“In Russian, Baba Yaga’s name is not capitalized. Indeed, it is not a name
at all, but a description—“old lady yaga” or perhaps “scary old woman.” There
is often more than one Baba Yaga in a story, and thus we should really say
“a Baba Yaga,” “the Baba Yaga.” We do so in these tales when a story would
otherwise be confusing. We have continued the western tradition of capitalizing Baba Yaga, since the words cannot be translated and have no other
meaning in English (aside perhaps from the pleasant associations of a rum
baba). There is no graceful way to put the name in the plural in English, and
in Russian tales multiple iterations of Baba Yaga never appear at the same
time, only in sequence: Baba Yaga sisters or cousins talk about one another,
or send travelers along to one another, but they do not live together. The
first-person pronoun “I” in Russian, ‘ia,’ is also uncapitalized. In some tales
our witch is called only “Yaga.” A few tales refer to her as “Yagishna,” a patronymic form suggesting that she is Yaga’s daughter rather than Yaga herself. (That in turn suggests that Baba Yaga reproduces parthenogenetically, and
some scholars agree that she does.) The lack of capitalization in every published Russian folktale also hints at Baba Yaga’s status as a type rather than
an individual, a paradigmatic mean or frightening old woman. This description in place of a name, too, could suggest that it was once a euphemism for
another name or term, too holy or frightening to be spoken, and therefore
now long forgotten.”
— Sibelan Forrester, from her introduction to Baba Yaga: The Wild Witch of the East in Russian Fairy Tales
I feel like this suggests that - with much dedication and study - you, too, could go out into the woods and be a baba yaga.
my long term retirement plans kinda hinge on it, yeah
does anyone know if i can like block sites from appearing in my google images searches??? i keep getting those awful ai generated things with a hand coming out of a man’s neck and just straight up not what i was looking for, because this was in a search for “curly hair in medieval paintings”. it happens every time i search for anything vaguely art-reference-like and it’s so fucking annoying and it clutters my search results so much. i don’t wanna add specific commands to the query every time too, what i need is like a browser extension or something
I was just thinking again about how in the original (based off of true events) James Herriot story a farmer called the vet completely distraught because all of his sheep had gone down. Some tourists had stopped on his pasture and they had a German shepherd type dog that was chasing them. He couldn’t even bring himself to go in to see how many of them were killed and how many were still alive. His entire livelihood might have just been lost due to the carelessness of a couple of people who didn’t understand the realities of rural life. About how it was a shock to both of them when the sheep hadn’t been savaged at all, and the vet’s sudden realization and dash to his car to get calcium. The quick action of the supplement and the sheep standing up on their own, one after another, to the inexpressible relief of a man who moments before thought he had lost everything. And how in the TV show the whole story was cheapened to James Herriot trying to save an overeager puppy from being put down by the big mean farmer.
The thing about James Herriot that I don’t think the tv show understood is that as much as he loved the animals, the stories weren’t about them. It’s easy to love animals, and the stories take it for granted that you care about them and their puzzles and that you’re happy when he’s able to help them and sad when he isn’t. The stories were about the people. About the man who killed himself after his dog died, and the terror that JH felt when another man told him that if his dog were to go blind he’d do the same. About the farmers fighting desperately to keep one step ahead of bankruptcy, the old women fretting over their only companions, the vets trying to appear confident and knowledgeable and trustworthy while being frightened and confused and going on half common sense and half instinct. It’s not about a heroic young vet hauling the benighted countryside into a more benevolent, enlightened age. It’s about falling in love with a place and its people and serving it as best as you can. Despite its flaws. And despite yours.
You are granted a time machine and the ability to prevent one birth (or commit a murder up to you), don’t worry about the butterfly effect, we want the butterfly effect that’s part of the point. Your actions will prevent them from ever rising to prominence. No he’s not here, because it’d be too much of a sweep, pick your second choice if you’re wondering where he is
i mean they did kill archduke franz ferdinand before he got to power. that was a pretty significant thing that happened. like i understand where you’re coming from here but they very much did kill archduke franz ferdinand before he got to power
Seriously, Franz Ferdinand was just the heir.
Wait, OP. What timeline are you from again?
Want to add my thought process: I went Mussolini, since without him fascism would probably fizzle out and we’d get no Hitler in the bargain. He’d be alive but probably a nobody.
Stalin or Mao are tied for second, I think. In terms of averting the death toll. Also, I imagine people here in the US wouldn’t be so afraid of even the very word “socialism” without them.
Nixon should not be here. He was a crook, yes, but he gave us the EPA and OSHA and very nearly Obamacare forty years early. Offhand I’d say put Jackson or Wilson as the asshole president on this list. Or Reagan as everyone in the notes suggests. Or James K. Polk, who’s the one who conquered half of Mexico.
My thoughts exactly. Which is why my finger hesitated over Stalin and Mao a good bit before slamming down to smite Mussolini.
*strikes out Nixon and writes in Apostle Paul, spots the oncominghh pitchfork and torchlight parade, sighs, spots his name, writes Pope Urban II, underlines it, and stomps off*
She/her. Formerly @x-cetra. Middle-aged queer nerd who's been posting fandom stuff on the net (or at least VAX) since 1989. General babblings on various fandoms (geology, the ancient world, Utena, space, classic Trek, Babylon 5, Ghibli, NASA, et cetera).
