You are a small Shih Tzu who just heard the Adam West Batman theme tune start up from the bedroom which means it is ✨snuggle time✨ in bed with Mama while she watches her stories and you’re so happy about it.
I miss when everyone on my dash listened to Welcome to Night Vale so there’s be a good chance that on any ole day someone would reblog a quote that would grab me by the throat and forcibly ascend me to a higher plane where I understood myself and the universe better and with more kindness but also a little spook
“The past is gone, and cannot harm you anymore. And while the future is fast coming for you, it always flinches first and settles in as the gentle present” are you kidding me this quote has propelled me through at least three emotional crises
“The desert seems vast, even endless. And yet scientists tell us that somewhere, even now, there is snow.” That quote literally got me through grieving my brother like WTNV goes HARD
A List of Some of My Favorite Quotes From This Insane Podcast:
“You are beautiful when you do beautiful things.”
“The present tense of regret is indecision.”
“We understand so much, but the sky behind those lights– mostly void, partially stars– that sky reminds us we don’t understand even more.”
“Be proud of your place in the Cosmos. It is small and yet it is.”
“Believe in yourself. You are an ancient, absent god, discussed only rarely by literary scholars. So if you don’t believe, no one will.”
“Death is only the end if you assume the story is about you.”
“Whisper a dangerous secret to someone you care about. Now they have the power to destroy you, but they won’t. That’s what love is.”
“Are we living a life that is safe from harm? Of course not. We never are. But that’s not the right question. The question is are we living a life that is worth the harm?”
“When we talk about teenagers, we adults often talk with an air of scorn, of expectation for disappointment. And this can make people who are presently teenagers feel very defensive. But what everyone should understand is that none of us are talking to the teenagers that exist now, but talking back to the teenager we ourselves once were – all stupid mistakes and lack of fear, and bodies that hadn’t yet begun to slump into a lasting nothing. Any teenager who exists now is incidental to the potent mix of nostalgia and shame with which we speak to our younger selves.”
“We are not history yet. We are happening now. How miraculous is that?”
“Wednesday has been cancelled due to a scheduling error.”
“We have nothing to fear except ourselves. We are unholy, awful people.”
“A million dollars isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? A basilisk.”
“There’s nothing under your bed. There’s nothing in your closet. Nothing waits in every darkness. Nothing is the most terrifying thing of all.”
“The night sky is ten miles wide, eight miles deep, and floats three miles up. Its favourite food is grape jelly. It wants to be a drummer.”
“Look to the sky. You will not find answers there, but you will certainly see what everyone is screaming about.”
“Ignorance might not actually be bliss, but it is certainly less work.”
“And now, a special report. Crocodiles: Can they eat your children? *YES.*”
“Lie down and look up at the ceiling and breathe with those curiously fragile lungs of yours and remind yourself: Don’t worry. Don’t worry. All is as it was meant to be. It was meant to be lonely and terrifying and unfair and fleeting. Don’t worry.”
“As long as I’m reminding myself things, I’m a good person, worthy of love – both from myself and others.”
“Guns don’t kill people! It’s impossible to be killed by a gun. We are all invincible to bullets and it’s a miracle!”
“Everything is exciting! Particularly existence. Existence is the most thrilling fact of all.”
“There is a monster under your bed. A monster at your window. A monster any place you imagine one. You project your monsters on the world.”
“You miss 100% of the bank robberies you don’t commit.”
“I like my coffee like I like my nights. Dark, endless, and impossible to sleep through. ”
“A friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep. Welcome to Night Vale.”
“And now, the weather.”
I discovered this podcast at the beginning of high school, and let me tell you, it rewired my synapses.
Not only was it my first experience with positive LGBT representation, it was the show I clung to when everything else went to shit. Whatever was going on in my life, I knew I had this show in my corner, making me laugh, making me cry, making me feel okay about my place in the universe.
I owe the creators of this podcast more than I could express.
“the lights over the Arby’s” is such an intrinsically queer piece of writing that it hits me *hard* every time.
“We will never be the same again. But here’s a little secret for you: no one is ever the same thing again after anything. You are never the same twice, and much of your unhappiness comes from trying to pretend that you are. Accept that you are different each day, and do so joyfully, recognizing it for the gift it is. Work within the desires and goals of the person you are currently, until you aren’t that person anymore, and everything changes once again.” (from Episode 75)
“The universe is vast. You are also vast. So is an ant. There are different sizes of infinity.”
I love it when pets do the thing where they’ve clearly figured out that certain steps result in an outcome, but they can’t quite DO it themselves.
The cat understands that their food is in this container, and that their human gets it, and brings it to the dishes, and then there’s food.
But having no thumbs has prevented them from their triumph.
I on the other hand love that he insists on using the bowl even though he could probably just rip/chew a hole in the bag.
Which indicates that he’s probably not quite sure WHICH of the steps are crucial so he’s earnestly repeating them all.
(kids do this too - it’s called overimitation and there are experiments on it.)
An attempt was made.
The other day I was walking the dog and we got locked out and while I was waiting for someone to come unlock the door, he SAT with SO MUCH INTENTION like “idk what the other part is but I KNOW that something about *The dog is sitting* is helpful to opening doors and by golly I’m gonna do my part” and it was adorable.
okay but for those of us with interests in both the murderbot and the daomu biji fandoms this is kinda hilarious
(english-side-only really, i get that the kanji and hanzi are completely different)
our good (air)ship murderbot! thanks google
I love reading about these kind of translation decisions.
I’ve only ever seen 弊 used to refer to one’s company: 弊社, as the article says.
I’ve been told 弊 is used to refer to one’s own something, and it has a very humble nuance.
So 弊機 translates to something like “I, your humble machine” or “I, who am but a mere machine”.
Japanese is great that it can say so much with simple pronouns.
Romance language translator: well we don’t have a gender neutral pronoun so I guess we’ll flip a coin for male or female
Japanese language translator, an intellectual: none of Japanese’s 30-something plus personal pronoun options have the perfect vibes so I’ll create a new one to bring that special somethin’
Thinking of the larger context of LOTR and like, the fellowship swapping old war stories and shit and Sam just says “Yeah I killed a huge spider…Shelob, I think?”
And Gandalf just blinks and is like, “You what now?”
“Yeah, killed it. Had to save Frodo”
Gandalf elects not to tell Sam that he killed the spawn of a primordial demon.
the daughter of the embodiment of darkness which ate the original sun and moon and almost ate the devil.
That’s not important. What is important is that it was a danger to Mister Frodo.
Time for me to info dump about Sam and Shelob.
In lord of the rings lore, there are three tiers of deities. The highest tier and most dangerous includes Morgoth - Sauron’s master, and Ungoliant, Shelob’s master. The middle tier includes Shelob, Sauron. Then there’s the lowest tier, which includes the wizards Gandalf and Saruman as well as the Balrog (this is why Gandalf couldn’t 1v1 the Balrog). It also explains why Gandalf doesn’t take the ring, the magic of a tier 2 deity would absolutely corrupt him. We even see that happen with Saruman and the Palantir.
This leads to the start of the answer to some interesting questions. Why does Sauron tolerate Shelob being in his territory, and why does Sauron tolerate there being a secret back door into Mordor?
On the surface, he does it because he might not be able to beat Shelob in a fight, after all they’re the same tier of deity. And since Shelob’s domain is the secret way into Mordor, he can’t close it off, and he seriously doubts anyone can use it to get in. He doesn’t monitor the path with guards either - Shelob would eat them.
It gets more detailed than that though. Sauron’s boss, Morgoth, and Shelob’s boss, Ungoliant, made a deal. They’d attack the tree of life together. Morgoth would drink the nectar, and Ungoliant would keep all of the jewels and magic they earned along the way. Morgoth broke this deal because there was a particularly powerful gem he wanted (the gem in Sauron’s helmet), and as a result Ungoliant went to war with Morgoth.
Ungoliant won, Morgoth barely escaped with his life.
So not only does Sauron maybe lose if he attacks Shelob. Even if he were to win, it might provoke Ungoliant into attacking Morgoth again, and Ungoliant wins that fight, she’s already done it once.
With all of that established, how the hell does Sam hurt a deity that powerful?
Well, to start, it’s impossible. Shelob’s hide is so tough Sam could never pierce it with all his might. However, Shelob had grown old and arrogant. During the fight, Sam winds up directly underneath Shelob, and Shelob decides to crush Sam with all her strength.
Unfortunately, Sam is pointing sting straight up.
While Sam lacks the strength to hurt Shelob, Shelob herself is plenty strong. She accidentally impales herself on sting, finding herself injured for the first time in thousands of years. Which is the sort of poetry I really appreciate about Tolkien’s writing.
No matter how powerful or evil or ancient or indestructible your foe, if you stand for what is right and hold your sword out, they will impale themselves upon it.
Sam’s backstory in this scene is much simpler. He has to save Frodo.
I love it when tolkien fans reblog posts with the deep lore receipts. Thank you
And oooh, it pisses me off when I see people calling Jingyan stupid.
Mostly, people seem to mean that he’s stupid for not figuring out that MCS is Lin Shu, when Jingyan is the person that MCS is trying hardest to deceive, and MCS is in fact brilliant at lying.
Sure, Meng Zhi figures it out from seeing his eyes - because MCS had already written him letters over the years, so he knew he was alive and was looking out for his return.
Sure, Nihuang figures it out - but MCS wasn’t trying as hard to pull the wool over her eyes. He slips up on multiple occasions with her, in rather large ways. When she confronts him in Episode 12, he a) goes into that conversation prepared to “let Lin Shu dissuade her” and b) says only that he wasn’t expecting her to be the *first* person to figure him out - and then proceeds to admit his identity as Lin Shu to get her to cooperate with him.
Jingyan comes close to recognizing him SO MANY TIMES, from exceedingly tiny clues, and MCS always, always shuts him down with direct lies. He even gets other people to lie with him - presumed neutral party Wei Zheng, and also Consort Jing, who is Jingyan’s MOTHER and probably the only person Jingyan completely trusted for those twelve years of almost-exile, and also absolutely brilliant at lying and manipulation (see: every scene of hers with the Emperor, ever). So Jingyan keeps backing down and convincing himself he was wrong, until the evidence of his own eyes is finally more overwhelming than all the lies he’s been fed. The cumulative effort borders on gaslighting, frankly.
I also wonder how often Jingyan has recognized Xiao Shu in people before, over the years. Nihuang’s grief is the most comparable – just as personal and powerful and lasting, but she’s a lot more…stable? steady? grounded? She grieved her fiance deeply, but she did it at home in Yunnan, with distance and family and a support network and friends. She hates what happened, but is resigned to the case being closed. She had a brother to raise, her people to lead, a border to protect, a purpose in life that let her move on, at least a little.
Jingyan, on the other hand, lost all the people who brought him up except for his mother, who he can only see once a month even when he’s in the capital, which is rare, because he was practically exiled, with no information about why, and then spent twelve years bleeding from an open emotional wound with no closure, stubbornly ripping it and himself open every time he weighed a decision and remembered that the dead were watching him, every time he looked around the manor where he told Xiao Shu ‘everything that’s mine is yours’, every time his brothers played for power with people’s lives, every time his father sent him into danger and then scorned him when he came back alive. He had no closure, no comfort, and no personal support.
We know from canon that he’s been stuck in the denial/anger stages of grief for over a decade: he’s so coldly furious he can barely keep it bottled up to save his life, he refused to believe the Chiyan case even without any evidence to support him, he keeps one of his friend’s beloved weapons preserved untouched on a rack like he’s just awaiting his return, he explicitly didn’t believe Lin Shu was really dead until Wei Zhang told him so. He breaks the law to sneak into his mother’s palace so he can cry in private about missing Xiao Shu and his mother doesn’t even look surprised. Is anyone shocked that he doubts his instincts, after twelve years of being told he was wrong and his friend was dead and there was no hope? Is it any surprise that he sees Lin Shu’s ghost in the man who gives him the first path forward out of that limbo?
Nihuang had the stability of her grief to give her solid ground, and the self-assurance that let her trust her instincts and declare that MCS was Lin Shu to his face. I think Jingyan has been painfully alone and seeing Lin Shu’s ghost around every corner for twelve years, and he couldn’t trust himself to have it right this time.
The only patently stupid thing I think Jingyan does in the whole series is believe the story about MCS leaving Consort Jing in danger, and that’s a stupid thing arising from an carefully crafted conspiracy by his enemies, so I’m willing to cut him some slack. At least he didn’t deliberately lie to all his friends for years and then basically take a slow-acting poison and go off to die in battle unlike SOMEONE ELSE I COULD NAME.
Also shout-out to the Swedes for just borrowing the French “adieu” into their vocabulary and just spelling it “adjö”
German has borrowed the italian “Ciau”, spelling it “Tschau” and only using it as a goodby instead of also a greeting.
I had completely forgotten about this, this is fantastic.
If you enjoyed “ciao” becoming “tschau”, you’ll definitely want to hear where “tschüss” (German, also meaning “goodbye”) comes from!
Borrowed from German Low German tschüß from earlier adjüs, from Dutch adjuus, back-formation from adjuusjes, from French adieu.
We can’t let the French keep getting away with this
I mean the french very much aren’t getting away with it. Everyone else is taking their language and running off with it cackling with glee. We’re all getting away with fucking up french words on purpose
ALT
ALT
