this is the wonder

Crystal she/her/hers A little stardust goes a long way. Batman, Sailor Moon, Monster High, soccer, rainbows

[fanwarrior321]

this is just some fabulous art. really makes me realize how gay I am

[dimension20official]

Mysaara has all the most normal hobbies 🌊

Watch the full episode on Dropout

[catoswound-moved]

you cant even begin poems with "i will sodomise and facef uck you" anymore. because of woke .

[queixumes]

[unquietgravekeeper]

Holy fuck

[foone]

[six31]

I vaguely recall discourse about the dictionary pulling it's punches when it came to writing the definition for whatever latin verb means 'face-fuck' because 'to be the recipient of oral sex' is clean and true but doesn't come close enough to describing what the word means.

[foone]

Yeah, Catullus gets censored a lot! I suspect a bit of it is just that we often get this idea of poets and poetry as... Light and fluffy?

Probably just because of what gets taught in schools. You end up getting the impression that a poems are about one of

Being sad

Walking through nature

Being sad whilst walking through nature.

Which is a slightly reductive take on a whole fucking medium.

Anyway, Catullus was less the stereotypical "upper class guy with a lot of education who loves nature and being depressed" sort of poet and is more to the "battle rapper" end of poetry.

He's got multiple poems that are basically diss tracks. This is exactly why Poem 16 (this one) comes straight out the gate with "I AM GOING TO BUTTFUCK AND FACEFUCK YOU" (lowercase letters wouldn't be developed for a few hundred more years, by definition everything Catullus wrote was in ALL UPPERCASE): Catullus is directing this poem at Marcus Furius Bibaculus (Bibaculus to his friends), who had an affair with Juventius: a woman Catullus had a (possibly unrequited) love for. In fact, this sort of reputation is part of what Catullus is saying. He's like "oh, you think I'm some weak pansy faggot because I'm a poet? Let's see how you feel after I shove my huge* manly dick up all your holes, bitch."

Anyway the whole reason I was supposed to be replying is to talk about how Latin is an amazing language to swear in. They've got some very fun words like irrumo, ittumare which means basically "to fuck someone's mouth", but in a single word. Face-fuck is really the best translation English has, and that's two words.

Plus Latin is an infected language! He didn't just say "face fuck", he said the first person singular future active indicative of "face fuck".

Irrumabo is a single word that packs all this info into its infected form. It's not just "what" (face fucking), it's who and when and how.

Who: me, singular. "We" are not going to face fuck you, I, personally, and going to face fuck you.

When: in the future. This is a thing that's going to happen. Latin has multiple moods for this, the indicative, imperative, and subjunctive.

He doesn't use the subjunctive, which'd mean "I hope I facefuck you: it'd be great if someday I get to face fuck you".

He doesn't use the imperative, which is for stating commands. He's not saying "get facefucked, idiot".

He uses the indicative. This is for stating facts. He's saying this as just a thing that will happen. As surely as the sun will rise tomorrow... I will facefuck you.

It's also active not passive, which means it's not "you will be facefucked by me". It's active, meaning it's "I am going to facefuck you".

The word is also derived from the word for teats? As in, it meant something like suckling?

Catullus is saying you're going to suck his cock like a baby feeding from their mother, and he's going to make you do this. This is just a thing that is going to happen.

And he says that all in ONE SINGLE WORD.

Latin is a lovely language for this sort of thing.

(there's also a lot of fascinating stuff about the second line of the poem: he calls Aurelius as pathicus, and Furius a cinaedus. These mean slightly different things! Translating them as "cocksucker" and "butt boy" is definitely one way to do it, but there's more to say about this, but this post is already way too long)

Anyway, while "first poet to ever get his bone on" is highly inaccurate (Sappho was centuries earlier! You think a woman who was so gay she gave us two of our words for WLW didn't BONE?), he definitely was one of the poets who most noticeably Absolutely Fucked and he made sure you knew it.

* he wouldn't have said "huge", this is a localization for our culture. The ancient romans thought big dicks were ugly, unrefined, and comical. (They borrowed this from the ancient greeks, incidentally)

[stereotype-embodier]

I must know if the original Latin was also written in a dick shape

[foone]

sadly not. Latin has a lot of fun tricks you can do with word order (because it's inflected, you can move words around for emphasis) and typography, but it wasn't penis-shaped originally.

that's a good way to localize it to english, though. Catullus 16 is 100% a poem about how Big* Catullus's dick is. * metaphorically, you understand. He's say he's got Big Dick Energy, not a literally big dick, because that wouldn't have worked for his culture.

[the-real-seebs]

That day, Aurelius was amazed to discover that when Catullus was saying "pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo", what he meant was, "I love you."

[aetherograph]

oh! I know what cinaedus means! That's from Greek too, Kinaidos! I would have translated that as 'faggot' or really the older term 'queen', or any of the words that are 'effette (derogatory)': pansy, fairy, pouf, etc. For this I'd probably pick 'faggot' though because it's got the same level of derogatory and aggressive sounds.

But yeah, kinaidos meant basically the receptive partner, which was the bad partner to be. the Greeks and Romans were very specific about 'it's not bad as long as you are doing the penetrating', though I think the Greeks had a specific thing about like... sucking cock was submissive? That might have just been one city state or something, I do not remember where I found that information.

Kinaidos (sorry I don't know how to plural it. Kinaides?) are described in at least one source as wearing white, thigh-high leather boots, though.

[bemusedlybespectacled]

are you telling me that mr. sky walker's chanel boots have historical precedent

[grison-in-space]

One of my favorite teaching moments was the time that one of the students in my class (a Classics double major that had long since forgotten that anyone else in Genetics Lab might have humanities interests) snapped the opening lines to another student out in the middle of a play argument. I gasped at him, the other student demanded to know what the first had said, I provided my own translation ("I'll rape you in the ass and mouth, cockslut Aurelius and ass-hungry Marcus") and formally made the point that we do not say shit like this unless we expect to stand by our words when someone unexpectedly understands them. Then we got into a brief argument about whether irrumare is better translated as "to skullfuck" or "to rape one's face" and a much longer discussion about the way that toxic masculinity relates to homosexuality and prescriptive sexual behavior.

For the record, what aetherograph is referring to is actually the Roman verb irrumare itself. It is a violent word, and while all the folks above are right that Romans and Greeks alike had a lot of moral panic surrounding men being the receiving partner of penetrative sex, irrumare is specifically more threatening and insulting than, say, pedicare: you're specifically muting the person and potentially blocking their airways here, making them even more vulnerable. It also implies very strongly that the penetrating person is controlling the movement: this is not a verb that can be translated synonymously to "blowing" a person, for example. The word means to forcibly fuck a person's mouth, an act so degrading that it is beyond imagination that an upstanding man would or could tolerate it without being forced.

These are Bad Words to a Roman, and I think translations should incorporate that as well as trying to convey the violence of the words. I really don't like translations that try to downplay the extent to which Catullus 16 is a very, very vivid rape threat in response to (inferred) loss of masculine status on account of spending too much time and attention with female lovers. I think there is a tendency to be delighted by profanity and obscenity themselves in the hallowed halls of literature, and certainly this is one hell of an ancient Italian poetic tradition that continues well into the modern day. But I also think that obscenity and poetry both exist to turn strong feelings into meaning, and I think Catullus' poetry is most powerful and effective when we stop thinking about how naughtily he was saying something and start thinking about what exactly he was saying as he did it.

Catullus certainly is one of the Roman poets that fucked, but Catullus 16 is not a romantic poem but a violent one. (This isn't that uncommon for Catullus, who writes vividly about sex, emotion, and violence as recurring themes and can be almost as aggressive to women as to men. One of his other famous ones, Catullus 11, involves him feeling spurned by a lover and declaring that his friends Furius and Aurelius should go tell her that he says he hopes she's happy with all her many suitors, her three hundred lovers, none of which she truly touches despite the rupture of their thighs; another (Catullus 58) has him complaining that his lover whom he was so attached to is off lying in the back alleys fucking all the "grandsons of Remus," AKA any Roman who shows up and hikes up his tunic.) He was also very capable of mushy sweetness! But the anger is always there lurking beneath the surface.

He was a complicated guy. His poetry is constructed in careful layers of meaning around astonishingly raw emotions, glittering and artistic to behold. He was absolutely a man of his own time and place, which makes him translator catnip. But that time and place was Imperial Rome, and translators ought to work to communicate exactly what sort of place Rome could be, too.

[stealingpotatoes]

my friend @astarionpavus and i were discussing how Spite and Justice probably have veeery different reactions to romances

(commission info // tip jar!)

[empress-of-dark2005]

[queens-hoes]

Military associations, flight-based evol, ties to teen MC, literal fire, AND similar hair?

I'm onto you, Apple Boy.

[erinlace-deactivated20200503]

[bone-and-brawn]

[official-lucifers-child]

no no that’s a bop, i love it

[flightyfinch]

“Woman!” cried I, somewhat tearsome,

“Who are you to stand so fearsome

With your wavy locks of auburn hair and eyes of emerald green?”

Quoth the woman, “I’m Jolene”

[miurgen]

[myjetpack]

An early Halloween cartoon for Guardian Books

[nopiedraws]

🌊

[everythingfox]

Cats cuddling

(via)

[hurtpeoplex2]

i feel this sums up every fight between magneto and professor x fairly well.

[itgetsbetter]

🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ GOOD queer news for the TL: a bunch of students across the U.S. are using grants to make their schools more welcoming for LGBTQ+ youth

Queer students deserve to feel safe at school! We're in our third year of giving grants to put the power in their hands to make their schools more welcoming - students know what they need most in their own communities and their own schools.

Through 50 States, 50 Grants, 5,000 Voices, we've awarded over $1.5 million in grants across the U.S. to support student-led projects. Our third season has some of the most badass projects yet, like these:

❤️ “With this grant, we’ll establish an LGBTQIA+ community space in the library, open to all students, with guest speakers, arts and crafts, LGBTQIA+ books and literature, and LGBTQIA+-specific resources.” - Pocatello, Idaho

🧡 “Our project aims to support LGBTQ+ students through teacher training, development of gender-neutral bathroom protocols, and the organization of a district-wide Queer Prom.” - Gypsum, Colorado

💛 “We’ll take students from the 3 middle schools and our local high school to Honolulu Pride to make local LGBTQ+ friends, feel accepted in a large group, and see the community beyond just school.” - Ewa Beach, Hawai'i

💚 “We’re going to increase access to queer literature by working with a local nonprofit to expand our school’s collection, host storytelling events, and foster community connection." - Mobile, Alabama

💙 “Our plan is to create new Inclusivity Zones across the state in critical areas for local GSA clubs to meet, plan shared events, and be their own safe space.” - Charleston, West Virginia

💜 “We’ll host the Rainbow Youth Summit for LGBTQIA+ youth from across southern California to network, learn, and have fun in a safe, judgement free and supportive environment.” - Cathedral City, California

These students are truly the definition of making things better - you can see the rest of the amazing projects lined up across the country on our blog here!

[sadiepinesma]

After seeing @quazies super cute art of Gigan as a goose I couldnt get this out of my head!

[amagi2000]

[prokopetz]

I've seen posts going around claiming that petting animals is basically tricking them into thinking they're being groomed, and it's bugging me because, like, there's no trickery afoot. Petting and scritching are grooming activities. They help to dislodge loose fur and foreign objects and more evenly distribute protective oils, among other things. Primates are social groomers, and the human impulse to scritch is the legacy of our primate ancestors. We see an animal we like, even a dangerous one, and the monkey brain says "groom that thing".

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Sucking a guy's dick is basically tricking him into thinking he's having sex

[indecisitivity]

derin why

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

I'm helping

[nourishingbroth]

The haunting ancient Celtic carnyx being played for an audience. This is the sound Roman soldiers would have heard their Celtic enemies make.

[teaboot]

Man if I heard that shit while descending upon a strange land with my brethren I'd straight up dig a hole to die in right the and there, fuck the emperor fuck the gods that's a warning straight from the bones of an older evil and whatever is coming is worse than death

[counterpunches]

#sometimes I think about how simultaneously loud and quiet the earth must have been once.#quiet because all the ambient noises I associate with being alive haven't been invented yet; no cars#or train whistles or trash collection or joggers or kids on bikes#no radio. no muzak. no clocks or chiming or church bells.#but it also must have been in its own way very loud too; because of course nature surges to take its place#more bird calls and animal noises; more wind#but then again wouldn't that make this sound even more impressive? if the world is delicate and full of quieter sounds#and they all fall silent for a haunting bone-rattling tone that isn't coming from anything or anywhere you can identify.#it would be terrifying. it would beget terror.