obsessed with this. theres something so wrong with him.

They deserve an Emmy.

[id: three replies from tumblr user @magpiefrankie that read: (1) maybe im just an idiotic brit but i have never in my life heard parmesan pronounced like that. is that the proper pronunciation?? wow (2) google tells me no thats not the proper pronunciation nevermind, where does the 'j' sound come from im so intrigued (3) parmeJAAN /end id]

this reply sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole because i also pronounce parmesan with that j sound and had not thought about it before, but the word does have an s. but i was sure the change came from SOMEWHERE and the only other person who responded just basically said "have you ever met an american, we pronounce things wrong" which probably should not be applied to regional linguistic differences which i what i suspected this was. i had to know why it's different.

trying to get a foot in the door was kind of annoying because almost everything immediately available was just trying to tell you which one was correct without explaining why, so i ignored articles & buzzfeed listicles for the most part. i'm also not a linguist so i did a cursory search on some academic databases but didn't really have a handle on what keywords to use to find what i was looking for, so i came up empty there

this how to pronounce parmesan video was where i started and probably what anyone curious has also seen. this says the 's' is the correct way but also that the word comes from the italian "parmigiano" which does have that soft g or j sound [i do not know the phonetic alphabet. im so sorry]. the word moves to french and gets the s, and then to english where we [supposedly] keep the s. tracks for european english speakers, but i wondered if maybe english speakers in north america had retained that soft g sound from italian somehow, even though parmesan was anglicized already.

next i found a blog (?) called nachomamasgrilledcheese.com, which i think might be entirely AI generated. there is a minute chance it is just one guy who really likes parmesan cheese, but some of the articles were a little too non-sequitur, and the explanations too circular. every post is by someone named 'jack gloop', but when you click on the profile that says his name is david mcbride and his hobby is 'farmer'. nothing comes up when you reverse image search the profile picture. probably have a vpn if you go to this website i'm a little worried about their privacy policy and cookie agreements in retrospect now BUT ANYWAY i bring it up bc that data doesnt come from nowhere, and that blog kept mentioning 1) influences from italian immigrants and 2) regulations surrounding legally calling a cheese "parmigiano-reggiano" vs "parmesan".

also i spent too long on a few weird unsourced fake websites to not have a paragraph. i had a similar experience on profoundtips.com, where an article claimed it was influence from italian-american immigrants, and was written by Author, whose profile url was a keysmash and redirected to the home page when you clicked it. it was eerie in a way. like if you went to visit someone and they were a cardboard cutout in a show home.

moving back to real people, there's a few stackexchange posts about the topic. this one on the pronunciation of parmesan is mostly people talking about how to pronounce it obvs, but there's one comment by Doug Warren that reads: 'Interestingly, what we call "Parmesan" here in the United States--the powdered cheesy substance in a cylinder--cannot legally be called that in Europe, because it falls afoul of "protected designation of origin" laws, which say that if it's not from Parma, it's not legally "Parmesan".'

this isn't quite what we're looking for, but the legality of the word 'parmesan' crops up a lot, and there's a ton of case law about it. to my understanding this legal difference is not based on the pronunciation of the word parmesan itself, just whether you call it that or some variation of parmigiano-reggiano. this is also what wikipedia is talking about in the "uses of the name" section. and what's being discussed in this insider article. very interesting detour, but not answering our question.

ultimately i think the mosty trustworthy source is people in this quora thread, who say it was italian immigrants to america keeping the soft g from italian. in particular here's Roger Hughes, who i do believe is a real person, and who has listed the credential of a PhD in linguistics:

so there you have it! neither pronunciation is really 'incorrect'; just different linguistic influences. thank you for coming on this journey to me <3

hey im obsessed with this. thank you

check out this spotify playlist of men covering women’s songs without changing pronouns

nice

the same user made a playlist of women covering men’s songs without changing pronouns!

double nice

As the impending heat death of the internet, our library of alexandria, inches ever closer, here are some resources that will teach you everything you need to know about digital archiving.

Digital preservation is the only process that can and will preserve everything you love that (currently) only exists in the digital realm. It’s not 100% guaranteed to work, but let’s be real—your own painstakingly, personally, manually cultivated digital archive is all you’ll have left of the images, blogs, recipes, videos, fics, fanzines, games, servers, forums, articles, peer-reviewed scientific studies, “illegal” musicals and even the friends you found online, when the internet is completely gone.

And yes, you can trust me on this, because I've had to help family friends create a personal digital archive of their own. She chose to pay for archiving software in the end, but that's not important.

The basics of/anticipating potential roadblocks to adequate digital preservation:

What to expect from the quality of your digital archive in the future:

Also! Fun fact: you can download the files that make up your entire tumblr blog!

Any additional resources you have or know of would be greatly appreciated, so please don't hesitate to share them.

Please spread this post so that it finds the people who need it the most right now.

What Could've Been — Sting, Rey Chen

In case you were wondering what I do when I write a long-form freelance piece, here you go. Took me three months to tie together all the threads. I hope y’all like it.

Great story on some obscure tech.

The Case of the Iceman’s Heart

a victorian johnlock story

Summary: In the six months since Doctor John Watson came to live at 221B, he has proven to be a great helpmate and tactician when it comes to solving cases and helping the needy. Sherlock Holmes thinks, too, though, that the good doctor was sent to him by some higher power for some grander purpose: to melt his heart.

Part One: A Study In Flatmates

like my work and want to support an unemployed, disabled queer artist this pride month? click here.

tags under the cut

conversations with a future veterinarian

for @scottappreciation

Sweet moment 🥹

merthur fic recs: flowers pt 2

1.  Brambles or Flowers by MerlinLikeTheBird           

Arthur doesn’t need practice.

He has natural talent.

~~~

he’s such a himbo i cannot

2. Dandelions in Spring by elusive_eventuality

 Unbidden, Arthur remembers the curve of Merlin’s fingers, empty and waggling to better show it. The line of stems tucked into the waistband of his trousers and hidden from sight. Hidden from Arthur, in some secret he wasn’t privy to but understood the shape of anyway; Merlin and Morgana. Morgana and Merlin.

 It’s foolish. More than that, it’s idiotic. So what if Merlin brings Morgana flowers? So what if he lies to him about it? It’ll do him no good, to sit and dwell on what Merlin might or might not have meant. He has meetings to attend, and recruits to train, and a kingdom like an anvil across both shoulders.

 And yet—

 He spares a glance at the solitary daisy resting on the window’s ledge on the way out of his chambers. This one he will keep, he decides. Just this one.

Or

Arthur’s not at all jealous that Morgana gets flowers.

~~~

:(( bby

3. With Flowers in Your Hair, With Courage in My Heart by Mischel (@magicalmischel) 

Merlin’s magic has always been connected to his emotions, but when it starts reacting to his love for Arthur and flowers start appearing every time he looks or thinks about him, instead of a confession he chooses to pretend he has a magical cold. Arthur doesn’t like it when Merlin avoids him though. And neither does Gaius. Or Morgana. Or Gwen. Or even the bloody dragon, it seems.

Sooner or later, they’ll have to talk. And Merlin can only hope that Arthur won’t mind the mountain of flowers they’re swimming in because really, it’s his fault for being so damn good-looking.

Written for the flower mini-challenge on the Merlin Fic Book Club server on Discord.

+ ART

~~~

fdsjhkasd they are just so soft

Trying 🍃 (This isn't me, just a story I thought of!! My parent isnt supportive LOL)

Earlier...

Extra 1— food

Extra 2— Handsome

Final extra and happy pride 🏳️‍⚧️

His parents outdid him...

Hey y’all I’m a professional musician.

Here’s my website

Here’s my Instagram @datcoloratura

Here’s a link to my most recent album:

And that’s a link to a brand new opera I filmed recently in the leading role.

World premiere of Temptress Helen for soprano and viola

Two Songs for soprano & piano

Latest release:

Tres Canciones for soprano and cello

Updated with latest release!

Gnu - Question for native speakers

Guys, why do you call Terry Pratchett either a type of antelope or an astroid?

It was called the lucky clacks tower, Tower 181. It was close enough to the town of Bonk for a man to be able to go and get a hot bath and a good bed on his days off, but since this was Überwald there wasn’t too much local traffic and - this was important - it was way, way up in the mountains and management didn’t like to go that far. In the good old days of last year, when the Hour of the Dead took place every night, it was a happy tower because both the up-line and the down-line got the Hour at the same time, so there was an extra pair of hands for maintenance. Now Tower 181 did maintenance on the fly or not at all, just like all the others, but it was still, proverbially, a good tower to man. 

Mostly man, anyway. Back down on the plains it was a standing joke that 181 was staffed by vampires and werewolves. In fact, like a lot of towers, it was often manned by kids. 

Everyone knew it happened. Actually, the new management probably didn’t, but wouldn’t have done anything about it if they’d found out, apart from carefully forgetting that they’d known. Kids didn’t need to be paid. 

The - mostly - young men on the towers worked hard in all weathers for just enough money. They were loners, hard dreamers, fugitives from the law that the law had forgotten, or just from everybody else. They had a special kind of directed madness; they said the rattle of the clacks got into your head and your thoughts beat time with it so that sooner or later you could tell what messages were going through by listening to the rattle of the shutters. In their towers they drank hot tea out of strange tin mugs, much wider at the bottom so that they didn’t fall over when gales banged into the tower. On leave, they drank alcohol out of anything. And they talked a gibberish of their own, of donkey and nondonkey, system overhead and packet space, of drumming it and hotfooting, of a 181 (which was good) or flock (which was bad) or totally flocked (really not good at all) and plug-code and hog-code and jacquard …

And they liked kids, who reminded them of the ones they’d left behind or would never have, and kids loved the towers. They’d come and hang around and do odd jobs and maybe pick up the craft of semaphore just by watching. They tended to be bright, they mastered the keyboard and levers as if by magic, they usually had good eyesight and what they were doing, most of them, was running away from home without actually leaving.

Because, up on the towers, you might believe you could see to the rim of the world. You could certainly see several other towers, on a good clear day. You pretended that you too could read messages by listening to the rattle of the shutters, while under your fingers flowed the names of faraway places you’d never see but, on the tower, were somehow connected to …

She was known as Princess to the men on Tower 181, although she was really Alice. She was thirteen, could run a line for hours on end without needing help, and later on would have an interesting career which … but anyway, she remembered this one conversation, on this day, because it was strange. Not all the signals were messages. Some were instructions to towers. 

Some, as you operated your levers to follow the distant signal, made things happen in your own tower. Princess knew all about this. A lot of what travelled on the Grand Trunk was called the Overhead. It was instructions to towers, reports, messages about messages, even chatter between operators, although this was strictly forbidden these days. It was all in code. It was very rare you got Plain in the Overhead. But now …

‘There it goes again,’ she said. ‘It must be wrong. It’s got no origin code and no address. It’s Overhead, but it’s in Plain.’

On the other side of the tower, sitting in a seat facing the opposite direction because he was operating the up-line, was Roger, who was seventeen and already working for his tower-master certificate. 

His hand didn’t stop moving as he said: ‘What did it say?’ 

‘There was GNU, and I know that’s a code, and then just a name. It was John Dearheart. Was it a—’ 

‘You sent it on?’ said Grandad. Grandad had been hunched in the corner, repairing a shutter box in this cramped shed halfway up the tower. Grandad was the tower-master and had been everywhere and knew everything. Everyone called him Grandad. He was twenty-six. He was always doing something in the tower when she was working the line, even though there was always a boy in the other chair. She didn’t work out why until later. 

‘Yes, because it was a G code,’ said Princess. ‘Then you did right. Don’t worry about it.’ 

‘Yes, but I’ve sent that name before. Several times. Upline and downline. Just a name, no message or anything!’ 

She had a sense that something was wrong, but she went on: ‘I know a U at the end means it has to be turned round at the end of the line, and an N means Not Logged.’ This was showing off, but she’d spent hours reading the cypher book. ‘So it’s just a name, going up and down all the time! Where’s the sense in that?’ 

Something was really wrong. Roger was still working his line, but he was staring ahead with a thunderous expression. 

Then Grandad said: ‘Very clever, Princess. You’re dead right.’ ‘Hah!’ said Roger. 

‘I’m sorry if I did something wrong,’ said the girl meekly. ‘I just thought it was strange. Who’s John Dearheart?’ 

‘He … fell off a tower,’ said Grandad. 

‘Hah!’ said Roger, working his shutters as if he suddenly hated them.

‘He’s dead?’ said Princess. 

‘Well, some people say—’ Roger began. 

‘Roger!’ snapped Grandad. It sounded like a warning. 

‘I know about Sending Home,’ said Princess. ‘And I know the souls of dead linesmen stay on the Trunk.’ 

‘Who told you that?’ said Grandad. 

Princess was bright enough to know that someone would get into trouble if she was too specific. 

‘Oh, I just heard it,’ she said airily. ‘Somewhere.’ 

‘Someone was trying to scare you,’ said Grandad, looking at Roger’s reddening ears. 

It hadn’t sounded scary to Princess. If you had to be dead, it seemed a lot better to spend your time flying between the towers than lying underground. But she was bright enough, too, to know when to drop a subject. 

It was Grandad who spoke next, after a long pause broken only by the squeaking of the new shutter bars. When he did speak, it was as if something was on his mind. ‘We keep that name moving in the Overhead,’ he said, and it seemed to Princess that the wind in the shutter arrays above her blew more forlornly, and the everlasting clicking of the shutters grew more urgent. ‘He’d never have wanted to go home. He was a real linesman. His name is in the code, in the wind in the rigging and the shutters. Haven’t you ever heard the saying “A man’s not dead while his name is still spoken”?’

- From Going Postal by Terry Pratchett

tl;dr: “gnu” is a term of respect from Sir Pratchett’s books that means “keep saying their name, keep saying their name.”

The really great thing is, it wasn’t planned.

After Terry Pratchett died, “GNU Terry Pratchett” started flying all over the internet. Tweets, Tumblrs, blogposts. People emailed and DMed each other with the news and the message. Coders for websites and blogs put the message into their code so that  “GNU Terry Pratchett” could never be removed from the internet. Sir Terry’s daughter said that she was astonished–that no one had expected this. 

Sir Terry’s fans found a way of using his own writing to memorialize him. To say, We love you. We remember you. And we won’t let you be forgotten.

That message is still true.

it’s still running in 2023 - get your reader extension and code to broadcast here http://www.gnuterrypratchett.com/ !

there’s the G, up in my extensions bar :) and here’s an article about the optical telegraph on roundworld

Reblog with what you would tell your 13-year-old self in the tags.

Ooooh that was a great parallels post you linked!

Gah I love her. I love them.

I love you and I love this fandom!

Ding!

Archangels Gabriel and Michael sat glowering at the nearby hovering screen. It was emitting chimes practically nonstop.

13:24:45: [Aziraphale] Moved one (1) plastic cup to trash bin. 13:24:47: [Aziraphale] Moved one (1) cigarette butt to trash bin. 13:24:48: [Aziraphale] Moved one (1) plastic straw to trash bin. 13:24:49: [Aziraphale] Moved one (1) styrofoam container to trash bin. 13:24:52: [Aziraphale] Moved one (1) left sock to trash bin.

“Why doesn’t he just miracle all of them in at once?” Michael asked in frustration.

“You damn well know why,” Gabriel muttered. Ever since that horrifying day that Aziraphale stood in a column of demonfire and then belched out a gout of it at them, it seemed that he was going out of his way to just piss off the management with incessant spam.

Gabriel sighed in relief when he saw that the onslaught of messages stopped for a bit. “Anyway. I was thinking that if we do want to arrange for the Big One™, we might want to–”

Ding!

13:25:49: [Aziraphale] Removed one (1) Swastika graffiti.

Michael glanced at the screen. Then she shrugged and shared a nod with Gabriel. “Fair.”

“… we might want to have you get a few more ‘contacts’ in low places, if you know what I mean,” Gabriel continued.

Michael took a breath to respond.

Ding!

13:25:58: [Aziraphale] Applied one (1) graffiti reading ‘Gabriel <3 Beelzebub.’

Michael stared at Gabriel, her eyebrows twitching up questioningly.

Gabriel shifted uncomfortably in his chair, “… well, now he’s just being petty. Come on, Aziraphale.”

Michael decided to ignore it and move on, “I may be able to make some arrangements. Even if the holy water didn’t work out as planned, the exchange was still marked as satisfactory…”

Ding!

13:26:15: [Aziraphale] Applied one (1) graffiti reading ‘Gabriel = Gross Matter.’

The two archangels scowled at the readout. “Something needs to be done about him,” Michael said.

Gabriel raised his eyebrows in a doubtful look. “Soooo… you saying you wanna be the one to confront him about it?”

Michael sat quietly for a moment, glancing aside nervously as she recalled the image of Aziraphale’s gleeful, hellfire-engulfed features.

“… on second thought, we have better things to do,” she murmured.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! …

13:26:49: [Aziraphale] Created one (1) grain of rice. 13:26:50: [Aziraphale] Created one (1) grain of rice. 13:26:51: [Aziraphale] Created one (1) grain of rice. 13:26:52: [Aziraphale] Created one (1) grain of rice. 13:26:53: [Aziraphale] Created one (1) grain of rice. 13:26:54: [Aziraphale] Created one (1) grain of rice. …

In Hell, they’re dealing with a new set of irritating readouts. Beelzebub is ready to resort to banging their head on their own throne.

13:31:40: [Crowley] littered (1) gum wrapper

13:31:58: [Crowley] littered (1) gum wrapper 

13:32:04: [Crowley] littered (1) gum wrapper 

13:32:47: [Crowley] littered (1) gum wrapper…

meanwhile in Heaven:

13:31:42: [Aziraphale] cleaned up (1) gum wrapper

13:32:00: [Aziraphale] cleaned up (1) gum wrapper 

13:32:30: [Aziraphale] cleaned up (1) gum wrapper 

13:32: 58: [Aziraphale] cleaned up (1) gum wrapper…

Meanwhile Aziraphale and Crowley are just sitting next to each other on a bench in St. James Park, with Crowley just tossing wrapper after wrapper at the ground, Aziraphale cleaning them up, and neither of them have stopped laughing for the last ten minutes.

Plot twist: there’s only one gum wrapper, they’re just passing it back and forth.

After my third (and final) cinema-viewing of Renfield i can safely say… yeah, this is definitely my third favourite Dracula film (that I’ve seen).

Is it book accu- yeah, I’ve given up hope on seeing that ever happening.

Did I have fun? I saw it three times in the past fortnight so, clearly yeah!

Was i emotionally invested? Yep.

Did I get to see Dracula get completely annihilated by the main character, in a very cathartic manner (as in “was set-up, built up, and stuck the landing”)? Ohh yessssss.

So, for those reasons (and others- eh, just go through my blog, you’ll see my mini-essays*), my ranking is now:

And it’s definitely my favourite Dracula film done in a modern-day setting.

*yeah I wrote Essays™ on a recent Dracula film again… I think I was a lot calmer this time around 😂

Link to the gay porn library of Alexandria.

Happy pride.

This is the best version I've seen of this thread. Reblogging it enthusiastically. :)

By the way, if it was Harry Potter or Percy Jackson please don’t answer because I’m trying to see what else people loved. Also, children’s, not YA.