@ChubbyGuyProblems

The original tweet summarizes it pretty well. Fanfic tends to be popular among certain types of neurodivergent people (aka people most likely to read excessively as a child, and have burnout as an adult) for the same reasons that we tend to hyperfixate–neurochemical signaling (I hope I’m using that phrase correctly). What I mean is, for people who are really dependent on changes in dopamine/serotonin/neurotransmitter levels, who have low levels or wonky neural reward systems (perhaps the most common types of neurodivergence)…people like us rely on dependable external sources of those neurochemicals. In order to function, we spend a lot of our free time trying to level out our brain chemistry using things that can reliably bring us a steady stream of joyful moments (rewards) without costing too much of the mental effort that is already in short supply. 

significantly: the investment of reading has to be balanced with a steady “return on investment”–and this return has to start fairly quickly. because again, we don’t have a lot of attention/energy to invest on tiring things. we have perpetual “low batteries” in that regard.

that doesn’t mean these stories are “simple,” or that they lack complexity or value–only that the reward has to come in short regular intervals, and it has to have a low “upfront cost.” these stories are only “easy” to read in the sense that the effort we put into them is rewarded in a timely manner. which is why fanfic stories are so perfectly formulated for neurodivergent readers–they are often beautifully written, but skip a lot of the upfront costs (of introducing new characters, of world-building, of getting the audience emotionally connected to the story elements).

the nature of fanfiction is that the reader has a pre-existing relationship with this world and these characters. that–combined with the shorter average length of fics–means that fan fics very quickly start rewarding the reader in a way that traditional fiction struggles to. that’s not a bad thing! and maybe it’s something more traditionally published writers should be paying attention to.

Line one reads: [rnpt] 100,010 r qbHw -pw ra m itn

For starters, this text is supposed to be, at the youngest, c. 4500 years old, at oldest 10,000 years old. Yet it’s written in Middle Egyptian, spoken probably c.1800-1650 BC. With signs which don’t develop until at least the later Old Kingdom, like the deteriminative to ‘Ra’, which is here the seated sun god with a sun-disk on his head. Given that depicting gods as a seated figure is a development of the 5th/6th Dynasty, this is anachronistic, to say the least.

Then there’s the use of the particle -pw here to form an A -pw B sentence, which is really a Middle Egyptian structure, since in Old Egyptian, -pw is a demonstrative.

Then there’s the decision to write ‘million’ with the hundred-thousand frog over a ten (which as far as I know makes 100,010, not a million), rather than the god Heh, which would actually spell ‘million’, or possibly ‘countless’.

Then there’s “Ra, the sun-god”. The text actually says “Ra, (being) the sun-disk”. Whoever wrote this chose this text to actually refer to the sun, not the sun-god. Of course, this presents a slight problem with Egyptian, since the word for the sun (ra) is the same as the name of the sun-god (Ra). itn (Aten), however, refers to the solar disk, so it remains… anomalous when used here.

Line 2 reads: m xtm.n=f qrs=f n Dt r nHH

Here, the text appears to say “In his having sealed and buried for eternity and everlastingness”. Because of the initial m, I would be most likely to read both verbs here as nominal forms. It’s very odd, given that the film suggests it was the people on Earth who buried the Stargate, that here the text suggests that was Ra.

Line 3 can’t be seen here, but reads: sb3=n sb3w=f

This is quite a clever pun on the Egyptian words for door (sb3) and star (sb3), and the Egyptians probably would have approved. Unfortunately, the n between the two, which should be a genitive particle (rendering the phrase ‘door of stars’), has had plural strokes added underneath, rendering the whole phrase mean “our door of his stars”.

Daniel also reads line one, contra most Egyptological manuals as it’s written (“A is B” rather than “B is A”), which is… unusual.

In conclusion, what the glyphs here actually say is:

100,010 years into the sky is Ra, the solar disk, In his having sealed and buried for eternity and everlastingness, Our gate of his stars.

As a postscript, teh film does contain a real line of ancient Egyptian in the scene right at the start of the film when Daniel gives a talk: he rights on the board h3 ppy -pw Ssp.n=k tp=k, which is a quotation from the Pyramid Texts of the Sixth Dynasty, and means “Ho there to this Pepi! You have received your head”. (Don’t worry, no-one knows what that means). Daniel also begins to write the cartouche of the Fourth Dynasty king Khufu in cursive hieroglyphs when he realises his last audience member has gone (as, most likely, my last reader has. Bye.)

There may be other glyphs in the film which are legible, but they scrolled past too quickly for me to read. What didn’t were the books on Daniel’s desk, which include Christopher Frayling’s The Face of Tutankhamun (why Daniel has a book on the 18th Dynasty boy-king on his desk, I don’t know - probably totally useless to him), and Michael A. Hoffman’s (likely more useful) Egypt Before the Pharaohs.

The dialogue on Abydos is not particuarly easy to understand, but the first thing said to them sounds like naturu aya, which sounds very like the phrase nTr aA: “the great gods!”. Which makes sense, given that the entire village then prostrates themselves.

Kasuf’s introduction is virtually unintelligible (at least to me), but as he walks forward it sounds like he says something like yuyu, which might derive from the verb iw, meaning to come (his actions seem consistent with saying “come along” or similar at that point), and his initial speech to the travellers definitely ends with ianak Kasuf, “I am Kasuf”.

Later in the film when daniel starts to understad Shau’ri’s dialect, she pronounces the word nTr, “god” as “nater”, nTrw (gods) as “naturu”, and also says words “nufi”, which may be nfr (good, beautiful, perfect), and “naney” (possibly nn(i), “no”).

When Daniel speaks to Ra, he asks “what are you going to do?”, for which he says something like y3 iry=k, (“indeed, you shall act!”). ix (“ikh” or “ish”) iry=k would have been a question.

Beauty pageant website Missosology posted a bunch of the contestants of Mister Global 2019 in their official national costume portraits. Several of them are very 👀👀🔥

And then there is this guy 🤣:

Waifs and Strays~

www.stutterhug.com

So, sometime last year (?) science invented Vantablack, which is the darkest possible shade of black. Art world got incredibly excited. But as it needs to be very carefully made in a lab, it’s hard to get a hold of, and is extremely expensive. Enter Anish Kapoor, aka FuckFace McGee. Anish Kapoor buys the rights to Vantablack. He is the only human being on the planet that can legally use it, and he’s kind of a prick about it.

Art world is not thrilled with that.

Enter Stuart Semple.

Stuart Semple is an artist, and also makes pigments to sell in his free time. Stuart Semple is astoundingly pissed about this Vantablack nonsense, and Anish Kapoor’s dickery. Stuart Semple makes a new pigment, the brightest shade of pink ever, called Pinkest Pink, and puts it for sale on the internet. To be bought by everybody except Anish Kapoor. Literally, to purchase, you need to confirm that you are not Anish Kapoor, do not associate with him, and will not sell or give the pigment to Anish Kapoor or his associates. Art world has a good laugh, everyone buys Pinkest Pink because it’s awesome, and damn it we deserve something.

Anish Kapoor however is a penis, and will not take this lying down, because HOW DARE he not have literally everything.

Anish Kapoor gets his London associates to buy him a thing of Pinkest Pink, and being such a classy human being, posts a picture to instagram of him with his middle finger covered in Pinkest Pink, captioned with “Up yours. #pink”

Everyone flips shit, because. Y’know. Fuck that guy. Especially Stuart Semple. For context here, Anish Kapoor is one of the richest artists on the planet, and has repeatedly been referred to as everything wrong with the art world, and the epitome of the art worlds elitism problem. He’s a giant douchebag. Meanwhile Stuart Semple makes pigments just to get them out there. He turns 0 profit from his now enourmously popular pigments.

Stuart Semple launches an investigation as to who the fuck leaked Pinkest Pink, and plans to strike back. He does so by releasing two new products. First is Diamond Dust, which is a glitter made from glass, so that a painting is still visible after it’s applied, but glitters like a mofo. It’s the most reflective glitter out there, and is available to everyone who isn’t Anish Kapoor. And it being made of glass, if you stick your finger in there, it’s going to hurt quite a bit, so that was Stuart Semple’s way of saying “shove your middle finger in this, asshole, see what happens”. Except without saying that, because he can get an insult across while still being fucking classy.

He also releases Black 2.0, created with the help of over a thousand artists worldwide.

Black 2.0 is the answer to Vantablack. Black 2.0 is a slightly less black black, but looks functionally the same to the human eye. It’s completely safe, smells like cherries, and costs four pounds. Vantablack is highly toxic, potentially explosive, needs to be applied in a special laboratory and sealed properly, can’t be moved across borders, can reach 300 degrees celsius if you’re not extremely careful, and costs thousands of dollars. Anish Kapoor is the only human being who can use Vantablack. He is the only human being who cannot use Black 2.0.

So I think we can guess who got the better deal.

And thus the feud ends, Kapoor defeated.

…But not quite.

Kapoor, in this entire afair, has made exactly two comments to the public. The first being his charming message about aquiring Pinkest Pink, the second being claiming to Buzzfeed that he and his small army of lawyers will be suing Semple, an extremely poor artist who cannot afford a lawyer.

No lawsuit has been made yet, fyi.

The point is, Kapoor is a prick, and doesn’t like talking to the lower classes. So one day in July 2017, he decides he needs another floor on his London studio apartment, and starts making arrangements to have it built. His neighbors are fucking pissed, because this will ruin the light of their apartments. They call to Semple to save them, or at the very least piss Kapoor off some more.

Semple answers to the call, and releases two new paints, Phaze and Shift, as always, banned to Kapoor. They change colours, Phaze with temperature, and Shift is just iridescent. Shift needs to be painted over Black 2.0 to work, and Phaze just works on its own.

So that’s been the art world for the last two years.

1. “Anish Kapoor is however a penis” is the best line in this post.

Stuart Semple: gonna make an anti-government t-shirt with it.

Me: