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notaplaceofhonour · 2 months

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I understand and agree with pointing out that the Holocaust didn’t just affect the Jews that lived in Europe, and shedding light on the stories of Jews in other territories under Axis control. Every life lost or uprooted in the Holocaust matters and deserves to be remembered, not just Ashkenazim.

However, I’ve been seeing a bit of an overcorrection to the point that this valid & important point get twisted by some into the idea that Ashkenazim weren’t actually all that affected by the Holocaust at all and may have actually been safer than other Jews due to being White/European*, and I wanted to walk through exactly why that is so far from the reality and gets into really dangerous Holocaust Distortion.

The fact is that the vast majority of Holocaust victims were Ashkenazim. How do we know this? Well, first and most obvious without even getting into the numbers: the Nazis were most active in Eastern Europe, where most Jews were overwhelmingly Ashkenazi. Germany had colonies elsewhere and the affect the Holocaust had on Jews living in Africa and Asia is not any less important (and the fact remains that their stories are a genuine gap in Holocaust education that needs to be filled), but this doesn’t change the fact that the center of Nazi activity was Europe, and thus that is where their impact on Jews was most intense. But it’s important to not just go off of what seems “obvious” because what’s obvious to any given person is subjective and subject to bias. So let’s look at the numbers:

Estimates prior to the Holocaust put Ashkenazim at 92% of the world’s Jewish population (or roughly 14 million of the 15.3 million total Jewish population), meaning that it would be physically impossible for less than 4.7 million (or 78%) of the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust to be Ashkenazim.

Even that number is only possible to reach by assuming that only Ashkenazism survived and literally every non-Ashkenazi Jew died in the Holocaust, which we categorically know is not the case due to the continued existence of Sephardim & Mizrahim, as well as other Jews. So the number has to be higher than 78%.

Additionally, the fact that the proportion of the world’s Jewish population that was Ashkenazi fell so drastically during to the Holocaust and still hasn’t recovered (from 92% in 1930, only recovering to close to 75% in the last couple decades) means that not only a higher overall number of deaths were Ashkenazim, but that a higher proportion of the total Ashkenazi population died than from other groups.

We also know that 85% of Jews killed in the Holocaust were Yiddish-speakers. The fact that Yiddish is endemic to Ashkenazi culture (and not all Ashkenazim would have even been Yiddish-speakers) due to assimilation means that at least—and most likely more than—85% of Jews killed in the Holocaust were Ashkenazi.

So, no, Ashkenazim were not some privileged subcategory of Jews who avoided the worst of the Holocaust. They were the group most directly devastated by it.

That doesn’t change the fact that the devastation the Nazis and their allies wreaked on other Jews is every bit as important to acknowledge and discuss, and must not fall by the wayside. The stories and experiences of all victims & survivors deserve to be heard, remembered, and honored, not just the most common or most statistically representative of the majority of victims. However, we can (and must) do that without allowing the facts of the Holocaust to be distorted or suggesting Ashkenazim were somehow less affected by the Holocaust or more privileged under the Nazis. The Nazis hated all Jews. Antisemitism affects all Jews. Period.

*without getting too deep into how categories like Ashkanzi/Sephardi/etc. don’t map neatly onto race like so many people seem to want them to. that’s a different post, but just pointing that out

#antisemitism #holocaust distortion #tw shoah #tw holocaust #ashkenazi #ashkenazim #minhag

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dostoyevsky-official · 5 months

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You know Mandarin??

sometime in the spring of this year i kept encountering the idea on other social media that chinese is impossible to learn for europeans, that it's too difficult, that no westerner can learn or truly understand it, and in combination with a mainland friend visiting and telling me the ancient chinese etymology of some basic characters (and the 白人饭 Lunch of Suffering meme) i got fed up/enchanted and did the extremely mentally healthy thing of teaching myself basic mandarin, through about ~april to july. at some points in may i remember coming home from work, scribbling characters in my mandarin notebook over and over, doing chores, going to sleep, and repeating the cycle. a taiwanese friend on here helped out with a lot (it's much, much easier if you have chinese friends to help you, however, i am really not about traditional, although i admit it's more beautiful) and baptized me with a chinese name.

i don't know mandarin, and at this point a lot of the characters i'd learned have faded from memory, but i insist that it's not actually difficult to learn chinese (up to a point— maybe HSK 3 or 4 is where it gets really difficult). in fact, learning chinese is really, really fun.

the difficulty lies in the fact that you have to do it every single day for at least an hour, probably for more (i spent pretty much all my free time on it, but there was something not normal going on with me then). you'd think, isn't that the case for every language? yet i don't remember doing daily french like that, and i consider some aspects of french conjugation/russian grammar much more difficult than what chinese throws at you at similar difficulty levels (good luck with motion verbs, non-slavic speakers). i found learning characters to be very, very easy. they're all distinct. if you learn them together with their etymology, looking at ancient chinese and how they developed along with associated idioms, it's endlessly rewarding. at least in the early levels, there's a bit of a system to how characters and words come together and increase in complexity—sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's cute. it's a breath of fresh air to start reading even basic sentences and idioms in a language so entirely different from anything you've experienced before. many people say speaking chinese is easier than reading/writing: in my experience, that's false. i barely started getting a grasp on the tonal system (my goal was to get to HSK 1 solely through written chinese); i remember listening to the same 2 minute audio clip of two people exchanging phone numbers for half an hour or something once before getting everything right. people say "chinese doesn't have grammar" but that's not true, because otherwise it won't be a language at all, though you don't have to learn any conjugations, declensions, etc. at HSK 1-2 you just throw a modifier/particle into a sentence and you're good to go.

the other main difficulty besides tones is that imo chinese culture is borderline impenetrable if you want to have a genuine stab at it (but for this you don't, necessarily, need to learn mandarin). you can learn HSK 1-2 in a few months or a semester, but it will take you years to genuinely understand the cultural context—there truly is no context clue or familiar idea you can latch on to, as opposed to when learning a european language/history, or even turkish, arabic, persian; there is nothing in common here, and if you guess, you'll probably wind up wrong. it all makes me think of how many journalists/experts get russia wrong: i now firmly do not believe a word of what people write about asia unless i find the author knows the language

anyway

#keep in mind of course i did not go past HSK1 #i prefer simplified but seeing what they did to 門 makes one a rabid antimaoist #you get to understand the pò èr shǒu chē reel of the little chinese girl pointing at a porsche that goes around on instagram.#i truly wish china was somehow connected to what i study bc i cannot justify spending that much time on mandarin #unfortunately the harbin russians didn't bother with chinese #smth else about this blog is that india is likewise impenetrable to me. the sheer historical and geographic scale is unbearably intimidatin #where does one even start?#ed* ^ i know the basic 101 historical outlines but i don't think that's “knowing” a place

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tissitpoispaita · 1 year

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Which language family does your native language belong to?

I like the idea of this poll by @akozuheiwa, but Indo-European skews the results way too much with its massive online prevalence and number of speakers. So, I'm wondering if the poll could be improved by breaking IE into its extant branches. Probably not much, since English speakers will just make this a Germanic sweep, but it could be a step in the right direction.

Out of all the non-IE families, I added Uralic as a separate option because it was by far the most often listed family in the previous poll's tags*, and "other, list in tags" so far has more answers than all the biggest non-IE families combined. Plus, the majority of its speakers are Europeans and thus more likely to be on English-speaking Tumblr.

*(Many people also listed Finno-Ugric, which is a Uralic group)

IE branches containing a single extant language (Albanian, Armenian, and Hellenic/Greek) were combined to make room for two more poll options out of the four biggest families besides IE: Afro-Asiatic & Niger-Congo and Austronesian & Sino-Tibetan. Please tell me if these groupings don't make sense.

People with more than one native language, please choose "other" if multiple categories apply.

As always, please reblog for a bigger sample size.

#lingblr #linguistics #langblr #languages #language #language families

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a-hobit · 9 months

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Since Luz and Hunter in your switched AU are born in 1600s colonial America and Luz clearly speaks Spanish in the AU (shown in a comic) and is Latina (specifically Dominican) in show cannon, is there any history stuff you’re adhering especially considering the differences between Spanish and English colonies in location and demographic or are you ✨going rogue?✨ Is Luz an indigenous-Spanish mix like many Latinos are today? How would she have gotten to mainland since a lot of Spanish claim was in the Caribbean or Florida and treatment of indigenous people by Europeans, specifically Spanish and British, was notoriously brutal? Sorry if I’m absolutely overthinking this. This is coming from a history nerd, so I’m just curious how that’s going to work considering the realities of racial divides in colonial settlements during 1600s America and the relatively small number of Spanish people that actually would’ve lived there by then. AGAIN SORRY IF I’M OVERTHINKING IT I’M JUST A NERD FEEL FREE TO JUST BE LIKE “NAH.”

OH btw, I noticed a comment in a comic that implied trans Hunter and just wanted to mention that there’s some super interesting accounts of LGBTQIA+ people from the time period if you’re interested. I know of a fan work about Caleb and Phillip where Caleb is trans that covers that extensively if you want a link.

I LOVE ASKS LIKE THIS ANON!! Because IM overthinking it but at least someone else is too! So there's a lot I can't answer due to spoilers -- and I actually will be explaining a fair bit because I just am so charmed at how we are so on the same wavelength here so if you don't want to not know literally anything even a little bit spoilery about Luz or Hunter before the comic comes out I would ignore this ask! -- but I will go into some of it!

Okay! So I tossed and turned on this exact issue for FUCKING MONTHS. Go rouge or loophole? How historically accurate did I want to go with this concept and how much of that accuracy am I sacrificing for just needing something to be a certain way? Do I want to be as accurate as possible or have a cohesive and interesting story?

The answer is a little bit of both! Im much more of an art history nerd than a straight up history nerd but I have my moments! I love the sociopolitical conundrum having a latina Dominican (ALSO half black! Love that about her but SO hard to write in!) girl in 1600s America because it can be as little or as highly complicated as you can get. I drew a lot of inspiration for a long few months pouring over what groups of people were where and when -- what languages they spoke -- wether the books that I could find could describe a day to day of these people rather than just political conflicts.

Footnote : There are certain Native American groups so fucking overlooked that they don't even have ONE BOOK of comprehensive (non war centered) history that isn't a four year old reading level. I looked for WEEKS. I tried everywhere and was even willing to start to buy reading material but it just doesn't exist? Especially around the original colonies????? HOW!! People around me started telling me I should write a book because of how much I was obsessing over it and trying to find any information but no books can be written on close to NONEXISTENT historical writings! OKAY BACK TO IT--

I looked out for the first sightings of Spanish in the west and where they were headed -- wether or not any Spanish broke away from the group to have children with the Native Americans in the area at the right time -- what the political state was between Britain and Spain -- did they occupy the same or around the same places close enough I could fudge it? Were they friendly toward each other? When were slaves from other countries brought to America? What languages would they have spoken and is there a good translator online? What kind of spanglish can come from Angola, Umbundu and Spanish speakers at the time? Or would it be spanglish with Portuguese because of who was controlling the slave trade at the time?

Tearing out my hair and a hundred more google searches later I decided it wasn't worth the misrepresentation of both languages to try and include either of them mixed together in that way in the whole comic-- just bits and pieces separate for my sanity -- although I WILL get some cultural things in there I promise!

Some things just can not stay historically accurate and one of those things is speech. That was the first thing -- so damn difficult to really pin it down properly in the older dialects so I just had to sadly put that away first. All of the languages written about will be mostly modern versions, English, Spanish, Portuguese, and others but while keeping in mind the time frame.

Next I obsessed about when and where exactly would culture mixing begin and if the people stayed in the same spots! Also unfortunate ( for this AU purpose only! )that most of the Spanish went down and not into the Americas but history will be what it is.

I decided that what I was going to do is make it up a little using a lot of historical context available instead of switching up Luz's race in a serious way to make the accuracy better -- I was going to have things happen MUCH sooner. Like 2 or 3 generations sooner. The Native Americans and Spanish populate together in 1500 ish instead of 1700 or 1800. I GET THIS IS REALLY INACCURATE but it was so fucking impossible to do anything else without getting into things I didn't want to do. The British get there the same time as usual and start the colonies in the 1600s but the Spanish are already moving up into North America and have already spent a lot of time with the Native Americans there at the time. SO that means that Luz is able to have a Native Mexican/ Native American AND Spanish mix at the time of the AU start and be similar to how the population became around now -- my dad inspired this! He's got the same mix himself and I loved that I could pull from that. It's such an interesting genetic tree honestly -- there's a lot of seriously horrible things that happened do not get me wrong -- but the history is amazing.

Luz being half black however feels similarly difficult but it follows the same principles of things with everyone who is not British making things happen much earlier. Africans come to America ( Horrifically and brutally I want to make that very clear) and some in real life of course make their way out of that brutality and hide away from the British and the Spanish...with who? The mixed Natives and Spaniards. Couple of generations later and we have a beautiful mixed pot like the America we see today but hundreds of years early that allows me to keep my afro Latina!! Hunter eventually finds this group that has naturally traveled up into where the british are setting up their first settlements in Virginia and joins them for reasons I can not explain!

THANK YOU for letting me ramble about all this rich history it is incredible.

ALSO I love trans Hunter HC and I do a lot of it myself but in this comic Hunter is cisgender. ( BUT seriously if you wanna hc Hunter as trans in my story I would love it -- trans fem or masc because Hunter is one of the transest coded characters ever) Because both him and Luz are attracted to the same and opposite sex I will still be able to explore certain LGBTQIA+ issues as well!

(DISCLAIMER : Listen I completely understand if this switching around might feel tone deaf to some people but I do not intend to shy away from the brutality of the past or give it a nicer spin -- but this is not a comic focused on the nitty gritty details of the world that Luz and Hunter come from but a focus on the nastiness that comes from later in their lives in Gravesfeild and the witch trials. To have this happen and keep all characters relatively the same I had to do a lot of background but It is worth it to keep these characters with their integrity intact)

#ahobit asks #ahobit rants #TOHswitchedAU

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mariacallous · 4 months

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Lansing — Democratic lawmakers are condemning a social media post from Republican state Rep. Josh Schriver of Oxford that promoted "the great replacement" theory, a racist ideological belief that there's a coordinated global effort to diminish the influence of White people.

On Tuesday, Schriver shared a post of a graphic that depicted black figurines covering most of a map of the world, with white figures occupying smaller sections of Australia, Canada, northern Europe and the northern United States. The bottom of the graphic read "The great replacement!"

The graphic, initially posted by right-wing pundit Jack Posobiec, was reposted by Schriver with an emoji of a chart showing a downward trend on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

In a statement Wednesday to The Detroit News, Schriver said he loved "all of God's offspring" and believed "everyone's immense value is rooted in the price Christ paid on the Cross when he died for our sins.

"I'm opposed to racists, race baiters, and victim politics," Schriver said in the statement. "What I find strange is the agenda to demoralize and reduce the white portion of our population. That's not inclusive and Christ is inclusive! I'm glad Tucker Carlson and Jack Posobiec are sharing links so I can continue my research on these issues."

The "great replacement" conspiracy theory asserts there is a coordinated effort to dilute the influence of White people through immigration and through low birth rates among White individuals, according to the Anti-Defamation League. The theory has been linked to anti-Semitism, with some versions alleging it is Jews coordinating the so-called replacement.

The shooter in a 2022 Buffalo, New York supermarket shooting that killed 10, most of whom were Black, raised the theory in a manifesto as a motive for the killings, the Associated Press reported. The killer in the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in Pittsburg blamed Jews for bringing non-white immigrants to the U.S.; a 2019 Poway, California synagogue shooter claimed Jews were responsible for the killing of White Europeans; and a shooter who killed 23 people at an El Paso Walmart in 2019 talked about a "Hispanic invasion" in his manifesto, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

At least a half-dozen Republican U.S. Senate candidates promoted the "great replacement" conspiracy theory in the 2022 elections, the AP reported.

House Speaker Joe Tate, a Detroit Democrat and Michigan's first Black speaker, said Schriver's "blatantly racist social media post" and later statement on the issue do not align with the chamber's values and are "deeply and personally" offensive.

Schriver's insistence that the issue was worthy of consideration "puts his ignorance on full display," Tate said in a statement, but is not an excuse for "proliferating obvious hate."

“Perhaps most disturbing is that his post uplifts a dangerous and tortured narrative that fosters violence and instability," Tate said. "His callous and reckless act is not within the spirit of what Michigan is, and it contributes to a hostile environment."

Rep. Jason Hoskins, a Black Democratic lawmaker from Southfield, also criticized the post Wednesday night.

"Michigan House Republican celebrates Black History Month by promoting racist and dangerous conspiracies that there are too many people of color," Hoskins wrote on X.

House Republican Leader Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, did not respond to a request Wednesday night for comment about Schriver's post.

Rep. Kelly Breen, D-Novi, condemned the post as "blatantly racist" and "dangerous rhetoric" that has no place in society or in the state Legislature.

"It saddens & infuriates me that a colleague shared this," Breen wrote on X. "For someone who claims to love God - Rep. Schriver is blind to the fact this would make Him weep."

Elected in 2022, Schriver represents the 66th District in the Michigan House of Representatives, which includes Addison, Brandon, Oxford townships and most of Oakland Township in Oakland County and Bruce and Washington townships in Macomb County. The Warren native is a graduate of De La Salle Collegiate High School.

Schriver serves on the House Natural Resources, Environment, Tourism, and Outdoor Recreation Committee.

Condemnation of Schriver's post extended beyond Michigan political circles.

The Northern Guard Supporters, a fan group supporting the Detroit City Football Club, also condemned the post and said the first term lawmaker was not welcome among the fan group. Schriver's wife plays for the Detroit City Football Club women's team, which plays in the Premier Arena Soccer League.

Nick Finn, who helps run communications for the group, said fans "won't tolerate that in our stands." On X, Northern Guard Supporters noted that the league included "players from all ethnic backgrounds in a high minority population city."

"It’s very upsetting to see something like that, one, from any representative in Michigan, let alone one directly connected to a member our team,” Finn told The News on Wednesday.

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reggiespoon · 1 year

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Been pondering recently how to square the supposed personality of Robespierre with the fact of his personal influence. I'm aware Thermidorians have muddied the water here but consider:

Appearance: ordinary. He was physically unimpressive. Leaving aside the vexed issue of pieds-du-roi, he was either of average height or a bit (but not significantly) smaller than average. He was slim, pale, and fair, with light brown hair and green eyes. He wouldn't stand out in any crowd of northern Europeans, then or now.

Oratorical skills: lacking. He wasn't a great speaker, like Danton or Mirabeau. He had a quiet voice which he struggled to project in large spaces, and it was allegedly strongly accented in some way that marked him out as Not Parisian. I wrote a whole other post about Robespierre's accent and I stand by my personal headcanon of Scousepierre because it's hilarious, but regardless, this wasn't a beautiful or powerful or otherwise compelling voice.

Writing: mediocre. This seems unfair, but whilst he has very eloquent passages in his speeches, even McPhee allows that Robespierre often committed the twin autisms of rambling and repeating himself (same, bb ❤️). He wasn't generally witty, pithy, or to-the-point.

Political stance: consistent but not extreme. Clearly something that exasperated his allies and delighted his enemies, for whilst he was a tireless advocate for The People, he refused to cater to either conservative or radical arguments about what The People wanted/deserved. He wasn't a hawk or a demagogue. Thus Thermidorians arguing that he was Too Far Left and Too Far Right simultaneously as justification for murdering him. We don't know which direction he's taking this country, but it's definitely the direction you (dear People) don't like, trust us.

So how did this ordinary-looking, unimpressive-sounding, rather boring man inspire such radical devotion across the entire nation, in large cities and tiny villages, north to south and east to west, when he himself never travelled outside the well-worn route between Paris and Arras, never married, didn't really socialise, and should by all rights have been an anonymous cog in the Revolutionary wheel, unknown in life and forgotten in death?

It can't be simply his honesty and integrity, because frankly if honesty and integrity inspired radical devotion in politics, we'd live in a very different world.

How did someone so fundamentally unassuming come to embody the Revolution for so many? And why did they feel so passionately about someone whom even sympathetic(ish) historians describe as having basically zero charisma?

I think the zero charisma thing is - must be - a legacy of Thermidor.

Nobody loved Robespierre anyway because he was a monster, but even before his monstrosity, he was dull. A boring monster! The worst kind! We have saved you from his tyranny.

I think he actually must have been one of those rare people who have real charisma - in the sense of something divinely-conferred; a quality mysterious and indefinable, divorced from mere personal charm. Nothing we know about the man suggests someone who could attract a large following, and yet his personal influence was disproportionately powerful. Robespierre should, according to all descriptions, have been a non-entity, a footnote in the biographies of others. Instead, he's one of the giants of history.

#anyway what do you think #maximilien robespierre

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writingquestionsanswered · 10 months

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ive been wanting to write about a group of people who meet up from different countries (brazil, poland, hong kong, pakistan) but i also dont want to use stereotypes and i dont want to make them obviously usamerican. im also well aware that they are people first and foremost so im gonna have characters that arent complete stereotypes and lean towards subcultures or similar but also its more in writing quirks and imperfect english or any other cultural things. like i get that its pretty much impossible to do without a bunch of research and interactions with people of those cultures. but if you had any tips id love to hear it

Wanting to Write a Diverse Group

If portraying someone from a different country and culture than your own includes "quirks and imperfect English," you're not ready yet to portray these characters in a way that won't be harmful and offensive. Anything you'd see as a "quirk" of someone from another country or culture is likely to be a stereotype. And the concept of "imperfect English" being spoken by non-native speakers is also a stereotype, and one which is both offensive and harmful.

We also have to be very, very careful about portraying cultures that aren't our own, especially if you're white. Centuries of white European colonialism came with cultural suppression and appropriation, so it's pretty tacky when white writers exploit these same cultures in their stories for their own gain. It's also very easy to make mistakes when portraying a culture that is not your own, and those mistakes can be offensive if not harmful.

Which is not to say that writers--even white ones--can't portray characters from other races, nationalities, or even cultures. It's just to say that you really have to really think about why you want do it and whether you're the best person to do it. You need to be willing to do a ton of research and have your story vetted by people from the same backgrounds as your characters. Another option--though it still requires research and vetting--is to just not go too deeply into cultural elements, whether they're national cultural elements or elements of a particular ethnic culture. Instead, work in a few cultural elements from a referential standpoint. For example, if you had a character from Mexico, you could have them mention their sister's Quinceañera, and you could even maybe show it to a degree, but unless this is part of your culture, it wouldn't really be your place to do a thematic deep dive into the cultural ins and outs of a Quinceañera, what it means to the birthday girl and her parents, etc.

So, as always, my tips are to research, vet, and to avoid going to deep.

Best wishes on your research and writing! ♥

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jcs-study · 13 days

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Thinking About JCS Too Much, Vol. 1: "Jaded Mandarin" - Lost in Translation?

Intro

In my second attempt at an introduction for this blog, I pondered aloud, "Ever wonder if you’re too big a fan of your favorite piece of entertainment?" Suffice it to say, that is far from the only time that thought has crossed my mind.

You see, unlike many faded celebrities attempting to jump-start their careers afresh by "finding religion," I followed the opposite path. I don’t remember hearing about God, Jesus, or anything like that before a certain age. I was about 4 when I first started becoming aware of religion. Something related to Christendom spawned a cover story in Time magazine, and they had this beautiful traditional artwork of Jesus on the front that caught my eye. I became obsessed with religion in general, and the Christ story in particular. (Even today a lot of my extracurricular reading is devoted to religious fiction and non-fictional religious studies, and the shelves of my film collection are strewn with biblical epics, both Old Testament and New. I’m by no means invested in the Abrahamic faiths -- in fact, I'm now an avowed atheist -- but I won’t deny that I’m very knowledgeable about them.)

This obsession led me to Jesus Christ Superstar, and so my life as a show biz professional, and my switch from a special interest (yay, spectrum!) in religion and the surrounding scholarship to one in a single telling of a story that happens to deal with religious subject matter, began.

Naturally, this has led to a few embarrassing incidents of over-thinking where I nerd out just a little too much, primarily from a literary perspective. (Case in point: my answer to a recent question posed to this blog about the lack of a detail from the biblical story in the show. Did I need to go "all in" on whether or not Jesus was actually prophesying that Peter would deny him three times by the time a rooster crowed? Probably not. Did I anyway? Oh, c'mon, you've read it by now, don't make me relive it.)

So, in a similar vein, I'm going to periodically write about those moments where I nerd out too much, in hopes that my immense nerdiness will maybe give someone a deeper understanding of the show, even just a small part of it. You've seen one, thanks to an inquiry from an anonymous fellow fan; after the jump, here's another.

Translation vs. Adaptation

Among the many unique features of JCS, it was one of the first musicals of its kind to be widely adapted into the local vernacular when presented internationally, rather than merely importing an English-language cast as the custom used to be.

Besides its mother tongue, JCS can (theoretically) be heard in:

Czech

French

German (anecdotally, it has been reported that the German translation is not the best, which is why many productions in German-speaking countries opt for the English instead; however, that might be about to change, as the production at the Luisenburg Festspiele Wunsiedel this summer is supposed to mark the debut of a new authorized one -- we'll see how it goes!)

Hungarian (there's two Hungarian ones, actually)

Japanese

Polish

Portuguese

Romanian (in a translation recently debuted in, of all places, Chicago)

Russian (there are several, both official and unofficial; we will deal with all of them today)

Spanish (both the European variety and two Mexican ones)

Swedish (at least two that I'm aware of, the original and whatever Ola Salo uses for productions involving him)

(And those are just the ones I know about.)

While I appreciate JCS most in its original language, being a native English speaker myself, I realize translation and adaptation are important, for all the reasons that they usually are: not everybody speaks a foreign language with dexterity, or is capable of processing it at the pace a play or musical is performed; almost without exception, people respond better to the language they grew up speaking, especially in a piece of entertainment; and, most importantly, translation allows ideas and information to spread across cultures, sometimes changing history in the process. (After all, no matter what your religious belief, part of the reason the Bible -- the show's source material, as if you needed a reminder -- has had such an impact on history is the sheer number of translations, which, at last count, is 531 languages.)

However, translation into any language (pro or amateur) is a delicate art, especially where a play or musical is concerned. As Don Bartlett, who has translated Danish, German, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish books into English, put it in a piece where several translators were interviewed for The Guardian, “There’s always a tension between being true to the original and being readable.” On the one hand, translating the meanings of words and phrases in a literal way maintains fidelity to the text; on the other, translating sense-for-sense, taking into account the meanings of phrases or whole sentences, can improve readability. And that’s just books… imagine doing this for theater or film!

Personally, I subscribe to the assessment of Edith Grossman (also interviewed in the aforementioned Guardian piece), who once said: “…the most fundamental description of what translators do is that we write — or perhaps rewrite — in language B a work of literature originally composed in language A, hoping that readers of the second language — I mean, of course, readers of the translation — will perceive the text, emotionally and artistically, in a manner that parallels and corresponds to the aesthetic experience of its first readers. This is the translator’s grand ambition. Good translations approach that purpose. Bad translations never leave the starting line.”

(Or, to tie this back into our topic somewhat more closely, I'm mashing together two quotes from two different interviews with the late Herbert Kretzmer, the adaptor of such popular foreign musicals as Les Misérables, Marguerite, and Kristina: "Words have resonance within a culture, they have submarine strengths and meaning. If I wanted a literal translation, I would go to the dictionary. Translation — the very word I rebut and resent, because it minimizes the genuine creativity that I bring to the task. [...] I offer this advice to any lyricist invited to adapt or translate foreign songs into English: Do not follow the original text slavishly. Re-invent the lyric in your own words, remembering that there may be better ways of serving a master than trotting behind him on a leash.")

Nowhere is this job harder than JCS, especially in Russian. As languages, Russian and English are just too different from each other, each very rich in emotional shadings that the other language lacks (or at least conveys differently), to a point that nearly every new production of JCS over there has led to a fresh translation. Tim Rice's unusual wordplay, masterful (at times) in English, is very difficult to convey in a foreign tongue, especially when it can be safely argued that the expression in question is hardly common to its native audience.

The Piece We're Evaluating

As if the title didn't give it away, I speak, of course, of a certain insult Judas hurls at Jesus during their climactic argument at the Last Supper, calling him:

A jaded mandarin A jaded mandarin As a jaded jaded faded jaded jaded mandarin

That's a doozy in English, to say the least. I may have written on this blog previously that I’ve heard enough jokes about the Last Supper being at an all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurant or Jesus’ penchant for citrus fruits to be tired of them all.

In case you missed Tim's actual meaning: mandarin is not just a variety of orange, a form of the Chinese language, or a term for an official in any of the nine top grades of the former imperial Chinese civil service (or clothing characteristic of what they’d allegedly wear or porcelain objets d’art depicting them). The root word for mandarin in Hindi means “counselor,” and – unfortunately, given this definition’s origin in unkind Asian racial stereotypes – the term came to refer (in colonialist British parlance) to a powerful official or senior bureaucrat, especially one perceived as reactionary and secretive. When he calls Jesus a “jaded mandarin,” Judas is saying that Jesus is corrupt, washed up, and useless as a leader.

Could Tim Rice have found a better way to say that? Probably. But this is the method he chose, and for better or worse, it has gone down in history ever since, including a recent parodic reference in the second season of the Apple TV+ series Schmigadoon! to a “sour macaroon.”

Now, it took all that explanation to convey its meaning in English. How well do you think it crossed over to Russian? Well, no less than 16 translators decided to try; some were official, others fan translations that were used in little-known productions. (The number should not be surprising. This is very much the viewpoint of an outsider looking in who lived long after that time, but when an album is banned by the government, bootleg copies change hands for huge sums "underground," and the music on that album is in a style also banned by the government… well, let's just say something "forbidden" is going to attract a lot of people. After that initial burst of enthusiasm, then it's like any other piece of literature which is translated a number of times by multiple people -- someone who thinks they can do a better job of conveying the foreign meaning in their native tongue, perhaps in a more modern dialect or a more relevant way.)

Inspired by a conversation I had on ye olde JCS Zone Forum (RIP) with Russian fan Pasha Levcovetz, we're going to take a look at all of them, evaluating them for literal vs. poetic accuracy and also offering opinions on which might have even -- dare I say it -- improved on the original. For the sake of most of my readership, I'll render the Russian in (literal but accurate) English so you can understand what the adapted lyrics intend to say. (Special thanks to Pasha for his help!)

Translating "Mandarin"

As one might expect with a phrase that is not exactly common linguistic currency, and the number of jokes made about Tim's choice of words, the first problem Russian translators might encounter is "mandarin" -- more specifically, whether or not it is a literal reference to mandarin fruit.

Much to both my dismay and my amusement, two of the official translators and three of the fans decided that the lyric indeed referred to the fruit.

In the Teatr Mossoveta production in Moscow, which has been presented numerous times from 1990 to the present (and which made much larger departures that I've previously written about in response to a question from @nemoverne), Yaroslav Kesler rendered it like so:

Like a pitiful tangerine Like a pitiful tangerine Like a pitiful, pitiful, pitiful, pitiful, yellow tangerine!

For the more faithful version recorded on CD in 1992, Vyacheslav Ptitsyn traveled in a similar direction:

Squeezed lemon! You are a squeezed lemon! You are a pathetic, petty, pathetic, petty squeezed lemon!

Lastly, for something that is not a variation on either of the above, fan translator Yevgeniy Susorov gives us:

You are a withered fruit You are rotten, tasteless fruit You are a withered fig tree that will die in the flames!

I can see their intention, and, in my opinion, both Ptitsyn and Susorov improved on the original line, although this was probably coincidental in the former's case.

As far as Kesler is concerned, it's more of a vague fruit comparison that sort of makes sense. A yellow tangerine is overripe, and as tasty as overly ripened fruit can be, it's prone to developing patches of mold, and goes bad when left uneaten for too long. The meaning here when Judas applies it to Jesus as an insult should be clear, as he's been saying something like this about him -- metaphorically speaking -- for the entire show. (In the fan category, Vadim Zhmud makes the same choice and is even more explicit about his intentions, rendering the fruit as a "lethargic," "well-fed" tangerine. Mikhail Kokovikhin's take also chooses "tangerine," but gets caught up in trying to use it in exactly the way Tim uses "mandarin," repeating the word for emphasis and relying on the fact that Russian has three different synonyms for the word "rotten" to pad out the stanza. There's nothing wrong with trying to match Tim's choices as closely as possible, but just calling someone a rotten fruit in all the ways one can is a little weak.)

Ptitsyn's is more intriguing, partially because of a (likely) unintentional double meaning. If you recall, he refers to a pathetic lemon that has had all the juice squeezed out of it. In American English, in addition to referring to the fruit of the same name, "lemon" is also used to refer to a product, usually an automobile, that has flaws -- like manufacturing defects, in the car's case -- too great or severe to serve its intended purpose. (To cite a more abstract usage, the late Jim Steinman aptly used the "lemon" analogy in the Meat Loaf song "Life Is a Lemon And I Want My Money Back.") In Russian, the phrase "squeezed lemon" similarly refers to someone very tired, a person who has lost their strength or abilities. Poetically speaking, Judas calling Jesus a "lemon" at this moment has an extra layer of meaning that works really well in either language.

Lastly, my favorite (if only as an atheist theologian) is Susorov, who doesn't just spin the line into a much better fruit metaphor -- he even gets biblical with it, referencing both Jesus' teaching about "trees bearing bad fruit" and also one bad tree in particular that figured into Jesus' final week in the original Passion narrative.

Quoting loosely from the King James Version of Matthew's Gospel (an incident also recounted in Mark, chapter 11): "And seeing a fig tree by the wayside [Jesus] went to it and found nothing on it but only leaves. And he said to it, 'May no fruit ever come from you again!' And the fig tree withered."

In Susorov's text, Judas is not only condemning Jesus as the tree bearing bad fruit against which he preached, but also comparing him to a specific, very recent failure that might still sting.

(Susorov's choice is made even more ironic by the fact that Lloyd Webber and Rice intended to musicalize this moment in JCS themselves, but ultimately decided to cut it from the original album when concerns of length were raised, as previously discussed here. If that scene was still in the show, this would be quite the burn!)

Getting at the Meaning

Moving away from the poetic toward conveying the lyric's literal intention without getting bogged down in language, both official and fan translators seem to settle for general insults, so it becomes a different question: whether they are just that (i.e., general insults) or they convey the same meaning as intended by "jaded mandarin."

The latter is achieved adequately by Viktor Polyak (Yaroslavskiy Gosudarstvennyy Teatr Yunogo Zritelya, 1989-1994):

You are a crashed idol You are a crashed idol You are a crashed, broken, dirty idol!

It works. The show is called Jesus Christ Superstar; a fallen celebrity metaphor is far from out of place. Maksim Samoylov, in the fan department, goes for a similar take, having Judas call Jesus a "little, fallen star."

Svetlana Peyn, whose translation has appeared at Stas Namin in Moscow from 2011 to the present, is on a similar wavelength:

You are a pompous hero You are a pompous hero With poisonous loud glory you are a self-important pompous hero

Ouch!

Mikhail Parygin, a fan translator, is in the same boat, going for "a [...] pathetic, petty, pompous king." Likewise Andrey Voskresenskiy, with "a [...] surrendered, fallen, finished prophet," and Vera Degtyaryova, who settles for "a miserable [...] former leader." Also rather close is Aleksandr Butuzov, who has Judas call Jesus "a loser" and "a mediocre, brainless, stupid leader." Though Russian fans I've spoken to don't especially care for his choice of words in their own language, it's on the mark as far as literal meaning goes.

Another official translation is not quite in the same realm, but close enough to make sense. Specifically, Grigoriy Kruzhkov and Marina Boroditskaya, holding the pen for the St. Petersburg Rock Opera State Theater in an adaptation which has been produced since 1990, provided:

Like a rebel! Like a simple rebel! Like a deceiver and a thief! Like a self-proclaimed king!

Metaphorically speaking, if you squint at it, it looks similar; full-bore insults that at least fit the plot.

Things get a little more interesting when translators move farther afield. For example, on the official front, Valeriy Lagosha's version for the "Free Space" Theater in Oryol, which ran from 2003-07, is:

No, I do not want this, prophet I do not want this, prophet After all, in this life I was able to do much more

It's an interesting idea to follow Judas' suggestion in "Heaven On Their Minds" that everyone would be better off if Jesus had not become famous and reinforce that point.

On the fan front, Kirill Sukhomlinov chooses to turn Jesus' biblical language about the religious authorities back on him:

You are a pathetic hypocrite You are a pathetic hypocrite You are a pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, nasty hypocrite!

And Maksim Zakharov doesn't really hit on the exact idea, but manages to create something that at least fits the character and situation:

You are a dark person You are a terrible person I am glad that you will end your life in prison!

Conclusion

Will there ever be a perfect translation? The jury's still out, especially -- it would seem -- in Russian. (There are more examples just from Russian translations to talk about that I will contemplate in future posts.) But it's always fascinating to view a piece from someone else's perspective, isn't it?

#jesus christ superstar #andrew lloyd webber #tim rice #jcs #jesus christ super star #jesus christ super-star #jcss #jcs study

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fuggivaboutit · 1 year

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Thoughts on reforming the English alphabet or changing scripts all together?

Not practical in the present day. Dialectically, English is far too fragmented. Which dialect do we use as the Prestige Dialect to base the alphabet reform on? Receives Pronunciation? That alienates virtually all non-English-proper speakers. American English, America being the present English-speaking hegemon? The same problem stands.

Would, then, each major dialect get its own spelling reform; shall we establish institutes of linguistic regulation - as many European languages have - for the major dialects?

A lot of factors to consider.

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hearts4robs · 5 months

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Hiiii there!

Happy New Year ♡

Ooooh I have never done a match-up so I am really curious. I'm gonna go for DC because I only know this fandom and love those weirdos ♡

So I am a 27 years old bi non-binary person (they/them). I'd say I am pretty outgoing and very much talkative. I really like chit-chatting with strangers whom have dogs like at the train station. I am not much of a party person tho, I really like being home and reading stuff, listening to music or going for a nice walk with my dog while listening to my playlists. My favorite artists at the moment are AURORA, Laufey, Apshe, and Rain Paris. I have ADHD and a personality disorder which is why for now I am still under disability insurance but I am getting really well and I hope to finally be able to start my studies to become a librarian. I was very much a good student even for the few semesters I did at uni. I have a huge interest for literature and languages. I have studied latin, german, english, portuguese and arabic. Not fluent in many of them, but I do like taking the time to relearn stuff by myself from time to time. I am good at being self-taught, that's how I got my high school diploma since my health was a hindrance at the time haha. I am kinda a history nerd, love reading about religion in Ancient Greece especially in Attica and I love reading about the Witch Hunts in Europe and North America in the modern era. I do enjoy cosy "culture" and academia aesthetics. I am 5'6', dark brunette mid lenghth wavy hair (a wolf cut if you see what it is) with light brown eyes. I have huge fine golden glasses haha (already the librarian vibe). I am pretty chubby for now, eventhough I am losing weight due to feeling better health-wise. I love wearing button-down white shirts with vests or blazers or floral corsets and black turtlenecks haha.

Ideally, I'd love someone who is able to understand that I have some difficulties that others might not have, but who can be calm when it matters. I hate having huge arguments, if we need to argue I want to be able to talk it out. It's okay to be angry but I hate lashing out or being lashed at. A break to take some fresh air is okay if needed to have a civil conversation. I am not huge on receiving expensive/luxury gifts, it makes me awkward. I'd rather spend time with someone, cook with them or gift little things that are meaningful. I am huge on social activism. I do read a lot about different issues and it's important for me to listen to others and their experiences and try my best to do better with them and for them. I love my dog, she's a rescue and a peach. We lived a bit everywhere for a while because I was homeless around 20, but we managed and have a nice apartement now. I think I am pretty resilient as a person and I always strive do be kind and compassionate when possible because I know no one is born with all the answers and understandings of the world. I paint with watercolor from time to time, but I'd say my favorite hobby is reading and researching stuff because ADHD haha.

I don't like when people excuses stuff because of an illness. I can be an ass and it's okay to tell me and nobody should get a free-pass to be terrible to others. It happens to be shitty but you should strive to make it better if you couldn't avoid doing it at first.

I am a native french-speaker and half Portuguese. I am white European.

I can be a bit loud and outspoken but I always try to be mindful of the space I can take in a conversation with others because I don't want people to feel ignored. I can be adventurous, my 19 birthday was me going by train all alone with a backpack around the northern part of europe for a month. I would sleep at locals' place after talking to them on a specific website. It was great and fun and I saw so many museums ♡ I can be a bit of an airhead, and a tad much too sarcastic sometimes and I tend to switch conversations subjects often because I have links between them that makes sense to me but no one else.

My favortie tropes are friends to lovers, everything fluff, domestic, etc. There's beauty in the mundane ♡ I guess that when your mental health is a rollercoaster, you crave stability and calm easier haha ♡

I hope I gave you enough informations for your match-up.

Sorry, I am really a chatterbox haha ♡ Thank you and take care, dear ♡

𝐓𝐢𝐦 𝐃𝐫𝐚𝐤𝐞: 𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐞

“What are you doing?”

“I, uh, think.. I might be building you a bookcase, can’t promise you anything though. IKEA isn’t very clear in their instructions.” Tim says, turning the instruction book upside down in hopes of the illustrations making sense.

A chuckle escapes you as you set down a mug of hot chocolate beside his organised work place on the middle of your living room floor.

“You think?” You ask, taking a seat beside him with a soft grunt, happily letting your dog snuggle up beside you.

“Yes, it’s very frustrating and for some reason, it’s all in French.” Tim says, trying to screw a screw into the proper place. “No, no, that’s not right..” he mutters.

“You do know I’m fluent in French, right?”

Tim slowly glances at you sideways before letting out a huff.

“I can handle it.” He reassures, chewing his lip in annoyance. “Go read your Shakespeare and I’ll be done in a few minutes.”

Headcanons:

Tim loves watching you read. He loves how you can both be nerds together.

You don’t live together yet but he visits often enough for your neighbours to know which days of the week you’re free.

He’s so supportive and tries his best to be a stable support system. You started out as friends and he let you crash at his for as long as you needed when you had nowhere to go.

Your dog is no longer “your” dog. It’s “our” dog to Tim.

It took him the whole afternoon to build that bookcase for you.

You’re such a sweetheart, I loved making this!! <3

#pls pet your dog for me🙏#I thought Tim SO fast #also #Tim falls asleep while you read #★ robins match up event! ★#★ match up event! ★#★ robins events ★#tim drake x reader #tim drake #dc x reader #dc #soft #timothy drake #Tim Drake dc #red Robin #red robin dc

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alectoperdita · 1 year

Text

Kept poking at yakuza!Jou and lawyer!Kaiba. I did get them into bed eventually, but that part's even messier than the one I'm posting here. Will take a break to consider if I have more to add besides a secondary smut scene.

Still no title unless I keep my placeholder, In bed with the mob.

Still rated T, more backstory and feels

Part 1 here

Read the whole thing in AO3

___

They didn't go to Mega. No, Seto preferred a quiet neutral ground to Jounouchi's club. The hole-in-the-wall bar was a block away from where Seto parked his car, but it was still within Jounouchi's usual stomping grounds. Mega was but a short walk away from the storefront. Yet when Seto slipped through the unobtrusive wooden door, Jounouchi followed his lead without question.

The interior was styled after European bars—wood paneling, deco light scones, a minimalist chandelier hanging from the center of the ceiling. Similar to many storefronts in the area, it was long but narrow. A polished oak bar and shelves after shelves of artfully presented liquor bottles backlit by warm yellow light lined the left wall. Along the opposite wall was a series of small tables and booths to sit parties of two to three. Soft piano music played from the surround speakers mounted along the ceiling. It reminded Seto of a miniature version of the venues he frequented through his law school years.

The bartender, an older gentleman donning a crisp white shirt, dapper waistcoat, and ironed slacks, greeted them. Besides him, there were two salarymen seated at the bar near the entrance. Both men glanced in their direction but very deliberately looked away and avoided eye contact after they spotted Jounouchi behind Seto.

The bartender's expression revealed nothing behind his customer service face. He was likely the owner too. "What can I get for you, sirs?"

Seto asked for a gin and tonic. Jounouchi surprised him by ordering a whisky highball.

The gangster flashed another face-splitting grin. "Told ya. I'm all class."

With their drinks in hand, they made their way to the back of the bar and took the booth near the back wall. It was a tight squeeze even for two people on account of their heights. Their knees knocked several times before they settled into a comfortable enough arrangement. Jounouchi slouched, braced by the booth's corner, and stretched his legs diagonally until his feet poked out. Seto took the opportunity to sit facing forward, with his spine straight and knees locked perpendicular to the ground.

Jounouchi brought his dewy highball glass to his lips and drank. Seto did the same, choosing to contemplate his drink's zesty flavor instead of his companion. To his surprise, Jounouchi didn't guzzle his, but he did wipe his mouth with the back of his hand when he set the glass back on the table.

Seto's phone chirped. He pulled it out to check his notification. It was a message from Mitsurugi.

Mitsurugi Don't do that again.

Seto merely rolled his eyes and stuffed the device back into his pocket without replying.

"Why are ya making that face? Was it your boss or your boyfriend?" joked Jounouchi. That or he was still fishing.

"Neither. Just Mitsurugi bitching."

Jounouchi whistled. "So you weren't bluffing back at the station."

"I don't bluff," Seto snapped. One should never have to bluff if one had the goods.

Jounouchi sat up only to plant his elbow on the tabletop. Still smiling, he pressed his non-bruised cheek to his raised fist. Under the table, the toe of Jounouchi's shoe brushed against Seto's ankle, slow and deliberate and lingering.

"Look at you, friends in high places."

Uncowed, Seto locked gazes with the other man. "I could say the same for you if Yoshimori contracted us for your benefit."

"Aww, yer jealous? Don't worry. He's a bit too old for my taste." Jounouchi winked. "But can't deny he's a swell guy looking out for the guys in the area."

"Yes, I suppose this has nothing to do with the seven-year stint you did for possession and distribution of a controlled stimulant."

Jounouchi's expression collapsed, as swiftly as a earthquake ripping through an out-of-code building. Silence descended over their booth. One so thick that it felt as if nothing, not the bar's piano music or the other patron's muted conversations, could penetrate. Ice clinked in Seto's glass as he lifted it. If he strained his ears, he wouldn't be surprised if he could somehow hear Jounouchi's heartbeat.

After a long, awkward silence that began to grate even on Seto's nerve, Jounouchi finally said, "You know about that?"

"I'm your lawyer"—for tonight anyway—"I would be a piss-poor one if I didn't know. I do my due diligence for my clients."

Jounouchi sucked in a sharp exhale. His hand trembled as he gripped his highball. This time, he chugged half of it at once. "Yeah, and you always had to be the best at anything you did."

Seto studied the other man, noting his sudden downturned gaze and the abrupt change in his mannerism. He couldn't help but remember that Jounouchi often relied on bluster. Brainless loyalty was more of his speed than mean drive.

"If you're ashamed, you should've thought of that before you took the fall for someone else," Seto scoffed.

"Wait. How could you possibly know that?"

"A few well-placed inquires and money to grease some palms will tell me whatever people are already talking about. It's not a stretch of the imagination. Not only were you able to find employment straight out of prison, you were promoted to manager within two months. One possibility is stellar work ethics, but it's more likely that someone owes you a favor. A big favor."

Jaw dropped, Jounouchi gawked at him. Seto filled the new lull with sips of his drink.

To his surprise, Jounouchi burst out into riotous laughter, drawing the attention of everyone in the bar. "Holy shit. That was some Sherlock Holmes shit!"

"Simple deductions," Seto muttered into his glass. He didn't know where the sudden wave of self-consciousness came from. Then again, people sometimes accused him of being too self-assured about the conclusions he drew about others and sticking to them.

It was unsettling how difficult it was to get a read on Jounouchi, though. The tension broke, and the gangster was smiling fondly at him again. "Okay, lemme take a stab at it. You studied abroad. Maybe as early as high school, but definitely university. Your taste in drinks' the same as a returnee's," Jounouchi's gaze flicked to Seto's glass. "The only question's was it England or America?"

Seto took a sip before responding. It didn't escape his notice how Jounouchi's gaze lingered on his lips afterwards. He licked them.

"Neither. Germany."

Jounouchi laughed. "Ya always did bulk conventions."

Seto didn't stop his mouth in time. "Buck conventions."

"Po-tay-toe, po-tot-toe." Jounouchi waved a hand dismissively. "And for the record, I'm not ashamed. Not really. I know who I am. That's not gonna change. It's just... It's you. I always felt kinda shabby standing next to you, and now..."

The man's expression took a turn for the wistful. Seto's heart clenched unexpectedly. From their youth, he only remembered chasing after Jounouchi, a shining beacon that clambered through the orphanage's and the surrounding woods' nooks and crannies.

"If your background was an issue, I would've left you outside police headquarters," said Seto. Not share a smoke or bodily drag Jounouchi into his car so he couldn't escape. They wouldn't be here at this bar if that was the case.

"True. Guess you still don't put up with anyone's bullshit." Jounouchi's eyes crinkled again. "Good to know that hasn't changed."

They lapsed into silence again and finished their drinks in the meanwhile. Seto rose to order another round. When he returned with with another gin and tonic for himself and another whisky highball for Jounouchi, the other man was frowning at his phone, but he quickly shoved it back into his pocket when Seto sat down.

That was when Seto remembered it was a Saturday night, which meant prime business hours for a club like Mega.

"Don't let me keep you if you have business to take care of," he said.

Jounouchi shook his head. "Nah, Toshihiro can hold down the fort. It's not every day I get a chance to catch up with an old friend."

As Jounouchi reached across the table for his glass, his palm covered the back of Seto's hand. His fingers caressed the patch of skin under Seto's wristwatch band. Despite his best efforts not to react, Seto's breath hitched. He didn't necessarily want Jounouchi to stop flirting with him, but each successive touch further muddled Seto's purpose of mind. He slipped his hand out from under Jounouchi's touch. Jounouchi let him retreat without comment, clasping his drink and drawing it across the table.

It was almost a relief when Jounouchi changed the topic. "How's Mokuba doing?"

"Well, he's living in London at the moment." A small smile crept across Seto's lips at the thought of his little brother. "He's happy. I think."

That's what made his departure from the orphanage and the ensuing years worth it. Ensuring his brother's happiness and keeping his father's dying wish.

"Awww, that's good to hear. He's so lucky to have you. You love him to bits."

Even back then, Jounouchi had supported his plan. Even though it ultimately led to their separation. That was one of Seto's few regrets.

"I'm sorry I never wrote," he mumbled.

He tried early on. Until he found several weeks of letters crumpled in the trash in his new adoptive father's study. He got the message then. His letters would never reach their intended destination.

A self-deprecating smile wormed across Jounouchi's face. "That's alright. You were moving onto bigger and better things. I wouldn't have gotten 'em anyway. I ran away several weeks after you and Mokuba left. That place was the pits. There was nothing worth staying for."

The vise tightened around Seto's heart again. His blood roared in his ears. He could blame it on the alcohol, but he wasn't a lightweight. Seto wasn't nearly as much of a stickler for rules as some people guessed. He was a defense attorney. He knew when to bend the rules or even turn a blind eye. But he couldn't turn away from Jounouchi even if he tried.

Not again.

It took effort, but he swallowed the lump in his throat. "We should continue this conversation somewhere private," he declared. It shamed him to recognize the slight warble in his voice.

Jounouchi froze, his highball glass suspended in mid-air with his hand. "Wait, really?"

"You're more familiar with this area. You must be able to recommend such a place."

The other man downed his drink like water and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Okay, okay. Yeah. A few places come to mind. Yer sure about this?"

"Don't make me repeat myself," he snapped, unable to keep an ounce of contempt from bleeding through.

Jounouchi either didn't notice or didn't care. After slamming his glass down on the table, he shot forward and clasped Seto's wrist. It was strong enough that his bones creaked under the pressure, but it wasn't a threat. Nor was Jounouchi trying to hurt him. It seemed he was as reluctant to let go as Seto was.

Then as if no time has passed—untrue because so much did—Jounouchi dragged him out of the bar and out onto the neon-lit streets.

#yugioh #puppyshipping #violetshipping #joukai #ygo #my wips #fic: In bed with the mob #writing more artsy M-rated smut really strained my brain 😂#the metaphors and similes are probably very strained #thanks to everyone for giving your thoughts on the first part ;;_;;#absolutely did encourage me to write and share more of this #i'm kinda proud of the back-and-forth here which says a lot because i generally consider dialogue my weak spot as a writer

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aristoteliancomplacency · 10 months

Text

The Classics mailing list is having another ‘how many languages should People know?’ discussion. (And it is actually a discussion this time! Not to jinx it But it has so far not descended into Oxbridge professors telling postgrad students that if they haven’t spent a year living abroad in specific European countries then they shouldn’t even be doing Classics).

And like, I’m never gonna contribute to that discussion on the mailing list because there is always the chance that you’ll set someone off and I genuinely cba to deal with that, but the discussion so far is missing actual practical solutions of any sort.

Here are some facts:

- Classics scholarship gets published in a lot of languages. It is absolutely the case that the majority of it is in a smaller group of languages.

- it would be super awesome and great if everyone was multilingual!

- Most scholars are not multilingual.

- difference circumstances make it more/less likely that someone will be fluent in a second language. This includes Country, school, class, etc.

- there is literally nothing to be gained from excluding people from the subject for not knowing more than one language.

- everyone would produce better scholarship if we could read everything written on the topic we’re researching.

- there are a not insignificant amount of instances in which something was published in a language other than English and then someone else comes along later and writes the same thing again but in English and it gets all the attention (and honestly leaves you wondering whether the author deliberately chose to ignore the non-English work bc srsly how do you write an entire fucking book and not be aware of someone else’s whole entire book on the same theme??)

- non-native English speakers are more likely to get papers rejected from English speaking journals.

- it is absolutely not reasonable to expect them to be spending so much of their time perfecting their knowledge of the foibles of English academic language.

- searching for Research is a skill. Knowing what terms to use and where to search is a skill. Knowing another language doesn’t actually mean you will be good at searching using that language.

- DeepL and even google translate are pretty good actually.

Here’s some thoughts:

Publishing: I’m currently co-editing a volume and I spent a lot of time working with one contributor bc it’s the first thing they’ve published in English. They’ve been a delight to work with. And honestly, yes, it has taken me more time to help them polish their chapter than for others, but it’s not even the chapter that’s taken the longest. Like, one of the chapters written by a native English speaker has been a way bigger headache for me.

I know everyone is overworked and underpaid and being asked to Peer Review Journal/Book submissions for free in their spare time, but also, some of us are very much happy to help others polish journal articles/chapters for free too. I’d rather do that than peer review shit, tbh.

Sure, in an ideal world we’d get paid for all this kind of work, but we do not live in an ideal world, other scholars can’t afford to pay us to do that and frankly, like, they shouldn’t have to be literally paying more money than others to stand a chance of getting published just because they’re having to write in a second/third/etc. language. Ideally universities or other bodies could fund that cost but whatever. No one is putting me in charge of a university budget anytime soon, so I’ll just be here helping people for free if they need it.

Language learning: I don’t care about what the ideal situation is. I care about what we can actually, usefully do. Sitting around complaining that universities should make x or y language mandatory is useless. And there will always be more languages that it would be useful to know.

What’s actually useful, and far easier to implement:

- teach people how to use DeepL and google translate. Get universities to *subscribe* to DeepL. Teach this as part of standard research methods. Make it clear even from undergrad that there is valuable scholarship available in other languages and that students are expected to Not Ignore It.

- resource share. What’s actually the best place to search for academic research on Y topic in X language? And what’s the word for X person/art style/literary genre in Y language? Even if someone wants to look at lit in different languages, they still have to know what to look for before they start.

- ??? Idk what to call this, but like, it would be really fuckin’ great if we could tag stuff in multiple languages. Like, it would be better if a user could search for, say ‘Iliad animal metaphors’ and have it turn up all Language results rather than having to run 10 different searches to cover a bunch of different languages (also see above, re: knowing how to successfully search is a language-specific skill). But without knowing how to fix that problem, we should still be sharing the knowledge of how to use translation tools + the best search engines per Language / area + reminding people ‘that ‘look up that term in X language dictionary and then search for that’ is something they should be doing.

Like, there are already tools at our disposal that should make cross-language scholarship easier for everyone. Whether you know one or five languages. We’re just shit at using them/teaching them.

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torillatavataan · 1 year

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Could have been little more polite in your response to the April -post :(

I could have, but on the other hand, I could have been actually nasty, or have included the person's url. But I wouldn't want to do that and I don't think I was being particularly harsh. Most of my addition to the post was explaining what the Finnish word for April means.

That being said, I'm tired of the trope of comparing Finnish to unrelated languages and then acting surprised that it's completely different. Like all those posts that have a word in a bunch of closely related languages only to throw in Finnish at the end with a very different and often longer compound word with the rage face. What if the word added in the end was Swahili or Korean or Tibetan or Hawaian, and people laughed about it because, hey, it's so different and has letters in order and combinations these other languages that are all from the same language family wouldn't typically use, so it's basically a keysmash, right?

Sure, I think it's fine to joke and make fun of things like individual words that have a silly or unfortunate meaning in another language (although those can get kinda old at some point, too) like pussi (bag, especially small plastic bag) will be funny for English speakers, the name Persephone (perse means arse in Finnish, so a Finnish speaker's brain goes "ah, ass phone!") will be funny for Finnish speakers, katso sukkia/merta (look at the socks/sea) will be funny for Italian speakers, Pierre Pascal (sounds like piere paskal, an imperative of "fart whilst having a shit") will be funny for Finnish speakers etc. I think it's fine to say two languages that are closely related sound cute/funny/weird /etc. in comparison to each other, e.g. Estonian often sounds cute to Finnish speakers (and I'm sure Finnish sounds weird and silly to Estonians, too), and similar-sounding words with very different meanings can be pretty funny (hallitus in Finnish means the government, but means mould in Estonian).

But I think that's different from purposefully comparing an unrelated language to a bunch of closely related languages and then laughing at the unrelated language for being obviously different (which was not the point of the April post, it was just showing what April is in each European language, but the tags were making this "different language looks silly" joke). I mean, I think that at this point most people on tumblr agree that it's not cool to point at Welsh words and laugh about how it and Welsh in general "looks like a keysmash", or say that a language written in a different script like Thai or Arabic looks like messy scribbles made by a child. Speakers of languages that use the Cyrillic alphabet will equally find it frustrating that their letters are used for "aesthetic" titles that read as complete nonsense to them. Actually, it doesn't even have to be non-Latin letters. Dø or die, right?

#nimetön #vastaus

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the-90s-music-colosseum · 3 months

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About the bias question, how many of us here are non-USAmericans? Because I think hip-hop and rap were big in the US in the 90s, but we Europeans had our beloved Euro-trash dance hits topping the charts back then. Oh, and Britpop too.

It took us a while to get hip-hop (it's quite hard to make sense of the lyrics for non native English speakers, we needed the Internet to be there to help us understand it).

There were also a lot of hits from, and this is a technical term, the old farts: Sting, Eric Clapton, etc - and I'm not seeing those represented here. Which is good, they've faded from memory.

And angsty teenagers of every generation will find the grunge patron saints of angst. It's a niche which overlaps with Tumblr's user base, I think.

(this is not to say that bias doesn't exist, of course)

I think we actually did a survey of where everyone is from, a while ago - the results were overwhelmingly North American with some European and much less from other regions. Not sure how that reflects on the current results, especially since the follower count has increased quite a bit since then, but it's an interesting observation.

#asks #disc horse

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mariacallous · 3 months

Text

Standing on the speaker’s dais inside the Palestinian Legislative Council, three dozen Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers held up an Israeli flag.

The IDF soldiers captured the building in mid-November, as they swept through Gaza City and took control of key government buildings while pushing out civilians across the territory.

It was stark juxtaposition to the scene inside the chamber 16 years earlier, when it was Hamas who seized control of government buildings throughout Gaza. Brandishing rifles, they forced out Fatah, their political rivals, and asserted total control over the Gaza Strip.

A decade before that, the Palestinian Authority held its first elections to fill the chamber. While there were limitations, the elections successfully created a functioning government for the Palestinian proto-state, armed with a mandate to both improve the standard of living in the territories and to negotiate a permanent deal for independence with Israel. There was reason to be optimistic.

Today, the legislative council building lies in ruin. Shortly after the Israeli forces posed for photos inside, the complex was partially razed.

The building’s destruction also symbolizes a chance to try again. But in order for the PA, or whatever replaces it, to succeed, it will need a mandate from the Palestinian people—something it hasn’t had in more than 15 years.

It’s a tall order.

Restoring democracy to Palestine is a collection of Catch-22s. It needs a new government to function, but its current politics have long been too fraught to hold elections. It cannot have real elections without Hamas, its most popular party, but Israel will not tolerate any government which includes them. Its electoral infrastructure is sound, but its political system is woefully broken.

For the far-right coalition in power in Israel, led by long-term political survivor Benjamin Netanyahu, a divided Palestinian community is far better than one with a clear democratic leader. Yet holding any real election will need both cooperation and security assurances from the Israeli government and support from the international community.

With respect to the United States, a likely broker of any deal, their hesitant inching toward an independent Palestinian state cannot come fast enough.

Untangling these problems may seem impossible amid a siege in which hundreds of Palestinians are still dying weekly. But true representation and a path to real statehood for Palestine are vital to any lasting peace.

“I don’t think anyone is yet thinking of how we restart political competition in Palestine,” said Vladimir Pran, an elections specialist who previously served as director of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems for Palestine.

“I would argue it’s important, it’s condicio sine qua non, when it comes to good governance and democracy.”

In the months since Oct. 7 and the ensuing war in Gaza, the international community has played variations on a theme when it comes to governance in Palestine.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu told NPR that “there has to be a civilian government” in Gaza, but implied that it would not be the government in Ramallah. Yair Lapid, who leads the Israeli opposition, said the PA should be the one to take over Gaza, but only after it goes through a “de-radicalization process.” In a Washington Post op-ed, U.S. President Joe Biden wrote that “Gaza and the West Bank should be reunited under a single governance structure, ultimately under a revitalized Palestinian Authority.” Now the White House is toying with a plan for an independent, but “demilitarized,” Palestine. The European Commission’s foreign policy representative, Josep Borrell, put it in more blunt terms: “The Palestinian Authority has to return to Gaza.”

Specifics, however, have been in short supply. A State Department spokesperson confirmed to Foreign Policy that the White House supports the PA regaining control of Gaza. Asked how they ought to happen, the spokesperson said that decision should be up to the Palestinian people.

Zaha Hassan, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who previously represented Palestine in international negotiations, says there’s a hollowness at the heart of this language.

“We need to clarify what the U.S. and others are talking about when they talk about a ‘reformed’ or ‘revitalized’ Palestinian Authority,” she said. “That’s not the same thing, in their minds, as a legitimate Palestinian Authority—one that is going to represent the will of its people.”

An Egyptian plan, teased in December, tied together political and economic security. The proposal would see an immediate ceasefire, followed by the release of the hostages held by Hamas. The peace deal would require that Hamas relinquish power in Gaza, to be replaced with an administration of technocrats. That new government would plan and hold fresh legislative elections to bring democratic government back to the Palestinian territories.

A plan from a broader coalition of Arab states, reported by the Financial Times in January, would see the establishment of a recognized Palestinian state, under some form of a “strengthened” PA. (Netanyahu, for his part, continues to oppose any sovereign Palestinian state.)

These reports feel like a historical rerun.

After Hamas’s 2007 coup, Mahmoud Abbas declared a state of emergency and appointed U.S.-educated economist Salam Fayyad as caretaker prime minister until fresh elections could be held. Fayyad, a member of the small Third Way party, was hailed by then President George W. Bush as “a good fellow.” But his appointment never engendered real legitimacy.

“Yes, fine. Everybody loved Salam Fayyad, the Americans love Salam Fayyad,” Pran said. “The Palestinians hated it. They saw him as an American accountant, imposed on the Palestinians.”

According to Israeli broadcaster Kan, American diplomats have again put forward Fayyad’s name as a candidate to helm this hypothetical renewed PA. (Fayyad says he has not been part of those discussions.)

“We are constantly trying to apply frameworks and solutions on the Palestinians, completely oblivious and ignoring their internal politics and their internal political dynamics,” Pran said. “You can’t freeze politics out of political systems.”

“All this talk about post-Gaza [war], the day after, when you strip away the fantasy scenarios, we’re back where we were a year ago,” Pran said. And the problem is: Succession planning for Abbas, the president of the PA.

It was clear, even long before Oct. 7, that Abbas, now 88, needed to be replaced. But there has been no clear indication of who will step into his shoes. It is almost certain that his successor will need to be chosen before any election can be called. That makes the internal machinations of Fatah critically important.

One faction inside Fatah clearly still favors a return to a national unity government, which would include Hamas. That faction includes one possible Abbas successor: Jibril Rajoub, the secretary general of Fatah’s Central Committee, who had previously tried to revive the Fatah-Hamas power-sharing deal.

Another camp appears keen to freeze out Hamas and partner more closely with Israel and the United States. Hussein al-Sheikh, appointed by Abbas to serve as secretary general of the PLO, is seen as more deferential to Israel. “Isn’t it worth discussing how to manage this conflict with the Israeli occupation?” al-Sheikh said in a December interview with Reuters. Hamas has branded him “spokesman of the occupation.”

There is no clear path to reconcile these seemingly incompatible positions.

No matter who replaces the aging Abbas, they will face the same problems as the longtime president: The Palestinian people see Fatah as corrupt, ineffective, and a barrier to Palestinian statehood.

Hamas won the 2007 elections for exactly that reason. And the terror group’s popularity has only grown since the Oct. 7 attacks: A poll from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found Hamas’s support nearly doubled as opposed to just months prior.

Hamas has seized on the opportunity. At a press conference in January, Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political leader, appeared alongside a member of Fatah’s Central Committee and called for an end to the fighting between the two factions and for fresh elections.

But the Palestinian Center’s polling has also shown a deep malaise. When surveyed in person in June 2022, more than 7 in 10 Palestinians said they wanted fresh elections. Yet faced with the choice of either Abbas as Fatah’s presidential candidate, and Haniyeh as the stand-in Hamas candidate, fewer than half said they would actually vote.

Asked who they would like to see replace Abbas late last year, just 1 percent named al-Sheikh, while Rajoub’s name didn’t appear at all. There is one name, however, that was consistently named by a third of Palestinians as their preferred leader: Marwan Barghouti.

The problem is that Barghouti has sat in an Israeli prison since 2002, serving consecutive life sentences. An Israeli court convicted Barghouti of murder and terrorism, but to many in the territories, he is Palestine’s Nelson Mandela. There have been frequent pleas and campaigns to release Barghouti over the years, but they have all come to naught. Israel, Hassan says, has “no interest whatsoever” in releasing Barghouti. (He has long been at odds with Abbas and his loyalists as well.)

As soon as the fighting stops or slows, there will be a desperate need for a functioning state in a devastated Gaza. Any attempt by Hamas to reassert control will likely be met with force from Israel, while the PA says it will not even try to return to Gaza unless a broader peace package is on the table.

A longer-term Israeli occupation is unwanted and untenable, while a vague plan for an Arab-led peacekeeping force seems impractical and unlikely. Palestinians, for their part, seem justifiably hostile to the idea of foreign powers setting their political agenda. In an open letter, a group of Gazan activists vowed to “denounce and refuse any political discussions” so long as Israeli military operations continue.

One plan, put forward by Israel, would see the establishment of “civil committees,” possibly approved by Israel directly, which would govern Gaza. The idea may be modeled after the “village leagues” initiative of the 1970s. Such a plan is likely to fail for the same reason the original incarnation did: Because local government cannot be imposed on a population by an occupying power.

An increasingly likely possibility is that Gaza will simply have no government—the PA may claim notional control, but Gaza will be essentially administered by a coalition of Western donors, as the Israeli Defense Forces manage its planned “buffer zone,” clearing Palestinian territory and launching selective raids as it sees fit. Meanwhile, the Israeli blockade will continue.

The Israelis will also need to sign off on any vote, Pran says.

“If the Israelis don’t facilitate those elections, then they really can’t happen,” Pran said. “Because the election commission cannot travel to Gaza, sensitive election material cannot be sent from the West Bank—the ballot papers, you know, all that stuff—training of officials: Really, nothing can happen if Israel wants to block those elections.”

“In terms of electoral process, I know this sounds paradoxical, but Palestinians have the best election commission in the Middle East,” Pran said.

The Palestinian Central Elections Commission, he says, is widely respected as neutral, independent, and capable. While there will be challenges for the commission going forward, it nevertheless represents a rare spot of credibility amid public frustration with the PA.

One thing the rest of the world can do on this hypothetical “day after” is to ensure that the electoral commission is set up for success. “Number one, they have to update the voters list—because the last update was done in 2021,” Pran said. The massive displacement inside Gaza means that list will need significant revision.

The Palestinian people seem keen for political choices beyond Fatah and Hamas. The current law, however, makes founding a new competitive party essentially impossible. Reforming the electoral system to allow for real multiparty democracy could be one way to disrupt Fatah’s hold on power while offering an alternative to Hamas. Luckily, much of the work has already been done. The United Nations Security Council released a road map to a two-state solution in 2003, including political reforms.

Focusing on how to get a real political process started in Palestine will be vital for a lasting peace—but it requires buy-in from actors who often loathe each other. Failure will doom Palestinians to another generation of political corruption, dysfunction, and unrealized aspiration.

The Palestinian people want and deserve better.

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