Je panse donc j'essuie

From esperanto : http://www.dotsub.com/films/thelanguage/index.php?autostart=true&language_setting=eo_1683

Extract: "In esperanto, you can be yourself. In English, non-natives have to imitate a foreign model, knowing that they'll never succeed perfectly. The miracle of esperanto is that you can keep your accent and your way of forming your sentences and yet everybody understands everybody. And no one ever feels inferior, inadequate, or simply foreign." (Claude Piron)

This rings true to me. It's not only about the language, its about the culture behind it. I've had serious trouble with Native English speakers in the past because they linked a word to their own understanding of a peculiar concept, without comprehending that the cultural baggage behind that concept cannot automatically be translated into another language. I believe that on that occasion, they didn't even get what a cultural baggage was - they'd never known anything else than their own limited universe and couldn't possibly translate to another worldview (don't get me started on the consequences of monolingualism and ethnocentrism). And that's when I feel brazen and try to actually assert my Frenchness - usually I just adapt to the mental patterns of English speakers - Brits mostly, as that's where the cultural gap is smallest. Of course, there are those individuals with whom one gets on no matter what and who make it all worthwhile, but on a systemic basic it can get really, really tiresome - not talking to others, just having others take it for granted that you think like them and have you conform to their own mental patterns and take their cultural baggage into consideration. Until I started reading on esperanto, I never occurred to me that communication - provided one took the first step and reached out for others - could be anything else than twisting oneself until one doesn't quite recognise oneself any more. I know better now.

I also need a green flag with star icon.

Pour Duniazade.

Prompt: How about a cross-over between HP and Largo Winch? Let’s suppose Ovronnaz discovers, late in life, that he has magic. And that he’s a distant cousin of a certain lean, dark, disreputable wizard.

Gen, NC-17, 6000 words.

Warnings: partly in French, explicit violence, hence the rating. Also, the narrative imperative dictates that Tito never died. Alternate universe (canon til book 6 in HP, set somewhere after l'Heure du Tigre in LW), crossover.

( Harry Potter et la bénédiction des Patriaches )

or is it just me?

Fandom!Malfoy eyes =

1) dark grey
2) light grey
3) black (orbs optional)
4) navy blue
5) sky blue
6) pale blue
7) purple
8) green
9) brown, possibly chocolate
10) red

?

Your opinion matters.

A very happy birthday to cosmo_jenny, copperbadge, and of course to Hermione :)

ETA: and astarvingwriter! *kicks LJ's birthday notifications into submission*

J'oubliais - en ces jours de deuil national, les filles Sarko ne sont pas les seules orphelines.

Témoin, un clip inoubliable de cet homme qui, plus que l'époux cocufié, plus que l'animateur de l'épisode de l'oncle qui fait la sieste avec Maman tous les mercredis, reste avant tout l'avocat d'une vie plus épanouie.

(trouvé via le blog d'arrêts sur images)



RIP!

(J'adooore la gueule de la rombière sur la fin.)

I'm foudebassan over at GreatestJournal and have just reserved foudebassan on InsaneJournal as well. Feel free to friend, but I won't be updating either for the time being.

I don't really know what to do about this boldegate. Mostly, I stand by what I said back in Strikethrough, but if everyone is leaving LJ I'll leave too, talking to oneself alone in a corner is like being on blogspot or in a lunatic asylum, ie, no fun at all. GJ looks a lot like LJ, but it bans obscenity, and what fun are conversations when they don't include passing mentions of bare male arses every now and then? IJ is said to be more perve- fandom-friendly, but a) I don't want to discuss fandom 100% of the time and b) aren't their servers too weak to deal with our wanking, in both the literal and metaphorical senses?

So, for now, am being a sheep. Baaaa. Tell me where you go and I'll follow.

Lucissa, missing scene, 300 words, no DH spoilers.

( Darling, I have an idea )

For Pigwidgeon37.

Prompt: My favourite threesome, please! HG/SS/LM on a long-distance flight from London to New York. Whether they already have a relationship or whether it starts on the plane is up to you, my dear.

Pre-Snerlumione, crack!fic, 3500 words.

( A Turbulent Take-Off )

I'm fighting deadlines here... The crossover may, just, possibly, be finished by tomorrow night. If not, I'll just drop it until I'm done reading and digesting DH. I'm sorry I'm so late with your story, Duniazade. If it's any consolation, I've done lots of pondering over LW canon to just draft it.