eyes open, he all around looked like he was being controlled by somebody......

Tamama easily pressed through the pitch-black night forest without stumbling. As he progressed, the singing voice gradually became louder. In a short time, the forest ended and a pond illuminated by the moonlight appeared. The footsteps of Tamama, who had been running through the forest, became slower.

In the center of the pond there was a small island. A small figure seemed to be absentmindedly floating there. The person was likely the one singing the song. Judging by the voice, the one singing was a young girl. But why might a girl be singing in the forest this late at night?

Tamama, who had stopped running at the edge of the pond suddenly came to himself. His eyes returned to their normal colour.

"Huh? Wha-what-what? Where is this place?" Despite having run there on his own, it seemed he had no recollection of it.

The figure on the island suddenly stopped singing and turned to look.

"Bonsoir, Tamama-chan" It was Shion, having put on a black cloak.

Despite sporting the same personable smile she had worn that afternoon, illuminated by the moonlight, the girl had a somewhat spooky feeling.

"Shiocchi! What are you doing so late at night?" You could hear a hint of fear in his voice. Instead of answering, Shion raised a hand and gestured to the sky.

"Look. Please look at the dragon arch. Hasn't it grown considerably? It was such a lot of trouble to make it appear throughout the world" Shion spoke in an unbothered tone while gesturing to where the black night sky was cut by the even more black dragon arch.

"Appear throughout the world? Just what are you talking about? The dragon arch..." Finally clearly awake, Tamama looked at Shion with suspicion.

But as expected, Shion did not answer the question, and simply continued what she was saying. "Soon my new family will be be born. My heart friend, the Earth Dragon" Shion's rapt gaze softened.

"Earth....Dragon? Is that a story you made up, Shiocchi? Momocchi told me. That you're good at making up stories"

"Tamama-chan, you will become a warrior who will protect the Earth" Shion did not appear to hear Tamama's words at all, but leaned forward slightly as she spoke.

"'Warrior.....?' Does that mean I'm going to be a character appearing in Shiocchi's story too? Or maybe something like shouting 'Worya!' and fighting?"

While Tamama was thinking, Shion had turned back and began to sing. A song that was like a mysterious spell.... In front of Shion there was a small altar, and on that a large tome was open. While singing, she spread her arms and hands wide above them, from the space between her palms, a ball of pale blue light formed.

"What were you doing just now? Shiocchi? Singing a song.....sng....."

As the singing voice grew louder, Tamama seemed to become enveloped by it, and his eyes took on a strange light. The same colour as when he'd sprang out of bed earlier.

"Uu.....my-.....my head....."

When did the singing voice become more than just Shion's?

"Wh-When did....."

Around Tamama & Shion, and the edge of the pond, black figures had lined up. The accumulating deep voices belonged to those men. When did it happen? That about 10 men were surrounding the pond.

Shion's song and the men's singing voices- their choir flared up so that if you heard them, you couldn't hear anything else.

"W-What, what is it? This song is......?" Pressing on his head to try and hold onto his fading consciousness, Tamama looked all around at his surroundings. These men he couldn't feel any sort of hint from, when had they appeared?

"Shiocchi?"

Shion and the men's singing voices had steadily grown louder and were echoing in Tamama's head.

"U, ua....., my body is.....is......."

The light between the palms of Shion's hands had been gathering strength along with the singing voices. As if it were signaling to that light, this time a light shone out of Tamama's body.

"My body is~~~~~!" The light enveloped Tamama and continued to grow larger. From deep in the forest, the glowing mass and body slowly rose. A piercing roar echoed throughout the night in the outskirts of Paris.

".......ngh, what is, this sound......" Having awakened, Momoka realised at that time that the neighbouring bed was empty.

[milfromanroy]

Louis mon cher come quickly! i have found the most delightful how you say émission de télévision! it is about four brothers cast out by humanity for reasons outside of their control, comme nous, ma chérie.... their father, un rat au grand cœur, trains them in the ways of ninjutsu like his father before him et tu dis que tu veux les manger! they do this so they can defeat their greatest foe… the shredder! a man with knives for hands louisis! They call themselves les tortues ninja mutantes adolescentes! i have used your credit card to buy all 5 seasons. i hope you're not angry with me mon amour…loooiuis… loiuisis why are you laughing…..

[bookofmirth]

I was thinking about when Lucien tells Feyre that she was a better friend to him than she was to her, and how we as readers have reacted to that line over the years, and had a few thoughts.

The main thing is that characters can and will do/say things that they believe to be true, that we know are not actually true. The characters may also know that they are untrue, but don't want to admit. We lie to ourselves all the time, and characters do too. It may not even be the case that sjm wants *us* to believe that Lucien is speaking the truth. The important thing is that, in that moment, Lucien believes that he is speaking the truth.

We should not confuse what the characters are saying with what the author is saying. An author is NOT their characters. A character can and will say/do things that an author does not agree with, and may not even like. A character saying/doing something is NOT an endorsement of saying/doing that thing by the author. (This can be easier to understand when you read poetry - though there has been an increase in confessional poetry in the past few decades which is largely autobiographical, the narrator of a poem is NOT necessarily the same as the author of a poem.)

This isn't to say that Feyre is being an unreliable narrator; we have Lucien's literal words that he spoke to her, there was no reflection on those words by Feyre that tells us what she thinks of them, and she would have no reason to lie. As a fandom, I wish we could stop getting so hung up on the idea of unreliable narrators and differing character perspectives as a means to argue that one character is "more right" than another, or that we get "the truth" when we view from a specific character's eyes. That's... not how it works. There is no such thing as an objective way of viewing pretty much anything. Everything relies on perspective. We all hear/read things and those things get filtered through the giant pasta strainer of our upbringing, our beliefs, our values, our professions, our hobbies, etc. SJM has never been an author to use unreliable narration, but she does use differing perspectives. If she didn't, then every single character would seem like the same person. It's 10000% normal for us to understand characters and events differently when we hear about them from another character.

So back to my main point, I think that we can read this as Lucien genuinely believing this statement to be true - that he truly thinks that Feyre was a better friend to him if we consider his context.

Lucien has no real home with stability. He was banished from Autumn, he is estranged from his brothers, he cannot be there to protect his mother, his role in Spring has some importance but is reliant on the goodwill of someone who is, frankly, increasingly unstable. Lucien likely feels very indebted to Tamlin, and now that Feyre is Tamlin's bride/ex-fiancée, to her. There is also the role that she played UtM in trying to help Lucien. In other words, thanks to Beron being an asshole, Lucien relies on other people's goodwill for his basic survival. (This is why, later on, he would rather stay with the BoE. He isn't beholden to them in the same way that he would be to Rhys, yet another person taking pity on Lucien's dépaysement.)

In retrospect, Lucien feels guilt for not having done more when Feyre was suffering in acomaf. It's easier for him to see how she was suffering because he was suffering in an adjacent manner. In the beginning of acomaf, Feyre was making excuses for Tamlin, trying to be patient, to wait out his anger and grief at what happened UtM. Lucien was doing the exact same thing, but it took him longer to recognize how toxic it was because Lucien, unlike Feyre, didn't have the advantage of someone literally swooping in to take him away and give him perspective. He got there, though, when Tamlin starts working with Hybern and especially after he sees Feyre back in Spring, which leads me to my next point.

Lucien is clearly wary of Feyre's lies while she is in the Night Court. He suspects that she is pretending to be in love with Tamlin, pretending to be loyal to the Spring Court. This reinforces his understanding of just how toxic Spring has become, the fact that Feyre saw it, understood, and acted before he did. So tying these issues together - Lucien's exile, his reliance on other people for stability, his dawning understanding that Feyre recognized the situation for what it was before he did, that he has ended up in this situation where his mate is now at risk - and Lucien feels a whole lot of "if only I had..." And he now sees Feyre as someone who saw the situation for what it was before he did, and acted accordingly. But we as the reader know why that was harder for Lucien.

So going back to my point about Lucien believing this is all true, we know that it's not, and that's a normal part of being a reader. Lucien makes that statement after telling Feyre about Ianthe and Calanmai; we know that not long after, right after she tells Lucien that she wishes she could have stopped his assault, she nearly - knowingly - allows it to happen again. Lucien's words and Feyre's actions don't align, and there is nothing in the narrative that tells us that her actions are okay.

(A related rant, but characters don't need to be punished for us to understand if their actions are morally okay or not. We are smart people, we can tell that for ourselves. It may be annoying to us if they aren't punished, but that's another idea that has pervaded book spaces - that if problematic action isn't punished or portrayed negatively, then the author must think it's okay. No, maybe the author trusts us to know what's right and what's not, and doesn't feel the need to beat us over the head with it because books do not have to be moral, didactic tools.)

SJM could have written it so that Feyre didn't hesitate to help Lucien. She could have written it so that Feyre didn't intentionally try to put Lucien in the path of Tamlin's anger. She could have written Feyre to be a saint, but she didn't, and just because another character views Feyre's actions favorably doesn't mean that we have to, because we have the benefit of knowing that sometimes, people lie to themselves and/or say things they don't truly mean or believe. And furthermore, just because one character views Feyre's actions favorably, doesn't mean that SJM does. Remember - the characters =/= the author. SJM doesn't actually believe or agree with everything the characters say and do. She doesn't have to agree with anything they say or do.

Thanks for coming to my tedtalk.