#i lost my mind a long time ago

[hipsternumbertwo]

um, excuse me???

[soarinsugar-homerblog]

Ever seen a terrible take on The Odyssey? Ever seen an opinion so bad it makes you want to rip your hair out? Well now you can play Bingo with bad takes!

(I swear I have some semblance of sanity)

[darewolfcreates]

When I tell you my jaw dropped.

[secondbeatsongs]

iCarly Meta, Part 5: Socko, Nominative Determinism, and How I Spend My Free Time

so, you may remember that I've made four separate iCarly posts before, because I am just way too into this dorky, ridiculous children's show.

well, over a year ago, I wrote this fifth one. and after some introspection, some really deep self-evaluation about what I want and where I'm going in life, I've decided that it's time to share it with the world at large

so...let's talk about Socko's family!

to catch you up: Socko is Spencer's best friend, who designs all of the fun socks that Spencer wears! he's first mentioned in s01e07 (iScream on Halloween), though some of his socks are shown as early as s01e02 (iWant More Viewers).

(technical note: production-wise, s01e09 is listed before s01e07, and I think that was intended to be Socko's introduction, and it would make sense, considering how Spencer describes him in that ep. but I can't prove this, and so we move on.)

while Socko is mentioned consistently throughout the show, he's never fully shown on screen. but, he does technically appear in an episode, because you can see part of his arm in s04e11-s04e13 (iParty with Victorious) when he hands Spencer the keys to his van.

Spencer and Socko have known each other since at least 1999 (as mentioned in s02e12, iRocked the Vote) when Spencer would have been 17 or 18. and despite Socko almost never being shown, it's clear that he spends a lot of time with Spencer, and that they're close. if Spencer needs something, Socko is always willing to call in a favor from one of his family members.

and boy, does Socko have a lot of very interesting family members.

let's go over some of them real quick:

Bernie is a welder, Otto is a used car salesman, Tyler designs neckties, Taylor is a tailor, Rob is a thief, Arty is an artist, Isaac is an optometrist, and Ryder is a motorcycle enthusiast.

are we noticing a pattern here?

every single one of these is an aptronym – a personal name that is aptly or peculiarly suited to its owner. and since all of these people are in some way related, this is fascinating to me.

it seems like Socko's family is really into nominative determinism – the idea that people tend to gravitate towards areas of work that fit their names. whether or not this is true of people in real life is unclear, but in the universe of iCarly, this is something that Socko's family is all about.

when did it start, I wonder? who was the first in the family to have a job or hobby that related directly to their name? and who continued that pattern? because someone named Bernard going by "Bernie" and taking up welding is one thing, but an entire family of people going into fields that have to do with their names is unsettling.

is this on purpose, now? do the parents in Socko's family choose names for their children based on what they want them to be? is there an expectation that each child will have to choose a profession based on what their parents name them?

I think there is. and I think it's fucked up.

imagine growing up knowing that your name would control your future career options. that no matter how you felt about your name, choosing a career or hobby that matched it is what would make your parents happy. that at least some portion of your parents' love is tied to the idea that you will be what they named you.

and depending on the name, the kids aren't always left with a lot of options! someone named Bernie could be a welder, a woodburning artist, a firefighter, etc...but for Taylor, there's really only one path to take.

what if a kid is trans? I just have to wonder, would they be judged more for not identifying with their assigned sex at birth, or for changing their name?

and one of Socko's cousins is named Mary. think about that with me for a second – Mary.

imagine that the only dream your parents have for you is that you get married. and not just fall in love! no, you were given this name because their express purpose, their biggest hope for you is that you get legally married.

what if Mary had been gay? what if she grew up with fear in her heart, knowing that the only thing her parents had ever wanted from her wasn't possible, was actually illegal, because of who she was?

or what if she had been aro, or ace, or just otherwise not interested in relationships? or what if she was interested in relationships, but not the serious, legal commitment of marriage?

my hope here (my one fragile hope) is that Rob, Mary, and Josh are siblings, and that their parents were trying to escape this part of the family legacy. maybe they named their kids Robert, Marian, and Joshua, and tried to steer clear of any obvious career choices – but then their sons started going by "Josh" and "Rob" and causing trouble, and "Mary" started talking about her upcoming wedding, and they knew that they would never be free of the family curse.

'cause it's gotta be a curse, right? I feel like at this point, it has to be.

but hey, worry not! because I think there are some loopholes.

Penny, for example, had a lot of choices – she could have minted coins, or built fences, or designed ball-point pens, or been a cashier (etc, etc). but she didn't do any of those things! she started a t-shirt company, and made shirts with fun phrases on them like "church pants" and "parole baby" and "chest words" (all shirts I would wear for real).

her job didn't have anything to do with her name – but she still followed the family pattern. she named her t-shirt company "Penny-Tees", and sewed a single penny into each of her shirts. instead of finding a name-based occupation, she made her own.

I really think it's brilliant – she got to do what she wanted, and her parents couldn't complain, because it still suited her name! and if this pattern is curse-based, she found a way around it by following it to the letter (but not exactly the spirit), and because of this, she got to make her own choices.

and speaking of jobs that may or may not suit one's name: let's talk about Socko.

early in the show when we're introduced to him, we know three things about him:

he knows where to find huge pumpkins

he sells Spencer all of his wacky socks

his name is Socko

but, thinking about that third point…is it?

like, is his name actually Socko?

let's look at Socko's family tree for a moment:

(ID in alt text)

(yes, I made this. it took over two days. I skimmed through many episodes, looked through a large amount of the old iCarly website on the Wayback Machine, and as far as I know, this is canon accurate.)

(shhh, this was absolutely a valuable use of my time. don't worry about it.)

look at his family. look at the names.

almost all of them are, well…normal names. names that could belong to any acquaintance, friend, or relative in your own everyday life.

the only real exceptions here are Freight Dog, Boomer, and Dr. Paxil – but if we're being real? "Freight Dog" is almost definitely a nickname, "Paxil" isn't that strange-sounding of a surname, and I have actually seen people named "Boomer".

so that just leaves…Socko.

"Socko" is not a people name. it sounds mean, but I don't know how else to word that – it's just not a name for a human person.

it would be a great name for a cat or a dog (especially if they had paws that were a different color from their body – man, that'd be so cute!), but it is not a name that many parents would willingly give to a human child. especially when all of the other siblings in the family have relatively normal names.

my theory, my hottest take: I don't think "Socko" is his legal name.

think about it: Socko and every single one of his siblings went into the fashion industry. even accounting for the fact that they probably wanted Penny to have a different career, would Socko's parents really want all three of their other children going into the same industry, especially one as tumultuous and challenging as fashion design?

I think not. I think they gave Socko a different name, one that they believed would lead him down a completely distinct career path. and then, like Penny, Socko found his own true calling – but instead of changing his occupation to match his name? he changed his name to match his occupation.

it is my belief that Socko's birth name…the name his parents gave him…

(drumroll please)

…was "Socrates".

now hold on, just stay with me here. because I swear that this does make sense, really!

so, back at the beginning of this post I mentioned nominative determinism, but that term wasn't actually used until 1994. before then, it was called "onomastic determinism" or "die verpflichtung des namens" ("the obligation of the name"), but it wasn't really…a thing? it wasn't something that people really studied, and when they did, nobody could seem to come to a solid conclusion about whether or not your name does actually influence your career choice.

I think that in some way, Socko's parents wanted an answer. they wanted an explanation as to why their family tree reads like a joke book. and by naming their kid "Socrates", they were sending that question out into the world, hoping for a response.

because there were really two options here – either Socko would grow up to be a philosopher, someone who could search for meaning in the pattern of family job-finding, or he wouldn't. and if he didn't, if he threw off the shackles of his name and did something else entirely, then that in itself would be an answer.

and sure, maybe his parents should have thought about how "Socrates" might be abbreviated. maybe they should have considered that he could grow up to design socks. but hindsight is 20/20, and I don't know if that's something any parent would expect of their child, so I won't hold that against them.

I will however, judge them for naming two of their kids "Taylor" and "Tyler" – like, my god. can you imagine how often people got them mixed up? it's inhumane.

even worse if they were twins! though actually, that would make some kind of twisted sense – to give twins names that not only match, but that would lead them to careers in the same industry. maybe they wanted them to go into business together? hoo boy.

anyway, sorry, I've gone off-topic. back to Socko – or should I say, Socrates.

"Socrates" is a pretty fun name. two parts of it are σῶς (sôs, “safe and sound”) and κράτος (krátos, “power”), which is an interesting name meaning for a dude who was executed for corrupting the youth.

(I'm talking about the philosopher here – as far as I know, Socko from iCarly was not executed for corrupting the youth. at least, not yet.)

and if we keep thinking about Socrates (the philosopher), I think there's another reason that this name fits: we know fuck-all about Socrates.

sure, he's well-known – lots of people know about his ideas, and the Socratic method – but…he never actually wrote anything. everything we think we know about him, we learned from somebody else.

all of Socrates' interests, his skills, his beliefs? they were all things we learned from Plato, Xenophon, or (I guess) Aristophanes. we have no idea what the dude was actually like, outside of that.

just like we have no idea what Socko is like, outside of what Spencer says.

Socrates is a vital figure in the history of western philosophy, but all of the things we know about him are altered by the opinions of other people, filtered through the lenses of their perception.

and Socko is a vital character in the show iCarly, but all of the things we know about him – his hobbies, his opinions, his wants – are things we've heard second-hand from Spencer.

(you're laughing. Spencer Shay is a stand-in for Plato, and you're laughing.)

so in a very fun way, Socko (Socrates) did live up to his name…by being unknown to us, the audience.

us, watching this TV show the way chained prisoners watch shadows dance on the wall of a cave.

continuing down this rabbit hole…does this mean that one of the iCarly crew is Aristotle?

no…perhaps that's taking it too far.

(it'd be Gibby)

final notes:

I haven't seen all of the iCarly reboot yet (I'm on episode 3! I have mixed feelings, but I think one of the writers ships the thing that I ship, so that's fun), so if it mentions something about Socko lore, I unfortunately do not know about it.

fun fact: the ancient Greeks did often have names that were meant to have sway on their lives! for example: Hedistē ("most delightful"), Demotimos ("honored among the people"), Hippodamas ("horse-tamer"), Nikomachē ("victorious in battle").

additional fun fact: I asked one of the mods of the iCarly wiki, and they said I could put the family tree I made on the page for Socko's Family! :D

look! it's my thing! the thing that I made! how cool is that?!

(I'll be real; I am way too proud of this)

yes, two of Socko's family members have inaptronyms instead of aptronyms: Harry (bald) and Jean (allergic to denim). but in my mind, they still count – the names are still weirdly suited to their specific lives.

since I'm pretty sure "Freight Dog" is a nickname, I also took a crack at what I think his legal name might be. my theory? "Aaron".

(get it? Aaron? because he's in the air? okay, I'll see myself out.)

anyway, my new hobby is coming up with more family members for Socko to have. descend with me into the deepest reaches of The Headcanon Zone, and behold:

Lisa: She's a landlord (she leases apartments). Socko hates her.

Barry: A big ol' bear of a man. Or he could work for Gund or Build-a-Bear or something. That could be fun!

Mike: Audio technician

Amy: Sharpshooter

Summer: Camp counselor

Tony: Orthopedist. (toe-knee)

Marty: Owns and operates a supermarket

and because it's fun, my friend @wonderbound joined in and came up with these super great ones:

Drew: Illustrator

Cody: Programmer or hacker

Pete: Bryologist (he studies moss!)

Norm: He's just a guy

Flo: Plumber – or maybe, an expert in fluid dynamics

Hattie: Milliner (she makes hats)

Howl: Werewolf (or perhaps, the owner of a moving castle 👀)

Will: Estate planning attorney (he writes wills)

anyway, I think that's about it. thanks for coming with me on this adventure! I hope it was as much of a rollercoaster to read as it was to write, because yeah, it was a weird one over here.

I mean, it started out normal? but then the next thing I knew, I had gotten invested, made nine edits to the iCarly wiki, and designed that whole family tree. so I think maybe I went a little overboard with this one. xD

tune in next time, for…I dunno. I think my brain needs a break after that. but, eventually I would love to write more meta! just…maybe not all for iCarly? I have some things to say about Gravity Falls that I think are gonna blow your minds.

(not really; I just think it's great)

[skinnypaleangryperson]

A couple of years ago, I was squealing to my one best friend about my dreams of having a family one day and how family oriented I was, and told them about my child OC with Arthur fleck.

3 years later and I haven't had a friend sense, I've been an alcoholic, I've been hospitalized, I'm so bitter and mentally ill every day I can really even function or even perceive reality, and I am unhealthily obsessed with self-shipping with Rick Sanchez, main reason being because we are both old alone and bitter and nothing in our lives worked out on a personal family level.

Never give up on your dreams, birds.

[hauntingofhouses]

i think fandoms can be soooo ridiculous a lot of the time (see: all the nonsensical fan wars, discourse, etc) but i cannot understate how much i actually love fandoms.

like yeah it may be super nerdy and even cringe and outsiders look at it like "why tf do you care about these fictional characters so much?"

but 1) my field is literally..... literary studies..... in which all i do is study fiction and analyse it like an insane person, and 2) even if that WASN'T my field, thinking about the stories we consume is important even for any person to do, because thinking about stories exercises our brain to think critically!! why do you think our ancestors used stories as a medium to share knowledge, to propagate moral values and lessons? stories—telling them, thinking about what they're saying, and caring about the characters within them—are all inherent to the human experience!!!

so that brings me to fandom. because we are literally just making these little communities with each other based on our shared love for a particular story, and for a particular character or theme within them that resonated with us, or whatever. we're all here because we loved a thing so much that we built connections from it!!!

like yeah my irl friends laugh at me when i tell them i write fanfic, cuz ha ha what a nerd what a loser etc, but dude. i made genuine real friendships from fandom alone. from just obsessing over two characters we thought were cute together, we've gone to sending each other gifts and postcards and having voice calls and confiding in each other and sharing parts of us and our personal lives and our cultures (cuz we're all from different countries) with each other! like now i don't even share a fandom with most of my old fandom friends anymore but we still stick by each other and that's amazing???

also like, i cannot emphasise enough how amazing and encouraging it is to share your craft (art/writing/etc) with others in fandom. because for example if i make my own personal art or write my own original work, i'd have no one to share it to, no one interested to see it, and thus no one will be there to provide feedback or encouragement.

but if i post a piece of fan art or fanfic, people actually do see the work i post and care about the craft and the content it's depicting and even share their thoughts on it and that ??? is so motivating and lovely ??? because even though i make art for myself, art is still meant to be shared and seen at the end of the day—even if only with one person. so to be given the means of sharing our art in such a way, to have such a community that fosters so much creativity, it's amazing. i don't really get that anywhere else.

and especially to have this in like, a casual setting, you know, where you can just be yourself and do things according to your own time and energy without the pretenses of professionalism and a perfectly curated resume or portfolio, and all the confines of a rigid work schedule, which would all make the process of creation less fun and less genuine, and instead just more taxing and chore-like.

because fandom is essentially meant to be about doing what's fun for you! it's about sharing your creations and enjoying what others share with you. you make friends and you go ham with it.

and also it's why it's more frustrating when people take things too seriously and legitimately get upset over assumptions of other people's beliefs and hold the most minor grievances that could only be felt if you're like, chronically online.

but on that note, there are definitely still honest-to-god bad people in fandom spaces too (see: racists, TERFS, homophobes, groomers, harassers, etc). but that's the case with all communities, because bad people are always going to exist, and thus statistically speaking, the bigger a group or community is, higher chances are there's gonna be some awful people in there. but honestly that is its own can of worms and also that's not what this post is about, but i felt it necessary to address because i don't want to paint fandom as like, the best thing ever in the world, because fandom spaces are incredibly flawed, as everything is.

but i've always been one to appreciate things despite its flaws. and though this may be very personal to me, when i love things so much, i am still willing to stick around and try to change the culture around it in the ways that i can (like promoting internet safety measures, creating safe spaces for thoughtful and polite discussion, raising awareness on harmful stereotypes and fandom depictions or opinions, etc).

so regardless of the bullshit that online fandom spaces tend to perpetuate, i do very much still love the way that fandom allows me to connect with folks over something as silly as our little blorbos, and from there end up making life-long friends, or at the very least new acquaintances. insert reinforcement of my thesis statement about stories fostering human connection here. the end. send post.

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

the higher-ups (and Yaga) immediately trying to leverage Gojo & Ieri's absence to put Yuuta on the roster??? God that's such a stark moment. Thank god Nanami and Gojo saw through that one immediately, because Yuuta wants to justify his own survival so badly he would've fallen straight into it.

That whole scene, with Yuuta immediately jumping on the opportunity to help people even though something is Extremely Wrong with him and he's on the brink of physical collapse--this boy is selfless to the point of self destruction and I am chewing the drywall about it. I love him so much.

If only he was able to summon his newly found homicidal rage in defense of himself, the higher-ups would no longer be a problem. Alas, this boy is Extremely Unwell.

(Sea Glass Gardens is absolutely incredible and i am obsessed with it in a way that is totally and 100% normal. I'm so normal about it, trust me <3 )

The thing about Yuuta is that he really is prime to be taken advantage of right now and the higher ups know it. They had him try to kill himself for them--they know that there's a window of opportunity that they can use to get him under their thumb and avoid The Problem of Gojo, which is, namely, having a human weapon who you cannot fully control. Gojo nailed it from the beginning: they want a magic gatling gun with no personality or free will. They learned their lesson with Gojo and are trying to rob Yuuta of his agency before he learns how to protect himself.

And Yaga's part in that scene really was meant to kind of emphasize how, even with the best intention's, he just doesn't work to protect the kids. Like. everything he said was technically true, and he meant it with the best of intentions. He's the guy who has to think of everyone's needs. he has to manage this crisis. he's got a lot of people hurt badly who just came out of a war, and a lot of people going into fights with some very aggravated curses spawning without sufficient manpower to address the danger and no healer to save them if they cut it a little too close. He didn't have the intention of manipulating or sacrificing Yuuta, but he was aware that it would come to his detriment and risk.

The issue is the higher ups. They don't give a shit about the people in their workforce. They should be the ones doing whatever it takes to solve this crisis and save their people--and if that means giving up on their machinations? They should have already done it. It's their responsibility.

They just don't care. They want Okkotsu Yuuta under their thumb, and their society hemorrhaging is treated like an opportunity, not a dire problem to be solved. They don't care if half a dozen of their own people need to die to do it. Hell, it's better if they do die--they can put it straight on Okkotsu for not being willing to sacrifice himself, when they should have been making whatever promises they had to in order to make this work.

Gojo's done this before, is the thing. He was Yuuta, a long time ago. Nanami was right there watching it happen. They both know what the higher ups do: They let society get to a crisis level and put all the responsibility on you to save it. they let you maneuver yourself into a vulnerable position as a result, and then they use it as leverage to put their goddamn boot on your neck.

The thing is that Gojo adopting megumi all those years ago really did put them into a crisis state. the zenin pitched the mother of all bitch fits trying to secure his unconditional return, and they were a huge percentage of jujutsu society's labor force and resource pools. instead of the higher ups managing the problem at all, they took advantage of the situation and shoved more and more of its weight and responsibility onto gojo, until he was dropping off his own kid at his abusers' compound thinking it was the only compromise that could resolve things. megumi paid the price for gojo not calling bullshit, and right now, with him in a hospital bed? gojo's less willing to repeat mistakes than ever.

he knows that they're going to use the safety and suffering of everyone else as the leverage against him, and he knows that as terrible as it is, he cannot blink first. He's played this game before, and he knows that the only way to get the higher ups to back off on something like this is to dig in your heels.

I think what happened to Megumi all those years ago and how bad it got before they put a stop to it is something that haunts all three of them. When they first started raising him, they were very young, and they were very broken, and they loved him very, very much. He was their little boy, and he was never the same after the Zenin. They were supposed to protect him, and they didn't, and not a single one of them has forgiven themselves for that.

Megumi was sort of sacrificed for the greater good when he was a kid. None of them thought that that was what they were doing when it happened, but that's what happened. His happiness, safety, and wellbeing were sacrificed to pacify the Zenin and make it easier on everyone else.

Megumi and Tsumiki had to become their non-negotiables after. They had to become the things they refused to compromise on. The Zenin would take miles and miles if you gave them a millimeter, let alone an inch.

Gojo didn't think he was compromising them when he left them on their own to deal with Geto's war. They were disgustingly self-sufficient kids. They had been alone for longer stretches of time when they were practically toddlers--they should have been fine on their own for a couple of weeks.

But they were still his kids, and he still left them alone for everyone else's sake, and now his kid is blind and half dead in a hospital bed. It's like being punched in the face by old mistakes.

So they're off the roster completely, all of them. And they're not compromising an inch on what their focus is, and they're not letting anything happen to any of the other kids in their care.

It's terrible that their coworkers are suffering, but it wouldn't be happening if the Zenin hadn't fucked with Gojo Satoru's kid, of all the goddamn people. It wouldn't be happening if the higher ups would actually do their job and start managing shit.

And if they use Yuuta as an anxiety riddled bandaid on the bullet hole in their society? Then they'd be sacrificing him the way they sacrificed Megumi all those years ago. And they have never been less willing to do that.

I'm so so glad you like the story! Thank you for talking with me!

[cuteniaarts]

Fanny, my sweet, beautiful girl

17.11.2012 – 14.04.2019

[sschmendrick]

thinking about friends i left on bad terms with whom i can never go back but who i still love. But I wasn't a great person then, wouldn't even call me a good person. I'm glad to see them thrive.

Feels bittersweet to look back at things I still have from them. I wish I was a better person then. I wish I could have been better for others. But also then I wouldn't have met the people I have.

I hope they don't think about me, ever. Feels somewhat bad to be able to look back and see the good moments we had and the good person they were, because I don't think they could do that. And also I don't think I deserve that.

[redrumrose]

I don't like comparing/tagging my ocs to other original/indie content, but my gosh that latest Lackadaisy Chess animation I was just all grins and thinking 'This is so Dima and Pasha when they play chess. This is so them haha! It just escalates to arguing and violence.' xDD

[tsubakura-enraku]

the mad barrier builder

[risingsunresistance]

idea in my head: i would love to animate what the little buddies would do while you get a combo, even if it's just like 5 frame "animation" bc i'm not good at animating

problem: how do i. draw out and animate a combo. like the actual puzzle game part, how would i even start to do that. do i just leave it up to the imagination

[silasbug]

some okay..ish doodles from recent memory.

feat. me being salty about it getting too warm to wear my favorite (ridiculously oversized) brown coat. i sewed this beautiful button onto it- it's got golden oak leaves with acorns. i traded for it during my first LARP, got it in exchange for a handful of nuts and dried fruit lmao.

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[rragnaroks]

so i lost my drawing tablet's stylus a month ago and i've given up on looking for it and ordered a new one instead because i can no longer stand not to be drawing david suchet's eyes. bitch what