6. Caspian Seals 2026

When I first saw the theme of this quarter’s blog posts—Language and Identity—I knew I was going to somehow talk about some of my favorite artists. In this case, I am talking about Noah Olivier Smith, better known by his artist alias Yeat. While in recent memory, Yeat may be known for his collaboration with LA-based singer-songwriter Joji on “Back Home,” in the early 2020s he was best known for his unique, almost meme-like identity and presence within the rap space. Often considered to be one of the proteges of the rage rap blueprint pioneered by Playboi Carti at the time, Yeat quickly developed his own distinctive style, built not just around his appearance, but also his unique lingo and lyricism. For example, look at Yeat’s breakout track “Get Busy,” from his debut album Up 2 Me. In the span of around two and a half minutes, the Portland-based rapper utilizes his own invented slang such as “tizzy” or “twizzy” to add to his unconventional rhyme scheme. Furthermore, Yeat’s ability ...

  Let’s talk about Yamato from One Piece ! Yamato has been a pretty controversial character for a couple years now and it all has to do with how they portray themself through their language and identity. Ever since they were a kid, Yamato has idolized Oden, a man who fought heroically and died trying to protect the country they grew up in, the land of Wano. The person who killed Oden was Kaido, Yamato’s father. This leads to a very strained relationship between the two, and ultimately, Yamato rebels against Kaido and aids in defeating him.  Now, why is this character even up for debate? The backstory seems normal enough for an anime. It all comes down to what they call themself, which happens to be Oden, the name of their dead hero. Naming yourself after your hero shouldn’t be a crazy concept, but since Yamato is a biological female and Oden is male, the fandom and even outsiders exploded into argument. Some argue that because the English translation of the anime/manga sometim...

Anna from Frozen (alongside Rapunzel, of course) is the best Disney princess. But for some reason, I’ve never heard anyone say Anna was their favorite, or in their top two, or actually, even in their top three. I have heard many people say that Anna’s sister is their favorite, but never that Anna herself is. This has always confused me, as Anna has been one of my favorite Disney princesses since I was little. I believe a major reason why people don’t like Anna is that they find her annoying. There are a multitude of reasons why people feel this way, the main ones being that she is too loud, energetic, clingy, and impulsive. However, her loud and energetic personality is part of the reason why I like her so much. And I would argue that Anna is “clingy” and “impulsive” because she was forced to spend her entire childhood completely isolated, which led her to crave the company of others. I interpret Anna as someone who deeply loves her sister, especially since that is the only family she ...

                                                                         Image credit: bark.us “Bro I am actually cooked”. To me, this makes perfect sense, however to someone who has not been online much would probably think I am getting tanned under the sun or having a kitchen crisis. That’s what makes slang so interesting, everyone shows a different perspective of what they think the word means and we become a slightly distinct version of ourselves with others through the specific words we use. For example if I am talking to a friend, they would perfectly understand what I am saying “yo ts new lingo lowk gas” however if I say that to a teacher, she would probably ask me to stop and translate what I am trying to convey. That is the funny thing about slang language, these words that ha...

       My friends from last year’s English class might remember what I wrote about for our “I Believe” essay final. My writing talked about my belief of the “beauty and clarity” in all forms of writing, including text messages, with capital letters and punctuation, good grammar, and correct spelling, just like what you’d expect to find in an English essay.      I understand that style of writing isn’t something that people necessarily expect to receive when texting with a teenager, but that is exactly what peers and adults unlucky enough to get a message from a certain 402 area code number will see!       I wonder what makes me type this way. Is it the grammar textbook we studied for English 9 Honors quizzes, the textbook I ended up purchasing on eBay so I could always have it?  Photo credit: Original      No, probably not. While it was surely the primary resource that strengthened my knowledge of grammar and ope...

Image credit:  The Penn Review In his 1986 collection of essays Decolonising The Mind , Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o posits that the greatest weapon of colonialism wasn’t the rifle. It wasn’t the cannon nor the gunboat. It was the weaponization of language. He vividly describes the systemic tactics colonial powers used to strip down the native tongues of colonized children in favor of English, severing the children’s connections to their cultures, identities, and even self-worth. And even though these colonial empires have collapsed, the inherent framework of identity erasure has been fundamentally upgraded. Today, the maxim of colonial erasure has been repackaged by the algorithms of Artificial Intelligence. Throughout the history of AI—whether we see it as a tool of objectivity or question it with suspicion—we cannot ignore that these systems are at their core built on data. Specifically however, they are built with massive datasets scraped from the Western, English-speaking internet. It is...

When I first saw the theme for this quarter’s blog submissions, I was actually super happy! You may be thinking that I’m nuts for being excited about an assignment, but I was. I knew that I would have the chance to talk about one of my favorite things in the whole world—leitmotifs! You’ve heard the word “motif” before, a repeated idea or symbol throughout a work of literature that helps to develop a broader theme. Leitmotifs are sort of like that, but instead of a repeated written idea, they’re repeated musical phrases used to represent different things. Here, I'll discuss how they can be an invaluable technique for developing a character’s identity within a musical. I’ll give some examples from one of my favorite musicals, Sondheim’s Into the Woods. In my opinion, the easiest leitmotif to grasp is something I think of as “The Royal Fanfare.” Basically, every time the princes come on stage, you hear a trumpet fanfare. S ounds pretty simple right? The princes enter; the fanfare pla...