Wow once again we are speed running this one. Let’s get into it.

Main Story

I’m being very egotistical and the very quick main story on this one is going to be how I chose my name :D. Because I’m very cool and came up with my own name.

I’m assuming most of you know this but it’s possible y’all don’t. My name is Quyen Solace Schroeder (/kwiːεn sɑlɪs ∫roʊdɝ/. You nerds can read IPA, right?).

Coming up with my name was honestly a pretty lengthy process. It took ages. I think it was over a year between when I knew I wanted to change my name and actually coming up with one.

I knew off the bat that I didn’t want a name that was straight out of a piece of media, you know? Like I don’t want to be stuck with a name from a property that I no longer like anymore/became very unbiased and transphobic. I also wasn’t looking at tree names. I know, bold of me. So much respect for all the trans folks who choose tree names for themself (I know like 5 lmao), but I just didn’t think that was the vibe for me.

I also wanted my choice of name to have multiple meanings. I figured if a name could be significant to me in three different ways, it would be likely to stand the test of time (even if some aspects of its significance faded over time).

So for my first name, there was a pretty wide open field and I considered lots of names. One of those names was what I considered to be a fairly basic name: Quinn. I liked Quinn a goodly amount, but it didn’t quite feel right (in fact, when I first chose Quyen as my name, Quinn was a valid pronunciation for it. Alas, no longer. Now when my name is pronounced as Quinn I’m like… hmmmmmmmmmm fascinating…….).

I think Quyen as a name first came onto my radar from Quyen Tran — a Vietnamese-American cinematographer and partner of one of the cast members on Critical Role (a nerd shit D&D show I watched). I was drawn to it for a couple reasons. First, it had a very tangential relationship to a piece of media I enjoyed (but not a direct one). Also, it’s a Vietnamese name. This isn’t the newsletter to unpack all of this, but I really struggle to feel connected to that part of my background (I really wish I knew how to speak Vietnamese 😭). Choosing Quyen as a name felt like a declaration that that part of myself was still important to me, even though I’m not that connected to it now.

Finally, I had a conversation with my mother where she said that her daughter would have had Quyen as her middle name. I already had the name on my radar, and this conversation basically brought it to the top of the shortlist. I never wanted to let my mother choose my new name, but knowing it was a name she was already thinking of brought it from a consideration to a likely contender. I later asked if I could use that name and she said yes (though I have wondered over the years whether she thought I would actually use that name when she said that).

My unchanged last name pointed to the past, so I wanted my new middle name to point towards my future. I’ll say, this one took less time than my first name, but I still grappled with it for quite some time. In D&D, tieflings typically take on virtue names (this is also like… a real thing and not just a D&D thing — that’s just where it initially came to be through). I enjoyed that tangential connection to my hobby and loved the idea of a name associated with how I hope to be/become.

Solace — to me — is associated not just with peace but also contentment. And I think all of us want to move more towards a place like that. Also it means whenever I or someone else says something like “take solace in the fact…” I can do the Leonardo DiCaprio pointing meme.

Finally, the first time I realized that gay people were a thing was reading the Percy Jackson books — specifically when Nico DiAngelo and Will Solace started dating. Yay gay people W. Having a little token of that first recognition of queerness in my name felt really special.

With Quyen as my first name and Schroeder as my last, my initials were Q_S. I really wanted to choose a middle name that would make them QRS (because that’s in alphabetical order :D). But ultimately, Solace really fit for me.

Now, there were two other things that were broadly in consideration as I worked on my name: cadence and signability. I wanted my name to be fun to say, have a little pep in its step. I think I achieved that. Each part of my name is a trochee (meaning it has two syllables: the first stressed, the second unstressed). I think this gives my name a nice vocal symmetry between the three parts.

On signability, I was hoping for the three coolest parts of a signature: a bold first letter, a drop, and a swoop-back. I made these terms up, so let me explain them. A bold first letter is pretty simple. I wanted a strong start and I think a Q hits that. It’s a little bit of a funky, uncommon letter. It’s also low key hard to sign so uhhhh… oops. When I sign, the Q of Quyen is pretty hit or miss, unfortunately. Next for a drop, I wanted a letter that goes below the baseline. Descenders like a g, p, or — in my case — a y all count for this. Finally, I wanted a swoop-back. For some, this is a line that crosses all their ts. I don’t have any ts, so it would have to be something else. I chose an underline. It didn’t flow correctly off of the e at the end of Solace, so my signature ended up ending at the l. So, on a good day, my signature reads QuyenSol. But a lot of the time, the en get squiggled out into QuySol.

The funniest way to show you my signature is a blurry screenshot of a photo of the signed Barry “Bee” Buzzword posters on Sam Low’s wall.

Other News

Help It’s Again

The results from this February are being overridden with the re-election happening this week. If you’re at UBC, make sure you go vote (again).

I didn’t receive the voting email and following the link in the email is the only way to vote. Apparently if the original email fails they won’t try to resend it or contact you so :D. Email [email protected] if you didn’t get the email.

Ubussing time

Have you ever tried to share an article from the most kissable organization on the UBC campus on Instagram? If you have, you’ll have noticed that you aren’t able to open the link in the app. This is because Instagram blocks Canadian news sources — like our dearest Ubyssey.

When you click a link, it checks whether the domain is ubyssey.ca. If it does, it gets blocked. Otherwise, you can access the content as per usual. So if a website, hypothetically, immediately redirected you to The Ubyssey when you clicked the link, it would allow you to bypass Instagram’s block.

But that would require you having a spare domain lying around, preferably one that is fairly similar to ubyssey.ca. And you’d have to be able to go into your domain settings and setting up a redirect that preserves the path, query, and other url-data.

Oops, I did that. Just replace ubyssey.ca with ubussy.ca in a url and it will redirect you to The Ubyssey webpage while also allowing you to share the link on Instagram.

The only exception is accessing pages with the same path as one on the Barry “Bee” Buzzword website. If you do so, you’ll go to the Barry “Bee” Buzzword website instead of The Ubyssey’s. For instance: ubussy.ca/buzz will still redirect you to this newsletter (NOT ubyssey.ca/buzz). Likewise, ubussy.ca/about will bring you to the Barry “Bee” Buzzword platform, not a page on The Ubyssey’s website

That’s All!

Okay, once again, we zoomed through this one. Been keeping busy down here in Texas. Lots of folks to see before I leave and whatnot. By the time the next issue publishes, I ought to be back in Vancouver, barring catastrophe! When do catastrophic things ever happen, eh?

If you are a UBC student, remember to vote in the Senate election (It’s Again) happening now.

Until Sunday at 10:03 pm, buzz on, my busy bees!

Tongue bowling since 2025