#also like. again. LINGUISTICS

[kohakhearts]

when people first meet me and inquire about my studies im generally hit with two different responses, being 1) “wow, that’s an unusual combination”/“you don’t see that often”/etc. and 2) “you must be SO smart!” (or its evil twin, “you must hate yourself ha-ha”), and while the first is obviously a better response than the second, both are kinda…awkward to react to.

like? IS it an unusual combination of interests, or is it actually that most institutions make it exceptionally difficult for people to pursue stem and arts concurrently? and that we don’t often talk about the heavy crossover between stem and the arts because we’re so culturally obsessed with this notion that the world is split into Art People and Science People (also known as English People and Math People)?

and how would my interest in a science make me any smarter than someone in my program who chose to pursue a minor in history instead of physics? also, NO, i don’t hate myself. obviously taking stem classes after spending years believing im “not a math person” has lowered my gpa, but that’s not really something i care about, because at the end of the day i find the subject endlessly fascinating and i enjoy my classes very much, and i get better at math every semester because i have no choice. because it’s just…a method of communication. it’s a language. you practice, you improve - but you have to be consistent and intentional about it. the same way you have to be consistent and intentional about analyzing fictional texts and historical documents.

which is to say that like. you are using the same skills. i tutored a high school student last year who looked at me like i was crazy for saying that close reading a short story is functionally the same as solving an algebra problem. you collect like terms. then you compare and contrast them to make a statement about them - it’s human nature to seek refuge in what is familiar even if it is simultaneously traumatic, or x = 2 and y = -2. you can chart it, you can graph it, you can draw it. listen, isn’t there something so inherently beautiful about the word integral? it’s something intrinsic, baked into a person or a thing - the fundamental values formed within you by tiny, infinitesimal pieces: moments, experiences - they coalesce into something completely different, but still. you can go back. you can find the pieces. define them, pick them apart, put them together again in new ways. expand them, contract them, equate them to something else just to understand them.

half the study of mathematics is called analysis, for god’s sake. what is the study of art if not analysis? is it not the goal of the artist, the writer, to make sense of our place in the world? and is this not what we do in physics, too? look at the world and try to find reason in it? as the poet spends their life trying to make the intangible tangible, the particle physicist attempts to study dark matter. when we form a sentence, we utilize a complex system of equations that are so second-nature to us we don’t even register that’s what we’re doing - but there’s a reason this branch of linguistics is called syntactic calculus.

like…believe me. if you told my teenage self i’d be taking calculus-based courses in university, i wouldn’t have believed it. i teach high school students now who tell me they know they aren’t good at english, but it doesn’t matter to them because they do so well in math. and i get it. i do. but it’s disappointing, too, because i think my knowledge of math has made me a better reader and writer. and it feels like most people are missing out on that connection, because they feel like it’s impossible to make. but any experimentalist can tell you there’s an art to the scientific process. any musician or poet can tell you that great art is dictated by numbers - rhythm, rhyme and metre, all of it. the only group of people as interested in conceptual symmetry as physicists are artists.

anyway, all i’m saying is like - one is not more essential than the other, these things are inextricably linked, these things are as fundamental to human existence as breathing. there’s a reason why astronomers defer to shakespeare to name newly discovered bodies in space, you know? we've all gotta learn to love the math in our art and the artistry behind math.

[perfectlyripeclementine]

calling my lover "mine" but not in the way that my toothbrush or notebook are mine, mine in the way my neighborhood is mine, and also everybody else's, "mine" like mine to tend to, mine to care for, mine to love. "mine" not like possession but devotion.

[eizneckam]

I'm so tired of the "English is a dumb bad language because it has no rules" take. It actually has quite a lot of rules, all of which make sense. You're just so lazy that you think the fact that not every function is uniform means that you shouldn't bother. It could be worse, you know. You could be dealing with agglutination. How does a three-line sentence that's only a single word sound to you? What about having to remember seven different words for "the"? We don't even have grammatical gender (which has nothing to do with human sex, like at all. Go check Irish's list of feminine and masculine words and prepare to be very confused). No declensions, barely any grammatical cases, no tones, no formal registers, and you're out here complaining that English is too hard because you keep forgetting that the past tense of "break" isn't "breaked". Sorry for that, but that's on you, not the language.

[raynewolferune]

Meta Jazz, the Arkham Intern Therapist Pt 2.1

Note: The writing bug bit me while wading through the comments and replies so you guys get more! 😁 Special thanks to @the-scarecrow-of-aus & @starlightcat04 for helping spark this continuation!

Also, so you're not confused, this part is from Kon's POV and backtracks to before the Bane incident to explain how Kon started going undercover in Arkham. Pt 2.2 has the Bane incident from Kon's POV.

~*~*~

When Kon got the call from Tim asking if he'd be willing to do a favor for him, he hadn't expected it to be an undercover assignment in the infamous Arkham Asylum itself.

"You want me to do what?" He asked staring at Tim in disbelief once he reached the Nest to debrief.

"Go undercover as a new guard in Arkham." Tim repeated with a deadpan expression looking over his shoulder at Kon from his computer chair. Holy fuck, his eyebags were bad. 

"Have you slept in the past week, Tim?" Kon asked, taking in his best friend's appearance.

Tim frowned at the question. 

"I don't see how that's relevant but yes." He answered, heartbeat unchanging. Which didn't really mean anything since it was Tim but Kon decided he'd believe him. 

For now. 

Kon sighed heavily and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Okay, I'll do it." He said. "Can you tell me why we need someone undercover at least?" 

Tim eyes widened, startled by the question like he was surprised Kon didn't know yet even though Tim hadn't told him yet. Okay, deep breaths, calm down, Tim clearly hasn't slept in at least two days. Kon coached himself as his temper flared up at the evidence that Tim wasn't taking care of himself again. All the Supers agreed: sometimes you just wish you could beat some sense into the Bats and make them take care of themselves like normal human beings.

"Ah. Right." Tim said, turning back to the computer and pulling up some files as he explained. "Two thing have occured within roughly fifteen days of each other that together are rather suspicious. First, Dr. Thomas Rylie, Jonathan Crane's undergraduate roommate and classmate throughout undergrad and grad school, was hired to work as one of the new in house psychiatrists at Arkham Asylum. They also got their doctorates from the same school during the same time frame and both focused on the impact fear has on the brain. Dr. Rylie's focus was on fear conditioning and Dr. Crane's focus was on fear responses." Well, that sounds suspicious. 

"Second, Gotham University lost their minds and began an undergraduate and graduate internship program partnering with Arkham Asylum." 

Kon went cold. They did what?

Pictures of the Asylum, University, and three people -presumably Scarecrow, Dr. Rylie, and a young woman- filled the computer screen now. 

"The internship program has only one applicant so far and she'd already started working at the Arkham. Her name is Jasmine Fenton and her background is...sparse, to say the least." Tim turned in his chair to face Kon.

"I'm too recognizable in Gotham and among the rogues to successfully go undercover in Arkham so I've set you up with an apartment and ID as 'Kyle Jennings.' You're scheduled to start work at Arkham as a new guard tomorrow morning."

"Okay," Kon said with a nod. "What do you need confirmed? What are the primary objectives?" He prodded Tim again since his friend's sleep deprived brain seemed to think that was enough information for debriefing. It wasn't. Definitely not. A lot was implied but it wouldn't be the first time Tim had completely different intentions than what Kon had understood from his briefing. Sleep deprived Tim frequently assumed others could read his mind or something. Sleep deprived Tim was wrong.

"We need to determine if Dr. Rylie is here working for Scarecrow as part of some new scheme. We need to determine if Jasmine Fenton is complicit. We need to know if Gotham U is also in on it. And we need to find out what exactly Scarecrow is the planning." Tim stated automatically as he ticked each one off on his fingers.

"Got it. Guess I'll head over to my new apartment then and start prepping for tomorrow." Kon said, heading towards the exit. Tim hummed in agreement waving a hand in his direction as he left. That dumbass was probably already absorbed in the next case. Kon sighed, hopefully Tim would at least pass out sometime later tonight.

~*~*~

Kon's first day at Arkham wasn't anything special. He didn't see Jasmine, Dr. Rylie, or Scarecrow. He didn't see any rogues or doctors at all. It was just a really Gotham kind of orientation. 

"This is where we keep a cache of stun grenades, long-range scope rifles, tranquilizer rounds, and rubber bullets." His new supervisor and guide through orientation, Alex Fhizer, said as he showed Kon how to access, inventory, lock, and re-conceal the cache. "Everytime you pass by a cache on patrol, you will check the inventory again and sign off on it with the date and time. If anything is different from the previous inventory entry, you will immediately radio the tower and the island will be put on lockdown." Greyish Hazel eyes peered out of a weathered face staring Kon down. "You will never neglect to inventory a cache while on patrol. You will never neglect to report an inventory discrepancy. The first time you do you will be fired immediately and you can count yourself damn lucky if that's all that happens to you." 

Fhizer was intense, man.

"Yes, Sir." Kon answered. Fhizer's hard look lasted another long moment before the older man gave a firm nod and continued showing Kon the ropes.

~*~*~

The second day was no where near as chill as the first. Hell, his brain was already starting to warp, there hadn't been anything chill about that orientation.

Kon started his second day by boarding the Arkham transport bus with the rest of the staff and early morning visitors to the island. That was where he saw Jasmine Fenton in the flesh for the first time. 

She has got to be part Amazonian, was his first thought upon seeing her. She was around 6ft tall with a thick mane of red hair tightly braided reaching all the way down to her waist. Jasmine was wearing teal stud earrings, a silver bangle type bracelet on her left wrist, a white blouse, black slacks, and black flats. She carried a small, clear purse that only held a small notepad, pen, house key, chapstick, and a thin teal wallet that presumably contained her IDs, debit cards, and a small amount of cash. Damn, she was tall.

Kon's concentration was broken by the quiet sound of metal crunching slightly beneath his fingers. He immediately loosened his grip on the hand rail, checking for damage with a wince. He breathed a soft sigh of relief when he saw the damage was almost entirely unnoticeable to the naked eye. He'd have to mind his strength more closely. Kon was too used to the farm and facilities that were all reinforced to handle casual use from people with super strength. 

Tim's notes indicated Arkham wasn't reinforced for super strength anywhere. Not even along the outer walls. The facility had opted to use suppression collars on their meta inmates instead since they were cheaper and easier to repair and replace according to the official reports. However, Tim's notes had also mentioned that Arkham had reinforced the outer walls to account for super strength at one point. They'd poured nearly every dime the facility could spare into the project for months until the Joker himself had taken it personally. The madman had absolutely obliterated the reinforced outer walls until no part of them remained standing. Given Joker had destroyed the walls without having any meta powers at all and his history of viciously attacking -damn near mauling- anyone that tried to put him in a straight jacket, Kon didn't really blame Arkham for stopping while they were ahead.

Kon looked up as the bus jolted to a stop. The other passengers filing off around him. He watched as Jasmine Fenton was met by Dr. Rylie in front of the bus as he waited to disembark. 

"Ms. Jasmine!" Dr. Rylie greeted her enthusiastically with a broad open grin and beaming eyes. He reached towards her with both arms, hands open and she reached back. Their right hands clasped as their left hands landed on the other's upper arms as the two greeted one another openly. Kon wasn't very familiar with intern-mentor relationships nor what would be considered normal or professional for them, but it looked like a rather affectionate greeting for them having been strangers two weeks ago. That was strange, wasn't it? Was Tim right to be worried about them?

"Ms. Jasmine is the first and only applicant for Dr. Rylie, Director Keener, and Dean Byle's hairbrained idea to hire more doctors for this place." One of the older guards that had been standing just behind him on the bus explained having apparently noticed Kon watching the pair.

"They just seemed rather affectionate for Gotham." Kon shrugged dismissively as he turned to look over his shoulder at his new colleague. The shorter man laughed.

"A bit, yeah." He agreed. "I think Dr. Rylie is just desperate for this program to work out." He continued as they finally managed to get off the bus. Dr. Rylie and Ms. Fenton were gone now. "Pretty much everyone's been treating her like a princess." 

"That doesn't seem fair to everyone else." Kon commented, dropping back a bit to let the older man lead the way to the guards room for morning debriefing and to get their assignments. He'd already memorized the layouts but 'Kyle Jennings' shouldn't have yet.

"Who cares about fair as long as it works?" The guard answered. "If treating her like a princess scores more interns for the program in the long run, and if one intern every year ends up interested in sticking around, I'll be happy to cater to every single one of them." He confessed, stopping in the middle of the hall to turn and face Kon directly. Kon glimpsed the name Ryans as the silver name badge flashed the briefly reflecting the overhead lights. "You non-gothamites just don't get it. We're desperate for whatever help we can get." 

"That's why I applied here." Kon lied. "Going to school across the bay, I heard a lot about what went down over here while I was in college. I want to help." 

Ryans gave a short solemn nod then turned and led the rest of the way to the break room. 

~*~*~

Day four undercover was when Kon officially met Jasmine Fenton. 

Everything had been going well so far with his undercover assignment. He'd settled in to the role of Kyle Jennings, been getting along well with his new coworkers including Ryans and Fhizer, and hadn't yet managed to screw up inventorying the caches during the outer patrol loops. That being said, Kon was having other issues.

The worst part of being an unstable Kryptonian clone was that his strength tended to fluctuate. It normally wasn't much of an issue when he was surrounded by reinforced everything in his daily life but here at Arkham it was becoming a problem. Case in point, Kon thought to himself with an exhausted groan as his freshly made coffee mug shattered in his hand.

"Oh come on." He sighed snatching a handful of paper towels from the counter and bending to wipe up the coffee and ceramic shards on the floor. At least he was the only one in the room when it shattered. The door clicked softly behind him and Kon jumped twisting to look. 

Jasmine Fenton stood behind him having just closed the door to the break room after entering.

"What happened here?" She asked, sounding bewildered with slightly wide eyes as she took in the mess on the floor. Thank God. She didn't see it.

"Guess I was a bit more tired than I thought." He said with a forced laugh in order to hide his nerves. "Slipped right through my fingers."

She nodded, accepting his words at face value. 

"I've done that more than a few times close to finals." She admitted. "You guys have 10 hour shifts, right? You must be exhausted. When's your next day off?"

"The day after tomorrow." Kon said. "This is day 3 for me since orientation doesn't count."

"You get 2 days off followed by an on-call day, right?" She asked.

"Right," Kon agreed. "AKA 2 days of freedom and a day chained to the Bowery." He joked.

"Absolutely terrible, they may as well put an ankle monitor on you." She cracked back grinning. Kon snickered. The door opened again.

"I see you found another non-gothamite here." Dr. Rylie said striding into the break room with a wide grin.

"Sounds like that makes three of us." Kon agreed. Outside of Joker, he had never seen a gothamite grin that wide in his life.

"Dr. Thomas Rylie, a pleasure to meet you." Dr. Rylie introduced himself holding out his hand to shake. Kon shook his hand as gently as possible, mindful his strength was on the fritz.

"Kyle Jennings, nice to meet you. I just started as a guard earlier this week." He said then held his hand out to shake Jasmine's.

"Jasmine Fenton, I'm an intern therapist. This is my second week here." She greeted with a warm smile shaking Kon's hand. She didn't say anything about being glad to meet him, Kon noted. It wasn't exactly strange behavior but something made him take note of it anyway. Like by not saying it she was saying she hadn't decided whether meeting him was a good or bad thing yet. Dr. Rylie didn't seem to notice anything off with the interaction though as he went about making his own coffee. The three of them made idle small talk as they made their own coffees. Once his new cup was ready, Kon bid them both goodbye and went on his way. While they were his main objective, lingering too long this early into their aquantiantship would probably be strange.

He had several other small friendly interactions with both of them over the next few days. Taking the time for greetings, small talk, and sharing small bits of casual background info from Kyle Jennings's past to encourage them both to open up to him. He also broke a clipboard, two more coffee cups, several pens, and a doorknob during that time as his strength continued to fluctuate. The doorknob had been particularly embarrassing. He had gone to open the door for Jasmine when he saw her with her arms full of files and somehow managed to twist it in such a way that the screws holding it in place sheered off and the knob came off in his hand. Collins, his partner for building patrol that day, burst out laughing hysterically as Kon stared at the doorknob in horror.

"No worries, man." Collins said, clapping Kon on the shoulder still snickering. "Someone else probably broke it and put it back so they wouldn't get scolded or something."

"Yeah," Kon said with a nervous laugh. "That must be what happened."

Jasmine's eyes flicked between the two of them then she grinned.

"And here I thought you just really hated that door." She teased Kon. He felt his face heat up as Collins laughed at him again.

"It is an ugly door." Collins agreed enthusiastically smirking.

"Terribly ugly. Hideous even," Jasmine said with a smile.

"Possibly even traumatizing to behold," Collins continued to smirk.

"You've got me. I have a deep rooted traumatic fear of metal taupe doors." Kon deadpanned ears burning. Jasmine snickered as Kon got the door open for her and they went their separate ways.

~*~*~

"What have you found so far?" Tim asked. Kon did not have the words to express how much he didn't want to be at the Nest at 3am on his first day off from undercover work. If it was anyone other than Tim he wouldn't have even answered the phone.

"Literally nothing," Kon said dryly. "I am still the newest of newbies at Arkham. I practically spent the whole week being babysat by senior guardsmen." He sighed, reminding himself that it wasn't Tim's fault that he was a little insomniac goblin and that Kon really did love his friend and would be sad if he hurt Tim's feelings. Eventually. When he woke up again in the morning. "I did start befriending them both though. It's slow going since we're in different areas but nearly being the only non-gothamites there seems to be helping me make some headway at least." 

There was one other non-gothamite on staff, a medical nurse named Sharon Earley. She was in her mid-thirties and the most sour and unpleasant person Kon had had the displeasure of meeting so far on Arkham's staff. Not that Kon could blame her for that. Not when she had several large ragged scars spanning from her chin and down both of her arms from when Zsazz had gotten hold of her alone after dark her second year at Arkham. It was a damn miracle she'd survived him. Kon didn't know how she managed it but he wouldn't try to find out either. Ryans had taken him aside right before he first met Nurse Earley and warned him not to stare or ask about any of it and then explained the bare basics of what happened to her after they'd left. 

Tim probably had a file with every detail of that night as well as information about Sharon Earley's life both before and after that night somewhere on his computer. The thought made Kon nauseous. 

"Good, good," Tim said absently as he updated the mission file on his computer. The keys clicked so rapidly that Kon again reconsidered whether or not his best friend had super speed. "Better to keep them from suspecting than to rush in anyway." 

"Exactly." 

Tim continued asking questions about every little detail he could think of concerning Dr. Rylie, Jasmine Fenton, and the rogues currently in Arkham.

"They don't let me near those guys yet. I'm too new." Kon said when Tim asked if Scarecrow looked to be plotting more than usual.

"They don't?" Tim sounded surprised, going so far as to stop typing so he could turn and stare at Kon. The clone was amused to note something about his statement had managed to wake Tim up enough to be visibly shocked instead blank-faced with exhaustion.

"Of course not," Kon answered trying to keep the amusement from his voice as much as possible. "As many times as your rogues have broken out they're leary of letting new hires near them in case they're goons in disguise." 

Tim sank back into his chair looking like Kon had uprooted his whole world by proving the Earth really was flat via actual science.

"That's impossible." Tim said sounding faint. "Everytime there's a mass breakout, we always hear that some of the guards helped them escape. How?..." He trailed off, eyes darting rapidly like he was tracking lines of an invisible conspiracy board in the air in front of him. Kon shrugged, uncomfortable with this new information.

"Scuttlebutt is that the people helping them escape are visitors. The guards get blamed because the goons visit wearing clothes similar to the guard uniform from a distance. All blue polo shirts and black pants look similar at a distance." Kon explained. "It also doesn't help that the guards can't really do much to stop the escape attempts since they only have stun grenades, tranquilizer darts, batons, low voltage tazers, and rubber bullets to fight back with. So as long as enough people are involved in the escape attempt at least some of them will make it out even if the guards manage to to tranquilize several of them." 

Tim still looked like Kon was blowing his mind. It was such a rare experience that Kon had to continue.

"Plus the tranquilizer darts and the rubber bullets have to be fired from different hardware." Kon told him. "Which sucks because you have to carry twice the amount of weight while chasing after the escapees which slows you down and it takes longer to swap between them."

There was something similar to mystified horror spreading across his friend's face now.

"Speaking if swapping between them, they have different ranges too." Kon continued gleefully. Half because it was fun wrecking Tim's worldview and half to actually impart the information. "Batons are short-range. Tranquilializer darts and stun grenades are mid-range. Rubber bullet riffles are long-range."

"If that's all it is, WE can fund then better gear to control the inmates." Tim interrupted turning back to the computer and swiftly typing out a list of things to send Arkham. Kon shook his head.

"That won't work." He disagreed gently. "They aren't failing because of the gear itself."

Tim turned back around to face him, confused. This was not going to be a fun conversation, Kon swallowed hard and forced himself to continue.

"The problem is that if you fire the rubber bullet riffles from mid or short range you could seriously injury or even kill the patient. If they get past mid-range, you'll miss them completely using tranquilizer darts or stun grenades. If you try to use either of those at short-range it'll be bad for you whether it's because they'll get hold of you before the tranquilizer knocks them out or because you'll stun yourself too."

Comprehension and trepidation began to dawn on Tim's face. He deflated in his chair, sinking lower and lower as he stared off into nowhere.

"You also can't hit them with more than one tranquilizer dart in a four hour window because you could accidently kill them that way. That also means even though you have a baton, you typically can't do enough damage to them to keept them from escaping because that might potentially kill them." Kon said completely solemn now as he relayed the information. "Because regardless of the reputation Arkham has or what the patients have done, it is still a hospital and they are still patients." 

Tim was staring directly at Kon now. Mouth open, face slack, eyes wide with a kind of numbed shock. Kon held his gaze.

"Yeah," Kon said after a moment. "Yeah, that's how I reacted too." He looked down, picking at his nails for a moment before forcing himself to stop and meet Tim's gaze again. "Phizer, my new 'boss', made sure to drill that into my head during orientation. 'Arkham's guards exist first and foremost to protect the patients. Arkham isn't supposed to be a prison. It's a medical facility. The patients are confined to the premises because their affliction has made them dangerous and they have to stay so that we can keep them and others safe from further harm. We are here to keep the patients and staff from hurting each other, themselves, or being hurt by people outside of Arkham's walls.' Not gonna lie, man." Kon said quirking a bitter grin as his did. "Hearing that kind of fucked me up a bit."

Tim sucked in a huge heaving breath then slowly let it out before he responded.

"I can't say I ever thought about it like that." He admitted in a soft strained voice. "Can't say I ever wanted to either." There was a bitter tinge to his words.

"Yeah, neither did I." Kon answered, shoulders slumping a bit. "Was there anything else you wanted to ask me? I kind of want to head back and sleep a bit."

Tim shook his head slowly.

"No, I think we're good at the moment." He said looking twice as exhausted and drained now as he did when Kon first got there. Kon nodded.

"Good night then. I'll see you later, man." He said, pushing off the wall he'd been leaning against and heading for the door.

"Be safe, Kon." Tim answered softly turning back to his computer.

[ph4nt-mp]

I see your Scottish pirate-accented Wind, and I raise you my hawaiian pidgin english-accented Wind

[the---hermit]

Not me adding annotations to a book to make it more accessible for my mom when she will read it

[nostalgia-tblr]

I feel like anyone who's about to embark on attempting to type out a character's accent phoentically (at least as well as one can with English) should probably stop for a moment before they get going and ask themselves, "How would I, myself, feel about a fic where the one character who sounds like me had their speech written out like this and every other character just got their dialogue left in standard spelling?" I feel like a lot of people would tone it down a bit, at least, if they'd done that thought experiment first.

(Anyone who answered "but I don't have an accent!" isn't allowed to write out anyone else's accent, ever. This rule may seem harsh but you need it. Really, you do. Because you've never had anyone treat your accent as abnormal or comical or wrong, so you really don't know what you're inflicting on others here.)

[princessnijireiki]

weirdest casualty of long Covid (besides. yk. the Incurable Disability) is in terms of linguistic processing I can truly no longer talk or sing as fast as I used to

not that I was super fast before, but one of the days I was sickest, words actually stopped... meaning anything? like I was at work, I was hitting my DT script, but was pushing through on pure muscle memory phonetically. I could process what I was hearing or reading just fine, but could not talk outside of this heavily repetitive workplace script, which is actually very dystopian now that I think about it. virus hitting the brain means I'm a zombie that can't speak except to say, "HIII :) whatcanIgetstartedferyouthismorning?"

anyway, thought it was just fatigue, but went to my car on my break, watched a trending video of people trying to rap along to Fergalicious at double speed. I could LIP SYNC to it just fine. I tested my theory. but I could NOT get my mouth and voice to work at the same time to actually sing/rap it. even now, tbh, I have to make myself NOT think about it while rapping it to get the words to flow out or I get stuck. like it's truly something in the brain for where you process speech, but not where you process just lyrical phonics like music. I have to consciously make a REAL effort to turn off the "word" part of my brain to be fast again.

I speak perfectly legibly, I can genuinely get up to decently fast normal talking speeds, just not Northeastern fast-fast. but it comes up in music a surprising amount, and it's kind of annoying to have lost as a skill.

[bolithesenate]

shoutout to my latin teacher of 6 years, you are the reason i cannot simply cobble together words i need in conlangs, no, it needs to make *sense* and be fantasy-etymologically and culturally *correct*

[cinematicnomad]

watching the docuseries about that grey's anatomy writer who faked having cancer and a bunch of other insane lies and it is WILD and unbelievable and i cannot wrap my brain around the fact that anyone would do this, but also, apparently she was the one who wrote alex karev's goodbye ep and so now i'm like. raising my hand, i too feel personally victimized by regina george 😂

[shrews-things]

The notes for my irodalom záróvizsga are literally over twice the length of my szakdolgozat I hate it here and I wanna sleep for a month

[whales-are-gay]

my hot take is that i dont think anyone speaks "general american english". everyone has a little or maybe a lot of regional local ethnic or cultural flair or influences from other languages. i like listening to people and pointing them out and unfortunately this DOES get misconstrued as me making fun of them

[midnight-rice]

Petition to bring back the archaic word "fere" as a gender neutral* term for a companion/mate/spouse. It has roots from the Old English word "gefera" roughly meaning "one who goes with another" and is pronounced "feer" which sounds like "Dear" which is already a term of endearment and is homophonous with "fear" so you can sound like an oxymoronic gay vampire or smth ("Hello my Fere >:)")

*the word "fere" was gender-neutral in English but has evolved into male-gendered words like "fuhrer" and "frere" in German and French respectively

[burningfaith]

first homework for ancient languages in scientific terminology and I need to learn how to pronounce words in Latin, I hate it here </4 I mean what did I expect from my major (more things related to managing information & administration, but whatever), but the most annoying thing is the fact that we have more semesters of useless classes like philosophy than the literal (ethno)linguistics and philology majors...

GIVE ME MORE DATABASES, EXCEL AND STUFF LIKE THIS INSTEAD OF THAT CRAP

[quatregats]

Okay while I would definitely like to watch the Hornblower TV series/movies I did forget that for the only episode I watched (The Duchess and the Devil) I spent the entire time being distracted by the phonetics of Ioan Gruffudd's speech

[salvadorbonaparte]

I'm trying to sort my postcard collection by country but I only have a certain number of dividers and a certain number of countries which led to me sorting a lot of them into regions that, if applied anywhere else, would be hugely controversial