#and check out the linguistics fun facts tag

[best-non-english-word-torunament]

What's the average language like?

This will be a giant of a post, because this is a subject that I really like. So much of what we think about language just isn't true when you look at the majority of them and I'm not even going into how the languages themselves are constructed, only the people speaking them, if that makes sense. It will make sense in a moment, I promise

First, let's discuss assumptions. When you think of the abstract idea of a language, what do you imagine?

How many speakers?

Where is it spoken geographically?

Do speakers of the language only speak that language or do they speak at least one other language? How many more languages?

Is the language tied to a state/country?

Is the language thriving or endangered?

In what domains is the language used? (home, school, higher education, administration and politics, in the workplace, in popular media...)

Is the language well documented and supported? Are there resources like dictionaries to look up words in, does google translate work for it, does Word/google docs work etc?

Is the language spoken or signed?

Is the language written down? Is it written down in a standardised way?

Do you see where I'm going with this? My perspective on what a language is has completely shifted after studying some linguistics, and this only covers language usage and spread, not how words and grammar work in different languages. Anyways, let's talk facts. (if no other sources are given the source is my uni lectures)

How many speakers does the average language have?

The median language has 7 600 native speakers.

7 600 people is the median number of speakers. Half the world's languages have more, half have less.

Most languages in this tournament have millions of speakers. But maybe that's relatively common? After all, half of the world's languages have more than 7 600 speakers. No.

94% of all languages have less than a million speakers.

Just so you know, big languages are far from the norm. There are 6700-6800 living languages in the world (according to ethnologue and glottolog, the two big language databases. I've taken the numbers for languages having a non-zero number of speakers and not being classed as extinct respectively. Both list more languages).

6% of 6700-6800 languages would be around 400 languages with more than a million speakers. Still a lot, but only a (loud) minority. It's enough to skew the average number of speakers per language upwards though. Counting 8 billion people and 6800 languages, that's almost 1.2 million people per language on average. The minority is Very loud.

Where are most languages spoken?

First of all, I'll present you with these graphs (data stolen from my professor's powerpoint) which I first showed in this post:

49% of all languages are spoken in Africa and Oceania, a disproportionately large amount compared to their population. On the other hand, Europe and Asia have disproportionally few languages, though Asia still has the largest amount of languages. Curious, considering Europe is often thought of as a place with many languages.

Sub-Saharan Africa is a very linguistically interesting place, but we need to talk about New Guinea. One island with 6.4 million people. Somehow over 800 languages. If you count the surrounding islands that's 7.1 million people and 1050 languages. Keep in mind that there are 6700-6800 languages in the world, so those 1050 make up more than a seventh of all languages. The average New Guinean language has less than 3000 speakers. Some are larger, but still less than 250 000 speakers. Remember, this is a seventh of all languages. It's a lot more common than the millions of speakers situation!

So yeah, many languages both in and outside New Guinea are spoken by few people in one or a few villages. Which is to say a small territory. But 7600 speakers spread over a big territory will have a hard time keeping their contact and language alive, so it's not surprising.

Moving on, lets talk about...

Bilingualism! Or multilingualism!

Is it common to speak two or more languages? Yes, it is. This is the situation in most of the world and has been the case historically. Fun fact: monolingual areas are uncommon historically and states which have become monolingual became so relatively recently.

One common thing is to learn a lingua franca in addition to your native language, a language that most people in the area know at least some of so you can use it to communicate with people speaking other languages than you.

As an example, I'm writing this in English which isn't my native language and some of you reading this won't have English as your native language either. Other examples are Swahili in large parts of eastern Africa and Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea (the autonomous state, not the entire island).

Speakers of minority languages often have to learn the majority language in the country too. It's difficult to live somewhere where most daily life takes place in one language without speaking at least some of it. This is the case for native people in colonised countries, immigrants and smaller ethnic groups just to mention a few situations. All countries don't have majority languages, but some are larger, more influential and used for things like administration, business and higher education. It's common for schooling to transition from local languages to a larger language or lingua franca in countries with many languages.

Another approach than the lingua franca is learning the language of villages or towns surrounding you, which is very common in New Guinea and certainly other parts of the world too. It's not unusual to know multiple languages, in some places in sub-saharan Africa people speak five or six languages on a village level. Monolingualism is a weird outlier.

Speaking of monolingualism, let's move on to...

Languages and countries

This is a big talking point, mostly because it affected my view of language before I started thinking about it. First of all, I'm going to talk about the nation state and how it impacts languages within it and the way people view language (mostly because it's a source of misconceptions which fall apart as soon as you start to think about them, but if you don't the misconceptions will stay). Then I'll move on to countries with lots of languages and what happens there instead.

So, the nation state

The idea is that the people of a nation state share a common culture, history, values and other such things, the most important here being language. We can all agree that this type of nationalism has done lots of harm to various minorities and migrants all over the world, but it's still an idea that has had and still has a big impact on especially the western world. The section on nation states will focus on the West, because that's the area I know enough about to feel comfortable writing about in this regard.

How do you see this in common conceptions of language? It's in statements and thoughts like this: In France people speak French (but what about Breton? Basque? Corsican? Various Arabics? Some of the other 15 indigenous and 18 non-indigenous languages established in France? What about people speaking French outside of France?), in the US people speak English (but what about the 197 living indigenous languages? Or the 34 established non-indigenous languages? And the many extinct indigenous languages forcibly killed by the promotion of English?).

In X country people speak X, except for the people who don't, but let's ignore them and pretend everyone speaks X. Which most might actually do if it's the single national language that's used everywhere, it's common to learn a second language after all.

This is of course a simplified (and eurocentric) picture, as many countries either have multiple national languages or recognise at least some minority languages and give them legal protection and rights to access certain services in their languages (like government agency information). Bi-/multilingual signage is common and getting more common, either on a regional or a national level. Maybe because we're finally getting ready to move on from one language, one people, one state and give indigenous languages the minimum of availability they need to survive.

I wrote a long section about how nation states affect language, but I realised that veered way off topic and should be its own post. The short version is that a language might become more standardised simply by being tied to a country and more mobility among the population leading to less prominent dialects. There's also been (and still is) lots of opression and attempts to wipe out minority (often indigenous) languages in the name of national unity. Lots of atrocities have been comitted. Sometimes the same processes of language loss happen without force, just by economic pressure and misconceptions about bilingualism.

What does this have to do with the average language?

I simply want to challenge two assumptions:

That all languages are these big national languages tied to a country

That it's common that only one language is spoken within a country. If you look closer there will be smaller languages, often indigenous and often endangered. There are also countries in the West where multiple languages hold equal or similar status (just look at Switzerland and its four official languages)

Starting with the second point, let's take a look at how Europe is weird about language again

Majority languges aren't universal

I'm going to present you with a list of the 10 countries with the most living languages, not counting immigrant languages (list taken from wikipedia, which has Ethnologue as the source):

Papua New Guinea, 840 languages

Indonesia, 707 languages

Nigeria, 517 languages

India, 447 languages

China, 302 languages

Mexico, 287 languages

Cameroon, 274 languages

Australia, 226 languages

United states, 219 languages

Brazil, 217 languages

DR Congo, 212 languages

Philippines, 183 languages

Malaysia, 133 languages

Chad, 130 languages

Tanzania, 125 languages

This further challenges the idea of one country one language. Usually there's a lingua franca, but it's not always a native language and it's not always the case that most are monolingual in it (like the US or Australia, both of which have non-indigenous languages as widespread lingua francas). Europe is the outlier here. People might use multiple languages in their day to day lives, which are spoken by a varying number of people.

In some cases the indigenous or smaller local languages are extremely disadvantaged compared to one official language (think the US, Australia and China), while in other places like Nigeria, several larger languages are widely used in their respective areas alongside local languages, with English as the official language even though it's spoken by few people.

It's actually pretty common in decolonised countries to use the colonial language as an official language to avoid favoring one ethnic group and their language over others. Others simply don't have an official language, while South Africa's strategy is having 12 official languages (there are 20 living indigenous languages and 11 non-indigenous languages in total, and one of the official ones is English, so not all languages are official with this strategy either). Indonesia handled decolonisation by picking a smaller language (a dialect of Malay spoken by around 10% at the time, avoiding favouring the Javanese aka the dominating ethnic group by picking their language), modifying it, and started using it as the new national language Indonesian. It's doing very well, but at the cost of many smaller languages.

Going back to the list, it's also interesting to compare the mean speaker number (if every language in a country was spoken by the same amount of people) and the median speaker number (half have more speakers, half have less). The median is always lower than the mean, often by a lot. This means that the languages in a country don't have similar speaker numbers, so one or a few languages with lots of speakers drive the average upwards while the majority of languages are small. Just like for the entire world.

The US and Australia stand out with 12 and 10 median speakers, respectively. About 110 languages in the US have 12 or fewer native speakers. The corresponding number for Australia is 113 languages with 10 or fewer speakers. There are some stable languages with few speakers documented, but they have/had between 40 and 60 speakers, so those numbers point towards a lot of indigenous languages dying very soon unless revitalisation efforts succeed quickly. This brings us to the topic of...

Endangered languages

This is an interesting tool called glottoscope made by Glottolog which you can play around with and view data on endangered languages and description status (which is the next heading).

I'll pull out some numbers for you:

Remember those 6700 languages in Glottolog? That's living languages. How many extinct languages are listed?

936 extinct languages. That's ~12,5% of the languages we know of. (Glottolog doesn't include reconstructed languages like Proto-Indo-European, only languages where we either have enough remaining texts to conclude it was a separate language or reliable account(s) that conclude the same. We can only assume that there are thousands of undocumented languages hiding in history that we'll never know of)

How many more are on the way to become extinct?

Well, only 36% (2800 languages) aren't threatened, which means that the other 64% are either extinct or facing different levels of threat

What makes a language threatened? The short answer is people not speaking the language, especially when it's not passed down to younger generations. The long answer of why that happens comes later.

306 languages are listed as nearly extinct and 412 more as moribound. That means that only the grandparent generation and older speak it and the chain of transmission to younger generations has broken. These two categories include 9,26% of all known languages.

The rest of all languages either fall into the threatened or shifting category. The threatened category means that the language is used by all generations but is losing speakers. The shifting category refers to languages where the parental generation speaks the language but their children don't. In both of these cases it's easier to revive the language, since parents can speak to the children at home instead of having to rely on external structures (for example classes in the heritage language taught like foreign language classes in schools).

Where are languages threatened?

This map is also from glottoscope and can be found here. I recommend playing around with it, you can zoom in and hover over every dot to see which language it represents. The colours signify threat level: green for not threatened, light green for threatened, orange for shifting, red for moribound and nearly extinct, and black for extinct. I'll come back to the shapes later.

As you can see, language death is more common in certain areas, like Australia, Siberia, North America and the Amazon, but it's still spread over the entire world.

Why are languages going extinct?

There are two important dimensions to the vigorousness of a language: The first is the number of speakers who claim the language as their own and speak it with each other. No speakers means no language. If all speakers move to different places or assimilate by shifting to a dominant language in the area (sometimes for work opportunities or for their childrens' future work opportunities. Sometimes because of which language(s) schools are taught in or disinterest from the children in the language and culture. Sometimes migration of an ethnic group for various reasons leads to language shifts. There are many complex reasons to why the link of transmission can break)

The other dimension, which ties into the first one, is the number of situations in which a language is used. There are many domains a language can be used in, like at home, in school, in the workplace, in politics and administration, in higher education, for international communication, in religious activities, in popular media like movies and music etc. When a language is no longer or never used in a particular domain, it might lose the associated vocabulary. When it becomes confined to a singular domain like the home, the usage goes down. The home is usually the last place an endangered language is spoken.

Usage in a domain is a reason to speak or hear the language. It's a reason to keep it alive. People also forget or get worse at languages they don't use. That's why a common revitalisation tactic is producing movies, radio programmes, news reporting, books and other media in a dying language. It gives people both reason and opportunity to use their language skills. Which language is used in schools is also important, as it keeps basic vocabulary for sciences and explaining the world alive. Another revitalisation tactic is making up new words to talk about modern concepts, some examples are the Kaqchikel word rub'eyna'oj from this tournament or creating advanced math vocabulary in Māori.

What does endangered languages have to do with the average language?

Trying to get this post back on track, these are some key points:

64% of all documented languages are either extinct or facing some level of threat. That's the majority of all language

Even excluding the extinct languages, the majority of languages are threatened or worse

This means that the average language is facing a loss of speakers, some more disastrous than others. Being a minority language in an increasingly globalized world is dangerous

Describing a language

Are you able to look up words from your native language in a thesaurus or a dictionary? What about figuring out how a certain piece of grammar works if you're unsure? Maybe you don't need that for your native language, but what about a second language you're learning?

If your native language is English, there are lots of resources, like online and book dictionaries/thesauruses or an extensive grammar (a book about how English grammar works). There's also a plethora of websites and courses to learn English, and large collections of written text or transcribed speech. If a linguist wants to know something about the English language there's an abundance of material. If someone wants to learn English it's easy and courses are offered in most parts of the world.

For other languages, the only published thing might be a list of 20 words and their translation into English or another lingua franca.

Let's take a look at the same map as earlier, but toggled to show documentation status in colour and endangerment status with shapes:

Here, the green signifies a long grammar and the light green a grammar. Both are extensive descriptions of the grammar in a language, but they differ in length. A long grammar has to contain over 300 pages and a grammar over 150. Orange is another type of grammar, namely a grammar sketch. Those are brief overviews of the main grammatical features or features that may be of interest for linguists, typically between 20 and 50 pages. The purpose isn't to be a complete grammar, only a starting point.

The red dots can signify a lot of things, but what they have in common is that there's no extensive description of the grammar. In those cases, the best description of the language might be a list of which sounds it contains, a paper about a specific feature, a collection of texts or recordings, a dictionary, a wordlist (much shorter than dictionaries) or just a mention that it exists.

Why are grammars and descriptions even important?

The better described a language is, the easier it is to learn it and study it. For a community facing language loss, it might be helpful to have a pedagogical grammar or a dictionary to help teach the language to new generation. If the language becomes extinct people might still be able to learn and revive it from the documentation (like current efforts with Manx). It also makes sure unique words or grammatical features as well as knowledge encoded in the language isn't lost even if the language is. It's a way of preserving language, both for research and later learning.

What's an average amount of descripion then?

36,2% of all documented languages have either a grammar or a long grammar. That's pretty good actually

38,2% of all documented languages would be marked by a red dot on this map, meaning that more languages than that don't have any kind of grammar at all, maybe only as little as a short list of words

The remaining 25,6% have a grammar sketch

So as you see, the well documented languages are in minority. On the brighter side, linguists are working hard at describing languages and if they keep going at the same rate as they have since the 1950s, they'll reach the maximum level of description by 2084. Progress!

Tying into both description of languages and domains where language is used...

What about technology and language?

There are many digital tools for language. Translation services, spelling and grammar checks in word processors, unicode characters for different scripts and more. I'm going to focus on the first two:

Did you know that there are only 133 languages on google translate? 103 more are in the process of being added, but that's still a tiny percentage of all languages. As in 2% right now and 3,5% once these other languages are added going with the 6700 language estimation.

Of course, this is for the most part a limination with translation technology. You need translated texts containing millions of words to train the algorithms on and the majority of languages don't have that much written text, let alone translated into English. The low number still surprised me.

There are 106 official language packs for Windows 10 and I counted 260 writing standards you can use for spelling checks in Word. Most were separate languages, but lots were different ways to write the same language, like US or British English. That's a vanishingly small amount. But then again:

Do all languages have a written standard?

No. That much is clear. But how many do? I'll just quote Ethnologue on this:

"The exact number of unwritten languages is hard to determine. Ethnologue (25th edition) has data to indicate that of the currently listed 7,168 living languages, 4,178 have a developed writing system. We don't always know, however, if the existing writing systems are widely used. That is, while an alphabet may exist there may not be very many people who are literate and actually using the alphabet. The remaining 2,990 are likely unwritten."

(note that Ethnologue classes 334 languages without speakers as living, since their definition of living language is having a function for a contemporary language community. I think that's a bad definition and that means it differs from figures earlier in the post)

Spoken vs signed

My last point about average languages is about signed languages, because they're just as much of a language as spoken ones. One common misconception is that signed languages reflect or mimic the spoken language in the area, but they don't. Grammar works differently and some similarities in metaphor might be the only thing the signed language has in common with spoken language in the area.

Another common misconception is that there's only one sign language and that all signers understand each other. That's false, signed languages are just as different from each other as spoken languages, except for some tendencies regarding similarity between certain signs which often mimic an action (signs for eating are similar in many unrelated sign languages for example).

Glottolog lists 141 Deaf sign languages and 76 Rural sign languages, which are the two types of signed language that become entire languages. The difference is in reach.

Rural signs originate in villages with a critical amount of deaf people (around 6) that make up a fully fledged language with complete grammar to communicate. Often large parts of the village learn tha language as well. There are probably more than 76, that's just the ones the linguist community knows of.

What's called Deaf sign languages became a thing in the 1750s when a French guy named Charles-Michel de l'Épóe systematised and built onto a rural sign from Paris to create a national sign language which was then taught in deaf schools for all deaf children in France. Other countries took after the deaf school model and now there's 141 deaf sign languages, each connected to a different country. Much easier to count than spoken languages.

Many were made from scratch (probably building on some rural sign), but some countries recruited teachers from other countries that already had a natinonal sign language and learnt that instead. Of course they changed over time and with influence from children's local signs or home signs (rudimentary signs to communicate with hearing family, not complete languages), so now there's sign language families! The largest one unsurprisingly comes from LSF (Langue des Signes Française, the French one) and has 63 members, among them ASL.

What does this have to do with average languages? Well, languages don't have to be spoken, they can be signed instead. Even if they make up a small share of languages, we shouldn't forget them.

Now for some final words

Thank you for reading this far! I hope you found this interesting and have learned something new! Languages are exciting and this doesn't even go inte the nitty gritty of how different languages can be in their grammar, sounds and vocabulary. Lots of this seem self evident if you think about it, but I remember how someone pointing out facts like this truly shifted my perspective on what the language situation in the world truly looks like. The average language is a lot smaller and diffrerent from the common idea of a language I had before.

Please reblog this post if you liked it. I spent lots of time writing it because I'm passionate about this subject, but I'd love if it spread past my followers

#linguistics fun fact time! #anyways can't believe this is finally done #i was going to make a series with informative posts between each round #and look what happened #i spent all my time writing this instead #hope you enjoyed! #and check out the linguistics fun facts tag #there are some more posts like this #linguistics

[he-is-lightning-in-a-bottle]

My God I Love This Show

I think I've rewatched that final breakroom scene from Jun & Jun episode 2 at least a dozen times since it first aired yesterday, and I need to rave about it in its own post rather than just tags.

That scene is... perfection.

First, for non-Korean speakers, it's important to note they've already dropped into banmal with each other in private (the most intimate and casual linguistic form of address). This establishes them as societal equals, despite their wildly different social positions as boss and employee. It was an intentional choice by Choi Jun at the end of episode 1, when he took off his glasses, leaned over the seated Lee Jun in his office and greeted him properly with "오랜만이야" (Long time no see.) The fact that he dropped into banmal here was likely a bigger clue to Lee Jun that they know each other intimately than the actual words Choi Jun chose.

So in the breakroom scene. (!!!) Choi Jun is radiating confident dom energy and Lee Jun is INTO IT. He begins by making sure Lee Jun wasn't hurt by scalding hot coffee and telling Lee Jun to take off his shirt. But then he does the most batshit dom thing ever and starts removing HIS OWN CLOTHES. He explains its because he has a spare shirt for himself and plans to dress Lee Jun in the shirt he's been wearing all day. Why? Because he has a scent kink! And he just says it out loud. He wants Lee Jun to smell like he's HIS.

He checks Lee Jun out like a starving man and asks, "would my size fit you?" WHICH IS THE WILDEST BLATANT SEXUAL INNUENDO and Lee Jun KNOWS its innuendo because he clutches his pearls with his hand over his heart and replies "don't people say you worry too much?" causing Choi Jun to call him cute. Lee Jun can't help but smile shyly at the compliment, and Choi Jun pounces, immediately switching gears and ordering him to hurry up and take off his shirt. Lee Jun asks "right here?" as if that's the only weird or concerning thing about being told to disrobe, so Choi Jun takes off his own vest. This man is doing everything in his power to both rattle and comfort his cute former idol childhood bestie, and I AM HOLDING MY BREATH FROM THE SEXUAL TENSION.

And then we get the first truly jaw-dropping scene. Choi Jun calls Lee Jun high maintenance (the Korean phrase is better translated as "You're a handful."). Lee Jun bristles and apologizes. Choi Jun steps closer and tells him he doesn't need to apologize; it's a compliment. He LIKES it when he needs to put his hands on someone to care for them and it makes them smell like him; it makes them feel like THEY ARE HIS. The collar caress!! The neck tie grab and pull!!! The audacity of starting to unbutton Lee Jun's shirt for him since he's taking too long!!!! MY HEAD EXPLODING.

Lee Jun freaks out a little and puts distance between them again, so they have another fun little conversation filled with innuendo about repaying favors American style, which Choi Jun says involves less clothing!

And then we get the second jaw-dropping scene right on the heels of the first. Choi Jun says Lee Jun has grown fiestier (he likes them feisty? just a guess), but that he's still "squishy" on the inside. Lee Jun is already looking 10 times more secure in this conversation, unhesitatingly flirting back through the entire next few dialog exchanges. The eye contact! THE MOST PERFECTLY EXECUTED WAIST GRAB!!

The "you can teach me!!!" The way Lee Jun takes that as permission to manhandle Choi Jun right back, grabbing his hands and moving him around like a marionette!!!!

THE NECK GRAB!!!!!

And that final last line from Choi Jun that sent me SCREAMING INTO MY PILLOWS:

Looking at the rolled up napkin in his hand, "Malleable is something soft..." and then looking at Lee Jun's lips like the very thirsty man he is, he finally makes eye-contact again and finishes with, "squishy is... something sexy?" Lee Jun gulps. Cut scene.

MY HEART CANNOT HANDLE HOW PERFECT THIS WAS. From the dialog to the body language to the eye-work to the kink exposure to the RIDICULOUSLY HOT EXPOSED FOREARMS ON CHOI JUN. I am in awe and Korea is FEEDING ME.

@absolutebl this seems like your jam

#jun & jun #jun & jun the series #jun and jun #korean bl #kdrama #asian gay dramas

[mtkyllene]

Hello! And welcome to the chaos!

DNI

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Now that all that’s out of the way let’s

MEET THE MODS!!!!!

Mod Reg

Hello I’m Regulus or Reg. I use they/them and hy/hym pronouns.

I’ve been a practicing pagan since 2018ish. I began working with Hermes in late 2021 when I was traveling both by myself for the first time, and for the first time since COVID lockdown. I was insanely nervous and began to pray to Hermes before, during, and after my trip. As I began to do more research about Hermes I began to slowly realize that he has been present in my life for most of it, and I started to officially work with Hermes in early 2022. As of right now (June 2023) he is currently my primary deity and the only one I’m working with, however in the past I have worked with other deities including Loki, Apollo, and Aphrodite, and I will probably work with other deities in the future as I continue to grow and explore my path.

Fun facts about me: Audhd babie! My current hyperfixations/special interests include Critical Role Campaign 2, autism (lol), Hozier, and Languages/linguistics. I also have POTS and a handful of mental illnesses/disorders that I’m untangling. I write my own music and Poetry (which you may or may not see on here if I write anything related to Hermes/witchcraft). :D

Mod Fern

hello! i'm fern and i mainly go by he/him pronouns :>

i've been worshipping hermes since january 2022, which kickstarted my ACTIVE hellenic polytheist practice, although arguably i've been practicing since 2016. like reg, i started praying to him when my family was stuck at a hotel and unable to get home for the foreseeable future, and when i finally got home and set up what was supposed to be a temporary altar, he didn't want me to take it down! i have since realised he's my patron (with a mix of the neopagan and ancient greek definition of that word) as i'm a cross-culture kid in ib, a writer, a huge language fan, currently working to become a guardian of the dead, and much more.

i also have been practicing witchcraft since early 2020 and am an omnist with agnostic tendencies (but "hellenic polytheist" works just fine too) as well as an animist with a very eclectic folk-based practice

if you'd like to speak to me outside of this, you can find me as @rainbluealoekitten on tumblr, and i'm occasionally but rarely also active on @hellenic-worship, and i'm @/ferns_n_ravens on insta!!

Mod Lav

Hi!! I'm Lav and my pronouns are she/they.

I'm 19, and I got into witchcraft when I was 12. I'm what my friends call a "creature of chaos". Hermes is my patron god and has worked with me for more years than I can recall. He was the first deity to ever reach out to me (it took years to recognise it was him, though). I'm hypersocial and love talking, so please feel free to strike up a conversation!! Feel free to DM my main @vushadoration

Join us on discord! https://discord.gg/ZhtmfqakUq

tags we use:

WITCHCRAFT: 🕯🔮🌒

#witchcraft, #witchy tips, #spells, #divination, #elements, #cleansing, #neurodivergent witchcraft

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[anosrepasi]

So I just finished my fourth read-through of Lingua Franca (and FINALLY twigged onto the fact that I could search you up on tumblr, oops), and saw one of your recent posts tagging The Old Guard. I want to know more, as long as you have the time and motivation for it, of course! I'm so invested in that universe, and so far it's only one fic. Please, if you have any tibits to share, this reader is STARVING for more info on this AU? XD

Thank you so much with your patience in my replying to this ask, @atsuyuri-sama I have been thinking about this ask since you sent it and getting super hyped when i finally had a week where i had enough brain energy to give it the answer you deserve.

First off: !!!! FOUR read-throughs??!? It's mind boggling to think someone enjoyed Lingua Franca so much to reread it three times. You honor me.

On to the question: Since you mentioned really loving the AU and the fact that it's only one fic right now, I think it'd be fun to share what I'm envisioning for the entire series, structure wise.

Lingua Franca (the series) will have 4 parts, one of which is obviously Lingua Franca (the fic) The rest are as follows:

Prima Lingua - A prequel/companion story to Lingua Franca from the perspective of Nicolo. The second chapter of which will have one of my biggest writing experiments to date and I'm very very excited to see how it lands with people.

Nolexi - What happens after Lingua Franca? A very awkward dinner, first off. The title/theme of the work comes from Rudy Francisco's I'll Fly Away which. I highly recommend, especially to any poetry lovers out there OR people who love linguistics.

Code Switch - This is my anthology of pieces set into the Lingua Franca universe that don't fit in well with the main fics but I still feel are important supplementary snapshots into the characters and the events. Here are some of my favorite snapshots I'm going to be exploring:

Andrew is just shy of nine years the first time he accompanies his father on a sea voyage. As with most boys his age, he is brave and curious in equal measure, and can't help but flounce his father's strict orders to stay away from the strange metal box speaking in zeneize. Three decades later, Andrew is cornered in an alleyway on his walk home from the docks. These experiences are related.

Quynh has learned after several lifetimes that while she'll do it for her heart, Andromache has no love and no patience for the task of braiding hair. Luckily, Quynh has an alternative for when she wants to do something complicated with her hair. If it happens to interrupt his reading, that's his problem. (She knows Booker secretly loves helping her with her hair anyway.)

The first thing Copley does, once he's triple checked he's lost all traces of Merrick surveillance, is break into Booker's apartment.

I've got parts and pieces of all three of these fics written but I'm not sure when exactly I'll actually get them published or if I'll wait until i have them all completely written before posting but I hope whenever the time is right and I get the rest of the story shared with you all, it brings you the same satisfaction as Lingua Franca did :)

(Also I adore talking about this series so if you have any additional questions/thoughts and want to talk about the series, my DMs and ask box are always open)

#ano asks #ano replies #series: lingua franca #fic: lingua franca #the old guard #my writing #again want to thank you for your patience #and i hope the behind the scenes look at the future content helps make up for the wait

[superlinguo]

Linguistics Jobs: Interview with a Legislative Drafter

This month’s interview is specifically about the field of law, and how Marian found a niche within this larger industry that lets her engage with language in a very real way. Even if you’re not interested in law specifically, this provides a really nice illustration of the fact that there are many fields of work that have a specific subset of jobs and careers that might be more in line with your interests!

What did you study at university?

My undergraduate degree was in Language and Linguistics from Queen's University (Canada).  I took linguistics courses and also studied Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. After undergrad, I went to law school at the University of Victoria, then articled and was called to the bar in British Columbia. I am now a legislative drafter, although my official job title is "Legislative Counsel".

What is your job?

As legislative counsel, I write and provide legal advice about legislation. Ministries give instructions about their policy (eg. make a new program to provide X, change the appeal process for Y,  expand the people eligible for this benefit), and I draft the bill, regulation or order that will give effect to that policy. My job is to find the most accurate, clearest, and most concise way of saying something. I also have to consider the legal effect of what I'm writing. It's challenging but fun. Basically, I get to play with words and logic puzzles all day.

How does your linguistics training help you in your job?

I think that my linguistics training probably helps me with clear writing: a foundation in syntax helps me understand the different parts of a legislative sentence and look out for potential ambiguity. But more than anything, I think it's the underlying love of language that drew me to linguistics that makes legislative drafting such a good fit. Do you have any advice that you wish someone had given to you about linguistics/careers/university?

My advice would be to consider this career if you love linguistics and are also in law. Although I also enjoyed litigation and solicitor work, I wish I had known sooner that legislative drafting was a career option. For someone who loves language and linguistics but then goes on to study law, it's an ideal combination. I remember having that "these are my people!" feeling in my undergraduate linguistics program, and I have that feeling again now.

Any other thoughts or comments?

If you're not planning on going into law but are drawn to the idea of working with legislation, you could also go into legislative editing. Legislative editors edit the regulations, bills and orders that we draft - they can turn something mediocre into something great. If you love language and have an eye for detail, you would probably enjoy legislative editing.

Related interviews:

Interview with a Juris Doctor (Master of Laws) student

Recent interview:

Interview with a Stay-at-home Mom and Twitch Streamer

Interview with a Peer Review Program Manager

Interview with an Associate at the Children’s Center for Communication, Beverly School for the Deaf

Interview with a Metadata Specialist and Genealogist

Interview with a Developer Advocate

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

#language #linguistics #linguistics jobs #lingjobs #linguist jobs #career #work #law #legal #government #legislation

[dathen]

Word Search

Characters:  Jonathan Sims & Sasha James Word count:  1,172 Spoilers:  None Other Tags:  Nonbinary Sasha, Nonbinary Jon, Agender Jon, Autistic Jon, Autistic Sasha Link on ao3

Summary: 

Despite the unwelcome shift his promotion brought to their interactions, rambling about linguistics with Jon was an easy pastime to fall back on. -- Featuring burgeoning Jon and Sasha friendship, mutual infodumping, and Fun with Gender (or lack thereof).  Set during early season 1; written for the @t4tma event.

Sasha fidgeted with her jewelry.  It wasn’t the usual nervous energy that she rode like an ocean wave while chasing down a lead or digging into a subject that snagged her attention.  No, today, she just felt...off.  Was it the new outfit?  It was a bit dressier than her usual trousers-and-cardigan style, with a full length skirt that she’d finally found to be long enough for her height, and a scarf that she bought for the soft texture alone.  Maybe it was the jewelry…?  But that was the same as she usually wore, and yet each time she passed the mirrors in the break room or washroom that off-balance feeling returned.  Finally, she gave in to the impulse to take off her earrings before snatching a file from her desk and marching towards Jon’s office.  A distraction would help.

“Found that statement you said was missing in the sequence, Jon,” Sasha announced as she opened the door and poked her head in.  (Oh good, he wasn’t recording.  Though she was pretty sure the others were exaggerating how grumpy Jon got when interrupted; he never seemed too bothered when she dropped by out of unannounced boredom.)  “Looks like it’s still missing a page, though—no translation with it.”

Sasha was surprised that Jon’s answering sigh didn’t send papers flying off his desk.  “If it was translated at all.  Nothing about the state of this place would surprise me,” he answered.  Jon took the offered file and peered at it with what was now a too-common scowl, but the sourness radiated exhaustion.

Oh, he was wearing earrings again today.  Small silver hoops not too different from a pair she saw Tim wear sometimes.  I wish I could look like that when I wear earrings.  She stomped on that thought with a short shake of her head.  Where on earth did that come from?    

“Looks like my staples were a good idea,” she pressed on with as much brightness as she could muster.  “At least if we get a translated copy, we can be sure it won’t get separated from the rest.”

The tired scowl melted into a tired smile. “Thank you, Sasha.  That has been a very helpful solution.”

The gratitude in his voice stifled the usual irritation she felt at being called "helpful" by someone she’d seen fidgeting before his first interview with Mr. Bouchard.  How someone who’d been hired during her fourth year here ended up with her dream job...no, she wasn’t in the mood to wallow in that on top of everything.  Instead, she flopped down into the chair across from him.  “Mandarin, looks like.  Don’t we have a sister institute in Beijing?  The Pu Songling Research Centre?  Maybe it’s from their archives.”

Jon hummed.  “We can inquire if they originally lent it to the Institute; I don’t know if they translate to other languages in their collection, but perhaps they could put us in touch with someone who can…?”

“Either that or run it through the ol’ google translate.  My Mandarin is a bit rusty.”  At that Jon laughed, a tight-lipped huff of a thing.  He used to laugh a lot more before his promotion, and she found she missed it.  Sasha grinned before she continued.  “I did try learning some once!  When I was sixteen.  I thought the writing was so nice, and wanted to impress my Gran.  Didn’t last long, though.”  

“I’ve heard it’s remarkably difficult to learn,” he said.  

“Oh, for sure.  Switching to French was easier, though I wasn’t a fan of memorizing word genders for everything.”  Her thoughts skipped ahead a step or two, and she found herself adding, “Did you know that Mandarin only has a single pronoun for all genders?”

Predictably, Jon brightened and sat up in his chair, suddenly looking like someone who’d slept sometime in the past few days.  Despite the unwelcome shift his promotion brought to their interactions, rambling about linguistics with Jon was an easy pastime to fall back on.  “Is that so?”  

“Yup!  I won’t pretend that the rest of the grammar wasn’t brutal, but that almost made me jealous, you know?” Sasha answered, toying with the edge of the cardboard folder.

Jon’s attention was like a physical weight.  “Jealous how?”

“Dunno, I kind of wish English had something similar, you know?  Instead of needing words that say right out ‘I’m a woman’ or ‘I’m a man!’”  She kept her voice light, but shifted in the stiff-backed chair.  Sasha hadn’t expected the sudden discomfort, but saying the words aloud felt suddenly vulnerable, like pressing a finger just beside an old bruise—just enough to ache.

The Encyclopedia Look immediately fell over Jon’s face (apparently, according to Tim, Sasha had one too; she wondered if it was as obvious as his).  “You know, even in English some people use singular ‘they’ for their pronouns.  It’s been used as a singular gender-neutral pronoun for hundreds of years; examples easily date back to the fourteenth century.  Did you know that ‘you’ used to be plural as well?”

“I did know that!  And formal, too—it’s funny to think how ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ were the informal means of address.”  Sasha forced down the urge to continue the thought; English shedding the formality divisions in its grammar was a subject she could talk about for hours, but she was curious where this was going.  “Still, I had my papers marked up with enough use ‘he or she,’ not ‘they’! back in secondary to know I can’t get away with it now.”

“That’s changing,” said Jon with a sudden fervor.  “And besides, people aren’t research papers.”

Sasha hesitated, that off-balance feeling suddenly returning.  It wasn’t discomfort this time, but why did it suddenly feel so personal?

Jon seemed to notice her faltering.  “O-of course, it’s not the only way to depart from the binary,” he rushed on.  “I mean, I still use 'he/him' because those are comfortable for me, and—“  He froze, eyes flicking towards the wall before he picked up the statement and held it in front of him like a shield.  “A-anyway, ah...yes.  If someone asked me, I’d have no issue using ‘they’ for someone who asked me.  Regardless of what the Chicago Manual of Style has to say about it.”

It didn’t seem to be a pointed comment (except a grudge against the style guide), but Sasha felt the sudden conviction it was meant for her, even if Jon didn’t mean it for her.  Sasha felt the familiar bite of curiosity that she knew wouldn’t let go, but for once she wasn’t sure if it was directed outwards or inwards.  But Jon looked a bit flustered, still feigning interest in the unreadable document in his hands, and it was getting near the time that she agreed to meet Tim for lunch.  “Good to know,” she answered easily, then tapped the top of the statement. “I��d best get back to work—let me know if you hear back from the Research Centre.”

She had some thinking to do.

------

Thank you to the Magnus Writers discord for answering the absurd amount of questions and fact-checking I somehow needed for a 1k word fic, to evanescentjasmine and Ixempt for the beta reads, and to TheDeafProphet for inspiring the concept! Also an extra shout-out to the Magnus Writers mod team for being my own Linguistics Mutual Infodumping Squad. 

#tma #the magnus archives #t4tma #tma fic #jonathan sims #sasha james #my writing #HEY HEY I WROTE A THING!!! #FINALLY!!!

[kingofthewilderwest]

What's amatonormativity??

I’d encourage you to go to Google or check out tumblr tags and posts on amatonormativity to learn more!

Amatonormativity is the internalized cultural mindset that romance is default and central. It especially conceives of romance as the single most important relationship in someone’s life, to the point it should be focused upon and sought out above any other bond. It treats romance like the universal ultimate solution to any of our emotional bond problems (loneliness, intimacy, trust, support, longevity of relationships, etc.). Amatonormativity is heavily ingrained in many societies, like the mindset I find in people in the United States.

Of course romance isn’t a bad life experience! For many people, it can bring great joy. When people criticize amatonormativity, people aren’t criticizing that romance can be a great thing in someone’s life. The problem with amatonormativity is that it treats romance as the ULTIMATE thing, the ONE solution to our need for emotional fulfillment.

It’s important to understand that amatonormativity has profound negative side effects, whether you’re allo or aro, whether you’re queer or straight, and whatever gender you are. Society takes a lot of things for granted regarding romance and this can stunt our happiness. It stunts our ability to bond with other people around us or find satisfaction within our lives.

Amatonormativity underlies emotionally stunting assumptions like..... (disclaimer... I will often use language defaulting to the Western cishet perspective, because that’s the mindset of my broader society... I myself am an aroace enby and have more nuanced understandings of gender, gender expression, gender roles, sexual attraction and identity, romantic attraction and identity, etc.)

Automatically assuming that just because a man talks to a woman, the interaction MUST be romantic in nature (this of course intertwines with heteronormativity -- many of my points will intertwine with heteronormativity). It assumes there’s no such thing as “just friends” between people of “opposite” genders. This in turn can result in us losing opportunities to bond to, understand, or properly respect... literally half the human population.  

Treating friendships as secondary. Treating friendships as temporary. Treating friendships as more replaceable than romance. Treating friendships as less “deep” and important to our time than romance, even a romance you started two days ago with someone you met last week. By doing this, we lose the chance to grow deeper with someone near us. It limits the potential by which we can bond with another human soul and find happiness.  

The belief we are unlovable and not worth anything because we can’t find a romantic partner. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen people disregard their own worth because of this, and it makes me deeply sad. The truth is that our worth is not at all tied to whether we have a romantic partner. We can be so deeply loved and cherished in all sorts of relationships. Of course it’s still valid if you feel single blues because you want a romantic partner, but tying the concept into “I am worthless OR I’m dating” clearly is an emotionally harmful concept. It can result in everything down to hooking up in a relationship that you aren’t ready for or don’t like as much as you pretend you do.  

The belief that we are utterly alone without a romantic partner. I notice this often ties into the amatonormative belief that we can only get good physical touch, trust, emotional and physical intimacy, etc. through a romantic partner. I feel this mindset is especially pronounced in cishet men, since USA culture treats masculinity as lacking outwardly expressed vulnerability, and ergo you might not be getting your emotional needs met through your platonic and familial relations. The one “accepted” way of getting your emotional needs met comes through The Girlfriend / Wife. This belief prevents us from reaching out and finding support through other people in our lives. We can find love and comfort in friends. We can confide about our emotional struggles and find relational intimacy (great trust!) through familial and platonic bonds. Hugs, snuggling, other acts of physical affection are what humans need, and don’t need to be relegated to One Person Only. Plus... if we assume that our emotional struggles should be fulfilled by One Person Only... that puts enormous pressure on that partner to provide for everything. No one’s that strong. We need support networks, not one designated “save me” individual. It’s pure unhealthiness to mount burdens only on one person, and bottle yourself up otherwise. I often see this fallacy pop up when people start a new romantic relationship. You might barely know the person, and yet you’re trying to rely on them for everything, and you’re trying to be the person they’ll rely on for everything. You dive deep into the expectations before you really know how to handle it, and in the process become psychologically overwhelmed because of the Huge Responsibilities this role seems to entail. Being in a romance doesn’t automatically mean you’ve reached peak intimacy! Note: it’s not to say that romance can’t be a major avenue of security. Of course it’s a great way to fulfill intimacy, trust, physical needs, etc. Of course it can become a bond full of loyalty. But romance is actually like any other relationship... a familial relation can be weak or it can be strong, a platonic relation can be weak or it can be strong, and a romantic bond can be weak or it can be strong. The fallacy is that we are treating romance as *THE* way to fulfill all these diverse emotional problems, socking it onto one individual when it might be beyond their single load to bear, and then not seeking out help from the other sources that are around us.  

The belief that the only person you can live with is a romantic partner. Living with non-romantic roommates (aka living with friends) is seen as an undesirable inconvenience and something you only do temporarily because you financially have to. It’s seen as an immature youthful thing rather than something an established adult might do. Living with friends long-term out of chosen happiness is not something that crosses the mind of many people... it’s assumed you’ll either move out to live on your own, or marry and go and live with your partner.  

The belief that adulthood progresses through a very specific sequence of events. You go to school. You leave on your own. You marry. You get a house. You have kids. There’s a reason it’s common for family to nag you  “When are you going to get married? When are you going to get married?” Because clearly you haven’t made an important step of adulthood, an important step in life, unless you get married. I’ve noticed that for many of my friends, even those who are comfortable with the life choice to not get married... they express they don’t feel “as adult” as their married peers. And many people in society won’t treat them “as adult.”  

Harmful beliefs downplaying spousal abuse, like those people who try to argue “you can’t rape your wife / husband / spouse / girlfriend / boyfriend / significant enby / significant dumbass. That’s not what rape means.” Because a sexual-romance is the GOOD thing, right?  

AND MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MORE!!!

Some people of course have a better handle on their relationships than others. Some people are better at ignoring what society considers most important or most default. Some of what I’ve said above is when these beliefs are treated to their utmost, rather than what some people will do (lots of people have close “besties”, for instance). But amatonormativity+heteronormativity creeps in everywhere in society.

It’s the reason why, in most Hollywood movies, the protagonist is a man and the main actress is his romantic partner. It’s the reason why these two characters might start a steamy romance even before they know each other well; who needs to write ACTUAL understanding between the two characters when they obviously are going to fall in love and fuck?

It’s the reason why advertisements are so sex-oriented (reminder note: society usually doesn’t distinguish sexual and romantic bonds). Advertisements try to make their product appealing by associating it to romance, the Ultimate Desirable. Here’s how to make you look hot so you can attract someone in a romantic-sexual relationship, because THAT’S the ultimate goal of life, right?

It’s embedded in linguistic expressions. If someone asks if you’re dating, you respond, “No, she’s only a friend.” Or. “No. We’re just friends.” Friendship is being treated as lesser. Breakups are treated as inevitably bad even if you choose to be friends afterwards -- because clearly being friends is “taking a step back”, right? Even the word “break up” -- oooo that’s bad sounding! (There have been multiple times I’ve ended romantic relationships where I’ve turned the phraseology on the head and told them it’s a step forward to better, happier, healthier, stronger bonds... and they had to think it through, because amatonormative society forgets this can be the case.) “Friendzoning” is seen as a crime in part because you’re not going to be as intimate with someone as you want to be... despite the fact that having a non-romantic and/or non-sexual relationship with someone could be JUST as meaningful and deep!

I’ve FREQUENTLY seen church study groups that offer only these options: young adult small groups, women’s small groups, men’s small groups, and married couple’s small groups. Because clearly the only “mixed” gender situations out there are when you’re too young to be married, or you’re married.

And frankly, I think it’s one of the reasons why fandom likes to play hook-up with all the characters. Shipping is SO much fun! I love shipping! This is not a comment against the act of shipping! But if everyone needs a romantic partner to be happy...... mmmmm.... yeah let’s rethink what the underlying assumption is here. It’s that default assumption that “romance=happiness, romance=ultimate goal, romance=happily ever after, friendship=lesser.” If two characters in a show don’t canonically hook up, fans can get angry... even if the relationship showed on screen is one with a lot of trust, loyalty, happiness, and intimacy.

I am aroace. I don’t know how many other friends in the aro and/or ace community have talked about how lonely and unhappy they feel, because all their friends around them are looking for sex and romance and ergo don’t treat their friendship deep enough for my friends to get their emotional needs met. It’s easy to feel left out in a world where everyone is looking for romance, and ergo you are never the bond they want to pursue.

There are many ways in which we can achieve close bonds with people. This is why I think it’s important to talk about amatonormativity. Again, I’m SO happy when my friends are happy in a good romance. That’s a good thing!!! But it’s so psychologically destructive, whether you’re aro or allo, to live in a world where romance is considered The One And Only Key to relational happiness.  

Talking about amatonormativity has the goal of helping us be aware about how society idolizes romance and/or sex. The goal is to help everyone know we have many options by which to pursue good, deep bonds in a variety of ways. The goal is to make sure we don’t treat romance as the only acceptable way to live. The goal is finding ways for humans to get our needs fulfilled healthily and widespreadly. The goal is to be more comfortable with and more accepting of people who don’t follow The One Righteous Path Of Required Romance, so that we can all be more comfortable with ourselves and the relations around us -- including being comfortable with our romances!

#long post #amatonormativity #heteronormativity #analysis #my analysis #ask #ask me #non-dragons #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA #queer community #aroace #awesome anonymous friend #Anonymous

[raappana]

oh no i forgot sry @starlightonthemoon tagged me like Months ago

1. Nickname: I mean technically Meta is a diminutive of Margareta so I guess my normal name is my nickname? but other than that I don't have any

2. Zodiac: uhh Sagittarius in the Greek zodiac, Fire Ox in Chinese, Vṛścika (Scorpio) in the Hindu sidereal zodiac, idk are there any more? i have no belief in the idea that it Matters but i find it fun to know in many zodiacs

3. Height: 165cm, which im Pretty sure is 5'5″?

4. Hogwarts house: Hufflepuff, but that is the extent to which i will engage with that fandom

5. Last thing I googled: '165cm in feet and inches'. but previous to starting on this post, 'koronaregler oslo' (covid rules oslo) bc i had to check if restaurants are still takeaway only or if i could go eat out somewhere for Constitution Day

6. Song stuck in my mind: Furret Walk / Accumula Town from Pokémon Black&White. it's v upbeat and catchy

7. Number of followers: 247, but the Vast majority are either porn bots or mutuals who went inactive years ago

8. Amount of sleep: around eight-nine hours usually, but recently ive been going to bed Very late and still waking up at noon at the latest so.less

9. Lucky number: Well my favourite number is 17, but I wouldn't call it a lucky number? that's the closest ive got tho

10. Dream job: eccentric professor of linguistics slash lesbian trophy wife

11. Wearing: my one remaining dress that isn't in the laundry, it's very handy because its comfy and simple enough to wear at home but also "proper" and cute enough to wear outside so i dont have to change between outfits much

12. Favourite song: Tir n'a Noir by the Norwegian folk band Vamp

13. Favourite instrument: hhhh i cant Choose???? french horn was the first thing i learned so i have Lots of nostalgic affection for it, but piano ive stuck with for longer, but then organ music has so much cool music nerd shit to love, i just. im gonna say all three of those yea thats allowed i make the rules french horn, piano, and church organ

14. Aesthetic: flea market dresses. thats it thats my entire aesthetic

15. Favourite authors: i mean Emmi literally is the one who tagged me in this and she's super cool and her book is one of the best books ive read, but then i also gotta mention Tamsyn Muir, Brandon Sanderson, and Cixin Liu bc i Love mysteries in worldbuilding and they all did Amazing jobs making me Invested in figuring out how their worlds work before the reveals. and also Emmi and Muir's books are gay which is always a plus

16. Favourite animal sounds: That little almost-meow when my cat want our attention but doesn't feel strongly enough about it to make a Proper noise, she just makes a small "mow" sound to let us know she's there

17. A random fact about me: my most notes on a tumblr post was on december 15, 2016, when after hearing episode 100 of Welcome to Night Vale i made a post about wanting a spinoff show where Michelle and Maureen set up a rival station to Cecil's bc i love them and wanted to hear more of them; it got 47 notes and Kate Jones (Michelle's VA) replied to it saying she was on board!! truly my proudest fandom moment. anyways then i fell out of listening within like six months after and i mean i wouldnt have known if it did happen but as far as i know it never did. i miss night vale i should relisten some time

as shown by the fact it took me three months to do this i do not put Any pressure on this tagging, but i tag: @svtboo @miriagreyhaven @emmanent, if ya'll want to!

#tag game #yes the apostrophe in ya'll is intentional

[upside-down-uni]

I have been tagged by @be-gay-study-crime for a “Get to know me” Tag! Thank you so much! Let’s GO!! (I gotta procrastinate reading some literary theory essays)

What is your name?

On here, I’m Mo!

What year are you?

I’m confused as always about American number systems so. I’m in my second semester (which, when cheat and copy from Greta, means it’s the end of my first year? probably?)

What are you studying?

I study Book Studies (or ‘Buchwissenschaft’ in German which literally translates to Book Science and I think that sounds dope.) as well as English and American Studies in a dual subject bachelor. Wich means I have two majors basically.

Book Studies is a cross of communications and media science but related to books, the printing industry and all things to do with written communication. English and American Studies is comprised of literature, linguistics, culture and language courses form which I will choose one in my third semester to specify my studies.

After graduation, what’s next?

I have literally no idea. Over on my personal blog I have “studying to later do something with books” in my bio and I think that’s about it in the moment. I just want to be able to pay rent and taxes, have like three cats, a big grandfather armchair and be happy. 

Are you a morning or night person?

When I read this tag first it was 6:10 am. I’m a morning person, I hate sleeping in and I’m proud of it.

Front/back/middle of class?

I prefer a good middle seat to the side. I’m seen when I want to participate, I’m not so far back I’d want to be on my phone all the time bc I think it doesn’t matter anyways, and I can see and hear the lecturer.

Best feedback from a teacher/professor?

The most rewarding thing is when my Korean teacher asks me something, I am able to answer in Korean(!) and then she goes like “Aaaaah,....!” and says ANOTHER thing back in Korean because that means I did it right and like...I’m learning!

Best study tips?

- read smarter not harder. aka. there’s actual techniques to get the most out of a text like sq3r or pq4r! (I know they sound like androids from Star Wars but they’re real and so incredibly helpful)

- you know, sleeping, that thing with the laying down for 8h and not moving? do that. in whatever rhythm fits you best but sleep enough.

- this last tip I actually have from @athenastudying: don’t plan more than 3 (4 only if you really must) big tasks for your day. This will help you not feel overwhelmed, not overload your brain and still feel like you got something done because you were able to dedicate an appropriate timespan to the tasks.

3 fun facts:

1. I want to call my first cat Sushi. ( and the ones after Wasabi, Ginger and like...Lasagna or Noodle.)

2. I once broke my ankle and my mom (a general practioner) who checked me over didn’t notice so I ran around for a few weeks with ancle pains and only a fixed dressing. Now my left ancle is a shaped a bit weirdly.

3. My parents like to tell about how I needed to be entertained literally all the time as a kid and they’d go on 3 hour walks with me so I’d not bounce off the walls at home until I learned to read and suddenly never left my room anymore.

TAG

oof um. @sunset-study @oracleofdelythi and @bbstudies if you want to, have at it!

#get to know me #tag game #mo talks #personal #oh no the workers are drilling again #hhhhh make them stop #I'm happy my apartment complex will be pretty but conentration is NONEXISTENT #concentration*

[bookenders]

Inktober Day 1: Ring

That’s right. I, a writer with very few art skills, am doing Inktober. 

I’m gonna take my own advice again to show you that yes, even terrible art is good art because you’re making art, and that is very good.

I’m even gonna give a fun fact with each one, hopefully related to language or linguistics, because I’m that kind of nerd.

Fun Fact: In Cockney Rhyming Slang (also Australian rhyming slang, and just rhyming slang in general I guess), “gin sling” means “ring,” as in a phone ring.

Pictured below: A phone mid- gin sling.

Holy moley look how wonky that perspective is. I drew this from memory, and apparently my memory of old landlines is terrible. 

I’m so proud.

If you’re interested in my other art event wherein I take my own advice, check out my doodles tag!

If you want to be tagged when I post my original art (which, I mean, is definitely a choice you can make), let me know!

#do you see how lazy I got with the dots on the mouth piece? #the important thing is that I had fun #yes I know that's not where the phone ring comes from #I didn't want to draw the other part of it #because it is late and I had so many classes today #and also I didn't wanna #my doodles #inktober19 #inktober #my art #putting my money where my mouth is #inktober day 1 #Ring #linguistics #language #rhyming slang #gin sling

[allbusybees]

HELLO STUDY WORLD! I started this blog with one follower (my other blog :’)) on July 22nd, 2018. I checked my follower count this morning and by some miracle I have reached 1k! AHHH!

Thank you so much to the studyblr community for being so supportive. I haven’t met as many smart and kind folks in university as I have in the last ten days. I can’t wait to continue making friends and reblogging all the awesome and beautiful work you put up every day. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

So to celebrate 1000 followers, I figured I could start off properly introducing myself. 

Name: Emma (she/her), but I go by Em too Age: 19 Birthday: August 19th (I’m a leo rawr)  Favorite food: grapefruit! Favorite color (and flower): lavender Favorite bands at the moment: Peach Pit and Ritt Momney Favorite song at the moment: Golden Slumbers (esp. the cover by Ritt Momney)  Fun facts: I do archery, I paint, I have a corgi, and I just got back from studying abroad in Australia :D

Why I started a studyblr: to become more motivated, to motivate others, and to make some motivated (or unmotivated) study buddies!

Classes I’m taking at the moment: physics I, organic chemistry II, intro to semantics, perception

Academic interests: neuroscience, psychology, linguistics, languages, neurobiology, anatomy

Check out my desktop page for more in my about me page! I also track the tag #studytunes for some study playlist posts (including my own recommendations), and I track #allbusybees for more of my own content.

Thank you SO SO much for helping me reach 1k! I’m so grateful and I can’t put it into more words. I’m currently working on my first bullet journal spread and hopefully a blog rates/giveaway type situation in the near future, so stay tuned!  

#allbusybees #introduction #studyblr #studyspo #study #student #studying #study inspiration #inspo #motivation #introduction post

[dearaphfrance]

EIGHT PEOPLE I’D LIKE TO GET TO KNOW BETTER! (please repost, not reblog!)

one (name / alias): Mad Muse (that gets confusing on an ask blog so you can just call me mun)

two (birthday): October

three (zodiac sign): Libra

four (height): Travel sized for your convenience

five (hobbies): SFX makeup, PC games, cosplay, reading/writing, linguistics, theatre

six (favourite colour(s)): Blue

seven (favourite books): LotR, Not Drunk Enough (amazing horror comic, check it out)

eight (last song listened to): The Temple – Jesus Christ Superstar (that’s going to be stuck in my head allll week)

nine (last film watched): Star Wars: The Force Awakens

ten (inspiration for muse): Currently “Emperor’s New Clothes” by Panic! At the Disco. Fun fact - Guillotined!France was one of my first cosplays. I’m a sucker for pretty boys covered in blood.

eleven (dream job): Total world domination (also my current teaching job)

twelve (meaning behind your url): Based on “Dear Aunt Abby” and similar advice columns

tagged by: @ask-bonnefoy

tagging: You, if you want to share! (sorry loves I think most of you were already tagged and I haven’t got the energy to search)

#a rare munday post #ooc

[shadyobservationtragedy]

Arma 3 Contact Communicate With Alien Entity

Arma 3 Contact Communicate With Alien Entity Search

Arma 3 Contact Communicate With Alien Entity Alien

PLEASE NOTE, YOU WILL NEED THE MAIN GAME 'ARMA 3' TO PLAY THIS EXPANSION (DLC). ABOUT THIS GAME What if humanity suddenly encounters extraterrestrial intelligence on Earth? Bohemia Interactive presents: Arma 3 Contact –. Departing from its long-standing tradition as a highly-realistic military-sim, the Arma 3 ‘Contact’ expansion pits players against mysterious aliens. Although one would think that putting aliens as your enemy would degrade your reputation as a military simulator, does it really? After all, considering the unfathomable expanse of the universe, it is highly unlikely that aliens.

Alien Entities (Arma 3: Contact) Alien Grunt; Alien Hominid; Alien Reef (Hungry Shark) Aliens (The Hum) Alimbic; Alkari; Allayi; Allosaurus (FMM-UV 32) Amblyr; Amoeboid; Amorphous Trandicula; Amperi; Amphituber; Andrewsarchus (FMM-UV 32) Category:Android App Species; Angara; Anglerfish (Outer Wilds) Anjellyun; Anode Beetle; Anodite; Antenna Beetle. If you pre-order Arma 3 Contact before the official release date, you can start testing the new terrain as of right now (with the new weapons, vehicles, and gear to follow soon). The expansion's singleplayer campaign will unlock later on Arma 3 Contact's planned release date on July 25.

Arma 3 players patiently waiting for the alien encounter expansion to be rolled out for the online military, simulation, first person shooter, will be pleased to know that it is now available via Steam priced at $27.99, €24.99 or £21.99 depending on your location. Check out the launch trailer below to learn more about what you can expect from the new Arma 3 Contact expansion and the single player campaign.

“What if humanity suddenly encounters extraterrestrial intelligence on Earth? Bohemia Interactive presents: Arma 3 Contact – a spin-off expansion about the most important discovery in the history of mankind. As a soldier deployed to Livonia’s militarized Nadbór region, you will be among the first to study our alien visitors and determine their intentions. However, amid the tension and chaos, armed conflict inevitably unfolds. Arma 3 Contact’s military science fiction campaign arrives together with a massive new terrain, and introduces new factions, weapons, vehicles, outfits, equipment, and more to the wider Arma 3 sandbox.”

If you’re interested in Arma 3 Contact but do not yet own the Arma 3 base game, we recommend purchasing the Arma 3 Contact Edition. This includes the Contact expansion plus the Arma 3 base game at a much lower price than when both are bought separately. For those that don’t delay a 10% launch discount via Steam is available until August 1st, 2019.

Source: Steam

Filed Under: Gaming News, Top News

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Released 25 Jul 2019

I was as skeptical as anyone when the news showed up that the next Arma 3 expansion was going to be about aliens. 'Oh no,' I thought, 'this always goes badly.' And while the game's latest content pack, Contact, winds up being a fun kind of X-Files diversion into what can happen in single player, it's of limited use to anyone who thinks about Arma as a war simulator.

Look: I'll save you the trouble of reading the rest of this review. If you're hoping for weird alien technology that you can work into your warfighting scenarios, this package doesn't have it. For the purposes of general Arma play, what you get with this is basically a couple of robots, and that's about it. When we work this piece of DLC into our master list of 'Arma Stuff You Must Have,'Contact will rank very near the bottom. That being said, I liked this campaign a lot. Contact shows Bohemia and its partners at their most creative, although as ever this weird scenario does come down to a cold war popping off hot in a small regional area that is, strangely enough, cut off from the rest of the world's communications.

Here's the gist: You are Spc. Aiden Rudwell, a linguist-turned-drone operator on a field exercise near the Russian border in a fictional state called Livonia. You're in some comms unit working with local Livonian partners on a combined arms exercise that's definitely not supposed to annoy anyone on the other side of the wire.

Quickly things go pear shaped, thanks in no small part to a PFC you're friends with who was already on latrine duty and has global conspiracy theories on the brain. A routine drone training exercise results in an armed bomb landing within walking distance of your lookout point and, well, guess who gets to check it out?

This all takes place so you can get acquainted with your first bit of new equipment: There's the drone, yes, but what you'll be married to for this entire exercise is the Spectrum Device: A tool that can jam radio, pick up radio signals, and work out where those signals are coming from.

As the campaign progresses, you'll use the Spectrum Device to send spoof missions to enemy command and work out where enemy squads are working. It's not a bad piece of kit, on paper - you can spot-jam enemy communications - but it feels like you're carrying out the most basic of tasks.

Indeed, the campaign has you use this piece of equipment over and over - mainly to make sure the people at an area you want to go to aren't there when you get there. And that's all fine. But even when you get a new antenna for it that lets you 'communicate' with extraterrestrials, its use is strictly limited by the script of the story. Within that story, there are some admittedly clever bits, I should say. Using a recorded 'move left' order from Livonian command on an enemy (look, it's complicated) squad prowling out in the woods at night feels very Cold War Kids, at least once I worked out what it was the game wanted me to do.

The other headline piece of tech that comes with this expansion is the ED-1 UGV, which is a tracked R/C car with an armature, probe, and camera on it. As you might expect, it's a fun little toy to mess around with at first, but it's only useful within the bounds of the story missions Contact sets up for it. Even then, what you're ultimately doing with it most of the time is 'go to location A to poke thing B.'

You could uncharitably say that about most Arma objectives, sure. And it's what Contact does to layer meaning onto those simple tasks that makes it a fun X-Files style diversion. It feels fresh, mostly because instead of shooting things most of the time you're waving a radio antenna around in the woods, trying not to get spotted. The missions open up a bit in the middle acts, and you can choose which order you want to take on objectives, but narratively they all boil down to a core of well-meaning military officers and scientists trusting the future of humanity to an E-4 and his ability to make his way through the woods with a radio jammer. Having spent some time as an E-4 myself, I don't like our odds.

Contact has some truly standout moments baked into the campaign (which I won't spoil), and you've certainly never seen in Arma before. Alien tech makes certain things spookily hover just above the ground sometimes, and the scenario writers were smart enough to keep the actual aliens themselves hidden from you. The rest relies on scary noises and lights in the woods combined with what your own brain makes up for the majority of its runtime. But as diverting as those moments are, it doesn't change the fact that the storyline is a bit hamfisted, and at best might have made for a middling two-episode X-Files arc. That's enough to keep me entertained for a few hours, and I suspect the same is true for quite a few Arma players. Thankfully the payoff, when you get it, is pretty grand.

Arma 3 Contact Communicate With Alien Entity Search

However, that's not near enough to put this on any list of truly ‘essential’ Arma DLC, particularly when you realize that the hardware it introduces is effectively useless outside that scripted story campaign. The Spectrum Device is literally unusable anywhere outside Contact's story missions, and the UGV it brings in is effectively the same - unless modders want to start adding 'probe material at location X,Y' to their list of missions in Arma's sandbox.

A couple other notes worth mentioning: Contact brings with it a new landmass, Livonia, and that's certainly interesting enough. It's some hilly woodland featuring a radar base and steep terrain - it's nothing particularly dramatic, but it's certainly more land on which to do Arma things. I was, however, disappointed to find that Contact seemed to make Arma 3 perform even worse on recommended settings than it had before, and this was after I had installed a brand new RTX 2070 Super graphics card in my PC. This is a game that's feeling its age.

All that said, I hope it's pretty clear where Contact lands in the panoply of Arma 3 add-on content. From a wargamer's perspective it's probably the least essential piece of DLC Bohemia has ever put out for the game. But it's an entertaining and, by Arma standards, unique story experience that's worth playing through once, and that bit at least is characterized by Bohemia's pleasingly authentic ear for military dialogue and characters, even if it can be a bit uneven and cartoony at times.

But Contact is also Arma 3's most expensive piece of DLC, with a price tag that's higher than the massive and game-changing Apex expansion. Contact, sadly, makes almost no impact on the broader game and even at its highest moments never really justifies itself. It's a fun little story, and that's it - unlike almost any other piece of DLC, it doesn't make Arma 3 itself more interesting at all.

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[just-another-winchester]

The Best Day Of Your Life (Pt 2)

Request? Nope, part two of my personal brain piece

Pairing/ Dean x reader again… technically

Word Count/ 2,163

Warnings/ fire, uhm… angst, attack hugs,

Summary/ reader has been searching everywhere for Sam and Dean until she ends up at the right place, right time. What will their reaction be to a stranger? What will her reaction be? Now that her quest is finally over.

A/N/

I got such love from the first chapter, that I really hope this is at least sort of what you guys were looking for. For everyone reading this, I am so glad you are taking the time, and I hope you all love it. I’m thinking of making this a series, tell me if you want that, and, suggest a title for the series? Huge thanks to my girl Amanda @amanda-teaches for beta editing this chapter. :)

Read PART ONE

Send me an ask if you wanna be tagged! Be specific! Soon enough I will be writing Sam and Cas fics as well. If this becomes a series make sure to say if you wanna be tagged in everything or just this series!

FEEDBACK IS MY SUSTENANCE!

Eight years.

You had been searching for eight years to find the men you had seen when you were sixteen years old.

Part of you still thought you were crazy, but you ignored that part mostly.The times you didn’t you told it to shut the hell up.

You had been all over the U.S. Along the way you learned things, more about monsters, about lore, about hunters and hunting.

After a series of five visions, you had also learned more about the boys.

The first man, his name was Dean Winchester, and you loved him.

Did it make sense? Hell no, but to be honest most of what had happened to you in the past made little to no sense. All you knew was that every time you had a vision, the moment you saw him, a sense of peace and safety rolled over you, you didn’t feel afraid, not once. You felt, hell, you felt loved. Important, like it wasn’t just you against the world anymore.

You knew it was crazy, to love a man you had never met, but still, you loved him. He was your reason to go on.

Then there was Sam, his little brother. Sam was like a gentle giant, sweet, soft, basically a huge huggable teddy bear. You’d heard he was smart too, knew lore about as well as most, if not better.

You’d heard word of them from other hunters, people who knew them, who knew their father, who had just heard of them, but you heard enough.

You had even paid a street artist to sketch a picture of Dean through your description. It was a bit shotty, as you weren’t exactly linguist of the year, but still… it was Dean.

Some may see it as a little creepy, you carrying around a sketch of a man you didn’t even know, but at this point you didn’t care what seemed creepy or crazy or anything. You felt so close you could almost taste it.

Through your five visions, you’d gotten to know the men somewhat. It turns out your original vision was in fact of the future, as Dean was only about three years older than you. You hadn’t learned much, but enough to learn their patterns, and it helped you judge which cases they would take.

After eight years of searching you still hadn’t found them, and you were becoming discouraged as you sat in yet another alleyway, just outside of a hotel and ate a poor man’s meal you had gotten from a local soup kitchen. You had to admit, even when you had money, this was your favorite meal.

You swallowed slightly as you studied the sketch of Dean, his face was ingrained into your memory, your thoughts often clouded with him.

You had become tense, you’d developed a crush on this guy who didn’t even know you existed, but at the moment all you could think about was how good it would feel to come face to face with him, to hug him, to feel his arms around you. You almost ached for the feeling, for the comfort you craved from him.

“Well Dean,” You said to the picture. “I’m sitting in an alleyway, talking to a sketch of a man who will probably run screaming if I ever finally find him.” You sighed. “You think I’m finally losing it or is it already gone? It being my mind, of course.”

You looked down the way, the darkness of the alleyway constantly making you forget that it was still daylight, although the daylight was slipping away slowly. You guessed it must be around seven, your only presumption that night would soon arrive and you would once again be stuck sleeping there for the night.

You never minded so much, you always just pretended you were camping or something, it put a somewhat nice spin on the depressing truth.

You folded up the picture of Dean, sticking it in your backpack and setting the pack aside as you curled over, adjusting to lay on your side, resting your head on the pack. You knew you were close, you could just feel it. You smiled softly at the thought. Soon, soon you would finally see Dean face to face.

And with that blissful thought, you fell asleep.

__

The first thing you noticed when you woke up was the thickness of the air around you. A frown immediately decorated your face as you opened your eyes to see blackness all around you. At first, fear gripped your heart, and you were taken back to the day you saw the demon enter your brother, the black smoke. But no, this was different, this was almost worse.

It didn’t take you much longer to recognize the heat at your back, your senses returning as you woke up and sat up, suddenly shooting out of sleep as you backed away from the wall you had been pressed against.

How you were alright left you baffled as you stared at the wall, engulfed in flame, the flicker of the fire was about as unfriendly as a rabid raccoon.

Your first thought were the people inside, and you acted on instinct, finding the back entrance easily. It was locked, but it wasn’t hard to break through as the fire was already weakening the walls around it. The door tumbled forward, crashing into the hotel as you ran inside.

But it was too late.

You had no idea how long the fire had been burning, the moment you entered the hotel you could see the room was nothing but flames, no one around. All you could hope was that everyone had gotten out as you struggled forward, determined to make sure no one was left.

The fire didn’t last much longer. Most of the next few minutes were a blur, flames flickering around you, licking the floor and the walls, burning at your skin, the hairs on your arms being seared off as you coughed and wheezed, trying to catch a breath.

The last thing you remembered before passing out was a man in firefighter gear coming towards you. Then, it all went black.

When you woke up you were in a room, not a hospital room or anything, it almost looked like an office. As you rubbed your eyes and blinked away the blurred vision, you saw you were right. You were in some damn office, a desk and chair to your right as you sat up, seeing nothing but a couple filing cabinets and bookshelves to your left.

“What the-?” You wondered aloud as you spotted a young woman sitting in a chair near the door.

“Who the hell are you?” You demanded.

The woman was small, her blonde hair pulled into a ponytail, she wore a white button up blouse with gray slacks, and what you assumed to be her jacket was draped on the back of the nearby chair. She was writing something on a piece of paper, but she looked up at your words, a pleasant smile on her face. It made you instantly regret reacting so sharply.

“Actually, I could ask you the same thing.” The woman responded, standing up and walking to a small locker behind the desk. She pulled out your backpack, tossing it to you.

You frowned as you looked up at her. “We went through your bag, removed anything… harmful, to you or others. Funny thing is, we couldn’t find any identification at all, and no one else seems to know who you are.” You frowned, opening your pack and searching through it. Your picture, where was the picture? You didn’t even care about your knife right now, but you couldn’t find the picture.

“Ma’am, please. I asked you a question.” The woman said, causing you to look up,

“Dina Frost,” you lied, going back to filtering through your things, too frustrated to care about anything else at the moment. “I used to carry two bags, my purse was stolen last week. Your turn.”

“Linsday Lohan.” The woman responded, causing you to look up, a frown plastered across your lips.

“What? You’re lying, why can’t I?” she asked. “Listen, it doesn’t matter who you are. Right now, we have you in the building, in the same room where the fire began. Until we find out what really happened, you aren’t going anywhere.”

“What so, I don’t get checked over? I was in a burning building and you don’t send me to a hospital, hell you don’t even put me in a damn cell?” you demanded, again, causing the woman to smirk.

“Believe it or not, we don’t get much crime in this town, so we don’t have cells. If there’s a problem, someone we need to lock down for a while, we clear out the supply closet, or we handcuff them to a desk. It never takes long anyway, we work fast around here,” the woman smarted as the door opened.

You looked up as the door opened, to see a man who leaned over, saying something into the woman’s ear. She nodded softly before standing up.

The woman turned to you with a simple smile. Once again she was pleasant about it, she wasn’t smug or annoying, but somehow you still wanted to punch her after she basically accused you of starting that fire.

“I’m going to step out, we’ll finish up later,” she said to you.

“Oh wow, thanks for that information,” you muttered.

Once the woman was gone, you let yourself groan outwardly. Dammit, another situation you would have loads of fun getting yourself out of. You had been in situations similar to this, but you were never accused of grand arson.

That’s just great. You stood from where you were seated, looking around the room. You walked to the door to try it but, of course, it was locked. You sighed as you looked around, wondering how you would get out. There was one vent, but it was tiny, the windows were sealed and you didn’t know how to pick a lock, so you were screwed.

Walking back to your seat, you sighed, plopping down just as you heard the door open and saw a man walk in.

A tall man, with hair reaching down his neck, moss green eyes scanning over the room to settle on you, a hard expression on his face as he played the part. His eyes were gentle and curious, but held the same weight as the first time you ever saw him, as well as the other four times…

“Hi, I’m Agent-”

“Sam.” You cut him off, his hand stopping mid badge flip as he looked to you.

“Excuse me?” He asked.

Your emotions were indescribable in a way, seeing him standing there, so close you could touch him. Sam, the sweetheart, the gentle giant, the soft hearted lover of the Winchester duo. He stood in front of you and you knew, you had finally made it.

“You’re Sam!” You explained, trying to keep the tears from you eyes as your emotions overwhelmed you, joy exploding in your chest and relief making you wanna just fall down, or hug him.

Your mind suddenly went to Dean as Sam looked you over, slight confusion on his face, although you could tell this wasn’t the first time a total stranger recognized him.

As Sam stood there, obviously trying to find his next words, the door opened again and you could see another man step in,  tall as well, with a slight quiff in his brown hair, soft green eyes. Broad shoulders and a hard expression that danced across his chiseled jaw. He was pulling his badge when Sam motioned for him not to bother.

“Dean,” you muttered. This time you wanted to scream, to… fangirl, or whatever the right word for it would be. Dean’s gaze shifted from Sam to you, his eyes squinting in question as he looked at you, and you couldn’t hold back. You moved from your place, not wasting a second to hurry to him and wrap your arms around him.

He was obviously taken aback, you heard him make a small oomph noise as you hugged him tightly, your arms around his neck as you felt him place his hands on your back.

You knew he was sure as hell confused, but it didn’t stop him from returning the gesture in some small way, and that just made your heart thump even faster. Finally you pulled back, the feeling of his hands on your back lingering. The feeling of finally seeing him face to face, of being able to touch him and talk to him, it was like no other.

“Uhm, hi,” Dean said, looking at you cautiously. “I’m sorry, have we met?” he asked. You simply shook your head.

“Not officially, no,” you answered, “but trust me, I know you.”

Finally… you had found Sam and Dean Winchester.

But that was just the beginning.

TAGS

All of em

@spn67-sister @queen-of-deans-booty @ria132love @winchestergeekfreak

Hali’s girls

@elizabeth-silverthorn @trustnobodyshootfirst

#spn #fics #spnfic #part2 #sam #winchesters #dean #part 2 #angst #fluff #reader insert #y/n x dean #dean x reader #dean winchester x reader #dean wincheser

[superlinguo]

Linguistics Jobs: Interview with a Stay-at-home Mom and Twitch Streamer

Twitch launched in June 2011, which means it’s only a few months younger than this blog, but it’s four years older than this interview series. Today’s interview with Taffy is the first with a Twitch streamer. Twitch has moved from streaming games to streaming al kinds of content, including linguistics! I’m always excited to see linguists reach new audiences, and Taffy somehow manages to fit it in around wrangling a toddler. You can follow Taffy on Twitch, or on other places around the internet, linked below.

What did you study at university?

My undergrad was as an English major, with a double minor in Creative Writing and Theatre;. I studied Mandarin abroad in Hangzhou, China, for a year; and then got my Masters in English with a concentration in Foreign Languages. I first studied Linguistics when I was a junior in college and didn't realize it was, like, a thing. And though I decided not to change majors, I did try to get as many Linguistics-focused courses as I could. When I got my Masters degree, there was not a Linguistics option at my university, but the English department did offer to pretty much make a program for me. We had two Linguistics professors in the English department, and I took every graduate course (and sometimes undergraduate with personalized advanced offerings) they offered. I also took several courses in the Foreign Languages department and was often the only non-FL or non-Education student there. (I was also often the most passionate in the room, haha!) Fun fact: the English department was going to offer Stylistics, and I was so excited for it AND for the professor, but I was the only person who registered for the course, so it didn't make. That kind of sums up my Linguistics experience in school. :p What is your job?

Stay-at-home duties revolve around feeding the daughter, keeping the house maintained, changing diapers, being a source of entertainment and education, and putting the baby to sleep. We sometimes go out for walks or go to playgrounds and such, but we rarely go to a public spot more than once a week or two weeks. Since I also write, I try to make about thirty minutes of time a day writing for Renew, which is a Christian network of materials around discipleship. When we have international students living with us (which hasn't happened since July), I also make sure they get to school safely on the weekdays and have food to eat. I sometimes help them with their school work if they ask for it or offer other forms of tutoring or language discussion. I'm also on the Duolingo team of streamers on Twitch, so I stream language-related content three times a week. Right now, my schedule is on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays during the kiddo's afternoon naps and then also Saturday nights after she goes to sleep. In the midst of all of that, I also try to spend time with my husband and take care of my mental, physical, and spiritual health when I can. How does your linguistics training help you in your job?

As far as being a mom goes, it's really fascinating to watch my daughter's language skills develop. Especially since we're raising her to be bilingual (because my husband is Chinese, and he and all of his family are native Mandarin [and Mandarin-dialects] speakers), I often use skills I've learned from Language Acquisition courses and books to reinforce her language skills. My daughter was also born with a slight tongue tie, and when the pediatrician and I were discussing whether or not we should clip her tongue, she actually asked me what I thought of the effects of tongue ties on speech development. So that was interesting! Because she knows I have a linguistics background, she often checks in with me about my daughter's language and vocabulary development and lets me know about language milestones I should be looking out for. With writing, language and linguistics is a big part of that. I guess the biggest application I use is dealing with diction and word choice because especially when writing about spiritual topics, word choice is really important. I do also do some creative writing (especially short fiction and poetry) for some literary journals, so many other aspects come into focus there too. And with teaching and housing, I use a lot of Foreign Language Education, Grammar, and Language Acquisition knowledge there too when teaching, tutoring, and even just communicating. I also often pull out quite a bit of that knowledge when I'm streaming, but sometimes I also have people in chat who are not super proficient English speakers. (Most of the community are non-native-English speakers, but most are very proficient.) I totally encourage multilingualism in the chat, but it does often require a bit more creative interpretation since it's only by text in a chat rather than face to face. Do you have any advice do you wish someone had given to you about linguistics/careers/university?

I wish I had known it was a possible field of study! It's very possible I may have majored in that instead.

More links from Taffy:

Writing:

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[chaoticchickadee]

Marissa Monday

Hey y'all, I felt so bad about not contributing to character week that I decided to write this little ficlet about a day off for Marissa. It's not the best, but I hope you enjoy regardless. Also, if you want to contribute to character week, post your work and tag "bull character week" I'll be reblogging what I find! For more information, check this out!

Title: Autumnal Rest

Word count: 1303

Description: When Bull unexpectedly gives Marissa a well deserved day off, she must find a way to spend it.

Marissa couldn't believe it. She hadn't had a day off in, well, to be honest she couldn't quite remember. It wasn't like it i was Bull's fault, not really, but every time she tried to take a vacation or a personal day, they always hot a big case she couldn't get out of. So when her boss had called her late the night before telling her to stay home and take the day for herself, she was a bit skeptical. In fact, the next morning she ignored the call and started her pre-work morning routine. But almost as if Bull could read her mind, he called again in the morning to remind her that yes, she really did have the day off.

It wasn't like she didn't appreciate it, after all, she had been wanting one for over a year now, but she did wish she'd had a little more time to plan something for herself. She decided to start out at her favourite cafe, and figure it out from there. Ellie would probably know of something fun she could do, and it would be nice to have a proper conversation with her. With Marissa's hectic schedule, she rarely got to say more than a couple of polite sentences to the beloved barista. She dressed in her favorite beige sweater, warm leggings, new brown boots, and the softest infinity scarf she’d ever felt before heading out of her peaceful apartment, without the usual rush or anticipation. She took her time on her trip to Brownies & Brews, taking the long way through a small park and even stopping at the pond for a bit.

When she finally arrives at the small coffee shop, she is greeted by the smell of freshly baked pastries and coffee brewing. It's warm, a pleasant change from the rather brisk autumn air outside. The morning rush is starting to cease, and the line consists of only a few college students impatiently awaiting their orders, undoubtedly having slept a bit late. Ellie quickly spots Marissa and starts making her cappuccino right away. Marissa is grateful for this and finds a seat by one of the windows, watching the bustling city street, making up crazy back stories for the few who stick around on the sidewalk.

By the time Ellie brings her her coffee and a cherry danish, Marissa is completely lost in her thoughts. She's abruptly brought back to reality by the sound of a chair scraping against the worn cafe floor as Ellie takes the seat across from her. “Mind if I join you? I don't think you've ever sat down in here to have your coffee before.” she said as she slowly sat down. Marissa quickly scanned the shop, noticing how it had emptied while she had been zoning out. “Of course. It's my first day off in forever, so I decided to come down here and figure out what I want to do with it.” she replied. Ellie seemed to consider this for a moment, before piping up again. “Well, there is this place in Central Park that I like to go to. It's very quiet and peaceful, I go there to paint when I have the time, but it's good for a picnic or just to relax. Or you could try the New York Botanical Gardens.” she offered, and to Marissa it was perfect. Her face brightened as she dreamed about the relaxing day ahead of her. Excited to get there, she quickly thanked Ellie and headed out of the coffee shop. She was so absorbed in her thoughts already that she didn't notice Ellie shaking her head and chuckling, quickly bringing her phone out of her pocket to text Cable about the unusual encounter.

Marissa found the place Ellie had described relatively easily, and dug around in her bag for a small, plain-looking leather notebook she kept there. It was fairly old, many of the pages dog-eared and the leather cover cracked and worn. She skimmed through what was already written, five years worth of little poems she had written when she had a few minutes to spare. As soon as Ellie mentioned this place and it's undisturbed serenity, she knew it would be perfect for writing a long, detailed poem like she had wanted to for months. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, searching her mind for inspiration. It took no more than ten minutes to find something, and soon she picked up her pen and starting writing as if her life depended on it.

Calm before the Storm

In a boat,

Sits a shrink

Hacking into

The way we think

On the shore

There are more

A lawyer, a hacker,

A former linebacker

They await his Return,

Watching for his crash and burn,

They'll pick up the shards

(the whole nine yards)

The former cop yells

She knows all of his tells

Overworking again,

His heart will soon be out in the open

And the linguist

Watches with anguish

Unable to reach out

She can barely shout

She knows the cycle well

Seen it enough to make her heart swell

With despair and sorrow

And she will bring him back tomorrow

She reads it a couple of times through, and ends up with something she is rather pleased with.  A little darker than she would like, but she it still makes her proud. Glancing at her watch, she notices that it's only 1:00pm, and leans her head back to have a moment of peace.

Marissa slowly cracks open her eyes, realizing she had dozed off for a few hours. When she checked her watch again, it was 3:45pm, and she decided it was time to move on with her day off. She checked her bag and pockets to make sure nobody had come by and taken advantage of her previously unconscious state. Finding everything where she left it, Marissa tucked her notebook back into her bag and stood up groggily, stretching and cracking a bone here and there. When she was certain she was fully awake enough to walk, she headed off in a familiar direction, hoping to make it before it closed for the day.

When she arrived at the mall, she made a quick pit stop at the food court to get a bite to eat and more coffee. Once she was finished, she made her way to her favorite story, pausing for a minute to admire the display in the window. It had been a while since she'd been there, and it was time to update her wardrobe. She wandered aimlessly through the racks and shelves, picking out a dress or blouse here and there, looking for nothing in particular. She eventually picked out a good stack, and made her way to the fitting rooms after about forty-five minutes of browsing. The clothes mostly consisted of beautiful blues and deep reds, but had nearly every color of the rainbow here and there. She did, however, decide to skip green altogether. She takes ¾ of her options, and makes her way to the checkout. It was a little pricier than what she would usually go for, but she treated herself just this once.

As she stepped out into the Main area of the mall, she saw the sun beginning to set. Marissa hailed a cab when she got outside, way too tired to walk back home, even with the afternoon's catnap. She observed the city going by on the uneventful ride to her apartment building, mulling over the day's activities. She arrived ten minutes later, and after paying the driver and leaving an impressive tip, began the trek to her small apartment on the seventh floor.

After Marissa put her new clothes away, she ambled into her quaint kitchenette, putting the water on for a nice cup of herbal tea. When it was done, she curled up on the corner of her couch nearest to the window, listening to the sounds of a city that never sleeps. The last thing she remembered that night was how she would have to thank Bull when she went to work in the morning, before she fell asleep.

#bull character week #bull cbs #bull (tv) #marissa morgan #my fic #original content