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turn and face the strange

@thevagueredhead / thevagueredhead.tumblr.com

Jess, Melbourne, early 30's. This blog is currently >75% pictures of plants at any one time, ~10% Dunnett rants and falling, (but this may rise again at any time! avoid Lymond spoilers by blocking my tag). Things I like may be found here (portraits, costume details, science, interiors and exteriors, quotes, recipes, occasional bouts of demented fangirlism).
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sixappleseeds
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jesterbots

genuinely one of the saddest parts of this new era of the internet is how hard it is to rick roll someone now. with people's attention spans shortening so much, they wouldn't even get through the first few bait seconds before clicking off the video. like i saw a comment that ended with "btw i made all of this up" and the replies kept treating it so seriously because none of them finished the entire 4 sentence comment. and We're no strangers to love You know the rules and so do I (do I) A full commitment's what I'm thinking of You wouldn't get this from any other guy I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling Gotta make you understand Never gonna give you up Never gonna let you down Never gonna run around and desert you Never gonna make you cry Never gonna say goodbye Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

#honestly. yes#the Internet is my favourite place#it’s got words in it
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robinade
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nighthawkes

I must sleep. Sleep is the mind-healer. Sleep is the big-life that brings total ability to fucking do anything. I will face my bed. I will permit the blankie to pass over me and snores to pass through me. And when sleep has gone past I will turn the outer eye to greet the new morning. When the sleep has gone there will be everything. Energy and will to live will remain.

#this was such a FUKCIGN mood a month ago my god#please never again#relevant to my actual offscreen life#it’s got words in it
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oldshrewsburyian
lordscruncle asked:

Hi! Sorry to bother, but my Tumblr research shows that you are probably the person who could know an answer to my question and also not think the question is dull. So,

Dear Designated Wimseyverse Consultant!

I have read my first Wimsey novel (Gaudy Night) a couple of weeks ago, but I have read it in translation. It is not a speedy and cheap pocket-book crime story translation, it was done by highly educated professionals who have considered England their intellectual playground for many years. The edition I've read has also had an excellent article on female university education in Oxford and Cambridge in it, along with an Oxford 101 (for the 30's), a glossary and two maps (that of Shrewsbury and that of Oxford if Shrewsbury existed). And of course there has been a ton of delightfully nerdy footnotes, which not only explained what was quoted but also why. So that's how I knew what was going on in Gaudy night. But how do people who read the original understand the references and their meaning? I couldn't find any annotated versions and now I am really curious (and also a bit terrified, because I wanted to try and improve my English).

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oldshrewsburyian answered:

Hello! The question is anything but dull. And the answer is... most of Sayers' readers do not understand all of the references and their meanings. Many of us, I think it is safe to say, understand most of them. But also, having been rereading the books for 20 years, I recently understood a 17th-century sex euphemism in Gaudy Night for the first time and screamed into a pillow about it. (Death 'Twixt Wind and Water. And it's this book that Lord Peter helps Harriet see the humanity in, rather than treating it as the result of a series of careful intellectual calculations. SAYERS.)

One of the answers to how English-speakers less erudite than Sayers (most of us) understand the references is to ask each other; @talkingpiffle is a great Wimseyite resource here. But/and also, the question of why things are quoted is, I think, delightfully complex, and working this out is part of the fun.

As someone who has read a lot of books either in translation out of English, or in their originals after reading them in English, as part of language-learning endeavors, allow me to suggest that Christie would be a much easier entry point. I love Sayers more, but the love of not always keeping up with characters who are better-educated and more widely read than I am is part of the attraction. I still don't know Attic Greek.

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#OP it’s WHAT#screaming aloud#ofc it is. DOROTHY#this makes me so happy
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