#but probably you don't

[general-sleepy]

Just plain babbling about shorthand

Since reading Dracula might be the first time or one of the first times that people have heard about shorthand, I thought I'd take this thin excuse to infodump. Because I find it fascinating and want to share. (Warning ahead of time, watch out for how many darn times I say "for example" in this post).

For some background, shorthand systems of writing have existed for millennia, but in the English-speaking world, the two most common and well-established systems of shorthand are Pitman and Gregg. Odds are that the Harkers are writing in Pitman. It's the older system (created in 1837) and is to this day more common in England and the Commonwealth. Gregg is more common in America and was introduced in 1888, either only a few years after or a few years before Dracula takes place. There were also numerous other less popular systems floating around at the time.

Pitman and Gregg and most other shorthand systems are phonetic. (Teeline is a more modern shorthand system based on a simplified alphabet, which is also quite popular). Simply put, each sound is reduced to one stroke of the pen. In Gregg, for example, the sound "k" (which includes the letter "c) is a medium-sized forward arch, "a" is a large circle, and "ch" is a short, downward diagonal line. So, instead of writing "catch" you just combine the symbols for "k-a-ch." Instead of "become" you just write "b-k-m." (These "words" are known as outlines).

Some shapes represent multiple sounds. For example, a small circle stands for the vowels in "bit," "bet," and "beet." A large circle stands for the vowels in "cap" and "cape." This might sound like it would be confusing rather than simplifying, but it's generally clear from the context.

There are a bunch of other means which allow you to write more quickly. Common words are further shorted into "brief forms." For example, "the" is represented by "th," "after" by "a-f," and "were" by "e-r." Some common endings or beginnings are also abbreviated, so that "sh" at the end of a word can stand in for "-tion" and "f" can mean "for-" or "fore-" at the beginning of a word. Thus, "Permission" is "p-r-m-sh" and "forgive" is "f-g-v." Common phrases can be combined into a single outlines. For example, for "to be" you can write "t-b" instead of "t-u[space]b." "I have not been able" can be "a-v-n-b-a." (The large circle "a" is the brief form for the word "I" in one of the rare quirks of Gregg that isn't basically intuitive).

Pitman Shorthand is very similar to Gregg (or, more accurately, Gregg is similar to Pitman). Other than using different symbols (for example, in Pitman "k" is a short forward line) Pitman differs from Gregg mostly by its use of the thickness of strokes to differentiate sounds. For example, "g" is also a short forward line, with the only difference being that the line for "g" is drawn thicker than "k."

I learned shorthand absolutely because of Dracula, though for convenience I learned Gregg. As of right now, I'm pretty out-of-practice, and honestly I was never particularly fast. (At my best, I probably was on average as fast writing shorthand as cursive longhand; I think faster than printing, though).

If you're at all interested, I really recommend learning some form of shorthand. It's useful in note-taking or when you don't want people to be able to read your writing (if, you know, you're kidnapped by a vampire or trying to write fanfic at work). It's also just a fun hobby and a nifty skill to be able to say you have.

In my opinion, if you want to learn shorthand, Gregg Simplified is a solid option, because the materials are accessible and the system is a good middle-ground between easiness to learn and quickness to write. I taught myself just following along with the Gregg Shorthand Manual Simplified. The book is broken up into 67 short "lessons." I did one or two lessons a week, maybe a few hours of work, and I was "fluent" in less than a year. I also bought a Gregg Simplified Dictionary, but all you need is the Manual.

(Note that the manual is written both assuming you're probably some kind a secretary and in the fifties. So, you'll learn brief forms for super-useful phrases like "dear sir" or "remit." For practice, they have you read and copy these sample letters in shorthand, and it's almost hilarious how almost all the letters to men are about business matters and the letters to women are advertising sales. There is one spectacular letter that's a man writing to a newspaper to cancel his subscription, because he's moved into a house in the suburbs with another man who gets the same paper. I'm legit tempted to go through the manual again just to find that letter.)

Fun fact! The fastest shorthand stenographer ever recorded wrote faster than the fastest typist.

Also fun fact! It's not uncommon for individual people to invent their own brief forms based on words that they use commonly. So, Jonathan might have been writing "c-a-r-p" (or the Pitman equivalent) for "Carpathian" or Mina writing "t-b" for "Whitby" or both of them writing "v-a-m" for vampire. And I'll bet credits to navy beans they had specific brief forms for their favorite trains.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The math just adds up!

[wizard-laundry]

QUICK REMINDER

In the US: threatening government officials is a felony under federal law (the president in particular is protected under 18 U.S.C. § 871). Even memes.

be careful with your jokes if they spill over to active officials.

[hoofpeet]

14 year old artists listen to me right now (gripping you by the shoulders) STOP caring about your "internet presence" right naow. Draw slower and stop trying to boil your art down to an acceptable marketable brand

[hinamie]

post-graduation trip airport looks

[symphonyofsilence]

Let the poor man rest.

[krysmcscience]

I have some questions about karaoke night, Alex Hirsch. Very Important Questions. Which I will happily scream at a poor hapless baby triangle who can have no answers for me, and possibly also does not have object permanence yet.

Follow-up that is I guess suggestive, but let's be real here, Bill's a fucking triangle:

Dude slipped right into his birthday suit, lmao

this is so stupid :D

Anyway, I don't care what anyone says, this brilliant individual knows what's up - Bill is absolutely way more of a monsterfucker than Ford could or ever will be, full stop.

[uncanny-tranny]

I think so many people are so deeply alienated from themselves that they have no clue how to exercise their free will and autonomy. For some, this alienation runs so deep that they are afraid of their own autonomy and humanity. It is completely understandable why one would have those feelings, but it can be worrisome.

I want to help others who feel this way, so here are small things I have done to exercise my free will:

Add "guilty pleasure" songs to playlists and actually listen to them (I have a ton of late 1990s-early 2000s music I listen to now proudly that I never listened to in the past out of shame)

Getting the décor item, bath set, bed spread, ect. in the patterns you like, even if it's "childish" (I got a dinosaur-themed wastebasket from the kids' décor section and I adore it)

Taking a new route to get to a place you go to often

Eat dessert first

Celebrate well, and often

Collect things that are "odd" or don't seem like an "acceptable" thing to collect (somebody on my "for you" page collects dandelion crayola crayons and it was so cool!!!!!!)

Incorporate one new piece in an outfit you wear frequently (e.g., a new chain, a necklace, ribbons, bracelets, ect.). Challenge yourself to add onto the outfits if you feel up for it.

Sing along to songs without worrying that you sound "good" or your intonation is completely accurate

Read a book from a genre you weren't allowed to read as a kid (comics, thrillers, mysteries, anything!)

Walk without having a specific destination or goal

Pick up a new craft without expecting yourself to master it or to ever be "good" enough. Get your hands messy.

I don't want to shame anybody for not feeling as though they have free will or that they are exempt from exercising it. However, I wanted to give ideas so that you might read this list and find your own ways to express your intrinsic autonomy and will. You deserve to be a person, to feel alive, not just living. That is what our lives are for.

[toskarin]

oh I didn't realize you used to be a huge piece of shit

[tossawary]

This is petty fandom salt, BUT... I've been chewing on this phenomenon that I've been calling "Fandom's Darling". It is related to things like "Author's Darling" and "Mary Sue / Gary Stu" and "Protagonist Halo" and all that jazz, where one character gains a peculiar narrative weight in a story.

"Author's Darling" is when a writer has a favorite character, and the world and all other characters sort of get... warped to put the Darling in the spotlight. It's most noticeable in TV shows with multiple writers, when a character you personally like suddenly has their previous characterization destroyed to make another character look good somehow. Every other character might become weirdly incompetent. The Darling's feelings are treated as The Most Important Feelings in any given situation. The logic of the fictional world seems broken past suspension of disbelief in order to validate this one character's beliefs or skillset or some other fantasy. And so on.

"Fandom's Darling" is what I've been calling the pattern where a fandom essentially crowns a New Protagonist for their fanfiction stories (it's often a side character rather than the original protagonist, but it can also happen to protagonists). This character becomes the self-insert for all sorts of indulgent fantasies, gaining special powers or backstories, and/or becoming the focus of extreme whump, and/or hooking up with all the various hotties, starring in all sorts of tropey AUs, and so on. They're not always an obvious Mary Sue version of themselves, but the character's original personality and interpersonal relationships tend to get warped or dropped completely, and other characters tend to become a little flat around them. I call it "Fandom's Darling" because it's not just one self-indulgent fantasy fic (you do you! Have fun!) with characterization choices that I don't vibe with (I have neither the time nor the desire nor the authority to police anything, I am just venting), but rather a prolific mini-fandom of sorts revolving around this empty doll / fanon version of the chosen vessel character, so it becomes a little unavoidable.

I am salty about this (mildly frustrated) (imagine a soft sigh of disappointment before I just go do something else) because you are FUCKED if you actually liked the canonical version of this character and their interpersonal relationships. It's almost worse than liking an obscure character that no one cares about. There's about a thousand fics starring your fave, but maybe only about a dozen of them are actually rooted in any kind of recognisable canon.

[sabertoothwalrus]

does science experiments on you (homoerotically)

[secondbeatsongs]

source

[teaboot]

Okay so like. You know your own name as a kid, right?

You remember how it sounds, how your parents say it, how your friends say it- you learn how to spell it, and maybe even what it means and why it was given to you, and it's yours.

It's not a tangible, physical thing, like your hair or your fingernails, but it's yours. It belongs to you.

So, like. Imagine there comes a point in life where everyone gets their name tattooed to their forehead, or something.

Could be when they're two. Could be when they're twenty. Hell, it could be when they're eighty, or ninety-nine, or whenever. But it's everybody, and it's inevitable, and it happens.

Now imagine the time comes for you, and you get up after and look in the mirror and realize they spelled it wrong.

And you have to go outside and live your life in a world where everybody is so totally used to knowing people's names on sight that not a single person second-guesses that your parents named you Susam, or Ahley, or Benjabib.

And you know it's wrong, every time you hear it, but you can choose to explain every single time- every time you're called in a coffee queue, every time a teacher picks you in class, every time you meet a new person or bump into a stranger or are greeted on the street, by children and employers and door-to-door salesmen and your fucking waitress- or you can kind of just learn to grit your teeth and ignore it.

You still notice, of course- maybe you learn to accept it, maybe you hate it every time, but whether you do anything about it or not, you still know. You know people have the wrong word for you in your head.

You know they still mean YOU, but it's not you.

So what's your solution?

Do you shrug, decide it doesn't matter, and go about your life?

Do you smear the typo over with foundation, pencil in new letters every morning?

Do you stare into the mirror sometimes and think, "wow, I should really get that fixed"?

Maybe you save up your money and get it removed, or covered up, or changed to something else. Maybe the whole damn thing was wrong, and you've been a Jacob running around as a Hailey this whole damn time.

That's the best way to explain it. It's not an easily-provable thing, or a demonstrable thing, or a feeling I can one-for-one substitute as something else-

but that's what it's like to know you're not a girl.

[marzipanandminutiae]

what's with the weird glorification of smoking that's come back lately

like

I've seen so many posts that paint opposing smoking as some impossibly Loser-ish or puritanical stance and I really don't get it

it makes you, your house, and your clothing stink, destroys your teeth, and gives you lung cancer. opposing it is. Correct. obviously addiction is very complicated and quitting can be hard, but just saying "smoking is gross and harmful as a practice (including vaping)" is True and Right actually

some of you have never grown up hearing about how some beloved family member died a slow, agonized, wasting death of smoking-induced cancer, or watching it firsthand for yourself, and it shows

[egophiliac]

WAIT when did he get FANGS

[farshootergotme]

Occasionally I picture Nightwing calling Red Hood "little wing" in front of others and people looking between this huge, 6'0 feet tall man with growing white hair, and then Nightwing, a shorter man who has flawless skin, probably around his 20's, and a fit but not too buff build and they just- don't know what's happening. Is it some kind of inside joke they aren't aware of? Why is Nightwing acting as if he's years older than Red-fucking jacked-Hood?

Nightwing: Little wing, you actually were decent in that fight! I'm impressed.

Hero, who was helping during this fight as well, listening in to the conversation: little...?

Red Hood: Wow, feeling very appreciated right now. Got any other backhanded compliments in there?

Hero: Wait, excuse me-

Nightwing: As a matter of fact-

Red Hood: Nope! I'm outta here. Screw you!

Nightwing: You know you love me!

Red Hood: In your dreams, dickhead!

Nightwing: Hey! We don't use that-

Red Hood: Not listening!

Nightwing: Jeez, kids these days...

Red Hood: I'm an adult and fuck you too!

Nightwing: What? Thought you weren't-

Red Hood: See you never, I'm out.

Hero: ...

Hero: what the actual fuck?