#but this turned out okay

[paynomindtotheinsanity]

Throwing this sketch of my OC to the void ~

Yes, my AU Dib's design was based off this guy, just a little less pointy lol

[pangolinheart]

On tumbler.com at 11:30 pm EST? Have the new dnc Rhiki portrait I just touched up!

[monstermonger]

I'm convinced mama dragons carry their babies around in their mouth for protection, like how crocodiles do...

[inkskinned]

having good & true friends will literally save and protect you in a million unfathomable ways. like okay we have written so many times about lovers. but the way a platonic friend laughs and cries with you. the way they hold your hand at 14 years old and at 34. the way they keep a little silver tie to you, touching base over and over and over. how you can go years without talking, only to re-meet and discover: oh shit! you're still cool!

there are people who have been in my life for more than half of it, and i have loved every version of them. do you know how fucking beautiful that is. yeah love will save the world. but the way friends love you is gonna save the you.

[eydilily]

Flee with extra flee!

[mroddmod]

everyone be quiet i'm manifesting

[demigod-of-the-agni]

Quick little drawing of our favourite queer Spideys 😌

Guys you can use this as a banner or a background or a header or whatever, as long as it’s credited you’re free to do so <333

[akanemnon]

Despite everything, it's still you.

FIRST - PREVIOUS - NEXT

MASTERPOST (for the full series / FAQ / reference sheets)

[wanderingibon]

" I noticed that you've been smiling more, Lucanis. "

" ...Have I? ...Si, I suppose I have been. "

[stromblessed]

Mizu, femininity, and fallen sparrows

In my last post about Mizu and Akemi, I feel like I came across as overly critical of Mizu given that Mizu is a woman who - in her own words - has to live as a man in order to go down the path of revenge.

If she is ever discovered to be female by the wrong person, she will not only be unable to complete her quest, but there's a good chance that she'll be arrested or killed.

So it makes complete sense for Mizu to distance herself as much as possible from any behavior that she feels like would make someone question her sex.

I felt so indignant toward Mizu on my first couple watchthroughs for this moment. Why couldn't Mizu bribe the woman and her child's way into the city too? If Mizu is presenting as a man, couldn't she claim to be the woman's escort?

However, this moment makes things pretty clear. Mizu knows all too well the plight of women in her society. She knows it so well that she cannot risk ever finding herself back in their position again. She helps in what little way she can - without drawing attention to herself.

Mizu is not a hero and she is not one to make of herself a martyr - she will not set herself on fire to keep others warm. There's room to argue that Mizu shouldn't prioritize her quest over people's lives, but given the collateral damage Mizu can live with in almost every episode of season 1, Mizu is simply not operating under that kind of morality at this point. ("You don't know what I've done to reach you," Mizu tells Fowler.)

And while I still feel like Mizu has an obvious and established blind spot when it comes to Akemi because of their differences in station, such that Mizu's judgment of Akemi and actions in episode 5 are the result of prejudice rather than the result of Mizu's caution, I also want to establish that Mizu is just as caged as Akemi is, despite her technically having more freedom while living as a man.

Mizu can hide her mixed race identity some of the time, and she can hide her sex almost all of the time, but being able to operate outside of her society's strict rules for women does not mean she cannot see their plight.

It does not mean she doesn't hurt for them.

Back to Mizu and collateral damage, remember that sparrow?

While Mizu is breaking into Boss Hamata's manse, she gets startled by a bird and kills it on reflex. She then cradles it in her hands - much more tenderly than we've seen Mizu treat almost anything up to this point in the season:

She then puts it in its nest, with its unhatched eggs. Almost like she's trying to make the death look natural. Or like an accident.

You see where I'm going with this.

When Mizu kills Kinuyo, Mizu lingers in the moment, holding the body tenderly:

And btw a lot of stuff about this show hit me hard, but this remains the biggest gut punch of them all for me, Mizu holding that poor girl's body close, GOD

When Mizu arranges the "scene of the crime," Kinuyo's body is delicate, birdlike. And Mizu is so shaken afterward that she gets sloppy. She's horrified at this kill to the point that she can't bring herself to take another innocent life - the boy who rats her out.

MIZU'S ONE MOMENT OF SOFTNESS AND MERCY, COMING ON THE HEELS OF HER NEEDING TO KILL A GIRL TO SPARE HER THE WORST FATE THAT THIS RIGID SOCIETY HAS TO OFFER WOMEN, AND TO SPARE A BROTHEL FULL OF INNOCENT WOMEN WHO ARE THE CASTOFFS OF SOCIETY, NEARLY RESULTS IN ALL OF THEIR DEATHS

No wonder Mizu is as stoic and cold as she is.

And no wonder Mizu has no patience for Akemi whatsoever right before the terrible reveal and the fight breaks out:

Speaking of Akemi - guess who else is compared to a bird!

The plumage is more colorful, a bit flashier. But a bird is a bird.

And, uh

Yeah.

I like to think that Mizu killing the sparrow is not only foreshadowing for what she must do to Kinuyo, but is also a representation of the choice she makes on Akemi's behalf. She decides to cage the bird because she believes the bird is "better off." Better off caged than... dead.

But because Mizu doesn't know Akemi or her situation, she of course doesn't realize that the bird is fated to die if it is caged and sent back home.

Mizu is clearly not happy, or pleased, or satisfied by allowing Akemi to be dragged back to her father:

But softness and mercy haven't gotten Mizu anywhere good, recently.

There is so much tragedy layered into Mizu's character, and it includes the things she has to witness and the choices she makes - or believes she has to make - involving women, when she herself can skirt around a lot of what her society throws at women. Although, I do believe that it comes at the cost of a part of Mizu's soul.

After all, I'm gonna be haunted for the rest of this show by Mizu's very first prayer in episode 1:

"LET" her die. Because as Ringo points out, she doesn't "know how" to die.

Kind of like another bird in this show:

[radioroxx]

this is kerdly 2 me. btw

[egophiliac]

So.... what are your thoughts on Ace's UM, if you haven't been asked this already?

sneaky magic for the sneakiest boy

no but really, I think it fits him really well! I had thought his UM would probably involve something kinda sleight-of-handy or pickpockety! and I looooved that it made such a nice loop-around back to episode 1. ❤️ I was. kind of half-expecting him to just run out and punch Riddle in the nose again. but instead this time 'twas he who offed the queen's head! it was great! and he did it while stone-cold terrified out of his mind! because Ace is the only remotely normal or well-adjusted person at NRC and therefore the only one who is like "we're going to literally die, this is super effed up". but he did it anyway!!!! I AM SO PROUD

[suja-janee]

I’ve been losing my mind over these guys recently

[waveoftheocean]

something something superbat sneaking off at a gala 🫣

[queerdraws]

Fanart for a snippet of my most favorite heartbreaking moment from swordsmans's fic bone-breaker ospreys mate for life (rated E)

[lingthusiasm]

101 places to get enthusiastic about linguistics

In honour of Lingthusiasm's 100th episodiversary, we've compiled this list of 101 public-facing places where linguists and linguistics nerds hang out and learn things! 

17 podcasts about linguistics

Lingthusiasm — A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics! 

The Vocal Fries — Language discrimination and how to fight it

The History of English — From Proto-Indo-European to Shakespeare in 180 episodes (and still running!)

A Language I Love Is — Guests (some linguists, some not) talk about languages they love and why

En Clair — Forensic linguistics and literary detection

Because Language — New guests every episode discuss their linguistic interests

The Allusionist — Stories about language and the people who use it 

Subtitle — A podcast about languages and the people who speak them

Field Notes — Five seasons on linguistic fieldwork 

Tomayto Tomahto — Language meets cog sci, politics, history, law, anthropology, and more

Word of Mouth — A long-running and wide-ranging linguistics program on BBC 4.

Words Unravelled - A new and very well edited etymology podcast with popular creators RobWords and Jess Zafarris

Something Rhymes with Purple — Learn the background behind another word or phrase each episode

Lexitecture — A classic etymology podcast with a huge back catalogue

A Way with Words — A "lively and upbeat" public radio call-in show about language and culture

Språket — A radio program in Swedish answering listener questions about language. We don't speak Swedish, but this was the most-mentioned non-English content in our listener survey!

Living Voices — A podcast in Spanish about endangered languages of the Amazon

12 nonfiction books about linguistics

Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language by Gretchen McCulloch (Amazon; Bookshop) — A linguist shows how the internet is transforming the way we communicate

How Language Works: How Babies Babble, Words Change Meaning and Languages Live or Die (Amazon; Bookshop) by David Crystal — A journey through the different subsystems of language 

That's Not What I Meant!: How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks Relationships by  Deborah Tannen (Amazon; Bookshop) — A pioneering researcher on conversations gives advice on how they can go wrong

Memory Speaks: On Losing and Reclaiming Language and Self by Julie Sedivy (Amazon; Bookshop) — Scientific and personal reflections on nostalgia, forgetting, and language loss

The Art of Language Invention: From Horse-Lords to Dark Elves to Sand Worms, the Words Behind World-Building by David J Peterson (Amazon; Bookshop) — an accessible guide to making your own conlang 

Highly Irregular: Why Tough, Through, and Dough Don't Rhyme—And Other Oddities of the English Language by Arika Okrent (Amazon; Bookshop) — The history behind English's many oddities

Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language by Amanda Montell (Amazon; Bookshop) — A well-researched pushback on sexist language ideology

Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper (Amazon; Bookshop) — A lifelong lexicographer discusses the job and the things she's learned along the way 

Lingo: Around Europe in Sixty Languages by Gaston Dorren (Amazon; Bookshop) — A quick, funny tour of the quirks of 60 European languages

Bina: First Nations Languages, Old and New by Felicity Meakins, Gari Tudor-Smith, and Paul Williams (Amazon; Bookshop) — The story of Australian indigenous languages' resistance and survival

Says Who?: A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words by Anne Curzan (Amazon; Bookshop) — A writers' style and grammar guide focused on real usage, not made-up rules

The Language Lover's Puzzle Book: A World Tour of Languages and Alphabets in 100 Amazing Puzzles by Alex Bellos (Amazon; Bookshop) — Solve puzzles about writing, grammar, and meaning drawn from real and fictional languages

Poems from the Edge of Extinction: An Anthology of Poetry in Endangered Languages (Amazon; Bookshop) — An anthology of poems in endangered languages, with commentary

6 linguistically-inspired novels

Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by R.F. Kuang (Amazon; Bookshop) — Imagine a world where linguistics was as vital — and as ethically compromised — as engineering is in ours

True Biz by Sara Nović (Amazon; Bookshop) — Love, friendship, and struggle at a residential high school for the Deaf

Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by by Mark Dunn (Amazon; Bookshop) — "A progressively lipogrammatic epistolary fable" full of wordplay and weirdness

Semiosis by Sue Burke (Amazon; Bookshop) — Human space colonists communicate with sentient plants

Translation State by Ann Leckie (Amazon; Bookshop) — What does life look like for a perfectly genetically engineered alien–human translator? (Spoiler: weird, that's what.)

Stories of your Life and Others by Ted Chiang (Amazon; Bookshop) — Includes the long short story that became Arrival, plus other reflections on humanity and change

13 linguistics youtube channels

Crash Course Linguistics — A whole linguistics course in 16 videos

Tom Scott's Language Files — Pithy language facts explained quickly and clearly

NativLang — Language reconstruction and the history of writing

Geoff Lindsay — Facts (and some scholarly opinions) about regional English pronunciation

The Ling Space — An educational channel all about linguistics

langfocus — A language factoid channel that digs deeper than many

K Klein — Language quirks, spelling reform, and a little conlanging

biblaridion — Teaching about conlanging and worldbuilding, with lots of linguistics along the way

RobWords — "A channel for lovers and learners of English"

Otherwords — "the fascinating, thought-provoking, and funny stories behind the words and sounds we take for granted"

LingoLizard — Widely spoken languages and their quirks, comparisons, and history

linguriosa — Spanish linguistics (in Spanish), including learning tips and linguistic history

human1011 — Quick accessible facts about linguistics (and sometimes other things) 

Simon Roper — Language evolution and historical English pronunciation

10 shortform video channels about linguistics (tiktok/reels)

etymologynerd — Internet speak, etymologies and more! (reels)

linguisticdiscovery — Writing systems, language families, and more (reels)

jesszafaris — Fun facts about words, etymologies, and more (reels)

cmfvoices — An audiobook director talks about the linguistics of voice acting (eels)

mixedlinguist — A linguistics professor comments on the language of place, identity, politics, technology, and more (reels)

landontalks — Linguistic quirks of the US South (reels)

sunnmcheaux — Language and culture from Harvard's first and only professor of Gullah (reels)

dexter.mp4 — Talks about many branches of science, but loves linguistics enough to have a linguisticsy tattoo (reels)

danniesbrain — Linguistics and psychology from a researcher who studies both (reels)

wordsatwork — Quick facts on languages, families, and linguistic concepts (reels)

the_language — The Ojibwe language — plus food, dancing, and more