Being Both Aviation-adjacent And LOTR-adjacent, I Feel The Necessity Of Reblogging.

There was a young man from Peru

Whose limericks stopped at line two

how to flirt with your crush 101: a guide by wei wuxian for anon 

he sounds like hes making shit up on the spot……..absolute himbo

Stars of Chaos 杀破狼 Vol 1, Notes 1

pgs 12 - 81

Here are some notes from Stars of Chaos Vol 1. Some are quick translations that don't really matter in the grand picture, but which are really fun and clever and it would be so much better if you could just see and understand it right now!

Here they are:

More under the cut

Did any of you learn the Ballad of Mulan (poem)? Yah. That poem talks about the difficulty of determining a rabbit’s sex, especially when it’s running.

I think “equipped” could be the correct word, but I’ve never seen it used as a verb in this context. It just means he put the thing on.

You will see many, many “Yifu!”s from here on. It’s a non-religious “godfather,” closer to “adopted” or “sworn” than “god.”

Remember: in Chinese, it’s good to be old :)

It’s a 蛟 jiao, not a fancy 龙 long。

Chinese has the Best Euphemisms for death! My favorite is 驾鹤西去: fly on a crane to the west(ern paradise).

Stars of Chaos - All The Notes List

All The Seven Seas Books Masterlist

Stars of Chaos 杀破狼

Vol 5, pages 153 - 237.

Another ten...

Just in case you can't remember from way back when, A-Yan was the youngest of the previous emperor's sons (youngest brother of the current emperor). He was a friend of Gu Yun's, and he died in childhood.

And, in case you don't already know, and I can't remember if Priest ever actually told us, "Hanshi" is the courtesy name of Jiang Chong.

I think Priest thinks that all of her readers are really smart, 'cuz she keeps assuming that we just Remember or can Infer things.

No one purposefully touches ash. It sometimes falls on the ground, and then we accidentally step on it. (And the Chinese word used here is 踩 = step on.)

白龙鱼服 white dragon fish clothes, as in Chang Geng was out there incognito and none of the commoners around him knew his high status.

此人也不知道是胸怀山川，还是真没心没肺...

胸怀山川 = his chest contains mountains and rivers = very broad-minded and open. "Tolerant of his circumstances" is a good translation; I just like the imagery of mountains and rivers.

没心没肺 = no heart, no lungs = (among other meanings) totally heartless. Immune to emotion.

Probably Working Off Different Versions again! But I like my old pirated online version (-pout-). Here is the pirated online version and my lame translation of it:

长庚当然不是要哭，Of course Chang Geng was not on the verge of tears,

他正强压着心里掺杂着幻觉的杀意，he was currently forcefully suppressing the mixture of killing intent and hallucinations in his heart (he was very very mad at the emperor),

整个人都快炸了。 his entire person was about to explode.

I like the imagery of the sky being soft and whole, like a blanket falling upon you, rather than fragments.

(I really love the imagery of 天塌下来当被子卷 = sky falls down, treat it as a blanket and wrap yourself up in it :)

"还有钟老将军没教过我的"

OK. I am here to share my confusion. The translation is totally true and valid, but I feel (sigh. feelings again.) like this sentence can carry more than one meaning, or maybe should imply something more (in the version I read, anyway).

So: my idea is that Chang Geng is crazy smart and he's giving Gu Yun all sorts of good ideas, so Gu Yun is all "Wow, you learned a lot from old General Zhang," and Chang Geng replies with "And I also have lots of original ideas that did not come from old General Zhong, I am way smarter than anyone you have ever met, you had better listen to me and do what I recommend."

That is my interpretation of those 11 little characters, anyway, which I think makes slightly more sense in this context.

Top: in case you aren't keeping a list of all the characters as they are introduced, Emperor Wu was the emperor two emperors ago, also Gu Yun's mom's dad = Gu Yun's maternal grandfather. He is the one who overthrew the previous dynasty, but he had no surviving male heirs and so gave the throne to the previous emperor, who was the dad of the current emperor. (I got so confused on my first read-through that I started a Character List on my second read-through.）

Bottom: 鸟尽弓藏. From mdbg.net: "lit. the birds are over, the bow is put away (idiom); fig. to get rid of sb once he has served his purpose"

浑水摸鱼。 Mdbg.net again: "to fish in troubled water (idiom); to take advantage of a crisis for personal gain"

Chinese has lots of cool idioms <3

And another ten are done!

My DanMei Literary Adventure Masterpost

Stars of Chaos - All Notes Links

MDZS Vol 5 Annotations 4

Part 4 of 6, pages 193 - 267

We are now in the Extras!

I’m just here to provide a little bit of cultural clarification (ex: what it means for a gentleman to use his mouth and not his hands, and No it’s not a scandalous sexy allusion) and context (not all cabbages are just cabbages). And maybe complain about the occasional word choice and commiserate over how hard it is to translate sentence structure (Chinese feels much more flexible to me than English).

I remember back in the Firefly days, when I had to tell an acquaintance that “Mei Mei” did not mean “sweetheart” and maybe don’t call her boyfriend that. Not in public, anyway.

More under the cut.

For more about cabbages and pigs: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/好白菜都讓豬拱了

Yes, you can find places where 面面相觑 translates as “dismay,” but it’s more like “I look at you, you look at me, both of our expressions are blank and helpless (and surprised):” “What is going on with our HGJ?” “I don’t know. Do you hear anything?” “No. You?” “No. Wha?”

I don’t know. Maybe it’s the long-leaved orchids portrayed in so many Chinese paintings; maybe it’s another plant that goes by a similar name. An image search of 兰草 in Chinese is only moderately helpful. Fill in your own best background flora.

Xue Yang is definitely at least a full-height teenager by this time.

MDZS Masterlist.

All the Books I'm Annotating Masterlist.

MDZS Volume 4 Annotations

Part 3, pages 89 - 151.

Some important (I feel) tonal tuning and a little more anti-slang.

More below the cut:

For all the people out there who are dealing with insane amounts of pain on a regular and frequent basis.

One of my friends fixed her endometriosis by changing her diet according to a Tibetan Healer’s recommendation.

Another fixed her debilitating monthly pain by cutting one ingredient out of her diet on an acupuncturist’s offhand advice.

And another finally went to her normal usual western doc and got some hormonal medication that makes it so she doesn’t pass out from pain anymore.

There is a solution! Find your cure!

whenever i have those brutal searing being-dissolved-from-inside period cramps during school or work i pretend i am a viking warlord who has been stabbed in the abdomen but i killed the assailant so i’m the only one who knows im injured and i have to carry on normally til the end of the battle to keep up my mens morale

杀破狼 Stars of Chaos:

This book has more plot than I have Chinese reading comprehension, but I think I see it now.

Chapter 52 is where Chang Geng asserts his superior intellect and problem-solving skills (because his vision isn’t clouded by pesky things like emotions for people who aren’t Gu Yun); and Chapter 53 is where he/Priest lays out Chang Geng’s evil master plan to bring peace and prosperity to the nation so that maybe he can convince Gu Yun to take a vacation.

No details or anything; just “this is the problem and that is what must be done.”

MDZS Vol 5 Annotations 6

Part 6 of 6, page 383 - end

♥️

Chinese is so fun. 让他追在我后面跑 I think translates better to “make him run away, but I’ll be in front so he’ll be chasing behind me.”

More under the cut.

And that’s it! The whole story.

Thank you for reading with me.

MDZS Masterlist.

All the Books I'm Annotating Masterlist.