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raven-at-the-writing-desk · 8 days

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If it’s alright, I have a question about Vil and Epel’s relationship. I understand that the accent changing plot line is just a cultural politeness thing that didn’t carry over outside of Japan, but the other parts of changing Epel’s behavior don’t quite make sense.

Why exactly is Epel being forced to call macarons his favorite food? And act very soft-spoken? I can’t see how these fit in with the politeness aspect of the table manners, no abrasive language, etc. It just doesn’t give a very good impression, especially in combination with the unfortunate implication of giving Epel a Southern accent for the “change your accent” plot point.

Before I get to responding to the questions posed by this ask, allow me to explain for those who may not be familiar with this controversy! This is so we can all go into reading this post from the same starting point.

I've made titles to denote the explanation of background knowledge and to denote responding to the questions actually asked to me! If you're already familiar with the Vil-Epel-accent debacle then feel free to skip the first section!

Disclaimer: I’m speaking on these concepts as I personally understand them. However, I am not a native Japanese speaker so I’d advise that you consult additional resources with a better understanding of the language and culture. Two resources I enjoy are Yuurei and MysteryShopTLs, who have both also addressed Epel’s accent and how it was localized.

The Accent, EN vs JP

It’s well-known that Epel is a character with a heavy accent who has been explicitly told by Vil, his dorm leader, to alter the way he speaks. In EN, Epel speaks with what appears to be a southern (as in, “from the southern United States”) accent. Therefore, when Vil tells him to stop speaking in the accent, it feels as though Vil is shaming him for his southern roots and culture. This has also led to fans (especially of the EN-only sphere) thinking that Vil believes Epel’s accent is “unrefined” and “makes him sound uncouth/uneducated”, which is why Vil tells Epel to cover it up. I have even received asks conveying as much in the past (here is one example).

In the original JP, Epel speaks in a way that does not closely resemble any real-world Japanese dialect but rather a blend of them. If you ask a native Japanese speaker, they would likely tell you that it is difficult to understand what Epel is saying and that it sounds as though he is speaking rudely or too casually. People could genuinely take offense to the accent because it can be mistaken as something else entirely. This is obviously very different than the real-world accent (which many people can still understand and wouldn’t perceive as rude) that Epel was localized to have. The decision to give him a southern accent, then, does not completely carry over its original JP connotations into EN.

What remains the same in both EN and JP is the reason Vil provides for telling Epel to adjust the way he communicates. As he says in EN, “Speak properly" to which Epel immediately assumes the command comes from a place of elitism/classism and Vil thinking Epel's manner of speaking is beneath him. Vil responds with, "Stop misinterpreting my instructions. I have nothing against your home or its dialect. What I object to is your attitude. Being proud of your home is all well and good, but there is a time and a place for that. The way you address your superiors is entirely unacceptable." (Keep in mind that before this, Epel was the one instigating a fight with Vil and subsequently got his ass whooped for disrespecting an upperclassman. As the victor, he declares that Epel must do as he says--that's the "culture" of NRC. The weak obey the strong, so if Epel wants to do whatever he wants, then Vil challenges him to beat Epel in a fight. Until then, the loser must obey the winner. Epel agrees to these conditions.) This may be a little hard for western English speakers to wrap their heads around, but MANY Asian countries, Japan included, run on a hierarchical system which is embedded even into their languages. Japanese, for example, has honorifics to denote the relationship between the speaker and the listener, as well as variations on the same word depending on the context ("boku", "ore", "watashi", "atashi", etc. are all valid ways to refer to oneself, "onii-san", "onii-sama", "aniki", "kyodai", etc. are all ways to refer to a brother, whether blood-related or not). In some cases, it's considered rude to call others by their first name unless you know them well, and even then it's not common to see a first name without an honorific. This is not as strictly adhered to in English, which is perhaps where a cultural disconnect occurs. What Vil is referring to in his instructions to Epel is what is known in the world of linguistics as "code switching", or changing how one communicates to suit the situation. Part of code switching is changing one's "register", or the level of formality you use. So for example, I could use a colloquial/casual register when I speak with my friends, but I may shift to a more polite and formal register when I speak with my professors, a boss, or an older relative. Vil, then, is critiquing Epel for not speaking politely to his seniors (something which is expected in Japanese culture, but not expected among those in similar grade levels in western cultures).

In the Harveston Sledathon event, we get to venture to Epel's hometown and hear how the locals speak. Indeed, we get more instances of people who speak in the same way Epel does. It's the Harveston dialect, which is so distinctive that it basically sounds like a whole different language. (There are also languages like this in real life; consider Mandarin and Cantonese; technically they are both "Chinese" but Mandarin and Cantonese speakers would not be able to comprehend one another even if they use the same written language). However, it's notable that Marja (Epel's grandmother) and the mayor of Harveston are able to code switch flawlessly into a more standardized tongue. They explain that this is a skill they have developed because it helps in communicating with tourists/visitors to the village and for whenever they travel to the nearby city to sell their wares. This reinforces Vil's point that there is a "time and place" for certain ways of speaking, which Epel needs to consider.

Macarons and Soft-Spokeness

Accent thing aside, some English-speaking fans take issue with Vil's stern treatment of Epel, particularly in instances in which Vil seems to be exerting significant control over his underclassman's behaviors. (Japanese-speaking fans largely do not hold the same sentiment.) Examples of this include Vil forcing Epel to state that his favorite food is macarons, as well as making Epel present as soft-spoken even when he's just among his peers. I will now be addressing both of these points. TO BE CLEAR, I am NOT trying to defend Vil but rather I'm just going to speculate about why the circumstances are the way that they are and/or why perceptions of his attitude may differ.

Starting with macarons! It is stated in Epel's official profile and by Epel himself in his Birthday Boy vignettes that his favorite food is yakiniku (Japanese grilled meat). However, macarons are also listed as his favorite food, and this is notable because he's the only character with two foods listed instead of just one. In the aforementioned Birthday Boy vignettes, Epel is quick to qualify his love of meats with, "Well, I do have one thing I like even more. It's, ah, macarons." When asked what he likes about them, he says, "They're... cute. And sweet! And they come in lots of different flavors." His voice here sounds hesitant, so it's not clear whether he's being entirely honest or not. He even admits in a whisper that, "[Macarons] are not very filling, but still." Epel again complains about macarons being good but not very filling when he has some in the City of Flowers/Fleur City. To this, Azul asks, "Why do you look so unimpressed, Epel? I thought macarons were your favorite food. [...] But was my intel mistaken? Would you prefer something with a stronger flavor profile?" Epel insists he is fine, and Azul responds with, "Excellent, then my intel bears out." This creates some confusion over whether Epel actually likes macarons or not. I doubt that the information Azul has on others is inaccurate. Plus, Epel states of his own free will to the player (who is interviewing him) that he also likes macarons. This leads me to believe that while Epel doesn't outright hate macarons, he does like them alright (but still prefers grilled meat more). The only thing he seems to have an issue with is how unsubstantial macarons are as a food item.

Now... why does Vil make him state that macarons are his favorite food instead of grilled meat? It's sort of touched on in Epel's Ceremonial Robes vignettes. In them, Vil chides Epel for his poor table manners and asks him to state his favorite food. Epel responds with grilled meat/barbeque, which earns him a smack from his dorm leader. (Vil actually smacks Epel multiple times in these vignettes as punishment, which ended up being another source of ire in the English-speaking part of the fandom; such a thing is more common in Asia and its media, so it's not seen as too outrageous in Japan.) "Do my ears deceive me?" Vil says. "I could've sworn I heard a word unfit to be spoken in this noble dorm. I will ask you again. As a student of Pomefiore–a dorm founded upon the tenacity of the Fairest Queen–what is your favorite food?" From this dialogue, it can be surmised that Vil's reasoning for drilling the macarons in as Epel's favorite food is because it is something that is more befitting of the regal "image" of the Fairest Queen and the dorm made in her honor. Vil seems to regard grilled meat as an inelegant food which does not suit the Fairest Queen nor Pomefiore.

The second thing the asker brought up is Epel's soft-spokeness. I guess I'm a little confused by this??? Soft-spokeness is a part of being polite; it ties back to volume control (ie "indoor voice" being softer than "outdoor voice"). I also don't recall a specific instance of Vil chastising Epel for NOT being soft-spoken at all times. He allows Epel to be loud sometimes and raises his voice himself. I feel like volume is not something that Vil harps on as much as other things like cursing or speaking politely to the correct authority figures (unless, of course, volume is important to the level of politeness required for the current conversation). I could be wrong on this though, so please let me know if you know of any specific instances of Vil being mad about Epel speaking loudly that I may have missed! What I do find odd is how... consistently (?) Epel tries to keep polite even when Vil is not around to monitor him. When Vil and Epel first met, Vil makes it clear that there is a "time and place" for Epel's accent, and it's not when addressing seniors. So... by the logic, shouldn't Vil be okay with Epel acting more relaxed or rowdy around first years or more casual settings in general? Why does Epel need to maintain the facade of being polite even when not in the presence of his superiors? Why does Epel seem to even act fearful about word of his misbehavior/rudeness getting back to his dorm leader and even make others swear they won't divulge the incidents to Vil?

One theory I'll propose is the entirety of book 5. Vil was insistent then on having Epel in the NRC Tribe. He wanted to weaponize Epel's cuteness, which he believed could compete with his long-time rival, Neige. This probably fed into Vil's demands for Epel to appear and act dainty and innocent, traits which Neige effortlessly possesses. Vil literally even refers to Epel as his "Poison Apple" that will help him defeat Neige. After book 5, Vil seems to have eased up on his rigidity. However, I will caution that this explanation may or may not align well with vignettes and/or event stories, which do not always work in a cohesive timeline with the main story.

Perhaps a more all-encompassing explanation is... this is probably because Vil is just very strict about how his dorm members present themselves at all times, since they are expansions of Pomefiore and of himself as the leader. Both the macarons and Epel's attitude are reflections of the dorm he (a celebrity who is very aware of the public eyes on him + his reputation) is affiliated with, and Vil won't have them poorly represented. He is the dorm leader, so he has the "right" to rule and impose his ideals as he sees fit. It's a similar situation to Riddle forcing the Heartslabyul students to follow silly, nonsensical rules (because they're tradition) or risk a scolding or a beheading. And again, Epel is following along because (as established in book 5), he has agreed to submit to Vil’s orders until he beats Vil in combat.

At the end of the day, I don't think Epel being forced to call macarons his favorite food is a huge deal. Is anything that big lost in claiming you like something that isn't your actual favorite food? It's not like Vil is forcing Epel to claim he likes eating something that would actually harm him (like, if Epel had an almond allergy or something).

What's more dubious is how VIl governs Epel's attitude and temperament at seemingly all times (to the point of eliciting some apprehension from Epel). Given the most generous reading, maybe it's Vil's way of teaching Epel maturity and how to keep his voice down since Epel had zero of it and acted loudly brazen when he first enrolled. It doesn't help Epel if he's quiet and well-mannered in very limited social situations; it has to be "generalized" or expand to other scenarios for Vil's lessons to truly be instilled in him. (Like... what would happen if Vil DIDN'T hold Epel in check? His classmates would not be able to understand Epel's speech, and he might get into trouble by picking fights with others.) This is a life skill that Epel lacks, unlike his grandma and the Harveston mayor, and Vil's teaching it to him via "tough love" (though whether you approve of his methods or not is up to interpretation). Recall that Vil also teaches Epel to embrace femininity as its own strength and to disregard outdated gender norms--this could be considered another "lesson". I doubt that anything Vil imposes is done maliciously, but rather comes from a place of wanting others to be better and to shine their brightest, even if that path is difficult or painful. Epel, as the rebel in this circumstance, of course does not enjoy being told what to do and misbehaves in small ways. There’s a limit on how much he can misbehave though, as it would hurt his pride to be reminded of his failure to one-up Vil. He's like a kid that doesn't want to be caught cussing or acting out by his parent. It can be seen as immaturity and an unwillingness to change or to grow up, but it can also be seen as someone who wants to freely be able to express themselves or to be their "truest" self. Epel is rowdy and headstrong, and it's difficult for him to repress these parts of himself. Given the least generous reading, Vil is oppressing and stifling Epel in many ways that extend beyond what his dorm leader position should reasonably allow him to do. In fact, a popular fan translation for book 5 is "The Beautiful Oppressor", as Vil is frequently shown limiting the liberties of his NRC Tribe members during their training arc, not just Epel's.

Which is the truth here? Why do those in the English side of the fandom decry Vil's actions and side with Epel whereas the Japanese side see little issue with this?

I wager that this predominantly comes down to, again, cultural differences. Many English-speaking fans are based in the west (particularly the USA and Canada, where the EN servers first launched), places which emphasize individuality and self-expression. Of course they would be more likely to take Epel's side, as he's the one trying to be himself and stand out in his own way. Meanwhile collectivism--an ideology which stresses conformity with a group--dominates in the east. They are more likely to see no problems with Vil's actions because, to them, he is acting in the ways he is to "guide" Epel and show him how to best "fit in" with Pomefiore and at NRC. I believe the whole "being soft-spoken" thing also ties back to cultural differences; speaking loudly is something else that can be considered rude in Japan, so it's entirely possible that Vil encouraging Epel to be soft-spoken is another element of politeness that did not translate well to English (as the western world tends to be much louder and more animated in their conversations).

What it boils down to is that the way Vil and Epel's relationship was written did not work well for a western audience, whose values and perspective is VERY different from the original audience TWST had. It appeals far more to a Japanese fanbase than a western one, and has resulted in many misunderstandings or anger about Vil's character because of this.

I'm not sure if I managed to adequately explain everything, but I hope that this at least helps you to see from a different perspective!!

#twst #twisted wonderland #Vil Schoenheit #Epel Felmier #disney twisted wonderland #disney twst #harveston sledathon spoilers #Marja Felmier #notes from the writing raven #question #book 5 spoilers #twst en #twisted wonderland en #Neige LeBlanche #Azul Ashengrotto

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moongothic · 4 months

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You remember how in Ms Goldenweek's cover story, we get to see how the former Baroque Works agents have all beated up the other cellmates they had (not just in the mens' cells but also womens')

The way Daz is sitting on top of one of the prisoners, as if he was sitting on a throne or something, it definitely makes it look like he at least participated in the fight that took place, right

It just makes me wonder, did Crocodile himself participate in the cell fight, or did Daz handle it all on his own?

Like even with the Seastone cuffs Crocodile's hook alone should give him the most unfair advantage in a prison fight imaginable, so you'd think he'd be more than capable of defending himself if he felt like it. But also, considdering he didn't feel like even escaping prison... was he even in the mood for a fight? Like I don't think Crocodile would just allow some random, weak-ass pirates to beat his ass without a fight, but also... I can't help but to wonder... (Look you tell me what kind of a mental state Crocodile was in after his 4 year long plan to take over a country was foiled by a kid in flip flops)

Is it possible Daz took out all those other prisoners by himself (without Crocodile nor Mr 4 assisting him), either to make sure his boss didn't have to waste his strenght on them, or... did he maybe deal with the other prisoners to... protect Crocodile? Like the former would be straight forward manly man anime loyalty, nothing worth making a deepdive for, this is One Piece we get the trope. But isn't the latter option also plausible? 'Cause. Like. Daz was loyal enough to Crocodile to willingly go to Impel Fucking Down with his former boss whom he had only known for like a day or two at this point (I mean IDK how long it took for the BW members to get shipped to this Marine Base from Alabasta but you know what I mean). If some random criminals wanted to pick a fight with Crocodile in prison and he just seemed like he didn't feel like dealing with it, if Daz's was down to go to Impel Down with Croc, then would he not be willing to defend the man too??

Regardless, it just raises the question of... why? Why did Daz choose stay with Crocodile, despite Baroque Works failing so hard? Why did he choose to become loyal to such a cruel, horrible man?

Sad thing is, because we don't really know much about Daz, there isn't actually that much to go off-of to properly speculate here. But we do know Daz once dreamt of becoming a superhero! The irony of course being that not only he became a terrifying murder man, but also that he seems to lack that "superhero quality" of being... easily approachable, friendly, warm? Like he is a man of steel, but he's not The Man of Steel, you get me? But Daz's dream does tell us something interesting though; that deep inside, even if he doesn't show it at all, he might like the idea of being a hero? Like the concept of being a hero and saving people may have appealed to him, right? Because that's what being a hero is about, the heroic ideals of upholding peace and justice (and looking cool while doing it)

And arguably that idea still appeals to Daz. Even if he's frowning, deep inside he was enjoying the superhero costume Ms Goldenweek created, even if he can't admit it.

But in One Piece, the idea of being a "hero of justice" has quite different connotations than in our world. After all, the Marines are meant to embody that very idea, just in a far less cool, romantic way. We know the World Government is extremely corrupt, we know of the atrocities the Marines have and are willing to commit in the name of their so-called "justice".

So while it's entirely plausible Daz might've fallen "out of love" with his dream simply because his life just... lead him down a different path, and he didn't seem to have the right personality for it anyways... Knowing the WG, isn't it also possible Daz could have become kind of... jaded, knowing the "real life heroes" of his world aren't that cool, and don't actually stand for the ideals he may have looked up to?

And then he finds himself working for a man who seemingly wants to overthrow that very same corrupt Government?

#Moon posting #OP Meta #Daz Bones #Sir Crocodile #I know I threw out a potential explanation to why Daz could've chosen to follow Crow #But the real answer is that the Daz x Crocodile shippers are RIGHT #IT'S THE ONLY LOGICAL EXPLANATION #Daz is A Fellow Simp and he is SO VALID for it. He is A Man of Good Taste #No for real though-- Daz maybe somehow seeing through Crocodile a little bit and finding a goal he would work in him is just #Oh it sparks joy #Kindred sprits etc

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jeannereames · 2 months

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Dr. Reames, a simple question from someone interested in history but who is not part of the academic world: in order to study Alexander the Great and Ancient Greece in general, how much Ancient Greek does one have to learn? Would you need to learn Demotic Greek or the many other dialects, such as the one from Macedonia? As in, you’d need to learn one or more versions of Ancient Greek?

Thank you in advance! I always enjoy your responses!

How Much Greek Do I Need to Read about Alexander?

It depends on how far you want to go…what’s your end-goal?

If you’ve no desire to make it a profession, the good news is you need very little Greek.

Most ancient Greek and Latin texts are available in translation in the major languages of (European) Classical studies: English, French, German, Italian. Now, if you want them in Polish, or Japanese, or Bengali, you’ll have more of an issue. But the Loeb Classical Library (and LOEB ONLINE) has English translations of virtually all extant (still existing) Greek and Latin sources, and if you’ve got access to a (larger) college library, they probably have them, even if you have to ask them to get things out of storage. Latin is red (PA6156); Greek is green (PA3612). Budé is the French version of Loeb, btw.

Loeb texts also have Greek and Latin on the facing page, but I mention them because they’ve got translations of (almost) everything. One can find cheaper versions without the Greek/Latin from Penguin, Oxford, et al. But those don’t have, say, Aelian, or Athenaeus, or the obscure texts of Plutarch’s Moralia. Loeb does. That said, the Alexander histories (Arrian, Curtius, Plutarch, Diodoros, and Justin) are all available in relatively cheap translations. Much earlier, in answer to a different ask, I listed our main sources on Alexander, extant and lost. It’s a longer read, but perhaps of interest.

(See below for more online sources in translation.)

So, no, you don’t need Greek. But, if you’re at least moderately serious about reading beyond pop history, you will want to learn a few Greek words to better “get” Greek sensibilities. Say, timē (τιμή), which means honor/public standing/esteem, but has all these attendant connotations. If you start reading the Serious Stuff (articles and academic books), authors will throw these around so it’s useful to know them, as they tend to carry an entire freight of meaning we don’t want to explain every time we use them. These are words I make my students learn in my intro to Greek History class (2510), so there aren’t many. (Undergrads put up with only so much, ha.) For Alexander, it’s also useful to know the Greek names of some units, such as the Somatophylakes (the royal Bodyguard of 7), or the Hypaspists (the specialist hoplite phalanx, not the same as the Foot Companions), or even the name of the long pike (sarissa). But you can make do quite well with a vocab of maybe 30± Greek terms.

It's only if you want to pursue research at the advanced (graduate) level that you’d need Greek. Even then, it’s mostly Attic Greek. The only time you’d need dialects is for quite specific study and/or epigraphy (inscriptions). Epigraphers are language specialists. Most of us, even the “pros,” don’t work at that level. But yes, if you’re getting into extensive examinations of passages, it’s good to understand the language for yourself, not have to trust a translation. Translations are, by definition, interpretations.

I hope that encourages some folks to embark on reading the original (primary) sources. Of more import for these is to understand HISTORIOGRAPHY. Even those who can read the Greek, but lack historiographic training, tend to take stuff at face-value when they shouldn’t.

Go HERE for a discussion of historiography (with regard to Alexander). Again, it’s part of a specific ask, but I explain why we need to know something about the historians who are writing our texts, in order to understand those texts. It’s another longer read, but essential.

Almost forgot! If you prefer video, I've also talked about the sources on TikTok: Part I: Intro & Lost Alexander Sources and Part II: Extant Alexander Sources

Some Useful Online Sources to Bookmark:

Perseus (at Tufts.edu): clunky as hell because it’s old (in internet years), but indispensable. English/Greek/Latin/other texts in translation and original language, plus all sorts of other tools, including an image bank. Pitfall: these are translations outside copyright, so old and sometimes problematic. Still, it’s free, and so-so much stuff here. Every person dealing with the ancient Med world has this one on speed-dial. (You can find other online sources with various texts, but Perseus has, again, almost everything; it’s the online Loeb.)

Stoa Org Static: a version of the original where you don’t have to sign in. Takes you to various super-helpful pages, including the Online Suda (a Byzantine encyclopedia you can search: look up “Hephaistion” there. *grin*) Bunch of other helpful links.

Wiki Digital Classicist hypertext list of topics ranging from the Beasley Library (of pottery) to the Coptic Gnostic Library and various online journals. Just click around, see what’s there.

Topos Text: clickable map of places which includes all references to them in ancient sources. So if, say, you want to know where X places is, mentioned in Arrian, you can find it on the map.

PHI Searchable Greek Inscriptions: I have used the tar out of this. It’s much easier than Inscriptiones Graecae, and comes with English translations.

More Online Resources: more links. This is just one of various collections out there.

Again, ALL this stuff is free. Even when you may have to pay (like Loeb Online), the amount of material you can now lay hands on even without a uni library is fantastic.

JSTOR: requires a subscription, but, if you’re a college student or can get access via a uni library, you can look up material for free. Problem: JSTOR has different subscription packages, and only the really big Class-A Research schools have large holdings for Classics. I’m regularly foiled in things I need, as my library is smaller. I use ILL (Interlibrary Loan) a lot. If you can’t get what you want via your school JSTOR or ILL, sometimes you can purchase a solo copy of an article via JSTOR Google Scholar. But (hint) always check the journal’s website itself. It might be cheaper there! (The Ancient History Bulletin, for instance, is super-cheap; check their archives. Karanos [Macedonia only] is FREE.) Same thing sometimes with books. Certain publishers have rental options, Open Access, etc.

Also Academia.edu first: Your savior…if the author is a member, and has uploaded the paper you want. We frequently face restrictions on what we’re allowed to upload, and when. Yet we may list an article we can’t yet release publicly. That doesn’t mean we won’t send it to you privately via email if you message us and ask nicely. 😊 Especially if you’re not providing an entire wishlist, or asking for a book for free. It depends on the person, and whether they have a PDF.

#asks #greek language #alexander the great #studying the classics #Classics #source on Alexander the Great #How much Greek do I need?#ancient Greece #ancient Macedonia

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cinnavanillamelody · 2 months

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Momentary Mod Explanation and Apology

It has come to my revelation that I may be hurting people unintentionally with my choice of wording sometimes, and I would like to explain myself and apologize.

I really hate being accused of things, especially of saying words and phrases I didn't say. I also have a bit of a speech impediment, (I consider it one) sometimes, I have occasional slurred speech, and people cannot understand me when I am speaking. I also have voice modulation issues, so sometimes I am speaking quieter or louder than I realize.

(I am also half deaf in my left ear and have audio processing issues due to ADHD)

Because of these facts, I always take great care in saying exactly what I mean as clearly as I can, so there is no room for misinterpretation. Sometimes, I punctuate my sentences out loud, or I talk like Yoda does, (thing, verb, question) for example:

"Do you want pizza for dinner?"

"what?"

"Pizza, Dinner, You want?"

still with me?

this care I have in communication with others carries over in text conversations, and I realize that when I type a certain way, I have a very sarcastic voice or a very stern/upset tone. Sometimes I don't realize I am upset until I am actively typing in an upset state of mind. I have a short temper, and it is very easy for me to get poked into that state of mind. All facial expressions or vocal cues are lost, and it's very easy for others to misinterpret what I type, for being aggressive and meaning something else that I did not mean at all. For example. I might text someone,

"Hey, sometimes *thing you do* is really annoying to me, could you *change behavior*?"

and it can be interpreted as:

"Hey you're REALLY annoying, could you like, not?"

This is a very loose example, but it illustrates my point well. Another thing is if I use a word that's very similar to another word, and its meaning gets misconstrued.

I told someone they were exhibiting "childish behavior" and they took that as "You are a child".

I said the phrase, "You cannot lie to me" and it was taken as "You are lying to me. (actively)" or "You have lied to me"

Those two phrases have two entirely different meanings and connotations. Saying someone is "being childish" does not mean you are calling them a child, it means they are exhibiting behavior that a child would.

"You cannot lie to me" means exactly that, "You cannot actively lie to me" That is not calling someone a liar, that is saying they do not have the ability to lie directly to you.

I can see how those two phrases can be misinterpreted, however, if they appear to be coming from an aggressive party. And for that, I deeply apologize. I did not mean to lose my temper, and I did not mean to throw out any sort of insults. If I have ever not clearly communicated with any of you, it was not my intention to cause harm, I am just very bad at communicating, and am easily misunderstood.

That is all,

-Mod Mocha 🍫

#mlp ask blog #ask box open #cinnavannilamelody #cinnaverse #lemonverse #mod mocha #thank you

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absolutebl · 1 year

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Ai’ with Aye & Akk - The Eclipse & Thai honorifics

hazmatilda asked: (and tumblr ate it so I’m reposting)

So I went down quite a rabbit hole with your bl linguistics Tag (thanks for that, 3 hours of reading when I should have been sleeping or working on my masters thesis for Wednesday :/ ), and I am riveted. I started watching Thai BLs with bad buddy when it was airing, and have watched most of the ones that have aired since then and now working on the backlog. I love linguistics, and have been noticing the different personal pronouns etc in Thai especially, so it was really cool to see that all laid out in your posts! The third person one is particular is quite special to me, and I wish it existed more in English and German. It's very frustrating being a genderqueer person living in Germany because non gendered pronouns don't really exist, and when they do it's quite niche and hard to get others to use :/

I couldn't agree more. I've grown to have real affection and love for Thailand's pronouns.

I also adore the way in many Asian languages we can just say our own name for the "I" pronoun. So much harder to forget someone's name and ALSO you're consistently reminded of what it is and how it shoudl be pronounced.

Just so you don't have to deal with my terrible (and hugely erratic) tagging system, I do have a language post meta guide (master post round up) just in case you want to rabbit hole some more:

BL Language & Culture Master Post (mostly Thai)

Back to your question...

Anyway, my question is, I noticed in The Eclipse the Ai' prefix (particle?) used between the boys, which you mentioned is not really used in BLs often, and I wanted your more detailed take on the way that Akk changes in his address of Aye in this regard, especially over the last couple of episodes. Is he being particularly rude?

Ai is an honorific originally used between peer/age mates/equals. (Like Phi or Nong.)

But now, depending on the stress/emphasis it carries different connotations including affection (Akk & Aye), insult (Ae & Pond in Love By Chance), annoyance/exasperation (Leo in Don't Say No), or pleading/whining (Fiat in Don't Say No).

Is he being particularly rude?

Yes but also, no. He's being... rudely affectionate? He's changing the boundaries of their relationship with, what amounts to, what I'd call an “insult honorific or mode of address.” (Common within peer groups, particularly marginalized ones. See gay & masculine identified use of "bitch" in late 90s early 2000s queer culture, particularly in North American coastal cities.)

So amongst some of my queer friends, regardless of gender or orientation someone will often yell, "Hey Biiitchesss!" Technically an insulting term, in this context, a friends honorific among peers and a way of identifying oneself and ones friends as different from the surrounding social morays.

Back to Ai'.

It seems mostly used for relationship emphasis these days (friendly intimacy, of a jocular/teasing nature), and almost always among peers. I think of it occasionally as an insult honorific.

In California the word "dude" is often used for this. "Seriously, dude!?" when someone cuts you off on the FWY. "Hey, Dude" to a friend you meet for lunch. "Awe, Dude, that's rough" affection/sympathy. And so forth.

I haven't watched Eclipse in a while so I can't speak to the bit your actually referring to. So there may be an additional use pattern in play, but Ai is an interesting honorific, in that it's one of those that isn’t always, or even often, entirely honoring. So to speak.

I do talk about Ai quite a bit in this post:

Why Ai'Hia was so funny in Cutie Pie

Never let me go also seems to be playing with the formality a lot, due to the class differences, which is cool to see. I'm sure the changing register and formality will play into PalmNuengs speech as the show progresses hehe.

Sorry for the ramble! 🧡🧡🧡

No apologies for rambling needed here, since I’m ruler of rambletown.

Yes it’s very very fun to see. You also get this a little with RainPhayu in Oh My Sunshine night (young high class seme + older servant uke), and a TON with Ae & Pete in Love By Chance.

If you haven’t watched it, I would highly recommend that one. Pete talks almsot entirely in high formal register and Ae in low. It’s a great way to train your ear for the two different registers. There’s no spoiled prince dynamic, so it’s an entirely different play on a class difference than NLMG. They are one of my all time favorite pairs for many reasons. Language is one.

All the best and I hope you keep enjoying yourself with BL and the linguistics!

(source)

#asked and answered #thai BL #thai language #thai linguistics #Never Let Me Go #The Eclipse #AkkAye #AyeAkk #Love By Chance #AePete #cutie pie the series

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nicklloydnow · 5 months

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“The phrase toxic masculinity was coined in the 1980s by a psychologist named Shepherd Bliss. He was a central figure in what he named the “mythopoetic” manhood movement. Bliss had grown up in a punishing military household with a domineering father, and he meant the new term to connote “behavior that diminishes women, children, other men,” a way “to describe that part of the male psyche that is abusive.”

It was a potent phrase, one that expressed something that had never had a name—that there is a particular poison that runs in the blood of some men and poses a deep threat to women, children, and the weak. The phrase didn’t break into the common culture until relatively recently, when the crimes of Harvey Weinstein and his ilk needed to be understood with some kind of shared language. They were men, but they were the kind of men who are filled with poison.

As it is with most new terms that roar quickly and powerfully into the culture, toxic masculinity was a rocket ship to the moon that quickly ran out of fuel and fell back to Earth.

(…)

Why don’t these qualify as toxic masculinity? One suspects it is because murder, rape, and kidnapping are serious, and “toxic masculinity”—as we now use the term—is trivial. Still, I use it in this essay, because in its grammar we find something instructive. If the noun masculinity can be modified by the adjective toxic, then there must exist its opposite, which can be revealed by a different adjective. What is it?

The opposite of toxic masculinity is heroic masculinity. It’s all around us; you depend on it for your safety, as I do. It is almost entirely taken for granted, even reviled, until trouble comes and it is ungratefully demanded by the very people who usually decry it.

Neither toxic nor heroic masculinity has anything to do with our current ideas about the mutability of gender, or “gender essentialism.” They have to do only with one obdurate fact that exists far beyond the shores of theory and stands on the bedrock of rude truth: Men (as a group and to a significant extent) are larger, faster, and stronger than women. This cannot be disputed, and it cannot be understood as some irrelevancy, because it comes with an obvious moral question that each man must answer for himself: Will he use his strength to dominate the weak, or to protect them?

Heroic masculinity is the understanding that someone has to climb the endless staircases in the towers. On 9/11, 343 New York City firefighters died at Ground Zero, and there wasn’t one of them who didn’t know, or at least suspect, that he was climbing to his death. They didn’t do it because of a union contract or an employee handbook. They climbed those towers because they knew that it must be written into the American record that heroes were there that day, and that the desperate people inside those buildings had never—not once—been abandoned.

(…)

These examples are about heroic masculinity at its most extreme. Heroism is usually much less dramatic. You can see it every time a high-school kid puts himself between a girl and some boy who’s hassling her, and every time a man steps up to another man who is screaming—or worse—at a woman. Girls and women do this, too. But the kind of men who harass women don’t tend to listen to them.

Toxic and heroic masculinity can easily exist in the same man. There are plenty of examples of a bad man who sees something unjust and who suddenly—if only for the minutes it takes to stop another man from harming someone—puts a stop to it. For that tiny stretch of time, he is connected to greatness.

(…)

We know from experience, if we have lived long enough—and from thrillers if we have not—that there can be something deeply attractive in a man who is strong enough to hurt but also to protect. It is the knife’s edge of masculinity that women negotiate. No matter how far women have come in the modern world, the fact of male power remains a deep and, I would imagine, primal attraction for many women. How could it not be?

The next question involves the police, the overwhelming majority of whom are male, and the fact that so much corruption and malevolence exist within the ranks. There are many jobs, usually those that involve the possibility of danger and the conferring of power—that are appealing to both kinds of men. The bad cops reveal how malevolent a force manhood can be if exerted against the innocent. The good ones remind us that in the moment of violence, laws won’t protect us, and norms won’t protect us. In the moment of male violence, the best luck you’ll ever have is for a good cop to be nearby.

(…)

What if we understood that boys are born into a destiny, not a pathology?”

#masculine #masculinity #heroic #heroicism #heroism

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lingthusiasm · 4 months

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Transcript Episode 87: If I were an irrealis episode

This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm episode ‘If I were an irrealis episode’. It’s been lightly edited for readability. Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. Links to studies mentioned and further reading can be found on the episode show notes page.

[Music]

Lauren: Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics! I’m Lauren Gawne.

Gretchen: I’m Gretchen McCulloch. Today, we’re getting enthusiastic about how languages express unreality. But first, thank you to everyone who celebrated our anniversary month with us.

Lauren: We always enjoy seeing what you recommend to people and thanking you for doing that. If you did that not on social media, in your own private media channels, thank you very much. You can share Lingthusiasm with anyone who needs more linguistics in their life throughout the year.

Gretchen: Our most recent bonus episode is a conversation about swearing in science fiction and fantasy with Ada Palmer and Jo Walton.

Lauren: I was so excited to hear you talk to two of our favourite authors. We’ve talked about Ada Palmer’s Too Like the Lightning and the Terra Ignota series before. We’ve talked about Jo Walton’s Thessaly books. Getting to hear you talk to them about swearing in fantasy and in science fiction was a whole lot of fun.

Gretchen: This was so much fun. We also have several other bonus episodes about swearing more generally as well as a massive archive of bonus episodes if you’re looking for something to do, and you wish there were more Lingthusiasm episodes, or you just wanna help us keep making the show. Those are there. You can go to patreon.com/lingthusiasm to get access to our full archive of bonus episodes for yourself, or they make a great last-minute gift idea.

[Music]

Lauren: Gretchen, what is real?

Gretchen: That’s a big philosophical question, Lauren, “What does it mean for something to be real?”

Lauren: Mm-hmm. But we could also answer it linguistically.

Gretchen: We could, indeed. Languages have lots of ways of talking about things that aren’t real. Sometimes, this itself can get tricky. If you want to start a fun discussion among your friends at the dinner table, try asking them things like, “Is a toy sword a real sword?”

Lauren: Hmm, I can totally see a context where you’re playing with toy swords – or maybe those big foam swords that people use in live-action role playing. In that context, it’s a real sword. You’re like, “Please don’t hit me with your sword,” or “I’m gonna practice my sword work.”

Gretchen: It is more of a real sword than a mimed sword or an entirely imaginary sword. It is real as in you can touch it, but it is not real as in it could cut people. One of my friends has a cheese plate that comes with these delightful small swords and daggers and axes that you can use to cut cheese with.

Lauren: Cute.

Gretchen: Which is great. This is, by some definitions, a “real” sword because you can cut things with it even if those things are cheese.

Lauren: Probably taken away from you as a weapon if you try to take it on an aeroplane.

Gretchen: Are we letting the airplane security people decide what a real sword is? The solution to all of our philosophical questions is just answered by airline security people.

Lauren: I’m taking a really weird range of stuff to the airport next time I travel just to check what is real. But then there are things that exist but not in this reality. So, Excalibur is a famous sword. But is it a real sword?

Gretchen: Right. Probably there’s a museum somewhere that has something that claims that it’s Excalibur. It certainly is a sword that has a bunch of cultural connotations with it – that has a level of reality that’s different than a magical sword that someone just makes up as a fantasy novel writer for their own novel but doesn’t have a broader cultural existence.

Lauren: I feel in some ways it’s more real than a foam sword or a cheese plate sword because it is more prototypically sword-like in my head. Could you imagine if Arthur went around with a cheese plate-sized sword or a foam sword? That’s the version of King Arthur I’m gonna rewrite.

Gretchen: I recently saw a production of Macbeth in which – so Macbeth has this famous speech which starts, “Is this a dagger that I see before me?”, and he’s not sure if he’s hallucinating or not. He’s about to kill the king, and he’s feeling guilty about it.

Lauren: He’s not sure if it’s just a cheese board.

Gretchen: Is it just a cheese dagger? In this production – which was also interesting because all of the characters were dressed up as goblins, but that’s a whole other thing.

Lauren: Uh, okay.

Gretchen: We’ll get to that in a sec.

Lauren: Sure.

Gretchen: The staging represented the dagger, at first, as a beam of light – like a tightly focused spotlight – in front of Macbeth, and everything else on the stage was all in red. There was this beam of white light. You’re saying, “Is this a dagger that I see before me?”, and you’re seeing this beam of light. In that context, the audience is supposed to be believing that Macbeth is hallucinating. Then the actor pulls out a prop dagger that I’m sure was probably not very sharp to subsequently be the murder weapon that he’s gonna go kill the king with. So, “Is this a real dagger? Is this an unreal dagger?” Different productions approach this question of “Is Macbeth seeing something real or not?” in different ways.

Lauren: The prop dagger is more of a real dagger than the beam of light dagger. And in the play, it stands in as a real dagger, but it’s less of a real dagger than a sharp one that might stab someone.

Gretchen: Right.

Lauren: I’m keeping track.

Gretchen: Exactly.

Lauren: Just to be clear – were they real goblins?

Gretchen: Well, [laughs] I certainly felt like I had just seen some goblins perform Macbeth. I had to keep reminding myself, like, no, they’ve just got costumes on because, man, those costumes were really great. The actors came out into the lobby and interacted with the audience before and after the show, so they felt –

Lauren: As goblins? In character?

Gretchen: As goblins in character.

Lauren: Okay.

Gretchen: Sort of improvising. They felt like they were real goblins. Then I’ve had to explain this show to other people, and they’ve been like, “So, wait, were they humans in the play?” And I was like, “No, it’s complicated. It all made sense at the time, though, I promise.”

Lauren: Amazing. I do have a moment of caution because goblins aren’t real in our world, but also, goblins have been used by a bunch of 20th Century fantasy writers to stand in for, for example, Jewish people in not always the most sensitive or appropriate way. Is that something that was happening here? I say with caution.

Gretchen: No, thank goodness.

Lauren: Okay.

Gretchen: One of the things you can do with something that has a cultural reality is the characters are very careful to say, “These other writers – you may have heard other things about goblins – they were all wrong. We’re the real goblins, and we’re gonna tell you the real story of goblins, which is not at all antisemitic” in the context of the actors wanting to do this play.

Lauren: Okay, so they were more real fake goblins than the fake fake goblins of fantasy.

Gretchen: Exactly. They were laying claim to being the real goblins and being like, “No, these other authors have said nasty things about this, but that’s not who we are.”

Lauren: Hilarious.

Gretchen: Which is something that you can do with something that has a cultural level of reality. “If I had a dog” is a hypothetical statement, but dogs are real.

Lauren: You could have a pet dog if you wanted to.

Gretchen: “If I had a dragon” is also a hypothetical statement, but it has a different level of hypothetical reality.

Lauren: You could put a little costume on a lizard, but yeah, you’re not getting a pet dragon of fire-breathing, winged fantasy fame.

Gretchen: Well, but maybe I have a dragon plush toy, which is a real dragon that I could have.

Lauren: True. Much easier to feed than a real dog or lizard.

Gretchen: My house insurance is a much bigger fan of me having a stuffed dragon. Those have a different level of reality compared to if I say, “If I have a frenumblinger” –

Lauren: If you have a what what?

Gretchen: Well, a “frenumblinger,” clearly, which is the creature that makes it not rain when you bring an umbrella.

Lauren: Ah. I absolutely always take an umbrella everywhere with me, but I didn’t realise I was appeasing this particular deity.

Gretchen: Well, if only you’d realised you were appeasing the frenumblinger – which is a creature that we made up that doesn’t have a cultural reality beyond this podcast.

Lauren: Dragons are more real than frenumblingers, even though both of them are not real.

Gretchen: Yeah. Reality itself is a continuum and depends on the context that you’re talking about.

Lauren: It’s so great that language lets us talk about things that aren’t here and aren’t real.

Gretchen: And that may or may not be real in the future.

Lauren: A lot of the time, we do this with words – like something being “not real” or “There might be dragons.”

Gretchen: Or “fake” or “toy” or things like that – “imaginary.”

Lauren: But languages can also use grammatical marking as part of a way of showing whether something’s real or not in the way that we do our grammar.

Gretchen: This is referred to with a delightful name, which is the “irrealis.” There are various kinds of irrealis markers that happen at a grammatical level in addition to all of the ways you can use words to talk about things that are imaginary or pretend or fake or constructed.

Lauren: There’s lots of different ways that we talk about the “slipperiness” of reality in language. We’re gonna talk about the grammatical structures of irrealis for the rest of this episode.

Gretchen: We’ve talked about stories and deliberately imaginary or fantastical contexts, but there’s also lots of places in everyday language where we wanna talk about things that haven’t happened and may never happen but might happen. We wanna talk about them.

Lauren: For example, “If it rains, I bring an umbrella,” regardless of whether I believe in frenumblinger.

Gretchen: That’s a relatively here and now if-then statement. We can also say, “If it rains, I will cancel the picnic,” which is something that’s even more hypothetical.

Lauren: Disappointing, but fair enough if we have to do that.

Gretchen: You can have more hypothetical conditional statements like “If all the raindrops were lemon drops and gum drops, oh, what a rain that would be!”

Lauren: That sounds horrifying.

Gretchen: Wait, do you not know this children’s song?

Lauren: I do not know this children’s song. It sounds like the start of an apocalypse.

Gretchen: “If it had rained lemon drops and gum drops, the plants would’ve been crushed under the weight.”

Lauren: Not to mention us. I don’t think my umbrella’s gonna be much help here.

Gretchen: Not to mention the effects on the water table.

Lauren: Oh, gosh. This is an absolute ecological apocalypse here. How terrifying.

Gretchen: Conditionals can be used to talk about both relatively realistic hypothetical events – and also very fantastical ones.

Lauren: I’m gonna go listen to this song after this, but I am already scared of it.

Gretchen: You’ll be even more excited to learn that the second verse goes, “If all the snowflakes were candy bars and milkshakes.”

Lauren: How are we even gonna produce that many candy bars and that much milkshake?

Gretchen: “Oh, what a snow that would be!”

Lauren: Indeed.

Gretchen: My favourite type of conditionals are not candy bars and milkshakes, they are, in fact, biscuit conditionals.

Lauren: Delightful.

Gretchen: Going from one food to the next. So, this is a famous example from J. L. Austin, who has the statement, “There are biscuits on the sideboard if you want them.”

Lauren: Oh, thanks, but where are biscuits if I don’t want them?

Gretchen: [Laughs] This is the thing because in these examples of “If it rains, I bring an umbrella,” if it doesn’t rain, maybe I don’t bring an umbrella, or maybe I bring one just in case to appease frenumblinger – compared to “There are biscuits on the sideboard if you want them, and if you don’t want them, well, where are they?”

Lauren: There are lots of different relationships between the first half and the second half of a conditional. I do like that biscuit conditionals set you up for a really great mom joke there.

Gretchen: There’s a related xkcd comic which goes, “I’ll be in your city tomorrow if you want to hang out.”

Lauren: “But where will you be if I don’t want to hang out?” I do actually wanna hang out.

Gretchen: I wanna hang out, too. But yeah, this sort of “What happens with the other half of the ‘if’?” This is one of the tricky things about talking about hypothetical events that there are lots of different ways of getting into that hypothetical.

Lauren: Which is why the caption on the xkcd comic is “Why I try not to be pedantic about conditionals.”

Gretchen: Very important.

Lauren: A good motto to live by. A lot of conditionals are slippery when the hypothetical part is in the future, and that’s because the future is quite difficult. It is unknowable by its very nature because we have a linear progression of time. That means that the future and irrealis bump up against each other in really interesting ways.

Gretchen: Right. If you make a statement – a relatively unremarkable future-y statement – like, “I’m probably gonna go to the store tomorrow,” or “I want to bake a cake tonight,” these are fine. These express a future or a desired future, but if you make the past equivalent – so instead of “I’m probably going to the store tomorrow,” “I probably went to the store yesterday.”

Lauren: Are you okay?

Gretchen: Like, was I sleepwalking? Was I consuming a substance that made me forget things?

Lauren: Do you have amnesia?

Gretchen: That’s suddenly a much weirder statement. “I want to bake a cake tonight,” fine. “I wanted to bake a cake last night” is fine, but it implies that it didn’t actually happen. Like, “I wanted to bake the cake last night. In fact, I did bake one.” Okay. Well, why didn’t you just say, “I baked a cake last night?”

Lauren: For sure. In fact, this is where English “will” for future came from. Something like, “I will bake a cake” originally meant something much more like, “I want to bake a cake.”

Gretchen: You still get, I think, sometimes these older, tiny things like, “I know it’s gonna happen. I will it.” That’s the same “will” in origin. The wanting intensely is that future “will” – it became that future “will.”

Lauren: The way that “will” is turning into something much more grammatical in the English future is a nice example of how different languages will sometimes use words and sometimes use grammar for these less-real irrealis contexts.

Gretchen: English still has grammatical past – “I baked a cake last night” – which is different from “I bake a cake right now.” But in some languages, instead of having a past/non-past like we have in English, what you actually have is a realis/irrealis where you have one form of a verb to talk about things that have happened or that are currently happening – any version of it that’s real – and then you have another form that’s talking about any version of it that’s unreal, whether that’s future or hypothetical or that whole class of things. It also makes sense as a way of splitting the conceptual timeframe into things that I have evidence for actually happening and things that I don’t yet have evidence for.

Lauren: For example, Manam, which is an Austronesian language in Papua New Guinea, doesn’t have a tense distinction like past and present and future; it has a realis and an irrealis form. They’re all prefixes on the verb.

Gretchen: There’s one set of prefixes for realis, whether it’s like, “I’m doing this,” “You’re doing that,” “We’re doing this,” “They’re doing this,” and so on. And there’s one for irrealis, which is like, “I might,” or “I will,” or “We might,” or “They might,” or all of these groups of forms. Another example of a language that uses realis versus irrealis as a really important distinction is Terêna, which is a southern Arawak language spoken in southwestern Mato Grosso, Brazil. They have two different forms for every verb, which is “actual” and “potential” – basically realis and irrealis – that have different suffixes. You have things that are realis, which can be translated as stuff like, “He went,” or “when he went,” or “He will go,” which in this case is grouped with the realis.

Lauren: So, it’s definitely gonna happen.

Gretchen: The idea is it’s definitely gonna happen. Then, in the irrealis category you have things more like, “Let him go,” or “when he goes,” which is more hypothetical.

Lauren: What people segment up as realis and irrealis differs depending on the grammar of a language.

Gretchen: Exactly. In many cases, English uses just extra words like “will” or “want” or “let” or “if” to indicate that something is irrealis, but we do have a few verb forms that are also used for hypothetical events.

Lauren: One of my favourites involves both mid-20th-Century musicals and Gwen Stefani.

Gretchen: Great.

Lauren: In English, we have two different structures. We have “if I were a rich man.” That is a slightly different structure to “if I was a rich girl.”

Gretchen: Ah, so these are two relatively famous songs. “If I Were a Rich Man” comes from Fiddler on the Roof, which is a 1964 musical.

Lauren: And “If I Were a Rich Girl” is a Gwen Stefani song from 2004.

Gretchen: This immediately gives us these great dates for when these two forms were more popular – “if I were,” “if I was” – and then these two songs that are influenced by each other.

Lauren: This form that has “were,” instead of just the normal past tense “was,” is something known as the “subjunctive.”

Gretchen: Ah, the elusive subjunctive in English.

Lauren: It is elusive because it is changing into this regular past tense form as we see with Gwen Stefani’s “If I Was a Rich Girl.”

Gretchen: Right. Not everybody says the subjunctive in that context. It’s still optionally there. You have to do it in “if I were” or “if he were” because in all the other forms, “if you were,” “if they were,” “if we were,” it’s just the same as the past tense form. You have to use it with “I” or “he” or “she” – one of the forms that would use “was” in another context – to be able to see it show up, which is probably why it’s kind of fragile and disappearing.

Lauren: Yeah, I think so.

Gretchen: Can we try to do a little bit of antedating? Fiddler on the Roof comes out in 1964, but the title of the song “If I Were a Rich Man,” having now looked into it, was inspired by a monologue from 1902 by Sholem Aleichem, which was in Yiddish, and the title of that was, “Ven Ikh Bin Rothschild,” or literally, “If I Were a Rothschild.”

Lauren: So, I don’t have to speak Yiddish to know that they’re talking about the very rich American Rothschild family.

Gretchen: Yes. Something that I think is interesting grammatically about the title of this monologue, which is a great monologue because it all goes on about how he’s gonna build schools for all the poor children and stuff – it’s a great monologue – but is “ikh bin,” which is the same as the German form “Ich bin,” like “I am,” whereas the German subjunctive form in this context is “Ich wäre,” which is more like “I were.”

Lauren: Yiddish and German are related, but they’re already doing different things.

Gretchen: They’re already doing different things specifically with subjunctive. Yiddish is already following this trajectory that English is following where it’s getting closer to the more usual form for “I am.”

Lauren: And you’re just meant to know that it’s hypothetical because he’s not a Rothschild, and he’s not building schools.

Gretchen: Well, and you have this word “if,” yeah.

Lauren: I also did some antedating on Gwen Stefani’s version of “If I Was a Rich Girl,” which was on her debut solo album Love. Angel. Music. Baby. It turns out that it’s actually a cover of a 1993 song by Louchie Lou & Michie One, where they also sing “if I was a rich girl.” Already by the early ’90s in younger people’s speech you see the subjunctive slipping.

Gretchen: Who are Louchie Lou & Michie One?

Lauren: They’re a British female ragga/soul duo from London in the early ’90s and were linked to the film clip for this track because they’re clearly having a lot of fun with it.

Gretchen: They may have had their finger on the pulse of language change a bit sooner than Gwen Stefani in 2004.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: When I think about the connection between “If I Were a Rich Man” and “If I Was a Rich Girl,” I think of an a cappella mashup from the mid-2010s, which combines these two songs in a very fun music video from some very posh-looking British a cappella singers, which we can also link to because it reinforces – and I hadn’t really realised that “If I Was a Rich Girl” was actually playing on “If I Were a Rich Man,” and they’re using some of the same beats in the background of the song. I hadn’t realised there was a connection between those. I should say, when Gwen Stefani came out with that song, she’d already released some music, and she was already pretty wealthy. At the time, you got some newspaper commenters and so on who were saying like, “Isn’t it a bit disingenuous for you to be saying, ‘if I was a rich girl’? Because you are, in fact, a rich girl.”

Lauren: Yeah, but the lyric “if I were not the rich girl that I am so I can be an avatar for my unwealthy audience” doesn’t really have the same ring to it.

Gretchen: Gwen Stefani at the time explained that as she was talking about the time before she had found commercial success when she used to be broke – which, maybe, you know, okay.

Lauren: A different level of hypothetical there.

Gretchen: Two levels of hypotheticality.

Lauren: We’re seeing this really interesting development over the last century or so in English where the subjunctive is changing in English.

Gretchen: Sometimes people say that this is “losing the subjunctive,” but interestingly, in both cases, it’s a past form. “If I was” and “if I were” are both using the form that is associated with the past – “was” or “were” – to refer to an event that is very much not the past. In fact, it hasn’t happened.

Lauren: Ugh, this is why it’s so hard to learn it as a second language speaker.

Gretchen: The subjunctive is something that often comes up when people are learning languages like French, Spanish, Italian – in German, it’s called the “conjunctive,” but it’s the same thing, the conjunctive and the conditional – because these languages have more fully-fledged forms for the subjunctive that they use to express a range of meanings that English speakers know how to express but aren’t used to thinking as all of the same kind of thing. Sometimes, I think it must actually be really hard if someone speaks one of those languages first and is coming in and trying to learn English, and they’re like, “What do you mean I just have this one easy form that I use for all this stuff, and I have to learn, like, seven different ways of expressing it now?”

Lauren: [Laughs] For sure.

Gretchen: I think this must actually also be hard because English doesn’t have one unified subjunctive. We have a whole range of extra stuff. You can just use the subjunctive for all of them? That’s so easy!

Lauren: Yeah. I mean, you could be like me and whenever anyone talks about the subjunctive, in my head I just hear, “if I was-slash-were a rich man-slash-girl.”

Gretchen: I’m glad that you’re covering the full range of possible forms there with “was” and “were.” I remember feeling confused about this form in the classroom and trying to use the subjunctive where, a lot of the times, the context that you’re talking about things are very remote and seem kind of artificial. The thing that really made me feel more comfortable using the subjunctive and recognising it was just encountering it in the wild in a bunch of contexts where it was like, “Oh, yeah, this is what this has to mean.” There’s a particularly useful song for the French subjunctive, if you like, which is on a classic Celine Dion album from the 1990s.

Lauren: Excellent.

Gretchen: The song is called, “Pour Que Tu M’aimes Encore,” which is the title which translates sort of like, “So That You Love Me Again.” The “you love” is subjunctive. It’s hypothetical. It’s not the case, otherwise you wouldn’t have a song to write, but it’s saying all the things that the speaker would do so that the other person loves them again.

Lauren: Really looking forward to the Celine Dion/Gwen Stefani mashup that really helps people learn the French and English subjunctive forms.

Gretchen: Sounds great.

Lauren: The subjunctive is one of a set of different ways that we can talk about whether things are real or not. They’re also a subset of irrealis categories that are about trying to make the reality that you want to happen. There’s a great list on Wikipedia to check out. I feel like this was written by a linguist who is like me and remembers that there are different types of irrealis categories but never remembers their formal names.

Gretchen: This is definitely one of those cases when it’s like, if you know Latin, you just name everything with Latin roots, and then it sounds fancier than “the wish subjunctive” and the “want-to-make-people-do-things subjunctive.”

Lauren: Yes. We are gonna use the fancy names here, but like me, you’re absolutely not obliged to remember them. You can just click on the Wikipedia link whenever you wanna think about –

Gretchen: Every single time.

Lauren: Yeah. Let’s both pick our favourite two of these categories.

Gretchen: But, Lauren, we’re both gonna pick the “hortative” because it’s so cool!

Lauren: It is, and I just used it with “let’s.”

Gretchen: You just used it. “Let’s” both pick our favourite two subjunctive forms. The hortative is something that exhorts – it urges. It’s often found with “let” in English. Something like “Let us love each other,” “Let it snow,” “Let there be light” – imploring, insisting, or encouraging by the speaker. Sometimes, a language will have a specific form potentially used for the hortative, or this will be one of the categories that something like a subjunctive or another irrealis form can be used for. What’s one of your favourites if you can’t have the hortative?

Lauren: Well, if I can’t have the hortative, I will go for the category where an event is hoped for, expected, or awaited, which is the “optative.”

Gretchen: The “optative.” I want to opt into this coming event. Do you have an example of the optative?

Lauren: Something like, “May I be loved” or “May they get what they deserve,” which sounds threatening or hopeful depending on the context.

Gretchen: Can you use something like a “if only”?

Lauren: In Russian, to do something like the optative it would be literally translated as something like, “if only” – “If only she came back” – to do that expected or hoped for thing.

Gretchen: We have a “may something happen,” “if only something happened,” maybe “I wish something had happened.”

Lauren: I love Abkhaz – which is the language that Sarah Dopierala works on; we interviewed her for a bonus – I love that it has two different optative forms, and they both do slightly different things. In Abkhaz, you have Optative 1, which is to curse and to bless, and then Optative 2 is to express a wish, a dream, or a desire. The first one would be something like – the form of greetings is literally “May you see something good,” which is a blessing.

Gretchen: That’s a lovely greeting, yes.

Lauren: It’s a lovely greeting. I quite like. Optative 2 would be something like, “I wish she’d drink the water.” You get these two different forms that give you an idea of different ways you can do an optative.

Gretchen: I mean, I guess technically – we did a whole episode about the imperative, so that’s things like, “Drink the water,” and “See something good,” “Come back” – that is technically a type of irrealis because if you’re commanding someone to do something, it hasn’t happened yet.

Lauren: Ooo, yeah, so now you can go back and look into the whole imperative episode as an irrealis episode.

Gretchen: In principle, we could’ve done an entire hortative episode and an entire optative episode, but we decided to think about the macro category for a while first.

Lauren: My final category is one for when you’re not necessarily sure about the thing that you’re talking about, so you can’t be entirely certain if it’s real or not. This feature shows up in Yolmo. I wrote about it for my thesis. I wrote about it for a whole year before saying it. It turns out that I hate to say the word “dubitative” – /d͡ʒubɪtɛɪtɪv/?

Gretchen: /dubɪdəˈtɪv/.

Lauren: /dubətɪv/. /dubɪdətɪv/.

Gretchen: “Indubitatatative.”

Lauren: I’m very happy to write it for a year, and then I gave a presentation, and I was just like, “Oh, this is a problem.” But it is a grammatical category in Yolmo, and I do have to talk about it because it’s one that crops up in a whole bunch of languages. In English, we use a word like, “might,” you know, “I might make a cake,” “He maybe made a cake.” We use lots of different words for showing a lack of certainty. In other languages, it’s part of the grammar. In Ojibwe, which is an Algonquian language in North America, there is a specific suffix. The difference between saying something like, “aakozi,” meaning, “He’s sick,” or “aakozidog,” which is something like, “He must be sick; I guess he’s sick; Maybe he’s sick.” Like, “I can’t see inside this person’s head. I’m not a doctor. I can’t say for certain whether they’re sick, but they look pretty miserable.” I find having a grammatical form for whether you’re certain about something is so handy.

Gretchen: Technically, if you’d like, I did look up how to say this word. Oxford says /dubɪtɛɪtɪv/, but you know, language is pluricentric. You can say it however you’d like.

Lauren: I’ve definitely heard all of those different pronunciations from different people over time. I guess I will just continue to be uncertain about the way it’s pronounced.

Gretchen: Would you say you have “doubt”? Would you say you’re /dubɪtɛɪtɪv/ or /dubɪdətɪv/ about how to say “dubitative”?

Lauren: I would definitely use a dubitative grammatical form about my certainty about pronouncing it if we had one in English.

Gretchen: Excellent. I think my final form that I’m excited about – because I’m not counting imperative because we did a whole episode about that – I want to talk about a form that you can use to express a desire or a wish of the participant. If you wanna say something like, “I wish she loved me” – you have desire – you can use a /dəzɪdɹ̩ətɪv/ – I think that’s the only way it’s said. There are languages from Japanese and Mongolian to Sanskrit and Proto-Indo-European that all have desiderative forms of some sort.

Lauren: Aww. I like when a nice form crops up across a bunch of languages.

Gretchen: I think that that desire to try to impose order or predict what people are gonna say or what’s gonna be reality is part of what makes irrealis forms, like the subjunctive, complicated and confusing for people to learn is that they’re trying to talk about this whole class of events that haven’t happened yet and may or may not ever happen, which itself is confusing and chaotic to try to predict the future. It’s not the grammar’s fault that we’re using it to speculate about the unknowable.

Lauren: For sure.

Gretchen: One thing that we do know is that there is a fun etymology related to trying to impose order and predict the future of what people are gonna be like.

Lauren: I love a fun etymology story.

Gretchen: Have you ever wondered why the Greek Zodiac and the Chinese Zodiac are both called “zodiacs” even though one is months and the other one is years?

Lauren: I have never thought about this before. Is it something to do with the fact that – I mean, they both have cycles of 12 animals, so they definitely have a lot in common even though they don’t work on the same 12 rotation cycle.

Gretchen: Well, interestingly, it has nothing to do with 12, but etymologically, they come from the Greek “zodiakos kyklos,” or “zodiac circle,” which is literally a circle of little animals.

Lauren: Oh, “zo” as in “zoo.”

Gretchen: Yeah!

Lauren: But “diak” just is the diminutive “little”? Oh, that that is very cute.

Gretchen: Yeah, it’s “little animals.”

Lauren: How adorable.

Gretchen: There’re lots of tools that people use to make sense of the uncertainty or unknowability of reality in the future. Some of those tools are grammatical tools. Some of those tools are –

Lauren: Cute little animals.

Gretchen: Circles of little animals. Sometimes, that tool is etymology because people also use the origins of words to try to make sense of uncertainty even though etymology is also not destiny.

Lauren: We believe that so strongly that we made it into a sticker.

Gretchen: When you’re thinking about what’s real and what’s not real, when you’re wondering what’s knowable or unknowable, what’s certain or uncertain, the irrealis is a form that connects you through time and space to generations of other people who have also wondered what’s real.

[Music]

Lauren: For more Lingthusiasm and links to all the things mentioned in this episode, go to lingthusiasm.com. You can listen to us on all of the podcast platforms or go to lingthusiasm.com. You can get transcripts of every episode on lingthusiasm.com/transcripts. You can follow @lingthusiasm on all the social media sites. You can get scarves with lots of linguistics patterns on them, including IPA, branching tree diagrams, bouba and kiki, and our favourite esoteric Unicode symbols, plus other Lingthusiasm merch like our new “Etymology isn’t Destiny” t-shirts and stickers at lingthusiasm.com/merch. My social media and blog is Superlinguo.

Gretchen: I can be found as @gretchenmcc on Bluesky, my blog is AllThingsLinguistic.com, and my book about internet language is called Because Internet. Lingthusiasm is able to keep existing thanks to the support of our patrons. If you wanna get an extra Lingthusiasm episode to listen to every month, our entire archive of bonus episodes to listen to right now, or if you just wanna help keep the show running ad-free, go to patreon.com/lingthusiasm or follow the links from our website. Patrons can also get access to our Discord chatroom to talk to other linguistics fans and be the first to find out about new merch and other announcements. Recent bonus episodes include my excursion to linguistics summer camp, a.k.a. the LSA Linguistics Institute, a linguistics advice Q&A episode, and swearing in science fiction and fantasy. Can’t afford to pledge? That’s okay, too. We also really appreciate it if you can recommend Lingthusiasm to anyone in your life who’s curious about language.

Lauren: Lingthusiasm is created and produced by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our Senior Producer is Claire Gawne, our Editorial Producer is Sarah Dopierala, our Production Assistant is Martha Tsutsui-Billins, and our Editorial Assistant is Jon Kruk. Our music is “Ancient City” by The Triangles.

Gretchen: Stay lingthusiastic!

[Music]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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dickssociation · 2 years

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in the wake of the Depp/Heard trial's presence becoming a nearly inescapable anywhere on the internet, please try extra hard to be kind to yourself. if you know that it's bad for you to keep reading, please keep scrolling & block any tags people are using for this garbage. i'll be leaving this here then disengaging too.

last night i reached a breaking point after accidentally getting into a conversation with my roommates about what purpose it serves as a publicized event. people either seem to be taking sides in what they see as a soap opera or taking the "mature, detached" approach of denouncing any real-world effect. this isn't just celebrity drama. this is something that will deeply effect the way we look at both domestic violence and mental health. after years of academic research on personality disorders & years of following the personal experiences of people with personality disorders, as well as learning to manage my own bpd symptoms, reading the misinformation that's being reported is so heartbreaking

here's what happened & why it's scary:

•mental illness has once again been used in a court of law to not only support abuse accusations, but also to delegitimize the opponent's testimony

•the specific mental illnesses in question are all Cluster B personality disorders (BPD & HPD for Amber, NPD for Johnny), some of the most historically misunderstood & stigmatized disorders in the entire field of psychology

•it's already very difficult to find professional help that isn't dehumanizing - it just got harder (therapists often flat out refuse to treat people diagnosed or suspected of having a personality disorder)

•this is many people's first time hearing these terms - abusiveness is now an inherent connotation

things to remember:

•throwing around the words "borderlines" or "narcissists" instead of "people with BPD/NPD" reduces a person to a diagnosis & reinforces stereotypes

•turning psychiatric terms into adjectives & using them in phrases like "narcissistic/borderline abuse" is the same as describing someone's behavior as "bipolar" or "schizo" when it negatively affects you - it's demonizing & ableist

•linking a particular style of abuse to a mental disorder allows anyone to look at an abuser and diagnose them with a mental disorder

•it also allows anyone to look at someone with a mental disorder and assign them the status of an abuser

•people (not diagnoses) are responsible for their actions & the effects of those actions

•diagnoses do not dictate personal ethics

•no one is a bad person because of their diagnosis or a good person despite it

•any type of abuse can be perpetrated by anyone, neurodivergent or neurotypical

•every person is different - celebrities in a disturbing legal battle are NOT the faces of personality disorders or really anything else that the general population should relate to

•this will continue to be an incredibly triggering topic for some people with a history of abuse, people with a personality disorder, & especially people with both

•people with personality disorders are much more likely to be abused than neurotypical people (certain symptoms + neurodivergence in general put us at greater risk) - not all of us are victims of abuse, but the majority are (sources below)

•please be sensitive & respectful - we're humans too & feeling like our existence is being criminalized is really upsetting

•please educate yourself before you speak on the experiences of neurodivergency - bias is nearly unavoidable but it's also pretty easy to detect even if academic resources are too dense for you

sources:

1 2 3 4 5

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mean-scarlet-deceiver · 2 years

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What do the colours symbolise to the engines?

@togetherness23 posed this question some while ago. I hope my late response to the conversation can be excused as it took me a while to mull.

I think the tl;dr is that, interestingly, the colour symbolism on the NWR has some overlap, but also some divergence, with the usual associations we make with these colours.

But, as for what those associations are... well, for that you'll have to read.

BLUE: For all these colours, I think we have to take a good look at where they first cropped up on the railway. Because for later arrivals their choice of colour doesn't happen in a vacuum—the connotations have already been shaped.

So, from what we can tell, blue was the railway's original, standard color. Getting painted in it was a mark of favour (you weren't just some loaned engine—you were a North Western engine). It was also likely designed by FC1.

I'm sure for all three of the original blue bois it still holds that significance: acceptance, pride, memories. That said, each of them has their own twist on it.

I do think some of Gordon's snobbery is bound up in the colour. He's probably gotten over it now, but Gordon probably started the idea of "blue is the only color for a really useful engine," given that at first all the exceptions to the standard livery were all engines that he considered in some way to be... well... substandard. (Yes, two of the three of them were also his best friends?? Look, Gordon is weird and complex, all right. I don't know what you want me to say. I think he could consider them friends while also, compartmentalizing, be like "... there but for the grace of Gresley go I. Coming off the rails! Silly little saddletanks of questionable origins! Couldn't be me.") Thomas of course picked up on that idea. Probably he tried to resist it (sharing in a Gordon snobbery) up until the Alliance, but after that all bets were off. Now I'm thinking of it, Thomas getting the notion that blue signified his closest relationships (at that time) and therefore Gordon perhaps being right about the colour could have well be cemented when the three of them were assigned to be the royal visit dream team.

All this said, blue is also, in the books and magazines, the commonest colour for North Western engines. (TVS doesn't portray this at all; that'll be a different story.) Common. I think it speaks well of Gordon, who is so often flanderized as nothing but me! me! meeee! and who does in fact often consider himself a cut above the rest, that he also happily spent a century sporting the standard railway livery, shared by "proper" engines and little shunter tanks alike. There is a solidarity to the colour.

To a greater extent than Gordon (though it's not exactly non-existent with him), I think blue also represents for Thomas and Edward the history and origins of the railway they both helped to build "from the ground up." For all five of the blue engines, actually, blue seems to be associated with tradition and dare I say a sense of loyalty and collective identity. Donald and Douglas have been very explicit that blue represents their own origins on the Caledonian. It also however represents their own acceptance on the North Western, which is something that is very important to them.

This is speculation, but I would add that I think for Edward there is, in addition to the previous paragraphs, an association of blue with water and the sea, which (especially assuming his Furness shed was Barrow, which makes sense if he wound up sort of being shifted over to Sodor bit by bit) has been an important element of his entire life, both pre- and post-Sodor. So there is a parallel here to Donald and Douglas, where blue was not their original livery, but it has associations that resonate with their past even as it shows they are very much living in the present.

However, in TVS we strip Donald and Douglas off team blue and we also lack the assorted background characters who wear the livery. In that case it loses a bit of its association with humility but gains a certain distinction. There are then only three engines who wear it. And, to be sure, they all denote a certain leadership as well as just longevity. I've said it before but it's still true: if I live on North Western rails and I want something big to be done or changed, I probably am best advised to apply to Gordon, Edward, or Thomas. In roughly that order, though of course it depends on exactly what the matter is. And, if I can somehow manage to get the support of all three of them, then the matter's pretty much settled.

Keywords: traditions, collective identity, origins of the railway, loyalty; a slight emphasis on oneself as a company engine; (TVS only) leadership

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GREEN: For Henry and Percy, green represents individuality. It is definitely a soft opposite to the way that blue on this railway represents the collective.

Henry arrived in green, so it represented his origins and all his troubled early history. We saw that he rejected it for a while in his youth in favour of blue—explicitly in order to "be like Edward," and I don't doubt, it was (or became) an attempt to also get in on Gordon's and even Thomas's deal too, as favourites of the Fat Controller. It's interesting how in the books he realized—even before his whole physical rehabilitation thing—that there is no point in trying to be like someone else, no matter how much a sense of friendship or admiration (or envy?) you feel. It's incredibly cool how, even before he'd proven himself, he started being true to himself.

He had to be at least a little annoyed when Percy—cheeky little industrial—arrived in green, and stayed green. Before Percy, Henry appears to have been the only green engine so, like James, it was a special colour, you know. For a special engine. But with both Henry and Percy in green, there's no doubt that other engines pointed out quite explicitly that on the North Western green seemed to represent dubious, non-standard engines of no respectable origin!

It's also worth noting that Henry had to be repainted after his rebuild and so he had another chance to choose, and despite everything (because of everything?) he chose green again. For Henry green represents owning his whole history and being comfortable in his own... erm... paint I guess.

No doubt that Henry also has very positive associations of green with forests and nature. Not only is the colour the same, but in both cases he chose what was not at all an obvious thing for an engine in his position to like and made it his own.

I think for Percy it's all a little less complex, but similar. It represents his origins: "I've always been green!" Like Henry, he's comfortable with who he is. Also, to be frank, he thinks he looks good in it ("Excuse you????? Everyone says I'm handsome!") Let's not lie, he's right; he'd probably look very silly in any other colour. When Henry returned in his new shape and was oohed and aahed over, I reckon it would have cemented the association of green with handsome in Percy's mind.

FWIW it works for Rex too. Perfectly confident guy, nothing to prove.

What about Duck and Oliver? Well, what about them? They don't wear a colour; they wear another railway's livery. Like, I don't think green has quite the same associations for them as it does with Henry and Percy (also, I'm sure it's a different shade of green, so there's that). Interestingly, while for most of the engines I think we can assume the colour they wear is also their personal favourite, I don't think we can assume that for Duck and Oliver at all. My guess is the Duck's favorite is blue (color of the horizon and the sea) and Oliver's is red (or something else kind of badass or Aries or pulp-heroic-esque), but this is pure speculation.

Then there's Daisy and BoCo and Bear. And... it's tough to know whether their green is in the Henry&Percy category or the Duck&Oliver category. I do subscribe to the headcanon that Bear associates his green with Henry's green just because of the literary closure. And for what it's worth, I very much hope the diesels are in the lighter green of Bear's last illustration in EE and Daisy and BoCo's TVs models instead of BR green because they absolutely slay in the former. If so, it would suit, as I think all of them do in fact follow that established symbolism in the Henry&Percy green of individualism and being comfortable with yourself.

Keywords: self-respect, self-esteem, self-confidence; individuality; wholeness; a slight emphasis on a sense of oneself as one's own engine

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RED: I mean, James has been pretty explicit about what red represents to him. Splendid. Admirable. Unique. Un-overlook-able. Beloved. Unique. Special.

I said green represented individuality, which may have occasioned surprise. But I don't think red represents individuality as much as it does aspiration and ambition.

This also holds true for other red characters in TVS, which is nice. Arthur seems worlds apart from James in personality and values, but like James he is ambitious. He wants to shine! A sort of perfectionism in them both, perhaps? James can't abide physical dirt, and Arthur can't abide a spot on his record.

When Rosie goes red, too, it can be seen as a sort of aspiration. She hasn't been taken seriously enough to suit her in the past, so (whether rightly or, as Moonie might argue, wrongly!) tries on red, which on this railway has become the colour of distinction. It's waving a flag: Take notice of me! I'm prepared to show my worth—bring it on!

It maybe works for Mike too?

Green is "i'm comfortable with myself, i don't have anything to prove." Red is "i have plenty to prove, there's something in particular i want to be known and recognised for."

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BROWN: I'm not sure what to make of this one because I feel like Toby might actually be a case similar to Duck and Oliver? Inasmuch as he wears brown because his livery is a callback (if, unlike the Great Western bois, not an exact reproduction) to his old LNER livery?

If Toby has any colour symbolism to go in for, it's probably in the one aspect of his (RWS) paintwork that is new—his sideplates and cowcatchers in the book are painted in blue, in fact what is probably the NWR's signature blue. This would in fact give him the similar associations of the blue boys, and, honestly? It would fit.

But, with both the brown and the blue alike, I think it's worth noting that in RWS we see the Fat Controller decide on Toby's new colours:

It's a useful reminder that sometimes (most times) the engines appear to have chosen their colours, but that other times (and, perhaps, this was true for all of them early on, even if they could change in these times of more liberal management) their colours are chosen for them. And in those latter cases, their colour probably then takes on a significance for the engines because it is also a reminder of the director/controller* who cared enough about them to give it to them.

*or driver? heh. though i'm sure awdry, if asked, would have retconned the end of 'edward and gordon' such that a more likely person made the call about the paint job. though this also goes to the point—relevant also to the paragraph above—that awdry wavered wildly back and forth on how much agency he wanted to give the engines versus how much he wanted to be realistic, and that this probably accounts for the various ways in which they appear to acquire their colours in the books

Okay. But if brown does mean something to Toby because it's brown, and not just his old livery? It would represent his origins, of course, and probably the earth; he's always dealt in produce and farms and now quarries, so the earth is an important theme connecting his pre- and post-Sodor life.

Also... (sorry, Moonie)... I deeply dislike Murdoch's paintwork in TVS. So, let me unveil my personal headcanon, which is that he is in fact painted chocolate (because that would be scrumptious) and then, in this timeline, you'd start to have a vibe on this railway that brown is the colour of engines who are the earthy, strong, silent reliable, reserved type.

(Again, I know you like his paintwork a lot and I do not mean to bash that at all! That said, riddle me this: Would it even be possible to draw a line connecting the values of Murdoch, Nia, and Billy? I ask you.

Also—frankly, I feel we could definitely use more chocolate or umber-coloured engines on this railway! If not Murdoch, then someone—please! *mutters something about how useful and splendid engines can be brown, too*)

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Well, we've already started bleeding into TVS a bit. Let's continue venturing beyond RWS into the rather shakier grounds of TVS canon colour symbolism:

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BLACK: It's often observed that, while Donald and Douglas look better in black, it unfortunately misses the significance of blue representing both their past and present family bonds.

But maybe their TVS black is not devoid of symbolism? In RWS black does consistently seem to mean a sort of deadening corporate-ism; it's the colour of engines who are used but not particularly valued or appreciated. But that is a shame, considering that in real life black often completely slaps on an engine (especially if they are clean and matched with some colourful stock for contrast!)

So it would be nice if in TVS black didn't carry those associations. And indeed, I think you could argue in that continuity that it shifts Donald and Douglas's characters slightly to have presumably chosen that colour but it does them no real disservice. I'd say it represents a certain toughness or scrappiness. They proved their worth on Sodor by doing a job no one else wanted (snow-ploughing) and going at it with a will. The black continues to represent that—although part of the NWR family—they are proud of their role of utility engines, somewhat in contrast to some of the silly showboats that surround them. It also might have a bit of a pirate vibe? It represents them embracing their appearance essentially as it was on arrival, when they spent some time as the bad boys of the Fat Controller's railway. Add to that Donald's slyness and Douglas's outright helping a fugitive escape the braying diesels, and yeah. C'mon. Black represents their indomitable, I-don't-give-a-shit badassery!

Some might observe that Donald and Douglas continue to wear BR Lined Black, not specifically the plainer CR goods livery, and does that make sense considering their history with BR? To which I'd argue it does. Continuing to wear it (and look great in it, tbh) is an act of defiance—which of course is another thing that this colour could be said to symbolise.

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EMERALD GREEN: Emily's colour, I feel, is pretty clear! She is the railway's own Stirling Single, and she has indeed made the dark emerald she wears the sterling colour of high value and of singularity.

It's utterly gorgeous, and it sets her apart while still being practical and in good taste (arguably, a lot of latter TVS liveries—some of which I like!—are rather bizarre designs for railway engines).

But with Emily's singularity does also come a sense of being just... single, too (small or large S). She seems to struggle throughout the show's run with feeling accepted or connecting to others on the level that she wants to. 💚🥺 This is all kinda similar to the red? But there's a distinction here, too, that I'm not sure I'm articulating. James does have a place. He does have friends who are like family. (We don't see as much of Arthur but I see no reason to believe he wouldn't.) James doesn't always get the recognition he wants but he has roots, a role, a clear identity. Emily spends season after season either explicitly or implicitly searching for Her Place.

Anyway, her dark emerald is definitely a very royal colour, which comes with all the burdens as well as the prerogatives thereof.

It doesn't work for Peter Sam; if we must lump the narrow- and standard-gauge together then I'd put Peter Sam in the Henry&Percy green category for colour significance.

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YELLOW: Yes, while Molly's and Rebecca's liveries are rather different in design, I feel comfortable drawing some conclusions about their yellow. What's tougher is the relative paucity of material to work with re: Molly but let's give it a go.

Probably the typical associations of yellow are in play on the NWR, given Rebecca's sunny and optimistic personality. Molly is much shyer and more anxious but it's not at all a stretch to think that either she (or someone else, like TFC) chose yellow for her in that same spirit of hope. Given that they both seem to arrive on Sodor well past mainland dieselisation it's possible that they were both purchased from scrap and also (given Molly's greater age, and given how many seasons apparently pass before Rebecca's arrival) that they would have had to wait a very long time to be restored. So in their yellow colour there would be an element of a fresh start, a new life, and hope fulfilled.

I'd also hazard that (especially in TFC's mind, if he proposed this colour for them) that yellow represents renewal in another way. While to some degree probably all the TVS engines are acquired for their interest to steam enthusiasts, a Claude and a Light Pacific would probably be particular jewels in the NWR collection. I reckon the yellow literally highlights that status. It also gives a sense that, while they very much "fit in" on the Sodor fleet, that they are in some way a fresh, updated version of, say, long-standing stalwarts like Edward and Gordon. (I didn't say updated as in better but, c'mon. Think like you're the NWR promotional team, all right? And don't come after me.)

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

PURPLE: Since in the books the non-NWR railways don't, like, really do anything but boring bog-standard liveries I've mostly been ignoring them and I will also be ignoring the Culdee Fell engines.

I think this leaves Charlie and Ryan. They seem very different sorts, but in both cases there is something rather... subordinate about them? They're both quite eager to be liked, and I'd say that this is what the colour symbolises on the NWR. Not the high-flown associations purple has for most of us, but a signifier that the engine in question just wants to be able to vibe and live in harmony. Charlie's idea of having a good time involves a lot of laughs and bonding, and Ryan's idea of having a good time revolves around being a Very Good Boi, but in both cases I really feel that their end goal is as simple as that. The simple life. Happiness.

We don't know a single thing about Ivo Hugh's whole deal but honestly my gut tells me that this works as an element for him too (for the many people who headcanon him as purple in a television-flavoured SR).

#ttte #this is ttte #ttte liveries #ttte analysis #ttte multiple characters #ttte cast dynamics

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lorelune · 2 months

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loreeeee, i read the blade fic update and i CANT. express. how much i love your writing (again LOL). ugh, the way you write thoughts, mentalities, how ppl navigate and take in info...insane. INSANE. ugh,,,,,,im sorry but having adrenaline "tumble between the eyes" or the weird sureness of his thoughts but still being unidentifiable (unintelligible? or there little understanding of the source of specific thoughts) in and of themselves...the way you write makes me FERAL. im savoring it so much, i just bit into the juiciest orange, the ripest strawberry, took a mouthful of the crispest apple cider ive ever tasted in my life--(sorry im low on sugar rn HAHA)

i have a lot to say. but not enough mental space to go through all of it...but i do want to mention how you wrote the retrospective scenes of blade being washed by kafka, it was captured so well. i know this kind of experience is very nuanced, and i think you expressed how blade processed it well. especially how this shows up in pieces thereafter in the rest of the fic, it's different from just mentioning or referring to a past moment. you threaded the experience to the present and from reading your works overall, i believe this is a "trademark" of your writing, at least to me.

the trademark is that there is purpose in every mention, there is delicacy in choosing a perspective and the lens in which the world is viewed or something is experienced by a character...there is a specific atmosphere, headspace, etc., that you want to convey and the entire thing is brought together with every sentence that follows the previous. youre making these connections, however small they may be, between shards of the characters' lives...it feels like you properly chewed them so you got the texture, flavor profile, salinity, etc., of those characters. it's what got me hooked onto you works, and im afraid (feral, positive) youre only getting better at it. im in trouble (eager) :D

this is small, but i personally love seeing purely from one chara's pov, i love unreliable narrator-esque stuff, it just tickles something in me, maybe bc life is THAT subjective to the one living it (also AP Lit was one of my fav classes back in hs, so is it rlly a surprise LMAO). i love connotations, questionable morals, existential dilemmas, all of it. and seeing that blade is full of the latter two, im SO up for it. i also love how he's constantly (unconsciously) trying to be mindful of the space he takes up, even if he chooses to not care for certain (most) ppl. idk, to me thats a testament to his previous life/experience, and it just adds lore (see what i did there :3) and depth to everything. and im so looking forward to see how he navigates and learns (pog self reflection!) about his violent urges/tendencies, and what they mean for him (and mc)--and even if he doesn't i am looking forward to your writing 🙏

this is not even 1/4 of what i wanted to say LMFAOO, but its 1am for me and i need some sleep...thank you for this lore. :) we are blessed to have you share your talent, its my spiders thread in the hellscape im in (life), love you always, stay healthy and happy lunar new yr if you celebrate!!

SLEEEPY 🥺!! thank you for the kind words!!!!! 🥺💕💕💕!!!!! i am screaming crying throwing UP i appreciate your feedback so so much!!!!!

rambling under the cut <3

writing blade for the architect has been both like.... deeply cathartic and so very different from any character i have written for!!! i don't write a ton in character POV, however blade's feels unique and interesting in a way that keeps me going back to him. the dynamic between blade and reader is so interesting to continue to revisit, and writing their relationship expand and change has been very fun!!

blade is truly monstrous, but not for any of the reasons he thinks. his monstrous is monstrous in the way that he shouldn't exist or be alive, and that he essentially a human weapon, but how he feels isn't monstrous. he's coping. poorly. and through centuries of compounded trauma and an accumulation of mara. he absolutely sees some of himself in reader and can't help but want to ... protect them? if nothing else be near them. it's horrific, the way he thinks, but not monstrous. and i think that's an important distinction in the architect!!!

blade is an incredibly unreliable narrator. it is integral to the story (moreso as we go on) that he is unreliable. his own confusion is woven into the plot and vital to his relationship with the reader. his feelings towards you are a tangled mess, and so much of that comes from his own fractured consciousness.

its been very fun to write and dive into it just like... explore. full send. i started the architect originally as a drabble that was supposed to be uneditted LOL and i didn't want to pull any punches with the implications and like... 'darkness' of the story. i'm glad that you have enjoyed it sleepy and THANK YOU for your comments and elaborations, they truly make my day and get me hype to continue the story too <33 thank you thank you thank you 💞💞💞

#lore answers #sleepy anon #SLEEEEPY #U R SO KIND #i ramble a bunch below the cut but sldakjfa #bouncing off of your thoughts. you see the vision. i appreciate you expressing that u do!!!#be well sleepy <33

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raven-at-the-writing-desk · 2 years

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Hii!I just had a question,what do you think about the “drama” that’s happening rn with the dorm uniforms of diasnomia?(I only heard that it happened because of a mistranslation of an interview with yana toboso)

Firstly, I would caution against labeling the ordeal as “drama”, “discourse”, “tea”, “cancellation”, etc., as I feel that kind of phrasing detracts from the seriousness of the allegations. Words have certain connotations that carry over to their meaning (something that is very relevant to the ongoing discussion), so please keep that in mind!

Secondly, I want to put a disclaimer that I’m NOT speaking as someone who has personally experienced the horrors of war, and nor am I an expert in world history, fashion, or Japanese. I am only speaking from the viewpoint of a TWST fan. In sharing my thoughts and opinions, I only hope that it can lend some nuance to the situation, as it is NOT as clear cut as many are making it out to be.

Now, regarding the meat of the matter. I realize that the topics I will discuss are sensitive ones, and as such, I will be placing it under the cut.

Please proceed with caution, as I WILL be discussing war, N*zi imagery, suicide, and other triggering subjects.

For those who may not be up to speed on what’s happening: in early May 2022, a fan translator posted their English version of an interview Yana Toboso (TWST’s character designer) did in 2020. (Tumblr post of TL here, Reddit post of TL here!) Yana used the term “親衛隊” to refer to her design inspiration for Diasomnia, which the fan translator translated as “SS uniforms”. In truth, “親衛隊” more commonly refers to personal bodyguards, elite guards, and/or intelligence agents, and only refers to N*zis when the context of the situation does. Please also note that the phrase “親衛隊” was in use in Japan prior to WWII, so it does not strictly refer to N*zis. A different term entirely is added to “親衛隊” when specifically discussing N*zis (“ナ/チ/ス”). I must also point out that in later parts of the same interview, Yana makes reference to “rider style jackets” and “jockey pants” (as in, horseriding/equestrian fashion) as part of her inspiration.

OP has since clarified their translation with a disclaimer about their word choice, but the damage has been done. Ever since their posts went live, others in the fandom have been circulating assumptions and speculation that Yana had malicious intent and purposefully designed Diasomnia’s uniforms based on SS ones and/or that Yana herself supports N*zi ideals. There are those that renounce Diasomnia altogether for their clothes resembling SS uniforms, even if they are aware the interview’s original phrasing does not specifically indicate N*zis. Others are uncomfortable just knowing that the translated phrase can lean into the N*zi interpretation.

First thing’s first: it’s okay to feel uncomfortable or if you take offense to the situation, no matter where you stand on the matter. It’s not unusual to feel discomfort or cognitive dissonance when suddenly there’s word that an entire group of characters from a game that you enjoy so much may be associated with the countless atrocities committed by the N*zis. Whether you believe the idea or not, the mere suggestion can trigger intense emotions, and I want to be cognizant of that.

Personally, I believe that Yana meant “personal bodyguard” and not the “SS” in the interview, but I realize that not everyone will agree. That does not, however, detract from the reality that Diasomnia’s uniform does, indeed, resemble military fashion, whether N*zi or not. There are many elements of the dorm uniform that borrow from military uniforms from various countries and eras (for more information on military fashion, I recommend this post!). I would also like to add that military uniforms were, historically, purposefully designed to be “fashionable” and appealing, typically to better convince the public that their country was in “the right” for going to war and to promote a sense of national unity. There’s no way for me to sugarcoat this: no country is blameless; every military kills people and commits atrocities. There will always be some kind of a negative association with the military, which can be considered a detriment to Diasomnia’s dorm clothing design (whether intentionally or unintentionally designed to invoke that imagery).

Regarding the terminology used, I want to say that language is not an absolute. Many words in one language won’t cleanly translate into another. If I had to liken what happened with the mistranslation to something, it’s similar to how some words can have a normal meaning but also a vulgar meaning in colloquial language/slang. Of course, this doesn’t have the same amount of historical weight or damage that the N*zis carried out; I’m only using this as an example of how flexible language can be. When a phrase or word can have multiple meanings, I don’t think it’s wise to immediately assume the worst possible meaning IS the “correct” one, or to accept the first translation we come across as the gospel truth.

Concerning Yana: we should not make assumptions in such broad strokes about another person based on what they create. People are capable of creating things for reasons other than “I support this”. They may want to call light to something or critically discuss it in a way that isn’t possible in real life. This is true of much of literature, from the classics to contemporaries, fiction to nonfiction.

Depicting insensitive things in media becomes a major issue when “bad” things are glorified or treated like they are “good”. The presence of a “bad” thing in of itself does not necessarily make the entire work “evil”. For example, I’ve seen some people argue that Sebek’s racist behavior (the pro-fairy, anti-human stuff) is “proof” that Yana supports N*zism. However, NEVER in Twisted Wonderland has Sebek’s bigotry been depicted as something to be praised; it’s often played for comedy (where Sebek is the joke or the clown to be made fun of) or it alienates Sebek from his peers. Sometimes other characters (or even other Diasomnia students) call Sebek out for acting the way that he does, which demonstrates disapproval of said behavior. Even Diasomnia mob students are not described as being particularly “good”, but as arrogant assholes that bully kids (see: Ortho dorm vignettes).

Now, while that brand of bigotry is not glorified or raised as the ideal in TWST, that’s NOT to say that Disney/Yana has not tripped up in the past or that they won’t ever trip up in the future. TWST still very much has its issues (which I won’t get into now, because that would make this post even longer), but we, as the audience, are capable of being critical of a work and critiquing it while still consuming it.

I’m glad that we’re having this discussion because it shows that the fandom cares about what it consumes and wants TWST to be the best that it can be, but we shouldn’t make this situation so black and white and/or send awful things to the opposing side. As I’ve mentioned earlier in this post, there is much more to consider in this, and I would highly encourage everyone to do their own research into this matter (NOT just a quick Google search or running with unverified sources) before forming an opinion or jumping to a gut reaction. I would also suggest looking into other translations of the same interview to see how other fan translators (especially native Japanese speakers) interpret Yana’s words (here’s one to get you started). We must keep in mind that language is not so easy as a “direct translation” and that many words and phrases have nuances that don’t translate well into other languages; seeking out multiple translations may give us a more accurate view of the original intent.

What’s important here is that we understand context, don’t jump to conclusions, and respond accordingly (do research, get informed, ask for other opinions, design alternate uniforms, think critically, consider context, speak mindfully about the matter, ask for change, etc). It does NOT mean you can send death threats or “KYS” messages to Yana, TWST devs, anyone involved in the project, or people that doesn’t share the same opinion as you. It does NOT mean you should assume the people defending Diasomnia’s dorm uniform are N*zi sympathizers or imperialists. It does NOT mean you should dismiss any and all comments from the people that are genuinely concerned; their feelings are just as valid as yours are, even if you disagree.

That is another human being you are talking with. I want to emphasize talking WITH, not talking TO; there IS a difference, because “with” implies you’re open to to discussion, whereas “to” implies only dispensing your words and not wanting or expecting a response to what you said.

You can be upset and you can express your thoughts on this matter WITHOUT wishing harm upon other people and WITHOUT being nasty.

#twisted wonderland en #twisted wonderland #twst en #twst #Diasomnia #tw // nazis #tw // war #tw // death threats #tw // suicide #putting this in the main tags to spread awareness #disney twisted wonderland #notes from the writing raven #question

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huginsmemory · 1 year

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Hi i just wanna say i have read and loved your analysis for trigun/tristamp/vash/wolfwood etc! I came scross with them when i finished tristamp and slowly was reading the manga however i felt a very weird feeling when s1 ended and tried to see if it was only me or there were more out there. I am sorry if this comes out of nowhere its just that i have no one to talk about this :/// and the few people who watched tristamp they have not read the manga or care as much.

I love tristamp very much as a product, i think they did marvellous but the one aspect that made me just not be completely insane is how much they have changed the relationships. I feel the way they upped Knives and Vash and seems completely sided other characters felt like a disservice when i think about it, almost like fanfiction. I feel weird thinking about it this way because i do think and i have seen how much love and passion they put into the project but i just feel at this point s2 wont be able to set up the other relationships anymore.

The one i am the most sad about is Vashwood, shipping aside i feel their relationship is as detrimental to Trigun as Vash and Knives. And it just feel tristamp wrote themselves into a corner with them. And to be honest too, i just feel WW entire arc will be different now, so a whole diff character. It pains me 😢

I think tristamp did great making an argument for how knives is how he is and making him a great antagonist very grey scale but being so short i have already seen people completely disregarding Vash’s philosophy and actions are useless or stupid. I understand it comes from just watching the series but wow, idk i feel it can totally backfired on the long run.

Sorry for bothering you 🙏

Hey!! So sorry this is very late response haha, lifes been quite busy. Also you really have zero need to apologize, I always enjoy engaging with others, so actually thank you for the ask! Even if it takes me forever to do so... 😅 This ended up being pretty long, LOL, so it's beneath a readmore...

As for your comments about how tristamp has changed the relationships of the characters... I have to agree from what I've seen that it really makes me feel like the way they are setting it up will be detrimental, as you've put it, to the original arcs. There's a lot that's been changed, especially character wise (some of which I've delved into for Wolfwood and Vash in my previous opinion piece), which rubs me the wrong way. I know that it's technically supposed to be a prequel but theyve also shuffled some very important and heavy hitting trimax scenes into the prequel, which lacks the ooomph and build up to the scenes that occurs in the manga, and makes me question what they are going to do in the long run to replace those scenes.

Also on a more personal note, I really dislike pregnancy horror, especially pregnancy horror as a result of SA, which stampede has heavily leaned into... and which didn't feature at all in the manga. Indeed, there very much heavy discourse on bodily autonomy and sexual assault within the manga; but there isn't specifically pregnancy horror at all in the manga. The only thing related to the manga that does indeed have plant pregnancy related stuff is one of the guest comics in Trigun multiple bullets, which is HUGELY sexualized, and it's connotations with that then make me very wary to see it pop up in tristamp. Overall it feels a bit off and jarring to suddenly have it be centre stage as a theme/conflict, even if the theme behind it of bodily autonomy is the same. Honestly, it feels a bit sensationalist to me as if it's almost used as an attention grab of look at this doesn't it make you uncomfortable? And seeing how some of the other things in the show have shifted to be more sensationalist and very clear and open about themes/actions of characters (very contrary to Nightows style of writing, which tends to keep things grey and nebulous and slow burn-y, which I personally very much enjoy, because I like having to draw parallels rather then having thing spelled out for me) makes me wonder if they are doing a similar thing with that, and trying to be more overt about the themes of bodily autonomy and chose to do that via pregnancy horror. Or maybe someone in the team just had a pregnancy fetish... Anyhow, I've digressed from what you were talking about entirely, oops...

As you've put it about how some of the relationships feel like fanfiction, as I've put in the post I've linked above, I very much feel like they are trying to lean into a wide audience... Which means a more canon hetship as is seen with Meryl taking on some of Wolfwoods actions and literal lines from trimax for a Vash x Meryl relationship, while removing more obvious queer representation (or other things that may be considered 'unfit' for a larger audience, such as the removal of Razlo and making Livio just brainwashed so far...). As a result, I'm pretty sure Wolfwood will play a more minor role than he did in trimax, his relationship with Vash going to be not as deep. Personally, I'm unsure also at how they're going to go about the whole 'Wolfwood fully accepting Vash and loving him to the point of literally sacrificing his life and everything he's worked for to save Vash, fufilling Vash's disagreement with Knives on wether humans will truly fully accept plants', something that's pivotal to one of the underlying the themes and also making the story unequivocally queer in nature (since this is usually something a heterosexual love interest would fufill) even if Nightow didn't mean it to be. I feel Meryl might instead step in to fill that position instead, and while Wolfwood still has a somewhat deep relationship with Vash, it's going to be more shallow, which would be very disappointing (for me at least). It'll be interesting to see if they, like in 98, go for millywood as well for more hetships that can draw in the audience. In the meantime, the more canon queer rep is removed, and is instead very much relegated to subtext, such as Elendira being a literal child... but also including leaning into a queer subtext for garnering an audience that is interested in queer ships. And even twisting some characters motivations a little to lean into queer subtext to garner the queer section of a larger audience... Which includes Knives new 'I've done everything for you' in regards to Vash, which he doesn't say in trimax, and actually fully attempts to kill Vash in response of Vash standing in the way of his goal, even if he also has difficulty with his decision (very different!).

On the subject of Knives, I'd say that he's maybe got a bit better of a sympathetic goal within tristamp but I'd still say compared to trimax, I personally think it's still not particularly well written. I'm saying this specifically as they make stamp!Knives always detached from humans when in fact in trimax he very clearly has high hopes for being accepted by humans and even cries when Conrad accepts them when he was young and pre-Tesla. This allows him to be a much more fleshed out character then in either of the animes, since you understand that he's very much motivated by fear and stuck in the fear reaction of rejection of humans. It's possible we will get a more nuanced background in the new season, but considering that they've already set the story in that manner I don't have high hopes for it, but I also tend to be negative, haha.

At the same time, I'm very much in the same boat as you; it's incredible to see the love and effort put into the show, and makes me excited about it... But that excitement pales in comparison to the way they feel like they've hamfisted the characters a bit, and my own questioning on how they are going to continue the show, and how they've shifted some of the themes around. I've also seen/heard of other people deriding Vash for his beliefs, and I think the way they have set up the themes and make Vash feel a lot younger and inexperienced lends to that perception by people, which is... well, big yikes if a good portion of your audience is missing the themes. Hopefully moving forward this is remedied but I again doubt that. I know they were trying for a prequel so the way the handled the themes and want the character to 'grow' is part of that, but at the same time... there is no issues with the original character arcs for the characters within Trimax, and 98 barely scraped the lore that's available in trimax due to the majority of trimax not existing, so I don't really understand why they really decided to go for a completely new retelling (well, I do, but still...). Again, I'm absolutely happy to see that trigun is back and, hell I've gotten re-into trigun and actually read trimax this round, and it's lovely to see that the animators are putting in a lot of love and thought into tristamp... but at the same time feel like there's lots of issues with the themes and characterizations, and I honestly doubt that it'll be fixed moving forward, so you're not alone with that, and I've talked to multiple other people who have the same qualms about tristamp!

#huginspeaks #trigun #tristamp negativity #opinion piece #hugin speaks #hugin rambles #SA mention #pregnancy horror mention #vashwood discussion #tristamp discussion

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