#but this is indeed a possible etymology

[nina-iseri]

[unproduciblesmackdown]

i'm the first to admit i'm doing a bad job of not liveblogging, but i gotta be nogblogging

[gemsofgreece]

Feels like a lot of work to ask this

but next time you refer to some etymology or word used as Ancient Greek, please kindly consider to check out whether this word is extant and used in Modern Greek. If you refer to all words as Ancient Greek, you spread the usually false impression that these words are dead, only revived thanks to English and other western scientific terminology (while they might as well be everyday words for the Greek speakers), you obstruct a chance of exposure to Modern Greek which is viewed as totally disconnected and irrelevant, and you strip it from its lingual legacy.

So, if a word has indeed fallen out of use, by all means, call it what it is, Ancient Greek. If it’s only used in Modern Greek, which is a possibility you will likely never stumble on as Modern Greek roots barely exist at all and they are just colloquial epithets (which is also why it doesn’t make much sense to emphatically distinct a root as Ancient because there’s little else it can be anyway), call it Modern Greek. (Always talking about Greek roots, this is not about loanwords or foreign roots.)

If however it exists both in Ancient and survives in Modern Greek, which is 90% of the time, just call it what it really is. Greek.

Another reason it is very unlikely for you to be referring to exclusively Ancient Greek words that are dead in Modern Greek is because the Greek words you usually refer to are words that passed from Latin and Medieval Greek to the western languages. If a Greek word survived well into Medieval Greek and / or passed to Latin, then it has 99% of the time survived into Modern Greek. Exclusively Ancient Greek words that have fallen out of use are usually Homeric and Archaic words from non-Ionic dialects that were already fading in Classical and early Hellenistic times. So the odds of you referring to such words, unless you are a linguist of archaic non-Ionic Greek, are very very slim.

And if it’s too much work to ask (how much time do you spend mentioning Greek etymology though?!), then again just call it Greek because you can’t go wrong with this and you save yourself from an extra word. It’s that easy and is the safest choice.

[womenaremypriority]

What is gender?

Instead of asking “what is a woman?” I propose we should ask more what gender is.  The transgender movement is, fundamentally about placing gender above sex, in language and law- although claiming sex is a spectrum or a complete construction is becoming more common.  ‘Woman’ and ‘man’ aren’t sex terms, they’re genders, sexual attraction is based on gender, not sex, and public planning should be based on gender.  So, what is it?  

The roots of the word gender came from Latin, and originally meant ‘category, group.’  It has etymological roots with the word genre, and this is partly why we have the term grammatical gender in many languages.  Gender became a synonym for biological sex hundreds of years ago, and is used partly as a more family friendly alternative.  As a separate entity, however, gender refers to the social roles of male and female.

Here are a few definitions and helpful information:

Let’s look at the specifics of the different interpretations of the word ‘gender’.

Gender roles: Self explanatory. What feminists are against. What transgender activists claim to be against, and what they claim is not the basis for transgender identity. This seems to be the most clear and understandable definition, to me, anyway.

Gender identity: An internal sense of gender. This has been claimed to exist, but how this could possibly present or feel has not been in anyway demonstrated. Studies have shown transgender people have the brains of the gender they identify as, but those studies are shoddy and flawed. Brain scans aren’t required to transition, these studies don’t account for nonbinary-identified people, and the brain sex argument has fallen out of favor- so, we’ll say that’s not what’s being discussed here. So, what is? What is this internal gender identity? Can we find it? How do we know everyone has it? And why should it be prioritized over birth sex? What’s being described is, frankly, unverifiable and flimsy. Not to mention quite useless. This doesn’t mean I think that people who claim to have this feeling are lying- they could have something that is interpreted as gender, but that doesn’t mean it’s experienced by the general population, and this feeling could be caused by any number of areas. If this feeling is, indeed, dysphoria at being referred to a certain way, and/or euphoria at being referred to a certain way, again, how can we know this is a symptom of some deep held identity, or a sign of something different? How can we verify this, and while I understand personally adapting language to accommodate someone in your life, why should this take priority over sex for the general population? Gender expression- How is this different than sex stereotypes, and gender roles? While I’m told that this doesn’t need to match general societal expectations, how does that actually work? If you’ve expressing your gender- whether that’s man, woman, or some form of nonbinary- even if you know anyone can dress how they want, even if you say ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ means something different to everyone, you are still making a connection between gender and how one looks- and according to the Miriam-Webster photo, acts. Not only is this, again, ridiculous to elevate this above sex in language and law, it’s unhealthy to hyper focus on how others see you, not to mention confusing and harmful message to constantly use the terms ‘gender identity’ and ‘gender expression’ together. I’ll be honest, even if transgender people claim the movement isn’t about stereotypes, I don’t believe that’s the case. At the very least, it’s not the message every one of them got. Conflating gender with sex, and the words ‘men’ and ‘women’ with personality, a feeling, clothes, vibes, interests, or an aesthetic, is a dangerous and ridiculous concept. Instead of what it’s claiming to do- breaking the gender binary- it’s putting men and women in a box, yourself. You are the one limiting what men and women can be. Even if everyone decided to identify as some form of nonbinary, this would not affect the reality of sexism and the perceived inferiority of 50% of the population- it would only paint a coat over it. It would make communication and activism impossible. By conflating experience of autism, or interest in space, or interest in a certain style of dress- with the terms man and woman, you are perpetuating stereotypes, not breaking them.

[rutilation]

I sincerely doubt I'm the first person to have noticed this, but I'm currently riding the high of having just connected some dots, so I'm going to jot down my thought process regardless.

Because I am the sort of person who reads dictionaries for fun, one of the first things I did after being introduced to this game last month was look into the etymologies of various characters’ names. We play as an android named magpie?  What a cute little reference to our gameplay loop of exploring and picking up stuff.  We’re looking for a girl named Alina Ariane?  That’s pretty juicy as well.  Ariane, and variations thereupon, are derived from the Greek Ariadne, which is the name of the woman who lead Theseus through the labyrinth with her ball of yarn—a fitting metaphor for Ariane’s role as the beacon guiding Elster through this surreal narrative.

Anyway, a little while ago, I found myself watching this playthrough of the game, and it was quite helpful because the person playing can read Chinese, and I myself am pretty helpless when it comes to characters that I can’t easily copy-paste into a dictionary.  Leng means 'cold,' you say?  Well, I'm happy to finally learn that!  A ways into the playthrough, she points out that one of the hanzi in the red desert sequence is likely to be Ariane’s last name.  Intrigued, I looked it up, and found out it means poplar.

That made me wonder if there was some rationale behind choosing that surname in particular.  After all, if the first half of Ariane's name was so obviously symbolic, why wouldn’t the second half also be so?  I ask myself: what do trees have to do with her?  My brain answers: “Die Toteninsel, obviously.”

The trees in that painting are cypress, though.  I start wondering: okay, if you’re going to name this character after a tree, why not name her after the tree that holds significance to the story—to her story?  Moreover, what do poplars even look like? I’m not an arborist…

They’re not cypress, but what I saw in google images looked like they could be mistaken for them at a distance. Their lenticular shape, at least, was reminiscent of the trees in Die Toteninsel. A new hypothesis starts germinating in my head at this point. Suppose the hanzi for ‘cypress,’ whatever that may be, isn’t in use as a surname.  If so, perhaps the devs had to work their way down the line, and pick out a tree that they could use as a last name, one that at least looked like the tree they had in mind, so that they could still evoke the image of the painting through Ariane’s name.

Obviously, I had to return to my precious dictionaries, and test this hypothesis.  It failed immediately.  柏 means cypress, and it is indeed used as a surname.  Now back to square one, my initial question becomes even more pressing.  Why did the devs name Ariane ‘poplar’ instead of ‘cypress?’  If the more meaningful option was already right there in front of them, why didn't they take it?

It was at this point my brain cells finally deigned to rub together, and the answer smacked me across the face.  There’s another painting I hadn’t been taking into account, and I’d already seen the shape and form of a poplar, even before I pulled up my search results.

The tall green trees on the left side of the Die Lebensinsel are unmistakably poplars.  My earlier observation that poplars and cypresses had similar silhouettes possibly had some merit after all—that may have been what was going through Böcklin’s mind as he worked on this painting which was the intentional antithesis to Die Toteninsel.

(I say “unmistakably,” but, again, I’m no arborist.  While some cursory googling didn’t reveal a gloss for the flora in this painting, someone on r/whatisthisplant also thought that these seem to be poplars, for what it’s worth.)

So, Ariane is named not after the isle of the dead, but the isle of life.  My reward for answering my initial question is, of course, more questions.  Why have Ariane’s name hearken to this painting? I haven't figured that out, but I do think that in order to answer that question, one first has to ask what Die Lebensinsel means to Signalis in the first place, and my thoughts are a little more substantial in that regard.  Substantial, but also pretty subjective. Everything prior to this point is trivia dug up by a dictionary-enjoyer, and everything past this point is me free-associating my way through confusing imagery, like our overlord, the big red eye, intended.

As for me, I associate Die Lebensinsel with the artifact ending.  Not so much because of how happy it is per se, (highly debatable,) but because of how both the ending and the painting are obfuscated by the game.  In Signalis, you can't get away from the other two paintings.  They dominate the red desert sequence, they're found decorating the occasional wall in overworld, and you even walk across the shore of oblivion yourself.  Die Lebensinsel, on the other hand, is never as tangible as the other two, only ever flitting across the screen for a single frame at a time.  It's almost completely imperceptible in the moment; you have to already know to look for it to glimpse it, or else discover it by playing back the red desert cutscene frame-by-frame.  All this mirrors how the artifact ending is integrated into the story. The keys to it are right in your face—the safe, the code, a strange signal on your radio, the lilies interspersed throughout game—but it's nigh impossible to grasp any of those things without hindsight, without picking it apart after the fact. You have to really look to find Die Lebensinsel, and you have to really look to find the artifact ending.

There’s also the subject matter of the paintings to consider.  Die Toteninsel depicts a psychopomp ferrying a soul to the eponymous isle of the dead, and the story of Signlais is about trying help Ariane die, with the normal endings representing all the ways Elster succeeds and fails in doing so.  In the artifact ending, however, we are not trying to put anyone out of their misery.  We’re beseeching the King in Yellow, or the Almighty Red Hexagon, or the Music of the Universe, or whoever the fuck, to grant us our own little pocket-dream-dimension where we never have to die and can dance with our wife forever, amidst the decay of a solar system which has just contracted cancer.  We’ve already cast off from the shore of oblivion by this point, but the island we’ve landed on in this ending can’t really be considered the isle of the dead. We're dancing, after all, so this must be the isle of life.

This interpretation of Die Lebensinsel having crystallized in my mind, I circled back around to my most recent question: why is Ariane named after the artifact ending?  I still wasn’t sure.  But, as I ruminated on it, I realized that you can also draw a direct line from Elster’s name to the artifact ending.  After all, Elster=Lilith, and Lilith=lilies, and lilies=the artifact ending. 

To surmise, my question has gone from “Why is Ariane named after poplar?” to "Why isn't Ariane named after cypress?" to “Why is Ariane named after Die Lebensinsel?” to “Why is Ariane named after the artifact ending?” to “Why are Elster and Ariane both named after the artifact ending?”  What could it all mean?  Maybe in a few weeks/months/years, I’ll come upon an answer I’m satisfied with.

[jaybug-jabbers]

Gen 3 Beta Pokemon 'Dex - Page 4

Continuing the beta dex! You can see the previous page here.

Name: Togepyon [トゲピョン]

My Notes: Looks like a cross between a durian and a jerboa. Might have been a Pikachu clone.

Name: Zuruuzu [ズルーズ]

Evolution: Evolves into Archaeon

My Notes: It's beta Scraggy! Once again showing that Pokemon keeps its shelved ideas for a long time and keeps open the possibility of returning to them, because a couple generations later, they finally made Scraggy a reality.

Name: Archaeon [アーケオン]

Type: Rock/Flying

Category: Archeopteryx

Height/Weight: 4'3'', 77.2 lbs

Pokedex Entries:

The scales on its arms have come to resemble wings. It jumps like a glider. A living fossil from the dinosaur age.

--

The feathers on its scales are very sharp and hard, acting as weapons that are strong enough to cut iron. They move in a flock of about 10 individuals

Additional Gamefreak Notes:

Its scales have formed into wings. It cannot fly long distances, only glide. The wings made of scales are hard and sharp enough to slice through metal plates. It has not changed its appearance since the age of dinosaurs, making it a living fossil. It moves in groups, led by a leader.

Evolution: Evolves from Zuruuzu

My Notes: Reworked into Grovyle. (This helps explain Grovyle's unique appearance, which always struck me as being unusually good for a mid-evo and being rather different from the base form and final evolution.) It's also likely this pokemon later inspired Archen/Archeops, which is based on Archaeopteryx just like this pokemon and has the same typing, and is 'a living fossil from the dinosaur age.'

Name: Aidog [エイドッグ]

My Notes: Appears to be a St. Bernard dog, which is often associated with the fact they have been used to perform rescue work. (In cartoons, they are depicted as wearing little barrels of alcohol around their necks, which was believed to help people who are freezing to death) The name may be a combination of 'Aide' and 'dog.' There seems to be a saddle on this dog, so it's likely the lore would include letting rescued people ride to safety.

Name: Weathery [ウェザリィ]

My Notes: The name and design suggest this was possibly related to Castform-- perhaps a planned evolution that was scrapped.

Name: Tinkii [ティンキー]

My Notes: May be a flying fish, with 'arms' that look like airplane wings and a generally airplane-shaped body.

Name: Snowrora [スノーロラ]

My Notes: Name seems to be a combo of 'snow' and 'aurora'. We had to wait until gen 5 for a polar bear pokemon, Cubchoo and Beartic. Beta Cubchoo and Beartic were also quadrupedal, in fact.

Name: Yakkoko [ヤッココ]

My Notes: Unexpectedly, it seems Flygon was originally part of a line based soley on dragonflies, rather than antlions. The other two parts of this line present after Yakkoko are beta Vibrava and beta Flygon:

As such, Yakkoko is apparently based on the IRL dragonfly larva, which is an aquatic species.

Beta Flygon's official name etymology confirms it was based on a dragonly (not to mention its Category which is just 'Dragonfly'), and its original typing was Bug/Dragon, finally validating what we have always known, that Flygon should have been Bug/Dragon. (Beta Flygon was later changed to Bug/Flying because Gamefreak are cowards)

Pokedex entries for beta Flygon:

Lives deep in forests. Despite its large size, it is agile and skillfully flies between trees and branches.

--

Capable of absorbing oxygen on its own, allowing for underwater activities. Aquatic life in ponds is its main prey

And the additional notes on Flygon:

It can live underwater. It absorbs air from the water through its tail. It swims by twisting its body. It inhabits forests. Its green body serves as camouflage. It flies by flapping its wings rapidly.

It's an interesting choice to be sure, since real dragonflies cannot swim, and instead prey on flying insects. It seems they wanted the adult form to have characteristics of the IRL larval dragonfly, because larvae do indeed have their gills in their tails, and hunt aquatic prey. The feathery shapes on Yakkoko's tail in fact are probably based on the feathery shape of larval damselfly's gills on their tails.

Yakkoko was eventually scrapped in favor of adopting an Antlion family instead. Antlion larvae are pudgy little creatures with massive jaws, and they dig little pits in the sand and wait in the bottom for an ant to fall in so they can feed on them. The adult Antlions look very similar to dragonflies, so the switch was not a difficult one to make. While some fans may complain about how radically different Trapinch looks from Flygon, there is good reason for it, because in nature, the larval stage of insects often look radically different from the adult forms.

Name: Heppii [ヘッピー]

My Notes: Appears to be a pink-and-brown skunk, with green eyes, green little feeties and a pink 'bib.'

Name: Supanku [スパンク]

My Notes: Probably meant to be the evolution of Heppii. I am unsure what the headpiece is meant to be. HRP notes that it's possible these two skunks may have been merged with the Skitty/Delcatty ideas.

Name: Basyamo [バシャーモ]

Type: Flying/Fire

Category: Cockfight [とうけい ]

Height/Weight: 6'7'', 114.6 lbs

Pokedex Entries:

It has large wings capable of creating gales of up to 30 meters per second. There's a legend that it blew away clouds to bring sunlight to people.

--

With the flap of its wings, it creates scorching hot winds that burn vegetation to a crisp. It can barely see in dark places. Every few years, its entire body is engulfed in flames, and it grows new feathers. Even in defeat, it never gives up and possesses an indomitable spirit.

Additional Gamefreak Notes: Every few years, all of its feathers burn away, and new ones grow in their place. When it flaps its wings, it generates a hot wind with a speed of 30 meters per second, so intense that vegetation is scorched black in an instant. It is night-blind, meaning it can barely see in dark places. It has incredible determination. Even against an opponent it cannot defeat, it bravely faces them without hesitation. (There also are the names 'Basyamo' and 'Fiyoko' next to each other in the GF notes, which is the beta name for Torchic.)

Evolution: The GF notes do not explicitly state that Basyamo evolves from Fiyoko but their names were together in the notes, so it was probably being considered even at this stage

My Notes: This is beta Blaziken, back when the flaming chicken could actually fly. (And yes, real chickens can fly, despite many people believing they can't) There is a critique from the pokemon survey notes that seems to be someone complaining it looks too much like a Delibird evolution, which seems pretty silly to me, but I guess the spikey white head does have some similarities.

Name: Hakkeyou [ハッケヨー]

My Notes: A pre-evolution to Makuhita. Goes along with beta Makuhita and beta Hariyama:

Both Hakkeyou and Makuhita were criticized as appearing 'too human.' However, while Hakkeyou was cut, Makuhita's redesign didn't really make it look less human (in my opinion, at least), so it's unknown if this is the reason the pre-evo was cut. A note on Hakkeyou also says that 'sumo might be too controversial in Korea,' but finalized Makuhita/Hariyama are still clearly inspired by sumo themes; thus the pokemon survey criticisms do not automatically mean a pokemon will be changed as a result.

Name: Unknown

My Notes: These sprites were found in the sprite scratchpads, and were based on some spooky concept art that was also revealed in the teraleak:

These pokemon fascinate me. I have no idea what typing they would be. I'm guessing Dark/something, but I'm at a loss to offer a secondary typing. Its body seems to be made up of a delicate crystal lattice structure, with a glowy, nebulous light within. The limbs and tail gradually fading into nothingness seems very much intentional and the sprites reflect this lack of full back limbs. Perhaps Dark/Ghost would make the most sense, although I almost want to invent a whole new typing just for these dogs (Dark/Light type).

[asherlockstudy]

Hi I wanted to add that in your S1 Buddy System One story analysis there was a character called Peder ( who was a lot about the metaphor for Rhett and Link being gay) and in some Balkan languages peder is actually a rude way to call a male gay person; f-slur if you will lol. I don't know if they meant it since it is so vulgar but it's such a coincidence I wanted to tell you

Warning this is going to be a little weird but me being Greek I had this concern that Peder sounded too close to -pedo- pederastes etc etc and I didn’t entirely reject the possibility because Peder is indeed a very creepy character and he is also supposed to be older than Rhett. And then I looked the Slavic slur you said and found out that it does come etymologically from the Greek pederastes. So I guess we landed on the same conclusion from different paths 👀👀👀

Then again Peder is the Scandinavian variant of Peter and let’s hope this is what they meant, however Link’s Peder character is creepy enough that perhaps they did mean it as a dark adult wordplay there….

[catulhu333]

Lilith and Carmilla

I mentioned in my post about this, Lilith, like the other Demon Queens, has the WLW aspect of her mythology usually forgotten - but arguably has influenced the defining "lesbian vampire" - Carmilla.

This ties to the very possible inspiration for Sheridan Le Fanu - "Christabel" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The narrative ballad has the character of Geraldine - a bisexual woman, who is implied to be vampire and/or succubus. But Geraldine is seemingly based and representing Lilith (indeed, perhaps Lilith herself) (while the seduced by Geraldine Christabel, represented Eve), as noted by Heather Rolufs in "Unbalancing Binaries: Re-thinking Lilith and Eve in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Christabel," Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market," and George MacDonald's Lilith" and Kathryn Elizabeth Beavers in "The balance or reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities‘: political tensions and religious transitions in the works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge".

But it also seems Carmilla herself might be also directly based on Lilith. Carmilla's famous transformation into giant black cat to drink blood of her victims, might be based on Spanish-Jewish legends about Lilith transforming also into a giant black cat that drinks blood, in this form as "El Broosha".

Like Eve (seemingly?) first meeting Lilith under a characteristic tree (Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil), so does Laura meet Carmilla first under a lime tree (described by Laura as "magnificent"), if after the vampire's carriage crashed. Though this is also similar, and possibly instead derived from how Christabel met Geraldine, but is still striking.

It should be also noted Carmilla's name is seemingly derived from the Hebrew רְמֶל (Karmel), meaning "vineyard/orchard/garden of God". While Carmilla within the story is an alias, an anagram of Carmilla's true name (Mircalla), it is the name with a seemingly real etymology, Mircalla being seemingly created then from it by Le Fanu.

To be clear, all of these might coincidences, or like with the tree inspired by Christabel, but I think the possible connection between Carmilla and Lilith is still interesting to note.

Graphics used and cropped: "Lilith and Eve" by Yuri Klapouh and an illustration for Carmilla by Michael Fitzgerald, depicting Carmilla and Laura.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

I had a thought about the welcome home character designs. Is it possible that Wally was made/designed by someone different from the other puppets?

I'm not just talking about the fact he is the only one without a nose (though that is what started me thinking down this line), but everyone else (sans Eddie, but maybe we haven't just been shown) seems to push The boundaries of what a puppet could be: Barnaby and Poppy are Big, Howdy has four arms and four legs, Frank's spinning head, Sally's head needing more than one puppeteer, Julie's hair, heck, Home is a freaking house. Wally compared to this colorful crew seem... Well, I don't want to say plain but he definitely seems to be the vanilla ice cream of the bunch.

oh god YEAH OKAY um my brain's a lil too smooth lately to answer this correctly but there's. oh fuck ok there was a Thing i saw - a theory, im blanking on who was talking about it but it was Top Fucking Tier - about how Wally might be like... not a projection

but a... sort of mirror? an Ideal Self? to the in-canon playfellow creator, Ronald Dorelaine. the theory had a thread (if i remember correctly) of connecting the creator's name to Wally, similarities in sound and meaning and even some of the etymology i think they said...

but that could explain why Wally is a little... different. more... pure? im missing the right word rn but idk, his design is Graceful and Composed in comparison to the others. he Is indeed simpler, but in an "ideal" way. he's very appealing and non-cluttered to look at. he resembles a human, while not being too human-resembling like Eddie.

[olderthannetfic]

A hanfu isn't just a robe, though. It's a specific type of traditional outfit that has even more specific variations, and while you could describe it more specifically (e.g. she put on her red ruqun, with a pleated horse-face skirt), it isn't always relevant. I've never seen anyone bring this up for, say, kimonos, and I don't think the GOT comparison is fair, either. It'd be more like "he puts on his armour". What type of armour—lamellar, chainmail, heavy, leather? It doesn't always matter. 1/2

--

2/2. Putting down a category of traditional clothing as "meta terminology" also rather irritates me. Again, looking at kimonos. Perhaps it's unfamiliar because CN fashion isn't as widespread as JP, but it's literally just what the broad category of clothing is called, and within the context of danmei fandoms, it shouldn't be unfamiliar knowledge. Trying to Americanize everything by simply calling everything a 'robe' loses the point entirely and is the equivalent of really terrible translation. Sorry, one more thing. When I picture a "robe", I think of wizards. DND. Bathrobes. None of which bear any similarity to a hanfu, and unless you want to describe "a parted robe made of flowing Yun brocade with loose sleeves that wraps around the body, with a wide collar that has its right lapel crossed over its left, tied at the waist with a belt, with a jade pendant weighing down the long skirt" every single time it's brought up, I'm pretty sure "hanfu" is a more accurate descriptor by far.

Uh... anon...

1.

'Robe' is an extremely vague term that absolutely is used for all sorts of garments from all over the world.

The fact that you associate it with a tiny fraction of its conventional meanings isn't going to change how other people use it.

2.

I am indeed more familiar with kimono than hanfu, but I thought the other people did make explicit what their issue is, and it exists for Japan too.

Depending on when your canon is set (or its vague, handwave-y apparent time period for more fantasy canons), the word may not have been in use yet.

'Kimono' as a word is possibly as recent as the 19th Century, though I see one etymological dictionary saying 1630s. Prior to the 19thC, a lot of things we would now call 'kimono' were known as 'kosode'. The further back you go, the more other terms there are and the more the distinctions matter.

I'm personally a fan of fiction set in the Heian period, and they would absolutely not have been calling anything a "kimono" then, nor do the robes look like modern kimono.

Furthermore, a generic-ass word like 'wear on upper body'+'thing' doesn't get its modern interpretation until it has significant competition from Western clothing. Today, it has a relatively narrow range of interpretations based on the calcified form of traditional Japanese clothing that still hangs on.

It's an absurd affectation to insist on calling all ancient Japanese clothing 'kimono'.

That wouldn't be de-Americanizing your writing.

That would be "According to keikaku".

--

From what I've seen in other people's meta posts about Chinese fandoms, the reason people object to 'hanfu' in fic is that this word has gained a lot of popularity in very recent history as part of the hanfu revival movement.

While it existed before that, it wasn't used so consistently, and it mainly turned up in contexts talking about Chinese as opposed to foreign clothing. It doesn't seem to have been a general term used like "So-and-so put on his completely normal outfit to get ready for the day".

People are using it (outside of fic) to talk about a specific range of historically accurate Chinese clothing. It doesn't cover everything, and in the modern and highly gatekept usage, it specifically doesn't cover historically-inspired fantasy costumes like those on The Untamed.

If you're Chinese and you feel it should cover those, fair enough, but that isn't what a lot of the hanfu education blogs have been saying.

People aren't pulling this out of their asses out of a desire to be American. They're getting it from hanfu blogs asking them not to use the word like that.

If you think those blogs are wrong, please say that.

[thomastheunwise]

D&D and Norse Myth

Do you like Dungeons & Dragon? I like Dungeons & Dragons. I also like Norse mythology, and lucky for me there is some intersectionality between the two. This post won't be an exhaustive comparison of the two. I'd have to spend some time poring over my D&D source books and my copy of the Poetic Edda for that. No, these are just some things that I've noticed off the top of my head. They came to mind again as I was playing another game of Baldur's Gate 3.

When Gary Gygax et al set about creating D&D, they drew lore inspiration from the fantasy works of Tolkien. Tolkien, in turn, drew inspiration from mythology. Not any one mythology, for sure, but certainly Norse mythology was one of his inspirations. Indeed, if you're familiar with Tolkien's and you happen to read the Old Norse poem Völuspá, you'll find some familiar names in stanzas 10-13, where it talks about the creation of the dwarves and lists off of their names. Among them you'll find Gandálfr, Þorrin, Fíli, Kíli, and Oakenshield just to name a few. So....

Dwarves

Let's talk dwarves in D&D. In D&D there is a subrace of dwarves called the Duergar. Do you know what the Old Norse word for dwarf is? Dvergr, plural Dvergarr. Looks awfully similar, doesn't it?

In Tolkien's stories and in D&D, dwarves are often portrayed as master smiths and crafstpeople, creating magical items of wonderous power. This is the same in Norse mythology. The Dvergarr were magical beings renowned for their craftsmanship. They are the ones who created some of the most iconic magical items in Norse mtyh, including Óðin's spear Gungnir and Þórr's hammer Mjolnir. In fact, there's a whole poem about the crafting of Mjolnir which explains why the hammer has such a famously short haft.

In D&D dwarves are a relatively short and rotund race

Elves

Elves too are present in Old Norse mythology. Though Norse isn't the only mythology to have elves in it, I think it was probably the one that inspired Tolkien, and thus D&D, the most. The Old Norse word for elf is Áfr, plural Álvar. In our primary source, the Poetic Edda, the Álvar are barely mentioned. Often it seems like the words Áfr or Álvar are used solely to alliterative purposes. The Poetic Edda doesn't really describe what an elf actually is, and indeed some poems seem to contradict themselves, referring to a character as a dwarf in one stanza and an elf in another. It's possible that the word Álfr was an umbrella term for any magical being that was not a god.

However, in the Prose Edda, Snorrir presents us with three different descriptors for elves:

Ljosálvar - "Light Elves", Dókkálvar - "Dark Elves", and Svartálvar - "Black Elves." Unclear exactly what the difference is between them, particularly "dark" and "black" elves.

But we can draw a parellel to D&D here as well. In D&D there are many, many subspecies of elf but they can ultimately be divded into two main categories - the "light elves" that live aboveground and are generally good and the drow or "dark elves" that live deep underground are generally evil. Neither race was classified as strictly good or evil in Norse mythology, but they did each have their own home realm. Ljosálfheimr, Dokkálfheimr, and Svartálfheimr.

I said before that Áfr might have been an umbrella term for any magical being. One of the points in favor of that hypothesis is that in Norse myth, the Álvar, like the Dvergar, were master craftspeople. We see this reflected in D&D as well, where elven made armor and weapons often have magical properties and are generally regarded as very high quality.

Giants

The old norse word most commonly translated to "giant" is Jotun. The Jotnarr in Norse mythology were the constant enemies of the gods. But Jotun doesn't actually mean "giant." The word Jotun in Old Norse shares etymological roots with the Old English word Eottin, the Proto-Gemanic word itunoz, and the Danish word jaette. All of these words have have been translated as "giant" but they all have, at their root, the Proto-Indo-European word Ed meaning "to eat." So other possible translations of Jotun that have been put forth include "giant/immense eater," "great devourer," "man eater," and simply "monster."

What's the point of that little language lesson? Well, the etymology of the word Jotun reveals a link to the word Ettin. Guess what D&D has in it? Giant, two-headed, people-eating monsters called Ettins.

Then there's the concept of "frost giants." Where does that come from? For that we go once again to the poem Völuspá. The first few stanzas relate the Norse creation myth, and there we find reference to "Hríþursar." Or Hríþursr in the singular. This translates literally to "rime ogre/giant." Rime of course being a type of frost. Specifically, the white, crusty frost that forms on the sides of a very cold freezer. The Hríþursar don't really come up again anywhere else in our original sources, so it seems like the word was used most for alliteration and then dropped in favor or Jotun/Jotnar. Nevertheless, there we have Frost Giants being mentioned in Norse myth. D&D has many kinds of giants, but Frost Giants are certainly among them.

Magic Items

There are probably a ton of magical items in D&D could list here that have similarity to some found in Norse mythology. These are the ones I can think of without digging too deeply.

The Folding Boat. In D&D you can acquire a magical "folding boat" that can be folded up to a size small enough to carry upon your person. By speaking the correct command word you can make it unfold into either a small boat or a large ship. This is a reference to the vessel known as Skíðblaðnir. Skíðblaðnir was created by two Dvergar, the sons of Ivaldi, for the god Freyr. In chapter 43 of the Prose Edda, it is described as being made of such high quality and of so many parts that, when not needed as a sailing vessel, it could be taken apart and folded up so small that it could be carried in one's pocket.

The Hammer of Thunderbolts. The name of this item alone is clearly meant to be a reference to Mjolnir. Though, interestingly enough, nowhere in any actual original Norse myth does Mjolnir have any powers of thunder or lightning. The D&D, the Hammer of Thunderbolts requires the user to also wear both Gauntlets of Ogre Power and a belt of giant strength (any variety) to "attune" or properly wield the hammer. This comes straight out of the Prose Edda, where Þórr has three crucial pieces of accoutrement: Mjolnir, his famous hammer. Megingjörð, "power belt", which doubled his strength. And Járngreipr, magical gloves without which he could not properly wield Mjolnir.

Finally, there's the Helm of Disguise, which in D&D allows you to cast the spell Disguise Self at will. This one is a bit of a stretch. In the Saga of the Volsungs, the hero Sigurðr kills the dragon Fáfnir and loots the dragon's hoard. In exactly one (1!) version of the story that I have read, one of the items Sigurðr finds is a magical helm that allows him to weave illusions around himself, changing his outward appearance.

And that's all for now, though I'm sure I'll have more long and rambling posts about Norse mythology in the future

[pinkpruneclodwolf]

Rippling Spring—Ais

The one thing I find the most riveting about Ais, is the monster that lives within his skull: Ocudeus

With the prefix obviously being pulled from "octopus", however the suffix is what I'm truly curious about.

Which could possibly be derived from "Asmodeus" whose earliest etymology has connections to "wrath" and "demon". Heralded as a Prince of Hell, he was assigned the Sin of Lust, though he also has traits of wrath, jealousy, anger and revenge.

[Photo taken from NekoChang, Touchstarved Demo Part Two, Seaspring Tentacles]

In the Testament of Solomon he was forced to build a temple—Among that Ais does indeed have a temple of sorts—Asmodeus also states that he hates water and birds because they remind him of God.

And while Mhin might not necessarily be a bird, it's hard to miss the Weeping Crow and their dislike of each other— Though Ais only seems to be reciprocating the feelings as far as the demo's shown.

Another piece that might not amount to much is the fact that Ais dislikes seafood. Which might not share the same weight as Asmodeus disliking water but its a tidbit I find interesting...

Judging by the heavy influence from Japanese folklore, I found myself conflicted on the prefix of Ocudeus just being "octopus" and not a double entendre for "Akkorokamui" whose body is said to reach 120 meters in length.

How this relates to Ais or even Ocudeus?

Akkorokamui enjoys the sea and so the offerings that it receives—crabs, mollusks, fish—are often gifted to him. Which are also staples in seafood dishes as well.

By giving it back what it gave, this homage is often done for ailments of skin and limbs with heavy emphasis on mental and spiritual purification [The SeaSpring; MC relations mayhap?]

Depicted as benevolent with powers that heal and bestow knowledge, Akkorokamui does have instances where it is fickle, and its nature as an octopus means it's persistent and near impossible to escape without permission... [Ais and his pact?]

Which leads to my lukewarm theory that if Leander is connected to Fogfall in some way, could Ais, or more specifically, Ocudeus be connected to the Soulless just like Kuras is?

Those that drink the Spring water are purified in some way, as seen by the Crimson-Eyed Woman, however in exchange they become a group mind, and Ais is the host. [or is it Ocudeus?]

Because the most notable part about Soulless are the tentacles that hang from their mouths and the eyes covering their bodies—referring to Akkorokamui and how offerings are given to heal the body and cleanse the mind, could this possibly be a twist on the folklore? Especially the part where they give back what has been given?

Does one slowly transform into a Soulless after drinking the Spring water and if so, could that be why he's only a leader in a figurative sense?

[gemsofgreece]

Hey! This is a translation/linguistics (?) ask, so I hope I can articulate it well!

When the word " τρεφόμενος " is used in the sense of sexual intercourse (context: "κἀκεῖ τρεφόμενος τῇ Λυκομήδους θυγατρὶ Δηιδαμείᾳ μίγνυται, καὶ γίνεται παῖς Πύρρος αὐτῷ ὁ κληθεὶς Νεοπτόλεμος αὖθις"), this denotes anything specific?

When I searched for the word "τρεφόμενος on etymology and meaning websites, it appears mainly in the context of nutrition/food or even something like "raised"/"raising" depending on the context. When I looked for translations, I found that in English it was like "had an intrigue" and in Spanish "yació con" (apparently something like "lay with"), but that only confused me even more because they don't give the same vibe. What's confusing me the most is the choice of translating it as "had an intrigue" instead of something like "lay with" (like in Spanish) and I don't know if it's because I interpreted it in a very literal sense when I shouldn't have (I'm not fluent in English, it's a possibility) or if it really is like that.

I tried to search for this word in Greek texts and compare it with the English version of them, but all the other examples I read were in the sense of eating or raising. Seeing how I saw it being used in the sense of eating and in the sense of raising/being raised, and how the same part was translated in different ways ("had an intrigue" and "yácio con"), I was confused. And suffice it to say Google Translate didn't help (it translated as "alimentando-se da filha de Licomedes", which means "feeding on the daughter of Lycomedes" in Portuguese)

Could you tell me the meaning of that word and phrase in Greek?

Yes, most interpretations are fairly correct (minus the Portuguese google translate) but I guess the problem is that the English and the Spanish version apparently don’t give the full translation of the paragraph? Or if they do, perhaps it’s that you linked τρεφόμενος directly to the sexual meaning of the paragraph, which is not correct.

Τρεφόμενος indeed means fed, nourished and also raised / brought up (because raising a young person includes first and foremost nourishing them well). It can also mean hosted somewhere where food and other provisions are well supplied, depending on the context. Lastly, just like it largely happens in Greek, it can also be used liberally figuratively (i.e fed by their fury, curiosity and numerous other possibilities).

The sexual intercourse here is not conveyed through τρεφόμενος but through the verb μίγνυται, which exactly means “to be mixed, to mingle with” and conveys the meaning of sexual intercourse in a way that is typical of polite Greek. In modern, συνουσιάζεται is used instead, which similarly means “mix substances and become one substance”.

So, the exact translation of the text until the first comma, which is what interests us here for the topic in question, goes like this:

κἀκεῖ τρεφόμενος

And as he is raised / hosted / fed there

τῇ Λυκομήδους θυγατρὶ Δηιδαμείᾳ μίγνυται

he copulates with Deidamia, daughter of Lycomedes

PS: The original Greek is closer to the Spanish lay with, but in fact it means exactly what I said above (get mixed, mingle, become one). The English “have an intrigue” is putting it way too gently lol

[tanadrin]

watkins' thesis is actually a bit more subtle than i made it out to be: "a hero kills a dragon" is so globally common as a mythic trope that it's damn near universal; what he's interested in is specific formulas and phrasing inherited by different branches of the indo-european family. and he makes a pretty good argument that there are enough shared pieces of etymology used in specific enough ways that you can talk about a coherent, common indo-european mythology of the dragon-killing hero or storm god, which in its fullest expression involves using a specific magical weapon.

but he refers to the possible ur-weapon of Indo-European myth as the "Mace of Contract"--the god-killing lightning weapon trope i was remembering is north european, but not specifically germanic, and indeed possibly not specifically indo-european.

[saltygilmores]

THOUGHTS WHILE WATCHING GILMORE GIRLS: S3/EP4/ONE’S GOT CLASS THE OTHER ONE DYES (PART 4- THE KAREN-ING)

Lane's hair has now been sufficiently purpled, and the deed has been documented with a quaint Polaroid camera, but then she hears her mother's footsteps and descends into a panic spiral. She sends Rory back to the beauty supply store to buy black hair dye. Shane is on the phone with someone as a customer approaches (her manager, Cynthia, is chill with it). Let's listen.

Shane is clearly talking to Jess, Rory knows it, and the missing object in question is absofuckinglutely her discarded bra, because Salty says so. Salty declares that this is actualy a delicious nugget of foreshadowing to that future scene where Rory finds a bra in the backseat of Jess' car.

Rory! Cover your virgin ears! Your innocent little mind can't possibly process whatever filth you're about to hear!

She goes on to tell Jess that she feels too bloaty to eat, on the other end of the line Jess presumably disputes that bloaty is a word, , she insists to him that bloaty is valid because she says so. Jess says something on the other line that causes Shane to call him a jerk. Hearing Shane discuss this made up word makes Rory incredibly angry for some reason and she proceeds to go FullMegaKaren on her. Is that the real reason he offed Shane and fed her to the swans? An etymology argument or a game of Scrabble gone horribly wrong? Let's get ready to see Rory Karen like she has never Karen'd before.

Hang it up Shane, you have a Mini Karen at your register and she's clearly not interested in hearing about when, where, and how you like to get off. Narrator: Rory Gilmore did indeed, have all day, because she had no job.

Adult Rory in 2023: "This coupon for 50 cents off black hair dye expired in 2002, but I demand you honor it. *Reading name tag* Shane, is it? Well, Shane, I would like to speak with your manager." Rory never met a blond girl secure in her sexuality or another teenager with a job that she didn't like. I swear to god Rory, it would be in your best interests to be nice to this girl, because you know Jess is going to discard her soon enough (yeeting her into a lake) so if you want Jess for yourself that badly in the future, you should be asking her for advice. (failing that, Madelyn and Louise). In the greatest and as far as I'm fucking concerned only Slutty Philadelphia Jess fic, Stop Thinking You're The Only Option, Rory befriends a girl who gives her advice on how to give proper handjobs and blowjobs. And Rory listens. And Jess is grateful. She's not going to get that kind of useful information from Lane or her mother. I'm just sayin. Shane is a modern woman and she reads Cosmo.

Cynthia! Get in here! We have a Code Karen! Threat Level 5! And it clearly was a business call. When it comes to middday booty calls, Shane is all business. Seriously, what the fuck Rory? What set you off into this MegaKaren Mode? You can't handle a little friendly competition now, good luck at Yale, sister.

Per The Oxford English Dictionary: "There is one meaning in OED's entry for the adjective bloaty. This word is now obsolete. It is only recorded in the early 1700s." Not only is Shane a future homocide victim, she's also a time traveler. But she is technically correct. The best kind of correct. Ready for one of the lamest AmyShermanPalladino penned insults ever put to paper?

It's no “I’m not fighting you, it would be like fighting an accountant! I’ll call you when I need my taxes done!” (Dean to Tristan) but it's up there. You know it's a good thing Shane doesn't work at Luke's or somewhere else that Rory likes to eat or she'd be spitting in her food (like what Jess does to Dean's food whenever he comes in to Luke's).

Moments after this incident, Shane calls her manager Cynthia and they slap up a sign next to the register with Rory's photo that says "Do not sell to this person".

[bacteriashowdown]

Actinomycetota

Group: Terrabacteria

Gram-stain: Positive

Etymology: For Actinomyces bovis. From the Greek "aktis", meaning "ray", and "myketes", meaning "fungus". Some bacteria in this phylum form fungus-like branched colonies, hence the name: "ray fungus". Note the similarity to mycelium networks.

About: Actinomycetota contains tuberculosis (Mycobacterium tuberculosis), the leading cause of death by bacterial infection. It is also the second leading cause of death by any infectious disease, only surpassed by COVID-19. Many other members of the genus Mycobacterium are also pathogenic, such as Mycobacterium leprae, which is responsible for Hansen's disease (better known as leprosy).

But Actinomycetota is far from all bad. In fact, it is possibly the most studied and used bacterial phylum in terms of medical, agricultural, environmental, and biotechnological applications. Actinomycetota play a huge role in nutrient cycling in soil ecosystems, making them crucial for maintaining the health of soil. They are therefore a pillar of modern agriculture. Some Actinomycetota are nitrogen-fixing, and can be symbiotic with trees. The phylum is also a source of antibiotics, especially with the genus Streptomyces: these bacteria naturally produce several antimicrobials (including streptomycin), and thus have use both in medicine and as a natural pesticide against other microorganisms in the soil.

Actinomycetota colonies have long been noted to resemble those of fungi, and early researchers originally believed that this phylum was a fungi. Indeed, Actinomycetota and fungi share similar roles, being largely decomposers. However, the much smaller Actinomycetota fill their own ecological niche.

In terms of reproduction, Actinomycetota and fungi are especially similar. Actinomycetota produce spores, but not just endospores: they also form spores using external structures called "hyphae". Hyphae are branched, filamentous structures that make up what is called a "mycelium", and can have a variety of shapes. Many hyphae, including those in Actinomycetota, are reproductive structures that subdivide to create spores. This is a process ubiquitous among fungi but limited to pretty much only the Actinomycetota phylum of bacteria. The below image depicts some possible hyphae structures in Streptomyces bacteria: 

In addition to all this, Actinomycetota may contain the oldest living organisms on earth, which could have been frozen in Siberian or Antarctic ice for thousands (or millions) of years. While Actinomycetota do produce durable endospores, it is also theorized that they may also be able to survive in a frozen but non-dormant state: not reproducing, but still metabolizing, and thus being able to repair their DNA.

While the theory is speculative, evidence of metabolic activity has been detected from soil samples after more than 600,000 years of permafrost, studied under ambient conditions (i.e. not thawed to trigger endospore germination). We have actually cultivated Actinomycetota from other ancient permafrost samples, such as 28,000 year old mammoth poop.