#where clause syntax

[autistic-harley-quinn]

as if songs always follow prose syntax? and within the context of the song it is clear that line refers to herself. I'm not even saying she couldn't be bi etc I don't personally know her, I just think it's a bad example because she is obviously referring to herself in a self deprecating way and there are better examples you could use especially since you are saying it is queer flagging so surely wouldn't be so direct when she usually says she is talking from a 'male perspective' in her other songs that talk about women

You are STRAIGHT UP talking out of your ass. Lyrics are LYRICAL POETRY they follow the SAME CONVENTIONS as all poetry and they follow the same SYNTAX as English bc if we just decided words go in any order we want I could say that saying "I eat spaghetti" means "spaghetti eats me" syntax is how you understand speech/writing that does not follow typical grammatical standards. Syntax is how we understand how to put words in a specific order to get our point across. An English professor has already debunked this claim.

It is not "clear" that she is referring to herself that is a fantasy you are presenting as fact. As a matter of fact she called HERSELF a pathological people pleaser on another song in the same album, what part of "pathological people pleaser" sounds argumentative to you? She has refered to a romantic partner being an argumentative contrarian in songs like gold rush.

Yeah she usually gives the male perspective excuse, maybe that's why her first live performance hits different with how clearly nervous she was to sing it in public. Also she literally played Betty for the first time with a rainbow string guitar, named the male POV character James when she's literally named after James Taylor and used cryptic Easter egging to have her lyrics say "jaMEs" with the ME capitalized. Maybe that's why she put Hits Different on the album with the tagline "meet me at midnight" maybe that's why she put it on the same album as the song where she confirms she's been misleading the public about what her private life is like (Dear Reader.) Context clues are important.

You ever heard of a morality clause? That's just one of many many reasons someone may want to be obvious and not declare. Flagging isn't always about being subtle sometimes it's about being so obvious you don't have to say anything (and the ignorant will keep on ignoring it. I once dyed my hair the lesbian colors bc I wanted ppl to see at a glance that I was a lesbian. Joan Jett and Lil Nas X are very prominent examples of ppl who wanted to be seen as queer without having to declare and then ended up having to bc ppl refused to see it.

"Dead ass thought I made it obvious" -Lil Nas X

There are many queer people who want to, who are begging to be seen without having to label themselves. Respect that and stop putting your head in the sand.

[thelostmetallurgist]

A Describing of Dwemeris...

Here’s an over‑the‑top deep dive into Dwemeris, the enigmatic tongue of the vanished Deep Folk—part archaeological fact, part wild conjecture, all pure Dwemeric swagger.

In essence, almost nothing of Dwemeris survives beyond scattered inscriptions and a handful of toponyms, and what we do have is written in a fiercely angular runic script that scholars can only partially “read” by comparing it to Aldmeris. Despite this, the language’s guttural-metallic phonetics, hammer‑and‑anvil rhythms, and fractal‑complex grammar hint at a civilization whose very speech was fused to the art of forging and machinery.

Origins and Relationship to Aldmeris

The Dwemer tongue evolved directly from Aldmeris, the primordial Elven speech, but diverged so radically that it became mutually unintelligible with its parent language. After the Aldmer exodus from their ancestral isles, the proto‑Dwemer settled in northeastern Tamriel (“Dwemereth”) and, in isolation, let their language ossify into a new, subterranean dialect of mechanical precision.

Script and Runic Architecture

Alphabet Structure: Dwemeris runes employ 28 characters—26 roughly corresponding to Latin letters, plus two unique “meta‑glyphs” (one marking numeric values, one indicating capitalization and sentence onset).

Fierce Strokes: Each rune is carved in sharp, angular lines—“fierce strokes” that mimic the pattern of gear teeth and steam vents.

Bilingual Artifacts: The famed Calcelmo’s Stone at Markarth bears parallel Dwemeric and Falmeric inscriptions, proving the script’s use for both mundane records and arcane incantations.

Phonology: Hammer‑Metal Melody

Imagine a choir of forlorn bellows, tempered steel singing against itself. Dwemeris phonemes are dominated by:

Resonant “kh” glottals—a fierce exhalation like steam escaping a forge.

Click‑like alveolar stops—tiny metallic sparks of sound.

Subharmonic drones—low‑frequency hums that seem to vibrate rock. Accents vary by clan, with Blackreach dialects favoring deeper, earth‑shaking tones, while Vvardenfell scholars favor sharper, high‑pitched inflections.

Grammar and Syntax: Fractal Complexity

Far from linear, Dwemeris sentences often nest subordinate clauses within morphemes that themselves encode entire phrases—like gears within gears. A single word can express subject, object, instrument, and purpose all at once. Scholars theorize this arose from a “compact‑encoding” philosophy, where efficiency mirrored their subterranean architecture’s cramped tunnels.

Glimpses of the Lexicon

Only a handful of words are confidently identified:

Dum (“duumz”): “underground dwelling”

Duum (“duumz”): “Dwemer”

Eft (“eft”): “benefit, help”

Eftar‑: verb root “to promise, to swear”

Fahl (“fahlz”): “great, big, huge”

Nchuand‑Zel: the original Dwemeris name for Markarth, meaning “Radiant City”

Beyond these, most inscriptions remain tantalizingly opaque—strings like MZAHNCH or BTHURKZ that defy translation but resonate with a raw, industrial poetry.

Mystical Resonance and the “Mechanical Word”

Legend holds that certain Dwemeris phrases, when uttered with the correct tonal modulation, could activate ancient tonal locks or awaken dormant machinery. These “words of power” were embedded in automata and tonal conduits, their semantic meaning lost but their vibrational signature preserved in crystalline resonators.

Modern Study and Untranslatability

Despite decades of study, Dwemeris remains largely untranslatable, with pronunciation itself hotly debated among scholars. Most contemporary “translations” rely on context and Aldmeric cognates, leaving entire passages as mechanical gibberish. Yet every new artifact unearthed sends ripples through academic circles, fueling hope that a more complete lexicon may someday emerge.

In short, Dwemeris is less a language and more an echo of a civilization that spoke in the tongue of forging and engineering—a fractal linguistic engine whose full capacity may forever lie buried beneath the earth.

[ewaneneollav]

everyone has multiple different kinds of intelligence in them

i think theres a variety of intelligence that likes to hash everything out in words good & strive for clarity

it has its uses but it is flawed too so it shouldnt be the only one

you can read david hume immanuel kant soren kierkegaard georg hegel jacques lacan if you want to you just dont have to to prove to yourself youre an adult willing to tackle the responsibility of figuring out whats up with reality & stuff you can just want to, if youre hunkering down to be serious dont forget to see it as a specific mode so “true reality” isnt transfigured into smeary black-on-white old type & you live there

so im sitting there trying to write a message

by default i try to write with as much clarity & syntax as i can with certain flairs of deviation that spark something into it that i cant get across otherwise

its by default. its become an unconscious process

but im sitting there trying to write a message & i want to try abating that & not striving for whatever it is i usually do with words. i want to give a different intelligence a chance to have the words as its vehicle

(i dont know the name of the intelligence that encourages me to pick one intelligence over another so that the former has a time to shine. it manages the others)

im struggling & deliberating over how much detail or clarity i should write with

since by default i try to write with detail, it means letting the other intelligence have a voice will consist of coming up with the same words & paring it down

grimly i can feel it; i’m calculating the application of less detail. calculating. i want to know which words should be included, i am scrutinizing which clauses are too much, too freezing & un-for-tun-ate-ly ar-tic-u-la-ting - free-zing

the alternate intelligence i’m trying to let speak is not here. if it was here then it’d just be happening, i’d write its statement

what’s happening is my words-intelligence is trying to approximate the other-intelligence with its words

(i dont know the name of the intelligence that encourages me to pick one over another, but it seems ive fooled it, given it a fake difference instead of a true one thats different in essence. now ive wised up to my own trick. but i dont know where to go now. it might just come when it comes)

​

@aloe-verity :

hi hope your day is going ok.  re: your recent post 775114038474620928 i wanted to say i think that i get it, and changing the medium of the words might help (like writing in a notebook instead or something), and/or changing the conditions of the words’ existence (like how a tumblr post is intended to be viewed by others).  in my experience not all intelligences are immediately comfortable with being seen and privacy can mean a lot.  also, while i certainly recognize and appreciate the ability to use words at all—if words aren’t working out, offering a different intelligence a different medium of expression entirely might also be worth a shot.  from there i have often found that there is more internal understanding afterward.  words might not always be more wanted than actions, etc.  i do also think you’re right that it’ll happen when it happens

hate to be the guy giving strangers advice on the internet + obviously it’s chill if this is not valuable to you and i don’t expect a response or anything, i just really related to the experience of trying to let another voice speak and struggling to disengage the incredibly precise language/filtration/calculation habits. articulation is a gift and sometimes i want the receipt. hope you take care

[mewling-central]

I wanted to give a more in depth example of how I'd go about translating something into Collective Seraphic, as I feel it'll give a better understanding on the syntax. So today I'm gonna walk you through translating two sentences; one from English to Seraphic, and another from Seraphic to English. I'm going to explain the grammar in detail, and explain the semantics behind a typical Seraphic sentence.

This is the sentence I'll be translating from English to Seraphic:

"I wanted to go, but my parents wouldn't let me."

Starting word-for-word, the word for "I" is zāfl. Seraphic has pronoun equivalents called "pro-forms". They act similarly to pronouns, standing in for another noun, although they will change their class to agree with the class of the nouns they're replacing. They aren't used nearly as often as in English, only really used when you don't know the name of someone or something, or if you feel you've been repeating that name too often. The pro-form zāfl is the proximal demonstrative fl declined into the Solar noun class, which is used for people, so in this way zāfl literally means "this person", but it contextually is meant to be understood as the first person pro-form "I" or "me".

For the verb "to go", it's a bit more complicated. Expressing motion, especially intentional motion, is usually done by adding the resultative prefix nd- to the patient noun (the one taking the action), and using some preposition of motion. You can think of it, since the resultative describes "becoming" or "happening" or a change in state, as if you're "becoming" someone in a new direction. Like your state of being is changing from being someone that's over here to being someone that's over there. Movement isn't really seen as an action, but as a process. You can use your legs to walk, but it doesn't matter what you use to move, you just do. So in this way you would use the procedural phrases nd() xel- or nd() fān- which literally mean "to become towards" and "to become away from". The phrases for "to go" and "to come" are interchangeable, and mostly rely on context. I think of it more being like "to proceed". Like, if you wanna say "I will go", then both "I proceed towards there" and "I proceed from here" are both semantically the same, it's all personal choice. In our example sentence, "wanted to go" implies a meaning where "wanted to go there" seems more contextually sensible. So we'll use the word voxl which means "over there" and have the full phrase as nd() xel-voxl. Since what's going is ourselves, the subject would take the procedural prefix.

nedZafl xel-voxl

This clause is incomplete though, as the procedural is currently declined into the infinitive, making the meaning something more along the lines of "I to go" which is nonsensical on its own. So in order to express "wanted to go", well need to do two things: firstly, we put it in a past tense. The speaker is talking about the action as if it happened a while before their present conversation, so we won't use the recent past, and they aren't speaking as if the desire to go has been completed or is no longer applicable, so we won't use the pluperfect or discontinuous past. That means we should put it in the remote past, making our sentence out as this:

ŋ̄ğōdZafl xel-voxl

Now the meaning is "I went a while ago". The second word we need to add is the word for "wanted". You would do this by adding one of the six modal particles at the beginning of the clause. In this case to express "to want" or "to need", expressing desire or intent, you'd use the volitive particle tcān. With this the first clause is fully complete:

Tcān ŋ̄ğōdzafl xel-voxl

"I wanted to go", or more literally "This person intended a while ago to become towards over there".

The word for "but" is cnets. In the phrase "my parents", you wouldn't need to translate "my", as it's implied from context that you're referring to your own parents, so you would just use the word for "parent" which is zōxō. "Parenting" is a bit complicated in seraph culture, so I'm using deciding to translate it under the context of human culture. Thus I'd be referring to two parents, and would put this into the dual and not the plural, making it now zōxōc. Leaving us with this so far:

cnets zōxōc

For the phrase "wouldn't let me", we gotta break it down again. The procedural phrase for "to let" or "to allow" or "to give permission" is azr() in-ut'ēn which literally translates as "to act freely" or "to act unrestrained". Since "I" am the one who's being given permission, the actional prefix would decline onto zāfl, giving us:

cnets zōxōc in-ut'ēn ezrezafl

Once again we need to decline this into a tense that fits "would let me", which is a bit harder to do. In English this conjugation is called the future-in-the-past and it describes a past action that occured in the future from the reference of the speaker in the past. So in order to express that we'll first add the future-simple auxiliary copula t'enr before the procedural noun:

cnets zōxōc in-ut'en t'enr ezrezafl

We can leave the procedural noun in the infinitive when we use an auxiliary copula. Now it reads "but my parents will let me", as the future-simple copula describes a future action regardless of whether it will happen soon or eventually. Normally we would leave this as is, but since we want to emphasize that this is in the past, we'll need to decline the procedural noun into a past tense. For this I'll use the remote past again since I already used it in the first part of the sentence, and seeing as we're talking about generally the same time period it'd seem more fitting to use the same tense.

cnets zōxōc in-ut'ēn t'enr eğrezafl

Finally we'll put this whole phrase into the negative so "would let me" becomes "wouldn't let me". The main way it's done is to take the first syllable of the procedural noun and invert it's tone. high tone becomes low tone, low becomes high, rising becomes falling, and falling becomes rising. So eğrezafl will become ēğrezafl instead. Additionally, you could also add the negative particle tu at the beginning of the clause. This is the more formal, standard way of indicating negation, usually you would use the particle in colloquial everyday speech except for emphasis or clarification. In this case, I do want to emphasize the parents not giving permission, so I'll add. That gives us the full clause:

cnets tu zōxōc in-ut'ēn t'enr ēğrezafl

Combining this with the previous clause, the final phrase will be this:

Tcān ŋ̄ğōdzafl xel-voxl, cnets tu zōxōc in-ut'ēn t'enr ēğrezafl.

"I wanted to go, but my parents wouldn't let me." Or more literally, "This person intended a while ago to become towards there, but both of (my) parents would not act on this person freely." Now that I've shown how to go from English to Seraphic, let's do it the other way around.

For this part, this is the sentence that we'll be translating:

Tu zāsl īzl ēdrayuln ojnzn nun ēdzt'u pi-lizt'n pr̄-yuln cu-zāsl.

We already know that tu is the modal particle for negation, so this clause must be in the negative. The next word zāsl is the second person pro-form in the singular, so it means. "you", and since it's near the beginning of the clause and not declined into a procedural we know that this is the subject of the clause. Īzl is the auxiliary copula for the progressive aspect, it describes an action that's happening at the very moment of speaking. It's the equivalent to putting "-ing" at the end of a verb in English. And the word ēdrayuln contains the procedural "ēdra-", which is the actional declined into the infinitive since it's being modified by an auxiliary copula. The actional describes an action or performance that the agent does onto the patient. The first syllable is also a high tone, which constrasts with its usual pronunciation or a low tone, so this and the presence of the negative particle reaffirms that this clause is in the negative. So far all of this together can be understood as such:

You are not doing...

But we still don't know what is not being done. So we have to see what the procedural is attatched to, and we see the noun yuln, which is the plural form of the noun yul meaning "action" or "deed". The final word of this clause is ojnzn, the plural of ojn which means "wrong" or "incorrect". Adjectives agree with the nouns they modify in number, so in total this means "wrong actions". Putting it all together, the first clause can be read as:

You are not doing wrong actions

The next clause once again starts with a modal particle. This modal particle, nun, is the conditional particle. It describes something that the speaker believes will happen under certain conditions. It's equivalent to English "if" or sometimes "when", so the clause is being presented as a condition. The next word is ēdzt'u. This is the procedural noun, the noun declined with a procedural suffix, and being that this is at the beginning of the clause we know it's acting as the subject, and thus this clause is either passive or intransitive. The procedural prefix being used is ed-, the resultative in the present tense. But the tone is high, being contrastive, so once again we know that this clause is in the negative. Since there is already a modal particle on this clause, the negative particle can't be used and we have to rely solely on procedural tone. The noun attached to the procedural is zt'u, which is the inflected form of tsu, meaning "no one" or "nobody". In Seraphic, words starting with affricates like "ts", "pf", "kx", or "tc" will usually become "zt'", "vp'", "ğk'", and "jt'" when a prefix is attached to them. Purely just a result of historic sound changes. Also, although the procedural is in the negative, the presence of the indefinite pronoun "nobody" actually means the clause is meant to be read in the positive. Seraphic allows double negatives, and actually requires the procedural to be put into the negative when a negative noun is used. So given all of that information, the clause so far can be translated as this:

if nobody becomes...

The next term is pi-lizt'n which means "with (an) idea". Since this prepositional phrase is the closest to the procedural noun, we can assume this is the lexical phrase that completes the whole procedural phrase. Thus, the full phrase would be ēdzt'u pi-lizt'n which literally translates as "nobody becomes with (an) idea" as in "nobody becomes (the same) nobody that is with/has an idea". This is the procedural phrase for "to understand", to not have an idea of a topic and then suddenly having an idea of that topic. It's a change in state from "not knowing" to "knowing", thus the phrase can now be read as:

if nobody understands...

The following phrase is pr̄-yuln. Pr̄ is the dative preposition, it describes an argument that isn't solely affected by an action, but benefits from it. It's the "to" in "I gave my mail to him". In a passive or transitive clause, the patient becomes the subject and what would've been the subject is instead downgraded to the dative. In this case, pr̄ can be read as "to" but given the context of this clause it'd be easier to translate it as "about". Of course yuln means "actions", so all together the clause is now:

if nobody becomes with (an) idea about (the) actions...

Or more accurately

if nobody understands the actions...

The final words are cu-zāsl, which mean "of you". So together the full clause becomes this:

if nobody understands the actions of you.

And together with the first clause our final sentence is read as this:

You are not doing the wrongs actions if nobody understands the actions of you.

Or you could also rephrase it like this:

You aren't doing it wrong if no one knows what you're doing.

So, ipso facto, tl;dr, in summary and conclusion, that's kinda my thought process when translating sentences into and from Seraphic. I hope anything I said made a lick of sense, this whole grammar and syntax is pretty experimental for me so if you made it this far you get a gold star 🌟. Congrats I'm so proud of you. Anyways thanks for reading buh-bye.

[lionofchaeronea]

Hi, I am currently learning from Athenaze and Reading Greek books, I am at the very beginning and wondering how Attic and Koine Greek comper in the conjugation and declination of verbs, nouns and adjectives. Is there any difference? Thanks for the answer and sorry for bothering you!

I am very excited so far, I hope I am going to learn to read the classics one day!

No bother at all! Koine Greek ultimately derives from Attic, and so there's a great deal of overlap in vocabulary, grammar, and syntax. The main difference is that Koine, being as it was a second or third language for many non-native speakers throughout the Hellenistic world, is generally simpler than Attic. For example, where Attic is fairly heavy in verbs ending in -μι (τίθημι, ἵστημι, etc.), Koine tends to avoid them, or in some cases to replace them with forms from the same root that are conjugated in -ω. And in the realm of syntax, Koine favors parataxis (parallel clauses), as opposed to the frequent use of hypotaxis (subordinate clauses) in classical Attic. Generally speaking, if you have a firm command of classical Attic, Koine is very straightforward.

Good luck in your studies! If there's anything else I can do to help, please don't hesitate to ask.

[gem-tavvy]

IMPROMPTU TAVROS NITRAM WRITING COURSE

VOL 1. ~ OF QUIRKS AND SYNTAX

wanted to work on a fun lil post to remark on some common problems i see in tavros nitram's portrayals in fanworks, and how he actually Acts, using in-comic examples! please tell me if you enjoy!

i think more people should learn how tavros' quirk works. cause i see a lotta ppl making the same handful of mistakes, and while there are more important things to worry about. the comic is Right There and Chock Full Of Text.

obviously there's the basics. capitalization and punctuation. these are the basic building blocks of every character's quirk. john using apostrophes and periods separates him from, say, dave and jade.

and jade using an excess of question marks, exclamation marks, and smileys separates her from dave. and roxy using a lot of acronyms and shortenings (and typos while drunk) separates her further from the "all lowercase" gang.

for tavros: let's look at capitalization first.

tavros types in reverse case. that is to say, where most people would write capital letters, he writes lowercase letters, and vice versa. he starts every sentence with a lowercase letters, and every lone 'I' is lowercase as well.

(important to note: he also uses lowercase after EVERY comma. when it comes to capitalization, treat every comma like it's a period.)

the only exception to this rule seems to be proper nouns. unless he's saying it at the beginning of a sentence or after a comma, that name is written in capital letters, like when he says "THE KNIGHT" and "DAVE" in his conversation with rose above.

as for his punctuation,

tavros uses a lot of commas. where you'd expect a dash or a semicolon, use a comma. where you'd expect a period, use a comma. you need a set of ellipses? use a comma.

wait. i want you to read that last sentence REALLY closely. "use A comma." i need you to drill this into your head right here, right now, forevermore. if you care even remotely about writing tavros correctly, HEED MY WORDS:

USE A SINGLE COMMA.

i don't care how many pieces of art, how many fanfics, how many Whatevers you have seen, tavros dOES NOT,,,,, uMM,,,,,,, uSE THIS MANY,,, uH,,,,,, cOMMAS. he only needs to use one at a time. the exceptions to this rule are INCREDIBLY rare, and only appear when he is genuinely distressed or compromised.

in the first example, not only is he merged with vriska - causing numerous quirk changes - but they are under a tremendous amount of mental and emotional stress. in the second example, he is caught off guard by gamzee's sudden advances. in the third, he is experiencint a severe allergic reaction caused as a result of being permanently fused with a cat.

even in his conversations with vriska where he is being actively bullied and harassed, he largely only uses a single comma at a time. this is absolutely THE most common mistake when writing tavros.

the SECOND most common mistake i see is making him s-s-stutter. a lot of people think that just because he's awkward and is described by vriska as "stuttering," he always has to "s-stutter like t-t-this." but it's not true, and tavros Does Not talk like that.

tavros DOES stutter, but the better word to use to describe it is stammering. he doesn't really think a sentence out before he talks - it's why he often says "uh" and "um" between clauses. it's also why he drags out words sometimes, like "hIII," or "hEYYY," or "wOAHHH,". he's the kind of guy that's always gotta make a noise when he's talking, even if he doesn't really know what to say yet.

i have more stuff to say about WHY people write tavros this way, but i'll save it for later. we're still on the topic of his quirk!

so he doesn't use more than one comma at a time, doesn't use dashes to stutter, and as we know uses apostrophes mostly properly. what about exclamation points and question marks?

now, this is where we have a bit of a schism. previous images i've posted, if you noticed, have sentences where tavros is asking a question. namely when he's asking rose all those questions about dave. when it comes to EARLY homestuck, which i personally subscribe to as the purest form of his quirk, tavros ONLY uses commas. even if he's asking a question.

but later on, usually during act 6, tavros starts using exclamation marks and question marks more. so there's a precedent for it, sure. i'd personally err on the side of caution, though. use them like you'd use multi-commas: sparingly and for a good reason.

combining capitalization and punctuation, i also want to mention how he whispers, too, because it's one of my favorite gags in homestuck.

in homestuck, whispering is typically denoted by surrounding one's text in (parentheses.) for tavros, this is no different. if a character normally speaks in all upper case, like karkat or terezi, they might also replace all of that upper case with lower case.

but tavros sucks at whispering. if he's outright muttering under his breath, he (jUST SPEAKS LIKE THIS,) but if he's genuinely trying to be surreptitious, he will TRY to speak all in lower case. however, little pockets of upper case will still (sNEak, inSIDE,). if you need to write tavros whispering for whatever reason, this can be a fun gag to call back to for comedy's sake.

the final syntax element to touch on is simple. emoticons!

tavros uses a variety throughout homestuck. all of them have a common theme: they always start with a "}". NOT a bracket "[". he ALWAYS uses one of the curly brackets, without exception.

he uses }:) , }:o) (when speaking to gamzee once), }:( , }:'( , and }:D ! might be more examples, but you get what i mean. he has a good variety! he typically either uses these after a sentence OR as its own "line," without any text. he also even uses them outside text. like:

AT: aWW, sAD SURE IS WHAT THAT IS, }:(

TAVROS: }:D

[ijosijen]

i'll get to the full overview post later but rn i want you to light a cigarette and come over look at this with me

now, this is a passive construction. it's not the most passive construction, more of a middle voice.

i.e. if this was the "true" passive, then the word "thing" wouldn't be in the accusative. still, on a syntax level, it's close enough - this construction takes a transitive sentence and whisks away an implied expletive agent. closer to passive than active, def def.

that interrogative pronoun "tor" - isn't just an interrogative pronoun. in this stage of the language, it's also the preposition that would lead into a reintroduced agent. somewhere like "by, because of," for animates.

normally, that'd go at the end of the clause:

Snzfma tosewi orgnmasres tor...

"This thing was forged by..."

buuut. it's been frooooonted. Because this language has a functional caaaase system. and the word order's all looooose when it wants to be.

i could be a bit boring and demand some kind of "real" preposition, here. "from who" or smth. but this particle can act as a preposition, and this is just the proto, so why not fuzz around a bit before i really lock the word classes in.

the absence of a compliment for tor is probably enough to mark it as a question. the speaker is looking for a seme to fill the gap. but the question is doubly marked by the fact that tor is appearing in canonical subject position. despite this being a middle voice where that shouldn't really be a thing.

you could "literally" read it as "who had this thing forging?" but that's the origin of this middle voice to begin with. so. it just works. plus there's agreement on the verb letting this be a rhetorical question, really. we know it was you.

good stuff.

[yuk-tepat]

Proto-Taknic

Revising Proto-Swiric led me to take another look at another protolanguage, Proto-Taknic, which has no narrative role in the current Tepatic storyline, so it’s a bit of a distraction …

…but since its lexicon is smaller and simpler, it’s a nice guinea pig to try out new ways of keeping a dictionary (SIL FLEX).

Anyway, a summary:

Taknic is the northernmost major language family of Tiptum, the landmass where Tepat resides. Spread out across the northern half, but originated in the boreal region around the Great Lake, presumably spreading out along waterways.

Long history of interaction with Swiric speakers - sometimes violent. Most of the tribes of north Tiptum speak one or the other family. Proto-languages likely spoken nearby, with evidence of lexical borrowings between them. Also, some similar features - polysynthetic, similar phonological inventories.

Phonology: The most striking difference between Taknic and other languages is the number of labialized sounds, but lack of actual simple bilabial consonants. Dorsal consonants are distinguished as front (velar), back (uvular), rounded, and unrounded.

Consonants:

Dorsal

front dorsal (velar): k g ŋ x ɰ kʷ gʷ ŋʷ xʷ w back (uvular): q χ qʷ χʷ unrounded: k g ŋ x ɰ q χ rounded: kʷ gʷ ŋʷ xʷ w qʷ χʷ

Neutral: t d n s ɬ y ʔ h

Vowels: i ɨ u a

Vowel-initial words / roots have a glottal stop prefixed to them, initial consonants clusters have [ɨ] and then glottal stop added. Thus syllables all (phonetically) begin with consonants and the maximum syllable is CVC.

Nouns: can be bare roots. Cases are nominative (unmarked) and oblique (which includes the patient argument in ditransitive clauses). Nouns are optionally marked for possession with the same personal markers as verbs. Some nouns must be possessed, others can’t. Derivational suffixes can be used to derive one kind from the other and vice versa.

Adjectives: none, use stative verbs.

Verbs: are long (or can be).

Tentative verb template:

subject marker - stem prefix - VERB ROOT - NOUN ROOT - direction - mood - tense - double object - patient - converb

Syntax: at some level, probably VO, but nobody really cares, you can move stuff around wherever.

Lexicon: Most things have a gimmick, and in Taknic the gimmick is ground-conflating path verbs. To understand, you can check out Leonard Talmy, who developed a typology of motion events. To explain in the shortest way possible:

Some languages have motion verbs that primarily express the “path” (direction of motion - go in, go out, go up), some like English have verbs that express the manner (how something moves - walk, fly, swim). A sadly extinct North American language Atsugewi has motion verbs that primarily express the “figure” (the form of the thing that moves). No known languages build their motion-expressing system on the “ground” (the place with respect to which something moves). Taknic motion verbs primarily express the ground - e.g., they express the place or thing with respect to which something moves, the frame of reference for the motion. The direction is expressed in prefixes, rather than the root itself.

[madlabgames]

The Esoteric Resonance of a Woven Spell: An Introduction to Arcano-Babble

In the fantastical realms of sword and sorcery, where incantations reshape reality and ancient artifacts pulse with forgotten power, a distinct linguistic phenomenon underpins the very fabric of magic: "Arcano-Babble." A close cousin to the "Techno-Babble" that pervades the corridors of starships in science fiction, Arcano-Babble serves as the narrative shorthand for the intricate and often inexplicable workings of the mystical arts. This paper will define and explore the concept of Arcano-Babble, dissecting its narrative function, linguistic construction, and its vital role in creating a sense of verisimilitude and wonder within fantasy worlds.

At its core, Arcano-Babble is the use of specialized, often esoteric-sounding language to explain the principles, mechanics, and consequences of magical phenomena in a way that appears logical within the story's framework, yet remains largely fantastical and beyond the immediate comprehension of the audience. Just as a Starfleet engineer might rattle off a solution involving "re-routing the plasma flow through the secondary EPS conduits to recalibrate the warp field," a high wizard in a fantasy epic might counter a dark curse by "severing the antagonist's thaumaturgic link to the ley lines by inverting the somatic and verbal components of the initial casting." The effect is the same: a plausible-sounding explanation that advances the plot without requiring a detailed, and likely impossible, real-world exegesis.

The narrative purpose of Arcano-Babble is threefold. Firstly, it provides crucial exposition about the magic system of the fictional world. Through dialogue laden with Arcano-Babble, authors can subtly reveal the rules, limitations, and costs associated with their magic, transforming it from a mere plot device into a structured and internally consistent system. Secondly, it cultivates a profound sense of wonder and mystique. The arcane terminology, with its echoes of ancient languages and forgotten lore, imbues the magic with a sense of depth and history, making it feel more like a discovered science than a convenient narrative trick. Finally, Arcano-Babble is a powerful engine for plot progression. It introduces magical problems ("The phylactery's aura is causing temporal distortions!") and then provides the framework for their solutions ("We'll need to attune a resonating crystal to the phylactery's specific harmonic frequency to create a nullification field!").

The linguistic construction of Arcano-Babble is a fascinating blend of the familiar and the fantastical. Its lexicon is often a rich tapestry woven from several sources:

* Latin and Archaic Terminology: Words like "arcane," "incantation," "sigil," "aether," and "thaumaturgy" lend an air of ancient wisdom and academic rigor.

* Invented Jargon: Fantasy authors often coin their own terms, such as "ley lines," "mana," "somatics," or specific names for magical elements and energies. These words, through repetition and context, become integral to the world's vocabulary.

* Compound Terminology: Much like its science-fiction counterpart, Arcano-Babble frequently employs compound terms that combine recognizable concepts in novel ways, such as "chrono-mantic," "necro-harmonic," or "aether-weave."

The syntax of Arcano-Babble often mimics a formal, almost academic, register. Sentences can be long and complex, laden with subordinate clauses and technical-sounding modifiers. This style reinforces the idea that magic is a field of study, with its own specialized vocabulary and principles understood only by its dedicated practitioners.

To illustrate, consider the following examples of Arcano-Babble in various scenarios:

* A Wizard Preparing a Scrying Ritual: "To pierce the veil, we must first align the scrying pool with the celestial conjunction. The somatic gestures must be precise to focus the ambient mana, while the incantation will resonate with the target's unique thaumaturgic signature, allowing us to bypass their wards."

* An Enchanter Describing a Cursed Object: "The blade is imbued with a soul-binding hex, sustained by a continuous flow of negative astral energy. To cleanse it, we'll need to disrupt the enchantment at a foundational level by inscribing a counter-sigil of pure Solarian energy, effectively starving the hex of its power source."

* A Healer Diagnosing a Magical Malady: "The patient's life force is being drained by a parasitic elemental. It has latched onto their chi, creating a synergistic decay. A simple purification potion won't suffice; we must perform a ritual of severing, using a poultice of powdered moonpetal and phoenix tears to draw the entity out."

In conclusion, Arcano-Babble is an essential, if often overlooked, component of fantasy world-building. It is the language of magic, the means by which the impossible is made to feel credible within the confines of a story. By mirroring the function and structure of "Techno-Babble," it provides a framework for exposition, fosters a sense of wonder, and drives the narrative forward. The next time a wizard in a tale of high fantasy speaks of "inverting the polarities of a mana vortex," we should recognize it not as mere gibberish, but as a carefully crafted linguistic tool designed to immerse us more deeply in a world where the arcane is as real and as complex as our own science.

[digitaldetoxworld]

Structured Query Language (SQL): A Comprehensive Guide

 Structured Query Language, popularly called SQL (reported "ess-que-ell" or sometimes "sequel"), is the same old language used for managing and manipulating relational databases. Developed in the early 1970s by using IBM researchers Donald D. Chamberlin and Raymond F. Boyce, SQL has when you consider that end up the dominant language for database structures round the world.

Structured query language commands with examples

Today, certainly every important relational database control system (RDBMS)—such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server, and SQLite—uses SQL as its core question language.

What is SQL?

SQL is a website-specific language used to:

Retrieve facts from a database.

Insert, replace, and delete statistics.

Create and modify database structures (tables, indexes, perspectives).

Manage get entry to permissions and security.

Perform data analytics and reporting.

In easy phrases, SQL permits customers to speak with databases to shop and retrieve structured information.

Key Characteristics of SQL

Declarative Language: SQL focuses on what to do, now not the way to do it. For instance, whilst you write SELECT * FROM users, you don’t need to inform SQL the way to fetch the facts—it figures that out.

Standardized: SQL has been standardized through agencies like ANSI and ISO, with maximum database structures enforcing the core language and including their very own extensions.

Relational Model-Based: SQL is designed to work with tables (also called members of the family) in which records is organized in rows and columns.

Core Components of SQL

SQL may be damaged down into numerous predominant categories of instructions, each with unique functions.

1. Data Definition Language (DDL)

DDL commands are used to outline or modify the shape of database gadgets like tables, schemas, indexes, and so forth.

Common DDL commands:

CREATE: To create a brand new table or database.

ALTER:     To modify an present table (add or put off columns).

DROP: To delete a table or database.

TRUNCATE: To delete all rows from a table but preserve its shape.

Example:

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CREATE TABLE personnel (

  id INT PRIMARY KEY,

  call VARCHAR(one hundred),

  income DECIMAL(10,2)

);

2. Data Manipulation Language (DML)

DML commands are used for statistics operations which include inserting, updating, or deleting information.

Common DML commands:

SELECT: Retrieve data from one or more tables.

INSERT: Add new records.

UPDATE: Modify existing statistics.

DELETE: Remove information.

Example:

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INSERT INTO employees (id, name, earnings)

VALUES (1, 'Alice Johnson', 75000.00);

three. Data Query Language (DQL)

Some specialists separate SELECT from DML and treat it as its very own category: DQL.

Example:

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SELECT name, income FROM personnel WHERE profits > 60000;

This command retrieves names and salaries of employees earning more than 60,000.

4. Data Control Language (DCL)

DCL instructions cope with permissions and access manage.

Common DCL instructions:

GRANT: Give get right of entry to to users.

REVOKE: Remove access.

Example:

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GRANT SELECT, INSERT ON personnel TO john_doe;

five. Transaction Control Language (TCL)

TCL commands manage transactions to ensure data integrity.

Common TCL instructions:

BEGIN: Start a transaction.

COMMIT: Save changes.

ROLLBACK: Undo changes.

SAVEPOINT: Set a savepoint inside a transaction.

Example:

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BEGIN;

UPDATE personnel SET earnings = income * 1.10;

COMMIT;

SQL Clauses and Syntax Elements

WHERE: Filters rows.

ORDER BY: Sorts effects.

GROUP BY: Groups rows sharing a assets.

HAVING: Filters companies.

JOIN: Combines rows from  or greater tables.

Example with JOIN:

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SELECT personnel.Name, departments.Name

FROM personnel

JOIN departments ON personnel.Dept_id = departments.Identity;

Types of Joins in SQL

INNER JOIN: Returns statistics with matching values in each tables.

LEFT JOIN: Returns all statistics from the left table, and matched statistics from the right.

RIGHT JOIN: Opposite of LEFT JOIN.

FULL JOIN: Returns all records while there is a in shape in either desk.

SELF JOIN: Joins a table to itself.

Subqueries and Nested Queries

A subquery is a query inside any other query.

Example:

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SELECT name FROM employees

WHERE earnings > (SELECT AVG(earnings) FROM personnel);

This reveals employees who earn above common earnings.

Functions in SQL

SQL includes built-in features for acting calculations and formatting:

Aggregate Functions: SUM(), AVG(), COUNT(), MAX(), MIN()

String Functions: UPPER(), LOWER(), CONCAT()

Date Functions: NOW(), CURDATE(), DATEADD()

Conversion Functions: CAST(), CONVERT()

Indexes in SQL

An index is used to hurry up searches.

Example:

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CREATE INDEX idx_name ON employees(call);

Indexes help improve the performance of queries concerning massive information.

Views in SQL

A view is a digital desk created through a question.

Example:

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CREATE VIEW high_earners AS

SELECT call, salary FROM employees WHERE earnings > 80000;

Views are beneficial for:

Security (disguise positive columns)

Simplifying complex queries

Reusability

Normalization in SQL

Normalization is the system of organizing facts to reduce redundancy. It entails breaking a database into multiple related tables and defining overseas keys to link them.

1NF: No repeating groups.

2NF: No partial dependency.

3NF: No transitive dependency.

SQL in Real-World Applications

Web Development: Most web apps use SQL to manipulate customers, periods, orders, and content.

Data Analysis: SQL is extensively used in information analytics systems like Power BI, Tableau, and even Excel (thru Power Query).

Finance and Banking: SQL handles transaction logs, audit trails, and reporting systems.

Healthcare: Managing patient statistics, remedy records, and billing.

Retail: Inventory systems, sales analysis, and consumer statistics.

Government and Research: For storing and querying massive datasets.

Popular SQL Database Systems

MySQL: Open-supply and extensively used in internet apps.

PostgreSQL: Advanced capabilities and standards compliance.

Oracle DB: Commercial, especially scalable, agency-degree.

SQL Server: Microsoft’s relational database.

SQLite: Lightweight, file-based database used in cellular and desktop apps.

Limitations of SQL

SQL can be verbose and complicated for positive operations.

Not perfect for unstructured information (NoSQL databases like MongoDB are better acceptable).

Vendor-unique extensions can reduce portability.

Java Programming Language Tutorial

Dot Net Programming Language

C ++ Online Compliers 

C Language Compliers 

[agp]

anyone ever notice the intersection between (white) trans communities accepting (and thus enforcing) that the grammatical convention with acronyms relating to casab is one where we treat them as adjectives and not the words they stand for in terms of syntax (a dependant clause) and how white people will treat poc (and its variations) as an adjective instead of a noun group describing people already

[lackhand]

pipe operator in js

Rescuing from my drafts ca march 2023. This is no longer actually true; my company folded last year and I'm back on my gamedev non-sense (bittersweetly!). More details on that soon.

Long time no post. I'm working in elixir these days; I couldn't sleep and so was catching up on modern JavaScript; I watched nerds snipe in the gutters.

what is pipeline?

You read this; you're adjacent to >=1 programmer. It's bash piping, the output from one function goes to the next.

There's a few ways to spell it, from the explicit:

const $0 = foo(input); const $1 = bar($0); const output = baz($1);

Explicit! Legible!

Cumbersome! Weave-y!

To the Hack-style syntax, where the pipe operator creates a variable within its right hand side's scope (sort of like this:

const output = input |> foo($) |> bar($)

Just sugar on top of the above (+ variable lifetime scopes, whatever)

Nobody can agree on the magical "previous expression result" symbol

when the pipe is a series of 1 arg f()s, the ($) extra characters are gross.

To the F#-style syntax, where the calls have to be arity-1 functions:

const output = input \|> foo \|> bar

Handles the happy path 1-arg f() beautifully

requires lambdas or currying and more care for every other case.

F# wins, right?

The community seems to think so.

But it has wrinkles; every method has to be 1-arg, and the hidden closures to enable that have performance impact.

My modest proposal

I wrote this because I didn't want to post on a six-year-and-counting language proposal, but I also had an idle fancy.

To me, the problem isn't a lack of a pipe operator or other functional support.

It's @#_-+&!ing left-hand assignment and community conventions.

You can even see it in the examples, where we have const foo, a bunch of really relevant details, and then wham, we're back to the start for the next line.

What we need is:

A right-hand assignment operator, so that after calculating a variable you can stick it somewhere. Without further thought, I propose =: but I'm sure there could be improvement.

=: assigns to the RHS, and to the special variable it. By default, assigns to _ (discards) -- in addition to it.

A new keyword & local variable "it". "It" is sort of like "this", with special rules about its meaning scoped to the function in which it appears. Typechecking must respect its most recent assignment (how high of a lift is this?!). Lambdas have their own standalone it (so you need to

A community that accepts using non-descriptive variable names & scoped type checkers for this purpose -- for instance, special syntax around right-assigning to $ such that it's type checkable, variable scoped, etc.

The semicolon "operator".

Then a pipe could be written:

input =:; foo(it) =:; bar(it) =: output

Potentially with parens in certain callsites, simplifying it a bit maybe, etc.

Things to improve:

It doesn't look like a pipe.

But is that so bad, when it makes the whole thing so beautifully explicit?

It breaks LHS/RHS naming and conventions (you're assigning?! To the right hand side??!). Doesn't delete foo[bar] do the same? This seems like a very core, very forgivable case to make the code match the language. I do not usually say "x takes the value seven"; I very often do say "store 7 as 'x'".

Real downsides: so many syntax highlighters, code awareness tools etc would need to understand polymorphic horrible "it". Combined with exceptions, the values of it in a catch clause feel pretty scary.

Still, food for thought.

[spanishskulduggery]

"Solo si va a tocar una banda." Is "una banda" the subject or direct object here? And if it's the subject, why is it all the way at the end if it's not a question?

It's the subject, "only if a band is going to play"

Spanish syntax is very flexible, so the subject can sometimes appear at the beginning or the end of a sentence... in a sentence like this that doesn't have set grammar rules like the word order in a question, it's more personal style and emphasis

There's nothing wrong with framing it how English would, Spanish has more "customization" I guess you could call it

Spanish has many ways that it can change the syntax whether it's subject verb object, verb object subject, or other combinations

In general I have found that syntax changes the most for emphasis, and the emphasis of the sentence tends to be towards the end of the sentence

You know that meme of English where it's like depending on what word you emphasize in "I never said you stole my money" you create a new sort of mood? Spanish does that too, but with syntax and often placing the subject in specific parts of clauses

As in:

Nunca dije que (tú) me robaste el dinero. = I never said you stole my money. Nunca dije que me robaste el dinero tú. = I never said you stole my money. Nunca dije yo que (tú) me robaste el dinero. = I never said you stole my money.

In the case of your example, it's more about intended mood

solo si una banda va a tocar "only if a band is going to play" places more importance on the verb tocar

solo si va a tocar una banda "only if a band is going to play" puts more emphasis on the subject banda - which in context could make it sound like music will be playing regardless but it sounds like the person is hoping it will be a band rather than something else, like a CD, or a single musician, or a bunch of amateurs... To me this reads like "only if a band is going to play"

But in general Spanish syntax more closely follows English for standard sentences of subject verb object, but will change things up more

It doesn't always mean anything TOO dramatic, but it's a choice (conscious or unconscious) of where you place the importance... but for your purposes just know Spanish syntax is really really changeable and you'll see it quite often

English does change its syntax for emphasis but usually it reads as more theatrical or dramatic like "the night was dark" vs "dark was the night", while Spanish changes it up in everyday situations just for added emphasis on certain words

[mozarting]

Day 4: Traits in Rust & Sets and Sorting in Algorithms

Today, I studied Traits in Rust. At first, from the first Rust Book example it wasn't clear to me that why I need trait to implement this. As I went on, the concept started to make more sense, but things got complicated like with trait bounds syntax and the where clause. Honestly, I don’t think it’ll fully click until I have to use them in an actual project.

Algorithms: Lecture 3 – Sets and Sorting

On the algorithms side, I watched Lecture 3, which covered sets and sorting. Algorithms were quite clear, the lecturer was energetic, It’s still pretty math-heavy, and some of it went over my head. Since I’m more interested in learning how to implement algorithms than getting deep into the math, I’ll probably bring in other resources to supplement what I’m learning here.

Tomorrow's plan

When I committed to working daily on Rust, learning algorithms, and posting on Tumblr, I set up a timetable and stuck to it for the first two days. My motivation was high, and I felt productive. But since yesterday, I’ve started slipping, and I can feel my productivity fading—which I don’t want to let happen.

My goal now is to push myself to stay disciplined until this becomes a habit. Tomorrow, I’ll keep going with the Rust Book and tackle the final topic of this chapter: Validating References with Lifetimes..

[nonstandardrepertoire]

Parashat Vayéishev: יְפֵה | yəfeih

It takes so much work to pretend that gender is real.

The Torah has some compliments for Yoseif in this week’s portion. Not only is he good at running a household, he’s also nice to look at. That’s almost literally what the text says in Bəreishit 39:6, where we read that Yoseif was יְפֵה תֹֽאַר וִיפֵה מַרְאֶה | yəfeih tó’ar vifeih mar’eh | “beautiful of shape and beautiful of sight”.

Translations get a bit swimmy here because these two phrases are so similar to one another — tó’ar and mar’eh aren’t all that clearly differentiated from one another; they both basically mean “something looked at”. The point, tho, is clear: Yoseif is easy on the eyes.

If you’ve been reading the Torah in the original Hebrew this cycle, this little descriptive clause might sound familiar. Indeed, it’s the exact same clause (other than a tweak of grammatical gender) that gets used to describe Yoseif’s mother, Raḥeil, in 29:17 — Ya’aqov’s favored wife is described there as יְפַת תֹּֽאַר וִיפַת מַרְאֶה | yəfat tó’ar vifat mar’eh | “beautiful of shape and beautiful of sight”.

You could be excused for not knowing this if you’ve been reading along in English instead. There’s a real resistance among English translators to translate these two identical clauses identically. Sefaria hosts twelve English translations of Genesis, and of those twelve, only one — the 1917 JPS translation (not any of the later JPS editions!) — uses the same English clause both times. Adding Robert Alter’s version brings us slightly up to two out of thirteen, but the KJV, Yale Anchor Bible, and Oxford Annotated Bible versions push us back down to two in sixteen. It’s a strong, clear, and persistent pattern: Almost every English translation I have access to masculinizes Yoseif with adjectives like handsome and well built while feminizing Raḥeil with adjectives like shapely and beautiful.

Now, a good translation usually shouldn’t be entirely mechanical. Natural language isn’t formal logic — words are fuzzy, and no two languages’ words are all fuzzy in exactly the same way. The English word set can be used of going down (as the sun below the horizon) and also of a collection of things (as in chess pieces). That’s not going to be the case in every other language; when translating out of English, it’s often necessary to use two different words to capture these two different meanings. Even in less extreme cases, the same word may sometimes be best translated differently depending on context, nuance, and valence. This can get very tricky if a text is using the same word in different senses to make a pun or a point or for some other artistic, philosophical, or idiosyncratic reason — if I say, “Zie couldn’t be elected because of hir convictions”, I may mean both hir beliefs and hir having been found guilty in a court of law [a], which is going to be difficult to translate succinctly into a language that doesn’t have a singular word with that same double meaning. Different translators make different choices and tradeoffs in navigating issues like this, and that’s one of the things that makes different translations interestingly different. That’s all well and good.

[a] Or even hir having found guilty in a court of law because of hir beliefs!

Nevertheless, I struggle to believe that these kinds of considerations are driving this pattern of differentiated translation. The clause in question is long enough to be its own self-contained grammatical thought; it doesn’t need to change to fit the syntax of the sentence around it. And in neither case is there punning wordplay going on; these words were doubtless chosen specifically, but all signs point to that choice being based on sense, not sound.

And that sense seems like it could well be important. We know Ya’aqov loves Raḥeil more than his other wives, just as we know he loves Yoseif more than his other sons. In both cases, this preference leads to problems, with rivalry, deception, and a long sojourn in a foreign land ensuing. And here we have Yoseif described with the exact same set of words as his mother. It’s a linguistic linkage that’s easy enough to preserve in translation. So why not keep it?

יָפֶה | Yafeh is an adjective that just means beautiful. It comes from a root that also just means beautiful. It’s not a particularly specialized type of beauty — it’s used of women and men, sure, but also of cities and trees and even, in Qohélet 3:11, of abstract things in their proper times. It’s not wrong to translate it as handsome, but neither is it obligatory to do so when yafeh is applied to a man.

These differing translations are not linguistically required. Instead, they reflect a retrojection of a contemporary gender framework back onto a text that doesn’t fully support it. The Torah is, to be sure, a deeply patriarchal document, but that doesn’t mean its patriarchal gender norms function identically to ours. The near unanimity of English translations in masculinizing Yoseif’s beautiful while feminizing Raḥeil’s betrays a deep discomfort with men and women being alike. I doubt this was a conscious thing for the most part, but the prior belief that men and women should be linguistically distinguished distorts the translations, occluding the identicality of the Hebrew text. A distinction between genders isn’t being found here, it’s being built.

Many people would have you believe that gender is a natural phenomenon, that differences between men and women are not created but discovered, things somehow baked into the fabric of the world and then subsequently reflected in culture at large. But here we can see very directly the work going on in the background to maintain this illusion. These differing descriptions of masculine vs feminine beauty aren’t in the original text; they’re not a Hebrew phenomenon dutifully carried over into contemporary English; they’re an invention, pushed onto the text after the fact.

This happens all the time, and is one of the perils of translation. Your own cultural assumptions can be as imperceptible as clean air on a calm day, and it is terribly easy to let them push your understanding of a different culture’s texts off kilter without even realizing it. This is especially true when those assumptions work in favor of preserving existing power imbalances. Resisting this is hard work, but it is work that must be done if we are to have any hope of grappling with texts like the Torah instead of with our phantasmagorical mis-imaginings of them. We must let Yoseif and Raḥeil be beautiful in the same way.

[incandescentflower]

tagged by @stickers-on-a-laptop!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

107 (2 are wips)

2. What is your AO3 wordcount?

849,849 (that's really true. kind of spooky huh?)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

whatever hits the feels and gives me ideas. the majority is bl. right now it's Bad Buddy and Cherry Magic Thailand. The fandom I've written the most fics for is the Cherry Magic jdrama.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Up the Ante, Bad Buddy

Logical Syntax, Semantic Error

a boyfriend demo with premium features, Semantic Error

Be a good hyung, Semantic Error

one week is long enough to dream - Kieta Hatsukoi

5. Do you respond to comments?

always! sometimes it takes me a little longer than others but I always want to acknowledge when someone comments because they are such a boost.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I don't usually end in angst but I wrote something for a 1K challenge and it definitely was the angstiest ending I have ever written - before you go in Bad Buddy fandom.

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

The overwhelming majority of my fic have happy endings and I don't really know how to determine the level of happiness. I do think angst with happy endings feels more cathartic. I have 8 fic in that tag.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I only once got full on hate on a fic. A reader said they wished they could take their kudos back. It was top/bottom drama and I don't engage in that bs.

9. Do you write smut? If so, which kind?

72/107 fic are rated E or M. It's always for smut. I once had a reader tell me that I am the master of the comfort smut genre. I am very pleased with that. :)

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest crossover you’ve ever written?

I have never written one, but lately I've had some ideas churning

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that I know of

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yep! many times. I'm very honored when someone does that. Same goes with podfic or art.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope, haven't been able to yet. It's hard for me to find the time to dedicate to something more complex like that.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

I don't like to choose favorites. All my ships are beloved for various reasons, but wangxian is the one that first truly set my brain on fire.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I don't have one. If I want to finish it, I will finish it. I'm stubborn like that. It might take some time. I've had a few where it has taken me a couple of years to complete, but I still completed them.

I have had a few fics I've given up on because I didn't want to write them anymore.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I'm not sure. My writing is led by character emotions and I think people enjoy that. I've been told I am good at characterization.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I love clauses, give me all the clauses, who needs to end a sentence... we can just go on forever.

Long plotting and story structure is often overwhelming for me too.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

This feels like something strange to have an opinion on, honestly. If it fits the story then why wouldn't you? You just have to keep in mind what it tells the audience who are reading in the primary language.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

The Raven Cycle - a wonderful YA book series if you have not read it. It's my favorite book series.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Oh no, more trying to choose. I honestly don't think I have one. If I wrote something long, it's because I had an idea I loved. And sometimes my short fic get to the crux of what I love about a show and distills it in a way that lets me roll around in it for a while. I think usually my favorite fic (and also my most hated fic) tends to be the one I am currently writing.

tagging @galauvant @dimplesandfierceeyes @sunshinedobi @bestbuds55 because I've seen you all writing lately, but no pressure! Feel free to pass if you don't want to do it.