#oya!

[postcards-from-mandalore]

Ni slana tug'yc

Ni tayli ner koor. Ni slana tugyc. There was another chat today & I went. It only took me a few seconds to psych myself up this time rather than the embarrassing amount of minutes it took me to talk myself in to it last time. Progress! Oya!!

I didn't do a ton of talking, but what I did was, I think, smoother than my last attempt. And just listening is a real help too. Trying to parse a foreign language spoken by people from around the world is an interesting challenge. Try it sometime. One person came in with a whole buy'ce of questions, that was pretty great.

So, yeah. I did the thing. Jate bora, ni.

Ni slana tugyc - I went back

Ni tayli ner koor - I kept my vow

Oya - sometimes exclamation of excitement/encouragement, sometimes battlecry. Literally means 'let's hunt'

Buy'ce - helmet, colloquially 'bucket'. Also occasionally used as a unit of measurement, ala "give me a buy'ce of -"

jate bora, ni - good job, me

[oolathurman]

Space Shanty, Mandalorian Edition

Just cuz I've been working on a mandosona who likes shanties! I'll try to provide notes and translations beside the phrase of interest, so y'all don't have to scroll up and down too much.

This is to the tune of A Drop of Nelson's Blood / Roll The Old Chariot Along.

"And we'll roll the old chariot along" has been replaced with "And we'll all march to-wards to the stars."

In addition, "And we'll all hang on behind" has been replaced with "Gal ori'skraan, riduur, yaim dab." (The phrase refers to R&R, and literally translates to "Beer, big eats, good company and return to camp." I've shortened "dab'ika" to "dab," since that can be interpreted as one's current place of stay or rest.)

Common verses:

And a drop of net'ra gal, wouldn't do us any harm // Net'ra gal, a black ale.

And a drop of spiced tihaar, wouldn't do us any harm // Tihaar, a strong clear alcoholic spirit.

And a game of meshgeroya, wouldn't do us any harm // Meshgeroya, a Mandalorian game.

And a plate of tiingilar, would fill us up real good // Tiingilar, a spicy mandalorian casserole, dish made from leftovers.

It'd be alright if we make it 'round Krownest // Krownest, ancestral home of Clan Wren

It'd be alright if the Void of Blue eats us // Void of Blue, a reference to the lights of hyperspace

And a night on the town wouldn't do us any harm

And a moment of aay'han, wouldn't do us any harm // Aay'han, bittersweet perfect moment of mourning and joy - remembering and celebrating.

And rolling with our vod, wouldn't do us any harm // Rolling, in this case used as innuendo or as a suggestive comment. Vod as in, sibling, brother, sister; comrade, close mate. In this case, the latter 'comrade/close mate' is used.

And a night planetside, wouldn't do us any harm

And a big ol' ori'skraan, wouldn't do us any harm // ori'skraan, a feast.

What I love about a shanty like Nelson's Blood is the ability to easily make up verses on the fly, and I imagine that whoever starts the song would encourage others to throw in random verses as the song goes on. What verse would you add? :D

[valkblue]

Ibi'tuur, ni gota'skraan uj'alayi. Bic bevik'yc bal draluram.

Olar, hokan'yc as cerare bal cin'ciri.

Bic jete! A jate'shy ti shig hettyc. Shig isiri dralshy'a ti.

Haili cetare, jii! Oya, ner vode.✌️

[briikase-dikut]

An encouraging Hardcase, because I'm working on portrait painting and needed the emotional support...

Hardcase is the encouraging ball of energy/softie we all need

("Oya" is roughly mando'a for "let's go!")

[natelia-aldelliz]

Just downloaded a new drawing software so I tested it with Rex! 😃

[cinlat]

Fynta Wolfe and Aric Jorgan: 1, 4, 12, 21, and 46 :)

(Artwork by @dingoat)

1:do they have a lot of arguments? if so, over what? Heh, so many. Usually over Fynta’s recklessness. In his mind, she doesn’t seem to understand the concept of pre-planning. That makes the ops commander inside him twitch. Not to mention the fact that he loves her. He can’t stand the secret keeping either, that she makes him drag everything out of her. On the flip side, Fynta tries really hard not to be annoyed by his protectiveness, but often fails.

4: who gets more riled up? do they show their anger? Neither of these are quiet people, but Fynta tends more towards a cold rage, where Aric erupts immediately. She’ll shut down when angry, or cover it with sarcasm because she’d rather ignore it, than deal with it. Aric wants everything out in the open as soon as it happens, and has been known to needle Fynta into an argument just to clear the air. Eventually, they always come to a head, shout it out, then make up and move on. 

12: who do they confide in when shit hits the fan (besides each other)? Fynta will always go to Cormac or Elara. They are her closest friends, and aren’t afraid to tell her to suck it up and act like an adult. We all know that Fynta needs that. After she becomes the Outlander, she develops close friendships with Koth, Felix, and Vector. Aric doesn’t really develop that connection with anyone until Fynta goes missing. Even then, he tries to keep professional distance between him and his subordinates. During the five years of him commanding Havoc, what little he shares of his troubles are with Cormac and Kanner. After joining the alliance and losing most of Havoc squad, he finds himself spending a lot of time with Felix. 

21: what’s the thing they miss most about each other? Fynta misses Aric’s steadfast nature, and having that one person at her back that she can trust completely. Aric offers a security that she hasn’t experienced since she was a child.Aric misses Fynta’s laughter, smart assed mouth, and her zest for life. She taught him how to live again, and hates sleeping alone in a bed after getting to share it with someone else for so many years. 

46: who stays up at night brooding? This is 100% Aric. NOTHING can come between Fynta and her sleep. She might wake up with a blaster in her hand, but she’ll curse and lay back down. When things get hard, Aric doesn’t sleep unless he absolutely can’t stay awake any longer. Even then, it’s fitful. 

[oolathurman]

i only JUST realized that asexual icon Jango Fett is probably one of the few, if only, asexuals who has (essentially) asexually reproduced

So when the tired “joke” of asexuals asexually reproducing gets asked, Jango is the one person who can stare at the asshole in the eyes and unironically say “yes”

before shooting them in the face

[oolathurman]

the Mandalorian alphabet is written with music instruments and swords

No, the title is not a shit post, though it reads like one. But before we get into what I mean when Mandalorians use musical instruments in their writing, let me show you something.

This is a modern photo of Cuneiform script. Cuneiform is one of the oldest writing systems, dating back to the 31st century BC. It was created by pressing reed styluses like the one above into clay. The reed stylus creates wedge shaped forms as well as finer strokes or lines. 

The Mandalorian alphabet shares similar features. It uses a lot of wedges as well as distinct strokes that create a simple line. However, there are a lot more downward strokes in the Mandalorian alphabet, and in general, the Mandalorian alphabet is very rectangular in shape. 

What sort of hand motions would require so much vertical movement? Swords.

Mandalorian swords, aka beskad (plural beskade), are described as “weighty” and that they deliver “powerful blows with each swing.” It’s a very hack-and-slash style of movement when you use them, not unlike how Force-sensitives use lightsabers. With the way the Mandalorian alphabet is written, you can therefore carve messages into surfaces for others to find. Need to tell another Mando that going down that path that smells like sarlacc is a bad idea? Carve it into the ground, into a tree’s bark, hell I’m sure that the beskad could even scratch and make marks in stone.

Of course, giant heavy beskade are going to be difficult to wield when writing on a small surface. What else is there that’s easier to hold in one hand, that could better replicate the look of Cuneiform?

The bes’bev.

[Note: image is a fan interpretation, from the mandomercs website.]

The bes’bev is a Mandalorian wind instrument that has a sharp tip at the end. Wookieepedia even says that it “looks similar to a quill stylus.” And if you look at the shape of the bes’bev, the resemblance is similar to the reed stylus from above. It’s not quite perfect, but take a look at what a reed pen looks like.

This pen, not the stylus from the second image, allows the writer to also create shapes and scripts similar to Cuneiform, but more importantly (at least for our purposes), the Mandalorian alphabet.

And if we look at the size of the penny whistle like the one below, we will notice that the penny whistle (also known as the tin whistle) is just about the size of a writing utensil.

The Mandalorian alphabet could, therefore, be written with the bes’bev. Just be sure to clean your instrument of any debris afterwards.