#this is technically vagueblogging

[tanadrin]

it bugs me that punctuation nitpicking is most of what passes for education in (and thus what people think of when they think about) "grammar," because 1) most authorities on the subject are authorities only within particular registers or dialects, 2) they base a lot of their opinions on bad or totally spurious data, and 3) punctuation is by far the least interesting feature of grammar. i mean, to the extent it is grammar at all.

i think any feature of a written language that most literate speakers of a language don't share substantially consistent intuitions on probably qualifies more as a feature of style than of grammar. but i would go beyond that, even, in many cases--features of punctuation that differ from language to language, like style of quotation mark or where to place spaces around punctuation, just aren't important structural features of the language like how you form plurals. you can write english with French punctuation and it will be perfectly intelligible. you can write languages with no punctuation (as many have been written historically) and be perfectly intelligible. fashions in punctuation change much more rapidly than fashions in morphology, syntax, or even spelling.

trying to source authoritative information on English punctuation is especially quixotic because there is not only regional variation, but there's substantial diachronic variation within just, like, the last sixty or seventy years--my parents were taught slightly different punctuation rules in school than I was! the real answer to "what is correct punctuation" is "whatever the audience to which you are writing expects."

and yet punctuation gets stressed so much when it comes to teaching writing skills despite the fact that there are much more important writing skills you need to master (like cleanly laying out an argument and moving through it point by point in persuasive writing, or structuring narrative and scenes in creative writing), because it is easy to teach. the pedagogical equivalent of bikeshedding. but it doesn't matter very much. and we all know it doesn't matter much, because some of the most celebrated writers in the english language either didn't use punctuation like we do or were deliberately experimental with it.

#this is technically vagueblogging #but i didn't want to derail the post that made me think of it #or rope someone into an argument about something stupid against their will #i think the only really universal features of english punctuation these days is spaces between words and a full stop between sentences #everything else is up for grabs

[yellowmagicalgirl]

Jim wrote Claire a love letter before fighting Draal -

No he did not.

That was not a fucking love letter. He didn't even confess his feelings to her; he confessed that there are monsters that he had to fight. She didn't interpret it as a love letter, nor did she realize the monsters were literal instead of metaphorical.

That was not a love letter. That was a final message to the survivor. That was a suicide note.

#jim lake jr #claire nuñez #tales of arcadia #trollhunters #meta #not to vagueblog but i saw a post that was wrong about this and if i didn't write this out i knew i'd explode but i didn't want to be mean #to OP by telling them that they were wrong on their own post #jlaire #technically #and now that the rage has died down i have gone and edited this post so that there is a period where there was once a comma #no other edits were made

[ante--meridiem]

Someone could make the most reasonable critique about not doing potentially very risky things with unknown consequences but the moment they phrase the issue in terms of "playing god" my knee jerk instinct is to want to say the thing is awesome and we should do it as much as possible

#I don't endorse this instinct; as previously mentioned the critique could be perfectly reasonable #it's just the phrasing that I hate #and the fact that it implies the critique is coming from an attitude of people need to Know Their Place rather than reasonable caution #poorly chosen hills to die on #technically this is vagueblogging but it's vaguing a headline not a tumblr post

[infinitefinalsweek]

I'm sorry but i think doing something really shitty for attention and then making fun of people who get upset about you doing something shitty by going "ahaha it's bait and you got fucking got" or whatever doesn't actually make the thing you did for attention less shitty it just makes it more purposeful which!! Is worse actually

#ugh this is a vagueblog technically but if youve seen the post im talking about youll know what fucking post it is #knowing that what youre doing is awful doesnt make it less awful #ramblinged

[carlyraejepsans]

Is it really that far fetched to think pre-reset hell Sans believed in Santa and wrote letters to him? He could've written that thank you letter and never sent it after he realized the concept of resets being a thing. Why did you vent about Sans portrayals but don't accept the chance he believes in something silly and childish?

...dude. If you want to interpret it like that, that's on you. It's not what the game's implying though. Like one thing's headcanoning for the sake of headcanoning, one thing's trying to see what the text is actually trying to tell you.

The story establishes that Papyrus believes in Santa. He gets gifts from him even now. He also makes a comment about Santa that you're deliberately meant to misinterpret as him talking about his brother at first, before correcting you. On the other hand, nothing in the main storyline mentions Sans doing the same, while we have multiple evidence of him doing stuff with/for his brother (and vice versa, though in other contexts). And when we enter his room, what do we find? A thank you letter addressed to Santa. It's MEANT to be recognized as Papyrus'. It's been set up since the start, it's Chekhov's toy gun.

If it WERE meant to be Sans' letter before things went wrong in his life, either 1) we would've had more build up for it beforehand, like Papyrus, 2) there would've been more context in the flavor text to indicate it. Maybe a note on the calligraphy, maybe the lack of capitalization.

This doesn't negate that Sans IS childish in his own ways. Tell me one person in your life above the age of 6 who is unironically obsessed with fart jokes. But "childish" isn't just one big homogeneous category you can slap here and there without difference, it's got nuance. Sans' childish is more "deliberately gross, kinda troll-ish, meant to embarrass YOU and make you the butt of the (very immature) joke by association" (ie: the whoopee cushions, the stupid secret passwords, the ketchup prank, the dirty socks everywhere) while Papyrus' childish is much more "those joys and wonders from childhood you get peer pressured out of enjoying when you get older" except he still enjoys them for himself, and he does so wholeheartedly (es: still believing in santa, his entire room looking like a 10yo's fantasy, bedtime stories) etc etc.

So no. Sans doesn't feel like the type of character who still believes in Santa Claus. And I don't like your tone at the end of this ask, it's unnecessarily confrontational. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but if my take on the characters bother you, there's the door right there. You're more than welcome to find another blog more suited to your interests rather than be passive aggressive at me in my inbox.

#honestly. the nerve #don't you have a secret discord group with your friends to talk shit about takes you don't like? #a blog of your own to vagueblog about this on? #i don't NEED either of them to be more childish or more serious or more tragic or more violent or more ANYTHING than they are in canon #i like how they are in canon. and i like trying to figure out what Toby is trying to tell us about them #because he made good tridimensional characters that i trust him with more than anyone. myself included #and that means favoring author intent over just interpreting the facts however i please. even if that can be fun and creative #but there's a space to do that. and the post where i mentioned sans' characterization was NOT it #answered asks #biscia hater moment #i mean not technically but i am salty now so just for good measure

[trillgutterbug]

lol imagine someone who good omens posts claiming that cmbyn is "made for heteros" 💀

#technically this is vagueblogging and im sorry for that but it's also not vagueing bc we all know and have blocked someone like this #a nonspecific tumblr culture experience #'this media isn't nuanced and weird enough to be Actually Queer 😒 anyway ew that literal infant was 17 😒'

[crimeronan]

by following a rabbit hole of different notes and reblogs i've ended up on drug tumblr and drug tumblr has such bad fucking opsec i am losing my entire goddamn mind. there's this one girl who posted "aesthetic" photos of her bloody pill bottles and baggies in a grimy plastic container beside her bed and did not blur a single thing about the labels so now i have her full name, her pharmacy's phone number, the address of said pharmacy, and part of her personal home address. girl i get that you're fucking stupid to begin with given that you're posting bad aesthetic pics for 200 notes on drug tumblr but PLEASEEEEE PLEASE PLEASE I AM FUCKING BEGGING YOU,

#OH MY GODDD ARE YOU ONE OF THE GEN ZERS WHO NEVER LEARNED INTERNET SAFETY OR HAVE U TRULY TRULY TRULY CHECKED TF OUT #GIRL I CAN LITERALLY CALL YOUR PHARMACY AND STEAL BOTH YOUR AMPHETAMINES AND BENZOS. HAVE YOU NO SENSE #drug tumblr is going to give me a fucking aneurysm i am so stressed out on this presumable kid's behalf. DON'T DO THAT!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAA #drugs #i guess this is Technically a vagueblog but it's not about like. anyone that anyone here knows. to my knowledge. #eta: i found her. she's a milennial and has a career based on being a disappointment. will not elaborate further so as not to dox but OMG.

[eilooxara]

The problem with listening to music by virtuoso-level singers is that I'll have their song stuck in my head and cannot possibly sing it

#Vagueblogging about Skott #That FUCKING arpeggio in ''Crimson'' #Even if I transpose it so that I can technically hit all the notes it's still impossible #eilooxology #Music

[littleelectric]

Shout out to anyone sick on Christmas and is feeling lonely and forgotten.

#is it really vagueblogging if everyone knows its about me #mom said she'd bring me food and she has not #the sister i literally live with doesnt check if i need anything when she gets home from chistmas at moms #when my brother cant (or doesnt) come to christmas someone will call or facetime him and pass him around the house #but not me?? #im sure they think theyd just be bothering me but still #im surr they also rhink my sister is actually help take care of me but no i dont even see her unless i message her to grt me somrthing #ive literslly never treated any of them like this when theyrr sick #but ignore me i have major depression and being sick just naturally makes it worse #worst christmas ive ever had honestly #this isnt even the first day im sick ive been sick for like 4 days now #and i only saw my mom when i complained about her not even checking up on me when she came over to move all the decorations to her house #you were in my house (technically her house) and didnt even see if i had eaten anything that day?? (i hadnt)

[smallblueandloud]

trying so hard not to vagueblog about an extremely frustrating post i just saw and i am only barely succeeding

#technically this counts as a vagueblog but it is vague enough that op won't see it which is what i'm aiming for #sb and l rambles #vagueblogging is vague #imagine hating on shows that get more people into theater. who are you gonna get to appreciate your precious classics if you alienate-- #--all the young people joining the genre huh? huh??????? #grrrrrrrrrrr

[mourning-again-in-america]

on the one hand, i didn't really like the sequences much (i liked "how to become a 1000 year vampire, even tho it did lead me to a lot of in-hindsight poor decisions) but that was because it was stuff that was largely in the water supply for me, sometimes giving an extra handy analogy to what i'd had before

but scott got me. untitled was incredible to read. i wanted to cry when i read it. and then i went down the rabbit hole of reading about what happened to scott aarsonson. that was a mistake. so i read a lot more of scott and predictive processing lined up oddly well with a lot of what william james says in the briefer course to psychology. then i started diving into the webs of associated blogs, and i ended up vaguely postrat adj, mostly because of the fact that at the time i was heavily influenced by the realizations that tulpamancy and hypnosis work to surprising extents. also, it's hard to control everything exactly in those domains. so you really need better heuristics, and so i started collecting heuristics and testing them. most of them sucked, but it was good meat for my brain to chew on without diving into another rabbit-hole like i did with pirsig, and the only person who i really fell for who i have trouble ~explaining why I did is samzdat. a lot of the ones that i still follow are mostly because they have interesting (and usually not insane) takes on the world and i like a certain kind of useful variety. Valentine and Sarah Constantine are mb grouped under postrats but they're pretty different than a lot of other ones, mostly in that their methods involve little in the way of mental modification, drugs, or the like. they've survived well in my mental estimation over the years, esp compared to a lot of the others.

#i mean i kinda drifted away from it because of ~social reasons; i fucking hate it when people go "ah you're a rationalist trans woman? ofc #u do haskell“ so I wanted to avoid getting *solely* lumped under ”yet another crazy postrat tranny“ #technically vagueblogging but more like “inspired by”

[aflyingcontradiction]

As a German, if you're talking philosophy in English and suddenly start using German words and I can think to myself "You could replace this with an English translation and nothing of substance would be lost" ... you're just gonna look like someone who uses big words to confuse rather than enlighten, you know. Yes, I know, it's probably the fault of a bunch of writers in the 1800s and early 1900s who started this bullshit, but you don't have to continue it and you still look like an ass. Using a random German term when there's actually some substance-beyond-the-obvious you're alluding to is one thing (though, still, whoever first translated the German philosophers you're referring to could've put some goddamn effort in. This is the sort of stuff one of my former translation lecturers referred to as "cowardice in the face of translation"). But if it's literally just a German word used with a standard dictionary meaning (or a compound word used with the meaning you could easily derive by just looking at the dictionary entries for its parts) then ... just don't.

#this is such a fucking pet peeve of mine #and the last place I thought I'd encounter it was on TUMBLR of all places #so yeah technically vagueblogging but very niche #german stuff #my babbling

[ante--meridiem]

This is probably very much just a me thing but the possibility of reading what the writers of fiction stories I like have to say about the story makes me understand the idea of "forbidden knowledge" a ridiculous amount.

Because yes of course I want to know everything I possibly can about the thing I have fixated on! How am I supposed to resist that! But also I will regret letting knowledge of the intended interpretation affect my interpretation.

And especially please please never tell me if a character is based on someone you know and especially if they are based on you I will feel immensely uncomfortable every time I remember and never be able to look at them the same.

#this is not actually criticism of writers who share that kind of information #it is a personal hang-up and a criticism of myself for being a nosy bastard who goes looking for information #they know they'll regret finding #...is it technically vagueblogging if i vague a writer and not a tumblr post #also i *completely* understand why writers discuss how they drew on their own life for stories. #it's just knowing that feels very uncomfortable in the 'avoiding forming parasocial relationships #or blurring lines between real people and characters' department #< which i don't necessarily consider morally mandatory to avoid but by god is it uncomfortable when i fail to avoid it

[yuriartillery]

i will mute 100 annoying tags before i unfollow this beloved mutual

#this technically counts as vagueblogging #however #this is not about you this is just about the oversaturation of certain fandoms in my circle that i dont like! #my weird bitterness is not your problem #i like you plenty theoretical mutual who might be reading this

[asexualglimmer]

When people make tier lists of Ace Attorney cases and just put all the final cases in the top tier: how does it feel to be the most boring person in the universe??????

#this is vagueblogging technically but imagine having the most boring opinions ever #anyway the only top tier cases are 1-4 i2-3 and 4-1 in that order #many go into the next tier down (such as 2-2 g2-3 etc) but at least i have TASTE #to be clear this isn't about anyone i even know personally #just saw a floating opinion and had to say my thoughts

[haljathefangirlcat]

my toxic trait is I will die on the hill that telling someone "I don't usually like/am usually indifferent to this but I love your take on it" is not an insult because it's not saying "everyone who likes it is an idiot but I will mercifully grant you a pass just for this one time," it's just saying "I usually relate to this kind of work in a certain way but, even if it's just this one time, the way you went about it resonated with me to the point I just had to see it through to the end and it actually made me look at it in a new light, so I'm commenting to thank you for giving me this new, unexpected experience and let you know that all the heart and skill you put into it managed to touch even someone who normally doesn't get it"... and anyway, it would be pretty damn hypocritical of me to be offended by that when I've said stuff like "I normally prefer stories in third person limited and I'm always a little wary of first person ones" only to then positively gush about the Bartimaeus chapters in the Bartimaeus Sequence, or Carlos Ruiz Zafon's books, or New Finnish Grammar multiples times myself. hell, I usually avoid saying anything like that to fic writers so I don't set them off, but I have probably let it slip at least a couple of times in some "I'm too emotional/excited to remember I have a filter and should use it" moment

... but damn, it is kind of annoying when someone on here reblogs something you've spent hours on sometimes because you're not exactly the best or the most skilled or knowledgeable at it lol just to say "this ship/character/concept is not for me for this and that reason, I mean ig I see why people like it and good for them but I don't." which doesn't actually say anything about my work, my ideas, or even what you think or feel about them. it's just about you

which is fair, really, because tags on tumblr aren't like a comment on AO3 in that in most cases they're meant for the person reblogging the post, not the OP -- they're mostly "I'm talking to myself", not "I'm talking to you." which is why this post, despite technically being vagueblogging (I suppose), isn't meant to be angry or mean, but just a way for myself to vent a little while finally getting my thoughts on a topic I have thought quite a bit about in order

still. kind of annoying indeed