not my circus not my monkeys

behold the field in which I grow my fucks. lay thine eyes upon it and see that it is barren

[mykkzy]

Cardan, very drunk: *points to Jude* That’s my girlfriend, suckers!

Jude, quietly: Your wife, honey.

Cardan: my wiFE! EVEN BETTER!

[mintyvina]

Five minutes after Jude was dragged away.

Queen Orlagh: Can you believe that lying mortal girl tried to convince us, she was Queen of Fairie? As if she could ever trick you into marrying her! Ridiculous, right?

Cardan, visibly sweating:

[hedgehog-moss]

I like that English and French have a similar thing going on with the sayings “He isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed” and “Il n’a pas inventé l’eau chaude” (he didn’t invent hot water). In both cases there are many established variants; some are quite normal (not the brightest bulb in the box / “il n’a pas inventé la poudre à canon”, he didn’t invent gunpowder), then you can make it a bit sillier, “he isn’t the crunchiest chip in the bag / quickest bunny in the forest”, “il n’a pas inventé le fil à couper le beurre / la machine à courber les bananes” (he didn’t invent the butter slicer wire / the banana-curving machine), and we also both enjoy making them absurd via crossbreeding (he isn’t the sharpest bunny in the box / il n’a pas inventé le fil à couper l’eau chaude - he didn’t invent the hot water slicer wire) and so on and so forth

[campesine]

[sixpenceee]

This amazing traditional performance showing the Buddha of Compassion, Kwan Yin, in her thousand arm form. Depicting this Buddha as having a thousand arms is meant to demonstrate a vast ability to help the suffering world.                           

Source

[makalaure-kanafinwe]

What's your Tolkien fandom pet peeve? Mine is when people are like "Mae g'ovannen" but I've never met them in my life. That's "Mae l'ovannen" to you

[quiet-nymph]

Kitutukimusume on Instagram

[90377]

The Greek Garden ギリシャ庭園 by Peter Skov

[swampnymphs]

DW4A0929 by stu haldeman

[thatsbelievable]

Attention: Monday

The only way to get to the rest of the week is through you, so don’t act so smug.

[dct239394cvvd098dffgggp]

toph fucks around and makes pangea a thing again

[dct239394cvvd098dffgggp]

shes like 'i cant see on boats. solution? make sea travel obsolete' and no one stops her because they cant

[dct239394cvvd098dffgggp]

firelord zuko wakes up at sunrise but the sunlight is Somehow coming in through the entirely Wrong Fucking Window n theres like fifty messenger hawks screeching from down the hall n hes like 'you know what. i dont want to know' n goes back to sleep

[mirkwoodest]

One of the ballsiest things Tolkien ever did was write 473k words about some hobbits called frodo, sam, merry, and pippin and then write in the appendices that their names are actually maura, ban, kali, and razal. 

[mirkwoodest]

This just in: Eowyn and Eomer’s names actually start with the letter “L.” [source for other nerds] 

[mirkwoodest]

#wait so they have hobbitish names and common names?

No, they have Westron names and English names.

What you’ve got to understand is that everything Tolkien wrote was him pretending to merely translate ancient documents. He was writing as if the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were actually been written by Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam (or Bilba, Maura, and Ban) and he was just some random contemporary academic translating it all into English for us. 

There are many languages in his books, but generally speaking, everything written in English in the books is a translation of the language “Westron.” Therefore any names that come from Westron, he translated. Names coming from other languages, like Sindarin, he left as they were. Why? IDK. Maybe because the stories are from a hobbit perspective and hobbits speak Westron, so he wanted the Westron parts to sound familiar and the other languages/names to remain foreign? 

“But Mirkwoodest!” you cry, “The word ‘hobbit’ isn’t an English word! And the names Bilbo Baggins, Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Peregrin Took, and Meriadoc Brandybuck” all sounds super weird and not like English at all!”

Psych! They are in English! (Or Old English, German, or Norse.) Once again you underestimate what a nerd Tolkien was. Let me break it down: 

In Westron, hobbits are actually called “kuduk,” which means “hole-dweller,” so for an English translation, Tolkien called them “hobbits” which is a modernization of the Old English word “holbytla” which comes from “Hol” (hole) and “Bytla”(builder). 

“Maura” is a Westron name which means “Wise.” Weirdly enough, “Frodo” is an actual Proto-Germanic name that actual people used to have and it means the same thing. 

“Banazîr” is Westron for “half-wise, or simple.” In Proto Germanic, the prefix “Sam” means half, and wise is obviously a word we still use. 

“Razanur” means “Traveler” or “Stranger” which is also the meaning of the word “Peregrin(e)” This one is a twofer because  “Razar” means “a small red apple” and in English so does “Pippin.”

“Kalimac” apparently is a meaningless name in Westron, but the shortened form “Kali” means “happy,” so Jirt decided his nickname would be “Merry” and chose the really obscure ancient Celtic name “Meriodoc” to match. 

Jirt chose to leave “Bilba” almost exactly the same in English, but he changed the ending to an “O” because in Westron names ending in “a” are masculine. 

I’m not going to go on and talk about the last names but those all have special meanings too (except Tûk, which is too iconic to change more than the spelling of, apparently). 

The Rohirrim were also Westron speakers first and foremost, so their names are also “translations” into Old English and Proto-Germanic words, i.e. “Eowyn”  is a combination of “Eoh” (horse) and “Wynn” (joy/bliss). 

“Rohirrim/Rohan” are Sindarin words, but in the books, they call themselves the “Éothéod” which is an Old English/Norse combo that means “horse people.” Tolkien tells us in the “Peoples of Middle Earth” that the actual Westron for “Éothéod” is Lohtûr, which means that Eowyn and Eomer’s names, which come from the same root word, must also start with the letter L. 

The names of all the elves, dwarves, Dunedain, and men from Gondor are not English translations, since they come from root words other than Westron. 

The takeaway from this is that when a guy whose first real job was researching the history and etymology of words of Germanic origin beginning with the letter “W” writes a book, you can expect this kind of tomfoolery.

Notes: Sorry I said “Razal” instead of “Razar” in my original post I’m a fraud. 

Further Reading: 

Rohirric , Westron 

[sisterresister]

Tee Corinne Cunt Coloring Book (San Francisco, Last Gasp Publication, 1975)

Lesbian artist Tee Corinne 1943-2006 “Tee consistently and conscientiously included women of color, fat women, older women, and women with disabilities as her subjects. Sometimes printers would refuse to print her works and art galleries would refuse to show it. In 1975, she self-published the Cunt Coloring Book, which is still in print today.”

[d-archive1948-deactivated202303]

*Switches languages in mid-sentence while talking to myself*

[demotulibrorum]

Stoker, Bram, Dracula, 1901.

Animation by The British Library.

[starboundbane]

@voltairesaid

[electricraccoonincident-deactiv]

– David Lynch, Dark Deep Darkness (2009)

[timotaychalamet]

Train To Busan (2016) dir. Yeon Sang-ho