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[ENG sub/translation] Bojan Cvjetićanin: "Slovenia is too small for Tinder" (podcast)

Bojan Cvjetićanin on Cosmopolitan podcast, originally published on the 15th of September 2020 here. Podcast host: Anamarija Lukovec. Translation by @varianestoroff, native English proofreading by TWT @/klámstrákur.

This is an audio-only podcast, but you can listen and read the subtitles along with it here:

youtube

or you can read the full transcript in this post!

Teaser:

Bojan: I don't want to be available... available with a click. I want to be available in that if I am sitting in a bar, anyone can come up to me, that any girl can come up to me and ask me, I don't know, “Would you like to have a drink with me?”, “Can I have your number?”, whatever. Which doesn't happen anymore anyway, but...

Full transcript under the cut!

Host: Hi, believe it or not, the Cosmo Podcast is back. And it's back for a new, changed second season. Some things will stay the same, some things will change a little. And the very first thing that remains the same is that ... it remains the same that I will still be in front of the microphone. My name is Anamarija Lukovec and I'm the executive editor of Cosmopolitan.

In fact, I was thinking that we don't even know each other. We don't even know each other, actually. Even if you've heard all the episodes from last season, you probably don't know anything about me. I don't know anything about you. So I will introduce myself with one piece of information, which has somehow defined the new season. I notice in myself that I have many opinions that are not widely held. And also that, [while we] as a society are promoting ourselves as increasingly open-minded, free-thinking, accepting, we often act very hypocritically and are even Hostile to opinions that are not in line with ours, or with some opinions that are accepted by the majority.

So I want every guest of mine who comes to the new season of the podcast to present their unpopular opinion as a starting point for our discussion. To break taboos, to talk about things that may often go unheard to educate ourselves, and perhaps to anger or soothe our souls. Okay. Yes, and I'd really like to get to know you too, I'd like to know who you are, who's basically a Cosmo Podcast listener, so I'm inviting you, to send me your ideas, your secrets, your compliments, your complaints. Or you can just write, "Hi". I suggest Instagram for that. You can DM me at lunaticpoetry. It's L-U-N-A-T-I-C-P-O-E-T-R-Y. And yes, I don't use my real name, more on that another time.

So yeah, if you're up for it, we can get started and kick off a new season of the podcast. My first guest, yes, it's a male guest, not a female guest, I can't believe it, a round of applause... he's a musician, singer, frontman of the band Joker Out, Bojan Cvjetićanin. I'm sure you know him. I am sure you have a very good reason for knowing him. Bojan came to talk to me about relationships, dating, girls...

Before that, before we did the podcast, he also made a video. We invited him for a blind date in front of the camera because Bojan is single, wink wink. So yeah, I invite you, after you're done listening to the podcast, to click over to youtube.com/cosmopolitanslovenija where you can watch the blind date with Bojan¹.

And yes, let's start, right. Hi Bojan.

Bojan: Hi.

Host: How was your first blind date on camera?

Bojan: I was a bit nervous because I hadn't been on any blind dates before, and then the first time it was in front of the camera, oh my gosh. The camera catches everything, you can't hide anything. But I think I did a great job. The girl was great too.

Host: Do you think maybe you two have a future together?

Bojan: I don't know. I don't know. I must take a look at the crystal ball at home.

Host: Ah ok. In fact, our topic for today, your unpopular opinion, is also a little bit about love, dating, and so on. Can you just reveal your thoughts?

Bojan: My unpopular opinion, I don't know how unpopular it really is, but it is that Slovenia is too small for Tinder.

Host: Okay. And why do you think so?

Bojan: I feel that way because it seems to me that we all know someone who knows someone, and in Slovenia, this kind of social network very quickly turns into something where in the end everybody knows everybody and Tinder, at least in my experience, is quite, how should I say... funny, because you very quickly come across people you know.

Host: But maybe Slovenia is too small for dating in general? Because sooner or later you find, meet, date someone who someone you know has dated or been in contact with.

Bojan: I think it is. In fact, it is... We have this concept of dating, which I think is very different from the American one. In America, it's normal to go out with someone a couple of times a week and then, if you like them, you go to another one and maybe something develops. I don't think that exists here. Here, if you like someone a lot, you write to them on Instagram and then, if you're lucky, they say you can go out and two days later everyone knows.

Host: Yes, pretty much.

Bojan: Then you are off the list for all her friends.

Host: You close the door.

Bojan: Yes

Host: Do you think that makes us slower to go public with our relationships?

Bojan: Shoot, I don't know. Maybe we are a bit more secretive about it then, because of that, because we want to keep that certain feeling that the whole city doesn't know exactly who you're with but then all your friends are thinking about whether they know someone who was with your girlfriend or for girls if one of them was with her boyfriend.

Host: But perhaps the biggest problem here is that we are somehow closing our options, when we decide too quickly whether to be with someone

Bojan: To close our options with others?

Host: Yeah, let's say, because you know that if you're with a girl, then you probably won't go out with her friends or acquaintances. Well...

Bojan: In fact, that's probably pretty true, yes. Because I already feel that since we tend to introduce our friends to our online followers, and you're usually with them on stories and in photos, it would be a bit strange if one of your acquaintances dated the same person two months later, when you [and that person] were previously in the same pictures.

Host: And everyone would know. And suddenly you have a soap opera in front of the whole world.

Bojan: Right.

Host: Since you said Tinder is too small for Slovenia, you probably have your own experience with Tinder. You mentioned something earlier when we were filming. Would you tell us a little bit about your encounter with this app?

Bojan: I have a rather funny experience with Tinder. I was very interested to see what it was like. And of course I had to download it. And I made a profile, I put like three photos up and so on. And then I started getting screenshots of my Tinder profile in Instagram messages from some followers, “Oh my god, is that you?”, “Hey, is that you?”, and so I was like, “No, it's not me, no. It's a fake profile. It's a fake profile.” And it felt really awkward so I deleted it immediately.

Host: But why did you feel awkward?

Bojan: I actually made one because I was curious...

Host: In what it is like?

Bojan: In what it is like. This user experience. You actually see people and you just swipe them and there are no consequences. Nothing happens if you swipe someone left or if you swipe someone right. And I found that very interesting. But then I realised, yes, okay, but now it can be public opinion that I need to look for a girlfriend through an online service.

Host: Girlfriend. Or a one night stand.

Bojan: Right.

Host: Do you think public opinion is generally negative towards online dating? Because it seems to me there it is a kind of stigma, or something people are hesitant about when going online to look for love or a partner, because it's, I don't know...

Bojan: I think that this ‘Frendi in Flirt’ (‘Friends and Flirting’)² started when I was little and then the whole story was that these are services for people who are desperate. Both Tinder and these apps have normalised things a lot, I think, because it's virtually at everyone's fingertips. You sign in with that one click to connect with Facebook or you make a password and that's it. It used to be a process of making a profile and a photo and put the age and blah blah blah. And it was a bit more official, I think, when you decided to take that step. Now it's not a step anymore, now it's just, I download it in my room at home and in three minutes I have Tinder. So I don't think there is that much stigma about online dating anymore, I also know a lot of people who are in some kind of relationship through this, so I'd say there's still a bit of that, okay, LOL, you met on Tinder, there is no stigma of being a sad loner, someone desperate.

Host: By going on Tinder, you are basically admitting to the whole world or to all people who will see you there, that you are looking for something. And that's a bit awkward for us to admit. Yes, I am looking for something.

Bojan: Yes, in fact it is. I also... that was one of the reasons I deleted it. I mean, what is there for me to find now, you know?

Host: I'm cool on my own.

Bojan: Yeah, I mean, no, I'm cool on my own, but that, well, not everyone needs to know, that I am now looking for something, and that I am very available. Do you know what the cool thing is? That... I don't want to be available... available with a click. I want to be available in that if I am sitting in a bar, anyone can come up to me, that any girl can come up to me and ask me, I don't know, “Would you like to have a drink with me?”, “Can I have your number?”, whatever. Which doesn't happen anymore anyway, but... I would like to be available like that. But I don't want to be available for someone who can just swipe on me.

Host: Yes, yes, okay. Now, you said that a couple of girls screenshotted your Tinder and then sent it to you on Instagram. Did those same girls, for example, message you directly on Instagram?

Bojan: You mean directly on Tinder?

Host: Yes. No. Yes. Or directly on Instagram. Let's say, okay, on Tinder, if you didn't swipe them, they couldn't get to you...

Bojan: Yeah, probably then they wouldn't be able to.

Host: But then they wrote to you on Instagram, probably in some, I don't know, wishful thinking to get in touch with you. Why do you think they don't go directly to Instagram? Why... Seeing you on Tinder gave them a green light: "Oh, in fact, he is free, I can write to him."

Bojan: Maybe. But I also think it is a much easier way to just communicate something that already exists, than to start a conversation yourself. That's the same as, I don't know, I think most of the time, if we're sliding into someone's DMs, we're sliding through some story first or something you can reply to. It's much easier to reply back to something they've posted, than starting a conversation from scratch, where you let the person know you've come with the purpose that you want to get to know them and initiate a relationship. Like that looks so innocent: I'm just replying to what you posted.

Host: Can you explain to me this game of sliding in the DMs, because I'm a bit out of the loop?

Bojan: Okay. Honestly, I don't know what can I tell you, because I don't practice it at such a level either. I have two ways to slide into the DMs, I think. One is that if I see something on a story that I actually find interesting or funny, I slide into the DMs and I don't really mean to initiate anything else. And I just comment on what went on there, and sometimes a really interesting conversation starts afterwards. But sometimes you really do just reply, because why not?

Host: Okay. You've camouflaged it so well now that no girl will be able to tell exactly what you want the next time you slide.

Bojan: Yes.

Host: Good. But what do you think happened to the actual old school approach towards a girl or towards a guy in person?

Bojan: I mean, it has changed completely, but now, basically, now that I think about it, I wouldn't dare say which way. I definitely think it is much easier if you see someone outside and you like them, wait until you get home and text them on Instagram, "Hey, saw you in town." Or whatever. "Would you like to go for a coffee with me?" Asking someone out for coffee rather than actually approaching them.

On the other hand, it seems to me that since we are all so exposed on these social networks, giving our followers the impression that they are somehow present in our lives, letting them into all kinds of situations, so that I could say that people feel as if they're already your friends somehow, before they even know you. So maybe in a way... basically, I will say, I think it's much easier for people to get to you at parties now, because they feel that they are somehow already connected, or that they already know something about you and can initiate a conversation based on something you do or post and share on your social networks. In the city, when you see someone, it's easier to wait until you get home and then write to them on Instagram.

But the last time I went out for ice cream with a friend, a dude actually came along and he was like, "Hi, can I just grab you for a second?" and I thought that some Jehovah's Witness was going to start selling some books there. And the guy actually came and told my friend that he couldn't resist, because he liked her so much that he just came to ask for her contact, to take her out for a drink and I was like "Wow, what a gentleman."

Host: Plus you were there.

Bojan: I was there. The first thing he asked, he was very polite, the first thing he asked was if we were a couple. I said no, go ahead. And he was, indeed, extremely kind. A very polite guy.

Host: And did she give it to him?

Bojan: Hey, she gave him her Facebook, I think. I don't know if they went out after that, I have no idea. But it was pretty impressive for me, he got respect points from me.

Host: Cool. How do you act if you see one girl somewhere and you like her?

Bojan: I usually try to find out who the girl is as quickly as possible, then sneak into some of the places where she's hanging around, you know?

Host: Aha, oh, but that's...

Bojan: I mean, ok, that sounded a little bit creepy now.

Host: No, no, it's fine.

Bojan: I watched two episodes of that show, 'She'...

Host: ‘She'?

Bojan: Isn't 'She' the series?

Host: ‘You'?

Bojan: ‘You'. That, yes, sorry. Yeah, I've just realised that I've been that dude, very creepy.

Host: They're probably people you have something in common with, you don't just...

Bojan: Yes, I didn't mean like sneaking in, just going out somewhere, but I meant more along the lines of, ok, now I see she's going to Kino Šiška for an event and then I will go there on purpose, even if I wasn't planning to otherwise. For example, you just invite a friend for a beer and watch out for where she is.

Host: How would you describe your love life or the current situation?

Bojan: I am extremely single. I don't know what you call it. Single and ready to mingle.

Host: To mingle.

Bojan: But actually, I don't know, I'm not looking for anything. I'm in a period now in which I'm like, trying to devote myself as much as possible to music and all that. So I try to be as creative as possible and not let any unnecessary thoughts distract me from being creative. But if anything ever happens, I'm always open to socialising.

Host: Since we were just talking about Tinder earlier. Tinder is also often associated with certain modern relationships, which often have some negative connotations. Undefined relationships and indecisiveness. Blablabla. Fuckboys, etc. But do you think this is really a new culture?

Bojan: From what I hear from acquaintances who live in slightly bigger countries, Tinder is actually just there as a means to get to non-committal sex very quickly. In Slovenia... given that I've never actually used it properly, I don't know exactly. But I suppose, knowing people who are in serious relationships, that people here take it a bit more as... actually seeing someone, they might like each other and go out and get to know each other. But there are almost certainly a lot of people who are only there for the sex. I mean...

Host: Which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Bojan: No, I mean, I don't think it's bad at all, really, because if two people are physically attracted to each other and if they are actually safe in their physical relationship, which is to say, approaching the matter safely, I see absolutely no problem with that, honestly.

Host: Do you have any personal objections, like what you wouldn't do in a relationship or romance? Given that so many things are so okay and acceptable nowadays and things are...

Bojan: What do you mean?

Host: I don't know.

Bojan: Be more specific.

Host: Let's say open relationships, cheating...

Bojan: Aha. Okay, I've practically only been in a serious relationship once and when I was in the serious relationship I would never have thought of an open relationship and I never cheated. It honestly seems to me that if two people date in an open relationship and it works for them or rather, it suits them, then I have no problem. But if two people are in a monogamous relationship, cheating is one thing that's very, very wrong to me, I do not support it at all. So, I have nothing against open unions, I would not practice them myself. At least not for now. I have a very negative attitude towards cheating.

Host: Personally, I think Slovenia is totally too small for cheating in general, we don't approve of it.

Bojan: Absolutely.

Host: But how do you think this even works? People still do it.

Bojan: Hey, in fact, people do it full on. I mean, I have a big circle of people around me and I hear many stories and I, personally, with this anxiety that I have inside, I couldn't even manage these master plans and combine multiple hidden lives. I don't know. But some people actually enjoy it very much.

Host: You really have to have a lot of time to do that. It must be a hobby for you.

Bojan: It must be, I guess, a hobby for you, but you must really not feel sorry for your partner. Because you always find out in the end, undoubtedly always. Never...

Host: I think you find out before you even cheat. For example, when we were looking for a girl to go on a blind date with you the other day, a colleague contacted a girl. Before she even heard back from her, that girl's brother told her that he already knew she'd been looking for his sister. So within fifteen minutes it got around. So, let's say, one example of how quickly information gets around Slovenia.

Bojan: Well, here we go. Pretty awkward.

Host: Considering you're a young musician and I kind of feel like you musicians have a reputation for certain qualities when it comes to women and relationships. Would you say that you are the usual, stereotypical womaniser, someone who breaks women's hearts? Because I'm sure someone would believe that you are.

Bojan: Yes, I know that too, they are convinced that I am. I think, that at least here, some Casanova style Mick Jagger rock'n'roll version is impossible, because it's one thing to be in Los Angeles one day and New York the next. I would absolutely not call myself a womaniser. I choose the relationships I have very carefully. But I am very flirtatious. I do very much enjoy flirting, actually, not at all because I would have expected any starting point from this, we know what I mean by that. But just for that, because it's actually a lot of fun to give someone some playful signals and receive them back. I think it's a bit like, it gets your adrenaline flowing a bit, it's not harmful at all, I'm sure it releases hormones of happiness and joy along with it, so I think that it's only healthy and that people should be more flirtatious in general.

Host: How do you make yourself more flirtatious? Let's say, it seems to me that it really depends on someone's nature.

Bojan: It's in our natures, but I think people just need to relax and open up a bit. I think most people have feelings inside them, but they don't dare to express them. I mean, if I like... if I like a girl, I have no problem with that, if we look at each other, catch each other's eyes, I'll smile nicely, I don't know, if it's appropriate at the moment, I don't know, I'll wink. Or something. You know what I mean? Not winking like this, "What's up babygirl?", but in a way that is playfully flirtatious. Whatever. I think people need to realise that these things are not a crime and that someone won't hold a grudge against you if you smile at them beautifully, [or] if you initiate a small conversation, because that is just a small part of our lives and [we are just] creating some bonds, so I think showing emotion is a very important thing.

Host: But what if I linked it to, let's say, cheating? How would you feel if your partner or you flirted with others while you were in a relationship? Would you consider that cheating?

Bojan: I wouldn't consider it cheating, but it would probably bother me, so I'd want to talk about it.

Host: How would you defend your generation, to which perhaps the older generations ascribe many prejudices, looking at the way we... what kind of relationships we have, how we socialise?

Bojan: I think it is very easy for each generation to look at the younger generation and... to look down on the younger generation and judge them, because maybe things were a little different in their time. All these things are very much linked to the whole lifestyle we have. It's not just the way young people are in relationships today, or the kind of life as a couple they have, because it's all connected to our whole lifestyle and living on the internet, travelling the world at every moment and blablabla. I find that very hypocritical of them, given that they are a generation, or okay, maybe they're a bit younger than this generation, but they were nevertheless this certain generation of this free love, psychedelia, who used sex and drugs to push back on the war. So it seems to me that this particular delinquency was far from being invented by us but it dates back to ancient times. So I think for all people, who think that young people today have invented some perversions, open relationships, gayness, and so on should read a book from ancient Greece or Rome and see, that Caligula³ lived all this two thousand years ago.

Host: Just a little less hidden, I guess.

Bojan: Yes, maybe.

Host: Would you be up for a challenge? Since you said you're not a womaniser.

Bojan: Yes.

Host: I have a BuzzFeed test here.

Bojan: BuzzFeed test?

Host: Are you a fuckboy? Do you want to take it?

Bojan: Okay, let's go.

Host: Have you ever sent a "You up?" text? "Are you sleeping?"

Yes, once. I promise.

No, never.

Yeah, that's my go-to move.

Bojan: No. I don't think so, really.

Host: Have you ever cheated on someone?

Bojan: No.

Host: You said it. "Have you ever sent an unwanted picture of your "little friend"?

Bojan: No.

Host: Have you ever sexted more than one person at the same time?

Bojan: Yes.

Host: Have you slept with two people in the same week?

Bojan: No.

Host: Have you ever made up an excuse to leave immediately after sex?

Bojan: I think, yes.

Host: Have you ever convinced someone that you didn't need to use a condom?

Bojan: No.

Host: I would never. Okay. Have you ever posted a picture without your shirt on?

Bojan: Yes, indeed. In fact, I must have been shirtless a couple of times in the stories now, but I posted one shirtless photo two years ago.

Host: Ok.

Bojan: At sea.

Host: Yes, yes. Do you think all of your exes are "crazy bitches"?

Bojan: No.

Host: Have you ever asked a girl to send nudes?

Bojan: Yes.

Host: Have you ever bragged about girls you've been with?

Bojan: Like openly?

Host: Yes.

Bojan: No.

Host: Have you complained about being "friendzoned"?

Bojan: Almost certainly.

Host: Ok. Have you ever sent that emoji of a monkey covering its eyes?

Bojan: No.

Host: Do you have any...

Bojan: What is this monkey's thing?

Host: I don't know, maybe... it's some fuckboy hallmark, I don't know.

Do you have any V-neck tees?

Bojan: Mhm.

Host: Do you wear them?

Bojan: My mum bought them for me, so I guess it's not really fuckboyish.

Host: Yes. Do you have any tattoos that are only visible while wearing a V-neck?

Bojan: No.

Host: Do you have any tattoos?

Bojan: No, I don't.

Host: Have you ever slid into a girl's Twitter DMs?

Bojan: I don't have Twitter.

Host: What about Instagram? We said yes.

Bojan: Yes.

Host: Are you in a band? Yees.

Bojan: Yes.

Host: You see, the hallmark of fuckboys. Are you a DJ?

Bojan: No. I mean, if she wants, I can be a DJ.

Host: Could be: "No, but my friend is this like super poppin' DJ".

Bojan: Yes, it could, it's true.

Host: Oh, it doesn't work.

Bojan: Can't fix it anymore?

Host: No. What are Top-Sider⁴?

Bojan: I don't know.

Host: We'll put... oh, it's some shoes.

Bojan: Then I'm sure not, because I only wear one pair of trainers, and that's these.

Host: I don't think that's it. Have you ever introduced a girl you've been dating as your "friend"?

Bojan: No.

Host: Have you ever randomly texted a girl you booty called more than a year ago?

Bojan: Booty called? Wait, what if I what?

Host: If you've been with a girl then, after a long time, you write her a random message.

Bojan: Almost certainly, yes.

Host: But were you genuinely interested in how her life was going or just a little bit because you saw her on Instagram?

Bojan: I think only because I saw her on Instagram.

Host: Have you ever travelled to Southeast Asia?

Bojan: No.

Host: Have you ever explained craft beer to a woman?

Bojan: Let's say yes, I think, but...

Host: Yes, but she was genuinely interested.

Bojan: Let's put down "She was genuinely interested", yes.

Host: Ok.

Bojan: Because I don't really know what craft beer is myself. But I mean... I think one of them asked me once why I was drinking it, because she found it very disgusting.

Host: Have you ever based an outfit on one of Kanye West's outfits?

Bojan: Oh, no, unfortunately.

Host: Do you own a hoodie that costs more than some people's rent?

Bojan: No. If you add up all the hoodies, they don't cost like a tenth of the rent.

Host: Have you ever ghosted someone?

Bojan: This means...

Host: That you suddenly stopped replying to them. The girls. Did you have a legitimate reason or did your phone die?

Bojan: Sure... yeah I did, but not like that, ghosting is probably for a very long time, no? To disappear completely?

Host: I don't know.

Bojan: Or just that, I don't know. To disappear completely?

Host: You disappear completely.

Bojan: No, this not.

Host: No.

Bojan: Just for a day or so, I took a creative break.

Host: Oh, good. It's not ghosting. Have you ever gone to a party with one girl and left with another?

Bojan: No. I go practically alone to parties almost always.

Host: And then home.

Bojan: Yes.

Host: Have you ever hit on a girlfriend's... one of your girlfriend's friends?

Bojan: No. Maybe after, when she was already... Not when we were together.

Host: Ok. What about one of your close friend's exes?

Bojan: That... no, homeboys, no, no, a homeboy is a true friend, I'd never do that in my life.

Host: Did you ever say you didn't have an STD and you did?

Bojan: God, no.

Host: And... You are probably a decent human being. Here's the proof. Live. Now no one can accuse you of being one... if anyone says anything to you.

Bojan: It's official! I'm not a fuckboy.

Host: Alright, that's it. Now, to finish, we have a couple of other unpopular opinions which I have chosen, and you will comment whether you agree or disagree, if you find it very stupid, or if there is any truth in it. First: people drink gin because it is fashionable.

Bojan: I think some people do enjoy gin. [But] I think it's disgusting, honestly. But I think some people find gin good.

Host: Ok, I agree too, because I find it good myself.

Bojan: Aha, ok.

Host: Star Wars is not really good.

Bojan: I'm not the right one to answer that, because I actually never watched it. I watched the old one a hundred years ago, they were pretty good.

Host: For those times. I mean, I'm not really interested, but maybe I'm...

Bojan: I've honestly never been drawn to Star Wars at all.

Host: Yes, I can understand why someone would think that. Pineapple on pizza?

Bojan: I haven't tried. But it looks and sounds disgusting to me.

Host: I've tried it, but it's not so bad. Although it's true that I ate it in America, where everything else was so bad that it wasn't so disgusting in comparison.

Bojan: Okay, fair. I think, if so many people eat it, it probably doesn't.

Host: Yes. Give it a try.

Bojan: I mean, there must be something to it.

Host: It's a bit sweet. Like in a Chinese restaurant, that sweet and sour...

Bojan: Yeah, I'm not exactly very... yeah, I don't think it would be good for me, but look, maybe, I mean, I'll give it a try sometime. I'll tell you.

Host: Please do. Here. Tinder themed. LinkedIn is a better choice for dating than Tinder.

Bojan: LinkedIn? Isn't that for business?

Host: Yes. Here someone thinks it's a better way to do things.

Bojan: I have no idea. No, I don't think so.

Host: Maybe you can find someone in your...

Bojan: Business. Yes, maybe.

Host: And the Foo Fighters are better than Nirvana.

Bojan: Never in life. They are sick, but not...

Host: They are not better.

Bojan: No.

Host: Ok. Do you have any more shoutouts to say?

Bojan: Shoutout?

Host: What would you like to highlight at the end of the podcast?

Bojan: Well, let people be aware. Maybe now really isn't the time to be very flirtatious and go into close spaces with strangers. Nothing, be healthy, love each other, and be flirtatious but with a mask, and listen to Joker Out.

Host: Smile with your eyes.

Bojan: Yes. Smile with your eyes.

Host: Bye.

Bojan: Bye bye.

¹You can watch the 'Bojan Cvjetićanin Cosmopolitan blind date' video with subtitles in English, as well as in several other languages, on our YouTube channel here.

²'Frendi in Flirt' ('Friends and Flirting') is a Slovenian website dedicated to people looking for dating and adventure who are over 18 years old, who want to meet new people to socialize and chat or find the love of their life.

³Caligula was the third Roman emperor. Known ancient historical sources have handed down an image of Caligula as a despot, emphasising his extravagance, eccentricity and depravity.

⁴Sperry or Sperry Top-Sider is an American boat shoe company.

#bojan cvjetićanin #bojan cvjeticanin #joker out #Youtube

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skyeoak · 12 days

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Tmagp 30 thoughts

Vocal performances all slayed. 10/10

I think there’s a lot of good and bad in the finale! But overall, it feels underbaked. (Or overplotted/overplanned?)

I’ll save my finalized thoughts on the hilltop center to see if it’s developed in further seasons, because uh, hmm. Jonny said in the live drop that carousels of horrors were his favorite to write, but they sure are not realllyyyy my favorite to listen to. They’re kind of thematic scattershot. And yeah, one of my critiques about TMA is that I don’t love how we only rarely see how the fears combine and interact. Having multiple creepy things in a curiosity cabinet -com shopping center doesn’t really solve that problem for me.

The idea of a character turning a blind eye to an obviously creepy job is still interesting, especially in how it parallels the staff of the OIAR. But that’s kinda the start and end of my interest in the custodian? It feels like this story could have been shrunk to 1/3 length and had a better effect. I just feel like this should have been a midseason statement, and the finale could have focused on having some sort of action or tension. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting the finale to have a statement at all, to be structurally in line with early TMA. Maybe a full statement/story from Celia, giving the non-TMA audience some idea of why she thinks there’s nothing to go back to in her universe. Hell. Maybe she could just. Tell Sam, uncompelled. I would have loved to see her try to convince him to jump. Convince him that her new life matters more than his (perceived) failure of one. Instead… this is another episode where I feel like the double meaning titles weigh down what the statement could be. And it’s the season finale.

I wondered early on if the finale for this season would feel more like setup for future seasons, and yep. Yep it did. It just felt like there was this inherent tension between the stakes of the story, which are already at interdimensional travel, and the level of danger it feels like everyone is in. Not to mention how Celia just drops a list of alchemical balance things out of the blue. Magnus Protocol is in a tricky situation: they need to set up a new conflict and new characters, and at the same time, Magpod has already done mega-apocalypse hellscapes and so TMagP might feel the need to go bigger. (Imo I don’t think sequels always need to raise the stakes but I understand that’s industry standard). It’s also tackling alchemy, a notoriously complex subject that’s probably hard to explain to an audience in any way that feels natural. You can’t just throw murder worm lady and screaming main character in the finale and call it a day. There’s a lot going on, less time, and I don’t know if the characterization this season was consistent (/consistently good) enough to hold the full weight of it all.

OKAY, WHELMED THOUGHTS OVER, now for the good! Surprise surprise, it’s all the little character payoffs!

Gwen and Lena’s confrontation was EVERYTHING. Gwen is kicking anthills, and Lena is so content to let her stand in them while the ants crawl up her legs. I won’t lie though, I’m not sure if this plotline will be interesting to me. I think it depends on how fast the OIAR staff can get Gwen to actually be on their side.

Sam deciding to protect Celia by pushing the archivist into the void is SENSATIONAL CHARACTER PAYOFF. (This is my interpretation of the scene, audio was super unclear once again, and there was a line change from transcript to podcast that made this super ambiguous in the actual canon audio.) My poor guy has ZERO self esteem, and still wants to be a hero. He probably realized that if what Celia just told him was true, an archivist could actually kill her on the spot. My guess is that (tma spoilers) this balanced the rift not because Celia replaced her own missing soul (plenty of folks got sent through hilltop road in that same incident) but because an archivist+a person were pulled through to replace Jon and Martin. Truly excited to see where they end up, and if this archivist gets developed more as a character next season. Also the implications of interdimensional balance on what happened at the end of TMA are… interesting.

Oh Alice. Everything in this intricately balanced house of checking up on people and soothing them and deflecting tension with jokes is about to come crashing down. I’m so sorry this is happening to you.

And yes, this is a super lukewarm episode review but I do wanna say I liked this season a lot, and TMAGP is still a cut above a LOT of horror I have read/listened to this year. I’m hoping seasons 2 and 3 will either steer further into a direct TMA sequel, angle OR steer clear and become their own thing. TMAGP is stuck uncomfortably in the middle right now. Just be the good parts of her. But completely new.

#Want to retroactively say that tma season 1 finale is really good and i did not do it credit by hyperbolizing about it in the post.#Hoping this S1 finale is as much of a thematic sleeper agent as jane prentiss was.#the magnus protocol #tmagp #tmagp spoilers #tmagp 30 #tmagp critique #skyeoak’s episode notes

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goodluckclove · 3 months

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Are You a Writer That Isn't Writing? Join Me Inside My Blanket Fort!

Hi! Welcome! It's so good to see you. i've just been hanging out here, kind of listening to my favorite podcast and drinking some green tea. I have another bottle here - do you want to try? It has lemon in it. It's sweet, but not too sweet. Just like I like it.

Yeah, so I might need to introduce myself. My name is Clover, but you can call me Clove. I've been a write for fifteen years and I've finished fourteen novels. I published one and I'm working on the sequel. I've written and produced plays, published short stories, and even worked as a copywriter and ghostwriter. That wasn't very fun. Actually, the writing was fun, but they brough in AI right at the end - it's a long story. Anyways, what I mean to say is that you could consider me a working writer. If you go through my blog I post a lot of snippets from what I'm working on. You can even Google my old pen name "Miranda Seaver" and find some columns and stories and I think a short play I had some strangers do over Facebook.

I'm not saying this to brag. I'm saying this because I've been doing this for a long time and I want you to have context to the work I've done as we keep talking to each other. If you read what I write and you don't like it, maybe you can decide that I have no idea what I'm talking about. That's fine. We can still be friends!

Okay, so you're probably here because you're having trouble writing. Either that or you just can't resist the allure of a blanket fort - that makes sense too. But assuming you're unable to write for some reason, I just wanted to speak to you in private. Because I know it's hard. I know it's disillusioning. And though there's this weird perception online that writers are supposed to hate writing, I personally believe the situation is a lot more nuanced than that.

Maybe you're scared. Or you're tired. Or the whole act of sitting down and writing feels so big and clumsy and unwieldy as it bounces around your head that you don't know what to do with it. The weight of it doesn't feel right. It happens - it happens to me too sometimes, and it never feels good. But it's a natural part of the creative process and it's more of a slight mishandling rather than massive sin or flaw of character.

It might not help that there's so much advice online, isn't there? It seems all these people have a set guide to how to do literally everything. There's some sort of odd binary to the creative process that some make it seem as if writers innately fall under. You're either a pantser that never outlines, or a plotter that only structures. Every draft has have a specific focus, and you must follow an arc to achieve any specific goal in your character or plot.

That's a lot! Isn't that a lot? I've been talking to a lot of new writers on here who find all of that information - especially the information that conflicts (A lot of them) to be deeply intimidating. If not intimidating, then just slightly...off. Potentially enough to make the act of opening a word processor and slamming out a few hundred words to not really seem like that much fun anymore.

See, there are useful writing resources on tumblr. People with unique experiences sharing their specific information in a public space where writers can benefit from it. How would a certain mobility aid impact a person's life? What are the physical ramifications of training on a sword? Look at this picture of some sickass gems of different colors! These are all super cool things that I find incredibly useful for both current and future reference.

On the other hand, the guides that speak structurally to writing? That try and tell you the exact steps to follow in order to achieve a certain result? A lot of them end their posts by plugging their ko-fi but don't actually show any of their own personal writing? They don't necessarily have the answers.

If you read some prompt list and it inspires you, that's cool and great! Our brains think of a lot of really innovative things based on the smallest spark of input and that's a truly incredible thing. But if you read someone who makes a list of ways to show a certain emotion and you're left confused and discouraged - consider that they're wrong. Or not wrong, not really. They just don't have the right story.

For other forms of writing advice, maybe they're right - only not in a genre you want to write in. That's the weird thing about all these writing blogs that don't actually say what they write or read. If I was looking for writing advice, I wouldn't go to someone who specializes in reading and writing political thrillers or mysteries. They're valid genres, just not what I specifically do.

You just can't make grand blanket statements about this kind of thing, and that's an unpleasant truth I think we all need to hear.

Every writing rule has been broken successfully. The Dharma Bums, and frankly anything else Jack Kerouac has ever written, has truly no plot. American Psycho chains you to a truly reprehensible protagonist. Naked Lunch was written in one long chunk that was then cut up and rearranged, and then that nonsense was published. If On a Winter's Night a Traveler takes YOU (literally you - half the narrative is written in second person) and sends you on a wild goose chase where every other chapter is a different book. Kurt Vonnegut has a literal self insert of himself that shows up as a side character in Breakfast of Champions and then takes role in the lead cast in Timequake. Read a Chuck Palahinuik book and he will lie to you three time at least. Read House of Leaves and you'll feel like you're wandering a contemporary art gallery. I can't fucking get past the first 60 pages of Ulysses but I've been TRYING for YEARS because the prose is BEAUTIFUL.

I'm rambling. What I mean to say is that - you know Monet? Manet? Degas and Renoir, and all the other painters of the Impressionist era? They make the kind of paintings you probably think of if I ask you to imagine a painting you'd find in an art museum. They're respected - idolized, even. People will dedicate their lives to painting in honor to the legacy of Impressionism.

This would be a great surprise to early Impressionists, who were mocked mercilessly for their work. The name itself - Impressionism - was a reclaimed dig at how their art style was an impression of actual art. The road for it to even be CONSIDERED art, much less respected AS art, was a long one.

I'm rambling again, aren't I? I had a lot of this green tea. I just hate to hear so many people refuse to develop the ideas in their heads for one reason or the other. Or, even worse, they circle the brainstorming stage over and over again, far past the point of usefulness. I agree that some people function better with some form of an outline. I outline in my own way, through short form bullet points or taking space to storyboard in my head to music. It can help! But even if you work better with structure, there's a good chance that you don't need that much structure.

You can't fail here. You truly can't, I promise you. If you finish listening to me and you crawl out of the blanket fort and write two paragraphs, nothing bad will happen. If it's not the strongest thing you've ever written, that's okay. We're writers, aren't we? If you write something that you don't like, you aren't a fraud. You aren't weak. You aren't a hack. You haven't failed. You don't lack creativity or imagination or motivation.

Here's the truth: If you write something you don't like, you're a writer who wrote something you don't like. It doesn't mean you're bad. It doesn't even mean the writing is objectively bad. That's it.

Writers tend to be dramatic. I know I am. I laid on the couch for an hour trying to wrestle with act three of my newest book, and as my wife tried to talk me through it I slowly sank off the couch and onto the floor. Much as a slug would. If you ever get into that mindset, that's just a thing that happens when you're an artist. I think in the Hemmingway days writers would drink or smoke until they had the strength to try again.

We've seen how that turns out though. So welcome to the new era of writers who - though occasionally neurotic - try again at some point. And everyone is welcome. As I said already, there are no real rules or guides to the structure of writing, only ideas. And if you don't like the idea, you can look or think of another one.

And you can think of another one. Assuming you don't just have a drastically unrealistic perception of how much societal clout you can achieve by saying you're a writer (Answer: nearly none), you clearly want to tell a story. I haven't met a single person with that dream that has it based on nothing. The situation is so much more vast and complicated than the internet will try to make it out to be. Did you see some variation of the Apple Test and decide that your Aphantasia means you can never be a writer? Consider reading up on the Aphantasia Network to get a better look at the condition and learn more about what it means for you. Imagination is nuanced and it is absolutely not limited to Overall Apple Clarity!

Okay, that's all I have to say. I just want to see more people here putting their ideas to paper because a lot of them are really good and interesting, and they deserve to be seen. The feeling of writing your story is so much more complex and rich than just thinking about it, I promise. I know you can do it.

Okay okay. I have to pee. This was a long talk! I'm going to scoot past you in the fort now, but I think before you go on with your day you should maybe check out a video I think you'd like.

Have a nice day, Friend!

oh and this too.

yeah nice

#aspiring author #aspiring writer #writeblr #writing community #writers on tumblr #writing tips #writing resources #authors supporting authors #writers supporting writers #writing inspo #writing inspiration

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mostlysignssomeportents · 11 months

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The Canadian Miracle

"The Canadian Miracle" is a short story published today by @tordotcom; it's set in the world of The Lost Cause, my forthcoming @torbooks novel.

I'm serializing it on my podcast! Here's part one.

Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.

— Fred Rogers (1986)

It’s a treat to beat your feet on the Mississippi Mud.

— Bing Crosby (1927)

I arrived in Oxford with the first wave of Blue Helmets, choppered in along with our gear, touching down on a hospital roof, both so that our doctors and nurses could get straight to work, and because it was one of the few buildings left with a helipad and backup generators and its own water filtration.

Humping my bag down the stairs to the waterlogged ground levels was a nightmare, even by Calgary standards. People lay on the stairs, sick and injured, and navigating them without stepping on them was like an endless nightmare of near-falls and weak moans from people too weak to curse me. I met a nurse halfway down and she took my bag from me and set it down on the landing and gave me a warm hug. “Welcome,” she said, and looked deep into my eyes. We were both young and both women but she was Black and American and I was white and Canadian. I came from a country where, for the first time in a hundred years, there was a generation that wasn’t terrified of the future. She came from a country where everybody knew they had no future.

I hugged her back and she told me my lips were cracked and ordered me to drink water and watched me do it. “This lady’s with the Canadians. They came to help,” she said to her patients on the stairs. Some of them smiled and murmured at me. Others just stared at the backs of their eyelids, reliving their traumas or tracing the contours of their pain.

“I’m Alisha,” I said.

“Elnora,” she said. She was taller than me and had to bend a little to whisper in my ear. “You take care of yourself, okay? You go out there trying to help everyone who needs it, you’re going to need help, too. I’ve seen it.”

“I’ve seen it, too,” I said. “Thank you. I hope you don’t mind if I give you the same advice.”

She made a comical angry face and then smiled. She looked exhausted. “That’s all right, I probably need to hear it.”

My fellow Blue Helmets had been squeezing past us, trudging down the staircase with their own bags. I shouldered mine and joined them. Elnora waved at me as I left, then bent to her next patient.

I stepped out into the wet, heavy air of the Mississippi afternoon, the languid breeze scented with sewage, rot, and smoke. My clothes were immediately saturated with water sucked out of the ambient humidity, and I could feel myself pitting out. Squinting, fumbling for my sunglasses, it took me a moment to spot the group of angry men standing by the hospital entrance. Red hats, open-carry AR-15s. It was the local Maga Club. On closer inspection, a few of them were women, and while they skewed older, there was a smattering of young adults, and, heartbreakingly, a good number of small kids, holding signs demanding foreign agitators out of mississippi!

Bekka, a Cree woman from Saskatchewan who’d been my seat buddy on the helicopter ride, leaned in. “Straight outta central casting.”

At first, I thought she was right. Weather-beaten, white, unhealthy in that way poor Americans are, lacking access to basic preventative care. They looked so angry. Plus, the guns. But there was something else there, and I couldn’t put my finger on it until I spotted a sign being held aloft by a heavyset, middle-aged guy with wraparound shades and a sweat-sheened face: our lives matter too.

I knew he meant it in a gross way, but I couldn’t argue with it.

Read the rest on Tor.com, or listen to it on my podcast!

#clifi #the lost cause #science fiction #short stories #hopepunk #preapocalyptic fiction #climate

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saltydkdan · 9 months

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Are the JoJo's icebergs fun to work on? They look like a blast to edit and write! (If a bit of a large workload)

The Jojo Iceberg has been... interesting. On one hand yes! It has been a blast to work on in some senses! It taught me a lot about writing, and research, while also allowing me the freedom to experiment with editing and injecting my humor into scripted stuff in a more organic way. I feel like with each chunk of the series I've posted thus far, I've shown more and more confidence over time.

Plus you are right!! Once the audio editing is done, working on visual edits and gags is a blast. Sure it takes time, but I have a weird love for making smooth video edits for people to watch (even though like 50% of the people that view those videos probably just listen to em like a podcast without looking at it haha).

So that sort of stuff, yes! That's been a blast, and I've learned a TON that I'd never take back for the world!

However on the flipside, logistically this project was a nightmare from day one LOL. And this is the part where I try to dissuade anyone from EVER working on a longer project like this because god damn it's been a pain at times.

Keep in mind, the script (as it stands) is nearly 200 pages. That is the longest scripted work I've ever helped write in my entire life, and when I started I was NOT that experienced as a writer whatsoever. I'm a bit better now, but at times I still struggle.

I made the horrible decision to never put a cap on the script. For every new fact I learned, even if it wasn't a part of the original plans for the video, I would add it to the pile. No matter what it was. I was committed to making it as long as I thought it needed to be, not as long as it probably SHOULD have been to get done in a reasonable amount of time.

I did all this for a deep passion for the source material, and even after the final part comes out early this year, I plan on going back and correcting the very few mistakes or miswordings I had in the original videos when I put them all together in one MEGA video.

But that passion for Jojo is a blessing and a curse, and I hadn't realized how long a project like this would take me amidst all the other big projects like Friendlocke and HYHA.

Full disclosure, the script was first started in December of 2020. That's nearly 3-4 YEARS AGO by now. If I knew that putting all this together would take that long, I probably wouldn't have committed to it in the way that I did. In that time, I probably could have put out a TON of shorter stuff, but I was so committed to this that I just didn't and that very much hurt my channel in the long term.

Though to be real, I haven't worked on it consistently, I tend to jump on and off between projects to avoid burnout. However still, by the time it's all done, the Jojo Iceberg combined together will most likely be the longest piece of content on my channel (yes, potentially longer than Friendlocke Season 3, I estimate that it'll probably come out to around 6 hours in length if I don't cut anything down).

It's because of this that after this is all out there? I plan to NEVER tackle something this long ever again. Friendlocke and Jojo have drained my bones, and all I wanna do these days is work on shorter stuff. Though I guess in that sense, this project has really helped teach me a lot about the sort of stuff I want to make. So in a way, even the negatives have positives! There's always something you can take away with, even if your experience had some downsides.

Looking at such a long script and doing some math, it's made me realize that like... damn. I could DEFINITELY do shorter videos way more consistently in the future. And so that's what I plan to do :)

So yeah! Some positives and negatives. But overall, I learned a lot and that's all I could ever ask for.

Thanks for your question! Have a good one!

#saltydkdan #salty asks #jojos bizarre adventure

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lingthusiasm · 1 month

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Transcript Episode 95: Lo! An undetached collection of meaning-parts!

This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm episode ‘Lo! An undetached collection of meaning-parts!’. It’s been lightly edited for readability. Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. Links to studies mentioned and further reading can be found on the episode show notes page.

[Music]

Gretchen: Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics! I’m Gretchen McCulloch.

Lauren: I’m Lauren Gawne. Today, we’re getting enthusiastic about our default assumptions for learning new words – whether as kids, in a classroom, or while travelling. But first, we have new merch.

Gretchen: We have three new designs for merch. First off, we have some t-shirts, stickers, and badges, buttons, pins, whatever you call them, that say, “Ask me about linguistics.” They look like one of those classic, red “Hello, my name is” stickers only with “linguistics” instead of you name for those times when you’re maybe at a conference or an event or going about your life, and you want people to know that they can skip the small talk with you and talk directly about linguistics with you.

Lauren: We also have t-shirts that say, “More people have read the text on this shirt than I have,” which is not untrue.

Gretchen: This is a classic kind of sentence in linguistics more commonly found as “More people have been to Russia than I have,” but that was less funny and self-referential on a t-shirt. These are called the “comparative illusion,” which is when the first time you read that sentence with the comparative in it – “More people have been to Russia than I have” – you’re like, “Yeah, that makes sense. Wait. Hang on. What does that even mean?” That’s the illusion part. The illusion is that it makes sense. If you think about it longer, then it doesn’t make sense.

Lauren: It doesn’t make sense.

Gretchen: If you wear a shirt that says this – or a hat, or you carry around a mug or a sticker or a tote bag – that says these things with, of course, the word “shirt” swapped out for the relevant object – because we know how to do that – then people might do a double-take when they see it. You can confuse people, which sounds fun.

Lauren: This t-shirt is available in an old school typewriter-looking font. All of our shirt options are there on Redbubble with a range of different cuts and colours. We have relaxed-fitted classic t-shirts as well as hoodies, zip hoodies, and tank tops.

Gretchen: We have a secret third design, which we will be talking about later this episode – dun dun dun.

Lauren: Mm, suspense and mysteries.

Gretchen: Our most recent bonus episode is about the word “do” in English, and why it’s weird compared to basically every other language, and how this only started happening in the past few hundred years.

Lauren: To listen to this and many other bonus episodes, go to patreon.com/lingthusiasm.

Gretchen: Plus, patrons got to find out about this new merch a few weeks ago. If you become a patron now, you’ll be the first to find out about future new merch and other behind-the-scenes updates. And you get to hang out on the Lingthusiasm Discord server to chat with other linguistics fans. Plus, of course, getting a whole bunch of bonus episodes and just helping us continue making the show for you.

[Music]

Lauren: I want you to imagine you’re visiting a place where you don’t speak the language. You’re standing in a field with one of your new friends. It’s a lovely day. You’re enjoying the scenery. And a rabbit scurries by. That person you’re standing with says, “Gavagai.” What do you think they are referring to?

Gretchen: I wanna say that they’re talking about the rabbit. This is a word that means “rabbit,” probably, in whatever that language is.

Lauren: Possibly.

Gretchen: But, in principle, it could mean a lot of other things as well. It could mean “scurrying” or “creature,” “animal,” or, as the philosopher V. W. O. Quine said, “Lo, un-detached rabbit parts,” which is just a very bizarre mental image.

Lauren: This is indeed a classic linguistic thought experiment from the philosopher V. W. O. Quine.

Gretchen: It’s also found in philosophy of language as well as linguistics. The philosophers sometimes also talk about this anecdote from a more philosophical perspective. The thing that’s exciting to me about it as a linguist is that it’s this pretty good approximation and distillation of the kind of challenge that you have when you’re trying to figure out some words in another language, and you don’t have someone or a book that can do some translation for you. You’re just like, “Well, here’s this word that’s been said in this context. What do I think it refers to?”

Lauren: I also appreciate how this one little thought experiment, interactional moment, set Quine on a philosophical train of thought that took up an entire book. Quine’s 1960 book Word and Object takes this thought experiment as its starting point to tease apart a lot of the issues around how we make and share meaning, especially across languages.

Gretchen: He’s got 200-plus pages of pretty dense philosophical argument around this idea of how we make and share meaning, and that this initial moment – we have some biases as humans towards what we think people are likely to be referring to when they give us a word randomly like that.

Lauren: And some systematic ways we can go about confirming whether our hypotheses and biases are correct there.

Gretchen: Right. We might be wrong. This might be a particular species of rabbit. This could be a young rabbit, an old rabbit, a male rabbit, a female rabbit. There could be more that we’re not aware of in this particular context, but it gives us this start. We tend to assume that words refer to whole objects in this particular way and not just the rabbit’s ears.

Lauren: The Gavagai thought experiment has almost gone from thought experiment to fairy tale in linguistics and philosophy. I feel like it’s a story that we tell and share. It’s always “gavagai.” It’s always a rabbit. It’s become immortalised in this way.

Gretchen: “Gavagai” is such a catchy name. He’s just a little guy. It’s this cute rabbit.

Lauren: Quine did some great branding there.

Gretchen: We decided to make some merch that has this great woodcut-type sketch of a rabbit with the caption “Gavagai” and “Lo, un-detached rabbit parts” from our artist, Lucy Maddox.

Lauren: Fun fact about the quote that we put on the t-shirt. “Lo, an un-detached rabbit part” is something that I always was told as part of the story of Gavagai.

Gretchen: Me, too, yeah. Is that not what he said?

Lauren: Going back to Word and Object, he never quite used that combination of words in reference to Gavagai. He did say, “Lo, a rabbit,” or “It could mean ‘un-detached rabbit part’,” but he never used this particular combination of words. It’s kind of become part of us perpetuating the folk story rather than us directly and specifically referencing Quine.

Gretchen: I think because “Lo” has this old time-y feeling to it, and also that “un-detached rabbit part” is such a weird and memorable concept, that, yeah, I guess people must’ve just shoved them together in memory because I could’ve sworn that’s how I was taught it. Fascinating. This is our tribute to the folk tale aspect of Gavagai. Also, because it’s very catchy, and it’s a fun little name.

Lauren: This is our third item of merch that we have available now. It’s incredibly cute. We have it in a range of colours. It looks amazing on different coloured t-shirts. We’re so happy to get to continue the story of Gavagai.

Gretchen: It’s got this whole retro-futurism Vaporwave aesthetic if you combine the colours in particular combinations, or you can get this very traditional woodblock look depending on which colour combination you pick. I think it’s really fun as both historical and also modern.

Lauren: I think there’s always been something charming about it being a rabbit.

Gretchen: There’re other linguistic experiments that also involve rabbits. We’ve talked about how Bill Labov, who’s a famous sociolinguist, did a rabbit experiment with some children where they were feeling shy, and so he had them talk to a rabbit instead of to an experimenter. There’s a nice tradition of rabbits in linguistics. Gavagai is also available on children’s t-shirts and onesies if you have a kid who you want to dress up as a famous linguistic thought experiment.

Lauren: Speaking of kids, I feel like a kid would be very chill with just having a rabbit pointed out with “gavagai” because they have to make sense of the world as they’re living in it. Children tend to have this assumption that you are referring to a whole object. You’re not just referring to the ears of the rabbit, but you’re referring to the whole rabbit at once.

Gretchen: Yeah. This is called the “whole object assumption,” and it comes up quite a bit when people are analysing child language acquisition. How do kids learn so many words so fast? Part of it is because they’re often making these sorts of assumptions, which are sometimes wrong, about the generalisability of the words that they’re learning. They’re often at this particular object level of “rabbit” or “truck” rather than “wheels” or “ears” or “yellow” or “fuzzy” or “animal,” which are both more or less levels of granularity as applied to the object. They’re often doing it at this object level.

Lauren: I feel like language learning apps and textbooks also sit at the whole object bias level as well. They also make use of this.

Gretchen: Yeah. I’m taking an ASL class at the moment, and the textbook that we’re using, which I’m told is a very popular textbook, called Signing Naturally, it does this thing where it’s trying not to imply that ASL signs have these direct translations into English words. It’s trying to get you to consider them as meanings themselves that may not correspond directly with other languages because it’s its own language. Sometimes, it’ll give several possible English translations – English words or phrases to translate a sign – and sometimes, wherever it’s possible, it’ll give pictures instead. For example, for clothing, you’ll have a drawing of a dress, but it’s a drawing of a particular dress that has a colour and a style to it. Then you have to make this generalisation in your head of “That’s a dress, and I’m probably meant to assume that this is the sign for the concept of dresses in general and not be overly narrow on the specific style of dress or overly general on this could be any article of clothing.” Or they’ll give a photo of a dog, and you’re supposed to conclude, okay, this is a sign for “dog” in general not “Fido the dog,” or “golden retriever,” or “mammal.”

Lauren: It would be very impressive and counter-intuitive if you learnt the word for “dalmatian” before “dog,” or they just went through and being like, “The only dog you’ll ever need to refer to is Snuggles here.”

Gretchen: Dalmatians, apparently, are often d/Deaf, so there’s a whole section about dalmatians in this textbook.

Lauren: Amazing.

Gretchen: This is also based on your level of awareness of the granularity that humans tend to communicate at with pictures. This is not uncommon for language textbooks and apps that they’re trying to avoid translation, which is all very well, but instead, they’re doing this baked-in level of assumption about what this one picture corresponds to which is inevitably less general than a word because the word “dog” refers to the whole class of dogs, but a picture of a dog necessarily has to be a specific dog that looks a particular way. I mean, alternatively, they could give you a whole bunch of different pictures of different kinds of dogs and refer to them all as “dog,” which is more like what a baby has because they’re learning the language and the whole world, but in practice, it does work pretty effectively to rely on this type of assumption. This thought experiment can tell us about why.

Lauren: I also like that Quine chose a nice, almost textbook animal. It’s a small, independent – if you don’t have rabbits in your ecosystem, you probably have some other small, scurrying, possibly mammalian creature that you can substitute in. It’s a nice in-the-real-world object, but not all of us walk in and start looking at random animals passing by. If you’re starting to do, say, linguistic fieldwork in a language you don’t know much about, the question is always “Where do you start?”

Gretchen: When I’ve taken classes where you bring in a speaker of a language that nobody in the class knows anything about, there’s often a grad student in a different department at the university who’s like, “Yeah, I’ll do this side job. Sounds fun.” We’ve often started with greetings, which is polite, and then sometimes with some verbs. But we have this shared classroom context, which is also artificial.

Lauren: Sometimes, you just want to get a sense of the kind of way that words sound and the way the language feels. One really common way of getting a sense of the language is to collect a wordlist, so using a shared language and asking someone to translate common words into their language.

Gretchen: The wordlist thing is such an interesting puzzle because if you’re thinking about, okay, I wanna compare several different languages or compare this language to other languages that’ve had people do documentation on them, you wanna try to collect a very similar wordlist across different languages. Also, languages arise in different cultural contexts, and they say different things. What one language might have words for might not be the same as another language. How do you pick a set of words that languages are really likely to have in common?

Lauren: The good news is you don’t have to do that work. There is a list. Much like Gavagai is a meme, I feel like the Swadesh List is a bit of linguistics meme in the language documentation world. This is a standardised list of common vocabulary that people will often collect for a language that they’re documenting.

Gretchen: This is a list that’s named after a language named Morris Swadesh, by the way. When I first encountered it as a grad student, I was like, “Ooo, what does it mean to ‘swadesh’ something?” and it just means to name it after a guy.

Lauren: I thought it was an acronym. I was like, “Yeah, ‘W’ probably stands for ‘words’,” and it just kind of didn’t flesh it out. We could retronym it.

Gretchen: The thing about Swadesh Lists is reading through them is this fun experience. There’s many Swadesh lists because people can’t agree, obviously, on what the most basic words should be or how many of them there are. I think Swadesh’s first list was 100 words, and then there’s a 207-word version.

Lauren: Why the seven? That’s what I’ve always wanted to know.

Gretchen: There was this 100-word list. Then someone else came up with this 200-word list. But the 100-word list actually had seven words that were on it that weren’t on the 200-word list. They got merged together with these extra seven words.

Lauren: I’ve always wondered where those seven words came from because it made it sound very intentional and scientific.

Gretchen: Absolutely not.

Lauren: Just to be very clear, the Swadesh List is like, Morris Swadesh, who was a brilliant linguist, but he came up with this list based on his intuitions about what were words that were likely to be existent in as many of the world’s languages as possible while also being independent of cultural influences.

Gretchen: I think we should just read this – at least the 100-word list, which is shorter.

Lauren: Oh, yeah.

Gretchen: People can click through to the longer 207-word list if you wanna see what the expansion pack looks like. Let’s start with our 100 starter Pokémon Swadesh list and maybe give a bit of commentary about the list. They’re very handily grouped – at least this list that I have is grouped into topics. We have words related to the here and now.

Lauren: “I,” “you, “we,” “this,” “that,” “who,” “what.” This is the classic order that I have done Swadesh Lists in, absolutely.

Gretchen: Then there’s some versions of the list that split “you” into “you (singular)” and “you (plural)” because, of course, English merges those, but most languages don’t. Then we have words related to quantity or amount.

Lauren: “Not,” “all,” “many,” “one,” “two,” “big,” “long,” “small.”

Gretchen: And then a few words related to people.

Lauren: “Woman,” “man,” “person.”

Gretchen: And animals.

Lauren: “Fish,” “bird,” “dog,” “louse.”

Gretchen: The four animals.

Lauren: I mean, the absolute irritation of living your life with lice, I can see how he would’ve put this on the list.

Gretchen: Lice are truly a ubiquitous part of the human experience, unfortunately. Then we have a section of words that are related to parts of plants.

Lauren: “Tree,” “seed,” “leaf,” “root,” “bark.”

Gretchen: There’s a clarification that this is “bark of tree” not “bark of dog.”

Lauren: But also because the next word on the list is “skin” as in “[person]” because tree bark and human skin can actually be the same word in a lot of languages, so they just wanna really clarify.

Gretchen: Then there’s a bunch of words related to internal parts of the body.

Lauren: “Skin,” “flesh,” “blood,” “bone,” “grease,” “egg,” “horn” – I think we’re moving beyond humans here – “tail,” “feather” – oh, we’re back to humans – we’ve got “hair,” “head,” “ear,” “eye,” “nose,” “mouth,” “tooth,” “tongue,” “claw,” “foot,” “knee,” “hand,” “belly,” “neck,” “breast,” “heart,” “liver.” We’ve gone all the way through the body.

Gretchen: A sort of interesting assortment of words related to body parts both of humans and animals and also plants – like “seed” and “leaf.” Then we’ve got a bunch of verbs related to actions the human body can do.

Lauren: “Drink,” “eat,” “bite,” “see,” “hear,” “know,” “sleep,” “die,” “kill,” “swim,” “fly,” “walk,” “come,” “lie,” “sit,” “stand,” “give,” “say.”

Gretchen: Then we’ve got some words related to natural weather-y phenomena.

Lauren: “Sun,” “moon,” “star,” “water,” “rain,” “stone,” “sand” – that’s beyond weather. We’re just into nature now. “Earth,” “soil,” specifically, “cloud” – “not fog,” it says – “smoke.”

Gretchen: You can get a sense of human activities.

Lauren: “Fire,” “ashes,” “burn,” “path.”

Gretchen: Also “mountain” in this set. It’s hard to break them up into groups because they follow this trajectory of “burn,” ��path,” “mountain.” I can write this short story.

Lauren: Again, very clearly “not hill.”

Gretchen: Also, English alphabetical order is almost guaranteed not to be alphabetical order in any other language, so this is not gonna help at all.

Lauren: It is actually a good flow, and it’s really nice to have them semantic and not in some random alphabetical order when you’re talking to people because they’re gonna be thinking of “smoke” more easily if you’ve just said “cloud” than if you’ve just said “small.”

Gretchen: There’s a selection of colours. Our basic colour list has five colours.

Lauren: “Red,” “green,” “yellow,” “white,” “black.”

Gretchen: Yeah. That’s a choice. After “black” comes “night,” which, again, semantically related.

Lauren: Also true.

Gretchen: Then we’ve got a few adjective-y things.

Lauren: “Hot,” “cold” – both of those specifically of weather – “full,” “new,” “good,” “round,” “dry.”

Gretchen: Then just finally, all by itself with no real semantic category-ness –

Lauren: “Name.”

Gretchen: – which, you know, is an important word, but yeah.

Lauren: Swadesh is there with 99 words, and he’s just like, “Ah, that’s a really good one. Got to get that in.” [Laughter]

Gretchen: These are concepts that he thinks are ubiquitous to the human experience, which may or may not be the case. Not everyone lies in places where there are mountains or where there’s enough water to swim in. There certainly are some aspects of these that you could definitely dispute. But it’s kind of fun to be like, “Yeah, we all have the moon. That’s neat.”

Lauren: And it’s always been a sense of like, “This is just a list not because it is necessarily objectively the most universalisable set of words,” but it’s just like, “Look, I think this is a pretty good list.” And everyone’s been like, “It’s pretty good. It does the job. We get 100 words, and we can start comparing languages.” I’ve definitely done this with a whole bunch of different dialects and, as I’m going through, being like, “Oh, these people have kept a final K on these words. That’s interesting.” It does the job, and we’re all pretty realistic about that.

Gretchen: There’re lots of people who’ve proposed alternative versions of Swadesh lists, including Swadesh himself who proposed several different versions because there’s this sense that this is an evolving thing. But like, names for parts of the body – that makes sense. The longer list, we’re not gonna read all 207, but it has more verbs on it. It has more kinship terms, so it’s got “mother,” “father,” “wife,” “husband,” some of these kinship terms. It’s just got more of everything. You can expand it in various directions. Something that I think is really neat about the Swadesh lists is because they’re this thing that has this cultural history of being collected in a lot of different places, you can try to do these very large-scale analyses comparing a whole bunch of languages because, for many of them, something like a Swadesh List exists, whereas a list that had a whole bunch of more culturally specific items on there – so there’s not a lot of food on this list other than “fish” and like –

Lauren: “Liver.”

Gretchen: – “leaf” and “bark.” Because with food, you could run into this problem of like, well, okay, in this part of the world, we wanna have “rice” on the list, and in this part of the world, we wanna have “corn” on the list, and in this part of the world, we wanna have “potatoes,” we wanna have “wheat,” or we wanna have something else for your staple starch, which is really culturally important but changes depending on where you are.

Lauren: In the corner of the world that I work in with the Sino-Tibetan language family, there is actually an area-specific set of word lists that are much more culturally specific and were created by a team looking at, specifically, the relationship between all the languages in this big family. You do get a lot more words that, if I were just translating them into English, would be “rice,” but you have, like, “rice as it is growing on the rice plant,” and then you have “unhusked rice,” and then you have “husked, uncooked rice,” and “cooked rice” – all of these things we just translate as “rice” as like, non-agricultural English speakers who eat rice as one of many different staple carbs, but much more of that cultural specificity that Swadesh was actually trying to avoid with this list of 100 words.

Gretchen: But I have so many different words for ways that I can eat potatoes.

Lauren: True.

Gretchen: Or bread. They could be French fries. They could be chips. They could be mashed and baked. And it can be a baguette or a loaf. But yeah, there are different levels of cultural specificity. I also find it interesting that there was another linguist who came up with a Swadesh list for signed languages. Because if you do this traditional Swadesh list for a signed language, a lot of sign languages use fairly similar ways of expressing pronouns like “I” and “you” because you can use pointing, and body parts because you can point to the body part or otherwise indicate it some way.

Lauren: You’ve got them right there.

Gretchen: So, if you compare signed languages, and your list contains one third body parts – which this 100 Swadesh list is at least a quarter body parts – you might be like, “Yeah, they’re all totally so related because they all indicate the eye by pointing to the eye.” He was like, “Look, we’ve got to have a list that’s not like that for comparing sign languages that has other words on it because otherwise you’re gonna overestimate this relationship. The first 10 words on James Woodward’s sign language Swadesh List – they are in alphabetical order, which, you know, gives you a sense of the spread – are “all,” “animal,” “bad,” “because,” “bird,” “black,” “blood,” “child,” “count,” and “day.” Again, fairly cross-cultural concepts but not as many body parts.

Lauren: That’s cool. I didn’t know there was a sign-specific list.

Gretchen: It’s neat to think about the different types of relationships that a Swadesh List can be trying to express.

Lauren: One of the things I always find interesting about the Gavagai thought experiment is that there is this assumption that you’re talking about the rabbit and not the moving because some languages will place more emphasis on the movement of animals as a way of describing and distinguishing them. You see in the Swadesh list as well we have some basic noun things, and we have some basic verb action items in that list. I have occasionally had to double check and act out some of those actions to make sure we’re definitely talking about the same thing. One example of specific verbs that I often think about is Nick Evans’ description of verbs for different kinds of macropods hopping in the Kunwinjku language, which is spoken in The Top End in Arnhem Land in Australia.

Gretchen: Macropods are things like kangaroos and wallabies?

Lauren: Things like kangaroos and wallabies. There’s a whole world of different hopping creatures of this type in Australia. You also have wallaroos and pademelons in different parts of Australia – and many different types of kangaroo.

Gretchen: This is really an area about which I know very little about the flora and fauna.

Lauren: Yeah, in the way that in doing the Gavagai merch, I learnt there’re so many more different types of rabbit than the pet bunnies and the random wild rabbits that were released into Australia by white settlers.

Gretchen: Okay, I’m learning some things about animals.

Lauren: There’re different verbs to describe “the hopping of.”

Gretchen: In English, if I was talking about kangaroos – and, I guess, wallabies and wallaroos sort of look like smaller versions of them – I would just say, “The kangaroo hops,” and “The wallaby hops,” “The wallaroo hops.” I would describe these animals differently using the name of the animal and describe their action as being essentially the same thing.

Lauren: Yeah. Whereas in Kunwinjku, you have a different verb for if you’re talking about the hopping of a black wallaroo compared to an agile wallaby. For the antilopine wallaby, you have different verbs depending on whether it’s a male or a female hopping.

Gretchen: Wow.

Lauren: What’s really nifty about this is that sometimes it is actually easier to identify the difference between some of these macropods based on the way that they hop rather than just looking at the animal itself.

Gretchen: Oh, I guess because if most of the time when you’re seeing them, they’re in motion, then it’s really the movement that’s telling you what the different species is.

Lauren: You have all of this cultural knowledge – like when you start unpacking what “gavagai” means, who knows what kind of cultural knowledge might be tied up in that. Before, we were just talking about, like, whether it’s male or female, but there could be all kinds of things about the particular breed of rabbit. You can tell from the way that it scurries. Or it could be one of those snowshoe hares in North America.

Gretchen: You mean the ones that change colour and turn white in the winter to match the snow and then brown in the summer to match the ground?

Lauren: Yeah. It could be that you see a rabbit with your friend, and then six months later, they say, “Gavagai,” again, and you’re like, “Oh, so brown and white rabbits,” but no, it’s only the snowshoe hare specifically that is brown at one time of year and white at the other time of year. You are never going to get that kind of knowledge from just your first interaction with a language and its speakers and the world in which they live. That’s gonna come with way more engagement.

Gretchen: I think the other nice thing about the Gavagai story is it reminds us to be curious and humble about our first attempt at figuring out the meaning of a word and realise that there can always be more going on with a word than is apparent at first glance.

Lauren: And that just because you don’t immediately have some scientific classification for what you’re doing doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have knowledge and value included in that.

Gretchen: This is one of the things that gets me about – you know these things that go around on social media occasionally where like, “There’s no such thing as a fish. ‘Fish’ is not a scientific category. It is a category of humans who went like, ‘Yeah, little swimmy thing. That’s a fish’.”

Lauren: Yeah. In the way that people get very exercised about whether something is a fruit or not.

Gretchen: And there are so many more items in the world for which this is true once you start digging into it. There’s this Tumblr thread about how not only is “fish” not real but also “trees.” There is a convergent evolution of “Make the plant tall.”

Lauren: I do like the person who centres with like, “Oh, you thought fish were a problem. Have I got news for you about lizards.” And you’re just like, “Ah, this is actually a thing for everything.”

Gretchen: “Trees” aren’t a whole coherent taxonomic strategy, it’s just that being a tree is like becoming a crab. It’s like when a plant wants to become tall, it trees itself. Like palm trees and evergreen trees are not related to each other. There’s a whole bunch of bushes and other plants in between them that are more closely related.

Lauren: I think this is why lexicography and making dictionaries and writing dictionary entries and making sense of the relationships between different meanings of a word is as much an art as a science. You can have all these objective facts about rabbits or about lizards or about fish, but at the end of the day, it’s like, “How are people actually using this word?” You have to pay attention to that.

Gretchen: And the fun part is that linguists similarly don’t have a coherent taxonomic definition for what a word is.

Lauren: It’s true.

Gretchen: Because there are folk meanings that things have where you’re like, “Well, I know what a tree is good enough, which is, it’s a tall plant.�� That’s fine. Or “I know what a word is good enough. I’ve said some.” But the borderline of like “Is ‘can’t’ one word or two words?” or “Is ‘twenty-one’ one word or two words” – this gets a little bit messier. It’s actually okay. Because actually all the words work like this where you have some examples that are really clear cut, and some examples that are fuzzier, and we’re just really good at dealing with these fuzzy examples.

Lauren: I really love going from that first Gavagai moment to spending a lot of time with a language as a learner or as someone describing the language, and then coming back to those early notes that you make, and going, “Ah.”

Gretchen: “I was so wrong.”

Lauren: Or I just happened to be talking to someone who used the more formal word for “hand,” and everyone else just uses this other word. Or it turned out I thought that was the specific word for this thing, but it’s just a more general word.

Gretchen: Or that’s a word that people say, like “thingamajig” when they don’t actually know what it’s called, and I thought it was the actual word for this thing.

Lauren: Yes. It turns out that I thought we were both talking about the verb “to flap your wings and fly,” but they just gave me the word for the little insect. That was a bit embarrassing. I’m glad we fixed that one up.

Gretchen: That’s one of the challenges with trying to learn a language by translating a list is that it can give you this one foothold into “Here are some things, maybe, that are going on,” but also you don’t get that full nuanced take, and you’re reliant on nuances in the translating language, which – as in the case of English where we don’t necessarily make a distinction between a singular “you” and a plural “you” – may introduce some really weird complications when you’re going into another language.

Lauren: Well, ignoring the word “nuance” there, I think if we’re not going to use a word list, we should go fully and completely and 100% in the opposite direction. And that opposite direction is monolingual – only using the language of the people that you’re working with – full, monolingual language learning, language documentation.

Gretchen: I’ve never done this because I’ve only ever been in environments where people were multilingual, but I have seen a demonstration of this at a linguistics conference. The demonstration was also pretty artificial. They got a linguist who was used to doing this, and they got somebody who worked at the university – in some other job probably – who also spoke a language that the linguist didn’t speak, and they said, “Okay” – you and I were doing this, Lauren. We definitely share English in common, but we could probably do a monolingual fieldwork situation where you spoke Nepali the whole time, and I spoke – you don’t speak much French, right? I could just speak French.

Lauren: I could learn. I could do fieldwork on you as a French speaker, and I could do it through Nepali so that everyone in the audience had the experience of not sharing a language with either of us.

Gretchen: Right. I probably wouldn’t be a great choice for this because you would probably want somebody who’s moved here from France, but if you and a friend have different languages, you can try this for yourself where you don’t speak any of the languages you have in common, and you see what you can figure out about each other. One of the things that I noticed about this demonstration is that it focused very much on the physical at the beginning. I don’t know how much the speaker was briefed ahead of time, but the linguist had some objects, like some sticks and some rocks, because I think they were very much trying to simulate this like, “You’ve shown up somewhere, and you don’t know what objects are gonna have in common culturally, so you’ve got to rely on things in nature.” I remember that the linguist did like, okay, if I hold up one stick, what are you gonna say? If I hold up two sticks, what are you gonna say? If I hold up three sticks –

Lauren: Oh, the reckon the difference between those might give us some early numbers and/or plural marking.

Gretchen: Exactly. Then if I hold up this stick, and I drop it, maybe I’m gonna get a verb, but it might not be a verb, right?

Lauren: But if I have “stick” and a verb, suddenly I can start figuring out the order that words go in in a sentence.

Gretchen: Right. Then if I have two sticks, and I drop them, do I get a different verb? If I take a rock, and two rocks, and then I drop the rocks – you can start getting some things that you can compare. You’re still dealing with very physical, tangible objects, but yeah, the idea is that maybe you can figure out at least some things about the language. What does it do for number? What does it do for nouns and verbs? And then slowly build up into acting out more and more complicated scenarios. You know, you have the linguist running around on the stage and being like, “Okay, well, maybe you’ll give me a word that means ‘running,’ or maybe it’ll mean ‘walking,’ or maybe it’ll mean ‘movement’.” You’re not quite sure. But you can try to get to this position.

Lauren: I do think Quine would be super happy to know, though, that we’re doing everything really – we’re really thinking about words, aren’t we? We’re collecting words for some items and some actions, and we’re really trying to figure out how to mediate our experience of those things through words.

Gretchen: I was wondering when I was sitting there watching one, like, “How much of this is the participant getting briefed ahead of time?” Because I wouldn’t wanna do a demo on a stage unless someone told me what they were trying to do. There were 100 people watching this. How much of these assumptions around if I hold something up, am I asking for the name of it? Or what am I asking for? I was having my own indeterminacy of translation moment of like, “How much can we rely on what I’m assuming the translation’s gonna be actually is what the person’s saying?” If you were doing fieldwork on French on me, and you have a stick, and you drop it – French doesn’t have one single word that means “drop.” It has a two-word fixed expression that means, basically, “let fall,” which is used in contexts where I would use “drop.” But you would have no way of knowing that this is actually a two-word phrase; that this is just what people say in this context.

Lauren: I might come back later when I’ve accidentally fallen over, and you’re like, “Are you okay? You fell.” And I’ll be like, “Ah-ha! I can put these two ideas together.” But again, I think this is the difference between going from knowing nothing about a language to, at the end of an hour, you can figure out a lot, but that’s still just a fraction.

Gretchen: And then you can spend the rest of your life figuring out what – yeah.

Lauren: And I do love, like, Quine spends multiple pages early on in his Gavagai thought experiment being like, “Okay, once you’ve got ‘gavagai,’ and you’re pretty sure it’s ‘rabbit,’ but you’re gonna spend all this time figuring out if it’s ‘rabbit’ or not, and you’re probably gonna wanna learn pretty early on words for ‘yes’ or affirmation or agreement or ‘no.’ But how are you gonna know what they are? You can’t rely on gestures.” I do appreciate that Quine was aware that a headshake and a head nod can mean very different things in different cultures.

Gretchen: Absolutely they can mean different things in different cultures.

Lauren: You can’t get ahead of yourself on any of this. You have to collaboratively build this dynamic relationship with people while you’re figuring things out.

Gretchen: I think that’s the thing about the artificiality of the monolingual fieldwork being a demonstration that happened at a conference and not something that I really know a lot of people who’ve done. That’s that it highlights this, in many ways, very underprepared linguist who’s not very community centric, right.

Lauren: “But I did get some sticks before I got here.”

Gretchen: “I just picked up this stick. I didn’t do any attempt to try to find a speaker who lived closer by to me who was bilingual in a language that I already spoke. I didn’t have any attempt to try and make contact with the community and ask them if they wanted someone to come in and take up all their time and do this.” It’s not a “I’m gonna try to figure out some things about my own language” as somebody who’s potentially from that community trying to interface with the literature. It’s got this very colonial “I’m gonna go off and do some exploring” vibes.

Lauren: I mean, Quine’s thought experiment – he does a very good job of not giving you too much context. I’m pretty sure he’s using the word “native” in a general 1960s way where you talk about someone being “native” in French, but like, that is a part of the context that has not aged greatly. Ideally, you would be seeing more people documenting their own languages and working with their own communities and not having to do this kind of outsider-coming-in fieldwork.

Gretchen: This very presumptive fieldwork that you’re gonna rock up in a village, and they’re gonna have nothing better to do than talk to you.

Lauren: About pointing out rabbits.

Gretchen: Yeah. Maybe they’ve got their own interests and agendas, and that’s not something that’s on the radar of this. Yet, I think that there’s still a joy in realising that we can transcend communication barriers or differences and that – despite the many, many cultural differences – can figure out what each other means because we do have some default assumptions.

Lauren: I mean, this is what I love about the Gavagai moment, and I think this is why I really wanted to see Gav brought to life as a little scurrying bunny because in that moment in Quine’s thought experiment, humans are really good at managing this relationship between ourselves, and that humans are actually very good at existing in a shared, multi-lingual world.

Gretchen: We can go from that fragmentary understanding that we all have as kids or that we may have as visitors and people in contact with people that we don’t share a language with for so many reasons to making sets of shared assumptions and, ultimately, getting into the position where we can use our existing language to understand yet more language and deliver those sorts of explanations to each other or have those sorts of arguments about what a tree is or what a fish is or what a fruit is to gain that deeper connection and understanding of the culture and nuances of language in general.

[Music]

Gretchen: For more Lingthusiasm and links to all the things mentioned in this episode, go to lingthusiasm.com. You can listen to us on all the podcast platforms or at lingthusiasm.com. You can get transcripts of every episode at lingthusiasm.com/transcripts. You can follow @lingthusiasm on all the social media sites. You can get scarves with lots of linguistics patterns on them, including the IPA, branching tree diagrams, bouba and kiki, and our favourite esoteric Unicode symbols, plus other Lingthusiasm merch – like our new Gavagai rabbits on scarves, shirts, and more; “Ask me about linguistics” as a sticker, a shirt, a pin; and “More people have read the text on this shirt than I have,” or substitute “bag,” “hat,” etc. – at lingthusiasm.com/merch. Links to my social media can be found at gretchenmcculloch.com, my blog is AllThingsLinguistic.com, and my book about internet language is called Because Internet.

Lauren: My social media and blog is Superlinguo. Lingthusiasm is able to keep existing thanks to the support of our patrons. If you want to get an extra Lingthusiasm episode to listen to every month, our entire archive of bonus episodes to listen to right now, or if you just want to help keep the show running ad-free, go to patreon.com/lingthusiasm or follow the links from our website. Patrons can also get access to our Discord chatroom to talk to other linguistics fans and be the first to find out about new merch and other announcements. Recent bonus topics include the history of “do” in English, comparatives and superlatives, and linguistic mix-ups like spoonerisms, Mondegreens, and eggcorns. Can’t afford to pledge? That’s okay, too. We also really appreciate it if you can recommend Lingthusiasm to anyone in your life who’s curious about language.

Gretchen: Lingthusiasm is created and produced by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our Senior Producer is Claire Gawne, our Editorial Producer is Sarah Dopierala, our Production Assistant is Martha Tsutsui-Billins, and our Editorial Assistant is Jon Kruk. Our music is “Ancient City” by The Triangles.

Lauren: Stay lingthusiastic!

[Music]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

#linguistics #language #lingthusiasm #podcast #podcasts #episodes #transcripts #episode 95 #gavagai #quine #semantics #words #meaning #translation #indeterminacy of translation #philosophy #philosopher

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hephaestuscrew · 1 year

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Thoughts on the patterns of who speaks the episode title phrases in Wolf 359

This analysis is based on the data I gathered in this spreadsheet and summarised with graphs in this post. Basically I've been looking at which character first says the episode title phrase (i.e. the exact words which form the name of that particular episode) in every episode of Wolf 359. Go and look at the spreadsheet if you want more context.

I think we can view the episode title phrases as often expressing the key problem or question of that episode. (I might talk about this in relation to individual examples another time.) Through this lens, the consideration of who speaks the title phrase is about which character gets to frame the key issue of the episode for the listener. This doesn't necessarily mean we are meant to share that character's view of the issue, but it's why I think there is some potentially significant analysis to be done on this topic. (See below the cut...)

The proportion of title phrases said by Eiffel reduces with each season. 69.2% of the Season 1 title phrases are (first) spoken by Eiffel, compared to 46.6% in Season 2, 22.2% in Season 3, and 20% in Season 4.

This is perhaps unsurprising. Eiffel is very much the main perspective character and the primary narrative voice at the start of the series. And, as someone with unusual speech patterns, he is excellent at coining a good memorable title phrase. However, while I'd argue that he never stops being the main protagonist, over the course of the series, the narrative focus broadens away from a singular emphasis on Eiffel's perspective. This perspective shift is reflected in episode titles being spoken by a greater range of characters.

I think the decreasing proportion of Eiffel title phrases also reflects the podcast's shift towards a generally more dramatic rather than comedic tone. While Eiffel is capable of being serious at times, I'd argue that his mode of speech is particularly well suited to generating amusing unusual turns of phrase that work well within a more comedic context (e.g. Succulent Rat-Killing Tar, What's Up Doc?, Bach to the Future). As the stakes become higher and the tone becomes less humorous, characters other than Eiffel, who are more often inclined to take things very seriously, are more likely to speak the title phrases.

There's also just the fact that as we get more characters involved in the action on the Hephaestus, the opportunity to speak the title phrase is spread between more characters.

Although Eiffel is by far and away the most common speaker of title phrases in Season 1, in the first three episodes of the whole show, we get all the characters of that season represented in the title phrases. Minkowski speaks the title phrase in the second episode and Hera does in the third episode - but probably quoting a phrase from Hilbert. This gives us a good early indication that, while Eiffel may be the focal point particularly in this season, this is going to be an ensemble show and all of these characters are going to be significant.

Hilbert's only title phrase is in Ep12 Deep Breaths, in the first stage of his mutiny, arguably the only point in the show where he appears to clearly have the upper hand while acting alone.

After the SI-5 are introduced at the beginning of Season 3, we get five Kepler or Jacobi title phrases in a row, which solidifies the SI-5's presence in the show. It also highlights the fact that the SI-5 have taken over the Hephaestus and are now (at least ostensibly) the ones determining the aims of the Hephaestus mission.

In addition, these patterns might be seen to reflect the shift in the show towards a more conflict-focused tone (related but not identical to the movement away from comedy). While Wolf 359 has always been a show full of conflict, the balance of this conflict shifts with the arrival of the SI-5. For the first team, our protagonists are facing a unified team of antagonists. The potential for violence feels higher, as do the stakes. This might explain why, while we only had one antagonist-spoken title phrase across Seasons 1 and 2 (Hilbert in Ep12 - Lovelace doesn't get a title phrase while she's serving as an antagonist), 44.4% of our Season 3 title phrases are first spoken by antagonists.

The only title phrase spoken by Maxwell is spoken by her in a recording that we hear after her death. This isn't even the only posthumous title phrase spoken from the past in Season 4 - we've got one from Commander Zhang of the Tiamat as well. It's an interesting kind of legacy, an interesting way to emphasize the questions characters leave behind after death, recalling similar themes to those explored in Ep46 Boléro.

#Wolf 359 #w359 #There's probably more to say but I'll leave it there #Sorry to end it kind of abruptly #I haven't got an overall conclusion #I don't necessarily think these patterns are conscious decisions by the writers btw #but I think they can be significant anyway #I know I said I was going to put these thoughts in a reblog to the original post #but this is too long for that #and I want to be able to put it in the tag again #Please feel free to add on your thoughts on the spreadsheet or anything #The moment when the episode title phrase is said could be thought of as the 'roll credits' moment #Idk if the significance feels different because they don't say the episode title in introducing the episode #but generally you have to see it when pressing play on the episode so most listeners will probably be vaguely aware of the episode title #the empty man posteth #I'm worried that there might be mistakes in my maths but not enough to check it

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naofairy · 6 months

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(This is my first fic in English, let's go)

A game of tongues slowly faded into lingering pecks, while both he and Kiyoomi tried to catch their breaths. His boyfriend’s hand, previously wandering over his flushed skin and leaving traces of strong grips and occasional scratches, now stopped in the middle of his chest. Soft dark curls gently tickled his neck as Kiyoomi pressed three more kisses above his clavicle. Usually, Atsumu let himself melt under the familiarity and comfort of this touch, but tonight his mind seemed to find itself somewhere else.

“Did I hurt you?“ There was a minute change in Kiyoomi’s expression, a delicate furrow of his brow that could easily go unnoticed if you weren’t as familiar with it. Soft brown eyes briefly met with expectant onyx ones.

“Nah, ‘s not that,“ Atsumu answered quietly, averting his gaze, the certainty of his voice lost somewhere in the darkness of their bedroom.

“What is it then? You’re rarely this quiet.”

There was really no point in avoiding the conversation. He could never keep his mouth shut long enough and the only person other than his twin who could effectively persuade him into opening up about his feelings was lying here beside him with still warm sheets tangled around their legs.

“Been thinkin’ for some time now… ‘S probably a bit selfish to ask…” He curled himself into the warmth of the pale chest and released a shaky breath as if his emotions could flow right out with it. “I wanna stay here. With ya.”

Kiyoomi’s eyes searched Atsumu’s face, trying to determine the meaning behind his expression.

“What exactly do you mean by that? It’s not like I’m going anywhere anytime soon.” There was a time when Kiyoomi’s focused gaze would have felt heavy, but with years of their relationship, this sharp look, along with the present weight of his palm against Atsumu’s chest, was assuring enough.

“I know. ‘S just…” He followed the scattered moles on Kiyoomi’s chest with his fingertip. “With Shouyou goin’ back to Brazil, Kageyama movin’ to Italy, Ushijima to Poland… Shit, even Oikawa in Argentina. It’s like everyone’s leavin’ sooner or later.”

It was almost impossible not to think about it. With how many years they’ve all spent on the court it was an expected change. They went to the Olympics, of course they were valued internationally. And while Atsumu always aimed for the sky with his dreams, he began to show more appreciation towards the permanent things in life as he got older. Like the after-training car ride home in the passenger seat, when they would listen to the latest episodes of Kiyoomi’s favourite podcasts or staying after hours at Osamu’s shop to talk shit with his brother and steal some umeboshi onigiri for his boyfriend. It granted him comfort he was scared was too easy to lose.

“I like it here in Osaka. And I love playin’ for MSBY. I love our apartment. I love havin’ ‘Samu close. Don’t get me wrong, I’m aware they’re all these great opportunities to grow, I just… Kinda feel like I wanna grow right here.” He rarely got this self-conscious with Kiyoomi. They often joked and snickered and teased, but their line of communication always remained open. However, this was different. This was about their future and he knew Kiyoomi took it seriously. He wasn’t going to hold him back from pursuing his goals. If there was a call tomorrow and Kiyoomi would want to take that spot, Atsumu would let him, no questions asked.

But here they were now, Atsumu blissed out, cuddled to Kiyoomi’s warmth and with his heart fragile and open.

His lover’s gaze never strayed from his face.

“Okay,” Kiyoomi said and Atsumu could finally breathe again. “Then let’s stay here.”

“Wait, what?!” He sat up on the bed alarmed, the warmth of Kiyoomi’s body now replaced by the sudden increase in his own heart rate. “Yer not serious, are ya? I’m not askin’ ya to do that, though! Just sharin’ my thoughts.”

“Yes, I’m serious. I have nothing against staying here.” Kiyoomi’s expression was nothing but earnest.

“But ya don’t understand! It’s not whether ya have somethin’ against that or not. Ya have to think ‘bout yerself. Ya can’t give away yer future just ‘cause I said so.”

“I know that.” Kiyoomi sighed, slowly getting up. “But you also know how I feel about change. Do you think I’d be ecstatic to leave behind all of this for a place full of strangers in another country? I have enough social barriers as it is.” He took Atsumu’s hand in his and gave each of the knuckles a kiss. “Maybe I don’t tell you that enough but I like what we have. And it’s not as if I’m settling for less. We make a strong team. And there’s no one else I’d rather have as a setter.”

Atsumu took a second to look deep into his boyfriend’s eyes, seeing there was no trace of uncertainty.

“Okay, loverboy.” Kiyoomi scowled at the nickname, making Atsumu chuckle. He loved how the spiker was simple in his honesty, rarely leaving space for confusion. It made something in his chest grow warmer every time they let themselves get vulnerable. “But if one day there’s a call…” He nipped at the skin of Kiyoomi’s shoulder, his voice getting muffled by the soft skin. “And ya change your mind… Then I want us to revisit this conversation.”

“I won’t change my mind. But if there’s a call, then we’ll talk and we’ll make that decision together.” Kiyoomi grabbed him by the chin so he could leave a delicate kiss on Atsumu’s cheek. “ How does that sound?”

“I’d like that, making decisions together,” Atsumu whispered, a small smile appearing on his face. He wouldn’t ever admit it, but he was thankful for the reassurement. He looked into the onyx eyes, wondering how everyone could be blind to their expressiveness when they were so deeply filled with affection. “Ya know, yer the one I wanna lead my life with.”

“Is that your way of proposing?” A teasing smirk made its way onto Kiyoomi’s face.

“Oh my God, no!” Atsumu nearly yelled, his cheeks turning maroon. “Wait… Would ya actually say yes?” He wasn’t opposed to that thought. Not at all. But he felt that the right time and place were yet to come.

“You wouldn’t let me live if I answered that question right now.” Kiyoomi’s smile grew even wider as he stood up, leaving the sheet he used to cover his body forgotten on their bed.

“God, I love ya so fuckin’ much.” Atsumu chuckled.

“Well, you’re lucky that I love you too.” Kiyoomi left a quick peck on his lips. “Can we finally go shower?”

“Sure, Omi. I’ve kept you long enough.” With a big smile on his face, he joined his boyfriend behind the bathroom door.

Happy birthday, Kiyoomi

#haikyuu!!#sakuatsu #skts #sakuatsu fic #dividers by @/cafekitsune #haikyuu fic #ficlet #drabble #sakusa kiyoomi #atsumu miya

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lazybutsmexy · 1 year

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A bedtime story

Ghost / GN!reader

Warnings: none! No romance involved.

Word count: idk I forgot to count, not very long though

Also I'm posting this at 2am so I'll check for mistakes some other time lol

A/N: just a silly idea I shared with @ragingbookdragon and I decided to write it more properly and share it with you, too :)

Inspired by this tiktok

~•~•~•~•~•~

Exfil had been confirmed for a couple hours into the future, and after some convincing from your part, Ghost laid down on a mat next to your sitting figure to get some sleep.

You couldn't help but watch him curiously out of the corner of your eye - it was sort of an open secret that he didn't get much sleep any day, and probably hasn't had REM sleep for a while. It seemed that the littlest things would rouse him from slumber, although most of the time it was the things inside his own brain that woke him up before he even had the chance to snore.

You stilled yourself as he shifted to a more or less comfortable position, with his elbows bent by the sides of his torso and his hands resting on his abdomen. There was an unwritten rule among his subordinates that stated that no one was allowed to make the slightest noise while he slept unless it was a life or death situation.

(It's not like you were all scared of waking him up, it's just that you all felt slightly bad for how little sleep he got in general.)

You checked your breathing until it was barely noticeable even to yourself, and your hold on your weapon was firm. Even the shift of your eyes between the exterior of the dingy little refuge you were waiting in for exfil and the dozing lieutenant next to you was calculated.

You were mentally preparing yourself to spend the next two hours as still and silent as a statue to not disturb Ghost, but a little sound coming from behind you changed your plans.

A soft snore coming from the man nearly gave you whiplash for how fast you turned your head to look at him. You could barely believe your ears, but your eyes weren't deceiving you. His eyes were fully shut, relaxed, and his chest moved up and down in synch with the snores.

Ghost? Snoring?

It should be impossible for him to fall into such deep sleep so quickly, it was inconceivable! It went against everything you knew about him and his sleeping patterns - or lack thereof.

Your mind ran through multiple scenarios searching for any possible reason for his sudden demise against Sandman. Was he concussed? Perhaps got a drug into his system? Or perhaps got exposed to some chemical agent? Should you radio Price and ask him to get a medical team in the exfil?

A soft murmur was caught by your ears, and you looked around for its origin. You studied the exterior of the refuge, but quickly realized the murmur was coming from behind you.

Slowly, you turned around and eyed the LT's headpiece. Was he listening to a podcast of some sort? Some people would listen to podcasts or nature sounds to go to sleep, surely Ghost probably found that to be helpful as well.

Curiosity killed the cat, you reminded yourself as you carefully slid your body closer to his head. Ghost in himself was a life threat, but a startled-awake Ghost was a death sentence, and with that in mind you thought your final good-byes to your family and friends as you leaned down closer to him, holding your breath as the shell of your ear was almost brushing the headpiece.

Your eyes were trained on his face the entire time, dreading the moment his eyes would inevitably snap open if you made the slightest wrong move.

And yet you nearly flinched when, after a brief pause in the talking, the voice began speaking again.

Sergeant Mactavish's voice.

It sounded low, soothing, almost purring as he told some story you couldn't quite make out. And Ghost's face has never looked so soft and relaxed as he slept.

Your shoulder began straining at the uncomfortable angle at which it was bent, and you carefully regained your sitting position. Another snore seemed to mark the end of a sentence, and you sat facing the exterior again, your mind reeling with the implications of your discovery, and you briefly wondered if Ghost would ever let you listen to it.

After some time, you decided to check the time on your wrist watch, just in time for the radio to crackle to life.

"Bird 1-0 to Bravo, how copy?"

A gloved hand beat yours to reaching for the radio, and you watched it move to Ghost's face.

"Here Bravo 1-0, solid. How long until exfil?"

"15 minutes, get ready to go home."

"Copy that."

You watched him speaking to the pilot, and you knew he knew you were watching him, but the moment he set his eyes on you, yours were trained back outside like the textbook image of an obedient, disciplined soldier.

The treeline had never seemed so appealing to look at than in that moment, yet you couldn't shake the weight of his stare off your back. You were determined to not crumble under his burning gaze, but you could barely suppress the shiver that ran down your spine when he grumbled from behind you.

"...if Sgt. Mactavish finds out that his stupid recording actually helps me sleep, I'll know it was you who chirped."

You had to force your diaphragm to suck in a deep breath before you turned to face his piercing stare and answered, hoping your voice didn't sound too shaky. "I'll take it to my grave, sir."

"Good, now get ready for exfil."

"Yes, sir."

"And no, I won't let you listen to it."

How the fuck did he know??

#ghost cod #simon ghost riley #simon ghost riley x reader #ghost x reader #platonic #john soap mactavish #that one neil ellis tiktok #cod mw2 #cod mwii

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cyber-corp · 9 months

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2023: The year of all time

This felt like the first year post-COVID where things really kicked into high gear for me personally. My new year's resolution was that I would go out and have fun for once.

And had fun I did.

I did some voicework reading for a story podcast, I went to a bunch of amazing concerts (nothing beats seeing Weird Al for my birthday!), and I sorted out a bunch of RL stuff and put a neat little bow on it. Thank goodness.

But fuck all that sappy shit: Here's a small collection of things I really enjoyed this year!

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: An excellent sequel to a seemingly unfollow-uppable first film. Takes everything from ITSV, and amps it up to twenty with a stunning visual style, a sonically fitting soundtrack, and a meta-commentary on the nature of Spider-Man's character and whether they really deserve all the tragedy thrown at them.

Aunty Donna's Coffee Cafe: The guys who made Pud did another show, this time with funding from the Australian Government! While stripped back in its setting, they continue to provide the same stupid bullshit that put me into laughing fits as they did with their Netflix show. Haven't they done well.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off: I think when people heard about "An animated Scott Pilgrim show with the live-action cast and Edgar Wright producing", they did not expect "A proper dissection of Ramona Flowers' character and her motivations, as well as her own journey of forgiving the Evil Exes. Also lots of yaoi." Scott Pilgrim continues to dominate as the premier "guy learns not to be a shithead" franchise.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Live in Accor Stadium: The Peppers prove their pertained power as performers by playing the purest psalms in their prospectus from the past 35 years (eugh, what a mouthful). Flea came out, did a 30-second handstand, waved and said hello to the moon and then got up some people littering in the crowd. Their life is more than just a read-through.

Caroline Polachek - Desire, I Want to Turn Into You: I had absolutely no clue who Caroline was before I listened to this album. I now realise that she might just be the person that pop needs right now. A soaring collection of songs destined to become classics down the line, like a greatest hits compilation that doesn't exist. We're all on Caroline's island, and we ain't leaving.

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk: I kept my eye on this game as it was developing, and it was absolutely worth it to see it come through in the end. Satisfying gameplay that requires you to learn how to combo to progress, an addicting artstyle inspired by Y2K, and the soundtrack. Holy fuck the soundtrack. I just can't get enuf.

Weird Al Yankovic - TUROTRSIIIVT: Man, what a title. Emu Phillips come out swinging with jokes I did not expect, and then Weird Al comes out aggressively swinging, with all the songs you don't know him for. He then did a polka melody of his parodies, did a ritual halfway through, and then ended the concert on a high note. Only the best from Strange Alfred.

Doctor Who 2023 Specials: That bastard David Tennant returning led me down the rabbit hole known as watching Doctor Who, and did it ever pay off more than these specials. A trans woman saves the day and the Doctor realises he's bi, black, and needs therapy. A magnificent close on a chapter of one of the greatest sci-fis ever, and a bright step into the future.

The Hyperfixation of the Year award goes to none other than

Homestuck, everyone's favourite webcomic! Everyone's.

And I think that's partly because I joined this website to begin with. I probably say this all the time, but leaving Reddit was probably the best decision I could have made at that time. As much as I reminisce, the communities I was in began to get a little stale. Same jokes, same shitposts, a different day. Tumblr in some strange way, is not that. It feels less like a big communal website and more like a collection of small towns spread across a large spot of land. Calm and village-like, you know?

So to all my mutuals, my followers, to the people that liked and reboggled my stinky posts, to all that offered mealworms and crickets in my askbox, thank you. "Gecko Boy" might just be a silly lil joke in the grand scheme of things, but it's a fun joke to play into.

Whatever comes next year, I know I've got the energy to keep going. Have a good 2024 everybody. <3

#WHOOF this is long #across the spiderverse #aunty donna #scott pilgrim takes off #red hot chili peppers #caroline polachek #weird al yankovic #bomb rush cyberfunk #doctor who #homestuck #year in review #2023 #i AM a lil gecko boy. and nothing can change that fact #reddit #tumblr #gecko boy #long post

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fountainpenguin · 2 months

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Riddle watches New Wish - Post #7

"A Dinosaur in Dimmadelphia" - Full moon in the title card!

Hazel's parents are really engaged in having fun. I'm a little curious as to where this is going, since if we follow the OG lore, Hazel should lose Cosmo and Wanda once she's no longer miserable. I'm curious if they're going to push that direction or retire that bit of lore.

Also, C and W kind of snuck in under the radar and are retired otherwise, so Jorgen probably won't ride them as hard as he used to.

SLKDJF- It's a WHAT?

Obtuse Rubber Goose - 2001 B.C.

Of course she's more into the rocks.

/sweats at the billboard for Atlantis Condos even though it's painted in a mural. Cosmo... (Also I love the dinos by the water coolers in that image).

Man, this is a playground for both Cosmo AND Wanda's destructive histories!

I have feelings about the Fairlysaurus. I question nothing.

They're so cute.

The unfortunate thing about this show is that Whisper can tell me some scientists believe dinosaurs wore top hats and had electricity and unfortunately that's 100% possible in this world.

I like how Hazel's creature-hunting dad listens to Whispers Fred's podcast. That's gonna go well.

I like how Cosmo and Wanda can understand dinosaurs. She would be the type to understand them and wipe them out of existence anyway.

Confirmed 10k-year vacation through time!!

Hazel wishing "I wish people weren't afraid of dinosaurs" after bringing one to the future is one of the funniest things I've ever heard. Welp, that solves that.

sldkfj, Wanda proudly talking about the comet that wipes out dinosaur life as if she didn't personally launch that comet.

"If I can't send [the dinosaur] home, I'll do the next best thing: Get him a job!" - I changed my mind, that's even funnier. Hazel, why?

I love the background hills:

I like the implication that people are totally ready to accept the dinosaur as an actor because they're no longer afraid of him, so he can stroll in and not only are they unafraid, they also don't question it. Yeah, that sounds about right.

This vibe is very funny since Timmy usually tried keeping his wishes under wraps. Hazel's just been changing her surroundings and people play along.

I like that Whispers Fred and the museum guy had a bet about dinosaurs having electricity and the museum guy just sighs and pays it. Yeah, okay.

... Do I know that screaming man? Why does he sound familiar? Is he from "T.U.F.F. Puppy?" I know him... Is it Meerkat, my beloved?

-> I looked it up and Meerkat's VA is Daran Norris (Cosmo's VA). So... Yes, it was probably him using a Meerkat-adjacent voice, SKLSDJF.

Mystery mayor...

Is that #1 Dad in the crowd? Where is your baby?

SKLDFJS we're keeping the dinosaur. Okay.

"Fearless" time! - This title card has SPOT-ON Cosmo and Wanda in their old designs. Nice!

Did Hazel share a room with her brother, hence the bunk bed?

I like how Hazel's wardrobe is filled with identical outfits just like Timmy's closet used to be.

I like how the movies are also in 2D animation style.

Dev loves staring at Hazel and judging her in the background, doesn't he?

The kid on the voting poster reminds me of Imaginary Gary.

Note to self, include a trigger warning for this episode if I recommend it to anyone who doesn't like horror. It's no "Dark Harvest" or what-not, but they do a good job of making it creepy to kids, but... whoa.

I like the idea of Jasmine's fears coming to life as separate people outside her body, which is different than when Timmy wished he was fearless and became numb.

Hazel wishing for a Hazel stand-in to hold her place in class was smart. She and Chloe would be friends.

sldkjf, bug spray with the cockroach from "Wanda's Day Off" on it.

The plot about Jasmine having to be the one to face her fears is clever. Also, Hazel implied she has to avoid revealing magic, so it looks like she did get the basic rules explained (and they're still in play in this spin-off).

Wait, why is the girl who was reading "Shakespeare for Mimes" afraid of clowns?

I'm glad the crowns make metallic sounds when they fall since they're magnetic in the OG series.

OH SNAP- Hazel getting called out for "trying to make this friendship into what she had with her brother." That's rough, kid. Forcing Hazel to face her fears is a clever way to introduce her insecurities to the audience. I like it.

The list of champions on the school's wall goes up as far as 2019, and we can't be THAT far in the future since there aren't others.

I did worry where this plot was going, so I'm glad Hazel opted not to watch scary movies and instead pick something her friend wanted to do too :)

#Riddle watches FOP #New Wish spoilers #A Dinosaur in Dimmadelphia #Fearless #Dragonfly parents #Pending Hazel tag #FAIRIES!#screenshots

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candycane969 · 10 months

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✨🎧🌆ROTTMNT DONATELLO HEADCANONS🌆🎧✨

made by me! candy! :3 no major spoilers

A quick guide!✨

💜 - Supported by canon (things that are pretty sure out there, maybe not confirmed 100% but yeah)

❤ - Kind of supported by canon (things that happened in the series that miiiight lead to some other stuff)

🧡 - My source is that I made it the fuck up (still trying to fit it into the character tho)

⭐ - Not sure if I'm taking this headcanon or not, but I do think It's pretty neat

💋 - Kinky! DISCLAIMER: Ive always seen the rottmnt boys (and April) in the age group from 17 to 19 and thats what I headcanon them as (as it is my own age group!). Ive seen the show and was fucking sure theyre my age and then a month or two later I was slapped in the face with thier actual age lol. I dont support any pedo shit, I also dont think minors can consent. Just putting it out there

Lets go!🌆💜🎧⭐✨

The 'Tism

• 💜 I think Its pretty fucking obvious that this boy is autistic, pretty much everything in the show supports this.

• ❤ Donny's headgear also works as noise cancelling headphones! He's often overwhelmed by background sounds and his gear makes it easier for him to live his life (either on missions or just spending time with his brothers and/or April). He still loves blasting his music on the highest volume tho. It's different when you consent to hearing your jams then when several people are talking at once and youre going crazy.

Tagging as kind of canon because he might have audio sensory issues because of his autism and you can reraly see him without the damn googles.

Different stims

❤ Foot stomping

❤ Hand flapping

🧡 Repeating a song/part of song over and over (yes, even if it has no words)

❤ Spinning on chairs

🧡 Pacing around the lab/the lair

• 💜 He knows ASL! Though It's never said in the show why he learned it, I believe that because he goes nonverbal often. Everyone in the lair can sign a bit because of that, but not everybody is too good at it. Donatello can communicate in ASL fluently.

Gender

• 🧡 Donatello never really felt connected to being "a men" and categorising things as "for boys" and "for girls" always seemed dumb to him. Shortly after Leo's coming out as a trans men (SURPRISE LEO HEADCANON) he went to talk to him about his gender experience. After some thinking and digging, Don came to the conclusion that he is in fact nonbinary. He still uses mostly male pronounces but always appreciates gender neutral pronounces coming his way.

Sexuality

• 🧡 While realising his own gender he also figured out that he doesn't really sees gender that seriously in others either. Men or women, its pretty much whatever to him. He doesn't like to label himself much when it comes to his sexuality, he accepts reffering to him as a pansexual or bisexual.

• 🧡 When it comes to dating Donatello doesn't imagine himself with anyone, really. He finds himself attractive, but doesn't think anyone would fancy him in a romantic way. He's not interessted much in dating either way. But he doesn't exclude dating someone in the future. It's just he won't go out of his way to look for love.

• ❤/🧡 Its obvious Don is a men of science, he's a genius when it comes to coding, math, engineering, I would say chemistry as well. Thats the field he feels the most comfortable in, but he loves learning new things in general. As long as there is interesting knowledge he can obtain, he will be there, soaking it like a sponge. He likes listening to info dumps, and probably listens to long ass video essays and/or podcasts.

• 🧡 Don likes to learn about others people hobbys and takes interest in learning about it. He likes showing others that he cares about something, even though Its something totally indifferent to him. For example, he knows lot about art making process from Mikey (Angelo even made him paint with him a couple of times!) even tho he doesn't really likes drawing and/or famous artists. No many people appreciate his work so he wants to show his appreciation to others.

• 💜 He is pretty low empathy most of the time. It's hard for him to relate to others, and can often feel like someone is overreacting. It's also challenging for him to put his feelings "out there". Which often makes him look unloving or unfriendly. And it couldn't be farther from the truth. He loves his brothers even though they bother him most of the time. And he loves April as well (though she never really troubled him much). He never really thinks that his low empathy is a flaw (more often he thinks about it as a blessing) but there rare are moment when he feels helpless because of it. He is glad that his family knows that he truly cares about them (and accepts any effort he puts in to express his feelings, even if it seems small).

• 🧡⭐ I've seen people headcanoning Donny as a baker and honestly I like it a lot. Cooking is Mikeys domain, and it suits him well, as it allows a lot of freestyling and just overall feeling. Baking and pastry making is very calculated and one miatake can ruin the whole thing. It reminds Don of engineering in a sense. Also baking is an easy way to get love and appreciation from his family because, cmon, he just made the most angelic fruit tarts in the whole universe, of course they're going to praise him. It also works as a stress relief. When feeling stumped and/or overwhelmed over a project or a situation he'll make something easy like brownies to get his mind of it.

• 🧡 He's very sentimental. He loves receiving gifts and will cherish and use them (even if he doesn't like it). He still has every "gamers dont die they respawn" Tshirt and every "dont fuck with my brother he was born in october and has autism" mug. Sometimes he REALLY wants to throw something away but god damn it this is painting Mikey did when he was ten and is just five splats of paint and thinking about him somehow finding out and crying about it might destroy him forever.

• 🧡⭐ This bitch reads fanfics, thats it. It started when he was around 13 or smth with Atomic Lass x Reader and now he knows all the fanfic lingo. He still might read something from time to time and writes very long and well written comments (with constructive criticism).

• 🧡 Speaking of which, Don writes perfect sentences while texting. All the correct spelling and punctuation. He also communicates with emojis and gifs like a millenial.

Food, TW: drinking!

• 🧡 He has a rather strong head, you cant make him drunk that easily. But when it finally happens, youre in for a ride. Shutting him up is near impossible, he will talk non-stop but with much less eloquence then while sober. Its extremely easy to make him laugh, so Leo absolutely loves it. He often looses track of what hes saying and starts completely different rant. Overall a chaotic mess. Really fun to witness it at least once. His beverage of choice is either fun cocktails or beer (tho rarely and/or only with some kind of juice because he doesn't like the fizziness on his tongue).

• 🧡 And that takes us to Donatello that hates fizzy drinks. He hates carbonated beverages, no matter if its cola or champagne. The feeling on his tongue and in his mouth makes him really uncomfortable. When there is no other choice but to drink up some bubbless, he leaves it open for as long as he can to get rid of them. His brothers despise him for that.

• 🧡 He doesn't like weird food combos either and is rather picky. When ordering food Don sticks to what he knows not to risk an uncomfortable texture touching his mouth. Texture is the most often reason for him not liking a specific food. Donnys pretty strict to preparing food as well (the way he does a thing is The Correct Way and no other exception is acceptable). Also he puts milk first so his cereal doesn't get soggy.

• 🧡 I feel like he likes fruit juices in boxes and fruit mousses but this is pretty random 🤷

• ❤/🧡 He wears contacts! We've seen little Donny with glassess, so I assumed he wears contacts now. When he knows he will be spending all day in the lair (for example because of an injury) he still has a pair of glassess he uses. And yes, he tapes them to the head. Because he rarely ever wears them, he never came up with a solution for not having ears and needing glassess.

• 🧡 ABSOLUTELY hates smoking. Will go on a rant if he sees someone he knows smoking. He absolutely despises the smell and WILL take it out of someones mouth/hand and throw it away. Appreciates the fun smells of vapes but still hates them. Will call vapers losers (maybe not exacly in these words but he will for sure).

• 🧡 Really good at makeup, but not as good as Leo is (ANOTHER SURPRISE LEO HEADCANON). He spend years perfecting his eyebrows of course. He also wears eyeliner because serving cunt is important even on the battlefield. From time to time you can see his nails painted as well.

• 🧡⭐ While being flustered or simply distracted he stutters a lot, mostly in a way of repeating whole words or parts of a sentence ("Its good because- Its good- Its good because I um- Its good-")

• 🧡 Enjoys taking very long baths, and actually prefers them much more then showers. Can stay underwater for a rather long time as well!! Being fully submerged calms him down a lot and its overall very relaxing for him.

• 🧡⭐ Ive seen a lot of takes that without his battle shell, he is really flexible (due to having a soft shell). And I like the idea. I think, that before sitting infront of a screen (or a desk in general) to do his work for several hours he stretches deeply so his back won't be so sore later. Also a reason to draw Donny in yoga poses and thats always cool.

• ❤ Makes up shit to fuck with his brothers. Like just spreading misinformation and gaslighting them for shit and giggles. Or to get them to leave him alone for a while. Also will gaslight them if they somehow find out that he was lying ("what? you must have heard me wrong then 🙄💅")

• 💜/❤ Loves singing and dancing!!! Aint the best singer (tho I love his songs in the show Im kissing him as we speak) but is a gorgeous dancer! He finds it incredibly fun and feels fabulous while doing it. Also Im pretty sure dancing counts as stimming so add it to the list. Dances solo like 90% of the time but really enjoys dancing in pairs (dances with April a whole lot when they get the chance!).

• ❤ He rarely laughs out loud, but when he does it is loud and messy. A good joke can make him think about it all day and continue laughing for a long time. Not my og take, Ive seen this headcanon before and I love it so so much :3

• 🧡 From all his brothers, he kind of wishes to be human the most of them all. Its not a big big wish, he does think of himself as very unique individual and takes pride of being a mutant. But sometimes while hanging out with April he can get lost in his thoughts of "what ifs". Maybe in the process of making a cloaking accessory.

• 🧡 His handwriting is god-awful. All scribly and fucked up like Doctors writing. Unfamiliar eye would not decipher a word out of it, but Don knows exactly what everything means. But he mostly writes digitally.

• ❤ Dons dislike of hugging is canon, but I do believe he likes being touched on his head and face (head pats, cheek rubs, scratches). He enjoys hand holding when it's appropriate as well.

• 💋 Im headcanoning the boys to go through mating season once a year (except mikey cuz he small) everyone at a different time. It would be similiar to an ovulation but much more horny (with also fever symptoms). Don would be the second after Raph to get it. While in heat he doesn't go feral or anything, but after a few days stops working because he cant focus on his craft. Waves of sudden temperature changes (mostly high heat) with really horny thoughts and hypersensitivity to pretty much everything...yeah not the best work environment. He spends his most intensive days closed off in his lab or room because he really doesn't want his family to see him like this (the rest of the turtles are in thier rooms during thier mating time as well for the same reason). Also add being possessive while having a SO, and also veeery easy to irritate.

• 💋 Donny takes on a more submissive role while being intimate, even though he loves to be in charge all the time. But he isn't a bottom either, I would put him perfectly in the middle as a switch (more leaning on that sub part tho).

• 💋 His biggest turn on is smell. Like someones natural smell, no perfumes and all. He likes to snuggle in the crook of the neck and take it all in. This becomes cranked up to eleven during mating season, as he absolutely cannot stop sniffing. Would love his significant other to leave him clothes with thier smell on it and sleep and/or snuggle with it.

Might add more later but thats all for now :3💜

Hope you enjoyed it⭐✨

#If you think Ive misrepresented him or something is clashing with canon let me know #going to make Leo headcanons soon cuz I have a lot I love him #rise of the tmnt #rottmnt #rottmnt donnie #tmnt #donatello #text #rise donnie #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #donatello headcanons #headcanons #donnie headcanons #rottmnt headcanons #tmnt 2018 #rottmnt donatello #writing #rise donatello #rise headcanons

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