#also whenever he has to do the æ sound

[gaysforbyler]

My favorite thing is when British Jonathan pops out

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Ett språk er aldri nok - More Norwegian dialects than Norwegians

A Norwegian cousin sent me this funny photo to cheer me up in my Parisian sick bed. It’s not quite true but it did give me a good laugh and it got me thinking.

Being half-Norwegian on my mother’s side I was raised to believe the old saying, “there are more Norwegian dialects than Norwegians”. This is because there’s no “standardised” Norwegian.  Strictly speaking there are two quite different written languages and four mostly mutually intelligible main dialects with dozens of internal variations each. Standardised Norwegian is only used in court, official decrees and national broadcasting. The kind of Norwegian one might hear in regular, everyday life is literally subject to your current latitude and longitude.

The Norwegian dialects are divided geographically into four main groups: Østlandsk or Østnorsk (Easter Norwegian), Vestlandsk (Western Norwegian),  Nordnorsk (Northern Norwegian) and Trøndersk (Norwegian of the Trøndelag county, Central Norwegian).

And just like counties comprise different cities, towns, and villages, each dialect has its own sub-groups depending on the area. It’s safe to assume that every village or town has its own unique way of saying things, and expressions you won’t encounter anywhere else. To make things even more interesting, a sub-group of a dialect may be more similar to one of the three other main dialects than to its own.

What are a few key characteristics of each dialect?

Easter Norwegian has open vowels and is usually fast spoken. Being the dialect most similar to the one used when learning Norwegian, it’s also not considered the “standard” Norwegian.

People from Østlandet and especially from Oslo have this quite annoying habit of thinking that they speak “normal” or universal Norwegian, that the rest of Norway has a dialect except themselves. This is not true: as much as they write bokmål (which is highly inspired by Danish, not anything Norwegian here), people from different parts of Østlandet and even from Oslo use different words and pronounce things differently from each other.

For example when I go to Oslo and stay for any length of time I begin to hear the difference between the people living East and West of Akerselva (river splitting Oslo in two). Those in the East say “Majorstua” while the Westerners say “Majorstuen”. Also those in the East of Oslo say “skav” instead of “skog”. And they drive less expensive cars. And they don’t have summer houses in Barbados and winter hytte in Chamonix. 

West Norway (Vestlandet) is fjord Norway and is an area where there is a new dialect virtually every 20 km in Vestlandet. In Bergen their “r” is like a French “r”, quite sharp in the throat instead of a rolling it like people in Østlandet.

West Norway is fjord Norway, so people were living scattered across small villages and islands, cultivating their own way of talking. But one thing you will notice, especially in Bergen, is the “r”; it sounds like the French “r”.

In Northern Norway (Nordnorsk), “hv” sounds turn to “k”, so for instance, the phrase “Hva heter du?” (“What’s your name?”) becomes “Ka du hete?”

As for the Trøndesk dialect in Central Norway, the personal pronouns change completely. For example, “Jeg elsker deg” (“I love you”) becomes “Æ ælske dæ” in the Trøndesk dialect.

Why do more than two persons living in every single valley, every single piece of fjord, every piece of land surrounded by water in Norway consider they have their own very specific way of speaking?

The answer is geography. Before immigration and roads and oil and stuff Norwegians had more interaction with sheep and goats than with other Norwegians (and that is why it is called a hyrdestund). This was especially true in West Norway where people really had no contact with each other as they were each on their little island.

Norwegians just go with the flow and embrace the diversity of Norway’s many dialects and also because it’s virtually impossible to recognise every single dialect. 

I just follow one simple but important rule whenever I come across a dialect I don’t quite get.

Make sure it’s not Swedish....

For a foreigner Swedish sounds like a funny way of speaking Norwegian or so I’ve been told.

I’ve ran into problems whenever I’ve gone to Stavanger and its Stavanger dialect. The first time I heard a guy speak Stavanger dialect I asked him where in Sweden he was from. He was not too happy about that question, especially because people from Stavanger seem to think they come from a very important place. Sure, the oil gets in from there, but keep it jantelovesque: stay humble.

Then it seems like no one is able to say which region Stavanger is located in. Is it Vestlandet? Is it Sørlandet? To a Northern Norwegian all of these guys are Sørenga, to an Oslo inhabitant all of this is just the West of Norway. So they came up with Vestsørlandet. No sorry, Sørvestlandet.

The Easter dialects that are spoken in Oslo and the one spoken close to the Swedish border are quite different from one another – with the latter sounding a lot like Swedish. So if you come across a sniffy Oslo resident just ask if they are from Sweden. See them recoil in pain as if stabbed in the heart with a bloody dagger. It’s worth it.

[purplesurveys]

807

Have you ever laughed at someone because they had a funny name? No, that sounds awful. I had so many kids laugh at me because of my name when I was younger, so I’ve learned better than to do that. If I come across a weird name I’m more likely to judge the parents than the kid themselves. Speaking of names, why do celebrities always call their kids stupid ones? It’s not just celebrities who do these; they’re just famous so they get all the attention. Generally though I really don’t know why more and more people have been choosing to give their kids odd names. X Æ A-Xii in particular stresses me outtttttttttt PLEASE LOVE YOUR CHILD If you have a problem with someone, will you confront them? Depends on who it is and how big/personal my problem is with them. I won’t always confront someone; sometimes it’s best to act like you don’t care. How do you like your tea? (: Iced, lemonade, and with a lot of sugar. Do you get car sick easily? No, only if I do something to induce motion sickness like reading or texting.

What did you want to be when you were a kid? The earliest occupations I wanted to have were firefighter, astronaut, and a veterinarian. When I got a little older I wanted to become an author. Insert funny memory here:  My favorite story to hear from my friends was when my org had a get-together shortly after we got new officers elected (myself included), and when I got drunk enough I was apparently announcing the suspensions of newly-inducted orgmates I was yet to know more, effective immediately loooool. It was part of my ~powers so I guess that’s why I spent nearly the whole evening doing that. I made sure to apologize to those people the day after. :(( Do you think you're a good conversationalist? Why is that? Yes, when it comes down to it. I pride myself on being a good listener – pair this with the fact that I’ve also learned to ask good questions through the years as a journalism student – so this ability usually includes being able to catch on to the little details they say. From there, I’m able to ask them questions I know they’d love to answer. My trick in conversations is to just have people talk about the things or hobbies they love, because time usually flies by then. Are you more likely to be called a hard worker or lazy? Hard worker. What is your sense of humour like? It’s pretty flexible. I can laugh at kiddie jokes, dark jokes as long as they are not blatantly offensive and harmful, and at the same time I can laugh at dank memes that make absolutely no sense whatsoever.   Do you think you're fairly intelligent? In what way? Yeah, but it’s book smarts more than anything else. I like reading and racking up new knowledge, memorizing things, acing tests, etc. I don’t consider myself street smart at all sadly lol, and I’m still super dependent on other people when it comes to crossing the road, commuting (if I have to), bargaining, etc. How do you like your eggs? Poached or scrambled. Do you enjoy visiting your relatives? I look forward to the food being served more than anything else, because Filipino family reunions don’t fuck around when it comes to the preparations haha. Other than that, I’m always a bit wary when visiting family because Filipino relatives also tend to come up with the worst introductory statements: “You’ve gotten so fat,” “Do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend yet?” and “I don’t like what you’re posting on Facebook” are just starters. What's your favourite thing about the nearest upcoming holiday? That would be Independence Day, and I like that it’s solely ours. Our independence day used to be on July 4th to be the same as America’s, but a past president changed it to June 12th so we can instead commemmorate the day we gained independence from Spain, instead of sharing our independence day with a colonizer. Have you ever been on a float in a parade? What were you doing on it? No, I haven’t. Have you ever had a strange compliment? What was it? I’ve probably gotten one or two of them but I don’t keep comments like those in my memory, so there’s a very good chance I’ve forgotten all about them. When was the last time you had deja vu? I don’t really remember exactly when but it was sometime within the last week. Have you ever had a dream in black and white? I don’t think so. I’d remember it if I have. What about a dream with no sound? Nope. What is something you find interesting but would never pursue as a career? Astronaut. It’s such an awesome job and I look up to everyone who does it, but for me it’ll always stay as a fantasy career. I’m simply not good enough at science to understand how stuff in space works; plus I get dizzy extremely easily and that’s not gonna work well for me when it’s time to board the spaceship lol. What types of people do you tend to avoid? Racists, homophobes, and fanatical Catholics. What is one personality trait a potential friend must have? They must have an introverted side. I can’t deal with people who are super active 24/7. Have you ever seen someone slip on a banana peel? Nope, I’ve only mostly seen that happen in Mario Kart hah. Have you ever been in a helicopter? I have not. What is a colour you love that's not your favourite? Maroon. Where would you like to travel to? Anywhere outside the house would be a great start. I’d love to get to go inside a mall, any mall. What colour is your car? / What colour would you like it to be? My car is white, and I’m happy with it being white. It looks clean and sleek that way, for me. Does anything hurt on your body right now? What? No but I’m feeling a little hot. I need a shower. What is your favourite mode of travelling? Road trip or by plane. Have you ever had Chickenpox? I haven’t. Dreading the day it comes to me because I just know it’ll be a million times worse as an adult. Can you roll your eyes into the back of your head? I can but it’s very uncomfortable and I don’t do it at all. I only did it often as a kid, whenever I wanted to scare off my sister or make funny faces with my cousins. If you have online friends, do you think you'd get on in real life? Yes, I think so. I’ve only had one negative experience with an online friend who turned out to be a dipshit, but I like to keep optimistic when it comes to my other friends.  Who is your favourite animated character? Answered this in another survey, but Spongebob. I also took a big liking to Mr. Peanutbutter from BoJack Horseman since he was the only one who kept me happy throughout the show hahahaha. Are your favourites often what the majority like? Like, in relation to my above answers? I know a lot of people didn’t really like Mr. Peanutbutter because he was horrible at reading Diane’s love language and due to his tendency to mask reality with humor and general immaturity, so there’s that. Spongebob is pretty much universally loved by everyone who has seen the show, though. If you could have anything for dinner tonight, what would you choose? I did have dinner already and I was very happy with the sisig my dad made. I would have had it with soju, but I already drank coffee today and with my body just finishing up healing itself from my awful fever last week, I don’t wanna beat up my body by mixing coffee and alcohol immediately lol. Do you prefer sweet or savoury foods? Savory. Do you worry about eating too much? What about eating too little? I don’t really worry about either. I find that I eat a healthy amount of food for all my meals, so there’s little reason to overanalyze that department. Is it dark outside right now? Yes, it’s 10:30 PM. The moon has an interesting haze around it at the moment that makes it hard to miss, but otherwise it’s very dark. Do you get scared when it's a full moon? No. Do you think Jaffa Cakes are a cake or a biscuit? xP I don’t even know what those are and I’m too lazy to check. If you go anywhere, do you always buy souvenirs for people? Nah, just for Gab. What was the last toy you got in a cereal box? I don’t know, I don’t remember. The last time there was a toy in a cereal box we bought would probably be like 16 years ago lol. Hypothetically speaking, if you owned a charm bracelet, would you always make sure the charms meant something to you? Not really. I imagine I’d get charms just because I want to collect them lol. I know Pandora does a lot of charm collections, like Disney and Harry Potter. It doesn’t always have to mean something to me. Are you waiting on anyone coming home right now? No. Everyone living here is home now. Is it easy to make you gag? Nope. I watch pro wrestling dude, I’ve seen lots of disgusting stuff go down. It’ll take a lot before I gag. Do you like the way your voice sounds? Yes, I’m alright with it for the most part. Do you usually keep to yourself? This is pretty vague. You mean about my personal life? I’d say so. I normally would keep to myself but I’m also an open book, if that makes sense. Like I’m okay with spilling out my stories or emotions, but people have to come to me and ask for them; otherwise I’m just staying quiet. Can you see the stars from your house? Sure. Sky looks best when you’re at the rooftop though. How would you react if your favourite band made a song with your first name as its title? It would be on repeat for like three months lol. What is a word or phrase you've been told you overuse? It’s been years but a prof once told me I used “okay, so...” a lot as a transition when I report. I appreciated the comment though and since that time I’ve been more watchful of the phrases I use when I report. Are you considered an awkward person? I have my times, yeah. I’ve gotten considerably better in dealing with people though and usually it’s them that’s awkward now, not me lol. Has a career advisor ever helped you choose your ideal career? No, I’ve never met up with a career advisor before. If you were abandoned for a week, would you be able to fend for yourself? Yes, as long as instant food and some basic frozen food are accessible to me ahuhu. Is there a light on in the room you're in? Yes. Have you ever been friends with someone who was your complete opposite? YES, Gabie and I cannot be any more different. Sometimes I still wonder how she and I ended up being friends at all, but I chalk it up to our humor and the way our (very different) personalities manage to mesh well together. Have you ever wished you were an identical twin? If one, do you hate it? Not really. What day were you born on? Tuesday. What's your favourite number? Why did you pick that? I never really had a favorite number. Whenever I have to pick one I just say 4 just because it’s Beyoncé’s favorite and she uses it on literally every concert, show, etc. so I’ve come to encounter it a lot as well lol. What does your favourite perfume / deodorant smell like? A little fruity. Who's your favourite Disney character? Flynn Rider. Do you like having a favourite everything or do you enjoy keeping open? I like having a favorite everything but I also like keeping my options open just in case I ever wanna shift favorites. What's your favourite advertisment? Or do you find them all irritating? I don’t pick ads to be my favorite lol. They’re not irritating, but I just don’t particularly care about any of them.

[sending-the-message]

HOW TO BE BEAUTIFUL AND THIN by Skelethin

Hello everyone, so, uh, I want to be beautiful and thin. And I’ll tell you exactly how you can too!

There’s a storm deep within me that’s dying to get out. It’s a storm of rage and self hate, constantly gnawing at my fat to escape. I must admit, I’m not fat and I never have been. I have always been a size small, since I’m 5’3 and 105 lbs to begin with. What hurts more is that I’m simply average. Normal body, normal size, normal everything. I’m considered “normal thin”, and not fat nor skinny. I’ve never been anything special. I’m 15 and I frequently enjoy, well, different things than your average teen. I’m obsessed with books, and only classic literature. I only listen to classical music and I play a few instruments, as well as spend my time writing poetry and practicing ballet En Pointe.

Anyway, now that you know a little bit about me, I’m here to tell you exactly how I got thin and beautiful. So, I had tried everything at this point; being Vegan for a few months, which resulted in Anaemia, I tried the Keto diet, which also didn’t work. I even tried diet pills, which no, did not give me a tapeworm. I will admit, I was losing 4 pounds per week, but that’s simply not enough. How do people even have the patience to diet for months while losing as little as 1-4 lbs per week? I didn’t. I had to find a way to speed up the process. I stumbled across a diet known as an “Ana Diet”, unbeknownst to me, it definitely would work. It was on some website called “AnaBones4evur.com” and i figured it was a spam site at first, since it popped up like an annoying ad on the bottom of my computer when I was searching other legit dieting websites. This one didn’t seem professional, as it was a minimalistic page. The font looked as if it were tipping and falling off the page, as well as little blue sparks were glitching all over the deep black wallpaper of the website. I looked closer, and I noticed that the millions of little blue sparks that were glitching were in fact mini pixel butterflies. Strange. There were only a few links displayed on the page, which were clearly misspelt.

There was an “Abooout”, an “FAQ”, a “Store” And a “Dietes, Tricks and Ttipss”. Now, I know what you’re thinking, clearly it’s a fake scam website as all the red flags were there. Mind you, I was absolutely desperate to lose weight. As silly as this sounds, I couldn’t just be happy and satisfied with a body like any average girl. I wanted mine to be surreal, angelic, ethereal, like sharp jagged bones protruding like glass. So first, I clicked on the store. There weren’t many items being sold; just scales, measuring tapes, laxatives, diuretics, exercise merch, and a bunch of purple bracelets with the same bluebell butterfly symbol on them. The prices were all surprisingly low, and I hoped that the FAQ would say something about the butterfly, so I clicked on that next.

There were only 5 Questions with short non-detailed answers below. It’s weird, since all the questions seemed odd but well punctuated, and the answers from the website host was misspelling everything and often using foreign letters such as “ ç, ż, ł, ß, æ, ø, œ, ü, ę, ŵ, etc.” It was strange. One of the questions was “How long does it take to lose about 60 lbs?” And the host answered “well, if you follow all the ÅNNNNÁ rules, then you will lose 60 lbs in about 5 months. Usūally yoau losę 8 pounds p3er ŵeek (((:” the rest of the questions weren’t very important. So I clicked “Abooout” and it was also short paragraphed. It looked a little like this:

“Hallo And Welcym freinds!!! U are now part of the ÁnNa famly. Everywun who joyns, is my fellowe sister or brothear!! U can onlye be acepTed on 1 Condishin. You MUST FOLLEW allkklllllll the rules. If u fail to follew evry rool, u will be BANNED FROm THISE WEBSIGHT. How will I Kno if u breyk a rule?? TrUuuuuust me. I kno. I am Alwaus Watching u. It u sighn up here, I Will Automauticalli have Access to sey what u r doing 24 HRs A DAY. SeveRe Punichment will come ur way if u Brayk a rule.

Remember, have Fün and liive Dangeroushly!!”

Xoxoxo- MIA

Finally, I clicked the diet, tricks, and tips. All of them were normal enough, at least at first. “Eat only X amount of calories per day” and the punishment is, if you eat over 900 calories then you will have severe nightmares for 8 days. You have 3 strikes. If you go over 900 for the third time in a row, you will have severe physical pains. I don’t believe in a lot of supernatural stuff, I mean, I believe in ghosts, but not that some random person on the internet has the power to control your mind and your body. You have to exercise until you faint, if you stop exercising and you’re still able to walk and stand fine, then you aren’t doing it enough. You must count and measure everything that goes in your mouth. You must make yourself throw up in case you accidentally consume a little extra calories. I hate vomit, but if it will make me lose weight, I will do it.

So I tried. On August 1st I began my diet. I restricted. That was the main word etched in my mind: Restriction Restriction. Other words were “Willpower” and “Self Control.” I have the willpower to restrict my calories, and I feel like I am the Goddess of my own body. I have immense self-control that people often express how jealous they are, that I easily decline delicious sweets being offered to me. Every time my stomach rumbles and moans and screams at me for my cruelty, I smack it and tell it that it’s not hungry, just bored. Who knew that feeling hungry and empty felt so good?? The “full” feeling I used to feel when I ate normally was disgusting. Bloated belly, full of food, now is empty shrinking belly. I feel so weightless, like a feather. I hated vomit, but soon I began to vomit 5 times a day. I never went over my calories. I was gonna be the one to do everything perfectly so I can impress Mia. I will be the number one winner in her dieting contest. She will absolutely love me. She expresses adoration for me already. Her little voice in my head constantly praises me after a good purge.

September 10th: I feel so nauseous. My bones ache and my whole body is sore. I think I worked out too hard last night. My breath still reeks of last nights vomit even though I brushed them like, 12 times. I had to tell people my teeth are yellow because I ate something that contained food colouring. It’s tiring, having to pretend to make breakfast and lunch so my dad thinks I’m eating. Luckily he’s the only person I live with. It’s crazy how the only reason I manage to get out of bed is so I can weigh myself. The scale is my religion. I hated math, but now I love it. I’m the best at counting calories and measuring the size of my waist and my thighs, and that number that drops every day is amazing. I weighed in at 83 lbs today. My dad doesn’t know since my old clothes are the only thing I wear, and they’re huge on my delicate and dainty figure.

October 1st: I can’t even move. My long pretty fingernails are yellow and brittle and they constantly fall off whenever I scratch my dry, itchy head. My once thick mass of luscious blonde hair is dirty and greasy and stringy, falling out in clumps when I brush it, when I shower, and when I wake up. My skin feels like a snake; patchy and scaly. I’ve always been pale, but never like this. It’s a annoying how everyone asks if I’m sick or if I have a fever. They don’t know. They’ll NEVER understand. I’m constipated so I have to rely on 15 lax a day. I can’t sleep because I’m so hungry, and when I do sleep, all my dreams are food-related to me binging, and I wake up in a panic, crying since I think it’s real. I can’t walk 3 steps to my own bathroom in my own room. It hurts. I want to pass out and pant heavily whenever I walk up the stairs, as it feels as if I have walked 30 miles. I resorted to crawling everywhere. Sometimes, my dad has to carry me.

November 1st: I hate my my life. I used to have depression before, but it’s never been this severe. I feel like the more weight I lose, the more depressed I get. MIA LIED. She said I’d be happier once I’m thin. She promised I’d look like one of those models in the VS show. They don’t look as dead as I. My dad is a mortician, and he constantly remind me that I look and feel like a dead body. I’m cold, my skin is so so cold. I’m cold. I wore Uggs, Sweatpants, a sweatshirt, and thick blanket in 105 degrees and I was shivering and freezing. Every time I stand up my vision fades to black and all these black little dots dance around my blurry vision. It’s like when you stand up too fast you get dizzy spells, except it happens to me all the damn time. I have to lay down 4 towels on the toilet seat to go pee since it hurts my bones. I have to sleep on 5 blankets since it hurts my bones. I can’t sit on wooden chairs because it stabs my bones.

Everyone says they’re worried about me. Teachers pull me aside, my ballet instructor, the nurse, store owners when I go and order a Diet Coke during lunch rather than actual food. I don’t even look twice at the display of pastries. I’m successful. Everyone says I’m too thin and I need a doctor, blah blah blah. They’re wrong. They have no idea how long it took for me to get here. They have no idea how I desperately needed this. They have no idea all the effort I put. They need to appreciate how beautiful I am. I thought they’d praise me. They’re just denying I’m beautiful, they’re all jealous. They stare at me with haunting and pitying eyes and whisper behind my back. They gasp and gape at my body wherever I go. See how jealous they are? They want to be me. They’re just saying I’m dangerously thin because they wish my body was theirs. Well, I had to work for it. If being thin was easy, everyone would do it. We live in a world of gluttony where everyone is constantly stuffing their face, whereas I eat every other day.

December 1st: Too weak. Can’t move. I have missed school for a week now. My skin is more blue and purple than white, and it’s not my veins. My lips are dry and white with a slight pale red and swollen shut with dead skin hanging off. I have heavy and thick black bags underneath my eyes. I FEEL BEAUTIFUL. My body is covered in bruises, even though I do nothing but sit on my ass all day watching TV. Mia said it’s okay to stop exercising since I’m so weak, so I deserve a break. My metabolism is dead, and I’ve hit a few plateaus, but I’m almost to my goal weight. It’s funny because my goal weight gets lower and lower the more weight I lose. At 105 lbs my goal was 95. I got there, and I still looked obese. Then it was 85, got there, and still obese. 75, got there, and still obese. I’m currently 68 lbs and my goal is 59. 5 is my favourite number, and 9 is one less away from being the highest and the greatest: 10.

It’s so funny. It’s like I was blind my whole life. I never really thought I was fat, but Mia said to take one good look in the mirror, which opened my eyes, and suddenly, I realised, maybe I AM obese. Soon those protruding bones became rolls of fat and I physically transformed into a monster. My mirror was alive and moving. It kept morphing and twisting and distorting like a fun-house mirror. Why isn’t enough? I think I was born with a special body that can’t be skinny no matter how much weight I lose. That number on the scale will never be enough. It will never satisfy my cravings and my need for skinny. Maybe my goal should be 50.

December 10th: I’ve fainted 4 times so far. I get Charlie horses in my legs every night. My dad says I have low magnesium and blood pressure. As well has dangerously low blood sugar and severe iron deficiency. He’s lying. He just wants to make a big fat ass again. My heart rate is currently 40 BPM. There is one thing that i love, though, and that’s my period. It’s gone. I haven’t had it in forever. My dad keeps crying and getting on his knees and begging me to eat, telling me I’m painfully thin. He’s just MOCKING ME. Everyone who says I’m thin is a big fat liar. They know I’m an obese pig, they just want to lie to me. I’m the only one who sees my body truly for what it is, why can’t everyone else? I know the real me is fat. Apparently everyone else just looks shocked and surprised when I say I’m still fat. “Gaunt Girl” they call me. “Emaciated Evangeline” they call me. “Starving Sister” I’m called. “Skinny Minnie” “itty-bitty” “Malnourished.” Everyone calls me either a zombie, a vampire, or a ghost.

I don’t even FEEL alive. I feel more like I’m existing, but not living. I don’t feel like I have a life. It’s as if I’m a puppet. Or someone is playing with me like an unmoving doll. I can’t breathe, i can’t sleep, i can’t eat, and I feel dead. I feel brain dead. I can’t even move now. I lay on the couch all day, barely moving my head. I can’t even watch tv or go on my phone. I can’t even tell you what I said 3 minutes ago. My memory used to be intelligent and sharp, now I can’t remember anything. My vocabulary speaking-wise is that of a 5 year old. My mind is that of a 5 year old. I dumbed down as my malnourished brain and mental state deteriorated. I am nothing but a decomposing body, waiting to be as light as dust. Soon to be ashes. I can only really remember to speak 5 words “Hi, Bye, No, Yes, Okay.” THIS IS WHAT PERFECTION FEELS LIKE

December 17th: This is Evangeline’s Dad. I found her diary and all the sickening things she’s written in it about her diet and some website. Evangeline Elizabeth Winters was admitted to X hospital at X address for a possible cardiac arrest. It appears she was found unconscious in her bed. On December 16th 10:31 AM. She is thankfully not in a coma. They were able to shock her heart and revive her. It is an utter miracle that she is along the 2% of patients who are able to recover from cardiac arrest.

January 1st: Hello everyone, I’m back! I’m in the hospital and they have diagnosed me with something that ended in “Nervosa” and I can’t remember what the first part is. All I know is that Mia would be so proud of me. I got a message saying “I’m the official Ana of the website.” And apparently Ana is the highest ranking position. There are many Anas, but there’s only one true perfect Ana. Along with Mia, she promised we’d rule together! I can hear her talking in my head already. Apparently I’m forced to be submitted into an Inpatient facility at a mental hospital for a few months, as well as be supervised and regularly see a dietician, a doctor, and a psychiatrist. I did nothing wrong.. it’s just a diet. Why can’t anyone let me be skinny? Why do they want me to be fat?? I’d rather kill myself than be fat.

January 2cd: I managed to steal a knife off of the medical table while no one was looking. It’s 1:30am and I’m going to do the final step it takes to become a true Ana. Cut off the rest of my fat. My bones are in the way, but I’ll find the fat hiding behind them.

This is what perfection feels like. This is what perfection is. Perfection is death. I am thin and beautiful, and I can already see Mia’s shadowy figure smile at me with glowing fangs across my bed.

ThÁbks For raéDjng this And Becum a Membrrr of THe Dïett!!! -Evangel-AÑNÁ

[lethriloth]

Who's Who (And: how do you spell that?)

This is the first of what will (hopefully) be fortnightly updates on one of the D&D games I”m running. Because session logging turned out so well last time, and I really should get around to doing it again now. This first post got really long by the time I was done introductions, so I'm separating it out and posting the first actual account later.

Before I begin telling our story, I’d like to introduce the player characters (And some pertinent setting details). Before I can do that, though, I need to discuss spelling – transcription, rather – conventions. Largely at my players’ urging, (Though they might be regretting that now) I did some rudimentary conlanging for the setting. While I have not yet developed any scripts for these languages, when I asked VulgarLang to give me vocabulary, it was kind enough to also give me phonological rules for each language. Sometimes rather a lot of them. This means that some of the spelling is, if not irregular, somewhat unintuitive. Add to that the fact that there are some sounds simply not heard in English, and you have a few difficulties. So, what I intend to do is this: Whenever a name is introduced for the first time, I will include a phonetic transcription if the pronunciation is not obvious. After that, I will simply write the name as it is spelled in the Vulgar output and my notes. If you don’t care about pronouncing names right in your head, skip the next paragraph.

While I will give the phonetic transcriptions in proper IPA, I do not want to go through the hassle of installing and learning an IPA keyboard, nor do I particularly wish to copy-paste IPA characters more than ~once per name. So, outside of the phonetic transcriptions I will be using the following spelling conventions: Nasalized vowels – which are fairly common in Ohi – will be marked with a tilde, long vowels will be denoted by repeating the vowel character, â will be used for [æ]. “gg” will be used for the glottal trill, [ʀ] “rr” for the alveolar trill [r], and “r” for both the alveolar approximant [ɹ] and the alveolar tap [ɾ] because in-universe the only people who bother to distinguish them are extremely pedantic elves; Both are used in older dialects of Raxak [ɾaxak] (elvish), but nowadays most people treat the sounds as if equivalent. The combination “th” will be used for the voiceless dental fricative, even though in Ohi “th” (pronounced as separate consonants) is a valid cluster; in a probably fruitless attempt to minimize confusion I will write the latter as “t’h”. “sh” will denote the postalveolar fricative, and “x” the velar fricative. Also, Raxak names are whispered when spoken by elves or people sufficiently enamored with elves (*cough* @theunitofcaring​ *cough*) to be stubborn about precisely correct pronunciation. A generally safe assumption is that the names of elves are correctly pronounced whispered, and that all other names are generally voiced.

To understand the characters, you will need to know a few things about the world. Orcs and Elves are variants on humans, descended from tribes that were taken from the world at a time when the boundaries between the planes were thin. When they returned to the world, centuries later, they found themselves physically transformed by their experiences; the gross physical changes are of little consequence for the moment, apart from the effects on their fertility: though each kind remains fertile, they are no longer interfertile with each other, and their children with unaltered humans are themselves sterile. The inability for a cross-race union to produce a fertile heir has shaped the customs of all three races, especially among the nobility of each. A married noble couple generally has a shared set of concubines of different races – sometimes infertile halfbreeds who will produce no children at all, but more often other-race purebloods. The couple’s children by their concubines are valuable, trusted family members who, in theory, are unlikely to scheme against their parents or siblings due to their absolute inability to legally inherit. With that explanation out of the way, on to the PCs themselves:

Thiet of Ishto Theit is a half-orc who embraced the role his parents had planned for him as a member of the clergy. He eagerly and earnestly devoted himself to the worship of Ggita [ʀita], the god of knowledge and of the Sun, and was rewarded with His blessing and a limited ability to directly call upon His aid. Unfortunately for him, Thiet ran afoul of church politics – specifically, he unknowingly made an enemy of the full-blooded scion of a more influential noble house, and was quietly shuffled off and discouraged from further pursuing a church career. Not knowing the true reasons for his dismissal, he concluded that his faith must have lapsed and set off in search of some sort of righteous task to prove his faith.

Erkad [eɾkad] of Ishto Thiet’s brother Erkad followed the other traditional path for halfbreed children: Going to special schools to learn to command and lead the family’s personal armsmen. Of course, personal martial skill was valued as highly as an understanding of tactics or inspiring speeches, and so as a crowning accomplishment before graduation, Erkad was tasked with completing some sufficiently heroic deed. When his brother mentioned his own self-imposed quest, Erkad saw a perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.

Ksea of Shuu Ksea grew up loving children. She would never have any of her own, being half-elf, but she helped raise her younger siblings. When her younger sister came of age, her parents arranged a marital alliance between house Shuu and house Ishto. To sweeten the deal for the higher-ranked and more prestigious Ishto, Ksea was included as a part of her sister’s dowry, to act as a nanny and caretaker to her sister’s children. She did this gladly, growing quite fond of the kids and picking up a bit of magical talent in the meantime. When her nephews Erkad and Thiet, now fully-grown, asked for her help on some damn fool hormone-driven quest for holy relics or something, she agreed to come along, if only to keep an eye on them.

Ero [eɾo] Ero is an example of a rather rare phenomenon in this nation: an actual bastard. To be precise, she is the bastard daughter of the king-consort. Now, the king is obviously not a bright man – he cheated on the queen, and, what’s more, he did it with another human – and he was compassionate enough not to have the evidence of his poor life choices killed or abandoned, so he hatched a… cunning… plan to hide the evidence of his folly. He claimed that the child was the bastard of one of the orc men in the royal harem, then contacted an alchemist to make this story more plausible. The alchemist devised a potion, which Ero was raised to believe was essential medicine for a life-threatening medical condition. The potion drained her of color, giving her the superficial characteristics of a half-orc, which served to prop up the lie for a decade or so before it was bowled over by pubescent hormones. Specifically, Ero found herself pregnant, which should have been quite impossible for a half-orc. After suffering a miscarriage, Ero fled the capital, seeking to meet up with her academy friend Erkad and get away from the city long enough to resolve her identity crisis.

Sothet [hoθet] of Thâthikis [θæθikit] (Raxak name) Sothet’s human parent was given away in an attempt by their family in to solidify an alliance with the more prestigious elven House Thâthikis. For all her life, Sothet has been aware that she exists only because of that now deteriorating alliance. With her parent’s status in the family perilously unstable, Sothet was never trusted with real responsibility in the way that halfbreeds usually are. This left her relatively free to pursue her own path in life, while still being able to draw on family connections. Sothet chose to express that freedom by studying various magical arts, primarily taking up wizardly magic but also for a time attending seminary alongside Thiet to learn as much as possible about miracles. Growing increasingly displeased with both her parents, as well as the system that put them together, she focused her studies on one goal: Having a child, and in doing so turning the political system grounded in halfbreed infertility on its head. When she heard about the half-orc Ero’s miscarriage, she thought she had found the key – or at least part of them – to the puzzle, and so arranged to join her friend Thiet’s expedition in order to get close to Ero and learn her secret.