back on my bagginshield shit cuz wdym bilbo stole the arkenstone… the king’s jewel…the heart of the mountain. wdym thorin was king under the mountain. all im hearing is that bilbo stole thorin’s heart. that’s literally the whole message and plot idc. you can’t tell me im wrong. he stole thorin’s heart.

Seeing red over seeing multiple people I respect and admire and care about being libeled in what could charitably be called a "journalistic outlet" tonight. Publishing unsubstantiated and untrue claims about trans women committing criminal acts should not be taken lightly. Uncritically signal boosting these claims to large audiences is inexcusably irresponsible. Especially when it's so fucking transparently bullshit that by the time I got to the part where they started slandering a second trans woman I had already completely dismissed it.

im emotional about food , music , human connection , the way the streetlights were orange in 2009. whatever

Fun fact, street lights should be orange again!! The blue lights we are currently using is incredibly attractive to insects and cause them to fly around it till they die from exhaustion, collisions, predators, etc.

We are in the midst of an insect apocalypse that is already having far reaching effects on bird populations and the food web as a whole. Changing the lights we use is just one way we can begin to slow the course of—and perhaps begin to reverse—this calamity.

one thing you can do today is switch your outdoor lights to these yellow LED bulbs—

For more information, watch lectures by entomologist Doug Tallamy, like this one—

does anybody want to see this baffling drawing i did when i was like 8 and i assume just learned what gay people were

what the fuck does this mean. the rest of this notebook is homestuck ocs

You read Homestuck at 8??

no but i did look at the pretty pictures of the characters on pinterest and take "what god tier are you?" personality quizzes

OP, I regret to inform you that you seem to have been drawing a tumblr post in your childhood notebook

WHAT

USO wave © Peter Solarz

anyone know if rubik is like, problematic? do we still fw his cube?

anyone notice that at some point cough drop wrappers started pleading with you not to kill yourself

anyone notice that at some point cough drop wrappers started pleading with you not to kill yourself

ib: crepuscularqueens

this is what queer infighting leads to

A Ghost Story (2017) dir. David Lowery

Everytime I see that Ptahhotep 'party girl' translation it hurts my soul. That's a very difficult text, and that passage in particular is of debateable translation. The grammar and vocab are tricky, we're not entirely sure what it's saying, and there's some cultural context we're lacking too.

So seeing it reduced to 'party girl' makes me tinabelchernoise.mp3

I was reminded of the 'party girl' quote, so here's what the passage actually says (lacunae are filled by other copies of the text).

This sounds far more like "If you found a good woman don't fumble her." Than it does party girl. And I dunno how anyone came to the party girl conclusion.

Yes, that's pretty much the line and would read well in the rest of the context of the Maxims of Ptahhotep. It's a wisdom text, passed down from father to son (Ptahhotep being the father speaking) about how to live a good Egyptian life. Something from the original is always lost in translation, and that goes doubly so for ancient texts. We're missing a lot of context and social norms that would have made this an easy read for someone back then.

So here's the translation I hate:

The first line (from both my image and this one in transliteration reads as follows: ir iri=k Hm.t m Spn.t

'ir' (the first two signs, one reed leaf, one mouth sign) is a conditional clause marker, giving the sentence the meaning of 'if'.

'iri' (the eye) is the verb 'to do/to make/to possess'. This is followed by pronoun =k 'you' (the basket beneath the eye).

Hm.t (the well with water, the semi circle of bread, and the seated woman) is 'woman'.

m (the owl) is a preposition meaning 'in' but...there's grammar stuff here I'm not gonna explain. It's unnecessary for the context.

Spn.t (the oblong pool of water, the seat sign beneath, the water sign beneath that, the semi circle of bread, and a pustule) is a relative form of the verb Spn and means 'one who is voluptuous woman'.

I'm not kidding, this is the dictionary entry for it on the Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptia.

We know it means that a) because it's used in other contexts to describe voluptuous woman (fatness is a sign of health and wealth in Ancient Egypt) and b) the pustule determinative marks it out as word that has something to do with the body or bodily functions. It's a word that describes the body, not a personality.

Here's a different translation, but for the same passge of the same text:

So, with that said, a translation of 'party girl' is so far removed from the context and meaning of the original text that the translator has simply written what they liked as a meaning. There's really no justification for it. It is quite literally nothing at all like the original text and it infuriates me to see a wisdom text from a civilisation whose culture modern discussion on barely gets out of 'they're obsessed with death and cats, and oh did we mention aliens and curses' reduced to 'party girl'.

If you wanted a better, idiomised translation, I'd go with:

'Find a wife from a wealthy family, one who is liked by all those in the town. Never divorce her! Treat her well! Life will be good for both of you.'

It's simple, it fits the context of a father imparting wisdom to his son, and doesn't wildly extrapolate from the meanings of the words themselves.

Bringing this back to remind you all that while the literal translation says 'voluptuous woman' it doesn't really mean 'marry a fat woman' in the cultural context.

In Ancient Egypt, fatness was relatively positive and was considered a sign of health and wealth. It's that last part that's key to understanding what Ptahhotep was trying to impart to his son. Since this is a wisdom text, Ptahhotep wants his son to marry well, and this would generally mean 'marry rich'.

But that's considered rather gauche. You can't just come out and say 'son marry a girl who's daddy's got money'. So, the language here is couched. He's using a well known (for the Egyptians) idiom (a word or phrase that has a different meaning to the words by themselves) to say it instead.

Since fatness = this person has wealth and prosperity in Ancient Egypt, we know that Ptahhotep isn't saying 'marry a fat woman' he's instead implying, through the choice of idiom, that his son should 'marry a rich woman and treat her well' and therefore he'll have a happy life.

I know it's tempting to take things at their literal meaning, but, particularly with ancient texts, it's necessary to see if the choice of words or phrases holds any cultural significance before trying to derive meaning from them.

TL;DR: translation hard, especially when you have to sift through ancient cultural context too

Thinking to myself "they can't possibly have written this entire 20 000 word fic exclusively in 4chan greentext format", like a fool.

Give us the fic

Let the record reflect that you asked for this.

@lidsel replied:

I mostly just look up what's being referenced when people blorbotag my shitposts.

I low-key love this? They're certainly making use of the format; the chaotic and comedic flow of events would feel lower quality and wordier in standard prose

I don't know how anyone has found this as the only ao3 tag it has is "original work." There's not even a rating or relationship type. The fic summary for anyone intrested is:

"in 2069 AD, the region once known as the United States of America is a world of complex lore and political intrigue that our heroine doesn't really care about because she's too busy trying to find estrogen in the post-apocalyptic Midwest."

Give that roughly two thirds of the comments and kudos appear to post-date the creation of this thread, at least in this particular case the answer to "where do people find this stuff?" is apparently "right here".

been thinking about fantasy/scifi rule systems and free will

let me put this in terms you understand. our pet liberal, Stephanie Bethany Grace Smith Ruth Tyler, is visiting the DNC in the sky because you let her pokemon go to the polls across a 10-lane motorway while you were meant to be holding her accountable and pushing her to the left. hand side of the pavement

i only like enemies to lovers if it’s gay because i think men who are mean to women don’t deserve to live

I hate this kind of sentiment so much. This is contributing to less and less fics with female characters while the stupidest, least interesting m/m ships keep dominating fandom. Just look at the top 100 AO3 ships. Every year, there are less female characters in those lists.

Trying to take away interesting dynamics with female characters in the name of misogyny isn't as progressive as you think it is lol. It's fucking fiction. You're allowed to explore all dynamics in fiction and you're not protecting women by making their fictional stories boring lol.

This is such performative nonsense that it physically hurts that so many people have internalised this. This mindset is why so many women don't feel comfortable reading about female characters and have to resort to m/m to read about the dynamics they actually like because people have convinced an entire generation of fandom that female characters only deserve sanitised, uncomplicated relationships whilst m/m ships can have all the tension, power dynamics, and drama. How is that feminist? You've just reinforced that women are too fragile or precious for complex narratives. This is so patronising.

The same people who clutch their pearls about a man being mean to a woman in fiction will turn around and write 100k words about two men who constantly try to murder each other. Why on earth should women get the cleaned-up version of human emotion while men get the full spectrum of psychological complexity? You have come full circle to Victorian ideals of feminine purity, except now it's 'progressive' and people are patting themselves on the back for it.