#one mentions the title of the english translation but that's | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

doufudanshi · 15 days

Text

ON GHOSTS AND DEMONS: Wei Wuxian's "demonic" cultivation?

There are a few big misconceptions I have repeatedly seen in English-speaking fandom about things that are fundamental to the story of MDZS. One of them is this—

Wei Wuxian is not a demonic cultivator.

To prove this, let's take a deep dive into the original Chinese text of MDZS.

(Adapted from my original gdoc posted on Twitter on May 27, 2022. All translations my own unless otherwise stated.)

Demon vs. ghost

Let's start from the very basics. In addition to orthodox cultivation using spiritual energy and a golden core, there are two other forms of cultivation that are mentioned in the novel:

魔道 (mó dào), or “demon cultivation/path.”

鬼道 (guǐ dào), or “ghost cultivation/path.”

To be clear, 魔 mo "demons" and 鬼 gui "ghosts" (and thus their respective cultivation/paths) are not interchangeable because of the in-universe worldbuilding within MDZS. Using the characters in the term 妖魔鬼怪 "monsters," MXTX created four distinct categories of beings, each of which has a strict definition in the novel. From chapter 4 (jjwxc ch 13):

妖者非人之活物所化; 魔者生人所化; 鬼者死者所化; 怪者非人之死物所化。 Yāo (妖) are transformed from non-human living beings; mó (魔) are transformed from living people; guǐ (鬼) are transformed from the deceased; guài (怪) are transformed from non-human dead beings.

And of course, WWX hoards all the ghost-type pokemon monsters at the Phoenix Mountain tournament, and he only exerts control over corpses, spirits, and the like (aka people who have already died). (As opposed to Xue Yang, who appears to have been actively trying to make 魔 "demons" out of living people with those "living corpses" of his, perhaps.) (And, ironically, in order to avoid showing necromancy / zombies on screen, CQL technically does show WWX practicing demon cultivation because everyone is "supposedly alive" even when they're corpses? Which is, funnily enough, far worse morally in the MDZS universe, lol.)

So, intuitively at least, we know that WWX must be practicing ghost cultivation—now let's look at some concrete examples from the book.

Running the numbers

1) 魔道 (mó dào) means “demon cultivation.” As such, it must use living humans.

魔道 appears one (1) time in the novel.

Yes, once. The only time it appears is in the term 魔道祖师 modao zushi, or the namesake of the novel, in chapter 2. This is a title the general public has given him through rumors:

魏无羡好歹也被人叫了这么多年无上邪尊啦、魔道祖师啦之类的称号，这种一看就知道不是什么好东西的阵法，他自然了如指掌。 Wei Wuxian wasn’t called titles like “The Evil Overlord,” “The Founder of Demon Cultivation,” and so on over the years by others for nothing—he knew these sorts of obviously shady formations like the back of his hand.

2) 鬼道 (guǐ dào) means “ghost cultivation.” As such, it must use dead humans.

鬼道 appears 12 times in the novel.

Here is the first instance that 鬼道 appears, which I believe is the first time Wei Wuxian's method of cultivation is properly introduced. From chapter 3 (jjwxc ch 8):

蓝忘机 […] 对魏无羡修鬼道一事极不认可。 Lan Wangji […] had never approved of the fact that Wei Wuxian practiced ghost cultivation.

Here's another quote from chapter 15 (jjwxc ch 71) for funsies:

蓝忘机看着他，似乎一眼就看出他只是随口敷衍，吸了一口气，道：“魏婴。” Lan Wangji looked at him as if he saw through his half-hearted bluff. He took in a breath, then said, “Wei Ying.” 他执拗地道：“鬼道损身，损心性。” He stubbornly continued, “Ghost cultivation harms one’s body, and harms one’s nature.”

3) 邪魔歪道 (xiemowaidao) means heretical path/immoral methods/evil practices/underhanded means/etc—e.g., lying, cheating, stealing, bribery, and so on.

It appears ~24 times in the novel.

I mention this last term because it is often used to refer to Wei Wuxian's cultivation, but as a pejorative. Every instance of 邪魔歪道 is said by or to quote someone looking down upon Wei Wuxian’s cultivation (Jin Zixun, Jin Ling, etc.) and referring to it derogatorily, whereas every instance of 鬼道 guidao/ghost dao is said by someone discussing it neutrally and/or factually (Lan Jingyi, Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian himself, random cultivators at discussion conferences, the narration, etc.). Here is a pertinent example with Jin Ling (derogatory) and Lan Jingyi (neutral) in chapter 9 (jjwxc ch 43):

金凌怒道：“是在谈论薛洋，我说的不对吗？薛洋干了什么？他是个禽兽不如的人渣，魏婴比他更让人恶心！什么叫‘不能一概而论’？这种邪魔歪道留在世上就是祸害，就是该统统都杀光，死光，灭绝！” “We are discussing Xue Yang,” Jin Ling said angrily. “Am I wrong? What did Xue Yang do? He’s scum that’s lower than a beast, and Wei Ying is even more disgusting than him! What do you mean ‘don’t make sweeping generalizations?’ As long as those practicing this kind of demoniac, heretical path are alive, they’ll continue to bring disaster. We should slaughter all of them, kill all of them, annihilate them once and for all!” 温宁动了动，魏无羡摆手示意他静止。只听蓝景仪也加入了，嚷道：“你发这么大火干什么？思追又��说魏无羡不该杀，他只是说修鬼道的也不一定全都是薛洋这种人，你有必要乱摔东西吗？那个我还没吃呢……” Wen Ning shuffled around. Wei Wuxian gestured at him to stay still, only to hear Lan Jingyi also cut in loudly, “Why are you getting so riled up? It’s not like Sizhui said Wei Wuxian shouldn’t have been killed. All he said was that people who practice ghost cultivation aren’t necessarily all like Xue Yang. Do you have to go around breaking things? I didn’t even get to eat any of that yet…”

Tl;dr—Wei Wuxian does not 修魔道 practice demon cultivation. When Wei Wuxian’s craft is discussed in a neutral and factual manner, it is referred to as 鬼道 ghost dao.

In fact, Wei Wuxian’s imitators are also referred to explicitly as 鬼道修士 ghost cultivators.

魏无羡早就听说过，这些年来江澄到处抓疑似夺舍重生的鬼道修士，把这些人通通押回莲花坞严刑拷打。 Wei Wuxian had heard a while back that over the past few years, Jiang Cheng had gone around snatching any ghost cultivator suspected of being possessed or reborn, detaining them in Lotus Pier to interrogate them using torture.

So why the confusion?

Of course, there is the matter of the novel's title, which I will get into in a second. But the real issue is a matter of translation.

The idea that WWX uses "demonic cultivation" is a misconception in English-speaking fandom due to issues with the translation of terminology. Of note, EXR actually did translate 鬼道 guidao as "ghostly path" most of the time, though there were at least 3 instances of "demonic" and 1 instance of "dark," especially regarding the first few.

However, this misconception was perpetuated (and arguably worsened) by 7S's official translation, which not only mistranslated additional terms as "demonic cultivation/path" (at least in book 1), but also consistently mistranslated every instance of 鬼道 as "demonic cultivation/path."

So why is this book called 魔道祖师, commonly translated as "Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation?"

One possibility is one posed in Chinese-language meta online, which often cites that WWX himself is a sort of 魔 demon. While this may be true—after all, he can hear the voices of the dead—it doesn't quite explain the fact that the title sets him up to be the 祖师 or "founder."

My take is that this novel is very much concerned with hearsay vs. truth. This is one of the many monikers WWX is given by the public, who collectively view him as evil. (Also of note is that the non-cultivator public is not aware of all the nuances that cultivators learn re: distinctions between the 妖魔鬼怪 monsters.) In the quote from earlier, note that the first title we're given is actually 无上邪尊 “The Evil Overlord,” then 魔道祖师 "The Founder of Demon Cultivation." Like, what can that be other than MXTX telling us, "please take both of these with a HUGE grain of salt, lol."

(And not only the title, but the very first line—"魏无羡死了。" / "Wei Wuxian is dead."—is a lie.)

I think the title is genius, honestly. It intentionally makes readers come into the novel with preconceived notions that Wei Wuxian practices 魔道 demon cultivation and evil techniques—just like the public in the novel. What better way to tell a story warning about the dangers of how easy it is to fall for misinformation and jump to incorrect conclusions?

(Though, in our case, perhaps it worked a little too well.)

#魔道祖师 #mdzs #mdzs meta #mdzs translation #wei wuxian #wwx #demonic cultivation #ghost cultivation #mine #doufudanshi translation #crossposted from twitter #(sort of)

657 notes · View notes

alpaca-clouds · 9 months

Text

The history of Solarpunk

Okay, I guess this has to be said, because the people will always claim the same wrong thing: No, Solarpunk did not "start out as an aesthetic". Jesus, where the hell does this claim even come from? Like, honestly, I am asking.

Solarpunk started out as a genre, that yes, did also include design elements, but also literary elements. A vaguely defined literary genre, but a genre never the less.

And I am not even talking about those early books that we today also claim under the Solarpunk umbrella. So, no, I am not talking about Ursula K. LeGuin, even though she definitely was a big influence on the genre.

The actual history of Solarpunk goes something like that: In the late 1990s and early 2000s the term "Ecopunk" was coined, which was used to refer to books that kinda fit into the Cyberpunk genre umbrella, but were more focused on ecological themes. This was less focused on the "high tech, high life" mantra that Solarpunk ended up with, but it was SciFi stories, that were focused on people interacting with the environment. Often set to a backdrop of environmental apocalypse. Now, other than Solarpunk just a bit later, this genre never got that well defined (especially with Solarpunk kinda taking over the role). As such there is only a handful of things that ever officially called themselves Ecopunk.

At the same time, though, the same sort of thought was picked up in the Brazilian science fiction scene, where the idea was further developed. Both artistically, where it got a lot of influence from the Amazofuturism movement, but also as an ideology. In this there were the ideas from Ecopunk as the "scifi in the ecological collaps" in there, but also the idea of "scifi with technology that allows us to live within the changing world/allows us to live more in harmony with nature".

Now, we do not really know who came up with the idea of naming this "Solarpunk". From all I can find the earliest mention of the term "Solarpunk" that is still online today is in this article from the Blog Republic of Bees. But given the way the blogger talks about it, it is clear there was some vague definition of the genre before it.

These days it is kinda argued about whether that title originally arose in Brazil or in the Anglosphere. But it seems very likely that the term was coined between 2006 and 2008, coming either out of the Brazilian movement around Ecopunk or out of the English Steampunk movement (specifically the literary branch of the Steampunk genre).

In the following years it was thrown around for a bit (there is an archived Wired article from 2009, that mentions the term once, as well as one other article), but for the moment there was not a lot happening in this regard.

Until 2012, when the Brazilian Solarpunk movement really started to bloom and at the same time in Italy Commando Jugendstil made their appearance. In 2012 in Brazil the anthology "Solarpunk: Histórias ecológicas e fantásticas em um mundo sustentável" was released (that did get an English translation not too long ago) establishing some groundwork for the genre. And Commando Jugendstil, who describe themselves as both a "Communication Project" and an "Art Movement", started to work on Solarpunk in Italy. Now, Commando Jugendstil is a bit more complicated than just one or the other. As they very much were a big influence on some of the aesthetic concepts, but also were releasing short stories and did some actual punky political action within Italy.

And all of that was happening in 2012, where the term really started to take off.

And only after this, in 2014, Solarpunk became this aesthetic we know today, when a (now defuct) tumblr blog started posting photos, artworks and other aesthetical things under the caption of Solarpunk. Especially as it was the first time the term was widely used within the Anglosphere.

Undoubtedly: This was probably how most people first learned of Solarpunk... But it was not how Solarpunk started. So, please stop spreading that myth.

The reason this bothers me so much is, that it so widely ignores how this movement definitely has its roots within Latin America and specifically Brazil. Instead this myth basically tries to claim Solarpunk as a thing that fully and completely originated within the anglosphere. Which is just is not.

And yes, there was artistic aspects to that early Solarpunk movement, too. But also a literary and political aspectt. That is not something that was put onto a term that was originally an aesthetic - but rather it was something that was there from the very beginning.

Again: There has been an artistic and aesthetic aspect in Solarpunk from the very beginning, yes. But there has been a literary and political aspect in it the entire time, too. And trying to divorce Solarpunk from those things is just wrong and also... kinda misses the point.

So, please. Just stop claiming that entire "it has been an aesthetic first" thing. Solarpunk is a genre of fiction, it is a political movement, just as much as it is an artistic movement. Always has been. And there has always been punk in it. So, please, stop acting as if Solarpunk is just "pretty artistic vibes". It is not.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk, I guess.

#solarpunk #solarpunk aesthetic #solarpunk fiction #political movement #history #history of solarpunk #amazofuturismus #put the punk back in solarpunk #scifi #science fiction #clifi #climate fiction #ecopunk

3K notes · View notes

tanuki-kimono · 1 month

Text

Samurai's ranks and dress code in Late Edo period

AMAZING reference chart put together by Nadeshico Rin, showing the different attires worn by the men of the buke class in and about Edo Castle. OP stresses the chart is by no means exhaustive - but it helps picturing things SO MUCH!

For easier reading, I have adapted the chart with english translation. Rin has also created illustrations detailing each attire, I'll translate those in coming days under the tag "samurai kimono".

You'll find the transliteration below cut:

The court ranks - Mibun 身分 or Ikai (位階)

Find more about the exact titles here.

一位 Ichii (First court rank)

三位 Sanmi (Third court rank) and 四位 Shii (Fourth court rank)

Goi 五位 (Fifth court rank)

Omemie ijô 御目見以上, the "upper" vassals allowed to request audience with the shogun

Omemie ika 御目見以下, the "lesser" vassals (not allowed to request audience with the shogun)

Rin does not mention the second court rank (二位 Nii) so I am not sure where this one is supposed to go ^^;

The clan/families - Kamei 家名

徳川将軍家 Tokugawa shôgunke (Tokugawa Shogun clan)

尾張徳川家 Owari Tokugawake (Owari Tokugawa clan), 紀伊徳川家 Kii Tokugawake (Kii Tokugawa clan), 水戸徳川家 Mito Tokugawake (Mito Tokugawa clan), 徳川御三卿 Tokugawa gosankyo (Secondary Tokugawa branch clans: Tayasu, Shimizu, and Hitotsubashi)

三奉行 Sanbugyô, & 下三奉行 Shimosan bugyô (magistrates, governors)

旗本 Hatamoto (general term for upper-rank vassals of the Tokugawa)

御家人 Gokenin (general term for lower-rank vassals of the Tokugawa)

Outfits TPO (Time, Place, Occasion)

第一礼服 (大礼など) Daiichi raifuku (tairei nado) - Most formal outfit worn during State/important ceremonies, etc.

礼服 (正月など) Raifuku (Shogatsu nado) - Formal outfit, worn for events like New Year, etc.

通常礼服 (節句など) Tsûjô raifuku (sekku nado) - Regular formal outfit, worn during seasonal festivals, etc.

平服 Heifuku - Everyday outfit

Type of outfits

Rin has released separated charts detailing the different costumes. You'll find them translated here in coming days.

束帯 Sokutai - old ceremonial court dress, first worn by Heian nobility. Attire includes the 笏 shaku (flat ritual sceptre), and 冠 kanmuri hat.

衣冠 Ikan - old ceremonial court dress, much more simpler than sokutai

布衣 Hoi - "plain" 狩衣 kariginu (which were informal clothes worn by the nobility from the Heian period and onwards)

素襖 Suô - ceremonial dress of the lower-ranked samurai

直垂 Hitatare - ceremonial court robe

狩衣 Kariginu - patterned kariginu (informal clothes worn by the nobility from the Heian period and onwards)

大紋 Daimon - 直垂 hitatare with large family crests

直衣 Nôshi - everyday robes which were first worn by males of the imperial family during Heian era, and then spread among nobility, etc.

長上下 Naga Kamishimo - outfit pairing a sleeveless ceremonial robe called 肩衣 kataginu, with trailing pants called 長袴 nagabakama

半上下 Han Kamishimo - outfit pairing a sleeveless ceremonial robe called 肩衣 kataginu, with ankle lenght pants called 半袴 hanbakama

727 notes · View notes

soft3spresso · 1 month

Text

One piece men hear you speaking Spanish for the first time

Ft. Sanji, Law, Ace and Zoro

SFW, swearing in spanish ;), drinking, gn reader

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

Sanji

“MIERDA!” (Shit) your scream was followed by a loud thud of the pan hitting the floor

Sanji immediately directed his attention to you running while holding his breath

“Are you o-“ he was interrupted by you mumbling something he couldn’t quite understand

“Puta madre esta demasiado caliente” (holy shit it’s too hot) you hissed while holding your hand close to your chest eyes shut together tightly at the sensation of the sudden burn

Sanjis worried look was replaced by a intrigued one as he realized everything that you were saying was in fact not english, it was something he couldn’t understand

“Let me see that, dear” he offers you his hand and you allowed him to look at the burn, he examines it throughly, being very familiar with this kind of injury, then he lightly touches the harmed zone of your hand making you squirm again

“AY IDIOTA” (you idiot) you remove your hand from his hissing in pain yet again

Sanji fetches the first aid kit as you stand still in your place blowing at your hand in hopes the pain will suffice, he asks you to sit down and you follow his instructions as he cures your burn cautiously

“So” he speaks after a while “What was all that you were saying earlier?”

“Oh…” you realize you had never mentioned that English is in fact not your first language “It’s Spanish, mostly curses” you answer a little ashamed at your behavior

Sanji felt himself fill with excitement at his new discovery “You never mentioned you knew other languages” curiosity itched him at the thought of hearing your voice say things he couldn’t decipher

“You never asked” you offer him a smirk knowing exactly what was going trough his head

“Could you tell me something else that isn’t curses? My dear?” You think for a second before obliging

“Gracias por cuidar de mi, mi principe” (thanks for taking care of me, my prince)

Sanji’s face was completely flushed, hands shaken and mouth dry, the way your voice and confidence shifted as you spoke your native language left him breathless and falling for you all over again

“I could really use some spanish lessons”

Law

You watched the doctor who sat at his desk flipping trough a medical book, his brows furrowed, you couldn’t ignore his annoyed huffs and puffs he had been making for a while now, you decided to interrupt whatever he had going on

“What’s with you, captain?” You giggle at the way he’s basically assaulting that poor book flipping it harshly

“This stupid book it’s not in English I don’t understand a damn thing” he answers still looking for a page, a title, a sentence he could read, anything

You come closer and peak above him looking at the words filling the book, you stop Laws hands for scavenging the pages as you start to read, your touch making him shiver

“La anemia provoca síntomas como fatiga, reducción de la capacidad para realizar trabajo físico y dificultad para respirar”

Law looks up at you surprised before you explain “This is basically explaining what Anemia is” you flip the page “And in here it talks about the flu” you point at the book smiling kindly at your confused captain

He would never admit it but he was really impressed and a little star struck at the way your voice sounded in a foreign language

“What were you looking for in here anyway?” You ask while flipping the pages

Law had to pull himself out of whatever spell you had casted on him before answering

“I bought it two islands ago but didn’t check it until now” his statement made you giggle, specially as you noticed the big title that read ‘Enfermedades y sus Síntomas’ (sickness and their symptoms) in the front of the book in gold bold letters

“I can translate it if you want” you kindly offer which pulls at Laws heartstrings, you were always taking care of him, he answers by shaking his head

“Do what you want” you roll your eyes at your dismissive captain before taking some paper and a pen from his desk

“Didn’t know you were bilingual” the doctor says still a little taken aback at this new information about you

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me” you wink before walking towards his couch, but you were stopped by a tatted hand holding your wrist and a playful smirk

“What about you read it to me instead?”

Red settles in your ears and cheeks before your eyes run aways from Laws and smiling shyly

“Don’t think you can handle all that Captain” you were obviously referring to all the information that the book offered, but the implications of you speaking another language and making Law nervous was obviously there, making him also blush immediately and his hold falter, but he wasn’t gonna let you have this one

“No no” he says before making you sit on his desk “Think I’ll do just fine”

Ace

“ACE DETENTE” (Ace stop) you screamed at the freckled pirate that had tossed you over his shoulder and threatened to make you fall into the ocean at the beach the Moby Dick had docked for the day. What once started as an uneventful aternoon in the beach turned into a wrestling match between you and the commander to see who would fall into the water first, and you were loosing

“What was that now?” He maneuvers you making you land on your feet as he smiles ear to ear intrigued about what you just said

“I said stop” you answered him as you catch your breath

“I don’t think that’s what you said” he starts approaching you slow and steady making you walk backwards as to avoid another attack, you return the playful smile plastered on his handsome face

“Dije Ace detente, sordo” (I said Ace stop, you deaf) you allow him to hear your Spanish once more gaining an even wider smile

“You sound soooo attractive like that”

You aren’t good with flirting, Ace’s smooth talk always manages to make you blush and stumble on your words and he loves it

“Stop it” you say pushing him back now

“I didn’t really understood that can you say it like the first time again?” You knew he wasn’t gonna let this newfound thing live down, you roll your eyes at the back of your head before obliging in hopes he’ll let you scape the danger of the water at your feet. You stop pushing him before standing on your tip toes allowing you to whisper in his ear

“Si me dejas ir te doy un beso” (if you let me go I’ll kiss ya) his breath hitched and a shiver ran down his spine freezing him in place. You stand back to meet his gaze as he stays ogling you, red blush painting his delicate freckles. Taking advantage you tackle him making him fall flat on the ocean

Your laugh explodes meeting Aces ears, still in shock by your teasing he lays on the water admiring your beaming smile that shines brighter than the sunset behind both of you. All he ever wanted was to make you laugh, there was no better price.

You offer him a hand to help him stand up, he takes it before pulling you down to meet the oceans salted water, squeaking at the coldness meeting your body

“You got me” you beam on top of him as he keeps drinking your beauty, wordless and enchanted

“You gotta keep speaking more like that y’know?” This man was absolutely lovesick, everything that had to do with you he loved, it was concerning

“Like what? Spanish?” You asked still surprise at his persistence on the matter

“Oh so that’s what it is” the comment makes you laugh once more making Ace’s heart swoon in pride, he is the only one that makes you laugh like this and he wouldn’t have it any other way

“I can teach you some”

Zoro

The strawhats found themselves drinking another bar dry, stretching your legs after weeks on end at sea and giving poor Sanji a break of having too cook yet another night. You were seated next to Zoro as you watched Usopp tell yet another over the top story about your adventures in the grand line to some locals, the ambience was so warm and welcoming allowing you to indulge in drinking at peace, or so you thought that’s how it was gonna be

A man drunk out of his mind stumbles to your side slurring his word and babbling about kissing you or something, at first you try to laugh it off but the man persisted. The swordsman catches your annoyed and uncomfortable face as you try to keep the wondering hands of the drunken away from you, anger building up in him at every stupid word that left his mouth, but before he could intervene he sees you stand up

“Dije que no! estúpido, aléjate!” (I said no you idiot, go away!) You scream at the man before pushing him, making him fall onto the nearby table

Zoro lets go of the hold on his swords as he watches you fix your clothes before muttering “Maldito idiota” (Fucking idiot)

Whatever you were saying it was in a language he had never heard you speak, he thought you only spoke English like almost everyone else in the crew. There was something in how your voice shifted that left him wanting to hear more. You speaking a completely different language was something that had never even crossed his mind

As you sat back down and took another sip of your drink the swordsman founds himself intrigued

“So now we’re screaming in different languages?” He asks smirking at you, the alcohol pulling his big walls down allowing you to climb them right up

“You know I love screaming” Zoro lets out a deep laugh, thinking what to say as to make you say another thing in that beautiful tongue he had heard you speak

“Where did you learn that anyway?” You raise and eyebrow at him, surprised at the way he was making conversation with you, something he never did

“It’s my native language actually” he hums in response happy to know more about you before becoming a pirate

“Why so curious?” The question makes him stutter, caught red handed

“‘Just had never heard that language before” he lies trough his flushed face which you immediately catch and makes your heart clench, a smile tugging at your lips

You sit closer to him before you whisper, lips brushing his golden earrings tickling you “No me digas que no conocías el español, verdecito” (Don’t tell me you didn’t know spanish, greenie)

You giggle after feeling every single muscle on his body clench at your words as he now shone bright red. He takes a big swoon of his sake trying to drown the shyness out of him

You lay back enjoying the rest of the night, Zoro not being able to keep the way you spoke out of his mind ever again

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

Of course I had to do this! RAAAH 🦅🦅🦅🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽 Also ty for more than 1k on my first one of these, ly guys enjoy

864 notes · View notes

emeritusemeritus · 8 months

Text

Beloved, Besotted, Betrothed. [Fred Weasley x Reader]

Title: Beloved, Besotted, Betrothed.

Pairing: Fred Weasley x Reader.

Timeline: {DH1} set during Bill and Fleur’s wedding. No mentions of War or Voldy.

Summary: Weddings always bring out the best in people, but you hadn’t expected it to bring out something else entirely within Fred.

Warnings: SMUT. P in v sex, oral sex both male and female receiving, Role-play, illusions to choking, Fred has a wife kink? Innocence kink. Strong cursing. Mentions that reader has curves and large breasts. Established relationship. Talk of marriage.

"Oh Molly you look beautiful," you say as you step into the kitchen, seeing your boyfriend's mum all dolled up ready for her eldest son's wedding. You had been upstairs getting ready with the bride and the rest of the bridesmaids, finishing your hair and makeup when you remembered that Fleur's fascinator was still in the box on the kitchen table.

The men had been tasked with setting up the marquee outside and had been essentially banished from the house as the women got ready, with strict warnings from Molly to not mess about, those warnings no doubt pointedly aimed at Fred and George.

"Oh thank you dear," she says blushing as she fusses with a piece of her hair, flustered by the compliment.

She was wearing a long green and turquoise patterned dress with flowing sleeves, a little satin waistband and a ruffled pattern on her right shoulder that resembled a flower. Her signature red hair had been curled with one section pinned back and decorated with a beautiful antique hair brooch and her makeup complimented her look perfectly.

"It's so nice to be all dressed up," she giggles as she waved her wand slightly, the plates of food on the counter becoming magically wrapped by a covering to keep the food fresh. You smile at her, nodding your head to agree as you spot the box from the table, choosing to spend a little time with Molly before retreating back upstairs.

"I wish it were you and Fred getting married today," she says with a sigh, looking out the window towards the Weasley men, and Harry, who are all trying to erect the tent. Your chest swells as you spot Fred looking so handsome in his suit, minus the blazer jacket, his golden waistcoat glimmering in the sun as he concentrates on the spot he's lifting with his wand.

"Molly," you playfully scold, knowing exactly what she meant by that. She gives you a little look where she pretends to be contrite for just a moment before scrunching her nose up and shrugging.

Fleur was not her first choice of daughter in law as she'd admitted to you more than once that she found her bossy and rude and had questioned the longevity of their relationship as she believed they were rushing into things, that the physical attraction between them was the most prominent reason why they were together.

Truthfully, you quite liked Fleur. She could be a little off handed with some of her comments, a little too quick to say what she thought rather than consider the effect of her words but you always thought it could be because of her having to mentally translate before speaking English. You couldn't deny that she had not made clever moves to try and impress Mr and Mrs Weasley and had inadvertently criticised their home, the family and Molly's favourite singer, Celestina Warbeck, all in the same sentence. If you hadn't been so protective of the Weasley family, you'd probably had actually found it impressive that she'd managed to offend nearly everyone in the household in less than two minutes.

You'd met during your sixth year at Hogwarts when the triwizard tournament had taken place and had become good friends with her and two of her Beauxton schoolmates Colette and Clemence, both of whom were also bridesmaids.

"I'm just saying," Molly says with a little knowing smirk. "I can't wait to have you as my daughter."

"Then you'll have to talk to your son," you quipped, casting one last look back outside to where the men were still trying to get the tent up straight, seeing even from afar that Fred's tongue had slipped out to rest in his bottom lip, something he did when he was concentrating hard.

"Believe me I will," she says with a smile, reaching out to pat your shoulder before walking over to the sink to busy herself.

You grab the box with Fleur's fascinator in and return back upstairs to finish getting the bride ready. Once Fleur was ready, you quickly changed into your bridesmaid's dress, each of you helping zip the others up before smoothing out your curled hair in front of the mirror.

The dress was a beautiful grey silk with a blue undertone that clung to every one of your curves, perfectly tailored to your body. Each dress was just slightly different but all had the same structure and little cape over the shoulders that was reminiscent of their Beauxbaton school uniform, a little ode to their magical roots.

"Fred will die when he sees you in that," Colette says as she appears behind you in the mirror, a smile tugging at her glossy lips as she looks at you. Her accent never failed to make you smile, hearing her try to pronounce 'Fred' in such a thick, French accent was always a little humorous to you.

"Oh hush," you say, casting one last glance at your body, smoothing out any lines in the silk.

You had to admit that you did feel incredibly sexy in the dress, though it was still modest in principle, it definitely showcased your features splendidly. Your breasts were considerably fuller than the other girls who all had slim figures and small breasts whereas you had a more hourglass figure that was openly showcased in the dress, something you knew Fred would enjoy greatly. You'd had to make adjustments to the cups of the dress multiple times in fittings as your breasts didn't fit in the same style as the others and so with a little ingenuity from the tailors, they'd adapted your dress to hold your chest a little better.

You checked the time and saw that there was still half an hour to go before the ceremony was due to begin and so you began to clear away the makeup and beauty stuff that littered the room.

Fleur's mother knocked on the door a little while later and you decided to leave them for a private moment, just Fleur, Gabrielle and their mother.

You passed Ginny as you walked down the stairs, seeing her eyebrows shoot up as she looked at you. Ginny had not been a bridesmaid, on account of her dislike for the bride. Bill hadn't been offended and truthfully neither had Fleur but you still felt a bit of guilt at being a bridesmaid at her own brothers wedding when she wasn't.

"Has Fred seen you yet?" She asks, walking in her dressing gown towards her room.

"No? Hello by the way," you replied, a little confused by her smirk but instead of replying she simply giggled and slipped through the door of her bedroom.

You hadn't expected to see anyone except Molly downstairs, knowing that the boys had been banished, but when you reached the kitchen it wasn't Molly that you saw leaning against the counter. Fred.

He was facing away from you, reading the paper from what you could see, his hip resting on the counter as he leaned down, looking devastatingly handsome, even from behind.

"What do you think?" You asked quietly, creeping into the kitchen. You didn't miss his little jump of surprise, which made you bite back a smile as he turned towards you, smirking already as it he was already planning a snarky reply.

The second he turned and saw you, his mouth opened on its own accord, jaw dropping, seeing him freeze as he openly gawked at you. You had to bite back a laugh at his reaction, seeing that it was even better than you'd hoped.

"I," he began to say before clearing his throat, his fingers doing an involuntary dance at his sides as his eyes take over you, before fixing his gaze to your breasts. "I think it's illegal to look hotter than the bride on her wedding day."

You laugh and watch as he seems to bounce back to usual, though his gaze linger a little longer on your curves before he reaches out to you. You place your hand in his and he pulls you gently towards him, delicately placing his arms around you as to not crease your dress.

"Ah, lipstick," you say, pulling away from him as he tries to kiss you, making him frown and pout at your denial of a kiss. "I promise you can mess it up after the ceremony." His eyes a little as he shoots a wicked smirk at you, his hands wandering over the soft fabric of your dress, running his hands over the curve of your waist.

"You look so beautiful," he says, smiling down at you. Even with your heels, he still towers over you with his height.

"And you look very handsome," you replied, reaching up to push his hair back from his face as you smile at each other.

"Well don't you look nice," George says, interrupting your moment, walking in with his bandage wrapped tightly around his head.

You turn and smile at him as Fred grumbles under his breath for his twin ruining the moment.

"How are you feeling Georgie?" You ask, looking at him with concern, even though it had been nearly five days since he received the unfortunate curse, you were still worried about his pain levels and him in general.

"Stable enough to walk down the aisle with you," he winks, earning another grumble from Fred. He'd been overwhelmingly annoyed at not being able to walk with you down the aisle even though he was also a groomsman but Molly had insisted on the fact, knowing it was both tradition and superstition that unmarried couples should never walk down the aisle together. Fred had instead been paired with Gabrielle, Fleur's younger sister, whilst you were paired with George, a rather unfair deal he had stated.

"I better get back," you said, your gaze flickering to the stairs, knowing that you needed to get Fleur ready for the ceremony.

"I love you," Fred says, a surprisingly sentimental tone to his voice that made you pause, his hand now holding yours as he looks at you with an intensity that makes your breath catch in your throat.

"I love you more," you say teasingly, slowly pulling away from him as you climb the stairs once more to help the bride.

The ceremony was beautiful and the newlyweds looked utterly joyful and in love, with smiles all around. You could feel Fred's eyes on you at multiple times during the ceremony and each time without fail he would either wink at you or smile sarcastically sweetly, trying to break up the formality of the situation.

At the reception, you'd been carrying out your role as bridesmaid flawlessly, helping with gifts, chatting to guests and even helping Fleur go to the toilet in her elaborate, poofy dress. When you returned to the marquee, you could see Fred and Molly chatting in the corner and so you took a seat next to George at the table, resting your head on his shoulder as the early morning and demand of the day began catching up with you.

"Tired, maid of the bride?" George joked as he shifted down a little in his seat so that you would be able to rest your head on his shoulder without straining. You simply nodded in reply, closing your eyes for just a moment before opening them and looking around the room at everyone you loved, all of whom enjoying themselves.

"Mind if I steal my girl?" A familiar voice asks from behind you and you can't help but smile as you lift your head from George's shoulder and look up to find Fred with his hand outstretched, ready to steal you away. You place your hand in his and he leads you to the dance floor as a slow song begins to play.

"This is familiar, eh princess?" He smirks, taking your waist in his other hand as he pulls you close. "I thought nothing would ever top your Yule ball dress but you always manage to surprise me." You smile up at him and can't help but study his gorgeous features, feeling like the luckiest woman in the world in that moment. Memories of the Yule ball danced in your mind, Fred's long hair, your glittering dress and the fun you had that night making a smile erupt on your face.

"You know, when we get married I hope there's none of this crap," he says, looking around at the slightly overdone decorations, curtesy of Fleur's imagination and her father's wallet.

"When?" You asked, a little teasing smile tugging at your lips, "that's a little presumptuous don't you think Weasley?" He smirks, spinning you gently in his arms before pulling you back into his chest, holding you even closer.

"Princess I've been calling you my future wife since the moment we first met, ask George," he chuckles slightly, still rocking you in his arms. "There's no one else I would ever want to call my wife."

You smiled up at him and reached up to press a kiss to his lips in the middle of the dance floor, not caring once bit about the mass of people around you. He kisses you back immediately, also unfazed by the people around you as you sink completely into the moment, just the feel of Fred around you and the sound of the music in the background.

"Have I told you how beautiful you look?" He says dreamily, his hand stroking the spot on your waist where it resides.

"Not in the last hour," you tease with a smile.

"Then I must apologise, a woman as beautiful as you deserves to be told constantly."

"I think you're drunk," you say with a blush at his words and he chuckles whilst shaking his head.

"Just in love," he replies giving you a look of utter adoration that takes your breath away.

You dance for a little while with Fred before George steals you away for a dance, then Bill and then Arthur. You laugh as Arthur twirls you around, seeing Fred doing the same to Ginny not too far away from you. You'd never felt more loved and included than you did in that moment, feeling like a Weasley already. Fred eventually steals you back from his dad as a more rambunctious song comes on and you dance wildly around the dance floor between both the twins, no longer caring about holding your composure or ruining your dress as you fling your arms about, jumping around with the younger guests.

You couldn't help but tease Fred as the night carries on, dancing a little more provocatively as the upbeat music continues, swinging your hips as you dance. You lightly grind against him acting as if it was an accident at first but he soon realises exactly what you're doing, his hands coming up to grip your hips hard as he stands behind you and leans down to talk in your ear so you'd hear him over the music.

"I know what you're doing princess," he says breathily in your ear, pressing his crotch tightly to your backside. Apparently your little deviant plan was working as you felt his semi-excited member pressed against you which made you smirk.

You soon around and Fred immediately places his arms around you, caging you into his body.

"Want to sneak away?" You said quietly with a little devilish smirk as you flirt with him, "you know, I won't be able to get out of this dress all by myself."

"Let's go princess," he says with a little smirk, patting your bum twice before taking your hand and leading you out of the tent back towards the house. You looked around you, checking that no one was watching but it all truthfulness you couldn't care less.

The house was still deserted when you entered, with all the other family members and guests still partying outside. Fred stopped at the base of the stairs as you began to bunch up the bottom of your dress to climb the mountain of stairs and suddenly lurched at you, picking you up bridal style earning a little surprised squeak from you and a chuckle from him.

He attempted to kiss you whilst you were in his arms and ascending the stairs but you quickly put an end to it, knowing that he'd most likely bang your head on one of the many wooden banisters or worse due to being distracted. As soon as you stepped through the door to his and George's room, he slammed the door shut with his leg, still carrying you as he went to throw you on the bed, briefly muttering a silencing charm before he turns his attention back to you. He wasted no time and crawled on top of you, pausing only briefly to take in the sight of you all dressed up and sprawled out on his bed before he captured you in a delicious kiss.

The kiss deepened immediately with Fred's tongue swiping at your lip, his hands already running over your curves, teasing both himself and you as he puts off touching you in the places you desperately want him to. His kisses begin to extend down your neck, towards your collarbones as you heave out a calming breath, already feeling wonderfully overwhelmed by the sensations. He kisses over your clothes breasts and a flick switches in you, needing to feel his lips everywhere without obstruction. He apparently feels exactly the same and begins fumbling at the little zipper on the side of the dress.

You untie the little cape and let that open wide, waiting for Fred to do the last little clasp which you knew he'd enjoy. You reach for his hand and pull it towards the little clasp in between your breasts which he opens in no time, watching as your naked breasts spill out of the dress, not having been able to wear a bra all day. He curses under his breath as he looks at your bare breasts and you take the time to slide the rest of the fabric down your torso so that you're left in just your lace panties.

"Godric you're beautiful," he says more to himself than anything as he looks over your body before his gaze flicks up to you and he smiles before diving it for another kiss. His hand that he isn't bearing weight on comes up to massage and toy with your breasts and you can't help but run your fingers through his hair, trying to get his mouth where you want it. He senses what you want and immediately begins feasting on your tits, licking and sucking as your sensitive nipples which had you gasping and writhing almost immediately.

You begin pulling as his collar, desperate to get him naked too as you push him, flipping him over so that he was lay flat on the bed. You crawl to straddle him and you don't miss the glimmer in his eyes as your almost naked body climbs over his, breasts swaying as you begin to suck at his neck, making him moan.

You pop open the buttons on his collar, pulling off his tie and open up each individual button, placing a kiss on the newly exposed skin as you make your way down his torso, thankful that he'd taken off his jacket and waistcoat earlier in the night. You almost ripped the shirt off him as soon as the last button was done and you ran your fingers over his gorgeous chest and shoulders, running down his stomach until you reached his little happy trail.

You moved down on the bed so that you were face to face with his crotch and began opening the fastenings of his trousers, pulling them over his hips and down his legs, leaving him in just his boxers, the outline of his impressive length clearly visible. You placed a kiss to his cock through his underwear and heard him groan, knowing he was watching your every move.

You looked up at him and saw his intense gaze, making you smirk as you tugged at the waistband of his boxers and pulled them down, his excited length springing out and falling onto his lower belly as you tug away the underwear, discarding them across the room. The sight of him bare before you, his perfect cock already hard and leaking was enough to make your mouth water and you couldn't help but lean down and press a few fluttering kisses along his length, feeling it twitch against your lips in excitement.

Maintaining eye contact with Fred, you gave him your sexiest look and leant down further to take his cock into your mouth, licking all the way around the sensitive tip as you tasted him. He groaned and shoved his head back against the bed at the sensation as you took more and more of him into your mouth, running your tongue along the veined underside of his cock to extend his pleasure. As you began to bob slowly on his cock, you were rewarded with loud groans and curses of your name from Fred, his cock only hardening further in your mouth.

"Godric princess, your mouth is fucking perfect," he groans in bliss.

Your hand came up to support your ministrations as you began to pump the few inches you weren't sucking, running your hands over his balls and giving them a very gentle tug like he liked, all of which making him writhe and groan.

"Princess, get up here," he says, suddenly reaching his hand out for you. You kisses his tip one last time before crawling up his body, his hands immediately reaching for you as he pulls you into him, one hand cupping your jaw as he pulls you in for a sinful kiss.

"Merlin," he says, pulling away as he runs a hand over his face, "you have no idea what these little white panties are doing to me."

"Do they make me look innocent?" You ask with a little smile, kissing down his jaw, eliciting another breathy moan from Fred.

"Yeah, but it's like you're the bride, making me lose it picturing it being our wedding night," he admits, his hands gripping you tighter in his hold, one large hand cupping and massaging your bum covered by the white lace. Your eyes widen a little in surprise, though he doesn't see, as you take in his words.

"That get you going big boy?" You ask breathily in his ear, still nibbling at his jaw as your hands explore his chest, briefly catching his nipples as you roam. "Picturing me as your bride? You like the idea of fucking your new wife?" He curses and moans, hips surging at your words, answering your question.

"Fuck baby," he whines as your hand wraps around his cock and begins slowly pumping him, your thumb catching the beads of precum and rubbing it into his soft tip.

"Maybe you like the idea of ripping off my sweet, appropriate little wedding dress and seeing exactly what's underneath."

He moans louder than you remembering ever being as your speed increases, your words having an evident affect on him.

"Or is it that everyone would know how good you're fucking your new wife, that everyone would know that I belong to you?" His hips start to stutter and you know he won't last much longer, the mixture of your hand on his cock and the words in his ear almost too much for him as he nods along with you, whining and groaning.

"Mrs Fred Weasley does sound good don't you think?" You ask him with a little smug smile at how he curses, hands scrambling to touch your tits as you pump him. "Y/n Weasley, Fred's wife." He's so close you can almost taste it, knowing he's just need a little nudge with the game you were playing.

"You wanna pretend it's our wedding night? I'll let you do anything you want to me husband, let you fuck everything that's yours."

He moans loudly as his hips stutter, your hand working his quickly as your other hand cups his balls as he erupts, ropes of cum spurting from his cock and landing on his stomach as you pump him through his orgasm, not stopping until his body stops twitching. He's breathless as he comes down from his high, chest heaving as a look of bliss falls over his face.

"Merlin," he says, finally opening his eyes to look at you, seeing your wicked little smirk. "Fuck that was hot." You smile as you reach down to grab his shirt from the floor, wiping his pleasure from his abdomen before throwing it back down onto the floor.

"Now, I think it's time I looked after my bride don't you think?" He says with a wicked grin, hands already pawing at you as he cups your jaw, pulling you into another kiss, his other hand creeping over your curves as he suddenly pushes you down onto the bed. His mouth wastes no time in pleasing you, immediately latching back into your breasts as he goes all out, grabbing, toying and sucking your breasts, never leaving the other one left out.

His fingers begin to drift down your body and tease your inner thighs as your legs part in anticipation, your arousal dripping from you at this point. When Fred's fingers finally slip between your legs and he feels the abundant wetness of your panties he curses again, latching onto your nipple and giving a harsh suck making you gasp.

"Mrs Weasley, so wet for me," he says with a smirk, slipping one finger inside your panties and into your waiting hole. You moan out at the sensation, feeling his thumb come up to toy with your aching clit and you can't help but roll your hips, unable to keep still as his fingers work you perfectly. "So good baby, so fucking perfect."

"Freddie," you keen as he adds a second finger, adjusting his angle so that he can press up against your gspot, making you writhe against him. The panties restrict his movements but it doesn't seem to faze him, working his magic on you.

He suddenly pulls his hand from you, making you whine but he quickly grabs and spins you on the bed so that you're on your hands and knees, his ability to manhandle you so effortlessly only furthering your arousal.

He moved to stand behind you, pulling you towards the edge of the bed as his fingers toy with the white lace panties you're still wearing. His hands hook into the waistband and you feel him rip off your panties, pulling them right down your legs, leaving you completely exposed to him. You gasp as the cool air hits your sensitive pussy lips and within seconds his mouth is on you, feasting deliciously on your dripping cunt.

"Freddie!" You moan, pushing your hips back as his tongue slips between your lips, lapping as your clit before slipping into your little hole. His entire face is pressed against your pussy and you can hardly contain your moans as you feel his mouth playing you like an instrument. His tongue circles your clit before he sucks on it in little bursts, making your hips writhe against his face. He alternates between sucking and licking, covering himself in your arousal before he suddenly pulls open your ass and really dives into your pussy, locking his lips around your clit and sucking, tongue circling the little bud.

"Fred!" You shout as you cum, hips rolling over his face as he laps at you over and over in just the right spot, letting you ride out your pleasure.

Your orgasm has done nothing to calm your arousal, if anything it's only spurred on a further need for Fred as you turn and drag him down onto the bed with you, kissing him feverishly as you feel the signs of his arousal renewed against your leg.

"Freddie, fuck your wife," you say, dragging a breathy moan and a curse from his lips as your hands reach out for him in anyway you can get him, hips raising up in desperation.

"I've got you sweetheart," he reassures you as he kisses you one last time before reaching down to kiss your nipples, hands lifting your legs, seeing you beautifully exposed before him. "My perfect girl, so fucking hot."

"Yeah you got a hot little wife Freddie?" You tease, knowing that your words would only fuel his fire.

"The fucking hottest," he growls, pumping his cock twice before positioning himself right at your entrance.

"Give it to me good Freddie, only you can fuck your wife so good like this."

He curses and grabs hold of his cock, tossing your legs into his shoulders as you feel him slowly sink into you, stretching you out as he gets deeper and deeper. You both moan in unison as he moves his hips, hitting all the right spots inside you before he begins to pick up his pace, big hands holding your thighs tightly. He watches as your breasts begin to bounce in time with his thrusts and you can't help but raise your arms up to grab hold of the metal headboard so you can get leverage to raise your hips in time with his, letting the last inch of his sink into you.

"Yeah you like that sweetheart? Your husband fucking you good? Fuck you are so tight," he says, eyes flicking between your breasts and watching his cock disappear into your pussy.

"So good Freddie," you moan out, arching your back as he pounds into you. "Only you can fuck me this good." You right hand slips off the bed frame and you start to circle your clit for a little extra pleasure until Fred notices and bats your hand away.

"Dirty girl, your husband not taking care of you good enough? Is my big cock not enough for you?" He teases.

You begin to whimper in reply, "no it is, so good baby."

He immediately pulls out of you and flips you over like it's nothing, pulling your hips up slightly before he slams back into you. He takes no prisoners with his thrusting as you feel his balls slapping against you, his left hand gripping your hip so hard it'll almost certainly leave a bruise. His right hand snakes around your hip abs begins toying with your clit deliciously and you can't help but rock your hips, your insides clenching around Fred's thick length as you cry out.

"Oh Freddie!" You cry out, feeling thoroughly fucked as he slams into you. "You're so deep!"

"Come on my little perfect wife, I want you to cum all over your husbands cock," he says, leaning down and changing the angle slightly so that he rubs against your gspot making a silent scream erupt from you. The hand that was holding your hip suddenly shifts and he wraps it around your throat as he fucks into you with abandon, his hips stuttering just enough that you know he's close. His hand doesn't squeeze nor put any pressure on but just feeling his long fingers wrapped around your throat whilst he plays with your clit and pounds into you is enough to send you hurling towards your end.

"Freddie Freddie Freddie!" You chant as you cum, nails clawing into the bedsheets as you feel the white hot pleasure erupt within you, your hips rolling back onto his cock as he pounds you even harder, no doubt feeling your walls squeezing him. He suddenly lets go of your throat and scrambles to grab hold of your hips as he slams his length into you once more and holds you tightly to him, buried entirely in you as he cums. You can feel his cock twitching inside you as he shoots his load as deep in you as he can, groaning and cursing behind you as your name falls from his lips.

After a few moments, he pulls out and watches as his cum begins to dribble out of you, cursing once again at the sight. You feel him shift and he presses a kiss to your back before carefully shifting you so that you were lying on the bed as he slips in next to you, instinctively reaching to pull you into his side.

You lean up and kiss him as his arms snake around you, one hand resting gently over your breast, thumb idly passing over your nipple.

"I love you so much sweetheart," he says, pulling off your lips but never really moving away as he kisses you again.

"I love you Freddie," you say, pouring as much love as you can into your words.

"Gonna marry you one day princess," he mumbles and you can suddenly hear the tiredness in his voice.

"If you're gonna fuck me like that again, I'd marry you right now," you said breathlessly, entwining your fingers with his.

He chuckles, squeezing your hand in his as his eyes close, "give me 10."

"I want to be your wife one day," you say quietly a few moments later, no longer teasing. You feel Fred's eyes open and he looks at you with a look you can't place.

"Sweetheart, nothing would make me happier than you being my wife, but stop talking about it before I get hard again."

#emeritusemeritus #harry potter #fred weasley #fred weasley x you #emeritusemerituswrites #fred weasley x reader #fred weasley imagine #fred weasley masterlist #Fred Weasley smut

2K notes · View notes

ranilla-bean · 6 months

Text

culture tips for writing asian settings: calligraphy (pt ii)

in my last post i talked about calligraphy more generally, but here i want to talk about the calligraphy from atla. all of the calligraphy from the show is written by dr siu-leung lee and i'll be using the artbook as my reference.

if you're a writer or artist approaching written chinese, you can think about how script and handwriting might tell us something about a character. dr lee certainly did, and he even tailored writing styles to who he thought might've been writing that text: "If it were a highly cultured royal attendant, he would use a refined, elegant style, but if it were a low-level clerk, he would use a more pedestrian handwriting style."

first thing: modern standard chinese coming out of mainland china uses simplified chinese. this system was developed in the mid-20th century, so it's pretty anachronistic to use this for atla. instead, you should be using traditional chinese as dr lee does (which is still used in hong kong, taiwan, and many diasporic communities). i usually use google translate to switch between the systems.

note the use of simplified 门 (door) instead of the traditional 門 from the aang's unfreezing day comic.

next i'm going to take aang's wanted poster as an example of three different chinese scripts we see in the show. the "title" is in clerical script, the body of the text is in regular script, and the seal is in seal script.

regular script is the standard way you'd learn how to write chinese nowadays. you can see (as i mentioned in part i) how the text is meant to be read up -> down, then right -> left.

clerical script is characterised by fairly compact shapes and a kind of "roundness", and was developed in the late warring states period. this is the script used for the chinese title of the show! in the context of atla, it implies to me that the writer has more specialised calligraphic training than the average person (who, if they can write, would be using regular script). you can compare the difference in styles for the same words between clerical (L) and regular (R):

seal script is the most archaic form of chinese on display; this one wouldn't have been written by the calligrapher, but carved into a seal by a craftsperson and then stamped onto the page.

what's also really interesting is dr lee implies a difference in script between the nations. some of the characters used to write water tribe-related concepts:

this is an adapted form of oracle bone script, the one of the earliest forms of chinese writing. this fascinated me because this script was—as the name suggests—written on bone, and perhaps reflects something about the material of what the water tribes were using to write. (you can input modern characters into this website to see examples of their older forms.)

finally, some cool differences in handwriting! this is from the fire day festival poster:

this uses regular script, but in contrast to the excerpt we saw before, the formation of the characters is more haphazard (excitable?). it's also written left -> right! this suggests to us the writer is a commoner, as opposed to a royal scribe.

these are some things you can keep in mind when you're writing or drawing in this universe—while you're probably writing in english, the characters would be steeped in the writing systems we've been talking about. if a character's sending a letter, what might the recipient notice about the handwriting? what does it tell them about their social status or education? could the shape of the letters signal something about where they come from, i.e. water tribe characters write a more curvy script?

disclaimer | more tips

#atla #atla culture #atla meta #avatar the last airbender #piandao #asian culture tips #chinese culture

581 notes · View notes

arimiadev · 5 months

Text

why does aniplex want mahoyo to fail

I love visual novels. being a long time fate/stay night fan and only having heard of mahoyo from hushed whispers about its cinematography, I was super invested when it was announced to be coming to the west and I could finally play an official version of it.

however, a lot of people interested in type-moon works had never heard of mahoyo, let alone it getting an official english translation. but how? aniplex is publishing the game and they're one of the largest anime distributors in the world.

with the console release of mahoyo being almost exactly a year ago and the steam release being just 10 days away, I want to look over some of aniplex USA's bizarre and nonexistent marketing for one of my favorite visual novels.

let's clear up a few things, first.

mahoyo is the shortened form of mahoutsukai no yoru (not to be confused with mahoutsukai no yome, i.e. the ancient magus bride), which has been localized as witch on the holy night. mahoyo was a linear non-eroge visual novel released by type-moon in 2012, being one of the first scripts kinoko nasu (co-founder of type-moon) wrote back in 1996 and adapted into a VN many, many years later.

in April of 2022, a console remaster (switch, playstation 4) was announced with HD assets and voice acting, to be published by aniplex. notably, this console release would contain an english translation and was later confirmed in June to be sold in the west via online retailers. this was huge news, as this meant mahoyo would be the first type-moon visual novel (not including gameplay-oriented titles like fate/extella or fate/grand order) to be officially released in the west, as despite numerous fan translations, their more recognizable visual novels tsukihime and fate/stay night still had not received a localization.

type-moon is the developer behind mahoyo and aniplex is the publisher, meaning that type-moon made the game and aniplex is in charge of distributing (and marketing) the game worldwide.

timeline:

April 11 2022: Mahoyo rerelease announced for consoles (Switch & PlayStation 4), including English translation

July 4 2022: Aniplex confirms Mahoyo will be available to the West, localized under the name Witch on the Holy Night

October 14 2022: 2nd trailer released, more voice actor info announced

November 3 2022: physical pre-orders launched, demo version available

November 18 2022: Aniplex attends Anime NYC with Mahoyo

December 7 2022: Mahoyo released digitally on Switch / PlayStation 4 (Dec 8th in Japan, Dec 7th in America)

December 12 2022: Mahoyo reaches 110k units sold worldwide

January 27 2023: Mahoyo physicals release

July 5 2023: Mahoyo reaches 150k units sold worldwide

September 10 2023: Mahoyo announced for Steam via a now unlisted Aniplex livestream

December 13 2023: Mahoyo will be released on Steam (Dec 14th in Japan, Dec 13th in America)

some of the dates might be a little fuzzy, especially the release dates, as some sources go by japanese time and some go by american timezones, so just be aware of that.

now, let's talk a bit about mahoyo itself.

mahoyo is a masterpiece. it's a niche game not meant for everyone. its cinematography is top notch among visual novels. its writing style can be off-putting to people who want faster-paced stories. it's one of my most beloved visual novels I've ever played, and I've been in this field for almost a decade and have played well over 100 VNs.

mahoyo is a completely linear visual novel—meaning it has no choices or gameplay—that follows aoko, a high schooler mage trying to balance her perfect school president facade with her secret life as a mage, something she has to keep secret at the risk of death. this is one of the lesser known type-moon works but it's well beloved because of the care put into it.

if you've ever heard someone talk about it, it's almost impossible for them to not mention the visuals. mahoyo is one of the most visually impressive visual novels I've ever seen, with its inspired use of artwork and in-game animations. I cannot recommend this VN enough if you like modern fantasy and don't mind linear VNs.

before we dive into aniplex USA's marketing, I want to clarify a few marketing terms for people who don't market visual novels as a job. marketing is not just advertising—it's everything related to how a product communicates with potential users, including its branding, its packaging, its everything. when marketing a game, you have several different avenues: social media, press & influencers, trailers, store pages, and more.

today I want to show you how, based off what I have researched after a long, manic day, aniplex USA has failed mahoyo on all of these accounts.

so let's go back to its western release.

mahoyo has a few official english channels:

website

twitter

facebook

aniplex also has an official english twitter with almost 500k followers where they shared mahoyo very rarely—only 9 tweets about the game ever.

well, surely their other pages are more maintained right—

both accounts stopped posting July 10th/11th, with their last post being about mahoyo going on sale on consoles. let's look at their posts prior to this, though, starting with the twitter.

we can see that the twitter account was made in december of 2022. if we scroll down far enough (it's not hard, given they only have 33 tweets), we can see that their first tweet was on december 6th 2022:

let's go back to our timeline. can you tell me when mahoyo's remaster released digitally?

yes they made both of the english mahoyo social media accounts the day before the game launched

we can very easily add up the entire social media posts for the game thus far:

mahoyo english twitter - 30 tweets and 3 retweets

mahoyo english facebook - 27 posts

aniplex english twitter - 9 tweets

aniplex english facebook - 2 posts

no other english social media accounts were tied to the website, so these are the only ones I looked at. this means in total, there were only 68 social media posts for the console release of mahoyo by the publisher for english audiences.

but what about the steam release? after the game sold over 150k+ units on consoles, surely aniplex was ready to market it a bit more for pc users—

neither account has made a post about the upcoming steam release.

if we look at the twitter, they have 3 tweets since July that do talk about the upcoming steam release- however, these are retweets from the japanese mahoyo account.

we know that this twitter and this facebook account are the official social media for mahoyo as they're linked on the website, so they're definitely meant to be followed for game updates in the west. well, maybe the english aniplex twitter has posted about it—

none of the english aniplex or mahoyo accounts have made a single post about the steam release

that's right, the social media posts I counted above are the only posts for mahoyo on their english accounts, all dating back before the steam release was announced. since then, they have not made a single original post even mentioning the steam release.

meanwhile, the japanese mahoyo twitter has been hustling hard to promote the upcoming steam release—reposting trailers, character bios, and more almost every day with pretty good numbers.

in fact, the japanese mahoyo twitter did such a good job at marketing it that the aniplex USA twitter never mentioned the english mahoyo twiter, instead only @ ing the japanese one in tweets (despite the english one being linked on the website).

why they even bothered making social media accounts and then not running them despite being one of the largest anime distributors in the world I have no clue.

well, maybe they didn't need to rely on social media presence. maybe they were going for the in-person approach and marketing it at conventions.

mahoyo had basically no anime convention presence

the only reference I can find to aniplex notably promoting mahoyo at any western convention is this tweet of them at anime NYC. from someone who was at anime NYC, I've been told that they pushed the game heavily at their booth with TV screens promoting the game.

however, anime NYC is only one anime convention. you cannot hope to sell a game by just attending one anime convention. mahoyo might have had a presence at other american conventions, but I'm unable to find any images or news about this.

maybe they don't understand type-moon

aniplex is the publisher for fate/grand order, one of the most successful mobile games ever created. they're also the distributor for a majority of type-moon related anime, ranging from fate to garden of sinners to side series. aniplex's marketing team should have lots of experience with type-moon properties.

maybe it was promoted in other aniplex titles

I was also unable to find a news post in fate/grand order related to mahoyo's release, despite news posts for other type-moon series (namely fate but also things like melty blood) getting news posts in fate/grand order. I might've missed the news posts when looking back through FGO but I don't believe there was one.

maybe it sold well in other regions but not western ones

(I'm going to be referring only to the console release for these stats, keep in mind)

mahoyo released December 7th/8th 2022 with an english, japanese, simplified chinese, and traditional chinese translations. at the end of the release week, mahoyo's japanese twitter announced the game had sold 110k copies worldwide and famitsu reported that 66,344 of these units were sold in japan. this means we have around 43k units unaccounted for.

we know the game was available in english, japanese, and chinese languages but we don't know what regions. mainland china has a very large visual novel playerbase (I say this as someone who sells visual novels), which means if it were sold there then it's easy to say that a big chunk of that 43k units could be attributed to them—this also means it would be easy to believe that aniplex saw mahoyo selling worse in western countries and took this as a sign to not promote the game any more there.

but was it ever sold in mainland china? from what I could tell—no.

looking at pricing charts for the nintendo eshop and the playstation store, china is not listed on either. furthermore, searching the game's chinese title on the chinese playstation store does not bring back any results. it looks like the only predominantly chinese-speaking regions that were able to buy it are hong kong, taiwan and possibly singapore (the playstation store page for it doesn't look like it's available for purchase anymore).

so what does this tell us?

without any other numbers it's hard to tell how many of the 43k launch week sales came from english-speaking players, but even if we conservatively say that only around 20k of the 110k launch week units were from western countries, that's still almost a million in revenue (and remember, the physical limited edition of the game was available in english for $60, which is $20 more than the digital base version).

maybe the store page is so good they don't need to market it

here's a little secret: store pages matter a lot more than you'd think. there are entire job positions dedicated to tailoring store pages (like a steam game page) to make it perfect for the game's target audience. there's a science to it that includes the artwork, descriptions, tags, screenshots, and more.

let's see what aniplex did for the steam page of mahoyo.

A tale told with vivid colors and rich sound in a classic TYPE-MOON visual novel.

I don't know how to describe this short description charitably other than to say it sounds like a person who's never heard of a visual novel has been tasked with describing a visual novel.

this tells me nothing about the game other than it's a visual novel. I hope you know what type-moon is, because if you don't then you've learned nothing else from this. alright, well, let's look at the screenshots—

there's only 1.

currently as of writing this, there's 10 images uploaded as screenshots (no trailers, they keep adding and removing the trailers for some reason). 9 of these images are just the full artworks from the game while 1 is an actual screenshot.

I really hate this, as you're not actually shown what the game looks like unless you look at the very last screenshot. this will absolutely lead to some people not understanding what they're getting into. what's worse is that some of these CGs are spoilers, especially one in particular featuring my wife touko.

why are we spoiling people instead of showing them screenshots? why not show people what mahoyo actually looks like??

there's also absolutely no use of the announcements section on steam. each game on steam can post announcements related to the game, including upcoming releases, new updates, and more. it's customary to post a steam announcement when a game has a release date announcement. mahoyo's steam page has none.

well they probably released the trailers in english for hype

I wish I had that much hope.

on mahoyo's english website, all of the videos listed are from the official type-moon youtube, which is their japanese channel. type-moon went through the effort to translate these videos. aniplex didn't upload these to their own youtube, where they already upload everything related to the fateverse and nasuverse.

searching up witch on the holy night brings up no results for the trailer—aniplex never uploaded the trailer to their channel.

maybe they got influencers to play it

according to steamdb, the max amount of viewers mahoyo streams have had on twitch was 71 viewers.

furthermore, if we check twitch and look for vods attached to mahoyo, we only find 4 videos total, all of which were posted in the past week. it looks like they didn't even reach out to streamers to play the console release, much less pay them.

over on the press side, it does look like they reached out to at least a few reviewers. for example, on the review by noisy pixel, they clarify that a review copy was provided by the publisher for review purposes. we can add that to the bare minimum of marketing—reaching out to press.

however, they did get for some other influencers to share the game! ...twitter game sale influencers, that is.

there's actually a lot more of these types of tweets for mahoyo than I was expecting when I searched it on twitter. as a friend pointed out, just because it says "#ad" doesn't necessarily mean these were paid for by aniplex—a lot of these links look to be referrals, which means they're getting a cut of any purchases.

let's recap

mahoyo released over 110k copies in the launch week for it's worldwide console release despite very, very limited marketing efforts from its publisher aniplex. now that the game has proven it can sell very well despite being a lesser known linear visual novel, aniplex has done no marketing for the steam release- no tweets, no influencer outreach, no localization of trailers, no announcements via steam, nothing.

so why?

why does aniplex want mahoyo to fail?

even after all of this, I still do not know why. to me, it's clear that the marketing team at aniplex were (most likely) given no budget for this game and just couldn't do anything with it, deciding to spend what little money they had on press outreach and an anime NYC booth.

but why? why didn't aniplex give them a budget, even a small one? why was their budget so tiny they couldn't even afford to tweet? to RT more posts from the japanese twitter? to share the already translated trailers to their own accounts?

I've heard a few excuses like "type-moon hates western fans and probably caused it" but this doesn't make any sense either. why would you authorize a translation of your game and allow your publisher to sell the game overseas but specifically make them not market the game (and what publisher would agree to that)? I've even heard excuses like "they just forgot it was coming out", to which I ask "how does an entire marketing team (a company the size of aniplex absolutely has a team(s) for marketing and not a singular person) forget a release for a game that's already sold over 150k copies?". the only excuse I've seen that I somewhat buy is that they did not have much faith in the game and relied almost entirely on fans doing word of mouth marketing for the game.

I don't think we'll ever get an answer. while I do believe the marketing team at aniplex was most likely given no budget for mahoyo, it still begs the question of why. why did someone at aniplex not want to give mahoyo a marketing budget? why are the japanese accounts for mahoyo and type-moon the only ones doing the marketing?

I hope the information I've provided here is accurate—if it's not, I'll try to update with corrections. I don't want this piece to cast hate towards the staff at aniplex or anyone involved with this projects, I'm just trying to assemble the pieces on what feels like a game being left to word of mouth. I've tried to include as many links to my sources as I could so you could come to your own judgements about what has happened regarding mahoyo's worldwide release.

mahoyo is a visual novel that's dear to me and will absolutely sell well on steam—with an estimated 50-80k wishlists, it's going to have a solid launch despite the zero marketing for its steam release. if you love other type-moon works or want to see an absolutely visually stunning visual novel, please check it out.

— arimia

#visual novel #visual novels #mahoyo #mahoutsukai no yoru #witch on the holy night #mahoyosweep #type-moon #visual novel game #anyway please play mahoyo #my articles

482 notes · View notes

httpsuniverse · 8 months

Text

mr lover [ ben chilwell ]

— right where you left lover girl sequel, this takes place two years later!

[ 𝗣𝗔𝗜𝗥𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗔𝗖𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗦 ] — ben chilwell x singer!reader . ⊹ ✶ ㄔ 🫂 °. *

[ 𝗗𝗘𝗧𝗔𝗜𝗟𝗦 & 𝗪𝗔𝗥𝗡𝗜𝗡𝗚𝗦 ] — romance, mentions pregnancy, google translated french . ⊹ ✶ ㄔ ℹ️ °. *

࣪˖ 💭 .. 𝗘𝗬𝗔’𝗦 𝗡𝗢𝗧𝗘𝗦 ⌕ clearing my drafts again 😵‍💫 if you ask me, i’m obsessed with singer!reader fics lol

this work is purely fictional. names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. © httpsuniverse, 2023. do not steal, repost in other platforms, translate and/or claim this work as your own.

benchilwell

liked by masonmount, yourusername, reecejames and others

benchilwell family time

view all 592 comments

user am i reading this right ?? ‘family’ time ??

user his dog clinging to y/n is the cutest thing ever

user they’re such dog parents 😭

yourusername my babyyy my babyyy

benchilwell which one?

yourusername one of you will be in a lot of pain if i say who

benchilwell 🙄

yourusername

liked by benchilwell, masonmount, cmpulisic and others

yourusername look at me, i am the favourite hooman now.

view all 826 comments

user not y/n quoting from captain phillips 😭

benchilwell once i get back home, i will take my title back

yourusername NONSENSE! you cannot dethrone the current favourite hooman

user y/n saying hooman instead of human 😭 that’s so dog momma of her

yourusername i birthed this child

benchilwell huh

yourusername huh

user pls he looks so comfy on y/n’s lap, he’s obviously not a lap dog

yourusername if he fits, he sits

user agreed 🤝

user why did all this time i thought y/n was a cat person

user she literally loves any kind of animal 😭 she adopted a ferret when she was a kid

yourusername omg !! mr fuzzy wuzzy was my childhood pet 🥹 maybe i should adopt another ferret

benchilwell what? no way

yourusername heheheheheheheeh

benchilwell

liked by masonmount, yourusername, judebellingham and others

benchilwell home is where the heart is.

view all 289 comments

yourusername but god i love the english

benchilwell you know i love a london boy

yourusername 🫣🫣

user ben at this point, you really are the extra hooman

benchilwell i cant blame him

yourusername i told you i birthed this dog

benchilwell 😂

yourprivate

liked by masonspriv, reecespriv, mikaspriv and 23 others

yourprivate hehe oops

view all comments

mikaspriv what the fuck is this how i find out ?!?!?!!

yourprivate heheheheheheheeheh

mikaspriv IM PACKING MY BAGS AND HOPPING ON THE NEXT PLANE

benspriv little chilly 🔜

masonspriv i never wouldve known if i hadnt opened this account

reecespriv me too mate

christiansprivme three

jackspriv me four

benspriv me five

yourpriv what

benspriv what

yourusername and benchilwell

liked by masonmount, chelseafc, england, madders and 8,826,937 others

yourusername we’re getting him a human in a few months 🙈

view all 399,826 comments

benchilwell babe i thought we already agreed what the caption will be

yourusername mines funnier

benchilwell 🙄

masonmount who thought that covering his eyes would be cute

yourusername mine. do you have any problem with that? 😀

masonmount i don’t maam, it’s a great idea, very very cute!

user this is the cutest announcement 😭

user as a fellow dog mummy, i approve of this post!

weratedogs 100/10 for being such a good boy and will be the goodest big brother!

user as a y/n fan since debut, i feel OLD (we’re the same age)

yourusername omg since debut album?!?!?! 😳 we have to meet like RIGHT NOW

user y/n went from writing how she’s stuck in the past, to loving herself and loving a new person 🥹 now she’s probably gonna write something about her baby ... just thinking about it rn makes me emotional

— ❤️ by yourusername

england congratulations benchilwell and yourusername! 🤍

chelseafc shall we make a onesie for baby chilwell?

yourusername omg YES PLEASE

benchilwell 🤦🏻‍♂️

yourusername JUST IMAGINE HOW CUTE OUR BABY WILL BE ON THAT ONESIE

benchilwell

liked by prodbymika, masonmount, madders, england and others

benchilwell eleanor chilwell is here 🩷👨🏻‍🍼 you did good mama, i’m proud and grateful to you, yourusername. i love you both

comments on this post have been limited.

yourusername thank you dada, we love you too 🩷

yourusername

liked by benchilwell, charles_leclerc and 3,826,929 others

yourusername the happiest i’ve ever been 🩷 merci pour tout mon benji. je t'aime toi et eleanor de tout mon coeur. (thank you for everything, my benji. i love you and eleanor with all my heart)

view all 150,729 comments

benchilwell 🩷🩷

user several chapters missed but i’m glad to see you so happy y/n 🥹

user i was surprised when they announced she was pregnant, bit i was more surprised to know that they’re married now 😭

user the hand placements of ben 😭

user i’m so alone yall

user AAA y/n 🥺

user literally went from being dog parents to real parents 🥺🩷

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ─────────────────

yourusername and benchilwell

2,836,729 likes

yourusername darling, don’t you ever grow up... just stay this little. happy birthday my sweet eleanor🩷 mama (with the help of dada) wrote a song for you baby, me and dada loves you sooo much. never grow up out now ✨

view all 238,861 comments

benchilwell growing up too fast, my ellie bear 🥲

user ellie bear... 😭 bens such a girl dad

user stopp im emo im not even a parent

user omg eleanor looks so cute!!

user milks expensive, im too young to be a mum

user my daily mantra every time i see ben or y/n post eleanor

user they have a little ballerina 🥺

user 4 years old already? 😭 time really flew by omg

yourusername i know right 🥺

user y/n and her happy ending 🥺 CURRENTLY TAKING A BATH WITH MY TOASTER RN

#ben chilwell fluff #ben chilwell imagine #ben chilwell x reader #ben chilwell #ben chilwell scenario #ben chilwell x you #ben chilwell x y/n #football imagine #football x y/n #football x you #football x reader #ben chilwell instagram au #football instagram au

810 notes · View notes

hedgehog-moss · 2 months

Note

Inspired by your last ask! What are the best French books you’ve read that have no English translation yet? I read Play Boy and Qui a tué mon père (really loved the latter) last year and it feels so fun to read something that other Americans can’t access yet

I'm too nervous to make any list of the Best XYZ Books because I don't want to raise your expectations too high! But okay, here's my No English Translation-themed list of books I've enjoyed in recent years. I tried to make it eclectic in terms of genre as I don't know what you prefer :)

Biographies

• Le dernier inventeur, Héloïse Guay de Bellissen: I just love prehistory and unusual narrators so I enjoyed this one; it's about the kids who discovered the cave of Lascaux, and some of the narration is written from the perspective of the cave <3 I posted a little excerpt here (in English).

• Ces femmes du Grand Siècle, Juliette Benzoni: Just a fun collection of portraits of notable noblewomen during the reign of Louis XIV, I really liked it. For people who like the 17th century. I think it was Emil Cioran who said his favourite historical periods were the Stone Age and the 17th century but tragically the age of salons led to the Reign of Terror and Prehistory led to History.

• La Comtesse Greffulhe, Laure Hillerin: I've mentioned this one before, it's about the fascinating Belle Époque French socialite who was (among other things) the inspiration for Proust's Duchess of Guermantes. I initially picked it up because I will read anything that's even vaguely about Proust but it was also a nice aperçu of the Belle Époque which I didn't know much about.

• Nous les filles, Marie Rouanet: I've also recommended this one before but it's such a sweet little viennoiserie of a book. The author talks about her 1950s childhood in a town in the South of France in the most detailed, colourful, earnest way—she mentions everything, describes all the daft little games children invent like she wants ageless aliens to grasp the concept of human childhood, it's great.

I'll add Trésors d'enfance by Christian SIgnol and La Maison by Madeleine Chapsal which are slightly less great but also sweet short nostalgic books about childhood that I enjoyed.

Fantasy

• Mers mortes, Aurélie Wellenstein: I read this one last year and I found the characters a bit underwhelming / underexplored but I always enjoy SFF books that do interesting things with oceans (like Solaris with its sentient ocean-planet), so I liked the atmosphere here, with the characters trying to navigate a ghost ship in ghost seas...

• Janua Vera, Jean-Philippe Jaworski: Not much to say about it other than they're short stories set in a mediaeval fantasy world and no part of this description is usually my cup of tea, but I really enjoyed this read!

Essays / literary criticism / philosophy

• Eloge du temps perdu, Frank Lanot: I thought this was going to be about idleness, as the title suggests, and I love books about idleness. But it's actually a collection of short essays about (French) literature and some of them made me appreciate new things about authors and books I thought I knew by heart, so I enjoyed it

• Le Pont flottant des rêves, Corinne Atlan: Poetic musings about translation <3 that's all

• Sisyphe est une femme, Geneviève Brisac: Reflections about the works of female writers (Natalia Ginzburg, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner, etc) that systematically made me want to go read the author in question, even when I'd already read & disliked said author. That's how you know it's good literary criticism

Let's add L'Esprit de solitude by Jacqueline Kelen which as the title suggests, ponders the notion of solitude, and Le Roman du monde by Henri Peña-Ruiz which was so lovely to read in terms of literary style I don't even care what it was about (it's philosophy of foundational myths & stories) (probably difficult to read if you're not fully fluent in French though)

Did not fit in the above categories:

• Entre deux mondes by Olivier Norek—it's been translated in half a dozen languages, I was surprised to find no English translation! It's a crime novel and a pretty bleak read on account of the setting (the Calais migrant camp) but I'd recommend it

• Saga, Tonino Benacquista: Also seems to have been translated in a whole bunch of languages but not English? :( I read it ages ago but I remember it as a really fun read. It's a group of loser screenwriters who get hired to write a TV series, their budget is 15 francs and a stale croissant and it's going to air at 4am so they can do whatever they want seeing as no one will watch it. So they start writing this intentionally ridiculous unhinged show, and of course it acquires Devoted Fans

Books that I didn't think existed in English translation but they do! but you can still read them in French if you want

• Scrabble: A Chadian Childhood, Michaël Ferrier: What it says on the tin! It's a short and well-written account of the author's childhood in Chad just before the civil war. I read it a few days ago and it was a good read, but then again I just love bittersweet stories of childhood

• On the Line, Joseph Ponthus: A short diary-like account of the author's assembly line work in a fish factory. I liked the contrast between the robotic aspect of the job and the poetic nature of the text; how the author used free verse / repetition / scansion to give a very immediate sense of the monotony and rhythm of his work (I don't know if it's good in English)

• The End of Eddy, Edouard Louis: The memoir of a gay man growing up in a poor industrial town in Northern France—pretty brutal but really good

• And There Was Light, Jacques Lusseyran: Yet another memoir sorry, I love people's lives! Jacques Lusseyran lost his sight as a child, and was in the Resistance during WWII despite being blind. It's a great story, both for the historical aspects and for the descriptions of how the author experiences his blindness

• The Adversary: A True Story of Monstrous Deception, Emmanuel Carrère: an account of the Jean-Claude Romand case—a French man who murdered his whole family to avoid being discovered as a fraud, after spending his entire adult life pretending to be a doctor working at the WHO and fooling everyone he knew. Just morbidly fascinating, if you like true crime stuff

#ask #book recs #the book i started reading last night is The Naked Neanderthal by Ludovic Slimak and i also didn't #expect it to have an english translation but it does #i'm only at the beginning and so far it's philosophical ponderings about what kind of creature the neanderthals were #if they were humans in a different way than us. with a different kind of intelligence #and how to understand it without projecting our own way of being in the world onto this other humanity #sorry to quote cioran again but it reminds me of when he said every generation misses the good old days and #if we retrace our steps from regret to regret we'll find the original regret #our nostalgia for a time when humans weren't yet human

199 notes · View notes

jimmy-dipthong · 4 months

Text

How long will the japanese wikipedia article for goncharov last?

And how big is the internet, really?

I was in a wikipedia hole recently and I happened to notice that the Japanese article for Goncharov is the only language variant that is completely in-character.

Every other language specifies it as “Goncharov (meme)”. Japanese lists it as “Goncharov (1973 film)”, and formats the introduction as if it were a real movie:

Goncharov is a 1973 mafia film set in Naples, Italy. Produced by Martin Scorsese, the main cast includes Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, John Cazale, Gene Hackman, Cybill Shepherd, and Harvey Keitel.

— Wikipedia (my translation)

The rest of the article does go on to acknowledge Tumblr’s influence in Goncharov’s popularity, but every mention of this influence frames it as reviving the popularity of the supposedly real film. On two occasions the word 再燃 is used (the first kanji means “again” and the second kanji means “burn” - it means “rekindle” and can be similarly used in the metaphorical and literal sense, just like the english word “rekindle”).

Goncharov became particularly popularity on social media as a result of a reblog of a Tumblr post in August 2020. The post depicted shows the title of the film (Goncharov) in place of a brand logo on a shoe, which were described as “knockoff boots”. The image post and the comment attached to the reblog, mocking the fact that the original poster had not seen the film, became an internet meme. In November 2022, a poster made by a fan of Goncharov was uploaded to the internet, and the film’s popularity resurged. Various fan-made content about the story and production began to spread on Tumblr and other platforms. Goncharov has been widely covered in the media as an example of how fandom is born on the internet, with many prominent figures, including Scorsese himself, leaving comments.

— Wikipedia (my translation)

It’s clear the article is trying to adapt the real history of the meme and incorporate it as much as possible into the fictional history of the film. The rest follows quite similarly, and includes more analysis of how Tumblr culture created the “reignited” popularity, how Elon’s acquisition of Twitter resulted in an exodus of users to Tumblr which may have contributed to the increased awareness of the “movie”, etc. Though most of it is directly translated from the english, enough of it is original (such as the attempts to reconcile both real and fictional histories) that I suspect the article’s current state is intentional.

To get back to my initial question, how long will this article last like this?

Remember the whole Scots Wikipedia debacle? An american teenager had basically used simple word replacement to translate over 23,000 articles into Scots. Some people noticed this, but not many, and not loudly enough. It was only after a well researched reddit post pointed out the scale of the damage that people really took notice and action was taken. The wikipedia editor had apparently been doing this for 7 years before the reddit post was made.

If 20,000 articles could go largely unnoticed for 7 years, I imagine a single article could easily evade similar detection. Realistically, how many Japanese speakers are going to even hear about Goncharov and make it to the wikipedia article? Then, how many of them are going to do more googling and find out it’s all a hoax (or know already)? THEN, how many of them are going to tell a wikipedia admin that the article is a lie, or publicise it somehow in a way that forces the editors to update the article?

I think the reality is that although the internet may appear to be a massive open town square (or several), it also has side streets, and side streets of side streets. I feel like the number of active members in each online hobby or interest group are really quite small, and then they get divided between platforms, and even further divided into subgroups. I think if one decided it was something one wanted to do, it would be quite easy to become one of the most prevalent members of any online community you chose just by devoting the time and energy to it.

It’s also kind of shocking how much internet content is inaccessible on account of it being in a different language. English reigns supreme in terms of sheer volume, but there is original research and journalism and entertainment and art in every language, that hasn’t and might never be translated into english. For example, I found it very difficult to find any english sources or research for my post about the evolving conjugation of 違う, but I easily found several japanese papers and websites. In fact, if you google “違くない adjective or verb”, the first english result that doesn’t just handwave it as “informal” or “slang” is a tumblr blog with my post on it!

It’s a small internet indeed where my little hobby language blog is, according to google, the prevailing english source on what is quite a remarkable change in Japanese grammar that’s been happening since the 80s.

I think the Japanese unreality version of the Goncharov wikipedia article will stand for many years to come.

(below link shows the article at time of writing)

#langblr #japanese #japanese language #language #goncharov #the internet #long post #essay #日本語 #jimmy blogthong

306 notes · View notes

skamenglishsubs · 27 days

Text

Young Royals terms explained

One thing I noticed across all seasons, and in the official subtitles, and among fan discussions, is that everyone is throwing around the specific terms used to describe the workings of a monarchy a bit willy-nilly. The subtitles aren't always consistent in how they translate the Swedish terms, and the show never explains what the different ones mean.

In real life, we also use the terms a bit sloppy because it really doesn't matter that much, but I thought I'd take a stab at listing the terms, their best English translation, and what each term means to me.

Monarkin - The Monarchy

This is the political system, the form of government that Sweden, and a bunch of other countries around the world is using. It means that the office of Head of State is held by the head of a family, and is inherited according to whatever inheritance rules apply. The system also implies that you have an explicit class system, an upper class, and that your royals are the pinnacle of this class.

If you're a big fan of the system you're a royalist, and if you're a big fan of the opposite, a republic, you're a republican. Most people typically don't give a shit, though.

Kungahuset - ?

This is a term that the subtitles struggle a bit with, because there's no good English equivalent. It's sometimes translated as the monarchy, sometimes as the royal family, and sometimes as the royal court depending on context. In Swedish, it means the system and the people that inhabit the system. The official homepage of the Swedish royal family is https://www.kungahuset.se/

Kungafamiljen - The Royal Family

This term is used when talking about the royals as a family, it's about them as individuals, as people. In season 2 they mention the tv show "Året med kungafamiljen", which is a real show, and it has that name because it emphasises them as people. The purpose of the show is to make them relatable and human for PR reasons, to show off their quirky character or something.

Det Kungliga Huset - The Royal House

Never used in the show, but I thought I'd mention it anyway because you might be tempted to translate kungahuset like this, but that's a bit off. This term specifically means the monarch and the closest family members that are in the line of succession; it's everyone who is styled as a Royal Highness.

It can also mean the dynasty, the noble house that currently holds the title of king of Sweden. In the real world it's House Bernadotte, but in the show we never got to know the family name.

Slottet - The Royal Palace

The Royal Palace is the office of the monarch, the place where the work is done, it's where you would meet the royals for meetings, it's just like how a regular office is used for a regular business, it's their "HQ". The term is used pretty much how you would use "The White House" as both the building itself and the office of the president of the United States.

In the show, there's only one royal palace which serves as both residence and office. However, in the real Sweden, the royal family has two big palaces, the main one in the middle of Stockholm, and Drottningholm just outside. The main one is the office, where they work, and Drottningholm is their private residence, where they live most of the time.

Hovet - The Royal Court

In ye olden days, the court consisted of the king, his family, his servants, and the foremost nobles, advisors, and officials who hung around and essentially made up the executive branch of government. These days the court simply means the organisation that supports the royals in their official duties, it's all of their employees, and in the real Sweden the court has about 300 of them. Some of them still have funny titles like the Marshal of the Realm or Governor of the Royal Palaces, but think of those guys as the the vice presidents or directors or chiefs of staff of a normal company.

If you ever see something like "the court says", it means that the people working in the office of the monarch had a meeting and made a press release about something.

In the show there's a few named members of the court; Minou and Farima both appear to work for the PR department, while Jan-Olof is probably Marshal of the Court or something.

Kronan - The Crown

Just like in English, this term can mean the physical crown, the little golden hat with gems and stuff that is the symbol of the monarchy, but most often it means any legal entity that is the country itself, if that makes sense. For example, in Sweden, we think of the military, and all military equipment as "kronans egendom" - "property of the crown", and the single largest landowner in Sweden is technically a government-owned forestry company, but we think of their land as "kronans mark" - "crownlands".

The reason for this usage is that once upon a time all of these things were actually the personal property of the king, and inherited along with the office, but they've had to give it all up through consecutive political reforms. So, paradoxically, everything that is the property of the crown is actually owned by the people of Sweden through the government, while any personal belongings of the royal family isn't property of the crown.

#young royals #just swedish things

156 notes · View notes

neil-gaiman · 1 year

Note

I'm so fascinated to learn you were responsible for the English-language script for Princess Mononoke! I work in localization and I'd love to hear about the nitty-gritty of the process (it sounds like it bears some similarity to how some game studios work with writers on "English-first" titles).

I've just written down a ton of questions, feel free to answer whichever you care to and/or skip any you want to!! For one, the article you linked mentions the "literal translation" of the Japanese: were you given this literal script to then adapt into natural, flowing English? Did you also have access to the film in full the whole time you were working on it? Were there any other significant pieces of reference material you had access to? How much back-and-forth was there between you and the Ghibli team? To your knowledge, was your written script ever translated back into Japanese for stakeholders to look over?

Hullo, there are lots of lengthy articles and interviews out there on the web, many of them dating back to 1998ish, which go into the process in depth. And I've talked about it here on Tumblr before (although finding specific Tumblr posts can always be challenging).

But yes, it was absolutely translated back for Mr Miyazaki. He approved of it so much that he authorized the final subbed film to be shown commercially in Japan with Japanese subtitles, shortly after its US release.

1K notes · View notes

cillivnz · 2 months

Text

more than what you bargained for [k. heisenberg]

PAIRING — KARL HEISENBERG x DIMITRESCU!READER

TROPE — DBF! [here, mother’s friend, no really close relation] WORD COUNT — 1163 (short and sweet)

WARNINGS — NSFW. 18+. fem!reader. loss of virginity, hefty age-gap (reader is in early 20s, Karl is in his 50s), daddy kink, innocence/corruption kink, cursing, pet-names (bunny, little girl, etc.), slight degradation, slightly mean!Karl, p! in v! sex, brief orgasm denial, dacryphilia, slight exhibitionism, overstimulation, clit-play, mention of blood, spiting, cum-play, inappropriate usage of stuffed toys!

A/N — requested! i wasn’t going to leave y’all hanging high n’ dry, nonetheless, but thank you, all! (💋 for u) no mention of Alcides [ gender-bent Lady Dimitrescu ], didn’t want to jinx the two verses, so Alcina is Alcina.

i’ve decided to write this as a mini-series, can absolutely be read as stand-alones, the title would be “cockuette”, inspired by the coquette-ish aesthetic of the series, hence the 🎀 on Karl!

NOTES [excuse inaccurate translations from romanian to english]

draga esti acolo : sweetie, are you there? da, mamă? : yes, mother? da, mamă. am doar febra : yes, mother. i just have a fever.

YOUR NIGHT HAD JUST begun.

spinning you around, you were manhandled into a vulgar, shameless position— with you face squished against your pink, cum-slick duvet, and your ass up and spread for the older man.

“such a pretty pussy, baby. you’re really givin’ this ol’ man a treat,” he spread your gushing hole with both his thumbs.

you felt his hot breath fanning over your clenching cunt, whimpering like a wounded animal at how painful the anticipation from the lack of contact made you feel.

“hurts, daddy—” you moaned, your subconscious choosing your words.

“—daddy, huh?” he cocked a brow.

you looked back with widened eyes, face flushed with embarrassment.

you gulped, taking in the scars painting his handsomely aged face.

why was he even more beautiful up close?

“sorry…” you bat your lashes, pussy twitching involuntarily around his thumbs, still stretching you wide for the cold air of your room.

“nah, bunny. ‘s nothing to be sorry for,” he let go of your round ass to pull you closer, cupping your face and kissing you gently.

you felt every crevice of the metal man’s lacerated face, his soft silver locs brushing against the apples of your cheeks, pale grey eyes staring lovingly into yours only after his plump lips parted from your kiss-swollen ones.

he flipped you around, girthy cock falling heavy on your clit almost immediately.

without another word, he pushed the tip inside you, making you gasp.

“K-Karl! holy fuck—” you whined, showing hostility towards the fat penetration.

“sh, daddy’s here.

i got you, pretty bunny.”

only stopping when your hips didn’t allow him to go further, he let you adjust for a brief moment, before starting at a slow pace.

“Karl, it’s too much— too full.” you winced, eyes watery with pain.

“you’ll get used to it, bun. it’s made for you.” he grunted, eyes half-lidded, relishing in the feel of your tight cunt squeezing along his length.

“look at me when i fuck you, miss,” he grabbed your chin firmly, forcing your eyes open. the hand that hadn’t got an ironclad grip on your hip snaked its way onto your clit, rubbing vigorously. “Mama really didn’t teach you manners, huh?” he continued, thrusts gaining brute force and speed.

“that’s okay, darling girl. daddy’s here to teach you lessons. this is one of many.”

he chuckled viciously, eyes glinting with mischievous malice that once again dominated his softer side.

by now you were a moaning mess, crying over the assault of his fat cockhead on your sweet spot, and over the bruises forming on your body from his relentless groping and squeezing, his way of marking you in your most private, sensitive areas.

a reminder that you had wronged Karl earlier, and now you weren’t going to forget.

he turned you around in the blink of an eye, your returned to your initial position with the same sense of degradation; face down, ass up.

now, Karl was not holding back. not when your velvet walls were letting him glide through you.

only the sound of skin-on-skin slapping was sound, until a curt knock was heard.

“draga esti acolo?” your mother’s deep voice echoed.

you were frozen in place, life flashing before your eyes while the man balls-deep inside you only slowed his movements.

you raise your head meekly to look back at Karl, only earning a sly smirk from him.

“da, mamă?” you croaked.

“i’m sorry for leaving you alone with that bastard for so long, i couldn’t have left without dealing with those pests.” she sighed, referring to the people Mother Miranda had ordered her to deal with, but the only thing you cared about right now was Karl’s reaction to the insult.

and knowing him, you knew he was going to take it out on you.

instantaneously, he began pounding into you with brutality, using your g-spot as a punching bag for the mean shaft inside you.

you bit down on the cotton sheets, letting your sharp teeth gnaw into the floral print.

“when did he leave?” your mother’s voice was heard again.

“ah- ab-about an h-hour ago!” you grunted the high-pitched response.

silence met you momentarily.

“are you okay, dragă?” she asked, concerned.

“da, mamă. am doar febra!” you groaned.

your mother cursed under her breath, “it’s my fault for keeping you up so late. i’ll send Pasha in with remedies,” was the last thing she said before her heavy footsteps grew distant.

you moaned a sigh of relief, while the man behind you only chuckled. “bastard, huh?” he mused, still stuck on your mother’s insult.

“bet she’d chew on her words when my seed coats her daughter’s womb.” he scoffed, increasing the force of his thrusts by tenfold.

“daddy!”

your eyes rolled back, his heavy balls slapping your sensitive clit with every thrust, his large palms slapping your fat ass cheeks; could this be—

“—MORE THAN WHAT YOU BARGAINED FOR, bunny?” his hand found your clit, pinching the bud.

he looked over to your side, amused by the sight of your childhood toy, a bunny you named ‘Mina’ staring at the filth unravelling in-front of it.

he grabbed the teddy, still thrusting in and out of you, “choke on this,” he squeezed your cheeks together, opening your mouth just enough to shove the teddy bunny’s arm inside.

your cries were muffled, Karl finally able to focus on chasing his high.

pinching your bundle of nerves, he pulled out completely, feeling you sobbing fully into your sheets at the orgasm denial, cunt convulsing around nothing— the perfect moment for him to shove his cock in whole (in hole, literally) and shoot his load into the pussy whose virginity he just stripped off.

he groaned in your ears, hoisting you up by the hair to kiss you with fervency.

“that’s how a good host treats their guests.” he bit down on your lip, earning sobs from your breathless self.

pulling out, he was eager to spread you open again and see the his cum drool out of you, and lo and behold— your puffy cunt oozed out traces of blood in both of your fluids mixed. Karl stretched you wider and spat right into your hole, causing you to flinch and clench.

he chuckled, pulling Mina the bunny away from your arms, and using its saliva-soaked arm to clean your folds.

you winced at the contact, but the softness felt so good.

“milady, Lady Dimitrescu has sent some soup— OH, GODS!” Pasha the chamberlain dropped the big bowl of remedies to the ground, and charged out the same door she barged in on seeing the princess naked as the day she was born, getting her wet cunt cleaned by the most dangerous of the Lords, holding a teddy bunny in all his glory, with that goddamn smirk plastered on his face.

poor Pasha deserves therapy as compensation for the shit she sees at Castle Dimitrescu.

pt. I. COCKUETTE MASTERLIST. more from ‘resident evil: village’. main masterlist.

#coquette #karl heisenberg #resident evil #resident evil village #lady dimitrescu #dimitrescu family #karl heisenberg x reader smut #karl heisenburg fanart #karl heisenburg x reader #resident evil smut #smut #dbf!#age g4p #yandere!karl heisenberg #bunny girl #bunny #lord dimitrescu #cockette #cockuette

157 notes · View notes