I've officially updated my profile info

[thenewbuzwuzz]

...to sound less maudlin, because I *am* way less maudlin than when I originally filled it out, and to clarify a few details. The brief bio now goes thusly:


Hey, buzwuzz here! :) Born in 1990, first language: Latvian, pronouns: she/her is fine, they/them is oddly thrilling.

My favorite pastime in theory, and the one I studied for fun, is thinking about books. My favorite pastime in practice seems to be compiling lists of links... honorary mention to obsessing about Spike. My day job is translating technical and software-related texts. Day Job gives me some predictable income and then leaves me alone, which is ideal.

I'm having the time of my life in the Buffy fandom! I've somehow slipped into co-modding seasonal-spuffy, so Ask Me about that event anytime. *g* I contribute to the Sunnydale Herald Newsletter (su-herald), which I believe is a useful resource for Buffy people. Every now and then, I write; I take the process, though not the results, way seriously. Occasionally, I make other things -- the formats tend to change, because I love trying new stuff for new stuff's sake. It's all linked from the pinned post at the top of my journal. I have a blanket policy of Yes Please Give Me Concrit, but you don't need to keep it in mind, because I do try to say it whenever I post a thing.

I am totally down with people subscribing and unsubscribing whenever they want, for whatever reason. In fact, I count on it.

My username is the same as here on a bunch of sites, including Elysian Fields, AO3, and Pillowfort, and it's also a gmail email address.


If you know me, you know these things already, I think. If you subscribed to me in the past couple of months and had to make do with the bio I had then... well, here's what I would have *liked* my profile info to say.

Comments

[goodbyebird]

High fives for keeping the profile up to date, and for feeling less maudlin.

[thenewbuzwuzz]

Thanks! :)

[beer_good_foamy]

Good on you!

Just out of linguistic curiosity, how does Latvian handle the he/she/they thing? In Swedish a third gender pronoun was introduced about 10 years ago, and was Very Controversial and caused Much Wringing Of Hands by the predictable crowd until pretty much everyone just shrugged and started using it.

[thenewbuzwuzz]

:)

Latvian doesn't handle it, basically. :D I know of one person who uses the plural like in English, and I know someone who picked the grammatical gender that feels less wrong and uses that most of the time when referring to themselves. (In Latvian, you pretty much have to gender people whenever you use a past participle or an adjective, like "Have you been there?" or "I'm happy".) And, ooh, I just found out that dropping the ending off of the third person pronoun is a thing -- very elegant in a way, it has precedent in one of the dialects. Hmm. :) It's been discussed now and then -- I saw there was some kind of lecture/workshop/discussion thingy pretty recently, specifically about the pronoun problem -- but I'm not aware of any conventions well-known enough that people would understand the heck one is doing. :)

[yourlibrarian]

One thing that's good about these new accounts I've opened over the past year is that it's made me think about my profile, what content I post, etc. I've also dated my profile so I can remember to look it over again if it's been a long time.

I had to change my PF one after just a few weeks as I realized I've begun posting quite differently there and the content is 85% unique to that site.

Also, I was replying to this comment of yours because there's a similar issue in Portuguese and the growing use of Latinx addresses the problem of gendering everything. (Although I've also used Hispanic myself which doesn't have that issue attached).

[thenewbuzwuzz]

Heh, defining what content I post seems like too much pressure...

Mm, I bet there is a similar issue in Portuguese. I think a lot of Indo-European languages must have this issue of gender everywhere. Makes me wonder how everyone else is dealing with it. :)

[thewiggins]

Yeah, French obviously has the same issue since everything is gendered.

This is awkward for me living here cause I have no idea how to talk about my sibling who uses they/them pronouns. I've also been considering transitioning to they/them myself but probably not till I get back to the states cause there just doesn't seem to be as much room in the French culture or language for people to be non-binary? I mean I know non-binary folks must exist here but maybe not quite as openly. And if there is a third pronoun option in the French language I haven't found it.

[thenewbuzwuzz]

Have another hug! Thanks for sharing! This post is what the kids call public, so I'll just say I really appreciate languages like English that have a neutral word for 'sibling'.

[beer_good_foamy]

Ah, thanks. Right, the mess of gendered nouns. I'm glad we (mostly) don't have to deal with those in Swedish and English. Hope you guys can find a good solution for it.

And, ooh, I just found out that dropping the ending off of the third person pronoun is a thing -- very elegant in a way, it has precedent in one of the dialects. Hmm.

Neat! Looking up Latvian pronouns, that seems logical. Some people here have tried to do that with the generic pronoun ("one" or "you" in English), which is "man" in Swedish but "en" ("one") in some dialects. Sadly it hasn't caught on the way the third gender did. Possibly because half the population of Stockholm are former hicks who have spent years trying to get rid of their dialect.

[thenewbuzwuzz]

"Possibly because half the population of Stockholm are former hicks who have spent years trying to get rid of their dialect."
Hee! Right, I see how that would be awkward. *g* The dialect-inspired option feels weird in Latvian, too -- if I try to imagine losing the pronoun ending and actually saying that in a sentence, then it feels like I should be dropping all the other endings too and making the long vowels short and basically sounding like my countryside grandma's sister -- my brain doesn't get what else I might be asking of it. I'm sure this kind of reaction would fade in time if the new use became popular.

[sylvaine]

"My favorite pastime in practice seems to be compiling lists of links"

Ahahahaha, oh god this is the most relatable thing xD

Also, I had no idea your first language is Latvian, or if I did then I'd forgotten about it again!

[thenewbuzwuzz]

High five! :D

Yeah, that's a thing. :) I live in Latvia. There's a language where I can almost always trust my hunches about prepositions and commas and stuff, & English isn't it...

[sylvaine]

At least you have one language that works for you! xD For me it's both German and English that regularly confuse the hell out of me... we won't even mention the Polish, given I never had any formal learning for that and, as I like to say, I have the vocabulary of a 7-year-old.

[thenewbuzwuzz]

Ooh, interesting combination. :) It's neat that we can all talk, regular confusion or not.

[sylvaine]

It really is! Internet <3

[swingandswirl]

/waves at fellow translator and book nerd/ So cool to find another one of us! I do French-English, though. And I HEAR YOU re: being left alone. Why are people?

[thenewbuzwuzz]

*waves back atcha!*

That, yes, and also I frickin' love working at an office and stopping working as soon as I walk out of the office. I hear many translators work from home & some even prefer it. But that's not for me. :)

[thewiggins]

Very nice description! I should probably get around to doing something similar myself and make my Dreamwidth page something other than the haunted graveyard it is now. Someday... Or possibly never.

[thenewbuzwuzz]

Thanks! Haunted graveyard has a certain style to it...