From eller

1. What's the last movie you watched, and how did you like it?

I'm not sure.

I think the last movie I watched in theater was Haifaa al-Mansour's Mary Shelley (2017). As the title suggests, it is a biopic of Mary Shelley. I found it quite interesting and I liked the photography a lot.

If not, it was Desiree Akhavan's The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018) which is a movie about a young queer girl being sent to conversation therapy in the 90s. It is fucking brutal, but it's very well done.

2. Do you listen to music while you draw?

Yes and no. I tend not to listen to music when I do my daily evening drawing because I do those last minute before going to bed (or post last minute in a few cases, as I've sat up in bed several times going FUCK MY DRAWING I FORGOT). Otherwise, yes I listen to music when I draw. But then I'm pretty much always listening to music.


3. Sunlight or moonlight?

Moonlight.


4. What's more important to you in a story, the characters or the plot?

Both. Which isn't a cop-out, let me explain. I can like the characters all I want, if the plot doesn't grab me/moves too slow I will be bored and drop it (ex: Sense8). If the plot is interesting but I'm not attached to the characters, I will watch it but not come back (ex: Game of Thrones, which I dropped between seasons).


5. Do you have a favorite poem?

I have a poetry tag! Of the poems in it, I like Anjela Duval's Karantez Vro and José-Maria de Heredia's La Trebbia best.

I like to learn and recite poetry to myself while swimming and I return most often to Georges Brassens' Supplique pour être enterré sur la plage de Sète (Plea to buried on the beach of Sète), which (a) I should try my hand at translating one day and (b) is technically a song, I GUESS, but if Bob Dylan can be fucking literature, then BRASSENS IS GODDAMN POETRY.


From yhlee
1. What is your favorite saying/expression from French?

"Âme damnée". It translates to "cursed/dmaned soul" and is basically a fancy way of saying "top henchperson". Darth Vader is Palpatine's âme damnée, for example.


2. What cat color(s) do you like best?

All cats are best cats.


3. Which art medium makes you happiest?

Watercolours. I find them very soothing. But basically I love art a lot? Drawing and painting/pastelling/etc pretty much always makes me happy. And all medium have different "feels" so sometimes I am in a pastel mood and sometimes in an oil painting mood (it is a trap, I fail at oil forever). But yeah, whenever I don't know what medium to use and/or what something simple/relaxing, it's watercolours all the way.


4. If you could visit any one city, all expenses paid, in the winter, where would you go?

Any current city? Because if not, CARTHAGE HERE I COME. As for current cities, I think I'd like to go back to Seoul. I had an amazing time there.


5. Favorite Phoenician figure (historical or mythological)?

Elissa | Dido. I've talked about why at length here, but the short version is: she's so smart? And kind? and I LOVE HER. She was done mega dirty by the Aeneid though, like whoa.

Runner up mythological figure is Tanith. (There are a few sources that interpret Dido as an avatar of Tanith.) I find Tanith fucking fascinating. She's a goddess of fertility, war and FUCK YOU, (look at her symbol. This is not the symbol of a goddess who has any fucks to give).

Historical runner up is Hannibal Barca -- much tl;dr abounds. Short version: He's smart and that thing with him crossing the Alps was pretty baller. Also Cannae is a fucking work of art.


Can give questions to anyone who wants, just say so.

I had to do the exact same bullshit to my computer to restore internet today that I had to do this time last week. This had better not have become a weekly occurrence, I have better shit to do with my time than spend 1h+ fixing this. And now I don't have time to do anything >:(


Here, have a poem. (I found it while I was looking for titles for the Stephanie Brown as Blue Lantern canon-divergent AU.)


The Old Astronomer to His Pupil (by Sarah Williams)

Reach me down my Tycho Brahe, I would know him when we meet,
When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet;
He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how
We are working to completion, working on from then to now.

Pray remember that I leave you all my theory complete,
Lacking only certain data for your adding, as is meet,
And remember men will scorn it, 'tis original and true,
And the obloquy of newness may fall bitterly on you.

But, my pupil, as my pupil you have learned the worth of scorn,
You have laughed with me at pity, we have joyed to be forlorn,
What for us are all distractions of men's fellowship and smiles;
What for us the Goddess Pleasure with her meretricious smiles!

You may tell that German College that their honor comes too late,
But they must not waste repentance on the grizzly savant's fate.
Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.


I love this poem, especially the last two lines, so fucking much. I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night. Look at that, that is perfect.

For reasons of 2016 being fucking fired, I need to distract myself, so here's the post no one wanted: DVD commentary for the Hamilton fic I wrote yesterday, The Devil Went Down to New Jersey.

I had honestly not thought I was ever going to write fic for this musical because before I listened I listened to it all I knew about the US Founding Fathers was basically "are they the dudes on Mt Rushmore?". Add to that I felt it would be very important to match the canon tone (and I know nothing about rap/hiphop/musicals/etc + I have a tin ear for music + my English accent is, to put it mildly, complicated) and I'm a very visual person, so it was pretty much a no-go.

But I was prompted a Hamilton fic and so I had to do it. I've been listening to the entire thing at least once daily for the past week or so. I fear "The room where it happens" is never going to leave my brain.

It did the trick, though, because I originally sat down to write down the first five lines before I forgot them and emerged three hours later with 500 words and a complete fic.

I'm going to babble about it, because like I said, I really need to be distracted.

( Commentary )

I'll tell you the worst
At the end of the day,
It's not the musical on replay
Nor anything I did intend
That drives me 'round the bend.
Honestly I think I'm cursed.
This was such great fun
-- And I still need the distraction --
I'm ready for another run!
Bring on the interaction,
For every comment I'll reply
And give rhyming a try.

Comment need not be related;
The rule stands as stipulated.

Remember that time I translated La Trebbia by José-Maria de Heredia? Probably not, but today I translated the other Hannibal/Second Punic War-related poem Heredia wrote, Après Cannes, this time I even managed to keep the rhyming in. Without further ado, said poem!


( French )


( English )

(I changed things around a little to keep it rhyming.)

So I hear this is the done thing now? Have a poem, one of the few I know by heart. It's about my favourite historical figure (Hannibal Barca) and since it's in French, have a homebrew translation as well. It's not even the reason I love this poem, even thpugh it's part of it. I think this is the poem that showed me exactly how pretty poetry could be, because I really love the rythm of the last stanza.

La Trebbia

de José-Maria de Heredia

L'aube d'un jour sinistre a blanchi les hauteurs.
Le camp s'éveille. En bas roule et gronde le fleuve
Où l'escadron léger des Numides s'abreuve.
Partout sonne l'appel clair des buccinateurs.

Car malgré Scipion, les augures menteurs,
La Trebbia débordée, et qu'il vente et qu'il pleuve,
Sempronius Consul, fier de sa gloire neuve,
A fait lever la hache et marcher les licteurs.

Rougissant le ciel noir de flamboîments lugubres,
A l'horizon, brûlaient les villages Insubres ;
On entendait au loin barrir un éléphant.

Et là-bas, sous le pont, adossé contre une arche,
Hannibal écoutait, pensif et triomphant,
Le piétinement sourd des légions en marche.

( Translation )