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Transcript Episode 88: No such thing as the oldest language

This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm episode ‘No such thing as the oldest language. It’s been lightly edited for readability. Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. Links to studies mentioned and further reading can be found on the episode show notes page.

[Music]

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

Lauren: I’m Lauren Gawne. Today, we’re getting enthusiastic about old languages. But first, our most recent bonus episode was deleted scenes with three of our interviews from this year.

Gretchen: We had deleted scenes from our liveshow Q&A with Kirby Conrod about language and gender. We talked about reflexive pronouns, multiple pronouns in fiction, and talking about people who use multiple pronoun sets.

Lauren: We also have an excerpt from our interview with Itxaso Rodríguez-Ordóñez about Basque because it’s famous among linguists for having ergativity.

Gretchen: We wanted to know “What do Basque people themselves think about ergativity?” It turns out, there are jokes and cartoons about it, which Itxaso was able to share with us.

Lauren: Amazing and charming.

Gretchen: Finally, we have an excerpt from my conversation with authors Ada Palmer and Jo Walton about swearing in science fiction and fantasy. This excerpt talks about acronyms both of the swear-y and non-swear-y kind.

Lauren: You can get this bonus episode as well as a whole bunch more at patreon.com/lingthusiasm.

Gretchen: Also, yeah, maybe this is a good time to remember that we have over 80 bonus episodes.

Lauren: We have bonus episodes about the time a researcher smuggled a bunny into a classroom to do linguistics on children.

Gretchen: We also have a bonus episode about “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” and more phrases that contain all the letters of the alphabet – plus, what people do with phrases like this in languages that don’t have alphabets.

Lauren: We also have an entire bonus episode that’s just about the linguistics of numbers.

Gretchen: If you wish you had more lingthusiasm episodes to listen to right now, or if you just wanna help us keep making this podcast long into the future, we really appreciate everyone who becomes a patron.

Lauren: You can find all of that at patreon.com/lingthusiasm.

[Music]

Gretchen: Hey, Lauren, I’ve got big news.

Lauren: Yeah?

Gretchen: Did you know I’m from the oldest family lineage in the world?

Lauren: Wow! You sound like you are part of some prestigious, ancient, royal – I can only assume royal with that level of knowledge about your family lineage.

Gretchen: Well, you know, I have some family members who are really into genealogy. I’ve been looking at some family trees. And I have come to the conclusion that my family is the oldest family in the world.

Lauren: You know, I have grandparents, and they have grandparents, and I assume they had grandparents, and I guess my family goes all the way back as well. We didn’t come out of nowhere. I might not know all their names. I don’t think we were ever rulers of any nation state as far as I’m aware. But I dunno if you are from the oldest family lineage because I think everyone is.

Gretchen: Well, this is not a mutually exclusive statement. I can be from the oldest family lineage, and you can be from the oldest family lineage, and everyone listening to this podcast can be all from the oldest family lineage in the world because we’re all descended from the earliest humans.

Lauren: This is a good point.

Gretchen: Psych!

Lauren: I think it’s definitely worth remembering the difference between the very fact that we are all from the same humans – and the difference between that and knowing names of specific individuals back to a certain point.

Gretchen: I should clarify – I am not royalty. I do not actually know the names all the way back because at a certain point writing stops existing and, at some point before that, people stopped recording my ancestors. I don’t know when it stops.

Lauren: But there’s definitely a tradition in certain royal families and stuff of being able to claim that you can trace your family back to, you know, maybe –

Gretchen: Like Apollo or something.

Lauren: Oh, gosh, like, mythical characters, okay. I was thinking of just tracing them back a thousand years, but I guess –

Gretchen: Tracing them back to Adam and Eve or tracing them back to Helen of Troy or Apollo or these sorts of things. I feel like – at least I’ve heard of this. I think that talking about human ancestral lineages helps us make sense of the types of claims that people also make about languages being the oldest language.

Lauren: I feel like I’ve heard this before – different languages making claim to being the oldest language.

Gretchen: I’ve heard it quite a lot. I did a bit of research, and I looked up a list of some languages that people have claimed to be the oldest.

Lauren: Okay, what did you find?

Gretchen: A lot of things that can’t all be true at the same time.

Lauren: Or can all be true because all languages are descended from some early human capacity for human language.

Gretchen: Right. There’s different geographical hot spots, you know, people making claims about Egyptian, about Sanskrit, Greek, Chinese, Aramaic, Farsi, Tamil, Korean, Basque – speaking of Basque episodes. Sometimes, people look at reconstructed languages like Proto-Indo-European, which is, you know, the old thing that the modern-day Indo-European Languages are descended from. But part of the issue here is that, at least for spoken languages – and we’re gonna get to sign languages – but at least for spoken languages, babies can’t raise themselves.

Lauren: Unfortunately, I, personally, have to say after the last few years.

Gretchen: Deeply inconveniently –

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: – for adult sleep schedules. If you have a baby with typical hearing, and they’re being raised in a community or even by one person, they’re gonna acquire language from the people that are raising it.

Lauren: Absolutely – in much the same way we all have people giving us genetic input, we also have people giving us linguistic input and continuing on that transmission of human language.

Gretchen: Exactly. When the languages claim to be “old,” that’s often more of a political claim or a religious claim or a heritage claim than it is a linguistic claim because we think that languages probably have a common ancestor. Certainly, all languages are learnable by all humans. If you raise a baby in a given environment, they’ll grow up with the language that’s around them. The human capacity for language seems to be common across all of us. We just don’t know what that tens-of-thousands-year-old early language looked like.

Lauren: In much the same way we lose track of earlier ancestors when we get earlier than written records. We talked about this in the reconstructing old languages episode that there’s just a point where you can’t go back further because there’s just not enough information to say exactly how Proto-Indo-European might have, at some earlier point, been related to, say, the Sino-Tibetan languages or the Niger-Congo family.

Gretchen: Right. We also talked about this in the writing systems episode where writing systems had been invented about 4,000, 5,000, 6,000 years ago, but human language probably emerged sometime between 50,000 and 150,000 years ago, which is so much older. That’s 10-times-to-30-times older than that. We don’t know because sounds and signs leave impressions on the air waves that vanish very quickly and don’t leave fossils until writing starts being developed much later.

Lauren: Very inconvenient.

Gretchen: Absolutely the first thing I would do with a time machine.

Lauren: All of those languages that you mentioned as people laying claim to them being the oldest, they come from all kinds of different language families. Although, I have to say, a very Indo-European, Western skew there, which probably reflects the corners of the internet that you have access to.

Gretchen: This reflects the people that are making claims like this on the English-speaking internet that I’m looking at and the modern-day nation states and religious traditions and cultural traditions that are making claims to certain types of legitimacy via having access to old texts or having access to uninterrupted transmission of stories and legends and mythologies that give them those sorts of claims. There’s no reason to think that a whole bunch of languages on the North and South American continents are not also equally old as all the other languages, but people aren’t doing nation state building with them, and so they don’t tend to show up on those lists.

Lauren: Yeah. A lot of nation state building, a lot of religion happening there as well. I think about how yoga is – I love a bit of yoga, and I think it’s really lovely that all the yoga terms are still given to you in this older Sanskritic language, but it definitely is done sometimes with this claim to legitimacy and prestige in the same way that having something in Latin for the Catholic Church gives that same kind of vibe.

Gretchen: I think about this scene from the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding where you have the daughter, who’s the one that’s getting married. She’s in the car as a teen with her parents. It’s this scene where the parents are being a bit cringe-y in the way that teens often experience their parents to be. The dad is saying, “Name a word. I will tell you how it comes from Greek,” because he’s got this big Greek pride thing going.

Lauren: This a classic Greek-American migrant pride happening.

Gretchen: Right. He says, “arachnophobia,” and he’s explaining how the roots come from Greek, and that one’s true. Then the daughter’s friend, who’s in the back seat, is rolling her eyes and saying, “Well, what about ‘kimono’?”

Lauren: Ah, “kimono” the Japanese robe?

Gretchen: Yes. The Dad’s like, “Oh, no, it’s from Greek. Here’s this connection that I have found.”

Lauren: I like his linguistic ad-libbing skills.

Gretchen: It’s certainly a great improvisational performance skill. The movie is clearly designed to put the viewer in sympathy with the young girls in the back seat who are teasing him, and the daughter’s face-palming at this claim, which is one of the reasons why it’s one of my favourite examples of people making up fake etymologies in media because you don’t leave the movie thinking, “Oh, I never realised ‘kimono’ was from Greek.” You leave that movie being like, “Ah, here’s this dad who has over-exaggerated pride in his heritage that doesn’t allow for other people’s heritage to also have words that come from them.” It’s a claim that he's making for personal reasons and for heritage reasons that doesn’t have linguistic founding, but none of these claims have linguistic founding.

Lauren: The dad has come kind of close to a linguistic truth though, which is that linguists talk about languages having features that can be either conservative or innovative. Modern Greek has a lot of the same sound features as Ancient Greek, which is probably helped by that consistent writing system. A writing system definitely helps transmission stay stable because you can point back to older texts. English has probably slowed down a lot in its change because of the writing system as well.

Gretchen: Genuinely, English has borrowed a lot of words from Greek – as well as a lot of other languages that are not Greek. This gets to both Greek and Sanskrit and Chinese having these eras that are talked about as “classical” or as “old,” which is an era that the present-day people, or some slightly earlier group of people, looked back on and thought, “Yeah, those people were doing some cool stuff. We’re gonna call it ‘classical’ because we liked it in history.”

Lauren: I do love the idea that Chaucer had no idea that he was moving on from Old English to Middle English because there wasn’t a Modern English yet.

Gretchen: How could you describe yourself as “Middle English” – that’s sort of like the “late-stage capitalism” that implies that we’re towards the end of something. Like, we don’t know, folks.

Lauren: I don’t think English always does self-deprecating well. English has a lot of belief in its superiority as a language. I think we can say that about the ideology behind English. But I do love that English didn’t go for “Classical English.” Imagine if we said Beowulf was written in “Classical English.”

Gretchen: We could have, yeah. We could have.

Lauren: We just went with, “Ah, that’s old. I don’t understand it. It’s got cases. It’s got all these extra affixes. It’s old. It’s a bit stuffy.”

Gretchen: That may have been because they were comparing it already to Classical Latin and Classical Greek, which was even more antique. The English speakers were looking elsewhere for their golden age. I don’t think people often claim that English is the oldest language because English speakers are seeing the history of their society located in this Greco-Latin tradition.

Lauren: Yeah, I think that’s a good explanation for it. I do wonder if maybe the attitude that we now have towards Shakespearean English, if maybe that will become “Classical English” when we’re a bit further on, and Shakespeare becomes even less accessible.

Gretchen: Right. And if Shakespeare becomes the text that everyone is referring to because it’s this quote-unquote “classic” text but calling something a “classical era” reflects on the subsequent era and what they thought about the older one more so than the era itself.

Lauren: Having this ability to distinguish between an “old” or a “classical” and a “modern” version of a language requires that writing tradition, whereas the majority of human languages, for the majority of human history, have happily existed and transmitted knowledge without a writing system. These writing systems make us very focused on pinning down. I super appreciate the website Glottolog, which catalogues languages and all the names they’re known by. We have a lot of languages that are “classical,” like “Classical Chinese” or “Classical Quechua.” We have some “early” – so “Early Irish.”

Gretchen: I think I’ve also heard of “Old Irish.”

Lauren: We have “Old Chinese” and “Old Japanese” in Glottolog, but I’ve definitely also heard them referred to as “classical,” so slightly different vibes there. Of course, you have things like “Ancient Hebrew,” which, older than old, very prestigious. I particularly like the precision with which some names get given to different languages over time. Glottolog has an “Old Modern Welsh,” which is nice and specific. I particularly appreciate the “Imperial-Middle-Modern Aramaic.”

Gretchen: “Imperial-Middle-Modern Aramaic.” That also gets to languages being named and being spread through empire and conquest and wars, which is also part of that historical tradition that people look back to.

Lauren: For sure. That’s part of the narrative building around languages. A lot of what is maintained about a language is religious documents or documents of imperial rule. That means that that imperial form might have been a particular register. Imagine if all that we had about English was the tax forms that we have.

Gretchen: Oh, god, that would be really boring.

Lauren: You would have a very different idea of what English is compared to how it’s spoken day-to-day. That’s what makes this understanding of old languages just from a written record really challenging.

Gretchen: When I think about trying to understand the history of languages just from the written record, I’m reminded of this classic joke – I dunno if you’ve heard this one – where you’re walking down the street one night, and you see someone standing under a streetlight looking at their feet and trying to search for something. You go, “Oh, what are you looking for?” And the person says, “Oh, my contact lens. It fell out. I’m trying to find it.” And you say, “Oh, did you lose it under the streetlight?” And the person goes, “No, I lost it a block over that way, but there’s no streetlight there, so it’s much easier to search here.”

Lauren: [Laughs] Hmm.

Gretchen: I guess this is a joke that doesn’t work so well now that everyone has phones with flashlights on them, and contact lenses have improved their technology and don’t pop out spontaneously like that. But when we’re looking for the history of language, it’s like looking under the streetlight because that’s where it’s easy to look. It’s not actually doing a random sample of all of the bits of history – many of which are just lost to us.

Lauren: Indeed. I like thinking about the imperial languages and the classical languages because sometimes we do get written records that help give us a glimpse into just how ordinary people were going about living their lives.

Gretchen: Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, can we talk about the clay tablet?

Lauren: We can absolutely talk about the clay tablet that I know what you mean because you’re talking about the complaint to Ea-nāṣir, which is a clay tablet that’s written in Akkadian cuneiform. It’s considered to be the world’s oldest known written complaint.

Gretchen: This is from a customer named Nanni who’s complaining about the quality of the copper ingots that was received.

Lauren: The thing that I love about this is that there is this complaint, but also, they’re pretty sure they found Ea-nāṣir’s house because there are other complaints about the quality of the copper in this residence.

Gretchen: We really think we know who’s at fault here.

Lauren: Yeah. It seems like he was just a provider of adequate quality copper, and people really needed to go to a better place to get a better quality of copper.

Gretchen: Cuneiform is also this interesting example of searching under the streetlight for the contact lens because the language Sumerian was written in cuneiform, and then later, Akkadian, which is a Semitic language related to modern-day Arabic and Hebrew, and Hittite, which is an Indo-European language related to English and Sanskrit and a bunch of other languages. They were all using this system of stamping the ends of reeds in these pointy triangle shapes onto clay blocks. Do you know what happens to clay blocks when they’re in a house, and the house burns down?

Lauren: They just get fired and made more resilient.

Gretchen: They get made incredibly durable. If people were writing on parchment or in textiles – like in fabrics or cords or strings or on leather or wood – most of those don’t get preserved the same way because you expose them to water, and they start rotting.

Lauren: And they don’t do great with fire.

Gretchen: They really don’t do great with fire. Animals will eat them. Clay has none of these problems. We don’t even know if we know what all of the ancient writing systems are because the ones that have survived are the ones on clay or stone.

Lauren: I was so charmed when I learnt about Latin curse tablets, which are very similar to the complaints to Ea-nāṣir. These are small bits of lead that people could scratch a curse or a wish onto, and then they would throw them into some kind of sacred water. They found, like, 130 of these at Bath in Britian, but they appear to have popped up all over the Roman Empire. It’s just like these tiny insights into the pettiness of humanity as opposed to the great works of literature, or we’ve talked about how the Rosetta Stone was in these three official languages and was all about a declaration about taxation.

Gretchen: But instead, you can have “This curse is on Gaius because he stole my dog” sort of thing.

Lauren: “I have given to the goddess Sulis the six silver coins which I have lost. It is for the goddess to extract them from the names written below” – and then just lists people who owe this person cash.

Gretchen: That’s petty. I like it.

Lauren: Yeah, so annoyed.

Gretchen: I actually read a romance novel called Mortal Follies by Alexis Hall, which was set in Bath and used the ancient Bath curse tablets as a plot point.

Lauren: So charming.

Gretchen: If anyone wants to read curse tablets and also “romantasy” I think is what we’re calling the genre now.

Lauren: I feel like Jane Austen would’ve included curse tablets if she knew about them.

Gretchen: I think she was no stranger to pettiness. It’s very convenient that they wrote their curses on lead tablets, which is such an incredibly durable format. Imagine if they’d written them on cloth, and then we’d never have them for posterity.

Lauren: I feel sad for all the human pettiness that we’ve lost access to.

Gretchen: Two other old writing systems that we have access to because of the durability of the materials they were written on are oracle bone script, which is the ancestor to Chinese – another writing system that we think developed from scratch because we can see it developing thousands of years ago.

Lauren: Oracle bones written on I believe turtle bones and turtle shells.

Gretchen: Yes, hence the “bone” part – also very durable material and also used for religious purposes.

Lauren: My sympathy and thanks to the turtles.

Gretchen: Indeed. Then the early Mesoamerican writing systems, of which the oldest one is the Olmec writing system, which were written on ceramics. They show representations of drawings of things that look like a codex-shaped book made out of bark which, obviously, we don’t have. We just have ceramic drawings of the bark. Come on!

Lauren: Oh, no!

Gretchen: Ah, it’s so close!

Lauren: How cruel to point out that we’re missing information.

Gretchen: You thought you were mad about the Library of Alexandria burning down. Wait until you hear about the Olmec bark.

Lauren: Yeah, ah, that really gets you and just is a reminder of how much we can’t say about the history of human language because of what we don’t have a record of.

Gretchen: Well, you know, before we do a whole episode about things that we don’t know – because much as we can make fun of searching for the contact lens under the streetlight, we don’t know what we don’t know.

Lauren: Indeed.

Gretchen: What’s something else that people sometimes mean when they say a language is “old”?

Lauren: Well, this goes back to that conservative idea that some languages just have conservative features that haven’t changed as much. A language that has a lot of sound changes we might call very “innovative,” or they’ve “innovated” a new way of doing the tense on the verbs. You can trace it back to an older form of the language, but it looks very different at this point in time.

Gretchen: I think the example that I’m most familiar with this is Icelandic versus English. In the last thousand years or so, English has had a lot of contact from things like the Norman Conquest, which introduced a lot of French words to English, compared to Icelandic, which has had less of that. Icelanders have an easier time reading something like their sagas, which are 800 and more years old, than English speakers have reading texts like Chaucer, which are about the same age but have had a lot more linguistic changes happening because of more contact in English over the years.

Lauren: That’s one of the things that linguists who look at when a language tends to be more innovative and change, it tends to be during these periods of contact. It tends to be during periods of invasion. English had the French come up from the south, repeated Viking incursions from all around the coast. They all had an impact on the language. I find it really interesting. Icelanders are really proud of how conservative the language is and that they still can read these older stories. I think in some ways English has created this story for itself where it’s really proud of the fact that it is this language that continues to take influences from places and is really innovative. These are just part of the story that a language can tell about itself and the speakers can tell about it.

Gretchen: I think that there are reasons to be proud of any language that don’t have to rely on age as the sole arbiter of legitimacy. In some cases, it’s that rupture with the past that people use as a point of pride. I’m thinking of Haitian Creole, for example, which is descended from French. You can hear that French influence. When I’ve heard people speaking Haitian Creole, it almost sounds like they’re speaking a French dialect that I don’t quite know. But the writing system is very different. It’s much more phonetic than French is. The word for “me” in Haitian Creole is “mwa,” and it’s written M-W-A. The word for “me” in Modern French is “moi,” pronounced the same way but written M-O-I.

Lauren: Right.

Gretchen: It used to be pronounced /moɪ/. This is why you get “roy” and /ʁwa/ for “king” and stuff like this, hence the spelling. But the sound changes happened in French. When the Haitian speakers were deciding how to write their language down, they were like, “No, we’re gonna have a phonetic system. We don’t need to be beholden to the French system. We’re gonna have something that establishes our identity as something that’s distinct from French.”

Lauren: For anyone who’s tried to learn the French spelling, especially those endings that are still in the writing system but not in the pronunciation system, I think it’s fair to say French has gone through a number of sound innovations, even if it might be more conservative in other features of the grammar.

Gretchen: It’s very conservative in the writing system, but the sounds have changed a lot.

Lauren: It’s interesting you bring up Haitian Creole because creoles are the result of this intense contact between two or more languages. They often get labelled as being “new,” which is kind of the flip side of this discourse around “old” languages.

Gretchen: That’s controversial in linguistics whether to consider creoles “new” or to consider them older. What they definitely have is children being raised by people who also already had some amount of language. Babies can’t raise themselves. But they do have this situation where their speakers were prevented from learning how to read and write, learning how to access the formal varieties of language, often very violently and through horrible circumstances. A lot of creoles came about because of the slave trade, because of historical systems of oppression. The language transmission was not the same as if you were learning it from parents who’d been educated in the language, but they were still learning from people who had access to the language. There’s been a bit of a swing in creole studies more recently to say, “What if we don’t consider these completely new? What if we think about the ancestral features that they have in common with the languages they’re descended from?” which you can readily trace as well.

Lauren: Thinking in terms of which features are innovative rather than the whole language as being new. Maybe it has a very innovative way of doing the noun structure, but it still has a lot of the features of the two different – or multiple different – languages in terms of sounds, and so taking apart the different linguistic elements and not just focusing on the whole thing as being “new” or “old” and trying to apply these labels that don’t actually account for what’s happening.

Gretchen: It can be kind of exoticising to creoles to say, “Oh, these are completely different from all of the other ways that languages have gotten transmitted,” when what’s also going on is kids in a community who were exposed to a bunch of languages or a bunch of different linguistic inputs at a time making sense of that and coming up with, collaboratively, something with the other kids in the community that is different from what people were speaking before but still has that ancestral link.

Lauren: There are contexts in which children are raised without that access to language transmission. That is when a d/Deaf child is born into a hearing and spoken language family context, which means that they’re not getting that language.

Gretchen: Generally, the child and the parents and the family and community members do end up with some amount of ways of communicating based on the existing gestures that people do alongside a spoken language and elaborating on them, making them more complex, because you are trying to communicate somehow. There are linguistic studies about this, right?

Lauren: Ideally, in an ideal world, if you’re a d/Deaf child, you would want to have access to signed language input through, ideally, your family but also your wider educational context. Some d/Deaf children do get hearing aids. They are useful but not a perfect replication of the hearing child experience. That’s a possibility. There are some contexts where children have just developed this communication system with their hearing family in their own home context. These are known as “home sign.” There have been examples of this, and they have been studied. One of the most famous examples that has been described in a lot of detail is the example of David and his family. Susan Goldin-Meadow and her collaborators over the years have done a lot of work looking at the way David and, especially, his mother communicate with each other.

Gretchen: This is a really tough situation. I think these studies started in the early ’90s. Hopefully, people know better now and can give their d/Deaf kids access to a sign language, but given that this happened, what can we learn from the situation?

Lauren: Goldin-Meadow definitely started publishing about this in the early ’80s. So, David – who I will forever think of as a 7-to-10-year-old child – is actually a GenX-er who, if he had kids himself, they’re undergraduates now.

Gretchen: Okay. It’s good to put famous children from studies in perspective.

Lauren: Because they are – it’s like the Shirley Temple phenomenon, right. David, in my mind, is always just this kid who’s learning to communicate with his mom, but he’s a fully-grown, tax-paying adult now.

Gretchen: What was he doing when he was communicating with his mom in this immortalised-in-amber childhood years?

Lauren: What was really interesting from a thinking-about-this-human-capacity-for-language-and-communication perspective is that his mother and the family developed this way of communicating with him that grew out of their typical gestures and context and a lot of showing each other stuff.

Gretchen: Pointing to things and so on.

Lauren: Pointing – so useful in all languages and all contexts. What they found was that David was creating systematic order out of the gestures that he was getting. So, he had more systematic structure in terms of the hand shape that he was using – he created these hand shape structures and these individual signs that his mom would also use but not as consistently as him. It’s actually the child taking this really idiosyncratic, raw gesture material from his mom. Gestures in spoken language context tend to be a bit more freeform and unstructured than, say, something like a signed language, which uses the same hands but in a very different way. He wasn’t doing something that was a fully structured language, but it had more structure than what he was being given.

Gretchen: His brain was really starved for linguistic input, and he was trying to extract as many linguistic vitamins and minerals as he could from this incomplete gestural system that he was being given as the closest approximation of language. Obviously, we do wish that David, who was raised in the US I think –

Lauren: I think.

Gretchen: – had just been given access to ASL, which lots of people already were using in the US and could’ve happened where he would’ve gotten the fully-fledged, healthy balanced diet of lots of linguistic input from lots of people, but the child brain seems to want to reconstruct language out of whatever is available to it.

Lauren: This type of system, which is often called “home sign,” is not the same as a fully-fledged sign language. Children often don’t have the same level of linguistic structure. They obviously can’t communicate with people outside of the home context who don’t know the signs that they’ve created with the family. I think it’s also worth pointing out that it is more structured than you would expect it to be from the input. We’ve seen when you take children from these emerging structures, and you bring enough d/Deaf people together, you actually get a real blossoming of a full linguistic system.

Gretchen: The most famous example of this is in Nicaragua in the 1980s, where a bunch of d/Deaf children were brought together at a school for the first time. The school wasn’t trying to teach them a signed language; they were trying to do an oralist method of education, which is [grumbles] – about which the less said, the better – but the kids themselves were coming in with their home sign systems and developing them further in contact with each other. When the next generation of kids showed up, and they had access to this combined home sign system, they really turned it into a full-fledged sign language, which is now – Nicaraguan Sign Language is the national sign language in Nicaragua. These types of languages are some good candidates for “youngest” language, even if we don’t know what the “oldest” language looked like.

Lauren: The amazing thing about Nicaraguan Sign Language is there were linguists on the ground pretty much from the beginning of the school in 1980s. There is a documentation of how this language has evolved. It was the older signers coming in, communicating with the younger children coming to the school, who then created more of the structure – so being a bit like David but in this really rich communicative and linguistic environment and building this structure into the language.

Gretchen: It seems to take those two generations of linguistic input. That feels very reassuring to me which is that language is so robust that even if we lose all of our writing systems, and we lose all of our memory of writing systems, and we lose access to the memory of what language looks – like, suddenly we all wake up with amnesia or something – we would rediscover this. Even though they wouldn’t be the same languages, we’d put something back together and still be able to talk to each other.

Lauren: We know this because Nicaraguan Sign Language is not the only example we have of a recently developed language that has emerged. The Nicaraguan Sign Language is a school-based sign, but we also have what are known as “village-based” sign systems, which is where there might be a d/Deaf family, or a number of d/Deaf families in the village – or a very high percentage of d/Deaf population – and a sign language emerges that the whole village, d/Deaf and hearing, use to communicate. It’s usually “village” because it is these smaller communities where people gather and live together and have to communicate with each other all the time.

Gretchen: And if you have an island or somewhere in the mountains or somewhere were there’s a high degree of genetic d/Deafness because there’s a relatively high degree of isolation, you can have a third of the village be d/Deaf, in which case, everybody in that village is learning signs from each other at a young age. I think the famous example of that that I’ve heard of relatively nearby is Martha’s Vineyard in the US, which is an island, I think. It has a village sign language.

Lauren: Lynn Hou talked about Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language in the interview she did with us, which is in a tribal group in a desert in southern Israel.

Gretchen: There’s also Kata Kolok, which is also know as Benkala Sign Language or Balinese Sign Language, which is a village sign language indigenous to two neighbouring villages in northern Bali, Indonesia. Similar situations there.

Lauren: We see this robustness of language and these “young” languages but building on this underlying human tendency to want to create linguistic structure when you bring enough people who can communicate together.

Gretchen: A really interesting example that I’ve encountered recently of what it’s like to suddenly have at least access in terms of format or modality to language, even if you don’t know what everything means yet, is in the book True Biz by Sara Novic, which is set at a school for the d/Deaf. One of the main characters is a d/Deaf girl whose cochlear implants have been malfunctioning, and so she hasn’t been raised with access to a sign language, but suddenly, she’s in this school now and is learning ASL and trying to get her cochlear implants to still work but, in the meantime, is suddenly immersed in this environment where she has full access to language instead of this piecemeal access via attempting to lip read or attempting to use these implants that haven’t been working very well for her. The author is d/Deaf and talks about a variety of different types of experiences that people can have in that context.

Lauren: I really appreciated how this book made the most of the written format to occasionally just not give you what another character was saying, and so you get this experience of being the young protagonist in the book suddenly like, “I’m only getting half of this sentence. I don’t know what’s happening. It’s very stressful.”

Gretchen: Because there’s just a bunch of blank spaces. There were also some places where there were drawings of words that were being talked about or worksheets that she was seeing with line diagrams of different signs. Despite the fact that it’s a book that’s in written English trying to convey ASL, which is not English and doesn’t have a standard way of being written, I think it’s doing a really interesting job of trying to convey that experience.

Lauren: That lack of writing system for signed languages means that a lot of the history of signing in human language history has been lost to us. There have been different signing communities at different times in history. It’s probably been a very common way of humans doing language, but we just don’t know because it’s not in the streetlight of the written record.

Gretchen: Right. We don’t even know if the first language – the “oldest” language – was a spoken language or a signed language. People have come up with arguments for both things. We just don’t know.

Lauren: Which in some ways I find very relaxing instead of constantly trying to make cases for which language is the “oldest” or which is the “newest,” you can just let go of those debates because they are all, at the end of the day, unproveable. You can just enjoy the variety of human language without it being a competition.

Gretchen: A language doesn’t have to be the oldest language or even the newest language in order to be cool. Languages are great. All languages are interesting and valid, and people should have the right to have access to them when they want them. By listening to this episode, you’re participating in part of that chain of human language transmission that stretches beyond anyone’s written record or recorded record or video record. You’re still part of it.

[Music]

Gretchen: For more Lingthusiasm and links to all the things mentioned in this episode, go to lingthusiasm.com. You can listen to us on all the podcast platforms or at lingthusiasm.com. You can get transcripts of every episode at lingthusiasm.com/transcripts. You can follow @lingthusiasm on all of the social media sites. You can get scarves with lots of linguistics patterns on them including IPA symbols, branching tree diagrams, bouba and kiki, and our favourite esoteric Unicode symbols, plus other Lingthusiasm merch – like our new “Etymology isn’t Destiny” t-shirts and aesthetic IPA posters – at lingthusiasm.com/merch. Links to my social media can be found at gretchenmcculloch.com. I blog as AllThingsLinguistic.com. My book about internet language is called Because Internet.

Lauren: My social media and blog is Superlinguo. Lingthusiasm is able to keep existing thanks to the support of our patrons. If you wanna get an extra Lingthusiasm episode to listen to every month, our entire archive of bonus episodes to listen to right now, or if you just wanna help keep the show running ad-free, go to patreon.com/lingthusiasm or follow the links from our website. Patrons can also get access to our Discord chatroom to talk to other linguistics fans and be the first to find out about new merch and other announcements. Recent bonus topics include fun interview excerpts, an interview about swearing with Jo Walton and Ada Palmer, and our very special linguistics advice episode where you asked questions, and we answered them. If you can’t afford to pledge, that’s okay, too. We also really appreciate it if you can recommend Lingthusiasm to anyone in your life who’s curious about language.

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

Lauren: Stay lingthusiastic!

[Music]

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

#language #linguistics #lingthusiasm #episodes #podcast #transcripts #podcasts #language history #Olmec Bark #cuneiform #writing systems #sign language #home sign

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deathsmark · 3 months

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𝐆𝐄𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐔𝐍

BASICS!

(PEN)NAME: ray

PRONOUNS: he / him

ZODIAC SIGN: pisces.

TAKEN OR SINGLE: single ;(

THREE FACTS!

1 - my adhd & autism are always at war with each other.

2 - i have coloured hair and its 80 percent of my personality.

3 - i am 4’8 & awaiting my tall top shelf reacher to free me from this existence EXPERIENCE!

PLATFORMS USED: tumblr, facebook, discord, chatzy, rp.me , kongregate. PLOTTING / WINGING IT / MEMES: i prefer memes with a bit of plotting before hand, the dialogue / sentence setting helps with my creative function. MUSE PREFERENCE!

GENDER: i am normally a male leaning writer. MULTI OR SINGLE: i am multi ship however if a writer i had plotted with and were close to asked me to exclusively ship with their iteration of their muse i would. LEAST FAVOURITE FACECLAIM(S): i don’t do fcs.

FLUFF / ANGST / SMUT! FLUFF: i enjoy a little domestic fluff here & there but unless its building towards a plot i tend to get a little bored of it.

ANGST: i love angst i am here solely to make my muses suffer. SMUT: i honestly didn’t write smut until like a year ago ?? but now i lowkey really enjoy finding the most obscure and poetic ways to write sexual encounters lmao. tagging: you. tagged by : i stole it.

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quercus-queer · 2 years

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More absurd stranger things “hot takes” from tiktok that I know the intellectuals on tumblr will chuckle at followed by homophobia:

Steve was framed as an asshole in s1 for no reason: he was a douche bag… he used queer as a slur to Jonathan, brought up his abusive father and missing brother as well as his mothers mental health, he was extremely insensitive about Barb, self centered, and slut shamed Nancy for the whole town to see… this starting point is why his development is so good and why everyone is surprised he’s actually a nice person every season afterwards. He wasn’t even right to break the camera, Nancy has agency and the ability to fight her own battles, Steve doesn’t own her. Jonathon and Steve were both assholes and treated as such by the narrative.

Barb gets brought up for no reason and was a bad friend to Nancy: Literally what??? She gets brought up because of Nancy’s guilt for getting her best friend killed??? Barb was a good friend to Nancy. She didn’t want to go to the party but did after Nancy pressured her and told her to “make sure I don’t do anything stupid.” Nancy pressured her to drink, which resulted in her cutting her hand which is why she died. When Barb tried to make sure Nancy didn’t do anything stupid like sleeping with a guy after she’s been drinking, Nancy told her to go home… but she DIDNT. She stayed there to make sure Nancy was okay afterwards and drive her home and ended up dead. Also she wasn’t being clingy because Nancy was “branching out.” Steve was a dick! He was a fucking douchebag hanging around absolute assholes that mocked Barb at every opportunity!!!

Steve’s reaction to Robin coming out was unrealistic: I’ve been seeing comments practically fantasizing about hatecriming gay characters like straight up saying Steve would’ve hit Robin or sneered at her… not even citing the fact Steve used queer as a slur in s1… just wanting homophobia for the vibes… like fuck off it’s not realistic nor is it even in character, Steve’s development includes not being a dick to people different from him

Homophobic reactions to Will and/or Robin coming out: NO CENTRAL CHARACTER IN THE SHOW WOULD HATECRIME OR CALL ANYONE A SLUR. Or even be that weird about it, literally no one. This includes Hopper actually. Joyce, Jonathon, and Hopper have KNOWN Will is gay since s1. Mike, Lucas, and Dustin are Will’s friends and have been dealing with the slurs and bullying Will has faced… they wouldn’t do the same. Robin already came out to Steve. El literally does not know what gay people nor homophobia are unless Jonathon decided to tell her. Nancy is the most likely but she is also too smart for that and rebelling against conformity and her parents lifestyle is her thing. Gay people existed in the 80s!!! And the defining trait of all the characters in the show is that they don’t fit in with society and are outcasts (except for Nancy and Steve… and Hopper) the main theme of the show is unconformity or whatever.

The fucking pronouns thing: They’d just be confused or think you’re stupid, Nancy would probably tell you to get a tutor. Also it is a tv show with monsters who CARES if someone makes a stupid video for the trend. Also again since people forgot, GAY PEOPLE EXISTED IN THE 80s JESUS CHRIST THIS INCLUDES TRANS PEOPLE

Eddie’s bandana means nothing: Nah, the duffers know. Forgetting wills birthday? Bad. However, will also had august 28th as a bday pre-s2 and no other birthdays are ever relevant or even mentioned except for the offhand thing from Suzie. They don’t care about birthdays, character design though? They very much care about that. Eddie is an entirely new character that requires zero continuity… plus he has handcuffs in his room… the show runners know lol. Definitely won’t say anything though because Eddie is gonna die and they don’t want that backlash

#i actually have more to say on all of these posts and may delete this one and make a post for each point #stranger things #steve harrington #will byers #robin buckley #homophobia #tiktok makes me loose brain cells what show are they watching #byler #mike wheeler

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devil-doll13 · 1 year

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I made a new Oc! I hope you all like him. He’s been sitting in my drafts for a while so I wanted to get his profile out. It’s still pretty rough and subject to change though. Anyway I present:

Maxwell “Max” Holt 🐺

Name: Maxwell Holt

Meaning: ‘Mack’s Stream’

Alias(es): Max, The Wolfman

Pronouns: He/Him

Age: 24

D.O.B: December 13th

Zodiac Sign: Sagittarius

Sexual Orientation: Pansexual

Current Residence: A small but cozy bungalow. He lives in Downings, a small (fictional) town in Montana.

Occupation: Mechanic, maybe future Author?

Appearance Description: He is a young man who has fair skin, sky blue eyes, shaggy blonde hair down to his shoulders, with usually a bit of fuzz on his chin. he looks like a young James Hetfield

Style: Band/Fantasy/Sci-Fi Shirts, Tank Tops, Jeans, Denim/Leather Jackets, High Top Sneakers/Boots, The Occasional Flannel, basically like if he time travelled from the 80s lol

Height: 6,0ft

Eye Colour: Blue

Hair Colour: Blonde

Notable Features: Wears glasses for reading. Quite a bit of body hair on his arms/legs/chest etc. He has a few ear piercings: mostly thin metal rings hanging from his earlobe. Jiggles his leg constantly. The cologne he wears unfortunately can’t really hide the smell of dog…

Personality: Friendly and enthusiastic, (although maybe not as much as he was when he was younger, before everything happened.) Kind and very loyal, manages to be quite intelligent with certain things and a himbo at the same time. Like he is sort of oblivious at times yknwim? Also a nerdy guy, likes to read a lot which surprises a lot of people, even more when they find out he’s a pretty good writer too! He’s passionate about stuff he likes. Sorta goofy too, likes to joke around and have fun! Stands somewhere between introvert and extrovert. He secretly has a darker side to him, though he speaks about it to no one, even those he trusts with knowledge of his lycanthropy. He’d rather ignore its existence altogether. His worst habit is definitely ignoring all his problems until they hopefully ‘go away.’

Likes: Dogs/Wolves, Bears, Motorcycles, Plaid, Denim, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, D&D, The Stars, The Sunset, Vinyls, Crowdsurfing, Rivers, Bacon, 80s/Retro Vibes

Dislikes: Animal Print (he thinks it looks a bit tacky), Broccoli, Silver, Formal Clothes, Littering, Spiders, The Full Moon/His Forced Transformations

Hobbies: Reading, Writing, Playing Videogames, Playing Drums, Tinkering/Fixing Cars & Motorcycles

Rough Backstory

Tw: Death, Angst, sorta toxic friends/betrayal?

Max was born on a chilly December morning in Detroit, Michigan. He was the youngest of 3 brothers, and their working class status meant he tended to receive hand-me-downs a lot and depended a lot on his brother’s interests. His mother was a nurse and his father was a construction worker.

When Max was very young, his father got into a car accident and passed away from his injuries in the hospital. He was too young to remember much about his father at the time, but he did know his mother worked to the bone to provide for him and his brothers.

While he was an excitable kid, he was always the quietest of his brothers. He loved reading, generally fantasy and sci-fi books and always had the idea of writing his own stuff even from a young age. It didn’t take long for him to get involved in fandom in his teenage years, and he wrote for some time in online spaces. He also befriended some kids who he played d&d campaigns with for a good bit.

The brothers inherited their father’s music taste; classic rock and metal was the soundtrack to Max’s childhood and teenage years. He quickly became passionate about music and enjoyed playing drums the most. He ended up joining a metal band as well as a drummer.

He also got pretty good at taking apart cars and bikes, although he would nurture this talent more later on in life.

Max was 19 years old on the night when his life changed forever. He was travelling on a road-trip to go to a metal show with his friends and then girlfriend, having the time of his life. That night it was a full moon. He ended up separated from his friends, but he didn’t mind. He liked to stargaze. But then alone in the wilderness, he was attacked. All he remembered was it was huge and covered in fur, but he managed to escape with only a bite on his shoulder. He was rushed to a local hospital who assumed it was maybe a coyote or wolf, be he swore it was more than just a normal animal. Despite this, he tried his best to continue on as normal, both for himself and to not worry his friends and girlfriend. They insisted it was nothing, so he felt pressured to do so.

However Max started to experience changes he couldn’t explain. No matter how he tried to ignore it, it kept creeping up on him. Particularly the physical changes he was getting, he felt his sense of smell and hearing especially become very heightened.

The first transformation Max had he thought he just had a hangover. His memories were so fuzzy, he wasn’t sure why he was (he assumed he was) getting blackout drunk but it was the only explanation he could think of. The disappearances from last night on the news didn’t connect to him, surely they couldn’t be related anyway? He kept on ignoring the strange feelings he was getting as well.

Eventually this caught up to him and his friends and girlfriend discovered he was a werewolf who had been behind the killings. They struggled to fight him in his lycanthrope transformation and eventually defeated him, leaving him for dead. They believed they killed and buried him, but he was actually still alive. He woke up confused and very disoriented, only remembering some time afterwards what had actually happened to him. But by then it was too late.

For maybe a year and a half he spent in a limbo, terrified of himself and of his transformations. Every full moon he would have to find a place to chain himself up to prevent himself from getting out of control again. His previous skills in fixing up cars and motorcycles became useful and he got a lot better at it, using them to get himself around. He had a hard time holding down a job or really sustaining any sort of stable lifestyle.

This was until he met Jack Silver, an older lycanthrope. The older man sort of took Max under his wing and taught him not to be so afraid anymore. It was the fear that made it worse, instead he had to accept it. Once he learned to do that, Max began to heal again. At some point he started working as a mechanic in Montana and has kept it up for a few years. He’s pretty good at it, and the income allowed him to settle down in a small trailer and support himself.

It’s been difficult for Max to drag himself out of the dark place he’d been in, but he’s been working toward essentially restarting his life. Of course, despite this he is still a lycanthrope at the end of the day. He’s still got blood on his hands. And Max and found himself becoming far more comfortable with that fact. Accepting it. So now and again there are times when certain people still go missing on the news…

Fun Facts

His favourite book (series) is Lord Of The Rings

His favourite film is a difficult choice between Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope and Terminator 1

His favourite bands are Metallica, Dio, KISS, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Ozzy Osbourne

His favourite colours are blue, red and yellow

His favourite food is pizza (bacon and pepperoni)

His favourite drink is beer

Due to his Lycanthropy he’s gained a few… quirks even in human form. For one thing the very heightened sense of smell, and to a lesser extent hearing. Next is the extra body hair, which only grows back if he tries to get rid of it. His nails get long/sharp quickly if he doesn’t stay on top of them. He has sharp little canines too.

Max always loved dogs, but now he sort of has an innate connection with them. It’s the same with wolves too, although there aren’t many about in the wild anymore. He’s found himself becoming quite passionate about wildlife conservation now as he’s learned this. It helps that he lives closer to nature now.

He absolutely was/is a part of fandom and writes fanfics of his own. Mostly Star Wars because Luke Skywalker is like a self-insert for him lmao (blonde hair, blue eyes?)

Max now has his own book on the go, although it’s more of a collection of manuscripts so far. He has a lot of other things to occupy his mind, but he definitely still has his times where he’s obsessed with his writing and can be seen at his laptop focusing hard.

He’s lived in the city for most of his life as a child and teenager, but he actually prefers being close to nature now. He likes being able to see the stars better with less light pollution, and it’s just a lot safer for everyone with his werewolf transformations and all that.

Speaking of, he can control his werewolf form and transformations more now, and doesn’t suffer from memory issues anymore. Now he can actually transform and go back to being human at will, but the full moon still forces him to do so regardless. It can still be difficult to control his wild impulses at times though. That’s when he goes into the forest and just lets loose. It is always a pain the next day of course.

Max’s ‘victims’ are typically not good people, and generally men. It’s sort of been hard to admit to himself that there’s a certain hunger he has as a Werewolf that only killing can satisfy, so he chooses those that would probably be better off dead in his eyes.

He still hasn’t dared to contact his family or friends from his ‘past life’ so it’s an uncomfortable subject.

Max can play a bit of guitar too but he’s better at the drums by far.

His current vehicle is a motorcycle he picked up and fixed himself. He’s pretty proud of it! It’s definitely his baby lmao.

I literally heard Bark At The Moon and based his whole character concept off of that LMAO

He deserves the best this is a FACT

(Taglist: @rottent33th, @slaasherslut, @the-pinstriped-hood)

#I love him sm baby boy #I got a witch now I got a werewolf boy #vampire next???#also me creating more OCs instead of writing? never #Maxwell Holt #Max #Maxwell Holt oc #slasher oc #horror oc #my stuff

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minty-mumbles · 2 years

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Here There Be Monsters: Twilight

Werewolf Lore | Read on AO3

~~~

Twilight Aegaeon Giles

Species: Werewolf

Physical/Mental Age: Mid Twenties

Actual Age: ~80

Gender/Pronouns: Cis Male (He/Him)

Sexuality: Bisexual

Physical Appearance Notes: He does have the markings on his forehead. The marks are symbols of his devotion to the Moon god, or at least they’re supposed to be. The marks were put there by his parents, illegally, when he was a baby.

Family/Friends:

Dusk: Twilight’s older sister, who wasn’t taken by their parents when they were forced out of Twilight’s birth pack. Twilight doesn’t know that Dusk exists, and Dusk assumes that Twilight is either dead or still with their parents, but she hopes he’s out there somewhere.

Midna: Princesses of Twili, a kingdom to the northwest of Hyrule. Twilight was friends with her, and had a crush on her, but when she revealed she as the princess right before he left her country, he felt betrayed.

Shad: Cute guy who comes into the bar Twilight works at a lot. Something’s not quite right about him and his friends though. Probably a bit too smart for his own good.

Uli/Rustl/Colin/Other Assorted Ordon Villagers: A nearby Pack that Time nudged Twilight into discovering/interacting with. The Pack is too far away for Twilight to visit every full moon, but close enough that he can have some support.

Schooling: He didn't have a great education growing up, and dropped out of high school when he was about 16. So hasn’t gone to college. He's currently working on getting his GED online. Time offered to give him the money for it, and he’s seriously considering going for the experience. He doesn’t know what he would major in though, and he’s very hesitant to rely on Time that much.

Job: Currently in the workforce. He works at Telma’s Tavern, part time as a starbucks barista, and as farmhand at Lon Lon Ranch on the weekends.

Residency: Rents an apartment with Wild. The pair have been invited to move in with Time, but they are hesitant to do so.

Other:

Twilight doesn’t trust gods, and has trust issues/issues with authority. He is very hesitant to pray to Time, only doing it in bad situations, such as in Caged Animals. He’s not religious at all.

He only speaks Hylian fluently. He’s semi-fluent in Twilit, but very rusty.

He really likes kids, and has a soft spot for them. Wants to have his own someday. For now he’s satisfied with wrangling Wild.

Summary of Past:

When Twilight was a baby, his parents gave him the marks of the moon god. This practice was seen as archaic and outlawed in Twilight’s birth pack, so his parents were exiled. The pack planned to keep their two children, but Twilight's mother came back and stole him. His sister, Dusk, was left behind.

He lived in the slums of Castle town with his parents. They weren’t horrible parents, but they weren’t good either. They were a bit neglectful and not very good at showing him they loved him, but they provided for Twilight decently well. His father had a bad habit of harassing the local werewolf pack in the area, who had denied them pack membership. Eventually, his father was tried by the Vampire council for this and was sentenced to a few years in jail for harassment and destruction of property. He never came back, and Twilight doesn't know what happened to him. His mother died of sickness one winter when Twilight was the equivalent of 16 years old.

After his mother died, Twilight wanted to get away from Castle Town. He moved to the capital city of Twilit, a kingdom just to the northwest of Hyrule. He was only there for a few years, and he met and befriended a local Twili named Midna. He didn’t know she was a princess for most of their friendship, as she disguised herself when she left the castle to get away from her duties. After a few years, he decided he was going to leave Twilit to go back to Hyrule. He was tentatively interested in looking for his birth pack, and it was pretty hard to find a job in Twilit. It was only at the last moment that Midna revealed her true identity to him.

The two of them had budding romantic feelings for each other, but when Midna told Twilight her true identity, it left him feeling betrayed, and like even if he returned, he wouldn’t be able to reconnect with her. He was left wondering how much of her persona was real and how much was just an act, leaving him to also question his romantic feelings.

Shortly after he returned, Twilight stumbled across a lone poltergeist, WIld. He was wreaking havoc on the Hylians who couldn’t see him. Twilight knew that the poltergeist likely didn’t have any memories of their previous life, and if they continued to do this to get the chaos energy they needed, they would be dealt with by the local vampire council, or maybe a nearby Demon. He took the Poltergeist under his wing, and started helping them find better, less destructive ways of creating chaos, and tried to help them recover their memories. They became very close quickly, although Twilight wasn’t successful in helping him with his memories

He got a job at Telma’s Tavern, working full-time as a server. The place isn’t the most upscale, but it pays well. There’s a group of regulars at the bar that come in and meet a few times a week. They seem to be work colleagues, but seem very hush-hush about what their job is. Twilight thinks that one of them, Shad, is pretty cute, but he’s hesitant to get invested in someone after Minda. Also, he knows he couldn’t be with a non-magical. Some magical creatures are okay with hiding their magic from their partners, or telling them illegally, but Twilight isn’t. (It made him feel a bit better about realizing this, as he figured he’d never be able to be in a relationship with Midna anyways, as she wasn’t magical.)

It’s about this time that Twilight meets Time. The god sees these homeless magical kids and is immediately invested in them. Twilight is very wary of him at first. He doesn’t want to rely on a stranger's help, and doesn't want to be in Time’s debt. He knew Time was a powerful magical being from the start, but didn't know exactly what he was. Once he figures out that Time's a god, he’s even more wary. Twilight has an aversion to any sort of religious stuff, because of the trauma of being pledged into a god’s service without his consent, and feeling abandoned by said god. It takes a long while for Twilight to warm up to Time, and really it’s Wild who makes that first step.

Twilight eventually gets another job as a Starbucks barista, and starts working at Malon’s farm on the weekends. That extra money, along with the money Wild is starting to get from his youtube channel allows them to get an apartment. Twilight starts slowly meeting the other people Time’s essentially adopted.

He slowly grows to see this eclectic group as his pack.

#here there be monsters #linked universe #lu twilight #werewolves

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dcwnthercbbithcle · 7 months

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GENERAL.

FULL NAME: Zuriya Vyasi of Tyharas

Titles: Magus, Mage to non-Edenians, High Priestess of Bayja (a, possibly non-existant) elder god worshipped by Nirvasan Edenians and heralded as the goddess of health, strength and new beginnings, Courtier and Courtesan if rumors are to be believed about why she has never strayed far from court politics Aliases: Known to also work under the aliases of Izu, Ryzu & Auryaz when she doesn't wish to be directly associated with the actions / work being done Nicknames: Zuri / Zury is the most common one! Though anything related to gemstones, song & dance are free game. Some of her personal guards, the ones who have been appointed to her protection for hundreds of years & have perhaps gotten a touch too comfortable have taken to calling her 'Bird' or 'Little Bird'

AGE: 60,000 thousand years old

Human Equivalent: Though it would be more accurate to compare Zuriya’s human age to 80 years old, her use of magic has maintained her youth. Leaving her appearing as perpetually 30 years old Date of Birth: August 13th, a late summer child, born at the beginning of harvest season. Birth Signs: Leo Sun & Moon, Virgo Ascending

SPECIES: Edenian

RACE: Mixed race, both of Edenian blood, non-Edenian natives to the Golden Desert & a small percentage of Tarkatan

Nationality: Tyharsi, native to the South Eastern most port cities of the Golden Desert Ethnicity: Nirvasan Edenian, also known by the term Nirvasaani. Not to be confused with Edenians reigning from Edenia, or those who had chosen to voluntarily leave their birth land. The term Nirvasan translates to exiled, stigmatized and caste away and yet unchained in the Edenian tongue and this statement, though loaded to many, encapsulates the sentiment of Nirvasan Edenians. In eons past, a former, now disgraced ruler of Edenia sought to ‘cleanse’ the empire of what they viewed as the kingdom’s short failings: the vagrants, the disenfranchised, disabled, beggars and anyone slandered by the social stigma of the day. Any good ruler would look to these and vow to find the root cause and address the lack of aid to these people, but this Edenian leader was neither benevolent or worthy of their title. They took the people in need and they exiled them, using a portal stone to a previously little touched realm, all were exiled, left to rot with the understanding that in the eyes of the people meant to protect them, they were seen as ‘superfluous,’ but these Nirvasan Edenians did not die. They didn’t rot, they lived and former anew, a colony of their own with the people they had found and recruited to succeed where their old king and queen had once failed them!

IDENTITY.

GENDER: Genderfluid, doesn’t identify strongly with any set archetype for gender and instead sees it all as a performance— and brother, let me tell you, she is no one show sally!

Pronouns: All, she/he/they/it/xem primarily!

SEXUALITY: Pansexual

STATUS: Alive, and living well.

Caste: Upper Class, top 1% or so in Outworld Occupation: Serving as priestess and mystical healer in her community under the prestigious title of Magus by technicality, though really Zuriya has exclusively embodied this title for her own benefit and to ensure her sorcery is viewed as 'allowed' in the confines of her culture. Zuriya's far more active and cultivated career stands as Outworld's answer to a pop idol. Zuriya is, at least by day, a career musician and a very popular one at that– made noteworthy by her patronage to the arts, her talents with a rabab, sitar, flute & vina, her voice & beauty, the seeming air of warmth and friendliness that follows her, and most of all her spectacular talent in dancing. By night, however, Zuriya's true passion and mind goes straight into her own brand of sorcery! Income: BIIIIIIIG, Zuriya's income from both her role in her community and status as a celebrity places her as a millionaire in Outworld, with a net worth of roughly 140 million if we converted Outworld coin to USD Affiliation(s): Nirvasaani, Survivors of Edenia / Edenian Restoration Movement, Shao Kahn's Court, begrudgingly (MK9), Mileena's Rebellion (MKX), Kitana Kahn (MK11)

PERSONALITY

ENNEAGRAM: 3W2

MBTI: ENFP on the surface, but beneath the glossing of her personality to palatability, Zuriya is more accurately a INFJ!

POSITIVE TRAITS: Grounded but ambitious, curious, wanting to push the envelope, centered, charming, courteous, playful, creative, diplomatic, friendly, happy-go-lucky (at least at the surface), approachable, reliable, responsible, hospitable, spiritual & whimsical

NEGATIVE TRAITS: Evasive, aloof, frivolous, gossipy & involved in petty politics, impulsive, dreamy & inattentive, melodramatic, materialistic, rowdy & a touch immature

MOTIVATION(S):

To research further into her sorcery and to grow up to a point where she is without peer in terms of technical ability and mastery. For her own peace of mind if nothing more.

To empower herself further using the large diamonds she has fused with her body and allow for abilities previously impossible for Edenians (flight, underwater breathing, heat resistance) though she admits this is more of a pipe dream than feasible possibility.

To use her crystals and diamonds to draw energy from Outworld’s Jinsei and the earth of the Living Forest with the hopes of being able to then draw on that power and become alike to a god (though more to comfort herself in terms of reassurance than for actual desire to be a god,)

To get to a point where her music and dance won’t be necessary to support her lifestyle and night job of sorcery and that she can reclaim it for the joy it brings her.

To aid in rebuilding Edenia from ruins so that it can home what remains of the once proud culture and aid in the ongoing housing crisis for both the remaining Tarkatans and Edenians.

To make a dent in the ongoing poverty and starvation crisis gripping much of Outworld in the wake of all of the realms having been merged to create it.

To heal, not on a small scale like she had with the sung prayers and dances in the room of her temple, but on a wide scale, bigger than even she can imagine.

To one day be able to disappear from Outworld's eye, retreat into a mountain or forest and watch the world around her, feeling certain that it is better for having had her in it.

Fears: Being insignificant. At the core of Zuriya's heart, her greatest fear is for her existance to be little more than a blip in a cosmic sea. Forgotten just as soon as she appears and finds her voice above the cacaphony of life. A part of it is selfish, pure self-preservation in the search to always be remembered so that never will she be truly erased. Yet, there is also the aspect of balancing the scales. In an odd sense, Zuriya feels as though, through her life, she is inherently taking and taking from this balanced scale in the cosmos, more she gains, the more unbalanced it becomes, the closer is all comes to crashing down. She wants to add back to this idea of a scale, to be more than a person who has taken and taken and is left to fall along with the scales once she has died. She feels a want and a need to give back, do better, make the world greater, but how? It leaves her feeling forever hollow and fearful.

LIKES: Though Zuriya boasts that her public persona as an artist, party starter and all around lover of the good times is predominantly for show, to sell her presence and the infectious energy of the music. But truth is... a lot of it is the truth. She is a lover of the good times, and her heart beats for the simple loves that a party entails. Joy, smiling faces, people smiling for her, because of her. That sweet sound of genuine laughter, those are some of her greatest loves.

Likewise, Zuriya is a lover of the arts, not just in performance, she loves listening to music from others, watching performances and appreciating paintings and sculptures, AND FOOD, one cannot talk about Zuriya without mentioning her love of well-spiced, homecooked meals and tea! She is a woman who finds joy in a full stomach and pleasant company.

Though this is not the extent of her interests, she is a collector of esoteric knowledge. She adores to learn, but more than that to understand. The world, the soul, life, everything. She wishes to gain it all and share it on! Though on this note, I should mention that despite being educated and desiring an understanding beyond the world, Zuriya enjoys and basks in the misjudgement others apply to her. See her as simple, silly, unrefined, or perhaps to refined, there is comfort in a role she can play. Being left to just be... herself. It can be intimidating, though that is not to say she is not up for a challenge. In fact, challenges in combat, art, mind, she welcomes them all with joy! It keeps her sharp!

DISLIKES: A fire can't burn without fuel and even Zuriya has her limits, to that end, she dislikes being pushed beyond her limits and unheeded when she voices concern, both for her sake and others. Though a singer and a performer, when her song is unheeded, like anyone it enrages Zuriya, especially so when her advice or objection would after have proved highly important.

Likewise, although Zuriya is a performer, and in essence, much of herself is a smoke-screened lie, she cannot turn a blind eye or open heart to deliberate lies. It is a more childish dislike but her tolerance for it runs thin, and when it relates to politics, power and people. It wears down, further and further, from mere dislike to hatred. Acting, she understands, exagerration? It's excusable. But lying for greed and gain and the suffering of others, she can't excuse it and her mouth won't find silence comes easy.

Furthermore, it must be said that as a naturally curious, knowledge and culture seeking person, Zuriya requires an open plain without restrictions to her personhood and rights to thrive. And in the absense of it, her ire is drawn and the flames of bitterness stoked. Order is great but fully restricting the majesty of the realms from her? Not even for a little visit when she'd be good? It's lunacy! Frustrating! She loathes it!

TALENTS:

Trained: Singing, maintaining a powerful and unyielding sense of cat-like balance, various styles and methods of dance from Outworld to Earthrealm, piercing (others and herself) for jewelry purposes, playing an array of different instruments. Soul binding, manipulation, conjuring, etc. Soul based magicks, especially the soul based magicks that call on the inherent energy and spirit present in stone and earth. Crystal and gemstone based magicks, including those that allowed her to transform old stones into the conduits of power she fused with her very bones. And of course, dance and music based magicks, though these are admittedly weaker than her soul based counterparts! Natural: Dancing, understanding what to move and when, keeping rhythm and finding the beat and remaining fluid. Navigating and keeping her sense of position in the world. Reading faces and the emotions of people before speaking them. Feeling the underlying energy and power that has gone dormant in sources such as landscapes, rocks, items, etc.

APPEARANCE

HEIGHT: 6'11 or 210 cm, extremely tall for the average Edenian but just above average for the run-of-the-mill Nirvasaani! WEIGHT: 197 lbs or 89kg, very lean in her musculature though that's not to say she doesn't have her strength BODYTYPE: Very long and slender, yet graceful and willowy!

SKIN: Almond, with a cool undertone! HAIR: 2C, long, thick & ebony black, with defined curls that cascade down her shoulders when not constrained into intricate braids and updos. EYES: Distinctive, almond shaped with long eyelashes that seem to be caste at a downward, almost eternally mournful angle, though the defined creases from smiling in the corners of her eye belay that resting sense of sadness the shape evokes. Zuriya has white pupils and black scleras that glow subtly in the absence of light.

DISTINGUISHING FEATURES: A large, round cut, flawless and colorless diamond fused with her skull, with the pointed end emerging above skin and muscle, and appearing almost like a unicorn horn. Two trilliant cut, flawless and colorless diamonds fused with her either hand and almost wholly taking up either palm. One large, tapered baguette cut, flawless and colorless diamond fused with her T1 vertebrae and protruding above the flesh between her shoulder blades. A marquise cut, flawless, colorless diamond fused with her sternum and resting between either breast. One round cut, flawless and colorless diamond, fused with the flesh and muscle of her belly button. Two pear cut, flawless and colorless diamonds fused with the bridge of either of her feet, and protruding above the surface. A number of scarified tattoos across her back and stomach in ancient Edenian, reading the original spells that had begun her journey into both becoming the spiritual priestess and a sorceress!

FACECLAIM: Golshifteh Farahani

COMBAT

FIGHTING STYLE: Capoeira (primarily), Kali/Eskrima/Arnis (secondary)

Preferred Distance: Mid-range, arm's length away from opponent Wielded Weapon(s): Urumi (for mid-range), Vajra (for close range), miscellaneous one-time use light construct weapons generated by the diamonds in her body

SUPERNATURAL ABILITIES: Mystical Dancing, Mystical Singing, Musical Magic, Soul Manipulation, Sorcery, Gemstone Empowerment, Crystal Magic (of note, many aspects of her crystal based magic involve Light Manipulation / Light Magic, utilizing the crystal's ability to reflect and concentrate light, for instance the creation of one-time use light weapons), Performance Art Intuition,

TRAINED ABILITIES: Mount Riding, Martial Arts, Dagger Proficiency, Whip Proficiency, Whip-Sword Proficiency, Dance Combat, Close quarter combat tactics

#VERSE INFO AND BACKGROUND WILL BE IN A SEPERATE POST #this got so long holy hell!#💃🏾 𝐙𝐔𝐑𝐈𝐘𝐀 𝐕𝐘𝐀𝐒𝐈. || she who dances with magic

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starry-skies-116 · 1 year

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Cassidy and QPP’s!CassEvan Headcanons~:

Her full name is now in my AU Cassidy Zhang Boseman! (in honor of her Blueycapsules Counterpart lol)

She’s Asian (Filipino-Japanese) American, her mother having immigrated from Manila and her Father, half-Japanese and half-caucasian, being from Tokyo. She’s also trilingual, being sufficiently fluent in Japanese and Tagalog with English being her main language!

She has a twin brother named Andrew, and he’s the older twin, despite her being the more sensible, strict and straightforward one.

Both Cassidy and Andrew are 10 years old and have been childhood friends with the MCI gang (+Samantha) and Evan since they were very young, perhaps around their first year of preschool.

Andrew and Cassidy look almost alike except for the assigned gender (AMAB and AFAB respectively). And also, Andrew frequently nicknames Cassidy annoying monikers. Why? Well, it’s just a brother’s duty, I suppose.

Librafluid/Agender Girl intersex AFAB swag we love it- but this is the 80’s, so I think the appropriate label for this time period would be Genderqueer! And of course, Cassidy’s closeted about how she doesn’t really associate herself with her gender besides the she/her pronouns.

Her associated emblem/crest is the Scale of Justice with the Feather of Ma’at on top of it- just like everyone else, her soul and life force/remnant are associated closely with this emblem’s power and meaning, and just as a halved shard of Evan’s spirit bears the triskelion upon his chest during his time tethered to Fredbear, Cassidy bears the same symbol of the scale and feather atop her chest when she takes on a semi-corporeal form as a spirit.

Much like Evan, she’s pan-oriented aroace (aegosexual/nebulasexual and aromantic), and doesn’t understand how romance or relationship hierarchies really works! And asexual and aromantic acknowledgement, let alone terms for the Aspec community, didn’t really exist during the 80’s, so she simply assumes that she’s not interested in people in that way, or that she’s simply ‘too young’, despite everyone else around her age (including her brother) developing crushes.

Cassidy has savant syndrome (hypercalculia) that covers up her OCPD and autism, so her parents aren’t really the best parents for their non-neurotypical children, saying things like ‘why can’t you be normal?’ or ‘you’re just like everyone else, stop being so dramatic!’

Her favorite color is yellow, and her favorite animatronic WAS Springbonnie… at least, before the incident.

Her parents used to make her take a LOT of extracurricular activities and classes, so she would be enrolled in about three programs per year at minimum, one of which would be playing the violin. She has a strange love-hate relationship with the violin- she would be forcing herself to play it, to repeatedly perfect it, drowning herself in the routine to push out her thoughts.

Can we just all say that Cassidy is queerplatonically/alterously MADLY AND UTTERLY in love with Evan and always has been?

She feels a particular type of deep, intimate and unshakeable connection towards Evan due to their similar struggles, and they have an incredibly close kinship unbeknownst to everyone else that only continues to blossom and expand beautifully after their death. She knows Evan struggles with terrible nightmares, and Evan knows her perfectionism, desire for control, anxiety and rituals stems from a personality disorder. Instead of rejecting each other like everyone else has done, they show each other compassion, affection, love and understanding.

Cassidy and Evan LOVE to infodump to each other about various topics! Sometimes they compliment each other on their appearance and their most ‘objectively attractive’ traits. They talk sometimes about the comical absurdity of amatonormativity and allonormativity, homophobia, transphobia and gender roles/expectations that society imposes onto people.

Other times the infodump is about creative writing ideas, DND, astrological and psychological theories, theories about the reasons behind historical events, different types of animals that could’ve theoretically existed in prehistoric times, TV shows and videogames, stuffed animals and books, movies, future plans and possibilities and events, philosophical questions, and much, MUCH more. They’re incredibly chatty, affectionate and lovey-dovey (platonic) around one another.

Sometimes they chat about paganism, goetic demons and angels and casual worship/witchcraft and theology and gnosticism/other religions just to scare their conservative, mostly Christian community of Hurricane lol-

When Evan and Cassidy get to fourth grade, they start showing each other gestures of physical affection, as well as paying each other visits that society in the 80’s would consider ‘romantic courting’.

They start hugging each other, occasionally giving each other kisses on the cheek, forehead, nose, etc. They also start performing secret handshakes and small fistbumps as greetings, occasionally calling each other petnames (the most common ones being ‘Ev’ and ‘Cass’), cuddling and snuggling up against each other on the school bus and when reading/writing/sitting next to each other in general, they’d pass more notes to each other than anyone else in their friend group, and cutest of all they’d bring each other GIFTS!

They would bring each other bouquets of yellow roses, blue hydrangeas and lilies (Evan hates the smell of roses but can make an exception for yellow ones since they’re basically eye candy), and they would also bring each other goody baskets full of sweets, new clothes, homecooked meals their parents would make, toys, books, brooches, figurines and fake jewelry, and one time they even gave each other matching friendship bracelets!

Cassidy knows that Evan sometimes forgets to eat entirely so she brings him food, most often authentic Filipino or Japanese cuisine so he looks forward to eating a bit more. They also sometimes just… visit each other and just spend quality time together like two platonically-in-love kiddos always do, but they can never call each other because William put the phone in a place where Evan’s not tall enough to reach it, and Cassidy isn’t allowed to use the phone without supervision.

Naturally both Evan’s and Cassidy’s siblings poke and prod fun at them for ‘having a crush’ and their only response back is for them to get out of here with that lukewarm take. Their relationship transcends the boundaries of what friendship and romance means. Yeah, they love each other in their own way that’s not ‘crushing’ on each other, so what of it?

In the Alive!AU, Evan begins to attend therapy after the incident and takes medication- by the time they get to 8th grade, he and Cassidy are in a straight-passing relationship that they dictate on their own. They plan to live with each other and adopt kids of their own, maybe even two dogs. They frequently go on dates and end up living together as roomates in college! (They have to stage a marriage just as an excuse to hang out and devour all the food there).

Their relationship even in my main AU only continues to blossom and grow after death, and they end up reuniting and living a happy life together with Evan/Gregory’s siblings at the end post-Security Breach.

All in all, they are sUCH a queerplatonic power couple that breaks every single definition of a relationship. 10 x 326^230/10.

#FNAF Cassidy #Evan Afton (CC/BV)#Cassidy Zhang Boseman #agender #aroace #asexual #aromantic #aspec #Andrew FNAF #FNAF Headcanons #qpr #queerplatonic #OCPD #cluster b #autism #these two <3 #I love them

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magentagalaxies · 1 year

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I posted 5,672 times in 2022

408 posts created (7%)

5,264 posts reblogged (93%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@dingdongyouarewrong

@fencecollapsed

@souplover13

@painlessnostalgia

@magentagalaxies

I tagged 1,732 of my posts in 2022

#kids in the hall - 97 posts

#scott thompson - 47 posts

#blorbo from my shows - 35 posts

#blorbo from my brains - 34 posts

#mouth congress - 31 posts

#queer - 26 posts

#90s vintage - 23 posts

#paul bellini - 22 posts

#kith - 20 posts

#prev tags - 18 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#james austin johnson (for literally no reason like he seems nice but every time i see him in a sketch i'm like ''i need to fight this man'')

My Top Posts in 2022:

no thoughts just this image of scott thompson

111 notes - Posted October 16, 2022

my producer/assistant director: *sending me important emails about the logistics for the next stage of our production*

my brain: you put the PEEPS in the CHILI POT and add the m&ms you put the PEEPs in the CHI LI POT and make it taste BAD!!

178 notes - Posted October 1, 2022

ok i am not over everything everywhere all at once but tbh one thing i haven’t heard anyone talk about yet is how even in the multiverses that mostly existed as part of a joke there still managed to be a genuinely touching narrative arc in each one??? like i know the reason i feel so emotionally invested in two piñatas or two rocks is because of the greater context of the story being played across all these abstract scenarios and the same emotional signifiers taking place across each one to emphasize the relationship between evelyn and her family but i just have to appreciate the fact that there wasn’t a single moment in that movie that didn’t end up having a larger impact. the whole is greater than the sum of its parts yes, but also the parts themselves still manage to be worth something in and of themselves. god what a great movie

1,529 notes - Posted May 8, 2022

concept i just thought of: i wanna get a jacket and just absolutely cover it in pronoun pins. all different sets of pronouns, he/him they/them she/her she/they he/they they/she ze/zir xe/hir etc etc etc literally any pronouns i can find. and all different types too like the mass produced ones and some homemade ones from bottle caps. so i want a pronoun jacket like that and then i'll wear it around and whenever a young queer kid is like "hey i like your jacket" i'll give them one of my many pronoun buttons for free bc i have more at home. i'll become the pronoun fairy. very excited to see this vision come to life

8,345 notes - Posted September 20, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

i love you singers whose vocals sound desperate i love you musicians who sound like if you don’t get this song out you’re going to explode i love you songs that sound like they’re dragging the vocalist with them 80 miles per hour down the highway tied to the back of a truck i love you voice cracks in emotional songs i love you unique voices i love you music that disturbs the comfortable and comforts the disturbed

65,850 notes - Posted July 22, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #false

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norvillc · 1 year

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NORVILLE ‘SHAGGY’ ROGERS is a 28 year old HUMAN based on SHAGGY from SCOOBY DOO. He is a FAST FOOD COOK with NO POWERS. He uses HE/HIM pronouns, and most of his memories are intact.

Shaggy never had a good relationship with his parents. His father tried, but he was too strict, and his mother often made him feel like she wished he’d never been brought home. He didn’t fit in with their family. He didn’t fit in... anywhere.

Before and even after meeting Fred, Velma and Daphne, he didn’t have friends. Only his dog Scooby, who his father hoped would help him with his anxiety.

Over the years his anxiety, mostly his social anxiety, has gotten less severe, but it’s still there. There was a point in his life where he was having panic attacks daily over simply existing. For the most part he can calm himself down these days, often with the help of marijuana.

He had a crush on Velma’s sister Madelyn for years, the two of them hanging out together a lot through friends. He was blind to the fact that it was reciprocated until he finally came clean, and they’ve been together ever since.

He enjoys cooking. Though his job doesn’t exactly call for culinary genius, he’s decided that one day he would like to be a chef, maybe open his own restaurant. Hey, it’s a tough dream, but it’s better than no dream at all!

Speaking of cooking... he makes some of the most bizarre concoctions you could ever taste. Even when he’s sober. Mustard on ice cream, chocolate syrup on hotdogs. Something very well may be wrong with his taste buds, but he’s happy with them.

The only music he listens to is 90s-2000s rock, maybe sprinkle in a good 80s song here or there. If someone else is playing music he’ll deal with it, but you won’t find anything else on his playlist.

No one knows that he bargained with a wizard to put an immortality spell on Scooby Doo. Not even Madelyn. He hates keeping secrets, and he feels guilty the longer that time goes on thinking about dying and leaving his dog, but he was desperate. He couldn’t bare the thought of losing him. Eventually, he knows he’ll have to come clean, as Scooby has already surpassed the life expectancy for Great Danes and in perfect health, but he’s terrified of the repercussions, so he keeps his lips sealed.

#MY BOY MY BOY MY MANS #evermorehqsintro

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theinsanecrayonbox · 2 years

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KP watches MH s1e1 and e2

oh i was watching FOP-athon-block on nicktoons when suddenly MH series is on. i recorded it to watch later, but hey i guess i’ll watch it now

Episode 1: The Monstering

Deena is human and lives as a human, yes. she loves monsters, cool. and hey we get human characters. also, she has her purple hair; it’s cosmetic not genetic like the movie made it seem to be (which was dumb) momma Wolf is MIA? ok, that’s more explanation than the movie gave. oh we already have a musical number...uh...

ok theory time; i think the series gang and the movie gang were given the same basic “hit these bullet points” for what to do, that’s why they are independent but kinda clearly just repeating each other slightly.

was that Spectra? yay class puns are here!

Deuce’s snakes talk? O.o and we just have Frankie blurt the pronouns thing again...i mean i guess it makes sense for them cause 15 days old, doesn’t know any different the kids are all already friendly? so...no real internal friend group drama? cause Cleo’s not ruffling any feathers...

wait Deena’s surname is “Wolf” not “Wolffe” or something more human-y? and hey they explain why they don’t imprison people to hide the school’s existence; there’s a forgetful thing...wouldn’t make the halfbreeds forget, cause it only works on humans, but ok, it’s better than the movie’s “eh we kick you out but feel free to expose us to the humans while you’re out there��

points for BatB referencing. also, could they use that later for some EAH-ness??

oh ok Cleo does get to be a bit ruffly i guess

oh there’s the anti-witch craft. and hey...does Deena room with Ula and Frankie cause she crashes and there’s no free room? that why they’re a threesome while everyone else is twosome roomies?

Dr Snarls Darkwin? so...Boolittle can stay, but Moreau does have to be monsterfied...

i just remembered MCU!Flash is Deuce and yes that is his voice lol ^^;

is the musical number going to be a regular thing in an episode? i’ll give you Deena’s magical girl transformation is cute...and why didn’t anyone think werewolf?? you got a human with powers and found your place unassisted AND the surname wolf??

anyways, Tora’s accent really does sound fake to me. here’s hoping that is her character arc, to reveal her trueself

wait the monster world has DNA testing? and Dad has no ideas about the monster world at all...so why is his surname Wolf? (oh please be my dating app mixup theory) oh wait Dad DOES know? and never told her? oh geeze, they’re pulling Jackson’s retconned terrible backstory aren’t they...

so that is Spectra. she kinda looks like a fusion of Spectra and Ari...

well over all, that was not a bad start to a series, i will give you that. again, it feels like it expects you to walk in with familiarity to all the characters, so it’s not setting up characters but just the new status quo. so that’s...disappointing. BUT it’s only e1

------

Episode 2: Unfinished Brain-ness/Food Fight

the opening makes it seem like Deena, Ula, Frankie, and Deuce are the main characters

first the A-story; oh Ula doing a presentation on irony. hehe “iBall” Cleo...you shouldn’t just dump body parts (especially your own) on random surfaces

how is Lagoona more of a ditzy blonde when he’s not a blonde anymore? i’ll give you though, the “witches don’t belong even if we upcycle them” joke was wonderfully funny and dark

how can you have the frontal lobe from a poltergeist? they’re not physical in nature...did you get their brain from their body BEFORE they were a poltergeist? spectral species can die and leave remains??

Frankie...i feel if your parts are that easily removeable, your joints should be far less tight. and you know, you shouldn’t be filled with blood and gooey bits if parts can fall off and break seals that easily...i’m just not supposed to think about that am i?

heh brain muffin. why did no one say that?

wait, why is Drac in a movie? an 80s movie? that’s not digital film...is silver not used in movie film? i admit, idk that myself, but they got vamps showing up on phones because it’s digital so good there. but the reasons vamps don’t show up in old photos or in mirrors is because of the silver used in development and the silver backing. now these days, yo can make mirrors without silver, so they show up in those fine. but yeah...that’s an 80s film... but Drac as a movie star does make me chuckle, since wasn’t part of Elissa’s deal that her being an actress was a thing that wasn’t compatible with her high rank? or was that fanon...might’ve been fanon...

and Tora getting ready to cause problems. well you know Ula, if you didn’t record your secrets out loud, this wouldn’t have happened...

onto B-story; Mrs o’Shirek? your art teacher is a banshee? and vamp selfies are a thing now! see my vampires and silver paragraph above

pft ancient 70s, what children XD but Frankie’s parts are all monsters...ok. and they Jimmy Neutron brain blast

pft dumpster fire. ok you got me with that joke.

wait Watzit was made by one of Frankie’s parts? huh...ok, that’s kinda interesting actually. oh srry it’s “what-zee” not “whats-it” i guess. that is less interesting.

anyways, was the Ms Frizzle/Ms Grundy hybrid Mrs o’Shirek? huh

so for e2...it feels so short. idk, i know it was the full 22 min, but it just felt like we had the same amount if content as a 5 min webisode? again we’re starting off. e1 was world intro and Deena, e2a was Ula, e2b was Frankie. our lessons have been “believe in yourself”, “don’t self hate yourself”, and “everyone makes mistakes”. all fair enough...and all these points were hit in the movie...huh...

anyways, despite feeling super short it was a fun enough watch i guess. i’ll keep up with it. the animation is looking good and i do like it much more than the g1 or g2 cgi models.

#kp watches tv #monster high #review #spoilers

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xaracosmia · 7 months

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ꕥ — WELCOME TO EXO COSMIA, KASQUE. 🌑

ꕥ — OOC INFORMATION;

name / alias: Sam/Sammi age: 27 pronouns: commonly they/she but any are fine ooc contact: @ sorunort on twitter other characters in xc: Elizabeth Afton, Vanessa A.

ꕥ — IC INFORMATION;

name: Kasque age: Physically 24 | 880 pronouns: She/They series: Tales of Crestoria canon point: Chapter 10 part 2 (before the game EOS’d haha <-PAINED) app triggers: [scratches head] just a brief mention of humanity's extinction.

personality: Kasque is a self described “half-assed God.” Even before her ascension, Kasque was lazy and didn’t put much effort into things, despite being smart and having the capabilities required of her. However her love makes up for her lazy attitude. Kasque became a God in the first place to spare the one she loved from taking on that fate. All in all she’s very laid back and easygoing, preferring to do things the easy way and groaning if she has to put in any more work than she has to. She also has a bit of a flirtatious side, and enjoys telling men and women if they’re cute or hot or nice to look at. Good for her!

something your muse struggles with: Her lazy ways. 80 years prior to the main story, Kasque suddenly decided to retire from Godhood and let humanity decide who was a sinner and needed to be punished for their transgressions so she wouldn’t have to do anything anymore (however before the game EOS’d, it’s implied that she was being manipulated and something was prompting her to act this way). When she descended to personally take care of a few transgressors, Kasque forgot how to summon her powers for a good while and kept tanking hits until she remembered. If she doesn’t have to do a thing, she won’t.

your muse’s greatest strength: Her love. As stated before, Kasque became a God in order to prevent Milla, someone she cared for deeply, from becoming God. to Kasque, there was nothing worse than imagining her beloved toiling away for eternity and never knowing a moment's peace and inevitably losing herself to loneliness. It hurt Kasque so deeply that she took on God’s power, knowing she may never see Milla again. But that was fine with her if it meant Milla could live happily in this world she wanted to protect.

history / background: Prior to the main story of Tales of Crestoria, humanity was being ravaged by a bestial race of ruinous monsters known as Dreadfangs. Humanity was on the brink of extinction, so their last resort was to create a God to fight off this enemy and save the world. In the end, there were two options: Kasque, and Milla. While they were evenly matched, Milla was the best candidate, and she was fully prepared for the role. However Kasque couldn’t bear the thought of Milla trying to live with the crushing loneliness of Godhood, so she took on the role instead, convinced and dead set on being a “half-assed God.” With her newfound power, she defeated the Dreadfangs and created a barrier to protect the last vestiges of humanity from the barren, toxic parts of the world she couldn’t save.

800 years passed. Out of nowhere Kasque suddenly decided to retire as a God and she created a new system of justice for the world: Vision Orbs. Everyone would be granted one from birth and with it someone could record a crime then broadcast it to Vision Centrals placed in towns and cities alike. If enough people voted to condemn the accused, then they would be labeled a transgressor and Enforcers (white cloaked constructs) would take shape and essentially erase the transgressor from existence. After she set everything in place, Kasque ascended to the heavens and wasn’t heard or seen from again.

(Meanwhile that same loneliness she needed to save Milla from was eating away at her, and Kasque began trying to contact Milla through dreams and reach out to her.)

…Until 80 years later we come to the main story of Crestoria, where Kasque has seen the plot unfold and she decides things are getting too messy. The main party wants to tear down her justice system and if they do that she has to come out of retirement. Lame! However after an altercation with the party, Kasque see’s that the system is flawed and she needs to do something about it and make the world a beautiful place again. And the best option for that is… killing humanity? Oh, no.

powers / abilities:

It’s easier to describe Kasque’s powers as “what can’t she do?” given how she erased a world ending monster species and then saved the last of humanity with magic barriers and magic trees. However, to restrict it to her fighting style only…

Enforcer Construction: Kasque can create Enforcers, white cloaked monsters, at will. Look out, transgressors!

Light elemental mana: Projectiles, missiles, blasts, beams, you name it, she’s got it.

Final Order: Kasque’s special, her mystic arte. Kasque flies upward and summons a giant glyph. After waving her free hand three times, she strikes the glyph with her rod, sending a barrage of lasers that slowly merge together, creating an explosion.

inherent abilities:

Mana manipulation. Think of this as simple magic tricks a wizard could do, but elemental based. Start a fire, make some flowers grow, and so on.

Levitation / Flying. She’s a God.

items / weapons: A giant silver rod with a large Vision Orb eye at the top.

starting ability: Light elemental mana

starting item: Her silver rod.

extra:

It’s very much highly implied that there is some external force manipulating Kasque into killing humanity, however we don’t find out what, so I’m choosing to play Kasque as being freed from this force when she arrives in Xara and not knowing why she thought that was a good idea

She put the bi in nonBInary WOOHOO!!!!

I think she invented the word himbo in crestoria universe.

She’s only 5’3’’, please point and laugh at her for being the smallest artificial God.

discord id: final_order (this is vicious’s old account, i dont know if that will mess anything up?)

#xc application #mun: sammi #exo cosmia

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bisluthq · 2 years

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I think the label issue was kind of a response to people being able to be vocal about it. Like people were fluid back in the 80s and stuff in artsy spaces and there wasn’t a lot of backlash I think bc they usually just kinda did their thing and weren’t writing their whole life story. I think since its gotten politicized and the AIDS epidemic and we had the gay rights movement be more vocal and gay marriage got legalized in the US and a lot of other countries it’s been more of a “well now we have the language and more of a platform and we can tell our stories.” And I think it’s great that people like Ellen (even tho she lowkey sucks otherwise) were able to come out and write pieces about it and have their story told. But I guess somewhere along the line we grew to expect that and expect rigidity and expect someone to come out and tell you all their labels.

Idk though I know you’re saying millennials didn’t really get anyone playing around with gender and sexual fluidity and I think again because the response was “well everyone that’s doing it should come out like Ellen or it doesn’t count now”… people like Gerard Way and Pete Wentz and even Kurt Cobain to an extent (idk he’s older than millennials I think)… they were kinda on the “counter culture” side of things and not as mainstream but they all played around with gender and sexuality (Pete more with sexuality than gender) but it wasn’t mainstream. It was still there though. But even though people like Gerard way have since come out and said “I use he/they pronouns” there’s still a lot of people saying they’re not really part of the community even though they are legit not cis if they use those just because they refuse to label their gender. Idk. It is sticky and like I do kind of get why people are “well pick a label we have a million words now and we need to be vocal to ensure our acceptance”… but at the same time idk if we need to do that.

I like people like Harry styles representing me because even though I don’t have a gender preference I don’t feel like the words bisexual or pansexual really fit me and I don’t want to have to use a label. I just like people and I don’t really care like for me it’s based on the person if I’m going to be attracted to them or not not based on what’s between their legs or whatever. And idk. I just don’t feel like we owe people our trauma and our coming out stories to be accepted into the community. Idk if they’re worried about accepting a straight person by accident? But idk to me if there is a straight person out there who refuses to label themselves and wishes they were LGBT for whatever reason but actually isn’t… (which idk if they really exist but for the sake of argument)… I genuinely don’t care. I’d rather accept them than risk marginalizing people that are actually LGBT.

I agree with your last point especially yeah.

#nat talks gay shit #nat talks wise ass anons

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annarendellsa · 3 years

Text

my heathers headcanons

it's the way i see them and draw them, you don't have to agree! this is based on both the musical and the movie

CW: mention of suic*de and e*ting disorders (bulimia) as well as various mental illnesses

Heather Duke

• heather duke is aromantic and yes its because she wears green, have you seen her socks in the off broadway musical? /hj

• more seriously, she IS aromantic but it took some time for her to figure out. she is allo but she doesn't label her sexuality, and she was always confused and frustrated to experience sexual attraction but never romantic attraction; she had a hard time accepting this part of herself.

• post heathers: maybe she discovers about non binary identities and asks her girlfriends to test out they/them pronouns on her? idk? aro-agender duke?

• she also struggles with empathy as she is naturally apathic

• and she's putting this image of a cold mean girl because she believes she can only be that given she's aro and ND

• post musical: she had no idea mcnamara actually tried to commit suic*de and when veronica tells her she breaks down in tears and spend a few days writing an apology letter to mcnamara

• post musical: mcnamara helps her to develop her compassion, knowing it's not her fault she's incapable of empathy. she didn't have to forgive her, but they did, and it really motivates duke to become a better person and be as nice as her

• post musical: she sees a doctor! she eventually recovers from her bulimia. veronica and mac are 100% supportive of her recovery, and very proud

• she gets bigger as part of her recovery and learns to embrace it

• duke is very pale with really dark and thick hair and eyebrows, soft features and quite a lot of body hair

• you know the bootleg where duke has blonde hair? when she's on the tv she speaks german and i vibe with german duke now

• duke Cannot say fuck and if someone is prude/innocent/idk it's her. the why are you pulling my dick was just to fluster veronica i think

Heather McNamara

• they use she/they pronouns!! just because. she still identifies as a girl though

• mac is autistic of course, it's like semi canon in the musical

• since she's very tall (movie) she stims while standing like being on the tip of her toes or rocking back and forth and the others can be quite annoyed because she moves a lot but they never snap at her

• post musical: veronica finds her stimming endearing and they know it's safe to stim around her, especially since veronica stims herself

• post musical: mac hums as a stim too and you can often find macnamawyer snuggling on the floor while humming in harmonies together

• she used to mask a LOT and it played a big part in her depression. she knows they had to stop themselves from stimming when she was a heather, she had been the weird kid in middle school but now that chandler took her under her wing, she has to pretend to be NT in order to stay in the lifeboat (😭)

• she's a lesbian!! of course she is

• she knows it since she is in middle school and has been """gal pals"""" with chandler since them but she still struggles with it she has comphet yk, but still less than chandler

• chanamara definitely practiced kissing together "to be ready when we'll have to kiss boys" 👀👀👀

• chandler always had a soft spot for mac and tried to hide it by being cruel to duke

• post musical: it took mac some time to understand that duke had nothing against her personally. she was chill with them until chandler died. from that moment she had to prove herself as the new queen bee and mac was a collateral victim

• duke definetely gave her trauma though and mac is in the process of trusting her again

• mac themselves is not a cinnamon roll just yet and she still has to make up for what they've done to others

• mcnamara has nicknames like mcNcheese or macaroni (veronica came up with those)

• they're also a vegetarian and she loves yellow food

• like she ever only eats yellow food actually (autistic thing). that girl is deficient! part of why she looks that fragile and thin

• also i see mcnamara as mixed race with golden/light brown skin and they have this type of curly curly hair but she straightens it all the time so it's only just wavy (once again, to blend in with the heathers)

• her natural hair colour is actually a dark strawberry blonde? her dad is irish and he's a redhead that's why (stole this from @cam-eats-candles hehe) but she dyes it so it's lighter

• post musical: she starts wearing her natural hair!! and goes with her mom to the afro hairdresser to start to get her curls done right (cornrows mac!!)

• their parents divorced (movie) and it's for the best. mac has daddy issues and only goes to her dad to get cute jewellery for their girlfriends 💖 (he doesn't just sell engagement rings. a lot of regular expensive rings, really)

• she's not a baby, she's not weak nor completely innocent and pure!! the girl is a head cheerleader, she's strong and flexible as hell.

Heather Chandler

• heather chandler is Also a lesbian BUT she is on the ace spectrum like demisexual? so yeah she's double disgusted when she "sleeps" with men

• as a queen bee she's also convinced that the only way to exist is through male validation :(

• chandler is taller than duke and veronica but shorter than mac

• chandler's skin is like rosy and it freckles very easily. i see her with the same cloudylike hair she has in the movie, dark blonde, with the red scrunchie only holding back some of her hair

• she is Buff and is genuinely into sports (lesbian jock like regina george)

• she has a sharp hourglass shape her shoulders are broad and her legs long and strong. she could lift veronica against a wall easily. and she did

Veronica Sawyer

• ADHD!! she's been diagnosed for a while but only became medicated post musical

• bisexual!! so bisexual!! without a preference. she's always been open and proud about it and her parents are supportive

• for me veronica is brown, with thick and dark hair and dark brown eyes, midsize, average height

Martha Dunnstock

• that's canon i know, but she's fat, and not the socially acceptable-hourglass kind of fat. big arms! big tummy! double chin! (i see fanart of her just being chubby quite often and it's ANNOYING like that's a big part of her character)

• she's perfectly healthy like this as are many fat people :))

• i also like the hc that her attempt at sewer slide made her permanently disabled and that she keeps using a wheelchair! because it happens, it's important to show it, and it gives me a lot of ideas for cute kindergarten girlfriends prompts 💓💓

• of course realistically being fat AND physically disabled in the 80's was and is not an easy thing to go through but it's in my head so

• she's also a tiny bit taller than veronica

• i don't hate the outfit she wears in the off broadway show, but I like her west end outfit better!! it's a lot more 80's inspired and i totally see her in kidcore/clowncore etc, even if pastels are cool too

• in the current west end version, martha is played by a black woman and she looks amazing! however I've been drawing and imagining martha as east/south east asian, for no reason really?? also idk kinda rubs me the wrong way that in the more official versions of heathers it's always duke that is black, or martha? not the others? hmm

• i'm not comfortable with hcs that exclusively babyfy her or patronise her like a bunny rabbit just bc she's a fat outcast who likes unicorns!! she's not just cute and giggly! martha can and does swear and she Fucks, like mcnamara

• big round glasses + big nose + long brown hair

• taking inspiration from the princess bride line but she's a huge movie nerd. yes she loves happy endings but she also loves horror movies, as long as they have a happy ending

• she never gets a makeover omg y'all just hate people with glasses and a childish aesthetic istg

• she takes this aesthetic further though and

• post musical and high school: she doesn't just wear baggy clothes anymore as she only did that to prevent more bullying. she develops an unique style with a lot of pink and glitter and she's awesome

------

ok this is getting long ill probably do more!! tell me what you think <3

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