#they all have different languages. working where there's overlap is fun

[raycatz]

Thank you for the tag, @mmelete!

1, How many works on ao3? 6 0v0 not many haha

2. Total ao3 wordcount? 19,419

3. Top 5 Fics by Kudos? I have 6 fics!!! The top 5 are:

Bombs, Beamos, and Bedtimes - The chain swap stories and compare monsters around the campfire. Wind has a giggle fit.

Letters for Hyrule - "The letters the mailman bring are a welcome comfort. It’s too bad Hyrule never gets any. Wind and Legend are going to fix that."

Nightmare Waking - Fics about the chain dealing with nightmares. So far, there are chapters for Four and Wind.

Chase Towards a Future - My Spirit Tracks x LU fic. It's unfinished and discontinued but I am fond of it.

Not Swell - Wind throws up at the ranch.

4. What fandoms do you write for? Linked Universe.

5. Do you respond to comments? not always. Again though, I only have 6 posted, and they're all kinda old. I'm not really getting fic comments atm lol. I want to be better at responding though, even if it's just with hearts!

6. Fic with the Angstiest Ending: That would go to Sealed Away, part of my Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye AU. I definitely have angstier wips though.

7. Fic with the happiest ending: Bombs, Beamos, and Bedtimes! The lads finished up a good dinner filled with banter and the fic ends with Roolie, Twi, and Four galivanting into the woods to gather water for the dish tubs. They're going to sleep well with full stomachs and light hearts.

8. Do you get hate? No, I haven't.

9. Do you write smut? Nah but I have a couple ideas for gen loz that I think would be sweet. Maybe one day!

10. Do you write crossovers? Sure. I'm more likely to write aus that blend worlds than I am crossovers where characters meet. Though, LU is one big crossover itself, isn't it?

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I'm aware of. I've had art stolen but thankfully it's all been easily sorted.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? I haven't but I'm open to it!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic? No, but I think it would be fun!

14. All-time favorite ship? This is such a difficult question! For loz/LU I adore Link/Marin because it's such a sweet tragedy. Ravio/Link and Vidow is wonderful to see as well.

15. WIPS you want to finish but doubt you ever will? So many! 'x) I would like to finish all of them, art, comics, fic, animatics, all of it. I think I have good ideas and I'd love to share them. ,,, When I'm able 'xD But there are also just too many. However, the only writing wips I want to finish atm are a couple more chapters for Nightmare Waking which I can see myself doing.

16. Writing strengths? I think I'm good at writing action! I think there's something to be said here in that I make comics, too. Something about knowing which beats need to be hit for a story or action to get across. I think I have a decent grasp of it. Action is easy for me to visualize and I have fun following it through. I enjoy the planning stages in making comics / animatics and parsing things down. Like, how much information can I effectively get across in one panel and how can I do it clearly? How does a panel flow into the next? Really make the images and words do a lot of work. And then how can I make it pretty? How can I do this with writing? It's like putting together a puzzle!

17. Writing weaknesses? introspective character moments, establishing setting, fleshing out actions and descriptions so that they're pretty and don't read like bullet points. ya know, the writing part o|< Like, I'm afraid that my writing can read like I'm planning storyboards instead of writing a story 'xD Filling space between plot points. There are a couple sentence structures I keep using and I want to work on varying those.

18. Thoughts on mixed language dialogue? I like it. I think it's cool. It's fun when it's worked into the story. Like, if there's a language barrier between characters and this is a focus, I enjoy when the characters put effort into working out the languages and understanding each other. Also if there's interwoven mixed language dialogue more casually it's neat. I'll pull open google translate or use context clues.

19. First Fandom you ever wrote for? +Anima. I ran an ask blog for Cooro way back when and would rp so I'm saying that counts.

20. Favorite Fic you've ever written? Writing the action scenes in the spirit tracks fic was fun. I had a good time plotting and choreographing that one (the train fight!!!). My favorite fic though is a toss up between Bombs, Beamos, and Bedtimes and Letters for Hyrule. I love Wind in Bombs, Beamos, and Bedtimes and Letters for Hyrule has better writing.

no pressure tagging: @zolanort @zartophski @sister-dear @jellydragons @sirenadeillustrationcomics

[literary-illuminati]

An Arbitrary Collection of Book Recommendations

(put together for a friend out of SFF I've read over the last couple of years)

Cli-Fi

Tusks of Extinction and/or The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler. They’re pretty different books in a lot of ways – one is a novel about discovering a certain species of squid in the Pacific might have developed symbolic language and writing, the other a novella about a de-extinction initiative to restore mammoths to the Siberian taiga – but they share a pretty huge overlap in setting, tone and themes. Specifically, a deep and passionate preoccupation with animal conservation (and a rather despairing perspective on it), as well as a fascination with transhumanism and how technology can affect the nature of consciousness. Mountain is his first work, and far more substantial, but I’d call it a bit of a noble failure in achieving what it tries for. Tusks is much more limited and contained, but manages what it’s going for.

A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys. In a post-post-apocalyptic world that’s just about figured out how to rebuild itself from the climate disasters of the 21st century (but that’s still very much a work in progress), aliens descend from the sky and make First Contact. They’re a symbiotic civilization, and they’re overjoyed at the chance to welcome a third species into their little interstellar community – and consider it a mission of mercy besides, since every other species they’ve ever encountered destroyed themselves and their planet before escaping it. Awkwardly, our heroine and her whole society are actually pretty invested in Earth and the restoration thereof – and worried that a) the alien’s rescue effort might not care about their opinions and b) that other interest groups on earth might be more willing to give the hyper-advanced space-dwelling aliens the answers they want to hear. Basically 100% sociological worldbuilding and political intrigue, so take that as you will.

Throwback Sci Fi

Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky is possibly the only thing I’ve read published in decades to take the old cliche of ‘this generic-seeming fantasy world is actually the wreckage of a ruined space age civilization, and ‘magic’ and ‘monsters’ are the remnants of the technology’ and play it entirely straight. Specifically, it’s a two-POV novella, where half the story is told from the perspective of a runaway princess beseeching the ancient wizard who helped found her dynasty for help against a magical threat, and half is from the perspective form the last surviving member of a xeno-anthropology mission woken out of stasis by the consequences of the last time he broke the Prime Directive knocking on his ship tower door and asking for help. Generally just incredible fun.

Downbelow Station by C. J. Cherryh is, I think, the only thing on this list written before the turn of the millennium. It’s proper space opera, about a habitat orbiting an immensely valuable living world that’s the lynchpin of logistics for the functionally rogue Earth Fleet’s attempt to hold off or defeat rebelling and somewhat alien colonies further out. The plot is honestly hard to summarize, except that it captures the feel of being history better than very nearly any other spec fic I’ve ever read – a massive cast, none of them with a clear idea of what’s going on, clashing and contradictory agendas, random chance and communications delays playing key roles, lots of messy ending, not a single world-shaking heroes or satanic masterminds deforming the shape of things with their narrative gravity to be seen. Somewhat dated, but it all very impressively well done.

Pulpy Gay Urban Fantasy Period Piece Detective Stories Where Angels Play a Prominent Role

A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark stars Fatma el-Sha’arawi, the youngest woman working for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities in Cairo, a couple of decades after magic returned to the world and entirely derailed the course of Victorian imperialism. There’s djinn and angels and crocodile gods, and also an impossible murder that needs solving! The mystery isn’t exactly intellectually taxing, but this is a very fun tropey whodunnit whose finale involves a giant robot.

Even Though I Knew The End by C. L. Polk is significantly more restrained and grounded in its urban fantasy. It’s early 20th century Chicago, and a PI is doing one last job to top off the nest egg she’s leaving her girlfriend before the debt on her deal with the devil comes due. By what may or may not be coincidence, she stumbles across a particularly gruesome crime scene – and is offered a deal to earn back her soul by solving the mystery behind it. Very noir detective, with a setting that just oozes care and research and a satisfyingly tight plot.

High Concept Stuff That Loves Playing around With Format and the Idea of Narratives

Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente is a story about a famous documentarian vanishing on shoot amid mysterious and suspicious circumstances, as told by the recovered scraps of the footage she was filming, and different drafts of her (famous director) father’s attempt to dramatize the events as a memorial to her. It’s set in a solar system where every planet is habitable and most were colonized in the 19th century, and culturally humanity coasts on in an eternal Belle Epoque and (more importantly) Golden Age of Hollywood. Something like half the book is written as scripts and transcripts. This description should by now either have sold you or put you off entirely.

The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez is the only classic-style epic fantasy on this list, I believe? The emperor and his three demigod sons hold subjugated in terror, but things are changing. The emperor, terrified of death, has ordered a great fleet assembled to carry him across the sea in pursuit of immortality. The day before he sets out on his grand pilgrimage to the coast, a guilt-ridden guard helps the goddess of the moon escape her binding beneath the palace. From there, things spiral rapidly out of anyone’s control. The story’s told through two or three (depending( different layers of narrative framing devices, and has immense amounts of fun playing with perspective and format and ideas about storytelling and legacy.

I Couldn’t Think of Any Categories That Included More Than One of These

All The Names They Used For God by Anjali Sachdeva is a collection of short stories, and probably the most literary thing on this list? The stories range wildly across setting and genre, but are each more or less about the intrusion of the numinous or transcendent or divine into a world that cracks and breaks trying to contain it. It is very easily the most artistically coherent short story collection I’ve ever read, which I found pretty fascinating to read – but honestly I’m mostly just including this on the strength of Killer of Kings, a story about an angel sent down to be John Milton’s muse as he writes Paradise Lost which is probably one of the best things I read last year period.

Last Exit by Max Gladstone – the Three Parts Dead and How You Lose the Time War guy – could be described as a deconstruction of ‘a bunch of teenagers/college kids discover magic and quest to save the world!’ stories, but honestly I’d say that obscures more than it reveals. Still, the story is set with that having happened a decade in the past, and the kids in question have thoroughly fucked up. Zelda, the protagonist, is kept from suicide by survivor’s guilt as much as anything, and now travels across America working poverty jobs and sleeping in her car as she hunts the monsters leaking in through the edges of a country rotting at the seams. Then there’s a monster growing in the cracks of the liberty bell, an in putting it down she gets a vision of someone she thought was dead is just trapped – or maybe changed. So it’s time to get the gang together again and save the world! This one’s hard to rec without spoiling a lot, but the prose and characterization are all just sublime. Oddly in conversation with the whole Delta Green cosmic horror monster hunting subgenre for a story with nothing to do with Lovecraft.

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh is a story about aliens destroying the earth, and growing up in the pseudo-fascist asteroid survivalist compound of the last bits of the human military that never surrendered. It stars a heroine whose genuinely indoctrinated for the first chunk of the book and just deeply endearing terrible and awful to interact with, and also has a plot that’s effectively impossible to describe without spoiling the big twist at the end of the first act. Possibly the only book I read last year which I actively wish was longer – which is both compliment and genuine complaint, for the record, the ending’s a bit messy. Still, genuinely meaty Big Ideas space opera with very well-done characterization and a plot that does hold together. 

[thecozycat]

🧡 Tuesday Tips #3 🧡

Your website is more than just a collection of pages—it’s your digital home. It should reflect you, your interests, and your personality. But with so many sites out there, how do you make yours stand out?

Here are 25 ways to make your website feel more personal, unique, and personalized to you!

........................................................................................................

🎨 Design & Aesthetics

1. Custom Color Palette – Pick colors that resonate with your personality and aesthetic.

2. Unique Typography Choices – Use a mix of fonts that match your vibe.

3. Handwritten or Doodle Elements – Add personal sketches or notes.

4. Custom Cursor – Let visitors use a fun, themed cursor on your site.

5. Personalized Favicon – A tiny but powerful detail that makes your site feel complete.

6. Themed Layouts for Different Pages – Make each page visually distinct but cohesive.

7. Custom Backgrounds – Textures, gradients, or even a personal photograph.

8. Retro or Experimental CSS Styles – Go wild with unique styles that make your site stand out.

9. Create a Custom Hand-Drawn Logo – Instead of a standard logo, try sketching one yourself for a unique touch.

10. Add Subtle Animations – Small hover effects, background animations, or cursor trails can bring your site to life.

11. Play With Layering Elements – Overlap images, text, and shapes for a more dynamic look.

12. Design a Personalized Loading Screen – A custom loading animation or message adds a fun detail visitors will remember.

13. Add Your Own Handwriting as a Font – Convert your handwriting into a web font for a truly personal touch.

14. Design a Seasonal Theme Switcher – Let visitors toggle between different seasonal or mood-based color palettes.

........................................................................................................

📜 Content & Personality

15. Create a Behind-the-Scenes Page – Show how your website was built, share your thought process, or include fun bloopers.

16. Add a "The Making Of" Section – Share drafts, sketches, or early concepts behind your creative works.

17. Include a Personal Dictionary of Words You Love – A list of favorite words, phrases, or slang you frequently use.

18. Design a "Things That Make Me Happy" Page – A simple, uplifting page filled with personal joys.

19. Show Your Progress on a Learning Goal – Track and share your journey in learning a new skill, language, or hobby.

........................................................................................................

💾 Interactivity & Engagement

20. Add a Clickable Mood Indicator – Let visitors see your current mood with an emoji or phrase that changes over time.

21. Create a Dynamic Banner That Updates Automatically – Display different messages depending on the time of day or special occasions.

22. Add a "What I'm Listening To" Widget – A live-updating display of your current favorite song or playlist.

23. Embed a Poll or Voting Feature – Let visitors vote on fun topics or help you make creative decisions.

24. Introduce a Mini Personality Quiz – Something quirky like “Which of my favorite books/movies are you?”

25. Make an "Ask Me Anything" Page – An interactive page where visitors can submit questions for you to answer.

Closing: Make It Yours!

Your website should be you in digital form—fun, unique, and engaging. Whether you add just one or all 25 ideas, the most important thing is to have fun and make it your own.

If you try any of these ideas, let me know—I’d love to see what you create!

-----------------------------------------------------------------

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[dailydemonspotlight]

Agrat bat Mahlat - Day 120

Race: Qadištu

Alignment: Neutral-Chaos

October 4th, 2024

Now, for something completely different. While some may consider the Qadištu to be a scary quartet, I personally consider them utterly fascinating, and easily my favorite of the bunch is absolutely deserving of being mentioned in this month of spooks. She's not only an unholy prostitute, but also a witch, a crow, and a character who gives me so much gender envy it drives me insane- Agrat bat Mahlat, a demon from Jewish myth who is said to be the daughter of none other than Lilith. The dancing roof demon is a surprisingly obscure creature, all things considered, but this doesn't mean there isn't a lot to dig into with her, so let's begin this dance of death.

Agrat, Lilith, Eisheth, and Naamah all actually have quite a bit of overlap- all four are angels of prostitution, as well as being mentioned each as the wives of Samael, but there do appear to be some differentiating factors between each of the Qadištu. Agrat bat Mahlat is first mentioned in Yalquṭ Ḥadash, a work of rabbinic literature that mostly appears in relation to Agrat, at least from my research. While I can't actually get the original copy of the work due to fact that I can't read the language, the demon is also listed, thankfully, in her original epithet within the Jewish Encyclopedia of Demonology.

To paraphrase the text, Agrat appears on the eves of Wednesdays and Sabbaths to bring myriad destruction alongside eighteen demons, named as 'messengers of destruction.' Her name literally means 'Daughter of Mahlat,' as bat is a word used to connect a daughter to her parent. According to the compendium and a treatise by rabbi Nathan Nata Spira, Mahlat was the name of Ishmael's daughter, who was exiled to the desert after being discovered as a witch. While in the desert, Mahlat ran into and mated with a demon named Igrathiel, who ended up fathering Agrat, beginning her exploits as, well, a demon.

Another thing Agrat bat Mahlat is known for is her appearance in Zoharistic Kabbalah, a collection of books going over several different aspects of Jewish thought and history, at least from what I can tell. Within the text, Agrat is listed alongside the rest of the Qadištu- Lilith, Eisheth, and Naamah- as being an 'angel of sacred prostitution' as well as one of the four mates of archangel Samael. Agrat herself is given the same amount of focus as the rest of the group save Eisheth (as it's somewhat ambiguous if she's even a member or not), and she's portrayed on the far more wicked side of the angels in Jewish myth, sometimes even being called one of the queens of demons. It's complicated, as is her role, as she's been pitted as being very morally grey.

In Zoharstic Kabbalah, Agrat and Lilith visit none other than King Solomon as prostitutes, and Agrat offers him the ability to commune with several spirits that, after the fact, would be sealed away into a lamp and tossed into a cave near the Dead Sea. After a while, the lamp was found by one King David, who used it to summon Agrat and ended up sleeping with her after likely either a bit of bargaining or some bewitching on either end. At the end of this one-night stand, Agrat then bore him a son in the form of a demon- none other than Asmodeus. Yep, she's Asmodeus's baby momma. I wonder how he'd react if he saw her in 3D? This later seems to have become a general theme with Agrat, as, according to the compendium, men could be seen trying to summon her to get her to sleep with them, but I doubt she delivered very often.

In terms of design in SMT, Agrat bat Mahlat is probably my favorite of the already strong collection of designs in the Qadištu- she fulfills such a good role in being both intimidating and beautiful, and I adore the calls with her witch's hat and crows wings connecting her to Mastema, who is a character who is a major player throughout her arc in the game. I'm not sure where her umbrella comes from, but it's a really fun detail that ties a lot of this already fantastic design together, and makes the second in command of the Qadištu an insanely memorable character.

No clue why she looks so stoned though. She might've eaten the forever weed brownie.

[i-already-know-im-going-2-hell]

helloooooooo cass, happy wincest wednesday! supernatural canon is incredibly undecided on this matter, so i want to know YOUR headcanons for what language(s) sam and dean have studied! do you think they have overlap anywhere, or would they divide and conquer? 🤔 i think about this so often, so i want to know other people's opinions too :)

Ok so I'm gonna preface this by I actually don't know much about languages in general, so I had to do research to come to a lot of these conclusions, but I don't know much about languages so I guess take all this with a grain of salt and the knowledge that I should most definitely be asleep.

So I have a couple of conclusions (and just fun possibilities) about the languages both of them would probably have ended up knowing and continued learning.

Tldr version:

I think Sam starts out fluent in being able to read Latin, Dean starts out at a "conversational" level of speaking Latin, and over time Sam grows to be just as capable as Dean at speaking Latin out loud or better while Dean remains at the same level.

I think Sam took Hebrew in college because he had to take a language to fulfill his electives and he was interested in reading original Abrahamic religious transcripts.

I think Sam picked up being able to read some Germanic language, possibly German, but possibly an older Germanic that I cannot name (I don't know how to read the language root charts, I've been staring at multiple of them and I can't figure them out, I'm so sorry...).

Long most definitely sleep deprived thought dump below.

1)So they both know Latin, but at different mastery levels. My basic conclusion for this is that most of the incantations I remember seeing in the show was in Latin or Enochian (this wasn't one of the things I did research on so I'm basing that solely off my memory) meaning that Latin would be a basic language hunters would have in their toolkits. I think however, that Sam started out with a better mastery of reading Latin than in pronouncing it out loud or using it, and Dean started out with the opposite. My main basis for that is that growing up, Sam was delegated to research more, whereas Dean spent more time with John out hunting, and so I think Sam had more chances to use his knowledge of Latin by reading old manuscripts, whereas Dean rarely needed to read Latin the way Sam had to growing up, so I think he has a decent ability to pronounce and speak Latin out loud, but he has a difficult time reading it.

I've read a lot of fics where Dean is not able to even really speak any Latin with any sense of ease, and I will say I don't think this is fully accurate. Dean has a tendency to play up his rough, uneducated exterior but when presented with areas of interest, he seems to consume knowledge just as rapidly as Sam. (Ex. he mentions reading Vonnegut and when presented with Samuel Colt's journal he is just as excited as Sam is about being able to read it, enough so he doesn't let Sam read it and says "get your own")

So in this case, I think Dean would be decent at understanding how to at least pronounce correctly basic Latin, because it's an extension of hunting, specifically an extension of hunting that denotes action (speaking Latin out loud would only be used in incantation, not research) and I think whether he truly enjoyed the process of learning it itself, he'd be as devoted to knowing enough Latin to use reliably as he was with any other areas of hunting.

I do think however, Dean is not interested in being able to reliably read Latin, because I think he and Sam are both used to their delegated roles that they're played since childhood, Sam that of the family researcher, and Dean that of the main body/protector.

Sam on the other hand would most likely become just as proficient in speaking Latin out loud as Dean after Stanford and as he grew into his role of working side by side with Dean in the field, but he'd never lose his proficiency with reading Latin because he never left the research role.

2)I think Sam would have a pick of many languages when he went to Stanford to choose to take for electives (he did, I looked up all their language programs and it's an impressive list), and he could've taken something like Latin that he already had practice in, but I think this would not have been in character for Sam with the way he seems to enjoy but also place a sense of control and worth in his ability to learn new things. So Latin would've been thrown out as a possibility. The reason I think he would've found Hebrew interesting enough to consider is again Sam's interest in god and religion. In the show Sam was a religious man from childhood, who was nondenominational, while still clearly holding base beliefs from Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), such as a belief in a singular god and in angels. On a meta level, I think this has to do with the fact that they tried specifically through the show to make it so that Supernatural while often centering on religious/theological subjects, was not a show making a religious message, and Sam being overly interested and practicing from one religion specifically would have swayed it towards that direction. That being said though, Sam does still show a clear interest in both religion and specifically Abrahamic religions. So, if Stanford required him to take language electives, and required him to take other electives that would include the possibility of religious classes, I think Sam would be intrigued not only in taking classes that discuss Abrahamic religions, but being the kind of person he is and already being used to researching and reading through old manuscripts, would think to pair Hebrew with said electives so he could read original documents himself.

3)Ok so this last one I did try to do research, but as stated above, I do not know how to read the language root charts. Feel free to infodump to me about those in a later date if that if something you like Ciel, because I wouldn't mind understanding better, but I couldn't make much heads or tails of them. What I could figure out though is that if Sam already knew Hebrew, and Latin, then he would know two languages that gave him some basic jumping ground to other branches. Latin for the romance languages and Hebrew for the Semitic languages. I think when Sam realized that this gave him a possible jumping ground for translating texts and manuscripts in similar languages, he would want to learn more base language roots. I looked up a chart of every monster Sam and Dean fought in the first five seasons to try to figure out what kind of theological system many of their monsters would come from, and most of them actually seem to be Abrahamic leaning, because they have ties to demons. When they are not tied to demons they seem to be.....all over the place honestly. I ended up writing a list of all the non Abrahamic monsters (not demons or angels) they fought season 1-5 and listing their theological origins and the language roots for those and.....dude they're all different and it wasn't helpful at all.

So I'm honestly just saying a germanic root because 1) Sam already knows English and 2) they fight one monster that has Norse theological roots.

Hopefully all of that made sense, I'm not convinced I am speaking English at this point and I really really need to go to bed, but I wanted to answer this and it turned into a rabbit hole lol

[vivalabunbun]

Hiii Viva~

Hope, you'll take your time to read this. It's not a request of course. I was simply curious about something. To be honest, I've read all your fics and my goodness, they are mind blowing and always make overwhelm with emotions. Specially how you portray Al-Haitham. Every fic of his feels like a fic and a character study all at once.

You know, in your recent fic, I just noticed that you said Alhaitham is a man logic and rationality, which is true. But isn't he from the Haravatat Darshan or a department that has something to do with studying and deciphering various scripts? Like isn't he a linguist? I thought he was a man associated with the humanities stream or something like that if we put it into modern terms. So, the question here is—why portray him as a man of science? Sure, he's a genius and an intellectual person but can a person really be that apt at two different disciplines? For example, I'm a political Science Honours student and honestly....I hate subjects that has anything to do with maths or science in general. 🥲 Does that make sense?

I'm not saying, you can't portray him like that or anything but rather the intent of doing so. And honestly, I think, you yourself are a highly intelligent individual. The way you put tid bits of practical information into the plot of fics says a lot about you, the author as well. I admire that quality and probably would like to know how you do it so effortlessly?

I really hope that I did not come off as criticizing or a dumb person in general. I was just curious and wanted to know. Hope, you'll read this.

Btw, Happy Basant Panchami from India, Viva. Today, we worship the goddess of knowledge, wisdom and arts here. Fun fact, it's actually kinda officially forbidden to study today, you know.

Hope, I didn't rant much....sorry, in advance. 🥲🌹

Arunima~

Hello! this is an interesting ask 🤔

From my understanding, Haravatat focuses on semiotics, which also includes linguistics. Linguistics is a field of science, the scientific study of languages. Because empirical research is involved along with empirical evidence.

Perhaps you were thinking about literature, which is of the humanities and academia. Although of course, there are possible overlaps between linguistics and literature.

Al Haitham liked to read abstruse academic journals from a young age, so I'd like to think tidbits of information from those journals would naturally bury themselves in his thoughts.

His thoughts and ponderings resemble those who have been part of the sciences. Disagree, question, challenge.

Thus, why he's a nerd (affectionate).

But of course, this is all from my perspective, which is different from yours, which is different from the next person.

It's what makes character writing interesting because everyone will view everyone differently.

Thank you for your ask and Happy (belated?) Basant Panchami!

Your ask brought up an interesting thought, why can't people be apt at both humanities and science?

All throughout history humanities and science have helped the other progress. They are not opposites nor should they be. They progress thought, which in turn helps us better understand knowledge and the world around us.

Disagree, question, and challenge the paradigm is how the humanities and science have gotten where they are today, and how they will get to tomorrow.

I'm not an intelligent person, I'm just a curious person. I like reading a wide variety of things from fiction to academic essays, even mathematical theories in textbooks and notes from friends in premed. Because I'm curious about them.

Then I like applying them to what I create because I love creating. Little factoids here and there because I think it's interesting, learning about how things work so I can better draw the things I like.

No one has to be a genius or a prodigy to be apt at both, just be open-minded and willing to look at both. There is also nothing wrong about only liking one or the other.

Let's just not pit them against each other because then it'll just be destructive.

Maybe many have forgotten the symbiotic relationship between humanities and sciences.

[sds-mod]

Your Pokemon Mikus are so cute! The poses you picked suit them all so well and show their varied charm. Did any designs stand out to you after drawing all of them? I definitely had my favorites when they came out, but I'd love to know if drawing them gave you a new perspective on ones that may or may not have stood out before!

THANK YOU SO MUCH that's super super sweet!! ;; I had lots of fun working on them so I'm super happy you like them waah!

Honestly what really stood out to me was the amount of details I had never conciously picked up on before and that really made me appreciate the effort that went into the designs so much, such as the transparent shoulders on Ice Miku, never really noticed them before. Also I already enjoyed the strong shape language on the designs, but drawing them myself really made me adore them hardcore. The lankiness on Fighting Miku (I really really wanted to preserve her strong lines as much as possible) the amount of curves on Poison Miku and Steel Miku, the flowiness of Flying Miku and the hard edges of Ice Miku, like it's all so good and thought out and cool!

I also had lots of fun observing which designs either had the belt of base Miku or had a variation of the triangle markings on it (e.g. Dark and Ice Miku have the belt, meanwhile Psychic or Steel Miku have it referenced elsewhere), plus the different shoe designs where a total highlight. Definitely have a new appreciation for Ground Miku in that regard because those shoes are chic as hell.

I found Poison Miku was the hardest to draw actually, it might be because she was the last one but I had some struggles finding a fitting pose for her and also I found it kinda hard to condense her very voluminous design into a chibi without losing her insane amounts of design appeal. I am pretty happy with the end result though, but I truly was in awe at the intense skill of the designing artist for keeping all those volumes in the shapes consistent and overlapping perfectly in the drawings. Bug Miku also gave me deeper appreciation for her design, I wasn't wowed by her at first glance but she quickly grew on me, then while drawing her I really realized the bug design language on her clothes which I found so cool and cute and well made.

In the end my faves remained my faves and those that weren't my faves didn't shoot up to that rank, but drawing them all for sure endeared me to all of them much more than before! They all have so much thought and effort put into them so I absolutely see how each one could be somebody's fave.

[falloutbradreviews]

From Childish To Fully Grown Man: Donald Glover’s Music In Retrospect

It’s interesting how history can overlap, because I’ll find something because of something else. For instance, I won’t forget where I was when I first heard Childish Gambino’s Camp, but I only found it because of Donald Glover appearing on the TV show Community. The year was 2011, and I was fresh out of high school, but I was just starting to expand my music taste. I wasn’t super into rap music at the time, but I was getting sick of the same metalcore, post-hardcore, and rock albums I was listening to. The show Community premiered in 2009, and it was a really quirky, fun, and unique show that dealt with a group of community college students, but one of my favorite characters was Troy Barnes.

Played by Donald Glover, he was one of the standout characters on the show, but I found out that he made music, too. Getting the name from a Wu-Tang Clan generator, he started rapping in the late 2000s. Donald Glover got his start both writing for 30 Rock at only 23, and then being in the YouTube sketch comedy group Derrick Comedy, but it was his work in Community that got him noticed by a lot of people. He was rapping at the same time, too, and I’ve heard some of those early mixtapes, but they’re not very good. I listened to those mixtapes in retrospect, along with 2010’s Culdesac, which is the point where he got a lot better.

I wanted to write a retrospective of his work, because he released his final two albums last year, Atavista (which is a reissue / remaster of 3.15.2020), and Bando Stone & The New World, so what better way to celebrate his music than to talk about his work as a whole? Like I said, his first handful of mixtapes weren’t very good, but 2010’a Culdesac was the first sign he got better; it’s still a bit rough around the edges, but there are some great tracks on it. Really, Glover went viral because of a few different things: a remix of Adele’s Rolling In The Deep, rapping over indie songs by Sleigh Bells and Grizzly Bear, and his song “Freaks & Geeks,” which came out in early 2011 before Camp did.

I first heard of him through his debut single “Bonfire” from Camp, and I remember being at my old PC back in 2011 when the song came out. I’m pretty sure that I found out about Childish Gambino through AbsolutePunk, back when that website was still a thing. I remember being in my bedroom, and I was blown away when I heard it, because it was unlike anything I had ever heard. I wasn’t familiar with rap music, minus what was popular at the time, but Camp is the first rap album I ever listened to. I posted a big retrospective on it last year, even though it turned 10 in 2021, so if you want more of my thoughts on that album, check that out, but I can talk about it a bit here, too.

Camp is an interesting record, because it’s an album that I’m very nostalgic about, but I can acknowledge that it hasn’t aged the best in certain respects. That’s namely due to certain lyrics with language that hasn’t aged well (especially language that was more “acceptable” at the time but very problematic now), and certain pop culture references that feel very dated, because they were more relevant in 2011. There are also arguments to be made about the tone of this record, especially how Donald Glover tried to be serious and humorous at the same time; he tried to combine ideas like his credibility as a rapper, his racial identity as a Black man being into nerd culture (being a nerd was starting to get popular, too), and just his relationship woes that he was going through at the time.

The production on Camp went nuts, too, because Community composer Ludwig Göransson became his most frequent collaborator, and he’s one hell of a composer, but the tone of the album is a bit all over the place. You’ve got songs like “Bonfire” and “Backpackers” that are more straight up hip-hop cuts, but then you have pop-rap cuts like “Firefly,” “Heartbeat,” and “Kids,” and songs like “LES” and “Outside” are more cinematic and melodramatic cuts with strings. Hell, the last track of this thing is almost eight minutes, but the second half is a monologue where Glover talks about an embarrassing experience when he was 13, and the moral of the story is to be as transparent as possible with people, so no one can hold anything against you, because they already know it.

The irony of that is Donald Glover would go onto revealing less about himself with his next few albums, especially with 2013’s Because The Internet. Camp is still an album that I have a lot of fondness for, despite all of its issues, but I can look past them for various reasons. Glover would come back in 2014 with Because The Internet, and it’s a very different beast from Camp. The album is a loose concept album about the Internet, but the album has more of an alternative rap and R&B feel to it, versus the more straightforward pop-rap sound of Camp. I’m more split on Because The Internet, because it has more of an experimental sound, and I’m not crazy about all of it. I don’t think the album is bad at any point, but not every track keeps my interest, so I only really love about two-thirds of it.

We did get some mixtapes in between and after the two albums, though, including 2012’s Royalty (which I like a handful of tracks from) 2014’s STN MTN / Kauai (which I really love). The latter project is cool, too, because it consisted of a mixtape and EP, the latter of which was commercially available. Just a couple of years later, we got Awaken, My Love, and this was an album that both shocked longtime fans and got Glover more mainstream recognition. This record was almost a side quest in his sound by being a funk and R&B record, very much influenced by the 1970s, but it was a divisive album. I enjoyed it when it came out, and I still like it today, but an unpopular opinion is that it’s my least favorite of his. I love the sound, but it’s more or less another experimental record with stuff that doesn’t do much for me, minus “Redbone” or something like that. This record shot him up to the upper echelons of stardom, though, earning him Grammy nominations and more recognition from publications and blogs. The same people that didn’t take him seriously just a few years ago were now riding his coattails.

He somehow got even bigger with “This Is America” in 2018, because that song swept the Grammy’s, but he dropped a couple of singles in the summertime. Those songs didn’t get too popular, but they were catchy little tunes. After “This Is America,” he kinda disappeared for a few years, quietly releasing the project 3.15.20, which came out right before the pandemic really hit. That record came and went, kind of just because of how hectic 2020 was, but in 2024, Glover announced a few different things, most importantly his retirement from music. He announced that he would have two more albums coming out — a remastered and finished version of his last album, now titled Atavista, and a soundtrack to an upcoming movie that still hasn’t come out called Bando Stone & The New World.

Atavista was one of my favorite albums of last year, while Bando Stone has some great songs, but it’s a bit of a scattershot album. It’s almost like the indirect sequel to Because The Internet, because of how it encompasses a lot of sounds and ideas, but when it works, it really works. That’s how I feel about BTI, too, but it’s fitting that he would go out with his most diverse album to date. Atavista, however, is one of my favorite R&B albums in recent memory. There’s a strong neo-soul and R&B influence to it, especially nods to Prince, Michael Jackson, Maxwell, D’Angelo, and even dare I say, Kanye. Like 2005-era Kanye, where he blended soul, R&B, and hip-hop to make for a cool and unique sound.

If that’s all we’re going to get from Glover, I suppose he went out on a high note. He’ll surely he missed, and if he wants to make music again, I’m sure people would eat it up with no questions asked. He could release music under his own name, versus the Childish Gambino moniker, but if this is all we get, I’m happy with it. His body of work is a unique one, especially from where he started and where he ended. Personally, I prefer his first two albums, but that’s kind of because I have nostalgia for them. I love Atavista, however, especially when I always loved Glover’s singing and more R&B influences, so this is where it all culminates.

I’ve been a fan of Childish Gambino for the past 14 years, so basically almost half of my life at this point, and I’ve grown up with his music. I’ve been growing up with his music, just as he’s been growing. He’s only nine years older than me, but it’s awesome that he and I have been growing and evolving at the same time. I guess that’s why I wanted to write this, because I wanted to talk about my journey with Donald Glover’s music, and how I’ve both grown up with it, and how I’ve grown with it. Donald Glover is one of my favorite artists, and even after he’s done making music, he still will be.

[the-cat-who-got-the-cream]

EP Review: I'm Not Here to Make Friends - Roar (2012)

Genre: indie pop, pop rock, chamber pop

Released: February 28, 2012

Length: 13:13 (4 tracks)

this ep means a lot to me! ive been listening to roar the band's music for a while, and i just love their unique sound playing around with combining different sounds that shouldnt work together, but do. i went more into detail with this one because i have a personal relationship with each song and im a bit biased with this one hehe

Chinese Tattoo:

This is such a fun, upbeat sounding track that is the perfect intro to this EP. It's one of those songs where you have to listen to the lyrics to tell "Oh wait this isn't a happy song." It's very coming of age and introspective of someone growing up and learning new things that change their perspective on life. Someone who is relying on empty relationships to provide them some sense of comfort (which is a common theme of this EP).

"This isn't love but it still feels nice"

The constant drumbeat at the verse

“Never once stopping like a shark in its sleep Moving just to breathe”

is perfect because it expresses the urgency the speaker feels with the constant anxiety they feel fighting to stay alive, in which they use relationships to fill the hollowness they feel.

This isn't my favorite track on the EP, but it is very fun nevertheless :)

Flightless Bird:

This song is really good at using metaphorical language to get the idea across of someone who has lost their direction in life. From the title alone you can see someone who has lost their purpose in life. What's the point of giving a bird wings if it cannot fly?

The first verse has a lofi sound using minimal instruments, which shifts before the next verse. It brings out this beautiful melody that builds with the percussion bringing it all together.

When it reaches the next verse the singer has this very sing-songy tone that's very dreamlike, exaggerating the first line.

"Replaying the gory scene incessantly Forgot the safe word was "imaginary" Forgot about my poor selective memory Feeling like a fat kid at the beach who's still weighing The pros and cons of weak bulimic teeth"

I think the last two lines of this verse are so clever in how the artist provides two different meanings for the word "weighing," weighing in the literal sense and then weighing as in contemplating a choice. Like some sick and twisted pun.

"You tell yourself that this is for the best"

This line repeats over and over again at the end, showing how the speaker has given up and is trying to accept his unfulfilled life.

Poor Grammar:

This was the song that got me into ROAR! The intro is SO good, the overlapped synthesizers give the illusion of a choir singing, and then there's the percussion and fun bass in the background. Throughout the entire song I think the bass is my favorite part.

This following single line is what got me through high school:

"This life is punctuated like a texting session Between two overheated, insecure teens"

The desperation from the speaker trying to repair this failing relationship with someone who is putting no effort to do so on their end hits so hard.

I love how he enunciates each syllable on these lines

"I can't see you when I need to"

In this particular line ROAR uses drums to emphasize each word here.

"Premeditated like some sick joke"

For this line the buildup on the melody completely stops, showing how heartbroken the speaker feels from being stood up by his partner.

The outro is stunning, it has the overlapped synthesizers return and makes me feel like I'm ascending up to heaven.

The Comfort Of A Laugh Track:

This is my favorite song on this EP by far. The title alone describes how lonely the speaker is that they take comfort from a laugh track playing because it tricks them into thinking that they aren't alone.

The lyrics discuss the speaker's struggles with forming connections with others because they keep pushing everyone away. It describes the alienation one feels from not learning how to talk to others. Like there's some secret language everyone learned but you, and you're trying your best to keep up with it.

"Why is it so hard to speak To people I don't know? Is it something that you learn When constantly alone?"

Musically there are just so many good parts. My favorite part of songs is when they utilize phrasing, which helps emphasize different lines and shows their impact. Such as the buildup that starts at

“If you could only see me now”

and then how it gets louder and louder and suddenly Roar is using every single instrument together for one line:

“Where I could be all you would need”

This emphasizes how important this line is to show the desperation the speaker has in wanting to connect to his partner. On a side note, the riff that plays directly after that line is my favorite ever. 

At 2:57 it’s pure instrumental and it’s beautiful. The different sounds create such a funky feel with an almost haunting sound like ghosts in the background.

Ranking:

The Comfort Of A Laugh Track

Poor Grammar

Flightless Bird

Chinese Tattoo

basically the tracklist order but backwards ;)

[walleeli]

Matchup Exchange with @teardrop-scales

thank you for your patience!! This was super fun to write ahhh <3 (I apologize in advance for the... flowery language. I was possessed.)

I match you with… Argenti

Hear me out! (my reasoning)

I'm going to start with the most obvious, perhaps silly, but nonetheless cute and fun to me piece of reasoning… Argenti is an extremely cool and elegant name… Olympia is an equally cool and elegant name… it's like. Destiny. Argenti and Olympia… like that is gorgeous to me, powerful even (LOL)

Silver jewelry believers unite? a knight and an equestrian? The threads I'm weaving together are perhaps only loosely connected but I am seeing SO CLEAR A TAPESTRY HERE.

BUT this is so much deeper than enchanting names, aesthetic cohesion, and… thematically overlapping interests/ambitions/what have you uniting you.

There are similarities in the way you carry yourselves, your outlooks and approaches to the world, that I think make it easy for you to fall into step with each other. Mutual understanding, mutual respect. There is an element, here, of feeling that through the other, you are seeing yourself from the outside. A mirror of sorts. Imperfect, sure, but serving a truly important purpose:

In seeing pieces of yourself reflected, you are able to love and appreciate those traits and aspects without the framework of the self limiting your capacity for love. There is a lot of peace in that. And hope. You give love and you can receive love. Do you get what I'm saying?

There is a near immediate sense of belonging. An innate, shared understanding between the two of you. Twin stars in a shared sky. Two like roses in bloom in a garden.

ANYWAYS. BACK ON TRACK. The way you carry yourselves! Both giving off a first impression of being polite, kind, and understanding. With a certain gentleness, a sense of calm. The image amuses me so, of people getting beyond that first glance at you both only to discover that you've got a bit of bite to you, that you are quick and quippy and sassy… and that Argenti, besides being a true gentleman, is uh. For lack of a better word. Just like a deeply weird dude (said with a GREAT DEAL OF AFFECTION. I LOVE THAT GUY.) 

You both prioritize open mindedness. Your desires to understand and view the world compassionately are matched. 

Argenti, as we've observed in game, has a tendency to dive headfirst (and unthinkingly) into situations. Your ability to be practical and rational is a great balance to his direct approach.

To be clear, you probably aren't going to be able to talk him out of a reckless choice, but you WILL buy yourself a few moments to think of a way to get you both out of the situation should the need for escape arise. 

His ability to see beauty in things is a natural fit for your curious nature. Your desires to try new things, to learn, and to travel can't help but to grow in his presence. There is so much beauty, so much wonder in this world. You want to see and experience the fullness of it!

I am imagining you, in the context of HSR, as a cosmos traveler not unlike Argenti but for much different purposes. (This is the part where I make up your character's lore lol) You have always been fascinated by ancient histories, it only makes sense that you would explore the history of your own world. As you do, it isn't difficult for you to decipher that a history fictionologist has altered your planet's history. The where and when and how exactly is lost to you, and the desire to know the truth is what sets you sailing through the stars. This is the background on which my other headcanons will be sustained. 

Headcanons - How It Starts

It's exceedingly simple and endlessly complex. You're looking for a horse.

Your travels have led you to believe that there is a particular, rare breed of horse that carries in its memory, lost lore. (a pet project of the Aeon, Nous. Designed with intent to combat the workings of the Enigmata) Having had all other doors to finding your home planet's truth closed to you, you've no choice but to resort to finding the glorified, living history books you've read about and pray they have the answers you seek. 

You find a horse, and with the horse you find a man. He does not hesitate to eloquently, elegantly, elaborately, and immediately explain his own quest for information to you. He seeks Idrila. 

The two of you get to talking, you've always been fascinated by the Aeons, Idrila is a name that is familiar to you. And though you are unable to offer THEIR knight any information he has not himself already studied or unearthed, he appreciates that you are aware of the one he follows and that you are knowledgeable about THEM in addition. 

…In your distraction, trying to kindly assist the man as far as you are able, the horse saunters away. No real loss, you discover, when the man- Argenti informs you that that particular beast only held knowledge of lost varieties of butters and breads.

It is you who suggests the idea of tailing the creature. Horses move in herds. There may be hope in finding what it is the both of you are seeking yet. 

And so, you agree. For the time being, you will travel together. 

It doesn't take you long at all to come to the conclusion that Argenti is… odd. It is an observation made without judgement on your part, willing as ever to leave your perspective open, allowing room for his way of thinking. Though that doesn't mean you won't be coughing to cover the occasional little laugh when you turn to find him waxing poetic about the beauty of some object or another to the object itself. 

You've always had it in you to be respectful, appreciative even, of the world around you. But the extent to which he takes it is new for you. New and deeply fascinating. Argenti is unlike anyone you have ever met, you find yourself drawn to him because of it. 

Argenti finds himself drawn to you in turn. At first, it is only his usual and expected appreciation of the beauty of you. But time in your company is quick to change that. Argenti's life is a river. Flowing forward, set course. His single minded ambition, his pursuit of The Beauty his sole focus. And you… there is a vastness to you, a depth. Your attention is split in many directions but never divided, you give everything you have to everything you do. Your boundless compassion and understanding, your loyalty, your willingness to listen and compromise operating in tandem with your unwillingness to compromise yourself and core beliefs-to be treated poorly or see others treated poorly. 

If Argenti is a river, you are a sea of stars. A million little lights in the night. Illuminating what would otherwise be pitch dark. He will tell you so. 

Your relationship blooms like a flower in the spring. Naturally, easily, under the warmth of the sun.

Headcanons - Assorted

Argenti notices the little things. A facet of his ability to see beauty in most anything is that he is very detail oriented. You are not excluded from this. He is quick to make note of your insecurities but he will never call attention to them. He is quick with compliments, of course, applauding and encouraging you to step beyond your comfort zones. Always making a point to call out any efforts you make to challenge your negative self perceptions. 

Your relationship is fueled by your mutual respect for each other's pursuits and ability to communicate well and freely with each other. You will always feel listened to and heard. 

Argenti is appreciative of all sides of you. Whether that be the more publicly shared display of gentle kindness and the more private sass and snark. He's enamored with your wit and amused by your balancing of rationality and fun loving nature.

He finds himself easily invested in the things you care about, always eager to hear about your interests, the books you've been reading, the music you're listening to, the time you've spent out with friends, the latest developments in your studies. Yours is a life full of beauty he wants nothing more than to bask in. 

Headcanons - How It's Going

Your personal quests will not see you sharing a path for forever. In fact, you find your roads quick to diverge. But the separation is temporary. Somehow, in all the vastness of space, you find yourselves frequently colliding. The meetings are never planned, whether entirely by chance or by act of the divine, you find each other. Ever changing and always the same, falling into easy step with one another, discussing your presents on mission driven walks in the day. And sharing imaginings of a distant future, together, under cover of night. 

After your third intersection, the pair of you agree to exchange letters. Delivered by hand to each other at each of your unplanned meetings, to be read when you once more find you need to part. The ache of distance lessened with each stroke of ink on parchment. 

There is technology, of course, and you do exchange messages over text and tech when you are able, but for one as romantic as Argenti the physical act of writing, the hand delivery of a letter, is infinitely more special. It becomes something of a ritual, a routine, for the both of you. 

Your time together is always marked by tenderness. Gentle touches and soft words exchanged in your breeze fleeting moments in each other's company. Your relationship is a rose, petal delicate-his touch, your care-and thorn sharp-his lance, your wit. 

You would have it no other way.

Playlist - Garden of Gallicas

Diana by Priscilla Ahn

Never Look Away by Vienna Teng

Run For Roses by NMIXX

Cosmic Love by Florence + The Machine

Novels by Rusty Clanton

Hopefully this is an enjoyable read!! Thank you so much for sharing and trading with me! <3

[skaruresonic]

Where would you rank English among the other languages you've learned?

For reference:

= I studied Spanish for five years in high school (forgot most of it), = am currently on my second year of studying Skaruręʔkyéha·ʔ, = tried learning a bit of Japanese hiragana but dropped it, = and am researching bits and pieces of Cymraeg (Welsh) and Old Saxon in my spare time.

Language is fascinating, a window into the way people think. I think all languages have the capacity to be beautiful, but also that beauty is not a prerequisite for a language to be allowed to exist, because beauty is subjective. That being said, it's difficult to rank languages as being "better" or "worse" because they're simply different from each other. It's like evolution: all languages have become the way they are to suit their own specific needs. While it's true that I sometimes call English "weird" or "dumb," it's out of frustration with the sheer gulf between the krirù·ręʔ and Skarù·ręʔ ways of thinking. They couldn't be more different if there were galaxies between them. For example, a perfectly sensible question in Skaruręʔkyéha·ʔ is "Teʔ waʔnę́·te saʔnę̀·nę́hwih íhsʔę naʔ čaʔnę̀·nę́hwih haʔ tì·waʔθ naʔ haʔ nyaʔnę̀·nę́hwih?" "[Which] [your relatives] [more than] [you two are related] [the amount] [than] [the] [you and I are related]?" In English, this is surprisingly difficult to translate because we don't exactly have a clean, congruent way of phrasing the sentiment. The closest attempt we made was: "Which of your relatives is it the case that you're more related to them than you are related to me?", which just sounds awkward no matter how you dice it.

Learning Haudenosaunee languages requires a restructuring of your thinking, a loosening of English's strict adherence to word order and grammar. There are multiple valid and correct ways of saying the same thing. What you'd call grammar is, for us, more like a guideline or a template from which we make educated guesses. Though there are "less appropriate" and "more appropriate" ways to structure sentences, the greater emphasis is placed on pronunciation than grammar. And there is so much that overlaps semantically, you'll wonder what the difference is. Learning aspects and how we conceive of time is one of the most difficult parts of the language because English just doesn't conceptualize time Like That. We have a lot of subtle nuances when it comes to time specifically, such that, when you try to find the appropriate English to match it, it feels a bit like using a fireaxe to hammer in a nail. It'll get the job done, but it feels weird and much too blunt. But then there are times where the Skarù·ręʔ feels equally blunt. I'll be honest, some of it isn't politically correct. Some terms come from colonial times, like our calling Asia the "old world." We could probably stand to work on that; making new words is the most fun part, imo.

I don't want to say our language is more "vibey," but because English is a low-context language where words more or less mean what they say on the tin, Skarù·ręʔkyéha·ʔ seems vaguer by comparison, if only because words are broader in their meanings. You either need to provide more information via context or think more abstractly. Skarù·ręʔ people have a rather quirky view of the world. We looked at the giraffe and decided its most distinguishing feature was not its spots, its long neck, or its black tongue, but its lack of a voice: yuwętú·kęʔ. "Cranberry," when translated literally, means "it says 'duks'! (onomatopoeia)," referring to the sound they make when boiled: túks wá·ʔnęh. Listening is important when studying Haudenosaunee languages because critical differences boil down to a literal hair's breadth: a lack of a pause, the way you pronounce one E, whether you aspirate those Hs, all of that can alter the meaning of a word. To an English ear, these words all sound the same: uhčíhręʔ = bear učíʔreh = light učirę́hręʔ = brown učì·reh = bee stinger I guess the main difference is nowadays English sounds stricter, more rigid, to me. Maybe a little... slow? Lumbering? Idk how to describe it. All this being said, it depends. Sometimes when I'm tired, I'll switch to English because it's easier and I don't have to hold eight million conjugations in my head - but sometimes the opposite is also true! I've grown so used to saying certain basic phrases in Skarù·ręʔ that I'll forget to phrase them in English.

From what little I've studied of Japanese and Welsh, they seem to bear some similarities in structure to Skarù·ręʔ as agglutinative languages. Smaller pieces strung together to create more complex sentences. (And this is just me but I like how Welsh sounds lol. why are you all making keyboard smash jokes. stop that.) They also do some similarly loosey-goosey word order stuff, although IIRC, Japanese relies a lot on passive voice whereas the concept doesn't exist in Skarù·ręʔ; everything has a cause and effect, something happening to cause something else. You can't just say the word "run" in isolation; you need to provide more context. Who is running? When? Where? How long? "Put it in a story," as they say. English uses a mix of active and passive language. Not sure how much direct language Welsh uses quite yet. I think Old Saxon is cool too, lol. It's fascinating to trace the etymology of English words through it. There's no such thing as a double-negative in Anglo-Saxon; you can stack as many negations as you want. How cool is that? Why did we get rid of it?

[umichenginabroad]

Victoria en France: Week 13

How are we already on the 13th week of this program? I officially made it to my second two-week break, which means I only have a few more weeks of classes left!

Classes

This week, I had 3 midterm exams. It feels great to have them over with. I am officially finished with French, both language and culture. I had my last advanced French class on Monday, which was bittersweet. I hated that it was always on Mondays from 5:30pm to 7:30, and it was definitely a challenge for me. However, I think I really improved my French in this class, and overall it was a great experience. We had our second 2 sessions of French Culture Unit 3, where we wrapped up making our mock French food truck business. I learned a lot about how French business culture works, and that making a business takes a lot of work. It was definitely a fun and engaging class. Culture Unit 2 had some overlap with Unit 3, so I also had my last session of that this week. Our Unit 2 teacher always brings us French food to try, and this week she brought us homemade madeleines, a sweet treat that is super yummy:

In Java, after our midterm exam, we started working on our final project. My roommate and I are going to make an app where you can track what countries you've travelled to and connect with friends to compare lists. I'm really excited about this project, as I have never made an app before, so it will be a new experience for me. I am looking forward to applying everything I've learned so far to make something I would actually love to use.

Food

I ate a lot more French food than normal this week. I tried French tacos for the first time, and they are actually very different from Mexican tacos. They're like a panini-pressed burrito, with fries, some sort of protein, and cheesy sauce inside. They're so good, but I don't know why they're called tacos since they're really more similar to a Taco Bell crunch wrap. Another thing I got for the first time was a savory crêpe. These are such a yummy dinner! This one had goat cheese, egg, and zucchini, and it was delicious.

Paris adventures

I had a great time in Paris this week. It's gotten a lot more touristy since the program started, but the weather is great. On Wednesday, we went and watched the sunset at Sacre-Cœur (classic move). On Thursday, we went to Jardin des Plantes, where there were flowers blooming everywhere. It was so pretty! Pics:

After Jardin des Plantes, we went to the Great Mosque of Paris, which was really cool to see. I never made it to any of the mosques in Marrakech, unfortunately, since we booked excursions for every day of that trip. So, I was glad I got to see this one. The garden was stunning. Side note, I think about my Morocco trip all the time. I loved it so much! Here are pictures from the Great Mosque of Paris:

Next, we went climbing, since I'm pretty much a regular climber now. I am really improving my grip strength! Then, we headed up to Adidas Arena, where we watched the Paris Basketball vs. Alba Berlin EuroLeague basketball game. This was a super fun time. The energy was really high, and the stadium was completely packed. Paris won, which was great. I got a jersey, and the player on my jersey is TJ Shorts II, who was definitely the MVP. The game was just like any basketball game you would watch in the States - besides it being in French, there were hardly any differences at all!

At our seats, they gave us these signs that make a loud clapping noise if you fold them up and hit them:

On Friday, I went to the Tuileries and finished my book, since it was a really nice day. Then, I met my friends at Galeries Lafayette. This is a luxury mall, but on the terrace, there is a wonderful view of Paris.

After that, we went and got dinner at an amazing pasta place. I didn't get a picture of my food, but trust me, it was delicious. In France, you can ask for bread at any restaurant, and they have to bring it to you for free. Here though, they took it to the next level and every time we finished our bread, they refilled our basket! Bottomless bread is where it's at. After that, we got ice cream at this really good ice cream place that I mentioned a blog or two ago. You can choose as many flavors as you want regardless of what size you get. This time, I got apricot, strawberry, and almond. The whipped cream on top was complimentary:

Then, we sat by the Seine, which is a very popular thing to do in the evening. It was a very lovely day!

Now, I'm on break, and my family just arrived this morning to visit me. I'm looking forward to taking advantage of my time off to discover more cool parts of Europe. Stay tuned!

À bientôt,

Victoria Vizza

Electrical Engineering

IPE: FAME at ENSEA in Cergy-Pontoise, France

[clementines-writing-corner]

outlining my sandbox

Hello friends!

I hope you all are doing well! I’m doing meh. –__– The third week of the fall semester has just drawn to a close and classes are picking up. I enjoy everything I’m doing, don’t get me wrong, it’s just that I’m doing a lot of different things. One of the things I’m really looking forward to when I graduate is that I can cut down on the variety of responsibilities. I’ll just be doing one job (hopefully) instead of trying to balance various courses. But enough about that, y’all aren’t here for that. Y’all are here for the writing updates, so let's get into it! ᕱ__ᕱ

Sadly, things have not picked up a lot since last week and I haven’t actually done any writing for world-building development. But, I did do some research into the elements of worldbuilding and took some notes. Even though it wasn't the most fun thing to do, I felt it was pretty important. I needed to create some sort of structure for myself (even if it is very loose) so that I know what I should be thinking about, how I should be creating my world, and what I should be including.

Worldbuilding, especially the type that I’m doing in which I am creating a whole new universe from scratch, is super expansive and very intimidating (which is why I’ve been dragging my feet about it lol). It's like looking out at an empty beach full of sand and knowing you have to build a sandcastle, but there is so much sand everywhere that you don't even know where to start. Where is the best place to build it? How big should it be? How detailed? Should you include towers or just a base? How are you going to do this with just your bare hands and a big empty beach? You know there are tools around here somewhere to help, but where the heck are they?!

But now, after I've spent time looking around and gathering some tools, I've at least outlined a sandbox and can dig in to just crafting stuff and experimenting, while making sure I’m in the bounds of what I actually need to be creating and that everything I am creating fits together.

Here’s some of the tools I've gather, in no particular order of importance:

ASK YOURSELF QUESTIONS!! To build a consistent world that works, regardless of if it’s fantasy or not, you have to constantly be asking questions. Okay this works this way in your world. Why? What changes because of it? What else needs to change for it to be this way? How does it affect the story or the characters? 

It is very helpful to use the real world as a base for developing your world and its characteristics. What is the same? What is different? Why? 

A lot of elements will overlap in fantasy worldbuilding as they do in the real world. It’s okay! Just keep in mind which elements will affect what and will be affected by what when you are creative. Ex. When you change the climate of an area, that affects what animals and plants can live there and how life looks for the peoples who live there. 

THE WORLD IS NOT THE STORY! Make sure that when it comes to crafting your story after you are done worldbuilding that you create something set in the world not about the world. (Unless that is the goal, I guess?)

And here is the outline of element's that need developed:

Geography & Environment (What does the world physically look like? Are there multiple climates? What is the typical weather? Is the passage of time different? What plants and animals exist? Where?) 

Cultures & People Groups (Are humans the only intelligent life or are there other peoples? What do their cultures look like? What is specific and unique to each? What do they know about each other? Are there different holidays for different cultures? Are there different languages? What does education look like? What are the myths/legends/folkstories of each culture?)

Government & Politics (How are the governments structured? Are there different countries or sovereign nations? What laws exist and how are they enforced?)

Daily Life (What does daily life look like for these cultures? Especially for the main characters? Are there any customs that are normal in this world?)

History & Social Conflicts (What is the world’s history? How did they get to the present time in your story? Are there tensions between peoples? Governments? Religions? Groups or Organizations?)

Technology (What technology does this world have access to? Is it spread evenly throughout the world? Or do some peoples have access to more advanced technologies?)

Magic (What does the magic system look like? What can magic do? What can’t it do? What shouldn’t it do?)

Religions/Philosophies (What religions exist? If multiple, are there tensions between them? Are there deities? Are they connected to the magic system? What moral standards are there? Are any holidays tied to religion? Are there important religious texts?)

Economy & Trade (What sort of economic system does the world operate under? What currencies exist? Who trades with who? Who doesn’t trade with who and why?)

Origins (What is the origin of this world? Is it tied to religion? Are there creation myths? What are the scientific laws? Are they different from real life? How so, and why?)

Like I said before, and I will say again in the future, worldbuilding is a lot. It’s a lot, a lot. But having some sort of jumping off point and a list of things to keep in mind as I go is certainly going to help me get into the sand and get messy because now I know where the edges of my sandbox are, a vague idea of what I need to build, and have gained some tools to help me out. 

Now I just need to figure out how I’m going to build this thing. ᕱ__ᕱ

Until next time, friends! And don’t forget– dot your j’s and cross your t’s!!

~Clementine J. Quincey 🪷

PS. Below is a list of resources I looked at while researching this week!

[elianajof]

BARBIE (2023) THE MIDTERM.

Introduction:

In the convergence of the readings of Marx/Engels, Althusser, Saussure, and Jameson and their theories is an exploration of how societal structures, power dynamics, and cultural symbols shape individual understanding and interpretation. These theoretical frameworks elucidate the ways through which dominant ideologies are disseminated, perpetuated, and subverted within our culture. Through an analysis of a scene from Barbie (2023), these theoretical insights are applied to a moment in pop culture, revealing the overlap between power, ideology, and cultural production. Despite differences in their conceptualizations of power and resistance, these theories collectively underscore the complex and dynamic nature of cultural expression and interpretation in contemporary society.

Similarities in the sources: One way all of these readings come together in theories is by explaining how all consumers have a similar basic understanding of something because of the similarity in what they see. In Marx and Engel’s “The Ruling Class and The Ruling Ideas,” they explain that the ideas behind everything in society are crafted by the ruling class who dictate what others can see and think. They write: “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas: i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society is at the same time its ruling intellectual force” (1). Althusser adds to this statement by elaborating on what group of people feed certain ideologies to everyone and make everyone think a certain way – the Ideological State Apparatus, as he calls it. He writes: “In other words, the school (but also other State institutions like the Church, or other apparatuses like the Army) teaches ‘knowhow’, but in forms which ensure subjection to the ruling ideology or the mastery of its ‘practice’” (2).  Then, Saussure explains the impact on people when they have all been fed certain ideologies and practices: the common signs, the signifiers, the signified, or a language created as a learned manifestation of social interaction rather than a language created by human nature. He writes: “Language is a system of signs that express ideas, and is therefore comparable to a system of writing, the alphabet of deaf-mutes, symbolic rites, polite formulas, military signals, etc. But it is the most important of all these systems” (3). Finally, Jameson explains the ways in which we can poke fun at this learned way of expression and being. While we can recognize some things as correct, Jameson believes that we can also question this, through concepts like parody and pastiche. This way, artists can take something that is familiar to audiences and twist it to subvert their expectations. “the general effect of parody is - whether in sympathy or with malice - to cast ridicule on the private nature of these stylistic mannerisms and their excessiveness and eccentricity with respect to the way people normally speak or write (4)”. Overall, these four sources touch on how the ways people learn things, where they learn them from, and how it sticks with them and shapes their understanding of the world. 

Differences in the sources: Where these sources differ, though, is through explanations for what makes up power in the first place. While the Marx/Engels and Althusser readings are similar in that they agree that the ruling class controls the ideas of everyone else, they do not necessarily have the same idea of what the ruling class is. Marx and Engels argue the ruling class are people who have the time and space to create something, like new ideas or art. Those people get the luxury of getting to think about things rather than work or basic human survival. They write: For instance, in an age and in a country where royal power, aristocracy and bourgeoisie are contending for domination and where, therefore, domination is shared, the doctrine of the separation of powers proves to be the dominant idea and is expressed as an ‘eternal law’” (5). On the other hand, Althusser argues that anyone who is a part of the Ideological State Apparatus can control the ideas of other people. This could be a teacher, for example, who is not typically living the most luxurious life with lots of time on their hands. But, teachers are a cog in the machine of the education system, so according to Althusser, they are imposing certain ideologies on students causing them to think, speak, and behave in a certain fashion. He writes: “the definition of the State as a class State, existing in the repressive State apparatus, casts a brilliant light on all the facts observable in the various orders of repression whatever their domains” (6). On that same token, Jameson brings up postmodernism in his writing – “first, most of the postmodernisms mentioned above emerge as specific reactions against the established forms of high modernism” (7) – a way that people are breaking away from the learned language that Saussure writes about (as quoted above).  Postmodernism as a concept could also disagree with Marx/Engels and Althusser because it shows that people want to break away from the traditions they’ve learned and they don’t always want to obey the ruling class or Ideological State Apparatus. In conclusion, these sources differ by disagreeing on who makes up what dictates us and if people are trying to break away from those norms. 

Scene analysis:

In the musical number, "I'm Just Ken," nestled within the second act of Barbie (2023), Ryan Gosling, embodying the archetype of Stereotypical Ken, makes a striking entrance wearing a fur coat elegantly draped over his shirtless torso. Surrounding him, an ensemble of Kens wearing typical sports attire sets the stage for exploring cultural symbols and power dynamics that underpin the scene's aesthetic tableau.Saussure's seminal theories of semiotics swiftly come into play, discerning the significance embedded within these choices. The clothing becomes an immediate signifier of masculinity and toughness, resonating deeply with specific audience members whose cultural conditioning predisposes them to interpret such visual cues.Jameson then homes in on the fur coat, perceiving a subtle parody of the iconic attire donned by Rocky Balboa, the celebrated cinematic boxer renowned for his distinctive white fur coat. This costume prompts Saussure to chip in, adding that the association with Rocky's legendary costume to comprehend the fur coat is a potent signifier, enriched by its association with a famous boxer. Althusser uses the role of the Ideological State Apparatus in shaping our understanding of gender performance in the scene. He would add that the perception of masculinity, as epitomized by the fur coat, is deeply ingrained and perpetuated by societal structures perpetuated by those in power, echoing the insights articulated by Marx and Engel's analysis. Their collective contributions shed light on how luxury and status influence the state, thereby dictating and preserving specific standards to emphasize prevailing power dynamics.

Continuing with the unfolding scene, the Kens plunge into an exhilarating battle, wielding an eclectic assortment of sports equipment and recognizable toys. This dynamic clash resonates with the stylized grandiosity of iconic battle sequences from cinematic lore, as the Kens fervently channel their emotions amidst the chaos of combat. Jameson's perceptive framework offers profound insights into the subtle metamorphosis from parody to pastiche. Discerning viewers readily discern the initial parody of traditional battle scenes. Yet, as the scene unfurls with its heightened expressiveness and comedic flourishes, they are compelled to contemplate whether filmmaker Greta Gerwig employs this conflict as a vehicle for commentary on the exaggerated theatricality endemic to mainstream cinema. Saussure's semiotic lens enriches our understanding, illuminating the calculated insertion of specific signs within the narrative beyond what audiences could understand. This scene is simply a strategic use of symbols, notably in the exaggerated and almost whimsically surreal portrayal of the battle, replete with unconventional armaments such as beach balls, inflatable tubes, toys, and toy play horses. Althusser's theoretical perspective further underscores the hegemonic influence wielded by the state in shaping collective interpretation and understanding. Marx and Engels' analysis accentuates the obstacles to the widespread reception of artistic endeavors, asserting that the distribution, timing, and perceived value of a film or piece of art can be manipulated by the ruling class to perpetuate their control over cultural production and consumption, thus underscoring the enduring struggle for democratized access to cultural expression and representation.

The culminating moments of the scene unfold with the Kens gracefully ensconced within a boundless void, their meticulously choreographed movements synchronized to a reimagined rendition of the soundtrack  with an unmistakable charm of the 1980s. This segment serves as a  tapestry of intertextual references, drawing inspiration from the rich legacy of American musical theater, with prominent nods to iconic works such as "Grease" and "Singing in the Rain." In regards to "Grease," the Kens wear a uniform ensemble of sleek black attire complemented by loafers, channeling the spirit of the T-Birds. Meanwhile, the blue and pink array of hues adorning the soundstage evokes the whimsical ambiance and vivacity reminiscent of the iconic scenes from "Singing in the Rain." Within this labyrinth of references, Jameson's discerning critical eye may discern elements of parody lurking beneath the surface. However, it becomes evident upon closer inspection that Gerwig's creative intent transcends mere imitation, instead culminating in a reverential homage to these timeless classics. This deliberate reframing of past musical references within the context of "Barbie (2023)" could almost become pastiche, compelling audiences to reevaluate their understanding and appreciation of these cultural touchstones through a contemporary lens. In the realm of cultural critique, Marx and Engels would likely assert that the strategic incorporation of references to esteemed cultural works serves as a potent tool for elevating the perceived value of a modern artistic endeavor, fostering associations with historic artistic legacies like the two musicals. Saussure's seminal theories of semiotics further underscore the multifaceted nature of these references, serving as signs that hold varying significance for each individual audience member. For those uninitiated in the source material, these moments may evoke alternative interpretations, thereby highlighting the subjective nature of cultural signification. Finally, Althusser's comments on ideology as divorced from reality prompts contemplation of the perceptions and experiences of individuals situated outside the hegemonic power structures. 

Conclusion: 

Barbie (2023) emerges as a perfect example of intertextuality, including cultural references that resonate with a wide audience. Its unparalleled success is not only due to its utilization of referentiality but also serves as an example of the terms explained by the aforementioned schools of thought. Through a nuanced analysis informed by Marx/Engels, Althusser, Saussure, and Jameson, the film becomes a stage upon which ideology, and cultural production is portrayed. Positioning Barbie within the theoretical frameworks of Marx and Engels illuminates the hegemonic control exerted by the ruling class over societal ideas and values. The film's incorporation of cultural references can be seen as reflective of this dominant ideology, wherein certain narratives and symbols are privileged and perpetuated. Althusser's concept of the Ideological State Apparatus further enriches our understanding, highlighting the mechanisms through which individuals internalize and reproduce these dominant ideologies. Barbie's ability to evoke recognition and resonance among audiences supports the influence of such ideological apparatuses in shaping collective ideas. Saussure's semiotic perspective offers a deeper layer of analysis, revealing the intricate web of signs and symbols that give Barbie its meaning. Finally, Barbie's navigation of the fine line between parody and pastiche exemplifies Jameson's insights into postmodern cultural production. By playfully engaging with familiar tropes and conventions while simultaneously paying homage to great works of the past, the film subverts audience expectations and challenges dominant cultural narratives.In conclusion, the conceptual connection between Barbie and these schools of thought  shows the enduring relevance of these theoretical frameworks in understanding contemporary media. Through the lens of these theories, Barbie emerges as a display of broader socio-cultural trends, inviting audiences to critically engage with the complexities of filmic theory in modern society.

Works cited:

Marx, Karl, and Frederick Engels. "The Ruling Class and The Ruling Ideas." In The German Ideology, edited by C. J. Arthur, New York: International Publishers, 1970.

Althusser, Louis. "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses." In Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, translated by Ben Brewster. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971.

Saussure, Ferdinand de. Course in General Linguistics. Edited by Charles Bally, Albert Sechehaye, and Albert Riedlinger. Translated by Wade Baskin. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1966.

Jameson, Fredric. "Postmodernism and Consumer Society." In Modernism/Postmodernism, edited and introduced by Peter Brooker, (166).1992

Marx, Karl, and Frederick Engels. "The Ruling Class and The Ruling Ideas." In The German Ideology, edited by C. J. Arthur, New York: International Publishers, 1970.

Althusser, Louis. "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses." In Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, translated by Ben Brewster. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971.

Jameson, Fredric. "Postmodernism and Consumer Society." In Modernism/Postmodernism, edited and introduced by Peter Brooker, (166).1992

@theuncannyprofessoro

[malstermonkey]

The cause?

I have been thinking so much about you all day the result of which is that I have just brushed my teeth with my face cream! My mouth is now all out of kilter, though softer than ever? That one is on you....

Now, I wish I could talk to you, I wish I could be having the conversation which follows face-to-face as, when all things said are difficult or the conversation veers into the realm of the unbelievable, it's the other things (body language, a comforting/cautionary hand laid on your forearm, the disarming openness, as well as the courage to say things which ring neither true nor are easy to accept, the honesty, the love) which will prevent you from just dismissing what is said (written in this case) as just hogwash.

Lass, let's start with un-braiding what is happening with your team & your job............they are separate issues (and, yup, I know you are already thinking I'm going all poppycock here, there is, of course, an overlap here, but the causes and drivers are different and therefore they don't mesh and therefore you have what is, in your mind, a serious clusterfuck) -- read me out, please!

Your team is unresponsive because they are intimidated by you (and in some cases even frightened) -- not because you are an angry person who rules by force of fear and a capricious, unpredictable temper (though, having stood in the way of your anger -- OFTEN -- in years gone by, it ain't a bundle of fun, believe you me!). No yo'u're intimidating because you're so very good at what you do; where good comes in the form of being absolutely determined to make this job a success, where it is clear you recognise that this requires you to meet an incredibly high standard...............and meeting this standard comes in the form of exhibiting very exacting traits and behaviours which few (none?) of us can match you in -- your unbridled honesty, acid & excoriating self-critical demeanour , an insatiable willingness for learning (and a hunger for knowledge) more-often-than-not voiced in the unflinching form of asking "why?" (just look at your LinkedIn bio) and undoubted intelligence.........this is stuff you have in spades but few (esp. me) do -- add to this your impatience (which shows itself in the form of taking on the teams tasks yourself (you do this too often)) and the people who work for you conclude that they'll never measure up to the individual that is you and therefore, are unlikely to be able to produce work which will meet your minimum standard.........so they don't.........

Me? you ask........intimidating?? Yup, lass, you -- not by dint of fear but by dint of just holding yourself to such (personal) high standards (even if this manifests itself in the simple form of admitting you're wrong......): sadly for most of us this is stuff -- whilst coming naturally to you -- which is totally alien (others tend to live in a fog of denial, don't care for the emotional and intellectual heavy lifting of bettering oneself, of taking responsibility for one's actions).

In fact, we muggles unconsciously choose for the easy way out (denial) and drown our subliminal sorrows in watching shit tv, eating crap processed food, alcohol and voyeurism........not for us the discipline and rigour of exercise, a healthy lifestyle, the pursuit of betterment and the demands of looking out for others (our unconscious choice is to opt for an aneurysm sitting on the couch slumped with backpain as a result of being morbidly obese).

For us it is enough to get through the day unscathed, to muddle on to what comes next and to find comfort in the repetitive nature of it all: so, when confronted by the force of nature that is you............well it's just easier to deny that you exist at all!

And, you ask, what is this shit about just shutting down and not doing stuff because I intimidate you? Do I not encourage? Do I not compliment? Do I not take the time to help you (the team) understand what we are working towards? Have I not set out our purpose clearly? What more do you need from me?

And that last one is the key: your team doesn't need more from you, they need less..........LESS. They need to feel empowered to learn, to make mistakes, to grow into their jobs and to grow into your estimation -- their problem is they think you set the bar too high and consequently, don't even take the run-up, let alone trying to land the jump!

And let me stress this is not because you're overbearing, this isn't because you're a tough taskmaster, it is because of the person you are, of how you carry yourself, of the standards you set for yourself and aspire to. We all wish we could have only 15% of what you have and we'd be happy..........

So, lass, there's the cause -- don't dismiss me out of hand (it's easy to do), but think on it............recognise that this neither was nor has ever been your intention, that you don't set out to intimidate, in fact, you try to be the very opposite of that. Think on this, let it percolate around that (enormous) brain of yours and then tomorrow let's think of ways we can tackle this issue, how we soften the perception of how others think of you.......

How do I know all this (for so fucking sure) -- well, lass, it happened to me, I went through the same experience -- I faced exactly this same situation when I was running a team of people (much to my astonishment), it seems they were so in awe of my insights and intelligence it shocked them into doing nothing! Aaaaargh.

Secondly, I too live in awe of you: how you carry yourself, the standard you aspire to, your honesty, your intelligence, your caring nature, your funniness (your beauty).............it's, for me, awe-inspiring but I, of all people, also know the other side of that coin.............and that's the scary part.

More tomorrow, meantime I'll take the licks, the anger and denials which this blog no doubt deserves........but, before you lay in to me, it is only those who truly care for you, who want only the best for you and who, dare I say it, love you (bottomless empathy) who dare venture forth to call it as they see it.

[bandofchimeras]

hey dude, sorry not trying to be an ass w this but I saw u had a post where in the tags you used delusional and narcissist as pretty derogatory insults towards the govt. Bashing the government is good and great but using terms that we (at least currently) need to describe mental illness (and definitely associate with it!)... in ways like that... its ableist and dehumanizing and leads to more abuse, even if it feels innocent, because if everyone who's a narc or who's delusional is dangerous....that's everyone w/ npd, or a schizospec disorder, or any other things.

Sorry this is long, and again, not trying to be rude! Just wanted to inform you and ask that you maybe be a little more careful with word choice in the future :)

hey anon, yeah thanks for your concern. I do understand the movement to change language usage around mental illness and destigmatize. And it is well intentioned.

Unfortunately, narcissistic and delusional are still pretty generally derogatory words. A person with NPD may not cause harm simply by virtue of having the diagnosis but we all agree narcissism itself isn't a fun cool trait to have. Delusions are obscurations of reality.

We still say manic, depressed, obsessive, etc in both outright negative ways and descriptive but not morally loaded ways. to me it's just part of language, and the ethics of most derogatory language does depend on who's using it.

I'm absolutely behind not calling everyone who sucks a narcissist. and would like people to stop saying "I'm being OCD" or "that's so bipolar," "he's a schizo" and so on. The "delulu" trend online is weird and fetishizes mentally ill people.

For context: I am a person with a narcissistic tendency, due to my childhood. My life has been a long train of psych symptoms... delusions of grandeur, maladaptive daydreaming, hallucinations, psychosis, derealization, depersonalization, dissociative identity states. psychology is one of my longest hyperfixations simply because I needed to understand my experience. it's been helpful and unhelpful in different ways. Pathologization is a phenomen that can't be understood separately from language, culture, history, and violence.

And yet I don't really have a problem with calling things crazy, insane, or batshit. in fact I find power in redefining and playing with these terms. I've been called crazy in a demeaning, invalidating way. And yeah, I'm a lil crizazy, a bit unhinged one might say. But if a motherfucker calls me crazy to invaldiate my argument, I instantly know they've lost. They're being weak, and abusive. It will also piss me the fuck off. I may want to show them what "crazy" looks like. The better angels of my nature will whisper "keep your head."

With the movement to neutralize mental health terms, what's always confused me is the understanding of language itself. I experience words autistically - they have multiple overlapping meanings all the time. Words are like composite images composed of billions of instances of use, fluttering and evolving as they are spoken and written. Vernacular is messy, sputtering and ever changing. Therefore words carry a multitude of connotations. When different people say them in different contexts you can see and hear different implications.

So, I really don't care if a dude at work says "that's fuckin insane bro" ...to a gnarly kickflip. Or a devastating news article. Insane delineates the magnitude of his emotion. It's out of bounds. Something normies and straights would try to contain, institutionalize, label. Christ, that's juicy. It's why I adore skater boy lingo and teen slang. It's careless and crunchy.

English itself, especially corporate and institutional English, can be a strict, bland, and often abusive language. My fellow autistic homies tend to enjoy a rousing jaunt down into the annals of historical parlance for our everyday linguistic transactions because it's fucking boring, the clinical way we are expected to speak here and now.

So therefore: thanks for your message calling attention to my words and their impact.

There are deeper better more poetic words to call the government and frankly I believe the best ones might be found in other languages.

All in all, you're right that "narcissistic" and "delusional" are not the most accurate, potent words to describe the US government. How to convey the twisted, detached from reality, spirit of that entity best in language, though, I need to expand the lexicon. Maybe using these words is cheap. Maybe it covers over the intentionality and corruption at play.

So I'm going to open this up to some language play - and ask you, anon, and anyone else what words can we find to convey the negative meaning of delusional (detached from truth) and narcissistic (inverted and self concerned to the point of dysfunction), in English? or in another language?

I hope you can take this in good faith not as a deflection but really engaging with your ask.

Being language corrected can trigger my harshest defenses. I can feel in my body all the times someone has punished, invalidated, dismissed something I've said because of using "uncivil" or foul or imperfect language. In general, trying to conform to correct ideological forms of language is like, major wretched, dude.

Hell my dorky ass disingenuous nerd of a brother yesterday called a message I sent the family group chat about Palestine "blasphemous" because I said " my god" and used it as an excuse to delete every impassioned exchange we had so the "children wouldn't see," - him be racist, cough. can't make this shit up.

But that's my background. Catholicism is a mental illness. (Sorry in advance to all mental illness havers for associating you with Catholics)