all my keysmash are belong to you

Meanwhile, in Marchand/Pastrnak news:



ping pong all night long oh yea is that what the kids are calling it these days. Don't worry, Brad's gonna give it to him a lot more frequently now amirite ladiez

On another note, sports fandom has gotten me thinking again about how to write stories where the characters have language barriers. What's the best way to do that? In SPN fandom, I dealt with it a few times by racebending characters into Indonesians, specifically Sundanese Indonesians because that's the cadence I'm most familiar with. (BANDUNG REPRESENT.) But like, take baseball - I don't know Japanese or Spanish. Hockey, I don't know Russian or any of the northern and eastern European languages. I don't really know how to do the broken English in fic and be confident that I can pull it off.

I was thinking, then, maybe write a fic from say David Pastrnak's POV and narrate his thoughts and try to cheat around dialogue. English is not my first language either, but it's become the language I'm most comfortable in, whereas my grasp of Indonesian kinda stalled at around the age I was when my family emigrated. I know there's an English-language novel out there about a POC family in which when they're speaking in their native language, the dialogue is still written in English with us understanding it's not, but when other people are speaking in English, their dialogue is italicized, and maybe not in quotations, or something? There has to be a way I can do this without learning Japanese/Spanish/Czech/Finnish/Russian/Swedish.

I'm fascinated by the intersections though. I have this scene I want to work into baseball fic at some point where Christian Vazquez is, like, idk, eating a sandwich while Xander Bogaerts is nattering away on the phone next to him. Vazquez and Bogaerts, BFFs extraordinaire, usually talk to each other in Spanish, but Bogaerts is on the phone with his brother and they're talking in Papiamento. Vazquez doesn't know Papiamento, but he recognizes some words simply because he's been hanging around Bogaerts for so long. Stuff like that. But I'd be writing all this in English 'cos that's the language I know, so how do I balance that!

Like check out Ichiro Suzuki and Munenori Kawasaki, who have picked up the obscene variety of Spanish from their teammates. Another thing I want is a scene where Koji Uehara, David Ortiz, and Mike Napoli are hanging out shit-faced enough that Koji speaks Japanese more often than not, and Ortiz speaks Spanish more often than not, and Nap's just blabbering along in English, and they all get along merrily and understand each other just enough in this grand adventure. basball frans

I'm reading a book called Garis Batas by Agustinus Wibowo, an Indonesian writer and backpacker, and it's making me realize how much I associate the Indonesian language with a certain attitude - one that tends to be socially and religiously conservative, and whose conceptions of Indonesian identity are frustratingly simplistic. It's a limited and unfair judgment on my part. I just never knew to what extent this bias was ingrained in me until I read Wibowo's book and felt my heart fill to the brink at how much this guy's feelings are my feelings, and how he seems to have the same priorities and cynicisms I do when it comes to matters of cultural identity, colonial legacy, and immigration bureaucracy.

Theoretically, I know that any attitude can be expressed through any language, but I grew up in this dichotomy where I use Indonesian to express certain things and English to express other things. A large part of it is where and with whom I used these languages. Indonesian was the language of family, and English was the language of friends, academia, and free expression. (Habit trumps logic, and that is a reason though not an excuse.) I'm more comfortable in English, and I use it in more contexts. This is an imbalance I'm trying to remedy. You can't really help what you internalize, sure, but you can be aware of it and maybe try to do something about it if that is your wont. In this case, I'm trying to read more Indonesian books.

The thing is this. When I read Benedict Anderson's sociological writings about the Philippines and Indonesia, for example, I felt I was brought closer to the subject because it was expressed in a language I'm comfortable with. With Garis Batas, it's the opposite. I feel like I'm being brought closer to the language because I relate to the sentiments that it's expressing. Okay, this is a simplified contrast. My point is that language doesn't exist in a vacuum. You know how people say that if you want to suppress a culture, you cut out their tongues? It's kind of like that. You use other people's bridges to get to the other side, or to the same side, even. It's a very alienating thing, but it is an alienation that people can get used to. A marginalized complacency. It's like when people ask me questions about the difference between People X and Indonesians/Filipinos with the assumption that the ability to otherize people and the ability to feel marginalized are mutually exclusive things. They are not.

Garis Batas means 'borderline', and the book is about Wibowo's travels through the Central Asia, relating anecdotes and analysis about the Soviet legacy and how well (or not) the -stan countries have held up under the weight of Russian influence and international pressure. It's fascinating stuff, and exactly the kind of reading I loved getting in college because I superimposed a lot of my identity angst onto my chosen discipline. HUMAN MIGRATION FLOWS, HOW DOES IT WORK? It's a subject close to my heart, and to read about it in Indonesian is like a rediscovery of the subject and the language all over again. I don't always agree with Wibowo's observations, but I relate to his wanderlust, his curiosity about the historical foundations of national essentialism, and his romantic cynicism, and that has done more to repair this artificial divide between my 'Indonesian side' and my 'American side' than anything. It's about finding a foothold, you know? It's about realizing you're not alone, especially in a land where you shouldn't be alone, or so people think because of your name and your looks and the stamp in your passport.

Okay, I realize that Indonesian literature isn't there just to make make me feel ~included. It's not all about me, and I don't speak for all Javanese Indonesians or Indonesian expats or whatever. I grew up receiving a strict definition of what it means to be Indonesian, and I'm trying to deconstruct that. There is a soul-deep difference between saying "I am Indonesian AND" and "I am Indonesian BUT", the latter of which I've been saying my whole life, dividing me. There is a time and a place for compartmentalization, sure, but I think I'd like a less of it in this area.

I signed up for Racebending Revenge at dark_agenda because do you know how long I've been threatening to write Indonesian!Winchesters? Since March, apparently. And then I missed the July 2 posting deadline because I was off celebrating someone else's independence day. LOL. Better late than never! ALSO, the icon for my Dreamwidth post is pretty much the appropriatest in many ways. Someone randomly made a map of Indonesia the background for a Winchesters icon, and hey! Now it's time for Indochesters.

I have grand plans to write more in this 'verse, but here are two ficlets for now. 'Verse summary: They follow the trail of the thing that killed their mother from West Java, Indonesia to the USA. This is Satrio. This is Dimas. Handy-dandy Indonesian/Sundanese translations are here.

North for the Winter
Pre-series. One of the few times their father took them north in the wintertime. "Do we even have a word for snow?" 590 words.

Jejak Kaki
Early S1. Brothers on the road, rediscovering. The title means 'footprints'. "It's not that Satrio has anything against his mothertongue, but Dimas speaks it like he's making a point." Also 590 words.

And now for some cultural identity soapboxing! ( tl;dr re: multilingualism and the monolingual bias )

I've also been wanting to write Indonesian!Pevensies since a year ago. That's still on the to-do list, as is Muslim Indonesian Jimmy Novak. I also just signed up for mundane_bingo and spnsupporting because I am a crazy person. I've yet to get my bingo card, but my spnsupporting characters are pretty predictable.

1. Hello, Merlin fans, by any chance could any of you be so kind as to Britpick/beta 2100 words of SPN fusion AU wherein Arthur and Morgana drive around the UK killing monsters and have family drama? I would be much obliged. :D

2. I'm crossposting this from Dreamwidth because I think there are maybe some folks here to whom the following might be of interest.

When I was writing Indonesian SPN fic, I found myself wanting to write Dean lapsing unthinkingly into Sunda. Sunda is the local language in west Java (WEST SIIIIIIDE), and my family on my mother's side would always lapse into it from Bahasa Indonesia when they are excited or surprised. Because of this (and systemic bias), it's a language I associate with intimacy and high emotion. Sunda!Wikipedia! I mean, I can totally see Dean going, "Dahar euy!" when Sam comes back with take-out.

I dunno how much sense it would make even if it's just a translation trying to capture the 'feel' of things. In the hypothetical world where the Winchesters speaking Sunda makes sense, though, I see Sam speaking less Sunda than Dean. Maybe when they were growing up, Sam and Dean used to speak more Sunda to each other and to their dad, but when Sam went to Stanford, Sunda was one more thing to distance himself from as he embraced the standard language and a standard life. Also, when Sam and Dean are pretending to be cops or whatever, they'd probably have their furtive exchanges in Sunda.

In the USA, this kind of multilingualism seems to be associated almost exclusively with immigrant/multicultural families, which Sam and Dean are kind of not. In Indonesia, people who also speak Sunda, Javanese, Batak, etc. have been there for centuries, but their language has been minoritized and deemed informal anyway. And so maybe this is why Sam and Dean can't speak Sunda, haha -- the sociolinguistic foundations just aren't the same, and the implications of being multilingual are different.

I wonder if this is one of the reasons why there are so many terrible Indonesian translations of things. It seems there is a higher percentage of multilingual people in Indonesia, but literary/translating conventions seem to favor monolingual stories, thus bringing up issues of how to best capture ~authenticity~. Perhaps this is changing, though. A recent Indonesian soap opera, Muslimah, had their characters speaking FOUR languages: Bahasa Indonesia, Sunda, English, and Arabic. There were subtitles. It was glorious, and utter crap, and my mother never missed a single episode.

I still want Dean yelling, "Kumaha atuh!" in frustration when butting heads with Sam, though.


3. Here are some things I read that I enjoyed and agree with: cultural appropriation, ally arrogance, 'strong female character' bullshit.

ETA: JIM BEAVER TWEETING IN INDONESIAN. MY WORLDS ARE FOREVER COLLIDING. \o/

This entry was originally posted at http://whynot.dreamwidth.org/17036.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

HOLY FUCKSHITS: Indonesian-language Supernatural fanfiction jfldsjfa;l <3 <3 and like Team Free Will is all terkejut because biasanya Indonesia nggak exist di Internet, but here it is! Seperti miracle dari heaven! "Yang bener aja," says Sam, and "Busyet," says Dean, and Cas is all, "Ini menghabiskan waktu. Lucifer masih berkeliaran!" YOU TELL 'EM, CAS. omg some of the fics WARN FOR SELF-INSERTS. Precious!

Speaking of which, I tried writing 300ish more words of Indonesian SPN fic. It's just some random snippet, probably the beginning of some casefic, but I mean, this is pretty much just language practice and a composition exercise, so the willy-nilly snippets help keep it low-pressure. Also, my vernacular's probably off and sounds like an old person's.

In other news, there are these two essays that deal with the portrayal of class issues and economic status in SPN that I found quite interesting. A lot of the hunters in SPN seem to be coded lower-middle class, and I do end up wondering if there are upper class hunters in SPNverse, somewhere. Using frequent flyer miles to zip around on airplanes from case to case, making hunt money from stock market shenanigans. I imagine someone kinda like Daniel Ocean meets Batman type of person. (...So, basically George Clooney?)

Now seems like the time for an interview meme. haruslex asked me five questions. If you want me to ask you five questions, comment with your favorite dessert.

( --these questions three! / Five, sir. / Five! )

I should probably update the genderbent!SPN post with these new castings, then.

Now showing on my Dreamwidth, through the fault of one cherryshadowz: Consider the Jellyfish - Supernatural/Spongebob Squarepants - Sam, Spongebob - rated G, omg - Spongebob knows what will cheer Sam up. 118 words.

And now for something completely different, because sometimes when you are up to your ears in multivariate regression analysis, you relax by writing theological language porn, idk. We continue to ask, "What if Castiel were words?" The first wordsverse fic is untitled. This next one is a Dean POV, PG I guess, 500ish words. Will there be a third installment? I dunno, it'll depend on how pretentious I'm feeling.

So I'm wondering, if Castiel can be words, what else can he be? What if Castiel were ice cream flavors? What if he were footwear. Would he be toe socks? What if Castiel were currencies pegged to the dollar? The possibilities are endless!

More important questions:
1) Why are there not more stop-motion t-shirt battles?
2) When will Bradley James and Misha Collins team up to fight zombies in space?
3) Clueless + SPN = <3 Y/Y?


unnamed
Dean & Castiel

( once you learn a language, you are trapped by it. )

* My post on personal stories got picked up for the 4th Asian Women Blog Carnival \o/, which I'm pretty excited about. It looks like there's some good stuff over there so def check it out. This year's theme is "storytelling, or reclaiming our selves through our words". Unsurprisingly the first thing I read is a poem about Manila and, speaking of land=body, zempasuchil, remember that Hetalia fic you never wrote that I gave you feedback for? 'When the Waters Rose'? This is kind of like that, but set in the Philippines. "our middle ground exists / where floodwaters rise / to meet sinking shores"

* I'm beginning to wonder if I forgot about something important that happened last season in Heroes, 'cos what the hell is going on. On top of dumb superpowers. Why haven't I dropped this show yet?

* I'm assuming that things like Queen Victoria, Demon Hunter are riding on the coattails of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. I'm not a big Victorian lit fan nor am I a zombie nerd overmuch, but I do like the idea of the two of them fused together. So. Are these books any good?

* I'm not even in Trek fandom, but I just read and liked this fic by bravecows, which is set in a Starfleet Academy in Malaysia, featuring two female OCs who talk about why is it that only Westerners ever get assigned to certain missions and also why the Starfleet computer can't understand their accents. In other reccing ball news, I am also a fan of this Ty Lee/Azula fic and this Arthur/Gwen fic.

* The world needs more Ty Lee/Azula.

* I could make a legit Merlin reaction post but I'm kind of pooped, so have this two-word review instead: GAAAAIIIIUUUUUSSSSSSS! PENNNNNDRAGONNNNNSSSSS!

* fantasyecho embeds YouTube vids of Western pop songs being played on traditional Malay/Indonesian instruments. *_*

* And, for the hell of it: ( mash-up recs! ) You guys got mash-up recs to share?

* I'm gonna hunt for dinner and send at least one job application before bed. (man i was so productive last week)

I mentioned to a couple of people that I'm fiddling around with a reinterpretation of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe using Southeast Asian folktales and a cosmology that focuses on cycles rather than linear trajectories and dichotomy. What I'm thinking is, it's still four kids, but instead of the crisis in this world being WW2, it's the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Instead of the kids being sent out of the countryside to escape the Blitz, the parents have to leave the country because there were no jobs in Indonesia. The kids have to stay with their weird uncle. Anyway, I started writing it.

Writing non-autobiographically about Indonesians in Indonesia weirded my brain out. It kept on switching to "speaking Indonesian*" mode (not my most articulate mode, lemme tell ya), and I found myself trying to remember Indonesian vocabulary and sentence structure before I remembered that OH YEAH I'm writing this in English. It was just that my brain was going, "Okay, time to deal with Indonesian people who have X mannerisms and Y ideologies. Adjust!" And then it does. So, I have a few pages written, but the writing's stiff and the diction is off, trying to stay in English but instinctually veering to Indonesian.

I found myself asking, "Are these Indonesian names too off-putting for a non-Indonesian reader?" Then I had RaceFail flashbacks and I was like, "D-:!" wtf. My real name has always been a source of contention for me. It's the typical long foreign name, and people would be like, "Say your name, dude!" like it's just entertainment. And one time, after performing my name, one girl was like, "Yeah, but what is it without the accent? Say your name without the accent." Bitch, that was my name without the accent! diaf :(

In college, I changed my nickname to something simpler - not a Western name, just something monosyllabic (and spelled with two letters, but it still gets misspelled all the damn time anyway I JUST CAN'T WIN) - and my buddy Asef from high school was like, "I can't call you that. You're not that." He says it's colonial mentality on my part, and he talks about how Kang Wook goes by Kevin in Indiana now, and Bilal goes by Billy in Oregon; he makes a face and shakes his head. I don't know if I should be flattered or ticked off at this attitude. On the one hand, I respect his intentions, sure, down with the global western hegemony etc. On the other hand, don't tell me what I should call myself. Who are you to tell me who I am and what my reasons should be?

I also found myself asking, "Who the hell wants to read about Indonesians and Indonesia anyway?" But then I remember that questions like that are why I wanted to write this in the first place.

* Can I just say it kind of SHITS ME OFF when people say "Do you speak Bahasa?" 'cos that just means 'language'. Indonesians don't say we speak Bahasa. Bahasa Indonesia means 'Indonesian language'. It grew out of Malaysian (Basa Melayu?).


And now for something completely meme-ish! Tell me in the comments something you think I'd never ever write, then I try to commentfic this thing I would supposedly never write.