#broken english lol

[wis-art]

polish piece

english

[hajihiko]

Multilingual 🌍

Fuyuhiko: its beneficial to understand when rivals are talking in secret

Sonia: diplomacy is easier when you speak their language too

Hajime: duolingo library forced speedrun

Akane: worked in customer service

Kazuichi is just more of a Language of Numbera guy 😋

[typenull]

i wanna dress like you, i wanna act like you do

[wonder-worker]

Thinking about Elizabeth Woodville as a gothic heroine is making me go insane. She entered the story by overturning existing social structures, provoking both ire and fascination. She married into a dynasty doomed to eat itself alive. She was repeatedly associated with the supernatural, both in terms of love and death. Her life was shaped entirely by uncanny repetitions - two marriages, two widowhoods, two depositions, two flights to sanctuary, two ultimate reclamations, all paralleling and ricocheting off each other. Her plight after 1483 exposed the true rot at the heart of the monarchy - the trappings of royalty pulled away to reveal nothing, a never-ending cycle of betrayal and war, the price of power being the (literal) blood of children. She lived past the end of her family name, she lived past the end of her myth. She ended her life in a deeply anomalous position, half-in and half-out of royal society. She was both a haunting tragedy and the ultimate survivor who was finally free.

[serpentface]

Do you conlang? I was wondering if you had naming languages (or possibly even more developed ones) for pulling the words you use. I tried to search your blog but didn't find anything, wouldn't be surprised if the feature is just busted tho. Your worldbuilding is wonderful and I particularly enjoy the anthropological and linguistic elements.

Ok the thing is I had kind of decided I was not going to do any conlanging because I don't feel like I'm equipped to do a good job of it, like was fully like "I'm just going to do JUST enough that it doesn't fail an immediate sniff test and is more thoughtful than just keysmashing and putting in vowels". And then have kinda been conlanging anyway (though not to a very deep and serious extent. I maybe have like....an above average comprehension of how language construction works via willingness to research, but that's not saying much, also I can never remember the meanings of most linguistic terms like 'frictives' or etc off the top of my head. I'm just kinda raw dogging it with a vague conceptualization of what these things mean)

I do at least have a naming language for Wardi (and more basic rules for other established languages) but the rudimentary forms of it were devised with methods much shakier and less linguistically viable than even the most basic naming language schemes, and I only went back over it LONG after I had already made a bunch of words so there's some inconsistencies with consonant presence and usage. (This can at least be justified because it IS a language that would have a lot of loanwords and would be heavily influenced by other language groups- Burri being by far the most significant, Highland-Finnic and Yuroma-Lowlands also being large contributors)

The 'method' I used was:

-Skip basic construction elements and fully move into devising necessary name words, with at least a Vibe of what consonants are going to be common and how pronunciation works -Identify some roots out of the established words and their meanings. Establish an ongoing glossary of known roots/words. -Construct new words based in root words, or as obvious extensions/variants of established words. -Get really involved in how the literal meanings of some words might not translate properly to english, mostly use this to produce a glossary of in-universe slang. -Realize that I probably should have at least some very basic internal consistency at this point. -Google search tutorials on writing a naming language. -Reverse engineer a naming language out of established words, and ascribe all remaining inconsistencies to being loanwords or just the mysteries of life or whatever.

I do at least have some strongly established pronunciation rules and a sense of broad regional dialect/accents.

-'ai' words are almost always pronounced with a long 'aye' sound.

-There is no 'Z' or 'X' sound, a Wardi speaker pronouncing 'zebra' would go for 'tsee-brah', and would attempt 'xylophone' as 'ssye-lohp-hon'

-'V' sounds are nearly absent and occur only in loanwords, and tend to be pronounced with a 'W' sound. 'Virsum' is a Highland word (pronounced 'veer-soom') denoting ancestry, a Wardi speaker would go 'weer-sum'.

-'Ch' spellings almost always imply a soft 'chuh' sound when appearing after an E, I, or O (pelatoche= pel-ah-toh-chey), but a hard 'kh' sound after an A or U (odomache= oh-doh-mah-khe). When at the start of a word, it's usually a soft 'ch' unless followed by an 'i' sound (chin (dog) is pronounced with a hard K 'khiin', cholem (salt) is pronounced with a soft Ch 'cho-lehm')

-Western Wardin has strong Burri cultural and linguistic influence, and a distinct accent- one of the most pronounced differences is use of the ñ sound in 'nn' words. The western city of Ephennos is pronounced 'ey-fey-nyos' by most residents, the southeastern city of Erubinnos is pronounced 'eh-roo-been-nos' by most residents. Palo's surname 'Apolynnon' is pronounced 'A-puh-lee-nyon' in the Burri and western Wardi dialects (which is the 'proper' pronunciation, given that it's a Kos name), but will generally be spoken as 'Ah-poh-leen-non' in the south and east.

-R's are rolled in Highland-Finnic words. Rolling R's is common in far northern rural Wardi dialects but no others. Most urban Wardi speakers consider rolling R's sort of a hick thing, and often think it sounds stupid or at least uneducated. (Brakul's name should be pronounced with a brief rolled 'r', short 'ah' and long 'uul', but is generally being pronounced by his south-southeastern compatriots with a long unrolled 'Brah' sound).

Anyway not really a sturdy construction that will hold up to the scrutiny of someone well equipped for linguistics but not pure bullshit either.

[cavennmalore]

tagging @myfairkatiecat because it is only fair after you requested this word vomit lol

The thing about Keefe not being a good person is a little complicated. Full disclaimer, I don’t really believe in the whole good/bad person dichotomy, and definitely not for KIDS. Nevertheless, I don’t disagree with the people who say that Keefe isn’t the awesome person Sophie’s (biased) opinion makes him out to be. Not for the manipulative reasons -- which, Keefe is a teenage boy and I don't know about anyone else but that is like THE demographic for being a little messy in relationships lmao -- but for a lot of his planning. Joining the Neverseen without telling anyone what his plan was? Proposing himself as Mercadir without giving anyone a chance to refute him? Lying at the end of Legacy and showing up to the confrontation even though it was explicitly agreed he'd stay back? Basically, everything he did in Lodestar? Not great.

It's not Certified Good Guy Behavior. But that's his role. Keefe was literally designed to occupy this grey, questionable space, both in the narrative and outside of it. He's Sophie's character foil. Lady Gisela's plan revolves around pushing Keefe to become a worse and worse person; that involves raising him in a way that cultivates bad behavior and forcing him into increasingly extreme situations that are designed to make Keefe "ready" when the time comes. That is a huge part of the plots of Nightfall and Legacy.

Admittedly, I don't think Shannon has made him evil/grey enough, which I know isn't a popular take. There was real potential to make Keefe a wild card in Lodestar and make it so that the question isn't what stupid scheme is he planning? but to what extent have Lady Gisela's machinations worked? It's an interesting plotline to me. It's why I'm so excited for Unraveled; it's a chance to see this push-pull in action without Keefe's "north star" (AKA Sophie) guiding his decisions.

But a lot of people don't feel this way. A ton of the complaints I see around the book have to do with Keefe getting too much page time, the plotline taking up too much space in the story, etc. Which is fair! If you don't like Keefe, I'm sure a lot of this is grueling. However, a point I see connected to this line of thought is a wish for the books to return to a more ensemble vibe. That there should be more Dex, more Biana, more Stina, more Tam, etc. the way that it used to be.

That version of the books, though? It only really exists in the first book. Keefe is a prominent character in Exile and a huge driver of its plot. It's only in Book One where he only exists on the margins and isn't super involved. The ensemble cast has grown exponentially since then, to the point where there are frankly too many characters to keep track of in a scene without straight-up listing them all (which did happen but I'm forgetting which book). The decreased page time of supporting characters isn't solely because Keefe is eating the narrative, but because there are way too many characters for everyone to get a subplot; rather than have pre-existing characters solve issues, Shannon tends to just pull new ones in, and then leave them to hang out for the following books. If the series was for a more adult audience, I would say that it was time to start killing people off (like the popular critique of The Boys) but because this is a kids series, they're going to just hang around and not do much.

A lot of the nostalgia for this old version of KOTLC presents itself in fandom discussions of Dex. Full transparency: I didn't really like Dex that much in the early books when I did my reread. I found him unbearably rude to Fitz and Biana. His crush on Sophie felt invasive at times as if she was catering to a boy that was projecting his feelings and making her accommodate him. It's very similar stuff to the current criticism of Keefe! But I have yet to see any discussions around Dex that don't characterize him as kind, goofy, or sweet. Maybe there is some discussion of him being snarky or sarcastic. The most criticism I've seen of him is about how he treated Stina in his introduction, which was taken largely in isolation.

But that sweet, goofy version of Dex that people talk about missing? He doesn't exist. Sure, Dex mellowed out a ton in the later books, but he didn't become a whole new character. And I don't believe that he disappeared from the books in the way that some people claim. He just... doesn't have a subplot anymore. His crush on Sophie was resolved. It was a sticking point in his and Sophie's friendship which made him part of her character arc, and that arc is done. If that went on for any longer, it would be a drag on the pace of the series. Like I said before, the presence of so many side characters, each with their own needs and motivations, makes it difficult to introduce him into new stuff. It's why he gets so much more page time in Unlocked. With the presence of so many other characters, Shannon tends to handwave a lot of the background group dynamics. Dex ended up becoming close to Keefe and was able to shine there, away from Sophie's perspective and their finished arc.

All of this is to say, it's not wrong to dislike Keefe or like Dex. But I think a lot of the conversations surrounding these guys can get muddled in nostalgia and what people think the books should be rather than what they are. I'm (severely) guilty of it too. It's part of a broader trend in fandoms as "fandom" as a concept becomes more popular. That is a whole other post, though, and frankly, this one is long enough lol

[ellzilla]

Dog experiences jealousy over friend's trauma being 'less' than hers

[coquelicoq]

Ce n'est pas de John Jackson qu'il faut attendre grand intérêt pour Diderot, Stendhal ou même Flaubert, mais ce courant qui ne sait guère la poésie n'est pas en France aussi vaste qu'on pourrait croire, il y a souvent chez nos prosateurs, aussitôt en cela les plus musiciens, les plus grands, le besoin de réparer dans leurs propres œuvres les dégâts que la prosodie dite classique du vers régulier et de la rime à outrance a causés dans la sensibilité poétique, et de Rousseau à Proust en passant par Chateaubriand ou Nerval l'étude de quelques-uns de ces poètes de la prose est aussi la voie qu'a suivie John Jackson dans nombre de ses essais, voie proche d'une autre où il rencontre Hölderlin ou d'autres aspects du romantisme allemand.

if i may just whimper pathetically for a second. first of all this one sentence, which could very easily be made into three sentences, is 128 words long. secondly there's a comma splice (which is allowed in formal written french but definitely makes things harder to parse). thirdly it took me like ten minutes to figure out that the subject of "a causés" is "la prosodie" because i missed the "de" before "la rime" and so thought the subject of "a causés" was the plural "la prosodie et la rime", which is not the writer's fault except insofar as it is easier to miss a word when there are 128 of them. fourthly that "et de Rousseau à Proust" is really rude because, coming after a comma instead of in a new sentence, the "de" feels like it should be referring back to the last de in the main clause, which was "le besoin de", but that doesn't make any fucking sense, and you have to wait several more words to find "l'étude", which isn't even set off by a comma. fifthly the "sentences" (not pictured) directly before and after this one are not actually sentences as none of them contain a main verb, something also allowed in written french but imo really rude to do in excess. this guy is like "a sentence is EITHER five sentences in a trenchcoat OR a lone noun phrase (with subordinate clauses of course)." dude can we not just split the difference. i'm suffering here.

sixthly even after eventually managing to parse the syntax i still had no idea what he was saying because i confused réparer with repérer. that's one's definitely on me though.

[ee3y]

I did not expect to catch the livestream today nor getting new recordings of the old songs but here we are and I'm smiling like an idiot rn

[eddis-not-eeddis]

-_-

[blujayonthewing]

I understand why the sub for dungeon meshi is just the script for the dub but that doesn't mean I have to like it

[simspurgatory]

Happy 413! Wanted to do something super simple cuz I’m currently in the middle of assignments and study bluh.

Pose by @herecirmsims

[greyhands]

Hi you've been gone for a long time hope everything ok with you

Hello !

Awww thanks for the concern, this is very sweet ! („• ᴗ •„)

Because of the economic crisis in my country, I have to work overtime, it's not the easiest when you have two young kids with special needs.

I have little free time for myself, and I spend most of it drawing (I will never stop ^^), it's just that it's hard in this condition to find extra time and energy to post and interact on social medias.

But I do miss it, and I'm very grateful for every likes and share with adorable (and funny) tags you are all giving me ! It's a ray of warm sunlight (´ ω `♡)

... And I'm very concerned about the AI image generator.. It's not helping I guess !

[cryingat300kph]

NORRIS Cmon you can do it AGAIN!

[crowcryptid]

Further examples of the Twitter bot epidemic

This was on 1 post with 19k likes and 500 reposts

I think these are hacked accounts as some of them are are years old. Others were made a few months ago. No clue how it’s profitable to pay for blue checks for them when they never get interaction beyond a few likes or someone pointing out it’s a bot.

If you don’t know, blue checks get paid for interactions. Not a lot though. These bots aren’t breaking even so they’re either being paid with stolen credit cards or whoever is running this still has hope it will be profitable soon.

Or if you want to be conspiratorial about it, maybe Twitter is the one making these bots to boost their user activity LMAO

I don’t think this is the case as every wave of bots has been the same “genre” of account. Previously it was the “my pussy in bio” ones. Then they became “my pics in profile”. Then they started posting straight up nsfw in replies or would just advertise free OF. Now we have these bots. The girl bots still exist but are mostly spamming DMs now instead of posting openly. Also there has always been a stream of crypto bots who post ai shit but they have never completely taken over replies like the other ones.

[the-kiarah-organisation]

Aether: Oh yeah, I heard we had new GEN [Genshin] introjects. It's good to have you on board kid.

Kinich: I'm.. 22? I'm not a kid.

Aether: Yeah and I'm 19, I stand by what I said.