POV: You ship Stacey and Young Neil together and want to read a fic for them
AO3:
One fic, they are also a side pairing (that hasn’t even shown up yet!)
FF.Net:
Around seven or more fics for them. All are from the early 2010s, haven’t updated in years, and all vary in quality
Wattpad:
You went here to see if there was something for them that’s recent and you found nothing. Low key a waste of your time, but it was worth a shot
You immediately run back to the one palatable fic on FF.Net cause it’s better than nothing, and checking each of their character tags on AO3 to see if someone posted something for them (spoiler no one has)
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I think I mentioned that I was looking into getting a better sewing machine? well, it arrived today 🙈 that happened much faster than planned. I found the model I was looking at at a (relatively) local sewing machine store, for 30% off because it had been in the shop window, so the plastic has yellowed.
I wasn't sure how I felt about that (the website only said it was a floor model or something similar, then someone from the store called and told me the specifics and asked if that was still okay), but honestly? I never ever would have paid the full price, it was just too much, I couldn't justify that. but this reduced price was only a little more than the ones I had been looking at before (that were not great quality and probably wouldn't last very long).
I am very particular about things like this but I'm trying to make myself accept that it really is not that bad. it actually looks kinda cool. I just have to get my brain to accept that it's not a flaw, it's just a completely superficial and insignificant thing that doesn't affect its function at all. it's good that this machine that works perfectly won't end up in a landfill just because it doesn't look brand new.
I only got to try it a little bit today because I wasn't feeling well but damn, the difference to my old machine is huge!! it's so much more fun and easy to use - I love having the needle threader and that it can automatically cut the yarn when you're done. and with the start/stop button it's actually really fun to wind bobbins!! I always hated that on my old machine.
I skimmed through the manual earlier (and put page markers in it so that I can easily find anything later) - it did seem somewhat overwhelming at first. I've never used or even seen (irl) a computerised sewing machine, so of course it did! but it already felt much more familiar after just using it a little bit today. I love it 🥰
(also, I think the fact that it doesn't look perfect and brand new actually helps - I'm not afraid to use it in case I 'ruin' it!)
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But that’s wrong? Someone can say “Its raining”, but that doesn’t mean the other person hears or even understands them, even if they speak the same language. It means nothing.
I mean, we can just talk about the sequence of sounds that we can write out phonetically as /ɪts ˈreɪnɪŋ/. And yes, those are inherently meaningless. It's just a bunch of noises! As I said, nothing iconic, or even remotely evocative of rain.
But meaning is formed around that sequence of sounds by those who create and hear it - speaker and listener alike. And that meaning is predicated on a wonderful mix of speaker intention, listener bias, historical context, shared cultural knowledge, and a host of unspoken conversational maxims and patterns.
I was definitely focusing on the meaning as interpreted by the listener in that last post, so I'm sorry if that confused things. And I was sort of assuming that the listener and speaker were in an ongoing conversation and understanding each other. But even if they weren't, even if the listener couldn't understand the speaker, that doesn't mean the utterance itself "means nothing". If said with the intent to communicate, then it definitely means something at the very least to the speaker! Like you said - someone can say it! And there lies a full half of the meaning.
Conversation is inherently a collaborative act, but it starts with the speaker's intent behind an utterance. They're taking a complex idea - the concrete "rain", the more abstract "-ing" and "'s", the somewhat idiomatic "it" - and turning that combination of ideas into the movement of a stream of air, following a strict set of patterns and rules that developed organically over thousands of years. That's neat!
If the listener doesn't speak the language, or mishears, then they may not pick up on that meaning. It could just be sounds, to them. Or they may even misunderstand, and pick up an unintended meaning. If they lack some of the required context (e.g. by not knowing a word), or if the speaker is flouting one of those unspoken maxims (e.g. by being sarcastic) and the listener doesn't realize it, the meaning may be warped.
The utterance of the sounds /ɪts ˈreɪnɪŋ/, the writing of the phrase "It's raining", you're right that these aren't inherently meaningful. If the sequence "itsraining" happened to appear in a randomly-generated string of letters, I wouldn't personally assume any meaning to it. And since this train of thought did start on the topic of magic, I'll say I find nothing particularly magical about a string of random sounds or letters either.
(Now, if you did see meaning in that random string, I think you'd effectively be practicing some kind of divination, by believing that there was intent behind the randomness. That the universe or whoever or whatever produced the string was actively trying to communicate with you. That's a pretty common idea when we talk about certain kinds of "magic". I think it's interesting that words, symbols, and communication from some unseen "speaker" are so integral to our understanding of it, and I think there's something to be said there for seeing language itself as an inherently "magical" thing regardless of whether your interlocutor is just your next-door neighbor or... whatever you personally believe is at the other end of an alectryomancy session. But dammit Jim I'm a phonetician, not an occultist.)
Point is, in conversation, in the context of a person speaking to another (regardless of whether it's understood), an utterance (or any sequence of symbols) is meaningful because of the intent behind it. Not the sounds themselves, but the very act of turning ideas into symbols - and back again.
...
I apologize if I'm repeating myself a bit - it's quite late and the question of "what does it mean for a utterance to have meaning" is actually a really interesting and complicated one, anon!
I'm admittedly being more flowery and less technical about it here because in the end my other main point is just "Isn't language really astoundingly neat?", but this is the stuff from which journal articles are written. (Usually involving a surprising amount of predicate logic.) It's an important line of inquiry because it can help explain a lot of where communication goes right and wrong, how misunderstandings happen, and how to effectively convey ideas to others.
That said, to be fair this isn't my specific area of expertise - I'm in the phon/phon corner where we ask people to make noises and stare at spectrograms all day, this is more the sem/prag corner where they put lambda calculus and philosophy in a blender.
@cryptotheism Ach, look what you made me do, I'm rambling about sounds.
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im so mad at people who think time travel will ever exist. thats not how physics works buddy I would know (im 13 and have never studied physics in my life, however, due to an intense ego, I believe that everything my brain tells me is true because it sounds true) you are not larger than the universe you cant just grab fucking time like that and fuck with it. how would you even calculate where to go? the universe isn’t sentient or a thing it doesn’t register your HUMAN MORTAL concepts of time. you cant just tell your machine to go to 2009[1] and it’ll understand what the fuck youre talking about . shut the fuck up. listen I have childish dreams and ambitions too but you know what im NOT. an OPTIMIST. you are NOT time traveling. these are also the same reasons for visual snow and why teleportation isnt possible as well.
in 2009 stephen hawking (rip king i miss you I dont care about epsteins island you will always be in my heart) made a party for time travellers, after the party ended he released the invites . nobody showed up of course. or DID THEY? maybe they showed up but told Stephen hawking not to tell anyone they did because that could fuck up the timeline? No they didn’t. time travel isnt real. go fuck yourself hawking. love you though!
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