#it's a complex issue and that's kind of simplifying it

[solvskrift]

oh I would so so love to commission fic and compensate u properly but are we allowed to do that with copyright laws n all?

ah a very good and often asked question!

strictly speaking, no not really, but there's a spectrum of opinions on if it's an 'okay' thing to do anyway ranging from 'obviously that's technically illegal and it should never, ever happen' to 'you're simply paying someone for their time creating content that otherwise wouldn't have been made by the original creators.' it's a bit of a messy subject. tons of fan artists offer art commissions without anyone batting an eye - some people are comfortable with that, others aren't.

this reddit post is a pretty good forum discussing your exact question. one of the best ways I've seen it put is: "Generally, what I've seen is along the lines of 'hey, do you really want a specific fic to exist, without you having to write it? I can do that for you. Here are my prices, if you're interested' and then the fic, once done, is posted publicly. So, more paying for the fic to exist than the fic itself, if that makes any sense."

[growling]

Hey. I'm saying this very gently in my friendliest tone. Some people (namely mentally, developmentally and intellectually disabled people) are just straight up not able to understand politics, and that's perfectly okay and not a moral issue on their part, so don't treat it like it is.

Some people may need you to explain it to them in a very simplified, easy to understand way so they can maybe get it, some people just won't be able to understand no matter how you word it and I need you to not blow up at them for it and think they're being "willingly obtuse and ignorant of the world they're living in" or whatever. Politics is a very complex and nuanced thing that nearly everybody is gonna explain differently and have wildly different opinions on what some words or stances actually mean or should mean. And some of us just simply can't deal with that and cannot be made to do so with just the right arguments and definitions.

I'm autistic (+ my schizophrenia makes my thinking very disorganized and sometimes incomprehensible which adds to that too) and I have a LOT of difficulty with understanding and learning these kinds of very complex and nuanced discussions, and a lot of the time I'm just not able to. And that's fine and doesn't make me stupid or not putting in enough effort or imply I'm "looking away" from all the problems in society. Can some of yall stop trying to make us feel guilty or even evil for not engaging in things we are not able to grasp well or at all

[fantastic-mr-corvid]

whats the thing thats like "americans call english ppl weird then english ppl say at least their kids wont die in school shootings"

anyway i may have been passed up for an engineering opportunity for programmers but at least my area of work isnt gonna be taken over by llm and chatgpt 😁. at least in 10 years i wont have a job thats coaxing large language model's into not doing a fuck up because when only the bottom line matters who cares about good code and maintainability😁😁.

at least im not fervently in denial about the collapse of the area i want to work in😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁.

[blueskittlesart]

Hi, I’m a huge fan of your art and I wanted to know a little bit about your comics. About how long does it take you to make one, and how do you stay efficient about it? Also, how do you decide which parts are black, which are white, and which are gray? And are any parts of the process particularly difficult? I think it’s really beautiful how you can get so much across in your comics without crowding too much in each panel, like in manga for example. Also how most of them are entirely black and white. I’m asking all of this because I have a story I’ve written, and I want to turn it into a comic, which I’ve done before. But I’ve always become discouraged when I overshoot and make it way too detailed from the beginning and not be able to get that same amount of quality with more complicated panels. Thanks if you answer this.

HIIII. so the time that it takes to do like one page of comic varies for me depending on the level of finish i put into it, but i'd say not counting the scriptwriting or layout, the actual art for one page usually takes between 1-2 hours to finish. any more than that is too much for me, personally, but one of the things i've learned at art school is that i work INSANELY abnormally fast, so that kind of pace might not be sustainable for you. (i'm currently doing 5 pages a week for my thesis which is the kind of pace that kills people. it might kill me. we'll see.)

my best advice for b/w/g placement is to have an idea of what you want your finished panel/page to look like BEFORE you start drawing it. if you're just drawing the lineart and then filling in the black and gray after the fact, it's going to be much more difficult and you're going to run into problems like tangents and legibility issues with your color placement. especially when working with a limited palette, knowing roughly where each color will go before even beginning the project helps a lot. I'd also suggest trying to limit your use of gray to like, 3 tones max. I usually only use 1 or 2 if i use gray at all. this helps keep things in high-contrast and therefore more legible. Line weight is also especially important when you're only doing black and white, because it helps create depth and ground us in space when there's no color to do so. in general, don't be afraid to go for big blocks of black, but try to think about where and why you're using them!

As for your comment about overshooting, my advice is to ration. we joke sometimes about how manga artists will use a much more simplified style up until like, a big climactic scene and then suddenly lock in, but that's a genuinely useful tactic sometimes. You don't necessarily need a background in every panel if the background isn't the focus of a scene, and that leaves more energy for you to go all out when you DO need a big fancy establishing shot or some complex perspective or whatever. obviously you shouldn't just be totally phoning it in on less complex panels, but don't try to kill yourself over the less important details. focus on what's most important to get your point across in whatever situation you're working with!

[rottenteeth]

It's been awhile let's talk about dissociation.

Dissociation is the act of disconnecting from ones body and or surroundings (on purpose or subconsciously). Some people are predisposed to use dissociation as a coping mechanism either due to their brain or environmental factors.

Some amount of dissociation is normal and some forms of dissociation are good to an extent.

Chronic dissociation comes into play when someone experiences an event or series of events that they do not have the ability to process. This may be due to needing to function and seem "normal", an avoidance to accepting what happened to oneself, or simply because someone does not possess other options of coping.

When a child experiences chronic dissociation ALONG with the idea that they themselves are not experiencing a trauma, their caretakers are loving most of the time, the inability to process that they are not evil, and many other forms of instability and lack of connection to trauma events they become increasingly more likely to develop dissociative identity disorder.

DID is not as complex as people make it out to be (it is complex but not incomprehensibly so). It is a way for the brain to comparmentalize many different traumas, the instability of life, and what is required of them in different situations. It is a post traumatic stress disorder with dissociation being the only coping mechanism alongside early childhood trauma.

What you as an adult/older teen consider trauma is much different than what a 5 year old considers trauma.

When your mom yells at you and says she doesn't love you sometimes and you're 5 you have no concept of what could have caused her to say that other than you are evil and horrible. As an adult maybe you see she just got a speeding ticket or her boss yelled at her or any other reason she may have lost her temper. While in no situation is this an appropriate response to stress, a child has no concept of other people's life experiences.

When you are five and you see you are not getting your needs met, you think you are evil or you are not good enough. When you are being abused it is because you think you're bad. So the brain needs to change who you are sometimes.

When moms cooking dinner don't get in her way or ask questions or she'll yell at you because you're evil = submissive depressed alter. (If you remember when mom is nice to you it might make you too comfortable so you must not remember her kindness while she's cooking)

When Mom takes you out for ice cream you need to be happy and enthusiastic or she'll yell at you = happy social alter (if you remember the trauma she gives you you can't be happy so you only have happy memories in this state)

When mom demeans your entire being you can't take that to school or your teacher will be upset you're not doing your work = school alter and a self hating alter (if you remember that you're a bad stupid child you can't function at school, those two states must be separated)

These are fairly simplified examples of why an alter may form, your memories still exist from other states. DID is NOT an encoding issue, dissociation might make it hard to encode some memories but if an alter holds memories they have been encoded and it is physically possible for every part of the brain to remember them.

Sometimes your brain doesn't want you to have access to memories that aren't important to the current situation so they must be put into a different part of the brain only to be accessed when a trigger happens.

You feel like different people because you literally do not have access to one coherent life. The memories each part holds makes up the way they act, if they mainly hold trauma they won't feel happy like an alter who holds few or no trauma memories. The world is evil to one part and loving to the next.

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

Hey. I want to talk about how we, as a fandom, talk about Stede.

I want to preface this with the fact that I adore Stede, in all his multi-faceted, complex glory. The way that he's been brave and allowed himself to fight for a more authentic life is incredibly inspiring to me. I'm a lot like Stede, both on the surface-level "we're both femme gay men who are unable to present as anything else" and on a deeper "we both feel a sort of fundamental alienation from our peers and as a result are easily susceptible to peer pressure and tend to self-isolate as a learned coping mechanism and accidentally hurt others by assuming they don't want us in our lives." I think MANY people in this fandom find it very easy to relate with some of Stede's deeper issues, I don't presume I'm alone here.

And it's very true that there is a loud chunk of this fandom who vocally hate both of the main characters and talk about Stede like he's just some bumbling idiot. I get wanting to push back on that.

But I don't think it's really helpful to argue that people should police the way we talk about Stede. I can understand why the "Stede is my stupid bitch <3" and "Stede's cringe" jokes can hit a bit too close to home for some people, but I don't think that every joke post should need to come with a disclaimer that's like "I don't actually think Stede is a loser." Lord knows I've made my fair share of "Ed's such a dork <3" posts, too.

The thing here, I think, is that when people say things like "Stede's so cringe, I love him," that's from a place of deep affection and growing self-acceptance. I've worried about feeling "cringe" before, for a lot of the things that Stede does, too - not reading social cues correctly, for talking in ways that don't match up with the social situation I'm in, for loving things too much, for being a gnc gay man. If Stede's 'cringe,' and I love him so much...then how can I be mean to myself for the same things?

I don't think anyone who actually likes Stede and says things like "he's so dumb I love him" is being mean or simplifying the character, especially not just in a short joke post. If you've actually watched the show, then you KNOW Stede isn't dumb. Sometimes jokes just aren't that deep, and I think these posts, at their deepest, are no worse than "I relate to this guy a lot and he's really silly and I love him." It's okay if that kind of post annoys you, but it's also important to remember that they're coming from people who also love and relate to the character, and aren't malicious at all.

At the end of the day, I guess...I just think it's important for people to feel able to relate to Stede and write about him in ways that are meaningful to them, and sometimes our needs won't jive, and that's okay, and we can be mindful of that.

[bbyboybucket]

Okay okay, now that I’ve had time to actually think about all this and get the evidence and do the math: imma give y’all a little ted talk on Bucky’s Stockholm Syndrome.

So I’m gonna preface all this by saying that this probably wasn’t an intentional choice from the writers of TFATWS. For two reasons, one cause the show overall had a ton of writing issues beyond just Bucky and was kinda a mess as a whole. And two, to actually make that claim firmly, I’d have to do a rewatch and I don’t got time for all that. That said, as a viewer, choosing to look not just TFATWS, but at all of Bucky’s appearances from the perspective of him having Stockholm Syndrome, makes a lotttt of sense. It adds a lot of depth to his actions, words, etc. Also even if it wasn’t intentional, if you chose to look at it through this lens, the narrative of TFATWS being contradictory towards him can actually be a reflection of what’s going on in his head. The way the show is sometimes sympathetic but other times judgmental can be a reflection of how he sees himself and his inner conflict regarding his past. Again, I don’t think the writers intentionally did this, but it’s cool way to look at it and repurposes their mistakes.

Now, I just wanna point out that Stockholm syndrome can develop within merely days or weeks, so it’s almost kinda silly to think that it wouldn’t occur if someone had been held hostage for decades. It’s practically undoubtable that Bucky had Stockholm Syndrome for at least some part of his captivity, but I think he’s still dealing with the remnants of it. Zemo was right when he said there’s something still in Bucky and he can’t get rid of hydra. But it’s not that he’s some evil killer at heart, it’s that he has leftovers from Stockholm Syndrome.

In a very simplified summary, Stockholm syndrome usually happens and works when captors cause immense pain to the victim and then treat them well afterwards. The captor shows them some form of kindness, flattery, mercy, etc. back to back with harm. Also a big factor in it is the victim becoming dependent on them for basic needs. Seriously, learned helplessness is a huge factor in Stockholm Syndrome. All of it causes a “bond” to form. And the more this occurs over time, the stronger it gets because the victim is constantly exposed to them, they become their only source of interactions and relationships. Stockholm syndrome is thought to be a complex trauma response, a defense mechanism for surviving during cruel and terrifying conditions.

Think of it like the victim disassociates the perpetrator from the abuse and then emotionally bonds with them, so that they can lessen their fear and feel a sense of security. Also with Stockholm Syndrome (especially within cults), not only does the victim bond with their captor, but being isolated from the rest of the world causes them to adopt their captor’s views and lifestyle. They get completely indoctrinated and start to think the same way as the captor.

Now think about what we see with the Winter Soldier. Even from the very little that we know, it’s a cycle of Hydra severely hurting him but then giving him praise, encouragement, validation, etc. All for manipulation ofc, but a broken mind isn’t going to see it that way. He would be relishing in the fact that they’re making him feel like he’s needed and wanted, like he’s done good, etc. Especially since that’s the only affirmations and positive reinforcements he receives, and is otherwise forced to suffer. Those moments of praise and “kindness”, are so so so heavily weighted against everything else.

While he was captive, while Hydra had him, he likely thought they cared about him. It probably felt close to love. Now ofc Bucky, as a free man with a clear head, knows it wasn’t love or anything at all except being viewed as a weapon. But I bet there’s still a part of him that desires that again, even if he knows it was fake, especially in the wake of becoming lonely and left with his own negative thoughts. Because like I said before, the affirmations were fucking heavy weighted. During those 70 years just the slightest bit of praise or mercy probably felt like the world’s greatest high. Especially when it was given in the midst of pain.

These manipulative affirmations also result in the victim justifying their abuse. This happens in a lot of abusive situations but especially in Stockholm Syndrome. Think about the scene where Pierce is praising the winter soldier so he can convince him to do what he’s told. What immediately follows? He slaps him. Then he electrocutes him. But the winter soldier doesn’t resist either, doesn’t complain, etc. He takes both, which is definitely a conditioned response, but it’s also likely due to the thoughts of “I’m disappointing them, I deserve this punishment for not behaving.” And to play devils advocate, let’s say he didn’t feel as if he deserved it. Even so, without speculating his thoughts, his reactions to the abuse and the fact that he’s been conditioned to deal with that at all, are still signs of Stockholm Syndrome. Because the captor’s behavior has become normalized.

Also he very well was dependent on them for his every single need. For food, water, shelter, hygiene, human interaction, and probably things he didn’t need but was manipulated into believing were necessities. And that, especially with the learned helplessness and with him likely being in constant survival mode, reinforces that feeling of dependence. The feeling that he needs them. The feeling that they’re Hydra isn’t so bad because they take care of him. The dependence also circles back into kindness thing. Providing for him could easily be seen as small acts of kindness, further making him feel like Hydra cares about him.

Another huge huge huge part of Stockholm Syndrome is that the victim shows resistance and anger towards those trying to help them or that try to oppose the captor. Look at how the Winter Soldier reacts to Steve, various times throughout the movie. With almost everyone else, he’s mostly objective, just fighting anyone who stands in the way of Hydra. He’s brainwashed but he’s not stupid, he knows Steve had another motive. He knew Steve wanted to help him in some way or separate him from Hydra. And that made him fucking livid. He wasn’t just irritated, like he was when Natasha shot his goggles. He was fighting with full on rage, because didn’t want to even think about a life outside of Hydra.

Now, I don’t think it’s full blown Stockholm syndrome anymore now that he’s a free man. That’s why in my initial post I said it’s to certain degree. In remission is maybe a way to word it. He can’t have full blown Stockholm Syndrome, because if he did, he wouldn’t acknowledge that hydra was bad at all, he’d straight up defend them. However, he clearly has some level of it since he considers himself to have been hydra, to have been one of them, rather than just their captive.

But this all plays into Bucky’s overall-mcu characterization and the way he has conflicting views on his time as the soldier. Because Bucky knows what happened to him was fucked up, that it wasn’t actually his fault, but he still feels that way because he was indoctrinated into their culture and his psyche was completely altered by them beyond just trauma. The degree of his stockholm syndrome is what makes him having stressful, conflicting, confusing feelings on it. It’s cognitive dissonance. In case anyone doesn’t know, here’s a quick definition: cognitive dissonance is when you have two conflicting thoughts/feelings at the same time or when your actions conflict with your thoughts/feelings.

Cause we know he has cognitive dissonance from his actions as the winter soldier. We know he has extreme stress, shame, and guilt from the fact that he killed people despite it not being in line with his morals. BUT if we’re talking about Stockholm Syndrome, it unravels other areas of cognitive dissonance. It’s why he struggles so much with accepting his own innocence and forgiving himself, and rarely acknowledges what was done to him. He knows he was a victim yet he was also a perpetrator. Those don’t align, they contradict each other, he can’t see how they can be simultaneous, it doesn’t neatly make sense how the perpetrator could also be the victim, especially from his perspective. A lot of times, the way people deal with cognitive dissonance is by ignoring one of the feelings/beliefs. His way of dealing with this is to put the blame on himself, because even though it still feels shitty, it’s less confusing and easier to accept that than the fact that multiple things can be true at once. Or more accurately from the outsider’s perspective: the fact that his innocence outweighs his guilt.

That’s why he shuts down anyone who points out he’s not to blame. He’s avoiding the feeling of victimhood that conflicts with his beliefs that he’s at fault. It shakes everything thing up and makes him feel even worse than just the guilt alone does. Which also is due to the fact that it’s easier to believe you’re the problem than it is to acknowledge you were helpless. And to deal with the cognitive dissonance he’s choosing the more manageable option, being at fault. But all this cognitive dissonance just completely feeds into his guilt and self esteem problems.

(Side note, no I absolutely do not think his guilt is boiled down to just this. This looking at one little piece of the puzzle, it’s wayyy bigger than this. I’m just sticking to the context of this post right now.)

He didn’t want to do anything Hydra made him do, he never wanted to be with them, yet he accepted Hydra as a home during those 70 years and some of their practices linger in his head. It’s inconsistent to have not wanted to apart of it but adopted the lifestyle anyways. The stress that inconsistency brings is not easy to resolve. Especially because he likely doesn’t understand why he felt any kind of attachment to something that caused him and others so much pain. Think about the line “Hydra was my people”. We all hate it. But….if you look at it from this perspective, it’s not necessarily wrong. He spent 70 years with them. 70 years of having nothing but Hydra, having to rely on them, having to endure all the things that cause Stockholm Syndrome to develop. He didn’t have a choice in the matter, but it really was his home in his eyes. An abusive, nazi nightmare of a home but still, sadly….his home. They were his people, because they forced themselves to be. They were his only people. Again, that’s where the cognitive dissonance comes in: he hates them, he wishes they weren’t ever his people….but the fact is that they were. And that eats at him.

And like I mentioned before, Stockholm Syndrome involves indoctrination and adopting the ideals of the captor. It would be hard to completely remove that if it’s what you spent decades living by. Hydra’s world view and practices probably still slip into his mind a lot, but they don’t align with what he truly believes is right, they’re not who he is as a person: again, more cognitive dissonance that’s causing him distress.

All of this is also probably a factor in why he wants to make amends, not only because he wants to right his wrongs and make up for his sins, but he wants to act on this cognitive dissonance. Because amending does align with his feelings of being against hydra, of not wanting to be a part of Hydra. And acting on that might help push away those other feelings of being one of them.

Also think about how he never argues or defends himself when people speak down on him and his past, he never corrects anyone when they say he’s hydra, he never has any rebuttal against negative comments about him. Which of course, is due to his low self esteem, and again, guilt. But also it goes back to the Stockholm Syndrome and cognitive dissonance that fuel those feelings. He can’t argue or defend his character to anyone else, because he can’t even convince it himself. Because for any excuse, any explanation, any proof he has of being good….he has something to contradict it with. And how can he truly say he’s still a good guy and not at fault when even he is confused about what’s true? When he still has uncomfortable, lingering attachments to Hydra that he hasn’t shaken yet?

The point is, his head is fucking mess, which we all already knew….but looking at it like this just makes you realize how much more confused and lost he is, how his thoughts are literally at war with each other all the time. And when you look at the narrative as a reflection of his feelings, it makes sense why it switches up every second. If it’s confusing for a viewer to see the seesaw go back and forth from “victim” to “criminal”, then imagine what it’s like in Bucky’s head.

Now I do feel like there’s a lot more here, you could go way deeper and I’m probably missing some stuff, but it’s a place to start. Just some fuel to get the motors running.

[ruinofchimera]

Lily’s quick retort wasn’t a ‘hurtful, isolated reaction’ that was otherwise free of systemic prejudice and not indicative of anything deeper, it was emblematic of her classism. She threw his otherness in society right back at him after he did the same to her. You can argue this is no real issue, because Lily’s prejudices aren’t going to get anyone killed, but classism is part of their dynamic from the start. It’s why she’s comfortable scapegoating him for stealing Petunia’s letter, and why she doesn’t consider that he hasn’t got the luxury of antagonising people like Mulciber. Petunia didn’t emerge from the womb looking down on Spinner’s End, she learned it from the same parents who raised Lily. She’s never more Tuney’s sister than in that moment mocking his poverty.

* it’s also relevant I think to point out that JKR has said that many purebloods would also consider halfbloods like Snape a mudblood. Bellatrix certainly doesn’t consider him as one of her kind. He can’t pass as anything other than what he is - he has a muggle name and looks like his muggle father and he’s stuck sleeping in the house of pureblood supremacy. He’s, to use a very clumsy analogy, a mixed race kid who’s been abused by his POC father and has internalised self-hatred. It’s a bit more complicated than saying Snape has political privilege and Lily is the oppressed.

In my defense, I’m a paragon of laziness, which is what kept me from spoon-feeding why exactly Lily’s so-called knee-jerk reaction constitutes participation in systematic class pressure, much like Severus’s slur does. Actually, if I had decided to explain it, I couldn’t have put it better than you did. You nailed it. So while it’s not entirely necessary, I can’t help but offer a few more examples to back up your point.

Sugar-coating Lily’s behavior certainly shows that fans overlook the complexity of classism in the series. Discrimination in the wizarding world isn’t one-dimensional—it operates on multiple levels, with poverty acting as a form of ‘otherness’ that cuts across even pure-blood lines. Rowling actually depicts how deeply ingrained class prejudice is through Ron Weasley. Ron’s pure-blood status didn’t shield him from the bullying he faced due to his family’s poverty. Despite being part of one of the oldest wizarding families, Ron is belittled and looked down upon by wealthier pure-bloods, particularly Draco Malfoy. Classism in the wizarding world operates on a nuanced level, where even pure-blood characters like the Weasleys are subject to scorn from wealthier families. We see Ron systematically oppressed by this for seven books, yet some still believe blood status is the sole axis of discrimination in Wizarding society. Isn’t that curious?

Now, I want to expand on the concept of pure-blood supremacy, which is often simplified in this fandom. As I mentioned in my previous posts, Severus Snape is, in fact, a mudblood in the eyes of the pure-blood elite. The term ‘mudblood’ doesn’t just apply to Muggle-borns; it refers to anyone whose bloodline isn’t considered ‘pure,’ especially those with close Muggle relatives. Severus’s Muggle surname only highlights his deviation from pure magical lineage in the eyes of blood purists, even if he had wanted to hide it. His ‘tainted’ blood status made him just as much a target for discrimination among pure-blood elitists, complicating the idea that Snape had political privilege.

You’ve already covered this topic perfectly, so as promised, I’ve just thrown in some extra fuel to highlight your point.

[solarpunkwarlock]

I really want to talk about how important it is for us as a people to start making proper city design a priority. I also want to talk about how the privatization of land is the first major barrier to having proper city design.

A lot of seemingly complex issues and tasks can be simplified or made easier to deal with by organizing our cities: Food distribution, commute times, housing, neighborhood safety, public transportation, business/practice regulation, emergency preparedness, general accessibility, mental health, access to medical services, public health, and probably a ton of other things I can't think of right now.

All of that and more could be made much easier if we organized our cities with things like mixed-use-development, the standardization of public transport over personal vehicles, a grid structure, prioritizing walkability on surfaces safe for the disabled (sidewalks over cobblestone), designating districts for certain kinds of services, mandating better minimum (and maximum) size requirements for homes, requiring a certain percentage of greenery or some form of nature for every square footage, and other tactics that I'm probably not even aware of since I'm no city planner.

All of this gets shit on when land can be privately owned, though. Businesses, rich folks, the greedy, and the ignorant buy land without any planning in mind for their community which leads to disorganized, unoptimized, and community-unfriendly cities/towns. Our efforts should always generally lead to the betterment of our community over the selfish betterment of our private circumstances.

[greayworks]

The Yassification of Greek Mythology

Look I'm not going to be one of those "man gets a slight rush every time he tells someone John Lennon hit his wife" That's not helpful and a lot of people who do take issue do tend to also GREATLY oversimplify many Greek myths or act like there is one version when part of the difficulty of talking about these is trying to chase the exact roots given as many of these stories were mainly told orally and often changed depending on the area and culture as well as various translations and history of colonization.

Nor am I saying a writer can't be inspired by the stories and do their own thing.

But my personal issue with a lot of modern "Retelling of Greek myth!" is how a lot of them weirdly lack nuance, even compared to the original source. Was Greek society very patriarchal? Yes but there were still women present and frequent in stories and had different roles.

Most retellings don't really put a different twist on it or explore the side characters' nuance, it's incredibly simplified "This person was actually cool/sad/good and the ones against them suck"

It's the weird Yassification of some characters and mythos that kind of bugs me. Were there queer lovers in Greek mythology and history? Yes, quite a lot actually, but maybe making Ganymede Zeus's twink in your story a bit in poor taste given pretty much his only story is about him being kidnapped and becoming Zeus cup bearer between the ages of 16-12.

Or stuff like the Amazons, people like the idea of a woman-only warrior-based culture but just not really acknowledge the actual warrior side and some of the crimes they'd commit and conflicts they'd get into because "that's not fun!"

Complexity is removed from SO many stories, factions and conflicts to have a clear cut good guy who mainly reacts and an atrocious villain whose philosophies seem to be weirdly modern in how awful they are. Making Heraclues a blood-lustful berserker warrior who or a a happy dummy who uses his strength to solve all his problems is really odd considering in his story his intelligence and wit is constantly underestimated by King Eurystheus but he uses tactics and cunning to achieve several of his labors.

Also, the enlightened Chad angelic Athena and the angry evil demonic Ares in a lot of media is really funny to me because the only thing that makes Athena more positive is her description. "Goddess of Wisdom" sounds really nice but it's still referring to warfare.

Ares is described as wrathful in a lot of stories but that being his only trait is very odd to me when he's a much more nuanced figure than that. Instead, he's a red-pilled dummy in most stories now because he has a different descriptor than Athena.

It's a sign of lack of curiosity of searching for other myths or stories to adapt because people already know of these.

[bharv]

I’m not putting this in any tags but I really am struggling to put into words my general dissatisfaction in the direction of draggy ahge into words past “it doesn’t seem to trust its audience with complexity anymore.”

But that kind of is it? In origins, awakening, 2 and even the early TTRPG adventures and novels, there was a distinct feeling of grey morality, of difficult and unsolvable issues, even when you could choose the middle road. There were a lot of questions around systemic injustice and interpretation of history and power through the church and other such themes that were given a lot of space for interpretation.

But the fandom made things more black and white and rather than allowing that to be fan interpretation (which is legit, I think it’s fine for fan works to be more trope led and simplify things for fun) it feels like it was really adopted into the franchise? Everything is so over-explained, trope-led and surface level now and it’s a real shame to me.

[notexactlyrocketscience]

Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood: a critically kind review from a femme acespec physicist <3

> scroll to the next section for my review on the physics academia content in this book!

First, a quick romance novel review!

spoiler: it wasn’t my favorite but I gave it a ⭐️⭐️⭐️.75 because being a writer has made me a generally more appreciative reader + I am so starved of woman in physics rep.

the good

It just felt good to read about a woman physicist, who are still incredibly underrepresented in fiction, especially as protagonists. (I’ll go off about that in a minute.)

The romance is so swoony with shoujo manga vibes, I haven’t read straight M/F adult romance novels in a while and I just loved the flutteriness of it.

A couple of chapters were so soft with excellent pillowtalk. There was something about the ambience of the snow, the hypnotic sadness of failure, the prescence of a comforting person.

I enjoyed identifying the relatable parts about physics academia. Hazelwood clearly did a lot of research, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. It definitely kept me reading!

the bad

The academia issues are so over-simplified it’s almost juvenile. For an adult novel, even one marketed as a romcom, I expect more nuance, more explanations, more explicit lingering in tight positions.

And then the romance tries to be complex (and has a lot of potential!) but not a lot of conflict really happens.

A fictional physics fued between theorists and experimentalists is a really fun (and actually not far off) concept, but I would have expected some things to be the other way around. (More on that later!)

Okay this is personal but the main couple both have terrible taste in movies. Twilight vs white male rage movies??? There is no lesser evil here

Elsie’s hardships aren’t put in a very serious light. Her diabetes and lack of access to health insurance is used as a plot device to engineer romantic momentum between the characters and/or comic relief.

Just overall, the book tried so hard to remain “light” that I think it fails to garner depth. Because adult lives really aren’t that light all the time, and a book can bring relaxation and joy whilst including real worldly negative experiences.

There were aroace and sapphic side characters, but I wanted so bad for Elsie to be demisexual. It's set up so perfectly only for it to be averted—As a demisexual person myself, Elsie’s feelings about attraction felt acutely familiar to me, and every other reader I've spoken to has agreed that the book took a dissapointing and unexpected turn. I understand Hazelwood may not feel equipped to write queer protagonists but if I were her editor, I would have flagged that and recommended she make it canon. It would have added so much more context and dimension to Elsie, and would’ve put hetero demisexuals on the map. </3

Following up on the above: The smut tries so hard to be meaningful but it ... really is icky, stereotypical, unrealistic allocishetero stuff. Think: the shy inexperienced girl vs the man who knows exactly how to advise her. The characters try to subvert the trope by calling it out, but it feels performative because all is forgotten in the next second. The PiV sex is weirdly conventionally idealistic considering the pairing’s size difference. I’m picky about smut but also forgiving when I do like the dynamic. I just didn’t here.

Following up once again: I was ready to ignore all the repetitive comments about how sexy Jack’s height and muscles were, because sure, I guess Elsie has a type. But the sex scenes solidified the redundancy of it all. I've read this same dynamic in countless smutty heteronormative M/F paperbacks. And I have also been made aware by every Hazelwood reader that all her books focus on this kind of physical build pairing. I just want more diversity, you know?

IDK, I just wanted more physics in here than complaining about teaching, glossed over toxic mentors, and using some quirky physics term in every other sentence. (More on that below!)

I just wanted ... more? It’s not an extremely short novel, but both the plot and the character development fell flat. The ups and downs were too fast and easy, and the placement felt off. I finished the book and wondered, “That’s it? That’s all that happened?” It just wasn’t fulfilling. The side characters aren't expanded upon, and don’t get enough pagetime. My other romance reads this year were Bellefleur's The Fiancee Farce and Mcquiston’s One Last Stop. In both of those novels, the drama was fleshed out with so much care and detail. In comparison, Love, Theoretically may mention similar social difficulties in passing, but failed to really, really show us.

Overall ... the novel was fun for being about physicists but I really don’t see myself picking up another Hazelwood book, especially considering this isn’t even a debut novel. The conventional white steminist vibe and the particular allocishetero M/F dynamic just isn’t my thing.

But perhaps a reader wanting more of a novel and its characters is a good problem to have. Never say never, I guess! I look forward to keeping tabs on what Hazelwood publishes in the future!

Now, onto the physics!

First, most physicists, as good scientists, understand that theory and experimentation are fundamentally linked. It’s true that we each are often biased towards our own methods of research, but it is quite a stretch to imagine full professors so blatantly feud against others solely because of theory vs experimentation. Regardless, I was happy to suspend my disbelief for the sake of the plot that was framed in a genre-specific, lighthearted, humorous way.

Secondly, both theory and experimentation have sources of funding that are motivated in different ways, and Hazelwood's decision to have the theorists struggle with funding cuts due to declining interest in pop culture/the general public is actually quite credible. Experimentation garners a lot more interest from the application and engineering end of society, parts that are easily fueled by capitalism.

However, I think experimentalists in general are far less likely to be mean to theorists than the reverse scenario. Dr Fatima Abdurrahman has a great video essay about that called on her YouTube channel called “Quantum Physics, Feminism, and Objective Reality: What Physicists Don’t Want You to Know About Quantum Mechanics.” Dr Fatima outlines how old white men in physics have maintained this image of unwavering scientific objectivity in the name of rigor, despite studying a field that fundamentally is barely fathomable for humans. In simpler terms: Men, even in theory, pretend to be better, smarter, and more valid as physicists despite being in an infamously iffy field. And I would have liked to see that represented. It was just really hard for me to buy narcissistic grad students mansplaining Elsie about her field, and Elsie’s righteous feminine rage, when the field in question is … physics theory? It just didn’t make sense to me, when all of my personal experiences point to the opposite.

But every cloud has a silver lining, and having a woman theorist in a physics field that’s less popsci-oriented is actually … really cool. And having her love interest be a man in experimentation … sort of subverts gender roles and conventional media expectations.

Let me explain. The reality is that when women are represented in STEM, media prefers to put them in biology, like a nurse to a doctor, a people-oriented nurturer, a mere sidekick to the real “objective” scientist—often a mathematician or an astrophysicist who is always a man. And when women are placed in physics, they are automatically assigned to observational astronomy, which is dismissed as passive and easy. (This is wildly untrue—though styles of research in astronomy has interestingly allowed a somewhat more diverse array of researchers in history. Even today, you’ll see a higher frequency of women and queer people in every astronomy department.)

I think my ideal version of this novel would be retaining Elsie in theory, while also making theorists the overall bad guys in the feud. I would love to have her talk about the unique sexism she faces as a theorist. I would kill for a scene in which Jack gets gobsmacked by how fucking good at math she really is, compared to him (instead of, like, only making fun of it like it’s easy). I would love to read about her getting a tour of his lab, and just more physics content. But maybe I’m the only one saying that, because I’m a physicist. Maybe Hazelwood simplified it all to keep the book appealing to the general masses.

Still, it all read more like a girlpower!!! chant rather than a real commitment to represent a woman in STEM. I savored every moment Elsie or George would go off about physics. I loved Elsie’s conversations with Olive, a different STEM academic. (Monica was more complicated and actually quite interesting, and I wish we could have seen more of her. Heck, I wish we had actually been given any tangible info about Jack’s mom, even.) But I genuinely felt these instances were rare. Elsie referred to being a physicist a lot (and frankly, her mind is more physics-y than any IRL physicist considering the sheer number of physics-inspired figures of speech she uses … but I excused that as silly comic relief, a quirk in Hazelwood’s writing style). But she didn’t tangibly do physics on page. It was disappointing, considering women characters in STEM is what Hazelwood is known for.

And there are physicists who love teaching—even physicists who solely want to teach. Physicists who do pedagogy research. I know the book was mainly trying to criticise the adjunctification and dismissal of physics higher education, and it’s actually quite accurate in representing that most physicists in academia would prefer not to teach. But the excecution also ends up erasing physicists who aren’t in academia just for research. And I say this especially because the validity of teaching physicists as physicists is dismissed in real life. It’s used as justification to further force all physics academics to try to juggle between both research and teaching, whether they want to or not.

Which leads us to bad mentors. I’ve had a bunch of those. As Olive pointed out in an excellent quote, “Academia is so hierarchical, you know? There are all these people who have power over you, who are supposed to guide you and help you become the best possible scientist, but . . . sometimes they don’t know what’s best. Sometimes they don’t care. Sometimes they have their own agenda. […] Sometimes they’re total shitbuckets who deserve to step on a pitchfork and die.” And the thing is, the novel really doesn’t show us any of that (perhaps other than in Monica). We don’t fully get to know what happened to Jack’s mom, or Olive. We are not shown what Dr L’s agenda really was. Their final confrontation was so quick, when in reality shitty mentors are often sticky and entwined with your work, hard to cut off and scarier to talk back to even after you’ve finally realized they’re toxic.

Which isn’t to say the novel is just inadequate about everything. It’s correct in how goofy physics faculty are, and how white man-dominated the field is, how students try to mansplain women profs, how theorists madly work on their computers (as an experimentalist, I could never understand), how publishing is finicky (to put it kindly), and how tenured faculty fail to understand the reality of the job market in academia today. There are certain parts (like the quote above!) where I felt incredibly seen as part of a minoritized identity group in STEM academia. It’s rare to have a book written from this PoV, and as a first I think this novel will always be special for me!

If you’re interested in reading about more fictional women physicists, I would highly recommend skimming through this list I made on GoodReads (and feel free to add more!).

And if you’d like to support memoirs and science communication books by IRL women physicists, then look to further than this other list I’ve also made. (We’re actually currently seeing a boom in these which is inanely exciting to me, so again, contributions are always welcome!)

[mbtiblogfun]

"The INFP Archetypes"

What makes INFPs different from each other? Well there are many factors. Obviously not all INFPs are the same, and other parts of typology like enneagram, ivs, and socionics do affect this. Some INFPs are also more in tune with their weaker functions (Si and Te) than others. Like the other types, INFPs also have different "archetypes" that are often seen as "general representations" of them. Obviously because mbti is so nuanced and complex, don't fret if you don't identify with any of these! They're very simplified, so not relating doesn’t mean you're not an INFP!

So now let's get into some of the most notable archetypes

1. The Dreamer

The most notable INFP archetype, one could call it "the INFP poster child." The dreamer is a pure, innocent, curious, sensitive, and idealistic INFP. The dreamer looks at the world with wide, starry-eyes, and wears their heart on their sleeve. Usually the dreamer is also very romantic poetic, and/or artistic, and they have a wild imagination. The dreamer sees the good in everyone and might often merge with/be present in tropes like the manic pixie dream girl, or the soft boy. They have a tendency to be portrayed as mysterious or misunderstood.

Examples of the dreamer: Belle (Beauty & the Beast), Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), Amelie, Juliet (Romeo & Juliet), Anne Shirley (Anne of Green Gables), and Celine (Before Trilogy)

2. The Mediator

The mediator shares the same traits as the dreamer (pure, sensitive, kind-hearted, etc.) but plays a different role in the story. Typically the dreamers are protagonists, while mediators usually have secondary roles. The mediator often acts as a voice of reason, to keep the protagonist in touch with their humanity or to just listen whenever someone needs to let it all out. The mediator is typically very quirky and non-conformist. The mediator is empathetic and usually soften-spoken, but they're not afraid to stand up for others or what they believe in.

Examples of the mediator: Silvermist (Tinkerbell), Mantis (MCU), Luna Lovegood (Harry Potter), Ami Mizuno/Sailor Mercury (Sailor Moon), and Lucy Pevensie (Narnia)

3. The Seeker

The seeker, once again, shares the same traits as the other two but has an emphasis on curiosity and imagination. The seeker is not afraid to ponder life's deeper, more complex questions.

As said by @dragonflymage, the seeker often asks themselves questions like

Why do I exist?

Who am I really inside?

How do I fit?

Where do I belong?

They also go on to add this explanation: "A seeker, continuously looking for answers that we never may find, but that we must keep searching for anyway. "

(If you wanna read more from her post I've reblogged it on my page) While they search for these answers, the seeker oftentimes will go on a "hero's journey" in hopes of finding the answer along their quest

Examples of the seeker: Merlin (BBC), Newt Scamander (Fantastic Beasts/HP), Luke Skywalker (Star Wars), Edward Scissorhands, and Frodo (LOTR)

4. The Emotional Villain

As you can see this one is a complete 180 compared to the other three lol. This pattern doesn't exactly have a name, so I just made one up.

Pretty much all INFP villains I've seen are driven by their emotions. Afterall, Fi is our dominant function. The emotional villain is driven by personal reasons and experiences, they're not just evil for the sake of being evil. Typically the emotional villain is very moody, disturbed, and/or unstable. They are usually the direct opposite of their other INFP counterparts: they are selfish, ruthless, and blood-hungry.

Examples of the emotional villain: Wanda Maximoff (MCU), Joker (2019 ver), and Kylo Ren (Star Wars).

5. The Angsty Teen

Another really common portrayal of INFPs in media is the angsty teen. This archetype is pretty self explanatory, an angsty hormonal teenager. The angsty teen often struggles with social anxiety, and/other another mental illness. They also might have trust issues, be really moody, or hurting from unrequited love or some other trauma. The angsty teen often copes through artistic means, like poetry or painting.

I feel the feelings on this archetype are very divided. While a lot of people don't like having that image as a representation of their type, some argue that it's a realistic portrayal of the darker side of being an INFP. I personally feel like the angsty teen represents my inner conflicts, while the dreamer, mediator, and seeker represent my outward behavior most of the time. What are your thoughts?

Examples of the angsty teen: Shinji Ikari (Evangelion), Will Byers (Stranger Things), Cassie Ainsworth (Skins), Kou Mabuchi (Blue Spring Ride), Violet Parr (The Incredibles), Nico di Angelo (Percy Jackson), Charlie Kelmeckis (The Perks of Being a Wallflower), Elio Perlman (Call Me By Your Name), Todd Anderson (Dead Poets Society), Fischl (Genshin Impact), Lydia Deetz (Beetlejuice) and Cry Baby (K-12)

There's plenty more archetypes but I thought I'd just focus on these 5. Also remember that these archetypes don't represent all INFPs as a whole, they’re just like "INFPs in a nutshell."

What are your thoughts? Which archetypes do you relate to? Which one's your favorite? Which one's your least favorite?

[theerurishipper]

I think anon was referring to what zuko said in response to aang telling katara to forgive yon rha. While aang came across as a bit patronizing even if he meant well and that was obviously unhelpful, I can honestly see why that would count as zuko mocking him. that being said, I agree with everyone else you said and anon shot themselves in the foot when they mocked Zuko;s scar and they engaged in azula apologismwhile using the fact that she's mentally unstable as a shield.

I mostly interpreted that as Zuko saying Aang is being naive rather than his disagreeing with the actual teachings themselves. Zuko isn't one for revenge either, or else he would have killed Ozai, or let Zhao die. And he's never been shown to disrespect the Airbender's teachings in this way before. He's listened when Aang has talked about the monks before. But he understands Katara's feelings in a way that Aang doesn't seem to (which is not to say that Aang hasn't suffered through tragedy or that Aang doesn't understand loss, but Zuko and Katara are specifically paralleled through the fact that they lost their mothers, and it's something they connect over because they feel similarly about it), and it's also a little personal for him in that way. I'm not going to justify what he said, it was a shitty thing to say regardless, but he wasn't being racist. Even Aang doesn't take offence to it because he knows that, and they're on good terms at the end.

I think decrying it as a racist comment simplifies the issue and shifts the conversation. Zuko had a point, but he said it in the worst way. But calling it a racist comment because Zuko think Airbender philosophies are inferior is the wrong interpretation, and it sort of changes the way you view the scene and removes any fault from Aang in the situation. Aang was telling Katara to forgive the man who murdered her mother. That's not really a small thing. And he was quoting the monks verbatim without trying to understand Katara herself and without trying to take into account the real situation they are in, which can't be fixed with a quote that Aang hasn't learnt to put into practice when something comes into conflict with it, as happens in the real world. This is not anti-Aang or anything, this is literally the conflict he deals with at the end of the episode and in the finale, of how to reconcile the monks' teachings with the reality of his situation.

Zuko didn't say Aang was naive because he wanted Katara to get revenge, he did it because he understands her pain, he knows how facing his father gave him closure, and he's angry that Aang is trying to tell Katara to not have the same chance. So when Aang uses "revenge is a two headed rat-viper" line, it makes him angry because Aang clearly doesn't understand. Zuko is saying Aang doesn't understand the reality and is resorting to quotes from the monks, simplifying a complex issue, which is... not wrong. Zuko himself never once pushes Katara towards violence or revenge in this episode. He himself is not that kind of person. If he had been completely wrong or if he had been a bad influence on Katara, pushing her towards a destructive path, the episode shouldn't have ended with her forgiving him, not just by words but with a loving hug. And it also ends with Katara saying she didn't take Aang's advice and ends with Aang being torn between the reality of his situation and his commitment to upholding the beliefs of his people. Simplifying it to "Zuko is racist" just because some people think Aang can never be wrong is reductive and misses the whole point. You're free to disagree, that's just how I see it.

Thank you for your ask!

[a-e-redacted]

I kind of always wondered in your fic why Eda has let Moon live in the owl house when it makes King sort of clearly uncomfortable and puts him in an inherently unsafe position. I know Eda also can’t really take Moon somewhere else and I feel that but I think King is never 100% safe if Moon is just there. I think Moon could totally kill King (again) thinking he’s getting a rise out of him and only realize what he’s done after the fact, and IF he managed to bring King back through some means he’d never be allowed near him again.

I think it’s a combination of being too far into bringing Moon into the family by now, along with an (un)healthy dose of denial on Eda’s part. She has good intentions and is a fierce mama witch but that doesn’t mean she’s thought everything through or makes the right call in every case. While Eda isn’t intentionally repeating the patterns of her mother, she might do well to be a bit more cautious.

Now that King and Moon have had a bigger fight, it’s an issue she’ll find harder to ignore.

And I say this with all the love and affection in the world for Eda Clawthorne. She’s one of my favorite characters of all time in any media ever, I relate to her a tremendous amount and most of this fic is from her POV.

But MoonShadow was never meant to be a clean cut story of morally pure characters doing morally pure things. It’s a messy story of flawed people doing their best to navigate life in unstable circumstances. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fuck up.

Not gonna’ lie, I wrote and rewrote the latest chapter (64) multiple times over the past five and a half months, trying to get just the right amount of nuance. It’s a different dynamic than we see in a lot of portrayals of King and The Collector and I worried that I might upset readers by their antagonistic interactions in this chapter.

Moon and King are foils to each other, and I wanted to stay true to the complexity of their relationship in the MoonShadow verse. Since the fic was drafted before season three, the Archivists aren’t really a component of the story of the Titan Trappers. Their inclusion in canon drastically changes The Collector’s position in the conflict and simplifies the redemption process.

Without that aspect in MoonShadow…it’s a lot messier.

I do think Moon has a few more inhibitions than they did since they did experience King dying once before and were traumatized by it. That, along with the house rules helps keep Moon in check somewhat, but their extremely volatile personality does have a tendency to get the best of them at the worst possible times.

Unfortunately Moon still hasn’t quite learned the concept of compassion for others. How they treat Starfishie is especially indicative of this, I think.

Moon’s “concern” for King’s well-being is strictly because of how it makes THEM feel personally. Their protectiveness towards the Owl Family is possessiveness of those who make THEM feel cared for and provide THEM with affection. It’s still all based on what Moon is getting out of it.

King has some extremely valid concerns and reservations about sharing his house and family with The Grand Huntsman themself, but he doesn’t necessarily hate them - despite his recent outburst.

He’s as fascinated by Moon as he is afraid of them, and he does feel for and relate to them. After all, he did release them for a second time, bringing them physically to the Owl House. However he’s also aware that this would be considered unbecoming for a Titan, and he’s desperately trying to live up to his legacy.

King has always been someone with a penchant for extreme dramatics (he actually has this in common with Moon) and it stands to reason that this would manifest in different ways as he moves into adolescence. He has a lot of complicated emotions regarding Moon and it was simpler just to attack them and yell at them (again, for reasons that are very much justified).

Now, however, at the end of the chapter, King is starting to rethink some things.

And WOW, this got long. But thank you so much for the ask. MoonShadow has been such a fun story to write and it makes me happy to know that it’s made you ponder things enough to take the time to share your thoughts!

[ashadowwanderedfar]

I watched Arrival (2016) last night and have some comments about the language

Spoilers under the read more. If you haven't seen the movie, I strongly recommend watching it, it's incredible. Basically some big ol' aliens come to Earth and this linguist is tasked with trying to communicate with them.

The aliens in the movie (named "heptapods" because of their 7 limbs) have a system of writing that is nondirectional, as in their "sentences" don't have beginnings or ends. They write in very organic-looking complex circles forming each greater concept, which have individual "words" to represent the smaller linked concept.

Above is a screencap from the movie of one of the circular logogram's translation. The logogram is built from 15 different concepts, conveying meaning without using sentence structure.

I really like this concept. Not being limited by sentence structure makes it much easier to insert nuance into your communication.

If it were me creating a similar language, I might give it a more webbed shape to communicate the particular links between certain smaller concepts within the greater concepts.

Sometimes I already simplify my spoken language like this. I often do it playfully (or even just do it "jokingly" but I'm actually doing it genuinely), such as "I go eat", cutting out all grammar and extra words. I can't speak for other Earth languages, but at least in english you might sound like a caveman if you speak like that, so I don't do it all the time. (Nothing against cavemen, it's just the wrong impression for an advanced alien race. English is clunky for such a form of speech.)

They briefly touch on it in the movie I think, but this style of language that the Heptapods use is kinda like telepathy in that you can convey a much more complex concept with greater purity than with the sentences we use on Earth. I don't know how well it would work with technical things; perhaps it would require a longer grouping of logograms than it would take to convey a singular concept. I imagine if you needed some kind of instruction manual to build furniture or something like that where there are concepts that are time/order dependant, you'd need more logograms, and each would likely be simpler than a logogram used to discuss interpersonal or philosophical concepts.

Another tidbit I just thought of, the Heptapods basically write the logograma all at once.

This makes a lot of sense given that the language is nonlinear. How would you know where to start otherwise? It also seems difficult to connect the concepts to form the logogram otherwise.

In the aforementioned web-like alternative style, this would be especially difficult. Say you have several concepts in a logogram that are connected to eachother. You would need all of the concepts one has a connection to to be written before you can connect them in writing. If you could write them all at the same time, however, you avoid that issue entirely.

Anyways, I kinda want to experiment with this regardless of the problems. I like this a lot, and I low-key suspect my species had a similar type of language.