Marenghi posted:

Is every page like that? I think I'd tire pretty quick with having to turn my book at right-angles with each page just to read the next paragraph.

Traxus IV posted:

It's a Star Wars thing, Jedi Order I think.

ZombieJesus posted:

Haha no, I know what kegels are, I meant what body part is that tattoo on? It looks like a flabby inner triceps, or like it's been written diagonally on someone's lower back and the picture is taken to make it look straight? So confused

Subjunctive posted:

There's a Let's Read, which is probably better than actually reading the series.

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3668845

there wolf posted:

Memories from hanging out with guys who were a little to into swords and anime resurfacing...

Godai is the classical system of five elements in Japan. It's from Buddism, and there's some book about swordsmanship that uses it so it shows up in white dude bushido sometimes. Not sure if it uses the kanji for wind or the one for air, and I don't know why the fifth element, ether/spirit, is omitted all together. Let's see what a GIS brings up...



Mystery solved.

Bombadilillo posted:

Just tell any bro with a Spartan tattoo that they were defeated by the best pack of gays ever.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_Band_of_Thebes

Say Nothing posted:

She's always right.

Teketeketeketeke posted:

Eh, she could also be "a cute" or "obtuse"

Thom and the Heads posted:

in the present, all tattoos look like poo poo

docLeder posted:

Yeah, we should probably just let it go.

Bertrand Hustle posted:

There are enough differences that it would probably be confusing. Kanji were introduced to Japan in the 5th century AD, and with 1600-odd years of language evolution in both countries, character simplification in mainland China, and characters created for Japanese use that don't exist in Chinese, the answer is "not really". The majority of kanji retain more or less the same meaning they had when they were imported, but that doesn't mean that their current use corresponds to the characters used in modern Chinese: a word with the same meaning often uses different characters, and the same characters may mean different (though often related) things in Chinese and Japanese. Example: 私 is watashi in Japanese and means "I". In modern Mandarin it is pronounced sī and means "personal, private, selfish" and I've only ever seen it as part of multisyllabic words like 隐私 yǐnsī "personal secrets, privacy". Related, but not the same.

There's actually a Chinese joke about this but it's only funny in Chinese.

Bertrand Hustle posted:

If you speak Mandarin, Dashan tells it better:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axJFcxbrvSo

If not, I can try. So there's this local lord named Hu Bu Zi (胡不字) and he's totally illiterate except for 5 characters:

胡 Hú (surname)
不 bù not
字 zì characters, letters
同 tóng same
意 yì meaning

So whenever someone brings him a proposal, he just signs it 同意 tóngyì "agree" or 不同意 bù tóngyì "disagree", and signs his name, 胡不字. He gets really good at writing these five characters, and eventually develops something of a reputation.

While on a trip to Japan, he is invited to demonstrate his skills. He pauses, afraid that the jig is up and everyone will know his secret, but then inspiration strikes.

"Visiting this country, I see our Chinese characters everywhere, familiar but somehow different."

With a flurry of brush strokes, he writes:

同意不同字 tóng yì bù tóng zì
Same meaning, but different characters.

同字不同意 tóng zì bù tóng yì
Same characters, but different meaning.

字同意不同 zì tóng yì bù tóng
The characters are the same, but the meaning is different.

意同字不同 yì tóng zì bù tóng
The meaning is the same but the characters are different.

～ 胡不字
Hu Bu Zi

Hubbardologist posted:

No but like most EBM/futurepop bands, their tracklists often do contain typoes.


that's not how you spell 'Sentinel'

And one of their Amazon tracklists used to list their track "4 A.M." as "Ham," which always amused me.

Anyway that's my VNV story, it's less interesting that Prester Jane's stuff about how they attract cultists, thanks for reading.

Zamboni_Rodeo posted:

The Tamale Boss sounds like an awesome food truck concept.

The Bloop posted:

Scratch Monkey posted:

TIL: making fun of tattoos is called "Inkshaming"

there wolf posted:

It occurs to me that the worst HP fans are probably really into HPMOR and thus likely the same people who think R&M is too smart for the plebs and McDonald's betrayed them after they drove four hours for expired sauce. This entire debate is moot.

Iron Crowned posted:

You could always just claim it's Lore


Why would anyone want a tattoo of Harry Kim? I mean at least he's not Tom Paris, but no one should get a Voyager tattoo.

Screaming Idiot posted:

Isn't that the plot of Evangelion?

Screaming Idiot posted:

whatever all those cartoons are the same anyway

back in my day when we had giant robots we didn't have to worry about theological implications or jailbait anime teens tempting our goonish manchilds into sin

Screaming Idiot posted:

You take that back you son of a bitch

VideoGames is a good, gentle Brit

jit bull transpile posted:

now I'm just wondering if someone has a sonic ring around their rear end in a top hat or something

uXs posted:

They should just do the head tattoo, much cheaper, faster, and recognisable.

whypick1 posted:

Pips on the collar signify rank in Star Trek (TNG and beyond, to be specific). 4 full dots = captain.

Yeah yeah, trap sprung.

Yond Cassius posted:

It makes total sense that Riker would be 3 == though.

Scratch Monkey posted:

Riker didn’t want to be promoted because Star Fleet would make him take his own command and he preferred to be XO on the Enterprise under Picard. They offered him ships a bunch of times but he always said no.

SatansOnion posted:

what if, just below that waistline, she had a tattoo of a cat

bet I’ve outfoxed you there

Six-Of-Hearts posted:

Foxes are kitties.

Six-Of-Hearts posted:

They're Kitty OS on Dog hardware.

Johnny Truant posted:

Abracawhy??