hello to the new people

[janne_d]

So I've noticed quite a few people have friended me recently - hi! *waves* I'm going to assume from the timing that it's mostly Merlin fans, which is cool. And I figured I should say a few things...

First of all: welcome! I hope you don't end up too bored - all this Merlin stuff lately is me being highly unusually prolific, and who knows how long that will last. Feel free to comment, discuss, disagree with my opinions, offer constructive criticism, squee or just lurk - whatever floats your boat is fine and I'll be happy to see you. (I should probably mention just for clarity that flaming or other nastiness is not fine, but I'm assuming you are all lovely and take that as read anyway.) Please don't be offended if I don't friend you back - it is nothing personal. I just spend way too much time reading my flist as it is and I tend to add to it at sporadic and random intervals.

That's pretty much it - if you want to stop by and say hi, that's cool, and if you don't then that is fine too. And I shall stop before I start to ramble!

Comments

[wolkendunst.livejournal.com]

*waves*
Well, I am one of those who friended you because of your Merlin stories. I am completely smitten with the show and it was a delight to discover your brilliant fiction. I especially adored And None But We Can Be Such Kings!

[janne-d.livejournal.com]

Hello! That's really lovely - it is immensely flattering that you like my fic that much. As should be completely obvious, I am also smitten with Merlin - I love that there is such a cool fandom going for it already. It's the first time I've really been involved with a fandom from the start and I have to say I'm loving how fun and friendly it all is, so thank you for adding to that for me.

What does your user name mean? I can remember (just about, I think) enough German to make a guess at your icon - adorn your heaven, Zeus? - but not your name.

[wolkendunst.livejournal.com]

My user name is a composite. Yes, those are very rare in German. :-)

Wolke means cloud and Dunst means vapour.

My icon and my username are an item. It's a quote from a very beautiful poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, called Prometheus. The poem is about Prometheus raging against Zeus.

The first verse goes like this:

Bedecke deinen Himmel, Zeus,
Mit Wolkendunst
Und übe, dem Knaben gleich,
Der Disteln köpft,
An Eichen dich und Bergeshöhn!
Mußt mir meine Erde
Doch lassen stehn
Und meine Hütte, die du nicht gebaut,
Und meinen Herd,
Um dessen Glut Du mich beneidest.


You need a translation?

Shroud your heaven, Zeus,
With cloudy vapours,
And do as you will, like the boy
That knocks the heads off thistles,
With oak-trees and mountain-tops;
Now you must leave alone
My Earth for Me,
And my hut, which you did not build,
And my hearth,
The glowing whereof
You envy me.

(Translation by Steven J Plunkett)

I love the poem and when I thought of a name for my journal, the word "Wolkendunst" popped into my head just like that.

[janne-d.livejournal.com]

I figured I should reply to the non-anonymous one - I can't remember if anonymous comments get reply notification or not.

Anyway, that is a very lovely bit of poetry and a cool place to get a username. I really like the last few lines of it. I have to admit I've never read any Goethe - I've just never come across any translations depite reading many poetry anthologies.

[wolkendunst.livejournal.com]

I am sorry for the double post. Maybe you could delete the anonymous one? I obviously cannot. [/dork]

Re Goethe: I think only Germans read him. If at all.

[janne-d.livejournal.com]

I managed to vanish the anon one, go me.

I think my sister has read some Goethe. She did a degree in German and teaches it now, and I'm fairly sure she had to read quite a lot of German literature.

[wolkendunst.livejournal.com]

Reading literature because it is required for one's job doesn't count. :-)

Kudos to your sister for managing to learn German. It must be a nightmare to learn if you are not a native speaker (at least according to Mark Twain).

[janne-d.livejournal.com]

I think my sister found German easier to learn than French, actually. Did Mark Twain have something against speaking German? I always found the pronounciation fairly straightforward - not that I was very good.

I would have thought that English was a bad one to learn, given how little we bother to follow our own rules! Though I think that the real killer languages for Westerners are tonal ones like Mandarin or Japanese.

[wolkendunst.livejournal.com]

Oh, Mark Twain loved the German language!

http://www.twainquotes.com/German.html

I think it is save to say that he felt personally offended by the German language.

Re Mandarin: I think it is possible to learn the spoken language, but near impossible to learn the written language.

Huzzah for the Latin alphabet!

[julesoh.livejournal.com]

Hello! I'm literally just about to become a new person as I run off to friend you, because your Merlin fic is fantastic and also you seem lovely and interesting! Just so you know, LOL. ;-)

[janne-d.livejournal.com]

Well, that's cool! I'm glad you've liked the fics so far - I hope I manage to write more.

I probably will - the plotbunnies I'm getting for this show are much tougher to get rid of than ones for other fandoms I've been in!

[lollilola.livejournal.com]

hello *waves*

I very much adore your Merlin fics so now I'm here to say hi and I can't wait to read more =)

[janne-d.livejournal.com]

Hi! Thank you very much for that - I'm glad you're enjoying the Merlin stuff. I'm having a lot of fun writing them!