#bc it influences what word combinations sound 'natural'

[tibli]

Me: Okay I'm gonna make it so the languages in this story are literally just mirrors or real ones but with different names slapped over them so i don't bog myself down building yet ANOTHER fucking conlang.

Me, later on: Damn, none of the languages I can find really fit this particular group of people, what do I do?

Another Fucking Conlang:

Me: No

Another Fucking Conlang: :^)

Me: GOD DAMN IT

[script-a-world]

Submitted via Google Form:

I have a world in which a lot of words, majority being nouns are never actually translated and thus languages all have common and unaltered loan words. What I mean is like 'chocolate' is always 'chocolate', there's no 'chocolat' 'coklat' 'cokolada' etc... To make it easier, all languages do have a similar alphabet. If this continues on a vast scale, how do languages develop and how understandable are different languages?

Tex: What is your base language? Why is it not another language?

To illustrate a point, here is the etymology of the word chocolate (Wikipedia):

Cocoa, pronounced by the Olmecs as kakawa,[5] dates to 1000 BC or earlier.[5] The word "chocolate" entered the English language from Spanish in about 1600.[6] The word entered Spanish from the word chocolātl in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. The origin of the Nahuatl word is uncertain, as it does not appear in any early Nahuatl source, where the word for chocolate drink is cacahuatl, "cocoa water". It is possible that the Spaniards coined the word (perhaps in order to avoid caca, a vulgar Spanish word for "faeces") by combining the Yucatec Mayan word chocol, "hot", with the Nahuatl word atl, "water".[7] A widely cited proposal is that the derives from unattested xocolatl meaning "bitter drink" is unsupported; the change from x- to ch- is unexplained, as is the -l-. Another proposed etymology derives it from the word chicolatl, meaning "beaten drink", which may derive from the word for the frothing stick, chicoli.[8] Other scholars reject all these proposals, considering the origin of first element of the name to be unknown.[9] The term "chocolatier", for a chocolate confection maker, is attested from 1888.[10]

To illustrate another point, here is an excerpt for the article on the history of the English language (Wikipedia):

English is a West Germanic language that originated from Ingvaeonic languages brought to Britain in the mid-5th to 7th centuries AD by Anglo-Saxon migrants from what is now northwest Germany, southern Denmark and the Netherlands. The Anglo-Saxons settled in the British Isles from the mid-5th century and came to dominate the bulk of southern Great Britain. Their language originated as a group of Ingvaeonic languages which were spoken by the settlers in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages, displacing the Celtic languages (and, possibly, British Latin) that had previously been dominant. Old English reflected the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms established in different parts of Britain. The Late West Saxon dialect eventually became dominant. A significant subsequent influence on the shaping of Old English came from contact with the North Germanic languages spoken by the Scandinavian Vikings who conquered and colonized parts of Britain during the 8th and 9th centuries, which led to much lexical borrowing and grammatical simplification. The Anglian dialects had a greater influence on Middle English.

Linguistics is a large, old, and complex subject. It has a lot of overlap with other sciences, and there are always new things being found out about it. Below is a list of links to help introduce the depth and breadth of languages and their development:

Further Reading

Linguistics (Wikipedia)

Global language system (Wikipedia)

Integrational linguistics (Wikipedia)

Language geography (Wikipedia)

Dialect continuum (Wikipedia)

Sprachbund (Wikipedia)

Writing system (Wikipedia)

List of creators of writing systems (Wikipedia)

Ebonwing: If your world’s languages evolved and changed in a broadly similar way than ours did (independently all over the world, resulting in a great deal of linguistic diversity) this is unrealistic. Pronunciation naturally changes as languages evolve over time; English wasn’t always pronounced the way it is today, either. As a result, a word loaned from another language isn’t going to sound the same way a few hundred years later.

Plus, loan word pronunciation changes are also driven by languages having different phonology from the source language. Japanese loaned chokoretto from chocolate, but it’s really not pronounced the same way. Sometimes even the meanings change in the process; in German, a Handy (loaned from English) is actually a mobile phone.

Of course, if you’re not going for an Earth-like linguistic background, you have more leeway in doing things like this.

Utuabzu: Something you should consider when dealing with multiple languages is that every language has its own phonology - set of sounds - and phonotactics - rules about how sounds can be combined - and these can differ significantly. These differences become particularly clear with loan words, as speakers will alter the word to fit their language’s rules and available sounds, eg: Hawaiian alters Christmas to kalikimaka, because it doesn’t have the sounds ‘r’, ‘s’ or ‘t’ and doesn’t allow consonants to follow consonants or to end a syllable.

This doesn’t even account for the problems of trying to use a single script for all languages. Different languages have different rules about what sounds are distinct enough to differentiate words. For instance, English has a relatively limited number of vowels, but other Germanic languages have more, which they write using additional letters, eg. å, ä, æ, â, ø, ö, ü, etc. Some languages, like Icelandic, even have additional consonant letters - þ and ð - because it’s necessary to clearly distinguish those sounds. Then there are languages that aren’t generally written with roman script, like Hindi, which needs to clearly distinguish aspirated consonants, or Chinese languages, which need to account for lexical tone*. If you want a script that can depict all the many, many possible sounds of human language, you’re going to end up with something like the International Phonetic Alphabet, which is far too unwieldy to be used to write any single language, and even linguists don’t generally use unless they’re describing the sounds of a language. Especially because most languages will consider multiple sounds to be equivalent and interchangeable that IPA uses distinct characters for, because different languages will lump together different sets of sounds and usually omit many of them entirely. (Eg, Standard English dialects lack the voiced glottal fricative 

Much of the time, it’s just going to be easier to use a purpose-made script that can actually depict the language accurately, and even when that doesn’t happen, the borrowed script is likely to be altered and evolve over time to accommodate the needs of its users. Roman, Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic, Hebrew, Armenian, Georgian and the vast Brahmic family of scripts are all derived from a common ancestor, Proto-Canaanite, and have mutated and evolved over the course of 3500 years to suit the languages that use them.

This further complicates loan words, as they then need to be altered for the script, because not all scripts have equivalent characters, eg Japanese hiragana ら is most often realised as /ɾa/ or /la/ which to English speakers sounds like ‘ra’ or ‘la’, but to Japanese speakers are considered the same sound.

A further complication also comes from grammar, as many languages have rules that alter words based on their role in a sentence or the surrounding words. A common way to do this is with morphemes - units of language that have independent meaning but cannot appear on their own, eg. suffixes and prefixes (together with infixes, which get shoved inside the root, and circumfixes, which get split and tacked either side of the root, these are called affixes) like ‘-s’, ‘-ed’, ‘re-’, ‘pro-’, ‘anti-’, etc. - these are attached to the root, the base word, to convey additional information. 

Agglutinative languages (like Finnish or Inuktitut) add multiple affixes to indicate case and number of nominals,, while fusional languages (like German or Russian) use one affix to express both. Polysynthetic languages (like Algonquian languages) frequently and extensively alter both to convey a lot of information. Other languages, most famously Welsh, alter the sound of a word based on the words immediately around them (mutation).

All these factors are going to make what you want here really difficult to achieve. If you are determined to have this, you probably need all the languages in your world to have a relatively recent common ancestor that had a well established literary standard and standardised orthography. By recent I mean very recent. The Romance languages have been diverging for over 2000 years (Cicero was complaining about the Sardinian dialect of Vulgar Latin in the 1st Century BCE), while the entire Indo-European language family - containing languages from Icelandic to Sinhala and the first languages of approximately 46% of the global population - is estimated to have been diverging for about 6000-10,000 years, depending on the theory. Our species, Homo sapiens, is over 300,000 years old, so this isn’t very long in comparison.

*lexical tone is one of two main tone systems, the other being prosodic tone. Lexical tone means that individual words have a tone that impacts their semantic meaning, while prosodic tone is carried across multiple words and conveys pragmatic meaning. This difference is why native speakers of lexical tone languages (like Mandarin or Zapotecan languages) can often sound oddly flat when speaking prosodic tone languages (like English). The roman alphabet was not created to deal with lexical tone and Vietnamese gives an excellent example of how much it needs to be altered to depict tones.

Blue: Natural languages change for so many different reasons; some of the big contributing factors are technological and cultural changes. The farther apart they are geographically, the harder it is to maintain the homogeneity. One would think that the advance of modern technology, such as the internet, would smooth out the differences, but it does not appear to be the case (see Wikipedia’s article on ELF) 

Language has a socioeconomic, cultural, and religious (e.g.: sacred language) significance. It can be a status symbol: French was adopted at various courts across Europe and became the distinguishing feature of aristocracy. People are often very reluctant to part with their native language, because it means giving up a part of their identity. If it's an artificial language imposed on different communities, why would they accept it and refuse their own language? If this situation developed naturally, how did it happen?

Lingua franca – "common language". Some of the historical examples are Akkadian, Koine Greek, and Latin; more recent ones are English, French, and Arabic. The spread of linguae francae is often associated with the colonial efforts to establish the language of the colonizer as the primary language of communication, but it is not always so: Tupi (Brazil) and Classical Maori (New Zealand) were adopted by the colonizing population. A lot of linguae francae were adopted and stayed dominant to facilitate trade most and foremost. 

Due to the cultural and economic hegemony, English is arguably the lingua franca of the world. One of the reasons why English is the dominant language of international communication is the expansion of the British Empire. In Russia, lingua franca is (obviously) Russian, but there are many native languages across the country that are officially recognized and taught at schools in their respective regions; Russian also serves as a lingua franca in many post-Soviet countries. In the Americas, there are obviously native languages that are very far removed from English and Spanish. In all these examples, native languages are used alongside the common languages: the lexicon and grammar of the native languages perseveres.

There is also such a thing as an auxiliary language - the kind of language that's been artificially constructed to aid communication internationally (esperanto) or for a more limited group (Interslavic). Esperanto is the only one that is relatively well-known and widely used; none of auxiliary languages have ever become widely spread though. That might change one day, but then the question becomes: will they stay the same across the globe, or will they also see regional changes?

It's theoretically possible for a language to exist in a time capsule if it's used by a small isolated community that doesn't see much change; but even then, there's a possibility of phonetic shifts over the years. 

Let's for a second imagine that it did happen to a degree, but only with nouns.

Here we run into another issue that would hinder understanding: a lot of human languages view verbs rather than nouns as a central feature of a sentence. On a larger scale, verbs convey the relationships between nouns and actions you perform with an object: “I ate chocolate” and “I bought chocolate” are two very different things, and just knowing the word "chocolate" tells you nothing about the meaning of the sentence in general.

[intertexts]

ok false alarm i CANNOT send you the trivia until u finish the ep i forgot the Important Conversation is literally like. 5 of the last 10 minutes. HOWEVER. YOU HAVE MENTIONED MY FAVORITE WORLDBUILDING NICHE IN THAT I NEED 2 KNOWWWW HOW EVERYTHING IN NATURE WORKS. this is where im at with worm now too. so like. predator handshake.

one of my FAOVIRTEEEEE THINGS ABOUT PD WORLD EVER. is that there r so many people in the bg with just. mundane powers. u are going to see this thought repeated when i send u the 17 trivia but i need 2 talk about it NOW so i will risk sounding like a broken record. like. u remember the guy from the cartoon episode who was the barber? he had powers and it was super speed but only a little bit and only localized to his hands. and he used that to be a barber! there are so many people in the bg of pd that just. have shit like that. its normal. and they dont get into How or Why much but i think it is a combination of "born with them" or "caused by external forces" (like with william and dakota who did not have powers until Their Respective Incidents). theres alsoooo. not to talk about mark winters all the time but mark specifically uses his suits as a way to tap into his powers and make them stronger (the big fuckign. needles in his back) so it can be assumed that hes always had powers and only just recently(ish) found a way to magnify them and use them for villain shit. not everyone with powers becomes a hero or villain sometimes they just use them for . mundane everyday shit !!!! i love this. sorry i am rambling

also with ur whole question about earth. the lore for this is so batshit insane so i am gonna wait for the trivia bc i basically transcripted bizlys words for it and im not going to try to parse that in my current mental state (the things he says about mars . wild) HOWEVER i do think prime is physically very similar to earth in terms of time and seasons and physics and such. partly for the meta reason of thats what the players are automatically going to assume AND the in world reason of "planet extremely similar to your old home planet will be automatically easier to settle on"

for some reason i only have the three person version of this image but this is LITERALLY us over nature worldbuilding rn..... aughghghh. i LOVE this type of power talk i love mundane & normal & weird shit done with powers!!! its so good!!! (also this is delightful b/c it's also very much bnha worldbuilding on powers... i get 2 point & go HEY i know what your influences are!!) i like it so much.... such an interesting & tasty thing in relation to how & why all of that exact same stuff in worm works also.. aaaaaa. so excited for yr thoughts on the way this translates 2 the wormverse <33

+ that makes MUCH sense i AM going to nod sensibly and go yes makes lots of sense that prime is similar to earth. except for the part where france is ITS OWN SEPERATE PLANET. can't wait for the lore about why they're FUCKING MARTIANS though i'm sure it's gonna be great!!

[yuvaap]

Discover the Power of Chakras: Unlock Your Body's Energy

Have you ever wondered how to balance your life and health in a natural way? The ancient practice of chakra balancing might be the key you've been searching for. Chakras, the seven main energy centers in our body, have a significant impact on our physical, emotional, and mental well-being. Understanding and balancing these chakras can help you lead a healthier, happier life. Let's explore the basics of chakras and how they can transform your wellness journey.

What Are Chakras?

Chakras are energy points in our bodies that originated in ancient Indian traditions around 1000 BC. These energy centers are described in the Upanishads and Vedas, forming an integral part of Vedic culture. The word "chakra" means "wheel" in Sanskrit, and these energy wheels are believed to spin and regulate our energy flow. Out of 114 chakras in the body, seven are primary and have a profound influence on our health and emotions.

The Seven Main Chakras

1. Root Chakra (Muladhara)

Location: Base of the spine

Color: Red

Element: Earth

Influence: This chakra is linked to survival needs like financial stability and basic health. It affects our digestive system, bones, kidneys, and sexual organs.

2. Sacral Chakra (Swadhisthana)

Location: Lower abdomen, between the belly button and pubic bone

Color: Orange

Element: Water

Influence: This chakra governs our emotions, creativity, and sexual energy. It impacts the urinary tract, lower back, and reproductive organs.

3. Solar Plexus Chakra (Manipura)

Location: Upper abdomen

Color: Yellow

Element: Fire

Influence: This chakra is associated with self-esteem, confidence, and control. It affects the stomach, liver, and pancreas.

4. Heart Chakra (Anahata)

Location: Center of the chest

Color: Green

Element: Air

Influence: This chakra influences love, compassion, and inner peace. It governs the heart, lungs, and blood circulation.

5. Throat Chakra (Vishuddha)

Location: Throat

Color: Light Blue

Element: Sound

Influence: This chakra deals with communication and self-expression. It affects the throat, thyroid, and vocal cords.

6. Third Eye Chakra (Ajna)

Location: Between the eyebrows

Color: Indigo

Element: Light

Influence: This chakra governs intuition, wisdom, and perception. It impacts the brain, eyes, and pineal gland.

7. Crown Chakra (Sahasrara)

Location: Top of the head

Color: Violet or White

Element: Divine consciousness

Influence: This chakra connects us to higher consciousness and spirituality. It affects the brain and nervous system.

The Importance of Balanced Chakras

Balanced chakras allow energy to flow freely through our bodies, promoting overall health and well-being. When chakras are blocked or unbalanced, it can lead to physical and emotional issues. Practices like yoga, meditation, and mindful living can help maintain chakra balance, leading to a more harmonious life. Ready to dive deeper into the world of chakras and holistic wellness? Visit Yuvaap to learn more about how balancing your chakras can transform your life. Our comprehensive wellness platform offers personalized guidance and tools to help you achieve optimal health.

Discover the power of ancient wisdom combined with modern science and start your journey towards holistic well-being today.

[too-much-otome]

Arthur Birth Chart Analysis

Some notes before we start. There are no rising signs or houses bc of unknown times of birth. This doesn't affect any of the other placements, except the moon. Most moon placements are definite but some have two possibilities. I've picked whichever sign was more active that day if there were two options. Also, you may notice that node, Chiron, and Lilith are included in the chart but i won't be including them in analysis as they are less common and not as present. All the data for birth charts was gathered using Astro Seek. Please enjoy!

⚠️🚨SPOILER WARNING 🚨⚠️

Born: May 22, 1858 in Edinburgh, Scotland UK

Sun in Gemini ♊

(Self, Individuality, Personality)

Let's get started on our mystery boi! The one who own my heart! Arthur, Being a Gemini is absolutely perfect. It makes so much sense! Gemini Sun's have many talents and are able to use their skills in both theory and practice. They are very intelligent and quick-witted people who are interested in everything that happens around them. They are sociable people that have representative personalities and they can inspire and influence others with their innate charm and vigour. You can't read that and tell me it doesn't sound like Arthur! He's always making quips and showing off his talents, his wit, his charm! It's him! Gemini is a perfect fit for Arthur and it definitely shows in the game. If you need more convincing, Gemini is an air sign. They are communicators and thinkers. Air signs are analytical and often are teachers or surprise surprise writers!! Speaking of air signs, Arthur has a total of Eight air sign placements. Four of those, exactly half of the air placements, are Gemini!

But wait...it feels like there's more to it. Which brings us to~

Taurus ♉ Gemini ♊ Cusp

(Setting and Rising Sun Signs)

Our first Cusp! A cusp is the time period between two zodiacs where one is setting in the sun position and the other is rising. It's kind of an extension of the sun sign. It means they can take some pieces from the sign that is shared with their main sun sign in the cusp. Arthur was born during a setting Taurus and rising Gemini. In fact his birthday falls right at the end of the cusp season, which is probably why Gemini is a very good and better fit for him. The cusp season is May 17 - May 23. Arthur's birthday is May 22.

Now Taurus may sound like an odd sign for Arthur, but i have just one thing to say about that. Taurus' ruling planet is Venus! The planet of love and beauty! Now i was a bit skeptical about it too. But after reading about it, it makes a lot of sense!

They are very sociable and communicative, engaging in many interesting conversations to further their goals. Moving back and forth between the influence of Venus and Mercury, the Taurus-Gemini Cusps are endowed with both beauty, artistic sense and hedonistic drive. Hedonistic is a good word for Arthur. He's very active in things like drinking, gambling, and sex. His pursuit for pleasurable things from Taurus and it's Venus rule combined with the intelligence and talkative social nature of Gemini and it's Mercury rule, result in the flirty and confident mystery writer we all love!

Only adding to everything, Taurus gives these people the ability to fight any enemy and resist any challenge, which he is a very big fan of. They find talking to people to be a refreshing and pleasing activity. Everything can be discussed, even the most mysterious and profound topics, and they always have something worth saying.

Moon in Aquarius ♒

(Emotions, Instincts, Roots)

Aquarius moon. It's described as a bit complicated. Honestly i wasn't sure what to think about it. It was confusing. But then i started seeing it as they went further in explanation. It actually used a lover as an example for part of it. Which is obviously going to be perfect for an otome character, because we see their romantic side and how they are in relationships. It said its important that there is friendship between them and their lover. Now, i know. "But isn't that everyone?" As a Demisexual I'm the perfect person to explain this. It's not as black and white as that. In the game Arthur and MC develop a very close friendship before becoming partners. They go out in town to just hangout. They solve mysteries together. Arthur literally makes mc his assistant in cases because he enjoys their company as a friend. They have fun together. They formed a well established relationship before starting a romantic relationship.

Now, I'm cutting myself off there before i get to into THAT rant. People with Aquarius moon have a strong need for freedom of expression. This can cause moodiness and unpredictability. Now there's two parts of this. Arthur isn't particularly moody. He's actually usually very upbeat and chipper. But, I'd say that's because he does have the freedom expression. He's a writer. That's a perfect outlet for expression. But, if he for one reason or another lost that outlet, we might see the moodiness and unpredictability in finding other outlets or distractions. But, Arthur is a bit unpredictable already.

Now the last part of his moon. Aquarius moons are very happy in the company of people. That is very true for Arthur. He's always in town and socializing. It's said that it's easier for them to understand their feelings when they are in a group of people. I think it rings true for him....he's....made very questionable decisions on his own. But when others are there he doesn't dwell on his past or his flaws.

Mercury in Taurus ♉

(Communication, Intellect, Thinking, Learning)

Bro, it's like they wrote these explanations with Arthur in mind! The influence of earth brings in contemplation and the need to provide evidence of their findings and opinions. And of course, he does just that. He's basically a part time detective after all. People with Taurus Mercury are also supposed to be renowned experts in the field they have chosen to specialize...do i really even need to say anything? The man is a genius when it comes to writing, mystery, flirting, literally any game or bet. It also says they like to learn about things they are interested in and enjoy the process of learning. I can see that for Arthur. He's just got the vibe.

Venus in Aries ♈

(Love, Sensuality, Harmony, Pleasure)

Venus! I knew this one would be good when I saw it was a fire sign. It's pretty dead on. The very first bit calls them out on being players. It says they are shameless in pursuing the object of their desires and that they are impulsive and impatient in everything related to love and relationships. Oh, i got things to say! If you've played Arthur's route (which i hope you have since i gave the spoiler warning) you know! His route is full of this! He is constantly chasing "skirts" as he so lovingly puts it. He's so fuckin British. Arthur almost immediately tries to get with MC. He bites her very early on. That whole part of his route was very impulsive. He's very eager. He even corners mc against a counter while talking about his latest conquest with LITERAL BLOOD STAINS on his collar. That wasn't something he thought about on the walk home. He doesn't really ever stop flirting with MC either. At first it's just his fuck boi tendencies but it's obvious that very quickly it becomes him falling. His flirting could be called impatience bc he wants to get mc as soon as he can. But, my most damning piece of evidence is a literal line from the game. In one of the special stories after a challenge they're riding home in a carriage and mc falls asleep. Arthur literally says "Hurry up and fall in love with me" !!!!! A+ Yes! Bravo! Magnifique! 🤌

Mars in Gemini ♊

(Activity, Energy, Courage, Assertiveness)

Mars! Once again, i feel like i need to say this. Mars is not just about anger. Anger is a part of Mars but it's just that, a part. It also deals with our driving force. Our Sensuality and courage. So, with that being said, Arthur's Mars is in Gemini. Mars Gemini is described as having lots of ideas and projects. However they often fall through with finishing that's things or keeping them for a long time. When something goes wrong or doesn't work out, they turn their attention to something else. But this is also connected to intelligence. The fiery Mars manifests verbally. They can talk their way into getting things or people they want. But they will eventually quickly lose interest as their mind never sits still long. Arthur has many lady friends. It wouldn't be a surprise if he had favorites every once in a while (at least before mc) and it wouldn't be a surprise if that favorite often changed.

Jupiter in Gemini ♊

(Happiness, Optimism, Expansion)

More Gemini! This is where placements start to get a bit complicated. It's mostly how a person develops, grows, and their morals or ethics. Jupiter Gemini is described as having a talent for getting to know as many aspects of life as possible. They get entangled with endless amusements and distraction. Quick side note, the more i learn about Gemini, the more i just think of it as ADHD in astrology. I have ADHD and my rising is Gemini so maybe there's something there. Anyway! They gather as much knowledge and information as they can. Again we all know that Arthur is an expert in this field. At a more intelectual level, gathering information allows them to see general trends in society as well as interests of individuals. That's our detective! His most important ability is to be well informed. And once again, hitting the nail on the head! Jupiter in this position may mean talent for writing!

Saturn in Leo ♌

(Restriction, Order, Maturity, Time)

Now we'll start digging into trauma. Saturn teaches through pain, so most of how we handle or cope with things Is handled by Saturn in the long run. Leo Saturn's can struggle for balance. The need to learn to be confident without feeling superior, and respected without being too dictatorial. Others might start to dislike them if they start showing others that they are better than them. At first it doesn't sound like Arthur very much. But he is a bit cocky and self important at first. It's less later on. But that's as he opens up about his past to mc. Which brings me to the next point. Saturn represents our fears, doubts, and uncertainties. As he opens up, he doesn't come across as he did before. He's softer and more gentlemanly. He's still a flirt, but he's sweet and caring to MC.

Uranus in Gemini ♊

(Originality, Freedom, Revolution)

Our last Gemini on this chart! This is one of the three slow movers. They are more broad in representation. But it still fits. Uranus enhances prompt reactions and the brightness of people in this sign. These people are progressive. They are intellectuals who long for revolution and radical change. They are funny, quick, and curious. They like to learn new things, but are also fickle and unstable . They like to bring Chaos into standard teaching methods. That last line resonated with me. Unfortunately, at least to my knowledge, we've never seen Arthur teach lessons like Napoleon and Issac. But we do see it in his route. Very early on. He tries to teach mc to be cautious of the vampires in the mansion and warn her. He does it by threatening to bite her in the kitchen. Chaotic. It's not very effective the first time. But then it happens again. Mc is cornered in Arthur's room and Arthur decides to teach her the lesson again. He makes her roleplay detective while he has her pinned to the couch in his room then gets flirty before biting her and then leaving her passed out on his bed....very chaotic. He's very upfront about doing this to warn mc too. He's a trickster and a flirt. He's not going to be delicate with his teaching methods.

Neptune in Pisces ♓

(Fantasy, Illusion, Spirituality, Imagination)

This is the first sign that doesn't really describe Arthur at all. However I do expect this for a lot of the boys since it deals with faith and things that are not easily outwardly seen. Neptune Pisces is its own sign. These people are supposed to be very religious, sympathetic, and charitable. This doesn't exactly describe Arthur. We don't even fully know if he was religious. But it's a generational description. People in his time were very religious. So it may match the generation as a whole but not so much Arthur.

Pluto in Taurus ♉

(Transformation, Regeneration, Power)

Pluto is not very descriptive. It's the youngest in terms of discovery, it's the slowest moving, and it's connected to Hades. It gets a bad wrap. But i love Pluto and it's heart shaped lake of toxic ice! However, Plutos small description still matches a bit. It's still vague and general but good. People with Taurus Pluto are usually very consistent and (as Taurus is so famously known) stubborn. They are very convinced that what they are doing is always right. However, if the Pluto placement is somehow damaged, both things that these people love, sex and money, will eventually harm their mental and physical health. I do think Arthur suffered a bit mentally from his running around with women. It's not very visible but Pluto never is. Perhaps after becoming a vampire his Pluto was damaged. It does deal with transformation, regeneration, and power. Perhaps it damaged his Pluto and the things he loved as a mortal, ended up eating away at him as he became a vampire. It's not that black and white as that but, it's a possible explanation.

That's Arthur's birth chart! When i started these i wasn't expecting them to be pretty accurate! Especially not this accurate! Arthur's birth chart made me freak out! I love it! I loved diving deep into my favorite vamp boy! I love him! I haven't completed the others routes yet. So I'll probably focus on other games until then. But as i complete routes in IkeVamp and feel more confident in what i know about each character, i will make more! Thanks for reading!

I worked very hard on this! I did lots of research about birthplaces and years. I hope you enjoyed it! The rest will come very soon!

[ahopelessromanticwriter]

bc i have nothing better to do

heres a big list of mb quotes from my marching band

do with this what you please, just tag it as incorrect quotes from mb or sarahs incorrect quotes :)

TW: swearing, crude humor, implied dirty humor, dirty humor in general, bad jokes, yo mama jokes, all caps typing, misspelled words, and general band kid chaos

and before we start: adam was the director, colby was the drum major, just for clarification

//

"sigma grindset rule 3918: sell children for money"

"can we get 10 points bc communism?" "did i iust hear can i get 10 points for communism"

"a toaster is just a tanning bed for bread" "i mean, you arent wrong"

"awwwwww look at thw lil bass family !!"

"M I N G L E P O S I T I O N"

*drops smth right before rep* "L E AV E. I T."

"the year 4026, earth has been devoid of apl life and the robots have taken over earth. and the only human thing left of our existence...the mustard vault" *loud colby groan*

"wheres adam" "good question" "okay we need to just put life 360 on adam so we can find him"

"we need to wait for adam" "..adams too slow anyways so-"

"will this exercise help us learn how to cha cha real smooth?" "i mean..its rlly the exact opposite of what we were just learning..but..maybe?"

"the kenniwick kids gave me mustard for the mustard vault !!!!"

"taking 3-5 jazz running steps today you too can be like me. kaaaaachowwwwww"

"WE ARE S P E E D"

"run like your life depends on it bc it prolly does"

*does the wave with several other bands*

*does a foot articulation exercise to another day of sun*

"w o a h if i had known the cavalcade shirts would look like that i wouldve gotten one-"

"sarah where did you get your earrings? or did you make them?" "i made them" "they look rad" "thanks :D"

"i only participate in the dankest of memes"

"ohhhhhhhhh...thats why we did that"

"im not like other boys i like boys-"

"marcus is officially a hazard to society"

"come, we must spread our influence elsewhere"

"people care about each other--"

*take shako off* "dont talk in shako" *puts shako back on* *someone else talks in shako* "or youll have to do push ups" *firzt person takes shako off* "10 pushups" *puts shako back on* *second person takes shako off* "fuck you" *puts shako back on*

"snek snek snek and a snek snek snek and a-"

"so now sara and marcus have a video of me dawson and logan just marching in a circle around a piece of paper" *stops* "what, like this????" *crabs in a circle* "okay, first of all thatd not how you march-"

"beautiful job dawson, beautiful beautiful job"

"were reinacting romeo and juliet, dawson ur the blood"

*gets on the ground to be blood for romeo and juliet*

"just be taller"

"just get better"

*tries to play full closer and fails* "...that was cute"

"rip my poor ears"

*in the middle of a run through* *whispering* "hiii !!"

"just blame it on grant cuz hes a redhead"

"grant youve been replaced"

"sexy grass"

"i look lile im about to go casually rob a bank"

"aight where are my children where did they go"

"here is a wild adam in its natural habitat-"

"are you looking sexy on the sexy grass tho"

"can you do me"

"snek" "2 3 4" "flowers" "2 3 4" "puppies" "s a r a h s t o p s a y i n g a nim a l s" "2 3 4"

"oh god John got out the tape measure" *shakes head* "John and his tape measure"

"all band kids are very very easily distracted"

"bro that was so sexy gimme more" "wHAT-" "the sax, it sounds cool"

"make those lines straighter then i am"

"stab em like oj" "allegedly"

*gets toy truck* "YEAAHHHHHH"

*spontaneously chants colby and ollie and the other banda join in*

"everything is fake and the points dont matter"

"reddit: wherw the greatest minda combine"

"im not saying this to beagim just sayong that i am the best instructor in the pacific northwest"

"no, nO DO NOT FINISH THAT SENTENCE." "...THATS WHAT SHE SAID--" "NO--"

"so hypothetically-" "hypothetically?" "hypothetically lets say in this situarion i did ur mom-" "just hypothetically?" "hypothetically. so hypothetically, in this situation of me doing your mom i am now hypothetically part your dad" "hypothetically" "hypothetically, yes. and since i am hypothetically your dad you are not in fact hypothetically gay bc im hypothetically ur dad" "just hypothetically?" "just hypothetically" "so hypothetically i am hypothetically gay, you hypothetically hooked up with my mom and are hypothetically my dad but im not actually hypothetically gay bc now my hypothetical crush is my hypothetical dad therefore no longer making me hypothetically gay?" "hypothetically yes"

"trumpets are just alwayz superior"whoa there now i might leave you-" "waitno come back-" *pullings her back around shoulders*

"what did fred do like everyone hates him-"

"ooooooo look at that j u i c y marching"

*gives someone whos cold a hug* *someone else joins their lil now group hug* "awwwwwwwwwwwww"

"no thats not a joke i actually like men-"

"lookin s e x y"

*g i a n t voice crack* "whoa there you good-"

"*insert literally anyones name here* i wonder about you sometimes-"

"the yellow quadrilateral creature who lives at tbe bottom of the sea dhall be referred to forever lore as he must not be named"

"john coltrane" "well obviously-"

"just limbo under the flute"

"our call time for everett is 4 30 am" *giant cheer* "i wish yall were this excited about marching-"

"colby i lpve ur hair uts got like this windblown type thing going on"

"bro ur really close to me and a bari sax is giant and my tenors are big as fuck-" "WELCOME TO MARCHINF BAND RAIDEN"

"WHOOOOO TENORSSSSSS"

*does a foot exercise to another day of sun*

"okay so were gonna call that the cheese grater-" 🧀

"i just have a couple f's its fine"

"im tuning to an f flarp"

"this is my child i birthed her"

"OH! NAZIS!!"

*disappointment*

"cole and logan were just like nah fam so long and thanks for all the fish"

"would instruments have genitals???"

"are you sure you werent walking down the hallway eating bread colby-"

"what legacy are you leaving behind?" *raidens tenors fall down* "THATS MY LEGACY"

"but are you looking sexy on the sexy grass?"

"senoirs we now technically-" "adam. no. stop right there."

"remember: you are sexy spy ponies"

"i will refrain from hitting a woodwind today"

"youve definitely killed someone. and ik for a fact that it was a relative"

"this is the way!" "~this ks the way~"

"this one time at band camp--"

"saxophones are just sexy clarinets" "exactly!!" "this guy gets it"

"are you straight???" "wow, that is such a pressing question-"

"can you do the worm" "i mean maybe-"

"if you need to beg borrow or obtain through legal reasons-" "ah yes just steal fancy clothes" "only steal from walmart tho"

"yknow what we should do?" "murder." "..i was gonna say sing oht parts but im dowm for that too"

"when should the snap happen?" "when ur t posing !!"

"ya like my shirt" *addylynn who has ths exact same one* "yeah i wish i had one"

"you sound like an old jewish grandma"

*casually watches high school musical 2 over ft*

"one of them declared war lets goooooooo"

"mellos would you care for a donoot" "a donoot?" "a donoot"

"do smth illegal, at least"

"i am a strong independent man i dont need no woman"

"STOP CHOKING PEOPLE WITHOUT CONSENT"

"LETS GOOOOO MFS"

"WE GOT A BAG!!!!!" *drum majors are given a box and taken the bag* "WE GOT A BOX!!!!!"

"ITS LIKE THEIR GOING INTO A POKÉMON BATTLE"

"whos...whos foot is this?????"

"reasons to love mb: the weord ass positions we come up with to fall asleep in"

"hows ur day going?" "good, hbu" "good" "wanna come commit arson with me" "yea sure, you got q time for that-"

"wanna come make road angels witg me" "road angels???" "yea you lay in the road and make an angel" "raiden thats rlly bad--"

"wheres my shoe who stole my shoe" "you lost a shoe??" "yes i only have one shoe"

"colby do falcon pride with the banana peel" *five minures later after adam is done talking* *colby trying not to laugh* "banana." "peel!" "banAnA." "pEeL!" "BANANA!" "PEEL"

"adam were in band and gay we cant do math-"

"just *falls on the ground and gets dragged off by colorgaurd ans then at the end of the show wakes up bc of a new tmrw*" "y e s"

"just go back in time ans kill my mom and make a paradox"

"i wanna die" "good morning to you too colby"

"YAAAAAAAASSS MARCUS!"

"natural selection will take you"

"as you can see im taking this very seriously im in a dino onesie and mb shoes-"

"and so on the verge of a mental breakdown i say to you i love yoy all i bide you a good day"

"hi friends" 

"iLl gO wHen yOuRe qUieT"

"are you emotionally attached to serengeti" "oh hELL yes"

*spontaneously starts singing 0 to hero with drumline*

"on your knees!" *pffffffttt* *they get on their knees for mingle formation* "thats better 😌" *barely start playing in time*

"look!!!!! i found a picture of mingle formation!!!"

*to someone wearing a large amount of hanford merch* "ey yooooo!! are you a part of the hanford music company?" *person looks down at their merch* "no, why" "oh weird, you just give off an aura XD"

"there will be donuts" "donuts?" "spudnut donuts, allededly"

"rain: hi" "mb: *nopes on outta there*"

*casually reads book while sitting in a locker*

"id like to ride that" "WOAH THERE" "W O A H THERE" "WOULD YOH LIKE TO REPEAT THAT BUT SLOWER"

"GUYS ADAM GOR HERE 15 MINUTEA EARLY"

"lOOK!!! ITS JOHN!!"

"hELL YEA! -tori and sara all day in everett"

[fluffynexu]

Astralignment

and the Korribani Calendar System

Before the arrival of the Exiles the native Sith on Korriban had their own system of keeping track of time. Over the years, this became standardized and refined and is still in use by a large portion of the modern Pureblood community. Since the ancient Sith were observant beings of their world, many of the names and symbols reflected their natural environment. All of these aspects go into what is known as a Sith’s astralignment (astro-alignment).

Since the Empire runs on Imperial Standard Time (IST), anything relating to Korriban or any other Imperial world is referred by the local time of that planet.

Compare a year on  Dromund Kaas to Korriban:

Dromund Kaas (everything in standard)

24 hours/day

312 days/year

7,488 hours/year

60 minutes = 1 hour

24 hours = 1 day

5 days = 1 week

7 weeks = 1 month

35 days = 1 month

8 months (+4 weeks and 4 holidays) = 1 year

312 (standard)days = 1 year

Korriban

28 (standard) hours/day

780 (local) days/year

21,840 (standard) hours/year

70 (standard and local) minutes = 1 hour

24 (local) hours = 1 day

10 (local) days = 1 week

6.5 (local) weeks = 1 month

65 (local) days = 1 month

12 (local) months = 1 year

780 (local) days = 1 year

This roughly makes 1 Korribani year approximately 2.9 [Dromund] Kaasi years.

Calendars

The days on Korriban are annotated on some versions of the Imperial calendar alongside the standard days.

In this example, names of the days on the calendar reflect the IST. The black numbers indicate the date in IST, the red numbers represent the date of the Korribani calendar. Placement of the Korribani date indicate when that day begins in relation to the Kaasi one.

A. 00:00 is the same for both. B. 00:00 K starts at 04:00 DK. C. 00:00 K starts at 08:00 DK. D. 00:00 K starts at 12:00 DK. E. 00:00 K starts at 16:00 DK. F. 00:00 K starts at 20:00 DK. G. Loops back around and 00:00 K lines up 00:00 DK .

While seemingly complicated to some, most Sith have grown with this system of overlapping calendars and can easily tell the date by the positioning of the numbers in this format. 

There are of course, electronic versions where the date is shown simply:

Since the Korribani month is longer than the Kaasi one, the dates will continue through the Kaasi months. These next two pictures show how long 1 Korribani month is in relation to a Kaasi one.

There is also a version of the Korribani calendar that does not overlap with IST. These are used locally on the planet.

The days of the Korribani week were named after major gods from the most widespread pantheon on the planet:

Ahmuriq, from Ahmurn: the creator god.

Marseriq, from Marserha: mother goddess of the Sith.

Bashariq, from Bashara: goddess of passion.

Teraiq, from Teral: god of protection and justice.

Iskarliq, from Iskarln: god(dess) of conflict and war.

Marduriq, from Mardur: patron god of the Massassi and strength.

Rusaniq, from Rusanel: goddess of knowledge.

Zefiriq, from Zefir: goddess of the hunt.

Shumariq, from Shumari: god of the harvest.

Goruiq, from Gorul: the trickster god(dess).

Months

There are numerous constellations in the Korribani sky. Twelves of these mark the months of the year as well as going into the astalignment. The 12 major, monthly constellations all depict local fauna from ancient fables and have certain characteristics that are commonly associated with them.

1. Yuninchâtsutuyok, the jiminat and agzonûboj engaged in eternal conflict. Dedicated, ambitious, and insightful.

2. Qyalatuyok, the qyalak. Calm, sentimental, and inquisitive.

3. Badzuriqatuyok, the badzuriqash. Tenacious, practical, and direct.

4. Kaarjontuyok, the kaarjontû. Spontaneous, contemplative, and observant.

5. Tukatatuyok, the tukata. Loyal, respectful, and staunch.

6. Hatyatuyok, the hatya. Articulate, perceptive, and adaptable.

7. Lomaituyok, the lomait. Disciplined, fearless, and competitive.

8. Dzushatuyok, the dzushaj. Private, calculating, and flexible.

9. Mowhetuyok, the mowhef. Stern, traditional, and ruthless.

10. Dyaltituyok, the dyaltir. Mischievous, studious, and charismatic.

11. Jhan’dikanatuyok, the lost dikana. Creative, sociable, and resourceful.

12. Niqoituyok, the niqoit. Erudite, cunning, and free-spirited.

Years

The years are also represented by local animals. No one, not even Sith scholars or historians, are sure of the origin of how these animals came to represent the years on Korriban’s calendar. It is one of the many parts of Sith culture that have been lost since it is believed this particular record has been passed down through oral tellings.

The years are kept track of in a 6-year cycle with each year emphasizing a likely success for the ones born in that year.

Chiroik - Wealth

Wokinai - Knowledge

Natûsh - Fame

Dzenal - Influence

Litskoj - Power

Sulemish - Longevity

(ie. Those born in the year of the Sulemish will have a long life.) This again factors into a Sith’s astralignment.

In addition to the years, these 6 animals are also used for the hours on Korriban. But time is not conveyed in the same manner as Basic. While in Basic one would simply say “14:25” (or two twenty-five in the afternoon) the Sith have a much more involved way to convey time.

For example: Shyracks screech and return to their caves as the priestess prepares the altar in the hour of the wokinai.

Translates to: 07:15 local time (or seven fifteen in the morning).

As a side note, a few centuries ago Darth Feras domesticated and bred wrats within the Empire. At first they weren’t seen with much interest by her peers. But popular rumor has it that she pointed out her creations embody the physical traits of the yearly beasts.

Eyes - Chiroik

Ears - Wokinai

Body - Natûsh

Hands - Dzenal

Feet - Litskoj

Tail - Sulemish

Afterwards they quickly became a favored pet and companion among the Sith, being seen as an auspicious animal.

While not related to their calendar there is a tradition of being assigned a birth flower. For this, the Sith do not look to their skies but rather, when a child is born the placenta is buried in a pot with 12 seeds. The first of these seeds to sprout becomes that Sith’s birth flower. These 12 flowers are also used in medicine, therapeutic or preventive, for some common ailments.

Serla for headaches.

Roshal for good eyesight.

Nashkir for sore throats.

Atsudqâ for heart health.

Hyaranjat for good digestion.

Mûyoin for muscle pain.

Shasâyar for fertility.

Jûzon for blood circulation.

Ashanin for bone mending.

Qoyo for fevers.

Chisiqsanu for irritated ridge skin.

Kûsk’inti for fatigue and replenishing energy.

The last two parts that go into a Sith’s astalignment are their energies. The weekly energies correspond with 4 classic “elements” of earth, fire, air, and water. While the daily energy simply refers to day or night (d/n) in regards to when the person was born.

Combined with all aspects mentioned in this document, year, month, weekly energy, day (+energy), and flower, one can study a Sith’s astalignment.  ex. Darth Vowrawn’s astalignment factors:

The study of these astralignments is a complicated field on to its own while the findings can be very important to some among the Sith. There are specialized scholars who offer their services to the old families so that the “perfect matches” (marriage, business, or otherwise) can be set up.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

aaaaahhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT’S DONE. i feel like frodo at mt. doom after the ring is destroyed omg... ;-;

SOOOO. i wanted, and i mean REALLY wanted, to finish this for lunar new year (for pretty obvious reasons lol)...... :,) welp. then i was like “i can do may 4″ lol NOPE. but here we are! still technically sith day? whatever. imma say I Did It. :D

also pls don’t laugh at my stupid drawings. i already know i can’t art. ok??? >,<

special thanks to @snootysith​ for giving me a bunch of sithy names and words for me to use. c: like y’all... coming up with fake words, that look and sound ok is really HARD (for my dumbass anyway)

other worldbuilding posts that are... sorta mentioned/used in this:

@inquisitorhotpants​‘s dk calendar

BOOS! x3

and some other stuff ....

but uh, yea. if you’re wondering “hang on there fluffy... did you really make a big, dumbass zodiac/astrology post??” the answer is...

yes.

yes i did... xU

but also i imagine the ancient sith had a lot of special and important dates for you know... religious things? *shrug* and over the many, many years all of this was passed down and prob altered in some way to fit into modern sith society? idk...

now imma say some things here bc i know For A Fact!!! that ppl don’t go onto original posts to read op tags on this hellsite lol.

and this isn’t me trying to sound like an arrogant asshole... but these are for some common questions that’ll undoubtedly come up:

yes, you can use this in any extent or manner.

no, you obvs don’t have to. ignore it if you want. i’ll be ok lol.

no, i’m not gonna write a long ass book with all the little details on every aspect of all the traits and then assign these things for your character(s). just make something up. that’s what i did here xD (plus my brain is d e a d from this)

yes, this is seen as a mostly(!) tomato pureblood sith thing but obvs attitudes are different between individuals. some are super into it, some could careless and think it’s all fake news, some have parents that care too much about it which is annoying and interfering with their life so they lowkey hate it lol.

no, i couldn’t do a read more bc it wouldn’t look as nice and i worked hard ok? ;-; i apologize for clogged dashes in advance.

i think that’s it? ofc feel free to hmu if you’re ok with a reply that can take anywhere from a few min to 3 business days ^-^;

[dreamyaqua]

double aquarius anon here again; i redownloaded the app & i got the update! first of all i enjoyed reading everything you wrote SO much (including the jacob part 🥺) so i just wanted to say thank u bc I WAS FREAKING OUT SKDJ!! i was so shocked that you shipped me with him tbh,, secondly i read astrology stuff mostly bc i relate to my sun sign a lot and i think it’s really interesting to read abt it but im not super invested but im genuinely amazed after what you wrote about my placements. its super understandable that you were confused as to if im more shy or confident bc im def both. i really enjoy meeting new people and I think im a great conversationalist and i know exactly what to say to make my friends laugh! but then on the other hand i reallyy like working things out on my own and almost never ask for help, sometimes im not in the mood to talk and be super enthusiastic so im quiet,, love going out with friends but i honestly really value my personal time as well like sometimes i just want to sit in my pjs and watch yt 🤷🏻‍♀️ i also agree w what you said about me being sympathetic, empathetic and caring, if i say so myself im good at putting myself in other people’s shoes, you used the right words sensitive and receptive as well because i can really tell peoples emotions influence me a lot— if someone is crying ill get sad too and might tear up ): & about being creative; i dance, journal & take photos! i also really like making those drinks and pastries that you see in homecafe vids! about wanting to help others,, i want to become a nutritionist in the future and help people who experience food guilt fall in love with nutrition and fitness :)) (when you said i could have a both artistic and scientific tune of mind i immediately though abt the artsy things i do but also me being interested in science). im also reallyy independent (goes w the fact that i don’t like receiving help from others) and i like doing a lot of things on my own (my pride is also big lmao). you saying i enjoy speaking my mind is so funny because everyone knows i can go oFF with my arguments if someone disagrees w me and all my teachers tell me im great at supporting my opinions! it honestly made me smile how you said im probably optimistic and hardworking bc i really do try to be that way & the last two things you said about me (generous and has an eye for aesthetic flairs) ive heard before many many times from ppl so even though i can’t judge for myself i suppose they might be true :’) a LOT of people also tell me i give off this very calm aura and that the way i carry myself makes me look and sound very mature and that i know what i want so everyone thinks im older than i am. anyways thank you so much again & SORRY for making u write so much!

Ahh first of all, I'm super sorry it took me so long to reply!! I've been super busy but I really appreciate that you liked my ship and that you're giving me such great feedback because honestly, WOW I'd have never thought I'd get it right like that. I'm genuinely surprised but also super happy about it.

And all of this fits so well with your chart!! You being a double Aquarius with your sun in 1st definitely explains why you can relate to your sun sign so well. Our Ascendant is super important and shows us our outlook on life and also our destiny (or was is our desires? I gotta go look that up again and check which of the two words it was😂 I'm sorry I sometimes mix up English words that look similar😂 Non-native speaker problems ansjjsj). But anyway, it's so interesting to hear that because I actually am the exact other way.😂 My Aquarius sun is in the 7th house because I'm a Leo rising and since the sign on the 7th house cusp can be the traits we reject in ourselves, I struggle to relate to Aquarius memes and even my astro friends say I don't seem/act like an Aquarius. Isn't it interesting how we differ in these ways- I think that's what makes astrology so interesting because when you put all the pieces together, you get a unique chart of a unique individual.🥰

But other than that, I can honestly relate to many things you said were true for you - I also am artistic but logical as well.^^ And your artistic interests are so cool! I dance as well but have never managed to consistently journal. Do you have a bullet journal that you decorate and all? I always find them super aesthetic to look at.🤧 I may not really journal but I draw and sing :D

And everything you said about your emotional nature fits your Cancer moon so well and I also feel like it's makes for a very interesting combination with your Aquarius placements.

The way you can support your opinions well and go off when someone disagrees with you is definitely Aries Mars in 3rd culture haha. I'm the total opposite of that, I think I'd be horrible at debating and shy away from any form of conflict or argument/disagreement. :'))

But also, I really love that you're trying your best to be optimistic and hardworking, that's so admirable and I can also definitely see how you have a calm aura!^-^ I don't know how old you are but I definitely feel like you give off very mature vibes, so to me, it feels very comfortable to talk to you!!^-^

And please don't apologize!! It was a pleasure to read and sorry again for taking so long with my answer!!😭😭😭

[letters-from-the-three-houses]

Hello hello! I'd just like to say that I'm really glad I found your blog, it's super fun to see the hype and ideas circulating throughout it, it's helping with the hype, and it's mega fun reading your wonderful writing, keep up the fantastic work my friend! But if it's okay ask, may I get your stance on the idea of demon Byleth? Anything would be lovely, from personal preferences to actual likelihood of this outcome, or how it could affect the church, plot, characters, or Byleth themselves?

thanks, friend! it’s more than okay to ask! i’m super hyped so i’m happy to share my excitement with everyone. we’ll get through the countdown together :)

so as a bit of a background to those who don’t know/need a refresher, byleth (beleth) is the name of a fallen angel in hell who commands legions of demons. they’re sometimes depicted as a trumpet-playing cat, but they’re usually shown as a scary, stubborn, and intimidating man who will hold contempt towards the caster if they show fear/disrespect. there’s also a female persona who is thought to be a “small, frail, doe-eyed young girl”, as well as beleth’s true form. once they lend the summoner their power, the summoner will be able to cause any man or woman to love them until their desires are fulfilled. also, beleth is knowledgeable in math

(here are some more posts about demon!byleth that i build upon in my response: [1], [2], [3], [4], [reddit])

under the cut bc i wrote too much

disclaimer: i’m not an expert of demonology, so i might get some information wrong. there are also spoilers to other games in the series!

i personally think it’d be a cool spin. i love the idea of a demon protagonist, and the context is a good setup for a morally ambiguous, grey role. whether IS chooses to play around with it to create a more somber/complicated tone or not is anyone’s guess. knowing them, it’ll probably be straightforward, like revelation!fates, but the two aren’t mutually exclusive

as for likelihood, i think they’re called ‘byleth’ for a reason. it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll be a demon, but the name does hold some importance. for one, byleth is pretty niche. they’re only mentioned in two texts: 1) pseudomonarchia daemonum (johann weyer), and 2) ars goetia, which was based off of weyer’s work. even then, they’re more commonly adapted as ‘beleth’ or ‘bileth’. japan likes referencing the ars goetia for whatever reason, but when they do, they use the more popular names like amon, astaroth, baal, etc. (a.k.a demons who have been referenced in other texts). in fact, the only other byleth/beleth character i could find is beleth from floraverse (a decidedly not japanese webcomic), who’s portrayed as a cute toy cat demon

to be honest, IS has a good track record on meaningful names. they’ve been doing it for years now; a lot of references have some sort of influence or connection to their source material. sigurd is a hero descended from a god who forgets his wife due to a magic drink before being murdered, similar to his and deirdre’s fates in genealogy. eirika and ephraim’s prf weapons, sieglinde and siegmund, are twins in norse mythology. the goetia itself is the strongest dark tome in awakening, a nice nod to the fact that you use it to summon demons

the more recent avatars also have some parallels, especially their japanese names. reflet means reflection in french, which makes sense since they’re the representation of the player. kamui (kamuy) are a group of divine beings that live in the heavens, associated with different natural aspects (e.g. the hearth, sea, thunder, agriculture, etc.). this could signify kamui’s vallite heritage and dragon blood. both names (reflet + kamui) are also androgynous, and can be used for males or females

it might be a long stretch, but what really solidifies my opinion on the intentionality is the fact that there are different default names for each of the byleths. ベレト (bereto) by itself could have been a coincidence, but ベレス (beresu) is an alternative form of ベレト or bereto (much like byleth is to beleth). again, it could be by chance, but more support for it means it’s more likely that IS chose the name for a reason

also, you get to choose your ‘form’ when picking between f!byleth and m!byleth. iirc, the japanese version has the same connotation, so it’s not some awkward translation on the localization’s part

“but does that matter? what if they chose it because it sounds cool?” i don’t deny the possibility! after all, a lot of media use random names just because they sound sinister and evil. sometimes, there’s not a big connection between said character and the source material. but notwithstanding which demon they used, they still chose to name them after one. naming a character after a demon is a pretty big deal

so what does it mean? to be honest, it could mean anything. there’s a chance that the reference isn’t prominent (maybe they have a dark side to them or they become evil à la robin). if, however, ‘beleth’ ends up shaping the dynamics of the entire game, then a couple of plot points can be gleaned from it

it’s important to note that some aspects of beleth could be mixed and matched with different characters. just like sigurd + deirdre, it’s possible that they’re combined with the relationships that byleth has, meaning the characteristics don’t solely apply to byleth. for example, byleth might canonically play the bugle horn, and whenever they head into battle, they use it to communicate and relay orders to the other units (which would be pretty cool, actually; IS make it happen)

we know that byleth starts off unaffiliated with any of the three nations, and that there’s a catalyst that throws fódlan into war. it’s possible that byleth joining one of the houses parallels the ‘summoning’—the caster being the respective lord—and byleth lends them their power in order to do xyz. in the case of the original text, that means making everyone love them (implied to be the, um, physical kind), but it might just translate to a power shift in favour of said house

what’s really interesting, in my opinion, is that the ars goetia states: “For thou art conjured by the name of the LIVING and TRUE GOD…fulfil thou my commands…according unto mine interest…” in other words, you have to invoke the power of god in order to summon demons to do your bidding. while it seems odd that god would allow you to summon them in the first place, it does mean that the authority of god compels them to obey you. maybe the church of seiros will somehow control byleth using the goddess’s powers (a.k.a the crests)? that doesn’t mean the goddess has something against byleth (she could be a sideline character whose powers are being abused by the caster—or in this case, the church), but the fact that beleth is a fallen angel could signify some sort of relationship between them

my ideal would be that the byleths (+ sothis, who references isis/anubis) are anti-heroes, the church isn’t outright evil/corrupt, and the political tension between the three nations is what drives the conflict (with the crests as a macguffin). i’d love it if this time around, the choices we make influence the direction of the story! that said, i won’t mind if it’s the usual ‘defeat the evil dragon to save the world’ story. the worldbuilding gives a lot of freedom and creativity for what-ifs, so someone’s bound to make a demon!au if byleth isn’t one

the real question though is why jeralt named his kid ‘byleth’. unless byleth isn’t actually his kid. then that brings up a whole slew of questions about the mother

[asks are open!]

[chineselanguageblog]

Chinese tea culture and the influence

The Chinese people, in their drinking of tea, place much significance on the act of “savoring.” “Savoring tea” is not only a way to discern good tea from mediocre tea, but also how people take delight in their reverie and in tea-drinking itself. Snatching a bit of leisure from a busy schedule, making a kettle of strong tea, securing a serene space, and serving and drinking tea by yourself can help banish fatigue and frustration, improve your thinking ability and inspire you with enthusiasm. You may also imbibe it slowly in small sips to appreciate the subtle allure of tea-drinking until your spirits soar up and up into a sublime aesthetic realm. Buildings, gardens, ornaments and tea sets are the elements that form the ambiance for savoring tea. A tranquil, refreshing, comfortable and neat locale is certainly desirable for drinking tea. Chinese gardens are well known in the world and beautiful Chinese landscapes are too numerous to count. Teahouses tucked away in gardens and nestled beside the natural beauty of mountains and rivers are enchanting places of repose for people to rest and recreate themselves.

China is a country with a time-honored civilization and a land of ceremony and decorum. Whenever guests visit, it is necessary to make and serve tea to them. Before serving tea, you may ask them for their preferences as to what kind of tea they fancy and serve them the tea in the most appropriate teacups. In the course of serving tea, the host should take careful note of how much water is remaining in the cups and in the kettle. Usually, if the tea is made in a teacup, boiling water should be added after half of the cup has been consumed; and thus the cup is kept filled so that the tea retains the same bouquet and remains pleasantly warm throughout the entire course of tea-drinking. Snacks, sweets and other dishes may be served at tea time to compliment the fragrance of the tea and to allay one’s hunger.

The formation and development of Chinese tea culture

China is the hometown of tea, is the world’s first discovery of tea, tea and the use of tea cultivation countries. The origin of tea at least the main Qi Wannian history. Tea was found and the use of human, about Siwuqiannian history.

 In accordance with “The Book of Songs” and other relevant documentation, in the pre-history, “Tu” refers to all types of wild plants bitterness of food raw materials. Fresh medical unity in the history of the times, the Zhike tea vegetable oil, the Qing God, Xiaoshi, in addition to Zhang, the medical function is to facilitate wait until it is not difficult for people found. However, the general medical practices for the development of an exclusive drink often, there must also be some special factors, namely, real-life people in a particular need. Bashu region, to the multiple for Jiyi “Zhang smoke” land. “Barbarian people living with tea, the lack of will.” (Ai Qing weeks of “Zhu Guo Travels” Volume II) is often vulgar Bashu people eating spicy side, thousands of habit, still. It is this natural geographical conditions and the resulting decision of the people’s dietary practices, making Bashu people first “JIANCHALING” Apart from taking to Zhang Qi, antipyretic drugs. Jiufu-Xi, a medicinal purpose gradually Subduction, tea has become a daily drink was. Qin-Ba-Shu is likely to see this as a daily drink tea customs.

Tea from the medicinal drink into a regular habit, the strict sense of “tea” would then have its typical signs that “tea” (cha) the emergence of sound. Guo Pu Note “Yi-release”, “Jia”: “small trees such as gardenia, Dong-Sheng Ye, can be boiled for soup to drink. As early as today called for the mining, tea, who was admitted late Ming, a Chuan, Shuren of the TU. “Clearly, the Han,” Tu “has been specifically beverage word” tea “in pronunciation,” tea “from” Tu “isolated, and embarked on the” independence “road of development. But “tea” the emergence of the word is accompanied by the development of the tea things and commercial activities have become increasingly frequent, until later in the Tang Dynasty, is also in line with the new symbol of a people’s social life after such a text change in the law.

China will start from the tea, There are different theories about, the Western Han Dynasty, tea drinking has been a matter of the official literature, drinking tea when the starting time earlier than some. Tea appears to cultural characteristics, in the Han, Wei and Jin Dynasty, Northern and Southern Dynasties period.

Tea Culture Broadly speaking, the tea at the natural sciences and humanities tea in terms of both human society is in the process of the historical practice of creating and tea-related material and spiritual wealth combined. In a narrow sense, focusing on the human sciences tea, tea mainly refers to the spiritual and social functions. As the science of tea has become an independent system, which now often say the tea culture emphasis on the humanities.

The influence of tea culture on Chinese civilization

1、the three countries before the tea culture of the Enlightenment

Many of the books found that the tea set for 2737-2697 BC, its history can be pushed to Sanhuangwudi. Eastern Han Hua, “The Fresh”: “Kucha for food, meaning benefits” of the medical records of the value of tea. Western Han Dynasty tea to the country of origin named “Tu-Ling”, that is, Hunan Chaling. To San Guowei generation “-Blair” has the earliest documented the method of tea cakes and drinking: Story of the Pakistani Inter-for cake, a pie-old man leaves to a paste of rice. Tea in the form of material and infiltration to other human sciences and the formation of tea culture.

2、Jin Dynasty, the seeds of the Northern and Southern Dynasties tea culture

With the rise of the literati tea, the tea poetry Gough increasingly available, tea has been out as a general form of eating into the cultural circles, will play the spirit of social role. Jin Dynasty, Northern and Southern Dynasties period, Menfa system has been formed, not only the emperor, nobility amassed a wave of officials and scholars generally proud boast, multi-effect Plaster Liang Hou Wei. In this case, some people of insight to “Yang Lian.”

Thus, there is satisfied that the land, Huanwen to tea and wine at all. South Qishizuwu emperor is a relatively enlightened Emperor, he did not Hei Yu Yan, under Yi Zhao before his death, he said after the funeral to be thrifty as possible, not to Sansheng for offerings, only put more Ganfan, fruit cake and Chafan can. And to “the world Guijian, with such a system.” Satisfied that the land, Huanwen, Emperor Wu Qi, where tea is not only refreshing to quench their thirst, it began work in a community, into a tea hospitality, to worship and that a Kind of spirit and sentiment of the means. Tea has not entirely the use of its natural value used by the people but entered the spirit of the area.

Wei, Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties period, the world disorder, all kinds of ideological and cultural exchanges collision, supernaturalism very popular. Metaphysics is the period of the Wei, Jin, a philosophical idea, mainly糅合Confucian thinking of the Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi-yi. Xuan Xuejia most of the so-called Fellows, the first to the door, the face, the instrument only, Hyun-loving nothingness from the light. Eastern Jin Dynasty, furans North Korea, the affluent Kangnam Scholars to be temporary to meet, hang around all day in Qingshanxiushui between the light winds to continue to develop, resulting in many light homes. Initially, there are more than idle talk Jiutu home, and later, talk of the wind gradually developed to the general literate.

Xuanxue Jia-speech, also general-talk rhetoric. Liquor make people excited, but drinking more would be stricken manner, nonsense, failed Yaguan. The tea-drinking and may be Jingri always clear, it is clear thinking, calm attitude. Moreover, the general terms of the literati, the whole day dealing with Jiurou, of the economy, will not allow. Days, many Xuan Xuejia, talk to wine home from the village. In them, where tea has been treated as a mental phenomenon.

   With Buddhism, Taoism up, and have tea and Buddhism, Taoism linked. In Taoism, the tea is to help Lian “inner alchemy” or-down muddy, light-weight-for-bones, Xiu Changshengbulao a good way to the body in Buddhism, the tea is a brooding meditation required of Of the show. Although this has not yet formed a complete religious tea ceremony and the ideological principles set out tea, tea has been divorced from the diet as a form of state, has significant social, cultural functions, the Chinese tea culture clues.

3、the formation of the Tang Dynasty tea culture

780, Lu Yu, “the tea,” tea culture of the Tang Dynasty is a landmark. Tea has summed up its natural and human sciences double content of the tea arts, Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism into the three tea, the pioneering spirit of the Chinese tea ceremony. After tea and a large number of books, poems tea, “tea in”, “JIANCHALING water”, “Cai Cha”, “16 soups.” Tang tea culture and the formation of the Zen on the rise, the benefits of tea is refreshing thought, spermatogenic Zhike function, the temple advocates tea, tea trees planted around the temple, the development of the tea ceremony, a tea appear, the first election of tea, The matter was tea activities. China’s Tang Dynasty in the form of tea ceremony at the palace tea, the tea ceremony of the temple, the literati tea ceremony.

4、 the prosperity of the Song Dynasty tea culture

Song tea has been a great development, and promote the development of the tea culture, the literati in a professional Tea Associations, an official of the “social soup”, a Buddhist, “1,000 clubs.” Song Taizu Zhao Kuangyin tea is an of disabilities, in court and authorities in the establishment of tea things, the court has been using tea grades. Tea-ceremony system has become, thanks to the win over Secretary of tea has become the emperor, with relatives an important means, but also give foreign envoys. As for the lower social and vitality of tea culture is more lively, some of movement, the neighbourhood to “Xiancha” You Ke, to respect the “gold ingot tea”, when engaged to “tea”, the time of the marriage to “the tea”, when roommate “A tea.” Cha Doo civil wind has brought Preparing cooking point of a series of changes.

  Since the Yuan Dynasty, the tea culture has entered a period of twists and turns. Song expansion of the tea culture and the social dimension of cultural forms, tea things are booming, but the tea to complicated, trivial, luxury, lost the Tang Dynasty tea culture profound ideological connotation, too delicate tea flooded the spirit of the tea culture, lost Its noble profound nature. In court, nobles, scholars there, drinking tea became a “drink at the child” and “drinking style,” and “Play tea.”

5、 that the universal culture of Qing-Cha

At this point there has been steaming green, Chaoqing, Hong Qing, and other tea, tea drinking has been changed to “minority bubble”, many of the Ming Dynasty scholar Aston handed down the left for, such as snow star “Pengcha picture,” ” Tea map “, Wen Zhengming’s” Huishan tea party “,” Lu Yu Pengcha plans, “Tea plans. ” The increase in tea, tea art is different, the style of Tea Ware, texture, pattern Qianzibaitai. Tea exports to the Qing Dynasty have become one of the official sector, the tea, tea, tea countless poems.

6、 the development of modern tea culture

  After the founding of New China, China’s annual output of tea from 1949 to 7500 T development in 1998, more than 60 million T. Tea a substantial increase in material wealth for the development of China’s tea culture to provide a solid foundation in 1982, set up in Hangzhou, the first to promote tea culture for the purpose of social groups – the “tea house”, established in 1983 in Hubei ” Lu Yu Tea Culture Research Society, “1990” were the Federation of Chinese tea “was set up in Beijing, 1993,” the China International Tea Culture Research Society “in the establishment of Island Lake, in 1991 China Tea Museum in Hangzhou West Lake Township officially opened. 1998 China International Tea Cultural Exchange Peace Museum completed. With the rise of tea culture and tea houses throughout the run more.

International Tea Culture Symposium has been opened to the fifth sector, has attracted Japan, South Korea, the United States, Sri Lanka and Hong Kong and Taiwan has participated. The main provincial cities and counties in the tea production in the host “Tea Day”, such as Fujian’s Wuyi Yancha section of the city, Yunnan’s Pu’er tea festival, Zhejiang Xinchang, Taishun, Hubei and Britain Hill, the Tea Festival in Xinyang, Henan abound. To have tea as the carrier, to promote comprehensive economic and trade development.

Chinese tea culture and tea culture in Europe and America or Japan, a great difference. Chinese tea culture has a long history, profound, not only contains the material and cultural level, also contains a deep spiritual level. Tea by Lu Yu of the Tang Dynasty in the history of Chinese tea culture and sounded the horn. Since then, the spirit of tea permeates the court and society, into the Chinese poetry, painting, calligraphy, religion, medicine. For thousands of years, China has not only accumulated a great deal about tea cultivation, production of material culture but also accumulated rich spirit of the tea culture, which is unique to China’s tea culture, a cultural study area.

[aijee]

hello! i’m the anon who left the 6-part ask regarding mg a few months ago (i refer to those asks bc i’m back to drop more thoughts about mg and might touch on what i previously said). i wrote this whole thing disregading word count, believing i could drop it all in one go because i managed to log in to my tumblr, but it seems i still have to break it up… lmao i don’t know how many parts this will be or if i could post it all tonight, but i will signify the very end with “6-part anon” :)

Cont’d with response under the cut (I made some executive decisions about where the paragraphs break lol so it’s not all one block of text):

they want to be famous; that part just came along with the package. then i read in your bts post, you see mg as more wrapped up in entertainment, having star power with a bright personality, liking the limelight. reading that, i do agree, but i guess ive never thought of that before. i think wanting to be a star and wanting to be in the spotlight can seem self-centered. i hope im not coming across like im judging everyone who wants to be famous as “bad” because that’s not what i’m trying to do, but i think it’s safe enough to say that wanting to be famous means wanting people’s attention on you. i’m trying to tread carefully but i suppose i am saying that on the surface, wanting to be a big star can seem a little selfish in the sense that you want to boost your image, present your best self at all times, want people’s eyes on you and want them to think good things about you. combining those general thoughts about wanting to be a star, with my thoughts about mg in particular, is interesting to me.

i’ve always seen him as someone so selfless, so lovely, so considerate towards others. throughout idotsc, you’ve written him throughout as someone so amiable, liked by everyone, and also selfless and considerate. and in chp 7, his reaction twds the pictures is... well, I think they’re pretty true to character, and again i think it shows selflessness. then the ‘Love Languages’ text that OP had written— while, of course, OP doesn’t know him and everything is an assumption to a certain degree, I think their writing summarizes in one place what I observed about mg through the content available to the public: he constantly gives to people around him, exhibiting sincerity, words of gratitude and acts of service. at the same time, i definitely agree with what you said about his star quality, so i think that was the first time i really stopped to examine my thoughts about stardom and how some things may not be mutually exclusive.

“stardom” also makes me think about his recent incident, because of course, such incidents are definitely a potential consequence of fame. during that time i’ve also come across several opinions saying that they’re not surprised if a current idol was a past bully… i don’t remember exactly what people said but i think it was somewhere along the lines of, if they were so confident and cocky since predebut, then they might have had the qualities of a bully. something like that. i think from the outside looking in, it may be easier to equate star quality with a diva attitude/disregard twds others.

one thing i’d like to add is sth that a famous person said abt fame, and why they value it more than money, bc if they meet a fan, the look on the fan’s face upon meeting them gives them a feeling money can’t buy. and i suppose from this angle, being a star seems selfless. with svt too, they expressed how meaningful it is to them that theyre able to bring us so much joy. i think from the outside looking in, it may be easier to equate star quality with a diva attitude/disregard twds others. one thing i’d like to add is sth that a famous person said abt fame, and why they value it more than money, bc if they meet a fan, the look on the fan’s face upon meeting them gives them a feeling money can’t buy. and i suppose from this angle, being a star seems selfless. with svt too, they expressed how meaningful it is to them that theyre able to bring us so much joy.

i hope this all makes sense; i had lots of thoughts and wanted to try to write them. i struggled to understand why one would want to be a star, and went in circles questioning if i thought it was more selfish or selfless, and what one’s true motives might be behind wanting fame. ik u implied u embrace long writing bc you also write in length, but i’m less eloquent than you are so i hope this was fine! thank you again for having a space where people could offload their thoughts :) ~6-part anon~

There’s a lot to unpack here, isn’t there! A buffet of food for thought, for sure. I can’t possibly respond to everything written here because there’s just so many points, so I’ll write a few points. As always, take what I write with a grain of salt.

I don’t think there’s anything bad or inherently wrong with pointing out that, hey, people who are interested in a profession necessarily tied to a public image probably to show off or want attention. These things are perfectly natural to want, even for people who aren’t celebrities, because we’re (1) inherently social creatures and a lot of our survival is contingent on external success, and (2) we are brought up to feel validation from others, especially in an age where our lives are much more on display. But I can see why “selfishness” may be thrown in the mix because we often look down on attention-seekers and “popular” people, many of whom exhibit arrogant/tone-deaf behaviors. On the other hand, it’s understandable that an idol with a big public image necessitates putting their best foot forward all the time to maintain good opinion of them and to earn more money, frankly.

I’ve probably repeated myself too many times, but something I’ve been grappling with recently is this black-and-white mindset/judgment system we often have of others (very much exacerbated by social media, e.g. witch hunts). Bad is bad, good is good. I’ve thought this way for a long time of myself in an upbringing that always punished/looked down on bad behavior (or what was considered behavioral flaws, like speaking out against elders, swearing as a femme person, etc.) rather than acknowledging that “bad” behavior can be exhibited by people who also do and act “good.” In short, while I can only speak from my perspective, I think we’re programmed to subconsciously seek behavioral perfection for a number of reasons: we were raised that way by family; and/or society; we feel judged by the presence of social media and greater access into our lives; accessibility to celebrities and “perfect” public figures makes us judge ourselves by comparison; education systems that poorly address internal learning as well as external learning, etc.

In Mingyu’s case, there’s nothing wrong with seeing and continuing to see him as all those good qualities in my opinion. There’s nothing wrong with grappling with potential past problematic behaviors of your faves, as long as you’re critical and open-minded about the parties involved (which is rarely ever a fanbase at large, but the skewed authority of a fanbase is a different can of worms). Idols are human, which means dealing with the good and bad that comes with interacting humans. Contrary to popular belief (and I write this sarcastically), people CAN change. People should be ALLOWED to change. Characters are static. People are not. And it’s sad to say that this is still an issue in the K-Pop world. 

As hard as it sounds, a person who bullied others in the past could still have good or pure intentions for becoming an idol. They could still feel fulfillment from making others happy; is that a bad thing? I personally don’t think so. Or maybe a person’s intentions for becoming an idol could be mixed good or bad, who the fuck knows? Not us. Honestly, I firmly believe that we fans don’t have the right to make definitive moral judgments of idols in the first place because we don’t know them personally. That, and people are extremely complex and hard to categorize, as much as we want to because it’s easier to do so. People are messy. Real life teaches us that more than the Internet does imo.

In any case, I don’t think selfishness and selflessness are mutually exclusive in the same way a person can be both good and bad. I learned that language, too, is a powerful vehicle that influences how we think. In that vein, with how compartmentalized definitions are in specific words, perhaps we think that their existence/practice is separate, i.e. being “selfish” is never being “selfless” because each word’s definition exists solely in their respective word and not the other (hopefully that makes some sense).

TL;DR: I think wanting attention and validation from others is okay and not inherently a bad thing, and people are fucking messy and rarely good without the bad (and vice versa).

Pretty sure I rambled a ton as well and probably didn’t hit that many points that you offered, anon. You ended up putting me on a thought train as well!

[lone-hand]

THE MANY, DIFFERENT FACES AND VOICES OF UNCLE PHIL

UNCLE PHIL, CHURCH OF AQUARIUS, BORN WINNER...Personas or caricatures from the mind of Phil Osborne . Phil is a musician, artist, film maker, animator, and general renaissance man. His music and art all come from the same world, it’s Gremlins meets Carpenter meets Pee Wee’s Playhouse meets Monty Python meets Uncle Phil. Phil lived inside this world in his Monster Party Galleries (1&2) in Victoria BC and now he is living in Montréal. Here we talk about his Church of Aquarius album Obliged with Tact and Etiquette::::

“I think there's as much truth, if not more truth in something comedic.”

When/where did you start recording Obliged with Tact and Etiquette?

I started writing and recording material for it in the summer of 2012. I went to Victoria BC to visit some friends and wrote the first song, high as a kite, out of nowhere to make my friends laugh, a sort of fake british psychedelic pop song. I was trying to sound like monty python trying to be early pink floyd. I recorded a simple demo of it and everyone loved it.

After I had that first song done, I started thinking i should do a whole album as an homage to all things british i love. Music with that sensibility I love so much, pipers at the gates of dawn and syd barrett are the main influence, the beatles too of course. The voice I use is pretty much my impression of the Jeremy Hillary boob phd character in yellow submarine. I threw in some fake Shakespeare in humbug,your majesty, I even put a tea brake in the middle of that song. 

Over the next 4 years, I wrote lots of music for it. I re-recorded some of the songs more than 3 times to get it just right. I also got help from my friend Leigh Newton ( daiquiri, major entertainer, the sun through a telescope,world war 4 ect..). he’s an amazing musician and can play everything. He re-did high as a kite his way and gave it more kick. I released that as the 7 inch with the b side sung in french.

So OWTAE is your “British” album?

Besides the brit stuff, the music from the quebecois tv show passe partout is another one it's like folk and electronic. Pierre f. brault wrote the tunes. I rediscovered the show and the records and the whole thing is serious genius. Plains of Avadoon is a tip of the hat to them.

Are the stories told on this album true stories or is it all fictional?

They are all a bit autobiographical. I used the feeling of being 19, lost and stoned as a guide for some of the songs. Going to see the magician is about those nights I spent with a friend as we walked across town or drove to go see this drug dealer ( the magician ). We always had to avoid running into police in my small town of Gatineau, they are insane and can easily stop you for no reason (watch out, there's pigs in the dark..) Past the train tracks and the tombstone sea is about the secret passage i use to go to my parents house, a path i have walked so many times since i was a teen.

Would you say OWTAE is a comedy album first and foremost or does that even matter? 

I tried to keep all the songs in a good mood. It's supposed to be an upper. If it makes someone laugh and smile, it's a good thing. 

Is music too self serious right now?

i think there's as much truth, if not more truth in something comedic. Something serious can often make you laugh anyway, so is there really a difference? As for bands being too serious, let's be more specific and describe them as bands that aren't trying to get laughter as a response. That's definetly the popular approach out there and it gets stale after awhile. We need a bit more wackyness in our music. At least some contrast, damn it! I want to hear different moods in a bands set. i don't want the same song 12 times, and upping the tempo ain't good enough. Do a dumb song and follow it up with a sad country tune. Why not? Aren't we all kind of moody people? Sad on Tuesday morning, wacky on Wednesday night?

Amen. So then how do you decide if something is an Uncle Phil/Church Of Aquarius/Born Winner recording?

At first i couldn't decide on a name for my music since it was just a crazy mix of styles with 60s to 90s influences. I just called it Uncle Phil, real simple. Then I decided to split my influences in half : church of aquarius for all things 60s and 70s, born winner for all things 80s and 90s. I'm gonna use the uncle phil music name as the music publishing name just for fun instead.

“I used the feeling of being 19, lost and stoned as a guide”

Are these characters you or do you always write music in character?

I'm not even sure there's a difference. I end up doing so many takes of the songs, I live the stories and I become one with the characters. It's serious shit, yo.

But does your music and video and artwork more or less exist in the same world?

i like to think it doesn't. A big part of the fun of making art is you get to create new worlds. Of course every world needs characters and stories. Every song, robot toy, puppet or drawing is a diferent character and sometimes they inhabit the same world. I make the albums like they're movies. Each song is in a specific order. 

Your writing is almost like a stream of conscious, and everything is done at home with efficiency and speed, can you explain your recording process a little?

It usually starts with a song title and the words flow out right after. The melody comes when I read the lyrics over and over again. Walking outside helps with that. The mood of the lyrics defines the melody i hear in my head. It's basicaly either funny, dark, wacky or mysterious. Sometimes I write an instrumental part on guitar or keyboard and then i keep that on the shelf. I write some lyrics way later and then remember that part i wrote a while back and it fits with the lyrics. the real work is not writing them. it's getting the right sound quality, arranging and then mixing. That last part in the song birth process is the hardest and least fun for me. It usually ends with a deadly migraine! I gotta hire help for that at some point.

Did that process change in any way during the creation of OWTAE?

This lp is more intricate with arrangements than past things which were usually done on the spot. I learned that sometimes a simple demo of a song has more magic than a refined recording of the song . That’s why im putting out diferent versions of the album. Demos and alternate mixes, at least on tape, made available at shows. Kenneth J. Maclaurin made me an amazing cover for it and each tape will be a diferent colour variation of it. One for each season.

“Making movies is like trying to express yourself in slow motion. In quick sand. Music is a nice little walk in the woods.”

Is your work an homage or was everything always an homage? 

I would say all of my art is pretty much all an homage and there's nothing wrong with that. The music i'm making is for sure, the sound and references are specific to time periods. I think we all try and alter the things we love in the art we make, we celebrate it. I guess a person or band is original in the sense that instead of just doing a byrds cover or something, you write a song that kind of captures their sound. Maybe you add another influence in there if it feels right. So what started as a sort of attempt to imitate created an original piece. that's good. I think imitation is usually not as conscious and mechanical as the word makes it sound. The song you wrote that sounds like a band you like came out of having their music in your blood. It's gonna come out of you when you least expect it. It's natural and healthy and then you can do so many alternate combinations with music, it never gets boring. You can make that imitation byrds song and stick a distorted tuba or a vocoder in there to switch it up. Go nuts! 

On the topic of art, have you got other art projects you are working on right now? Any animation?

Mostly music related stuff every day lately but i need to continue making and selling toys now that i know what works and what doesn't. I'm getting back into that, gotta move these robots and monkey paws again! I’m working on a short called douche bag. 

I’ve done animated videos for a fair amount of bands. daiquiri, giallos flame, babysitter and fuck the facts among them, but animation is literally back breaking work and when I get involved with that again it's as a writer or director. Drawing thousands of drawings is dangerous for me. I’m more interested in puppets now since you dont have to animate every frame of a character's mouth moving. I have many projects in mind for puppets and they are slowly coming into this reality. 

(for music) Born winner as a one man live act is in the works, more church of aquarius shows, albums for both projects on the way, an album of me covering some film music such as empire strikes back....

What's happening with ghoul street?

Ghoul Street is a short feature puppet horror comedy i'm working on. It's bigger than my other projects. This involves getting a fair amount of people to help. Some human actors, lots of voice overs etc... It will see the light of day at some point, it's just a matter of time. Most of the puppets are made and are all waiting in an attic somewhere...

Is music your favourite art form? How is making music different from making a film or drawing? 

I get to express myself quickly with a song. The song's words and melody come out naturally, lyrics are nowhere near as complicated as writing a story. I get a lot out of it. If there's a chip on your shoulder, writing and singing a song about it takes care of that better than any other art form. You can make music pretty easily with just your voice or one instrument, you don't need much. Of course, that simple demo must evolve into a carefully arranged and well played recording but it's still easier than animation. Making movies is like trying to express yourself in slow motion. In quick sand. Music is a nice little walk in the woods. 

[bestchopstickscom-blog]

Chinese Chopsticks Culture

The Chinese character “箸” is translated as chopsticks, which are a unique eating utensil invented by the ancient Chinese. During the Neolithic Age in 7,000 BC to 6,000 BC, ancient chopsticks were primarily made of animal bones. Today, among the various eating utensils available, chopsticks best embody Chinese cultural characteristics, becoming an important symbol of Chinese tradition.

1. The origin and development  of  Chinese character “箸”(Chopsticks)

Chopsticks were pronounced “Zhu” in ancient China, while it is known today as “Kuaizi.”

It was written in Shuo Wen Jie Zi - the radical “bamboo”( 竹 ), which is the Chinese dictionary of words and expressions. The Chinese character “箸” means an eating utensil with “竹” as the meaning element and “者” as the sound element. It was noted in Cihai Dictionary that chopsticks were a flexible tool in ancient China. Thus, the original meaning of “箸” was defined as a tool for picking up food.

“箸”(chopsticks) was also named “jia”, “ti”, among others. It had various other Chinese characters like “筯” and “櫡”, etc. Originating in the Ming Dynasty, it is generally called “kuaizi.” The Beans Garden Notes written by Lu Rong recorded that everywhere had taboos in its folk customs, especially when people spoke. Thus, many avoid saying “zhu” (English: prevent) and “fan” (English: capsize) when ships are proceeding, so the Chinese character for “chopsticks” was “zhu” (箸) in ancient China, but was replaced by the pronunciation for the character “kuai”(快)，meaning quick and the Chinese character for leaning cloth pronounced “fanbu” (幡布), but finally replaced by the pronunciation “mobu”(抹布). The Chinese character “箸” first appeared in the Curse on Chu in the early Qing Dynasty.

2. The characteristics of Chinese chopstick culture

Chopsticks are composed of two pieces of sticks with the same shape, size, and material, created with integrity, tenacity, and honesty. The two chopsticks have no mechanical linkage, but they can coordinate well with one another through the operation of fingers, which is the materialization of what China considers character.

The primary component of Chinese chopstick culture:

Popularity: 1.3 billion people in China and Chinese people that are abroad know how to use chopsticks from an early age (3 on average). In terms of necessary appliances, its popularity is second to none.

Diversification: the chopsticks are made of a wide range of materials including bamboo, wood, animal bone(horn), ivory, beautiful stone ( bowler, crystal, jade and Shoushan stone），mental（gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, lead, alloy and stainless, etc.), rare materials(dragon horn, rhinoceros horn, turtle, and the bone of peacock) and others (fishbone, coral and plastic, etc.), combining as more than 200 types of chopsticks. The chopsticks are designed with engravings in various colors, from short lines, and spiral lines to poems and couplets from ancient times, paintings and pyrographs.

Inheritance: Chopsticks are representative of Chinese culture.  Whenever and wherever Chinese people are they find it difficult to have a meal without chopsticks. In addition, chopsticks can be presented as a gift or function as a unique handcraft for people to distribute and express their feelings.

Global Presence: According to the statistics, over 1.8 billion people use chopsticks. Chopstick culture has great significance around the world having become a common cultural marker of “the circle of Chinese food culture” which includes many other Asian countries, such as “Chopsticks Day” in Japan, “Golden Chopsticks Award” in France and the trend of “for your health, please pick up your chopsticks” in western countries.

3. The use of chopsticks:

The correct use of chopsticks can be described as follows: the right-hand holds the chopsticks with thumb and forefinger pinching the upper end of the chopsticks and the other three fingers naturally holding up the chopsticks, and both ends of chopsticks must remain aligned. Before a meal, the chopsticks are neatly placed to the right of the bowl and after the meal in the middle of the bowl in a vertical direction.

4. Chopstick Taboos:

Unexpected misfortune:

Putting chopsticks uneven in length on the table is regarded as a sign of misfortune.

Immortal guiding:

The chopsticks are pinched by the thumb, middle finger, ring finger and little finger while the index finger reaches out, which refers to blame.

Sucking chopsticks with a sound:

Having one end of chopsticks in the mouth and sucking it repeatedly with a sound is an impolite behavior.

Striking the cup:

Striking plates and bowls is considered disrespectful and is despised by others.

Holding chopsticks around the table:

Using chopsticks to select food in the plates over and over again indicates a lack of self-cultivation and defiance, resulting in disgust.

Stirring for choices:

Taking chopsticks to “search” through foods on the plates is poor form as that is often known as “grave-digging.”

Dripping food:

Do not Drop soup into other dishes or on the table when picking up food with chopsticks, as it is deemed disrespectful.

Heaven and earth upside down:

When seated for a meal, using chopsticks upside down means that you are a beggar and a beggar cannot be a chooser.

Key stand:

Using a chopstick to stick foods on the plates is perceived as humiliating to others at the table.

Burning incense in public:

Chopsticks should not be left vertically in a bowl of rice, because it resembles the ritual of incense-burning that symbolizes “feeding” the dead.

Cross:

During the meal, chopsticks should not be crossed on a table as it is perceived negatively. This is seen as the same when students make mistakes on their homework and are given a cross by the teacher, the accused sign across to confess their crime.

Falling chopsticks disturbing the immortal:

At a meal, it is discourteous if chopsticks accidentally fall to the ground, because falling chopsticks stand for a disturbance of buried ancestors.

5. Chopstick Culture

Chopsticks originated in China. Though simple and little, they are a great invention in the history of mankind. “Chopsticks, although only two pieces of wood, represent the Leverage Theory in physics,” Dr. Li Zhengdao stated. He is a famous Chinese physicist in China. According to modern science, the long-standing use of chopsticks makes fingers flexible, which is beneficial for physical and mental health. Thus, among the various eating utensils available today, chopsticks have a special charm stand and are popular for people.

Chopstick culture can be seen around the world. In Japan, people set August 4th each year as Chopsticks Day. In South Korea, there are chopsticks lessons in primary schools. How to use chopsticks correctly is a part of the curriculum. In 1974, American President Nixon visited China where he talked immensely about China’s miraculous chopsticks. According to statistics, there are now over 1.5 billion people using chopsticks on a day-to-day basis worldwide. Thus, it can be seen that the chopsticks that were invented in China have become one of the most popular and important eating utensils in the world. Through the distribution of chopsticks around the world, people have been able to learn more about China.

Chopsticks symbolize the age-old Chinese civilization and epitomize the 5,000 years of history China has had. Whether a Chinese person is living in China or abroad they cherish their bond with chopsticks.

“A chopstick can be broken easily; ten pairs of chopsticks hold each other tightly.” People are familiar with this fine and enlightened song by Fu Disheng, a well-known singer in China. Indeed, a chopstick is so useless and delicate that it can be broken readily. However, ten pairs of chopsticks possess strength, which is indestructible under any circumstance. All Chinese people draw on this unity and spirit, with which they boast perseverance and power. It will always influence, inspire and encourage people.

There is a poem by Cheng Lianggui, a famous writer during the Song Dynasty, who praises the selfless dedication to using chopsticks. For thousands of years, the reason people embrace chopsticks is not only because of their function but the spirit of the chopsticks.

In a word, chopsticks are a part of China’s catering culture that has a long history.

6. Chopstick Facts

One major characteristic of the culinary custom of China involves the use of chopsticks. Chopsticks, also called “zhu”(箸）in ancient times, have a long history in China. “One can’t have a meal without chopsticks,” which was started in the Book of Rites. We know that chopsticks were used as early as the Sang Dynasty.

1. Chopsticks

Lan Xiang, the curator of folk chopsticks pavilion, said that historical records date ivory chopsticks back to 3,100 years ago. As written in the records, “Zhou” (the emperor in late Sang Dynasty) used the ivory chopsticks while Ji Zi, Zhou’s uncle raised concern,” because it was too luxurious. After the emperor killed the elephant to show his wealth as an emperor he sawed the ivory for making chopsticks which are known as the first chopsticks in history. Historically, it was not the first chopsticks but the first ones made of ivory in China.

The existence of Chinese chopsticks traces back to almost 1,000 earlier than ivory chopsticks. The earliest chopsticks were made out of bamboo because China’s ancestors lived in primitive forests. They broke down branches to get cooked food out a pot. It was impossible to grab food by hand because it was so hot. Thus, they came up with a way of using branches to pick up food. Alternatively, people took food by hand when it cools down. If people want to eat hot food, they had to use branches as chopsticks. We can assume that ancient chopsticks differed in length and size in contrast to chopsticks that are used today. Ancient people in China transitioned from eating food with branches to chopsticks.

Since the Sang Dynasty, chopsticks with the same length and size have been popular. They have about 4,000-years of history from the time they appeared in primitive times.

In ancient times, chopsticks were made of local materials such as branches, sticks, animal bones and horns. Chopsticks were mainly made of wood and bamboo in primitive societies. Ivory chopsticks and jade chopsticks emerged in the Xiang and Sang dynasties, while copper and iron chopsticks during the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States (from 770BC to 221BC), flamboyant lacquer chopsticks, delicate silver and golden chopsticks in Han-Wei and six Dynasties (the kingdom of Wu, Jing, Song, Qi, Liang, Chen). Today, there are chopsticks made of various materials including, ivory, rhinoceros horn, gilded ebony, and assorted jades.      

2. Legend of Chopsticks

Chopsticks, two sticks, have various functions that include selecting and taking food. They are cost-effective and convenient to use. People who have used chopsticks, including Chinese people and foreigners admire the inventor, but many don’t know who he is. When and where were the first chopsticks invented? No one is able to answer this question. There are no specific data to record this invention which has made significant contributions to human civilization. Some believe that increased illiteracy among other reasons has created a lack of information linking the creation of chopsticks to a specific timeframe. There are, however, circumstantial evidence materials to study chopstick culture. Below is a summary of the three legends of many that center on the origin of the chopstick.

A. Jiang Ziya and Chopsticks

The legend was spread in areas such as Sichuan province. It was said that Jiang Ziya was capable of nothing but fishing. So poor he was that his wife couldn’t bear to live with him and planned to murder him to marry another man.

One day Jiang went back home after fishing, empty-handed. His wife said, “You must be hungry. I cooked meat for you. Come eat!” He was hungry so he stretched his hands to get the meat. Suddenly, a bird from the window pecked at his hand. The pain caused him to yell. Even in pain, Jiang tried to drive the bird out of the window but the bird pecked him a second time. Jiang was so confused; he didn’t understand why the bird kept pecking him. To figure it out he tried to get the meat again but the same thing happened. He realized it was because the bird was a divine bird and went after it to send it to a hill so no one could see it. Standing on a branch of bamboo, the divine bird was singing, “Jiang Ziya, don’t eat the meat with your bare hands, use what’s beneath my feet.” On hearing this, Jiang took two small sticks from the bamboo tree and went home. However, his wife urged him to try eating meat again. So, he took the meat with two sticks. After he did that smoke came out of the bamboo. Jiang pretended to be unconscious of the poison that had been released, stating to his wife, “What’s going on with the smoke? Could it be toxic?” He picked up the meat for his wife who hurried outside with her face turning pale with fear.

Jiang Ziya knew that the magical bamboo given by the divine bird could detect poison. Thus, he ate every meal with them. After the incident, his wife dared not to poison his food anymore and his neighbors learned to eat with a bamboo branch. Later, more and more people followed, so the custom of eating with chopsticks has been passed down through generations.

The legend was an outcome of Jiang Ziya worship, which is inconsistent with historical records. Ivory chopsticks emerged during King Zhou in the later period of the Shang Dynasty where Jiang lived. King Zhou had ivory chopsticks and Jiang Ziya’s bamboo branch chopsticks were not invented simultaneously so the dates are inconsistent. But it is true that chopsticks were made of bamboo in that period of the Shang Dynasty.

B. Da Ji (the wife of Zhou emperor in Sang dynasty) and chopsticks

The legend was spread throughout Jiangsu province. The emperor of the Sang Dynasty was unpredictable, when he had a meal, either complaining that the fish was not fresh enough or the chicken soup was too hot or too cool to eat. As a result, many chefs were killed by him because of his disapproval. Da Ji, a new chef, and his wife knew it was difficult to serve him. Thus, she would taste the dishes before the meal, to ensure that the emperor was not disappointed. On one occasion, it was too late to change the hot dish as the emperor approached the table so she took down her emerald hairpin to pick up the food blowing on the food before putting it in his mouth. As he enjoyed the service offered by Da Ji, his wife was required to do this every day. After, Da Ji asked a craftsman to create a pair of emerald hairpins to pick up food for the emperor. Thus, this was the first type of chopsticks.

This legend is not full of myths like the first one, while it is similar to historical accounts there are some elements that are inconsistent. The steel chopsticks excavated by archaeologists in graves from the Sang Dynasty in Anyang, Henan province is proved to be earlier than the late Sang Dynasty (the times of Zhou emperor) in textual accounts. Obviously, chopsticks were not invented by Zhou emperor or Da Ji, but the product of an earlier dynasty.

C. Da Yu and Chopsticks

This legend was spread throughout northeastern China. It is said during Yao and Shun times, Shun ordered Yu to control the flood. After receiving the order, Yu swore to eliminate the flood disaster. He tried his best to fight against the flood day and night, even to the point of not eating and sleeping, let alone rest.

Yu went to an island by boat because he was so hungry that he used an earth pot to cook meat. After the meat was well-done in boiled water, he was unable to take the meat by hand and didn’t want to waste time to wait for it to cool so he took two branches to pick up the meat from the soup. After, to save time, he always took small branches and bamboos to take out food from the hot pot so that he could save time. For a long time, he was skilled at picking up food with small sticks, which was imitated by his subordinates who believed this way of eating could allow them to not touch hot and greasy food by hand. Thus, the first types of chopsticks were born.

Although the legend isn’t historically inaccurate, it showed people’s way of thinking in the past. Compared with the first two legends, people were more convinced by the accidental process of discovering chopsticks in the third legend, because it was simple and realistic.

The main reason chopsticks were invented because of the hot temperature of the food. In ancient times, due to the lack of utensils and animal bones being short, flimsy and difficult to process, Chinese ancestors used fine branches or bamboos to eat. Furthermore, people lived in the wilderness where branches and bamboos were the most convenient materials to use. Through research on the shape of chopsticks, people can find chopsticks today that still have primitive characteristics. Even with over 4,000 years of development, the original features remain.

There is no doubt that a legend is formed with people’s selection, omission, fiction, exaggeration, and even illusion, and Da Yu’s invention of chopsticks is no exception. Da Yu’s legend was no more than the integration of chopsticks into one character, Da Yu. The creation of chopsticks could be ascribed to time and how humans have evolved to use utensils to eat. However, it is also possible that chopsticks stemmed from the time where emperor Yu used it to eat in the Sang Dynasty.

7. The composition of chopsticks

Chopsticks seem simple and flexible, but they vary in types and composition. There are over 100 types in Chinese history, of which the most common are made out of wood, bamboo, and melamine. Lan Xiang divided China’s chopsticks into five types according to his collection and research. They are as follows: bamboo chopsticks, metal chopsticks, ivory and bone chopsticks, jade chopsticks and chemical chopsticks.

The first and most primitive, wood and bamboo chopsticks remain popular today. Among wood and bamboo chopsticks, bamboo chopsticks are made out of different types of bamboos including, nandina bamboo, mottled bamboo as well as Phyllostachys pubescens, among others. Out of the many types of wood chopsticks, the most renowned are those made of nanmu, arbor, and mahogany, and the most popular are ebony chopsticks in the Qing Dynasty. In the book, A Dream of Red Mansions the grandmother, Liu, went to the Prospect Garden, where Wang Xifeng gave her a gilded ivory chopstick during a meal. While grandmother Liu was not accustomed to it, it was similar to ebony chopsticks that were the most universal chopsticks with silver on the top, middle and bottom.

The materials that metal chopsticks were made of include bronze, gold, silver, iron into stainless steel present-day.

Ivory and bone chopsticks refer to chopsticks made of ivory and bone of animals like cow, camel, and elephant, etc. Camel's bones are often used in northern China.

The fourth type of chopstick is jade. The materials vary from the use of white marble, white jade, emerald used by Empress Dowager Ci Xi of the Qing Dynasty, as well as gilded emerald. Another type is the youngest chemical chopsticks made of melamine and plastic, etc. Many uncommonly used chopsticks today include those made of bamboo palm, silver ivory, ebony inlaid with silver, and gilded walrus ivory chopsticks.

Reference:

https://www.chinaculturetour.com/culture/chinese-chopsticks-culture.htm

[hardtostudy]

Linguistics 1-5

SECTON 1 - LINGUISTICS - GRAMMAR - PHILOLOGY
 WHAT IS LINGUISTICS? / BY ANDREW CARSTAIRS-MCCARTHY Linguistics = is the study of language, in all its amazing diversity. It is the study of the human attribute that chiefly distinguishes us from other animals. 
- There are about 7000 languages spoken in the world, some are dying out rapidly. - A linguist may study: 
1. How language is processed by the brain,
 2. How it is produced by the vocal apparatus,
 3. Or (in the case of Deaf sign language) by gesture
 4. How it functions in society, as a reflection of social class, age, gender or ethnicity, 
5. How and why languages change 
6. How our theoretical understanding of language can be applied in a range of practical areas such as language teaching and helping people with communication disorders.

 - Language resembles facial expression. We all express smile, laugh, fear, amazement, joy, sadness and disgust in our faces.
 > Smile means the same thing everywhere /sign of friendliness/

 - In syntax (the grammar of words and phrases within the sentence), languages can achieve similar ends with quite different means, 
- In Semantics (or linguistic meaning), superficial differences can mask deeper resemblance, 
- In Morphology (the grammar of complex words), systematic patterns of meaning do not always correspond to systematic patterns of shape.



CVIČENIA:

1. Crystal defines linguistics as the scientific study of language, also called linguistic science. Widdowson defines linguistics as the name given to the discipline which studies human language. The purpose of linguistics is: - to explain language - to provide some explanations of the complexity of language by abstracting from what it seems to be of essential significance. - to provide models of language which reveal features which are not immediately apparent.

The underlying goal of linguistics is to try to discover the universals concerning the language. Linguistics is a social science that shares common ground with other social sciences such as psychology, anthropology, sociology and archaeology. It also may influence other disciplines such as communication studies, computer science, archaeology. Along with psychology, philosophy and computer science, linguistics is ultimately concerned with how the human brain functions. 2. Prescriptive grammar = grammarians’ attempt to prescribe what speakers’ grammatical rules should be, rather than what they are.    Descriptive grammar = a linguist’s description or model of the mental grammar, the units, structures, and rules of speakers of a particular language; an attempt to state what speakers unconsciously know about their language.   Linguistics = from Latin lingua /languages/ - study of languages.   Universal grammar = the principles or properties which pertain to the grammars of all human languages.    Grammar = everything known about language, including its phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and lexicon.   Philology = from Greek filein /to love/, logos. A word, speech - study of a language but only in its written form, it studies language texts. Its subject of study is the language and its literature - so we can distinguish Slovak philology, English philology, Hungarian philology, etc. - What are the basic questions of linguistics? = What is language + differences. - Linguists are engaged in multiplicity of studies, such as = study of phonetics, psychology,.. TRUE / FALSE: 1. Linguistics deals with spoken language only. FALSE 2. Linguists are interpreters. FALSE 3. Linguists are not concerned with the prescriptive rules of a language. TRUE 4. Linguists try to place language universals in a theoretical framework that will describe all languages. TRUE 5. Linguists focus on describing and explaining language. TRUE Individual fields and levels of language. + Disciplines which are also included in study of language. SECTON 2 - SOURCES AND PROPERTIES OF HUMAN LANGUAGE THE ORIGINS OF LANGUAGE / OTTO JESPERSEN (1921) - Jespersen’s proposal that human language originated while humans were actually enjoying themselves is one of the more endearing speculations concerning the origins of language. It remains, however, a speculation. We simply do not know how language originated. - The divine source = According to one view, God created Adam and every living creature, that was the name there-of. Alternatively, following a Hindu tradition, language came from thee goddess Sarasvati, wife of Brahma, creator of the universe. - In most religions, there appears to be a divine source who provides humans with language In an attempt to rediscover this original, divine language. - A few experiments have been carried out with conflicting results. > If infants were allowed to grow up without hearing any language, then they would spontaneously begin using the original God-given language. - An Egyptian pharaoh tried the experiment with two newborn 600 BC. In the company of goats snd a mute shepherd, the children uttered, not an Egyptian, but something reported as Phrygian (original language - unlikely) word bekos, meaning bread. > they heard what the goats were saying (remove the -kos - like goats). - Another experiment by James IV of Scotland > children reported to have started speaking Hebrew. - Children living without access to human speech grow up with no language at all. - The natural-sound source = Based on the concept of natural sounds. - Primitive words could have been imitations of the natural sounds. - The fact that all modern languages have some words with pronunciations which seems to echo naturally occurring sounds could be used to support this theory. - In English we have > bang, splash, rattle, buzz > bow-wow theory of language origin. (Onomatopoeic - echoing natural sounds). - Also suggested that the original sounds came from natural cries of emotion (pain, anger or joy). Such as ouch, ah!, hey!, Wow!, Yuck!. - Yo-heave-ho Theory = the sounds of a person involved in physical effort > grunts, groans and swear words. - The oral-gesture source = Suggestion which involves a link between physical gesture and orally produced sounds. - This theory, however proposes an extremely specific connection between physical and oral gesture. - Glossogenetics = Different level of speculation on the origins of human speech comes under the general heading of glossogenetics. - Focuses mainly on the biological basis - Physiological adaption = Human teeth are upright > they are extremely helpful in making sounds such as l, v and th. Human lips > flexibility, helps with sounds like p, b and w. The human mouth > small, can be opened and closed rapidly, contains flexible tongue > can shape variety of sounds. - The human larynx, or the 'voice box’, differs in position from monkeys. In the course of human physical development, the assumption of an upright posture moved the head forward and the larynx lower. > created longer cavity, called the pharynx, above the vocal cords, which can act as a resonator for any sounds produced via the larynx. - Human brain is lateralized, it has specialized functions in each of the two hemispheres. - Human may have first developed the naming ability, producing a specific noise (e.g. bEEr) for a specific object. Then to bring another specific noise (gOOd) into combination with the first to build a complex message (bEEr gOOd). CVIČENIA: 1. PROPERTIES OF HUMAN LANGUAGE a) DUALITY = Language is organized at two levels simultaneously. (meaning and sound level) b) CULTURAL TRANSMISSION = Language is passed on from one generation to the next. c) DISPLACEMENT = Human language-users are perfectly capable of producing messages referring to past and future time, and to other locations. d) ARBITRARINESS = There is no ‘natural' connection between a linguistic form and its meaning e) DISCRETENESS = Each sound in the language is treated as discrete. f) PRODUCTIVITY = The potential number of utterances in any human language is infinite. 2. Answer the following: a) Name the theories explaining the origin of human language. - bow-wow theory b) Give an example of onomatopoetic words in the English language. - splash, bang, boom, buzz c) Find any examples supporting the pooh-pooh theory and yo-have-ho theory. - grunts, swear words, groans used when lifting and arguing. d) What is the term used to describe the ability of human language-users to discuss topics which are remote in space and time? - displacement. e) What is the term used to describe the fact that, in a language, we can have different meanings for the three words tack, act, cat, yet in each case use the same basic set of sounds? - discreteness 3. Answer the following questions: a) What is an ONOMATOPOEIC word? - Sound produced by animals., A word that imitates a natural sound. b) Are ONOMATOPOEIA universals? - No. We hear sounds from the perspective of our language. c) Is the theory that language originated from attempts to imitate sounds of nature wrong? Why? - Yes, it is. We hear sounds from the perspective of our language. d) Which religion believes that Adam created language? - Judeo-Christianity e) Which religion believes that a woman created language? - Hinduism. Size symbolism. E - big, I - small - Unilateral theory of linguistic sign - Bilateral theory - Harchys ???? model of linguistic sign SECTON 3 - LANGUAGE AS A SYSTEM OF SIGNS AND ITS STRUCTURE WHAT IS A SIGN? - 3 kinds of interest > primary interest in it for itself > secondary interest on account of its reactions with other things > third, mediatory interest in it, in so far as it conveys to a mind an idea about a thing — In so far as it does this^, it is a sign, or representation. - 3 kinds of signs > likeness or icons = serve to convey ideas of the things they represent by imitating them. > indicators or indices = show something about things, on account of their being physically connected with them. Example: guidepost /points down the road to be taken/, vocative exclamation as ‘’Hi! there,’’ /forces attention on the addressed person/ > symbols or general signs = associated with their meanings by usage. Such are most words, phrases, speeches, books or libraries. [ex. symbol - tree]

VARIOUS USES OF THESE 3 KINDS OF SIGNS 1. Likenesses. /instantaneous photographs/ they belong to the second class of signs > by physical connection. In intercommunication likenesses are quite indispensable. /two men w no common speech thrown together, they have to communicate, by imitative sounds, gestures and pictures. These are three kinds of likenesses/. Describing the qualities of the things and actions. The Egyptian language was the earliest to be written, all in pictures. Some stand for sounds, letters, syllables or ideas. 2. Indications - Anything which focuses the attention is an indication, or which startles us. Anything serving to indicate or point out, as a sign or token. 3. Symbols - greeks used to ''throw together’' very frequently to signify the making of a contract or convention. Could be any ordinary word, as give, bird, marriage is an example of a symbol. It is applicable to whatever may be found to realize the idea connected with the word, it does not, in itself, identify those things. We are able to imagine those things, and have associated the word with them. A regular progression of one, two, three may be remarked in the three orders of signs, Likeness, Index, Symbol. >The likeness has no dynamical connection with the object it represents, it resemble those of that object. It stays unconnected with them. >The Index is physically connected with its object, they make an organic pair. >The symbol is connected with its object by virtue of the idea of the symbol-using mind, without which no such connection would exist. COMPONENTS AND DIMENSIONS OF A LINGUISTIC SIGN - Already in the antiquity > Wide stream of thought about the nature of a linguistic sign started, and it was oriented above all on defining the basic components of a linguistic sign and its dimensions by which it is incorporated into the extralinguistic reality and with its user. - Pierce was the first to point out the three aspects of the sign; the aspect of its nature, the aspect of the object and the aspect of its user. Aspect of the nature of a sign (Zeichenaspekt) = Pierce differentiates qualisign, sinsign and legisign. Pierce’s triad of icon, index and symbol = much larger, expressing the relationship to the objective reality (Objektaspekt); with the icon a certain similarity with the object is presupposed, index is not a reflection but rather a reference to the object; symbol is fully independent of the object. - Relationship of the sign to the object, and its dependence or independence have been present in all the philosophical literature dealing with the sign. Pierce’s triad rheme, dicent and argument = reflecting the logical notions term, proposition and argument, did not arouse so much attention. The attempt of Bense > remained without response. - Pierce did not devote special attention to the inner components of the linguistic sign. - Disucussions about linguistic sign start with de Saussure (1916), went into two directions: some researchers investigated the linguistic sign as a component of the system, others as a component of linguistic communication. - Followed the distinguishing of the bilateral and unilateral character of the linguistic sign. MORRIS’S THEORY - The communication attitude to the sign in general and to the linguistic sign. - Directed the attention to the question what signs and what values must a human being master for being able to act. - aspect, nature, object, user Basis of the unilateralistic theory of linguistic sign = a sequence of signs bound to a certain communicated or communicable content. In contemporary linguistics this idea is developed and enriched by Solncev and Panfilov. CMOREJ (1985) - Attempt at explaining the linguistic sign from the point of view of formal logics. - Bases his analysis that the term ‘'denote'' has several meanings - Complicates it by considering this term with expression ‘'to represent’’, saying that sign is something that represents, denotes something else - Physical (acoustic, graphical) or Abstract object formed according to the rules of some language - On the other hand, any ideal element of the abstract system - Dualistic conception —> There exist two signs one of which is the realization of the other one (in a certain situation it actually represents it) and the other one is the representation of the first one. > exist both acoustic and ideal linguistic signs. - Cmorej later gave this idea up, and considers only the features of that sign which as unilateral entity represents only the denoting objects and phenomena but does not represent what these phenomena denote. - He arrives by analyzing the inner structure based on the literal, formal understanding of the term denoting sign or signifiant. - Signifiant /form/ and the signifié (meaning of concept) SAUSSURE’S THESIS > linguistic sign is a bilateral unit one component of which is formed by the notional aspect.

- Arbitrariness and nonmotivaredness is presented by Conrad. > Comes to the conclusion that arbitrariness can be understood in 4 ways: non-motivatedness, non-naturalness, non-causality and non-indispensability.

>> ARBITRARINESSS = The relation between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary, i.e. there is no direct connection between the shape and the concept. The letters C-A-T  produce exactly the image of the small, domesticated animal with fur, four legs and a tail in our minds. It is a result of convention: speakers of the same language group have agreed (and learned) that these letters or sounds evoke a certain image. - absence of intrinsic relation between communication element (speech sound) and a referent; (no connection between the form and the meaning of language signs) – e.g. there is no relation between the name book and the named object, the same object can be called kniha in Slovak - The possibility to stand not only instead of the objects in the real world (the semantic relationship), but also instead of the ideal objects expressed by the language (the sigmatic relationship).

ONOMATOLOGICAL AND ONOMASIOLOGICAL STRUCTURES (Horecký 1980) = very distinctly structured form, can schematically be represented in the following way; objective reality (everything around us ex. table). - incorrect to understand the relationship between what is denoting and what is denoted - The linguistic sign as a whole, also the joining of the denoting and denoted component, is a result of creative human activity exerted for building the language as a system of elements and rules suitable for creating texts. Neumann refers to this joining as the third component of the linguistic sign, the so called prescription rule. > pragmatic dimension

- A bilateral linguistic sign both components of which are structured, is an ideal object existing in language as a system serving not only for communication but also for denoting real objects, as well as for denoting thought values or in a wider context cultural values of mankind, and for storing them. - Communication linguistic sign is formed by the sequences of sounds, while its denoted component is represented by ideal systemic linguistic signs: Communication > Sound Sequence. Linguistic Sign > Systematic linguistic sign. - Nominative signs which we could compare to our systemic signs, create in each language a certain storage into which the communication partners reach within the communication acts, while utterances or assertations or the predicative signs joined to them do not form such a storage, they are construed or produced within each communication act according to the particular situation. - The systemic linguistic sign can be carried out by a non-derived word, a derived word, compound word or also by a polylexical naming unit. - Linguistic sign is not equal to a word. - The meaning of the word, is not an element from the area of semiotics, but from the area of semantics, or lexicology and lexicography. There is no point in speaking about the meaning or the meanings of the linguistic sign, including both the systemic and the communicative signs. - A linguistic sign is above all an ideal object the role of which is to stand for the objects in the real world, but also for other objects within their being stored in the social consciousness of the particular linguistic community. Ideal ling. signs are selected and with the help of communicative ling signs are transferred to the recipient, the concrete utterances having a sign character — they stand instead of certain situations, but they are not ling. Signs within the suggested conception.

CVIČENIA: 2. Name and explain three features of Saussurean > linguistic sign. Concept (more abstract) arbitrariness, discontinuity, linearity 3. DESIGNATION = the relation between the meaning of a sign and the referent    DENOTATION = the relation between the form of a sign and the referent    SIGNIFICATION = the relation between the form and the meaning of a sign 4. Language - a general universal human ability to use human language.    Langue - a system of all rules that must be observed by all speakers of the community; it is an abstract system of conventional rules that are generally recognized by all speakers of the particular language, a property of society, a social phenomenon. Parole - an individual phenomenon, a concrete manifestation of language, uttered by an individual in a given moment.

5. Explain the relationship > language — parole. - Language develops using the parole 6. How many concepts of a linguistic sign can you name? compare them. - Morris, linearity, bilateral, icon, symbol, index

SECTON 4 - FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE The ADDRESSER sends a MESSAGE to the ADDRESSEE. To be operative the message requires a CONTEXT referred to (the ‘'referent'' in another, somewhat ambiguous, nomenclature), graspable by the addressee, and either verbal or capable of being verbalized; a CODE fully, or at least partially, common to the addresser and addressee (or in other words, to the encoder and decoder of the message); and, finally a CONTACT, a physical channel and psychological connection between the addresser and the addressee, enabling both of them to enter and stay in communication.

- Each of these 6 factors determines a diff function of language. - The verbal structure of a message depends primarily on the predominant function. - The so-called EMOTIVE or expressive function, focused on the addresser, aims a direct expression of the speaker’s attitude toward what is he speaking about. - But in the latter pair the differential information is in phonemic and in the former emotive.

- Orientation toward the addressee, the CONATIVE function, finds its purest grammatical expression in the vocative and imperative, which syntactically, morphologically, and often even phonemically deviate from other nominal and verbal categories. - Traditional model of language was confined to these three functions — emotive, conative, and referential - and the three apexes of this model - the first person of the addresser, the second of the addressee, and the third properly /someone or something spoken of). - We observe, however, three further constitutive factors of verbal communication and three corresponding functions of language. - There are messages primarily serving to establish, to prolong, or to discontinue communication, to check whether the channel works, to attract the attention of the interlocutor or to confirm his continued attention or in Shakespearean diction. > This PHATIC function may be displayed by a profuse exchange of ritualized formulas. - A distinction has been made in modern logic between two levels of language: ''object language’' speaking of objects and ‘’metalanguage'' speaking of language. - The set toward the message as such, focus on the message for its own sake, is the POETIC function of language. Cannot be productively studied. - Scheme of the fundamental factors with a corresponding scheme of the functions. CVIČENIA: 3. Following examples illustrate Jakobson’s functions of language. Match the examples with the respective functions they exemplify. a) Daniel Cleaver’s message for Bridget Jones — Conative Function b) Weather forecast — Referential Function c) I am smart, funny, outgoing,..etc. yahoo personals — Emotive Function 4. Try to find any connections between Chomsky’s conception of > competence and > performance and language functions. South abstract (competence), competence in use and realization action (performance) SECTON 5 - LANGUAGE LEVELS - TAXONOMIC /classificatory linguistics/ - discovering what the elements are. The study of the elements of language and their function is usually split up into a number of different subfields. 1. Phonetics deals with the sounds of spoken language: how they are made, how they are classified, how they are combined with each other, interact, perceived. The label linguistic phonetics is sometimes used to specify that part of phonetics which is directly relevant for the study of human languages. 2. Phonology also deals with speech sounds, but at a rather more abstract level. While phonetics deals with individual speech sounds, phonology deals with the systems which incorporate the sounds. It also considers the structures the sounds can enter into (ex. Syllables and intonational phrases), and the generalisation that can be made about sound structures in individual languages or across languages. 3. Morphology deals with the internal structure of words - not with their structure in terms of the sounds that make them up, but their structure where form and meaning seem inextricably entwined. Morphology deals with words and their meaningful parts. 4. Syntax is currently often seen as the core of any language, although such a prioritizing of syntax is relatively new. Syntax is concerned with the ways in which words can be organized into sentences and the ways in which sentences are understood. 5. Semantics deals with the meaning of language. This is divided into two parts, lexical semantics, which is concerned with the relationship between words, and sentence semantics, which is concerned with the way in which the meanings of sentences can be built up from the meanings of their constituent words. Sentence semantics often makes use of the tools and notions developed by philosophers; for example, logical notation and notions of implication and denotation. 6. Pragmatics deals with the way the meaning of an utterance may be influenced by its speakers or hearers interpret it in context. It also deals with matters such as what the difference is between a set of isolated sentences and a text, how a word like this is interpreted in context, and how a conversation is managed so that the participants feel comfortable with the interaction. 7. Lexicology deals with the established words of a language and the fixed expressions whose meanings cannot be derived from their components; idioms, clichés, proverbs, etc. Lexicology is sometimes dealt with as part of semantics, since in both cases word-like objects are studied. In principle, any one of these levels of linguistic analysis can be studied in a number or different ways. - Studied as facets of a particular language, or across languages, looking for generalizations which apply ideally to all languages, but more often to a large section of languages. The latter type of study is usually called the study of language universals, or language typology if the focus is on particular patterns of recurrence of features across languages. - Studied as they exist at some particular time in history or studied looking at the way the patterns change and develop over time. The first approach is called synchronic approach, the second the diachronic or historical approach. - Studied with the aim of giving a description of the system of a particular language or set of languages, or with the aim of developing a theory of how languages are most efficiently described or how languages are produced by speakers. The first of these is called descriptive linguistics, the second is called theoretical linguistics. - Can be treated as isolated systems, or as systems with built-in variability, which can be exploited by the language user to mark in-group versus out-group, or to show power relations, things as diverse as different styles and personality traits of the speaker. The latter types are dealt with as part of sociolinguistics, including matters such as dialectology. - Study these topics as they present in the adult human, or study the way they develop in children, in which case we will study language acquisition. We can take the ontogenetic point of view, or phylogenetic, consider the way each has developed for the species. - Studied as formal systems, in terms of how the use to which language is put in communication and the cognitive functions of the human mind shape the way in which language works. This is the difference between formal and functional approaches to language. PHONETICS - looking at the detail of how sounds are pronounced. Two words which are different by only one sound are called a minimal pair. /bitter and bigger/ What we are calling sounds are known as phonemes and what we have called pronunciations are known as allophones. PHONOLOGY - Is the study of sounds within a particular language and how those sounds function within that language. English - 44 sounds. Maximum of three consonant sounds together (two or more consonant sounds together are called a consonant cluster). Phonetics and phonology are two branches of linguistics that deal primarily with the structure of human language sounds. Phonetics focuses on the physical manifestations of speech sounds and on theories of speech production and perception. Phonology is concerned with the systems of rules that determine how the sounds of a language combine and influence one another. CVIČENIA: 1. Transcribe the following words: stream - striːm thistle - ˈθɪsl isle - aɪl hierarchy - ˈhaɪərɑːki literature - ˈlɪtərɪʧə usually - ˈjuːʒʊəli achieved - əˈʧiːvd mother - ˈmʌðə production - prəˈdʌkʃən 2. Explain the differences between the graphic and the spoken form of a language. Graphic > ideal and spoken > individual 3. Try to explain the mutual relationship: orthoepy — pronunciation — phonetics — phonology correct pronunciation — where we say things — individual speak sounds — abstract 4. Which of the following is true? a) Phonetics is the study of pronunciation. FALSE - of sounds and how they are made b) Phonetics is the scientific study of the sounds of language. FALSE - speech sounds c) Phonology is the study of how speech sounds are made, transmitted and received. FALSE - phonetics d) Phonetics is the scientific study of the sounds of speech. TRUE e) Phonology is the study of the function, behavior and organization of speech sounds as linguistic items. TRUE 5. Which pair of words is a minimal pair? a) PILL - BILL b) MINK - SINK c) SPEAK - FEET d) TAN - PAN e) MEET - FEAT 6. Every language has a sound structure which can be divided into two levels: the phonetic level and the phonological level. The inventory of all the perceptibly different sounds of a language is a phonetic inventory. The inventory of all the contrasting sounds of a language is a phonemic inventory. Only the sound differences can cause a difference in meaning. A phoneme is not a sound, but a family / class of sounds. Members of the same phonemic class are called allophones. Allophones of the same phoneme do not contrast in the same environment. 

The Organon model, formulated by Karl Bühler, defined the communication functions according to which linguistic communication can be described. Bühler's work influenced Roman Jakobson for his Communication Model.

Bühler identified the following three communicative functions:

the Expressive Function (Ausdrucksfunktion)

the Representation Function (Darstellungsfunktion)

the Conative Function (Appellfunktion, i.e. appealing function).

[thepermanentrainpress]

TRACK BY TRACK FEATURE: SAM TUDOR - “QUOTIDIAN DREAM”

Nearly three years following the release of his last record, Sam Tudor is back with Quotidian Dream.

Tudor was born and raised in Williams Lake, BC; his move to Vancouver in the latter teen years greatly influenced the sounds and synergy behind 2014′s The Modern New Year—contemporary campfire melodies with flickers of trumpet, banjo, and keys. On Quotidian Dream, Tudor struggles less with growing into a new city and more with the immediate space around him.

Experimental folk is layered with elements of new wave (“Quotidian Boy”) to jazz (“Chlorine”). Tudor’s vocals bring a soft-spoken intensity to “Truthful,” with the thumping backbeat and whirring of strings coming to a beautiful, unsettling head at its close. “Joseph in the Bathroom” is a remorseful take on his high school days, while “Holiday” presents a warm, folk rock hook. A little grit and power would carry the tune into Mumford & Sons’ Babel territory—but it is his tender nature and jaded lyricism (“Oh it’s the cost of a frozen place, paying for the colour when it’s all gone grey”) which make the closet anthem. Tudor often sings of disconnect with his surroundings—a vacancy marred by routine and expectation and TV screens. But his compositions reflect the opposite; a discerning self-awareness held by the notion that, even as the flames run out of him, he is able to find them again.

Tudor was kind enough to write us a track-by-track on the release, which you can delve into below.

Words below by Sam Tudor:

1. “New Apartment”

I’ve heard people talk about their apartments as safe sanctuaries and I’ve also heard people talk about them as lonely, even threatening spaces. In my experience, a Vancouver apartment can be both of those things simultaneously. When I first moved to Vancouver I would go home with a combination of urgency and anxiety. It’s a bit cliché, but in the last couple of years I’ve been noticing physical space a lot. Most of the photography and paintings that I like these days document empty spaces – human creations that seem alien. Anyway, that’s what I was thinking about for this song. I think when I wrote it I had a specific moment in my head, that moment when you first move in somewhere and you are alone, and you haven’t unpacked your things yet.

Quotidian Dream by Sam Tudor

2. “Quotidian Boy”

Writing and performing songs is cool, but it’s also a pretty weird thing. There’s a lot that I find funny about it. I used to write a lot of incredibly broad metaphors that could mean anything and I look back on that and find it funny. The construction of the ‘suffering artist’ image is pretty funny too and I am definitely guilty of it. My good friend Brodie told me that it’s important to always ‘balance the sacred and profane’ in your life. I’m trying to embrace that as much as I can these days, and I think this song says some things that are important to me while laughing at it all as well. The chorus “I’ve got unlimited strikes but I don’t want to play” sums up how I often feel – lots of opportunity, still feeling the urge to bail.

Quotidian Dream by Sam Tudor

3. “Truthful”

At some point in the last couple years I became very frustrated with myself. I was in university, and it seemed like I had become more articulate then ever, but wasn’t sure if I was actually saying or understanding anything important. You can congratulate yourself for being complicated and having lots of layers and nuance, but sometimes all that starts to feel like a weight you don’t need. I tend to overthink things a lot, and I often get stuck in these feedback loops. I got in a pretty bad one at that time, sort of like a ferris wheel you can’t get off. This song is a grasp towards something outside that loop. The chorus originally had much more words but I thought that would miss the point, so I just made it the simplest thing ever. I spend a lot of time on lyrics but this time the vibe was way more important than the words. I wanted to just cut through the bullshit and feel real and that was mostly it.

4. “Brain Stealers”

I think this song is mostly just about feeling creatively empty. When I felt as though I couldn’t write any good songs, I wrote this song instead as a sort of ‘exasperated throwing up of the hands’ type thing. It’s funny that it ended up on the album. It features the return of my trusty organ auto-drum: an old, no-name brand organ with a beat setting that I’ve come to really love. It can’t keep tempo anymore and it currently sits in my childhood home at Gavin Lake Camp. My parents keep trying to throw it away, and every time I visit home I fear it will have disappeared forever. Hang in there, organ. A little longer.

Quotidian Dream by Sam Tudor

5. “Joseph In The Bathroom”

This song is the one that is most important to me. My hometown and my experience growing up there take up a significant amount of space in my mind. Strange as it is to admit, I was ‘popular’ in highschool in the sense that I had friends and managed to navigate all the high-school cliques (I think being friends with everyone can sometimes mean you are friends with no-one, but that’s a different write-up). I was a survivalist though; and I avoided those people I might otherwise have been friends with if they weren’t generally deemed unpopular. I regret that I acted that way and I regret that highschool channels people in ways like that. Weirdly, the older I get the more I remember and think about those kids in the corners – the ones who weren’t as lucky as me and weren’t able to navigate highschool in such a way. I still feel guilty and angry about it all today. I think the song is about more than just that, but in a sense it’s an apology song.

Quotidian Dream by Sam Tudor

6. “Blue Flower”

This is an unlucky song! This song is cursed! I know a girl who was listening to this song and when the line “as the camper van floats off the road” was sung she literally drove off the road and crashed her car! This is a true story! She’s fine, but I have since become very wary of this song. Drive safely, everyone.

Quotidian Dream by Sam Tudor

7. “Chlorine”

Do you know that feeling you get when you stay up really late on social media and your eyes start to feel weird and you are tired but also the computer screen has inhibited all your melatonin so you have insomnia and are also a bit stressed and it’s an uncomfortable dream-like state? For me, that’s part of what Quotidian Dream is. I kind of wanted the album to sound like what that felt like. I think this might be the song that taps into the feeling the best. A big part of this song’s tone is created by the use of the trusty fish guitar. Shaped like a fish, and not a very good guitar, but it has a unique, slightly out of tune tone that I love. So I played that a lot in this song, and we had saxophones and strings and recorded it late at night.

Quotidian Dream by Sam Tudor

8. “Clinical Names”

We made so many different versions of this song. I’m not really sure why this is the one that ended up on the record. It could genuinely have been an accident.

Quotidian Dream by Sam Tudor

9. “Holiday”

I like pop music and big anthemic choruses, but I also tend to write about sad things. So I always end up with weird songs like this one. My brother Harry played the drumbeat first and we wrote the song around it.

Quotidian Dream by Sam Tudor

10. “Silver Lining Skies”

I realize after listening to this record as one entity that a lot of it references being in my room, or being in a room, or being in a house, or something like that. This makes sense, considering how much time I do spend in my room. Most of the album was recorded entirely in my room. At the end of this particular song there is an audio file of me walking up the stairs and opening the door to my room. Or… am I exiting my room? Is this me going out in the world happily or retreating further into my own head? Who knows!? Wow, I am such an artist. I am so deep. Holy fuck. Ho-ly Smokes. In all seriousness, I just thought it was an important way to end the album considering how much I’ve been thinking about insides and outsides.

Quotidian Dream by Sam Tudor

If you’re still here, thanks for reading this! I hope you enjoy the album.

_______________________________________________________

Much thanks to Sam for giving us further insight into his new album! Quotidian Dream is available for purchase on Bandcamp. He will be playing a free set as part of the Vancouver Fringe Festival on Saturday, Sept. 16 at the Big Rock Brewery Fringe Bar (1531 Johnston St), alongside Rae Spoon. For more on Sam Tudor:

FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | YOUTUBE

Posted by: Natalie Hoy

[gunboatbaylodge]

Things to Do in Vancouver this Weekend: March 9, 2017

This weekend, celebrate women, sports, and culture in Vancouver. International Women’s Day continues with a film festival, art, and music. The Rugby Sevens are on, along with wheelchair rugby on Sunday. The Art Gallery is throwing a party on Friday where you can see art by people from Hong Kong and Coast Salish backgrounds, and the MOA has a show about Indigenous South American culture.

Friday | Saturday | Sunday | Ongoing

Friday March 10

Amazonia: The Rights of Nature

Amazonia: The Rights of Nature Where: UBC Museum of Anthropology What: MOA will showcase its Amazonian collections in a significant exploration of socially and environmentally-conscious notions intrinsic to indigenous South American cultures, which have recently become innovations in International Law. These are foundational to the notions of Rights of Nature, and they have been consolidating in the nine countries that share responsibilities over the Amazonian basin. Runs until: January 28, 2018

Vancouver International Women in Film Festival

Vancouver International Women in Film Festival Where: VanCity Theatre What: This five day celebration, beginning on International Women’s Day, is organized by Women in Film and Television Vancouver, a volunteer-run not-for-profit society founded in 1989 to advocate for, celebrate and promote women working in screen-based media. Runs until: Sunday March 12, 2017

ReFUSE Where: Vancouver Art Gallery What: Live performances in the Gallery spaces, DJs and unexpected surprises make FUSE Vancouver’s favourite art party—a place to see some of the best in local performance art, theatre, contemporary dance and music.

Judy Chartrand: “If This is What You Call, ‘Being Civilized’, I’d rather go back to Being a ‘Savage’ ”: Empress Hotel, 2004. Photo: Kenji Nagai

Guided Tour: Women’s Art, Women’s Issues Where: Bill Reid Gallery What: Join Curator, Beth Carter and Education Programmer, Samantha Nock in a guided tour and discussion of the themes of Indigenous women’s art and issues in the Judy Chartrand: What a Wonderful World exhibition.

Vancouver Invitational Wheelchair Rugby Tournament Where: Richmond Oval What: For fans it’s one of the few opportunities to see some of the best quad athletes in the world play the fast paced sport poetically named murderball. For some players, it’s an opportunity to compete and train among the best in the world. For veterans, it’s training ground for the World Championships and the Olympics. Runs until: Sunday March 12, 2017

Kids Get in For Free Where: VanDusen Botanical Garden and Bloedel Conservatory What: Take advantage of up to two free child admissions with the purchase of a regular price adult, senior, or youth admission at VanDusen Garden or Bloedel Conservatory. Runs until: Friday March 31, 2017

Black Mountain Where: The Vogue What: Local psychedelic rock. With guests, Destroyer and zZz.

CelticFest Where: Various locations What: A rich cultural celebration of the seven Celtic nations’ kinship and community.The festival showcases the best of Celtic music, dance, spoken word as well as film, foodand fare and the much-anticipated St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Runs until: Sunday March 18, 2017

Le Gala des Rendez-vous de la Francophonie Présenté par Le Centre culturel francophone de Vancouver

Le Gala des Rendez-vous de la Francophonie Présenté par Le Centre culturel francophone de Vancouver Where: The Cultch What: The 9th edition of Vancouver’s annual Francophone comedy event is back. Presented by the Centre culturel francophone de Vancouver, in collaboration with Juste pour rire (Just for Laughs), Les Rendez-vous de la Francophonie and the Canadian Foundation for Cross-Cultural Dialogue, this show brings together well-known and emerging Franco-Canadian talents to delight the audience with a memorable evening of comedy, in French.

Vetta Chamber Music: In Praise of Women Where: West Point Grey United Church What: To celebrate International Women’s Day – a program of all woman musicians performing compositions by women or inspired by them. Tickets available at Tickets Tonight.

Trentemøller Where: Venue What: Danish electronic music.

East Side Flea Where: 1024 Main St. What: Over 50 local vendors, food trucks, a live deejay, artisan showrooms, seasonal drink specials, pinball and more. Runs until: Sunday March 12, 2017

Blackie and the Rodeo Kings

Blackie and the Rodeo Kings Where: The Commodore Ballroom What: Blackie and the Rodeo Kings originally formed in 1996 when Colin Linden, Stephen Fearing, and Tom Wilson came together to record what was supposed to be a one-off tribute album to the great Canadian songwriter Willie P. Bennett.

  Saturday March 11

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HSBC Canada Sevens

HSBC Canada Sevens (Saturday) Where: BC Place Stadium, 10:00am What: The HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series is one of the most dynamic global sporting events on the market, featuring the dynamism of sevens rugby, paired with a spectacle of entertainment and fan engagement. Runs until: Sunday March 12, 2017

Abraham in Motion

Abraham in Motion Where: Norman & Annette Rothstein Theatre What: The multi award-winning Abraham entwines a sensual and provocative choreographic vocabulary with a strong emphasis on sound, human behaviour and all things visual, creating work that is manipulated and molded into something fresh and unique. Tickets available at Tickets Tonight. Runs until: Monday March 13, 2017

Vancouver Canucks vs. Pittsburgh Penguins Where: Rogers Arena, 7:00pm What: It’s a hockey game! Go, cheer, have a drink, wear matching shirts.

HSBC Canada Sevens Prop House Party Where: The Commodore Ballroom, 7:00pm What: Reviving the brightest and straight-up fun decade for one night only, this year Prop House will transform the Commodore Ballroom into what can only be remembered as the best Video Dance Party of the 90’s (legally it’s not Electric Circus, but pretty close). Come as you are or suit-up in your best Rugby Sevens ‘fancy dress’ costume.

Alessio Bax with the VSO Where: Orpheum Theatre What: Maestro Tovey conducts a program that features the music of three American composers and one of their most accomplished counterparts from Canada. The Second Piano Concerto of Edward MacDowell, a composer/pianist championed and influenced by Liszt, is an eclectic, triumphant, quintessentially American work that will be performed by remarkable Italian pianist Alessio Bax, and VSO Principal Clarinet Jeanette Jonquil stars in Bernstein’s funky, jazzy Prelude, Fugue and Riffs.

Moonage Kingdom: Sailor Moon Inspired Burlesque Where: The Rio What: Inspired by the original Japanese version, Moonage Kingdom Live combines pop culture magic with messages of positivity, self-love and female power.

Sebastian Maniscalco Where: The Vogue What: One of comedy’s rising new stars. Born and raised in a working-class Chicago neighborhood, he moved to Los Angeles in 1998 to pursue his comedy career. There, he employed the work ethic his father instilled in him to build his name – simultaneously working as a waiter at the Four Seasons Hotel – and eventually drew the attention of actor Vince Vaughn, who cast him in Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show. Maniscalco also stars in his own wildly popular The Pete and Sebastian Show podcast every Friday night.

Spectral Theater’s Late Night Double Feature Where: Red Gate Granville Island What: Two diabolical scripts by local writers performed in the style of old radio shows. Stories are brought to life by a talented cast of voice actors, accompanied by a team of imaginative sound designers.

Insomnia 2017 Where: The Pacific Coloseum What: It’s a dance party, featuring Hardwell, Laidback Luke, Ookay, Mark Sixma and Amozfears.

Smash Boom Pow Where: The Biltmore What: Local pop/electronica.

Stop the Pipelines Start the Music. Featuring the Boom Booms Where: The Imperial What: Benefit concert for Unist’ot’en camp. All proceeds go to the building of the Healing Lodge at the Unist’ot’en Camp in Northern BC.

  Sunday March 12

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Kitty Nights Spring Burlesque Showcase Where: The Biltmore What: Featuring ten different performances of innovative burlesque in a wide range of styles! Glamour, nerdlesque, comedic, dramatic, gothic… et cetera.

The Wood Brothers | Image by Alysse Gafkjen

The Wood Brothers Where: The Imperial What: American roots and blues band featuring Oliver and Chris (Medeski Martin & Wood) Wood, on tour to support their latest release “Paradise”.

HSBC Canada Sevens

HSBC Canada Sevens (Sunday) Where: BC Place Stadium, 10:00am What: The HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series is one of the most dynamic global sporting events on the market, featuring the dynamism of sevens rugby, paired with a spectacle of entertainment and fan engagement.

Archgoat & Blasphemy Where: The Rickshaw What: Finnish and Canadian black metal co-headliners with guests Valkyrja, Weregoat and Hellfire Deathcult.

VSO: Inspector Tovey Where: The Orpheum, 2:00pm What: For kids – Maestro Bramwell Tovey dons the Inspector hat to investigate the instruments of a symphony orchestra, in a fun and educational concert centred on Saint- Saëns’s famous Carnival of the Animals.

    Ongoing

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The Men in White (ends this weekend) Where: Arts Club Theatre What: When Abdul’s cricket team decides to take action to end their losing streak, they talk of recruiting Abdul’s brother, Hasan, who is an expert at the sport. But bringing Hasan from India to Canada will take more than just a plane ticket, and not all members of the team agree with the high cost. Runs until: Saturday March 11, 2017

Vancouver International Women in Film Festival

Vancouver International Women in Film Festival (ends this weekend) Where: VanCity Theatre What: This five day celebration, beginning on International Women’s Day, is organized by Women in Film and Television Vancouver, a volunteer-run not-for-profit society founded in 1989 to advocate for, celebrate and promote women working in screen-based media. Runs until: Sunday March 12, 2017

Vancouver Invitational Wheelchair Rugby Tournament (ends this weekend) Where: Richmond Oval What: For fans it’s one of the few opportunities to see some of the best quad athletes in the world play the fast paced sport poetically named murderball. For some players, it’s an opportunity to compete and train among the best in the world. For veterans, it’s training ground for the World Championships and the Olympics. Runs until: Sunday March 12, 2017

Elbow Room Cafe: the Musical

Elbow Room Cafe: the Musical (ends this weekend) Where: The York Theatre What: A candid look inside the world of Vancouver’s iconic Elbow Room Café, home of raucous service, celebrity sightings, and hearts of gold. This show explores the notion of legacy: how we age together in a technicolour world. Runs until: Sunday March 12, 2017

Mizoguchi the Master: Seven Films (ends this weekend) Where: The Cinematheque What: One of cinema’s towering talents, and arguably the preeminent master of classic Japanese film (although Ozu and Kurosawa have their champions, to be sure), Kenji Mizoguchi (1898-1956) was responsible for some of the most ravishingly beautiful films ever made. Runs until: Sunday March 12, 2017

Abraham in Motion

Abraham in Motion (ends this week) Where: Norman & Annette Rothstein Theatre What: The multi award-winning Abraham entwines a sensual and provocative choreographic vocabulary with a strong emphasis on sound, human behaviour and all things visual, creating work that is manipulated and molded into something fresh and unique. Tickets available at Tickets Tonight. Runs until: Monday March 13, 2017

17th Annual Chutzpah! Festival | Abraham In Motion

17th Annual Chutzpah! Festival (ends this week) Where: Various locations What: Breathtaking dance, discerning theatre, hilarious comedy and globally-celebrated music highlight this year’s festival with world-class performances and workshops by international, Canadian and local artists. Runs until: Wednesday March 15, 2017

Bad People: Portraits of the Punishable Where: Hot Art Wet City What: Sadly, it is the final show of this fantastic little gallery. Come see the worst, the naughtiest, the darkest, the damnedest, the shady, the skittish, the last and the least, yourself. We know you’ll take a thing or two away. With miniature pieces and their miniature prices, it may even be some art. Runs until: Saturday March 18, 2017

CelticFest Where: Various locations What: A rich cultural celebration of the seven Celtic nations’ kinship and community.The festival showcases the best of Celtic music, dance, spoken word as well as film, foodand fare and the much-anticipated St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Runs until: Sunday March 18, 2017

Haroon Mirza

Haroon Mirza Where: The Contemporary Art Gallery What: The Contemporary Art Gallery presents the first solo exhibition in Canada by British artist Haroon Mirza. Runs until: Sunday March 19, 2016

Vancouver International Dance Festival

Vancouver International Dance Festival Where: Various locations What: A broad spectrum of dance presentation ranging from the slow introspection of butoh to the dynamic precision of ballet. Runs until: Saturday March 25, 2017

Judy Chartrand, What a Wonderful World Where: The Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art What: Her beautiful and provocative work presents her own personal history and insights into life in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, and commentary on racism and post–colonial relations between Indigenous and non–Indigenous cultures. Runs until: Saturday March 25, 2016

Kids Get in For Free Where: VanDusen Botanical Garden and Bloedel Conservatory What: Take advantage of up to two free child admissions with the purchase of a regular price adult, senior, or youth admission at VanDusen Garden or Bloedel Conservatory. Runs until: Friday March 31, 2017

Layers of Influence

Layers of Influence Where: UBC Museum of Anthropology What: This stunning exhibition will explore clothing’s inherent evidence of human ingenuity, creativity and skill, drawing from MOA’s textile collection — the largest collection in Western Canada — to display a global range of materials, production techniques and adornments across different cultures and time frames. Runs until: Sunday April 9, 2017

Vancouver Special Where: Vancouver Art Gallery What: The first iteration of this series and it features works by 40 artists produced within the last five years—Vancouver’s post-Olympic period. The exhibition includes many emerging artists as well as those who are more established but whose ideas were prescient. Some are recent arrivals to Vancouver, while others are long-term residents who have already made significant contributions. Others are nomadic, less settled in one place and are working energetically between several locations. Runs until: Monday April 17, 2016

Nat Bailey Stadium Winter Farmers Market

Nat Bailey Stadium Winter Farmers Market Where: Nat Bailey Stadium What: Don’t fret the summers Farmers markets packing up – winter is here, and you can still shop local for fresh produce, preserves, baked goods, and crafts. Runs until: Saturday April 22, 2017

Hastings Park Farmers Market

Hastings Park Farmers Market Where: Hastings Park (near the PNE) What: The Hastings Park Farmers Market features a great selection of local produce; nursery items, fish, meat & dairy; artisan prepared foods, baking and treats; local crafts, and of course, food trucks. Runs until: Sunday April 30, 2017

Susan Point: Spindle Whorl

Susan Point: Spindle Whorl Where: Vancouver Art Gallery What: Since the early 1980s, Susan Point has received wide acclaim for her remarkably accomplished oeuvre that forcefully asserts the vitality of Coast Salish culture, both past and present. She has produced an extensive body of prints and an expansive corpus of sculptural work in a wide variety of materials that includes glass, resin, concrete, steel, wood and paper. Runs until: Sunday May 28, 2017

Pacific Crossings: Hong Kong Artists in Vancouver | Sunset, Carrie Koo

Pacific Crossings: Hong Kong Artists in Vancouver Where: Vancouver Art Gallery What: June 2017 marks the 20-year anniversary of the transfer of Hong Kong sovereignty from the United Kingdom to mainland China. In the lead up to the handover, tens of thousands of Hong Kong residents immigrated to Canada, many choosing to settle in Vancouver, and among them were a significant number of artists. Pacific Crossings presents works from well-known Hong Kong artists created after their relocation to Vancouver throughout the 1960-90s. Runs until: May 28, 2017

Retainers of Anarchy

Retainers of Anarchy Where: Vancouver Art Gallery What: A solo exhibition featuring new work from Howie Tsui that considers wuxia, a traditional form of martial arts literature, as a narrative tool for dissidence and resistance. Runs until: May 28, 2017

Amazonia: The Rights of Nature

Amazonia: The Rights of Nature Where: UBC Museum of Anthropology What: MOA will showcase its Amazonian collections in a significant exploration of socially and environmentally-conscious notions intrinsic to indigenous South American cultures, which have recently become innovations in International Law. These are foundational to the notions of Rights of Nature, and they have been consolidating in the nine countries that share responsibilities over the Amazonian basin. Runs until: January 28, 2018

What are you up to this weekend? Tell me and the rest of Vancouver in the comments below or tweet me directly at @lextacular

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