#and how contextual the language/culture is

[adragonsfriend]

There are no trash takes on Jedi philosophy, there is contextual analysis.

As may be obvious from the title (humorous--I have gone through several common misinterpretations myself), this is about that infamous scrap of poetry,

There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no death, there is the Force.

And the other version,

Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet the Force.

I've seen quite a few interpretations of these along the lines of "the second version is reasonable but the first version is crazy and stupid," so here's why I think both versions are actually communicating the same idea, and the wording doesn't really change the meaning much at all.

So just like I did in my post about "do or do not there is not try," let's start by asking some questions to establish context before we look at the text itself.

Is it THE Jedi Code or just a mantra? Legends says it's the Code, canon says it's a mantra. The fact of the matter is that no matter what, it's really a scrap of poetry which couldn't encompass the entire philosophical basis of a culture even if it was trying, so we'll consider it a mantra.

Does the fact that it's a mantra rather than THE Jedi Code mean that we can't get anything deep or meaningful out of it? Of course not. Just because it's not the whole of or a full explanation of Jedi philosophy doesn't mean it's just a nice sounding string of words.

Who is saying this to who? This mantra is often used to focus a meditation, with the first phrasing used by adults in the culture, while the second phrasing is more often used by children.

What were George Lucas' inspirations for Jedi culture that relate to this mantra? (borrowing from this post) A combination of christianity, buddhism, and his interpretations. I'm not an expert in any religion, and definitely not in buddhism, but I know enough to know I'm about to make some sweeping generalizations, so take this with a grain of salt. Disclaimers aside, this mantra, and the way it is phrased, indicate it is being inspired more by buddhism. The way christian texts, specifically the Bible, are written typically goes "here is a story about people doing something, and here is how big G god and/or Jesus reacted." There are metaphors sprinkled in, but they are mainly there to clarify for readers. Buddhist texts on the other hand (and lots of other eastern belief systems as well, like daoism, hinduism, etc. It's an important note that these belief systems don't necessarily conform to the western idea of what a religion is, and often their original languages don't even have a word which is equivalent in meaning to "religion") use metaphor in often deliberately contradictory ways, to make the reader think about things which are difficult to express in words alone. The ongoing struggle to reconcile contradictory descriptions is the point. This doesn't mean those texts can be interpreted however a reader would like. There may be multiple right interpretations, but there can also be wrong interpretations.

What the mantra does NOT mean:

"There is no ___ …" =/= "The experience of ___ is fake news."

"There is no ___ …" =/= "___ is not a useful concept."

"There is no ___ …" =/= "We should totally ignore ___ and pretend we've never heard that word before."

The mantra is not realy a set of advice on how to act. It's a set of statements about Existance. And I do mean capital E, philosophical, epistemological, weird, deep, think-y, Existence.

Temperature Metaphor

You know the first time someone tells you as a kid that cold isn't real, it's just the absence of heat and you're like… "but I'm touching something right now and it feels cold???" It sounds wild the first time you hear it, but as you think about it more, maybe learn about it a second time in science class, get some more context about how molecules work, etc. it begins to make more sense. It gets easier to grasp, until eventually the knowledge feels intuitive--especially if you're a STEM person who thinks about it a lot. We still talk about cold as a concept, because it's useful to us as well--lack of heat can have damaging effects on our bodies after all, and a cold drink is great on a hot day--and it's more efficient to say "cold" than it is to say "lack of heat." But there are some situations, like developing refrigeration or air conditioning, where it is not just useful but essential to think of temperature as it really is--heat exists, cold doesn't--and thinking of it colloquially can only hold us back (if this isn't actually intuitive to you, that's fine, it's just a metaphor--you could also think about dark being the absence of light, vacuum being the absence of mass, any number of things mirror this).

Probably the easiest like to get one's head around, imo at least, is "there is no ignorance, there is knowledge."

Taken hyper-literally it would mean "why seek out knowledge ever when everyone already knows everything?" But if we say knowledge is to heat as ignorance is to cold, then we can understand the real meaning--knowledge is real, where ignorance is only the name of an experience.

The Whole Mantra

This is the way the Jedi are understanding of emotion, ignorance, passion, chaos, death, etc. They are introduced, as children, to the idea that whilst they may feel all of these things, what they are actually experiencing is the lack of the other things--peace, knowledge, serenity, harmony, the Force. That's why they start with the "___ yet ___" phrasing--it introduces them to the first steps of understanding:

They can feel emotions, yet peace is still real and out there to reach for no matter how overwhelming those emotions may be at the moment,

They can feel ignorant or unknowledgeable, yet knowledge is out there to find,

They can experience passion (meaning suffering or pain in this context), yet know that serenity will return to them,

They can find their surroundings chaotic, and yet look for the harmony in the noise,

They can understand that death happens, yet be comforted by the fact that the person dying is still as much a part of the Force as they ever were.

Eventually they move onto the full mantra:

They will always feel emotions, but if they always reckon with those emotions and pass through them they can always return to a place of peace,

If they feel ignorant, they must seek out knowledge, rather than acting rashly. Also, their own knowledge is not the limit--others may hold knowledge in places they consider clouded,

They may experience suffering and pain--it may even feel like a good thing--but there is no wisdom in pain, it is the distraction from serenity, which is where truth can be found,

No matter how chaotic the world appears, it is actually a part of an underlying harmony that makes up all the patterns and the beauty in the world,

Death is not an ending, no matter how much it may look like one. It is a natural transition back into the Force, the place all life comes from.

A Jedi youngling is someone for whom this understanding is an essential part of the culture they are being brought up in.

A Jedi Padawan is someone who is beginning to learn to apply this understanding outside the confines of the Jedi temple, in a world where not everyone shares it.

A Jedi Knight is someone who has learned to apply this understanding on their own, without supervision.

A Jedi Master is someone for whom this understanding has become intuitive and automatic, no matter their surroundings.

All this is to say,

[deception-united]

Naming Fantasy Races, Step-by-Step

1. Understand their characteristics

What's special or different about them? Define their attributes—consider the physical, magical, and cultural traits of the race.

Determine their societal structure, beliefs, and history.

2. Choose a base word

Use elements from mythological roots or existing folklore and literature.

Draw from nature, such as "aqua" for water-based creatures or "sylvan" for forest dwellers.

Look at words from Latin, Greek, or other ancient languages for inspiration, such as "lupus" (Latin for wolf).

3. Find appropriate prefixes and suffixes

Examples of common prefixes:

Drac– (dragon)

Lycan– (wolf)

Syl– (forest/nature)

Aqua– (water)

Examples of common suffixes:

–kin (family, race)

–folk (people)

–ari (noble or magical)

–shade (mystical or ethereal)

–borne (born of or origin)

4. Combine & modify

Merge the base word with your chosen prefix or suffix and, if need be, adjust it to make for better pronunciation. For example, you might combine "sylvan" with "-ari" to create "Sylvari".

Mix parts of words to invent new, unique terms.

5. Ensure uniqueness

Once you've come up with a name, I suggest checking its uniqueness with a quick search to ensure the term isn't already widely used in popular media.

6. Contextual integration

Integrate the term into the lore and history of your world. How did this race come to be known by this name?

Consider the cultural significance. Think about how other races view them versus how they view themselves.

Here are a couple examples to get a better idea of how you might choose to go about it for different creatures:

Forest dwellers: Base word: Sylvan (related to forests) Suffixes: –ari, –folk, –kin New terms: Sylvari, Sylvafolk, Sylvakin

Water-based beings: Base word: Aqua (water) Suffixes: –nix, –morph, –ari New terms: Aquanix, Aquamorph, Aquari

Don’t be afraid to combine unexpected elements for a fresh take, and keep the cultural nuances within your world in mind when coming up with a suitable term. A race’s name might change based on who is using it or the context.

Hope you find this helpful! Happy writing ❤

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[demonslayedher]

Today while watching the second half of the Entertainment District Arc at the theater (for context: in Japanese with no subtitles, but I'm relatively fluent in it as a second language), I had a bit of a startling moment as Tengen recalls his ninja past.

"Huh?" I thought, "Did I miss something? Was it that seven of the Uzui siblings simply died of the harsh training that their father put them through?"

Like, the importance seemed to be placed on the fact that the lifestyle and cruel mindset was what killed them, and that Tengen did not want to live like his father and surviving younger brother. Emphasis was not placed on Tengen having killed any of them himself.

"Was this one of the edits made for the film version?" I pondered. "No, I think this scene was always like this. Why did I remember his back story differently though? Did I miss a more archaic word for them having been put up against each other to kill each other?"

But as I kept watching, it kept bothering me.

Like, "But that all really only made it sound like they happened to die due to harsh training. That's really different from being put against each other to cull each other. Did the manga say more in that scene? I need to check when I get home, because that is a big difference... Maybe Tengen will mention something about it in the grave scene. After all, at least a couple of them are dead because of him. Right...?"

But there was nothing to imply guilt in the grave scene. Just that he regrets they are dead at all and that he needs to live it up for their sake. I had always assumed this scene was set after the Fanbook #2 detail of how he used to say he was going to hell until his wives got mad at him for it. But he said that because of the guilt of killing his siblings, right?

Or... was it just general guilt over going along with the shinobi lifestyle and killing people???

But... but he did unwittingly kill a couple of his siblings without knowing who they were because their faces were covered and he was just following his father's orders, right? After all, I... I mentioned that in a fanfic. I mentioned that in timelines. I mentioned that in meta. I mentioned that in so much meta.

I grew more and more bothered as I kept watching the movie, wondering if, all this time, I had attained some false memory. I've been wrong before; I am but one nerd on the internet. It's not a big deal to be wrong. But, but if I wanted to avoid leaving false info out there, I would have to fix so much. I would have to completely reevaluate the way I have interpreted Tengen's character for years.

Where did I even get such a far-fetched idea with no basis in that flashback? Because Japanese is so contextual, did I completely misattribute Tengen's father's fault onto Tengen himself? But where did I assume those details about him not knowing they were his siblings until after he killed them? Was it fanon? Was it a mistranslation somewhere (I've come across a few widespread ones, after all)? How did I fool myself into this? How will I go back and amend all those posts???

So anyway. I got home and checked the original flashback text (in Japanese). Pretty much the same as the anime. Gulp.

Checked Fanbook #1. Basically a recap of how he did not want to live like his father and remaining brother. An extra tidbit about being given three wives when he turned 15, as was their culture. Nothing to justify my vivid memories.

But finally--in content that wasn't published until months after the manga ended--Fanbook #2 had it!!! Every detail as I felt I had already accepted as canon long ago, and then some--three Uzui siblings died beforehand, and the remaining six were put against each other, Tengen killed two without knowing who they were, his remaining brother killed another two without caring.

So why am I telling you all this?

So that you can appreciate the relief I felt as I said,

"I'm so glad Tengen killed his siblings!"

[wip]

Forgive me if this has been asked, or if I've already asked (bad memory), but will we ever get new language options? And if we wanted to request a specific language, would we go here or to Support (under Feedback)?

Speaking of, how is this website translated? Do you hire people to individually do all of the translating, get a robot of some kind to do it, or anything else?

Answer: Hi, @somethingsomethingspotted!

It is people doing the translating! It's a professional linguist team who work to ensure cultural and contextual accuracy as well as high-quality translations. This same team also creates and maintains the content in the staff blogs in the various languages currently provided.

This is also the reason why it is not so straightforward to add more languages. This is a time-consuming process, as is the translation work for the languages we currently support. But it is important to clarify to the community that it is real people doing the work—and nothing automated.

We would be curious to know what languages you would like, and we can look into it on our side to get an idea of how realistic this would be right now. It must be said that we cannot promise anything, but it’s certainly worth exploring.

So why not tell us in the comments which languages you’d like to see on Tumblr?

[archiveofliterature]

that one line about ramy's bangla being rudimentary made me absolutely sob (i'm bengali) and i wanna talk about why

there's so much to it both contextually with ramy's character as well as historically. contextually because ramy is fluent in 6 languages, an insane number of languages for one person but none of which are his mother tongue. he's described as a performer, one who knows he can't blend in so instead he stands out as a means to escape as much of the racism as he can. he gets lost in it that he almost forgets who he is; this is reflected in his language ability too – he gets so lost in his linguistic academics he just barely remembers the native language of his home place that he adores.

and honestly, you can't even really blame ramy for it at all when it was induced. it's the british who saw urdu, arabic and persian as more valuable than bangla, it's the british that make ramy put on this act so he can literally stay alive. and when you know the historical relevancies between urdu and bangla, it hurts so much that ramy was forced to forget bangla

very brief history context: after the partition, where british india was split into india, pakistan and east pakistan (now bangladesh) bangla was seen as inferior to urdu due to its hindu connections. bengalis experienced so much shit because of this (and bengali muslims are still dealing with the internalised cultural racism today honestly). pakistanis tried to make the official language urdu, even though literally everyone in east pakistan were bengali and spoke bangla, so bengalis fought back against it. we still celebrate that day today (feb 21)

so to have ramy be in this position in the 1830s where urdu was seen as superior to bangla, especially when ramy is a bengali muslim, is just extremely accurate?? and maybe it's bc we don't have much western literature where we talk about this but it's just so nice to have it acknowledged

the bangla language movement didn't happen until around the 1950s, over a century after babel's timeline, but the seeds are always there. while i do think it comes with both this islamic superiority tendency a lot of asians have (arabs i'm looking at you) and britian's imperialistic racism, i just love how it all makes sense

[alive-gh0st]

❝Too Far Gone❞

Mark Grayson x Brainrot Girlfriend!Readerᶻ 𝗓 𐰁 .ᐟ

˗ˏˋ 𓉘 Part 2 of ”Corruption Complete” 𓉝ˎˊ˗

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

🦈 summary: mark’s corruption arc continues. he’s made it to the dark side—but the brainrot never ends. from forced meme bootcamp to cursed movie nights and chaotic friend group crossovers, mark’s peace is officially gone. and now… he might kind of like it?

‪‪🦈 contains: sfw. modern brainrot. fandom jokes. reluctant!mark, chaotic!reader. oliver returns with more menace. debbie thrives. william + rick join the chaos. wine obsessed!debbie. amber vs eve. tiktok audios. cursed AI videos. gacha reactions. passive-aggressive memes. „tragic boy 2.0”

‪‪🦈 wc: 2187

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌a/n: we’re back, baby. this was supposed to be a joke, and now it’s a saga. blame mark for folding like a wet napkin. shout-out to the “ballerina cappuccina” for lighting this fire. enjoy the chaos.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

Mark stared at the whiteboard in front of him like it was written in an alien dialect. Which, to be fair, was only partially inaccurate.

“Okay,” you said brightly, tapping the marker against your palm. “Let’s review: What does it mean if I say ‘she’s giving One Direction in 2013 with a sprinkle of Tumblr Sexy Man pipeline energy’?”

Mark blinked once. Twice.

Oliver leaned forward like a predator scenting fear. “Say it, Mark. Say the answer.”

Mark sighed, dragging a hand down his face. “It… means she’s popular?”

“Popular how?” you challenged. “Contextualize it.”

“She’s… trending?” he tried.

“Wrong,” Oliver said, shaking his head gravely. “You’ve just been hit with a ✨deduction✨.”

He clicked a buzzer. Where it came from, no one knew. Where it went after that, no one wanted to ask.

You turned back to the board, adding another tally to the “Cringe Counter” in red marker. Mark’s score was now dangerously close to being labeled “culturally illiterate.”

“This is so dumb,” he grumbled. “This isn’t even a real language.”

“It is to us,” you and Oliver said in perfect sync.

Mark muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “cult behavior.”

You ignored him, moving to the next slide. A collage of pixelated TikTok reaction memes flashed onto the screen. “Okay, rapid-fire round: What’s the audio for this one?”

Mark squinted. “Is that… a raccoon in a nun outfit?”

“Yes, but that’s not the point,” you snapped.

Oliver gasped. “You don’t know the ‘Father, forgive me, but she was SERVING’ audio?!”

Mark opened his mouth. Closed it. “Why would I ever need to know that?”

“Because one day you might be the raccoon in the nun outfit, Mark,” you said, eyes burning with brainrot conviction.

He slumped back on the couch. “I regret everything.”

︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿

What was supposed to be a calm, relaxing day became a Friday Movie Night. Which, in your (the Graysons’) household, meant one thing:

No peace. No mercy. Only WiFi-fueled chaos.

It started innocently. You were lounging on the couch, half-scrolling and half-plotting dinner, when Debbie offhandedly said, “We should watch something tonight.”

You, of course, took that as a declaration of war.

Ten minutes later, the lights were dimmed, the coffee table was drowning in chips and half-melted gummies, and everyone had been emotionally blackmailed into joining.

(“Mark, you saved the world. You can survive one night of meme cinema.”)

Mark sat like a hostage. William arrived mid-chaos with Rick, who brought snacks and the wrong kind of emotional preparedness. Debbie brought wine. Oliver brought his entire personality.

You? You brought a curated playlist of AI-generated edits that actively offended the concept of linear storytelling.

“Okay,” you announced, remote in hand. “Tonight’s film festival opens with: Edward Cullen breakdancing in front of an explosion to Skyfall.”

“…Why?” Mark asked, already regretting being born.

“Art,” Oliver whispered reverently.

The video began. Within fifteen seconds, Comic Sans text scrolled across the screen:

‘When he says forever but leaves the Minecraft server.’

Rick blinked. “I have so many questions.”

William, eyes wide, leaned in. “And none of them matter.”

The next clip was somehow worse—or better. AI-generated Loki slow dancing with the Riddler at prom while Will Smith stood in the corner like a disappointed gym teacher. The audio? A slowed-down remix of Let It Go over Sandstorm.

No one blinked.

“I hate this,” Mark whispered.

“You’re watching it,” you replied sweetly.

“…Shut up.”

Oliver pulled out a scoring notebook. “Okay, rating time. Editing? 10. Trauma delivery? 12.”

“Is there symbolism?” Rick asked, way too seriously.

“Absolutely,” William said. “The Riddler’s bowtie was a metaphor for late-stage capitalism.”

Even Debbie chimed in with a solid, “The pacing in the Subway Voldemort edit was weird, but I respect the emotional core.”

By the third cursed slideshow, everyone had a ranking system, emotional stakes, and deeply divided opinions about whether or not Gandalf doing a TikTok dance counted as character assassination.

Mark didn’t get up. Didn’t leave. Didn’t even look away. He just sighed.

And for some ridiculously stupid reason?

He didn’t hate it.

︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿

It happened on a Tuesday.

A simple, forgettable Tuesday. Rain outside. Soup on the stove. A blanket of rare peace over the house.

And then Mark opened his mouth.

“You’re being real ‘girl who fell off the swing in 2012 and never emotionally recovered’ right now.”

Silence.

Your spoon hovered mid-air.

Oliver, across the room, slowly turned like an animatronic coming online.

Debbie looked up from her crossword, one eyebrow arched with terrifying accuracy.

“What,” you breathed.

Mark blinked, backtracking immediately. “I mean—not like that. I wasn’t saying you were—It’s just—I saw a TikTok—”

“A TikTok,” Oliver echoed, mouth spreading into a villainous grin. “So you have been studying.”

“I didn’t mean to say it out loud.”

“You quoted a cultural meme tag with precision,” you gasped. “Unprovoked.”

Mark stood frozen in the kitchen doorway like a raccoon caught in the fridge light.

“I blacked out,” he tried.

“You blacked in,” Oliver corrected, dramatically pointing. “Welcome to the hive mind.”

Debbie didn’t say anything, just sipped her wine with the smugness of a woman watching her son descend into madness she fully supported.

You dramatically slammed your hand on the counter. “You mocked us.”

“I still do.”

“And yet!” you shrieked, gesturing wildly. “You knew what that meant!”

Mark groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “This is your fault.”

“You’re damn right it is.”

Oliver held up the whiteboard from earlier and slapped a gold star beside Mark’s name. “Corruption milestone achieved: accidental meme reference in domestic context.”

“You’ve fallen,” you said softly. “You’re one of us now.”

Mark didn’t respond.

But he did mutter “she’s giving ‘delulu but functioning’” under his breath an hour later.

Oliver tackled him with a celebratory pillow.

You cried actual tears.

︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿

What started as a casual group hang spiraled—as most things in your social circle did—into chaos within twenty minutes.

Amber had stopped by under the innocent promise of “a chill night.” She brought wine, even wore slippers. Her guard was down.

Eve was already there. Cross-legged on the rug, hoodie half-zipped, energy drink in hand like it was liquid law.

Amber settles in with a sigh. “I was promised snacks and serotonin.”

Eve flops down beside her, stealing a chip from Mark’s bowl. “And yet you walked into psychological warfare.”

The TV is paused on a cursed slideshow. The image? A freeze frame of Shrek photoshopped into a Renaissance painting, holding hands with a pixelated Garfield.

The caption reads: “when you and your emotional support cryptid walk into therapy”

Amber groans. “No. Absolutely not.”

Eve perks up. “Why not? That one’s a classic.”

“It’s blasphemy.”

“It’s art.”

“It’s Garfield in a toga.”

“Exactly.”

Amber throws her hands up. “Why is he glowing?”

Mark, exhausted from the last three meme dissections, doesn’t even look up. “Symbolism.”

“Thank you!” Eve beams.

“Don’t encourage her,” Amber mutters, taking a swig of wine.

You sit smugly between them, remote in hand, before asking. “Next slide?”

“Absolutely.” The red-haired girl encouraged.

“I will scream.” Amber promised.

The next image pops up—a tier list ranking internet boyfriends. At the top? Invincible, labeled: ‘tragedy-coded, would cry during WALL-E’

Directly beneath him—Paddington Bear and that guy who fixed his crush’s WiFi in a TikTok once.

Amber squints. “What does this even mean.”

Eve leans in like a scholar. “It’s a commentary on emotional vulnerability in male-coded narratives.”

“You just made that up.”

“I did, and I stand by it.”

William mutters, “I’d date Paddington. He’s stable.”

“That coat? Immaculate.” His boyfriend adds.

Amber glances at you. “Are your friends okay?”

“Absolutely not.”

Oliver, feeling slightly left out, stirs up some drama. “Mark’s at risk of joining the list if he cries during Finding Nemo.”

“I DIDN’T CRY.”

“You sniffled,” Debbie says from the kitchen.

By the end of the night, Eve and Amber are locked in a passionate debate about whether or not liking Remy from Ratatouille is a red flag, William is drawing diagrams to explain meme evolution, and Mark’s soul has visibly left his body.

︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿

It was supposed to be harmless.

A passing moment. A flicker in the chaos.

You hadn’t even meant to record him. Not really.

You were filming Oliver’s dramatic reenactment of the “I’m just a baby!” audio using sock puppets and half of Rick’s hoodie when Mark walked by in the background—bored, hoodie half-on, sipping orange juice straight from the carton.

And then, with zero prompting, he did it.

He hit a trend pose.

Perfectly.

He didn’t even notice he’d done it. Just sipped, blinked, walked off like nothing happened.

Everyone stared.

“…Did he just—?” William whispered.

Oliver stood frozen mid-puppet grab. “Roll it back.”

You did.

And there it was: textbook trend behavior. Down to the head tilt.

“Put that on the internet,” Eve said, eyes wide. “Now.”

“No,” Mark said immediately, from the kitchen.

“Yes,” everyone else said in unison.

You posted it. You didn’t even try to be subtle. The caption?

’when the trauma makes you trendable. #tragedyboy2.0’

By the end of the night, it had 40k views.

By morning, 200k.

╭┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄╮

ြ The comments were chaos:

➤“he’s so emotionally charged I could fix him AND he’d thank me”

➤“when you cry to Mitski but still hit a clean pose?? king”

➤“tragedy boy 2.0 just dropped and I’m obsessed”

╰┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄╯

Mark stared at your phone, expression blank.

“I didn’t even do anything,” he muttered.

“That’s the point,” Rick said, nodding.

“Tragic aura,” Amber added.

“It’s the silent suffering that sells,” William confirmed, sipping his smoothie.

You handed Mark your phone with a smile. “Congrats. You’re a meme now.”

He stared at the screen.

Then at you.

“…I’m deleting all of your editing apps.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“You need help.”

“YOU TREND IN SILENCE.”

From the hallway, Debbie called out. “Make sure to tag me next time. I’ve got burner accounts ready!”

Mark buried his face in his hands.

Somewhere, a comment called him “WALL-E coded.” Another simply said, “blink twice if you need therapy, blink once if you already went and it didn’t work.”

He blinked once.

The internet cheered.

︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿

It started out as a joke.

A throwaway mention. A cursed sentence uttered in the depths of a late-night scroll session:

“Imagine if there was a Gacha Life video of Nolan betraying Earth.”

You had said it. Mark had groaned. Oliver had gasped.

And twenty minutes later—you were all gathered on the couch, screen mirroring a Gacha reaction video with a thumbnail that read:

“Invincible Characters React to Nolan’s Betrayal (SAD/CRYING/REAL)”

The title card was Comic Sans. The music was royalty-free piano tragedy. The vibes? Devastating.

Mark looked like he was about to walk into traffic.

“Why is my Gacha self crying in the corner?” he asked, horrified.

“Character depth,” you replied.

The video played.

Pixelated Gacha!Debbie gasped in slow motion as Gacha!Nolan punched Gacha!Mark into orbit. A single animated tear rolled down her face and sparkled. The screen flashed:

“TO BE CONTINUED…?”

“Oh my god,” Rick whispered. “They gave it a cliffhanger.”

“Of real history,” William added. “This is art.”

Debbie blinked at the screen. “Wait. That’s supposed to be me?”

“She looks twelve.” Amber said.

Eve raised her martini drink. “I respect the commitment.”

Meanwhile, Gacha!Mark lay motionless on the screen, sparkles and red overlay blood pooling dramatically as a voiceover whispered: “He was just a boy.”

Mark put his head in his hands. “This should be illegal.”

Oliver patted his shoulder. “That’s what makes it so powerful.”

By the end, there was a montage of Gacha!Mark’s “best moments” set to a slowed-down nightcore remix of “My Heart Will Go On.” The subtitles read: “Mark… you were the light in our darkness.”

No one spoke for a solid fifteen seconds.

Then you wiped a fake tear and said, “They got your trauma arc better than the actual writers.”

Mark muttered, “I’m moving out.”

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

•∘˙○˚.⋆ ˚｡⋆ ୨🪼୧⋆ ˚｡⋆ ∘˙○˚.•

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

By now, the “Tragedy Boy 2.0” clip had gone viral enough to birth its own ecosystem—edits, fancams, conspiracy theories.

And Debbie?

Debbie was thriving.

She’d quietly created an account under the name @markgraysondefenseunit, and she was everywhere.

╭┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄╮

ြ Commenting on hate:

➥���he looks like he cries after arguments”

╰┈➤ @markgraysondefenseunit: “He resolves his trauma. Do YOU?”

╰┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄╯

Debbie hit send, sipped her wine, and smiled like she just ended a war.

╭┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄╮

ြ Fighting trolls:

➥“mid hero tbh”

╰┈➤ @markgraysondefenseunit: “Tell that to the asteroid he punched.”

╰┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄╯

She cracked her knuckles before typing that one. Felt good.

╭┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄╮

ြ Replying to thirst:

➥“me n him rn [photo of two frogs cuddling]”

╰┈➤ @markgraysondefenseunit: “wrap it up sweetie, you’re not his type.”

╰┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄╯

Debbie raised an eyebrow, muttered “delusional,” and hit send without flinching.

For her defense—she did tell Mark about it, not her fault everyone thought she was just joking around.

So she stayed silent.

Until the day he scrolled through comments on his own post and paused.

“…Why does one of these accounts call me ‘my brave little meatball’?”

You smiled, innocent. “Huh. Weird.”

Oliver snorted into his juice.

From the kitchen, Debbie sipped her wine.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

a/n: this was supposed to be short. it was not. it got out of hand. again. also—did anyone clock my weird obsession with Tuesdays or are we all just politely ignoring it? be honest.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌With Love, @alive-gh0st

[utilitycaster]

this may seem needlessly finicky but I do actually believe it's important: calling Verin a himbo is just one of many examples where like, one of the cast says something off the cuff and it's not exactly the right word or it is highly contextual, and that is fine because no one is perfect especially in improv, but then it gets repeated ad infinitum within the fandom when it never really fit in the first place. We have Verin's stats and he's decently more intelligent than average with a 13 (smarter than most of Bells Hells for one; as smart as Pike); it's just he's the guy with a bachelor's degree with good grades followed by military service in a family where everyone has two PhDs - Matt said "himbo of the family" the way in a family where most people are exceptionally tall you'd call the 5'11" child the short one. In Call of the Netherdeep he appears as thoughtful and competent and promoted to a difficult position at a very young age, and in the campaign his appearance is simultaneously as a leader of troops in a dangerous mission, and someone who cares enough about poetry from a completely foreign and distant culture to have tried to learn more about it. I'm sorry, but if you're using the word "himbo" I don't think you're processing a thing about the character yourself; you're just the latest repetition in a game of telephone that's been going on since mid-2021.

And that's not deeply bad on the surface, and I'm using Verin not because he is the character most wronged by this sort of thing but because he's recent and it's really clear where the word came from and that it's not a good assessment, but something I happen to have a decent knack for is pattern recognition in language. I usually find it really easy to pick up on when someone's plagiarized because of the language and pattern shifts. I tend to remember urls and out of place words well. So I do tend to notice when everyone suddenly starts using a single turn of phrase and I tend to flag it. Sometimes that's not bad; sometimes it means everyone came to a similar conclusion and that's the best way to express that conclusion. But like, when Taliesin called the Yios episode a gas-leak episode and the entire fandom started parroting it? The line "bone-dry takes"? The fact that a lot of ship defenses I see were phrased precisely as "I have eyes"? without actually talking about the ship itself? the fact that I've seen a spike in the use of the term "ontologically evil" including in myself and not all uses are actually correct? And extending this beyond strictly language but consider any headcanon with minimal textual support that catches like wildfire (sidebar: remember how we make, or made fun of the SPREAD THIS LIKE WILDFIRE tendency on Tumblr a decade ago? same concept of repetition of a specific turn of phrase without internalizing) all sort of ping this.

And it's fine, truly, to come to fandom and turn off your brain. I know this will sound sarcastic from me, and that's because I don't personally agree, but I do strongly agree that you can do what you want in fandom and you don't have to listen to my opinions so in the end, yeah, it's fine because I am not the arbiter of "fine". But I think critical thought is a vital exercise and I think precision with language is part of it and so if you find yourself using the same exact words and thoughts as everyone else, that should, ideally, trigger a process of "but are these the right words? what do I see when I see this character and how would I describe them? do I agree with this assessment?" Fandom is an interesting and easier microcosm than reality in which to start doing that.

[unsolicited-opinions]

I Am ➜ I Identify As

Maybe you already know all this, but I'm just now working my way through it and it's helping me understand some aspects of the culture wars.

So...when I don't understand something, it gets under my skin and I tend to bang away at it until it starts to make sense. I need things to make sense.

I think this is because I'm autistic, and I suspect it can be very annoying to the people who love me, but:

If asked, most people my age (Gen X) or older will describe themselves (as I did above) by saying things like:

"I'm autistic"

"I'm bisexual

"I have a disability"

But if you ask a Millennial or member of Gen Z, you're more likely hear things like:

"I identify as autistic"

"I identify as bisexual

"I identify as a person with a disability."

So we changed how we express the same idea...So what?

It's much bigger than a shift in popular idiom, and understanding it sheds some light on the culture wars.

Think of it this way:

"I am [X]" = a statement of being.

This is essentialist. It's a statement of being. You are [X]. It's inherent, it's your nature, definitive, objective, fixed, noumenal - perhaps permanent and inescapable. It has nothing do with how you feel about [X] or how you wish to seen as [X], it's a rigid, objective fact.

"I identify as [X]" = a statement of perspective.

This is existentialist. It implies that [X] isn't innate to your being, but something you choose - and that choice is meaningful to you. It centers your relationship to [X], how you feel about [X].

It's a claim about self-perception and a recognition of membership or affinity that leaves room for complexity. It acknowledges that identity might be contextual, contestable, even changeable - while it also recognizes that someone else might not see you the same way. It's subjective and it's highly personal.

That's...kind of a huge difference - and the more you examine that difference the bigger it gets.

So...why did our identity language shift from essentialist to existentialist?

Four things:

Academic Theory

Person-First descriptive ethics

Therapeutic Self-Help Culture

The (In)visibility of Identity Online

1. Academic Theory

The seeds of "identify as" were planted in universities in the late 20th century.

Thinkers like Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, or Stuart Hall challenged the notion that identity categories like gender, race, sexuality, or disability were biologically fixed or politically neutral.

Judith Butler's theory of gender performativity, for example, argued that gender isn't something you are, it's something you do - a set of behaviors, performances, and social scripts. The idea took off not just in academia but in pop culture. Soon, identity was widely seen as not something you inherited, but performed, resisted, or chose.

"Identifying as" emerged as a way of expressing this new, post-essentialist view of the self. You weren’t just born into an identity - you could name it, reshape it, and inhabit it in a self-aware way.

That's amazing, right?

It's empowering and nuanced - and it shouldn't surprise us that it took off.

2. Person-First Descriptive Ethics

The same idea also found expression in person-first language, which introduced many to the ethics of description.

The disability and health communities of the 1990s and 2000s saw a push for "person-first" language. The goal was to emphasize humanity first, not diagnosis. In their thinking, their loved one isn't a cancerous person, but a person with cancer because the diagnosis doesn't define them.

The same well-intentioned folks insisted that I was not an autistic person, but a person with autism, telling me that this was more respectful because it didn't allow autism to define me.

"Thanks," I said. "I hate it."

I don't know about you, but most of the autistic people (not people with autism) I know have rejected this.

I don't think I'm a neurotypical person with an overlay of the illness of autism, or who is being acted upon by an outside force called autism. I think that being autistic is intrinsic, and not an illness.

Put another way: I believe that being autistic is an essentialist identity, that's the only acceptable way for me to talk about it...and that's how I prefer others speak about me in my presence.

But this general idea - that the way we use identity language shapes ethics, respect, and dignity? That stuck, and it's mostly a good thing to be conscious of the way that how we describe identities isn't value-neutral.

In this framework, "I identify as" is meant to be a respectful way to assert identity without reducing oneself to it. It can be especially useful for people with multiple, intersecting, or non-visible identities - and this aligns nicely with Kimberlé Crenshaw's original concept of intersectionality.

3. Therapeutic Self-Help Culture

Since the 1970s, American (and increasingly global) culture has been shaped by what sociologists call "therapeutic individualism." Self-discovery, self-expression, self-definition, and self-actualization have become central to how people understand their purpose. The self is no longer something you are - it's a lifelong project you're working on. That's what it means when someone called themselves "a work in progress."

This ethos was spread at first through self-help books and Oprah-era daytime TV, then moved to Instagram bios and HR workshops.

It blends seamlessly with "I identify as" because it centers subjectivity and affirms lived experience while allowing space for growth, self-redefinition, and personal evolution.

4. The (In)visibility of Identity Online

Social media didn't invent identity discourse, but it definitely popularized it.

We've all seen tags like #demisexual or #neurodivergent without thinking about the way they're announcements of identity.

These aren't tags defining a topic or interest - those would be be #demisexuality or #neurodivergence.

And it makes sense that we do this!

Many identities are not perceivable online unless explicitly announced, so we identify ourselves explicitly with the badges of the identities we wish to communicate, especially if we want to find our people.

In the chaos of algorithmic culture, clarity and discoverability can be powerful. Saying "I identify as [X]" functions like a keyword and a homing signal - it helps others know where you stand and how you'd prefer others relate to you. Identities online become things we collect, badges we wear, and userboxes we display.

So...this is good, right?

Yeah, there's a lot of good in all of this!

Contrary to what seems like common Boomer belief, this shift hasn't happened because younger people are confused or fragile.

It's happened because many are trying (sometimes awkwardly, sometimes beautifully) to live more authentically in a world that doesn’t always know what to do with us.

What's not to love about that?

The rise of "I identify as" reflects:

Greater awareness of social context. It lets people signal that identity is complex, multifaceted, and sometimes contested.

More room for self-determination. For people who’ve had their identities imposed or denied, the phrase opens up space to reclaim power.

Increased inclusivity. It makes space for people who don’t fit neatly into categories—or who don’t want to be boxed in at all.

In this way, identity talk is evolving in the same way society is: It's messier, more fluid, and more responsive to people on the margins. That's not a flaw - that's progress.

So why the #$&% are you writing about it?!

Because it also comes with some tricky issues we're SO SHITTY AT TALKING ABOUT.

[Deep breath]

There are a lot of small issues, but I see two very large ones: the Erosion of Solidarity and the Structural Issues of Non-Negotiable Identities.

First, Hyper-individualism can cause erosion of solidarity.

The emphasis on personal identity - especially framed as self-identification - can sometimes fragment what used to be shared political or social struggles. If identity becomes purely subjective, then who gets to belong to a community? Who decides who speaks for whom?

In some leftist activist circles, identity has become a kind of credential or prerequisite for speaking, even when the speaker's experience may not reflect a wider group or come with actual expertise. At its worst, this can lead to what some critics call the "Oppression Olympics," where the politics of recognition replaces the politics of change.

The politics of change seek to influence policy and real world outcomes. The politics of recognition...are mostly about language.

As I look at the last 10-15 years in the US, I find myself asking these questions:

Have social liberals been more focused on the politics of change...or the politics of recognition?

How effective have we been at realizing positive social change through policy advancements? Have we made progress...or has our society regressed?

How have those of us who identify as social liberals/progressives potentially contributed to the regression by sacrificing the politics of change on the altar of the politics of recognition? Did we alienate people who otherwise could have been allies if we'd focused more on changing policy?

Language fatigue and cultural backlash are real and I think we underestimated them.

The second and more difficult issue is how Self-Labeling can create Structural Issues when colliding with Non-Negotiable Identities.

When everyone can "identify as" anything, the risk isn’t just confusion, but potentially a dilution of meaning - and I don't mean that as a emotional or social problem, but a practical one.

What if a person with no history, heritage, cultural connection, or community with peoples who are indigenous to North America says "I identify as Native American" ?

Is that valid self-definition...or is it appropriation?

Who decides?

This is especially thorny in categories of identity that are both social and material - like race, ethnicity, or disability. Identification without recognition can sometimes feel like role-play with real-world consequences.

And when it comes to race or ethnicity, sometimes it is role-play.

Does anyone else remember Rachel Dolezal identifying as a black woman and hiding for years that she...wasn't black?

CNN  - Rachel Dolezal – fresh off of stepping down as head of the Spokane NAACP chapter over criticism that she’s portrayed herself as black, even though she was born white – stood by that self-assessment Tuesday, insisting, "I identify as black."

Dolezal would later call herself "trans-black" and still promotes the idea of transracialism.

This did not (and still does not) go over well with black folks.

George Washington University History professor Jessica Krug claimed first to be Algerian, then Afro-Puerto Rican. She was none of these and nobody appreciated having their ethnicity, their culture, their experience, and their identity used as someone else's costume.

In an interview, Figueroa said she did not know Krug personally. But she said discussions about Krug’s background were sparked in part by the recent revelation that late Cuban writer H. G. Carrillo was not actually Cuban at all, but rather born to a non-Latinx Black family in Detroit. “I do know that she’s a very well-respected scholar who has done really incredible work, so this is not an issue about her not being a talented academic or good at her job,” Figueroa said. “But she did it all in this guise, building on the worst types of stereotypes, calling herself a hood academic, taking on accents and talking about specific kinds of trauma.”

These were scandals - and they would be if they happened today, too because transracial identities are not generally welcomed.

(Sure, there are RCTA people who aren't getting the help they need, but most people seem to loathe this behavior and call it race-faking. It's still not socially acceptable, despite Dolezal's best efforts.)

But if identity is exclusively a subjective and personal matter of choice...Why can't Dolezal identify as black?

Thought experiment:

Imagine a 16-year-old Norwegian boy named Kjell Stenberg, the child of two old and respected Nordic families who raised their son as a good Lutheran, in church every Sunday.

Kjell does some reading, watches a lot of TikTok videos, and decides that he feels an affinity with the Jewish people. Kjell tells his parents that from now on, he identifies as a Jew.

Kjell doesn't contact a Rabbi, he doesn't begin studying, he doesn't attend services, and he has no intention of seeking conversion. He just...identifies as a Jew and does a passable Larry David impression.

Is he a Jew?

No. Not by any definition. Identifying as a Jew doesn't make it so.

Our society finds identifying as another race or ethnicity wholly unacceptable because those are essentialist identities.

If racial/ethnic identities are not identities one can claim by identifying as...what other identities are off-limits in the same way?

If we agree that Rachel Dolezal can't identify as black and Kjell can't identify as Jewish...what stops assholes like Candace Owens from arguing that an AMAB person cannot identify as a woman?

Nothing. It turns out that's a really common rhetorical trick used against trans folks - I just hadn't seen it myself until recently. It's gross.

Candace is wrong and making a shitty analogy.

Transgenderism is fundamentally different from Dolezal's transracialism, and understanding that difference helps us clarify why Dolezal's transracialism is wrong.

Race is a social construct tied to lineage, history, and group identity often shaped by shared experiences of systemic oppression (e.g., the transatlantic slave trade, segregation, colonization). Dolezal inserted herself into a marginalized racial group without having any shared history or the consent of that group.

Gender is also a social construct, but one tied to individual identity, roles, and embodiment, and it varies across cultures in terms of expression and roles (e.g., hijra, Two-Spirit, fa'afafine). Being transgender is about aligning your gender identity with your lived sense of self.

Race/ethnicity are essentialist...and gender is existentialist.

We know that because we can see wide variance of social constructs around gender across time and geography. It's nearly impossible to argue, therefore, that gender is something other than existentialist.

...and this is at the core of the arguments from TERFs and people like Candace Owens.

In order to condemn trans folks, in order to claim transgenderism is as wrong as transracialism, they have to dishonestly redefine gender as both essentialist and binary - and we know beyond any possible doubt that it is neither.

This is what those arguments always come down to. This is their fundamental logical error.

So what's the most effective short response to someone who makes the Dolezal comparison in attacking trans people?

If I wear a doctor's coat and say "I identify as a surgeon," that doesn't make me qualified to do heart surgery - and I'll hurt people if I make the attempt. Rachel Dolezal didn't just 'identify as' - she lied, misrepresented, and appropriated for her own benefit.

Transgender people aren't stealing someone else's story - they're trying to live their own.

Race is about how society sees you, usually from birth. It's tied to ancestry, history, and how people treat you in the world. Rachel Dolezal wasn't treated as a Black person growing up. She didn't face anti-Black racism. She chose to perform Blackness later in life and benefited from the inauthentic, dishonest performance.

Trans people, on the other hand, don’t 'decide' to be another gender for clout.

They usually always knew who they were, even if their bodies didn't match. Many risk their jobs, families, safety, and lives to live as their real selves. That's not inauthentic performance - that's seeking authenticity - that's reconciling their essential identity.

So no - being trans and being Rachel Dolezal are not the same and pretending they are just shows Candace Owens and TERFs don't understand either one.

But that's easy for me to say, isn't it?

I'm looking at this through a linguistic/philosophical/sociological lens. I have have no lived experience to inform my thinking about this kind of identity issue. I've never been trans, I've never lived as a woman, my gender expression has always been sufficiently aligned with my anatomy and the social expectations of others.

Lived experience, though, can change one's views of what is or isn't essentialist.

Since I have no relevant lived experience, here's a story from a friend who does:

[Fran's Story Time]

My friend Fran is one of the kindest, most broad-minded people I know. We used to wait tables together in the 90s and I once had the pleasure of tossing out an asshole restaurant patron who called her a "dyke."

Fran is good people and I adore her.

So Fran calls me and tells me she's having a meltdown.

At a community event, she'd met this really delightful young trans woman named Betty who had just recently started transitioning. They were laughing and enjoying getting to know each other until Betty told Fran that Betty identifies as a dyke.

Fran stopped laughing.

Fran explained to me that she'd previously believed that lesbianism might be the most singularly female experience there is, something which could only belong to women and couldn't be taken from them.

It was, in her mind, essentialist. That identity was shaped by how society saw her for her entire life. It was tied to history and how people treated her. She felt that she and other lesbians had a shared history of systemic oppression.

Fran is in her 60s now, she'd been called a dyke as a pointed, vicious slur for decades. It had taken years of work to acclimate to the way some younger members of her community had reclaimed the word, but she did it because she understood the power of that reclamation and wanted to have solidarity with all of her community. Fran felt she had earned the right to reclaim that term because it had been weaponized against her. She didn't like it, but she could cope with it.

Now Fran was encountering a 20-year-old AMAB person whose life and gender expression had been that of a man until a month previous, identifying with a slur which was still embedded like a blade in Fran's heart.

Fran is adamantly in favor of trans rights and supporting trans people, but despite wanting to support Betty, she told me she felt hurt, attacked, and subverted. It felt to her like something essential about her identity had been appropriated by someone who didn't share it. Betty, Fran said, had started identifying as a dyke on the first day of starting to transition - but Betty had never experienced the hostility or specific kinds of oppression lesbians like Fran had endured for their entire lives.

Fran was upset, so I gave her the retort I'd give Candace Owens:

Betty identifying as a dyke isn't an attempt to steal Fran's story - Betty's just trying to live her own..!

Fran gave me a withering look.

Then why is she using my words? Why is she appropriating my experience, my persecution, and my pain? Where does she get off using the word 'dyke' when she was a man last month? Why is it so important that 'trans women are women'? If they're trying to live their own story and not appropriate mine, shouldn't it be 'trans women are trans women'? Is there nothing which can't be taken from me by someone who chooses to appropriate identities from me?

[/Fran's Story Time]

I've always been categorically dismissive of TERFs because they appeared hateful and the suggestion that they oppose trans rights because trans women are a threat to their safety always smelled like bullshit. It's a non-existent problem and trans women are far, far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators. Letting people use bathing/dressing/restroom facilities which match their gender expression harms nobody in any material sense, so their argument just seemed hateful, hysterical, dishonest, or some combination of those three things.

Fran made me reconsider. What if the way some of them feel about trans women is analogous to the way that black folks feel about Rachel Dolezal identifying as Black...and how I'd feel about Kjell Stenberg identifying as a Jew? What if they're driven by a terrible feeling that something precious, something tied to their lived experience and pain, is being taken from them and worn as a costume which doesn't respect their lived experience?

I think Fran's feelings are not only valid, but an inevitable result of a culture which is still navigating a transformation in how we talk about essentialist and existentialist identities.

This post isn't about trans rights. It's not about race, ethnicity, sex, gender, orientation or public policy- it's about the language of identity and trying to understand better how we can grapple with conflicting, non-negotiable identities in an increasingly post-essentialist world. It's about recognizing the shift taking place for what it is and the need to consider all the potential implications of that shift thoughtfully.

It's about looking for a way for Jane and Betty to both feel validated and respected. Fran missed a chance to have a conversation about it, and it seems like that's a commonly missed opportunity with everyone having strong opinions about what an identity word means to them...and little allowance for it to mean something else to someone else.

So Where Do We Go From Here?

I don't know. Thankfully, I'm not required to have a firm position on all things. I'm still reading about sex and gender studies, sociology, and linguistics to try to wrap my head around all the complex issues at play.

What I do know is that I don't want to throw the linguistic baby out with the rhetorical bathwater...because I think we're moving in a positive direction.

"I identify as" is part of a broader cultural project that aims to help people name themselves with more care, complexity, and honesty...and that's fantastic.

But maybe we also need:

A renewed focus on community, not just selfhood. Identity isn't just personal and subjective, because it's always relational. It's not just about how I see myself, but how I am seen - and how I show up for others. They're called "social constructs" instead of "personal beliefs" because they are created and sustained not by individuals, but socially - by networks of interconnected people.

Some humility in how we talk about belonging. Not every identity claim needs to be treated as sacred, nor every misstep as heresy, cruelty, apathy, or bigotry. Change is hard, and we can help each other through it. (I find myself wishing Fran had been able to sit down and talk with Betty about Betty's experience and why that particular identity word was important to Betty.)

A recognition that language is a tool, not a destination. The goal isn’t a perfected, permanent terminology - it's mutual understanding, dignity, and kindness.

As culture continues to evolve, we'll keep finding new ways to talk about ourselves and that's great- but I hope we don't mistake the talk for the work. The talk should serve the work- not the other way around.

Language shouldn't just express respect - it should connect people, building bridges through understanding which we then actually cross as we learn to appreciate the particularism of others as much as we value our own.

---

My teens, as they coach me in pronouns, genders and other linguistic changes which are still not intuitive to me, seem to think that they're at the end of linguistic history and that the language habits of their generation are permanent.

One day they'll be in their fifties and they'll feel a little out of touch, a little confused by how people in their teens and twenties talk about themselves.

If they're smart, they'll ask those younger folks to teach them the newest lexicon.

---

Some Further Reading:

Judith Butler, Gender Trouble (1990).

Charles Taylor, "The Politics of Recognition"

Yascha Mounk, The Identity Trap (2023)

[beyoncesfiancee]

what's on your secret internal moodboard for your wake/g1d/pyrrha trifecta, esp with the first two (since pyrrha gets a lot of love as it is)? what are the biggest wellsprings you're drawing from/aiming for with everyone's favorite scourgin' mary and inverted brutus?

i could smack a big kissy on your face for such an apropos question !

wake

is everything to me. obviously. what matters to me with her is contextualizing her canonical violence and wrath (like achilles' wrath... HELLO... she's a mortal woman whose wrath dares to reach the heights of the gods and which ultimately destroys her...) in light of her role as the leader of a revolution. she's literally not purposelessly angry or purposelessly violent. I already blew up someone else's inbox about this today lol but imo the books portray BOE as a whole in kind of a clueless way from the liberal exterior viewpoint, that doesn't really get into what a revolutionary movement would themselves value and hold as their norms & ethics. and in regard to that, how and why they use violence, and how and why violence is so much a part of wake's language.

I'm reading the zapatista reader atm and have been for the last few months, not that i really see wake as a subcomandante marcos figure because she's not as much of a speaker/demagogue, more so that much like the indigenous resistance in chiapas the sheer cultural, linguistic, and political polyphony of any BOE organization must mean that wake is a brilliant, compelling figure that people want to follow. she's not a violent brute (one way she's often depicted in fandom too...) she's a POLITICAL LEADER who has united MULTIPLE WINGS THAT OPERATE COMPLETELY SEPARATELY to accomplish HUGE OPERATIONS THAT SEVERELY STRUCK AT THE ROOTS OF THE DEEPLY ENTRENCHED EMPIRE. like... she's 100% a compelling speaker and leader and someone you trust and want to follow into suicide missions, because you know she'll bring you success. and she had and did! you can't be stupid with how you use violence and achieve that level of success!

and the one thing you need to add to wake to make canon click with her humanity is literally just that—her internal truth and her humanity. the reason why she's doing what she's doing. because the cruelty of the empire broke her heart and she has enough life and fire overflowing in her to want to keep that from happening to anyone else. the rest all falls into place once you start writing her like that

I also see her as a figure of classical greek tragedy—she's the ultimate example of being destroyed by hubris (trusting a lyctor!!), and compared to the other two points of the triangle she's the most fragile and mortal, yet also the most explosive and larger-than-life. her life is a brief yet enormous blaze compared to g1deon's eternal stonelike misery and pyrrha's lone, flickering star. and because she pursued life so hungrily and overreached in striving with the gods for greatness (there we go with achilles again), she was always doomed to death. the domain of her lifelong hated enemy. wow someone should write some dactylic hexameter greek epic poem-style about her confrontation with her own mortality in the river and how her religious beliefs are thereby challenged and her rage is fanned enough to turn her into a revenant ^_^ ahem ahem

also i think because her main squeeze has a cock people are always making them fuck PIV style and i think that's boring tbh. i mean yes it's fun and sexy and we all love a good dicking down (well many of us) but i like having her and pyrrha fuck queer style because i think it's more reflective of her character to break boundaries, fuck with traditions, be a cunt who devours and circludes, violate the norms of cav-necro penetrative erotics, and aggressively top in pursuit of her own pleasure (in addition to which... well see the last paragraph of my pyrrha answer)

i also didn't even get into the virgin mary thing but in my BOE griddlehark fic i have kind of a marian ancestor worship cult around wake (props to @katakaluptastrophy for providing the thinking behind BOE's animist ancestor worship religion) and in my dactylic hexameter thing i have a big list of epithets by clarissa pinkola estés for the virgin mary/the madonna/the wild mother: obsidian blade... the undoer of knots... she who carries the soul across fenced frontiers... the shirt of arrows... the black madonna...

also listen to this impeccable wake playlist which I'm pretty sure is by @dve if i'm am not mistaken

g1deon

is ofc the dark horse in both the books and the resultant fandom. i've already written at length about what a disservice i feel both the books and fandom have done his character (try clicking 10 random wake/pyrrha fics and NOT finding a scornful comparison of how shitty a lover g1d is or what a douche he is generally as a tactic to differentiate him from pyrrha).

so for me what's important to him, and what defines his character, is the sacrifices he makes for john both pre- and post-rez. he's hector, he's the archangel michael, he's the archetype of warrior manhood !but! in an utterly self-abnegating way. this is one facet of the way john's necromancy takes everything positive (in the +-charged sense, not in the yay happy sense) and turns it inward, perverted, and starved.

unlike a man raised in a patriarchal warrior culture, g1deon has no pride or identity in his kills and the sacrifices he makes to accomplish them, and he has no brotherhood. the two people he truly loved were both women, and he killed them both for the sake of john's goals. and he used to have a brother, even, he and john used to be brothers, but john removed himself from that role w/ g1deon for the pursuit of power.

so any way i choose to depict g1deon will be as 1) someone with dignity and selfhood in a way that the fandom only rarely seems to think he deserves, and 2) someone with a heart who has loved and lost in the name of devotion. not that he's a soft man or that he hasn't done atrocious things in john's name. but it's just to counterbalance his book&fandom portrayal in a way i feel is more fair and interiorizing.

anyway stream swim good that's basically everything I wanted to say about him... i didn't write as much about him in this answer but we really don't get much of him in the books, SMH. I don't like to go too off-piste from canon but I want to take what's there and honor the humanity hidden within it. (I have to guess that we'll have more g1deon in alecto, right? it just wouldn't be fair otherwise, right? ... RIGHT?? T_T)

pyrrha

and you didn't say especially pyrrha but i think that my secret internal moodboard for pyrrha is important as well!!! in my 5 planned pyrrwakeon fics (3 currently pubbed), none are from pyrrha's POV, and that has a twofold purpose. 1) there are already a ton of fics from her POV, as you say, as well as a whole canon novel focused on her, and i want to explore the two under-served points of the love triangle, and 2) i actually really like her as an enigma.

e.g., something people neglect with her a bit i think is her suicidality. how else can you characterize someone who falls in love with landmines? the woman swallowed bleach for god's sake. jury's still out on whether she killed herself or g1deon killed her for their ascension (i have it as her killing herself in my g1dfic but i've been thinking and now i'm not so sure i want to go for that) but if there's one thing we know about pyrrha it's that she fucking loves doing shit that's very dangerous and a horrible idea, partially to feel alive, partially to feel dead and thereby free.

so therefore my theory on her caring for nona, and less so cam & pal, is an uncharacteristic break toward life and hope in the long long slide through samsara as a means of escaping soul death that has been her 9000-year undead existence thus far. but i find the depiction of this facet of her character to be far more compelling from the outside, such as, from wake's POV, or g1deon's.

ALSO SHE WOULD NOT WANT TO BE A MOM OR DAD AND DOES NOT GIVE A FUCK ABOUT BEING A PARENT SORREEEEEEEEE (her "why did you bring along the baby" is about her pity for a helpless creature suffering yet more needless death, not that it's specifically hers and wake's, and her care for gideon nav & nona are on a soft human level despite herself because no one else will and not demonstrative of a secret desire for parenthood STOP MAKING WOMEN CHARACTERS WANT TO BE PARENTS *panting & swallowing bile*)

anywayyyy very very very soon forthcoming to explore this final third of the triangle is my ultimate wake/pyrrha lying liars genderfic in which she, through the proxy of getting fucked by wake, wrestles with her grief over losing both her own body and losing g1deon as her lover/partner/friend. and you can bet wake just looooves being used as a proxy for someone else to work through their issues ^_^

...

in conclusion, wake/pyrrha/g1deon is a land of contrasts. let wake have political values, let g1deon be a fucking human being, and stop making pyrrha always top. thank u.

[queerprayers]

I am appalled that sometimes, my prayers come in the form of cuss words, especially when I’m in pain or I feel lost.

I'm not, beloved!

I mean, I don't know what exactly you're saying, but that's how most curse words came into being, I'd imagine. Research points to swearing actually helping with (physical) pain. Most people swear at least once in their lives.

We only have human language with which to approach God. You're using the strongest/angriest/most evocative words in your language to try to express the pain in your life, and you're taking it to God. I'm not necessarily advocating it, but I'm not appalled--it makes sense to me. And I wouldn't advocate it not because it, like, offends my sensitive morals, but because there's probably something deeper you should learn how to say, if not instead of at least in addition to. Start where you are, with what you have. Honest prayer (however crude) is infinitely better than stilted, repressed, unemotional prayer.

When it comes to swearing, I'm much more interested in the how and why than the concept. I answered this ask about specifically "taking the Lord's name in vain," if you're interested. Most talk about swearing in the Bible is about the promising kind, not about stubbing your toe. In terms of swearing at people, we can definitely point to verses that remind us how we should talk to others. But these different perspectives only show how varied and contextual language is.

Is the specific language you're using twisting or making light of something you want to take more seriously? Are you actively harming anyone else? What are you not able to express through other language? Are you having trouble managing your emotions? These are the kind of questions I'd encourage you to ask yourself, instead of centering any gut reaction to being what is considered "rude" or "offensive" in this time/place/culture.

And don't figure this out before you come to God. Don't prepare yourself or change yourself and then pray. Why would you violently express yourself and then gather yourself and pray nicely? Pray violently! Pray now, with the language you have, with unmanaged emotions or no words that can do your experience justice. Come as you are--however you speak. God can take it. God could take Job cursing the day he was born--and I can't imagine Job was using nice, thought-out language.

It sounds like you have a lot to deal with--deal with what you have to deal with, don't add on guilt about whether you're saying everything the right way. I mean, if you're going around being mean to people, work on that, but let out what you need to let out otherwise. You're gonna find new ways to say things, and receive more peace the more you walk the path of prayer, and also you're gonna stub your toe (or an emotional equivalent of that) and say the strongest word you know. And it's gonna be okay.

God is not appalled. God is listening. God knows what you mean--and sometimes what you mean is [redacted].

<3 Johanna

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hello!!

I have an OC who speaks several languages. Her native tongue is Arabic, the setting she normally is in speaks Japanese, and the language I'm writing in is English. She speaks more, but these three are the important ones.

I occasionally write a scene in the story from her POV, where she speaks Arabic at home with her grandfather, and Japanese with her friends and strangers. There are also other scenes where she may speak with a friend in Arabic and Japanese (a mix of sorts), and another friend in all three of Arabic English and Japanese, and other scenes where she talks to herself in Arabic in the presence of other characters. As a result I've a number of closely related questions:

How do I indicate that she's changing languages when writing from her point of view?

Is it necessary to? If so, when?

How do I do so organically without having to explicitly "tell" it?

Where does transliteration become necessary?

Arabic is a very God-centric language, where God is often mentioned in the most mundane (though not vain!!!) contexts. English is not so much. How could I "translate" that into the writing when the language POV is Arabic, considering that I'm writing in English?

I appreciate your blog and your answers. Thank you in advance. I hope you have an amazing day :)

Multilingual Character Issues

How do I indicate that she's changing languages when writing from her point of view? Is it necessary to? If so, when? How do I do so organically without having to explicitly "tell" it?

This is one of those situations where it's absolutely fine to "tell" the reader the language that they're speaking. For example...

Grandfather was sitting on a bench enjoying the afternoon breeze. "How are you doing today, Grandfather?" I asked in Arabic.

If you have multiple scenes that have cultural and character cues that will let the reader know where the character is, and therefore what language they'd be speaking, you can potentially highlight those cues and use language cues to "show" the language without a direct tell. Using Spanish as an example, something like this:

My abuela was working in her garden, probably picking fresh ingredients for tonight's pozole. ¡Hola, mi chiquita! she said, looking up with a smile. "I hope you've brought a big appetite for supper."

You can still pepper in the occasional reminder that they are, in fact, speaking Spanish. Again, it's okay to tell when you think it's necessary.

Where does transliteration become necessary?

If you're using mostly English to convey the other language, relying on telling and contextual clues to illustrate that it is the other language, I'm not sure when transliteration would be necessary. But, using my Spanish example above... I do not think it would be necessary to either transliterate or translate "pozole" or "chiquita." The general meaning of both are relatively clear via context. If she's gathering fresh ingredients for tonight's pozole, and later asks her granddaughter if she brought her appetite, it's pretty clear that pozole is a food. If you wanted to add more context for exactly the type of food, you could have the character muse about other preparations she's likely to have already made for other ingredients, or imagine tasting the hominy and meat-based stew. Transliteration... conveying how a word is pronounced... isn't necessary, especially when you have a story that's potentially going to contain a lot of words in other languages. Transliterating all or even some of them would bog down the story.

Arabic is a very God-centric language, where God is often mentioned in the most mundane (though not vain!!!) contexts. English is not so much. How could I "translate" that into the writing when the language POV is Arabic, considering that I'm writing in English?

Well, first of all, I don't think that's true about English at all. English-speakers often weave God into everyday/mundane language in much the same way as Arabic speakers, and not in vain. Some examples:

-- God willing, we'll have good weather for the game tomorrow. -- Praise God, the line is finally moving! -- As God as my witness, I will ground you if you're a second late. -- Oh, thank God my paycheck came in a little early this week! -- God bless, she is just the sweetest creature alive!

And, at the end of the day, even if you're using English to write what is supposed to be spoken Arabic, the context isn't English. So, when it makes sense, just be direct. But sometimes it doesn't make sense to be direct... using Spanish as an example again, someone might say, "Hoy voy a echar la flojera en casa," which basically means "I'm going to be lazy at home today," but the literal translation is, "today I am going to throw laziness at home." This is one of those cases where it just wouldn't make sense to be literal. It would be better to just have the character say, "I'm going to be lazy at home today," because as writers, our ultimate goal is clarity. We never want to sacrifice clarity for ambience or anything else.

I hope this makes sense, and please keep an eye on the comments in case any Arabic or Spanish speakers have anything they want to add, or in case I got something wrong.

Happy writing!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[axuanmii]

admit you ship incest dude. the cn/jp shippers say its incest. pick up a book and translate it, it says kaeya is adopted. .. and heres a long paragraph about how incest is only between biological families and more disrespect to people who are adopted...

no idea why my inbox didn't give me this notif until now, but now's a better time than any to talk more about this.

i'm chinese. i speak fluent mandarin chinese. i've consulted other native chinese speakers about this, both genshin players and unrelated. i play genshin with chinese audio and english subs specifically to catch and complain about inaccuracies. i'd reveal more information but then i think it'd be trivially easy to doxx me if one knew what they were looking for.

fundamentally, the issue of incest lies in physical reproduction, yet i find adoptive incestuous relationships discomforting all the same. it's why i didn't like or finish go ahead (以家人之名) because i felt that it laid too much into the siblings aspect for romantic relationships to be feasible, and it was super contradictory from the initial general message of the first bittersweet yet wholesome episode.

however, personally, i just don't think kaeya felt like a part of the family until crepus's death and he really reflected on crepus's actions towards him (hangout). and even after beginning to view crepus as a father figure, he wouldn't have so shallowly made the transition for diluc to be his brother by adoption and consequently changed his entire mind about the guy (which you can see with the way he chooses to refer to both men with different terms, one adoptive and familial, one very clearly 'sworn', very consistently throughout the whole game. if that ever changes in chinese, well, at least you can know that i'll make a post about it if i still care about genshin by then.)

the localization team does make plenty of serious mistakes, and it's of my opinion that as a result, it has very clearly skewed character relationships with those mistakes, (cynari and collei, eulamber, some npcs in liyue, sumeru) some from cultural differences, some just from lazy translation overall. there's layers of complexity in how chinese utilizes honorifics and affectionate terms, as well as contextual consideration between fiction and reality, and sometimes i feel like the english localization team just threw it all into google translate and called it a day.

i don't even ship kaeluc that much. i like to call it the secret third thing where they can't get off their asses to talk about anything ever so they exist in an undefined space and to have them return to any semblance of a healthy relationship, platonic, familial, or romantic, would require a novel's length worth of development that hoyoverse will probably never write, and so my brain has made up novels of all three kinds and more.

however, i also don't care about people who do ship kaeluc or treat any other fictional media in an incestuous or otherwise problematic manner, regardless of language or culture. this is because i operate on a "don't like, don't read, don't interact" mindset. it makes being in fandom more fun; you should try it.

my disappointment wasn't aimed at the fact that i think too little people ship kaeluc. it just sucks to see people claim that that's what's wrong with the fandom and spin this evil gross imagery around the ship over a misunderstanding, especially when that's not how i view it. it's also the only thing vehemently regularly repeated ('klcers dni') when there's so many other issues with the game and the fandom.

(off topic but what's the worst thing that'll happen if a kaeluc shipper likes your fan stuff. it's not like they come into your tumblr asks to bother you with an "oh btw you're wrong about how you enjoy this media and this is what's right"-- oh wait that's what's going on here right)

including the fact that people like you purposefully go around searching in the kaeluc tag (which you probably did, because nobody is scrolling that far back in my blog to find this one specific post to complain about) to police and pick fights with people over a stupid issue from 2020/2021. i guess tumblr isn't a safe place to talk about kaeluc either lmao.

and to think i left anon asks on in the hopes that it could be an inbox for anyone who wanted to ask me art questions or just leave something positive and not feel too awkward (where do i get the confidence in thinking anyone would ask my incompetent brain for help lol).

to be fair, it's going to be my fault for continuing to draw attention to this by responding to such an ask instead of just deleting it and moving on but fuck it we ball.

this ended up pretty long but i feel like it would've been too rude to just say "会说中文的干嘛要翻书 :P". probably would've been funnier though and saved me a lot of time. kudos to you if you actually read this and read through everything.

final note:

[kerokasa]

re: the language of queerness in project sekai

i’m specifically using queer here to denote a type of subject-position/relationship to society, rather than any specific identities a character might hold. i don’t think a game like project sekai is particularly interested in ever putting straightforward labels on characters, even though a character like mizuki clearly reads as trans to many players.

which ofc is my entire point… the game communicates a lot of information about mizuki without a lot of direct references to identity, instead using the language of difference as a euphemism for transness/queerness.

an event like “beside unchanging warmth” ultimately points to a trans story without stating anything explicitly, and i think it’s interesting to read it while paying attention to what the word choices are actually doing here.

in flashbacks to elementary school mizuki, the word “weird” (変/hen) is doing so much heavy lifting. it’s a word that inherently calls up a certain kind of relation/power dynamic between what is considered normal vs abnormal. the language is walking this precarious line of saying-not-saying, where nobody actually defines what makes mizuki “weird”; the responsibility is placed on the reader to infer that mizuki wearing frilly/cute (feminine) clothes is seen as transgressive by her classmates.

it feels important that mizuki seems especially hurt by the word “weird” in this flashback, and i think the line delivery supports this as well. contextually, i can’t help but read it as a stand-in for more overtly derogatory language/transphobia, softened and sanitized by replacing anything specific with a comparatively broad adjective like “weird.”

(this raises a lot of interesting questions for me wrt what makes queerness legible in translation / in my experience, anglophone fans are often looking for specific markers of identity when said identities generally originate from a certain class of euroamerican queer culture and academia! which is not to say prsk should or should not be more explicit in depicting trans characters; it’s just another point of discussion)

all this leads me to other instances in which the game draws attention to weirdness/difference — and the reasons i believe both mizuki and rui’s storylines evoke queer coming-of-age plots.

this might be slightly controversial to say, but it’s hard not to draw the connection given their middle school friendship, and how much rui’s background emphasizes the same ideas of weirdness/difference. even their final kizuna rank, which is correctly translated in english to say “i guess we’re both different” (僕達も変わったものだね) returns to that word 変 that upset baby mizuki so much.

i’ve seen some people argue that rui’s backstory should just be read as an indicator of his neurodivergence and well. for what it’s worth, i’m gay and neurodivergent like every other goddamn person on this site and within the context of rui’s arc throughout the game, i think there’s still a very strong argument to be made that mizuki and rui bonded over their shared experience of being queer.

after all, why is mizuki having “weird” taste in clothes taken as unassailable evidence of her transness if rui’s “weird” thinking cannot also be read as queer (or queer and neurodivergent)?

i will note that rui’s insecurities have never centered around an inability to communicate with his classmates (unlike nene, whose arc is VERY much about her becoming comfortable around new people and realizing that they want to be her friends). although other students are afraid of him, rui is a skilled communicator in public and doesn’t appear bothered by social interaction.

rather, rui’s insecurities center on this idea that he is dangerous to the people around him / he expects to be punished for expressions of vulnerability or intimacy.

fan communities nowadays sometimes forget the origins of “queer coding” as a concept in cultural criticism. going back to classically queer coded disney villains, romantic/sexual interest isn’t really a huge part of what makes these characters queer coded. rather, it’s about presentation — stereotypically effeminate mannerisms, ursula’s visual resemblance to drag queens in the little mermaid, vocal inflections that audiences (often subconsciously) associate with gay men in particular.

queer coding is shorthand that tells the audience these characters are sinister, untrustworthy, duplicitous. it’s rooted in a history of homophobic and transphobic rhetoric that paints queer and trans people as insidious, contagious (as in the AIDS epidemic), corrupting and luring innocent straight youth into degenerate queer life.

which brings me back to why i think a queer interpretation of rui’s backstory makes it so much richer and more meaningful. starting in the main story and then really coming to the forefront in wonder halloween, rui has internalized this belief that he is a danger to his peers. that his desire for closeness will always inevitably cross a line and he will end up rejected and alone.

this mirrors a really common, familiar experience of being a closeted gay teenager and the fear of how the people around you would react to your identity. in many cases, people are afraid of coming out because of how their friendships will inevitably be sexualized, or they’ll distance themselves in order to prevent anyone from misinterpreting their relationships and intentions.

personally speaking, i really identify with rui for these reasons, even if the story uses his inventions/directing as the stated reason for his fears. it’s really not until the formation of wxs (and meeting tsukasa specifically, as mizuki and the pandemonium trio have pointed out) that rui begins to feel safe enough to be honest and vulnerable about his desires both on and off the stage.

and it is important that it’s tsukasa in the end! tsukasa flips the script that rui is used to — rui has cut himself off to avoid rejection, but tsukasa is the one who seeks rui out, invites him into the troupe, works for him to stay. tsukasa recognizes something in rui and for the first time, someone isn’t reacting from a place of fear or simply not understanding the scope of rui’s vision, but instead he wants the very thing that rui thinks he needs to suppress. it’s also significant that tsukasa is another boy, and it’s significant that the idea of “weirdness” comes back in the form of “oddball 1-2”, which reframes difference as something that connects rui and tsukasa as a unit. he is no longer alone because he’s too weird, but now that same weirdness brings him closer to another person.

i also think it’s so fascinating how mizuki and rui bond over their shared difference or “loneliness,” and the game presents it as these 2 people who really have nothing in common besides their loneliness — i think mizuki says something along the lines of being happy that rui has found people that can relate to him outside of simply being lonely. it reminds me of my own experience being closeted in high school and somehow drifting into spaces with other kids who eventually came out as queer/trans, and how we were each on our own parallel journeys without ever really talking about it with one another, or how gay/lesbian communities in small towns are often very close out of necessity (unlike in big cities, where gay/lesbian communities don’t overlap as much because they don’t need to). it’s as if rui and mizuki have a shared understanding that even if the other’s particular experience is inaccessible to them, they have to be each other’s support system.

all this is to say. mizuki’s story only really makes sense to me as a trans story. similarly, rui’s story is so much richer when read in a queer context. nobody has to agree with me and i don’t really care about the game’s ultimate intent, but i just wanted to articulate how i personally find a lot of value in interpreting these characters in this way.

[idylls-of-the-divine-romance]

what do you think of the argument that 1 Corinthians 14:34 wasn’t written by Paul, but inserted later? supporters of the idea argue that it doesn’t fit at all with the rest of 1 Cor 14, which is all about prophesy etc, with just this one verse flung in, then carrying on about prophesy. also, that it doesn’t fit with Paul’s writings on women covering their heads in church (1 Cor 11:5), where he expects them to pray and prophesy (as long as their heads are covered). this isn’t a loaded question at all, i’m interested in your interpretation with your love of Paul and much more knowledge of him than i have!

Grace!!! I love your questions. And I do love Paul lol. So, despite being aware of this argument I’ve never actually looked into it before today so we’re getting some off the cuff interpretation from me lolll

So the structure of 1 Corinthians is

1-4: Unity in the Diversity

5-7: Sexual Ethic in the Kingdom

8-10: Food and Idols

11-14: Unity in Worship

15-16: The Resurrection

So the weird issue in chapter 14 comes right after (1) Paul’s famous essay on love as the meaning of the universe which should then motivate you to focus on loving others rather than elevating yourself, and (2) Paul shaming the Corinthians for using the assembly as a talent show and not a common union based on love. 

Paul says (I don’t have a great translation on hand so bear with me lol)

All people must speak one at a time

Speaking in tongues must have an interpreter (and not just Dionysian madness). 

Prophets need to comport themselves  and not monopolize the assembly and go one by one. 

Women be silent and, if you’re confused, ask your husbands questions at home. It is shameful for a woman to speak. (Also it is the word “silent” and not “quiet”)

You should listen to me, Paul, because I gives the commandments of the Lord

So the obvious issue in the verse (aside from the rather misogynistic vibes) is that it is in direct contradiction with the rest of scripture which places great emphasis on the (ideal) inherent equality of women (again. Ideally) and also Paul’s own writing in this very letter where he gives details on how women in the Assembly of God are to pray, speak in tongues (which Paul describes in the letter as the language of spiritual beings), and prophesy (that is, preach a direct word from God). It is also inconsistent with Paul's dealings with his co-workers in that women such as Prisca, Phoebe and Junia could not have functioned as Church leaders and apostles if they were not allowed to speak in public.

So as such there are (per usual) a myriad of differing interpretations that fall under these camps. A reading of 

Subservience

Culture

Interpolation 

Disagreement 

I will not be nice nor gentle: if you hold the first view you are a misogynist with a poor exegesis of scripture. The fact that some Christian traditions have taken to literally silencing women in the church and refusing that they speak. Quite frankly I do not care if Paul WAS saying that no woman should ever speak in church ever — if he was, his words should be rejected as the ravings of a man who had no connection to Jesus of Nazareth, the Anointed One. Why? Not just because I personally find it disgusting (which. Clearly I do. I cannot be subtle I hate misogyny) but because it is inconsistent with the biblical narrative as a whole from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22. If we claim that the Holy Scriptures are a unified story that leads to Jesus then we have no choice but to interpret scripture in a way that is consistent as a whole. And this one does not cut it. Also it’s misogynist. Get rekt by the image of God poem. 

Next is the idea that this is a culturally contextual commandment. As such they would argue this doesn’t apply to all believers in all churches — either in 2025 or back in 56 when Paul write this letter. Some married women who sat together were being rude — talking and arguing during the sermon instead of listening to the singing, praying, and prophesying. They need to be quiet and ask their husbands whatever questions they have at home.

Slight problem imo: the idea that married women sat separately than the unmarried. I haven’t seen or found anything that would lead me to believe that there was a separation of the married and the unmarried, or any sex based separation. In fact, men and women of varying careers and ethnicities and socioeconomic statuses sitting together at one table to take the bread and the cup was a big deal and very controversial to many. That said, this is Corinth, the church infamous for being a problem basically all day and all the time. Also there was an almost schism that went down regarding sex and marriage vs consecrated virginity. Amongst other things (again Corinth had lots of problems). So it is possible that there was a division in seating between married and unmarried men and women.

Edit: interjecting here after having read N.T. Wright’s paper on the biblical basis for women’s service in the church. I’ll just quote the whole thing, “I have always been attracted, ever since I heard it, to the explanation offered once more by Ken Bailey. In the Middle East, he says, it was taken for granted that men and women would sit apart in church, as still happens today in some circles. Equally important, the service would be held (in Lebanon, say, or Syria, or Egypt), in formal or classical Arabic, which the men would all know but which many of the women would not, since the women would only speak a local dialect or patois. Again, we may disapprove of such an arrangement, but one of the things you learn in real pastoral work as opposed to ivory-tower academic theorizing is that you simply can’t take a community all the way from where it currently is to where you would ideally like it to be in a single flying leap. Anyway, the result would be that during the sermon in particular, the women, not understanding what was going on, would begin to get bored and talk among themselves. As Bailey describes the scene in such a church, the level of talking from the women’s side would steadily rise in volume, until the minister would have to say loudly, ‘Will the women please be quiet!’, whereupon the talking would die down, but only for a few minutes. Then, at some point, the minister would again have to ask the women to be quiet; and he would often add that if they wanted to know what was being said, they should ask their husbands to explain it to them when they got home.” With this new context I now find this to be a much stronger argument. And if it weren’t for the next problem I’d embrace it with open arms. But, alas, earwax 

Bigger problem: the Greek. Unlike in 1 Timothy where it says “Let women learn in quietness” this says very strongly in Greek that the women must be “silent”, as if required so by law, and that is “disgraceful/shameful” (another very strong word in Greek ) if they do not. This is an honor-shame culture so for something to be shameful is really, really bad. The Greek seems much too strong and intense for the cultural argument to be the case. 

Next is the interpolation interpretation: this is actually very popular among scholars. The reasons being

the passage interrupts the flow of Paul's argument

it follows language from the First Epistle to Timothy, which was probably not written by Paul

it contradicts Paul's neutral or positive mention of women prophesying, praying, and taking other speaking and leadership roles in the church

the passage is alternatively found at different locations in some manuscripts, which may indicate it was originally inserted as a marginal note and then unstably inserted into the text itself

some manuscripts give evidence of a prior record of its absence from the text.

And honestly? I find those to be really convincing arguments! I actually was unaware of all of this before today. 

Interestingly Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, when arguing for this position says, “1 Corinthians 14:34–35 are not a Corinthian slogan, as some have argued…, but a post-Pauline interpolation. ... Not only is the appeal to the law (possibly Genesis 3:16) un-Pauline, but the verses contradict 1 Corinthians 11:5. The injunctions reflect the misogyny of 1 Timothy 2:11–14 and probably stem from the same circle. Some mss. place these verses after 40.” Ignoring the jab at 1 Timothy (on which i find the Cult of Diana theory to be most convincing), I am intrigued at his words about a possible appeal to the Torah. 

The verse is: “Women should be silent in the assemblies. For they are not allowed to speak but are to subject themselves, just as the Torah also says.” 

Genesis 3:16 says: “Your desire shall be toward your husband, and he shall tyrant over you.” Which if you are a longtime follower of this blog (so like one of you lolll) you might know I take this to mean “You will have a tendency to dominate your husband, and he will have a tendency to act as a tyrant over you.” For why desire means dominate read the next chapter.

(Sidenote: both the woman being subjugated and the man eating the herb of the field are both forms of humanity becoming beasts. Meditate on Genesis 1 and 3.)

Where was I? Right, the interloper theory. Murphy-O'Connor says that the hyperlink is not Pauline but I’m not sure about that. An appeal to Genesis 1-3 to make a theological argument is very Pauline to me. Actually it’s just very biblical. All biblical theology throughout the prophets comes out of Genesis 1-3. It’s the same in the apostles. When Paul wants to talk about gender equality he turns to Genesis 1! Anyway. I don’t believe Paul wrote that line or made that allusion but I do think it’s inaccurate to say that the hyperlink is un-Pauline. 

Finally there is the disagreement interpretation, which I think is the most recent theory. Basically, in the same way earlier in the letter Paul will quote a letter from the Corinthians — “It is good for a man to not touch a woman” and “We know that we all have knowledge” — and then disagree with it — “Nevertheless because of sexual immorality” and “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” — he is doing the same thing here. Quoting a letter from the Corinthians and then following up with a disagreement. 

And with the way that our modern bibles have the text, this too is a compelling argument. The injunction against women speaking is immediately followed with with a negative statement: “[ē] did the word of God originate with you?” And then the controversy has to do with that ē (‘eh’). It can mean “or/than/either” or it can mean “hey/now” but either way it’s about contesting and contrast. 

Now here is where we begin to get into nerdy stuff about language which uh is not my wheelhouse. I love biblical studies and if I ever went into academic study of theology, that is where I would focus. But the second you want me to open a Hebrew/Greek dictionary I’m running away. Just know, there are a lot of smart people who believe it is a quotation that begins with “As in all the assemblies of the saints” and ends with “shameful for a woman to speak in the assembly”, and then is contested by Paul “What! Did the word of God originate with y’all, or are y’all the only ones it has reached?" 

The thing that bothers me about this interpretation: the manuscript variations. However, David Odell-Scott argues that those western manuscripts that moved 34-35 to a different position (after verse 40) are the work of a patriarchal redactor seeking to "shelter" and protect the Corinthian slogan from Paul's emphatic critique in verse 36. By associating these verses with the "decency and order" of verse 40, the redactor undermined the egalitarian interpretation of the canonical version, and incorrectly presented the Corinthian voice as the voice of Paul. (Sidenote: Odell-Scott seems to also dislike 1 Timothy. Interesting)

In summary because Kyrie Eleison that was a lot! So ranked —

Subordination: misogynist, anti biblical, anti Christian, anti Pauline. Should be rejected and burned with Gehenna fire

Cultural: a pretty good interpretation of it wasn’t for the intense harshness of the Greek

Interpolation and Disagreement: both are tied for me. Both have really good points that take both the textual and cultural history into view. Also both work structurally imo. Whether you have the injunction or not, the essay still flows perfectly.

I: Don’t be a showboat who creates disorder -> What!? Did the word of God come to y’all alone!?!

D: Don’t be a showboat who creates disorder -> “Something something misogynist trad” -> What!? Did the word of God come to y’all alone!?!

So… yeah. Love God. Love your neighbor. May whoever the misogynist was who wrote that have his bones ground to dust. And may the favor of our God and Lord Jesus be with you, and may the God of Peace crush the adversary underneath your feet. 

[notchainedtotrauma]

Timnit Gebru, a brilliant computer scientist that became a headliner when she became ousted by Google AI Ethics' team. During her time there, she and other AI researchers indexed Amazon for selling a facial recognition system that would most likely target Black people as in women of color (amongst them Black women). After her exit from Google, she continued to relentlessy pursue independent research. She has also pointed out that most of the research in articifial intelligence is rooted in eugenics.

I wrote this paywalled essay to not only expand on the vacancy beyond "Listen to Black women", but to address the way Black women's voices are blotted out of existence. I'm going to use excerpts to contextualize the essay:

Timnit Gebru was again, the co-lead of Google's ethical AI team, and the coauthor of a paper about the failures of facial recognition when it comes to woman and people of color; or in the interstices, the failures of facial recognition when it comes to Black people; or, the horizon of excesses of dark pigment. While at Google, Timnit Gebru and her colleague Margaret Mitchell worked away at undoing a sundering work culture, only to be enmeshed in spite and mundane bigotry. She decided to cowrite a paper alongside Emily M. Bender, Margaret Mitchell, and three other people of her Google team titled: “On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?". And then, she was ousted. (h/t Tom Simonite). She strained towards being listened, towards the entryway of her utterance.

It's not that Black women are seers, as their unattended to warnings, heavings, testimonies, shapeshift into wounded bodies, gluttonous arches of pleasurable hatred, inherited antiblack cannibalism, orgasmic queer torture. It's that Black women were listened to, static you cannot turn off but throw ouside, as far awar as can be.

[max1461]

To understand the history of Europe, to read the majority of the major works and sources in their original language, how many languages do you have to learn? How few can you get away with, while still maintaining reasonable coverage?

I think the answer must at least include Latin, German, and French. Maybe beyond that English and Ancient Greek, although these are less important.

How about Asia? Well, Asia is bigger, so how about East Asia? I think you need (Classical) Chinese, Sanskrit, and... Malay, maybe? And/or Japanese. Sanskrit isn't from East Asia but you need it to understand Buddhism and you need it to understand Hinduism which you need to understand South East Asia. Sanskrit is very important for South East Asia.

Japanese and Sanskrit are on my "already studying" list, Chinese is on my "high priority for study" list. So there's that. Malay, I've wanted to learn Malay since I was in high school. Have I mentioned I used to have the Indonesian national anthem memorized? Because I'm a national anthem head and also a little bit of an Indonesiaboo. Maybe I'll get around to studying Malay one day, if I'm lucky.

And part of all this, you know, part of all this is "getting it". It's not just about reading sources. It's like, ok, maybe you read a translation of something from a language you don't speak, but it's a good scholarly translation with footnotes. If a word is mentioned, can you pick out cognates of it in a language you do know? Do you have the cultural context to "dabble" in other languages of the region, not for deep fluency but just for like, the fact that even knowing a little bit of a language is useful. Like if you speak French and Latin already, well, it's not so hard to dabble in Italian and get useful reading fluency or whatever out of it. Hell, with my relatively poor Spanish + random knowledge of Latin roots, I can make reasonable sense of the average Italian Wikipedia article. You would be surprised at how far local contextual knowledge gets you.

Latin is on my priority for study list. French is not, I speak a little bit of French. German is nowhere I have no intention to study German, I don't like how it sounds, I don't like [ç] and lack of dental fricatives in a Germanic language feels like getting ripped off to me.

I could understand Europe and Asia, reasonably well, by the time I am dead. It's possible.