#someone get an etymology expert!

[spacebubblehomebase]

Love your art and can't wait for more HHstargazers!!! one question... how tf do you pronounce "Magne" cause as I read i just replace it with"morningstar" in my head but i dont like doing that lol

I'm really glad you're excited about my AU ^v^, but as for how to pronounce "Magne"... Sorry. But it seems I'm just as lost as you are in this. 😅👉👈 Because while I have my own interpretation based on my acquired accent, apparently there's more than one way to say it! Depending if you're French, American, or Norwegian just to name some examples. I've heard the different ways people read it out loud, along with its different meanings, and my verdict ended up being: It's fine as long as you tried. XD There doesn't seem to be a universal way of speaking it as I've only seen people be as confused as us (but if there is, I may have also missed it) and it just doesn't seem worth stressing about atm. Maybe someone else would know better, but personally, I pronounce it as "Magh-Neh" just cause my Filipino reading comprehension first thought of it that way and I stuck with it. Again, sorry I couldn't help more. TvT But even the owner of the name won't tell me anything useful. Damn you, Luci "birb" Magne!!! /jk -Bubbly💙

[secretmellowblog]

Hi! Do you have any idea of the etymology of Les Amis’ names/French words that sound like their names?

I’m not an expert on this and someone else probably knows more! But here’s all I know off the top of my head. I’ll go from “ones that have canonical book explanations” to “ones that are vague or more speculative”:

Grantaire: His name sounds like “Grand R” or “big R” in French. As a result, he doesn’t sign his name with a normal signature but with a giant letter R. This is also why it’s a popular fan headcanon for “R” to be Grantaire’s nickname.

Lesgle/Bossuet—this is a pun but I’m still not completely sure I get it. So his name is “Lesgle,” which sounds like “l’aigle” (the eagle) and he comes from Meux. Unrelated to him there’s also a famous bishop who was known as “L’aigle of Meux,” whose real name was Bossuet. So les amis made a pun and Lesgle got the nickname Bossuet as a joke about the bishop.

Jehan Prouvaire— Jehan is obsessed with Medieval literature, so he added an “H” to his name “Jean” to make it more medieval.

Feuilly— sounds like the French word for paper, a nod to his work as a fan maker

Bahorel— sounds like “Borel,” like the name of one of Hugo’s friends Petrus Borel

Courfeyrac— comes from a wealthy family, and there’s a whole thing where he should go by “de Courfeyrac” because he’s upper class— but he refuses and just goes by plain Courfeyrac. Idk much about the origin of the name but it seems to me like it’s supposed to mark him as Wealthy— I guess it’s similar to being named something like “Thaddeus Winston the Third?”

Enjolras— is apparently a very strange uncommon-before-les-mis name that would come from Southern France, and even French people disagree on how to pronounce it (?)

Joly - I know nothing about this name except that his friends like to add extra Ls to it as a joke, I think?

Combeferre— I know nothing. This name is a mystery just like the character himself

Bonus:

Marius Pontmercy: Marius’s name is based on Victor Hugo’s middle name, “Marie.” And “Pontmercy” is the French word for “bridge” and then the French word for “thank you.” (I’ve seen fics with an English Marius named “Marius Thankbridge.”) The Pontmercy name pun is important because it’s why Thenardier never learns who Georges is; when Georges is struggling to tell him “my name is Pontmercy” all Thenardier hears is “merci,” so he just thinks the man is just thanking him.

If anyone knows more, feel free to add on! : D

[nothing0fnothing]

Sometimes I feel like I'm smacking my head into a brick wall with these people. Like someone will ask me about narcissism and I'll explain that it's not a mental disorder and treating mentally ill people like they're abusers in training is disgusting and wrong, but really this is an abuse survivor and trauma support blog and it's really not the place to be getting in depth information about anything outside of that.

Then I'll get told that some people don't like the term narcissistic abuse so why am I using it as a tag on my posts? So I explain that I'm not calling it narcissistic abuse for no reason, that experts and specialists and survivors and former perpetrators and therapists and councellors and support workers all use this term pretty unanimously. That it is the name for what I experienced, I didn't make it up.

Then I get accused of making up an entirely defunct type of abuse to make myself feel special or to separate myself from other abuse survivors, and it hurts. So I explain that its a seperate method of abuse that is defined seperately for a reason. That it has its own name for a reason and that reason is it doesn't mean the same thing as physical abuse or mental abuse or gaslighting. That it wouldn't be written about and discussed in literature under this name if it was no different from any other type of abuse.

So then I generally get accused of perpetrating ableism and it's a horrible accusation so I run into the beginning of the discussion again but in a bit more detail than I'd generally prefer and I'm talking about diagnositic criterias and language etymology and psychiatrists who died a hundred fucking years ago.

Then I'll talk about survivors and victims, because they're who this blog is about, and how every source that discusses what they're going through is a lifeline of support. That information is a resource and inaccurately discussing this issue prevents those in need of those resources from finding them when they're needed. I do this because I feel like I have to justify my blogs existence and its 70 follower platform, and why I feel I should be allowed a space to discuss the thing that matters deeply to me on the app where 30,000 word Eddie Munson x the fucking alien from American Dad smut would get a space tomorrow, and we would all read it, don't even lie to me.

And then almost every time somebody with a self diagnosed personality disorder and a bunch of quirky posts about how silly and goofy they are to be a self identified narcissist will jump onto my post and tell me that actually I'm harming them personally by doing all this because for some reason they are the primary victim of the abuse I experienced when I was twelve. For some reason whenever I say "narcissistic abuser" they feel I'm describing them personally, that I'm in the NPD tags because I'm out to hurt specifically people with this disorder and they go on to finger wag at me and tut in my comments and ask me how dare I continue to have this discussion when the "community I'm hurting" has asked me nicely to stop?

Just.. fuck off.

My blog clearly isn't for you, it's for people who have actual problems. Not problems that only exist on the tumblr app. Not problems they intentionally insert themselves into so they can lay down and cry loudly claiming they're a victim. Real life problems they're trying to work through. So excuse me if I won't pander to your expectation of how I should discuss my own lived experiences. Excuse me if I won't validate your victim narrative when you're literally claiming you're being abused by hashtags used by traumatised people trying to exist in the supportive community they've built. Yanno, the supportive communities you frequently seek out just to tell us how angry or triggered or frightened you are by us existing publicly?

Maybe I'll just start telling people asking me this same. fucking. question; who won't even bother to scroll through my page to see if maybe the blog that fucking dominates the 'narcissism is not NPD' tag maybe has an answer to their question about NPD and abuse, by the way; who literally pretend to be here to educate themselves to bait me into replying so they know they have my full attention when they call me a fucking scumbag ableist abuser with maximum impact, that Google is free. Maybe it's your job to educate yourself, not the job of the blog whose whole shtick is 8 paragraph essays of pure trauma dumping 3 times a day, to go to Google for you then spend 40 minutes presenting the information in a way that's educational and supportive for my audience while also being pallettable and uncritical of you in hopes you don't do a full 180° into calling me a dumb cunt for being educated on an issue you don't like.

While it's my responsibility to not spread misinformation, that doesn't mean I'm obligated to consistently hand holding every curious anime pfp or ignorant SJW wannabe through the publicly available Internet like I'm Aladdin taking you on a magic carpet ride of my own trauma.

Fuck.

[toxinellebug]

HESPERIA/BETTERFLY kamikotized heroes Headcanons PART 2

Since there is no Stone Heart in this reverse universe, I’m sure someone is wondering what triggered The Supreme to give the two most powerful miraculous to a couple of emo Parisian teenagers. 

So let’s do this…. *cracks knuckles and instantly regrets it*

Maybe it’s the etymology nerd in me, but I feel the amount of word play and pun usage in the show is either under-appreciated or lost in translation, so you will have to endure my ramblings behind “Hero” names.

But don’t worry, I will still include the action bits… the situation that called for a Hero, powers, appearance, and any interactions with Shady and Claw since I know THAT’s what you’re here for~

Fire Captain Hessenpy becomes…. 

Neo-Libérateur!

(Since this character’s name was intentionally ironic/a joke, I felt it important to put extra thought into their name… btw, if you’re lost, Hessen is a very white german for a person who lives in a forest. So naming the Fire Captain Hessenpy is like, the American equivalent of Smokey the Bear.)

Now, in the normal or ‘prime’ universe, in France, fire-fighters are called “sapeurs-pompiers”.

       But in our ‘reverse’ universe where The Supreme rules all, after WW2 fire-fighters were re-branded as “Fire-suppressors”, or “suppresseurs- pompiers”.   Sounds much less aggressive, more formal, doesn’t use words like “fighting” which has connotations of violence.

WHY IS THIS DETAIL IMPORTANT??

      ….I’m getting to that, geesh!

You don’t need to be a linguistic expert to figure out that “Libérateur” is the opposite of “Suppresseur”, since they are close enough to English.  But I bet you are lost on the “Neo” bit, eh?   Here is some fun word-play for you;

      In French, “pompiers” is an informal way to refer to firemen. HOWEVER, in French “pompier” is also an academic term, a rather negative one, in regards to imitating the conservative painting style of neoclassical artists.

            Wow, are you bored? Why should you care?  BECAUSE I’M MAKING A PUN ON HIS PROFESSION AND HIS SUPERHERO APPEARANCE! 

This is actually the first Hero that Betterfly/Hesperia kamikotizes.

The Butterfly Brooch grants the wearer an almost telepathic type of Empathy, as we saw in S4, “Ephemeral”, even when not transformed, Gabriel was alerted to the presence of strong emotions nearby, like an emotional smoke-detector. 

     The wearer of the Brooch can be alerted to intense emotions without intentionally searching for them even when they are not transformed.

This is the case when Gabriel was simply working on fashion design sketches in his atelier (office) when he was suddenly bombarded with an intense wave of terror. Not just the fear of one person, but of many!

Pulling up a live news broadcast on his tablet he quickly identifies the source; a bus that has lost control has caused many drivers to swerve wildly out of the way to avoid collision. But even more concerning is that the bus full of passengers is heading towards the Seine.

Gabriel can hear the screams of each passenger echoing in his own mind, and his pulse races.

Nooru can sense his holder’s thoughts and warns him not to be reckless, but Gabriel can’t possibly do nothing and with his words of transformation, light wings rise and Gabriel Agreste becomes Betterfly.

Just as he transforms, the news footage on the tablet shows that the Bus has crashed into the stone railing of the Pont au Change bridge, and now the Bus is dangling precariously over the Seine… one wrong move and it will tumble over into the river!

He can feel the fear of onlookers, paralyzed into inaction, fully aware of how helpless they are…. 

     The passengers are on the brink of hysterics, perhaps they too are aware of how long it will take rescue crews to arrive at the scene, time they do not have.

            Among the sea of chaos and hopelessness, Gabriel can FEEL it- a spark of determination, a desire to do something, courage to take action but not knowing what action to take.

                     Perhaps the fluttering wings of a moth can fan this spark into a roaring flame.

Off duty Fire Captain Hessenpy’s eyes are locked on the Buss teetering on the edge, so he does not notice the glittering white butterfly that perches onto and melds with his helmet.

But he hears the voice; confident yet somehow soothing. The voice identifies as a friend who wishes to lend him the strength to save those in need. It asks if he will accept this gift for the greater good?

A woman screams as gravity leans the front half of the bus ever closer to a watery grave.

Hessenpy does not hesitate.

He can feel it- unknown strength rippling through his veins in a surge of heat. 

    He charges valiantly towards the Bus, deaf to the sounds of his uniform tearing at the seams from his suddenly engorged muscles.

Now shirtless, and the remains of what were once trousers just barely concealing his dignity, Neo-Libérateur grasps the sides of the bus like Hercules grabbing the horns of the Cretan Bull, his blue eyes glowing with ferocity, grunting with great effort that for a moment, onlookers could swear some of the brown color from his hair drained from the exertion, making his locks briefly appear blond.

         The sharp contours of his body posed in such a way that would put even Atlas himself to shame as Neo-Libérateur hefted the buss further away from the edge until both back wheels were once more touching the ground.

It is only then that sirens fill the air.

Rescue crews have finally arrived at the scene,  winches and tow cables are secured to the bus and it is hauled back away from damaged bridge.

       Neo-Libérateur collapses to the ground with exhaustion as soon as the bus doors are forcibly opened for rescue crew members to retrieve the trapped passengers.

The kamiko relinquishes it’s alliance with  Neo-Libérateur, and Captain Hessenpy is left feeling exposed, for more reasons than one, as he is surrounded by both admirers and people with questions.

Letting the wings of transformation fall, Gabriel Agreste releases his own sigh of relief.

       But Nooru can not relax. Using the power of the Miraculous so openly is sure to attract The Supreme’s attention! 

           Gabriel knows, but he had no choice…. He can sense the relief of a mother, a passenger on the bus, holding her infant to her chest in overwhelming gratitude. The baby, oblivious to the danger he had faced, feels only comfort and safety in his mother’s embrace.

                  This is why Gabriel had to act.

   There is STILL good in this world, there are still people who are moved to do what is right without the promise of reward or benefit to themselves. There is still hope of creating a better tomorrow for their children.

         Still hope for the kind of future Emelie wanted for Adrien.

Gabriel is not so naive as to believe this task will be easy, but he knows that if he does nothing, if he does not use these powers to at least make an attempt to help those in need, then he is no better than The Supreme.

The News Media is quick to focus the story on WHY the bus lost control, and what precautions will be made to prevent similar occurrences from repeating in the future, as well as discussion of re-modeling the antique  

Pont au Change to a more modern design with reinforced safety railings. Time of construction and cost of materials being of the utmost concern.

         Captain Hessenpy’s involvement is mentioned only briefly, and swept under the rug with the dull and plausible explanation of a rush of adrenaline allowing for such strength under extreme duress, not unlike that which allows mothers to overturn cars to free trapped children in a panicked state.

No one questions it… Save for an overly suspicious teenage girl.

Only The Supreme knows the truth. 

    Now he knows that whoever stole the peacock and butterfly miraculous is hiding in Paris.

Based on what has transpired, it seems the thief wishes to play the role of “Hero”.

      What better way to lure out a “Hero” than with a “Villain” or two?

The Butterfly’s powers can be tricky to combat against given the long range as well as the diversity of powers that can manifest.  

    The Ladybug has the best adaptability as well as damage control, while the Black Cat has the best chance of cutting off a Kamikotized Champion’s source of power, even the kamiko itself.   

     The two of them are too powerful to be handed to just anyone. The Supreme knows that even amongst those who have proven their worth and loyalty to be entrusted with the rare privilege of using a miraculous, the temptation for betrayal is great.

Rather, it would be better to find someone ignorant of the weight of such power. 

 Please see my first post, “Supreme Identity theory” for further elaboration.

(Hint, hint, you can also see The Supreme’s selection process in my post “Shadybug/Claw Noir Reverse Umbrella scene Headcanon.”  which takes places just little over a week of the Neo-Libérateur incident.)

Idk if I can link to previous posts or not. I’m tech dumb.

Feel free to google Neoclassic art styles if you are still lost on the pun.

Not so much funny as it is dramatic… but this is Gabriel Agreste. You can’t have fashion without drama.

PART 1

[softbutchthatlovesyou]

Bi Lesbians ( Plaintext available here )

Hello! I received and ask about the topic of Bi Lesbians, and I am finally in a moment where I am able to put resources, the voices of some Bi Lesbians, and my personal thoughts. I am NOT an expert, but I think it's important that we listen out other queer identities to build community.

First and foremost: This identity is not here to make assumptions about anyone else's identity. It's not here to force assumptions about people's gender. It's not a word you have to use if you don't feel comfortable using it. If you can't let go of the pride cop in your brain, you will never really relax.

First I want to share resources: I only have a few now due to a lost computer some time ago, but the voices I share will have many things of their own to share if people are asking in good faith.

Link One: The Doc is really filled out, I cried rereading some of those statements because queer comfort is beautiful.

Link Two: Who doesn't love and etymology page?

Some Blogs that Explain things well:

Link Three: This one is about About Lesbian Separatism

New add on of 2024: Bi Lesbian is older than you think (though even if it was new its still valid!!)

Link One

Link Two: Very in depth and organized

Link Three Talking about a book snippet from Public Sex: The Culture of Radical Sex And the Book On Archive.Org

Some Personal Follow ups on the subject:

This is NOT a Bi-Lesbian, but they do sum up some points pretty well when it comes to identity.

As a Butch Nonbinary Lesbian I *Am* M-spec. I have people assume a lot of things about my identity because they assume about my attraction to them or others.

Some hear that I'm Butch4Femme and swear up and down "I'm only perpetuating Gender stereotypes." Some hear I'm Butch at all and claim that I "Am practically being a man, why bother being a lesbian?". They hear I'm non-binary and assume that takes away from my attraction to women. They assume that my love of women as a lesbian, takes away from my Boyfriend who isn't binary either!

I wouldn't be who I am without my Butch identity! Though someone is out there preaching that if I accepted my "girlish side" (Whatever that means) I would be happier and more honest to others and blah fucking blah. So why would I assume someone else could be who they are when I am policing their identity?

It's easy to make assumptions about something you aren't, But what's important is learning and trusting our fellow people in the community.

Bisexuals and Lesbians and Gays have long and complicated histories with their identities, and that's okay. I love us. I love who we are. I love all the ways we can be together, all the ways we find companionship: love or not! I love how we want to have words so we can share it!

I think that's all I can really put here for now, and I hope it answers some questions and helps spread more of the word about this identity.

I hope also it teaches you all a lesson about the cop in your head being an enemy. They are keeping you from seeing happy people getting along and finding their joys. They are showing you a place where you find isolation and fear of anything that is not exactly like you. Let them go.

[omegasmileyface]

he thinks being old makes him a genius and when he was young he thought being young made him a genius. he thinks hes the only person on earth with critical thinking skills, and whenever he comes up with a new theory he hasnt heard before, he assumes the reason he hasnt heard it is because no one else was creatove enough to think of it. it couldnt POSSIBLY be that experts have thought of it and disproven it— hes the first person to think of it, and since it makes sense and has potential, that means it MUST be true. and if HE discovered a truth before the experts did, that means theyre unqualified to be experts, and he's the only person whose ideas matter. did you know it was me who started feeding the birds? because corvids are my favorite. so i researched for weeks, and started investing in unsalted peanuts so i could throw them out on a regular basis. and when i would go off to school, he would "feed the birds for me". mom and i both told him to stop, because he wasnt making my hobby easier, he was taking it from me. this was now something i didnt get to do, because feeding the birds more often is bad for them and makes them dependent. "no, theyre birds, they wont get dependent," he would say, with the tone of someone letting a toddler know that of course the sun will still rise even if you dont go to sleep. and he kept feeding the birds. and when he cant find the exact brand of peanuts id been buying, he just goes for whatever other peanuts he can find— he doesnt care if theyre unsalted. because he never did that research. and now he feeds them every day and he loves the crows and he hates the ravens and the magpies and the bluejays, all some of my favorite animals, because theyre "greedy". he acts like he can tell the individuals apart (he cant) and he gives them names and watches their drama and gives me updates on "my" birds like i didnt stop feeding them years ago. i HAD to stop because he didnt, because he didnt listen. he NEVER listens. and when he thinks the bread is too old? not when its moldy, when he decided it's "too old" like he knows, like he buys the groceries, like he notices when new groceries need to be bought, like when he shops he gets what we asked for and not something vaguely, vaguely related but the wrong kind and four times the price? he gives it to the birds. he gives pieces of factory-made wheat bread to crows like a child feeding ducks without reading the sign. and ive told him its bad for them, the same way salted peanuts are, the same way overdependence is, the same way mowing is bad for the local ecosystem, the same way keeping his phone plugged in is bad for its battery, the same way ignoring research is bad for science. but he doesnt care, because its not, because if bread was bad for the my his crows that would mean he was wrong. and hes always right! hes right when hes a husband leaving his dishes in the wrong place every single day, when hes an experienced cook leaving the pot handle poking directly out into the room, when hes a weatherman saying climate change isnt real, when hes a proudly observant man breaking the smoke detector when he installs it, when hes an experienced trucker going 20 mph over the speed limit, when hes a compassionate and wise man saying russians are genetically predisposed to lying, when hes a genius saying the etymology of "meme" is "e-memo", and when hes a father telling his child whose real gender he doesnt even know that fear is a choice. daddy knows best.

[literallybyronic]

hi! your post abt polari in the sandman popped up on my dash, and while i haven't watched the sandman at all, i do have an interest in polari. do you have any resources you'd recommend for someone wanting to learn about the history? books, documentaries, whatever. a lot of the stuff i've found is the same surface-level information, but i'd love to dive a bit deeper, especially its usage diachronically. thought i'd ask since u seem knowledgeable. thanks!

Hope you don't mind, but I've put some Sandman-specific commentary at the bottom as I've had several people in the tags of that post asking stuff as well so it's easier to just make one response to the whole thing and link to it. I'm also not by any means an expert, I learned of Polari initially from 70s-80s UK tv comedies and then learned a bit about it studying linguistics in general. Unfortunately there's not as much material out there as one would hope, being that while in use it was mainly a sort of under-the-table thing used so someone who heard a snippet of your conversation couldn't immediately clock you or what you were saying, and when being gay became legal/less stigmatized it fell out of fashion because it wasn't necessary. But if you want truly thorough academic sources, particularly that analyze its roots, Paul Baker is the man you want. Polari: The Lost Language of Gay Men and Fabulosa! The Story of Polari, Britain's Secret Gay Language are about the history of it, and Fantabulosa: A Dictionary of Polari and Gay Slang has a lexicon of Polari and other LGBT-specific terminology (mostly 20th cent. IIRC) Now, if you want to get hold of these works you'd likely have to find them in a library or purchase them. If you know of a site that offers discount or free uni textbooks, you may find it there as well- I know I have seen these sorts of sites floating around tumblr but I don't remember them off the top of my head. If you want something completely free and easy to grab, I found this paper (UofM dissertation) which seems like it has a decent, fairly detailed overview of the language as well as details of some of the initial linguistic sources of various bits & pieces of it- it has many different bits from different sources like thieves' cant, carnivallers' cant, yiddish, romani, italian, latin, sailing slang, cockney rhyming slang, it's a bit of a mixed bag. If you want to hear full Polari in conversation, Putting On The Dish is a short film almost entirely in Polari. Note that full Polari is near-unintelligible unless you know it- this video is a presentation on Polari that breaks down Putting On The Dish line by line into modern layspeak so you can get an idea of what's actually being said in the film.

Now, while full Polari went very quickly out of fashion after the decriminalization of male homosexuality in England in the 60s because it was no longer necessary to avoid arrest, certain specific terms and bits of slang were carried through into mainstream gay and drag culture in the latter half of the 20th century and the populace at large were made aware of them via pop culture- duck/ducky among them. Which is why throwing it haphazardly into Hob's speech is an issue if you don't know the etymology- if you're not a granny talking about her grandchildren in an old fashioned way, but a young (appearing) man talking to another man in casual conversation, it's extremely camp. It would be something like having him go around calling people "hunty" today, minus the AAVE connotations. Could he get away with it today, in the 2020s? Sure, although it might come off a bit strange for a younger guy to be throwing out nigh Dame Edna levels of old-fashioned queenieness. But during the 80s, during the renewed backlash against homosexuality that occurred during Margaret Thatcher's term and the passing of Section 28 and the AIDS crisis? Not so long after decriminalization, but long enough that the entirety of Polari slang wasn't a secret anymore, long enough that everyone knew what it meant when you used that sort of language, even if they couldn't parse just what you were saying? The decade in which you can find "ducky" used as a homophobic slur on BBC One in one of the most popular britcoms ever made? Not so much. Sure, it wasn't arrest worthy anymore. If you were out in pop culture/performing arts circles, or even among college students, likely no one would bat an eye. But if you wanted to keep your respectable establishment job teaching children of conservative parents and not have whatever the 80s UK equivalent of One Million Moms was breathing down your neck trying to get you fired "for the children", it wasn't something you would do unless you were very sure you were safe being out in that particular company and that it wasn't going to get back to your employers. So, while I'm not saying DON'T use it, I'm saying, be aware of its context in the 20th century in general, and in that time period (1970s-1990s) specifically, its potential to be used as a stereotype and/or slur, and when and how it would be no big deal to use it and when it would be potentially dangerous.

[uten4]

sorawo! i wanna hear lines you like from her esp bc you're reading a whole light novel abt her, wow >u< !!

- Overall opinion: She has such problems and is so hopelessly gay and I love it!!!!!! So much!!!!!!!!!

- Gender/sexuality headcanon: Lesbian :D

- Favorite moment in canon: Toriko and Sorawo hunt for this Creachure they've seen which they call the kunekune, because Sorawo mentioned that it strongly resembles an urban legend of the same name. Thereafter Toriko assumes Sorawo is an expert on the kunekune and expects that she will know ways to find it and fight it. Sorawo highly resents this assumption, and even launches into a very long monologue about how she didn't study the kunekune in the interest of hunting it; she only did it for a school project (she's an anthropology major).

She talks at length about the places where the kunekune was said to reside, what this could say about the people who came up with it, the etymology of that word and how it connects to other Japanese mythology, and more. Then she realizes how long she's been talking and shuts herself up, thinking that Toriko probably thinks she's a nerd now.

I love this moment so much because it's such a self-own. Toriko thinks Sorawo is a nerd towards the kunekune and other urban legends, and while trying to fight that allegation, Sorawo just totally confirmed it. AND FURTHERMORE, I LOOOOOOOOOOVE THAT THE INFORMATION SORAWO TALKS ABOUT IN THIS SPEECH IS ALL SO ANTHROPOLOGY-FOCUSED FOR REAL. The writer put thought into what kinds of sub-topics Sorawo would be researching for her urban legend project :') It's reolly good....

- Favorite moment in fanwork: I love this fanart of her so much. This one is also SO cool.

- Favorite line: So after Toriko explains to Kozakura that Sorawo is her friend, we get this response from Kozakura... and then Toriko replies... and then Sorawo narrates her thought lol.

「いくらで買ったの？」 「買ってないよ。無料！」 唇を尖らせて言い返す鳥子。誰が無料だ。

"How much did you pay for her?" "I didn't buy her. She was free of charge!" Toriko grumbled in response. Who's free of charge now?

Oh my god she really is like Chaos UNIB huh...

I also like every scene where something insane is happening, like a gunfight or something, and Sorawo is just sitting there thinking about how pretty Toriko is. Girl...

– Characters I love seeing them interact with: Toriko! And... Akari, I think her name was? ^_^

– Sleeping headcanons: I got nothing tbh...

– Favorite locations headcanon: There's probably a really good answer for this from someone who remembers more of the story than I do LOL. Maybe somewhere nice and calm, where she has an actually peaceful memory of spending time with Toriko?

[inforelationship]

How to know if someone is gaslighting you in a relationship?

Gas lighting is a word that was etymologically coined by the British stage play Gas Light, which was produced as a mystery thriller movie. In the movie, the husband Gregory manipulates Paula and makes her feel insane. 

Manipulatively, Gregory makes her wife believe she stole something without realizing the actions and mystery that happens every night when her husband's departure is marked by the "gaslights", and her husband convinces her that the gaslights are in her head. This creates self-imposed doubts in the woman about his reality. 

Gas lighting is an emotional abuse where someone tries to control you by convincing you to doubt your experience of reality or even your sanity. False information is supplied with the goal of confusing a victim in the form of psychological abuse.

Usually, it can be conceptualized as husband or wife, but sometimes it could revolve around romantic partners or friends.

It doesn't seem necessary to be one person. It could be one person or more than one person.

The most common types of gaslighting are mainly intimate and tribal gaslighting. Tribal gaslighting is when the person's reality is denied by a family member or a co-worker, while intimate gaslighting is when the manipulation is done by the intimate partners. 

According to studies, narcissistic personality disorder sufferers, abusive people, cult leaders, criminals, and dictators frequently use gaslighting.

Of recent, the term gaslighting has been taking centre stage both in Hollywood and in political statements of highly profiled global leaders, triggering wide attention and research on the new topic.

In 2020, the former First Lady of America, Michelle Obama, accused Donald Trump of "gaslighting" the American people. In her own address, Michelle Obama said, "He continues to gaslight the American people by acting like this pandemic is not a real threat." 

Gaslighting is quite a sign of narcissists, and gaslighters are often engaging in and out to protect their fragile egos to keep the world in their own reality, with little regard for how much it hurts another person.

One of the fricking natures about gaslighting is that gaslighters do not actually realize their actions are detrimental to the receiving end. 

According to Narcissism expert Ramani Durvasula gaslighting can come into a form of deflection where a person feels less guilty about their mistake and shifts the blame to other persons.

She says gaslighters are sometimes inspired by the inert negative energy, and most often, they don't realize what they are doing.

"Narcissists are singularly motivated to protect themselves and their reality or their version of reality. And so when they gaslight not like…. I gonna manipulate this person. It's like an evil genius kind of thing. It's a fact they have no empathy, so they don't stop to think about what this kind of conduct would do to another person. They are entitled so that they feel they have the right to do it, and they are fragile."

Ways to diffuse a gas lighter

Defiance and firmness

The main target of a gas lighter is to make the victim doubt their reality as they avoid accountability, so to slowly create an environment where you are going to depend on them. This can only be combated by standing firm and believing in your feelings, and staying true to your personal conviction. That is to say what "you heard about", "what you saw", and "what you feel".

Recognizing that the manipulator will never accept the wrongdoing and respond to the activities despite the energy invested by the victim to get his or her voice heard. With this recognition, you are no longer disempowered by chaos, confusion and scepticism. 

Developing healthy detachment 

It's critical to strike a balance when detaching from gaslighting, but it's also necessary to understand that doing so doesn't need complete detachment.

It means distinguishing the world of a gaslighter and the real world. In this way, you can let people have different facts, but you need to stick to reality. 

[kindtobechurlish]

You see the Dutch, you see Anglo-Saxons, just to see the bearers of light. If you have a torch, and my kind doesn’t, do you think I am going to deny your torch as my kind is in the dark? No. While, at that same time, I am not going to say, “wyte lives matter.” I know what the predominant factor is, as that which is predominate is just that, and in predominance I know an ist, an expert, to then be able to personify the message. Should I be Dutch or Anglo-Saxon? I would chose neither to know the word quaint, and personify science and my mind (eunoia). In the science, you can see Greek culture and my polemic rhetoric. There would be two paths, everyone chooses to be wyte supremacist as I chose antiquity. I know about business and banking, the bank is the bench, so I am doing something about the farce that is BLM and these wytes full of guile and reproach, these people who don’t personify Robert E. Lee. Why can you use MLK to make your culture, but when I want to use Robert E. Lee you are a bitch? Why? I would chose antiquity, and in polemic rhetoric, doctrine, you can see hate and abominations. Someone would deprecate someone, and if it’s validated the individual is disparaged. I would see all the people in Europe, to understand Dutch and Angelo-Saxon.. and many chose Hitler because the Anglo-Saxons are always backing the Kike.. as the Dutch can’t war like the Anglo-Saxons. Now, you all stand together, sods are, and you are against me. I’m against you. Fuck you, Katie, and women like her. Go get with Whitey. Now you understand that fish tank and the suit and tie. Where do you work? Who is preaching equality? Jake Tapper wants his equal, least she’s silenced and he makes it about his son. Did you know disparage is regard or represent as being of little worth? By etymology, disparage is marry someone of unequal rank. You are afraid to tell your dad about me? Go get with whitey, you racialist witch. Walk the streets, go to bars, go shopping, get girls to go drink with, get a boyfriend. Forget me. You aren’t for me, my kind, or my advancement. You are standing with kikes, and you want that torch to feed your camp fire - all for one night and s’mores. Fuck you and your stances. Go figure

[iguanalysis]

Anecdotal reflections on an old idea for a project: polyamory vs. monoamory

A while back, I think around 2016 and 2017, I began wondering about the cultural implications of the phenomenon of polyamory, and what it meant exactly for the LGBT+ community that I was a part of. I read somewhere, and took it for granted, that to know all about Love was to know the work of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. This was the same man who told me, earlier in my life living in Santa Cruz, California in his seventeenth seminar, that the foundation of community is segregation. A lot of reflecting on that notion was critical for me in 2016 for fixing a lot of problems that cropped up for me from PTSD with self-harm, suicidality, and delusional behavior. It also turned me away from Marxism and anarcho-communism a great deal as well, which was ironic, given that I had previously wanted to tell people about the immiseration of the working class (Karl Marx’s immiseration thesis) like it was gospel. That started from things I learned about from other Tumblr users, back when I was 19 years old.

I had gone through a break-up with someone in California who was polyamorous, and who couldn’t deal with the mental health problems and changes in personality that were being caused for me by my drug abuse. I had to return to Louisiana to live with my parents again, which was the most predictable outcome of such a naive idea as to move in with friends I’d met on the internet. I knew that before I chose to do that, obviously, but I figured it might work out anyway. The only thing that really messed it up was the drug abuse.

In any case, I noticed an etymological discrepancy contained within the word “polyamory”, since I could remember from my grade school education that “poly-” is a root derived from Greek (many), and “amor” is a root derived from Latin (love). I also found out that scholarly opposition to such discrepancies in linguistics is called “Latinism”. Oughtn’t the word “polyamory” be changed to “multiamory”or “polyphilia”? “Polyerosia”, perhaps?

I decided it didn’t matter much, and that polyamory is just a more phonetically pleasant and more easily understandable construction of a neologism. I wondered a lot more, however, about the word “monogamy”, and why monogamy is the antonym of polyamory. That is where I discovered a fundamental bias within the construction of the neologism, since “-gamy” is a root derived from Greek meaning “marriage”. Isn’t is possible to only love or date one person at a time, and still never get married, or to not support the sociological ideal of marriage?

The word for such an option, or “lovestyle”, as I encountered in an essay somewhere, ought to be monoamory, I decided. But where to find out about the true meaning of love? How could I maybe prove to both myself and others if necessary that “monoamory” deserved to be a word, and that polyamory might even be a lifestyle choice that encourages socially irresponsible behavior?

I decided to become an expert at Lacanian psychoanalysis, even though it wasn’t as if I didn’t already have reasons for doing so. I had known of Lacan since I began reading and doing online research about Sigmund Freud in 8th and 9th grade. The concept of the unconscious was even why I ultimately abandoned libertarianism, an ideology that was a fad back then among my high school peers. It resonated with both of the two parts of myself I could never decide on as a teenager: artist, or philosopher?

I still don’t understand everything about love itself, I feel like. My findings are relatively inconclusive thus far. One person who I was most truly in love with has been taken away from me, through political manipulations, homophobic violence, cybercrime, and coercion. I still wonder how they feel about me all the time, since I never got to have closure with them or show my best self to them at all. That’s a huge impediment to finding the answer to a lot of my questions, I feel like.

I have better, more rigorous things to say about the topic nonetheless, but I’m not adequately prepared to remember all of my past thoughts about the issues with so-called polyamory, since my agenda for tackling the problem, whatever problems there may be, is still uncertain.

— (8/15/2022)

[blankerthought]

anyway, immortal au: everyone became immortal a different way, and after a while everyone knows each other. sort of like being the weirdos somewhere. it doesn’t matter if you don’t vibe that much, but you gotta get along because everyone knows everyone. i accidentally made it too long, so it’s below the cut. in my defense, it’s fun.

    phil did die, met death and then she was like “actually. actually.” so anyway he came back to life + a wife

wilbur has phases. like a plant in winter, but it’s death to life to undeath. sometimes he’s a ghost, sometimes he’s not.

tommy keeps getting reborn and he remembers as a 7 year old just so he can reexperience puberty over and over (he is incredibly bitter over this)

techno just. doesn’t die. (if he did he’d figure out he’s a god. but he doesn’t and he won’t, unless someone else interferes. also nobody who could figure it out plans on telling him. some think it’s compassion, some think it’s cruel. most just think it’s funny. living long enough can really fuck with your sense of humor.)

tubbo has a “super healing” type of immortality; the drawback is that for every wound healed there are new nerves, thus literally nothing ever gets less painful. everything is pain. however he’s decided that actually showing it is lame and can’t afford to be lamer than tommy, who is occasionally a literal child, thus he doesn’t tend to show it as much in public.

ranboo’s parent(s?) had a fun, wild night back in the day. nobody’s quite sure what the fuck he is, but he’s not budging. his parents still get gift baskets occasionally, though they refuse to disclose any information, and the note is just a lipstick kiss.

sapnap and bad are both demons, however they’re entirely different types, and bringing up the fact that they’re, theoretically, the same thing, sort of, will only devolve into a week-long argument. the etymology of demons is a wildly contradictory and controversial field, which of course means that there is an ever-increasing amount of “experts” on the subject, most of whom disagree and would stab one another given the opportunity. george did a seven-year course on it once but dropped out just before graduation, just for the sheer pettiness of it.

speaking of george, his immortality is of a muddled origin; he says he sold his soul to a god, but also that he can control dreams and life is a dream, so of course he’s immortal, but also that mushrooms are ageless and eternal and cannot be killed in a way that matters. so anyway nobody really wants to go too deep into that.

dream says he’s god, and there’s a god with his name and face going around, but that god claims he’s not dream but he copied dream’s face and name, but that also means that dream was there before the god was, but also nobody can quite agree when the first time anyone saw him was, but also there’s a very high possibility that there’s more than one of him just running around, but also george, sapnap, bad, callahan, punz, and ant all say they’ve known him the longest and all their stories contradict.

skeppy tied himself to bad. the diamond part came before. he acts like it’s normal, and in fact it’s everyone else who’s weird.

callahan claims he just woke up like that one day

punz says he took a contract and he’s not dying until it’s done (nobody knows if this means when he’s done with his task or if he means he’s not dying until he gets paid. knowing him, there’s a high chance it’s the second.)

ant just says that gods saw him being gay with his boyfriend and were so moved they made them immortal. the worst part is that it’s probably true, but it also means that he was just. a cat being really gay and then suddenly he was humanoid. 

sam kept making android bodies and moving to them and now he’s too far in to stop.

ponk’s trees give him life, like a dryad, but also in that same “ah yes if you get too close to their tree you Will Get Consumed” way. look if she wants to do that stuff i won’t stop them. girlboss and all that yknow

foolish and eret- literally canon. they have beautiful lore and i love it and i am not changing it it’s literally already there and perfect lmao.

tina hasn’t explained anything. she just says cats can have as many lives as they want. ant backs her.

fundy calls his parentage “something so unholy death hadn’t seen coming” and claims that he’s still alive because there’s nowhere for him to go

hannah’s a fairy... of the “may i have your name?” type.

jack was a mortal who died and crawled out of hell. this continued for several decades before they just installed some stairs for the guy bc at this point you know might as well, he seems nice enough and he’s funny so they’re just giving him that. also yes he doesn’t go through kristen or anything, he just goes Straight to Hell. they’re thinking there’s been an administration error somewhere but it’s too much trouble to go change it now

niki killed a god. 

puffy says “some treasure probably was never meant to be found. mine was though and it fucking rules.” then she did a triple backflip. everyone got distracted by that point also there was a lot of alcohol so it’s not like 100% clear

eryn just. Emerges, like a cukoo. usually near tommy’s newest reincarnation. 

karl’s time froze around him

michael mcchill has an increasing amount of theories on how his immortality came to be as well- but he has a nagging suspicion that he poked his head in and found something that wasn’t meant to be found, something someone didn’t want him finding.

hbomb, in between podcast guests and games, managed to get some special patronage.

quackity made a high-stakes gamble once upon a time- and rigged it in his favour.

purpled’s an alien who doesn’t quite get what all this “mortal” stuff really means at first. what do you mean, you just grow old? you don’t stop it? just don’t. it’s that simple.

connor made a deal, a long time ago. relatedly, schlatt has a... talent, shall we say, for deals.

boomer’s also a fae, but once upon a time, that wasn’t so true. also his type and hannah’s are opposite. 

slimecicle has been there a long, long time. 

[deathlessathanasia]

My brain when someone says that Zeus loves Hera: 🙄 You call that love? I guess we must be operating with seriously different definitions of the term... *proceeds to remember all the unpleasant interactions between them, getting angry in the process* Love, huh? Also fuck you and all your headcanons.

My brain when someone says that Zeus never loved Hera, especially when their relationship is disparaged in order to elevate another relationship: 🙄 Oh, look where the expert was hiding! I guess we are going to ignore the Greek sources in which it is explicitly stated that he did, in fact, love her? I mean, what did the ancient Greeks know right? We obviously have a much better understanding of their gods than they did. Clearly, the idea of Zeus loving Hera is so absurd, so ridiculous, such a preposterous concept, that Plato could even base a possible etymology of her name on it: "and Hera is a lovely one (ἐρατή), as indeed, Zeus is said to have married her for love." - Cratylus 404c. I suppose we are also meant to imagine that when married couples such as Polytechnos and Aedon (about whom it was said that "their life together was a delight") and Alkyone and Keyx (who clearly loved each other in Ovid's elaboration of the story) choose to impiously compare themselves to Zeus and Hera of all possible divine couples, they do it precisely because they believe Zeus and Hera's marriage to be awful and terrible and loveless, huh? Also fuck you and all your headcanons.

[isoraqathedh]

Using notation to understand the world

This post was originally an article in my Gemini capsule. You can read it in its gemtext form here. Note that since Tumblr does not like Gemini links this actually goes to the HTTPS mirror.

Notation is the idea that an arbitrary object can be represented by some other abstract object. A specific type of notation, which is the one most people would understand in the conventional sense of the word “notation”, is when the object doing the representing is written. Commonly seen examples of notation include those that represent maths, music, electrical circuits and even lists of key-presses. In this article I discuss how notation has shaped my understanding of things, and also propose a notation-oriented way of understanding something.

How to understand something

There was an xkcd comic that goes something like this:

My hobby:

Sitting down with grad students and timing how long it takes them to figure out that I'm not actually an expert in their field.

In the end, the protagonist of the comic managed to find a field of study where he successfully made inroads into a community by producing words in the right order to pass for genuine knowledge.

This made me think about how someone would go about successfully fake knowledge of something. Eventually, I came up with this two-step process:

Understand the language, and how to recognise something as a correct statement.

Understand how to combine statements together to form a correct third statement.

I brought this up with someone, and he noted that by the time you have done both of these things, you aren’t faking knowledge of something, you now understand it.

In my opinion that isn’t strictly true, but it does come a lot closer than other processes. A studied reader might recognise this as reminiscent of a Chinese room, where someone can fake knowledge by reading in written text (i.e. a question) and responding according to a translation book.

While it may look like a Chinese room at first, a critical difference is that in a Chinese room, the translation book is something external to the operator, whereas the situation I came up with requires you to memorise it. While a rote memorisation would result in something almost entirely identical, a common occurrence with human minds is that it like to take shortcuts, and it is there where the situation becomes markedly different, as the shortcuts are now a form of understanding where you can now produce correct statements without memorising any translation book.

Additionally, a second form of understanding is to be able to generalise from the words you are given. A translation book can give you some rules, but when a human reads it the experience is that he will try to generalise from the existing rules and make up new ones in the vein of the ones he was given. This is expressed in a number of ways – notably some of them are quite distasteful – but the key here is that there is a point where a human would try to expand the rules that he was given and apply it to something unrelated just to see if it works. (Though, in some cases, “just to see if it works” is replaced with “and assume it works”, leading to all kinds of consequences that are beyond the scope of this article.)

Let’s now move away from dry theoretical explanations and show how this applied to me by way of example.

Making your own – the C. C. F. D. N.

The problem statement

When I was 17 I was very bad at Chinese. I am still fairly bad at Chinese, which we’ll get to later.

The main problem with writing Chinese is that sinograms – what the language is written in – are taught badly to me. I could not really understand any of the logic behind writing these unusual things, and what real information was given to me was not well-organised. What that means effectively is that I was stuck writing in a language where I have to reason about strokes from first principles, and just like trying to write a program in assembly language, it means that I missed out in understanding other parts of the language, particularly the things that are in the curriculum, which means that I failed many tests.

Then one day a friend of mine started learning Japanese, and then he had to deal with sinograms as well. But since I’m familiar with them already, I decided to help a little bit. This amounted to looking up the character in Wiktionary and then reporting on its pronunciation and its graphic etymology, both of which are helpful in understanding why a character is written and pronounced (some of the time) the way it is. However, looking up many of these characters realise that a lot of the information is repetitive and redundant. So I then built a little notation to condense it down into something that cuts away all of that.

The notation itself

The result is the Chinese Character Form Description Notation. The exact form of the notation is not needed to make my point, but we’ll discuss it as an aside here anyway. The notation describes the graphic etymology of the character by breaking it apart into its components. For instance, the character “to think” 思 is derived by combining a meaning-carrying component of “heart” 心 with a sound-carrying component of 囟, which was later simplified into the unrelated character 田. Putting that together, the notation would write the above sentence as:

思 = <心|囟→田>

Which summarises all of what I just wrote in an appealing string of symbols. Additionally, this separates it from an existing notation in Unicode called the ideographic description sequence, which instead describes how a character can be broken down in its current form.

Consider now another character, “small, narrow, fine”, which is 細. If I now provide its C. C. F. D. N., you would easily be able to figure out what its graphic etymology is, even without me spelling it out, if I mentioned that the meaning-carrying component 糸 means “fibre, rope, string”:

細 = <糸|囟→田>

But look now that 細 and 思 don’t look too alike, as their corresponding IDS would make explicit. I had not expected that the two are related quite like this – their pronunciations are also quite a bit different – and now that I have made that connection I realised that I had something in my hands that is valuable.

Ultimately, the notation I have invented for myself made everything click together in my head, and it cleared up almost everything that had been blocking me from being able to move away from focusing on what I write and instead focusing on what the writing means on a more abstract level. It wasn’t enough to eventually make me pass my exams, but I feared the language a lot less than I had before I built the notation.

(In a sense, while it was helpful it would never have come on time; reflecting on what I did in my secondary school years it was fairly clear to me that this was a thing that would have troubled me for as long as it did no matter how I did it, and I would have rejected this notation if it was handed onto me the same way that all those other explanations have.)

How the notation changed the way I think

The key to the notation’s success is, in my opinion, the following:

First, it is general. It can break apart a large number of characters and describe their etymologies in a succinct manner. There are very few sinograms where it cannot handle it at all, and in those cases it is typically because the character has an unknown graphic etymology and therefore can’t be described, though undoubtedly there is going to be a couple that would slip behind the cracks. I can’t take full credit for this one, as it is based on an existing method of classifying sinograms.

I will however say that the way I designed (?) this notation allows me to grasp the recursive nature of this classification and furthermore allow me to gain a foothold in scripts that use things that resemble sinograms but are not, such as Sawndip.

Second, it is manipulable. What you can change and in what ways are easily read out by looking at the notation. Whether or not it describes an actual character is another question, but you can basically always produce a valid formula for generating a character and hint at its meaning and pronunciation using the notation. This will prove invaluable if I were to build a script that has similar properties to Chinese characters, this is exactly how I would start approaching it.

Third, it is not clever. The key to a proper notation is that it represents the thing that it does straightforwardly, in such a way that allows one to verify that it is in fact representing what it claims to. This allows me to hook onto it and adapt myself into seeing the notation at the same time I am presented with the character.

Finally, it is flexible. Notice that in the above examples the sinograms are described in terms of other sinograms. There’s no particular reason why those sinograms are chosen. In fact, you can replace those characters with their descriptions, allowing a full drill-down of the character and describing how every little bit came to be in a simple manner. This property allows you to hide away details when such detail is not needed but still permit an exhaustive description if it is.

Reading an existing notation

In real life sometimes an existing notation is already available, and if it is it would probably be better than any notation that you would be able to make when studying it, as it is referencing the entire body of knowledge that it is built on rather than just what a student might learn as he builds it for himself. With that in mind, if one were to understand something by its notation it is prudent to understand an existing notation first before trying to make one’s own.

To this end, I would say that it is helpful to learn something by referencing its notation. Specifically, the question to ask is “how do you write this down, and why do you choose to write it this way?” This question can be asked in multiple contexts and expect multiple answers. What “this” in the question is differs depending on the exact thing you are studying, and the “why” could be surface-level “why this symbol over another” or a deeper “why arrange the symbols in this way”.

Once you learn the notation, the next step is, as hinted at earlier in this article, to learn how to combine two true statements written in that notation into a third one also written in that notation. In a sense, this task is much harder than the other two; if we apply it to, say, English, the first is “reading and spelling” and the second is the entirety of English grammar and literature. The key to this is not to complete the task, but instead to basically learn the subject “the normal way” but using the notation as a centrepiece to unify everything you learnt into it, so that you have a way to relate everything to everything else.

Consider how this can be applied to chords and music theory: you learn what notes correspond to which chords and how to write down changes to those chords, and then you can combine the chords together as simple letters on a page to form music. This is an iterative process: you learn what chords go together nicely based on existing theory, mirror it in the notation, and then generalise it in the notation before turning it back into notes and seeing if it appeals. Doing this correctly, you will both increase your understanding of music theory and also have a nice way of generating music.

Another example where the idea of learning by notation has been successfully applied (but not by me) is site-swap notation in juggling, where someone wrote down sequences of digits to describe how balls are thrown in. The inventor eventually discovered a new way of juggling (called “5551” in the notation) just by looking at the notation.

Shortcomings

It is only fair to discuss situations where notation-oriented learning is not the approach to take when learning something.

Sometimes there is no existing notation, whether because the experts have decided that writing bits of ink on a page is not sufficient for the field, or no one has thought of it, or even that all the existing ones have failed to gained currency because it doesn’t perform or there are too many competing ones. In most of these cases you can get around it by attempting to make your own. You can make this work if you know yourself well, and perhaps even present it to the community as as a way to understand the field itself.

Some people don’t take kindly to writing things down, especially in the more artistic field of study where notation might be perceived as constraining to a creative mind, and even knowledge of the existence of some notation is considered harmful because you’re always supposed to learn things “the hard way”, i.e. without any aid whatsoever, much less written ones. Whether one chooses to heed those warnings or proceed anyway is up to individual preference, but in a notation-averse community – for any reason – perhaps it would not be the best idea to show that community your new home-grown notation.

Summary

One of the ways that I have learnt something is to create a notation system for it. This involves figuring out how to write existing facts in that notation, and then how to create new things by altering the notation and seeing what the results in back in the original object that the notation depicts. I found this to be a greatly useful way to understand topics in general and a central point from which to handle unknown fields of knowledge from, while also acknowledging that there are some fields and probably some would-be learners that may not be suited to this way of learning.

[softbutchthatlovesyou]

Bi Lesbian Plaintext Version

Hello! I received and ask about the topic of Bi Lesbians, and I am finally in a moment where I am able to put resources, the voices of some Bi Lesbians, and my personal thoughts. I am NOT an expert, but I think it's important that we listen out other queer identities to build community.

First and foremost: This identity is not here to make assumptions about anyone else's identity. It's not here to force assumptions about people's gender. It's not a word you have to use if you don't feel comfortable using it. If you can't let go of the pride cop in your brain, you will never really relax.

First I want to share resources: I only have a few now due to a lost computer some time ago, but the voices I share will have many things of their own to share if people are asking in good faith.

Link One: The Doc is really filled out, I cried rereading some of those statements because queer comfort is beautiful.

Link Two: Who doesn't love and etymology page?

Link Three: This one is about About Lesbian Separatism

New add on of 2024: BiLesbian is older than you think (Though even if it was new it's still valid)

Some Blogs that Explain things well:

Link One

Link Two: Very in depth and organized

Link Three Talking about a book snippet from Public Sex: The Culture of Radical Sex And the Book On Archive.Org

Some Personal Follow ups on the subject:

This is NOT a Bi-Lesbian, but they do sum up some points pretty well when it comes to identity.

As a Butch Nonbinary Lesbian I *Am* M-spec. I have people assume a lot of things about my identity because they assume about my attraction to them or others.

Some hear that I'm Butch4Femme and swear up and down "I'm only perpetuating Gender stereotypes." Some hear I'm Butch at all and claim that I "Am practically being a man, why bother being a lesbian?". They hear I'm non-binary and assume that takes away from my attraction to women. They assume that my love of women as a lesbian, takes away from my Boyfriend who isn't binary either!

I wouldn't be who I am without my Butch identity! Though someone is out there preaching that if I accepted my "girlish side" (Whatever that means) I would be happier and more honest to others and blah fucking blah. So why would I assume someone else could be who they are when I am policing their identity?

It's easy to make assumptions about something you aren't, But what's important is learning and trusting our fellow people in the community.

Bisexuals and Lesbians and Gays have long and complicated histories with their identities, and that's okay. I love us. I love who we are. I love all the ways we can be together, all the ways we find companionship: love or not! I love how we want to have words so we can share it!

I think that's all I can really put here for now, and I hope it answers some questions and helps spread more of the word about this identity.

I hope also it teaches you all a lesson about the cop in your head being an enemy. They are keeping you from seeing happy people getting along and finding their joys. They are showing you a place where you find isolation and fear of anything that is not exactly like you. Let them go.

[superlinguo]

Linguistics Jobs: Interview with an Exhibition Content Manager

I was first introduced to Emily Gref, this month’s linguist, in a Linguistics Job Interview she did for All Things Linguistic back in 2015 when she worked as a literary agent. Emily did her MA at SOAS while I was working there, and has gone on to use her skills to support minority language publishing, help us set up transcripts for Lingthusiasm, and, in her current role, participate in the development of Planet Word as their Exhibition Content Manager.  

Planet Word is a language museum, opening in Washington D.C. on May 31, 2020.

What did you study at university?

I received my BA from McGill University with a major in Linguistics and a minor in Anthropology. My focus was pretty theoretical at the time — my honours thesis was on morpho-syntax in Austronesian languages — but one of my favorite courses was field linguistics. I definitely wanted to go to SOAS, University of London, or the University of Hawai'i and learn how to document languages after that course. I ultimately decided I didn't want to stay in academia, though, so after graduating I took a detour and spent several years in book publishing. But I missed linguistics too much! So in 2015 I went for my MA in Language Documentation and Description at SOAS. There my focus was primarily on language revitalization (though I also dipped a toe into some other schools of syntax, because I love it), and my dissertation was about what kinds of books are being published in Indigenous languages of North America and how and why. It was a way to combine my love of linguistics and books with my expertise in publishing. (I've also helped to publish some books in minority languages.)

What is your job?

My official title is Exhibition Content Manager at Planet Word, a new museum about words and language in Washington, D.C. Pretty much anything and everything to do with the exhibits and all the content within them falls under my list of responsibilities! That means 10 main exhibits, and 17 auxiliary exhibits, all about everything from child language acquisition to the history of the English language to language diversity around the world to literature to songwriting and everything in between. Practically, what that means is I do a lot of liaising with our exhibit designers and media producers and our founder to make sure the material we're presenting at the museum is accurate, engaging, and accessible to the general public, especially our core audience of 10- to 12-year-olds. A lot of that is project management stuff (keeping track of licensed assets, streamlining approvals on deliverables, managing outside contractors and consultants, and updating many, many spreadsheets) but I also do a lot of fact-checking, copy editing, and some research and scripting as well, particularly for the linguistic diversity gallery (my personal favorite). How does your linguistics training help you in your job?

Although all of my colleagues share of love of words and language (as you would expect), most of them are more from the museum world than the linguistics world. And although most of our main experiences aren't linguistics-heavy (we're a language arts museum rather than a linguistics museum), I'm the one that takes the first pass at content to ensure that it's correct and uses the most up-to-date research. So I've had to draw heavily on my general linguistics knowledge — Planet Word is incredibly privileged to have an advisory board full of amazing linguists, but I'm sort of the "resident" linguistics expert!

Because the museum is for a young, general audience, it's been really fun to try and get back to a beginner's mind — thinking about the things that most excited me about learning linguistics, or even learning about other languages, or weird facts about English. This has really informed some of the experiences we've created, and it's pretty gratifying to test them out on non-linguists and see them get excited and interested. (Although I will fully admit that I have advocated for some... esoteric aspects of language that nobody but me was excited about. They did not make the cut, and it's for the better, but hopefully some visitors will be inspired and find out more about linguistics for themselves!)

On a more granular level, having the research skills honed by two degrees in linguistics has been invaluable, as well as the data management skills I acquired mostly during my MA. (Hello, database of 2,000+ books.) Knowing about phonetics is also pretty handy when you're trying to coach a voice actor (most of our experiences are auditory and interactive) on how to pronounce non-English words! I have also spent an incredible amount of time with the OED and Etymonline, looking up etymologies for various exhibit-related reasons.

Do you have any advice do you wish someone had given to you about linguistics/careers/university?

Linguistics is such a funny field. I don't think there are a lot of people who end up in it by accident, or just because they've always loved that subject in high school, so they might as well continue it in college/university. Really, you discover by happenstance that it exists and then you fall for it hard. But that means there's almost a sort of assumption that if you're going to Do Linguistics, you're going to be an academic for the long haul. That doesn't necessarily have to be the case. That's why resources like this interview series are so great, but I do wish there was more support within degree programs for connecting linguistics people with jobs that aren't necessarily academia, or computational linguistics, or speech pathology. This is not really advice, sorry! But if I were going to turn it into advice, I'd say: ask early and often what graduates from your program have gone on to do that aren't "traditional" linguist jobs. Any other thoughts or comments?

If I could help open language museums for the rest of my life, I absolutely would. This has been a dream job, and I'm so very lucky. Unfortunately it's a bit of niche field, but I have learned so much by leveraging my linguistics knowledge and skills into a job that opens up many more opportunities.

Recently:

Interview with a Community Outreach Coordinator

Interview with a Marketing Content Specialist

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Interview with a Product Manager

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Check out the Linguist Jobs Master List and the Linguist Jobs tag for even more interviews