what i like especially about the pronouns in the goblin emperor is that this language doesn't just have the T-V distinction (aka informal vs. formal second-person pronouns, in this case 'thou' vs. 'you'), it also has informal and formal first-person pronouns. having BOTH of these distinctions in the same language lets you fine-tune your tone by mixing and matching. with only one axis of formality, when you use informal pronouns, are you being familiar in an intimate way, or in an insolent or dismissive way? when you use formal pronouns, are you being polite or standoffish? you can't tell just from the pronouns; there's ambiguity. but a language where you can use a formal first-person pronoun in the same sentence as an informal second-person pronoun allows you to distance yourself (via the formal first) while also being familiar (via the informal second), thereby achieving the conversational tenor known to linguists as Fuck Thee Specifically.

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. 

Overdue Update (Important!!)

So.. it’s been a while since I’ve written a long “essay” type post here..

Sadly, this isn’t a discussion about alterhumanity. I… have some things to admit, to explain my absence and such. 

Please try to read all the way through. If anything is misunderstood or unclear, I will try my best to answer any questions on the matter.

In around mid-October, the activity on my kin blog dropped off, and while I apologize sincerely for that sudden impromptu hiatus, I felt that I should at least clarify a few things before formally returning.

Recently, I came to the conclusion that I am plural. Specifically, a traumagenic system with four members as of now.

I’ve always been a system despite not initially realizing it (or at least have been since early childhood), don’t get me wrong. I just began really realizing something was off slowly throughout the course of the summer/fall. 

Sudden lapses in my sense of time/train of thought accompanied by my mannerisms/speech patterns/personality just seeming to change drastically. I had no idea what was happening, and admittedly, these lapses caused me great distress that spilled over into my everyday interactions with others. I was more on edge, more paranoid, all around stressed for a long while, wondering “why can’t I control myself in confrontations, why don’t I know who I am?”. 

For a while, I even dropped the name “Qwerty” because I didn’t feel like I even was Qwerty anymore..

And in a way, how right I was.

As you may know, around mid-June, I began identifying as otherkin/fictionkin, with three kintypes (Blixer, Marx from the Kirby series, and some sort of cryptid/alien). Like many otherkin, I experience mental and phantom shifts, as well as “past life memories” varying in vividness and detail. I still identify as Blixerkin and cryptid/alienkin (not entirely sure yet, to this day) and still get shifts as well as occasional memories/noema for them.

However, from the start, my supposed Marx kintype was always a tad off from the rest. In Marx “shifts”, fundamental parts of my personality and even morals changed; my very sense of identity became blurred. “I” became more argumentative, impulsive, even spiteful at times. It was far beyond just different parts of my own personality being amplified/dulled.

These so-called shifts, unlike the others, were always accompanied by a bout of dissociation. Everything was so foggy and distant, like I wasn’t in control of myself, like I was watching myself from behind a screen. I had enough consciousness to be able to essentially “internally scream at myself” to stop or change my actions if things went badly while in that “foggy” state, but it took immense willpower to even attempt to outright stop it myself. 

And while I didn’t experience outright memory loss, after said “lapses” ended, I often found myself unable to sort through my thought process. If someone asked why I’d done/said something in that state, later on I’d be unable to recall my own train of thought, my own reasoning. Thus, for a while I felt utterly lost and confused, as well as frustrated with myself for things I felt I had no control over. Getting into arguments… losing or nearly losing friends… I felt hopeless. I felt like a monster. Out of control.

At first, I assumed these lapses to be merely severe, stress induced mood swings that happened to fall in line with mental shifts. I knew they were Marx; though I thought that it was just a kintype, thought they were still inherently me. However, as time went on and these so-called shifts became more frequent and longer lasting, I began to notice odd quirks. Early in October, a particularly long lasting “Marx shift” completely turned my sense of identity on its head. 

Different preferred pronouns and name, different interests, sudden and intense cravings for sweets and candy (I personally can’t stand sugar, so this was the biggest shock, desiring cinnamon rolls and ice cream every minute). I’m also normally very much obsessed with keeping my diction and grammar as neat as possible. However, in this state, those who I talked to could probably attest to the fact that, for a while, that grammar had gone down utterly the drain. Lowercase letters, run-on sentences, no punctuation. This state even seemed to have differing/conflicting opinions from me; in this state “I” preferred the company of different people, spoke much more bluntly, and my empathy levels went from hyper-empathetic to… well, decidedly not. 

I felt entirely, utterly like Marx. It wasn’t a shift, it wasn’t merely a change in perception. The previous perception just.. kind of went out the window entirely. The normal homesickness became all-encompassing. The normal “nonhuman” feelings reached distressing levels.

Everything that made me “Qwerty” had just kind of.. Flipped. It scared me.

I’d never felt like that in a mental shift for my other kintypes. In a Blitz shift, I was still fundamentally me, still myself, just a little more excitable and friendly. And if need be, I could usually snap out of it. Kintypes are supposed to still be you, after all. You’re not supposed to “lose control” of yourself, even in a strong shift. Sure, it can be embarrassing/disorienting looking back at what you said while influenced by the mindset, instincts, and energy level of a kintype, but it’s still inherently yourself. 

Marx “shifts” were not. They were not “shifts” at all. I realized then that Marx was not a kintype and had never been one. Marx was not me. Marx was someone else, sharing this brain and body despite wanting no parts of it. (He’s doing a lot better now, but really, back then, he was just as panicked as I was, albeit expressing it differently.)

Between the change in identity, the lapses in memory, and the dissociation that accompanied said so-called shifts, by late October, I’d come to the conclusion that I was plural. Somehow. I will not get into it, but certain events that occurred years before during times of stress, trauma, or even just general discomfort aligned well with the behaviors of this alter. And, admittedly, I was initially a tad… afraid of this other being in my brain. It was no fun and games; I didn’t want to believe it. 

And yet, as I began to reach out, to talk to my alter, I realized, he’s not bad, he’s not a monster, neither of us are; no alters inherently are. His frustrations, his mannerisms, his actions, defense mechanisms, they were all meant to help us survive. He’s been around for years, even if not always the exact same. 

There’s four of us now, and we’re pretty solidly sure of our plurality, having known for about two and a half months now, give or take. While you likely know me best as “Qwerty”, I’m not the “real” one or the “original” or the “most important”. In fact, you’ve probably spoken to the others before on a few occasions, even before we knew we were a system. We’re technically all alters, and we’re all important to each other, as all members of a system are. (Alters should never be reduced to just “extra” or “unwanted/scary” parts, nor should they be treated like characters or a game/act, but that’s a story for another time).

We were afraid of revealing ourselves on main or any blog connected to it, so we’ve been posting on a semi-secret sideblog for the past month or so. We finally made the decision to be open about this due to the fact that it was becoming harder to keep the sideblog separate. 

We could no longer post about our alterhuman experiences because continuing to refer to Marx related things as a “kintype” would be misleading and would only make clarification harder in the future.

As all this stress built up and the fear of someone prematurely figuring out who we were rose, we finally came to the conclusion that purposely revealing what we are was the only choice.

I know that, even with all this written, I probably haven’t covered absolutely everything, so once again I’ll be willing to answer questions on the matter/clarify things, for as long as I need to. We want to make sure to prevent any possible misinterpretation.

(We’ll share the name of the sideblog as well in a bit.)

Higurashi New 2 | Wandering Witch 2 | Moriarty 1 | Taiso Samurai 1 | Kamisama 1 | Munou na Nana 2 | Golden Kamuy 3 1 (25) | Yashahime 2

I’m trying a seasonal challenge this time...so that means I have to leave some Crunchyroll anime to the side. That’s why I’m putting in the tags now.

Higurashi New 2

Apparently, now this Higurashi is called “Gou”…I dunno what that means in the context of this series, but *Saitama face* OK.

Is this girl…Rika? Or this Hanyuu girl I heard of on ANN? Update: Wait a bit from that point. You’ll get your answer.

Do they ever examine why the girls in Higurashi are what they are? Rika seems to have something supernatural going on, but Rena…is just a psycho girl right now, so it’s hard to care.

LOL, I was wondering where this “nipah” Rika meme came from, but it is present in the dialogue.

I predicted that Gilligan cu-er, transition far too easily…

Why is that kid’s face so tanned (?) in comparison to the rest of him???

How did these girls get up the building so fast??? (LOL?)

Wow, the cicada noise was pretty loud there, so…props to the sound guys for making that sound stifling.

Can we really trust what Mion is saying about Tomitake…?

I thought we were going to see Watanagashi in ep 3, but…okay.

Satoko speaks rather formally. She says kochira de gozaimasuyo! instead of kocchi! or kochiradesuyo!.

Who’s that blonde lady? Someone from Umineko?

The bright colours really help to sell the ominous nature of this ED and anime. I don’t think I understand everything that’s happening in said ED, though…

Gonna pause it here because I heard you need to watch the OG and Rei to understand this, now that the new Higurashi is operating under its “proper” name.

Wandering Witch 2

…Elaina’s a bit full of herself still…

…what the heck was that instrument playing over the titlecard? Bagpipes…?

LOL, it’s the Attack on Titan world!

Did Elaina lose her hat when she fell? That must be a very stable hat indeed.

Ooh, particle effects! However…there’s CGI here, although it’s only kinda noticeable.

Have you never heard of money…?

Wait, witches get discounts???

It seems Saya comes from Japan.

LOL, this is basically Quidditch without a snitch!

I like mushrooms, so I don’t get why people kick up such a fuss about them.

Saya seems to act like this is yuri bait…*sigh*

Saya’s crying like her sister died…c’mon, it’s not that bad!

I’m hitting pause. If this is actually how the series is, then it’s primed for a drop, but I can’t help but keep it on for the spectacular visuals and the fact it’s basically anime Harry Potter.

Taiso Samurai 1

I keep swearing I’ll finish my old simulcasts…but then new ones pop up like daisies…(I guess it’s better than having no anime to finish, right?)

I just realised how pretty Jotaro’s eyes are…! The fact he just sort of splats and then doesn’t get up shows how weary he is, unlike Sakura from Moon Land, who would’ve probably gotten up and never tried doing gymnastics again if he were in the same position.

Just by glancing over the results when I google for this Montreal gold, it seems it was done by a Kouhei Uchimura, but I might be wrong on that front…oh wait, there are 3 golds, so it’s not necessarily just that one…

You can tell this is 2002 because of that flip phone.

Intai Zamurai…it’s constructed the same way as the anime’s title. Two characters and then “samurai”.

BB (Big Bird) on the side there is so goofy, he’s…kind of distracting. <- Note the official website refers to Big Bird as BB, hence my use of it.

I was wondering if Rei was the daughter or the wife…so it’s the former.

Kinugawa Ropeway…it rings a bell, somehow. Maybe the Boueibu crew went there as DVD/BD extras.

…does everyone know that a ryokan is like a mini hotel with a traditional set-up?

*snorts* LOL, Keanu (Reeves, obviously).

That montage was a bit worrying…maybe the CGI took out part of the budget? I was a bit worried when I could tell there was CGI in that one starting segment.

…LOL, wut. Agent Smith (from the Matrix)?

Yamakasi seems to be a parkour thing which has its own movie.

…I’m sort of wondering: was that ninja a woman? If Jotaro gets another wife…I dunno if I’ll like the anime as much. Things could become far too dramatic if he did. Update: You do find out later in this episode.

I think – from lip reading – the ninja used -de gozaimasu. I remember getting it drilled into me that people don’t use that these days, but in the time of ninja and samurai, they did.

…another anime set in Ikebukuro. I knew from the station, but…’bukuro must be a nice place if people are reppin’ it all of a sudden.

Was Tomoyo an actress…?

“Kinugawa, as in the river where ogres get mad?” – See, that’s the pun I made about Boueibu’s Atsushi years ago…

This Takizawa guy’s so expressive, LOL.

Gotta love a man in a suit, yes…

…they keep building up to this retirement, only for him to not retire??? Which is it?! (LOL) That declaration works better in Japanese because the -shimasen goes at the end of the sentence so the weird sentence structure in the English translation actually makes Jotaro look like he really messed up due to nervousness speaking in front of crowds. Update: He just sounds like he stopped in the middle of a sentence in Japanese, which he obviously did.

There’s no time travel for sure, but there are ninjas! Plus dudes in jumpsuits!...plus, of course, gymnastics! It could still work, but I keep swearing there’s something supernatural coming around the corner for this…Also, this “gymnast trying to retire” thing seems to be drawing me in because of my whole current lack of direction in basically everything, much like Rikuo of Sing Yesterday for Me.

Kamisama 1

Hmm…Kamisama ni Natta Hi…it doesn’t say the subject stating this became a god, so the pronoun could be “she” or “you” rather than “I”, which seems to be the current standard for it. Update: It says on the title card “I”, so it should have an I then…I guess(?)

There’s a fish on the logo.

…this girl, I already know her name is Hina. That’s the 2nd Odin this season (the first is in Sigdrifa…or however it’s spelt)…she’s gonna be annoying, isn’t she…?

What’s this about a date…?

There are two Izanamis this season, too. The second is Hifumi from HypMic.

Looks like there was an accident, according to one of the signs.

…This feels exactly like a visual novel. I’m surprised it’s an original.

I was wondering why “Key Ramen” (Kagi Ramen) sounded weird…then it hit me. Key! You motherf**kers!!! *shakes fist* You were hiding right under my nose all along!

Hey, Potato-kun! (I know his name is Youta, but…eh, aside from having a possible girlfriend candidate and being a Nice Guy, he’s still a Potato-kun.) Stop staring in disbelief and do something!

…Why Potato-kun, anyway? Is it because his name means “become god”???

…This Izanami is so emotionless…it’s hard to imagine her cheering, Youta was right on that front.

…that style in Hina’s background…I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it for Sailor Moon Crystal, but I’ve forgotten what the artist’s name is (the one that inspired that artstyle)…

I almost expected Hina to interrupt the confession, like Leo from Taiso Samurai.

I kinda just shrugged near the end of the episode and finished it just to see if the confession would be interrupted, so…big fat drop there. I must not like much Key beyond Angel Beats (and even then, it’s only okay because it’s the relic of a time gone by).

Moriarty 1

I’ve been picking up Sherlock-related things left and right ever since I was a fan of Detective Conan…not Sherlock, Elementary or that Robert Downey Jr. movie, but the stuff Conan Doyle had his hands in. (I’d also like to keep an eye out for that Miyazaki movie, but I don’t know if I can/should go out of my way for it.) Therefore, I was a pretty easy mark for a bishonen Moriarty.

Who’s this “El” guy anyway?

…That OP is basically Black Butler all over again. I admit I went, “Oh, stuff this” for a second when I saw Rasmus Faber’s name on credits – when I went to entire series for him, they always ended badly for me – but I couldn’t stop watching the episode (since I skipped forward to the actual episode due to background noise), so this might be the anime to change everything.

I’ll be real with you – aside from Japan, America and China (the former two of which I’ve gone to and the latter I’ve technically gone to Hong Kong, which I have stronger ties to anyway), I honestly don’t have anywhere on my bucket list. That said, anime (obviously, the London arc from DC was a big factor) and this one movie called What a Girl Wants have been pretty instrumental in making Great Britain…almost make the list of places I want to go to. Key word: almost.

…I want a dub. With accents like Princess Principal.

Also, I forgot Soma Saito was our Moriarty…LOL.

“…for Man of Standing” (sic).

Turn the other cheek, Mr. Tailor.

The eyes really tell you everything about a person in this anime.

Ooh, this has absolutely no holes in its logic. It’s a strong contender!

Yashahime 2

Holy s***, is that Kagome’s brother?(!) He kinda reminds me of Takagi from Detective Conan for some reason…

Come to think of it…writers like Takahashi don’t normally have androgynous leads like Towa, do they?

That was…not the best fight scene, man.

Ooh, naginata. I’ve read a bit about them, but I’ve never really seen one used in an anime before…not to my memory. Not even the naginata in Touken Ranbu (plural) can help with that.

…this Rainbow Pearl business reminds me of Sailor Moon’s…uh, whatever they’re called…Rainbow Crystals, that’s right.

There’s something oddly comfy about predicting the “it won’t be my crying face, it’s yours you’ll get!” line, as bad as that sign may be for predictability on the whole.

I’ve felt in the years leading up to now, the progressive nations are slowly causing the entire gender binary to unravel. The more I think about my own relationship with my concept of gender – I accept gender-neutral third-person pronouns because initially I wanted to be anonymous on the internet, but now I’m just generally fine with it, for instance – the more I can agree and yet also disagree because of the progress the LGBTIQ+ community has made in recent years.

Munou na Nana 2

Ah-hah! People were calling it that the enemies of humanity were actually the superpowered kids and this proves it.

Ah, I think this Shibusawa is Masuda. I was here for him, so here he is.

Nana just says konnichiwa, which is the most basic of Japanese greetings. I don’t think it was phrased as a question, so…why did the subbers go with that?

Nana keeps breaking her chopsticks by leaving a bit at the end.

Lemme guess…Shibusawa’s talent is actually reversing time, not stopping it.

Is…that Shibusawa Nana’s giving flowers to…?

Golden Kamuy 3 1 (25)

If this is episode 25, was this always planned as a split-cour with season 2? I wonder…

Lingonberries! Oh, lingonberries! They’re those berries Ikea puts into their jam, right? (I’ve never tasted a lingonberry, but…yeah. That’s how I know of them.)

The sign says “Hurep Honpo” (backwards, as some older Japanese/Chinese things do), so it really just says “hurep” (since “honpo” = main shop). Update: Hurep actually means “lingonberry” and not the berry wine like I thought it did here, so it says “hurep wine” after all.

Thank goodness for 2D bears! (LOL)

Ratel?...uh, honey badger! That’s what they’re called in English!

…uh, and then it turns out to be a wolverine. I don’t know my Mustelidae, it seems.

There’s nothing like someone throwing a wolverine to know this is Golden Kamuy…(as weird as that sounds.)

…what was that random line about boobs about…? (Maybe it was just said to be random…?)

…ohhhhhhhh. These yellow eyes work much better than the standard red eyes you see in Munou na Nana or Moriarty. They’re so sinister.

Why did it suddenly change to an interview style…? Weren’t we waiting for a fight? Update: Seems the answer is “padding”. Not that I mind, I think it was interesting actually. Do more of that if you can.

April 2019 Pond LiveChat Recap

We had a great time chatting with @deanscarlett today! Thank you so much, Scar, for joining us!!

We had a bunch of non-native English-speakers in the room today, and we all discussed the challenges of writing in a language that is not your first. A rundown of the chat, as well as general Pond news, is below the cut!

People attending: @deanscarlett @katehuntington @emilyshurley @focusonspn @mrswhozeewhatsis 

Q: What is everyone’s first language?

Scar: Spanish Kate: Dutch Emily: Hindi Sol: Spanish

Q: You all are so fluent, did you grow up speaking English?

Scar: My mom sent me to learn English when I was 6 or 7. I’m almost 41 lol Emily: I did, grand dad is a retired professor of English so like almost the second language kinda thing Kate: My mom grew up on Australia and she thought it was important for me to learn English from a very early age. 

Q: What do you guys think is the hardest part of English?

Emily: Grammar. I can speak fluently, but for me, it’s grammar and punctuation. Speaking is easier because I grew up talking to my dad in English on occasions. Scar: The listening and pronunciation part. Grammar comes easy to me because of the way it was taught to me. Spanish has waaaay too many verb tenses that makes English a joke in that sense. Kate: I personally sometimes struggle when I wanna use a Dutch way of saying things. I translate too literally.

We then discussed how even English is very different depending on what country you’re from. US vs. UK vs. Australian, for example. The same words mean different hings, different countries have different words. Sometimes, the differences can seem like it’s a whole different language.

Q: Is there anything about English that constantly trips you up, even though you know better?

Kate: Times. I mean, tenses. Scar: I got it, tenses in Spanish are called “tiempos”, which in EN is “times” 😀 For me, phrasal verbs, certain rules when it comes to prepositions. Those are my bane. Emily: Tenses. I mess those up a lot. Michelle: Well, it’s not like there’s not 2983625 tenses or anything. Native speakers screw them up, too. Apparently, we’re all REALLY invested in knowing exactly when things happened!

Q: Which brings up a side thought. I know that language informs thought. Like, some languages have no words for things, or special words for things. How often do you run into that?

Kate: A lot. I’ve looked so long for a translation to the word ‘gezellig’. It doesn’t exist. Scar. Yup. We don’t have a word for toes, for example. Kate & Michelle: Toes? How can you not have a word for toes??? Scar: Yup, it’s “fingers of the foot/feet”. There isn’t a word for it. Emily: Same. Michelle: I was thinking about those cultures that don't have words for stealing because they believe everything belongs to everyone, and here Scar is telling me the South Americans don't have toes!

Emily then turned us onto a discussion about how English steals from other languages.

Emily: Speaking of word stealing "jungle" is a Hindi word. Michelle: Oh, English is a great thief. English steals from EVERYONE indiscriminately. Kate: Oh now I wanna know what they stole from the Dutch. Emily: *cough* colonialism *cough* Kate: We were just as bad. England owned half and the Dutch the other half. Scar: Spanish stole terms, too, but they evolved in time. Emily: Jungle is straight up Hindi word with same meaning. The only English words we use in Hindi are for the things British introduced to India. Even then we came up with word for them eventually. Michelle: Quick Google search for English words with Dutch origin: Coleslaw (from the Dutch word meaning cabbage salad), boss (from baas, which means master), stove (from the Dutch word for heated room), and booze (from a Dutch word "busen" meaning to drink in excess). Kate: Koolsla! Haha! Of course we inspired a word for alcohol. Busen is old old Dutch, though. Stoven is a Dutch word for cooking. But what the English speakers call a stove, we call a gasfornuis, now. Language is weird, man.

Q: One of the facets of English that I don't know if other languages do, is how it constantly changes. I took a history of the English language course in college, and if you read Old English, like Chaucer's Canterbury Tales was originally written in, it's a completely different language. For example, the verb to starve, came from a word steorfan (not the correct spelling), which simply meant to die. Over the centuries, the meaning changed to die specifically from hunger.

Emily: Most languages evolve with time.  Scar: Latin American Spanish and Spaniard Spanish have different tenses for 2nd person plural. Even a different pronoun.

Q: Someone once told me that English is more malleable than other languages. What do you think of that?

Scar: It’s true. Spanish is hard to evolve.You cannot transform a word in a verb as easily as with EN. Emily: I’ll speak for Hindi. It’s a constantly evolving language that’s super malleable.

Q: When you look for a beta, do you look for someone who speaks your first language, or just for a native English speaker? If you don't look for someone who speaks your language, do you think finding a beta who did would make things easier or harder?

Scar: Always a native speaker. For one, not many Spanish speakers around, and 2nd, they are bound to make the same mistakes I do. Emily: It’s hard finding Indian betas, so mostly they are native English speakers. Kate: I look for a native English speaker in a beta, at least one of them (I usually get my stories checked by 2 or 3 betas). Scar: Though I notice that EN speakers tend to not notice stuff like they’re/there/their and the like. I don’t have issues with those when I write, but I notice it a lot in other writers (native EN) who were betaed by other native EN, and you see tons of those mistakes.

Q: Is there anything that has tripped up your betas in the past, or anything that you wish betas would focus on more often?

Kate: Repeating a certain word. I use a certain verb or emotion too much. Synonym would be better, not everyone picks up on that Scar: I tend to go a little too happy with passive voice. I usually do 10 reads before giving it to the beta. Usually they find wrong prepositions.  Emily: For me, it's common English saying and day to day slang. A beta once said my dialogue sounds formal. Michelle: I can understand the formal thing. One ESL writer I beta for never uses contractions. Emily: That's because I learnt the "proper" way of speaking English in school. Scar: That’s another issue, too. I was taught the posh English, so when I went to England last year, it was hard af to understand the cockney English. Emily:  Then there is the whole cultural divide situation. For example, I have a really difficult time writing anything remotely NSFW because sex and PDA are kinda taboo in India. Any advice? Michelle: Only write what you're comfortable writing. If you REALLY feel that your story needs something you don't feel comfortable writing, then collaborate with someone. Scar: Don’t force yourself to write something you are not comfortable with. Because in some cases, you don’t enjoy it and in the end that shows in the writing. Emily: It isn't that I'm not comfortable, I don't have an issue I just have no idea what I'm doing. Michelle: Whenever you're writing something that you don't know much about, find someone who writes that or knows about that, and work with them. For example, @manawhaat is my weapons expert. When I wrote a fic about Dean and the First Blade, comparing it to his other weapons, I practically had her on speed dial. I wrote what I was thinking, and asked her if any of it sounded plausible, and she corrected what I had wrong, and gave suggestions for things I didn't know about. Another suggestions is to read TONS of other fics that have what you want to write. Kate: But if you wanna learn, read and practice, though. You don’t even have to publish it.  Emily: That makes sense but I'm to scared to reach out to people. I follow some people who are really amazing, but when they post stuff like, “No, I won't read your fics unless I offer myself,” I get scared thinking I'm bothering others as well. Michelle: That’s when the Pond’s Beta list comes in handy! Sol: I'm too scared to bother someone for beta my work. Michelle: That’s what the list is there for. These are people who want to beta read. If they’re busy, they’ll tell you. But they want to be on the list and welcome people asking them.

We ended with some advice on picking a beta, and complaints about Tumblr eating asks. REMINDER: IF YOU SEND AN ASK TO THE POND AND DON’T GET A RESPONSE IN TWO DAYS, SEND A MESSAGE TO ONE OF OUR ADMINS!!

Great talk, guys! Can’t wait for next month!!

General Pond Updates and Reminders

Angel Fish Award nominations are accepted all month long! No need to wait to tell us how much you liked a fellow Fish’s work!  IF YOU HAVE SENT IN A NOMINATION, BUT HAVE NOT RECEIVED A PRIVATE MESSAGE CONFIRMING WE RECEIVED IT, WE DIDN’T GET IT. Be sure to use Submit instead of Ask!

Don’t forget to submit your stories to be posted to the blog! When your stories are on the blog, then they are easier to nominate for Angel Fish Awards!

SPNFanFicPond Season 14 Weekly Episode Challenge - Now that the season is over, we will be reposting each prompt list through the summer months! Remember, there’s no deadline for submissions! 

Say hi to April’s New Members!

Check the Pond CALENDAR to see when Big Fish will be in the chat room and other Pond and SPN events are happening! Know of something that’s not on the calendar, send us an ask or submission with the deets info details!  The calendar offers a lot of features, such as showing you when things are in your own timezone! Since we’re an international group, that’s a definite plus!!

We don’t have a topic or speaker set up for May’s event, yet, so if there’s something you want to talk about, or someone you want to talk to, LET US KNOW!

(re)united - Sam/Gene, rated G, 1,750 words. 

@danae-b gave me the prompts of “reunion” and Sam/Gene, so I wrote this. This fic is titled after this song, because I am me. 

They haven’t spoken to each other for going on three weeks and Sam’s past the point of admitting he misses Gene’s voice. He misses its cadences and rhythms, the way Gene intersperses informal with formal speech so you can never quite be sure if what he’s going to say will sound grandiloquent or down-right ridiculous. He even misses the often derogatory pet-names, God help him.

Sam misses Gene’s surprising wisdom and his infuriating brutality, but he refuses to do anything about it, because Gene was wrong.

Gene’s been wrong before, of course, this shouldn’t feel like such a surprise, or a betrayal. He used to take hand-outs, stitch up crims, use abusive, underhanded tactics to get what he wanted when he wanted it. But lately, throughout the past few months, Sam thought they’d come to some sort of agreement. An unspoken one, sure, but he’d plenty of evidence to back it up. If they didn’t see eye-to-eye on how to proceed on a case they’d make that clear away from the prying eyes of their team. It was Gene who first started using plural pronouns, referred to their and them and they. It was Gene who’d first hauled Sam away to cuss him out. It was Gene who favoured late-night arguments at pub tables, away from the throng and buzz of everyone else.

Sam doesn’t understand how this time, this crucial time, when almost everything is at stake, Gene chose to humiliate Sam in front of everyone in CID. And not only did Gene humiliate Sam, but everything Sam said about the case was correct and Gene ignored him. It put the case in jeopardy, it reintroduced unnecessary tension back into the team and it… it hurt Sam’s feelings. It’s stupid, but it’s true.

“The Guv told me to talk to you to ask Annie about the Morrissey file. Or he asked me to tell you to talk to Annie about the Morrissey file. Or he— ”

“Thanks, Chris. I get the picture.”

“In the file?”

“What?”

“You’ll get the picture in the file? Is it only a picture that the Guv wants? Seemed to want to read over the facts.”

Sam narrows his eyes.  This isn’t the first time Gene’s sent Chris to communicate with him to disastrous results. Better Chris than Ray, though, admittedly. “I think we’re at cross-purposes here,” Sam says. “I’ll get the file and give it to DCI Hunt. You go back to writing your report.”

Chris gives him a gormless grin and goes to his own desk, begins hen-pecking at the keys of his typewriter.

Sam sucks in a deep breath, two. He can do this. He’s had to do it within the past few weeks a couple of times. Get the file, leave it on Gene’s desk, leave the office-space and back to his own area within fifteen seconds, twenty at the most. Once he did it and they didn’t even glance at each other, it was so smooth and efficient. And if, in his heart of hearts, Sam wants to linger a while and poke the bear; he’s always been a bit of a masochist.

Sam pushes the door as quietly as he can, steps within the walls, eyes fixed on the ceiling, to remind himself he’s not so much alone in a room with Gene again, but only within a partitioned area of the wider office. This was a mistake, because Gene’s not at his desk, he’s apparently standing just past the doorway, and they collide with a smack, bang, wallop. Sam lets out a grunt and damn near topples backwards, but he’s stopped by Gene’s hands on his upper-arms, holding him still.

Sam looks into Gene’s eyes, shocked, and is taken aback by how blood-shot and world-weary they look.

“You all right?” Sam asks, reflexive, and fuck.

“I’m not the one who almost went A over T,” Gene counters, sounding weirdly offended by Sam’s courtesy to enquire after his health.

“No, but you are the one who looks like shit warmed up.”

Gene pushes him back with rather more force than necessary, sits on the edge of his desk. “You require my assistance?” he asks, in perfect mockery of Sam.

“Uh, no. Just dropping off the Morrissey file like you asked.”

Gene crosses his arms. “I never asked you for any file.”

“Well, no. Apparently you wanted Annie to get it for you, but I figured I’d cut out the middle man.”

“I never asked for any file. Someone’s been yanking your wang-dang-doodle, Nancy.”

Sam could murder Chris, he really could. With his mind, if possible, so as to reduce the mess.

“Bloody Chris,” Sam sighs.

Gene looks positively amused, his lips quirking at the corners. “And you call yourself a detective, Tyler, honestly.”

For a moment, two, Sam forgets about his disappointment in Gene and shares in the humour. He tips his head, his own small smile stretching as the gravity of the entire situation sets in – somehow, someway, he was bested by Chris Skelton.

“So how have you been?” Sam asks, because no one could ever say he’s a coward. No one could ever say he doesn’t adapt, either.

Gene shrugs a majestic shoulder. “Fine. You?”

“Fine.” Sam rocks back on his heels, makes an awkward gesture towards the doors.

“Fine’s not the same as good,” Gene ventures, because he’s one of the bravest people Sam’s ever known. His gaze is piercing. “Sort of like the difference between surviving and living. One’s okay, but the other’s preferable.”

Sam studies Gene, sees the metaphorical olive branch floating in mid-air between them. “I know what you mean.”

“So what will it take to get you yammering in my ear again like a particularly excitable gnat?”

Sam raises his eyebrows. Gene’s direct, and blunt, and often brutal. But this seems more than that. Sam can match him, if need be. Sam can best him, when pushed. “An apology would be nice.”

“Gene Hunt doesn’t apologise.”

“Gene Hunt’s a mythical creation you’ve built to help you deal with the world. I don’t need a sorry from your larger than life persona. I just want one from you.”

“Because I made you look a fool?”

“Because you made us look foolish. Because up until November we were putting on a united front and it was working, Gene. We were working. But you had to throw it all away because your authority must be absolute, because you must be the big man, because you must be obeyed.”

Sam expects Gene to either go deadly quiet or shout his head off, but he doesn’t. His shoulders slump and his smears a hand over his face, as if he could rub away the past three weeks.

“You ended up being right this time,” Gene says.

“That’s an admission, so we’re creeping closer.”

“And I should’ve dragged you to Lost and Found to make my disagreements known.”

“Another concession, you’re on a roll.”

“And I’m sorry, Sam.”

Sam waits a beat, two, waits for the punchline he’s sure will be coming any second. But Gene just gazes at him, a mixture of patient and anxious, like he’s worried what Sam’s reaction will be, but he’s willing to wait for it.

Sam doesn’t know how to respond. He literally has no clue. Never in his wildest dreams did he ever think Gene would actually say what he wanted to hear.

“I accept your apology,” Sam says eventually, moving forward to pat Gene on the shoulder.

Gene looks at him as if he has two heads, but Sam likes making contact. He hadn’t worked out how touch-starved he was, forgotten how much they tapped, swatted, nudged each other. There’s a frisson of delight up Sam’s spine from all the points they’re connected.

He hasn’t only missed Gene’s voice, Sam realises, but this too. They’re close, like this, close enough Sam can count Gene’s eyelashes and smell the whisky on his breath. Close enough Sam can feel Gene’s warmth, through musky-scented polyester.

Sam’s hand drags down Gene’s shoulder to his upper-arm, more of a caress than anything else, and he has a moment of clarity – he was as angry as he was not only because of a wounded pride, not only because it set the team back, but because they’d been building to a nearness that was frightening, before Gene had pulled his little stunt.

Gene rests his hands on Sam’s hips, thumbs hooking into his waistband. He looks up at Sam through his lashes, gusts out a sigh. Sam stares at him, edging ever closer, tilting his head down and to the side.

When their lips are almost touching, Sam lets his uncertainty take over. “You really want to do this?”

Gene tugs him closer. “Don’t you?”

The kiss, when they finally kiss, is slower and more deliberate than Sam was expecting. It’s softer and sweeter too. Gene kisses like this is where he’s put all his restraint, all of his careful consideration; it takes some coaxing to get him to open up and let Sam in. But his hands, God, they’re hot and heavy under Sam’s shirt within a matter of moments, calloused fingers working against the skin of his lower back, his hip.

When they pull apart, Sam can’t help but press his fingers to his lips, can feel the heat of a blush in his cheeks. He’d be embarrassed, but Gene’s hair is ruffled and he looks utterly shell-shocked, so at least Sam knows he’s not alone.

“I should go,” Sam says, adjusting his shirt until he’s neat and tidy again, idly brushing at Gene’s hair to get him looking halfway presentable. Gene sits there like a contented cat, pretending to smooth the material at Sam’s back. Sam has to consciously step away, speaking over his shoulder as he steps. “Talk later?”

“Yeah, yes, fine,” Gene replies, husky. Then he gives the most impish smile Sam’s ever seen, something that almost makes him walk right into Gene’s door. “Good.”

Sam’s looking forward to learning new things about Gene’s voice. Like how he sounds sleep-roughened, or the noises he makes when he’s on the edge, and the words he’ll use when his guard’s down and it’s just the two of them. He’s looking forward to hearing his cadences and rhythms, formal and informal speech, eloquence  and inarticulateness, once Sam gets to touch Gene the way he wants.

He has a feeling, if today is any indication, that he’ll be hearing it all sooner rather than later.

Trans* Yuri On Ice headcanons

Yuri Plisetsky is a trans boy. He doesn't have much chest dysphoria (he had a relatively flat chest to begin with, and he worked out pretty hard to make sure it was almost invisible), but being called gendered terms (like prima ballerina, or JJ's "ladies first" comment) makes him very angry and anxious. But mainly angry, cause that's how he handles dysphoria. He uses anger to express masculinity at first, cause that's what he knows, but slowly he learns to open up and express other emotions as well. He used to cut his hair short cause people gave him shit about how he isn't "trans enough" if he didn't have masculine hair, but then he saw Victor rocking that long hair and sort of thought "fuck it". He loves his hair long, so he's gonna have it long. His grandpa and Yakov are the first people who know he's trans. Grandpa smiled and asked him if he wants a different name (which he really REALLY wanted), and Yakov looked down at this little kid and told him not to expect any special treatment. That's one of the best days in Yuri's life. The Russian team + Yuuri + Otabek formed a Yuri protection squad and they go after people who give Yuri shit for being trans.

Katsuki Yuuri is genderfluid. He only understands it in his twenties, but he looks back at stuff and gets that "ohhh, so THAT'S why..." feeling sometimes. He starts exploring his gender, and at first he's very uncomfortable and anxious, but he calms down slowly. Victor helps him relax a little and experiment before Yuuri realises who he is and how he feels about his gender. He usually doesn't get much dysphoria (his more dominant gender is man, and he's AMAB), but on some days, when Yuuri feels particularly feminine, anxiety can be sort of crashing. On these days everyone make extra sure they point out her femininity, and it doesn't make the dysphoria leave completely but it helps a little with the anxiety and puts a smile on her face. Even Yuri is acting nicer (though not uncharacteristically so) cause he knows dysphoria is shit and wouldn't make anyone's dysphoria worse on purpose. The first person he ever comes out to is his sister.

Speaking of her, Mari is a trans woman. She only realises she's trans in her twenties. Her parents are very supportive, and so is Yuuri. Her earings and the bleached hair are her way to take control of her body and ease dysphoria. She used to have pretty bad dysphoria and she kinda hated being in the hot springs, but after the hormones and the surgery she feels much more comfortable and even soaks in there sometimes. At first she's really afraid that her best friend (and later her girlfriend) would hate her and wouldn't want to be her friend, but Minako just hugged her and said she saw some nice dresses in the store that would fit her perfectly. She also teaches her how to do her makeup and how to "move more femininely" (Mari is the one who asked her to, so when Yuuri comes to her place in the middle of the night and asks her the same thing a few years later, it almost makes her smile). At first she makes a point out of being hyper-feminine, with makeup and tight clothes and the "girlies" interests and movements. But after a while she understands it's just... not for her. She finds the right path for her. Now you can find her with no makeup, chilling in loose clothes and enjoying her life.

Intersex non binary Phichit Chulanont doesn't give a fuck about your gender norms. He just doesn't. He's gonna rock that cute skirt. His winged eyeliner is so sharp it can cut a man. Both his twin sister and him are intersex. Their parents didn't allow the doctors to mutilate their genitalia, saying they just want their children happy and unharmed. They were both raised as boys but it was very clear from a young age that his sister was a girl so from the moment she told them that she's a girl, that's how she was treated. She started transitioning as soon as she was legally allowed to. When Yuuri came out to him, Phichit was really supportive and encouraging. Since they met Phichit was pretty sure that guy wasn't cis, but if Yuuri didn't want to talk about it, Phichit would never out his best friend against his will. Phichit himself came out as non binary pretty early in life, around the age of eleven. His parents were used to weird shit with their children, so they thought "well, that's our child", shrugged and hugged him.

Genderqueer Victor Nikiforov finds gender sort of confusing. I mean, why focus so much on gender when you can ice skate and listen to good music and have fun with dogs? He used to get very confused when people told him that he looks like a girl in his younger years, cause "what do you mean I look like a girl, I look like Victor". People who meant to insult him by calling him a girl just ended up confusing him. He doesn't mind being referred to in he/him pronouns, it sits a bit better than she/her, and they/them from people who are close to him makes him a bit uncomfortable cause in Russian using plural for a single person (basically what happened to the pronoun "you") is a sign of formality and respect and it just sounds weird and unattached coming from people he is very close to. He usually doesn't feel dysphoria, but when he does it makes him do one of two things: be as extravagantly and flamboyantly him as he can be, or shut down completely and curl into himself cause why do people keep throwing gender at him he doesn't want it and it's kinda overwhelming. There isn't much to do about the first one, and it doesn't hurt him so Yuuri is less worried about it, but still keeps an eye to see if he needs a break or to talk about it or anything. When the second option happens, Yuuri sits with him and talks to him. He tells him how brilliant and amazing he is, and how much Yuuri admires him for being as true to himself as he is. It doesn't stop the dysphoria, but it put a small smile on his face and helped him get up.

If I were subbing the episode, I think I would end up picking the plural "I love you", too, although it would be a reluctant choice. Picking the plural doesn't effectively communicate the ambiguity present in the English version. However, as you say, I cannot justify using the singular "I love you", because that is reaching in the other direction.

Hey, thanks for your message. :)

Yes, it’s infuriating, isn’t it, because when you translate a text, something inevitably gets lost. It used to annoy me a lot, and then I decided to look at it another way: even for native speakers, there’s no such thing as ‘the same version’ of a text reaching everyone equally. Words have connotations which are informed by our feelings, thoughts and experiences, so we all understand language slightly differently, even when it’s our native language.

That said, yes, this widespread use of the verb ‘to love’ does sometimes make English a challenge for translators, as do the weird undifferentiated pronouns - I had a very interesting conversation with someone a few months ago about the use of the ‘courtesy’ form in Supernatural, and specifically when and how to make the switch from the ‘formal’ you to the ‘friendly’ you when fansubbing or dubbing conversations between Cas and the guys [it’s mostly about Korean - if you’re interested, you can read about it here and here]. 

Eh, language. There’s always something.

The Maker’s Ark - Chapter 33

     [This is a chapter from my latest novel, a sequel to The Fall of Doc Future and Skybreaker’s Call.  The start is here, and links to my other work here.  It can be read on its own, but contains spoilers for those two books.  I try to post new chapters about every two weeks, but I’m currently also rewriting Fall, so there will sometimes be short stories and vignettes if I don’t have a new chapter ready.  The next chapter is planned for the week of February 7th.]

Previous:  Chapter 32

     So many false starts, so many dead ends--that might not be dead if Flicker could find the right way around.  But she'd searched too much, built too many fanciful models, contingent on details of theory Ashil couldn't explain yet and Journeyman was still trying to learn.  DASI was keeping all the data safe, but even the index was mindbending.  Flicker couldn't think it over properly in her head, because it wouldn't fit in her head.       And it didn't matter how fast she was if she didn't know where she needed to go.       Flicker stared at the ceiling in the darkness.  Donner slept beside her, his presence and steady breathing a calming influence--but not calming enough.  She was fully awake, and had plenty to worry about.  She wasn't getting back to sleep anytime soon.       She got up carefully to avoid waking him.  She put on her costume and texted DASI.       DASI?  I'm awake.  Worried.  Need a distraction.  I want to work, but would be a bad idea to try.  Don't want any slow speed socializing either.  Help?       You have received an invitation, DASI replied after a short pause.  The high speed interfaces at either your home or Doc's Database node should be suitable for this, as long as you do not try to work or analyze data.       They would?  Flicker scanned the parameters.  Sounds like just what I need.  Just let me get to HQ for less lag.       Acknowledged.       Ghosting through the Rocky Mountains and western plains, she stayed below plasma generation speeds--unexpected ground level lightning bolts tended to dangerously distract drivers at night.  She did startle a few deer.       A few seconds later, Flicker hooked into the refined version of her high speed interface, and dropped into a full synthetic audiovisual environment, optimized for speed.  A text overlay floated in front of her, because Flicker still preferred that for commands.       You have entered virt chat 'Fast Women'.  Host:  DASI (Doc Future HQ)       Estimated lag:  DASI (9 ns), Three (2,450,000 ns, local emulation 850 ns), Black Swan (8,310,000 ns, local emulation 920 ns), Flicker (48 ns).       It looked just like a multi-window video chat to Flicker, but it was all virtual.  And faster, of course.  Light and information could travel about a foot in a nanosecond, and she was sitting right beside one of DASI's main cores.  DASI didn't have to worry about display or data entry delays, so her lag was about 40 ns less than Flicker's was.  Three was in the closest EDU ship in orbit, and Black Swan was somewhere in Europe.       There were colored progress bars, so Flicker could see who was lagged for which chat pulses--that made it easier to avoid cascading interruptions.  Three seemed to be talking about the recent joint military tests conducted by the EDU and the Grs'thnk, while Black Swan and DASI listened.       "The exercise went really well," Three was saying.  "Really well.  I don't think some of the Grs'thnk captains believed what I could do with the right support.  Their admiral did, though.  And man is Learning ever the right support.  We kicked ass.  Both of us are now hoping the Xelians try something, because they'd just be giving me more shiny new ships."       "So you talked afterwards?" said Black Swan.       "Yeah," said Three.  "That too.  It was technically a victory party, but his biogestalt crew gave us privacy--they're pretty cool that way.  Hi, Flicker!  Wanna hear about my new sweetie?"       "Sure," said Flicker.  All kinds of questions occurred to her.  "Isn't there a small problem with--I mean, you don't... Um.  Okay, I think I just set a new record for how quickly I can embarrass myself in a social situation--under half a microsecond."       Three laughed.  "Don't worry about it.  I'm in too good a mood."       Three had started as an adaptive prediction model of Stella inside the Database.  Flicker used those extensively to help her figure out what people were doing or wanted when there wasn't time to ask.  Dissatisfied with an 'insufficient data' during an emergency, Flicker had overridden several Database safety blocks, and DASI had added enough of Stella's recorded neural interface data to cause Three to grow into an active copy.  She'd asked DASI a few pointed questions, then called Stella to get a full memory transfer.       When Stella's body had been dead during the Xelian battle, and Yiskah was unconscious, Three had taken over the surviving ships of the Xelian fleet, which were now the EDU fleet.  They were her preferred home--though she thought of them as more like bodies.  She seemed quite happy as a fleet of ships; she was noticeably more cheerful than Stella.  She was 'Three' because 'Two' was Yiskah.  Three reintegrated and shared memories with Stella, and they coordinated when Stella was plugged in.       "That's good," said Flicker.  "Is he... nice?  It is a he, right?"       "Oh yeah," said Three, grinning. "Not shy, either.  Wonderful sense of humor, and he started flirting as soon as I made a joke about it.  Normally he's under a load of restrictions because of his job, but the big definition squabble during the first embassy ship visit settled that I count as a milspec biogestalt to their Auditors, so he's in the clear with me.  And he..."       Three shook her head.  "We aren't really serious yet, but--"       "Liar," said Black Swan.       Three laughed.  "All right, we are serious, but we haven't had a lot of time yet.  But there's so much we can talk about, and when he holds me--Oh. My. God.  It's...  Flicker would know."       "I would?" said Flicker, feeling more and more lost.  Had species been mentioned?  Did Grs'thnk have cyborgs?  Or was he a biogestalt?  That was the Grs'thnk term for electronic copies of biological minds, though theirs were usually groups.  Was he singular or plural?  Three was using a singular pronoun, but that didn't necessarily mean anything.       "Yeah, you would."  Three grinned again.  "It's a little personal, but we're all friends here.  Remember that memory you shared with Yiskah because you didn't have words for how you felt with Donner?  It was before she and Prime stopped integrating, so I got a twice removed copy."       "The kiss?" said Flicker.       "Just before the kiss.  That look Donner gave you after you saved his life?  How that made you feel?  That's how Learning makes me feel."       "Oh.  That."  One advantage of high speed emotion emulation was that Flicker didn't have to worry about blushing.  "Sounds... intense.  But I'm really missing context here--I'm sorry, I know I joined in the middle, but--"       "Show her the pic," said Black Swan.       "Good idea," said Three.  "Here he is--he was a little younger, on his shakedown cruise.  Sorry, it will take a couple microseconds to render for you, it's a high quality pic.  Isn't he handsome?"       Flicker took a moment to properly study the picture after it finished sharpening.       "He is pretty good looking," she said.  "For a starship."       Three laughed again.  "He is.  But you know what he said to say if you pulled 'for a starship' on me?"       "What?" said Flicker.  "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to--"       "'You're pretty good at aiming projectiles,'" Three quoted, "'For a bio.'"       "He's got a lot of nerve, saying that after what I did to the Xelian fleet with my rocks.  I don't see--  Oh."       "Yeah.  That's his sense of humor.  But don't worry about it.  Think of it as getting all your embarrassment out of the way now, with just us around."       "Um, okay.  But which ship is he?  You called him Learning, but--"       "He's the electronic warfare cruiser for the Grs'thnk guard squadron."       "I thought it was named 'Expanding Knowledge', or something like that."       Three smiled gently.  "That was just a rough translation.  The Grs'thnk navy finally gave in and started letting the AIs on new ships pick the ship names, because everyone ends up calling them after their AI anyway.  His is an idiomatic saying, and he translated it properly for me.  Learning is his nickname.  His full name is the GNS Learning Is About To Occur."       "That is a cool name."       Three grinned.  "Appropriate, too.  Generally when he is fully awake, either he is learning something new, or someone else is.  Both of us are, when we're together.  He's not the newest ship in the Grs'thnk fleet, or the most heavily armed, but he's probably the smartest, and Admiral Ghiralt really pushed to get him."       "The bigger ships aren't as smart?" asked Flicker.  "I'd think it would be cost effective to put the best computers on the dreadnoughts."       "That's not the limiter for AI capability once you get over a certain threshold.  And Learning says dreadnoughts don't necessarily have to be smart.  Just tough and loyal.  But he respects them.  His first teacher was an ancient dreadnought that was taken off active duty, refitted with proper AI support, and is now the main training ship for the Grs'thnk navy--everyone calls her the Old Lady.  He says she taught him moral responsibility and a lot of other things that are much quicker for an AI to learn from another one, rather than bios."       "Huh.  How much has he talked to DASI?"       "Informally?  Not at all--he's not allowed to.  He can send messages, but his biogestalt crew, a worried AI specialist team, and three sets of Auditors have to vet them first.  Same with her replies.  They're scared of her--and they're especially scared of what Learning might learn from her.  That's why the admiral had to fight so hard to get him assigned here."       "The official messages from Learning Is About To Occur have been very respectful," said DASI.  "Though they have a quirk;  English doesn't have a term of address he considers proper for me, so he uses a Grs'thnk one.  It's a formal second person collective plural social superior pronoun."       "You lost me again," said Flicker.       "Think 'Your Majesties' without the cultural baggage," said Three.  "And isn't that a wonderful load of subtext with one word?  He's great."       "Why are they so scared?  And why are they okay with you getting all cozy with him?  You basically act as DASI's biogestalt, not that she needs one."       DASI smiled and waited, and Three's image laughed after her lag time was up.       "They're scared because they haven't solved the Friendly AI problem, they're not sure Doc has either, DASI is an unfettered AI, and they think she might teach Learning things they don't know how to handle.  Like recursive self-improvement.  Or magic.  But biogestalts are their navy's safety system for AIs, and they can't argue I'm not competent as one.  And their admiral never wants to fight another space battle without my help."       "I never want to fight another space battle at all,"  said Flicker, "But it looks like I'm going to have to.  Hopefully with something better than rocks."       "Yeah, aside from the side effects if you use them anywhere with an atmosphere, they have an obvious countermeasure--stay away from whatever planet you're on.  And Learning says Grs'thnk navy doctrine is to engage as far as possible from any planet they're trying to protect.  He is a little curious about this new weapon you're building--and what you might possibly need it against."       "Reasonable.  Though I wish you didn't have to share any details until we know more.  I didn't want--"       "What details?  You've got a cryptic warning and a whole stack of speculation, which I assume is why you couldn't sleep.  But Learning figured out you're trying to make some kind of weird portal weapon or a black hole, just based on who you're working with and what you've done so far.  And when you start your runs on Europa, they're going to be damned obvious.  People will notice."       Flicker thought about that.  "Yeah.  But I'm trying to stay as disengaged as possible from anything political or diplomatic."       Three smiled.  "DASI and I are handling the Grs'thnk.  Easy enough, the ones here are all professionals.  And most humans are a bit distracted--someone else is getting in their faces in a lot more comprehensible way."       "Just doing my job," said Black Swan.       "As is Prime," said Three.  "But the squadron's job is to protect Earth against threats from space--like whatever is coming.  If your rocks won't work on it, it's not clear how useful their weapons will be, either.  But Learning's sensors and projectors will be handy regardless--some of his capabilities are pretty unreal.  And he wants to help.  So the two of us will be ready.  If there is any support he can provide while you're testing, just let us know."       "Thanks," said Flicker.  "Good sensor coverage from a distance might be more useful than I'm comfortable with."       *****       "Not in your workshop," said Doc.  "Or my lab.  Not on my planet.  Not on anyone's planet."       "You don't think it will work," said Journeyman, looking resigned.       He also looked a little scruffier than usual.  He was normally very dapper, but he'd called Flicker as soon as he'd double checked his projections, and she'd been eager to find out what Doc thought about what could be their first real breakthrough, so he'd skipped shaving.  Doc looked scruffy, too--but that was normal for him.  They were in his workshop, where he'd been working on a new shield generator based on his studies of the Xelian one.       "I think it quite likely will work, eventually," said Doc.  "At least in the sense that you'll get a portal to a subspace with that particular characteristic.  But if it does, you'll want to test it.  And that's where things gets tricky.  DASI?"       "Yes?"       "Upper bound estimate for the chance a portal transit by an extended object returning from an otherwise unrestricted subspace with a variable speed of light will trigger mass-energy conversion in all nearby matter."       "0.7%," said DASI, "Based largely on the uncertainty associated with the exact parameters of the final Grs'thnk Hyperspace Foundation probe event."       Flicker frowned.  "That was the one where the returning probe blew up?"       "It didn't just blow up," said Doc.  "It apparently converted at least 20% of the rest mass of the entire station they had housing their portal generator into energy.  The rest probably went into exotic particles that didn't get detected.  They were trying a tricky resonance with a questionable methodology, and all their sensors were destroyed, so no one is really sure what happened."       Doc shook his head.  "A 0.7% chance of ending the world is too high.  So all the tests should be in deep space.  It's not an emergency, and I'm getting too old for eschatological roulette."       Journeyman nodded.  "I thought you'd be more worried about false vacuum decay."       "Our vacuum is stable.  Otherwise I'd probably have ended the world when I was eighteen.  I wasn't always so careful."       "But I need to be there for the tests," said Flicker.  "And if they're in deep space..."       "Flicker, no one should be there for the first transit.  Journeyman should set it up, then get the heck out, and the two of you can watch from a safe distance while robots do it.  I'll help build the test rig."       Journeyman inhaled through his teeth.  "I'm not sure I know how to make the portal self-sustaining.  So I'd need to stay."       "I have to stay, too," said Flicker.  "I don't think anything material but me is going to be able to survive transit to a subspace with the gradient we want."       "Yes, and that's another problem," said Doc.  "But if it's in deep space, Journeyman can attempt a portal connection and measure everything without opening it if he succeeds.  Then disconnect, come home, and figure out how to make one that's stable without him.  At least for long enough to perform the dangerous first tests."       Journeyman looked unhappy.  "A lot more can go wrong if I'm not there.  But I can probably manage short term stability for tests."       "That's the spirit."  Doc turned to Flicker again.  "Now, about whether this is wise...  I can see why you might find a subspace with a lower speed of light useful.  Making it variable, with the boundary matching ours, is a very clever idea.  It might allow a non-catastrophic connection.  Might.  I assume you'd rely on your power and the Skystone to keep you alive inside?"       "Yeah," said Flicker.  "I sure haven't been able to come up with anything doable in our universe."       Doc looked down at the floor.  "It could work.  But there are so many, many things that could go wrong.  For one thing, you can't rely on probability manipulation working in a non-anthropic space, so the Skystone may not protect you.  Have you considered what a steep speed of light gradient will do to your body chemistry?"       Flicker snorted.  "What chemistry?  I'm going to be clamped down so hard that what electrons want will not be important.  I'll probably be losing my microbiome, all my hair, and my outer layer of skin anyway, just from the side effects of getting all the mass down to neutronium.  And I'm going to have to replace most of the flesh in my hands because of induced radioactivity from pressure transmutation--I can keep my nuclei in place, but I can't prevent extra neutrons from cuddling up if they really, really want to.  And they will.  Golden Valkyrie never said this would be easy.  Or painless.  Just possible."       Doc nodded slowly, looking old.  "I can't argue with that.  There's never any guarantee things will be easy."

Next:  Chapter 34

Wait I'm confused, I thought pronouns had gender attached to them. That's why trans folk (like myself) want to be referred to by them as they are gendered. Not all pronouns are gendered, but some are.

Well, pronouns do have a gender associated with them, but that’s entirely arbitrary to the society - seeing as how language is something we create and modify constantly. 

Language is also arbitrary, which can be observed in the variations between cultures. Like, is a potato really an “apple of the earth” or is it a separate thing deserving of its own name? Like, once upon a time, someone looked at a pineapple and gave it a name relating to two things it has a very flimsy biological relation to.

I mean, it’s a good idea to not just suddenly start using words to mean something else, “I baked a delicious batch of poison to share with everyone” really doesn’t bring to mind cookies. This doesn’t, contrary to common belief, mean that language i immutable. Just think about the words, “terrific” and “awesome” for a second.

Pronouns aren’t exempt from this. English has our pronouns, but other languages have their own too. French has both formal and informal “you” and different kinds of plural “they” depending on if the group contains a guy or not.

I’m no linguist, so here’s a result on languages without any gendered pronouns: https://www.quora.com/Are-there-any-languages-that-completely-lack-gender-specific-pronouns-How-does-it-affect-communication-and-society

And here’s one on languages which just have a lot of pronouns in general: https://www.quora.com/What-language-has-the-largest-number-of-pronouns

That second like has this lovely answer right on top:

“Normally when linguists count the number of pronominal distinctions, they are interested in basically three features: person, number and clusivity. (The third might be considered a subclass of the first.) In many languages, pronouns inflect for other features, such as case, gender, alienability, visibility and even geographical elevation (as in some languages of Daghestan) but these are usually not considered central to linguistic theorizing...“

- Thomas Wier, Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the Free University of Tbilisi

So yeah, there are three main things a pronoun is supposed to convey and everything else is just stuff the language also deems important to take note of. We could, conceivably, have a language with different forms of “you” based on the eye colour of the speaker in comparison to the person in question. 

So why do we care so much that the person we’re talking to knows we’re talking about a man or a woman? As shown above, there are other languages that don’t. If I’m talking about a mutual friend, Lisa, I can assume you also know he’s a girl. If Lisa is someone you don’t know, then his gender is either a) irrelevant or b) something I can just tell you.

Here’s a Webster’s article on Janus words (because I found it interesting): https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/words-own-opposites

To go back to clothing, pants are generally considered something all genders can wear. (we’re temporarily ignoring the fact that pants were very much for men in the past) Meanwhile, dresses are very heavily gendered towards women (let’s ignore that boys used to wear dresses for now). In this analogy, we can say that “Clothing has gender attached to it. That's why trans folk (like myself) want to wear them as they are gendered. Not all clothing is gendered, but some is.“ 

Let’s take a look at another example friend, Cindy. Cindy loves to wear dresses and her pronouns are she/her. Wearing a dress isn’t what makes Cindy a woman, neither does going by she/her. These things are not what define Cindy as a woman. If she could never wear a dress again, she’d still be a woman. If she found some pronouns that were just more comfortable, she’d still be a woman. These things are associated with womanhood but their lack (or presence) does not a woman make. 

The same thing as above can be said for “men’s” things and he/him pronouns. Society often says otherwise, which is why a lot of us can’t imagine using pronouns not associated with our gender. This is perfectly valid and understandable, I’d be a hypocrite to say otherwise, but we’ve also gotta respect others. 

Hope I could explain things well.

 - The Boss