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artisxan · 1 year

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[ID: ArtisXan's logo, a brown circle with a digital drawing of a sunflower inside of it. Written on top in white script font reads "ArtisXan". /id]

Welcome To ArtisXan!

About:

ArtisXan is a small business owned and operated by queer, disabled, neurodivergent, trans individuals. We sell a wide range of items, including discreet and fun chewlrey made of body-safe silicone intended for use by teens and adults.

Xan has been crafting since they were in middle school. They shifted focus from knitting to digital art. The chewelry business started when Xan found that having a body-safe silicone necklace was a great way to help them stop biting their nails, but could only find bulky designs that stood out. They used their own style to start assembling necklaces that were subtle and matched their aesthetic while still providing the physical stimulus of the larger designs. Since then, they have expanded from necklaces and bracelets to keychains, zipper pulls, and pens.

Quick Links

Find us on other sites!

Linktree

Etsy artisxan

Patreon ArtisXan

Instagram @artisxan

Tiktok @artisxan

Discord

Meet the Makers!

Xan (they/them)

Cas (he/him)

Examples:

This chart shows just some of the beads we have! The Squish and Durability chart is a good way to determine what bead is best for your fidget style. The higher the durability, the better the bead holds up to biting.

[ID: An illustrated chart showing lineless art of a range of beads in rows on 2 scales of 1 to 10. The first scale is labeled "Squish Scale", with a box reading "1- Most Squishy 5- Medium Squish 10- Most Firm", and the second is labeled "Durability Scale" with a box reading "1-Least Durable 5- Medium 10- Most Durable". /id]

Our themes and bead designs include:

Nature

Mushrooms

Leaves

Flowers

Moon and stars

Animals

Moths and butterflies

Fandom themes

Our Flag Means Death

Pride

Pride flag patterns

Rainbows everywhere

They, He, She, Ze, Fae, Fey, Ve, Ey, Zie, and custom pronouns

Disability

Disability pride

Neurodivergant/mental health

Autism acceptance

Rare condition awareness

Accessibility device compatible decor: stickers, clips

Water bottle reminders

More!

Books

Music

Video Gaming

Self love and acceptance

Magic and Fantasy

Seasonal

Geometric and abstract jewelry designs

FAQ

Who is this good for?

These are especially useful for people who need items to fidget with, pick at, chew, squish, pull, or stretch! All the chewelry is made using materials that can be cleaned and are body-safe. Any item can still be a choking hazard, so these are not intended for young children or individuals who may be at risk for swallowing objects.

Are these chewable?

Yes! All of the beads we use on the fidget chewelry are made from food-grade silicone and can safely be chewed!

Where can I buy these?

You can find all of them on Xan's Etsy store! It is under the same name as their TikTok and Instagram (ArtisXan)! Their work is also in physical stores in Wisconsin.

Can I use these even if I'm not diagnosed, or am not neurodivergent?

Absolutely! Chewelry is not limited to any specific need or diagnosis. You can wear it just because you like the way it looks, or feels!

Do you make the beads yourself?

With two exceptions, our beads come from other suppliers. We don't have the facilities to make our own beads. We buy them from a combination of distributors and also directly from manufacturers. However, we did run a kickstarter to make two custom beads in collaboration with an artist who works with body-safe silicone! These are the morel mushrooms and the moon phase beads.

Are the other designs yours?

Yes! The stickers, art prints, pins, and other items are designed by Xan!

Can you make custom pieces?

We can customize some of our items, yes! We are happy to work with people to make pieces they'll be happy with, such as personalized pronoun chewelry! We are restricted to the beads we have and the prices may vary but we will always do our best to find what works best for you!

Will you ever make [insert bead shape here]?

We work hard to find pieces that suit Xan's brand and what people request! But we can only make things that manufacturers have created so we have a somewhat limited scope of options. However we are always looking for new beads and frequently find ones that hadn't been out before!

Why is [insert piece] more expensive?

Some of the beads we use are more expensive than others and so to offset the price we have to adjust the price a bit! We do our best to make sure that all the pieces are still within an affordable range for as many people as possible! And we do weekly giveaways to give more people a chance to get pieces even if they can’t afford them.

Can you make it without the small bead at the bottom or string it differently than shown?

Absolutely! Feel free to leave a note when you purchase to let us know you'd prefer a knot at the end, or for the main bead to be strung sideways without a knot or bead below it!

Why are are some of the pride necklaces different than the flags?

Some flags use so many colors, or so many shades of the same color, that we can't get enough of the beads to make the flag exactly, or to make the flag at all! For the Sunset Lesbian Pride and Aromantic pride, we have not been able to find body-safe beads that match the rest and come in different shades of orange, pink, and green, so some colors get combined for those designs. We keep an eye out for bead colors though!

Why don't you have a pride flag/pronoun necklace for [blank]?

Either we haven't had anyone request them, no one bought them when we did sell them, or they are ones we can't feasibly make. For example, we love the Progress Pride Flag but if we tried to make it we would run out of space for all the colors and it would be way too expensive for people to buy! (We do have a Progress Pride focus bead though!)

You can always contact us if there is a pronoun you want to use, or to ask if we could make a flag. We are willing to try!

What kind of bead should I get?

It depends what you want to use it for! The higher durability beads are best for biting and can take more heavy-duty fidgeting. Squishy beads are better for twisting and pinching. Textured beads are good for picking and rubbing.

How often do you make new designs?

We release new items and themes on a regular basis. Patreon and Discord users can get previews of what is coming out soon, and even suggest ideas. The chewelry depends on what we can source, but we continue to look for new beads. Xan designs stickers and other art frequently, and now that we have had a successful kickstarter we are open to the idea of making more unique beads.

Just a few of our items for sale:

Pride Fidget Jewelry Necklace (Currently 27 options!)

[ID: Photo of 9 necklaces in pride flag designs. The beads on each necklace are in order of the stripe they represent. From left to right, top to bottom is lesbian, gay rainbow, polyamourus, bisexual, pansexual, polysexual, Sapphic, aromantic, and asexual. The polyam flag necklace has a golden star bead at the base. The bi-, pan-, and polysexual necklaces have a black star at their bases, and the Sapphic necklace has a white flower base bead. The sunset lesbian and aromantic pride necklaces have multiple shades represented by one bead. /id]

[ID: Five pronoun necklaces lined up. From top to bottom the necklaces are "THEY/THEM, SHE/HER, HE/HIM SHE/THEY, HE/THEY" A circular black bead takes the space of the slash. The letter beads are white cubes with black letters. /id]

[ID: Four styles of morel mushroom items on a marbled background. From left to right are a pen, a key chain, a zipper pull, and a necklace. The morel bead is a pale base with a warmer tan to create the textured mushroom cap. The brown pen has a morel and a sunflower bead above the grip. The keychain has a sunflower, a light green leaf, and a morel on a black cord. The zipper pull has a morel by itself, and the necklace has a morel and a round black bead base. /id]

[ID: Eleven moon phase design items. Clockwise from the upper left are keychains in silver, gild, and blue, necklaces ins silver gold, and blue, a pen in silver, three zipper pulls in blue, gold, and silver, and a holographic silver sticker in the same design as the focus bead. The focus moon bead is circular, with a stylized sun at the center, surrounded by the moon in eight phases. The keychains have a black crescent moon and silver star on either side of the focus bead. The necklaces have a round silver base bead. The pen is black, with a silver star, a black crescent moon, and a silver focus bead above the grip. /id]

[ID: Photo of a hand holding a sticker of a leaf-patterned yellow water bottle with a black top. Black text over the bottle reads "Emotional Support Water Bottle" /id]

#artist #neurodivergent #queer owned business #small buisness #chewelry #Stickers #queer artist #actually adhd #disability pride #Queer #Trans #artists of tumblr #disabled creator

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k00280550 · 2 years

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Typography seminar - notes

17/11/22

I found this seminar really interesting and I learned a lot of new things about how to create typography. Here are some of the notes I took during this seminar:

- Handwriting turned into a beautiful art form in the 12th century.

- Monk- Black letter - long process and expensive

- The printing press was invented but the black letter was not the easiest to read. Letters improved over time.

- Typography developed in the 18th century

- Influence of the digital age: Digital fonts. A con to this was the excessive use of bad fonts. Pro to this is anyone had the potential to design their own fonts.

- Typeface = the term given to a family of fonts

- font: Someone referring to a single weight ar Style within that family.

-Typography is important for communicating with people. We use it for packaging, labelling and signage. Typography is everywhere in our daily lives.

Typography artists :

- Jan tschichold makes posters and book sleeves e.g. Penguin book covers.

- Milton Glaser is an American graphic designer. He says 'yes, no and wow’. ‘Baby fat’ is an example of one of his fonts.

- Wim crouwel - "new albhabet"

- Alan Fletcher British designer

- Paula Scher - logo design and album covers

-Stefan Sagmeister - graphic designer and typographer. Best known for his album covers, posters and book cover designs. He designed a album cover for the Rolling Stones.

- Mathew Raw works with clay

- Richard Evans - laser cut letters

- Max Miedinger- invented ‘Helvetica’ which is the most commonly used font.

- Jessica Hische- Works for Nike, Apple, Adobe, New York Times…

- Craig Word- explores the notion of word in image.

In the second part to this seminar I learned many interesting ways of using typography in art. For example making words out of shadows, matches to be lit on fire, cardboard, recycled materials, laser cutting, 3D printing, food or even a office. Can also make a word out of sparklers by taking a picture on a low shutter speed. Overall this was a very interesting seminar.

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kylesvariouslistsandstuff · 10 months

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Steve Gray selections...

The late Steve Gray. Composer. Active through the 1970s to the late 1980s...

Unfamiliar with him? It's very possible, especially if you're around my age, that you've heard a composition by him.

Let's see...

There's this one piece of music he composed in 1984... A very game show-sounding tune, very glittery and showy in its prominent brass. I feel like a charismatic presenter is coming onto a ritzy show stage, addressing the viewing audience. Maybe he has a neat car beside him that'll go to the lucky contestant.

No surprise, it comes from an LP titled TELEVISUAL. The entire record is on YouTube... You may know this short composition, or more specifically... The first FOUR SECONDS of it.

Skip to 7:44 to hear it...

youtube

Sound familiar?

That's the music Disney used for their iconic Feature Presentation title cards from roughly 1989 all the way to 1999. More specifically, the one that first showed up in spring 1992 on the VHS of ONE HUNDRED AND ONE DALMATIANS, with its lilac blue background and Laser font writing itself across the screen as the late Mark Elliott would say in his distinctive radio voice: "And now... Our feature presentation!"

youtube

Note: It was never corroborated that this logo first showed up at the very end of 1991, but many uploads of this particular motion graphic *say* it's from 1991. It isn't as far as I know, and I've dug deep. I haven't found these mythical copies of RESCUERS DOWN UNDER from the end of the year that supposedly have it. I just wanted to clear that up.

Moving on... So yes, Disney chose a piece of library music for this ubiquitous intro. It fits, honestly. Growing up, you would've never guessed it was some piece of music from a TV/news-themed production music LP published five years before Disney started using it.

Disney had used the composition in the mid-1980s for a demo/promo tape meant to be used by video stores only, so that wasn't available to the public. The music was, however, in Disney's orbit back then... It wouldn't be until 1989 when they used it for a Feature Presentation logo that looked like this:

youtube

And Disney would also use it for various title cards, too, such as this ROGER RABBIT-themed bumper that appeared on various Touchstone releases in 1989:

youtube

So, Steve Gray...

What else has he composed over the years?

Here are a few picks...

'In Time', Amphonic, 1974:

youtube

'Soul Searching', Amphonic, 1975, with Syd Dale:

youtube

'Newcomers', KPM, 1976:

youtube

'Relax', Bruton Music, 1979:

youtube

'Struttin', Bruton Music, 1980:

youtube

All grooves, honestly...

#disney #production music #1970s #1980s #Youtube

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tuiyla · 2 years

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“I’m also just curious to know which tools and methods you found useful [...] So yes please reach out again (either on or off anon whatever feels comfortable).”

Please bear in mind that English isn’t my first language and that it’s difficult for me to talk about Photoshop features, so I hope this is comprehensible ;-; Anyway, things you did that I found useful:

- Using the Transform tool to change the size of images/logos, text and most importantly gifs (when you’re blending them). In the latter case in particular, I used to crop them separately before combining them in a separate document so I’d have to proceed by trial and error until the gifs finally looked good together. The way you do it is much more flexible and quicker. I tested it and it worked! The only downside is that the file size can become much larger with this method. I was going to ask how you managed to use it while still working on seven gifs at the same time (ie in the fourth gif of the set, the one showcasing the last part of Naya’s career), but then I saw that you lowered the gifs’ dimensions before adding them to the document... I had forgotten to do that lol. Good trick, this will definitely come in handy.

- Combining two different ripped papers in order to obtain a different shape... That was pretty clever. And using the pen tool in order to cut parts of these ripped papers. I had never used this tool and didn’t know what was its purpose. Still need to try it and see if I can work with it lol. And also working on the ripped papers and text in a separate document before adding them on the gif. That’s a good method, it helps to keep things organized.

- Using a document with a bigger height than the actual gif's and adding a shape to represent the small space between gifs on tumblr in order to create a continuous transition between the separate parts of Chris’ tribute to Naya. I didn’t really know how to connect images or passages or whatever from one gif to another like that, but now I think I could make it work after seeing how you do it.

- Creating an outline for the butterfly by duplicating it, changing its color and blending mode and moving it a bit. I’d seen people add similar outlines in other sets, but had no idea how they did it.

- Using the rectangular marquee tool to delete parts of the gifs. I wasn’t sure how this tool worked, so it was interesting to see you using it.

- Using the method import video to layers. I still haven’t figured out how to use it myself because my Photoshop (I use the 2022 version) refuses to open the vast majority of the clips I download and I don’t know why. So I always used the Load Files Into Stack method. Still, good to remember that I can use another method if I manage to figure out how to do so, lol.

- Seeing the settings of the noise filter you added for your gifs. I never used it for my own, but I really like how it looked on yours and might try it at some point.

- Letting me know about the existence of another Youtube Downloader website. (It isn’t available in my country for some reason, but it works when I activate my VPN)

- Looking at your list of fonts also gave me some excellent recommendations like Partsold and Soulwave.

I imagine some of these methods/tips might be self-evident for you haha, especially bc I don't remember any gifmaker explaining most of them in any tutorial (and I search for and read a lot of tutorials). So seeing someone doing these things in a screenrecord was incredibly helpful. Hope you post more videos showing your gifmaking progress, I watched the previous ones too and they're all fascinating (especially the Naya one bc the set is so incredibly gorgeous and complex) <333

Oh wow, thanks for this summary! It was very interesting to read. And no worries about the language everything was perfectly clear.

If I may just reflect on a few points and maybe provide some further tips:

Transform tool: big yes, use transform and use it often! And yeah I've only recently started resizing the images before dragging them to the gif file itself and it saves a loooot of storage. You can't always know what size you'll need but I'm usually good with sizing the height to whatever my gif's height will be, 500px for example, and then I'm already much better off than with a smart object that's actually twice the size I need. I've been shaving off hundreds of MBs this way. I often work with several smart objects within the same file and they add up so yeah resize before converting into smart object when possible. And play around with the transform tool as much as you like! Its user-friendliness is one of the things that puts PS miles above similar software for me.

Pen tool and image combos: the pen tool is an old friend of mine from my shitty Avatar still image edit days. Again I recommend playing around with it because it can be such a powerful tool. Not shown on the video but I separated the Naya image used for the butterfly from its background using the pen tool. So I would mostly use it for cutting or small adjustments. And yeah sometimes you just need different shapes, so again the transform tool can do a lot and the pen tool helps with those final touches. I almost didn't include this section of the ripped pages in the video but I'm glad I did.

Using other docs: I don't usually but when it's something like this where the bottom of one gif "bleeds" into the next one I think it's just way easier to get the bigger picture. And then the shape used to represent tumblr's 4px gap helps to then place it on your actual gif.

Outlines via duplicates: it's become a "popular"technique from what I can tell haha, and all it is is nudging a duplicate and putting whatever effect you want on it. I had a few different variations of the butterfly but also if you look at texts like Naya's and Santana's names, they follow the same principle of duplicating and nudging, only there I put the fill percent on zero and add a stroke. It's mostly to help the text or object pop more, distinguish it from the background. (I guess I didn't include this in the video put ended up adding those outlines later.)

Rectangular marquee tool: particularly useful when used in combination with a layer mask and, like with the TV sets, deleting the unnecessary bits. With the TV sets, I just put the scene/smart object and all its adjustment layers under the TV's layer and whatever parts weren't needed got cut via this tool. In cases like these and where I do want a rectangular shape in the end it's just faster than the eraser.

Importing video to layers: this was life-saving when I upgraded my PS and started using it instead of manual screenshots. Maybe check the file formats? Mp4 should work best and, iirc, PS might not import from formats like mpeg and wmv. If you found a workaround that's good too, but might be worth looking into this issue as well.

Noise (and other filters): noise is a funny one because I don't typically use it. To be honest, I don't spend all that much time on sharpening and adjusting gifs to perfection like more disciplined gifmakers than me do. I usually just slap the usual settings on lol. But both because this project was a love child and because I worked with some truly, truly low res footage I tried everything I could to make it not look like it has the grand total of two pixels. For reference, this is the video of Naya hosting GLAAD in 2011, used for the last gif. This is the official GLAAD video and it still looks like it was recorded from a pen I found on the floor. I can't turn something like this into HD but a careful balance of sharpening and especially noise creates a nicer look, I hope, or at least adds a charm to the low quality. Long story short, there are lots of sharpening and probably some noise tutorials out there that I recommend looking into because it can really elevate gifs. At first glance, these are the ones I could find.

On the topic of youtube downloaders, I just ended up sticking with that one but I'm sure there are loads out there, and in terms of fonts I have way too many haha. And end up really favouring the first half of the alphabet as an unfortunate result. But if you want to explore more gifs, searching for font recs and font packs is a great start, as well as websites like Dafont or 1001 fonts (my new fav).

All in all, very happy I could help and very impressed you got all that from a video running on times 64 speed haha. Thanks for sending this in, I hope I could provide further tips and as always I'm happy to walk through more gif stuff if needed.

Also! I don't know if you've seen the two other gif videos I've posted in the past but they're waaaay slower (and less complicated). Maybe those will be nothing new after this massive Naya one but in any case I have a proper tag for them now and hoping to post more in the future.

#anon #gif asks #gif tips #gif tutorial #okay well barely but we need to keep the tags consistent #or at least try

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greenhorn-art · 7 months

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to catch a sunbeam with white moonlight

Author: orphan_account [this work has been orphaned and is no longer associated with it's author]

Fandom: 全职高手 | The King's Avatar

Rating: General Audiences

Category: F/M, Gen, M/M

Words: 55,720

At a Glory convention, Dai Yanqi meets Ye Xiu who is helping Su Mucheng buy her favorite doujinshi. They surprisingly hit it off as they browse through all the doujinshi about their peers and talk about Glory.

About the book

FONTS: EB Garamond (body text, title), Roboto (body text - electronic), Bebas Neue (title, headings), Alfie (title), Segoe UI Symbol (scene breaks - 'gear without hub')

IMAGES: Sunflower (Rawpixel, ID: 2687359), lightning (Rawpixel, ID:10200699)

MATERIALS: Domtar Earthchoice (textblock - 20lb, cream, 11x17 cut down to 8.5x11), Recollections paper pad (endpapers - Dark Watercolor Florals), Iris bookcloth (covers - Eggplant), Verona bookcloth (covers - Hot Toffee), Ribbon (covers - 1/4", shell grey), embroidery floss (endbands - 209 Very Dark Lavender), leather cording (endbands - 1.4mm), Ceramcoat acrylic paint (painted edges - metallic silver), Anita's acrylic paint (painted edges - 11038 Purple), Reeves acrylic paint (painted edges - Violet & Crimson & Blue Lake, Payne's Gray), waxed linen thread (sewing textblock - 30/3, white), Books by Hand (glue - pH neutral PVA)

PROGRAMS USED: Affinity Publisher (typesetting), Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo, LibreOffice Writer (QR codes), Bookbinder-JS (PDF imposer)

BINDING STYLE: Split-board binding, French double-core endbands

(Belated) Binderary Book 2024

My first year participating in Binderary and I'm 2/2 with my goals, albeit slightly late (even with the added leap day).

Goal No. 1: Bind a book!

This fic is an orphaned work, with no author available for me to reach out to. Convenient, since it was a last-minute decision.

Goal No. 2: Finish typesetting the fic that got me into this whole bookbinding/fanbinding hobby!

Bad Boys JEDI Style is a 217 chapter, 908k word "comedy of errors: in which our heroes are recruited to film a reality holo-drama". Much to my despair, the fic I loved had been deleted from every site it was uploaded to, and I was left kicking myself for not having downloaded a copy from AO3.

Shout out to Kam and Lofe, whose wonderful Binderary demos were put to use in the making of this book! Kam's French Double-Core endbands demo was super helpful, sizing up the 'textblock' and components made it easy to actually see what's happening with the sewing. Loffe's demo introduced me to the split-board binding technique and, sleep-deprived hiccup notwithstanding, I think I might find it easier then bradel style binding! Need to bind more books to know for sure (such a hardship 😔).

In other new-s, I took my dad's recent workshop baby for a spin. The bookbinding plough works like a dream! I tried a hidden fore-edge painting for the first time (just a solid colour), but the purple is lost under the Payne's Gray basecoat I applied to the silver painted edges. Adding ribbon to the cover was also new (mostly due to the fact that I never remember until the endpapers are already pasted down).

On the Design

Cover

This is a Team Thunderclap!Ye Xiu AU, so the cover was based on Team Thunderclap's uniforms from the donghua (from the one screencap of the team I found, see below): purple across the shoulders and forearms of their jackets with a yellow stripe down the centre. I added silver ribbon as a nod to the white of the jackets as well as the grey gear of the team's logo. Also in reference to the title: yellow=sunlight, silver=moonlight.

Title Page

The title page stumped me for a while. While brainstorming title page design ideas, I thought about what the title means. In English it's poetic but nonsensical, so I wondered if maybe it held some meaning in Chinese?

As it turns out, it does. Kind of. Maybe. (If I stretch and reach for it, it makes sense). According to a quick search of one webpage for each query, "'White Moonlight' usually refers to a person or thing that is elusive in the heart, has always been loved, but cannot be touched" or "an 'unforgettable first love'." The sunbeam itself might be Ye Xiu, the figurative ray of light, the hero, the gaming idol. Or 'catching a sunbeam' could refer to how "sunflowers turn their heads to catch every sunbeam."

The potential meaning I have cobbled together is how Dai Yanqi turns Ye Xiu's head and captures his heart by sharing the (SanXiu-ified) story of Su Muqiu, the aforementioned white moonlight. Is this what the author intended? Who knows. But it does seem plausible enough to inspire me.

I ended up using both the idea of sunflowers and Thunderclap's uniforms (again). Lightning referencing the team's logo, and also the white colour of a flash of lightning which is kind of like moonlight. The logo's background is blue, as is the uniform as seen on the cover of the manhua featuring the captain Xiao Shiqin (see below), so I made the background blue-purple.

Endpapers

The (not-actually-)sunflowers carried over to the endpapers, as well as the grey colour from the gear in Thunderclap's logo.

Endbands

Kept these simple. A solid purple, as close as I could get to the bookcloth. I didn't want to draw attention away from the stripes on the covers or the silver edges.

Probably could've gone for thicker cores.

The text

For the scene breaks I used a special character of a gear. The cog also looks like a sun. Which is fun because it can reference Thunderclap, the title (sunbeam), and my design choice of sunflowers.

I reused the lightning image at 50% opacity as a background to set apart the backmatter.

Misc.

Recently, I've begun to increase my efforts of preseving fanfiction and safeguarding the stories I love from purges and takedowns. (Sparked by the December 2023 scandal about Sony announcing an upcoming removal of content including the movies and TV shows that people have purchased).

This fic has been archived via the Wayback Machine at https://web.archive.org/web/20240215155152/https://archiveofourown.org/works/37414021?view_full_work=true.

Also, curses be upon Rawpixel. Since the time that I had downloaded the images, they have now be placed behind the premium user paywall (along with a number of other graphics and elements that used to be free).

#the king's avatar #tka #qzgs #fanfiction #bookbinding #fanbinding

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plutominho · 3 years

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start of something new || han

✧ WRITTEN BY: galaxy

✧ GENRE: college au, new year’s eve au, strangers to lovers/love interests, fluff

✧ PAIRING: han x reader

✧ SUMMARY: this is quite literally your and jisung’s disney channel moment

✧ WORD COUNT: 4.1k

✧ NOTES/WARNINGS: mild language + very brief mention of alcohol. confident!reader has pipes that the writer can only dream of. jisung is a fratboy that gets easily (and adorably) shy. speaking of fratboys, wingman! + fratboy!felix knows how to make a party interesting (max and i have this headcanon that jisung and felix are both fratboys but in different fonts and this fic basically fueled that agenda). short appearance of bestfriend!ryujin. yes this imagine was inspired by a certain iconic ‘00s disney movie, yes i was a disney kid, and yes i royally fucked up my sleep schedule for the sake of writing this imagine so pls don’t let it flop :/

HAPPY NEW YEAR BESTIES!! i hope y’all like this imagine and have a happy 2022 💖💫

on an unrelated note i literally bought the song used in this imagine and had it on repeat every night till 3-3:30 a.m. for the past four nights to write this can u tell i’ve lost my mind

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

you let out a shaky breath, shivering lightly as you leaned against the railing and admired the city lights. the ski lodge that your university’s student body had rented out for the annual new year’s party was absolutely gorgeous. the main rooms inside looked like something out of a movie, and the back area outside where you stood featured hot tubs, as well as a breathtaking view of the city that stood miles away from the venue. definitely worth the $80 fee to rsvp a spot for the trip.

you looked around you, and it seemed like you were the only one outside. a group of boys had come out to grab food from the grill earlier, so you only assumed they went inside.

after a minute, you decided to do the same, entering the ski lodge through the glass door and shutting it behind you. you figured you could find something interesting inside. after all, you were here for a good time. it’d be a waste not to seek it while you could.

as you stepped in, you found yourself back in the common room, the largest room in the resort, where the majority of the other students on the trip were gathered. most of the people formed a crowd around the middle of the room, eating and chatting amongst themselves as music blasted from the surround speakers.

at the center of the room was a small karaoke stage, right in front of a vacant dj stand. you watched a girl standing upon the karaoke stage, slurring the lyrics to “all i want for christmas is you” off-key into the mic as you navigated your way to the front of the crowd. you bit your lip to hold back a grimace; the university had banned alcohol from the party due to some students being underage, and it was painfully obvious she had snuck some in anyway.

what caught your attention the most, however, was someone else singing the same song. a male voice carried amongst the chatter, and you could still hear it from your spot towards the left of the stage. he was singing circles around the girl with the mic. and god was he loud.

“he’s good, isn’t he?”

you turned your head to the freckled, blonde boy who had asked you the question. you recognized him from around campus; you had heard from your best friend, ryujin, who was also at the party but catching up with other friends, that he was an officer of the student body as well as a fraternity member, so you always saw him at campus events. looking at his white hoodie with the university logo on the upper right corner, you figured he was one of the students in charge of the ski lodge party—you had seen several other people donning the same hoodie, so it made sense.

you glanced at the general direction of the singing boy before nodding at the blonde. “oh, yeah.”

“you know,” he motioned for you to lean closer, “he’s enjoying himself an awful lot for someone who didn’t want to be here.”

you let out a chuckle. “you’re kidding, right?”

“nope,” he said, popping the p.

“well… maybe he did want to come, but just needed convincing? it’s not everyday you see a frat boy at a student gov event.”

“i mean, maybe. or maybe i’m just a god at peer pressure.”

you shook your head as the two of you laughed. was that foul of him? sure. but was it genius? absolutely. you liked him already.

you heard a few claps as the drunk girl finished the song, dramatically bowing before stepping offstage. the blonde boy lightly placed his hand on your shoulder, taking his cue to leave and telling you to enjoy the party.

you watched him slip into the crowd, and before you knew it, he was at the center of the small stage.

“alright, let’s give it up for her, everyone!” he spoke into the mic, prompting another round of applause. “who’s up next?”

the crowd murmured softly, everyone trying to convince their friends to volunteer, but to no avail. eventually, all the chatter died down as everyone began looking around, wondering who would take the bait.

the blonde sighed a little, clicking his tongue a few times and shaking his head. “come on guys,” he said. “we were doing so well, what happened?”

still nothing. not a single word from the crowd.

he huffed a little, laughing softly into the mic as he tried one more time. “come onnnn guysss, or i’ll start volunteering people myself.”

the crowd froze. no one dared to make a move in fear of being singled out. the room was so quiet, you could hear a pin drop.

you pursed your lips as your eyes darted around the room. not even the loud boy was in sight to save everyone’s ass. shrugging, you hesitated for another moment before raising your hand. you were here for a good time, so why not?

“i’ll go.”

several heads turned your direction, and you saw people trying to follow the sound of your voice, scanning the crowd.

the freckled, blonde boy saw you, and he smiled warmly from ear to ear. as you made your way onstage and grabbed a mic, he mouthed a ‘thank you’ to which you just smiled and nodded your head.

“alright, that’s what i’m talking about!” he said, letting out a whoop.

you chuckled a little, looking at the corner of the room for a moment.

“and you know,” he added, prompting you to look back at him. “since you were kind enough to volunteer—what’s your name?”

“y/n.”

“y/n,” the blonde repeated before continuing. “since you were kind enough to volunteer, y/n, i’ll give you a duet partner! if you’re okay with that, of course.”

you smiled and nodded, going along. “that would be great, thank you!”

“alright!” he chirped. “now let’s see…”

the boy ran a hand through his hair as he scanned the crowd. you glanced at the crowd, too, for a second, before turning your head to look at him again, and you got front row seats as an evil smirk slowly creeped on his face. you especially took note of the cocky chuckle he did, as if he was imagining all the things that could go wrong.

what was he planning?

“jisung! get up here!”

he pointed into the crowd, and you followed his finger, which was clearly set on a specific person. your gaze landed on a brunette boy in a leather jacket over an off-yellow hoodie (with skinny jeans to complete the look), who you assumed was jisung by the look on his face.

the brunette’s face displayed a look of utter betrayal, and you couldn’t help but laugh at his expression.

“FELIX I THOUGHT WE HAD A DEAL, C’MON!”

you looked back at the blonde—felix—whose evil grin hadn’t left his face. “i know, but i never said i wouldn’t make you sing!”

“BRO I DON’T SING.”

even without a microphone, the brunette’s voice was loud enough for everyone to hear. the poor people standing around him, you thought to yourself as you watched with a smile.

“well, that seems like a you problem!” the blonde turned back to you, motioning for you to come with him to the dj stand, where the song catalog was. “anyway, y/n, what would you like to sing?”

“I DON’T EVEN GET TO CHOOSE THE SONG I’M SINGING?!”

“well, you didn’t seem very invested in this when i called on you so… no.” felix chuckled before moving the mic away from his mouth and looking over your shoulder at the song catalog. you mouthed to him, asking if jisung was the boy he was talking about a few minutes ago, which he confirmed with a nod.

meanwhile, jisung continued his protests, which were only ignored by the both of you.

“he said you looked good when you came in earlier, by the way,” felix deadpanned.

“WHAT.”

your head whipped around, but you were only met by the back of felix’s head as he had gone back to entertaining the crowd (and jisung’s complaints) at the karaoke stage.

you turned back around, shaking the thought from your mind as you continued browsing songs for duets. you found one you liked and went back to the karaoke stage to show felix your pick.

“what about this one?”

felix turned around, before looking at the song you were pointing to. “a bit cliche, don’t you think?”

you shrugged. “he just sang his heart out to ‘all i want for christmas’, i think he’ll enjoy this.”

by this point, the brunette had scurried up to the stage to grab a mic, stopping at the front edge of the stage just in time to hear your last comment. it was enough to make his ears turn red in embarrassment, which you noticed with a smile.

“oh, no no, you did great, baby! i wasn’t making fun of you.” you reassured jisung with a wink as you made your way to the karaoke machine.

he turned his head, following your motion from his spot as he ran his hands through his hair. “oh, i know i did great, thank you.”

you gave the boy a look as if to say, ‘really?’ to which he shrugged cockily. but you could see in his face that he was embarrassed, nevermind the rosy tint on his cheeks. your eyes lingered on him for a few more seconds before turning back around. you couldn’t help but be endeared by the way he reacted to your taunts, as much as you hated to admit it.

you called felix over for help with the machine, to which he gladly came over again. as he helped you select the song, he turned to jisung. “hey, ji, i think you’re gonna need this,” he spoke into his mic before tossing it to the brunette.

jisung fumbled with the mic, barely able to catch it which made you and felix snicker to yourselves. his confident yet embarrassed demeanor piqued your interest, and boy were you going to have some fun with it.

not giving him any time to react, you started the song, and the first beats of “start of something new” filled the room.

“high school musical?!”

“what, you scared of some disney channel?” you teased into the mic, a confident smile on your face.

“I TOLD YOU YOU WOULDN’T REGRET THIS!” you recognized the now distant voice of felix, who had to yell from his spot in the crowd as he had given his mic to the boy standing offstage.

“i don’t deserve this—” jisung groaned.

you watched the brunette in amusement, debating whether you should take the first lines of the song. with how much he was rambling complaints into his microphone, it looked like you were going to end up doing troy’s part.

after a few beats, the cue started, and so did you. “🎵living in—🎵”

“🎵living in my own world~🎵” jisung started before you could finish, cutting the note short so he could throw in a pointed comment at his friend. “FUCK YOU FELIX! 🎵didn’t understand~🎵”

you stopped singing and let him have the solo, laughing with the crowd at his sudden change of demeanor.

“🎵that anything can happen~ when you take a chance~🎵” he continued, and you couldn’t help but watch him in amusement, your mouth slightly agape. he was good, really good. and he knew it too. you could tell by the way he stood and the way he sang into the mic that this wasn’t his first rodeo.

but it wasn’t yours either.

“🎵 i never believed in what i couldn’t see~🎵” you sang gabriella’s part, slowly making your way to center stage. you felt everyone’s eyes on you, especially jisung’s. “🎵i never opened my heart~🎵”

“🎵oh~🎵” jisung chimed in.

“🎵to all the possibilities…🎵”

you glanced briefly at felix, whose jaw was dropped in astonishment, and he was frozen in place. but he caught your eye, which snapped him out of his trance. a slow smile spread across his face, and his eyes lit up. you both knew you had the crowd at your feet, and you were going to take advantage of every second of it.

you turned back to the crowd, a playful, confident grin on your face. “🎵ooh~🎵”

this was going to be fun.

“🎵i know...🎵” you sang, jisung harmonizing with you before you sang the next line by yourself, “🎵that something has changed…🎵”

“🎵never felt this way~🎵” jisung harmonized with you again.

you locked eyes with the brunette as you sang the next line. “🎵and right here tonight…🎵”

“🎵this could be the start of something new~🎵”

you began the chorus together, your voices blending perfectly. you followed his movement as he slowly made his way to you and he attempted to hoist himself onto the stage, despite the stairs being a few feet away from him.

“🎵it feels so right to be here with you, oh~🎵”

you continued singing together as you went to help him onto the stage, extending out your free hand for him to take as you rolled your eyes.

“🎵and now, looking in your eyes,🎵” you sang, pulling him up, “🎵i feel in my heart~🎵”

“🎵feel in my heart~🎵” jisung ad-libbed.

“🎵the start of something new~🎵” you two finished the chorus.

if you had blinked you would’ve missed him flashing his eyebrows at you. “🎵oh... yeah~🎵”

for the first time during the song, you were finally able to see jisung up close. you had no clue what you had set off in this boy within the past three minutes, but what you did know—from the confident gleam in his eyes—was that you had a lot more coming your way.

and were you right. the whole second verse couldn’t have gone by faster, and it all seemed like a blur.

the only memories of the second verse you remembered were coy looks from across the stage, stolen glances, and jisung taking your hand to spin you around once playfully.

the adrenaline rushing through your veins certainly didn’t help matters; you couldn’t focus on anything except the boy in front of you. the crowd seemed to disappear, and you were having the time of your life.

you began to move to center stage as you neared the bridge of the song, jisung right behind you as you closed out the second chorus.

“🎵the start of something new~🎵” you sang as you felt him take your hand. the light pull on your arm as you took another step prompted you to turn around, and you were so taken aback by the sight in front of you that you let the last note falter.

“🎵i never knew that it could happen till it happened to me~🎵”

you were met with the boy on one knee as he sang his line with his eyes closed, holding your hand in his free one. you felt your breath hitch in your throat and you froze, your other arm dropping to your side. you hoped to god that whenever he’d look up, he wouldn’t notice the blush slowly creeping onto your face.

jisung finally opened his eyes and looked up at you, immediately softening when he saw your state. he got so into his part, he didn’t realize just how tensed up your hand felt in his.

he stayed quiet for a beat, missing troy’s ad-lib. the climax of the song was coming up and you were about to miss your cue, so he had to think of something quick.

he decided to cover you, singing your line as he gave your hand a gentle squeeze.

“🎵i didn’t know it before, but now…🎵”

it was just enough to get you back on track, and you joined in time to hit the high note as he switched to the harmony.

“🎵now it’s easy to see, ohh~!🎵” you two sang together, jisung squeezing your hand one more time.

jisung gave you a small smile, and you smiled back, gently squeezing his hand as a ‘thank you’ before letting go and dropping your hand.

your slight falter didn’t faze you, and you were able to sing the final chorus without a hitch. jisung’s attempts at flirting with you couldn’t have landed farther from his goal. whether it was singing up close to you, or looking at you for just a little too long, you kept yourself focused as you came back to center stage, him following you like a stray puppy.

out of all the strangers you had sung karaoke with, jisung was the most fun partner you’ve ever had. he seemed to pick up on all your cues, and was able to bounce off all of your gestures with one of his own.

oh, what you would’ve given for this moment to go on forever. but alas, all good things must come to an end, and you two naturally made your way back to the center of the stage as you wrapped up the song.

“🎵and now, looking in your eyes~🎵” you both sang, giving it your all as you stepped closer to each other.

“🎵i feel in my heart~🎵” you took one more step towards jisung, gazing into his eyes.

“🎵feel in my heart~🎵” jisung ad-libbed once more, smiling at you sweetly.

“🎵the start of something new~🎵”

you smiled back at the boy, your heart pounding out of your chest as one final burst of adrenaline shot through you.

“🎵the start of something new~🎵”

jisung took your free hand in this, spinning you, making you laugh to yourself. when you turned back to face him, he locked eyes with you briefly before leaning you backwards into a dip, resting one hand on the small of your back, the other still around his mic.

you reached up your free hand to support yourself, gently wrapping it around the back of his neck as the two of you finished the song.

“🎵the start of something new.🎵”

you could barely hear cheers erupt from the crowd as you found jisung’s eyes and held his gaze. your heart pounded in your chest as you caught your breath, the adrenaline in your body finally calming down.

jisung held the pose for another moment as he looked into your eyes, and gave you a shy smile. you smiled back, letting out a small laugh as he helped you back up.

as you got back on your feet, you smiled at your partner one more time and took a bow. he did the same, letting out a giggle as the crowd’s cheers grew louder.

you saw felix approach the stage from behind jisung, and you took this as your cue to leave. you waved goodbye to the brunette as you walked down the steps and past felix, high-fiving the beaming blonde before disappearing into the crowd.

you decided to stick around for a bit as felix took the stage. a few people around you noticed you and complimented you, and you smiled and mumbled ‘thank you’s as you watched the boys on stage.

felix lightheartedly poked fun at jisung for a minute, the brunette groaning and covering his face in embarrassment as his friend made comments like “‘bro i don’t sing!’ my ASS”. the crowd let out a laugh and you couldn’t help but do the same, not only out of adoration of jisung’s flustered reactions, but also simply because felix was right.

“bro i don’t sing!” my ass.

after the crowd cheered for you and jisung one more time, you dipped out of the room to grab a water bottle from the kitchen, and in hopes of preparing for the countdown.

you had completely lost track of ryujin at this point, and you had about an hour to kill before midnight. that was still plenty of time to find her, so you just decided to find something else to do.

you spent a good chunk of the time making one more round around the ski resort, and eventually you found yourself back at the common room. you watched a few performances from the back of the crowd, but you couldn’t help but scan the crowd for jisung, hoping you could see him again.

but you didn’t see him, or ryujin, for that matter.

you huffed a little and went outside as a group of three boys took the stage.

you shivered a little, taking in the fresh winter air that nipped at your cheeks. you took a minute to adjust before walking around, looking for any hints of your friend or…

jisung.

out of the corner of your eye, you noticed a boy wearing a black leather over an off-yellow hoodie looking out at the city lights. you turned and smiled to yourself, and made your way over.

“hey.”

the boy turned to you and smiled a little. “oh, hey!”

you smiled back, and stayed quiet for a beat before speaking again.

“so… what was that about you not singing?” you asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow at him.

jisung let out an awkward chuckle at this, and not even the dim lighting outside could hide his blush. “um…” he scratched at the back of his neck, “that’s a really funny question actually.”

you rolled your eyes playfully. cute.

“okay but really,” he said after a minute, and you nodded, prompting him to continue.

“it doesn’t… really fit my frat boy image.”

you let out a laugh at this. it wasn’t the response you were expecting, but it was a fitting one at that.

“i’m serious!” he said before letting out a groan. “i’m gonna be fighting for my life in the group chat, and you’re laughing!”

you laughed again before nodding along. “you know what, so will i.”

jisung chuckled lightly, looking down as he shook his head. “you… you don’t have to.”

“but i want to.”

there was a comfortable silence that lingered between the two of you as your laughs died down. you found yourself staring into his eyes, a warm brown in the cold winter night, and you gave him a small smile. he smiled back and looked back down at the ground as he blushed again.

cute.

“oh my god, you guys did so good!”

you were snapped out of your daze by the sound of your friend’s voice, and you turned around to see her quickly walking towards the two of you. you were slightly disappointed that you had been interrupted, but hid it with a smile as you thanked her.

“hi, jisung, i’m ryujin.” she briefly introduced herself as jisung nodded politely. “anyway, you two had the best chemistry. i swear to god at least two people out there might think you’re a couple.”

she looked at you suggestively to which you rolled your eyes and fixed your hair to cover your ears, which you knew would turn red.

you exchanged an awkward glance with jisung, who gave you a shy smile.

ryujin laughed at your flustered states. “i’m kidding, i’m kidding… kind of. anyway, the countdown’s in like five minutes, so we gotta go!”

you were surprised, completely having lost track of time. ryujin grabbed your hand and began to pull you away before you stopped and dropped her hand.

grabbing a napkin from a table nearby, you took a spare pen on one of the tables and scribbled down your number.

you turned to jisung, and cradled one of his hands in yours, turning his palm upwards.

“i think you’re gonna want this.”

you placed the piece of paper in his hand before closing it with your other hand, keeping his hand in yours for just a bit longer.

“don’t lose it. call me next year so we can do this again, yeah?”

you took ryujin’s still extended hand, sending him a wink before turning around and disappearing into the crowd.

the whole countdown your mind never stopped thinking about jisung. from the second by second countdown, to the celebratory hugs, and even as you greeted everyone around you a happy new year, you wished you could’ve spent the occasion with the boy you just met.

it hadn’t been a minute after the countdown when you felt your phone vibrate repeatedly in your pocket. you excused yourself, finding a quieter spot in the resort to check who was calling you.

the number wasn’t one you recognized, but you knew who it was right away.

“hello?” you answered, bringing the receiver up to your ear, and you couldn’t help but smile once you heard the voice at the other end of the line.

“happy new year, y/n.”

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nancydrew428 · 3 years

Text

Game 34

As of yet, there’s no proof that there’s going to be a 34th game. Her Interactive has answered a few fans and said that they were working on a game, but who knows what that really means? To get a semblance of an idea, let’s do a deep dive.

Starting with the past couple of weeks, HeR is selling all of the physical copies of their games, as well as some other products (like their physical puzzles). I watched a YouTube video that said that while this may seem like a bad sign, it might not be. For starters, many of the physical games have been sold out for literal years because they only make a set amount of physical copies. When they run out, that’s it. So this isn’t a completely new thing. However, they are doing a mass sale. On the one hand, it could be a last ditch effort to get whatever money they can before calling it quits. But on the other, it could mean that they are trying to make the best financial decision that they can think of. Story Retold (LJ), on YouTube, works for Her Interactive and commented on that video in early April.

The most accurate explanation is that we at HeR Interactive wanted to celebrate the month of April as Nancy Drew’s anniversary. 💜 We made it themed as collectibles but yes, once the physical units sell out, we don’t make anymore. :(

I personally don’t believe that that is the only reason. It makes sense that they want to honor Nancy Drew’s anniversary (the first book came out in April 1930), so maybe that’s why they chose this month? But I feel like that can’t be the only reason.

I agree with Nancy Drew Walkthroughs on YouTube that Her Interactive probably has to pay for storage to keep physical items, so by selling the games, they won’t have to pay for the storage. They’ll also be making money off the games that they otherwise would not be making money from. As we have learned with the pandemic, and as marketers have known for decades, having people panic is a really effective way to sell something out. It’s why so many websites will have flash sales, the biggest words will be “for a limited time only,” and sometimes they’ll tell you how many copies of the product there are left, how many people have it in their carts, or they’ll say “hurry now, less than 50 left!” Even if you realistically had a long time to buy that product or the company actually has a lot of the product left, they create artificial scarcity and manufacture panic so that you’ll make impulse purchases. While it feels kind of slimy, it is effective when done right. And, correct me if I’m wrong but, I don’t think that Her Interactive has really done this before. So it seems like they might be stepping up their marketing which could be a good sign for the company.

I think this could be the company taking a step in the right direction to make everything digital. Although I absolutely love having physical copies of the games and other memorabilia, I also think that we are living in an increasingly digital world, and it only makes sense for them to get with the times. Go digital, spend less money on making physical games, etc. So many laptops these days don’t have CD/DVD drive, so many of their older games (and their newest game) have issues which can be especially hard with a disc, and so many stores don’t sell the physical games anymore. With a smaller, probably not very wealthy, company, it makes no sense for them to waste money on this. Like I said, I love collecting the physical copies, but I don’t really use them, and younger people coming across the games will probably go for the digital version, probably even buying it directly from Steam. (Which kind of a side note, kind of related, this article on Her Interactive is really interesting. It mentions that HeR kind of fought putting their games on Steam, because Steam took too big of a cut of their money. But I do think that that’s better than not having any of your games sell. And if they’re going completely digital, and almost all of their games are on Steam now, it seems like maybe they’re modernizing and progressing.)

While this could be a bad sign and I don’t want to get my hopes up too high, I do have some hope that it might actually be a good sign that they are finally getting smart.

Another thing that could either be worrisome or a good sign is that they changed offices. In another video from that same YouTuber, he talks about how Her Interactive still has the address that they’ve had for years on their contact page, but on their privacy policy page, they changed their address to a PO box. Plus, there’s a listing for their old office.

Obviously, this could be a bad thing, because they no longer have an office, and that just doesn’t sound good? But this also means that they’ll be saving money by doing so. During the pandemic, they’ve probably had to work at home anyway, so why pay for an office that no one is going to be in? It also makes sense, because at this point, they probably are not the ones making the games. They’re a marketing team who gives the Nancy Drew name to other companies to make the games. All of this can be done from home. LJ also commented on this video in early April, saying:

As far as I know, we are NOT going out of business. 😋 We are all remote working now, since our team (including a male) is all over the U.S. Our work is digital, so it’s an easy change.

Something else that he talks about in that video is that they changed the layout of their website. He points out that it costs money to pay someone to change a website, especially where it seems like multiple details have changed. Hate it or love it, you have to admit that the website is more sleek, modern, and just a different vibe to what it was before. Why would they put in the money for a website and company that’s going to be dead soon?

Lastly, he discusses the company’s change in advertising. I hadn’t even noticed the change (mostly because I don’t look at what they post; I only come across it if it’s posted by someone on here), but when he pointed it out, I did see the difference. The picture advertisements that they post are better quality (not necessarily in content, but in size and resolution). They’ve also changed the font that they use, they’ve ditched the logo, and they use random pictures as well. Regardless of whether it’s good or effective or not, it is a change. Here are two examples (one, two) from the past two years, and here are two examples from the past two weeks (one, two).

This change in marketing is also in line with their Facebook posts. Facebook is the social media that they are most active on when it comes to engaging with fans, at least from what I have seen in the past. But at least since January, they didn’t respond to any comments until they announced that they were selling out all of their physical copies. They didn’t respond to too many questions, but they responded to a few, for the first time in literal months. If they were shutting down, why would they start caring about answering fans’ questions now?

I also found information about some of the stuff that HeR has been doing in the past 2 weeks. I don’t have an account on the website so I can’t see all the information, so I don’t know what was blurred out. I also can’t see any other “scoops” about them, so I don’t know what they’ve done in the past, and I don’t know if this amount of activity is normal or more or less than they usually have. But the company has been doing a few things here and there, so as I keep saying, maybe this is a good sign.

With all of this being said, it seems like Her Interactive might not actually be going under. We can’t be sure, but we can have a little bit of hope. But even if that is true, just because they’ll still be a company, does that mean that they are going to make any more games?

I honestly don’t know. There isn’t much information out there about game 34, but I will still compile the information that I’ve found here. Unfortunately, it gives us nothing other than them maintaining that there will eventually be another game.

(Timeline) TL;DR: I think that the key points are that they started saying that they were working on the game in December 2019 (as far as I can tell), but since then they’ve also said that they were planning the game. To this day, they are saying that they can’t give out any information regarding the new game yet and can’t make guarantees as to when they can release any information, let alone the game itself. The only thing LJ has seemed to say with certainty is that the next game will be made on Unity. They also have confirmed that there will be some improvements from MID, but it will be similar.

Some other tidbits from this that sound promising but probably don’t mean much: they have said that it shouldn’t take as long for future games as it did for them to make MID, they’ve mentioned that there are plans for multiple more games, that we should subscribe to their newsletter to stay up to date with any new information regarding anything (game 34 or otherwise), and LJ hopes to share news in the near future.

And other things that they’ve said that I’m 99.99% sure don’t mean anything at all: Nancy might potentially someday go on a boat in the future, LJ likes jump scares too “😉,” and Bess and George might appear in future games. (The first two are probably just jokes and fun, but the last one seems like it could be true, just because they’re in most of the games in some way or another.)

Lastly, some speculations: the next game might take place in Austria, and they might address the drama between Nancy and Ned.

Now here is the timeline.

On May 8, 2017, someone from Her Interactive said: "Yes we plan on making a 34th ND game. No is hasn’t been designed yet. Yes there will be a teaser at the end of MID, but no, we haven’t decided on what that teaser will look like yet." Obviously, it’s been years and plans can change (proven by the fact that there was no trailer at the end of MID, lol).

In December 2017, Her Interactive posted a letter about why MID was taking so long to come out. Here was the most important part:

As you may recall, we are moving to a new engine to be able to develop a game not only for PC/Mac but also for tablets, consoles, and now for the increasing popularity of augmented or virtual reality. Very exciting! Part of us going down this path was to ensure that we have multiple platform options for future Nancy Drew titles so that all Nancy Drew game fans and those new to our games could play these amazing games no matter what their preferred device or platform.

This versatility means that the design and development of our games are even more complex than in the past. Our PC/Mac game design will work for players on the go with tablets and possibly for players that may want to immerse themselves in the mixed reality world. We are also constantly evaluating new technologies and trends in the game industry. Consequently, this is why it is taking much longer to develop this title than previous ones. This thoroughness will put HeR Interactive in a better position for the future while providing us with the tools necessary to continue to deliver amazing experiences for our fans.

On January 2, 2018, LJ responded to a comment on the blog saying, “Hello Carmen! South America is always a possibility for future game locations. However, we haven’t planned that yet. MID will be available for PC as well.”

On July 21, 2019, a Reddit fan posted a response they got from Her Interactive. They explained that they lost trust in the company and would not be preordering the game. They responded with their reasoning for the game taking so long and how it won’t happen in the future.

We are moving to a new engine to be able to develop a game not only for PC/Mac but also for tablets, consoles, and now for the increasing popularity of augmented or virtual reality. Very exciting! Part of us going down this path was to ensure that we have multiple platform options for future Nancy Drew titles so that all Nancy Drew game fans and those new to our games could play these amazing games no matter what their preferred device or platform. This versatility means that the design and development of our games are even more complex than in the past. Our PC/Mac game design will work for players on the go with tablets and possibly for players that may want to immerse themselves in the mixed reality world. We are also constantly evaluating new technologies and trends in the game industry. Consequently, this is why it is taking much longer to develop this title than previous ones. This thoroughness will put HeR Interactive in a better position for the future while providing us with the tools necessary to continue to deliver amazing experiences for our fans.

On October 1, 2019, they responded to a fan on Twitter saying, “Hello Grace, the consistent schedule back then was on a system that never changed or upgraded with the times. Once we get the structure of this upgraded game done, the future games will not take 4 years to make.”

On October 2, 2019, they responded to a fan on Twitter saying, “The frustration is understood. We hope to be more accurate in the future, and to regain our players' faith in the next game release.”

On October 4, 2019, they responded to a fan on Twitter saying, “Hello Lisa, we understand the frustration and loss of trust in us. Since this game was designed from the ground up, we have certainly learned a lot and will be applying our lessons to the future games.”

On October 4, 2019, they responded to another fan on Twitter saying, “Hi highly doubt the next game will take this long - since we had re-designed from the ground up in a new system this time. We apologize for lengthy delay. :(”

On November 6, 2019, two users on Gameboomers made comments:

One said that LJ said there wouldn’t be a trailer for the next game after MID, but “she did say that there were some ‘early ideas’ floating around for the next game.”

The other got an email from Her Interactive that said, “We will absolutely be releasing more games after Midnight in Salem. We cannot commit to a release schedule as of right now since all of our focus is on MID. It will definitely not take us as long for the next title to release. Four years is not the new normal.”

On December 3, 2019, Midnight in Salem was released. The end of the game didn’t have a trailer for the next as is the tradition for Nancy Drew games, but there seemed to be some drama between Nancy and Ned, and she mentioned wanting to go to Austria. A user on the Her Interactive message boards pointed out that the game was outsourced to an Austrian company so that might be the reasoning. But maybe it could be the plan for the next game.

On December 3, 2019, an article came out about the company that said, “Her Interactive has already developed a Nancy Drew VR proposal based on one of the books with a Spanish director, but it's more likely an AR project would come to market first.”

On December 17, 2019, a user on the Her Interactive message boards said that they emailed Nancy’s new voice actress who confirmed that there will be more games where she will play Nancy.

On December 29, 2019, they responded to a fan’s DM on Instagram asking if they were going to make another game to which they said. “Absolutely! We’ve already begun!”

On January 7, 2020, LJ responded to a comment on the blog saying, “Hello Oona! Yes, we are planning on more Nancy Drew games. Can’t say when the next one will be released, yet. 🙂”

On January 8, 2020, LJ responded to a comment on the blog saying, “Hi again Jillian! I’m not sure on the release month or year just yet, but I do know it will not take 4 years to make. 😉”

On January 10, 2020, LJ responded to a comment on the blog saying, “Hello SWhite5052! I’m not sure what the intent from our designers is for poor Ned. I’m a big fan of Nancy’s boyfriend, and I do hope we get to have him in-game someday, be Nancy’s hero and also take her out on a romantic date. 😉” I don’t think this really means anything, but I hope it means that she has hope that there will be future games.

On January 28, 2020, they responded to a fan on Twitter saying, “Yes, there are plans for more Nancy Drew games. :)” Plural?

On February 3, 2020, LJ responded to a comment on the blog saying, “Hi Jam5022! We do not have any news to share yet, but we are working on the game. 🙂”

On February 11, 2020, LJ responded to two comments on the blog:

“Hello felicity18! Glad to hear you enjoyed Midnight in Salem! The leads didn’t add a teaser to the end of the game per tradition since we are secretly working on the next one, and haven’t put together footage to share or tease on it yet. Stay tuned for future updates!”

“Hi Madi! Ship of Shadows was shelved, meaning we stopped working on it. At this time, we are only focusing on the main mystery adventure line.”

On February 20, 2020, LJ responded to two comments on the blog:

“Hi Sarah! Yes, the next game will be made on Unity. 🙂”

“I hope so, Nicole! I always like having Nancy’s best friends on the case with her! No promises just yet, but it’s likely for a future game. 🙂”

On February 25, 2020, they responded to a fan’s DM on Instagram saying, “New game info coming shortly. Stay tuned!” This didn’t happen.

On April 13, 2020, they responded to a fan on Twitter saying, “Hi Anna! When we have news on the next Nancy Drew game, we will be sure to share it! #NancyDrew”

On May 22, 2020, they responded to a fan on Twitter saying, “No news to share yet, but we are working on it!”

On September 13, 2020, someone on Reddit said that there was an untitled 34th game on Wikipedia. As they pointed out, anyone can edit entries on Wikipedia. But almost 7 months later, it hasn’t been taken down.

On November 29, 2020, someone on Reddit posted LJ’s response to a YouTube comment. “Game 34 is in the works. That’s all I can say for now. :)”

On December 1, 2020, LJ responded to some comments from October 2020 on a blog post:

“Hello! Game 34 is in the works. Stay tuned for future updates and be sure to subscribe to the newsletter for when we announce news. Glad you liked the graphic!”

“Hello! No news yet to share at this time, but that we are working on it. Keep an eye out in future newsletters for future bits of information. 😀”

“Sadly, I do not have anything to share about the next game. 🙁 I hope to be able to tease out clues in the future, though!”

On December 4, 2020, LJ responded to some comments from October/November 2020 on a blog post:

“Hello, beka! Sadly, I do not have any new info to share about the future game at this time. 🙁 I hope to share news with you in the future!”

“Hi Stephanie! It has been a while, hasn’t it? Sadly, I do not have any news to share at this time. As soon as I have some that I can share, I will!”

“Hi Natalina! It has been a while since we have had a Twitch stream. Sadly, we do not have any news to share yet about the next Nancy Drew game. Stay tuned!”

“Hello Foundation2430, things have certainly changed since Sea of Darkness. I am limited to what we can share behind the scenes, but once I have things I can share with you about the current and future games, I will. I don’t think the next game will take 4 years. 🙂”

On December 11, 2020, LJ responded to a comment from a blog post saying, “Hi ali! We are working on the next game, but we do not have a release date for it just yet.”

On January 6, 2021, LJ responded to a comment from a blog post saying, “Hello Natalina! Sorry, I do not have any news to share about new Nancy Drew games or projects. 🙁”

On January 8, 2021, LJ responded to two comments on the blog:

“Hi Aly! The next game is indeed in the works. Sadly, I cannot share anything about it at this time. 🙁 But I do hope you have a great new year as well! I hope to share more secrets with you in the future!”

“Hello Sanjeet! Happy New Year! We do have game 34 in the works, but I cannot share anything with you at this time. 🙁”

On January 28, 2021, LJ responded to a comment on a blog post saying, “Hi Cleanna! I think Nancy spending time on a ship is a great idea, too. Hopefully, she will get to do that in the future!” I doubt that this will happen, but she didn’t have to answer it this way. I guess it was probably to create some hope.

On February 2, 2021, LJ responded to two comments on the blog:

The first response was to a fan who talked about VR where she said, “Hello Madi! Thanks for sharing your concern. We have seen others comment their worry about the graphics since they get easily sick from motion as well. We are keeping this in mind for our future games. 🙂” I don’t think that they ever really planned to do VR, but she didn’t have to add that last part. Again, I’m guessing it was to create some hope.

The second response was to a fan who asked a question on January 15th where she said, “Hi Jessica! I do not know when the next game will be released, but once I have info, I will be sure to share it!” She answered this a few days after she answered the first question, when this was the first comment on the post. I wonder if she didn’t skip it, but rather waited until she could say the right thing.

On February 15, 2021, LJ responded to a few comments on a blog post:

The first comment asked if they’ll share any information on the game this year to which she responded, “Hi Rach! I do not know when news will become available to share. Sorry!” I understand this because MID was a hot mess where they kept giving dates and time frames that they couldn’t keep. But if they’ve been supposedly working on this since November, a year should be plenty of time for them to give some information, right? That they’ll keep the same voice actress for Nancy, part of the plot, who a phone character will be, the state or country it will be set in, or something super simple. Yet she couldn’t even say that she’d give any information this year.

She also responded to someone saying, “Hi Sarah! I cannot say exactly, since the behind-the-scenes work is top secret. I hope to share news in the near future when I’m able to!” One minute she couldn’t say whether they’d give out any information this year at all, the (literal) next minute she said she hopes to share news soon.

On March 3, 2021, LJ responded to a few comments on a blog post:

“Hi Lindsay! There are plans for the future. Stay tuned for news when I am allowed to share it!”

“Aw thanks for sharing! We are indeed working hard behind the scenes here. 😉”

On March 10, 2021, LJ responded to a comment on a blog post saying, “Hello Rishi! I would love to share information about our next game, but sadly, I cannot at this time. All I can say is that we are indeed planning another game. 🙂” So they’re still in the planning stage for the next game?

On March 30, 2021, LJ responded to a few comments on a blog post:

“Hi Becca! Jump scares are my favorites, too. 😉 Sadly, I do not have any news or even a date when we will share news about the next game. 🙁” (I kept the first part, because she didn’t need to put a winky face. I’m sure this is just wishful thinking, but maybe there will be a jump scare in the new game? Lol. But she doesn’t even have a date for when she can even share news about the game.)

“Hi Grace! We are indeed working on another game. I do not have any idea when we will be sharing news about it, though.” Pretty much the same, generic response.

On April 5, 2021, Her Interactive responded to a Reddit fan on Instagram about the future game saying: “Hello lorichelter! The next game will have some improvements but will be similar to MID. We’re glad to hear you enjoyed the game! Also, future games will be Mac compatible, but unfortunately we do not have plans to remaster the old games at this time. :( If we ever find a workaround for the Apple restriction of 32-bit games, we will quick to share that trick.”

#her interactive #nancy drew #clue crew #video game #video games #timeline #info #game 34 #post #mine

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muertawrites · 4 years

Text

Aphrodite Kallipygos (Zuko x Plus Size Reader) [Modern AU]

Summary: Zuko takes up an art class as part of his therapy and ends up falling in love with a woman who’s a work of art in her own right.

Word Count: 3,500

Disclaimer: There’s a scene in this fic where a couple of thin girls engage in some rude behavior and are criticized in a few none-too-kind words. I want to make it very clear that this scene does not reflect my views of thin people or body positivity - these characters are meant to be a metaphor for greater culture and its strict, unrealistic views of what women should look like.

Author’s Note: I hate rom coms but after writing this fic it dawned on me that I would be excellent at writing them. Also, this one goes out to all my art hoes out there. I geek out pretty hard about art history in this one.

Speaking of which, I reference real-world cultures within the structure of the Avatar universe in this one as well. Something I like to do when I zone out is think about which actual countries would belong to which bending nations; my heritage is primarily from the British Isles, and what with liths like Stonehenge and the hella castles hanging around out there, I think we’d be earth benders - same with cultures like the ancient Egyptians and the Pueblos. I also love the idea of Pacific Islanders who can bend both water and lava, and Incan air benders, and I really wish the idea of global cultures as benders were explored more in the Avatar universe.

Have I mentioned that I’m a massive fucking nerd?

~ Muerta

Zuko never considered himself much of a creative. When he thought about it, he realized that that part of his life had never really been explored; his father always pushed him to focus solely on his bending and combat skills, never allowing even the consideration of other practices or hobbies. As much as Zuko was passionate about the martial arts he'd mastered, he also came to learn that he never had a choice in being passionate about anything else.

“I think you should take an art class,” his therapist suggested. “It would be a good outlet for you, and one that isn't directly influenced by your family.”

“I don't think I've ever drawn anything, though,” Zuko admitted. “I wouldn't be any good.”

“It's not about being good,” his therapist explained, “it's about exploring things that weren't available to you in your youth, freedom of expression. Consider it - there's a shop in this neighborhood that offers classes.”

She handed him a business card adorned with an array of different art styles, from delicate watercolors to bright, bold cartoons; it read, “classes for everything” in a cheerful, clearface font.

Zuko shrugged and pocketed the card. A week later, he was enrolled in a basic studio art course.

He arrived for his first class embarrassingly early, passing under the bell of the shop’s front door twenty minutes before it was scheduled to begin.

The building that housed the shop looked to be older than the rest of the neighborhood around it; the storefront was tiny, with crowded shelves lining each wall and tables and racks wound throughout the center of the space, creating a maze that led to the checkout counter. The room’s ceilings were high, supported by beams in a dark stained wood that matched the floor below. Paper mache sculptures and handmade lanterns hung from the rafters, and the simple, antique plaster walls were decorated with paintings and sketches, likely given by the shop’s clientele. From somewhere in the back, a radio sang folk music, accompanied by the hum of an electric fan.

Zuko wandered through the labyrinthine merchandise displays until he reached the register, where he was met with the single most beautiful sight he may have ever laid eyes on.

You stood behind the counter, leaned over a textbook with a pencil in hand, tapping it back and forth over the pages; you bit your lip in concentration, a few strands of your hair falling loose from the messy knot atop your head and over your cheeks, though you were too focused on your reading to care. An apron bearing the shop’s logo was tied around your waist, emphasizing your body's dramatic curves.

To Zuko, you were gorgeous. He couldn't place what exactly about you allured him; all he knew was that his pulse had quickened to a near dangerous pace.

You looked up at him when you noticed you were no longer alone, flashing him a kind, somewhat distracted smile. He nodded curtly, too nervous to do anything but stare.

“Can I help you?” you greeted him politely.

He cleared his throat, his voice coming out a pitch higher than normal as he spoke.

“I'm here for the art class,” he told you.

You smirked a little, peering down to check the time on your phone.

“It's a little early,” you said. “I was just about to start setting up. You could help me if you want? So you're not so bored while you wait?”

“Yeah,” Zuko mumbled, “yeah, sure.”

You grinned, waving him behind the counter and through a door to the back room. To his surprise, what he expected to be a minuscule stockroom turned out to be a space larger than the actual shop, lined on one wall with massive warehouse windows that poured late afternoon sunlight into the room. Metal shelves and boxes lay haphazardly about, mixed in with a scattering of easels, pottery spinners, canvases, and other art supplies. You directed your guest to a stack of chairs in the corner, instructing him to line them in a half circle in an empty portion of the room while you placed the easels.

“So, do you have a name?” you asked, attempting to make conversation that could drown out the repetitive radio drone.

“Zuko,” he introduced himself.

You stopped what you were doing, fixing him with an awed, slightly amused gape.

“Firelord Zuko?” you wondered.

He blushed, nodding.

“Oh spirits, I'm sorry I didn't bow!” you exclaimed, dropping into a low curtsy. The gesture was mixed with equal parts mirth and genuine respect; Zuko was unsure how to respond, his heart flickering as he watched you.

“I heard you were living somewhere in the city,” you continued after making your own introduction, setting an easel in front of each chair he positioned. “Not into the whole royalty thing?”

Zuko shrugged. He focused on his work, too nervous to look you in the eye.

“Just weird going back there,” he told you. “I don't really want taxpayer money going to making sure I live above my means.”

You leaned against the last chair he set down, smiling warmly at him.

“That's very respectable,” you responded. “Thank you. Y’know, as someone who pays taxes.”

Zuko chuckled softly as you handed him a bin of art supplies, instructing him to set one of each item at every station. He did as he was told, stealing glances at you whenever he was sure you weren’t looking.

“So, uh… do you own this place?” he asked, fumbling over his words.

“Oh, no, this is my professor’s shop,” you replied. “I just work here part time.”

“You’re a student?”

You shook your head.

“Nope. Graduated last year. I work days at the history museum downtown. I also give art history classes here, and help out with the ones Professor Cong teaches.”

“Oh.”

Zuko paused, unsure of what else to say.

“... They teach a different type of history just for art?” he asked after a moment.

You laughed, covering your mouth to muffle the sound and apologizing, giving him a little nod as you collected yourself.

“Yes. Some people even get whole degrees in it,” you giggled. “Not that it’s a useful field to learn anything about.”

Zuko shrugged, trying to shake off the embarrassment of sounding stupid in front of such a cute girl; little did he know, you found the question beyond endearing.

“It sounds important,” he contested. “I’ve been meeting historians from all over the world to correct all the propaganda from the past hundred years. It never occurred to me that I would need different historians for art.”

You smiled at him, meeting him where he stood and handing him one of the sketch pads from your bin. His cheeks pinkened, his eyes darting away from yours as he took it and mumbled a “thank you”.

“I like you, Firelord Zuko,” you decided aloud. “My classes are on Wednesdays. You can come if you want - free of charge.”

Zuko nodded, swallowing heavily as he met your gaze once again.

“Thank you,” he replied. “I appreciate it.”

You laughed a little bit, taking his now empty bin and returning both to their place on a nearby shelf. The shop’s bell rang from beyond the threshold and you went back to the front counter, telling Zuko to take a spot wherever he liked. He sat in the front row; wherever he thought he could be closest to you.

For the next five weeks, Zuko attended not only his studio art class, but your art history class, showing up early to each lesson so he could spend time alone with you. Despite the fact that you invited him to sit in, he paid the fee for the second course, not wanting you to go without the extra pay for your work - he found a doodle of a turtle duck on his seat the next time he showed up, the fuzzy little penciled duckling telling him he was a terrible listener, but thanking him anyway (with a heart scribbled in beside the words).

With your guidance, Zuko learned that there was much more to art than just vibrant colors and pretty decoration. Everything in art, it turned out, had significance, each piece and work holding insight into the people and cultures who created it; you spoke passionately about the art of the Egyptians, who used specific shapes and colors in their imagery to tell stories beyond the written word, about the mysteries of prehistoric structures that revealed how early humanity was much more sophisticated and interconnected than considered at a glance, about the symbols that translated and influenced across centuries to shape how each nation, each culture, portrayed themselves into the modern world. He found himself hanging on every word, falling even more deeply enamored with you with each moment he spent with you.

It didn’t take you long - what with the easy, pleasant conversations you shared before classes - to discover that Zuko lived relatively close to you, only two stops away on the local metro. Knowing this, you often saw each other on the days you weren't at the shop, meeting at the station between each of your respective neighborhoods and having coffee or dinner in one of its many cafes, talking about anything and everything and managing to pass several hours together in what seemed like the blink of an eye. You loved being with Zuko, finding the more you did it, the less you wanted your rendezvous to end; you thought about him all the time, getting all kinds of giddy whenever he crossed your mind.

On one of your extracurricular excursions, you and Zuko wandered around the local high street, marveling at the different streetside vendors and dreamily window shopping behind the glass of the upscale boutiques, doing little more than enjoying each other’s company. It was a hot day, and along your way, Zuko stopped at a coffee stand to get you each something cold to drink.

A pretty young woman in line in front of you eyed you up and down, her gaze flicking from between you and Zuko with disgust. She jabbed her slim, graceful elbow into her equally as flawless friend’s side, whispering something in the other woman’s ear as they both glared at you, sniggering cruelly behind flat stomachs and angular, willowy frames.

You sneered at them, making a point of hooking your arm within Zuko’s and pressing your much wider hip against his, the poison of the encounter sinking into your skin and infecting your thoughts. Zuko noticed your change in demeanor immediately, steering you away from the scene as soon as your drinks were served.

“You okay?” he asked, still holding tight to your arm.

“Fine,” you quipped, biting back tears. “Just a couple of pretty bitches proving how fucking hideous they are on the inside.”

“Wait, seriously?”

Zuko halted, pulling you to the side of the street and out of the way of traffic. He lay a hand on your shoulder, the firm, able grasp of his palm somehow making you feel even worse.

“Someone would really make fun of you?” he wondered, outraged and incredulous. “Why?”

You shook your head, smiling defeatedly as your lower lip quivered.

“People have made fun of me since I was a kid, Zu,” you told him, speaking as if he should’ve just assumed it. “I’m fat. You can’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”

“So?” Zuko replied. You were so shocked, you physically leaned away from him, raising your eyebrows. “Yeah, you’re fat. That doesn’t mean you’re not pretty. I… I think you’re really pretty. Gorgeous, even. You’re beautiful.”

You blinked at him, taken aback. He gave your shoulder a reassuring squeeze, his eyes never once leaving yours.

“... Did I break you?” he tried after a moment, sounding concerned that it was a genuine possibility.

You laughed, shaking your head in feverish disbelief, attempting to clear the confusion that fogged your battered brain.

“No, I just… Nobody’s ever called me pretty and fat before.”

Zuko shrugged.

“Both are true,” he told you. “I like your body. You look like one of those Greek sculptures. Of the goddesses.”

You stared at him, searching his eyes for any sign of dishonesty or patronization; all you found looking back at you was the clumsily genuine man you were quickly falling in love with.

“... Have I ever told you about Aphrodite Kallipygos?” you asked.

Zuko shook his head, as confused as you had been a few seconds ago.

“She’s a statue of Venus,” you explained. “She’s got her dress raised up over her backside, and when they found her originally, she didn’t have her head; the guy who restored her sculpted it so that she was looking back at herself, admiring her body. There’s even a whole folktale about a pair of brothers who fell in love with two women because they had, like, beautifully fat asses and the town built a temple dedicated to Venus and her butt. The name literally translates to ‘Aphrodite of the Beautiful Buttocks’.”

Zuko chuckled, raising the hand at your shoulder to cup your cheek.

“See?” he said. “Men have worshiped thick, juicy butts since the dawn of time!”

You laughed, your cheeks turning bright red as you buried your face in your hands, leaning forward to rest your forehead on his chest and further hide yourself.

“Zuko, oh my god,” you breathed. “Promise me you’ll never say that out loud in a public setting ever again, please. You’re the fucking Firelord for Tui’s sake.”

Zuko chuckled, wrapping an arm around your waist and hugging you tightly.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, still grinning. “Made you feel better, though.”

You pulled away from him, affectionately punching him in the shoulder. He laughed, gasping at you in mock reproach before pressing a finger into your side, shocking you with a burst of static electricity; you cackled as you jumped away, sticking your tongue out at him.

Zuko felt a rush of lightheadedness as he watched you, savoring the sound of your laugh and the radiance of your smile. It was then he realized he was in love with you.

The next studio art class focused on model drawing - more specifically, a nude model. Zuko, having been raised in what was arguably the most reserved family in the world, was nervous about the idea of having to sit in front of a stranger for an hour, not only staring at their naked body, but immortalizing it in graphite on a page.

He was mortified when he arrived at the class and found you sitting in the corner, wrapped in nothing but a silk dressing gown.

As you climbed the platform you were meant to model on, your limbs rattled. You began to question your sanity, wondering what you thought you were doing offering to pose for the class, what kind of statement you thought it would make. You faced enough judgement from others about your weight with your clothes on - what the hell did you think they would do when you stood before them completely naked, every bump and crevice on full display for them to gawk at and criticize?

You glanced to the side at Professor Cong, seeking some sort of assurance or comfort from him; he, being the seasoned professional in his mid-sixties that he was, sat reclined in a chair in his Hawaiian shirt and flip flops, scrolling totally undisturbed through Pinterest on his phone. Honestly, you expected no less - his obtuse reactions in the face of the awkward and uncomfortable were basically a superpower.

Taking a deep breath, you untied the knot holding your dressing gown together and let it fall, slipping gracefully from your shoulders and to the floor. You assumed a comfortable, classic pose, purposely facing yourself away from the man whose eyes you could feel searing into your back.

Zuko’s breath hitched as he watched you undress. Though he only saw the full of your body for a moment, he was captivated. The swell of your breasts and curve of your stomach sent him into a dizzy spell, his mouth going dry and his skin heating with a noticeable flush. The rolls of your back, the ripples and divots along your thighs and rump, the stripes etched into your skin like the veins through a granite block, he drank in every part of you, moulding every detail with a focused hand as he sketched. He made note every scar and beauty mark. Once or twice, his mind drifted towards the salacious, imagining how your body would feel beneath his, soft and supple, releasing exalted breaths and enraptured moans, your nails dragging down his back as he drove you closer and closer to infinity…

He inhaled sharply, snapping himself back to his work. You were Venus, Minerva, Diana - a goddess among men. He would gladly spend the rest of his life worshiping you.

The moment the class ended, you gathered your dressing gown and made a beeline for the employee bathroom, getting back into your clothes as quickly as you could physically manage. The experience of nude modeling wasn’t nearly as harrowing as you expected it to be; you actually found it kind of freeing, being able to show yourself to a room full of other people and come out of it unscathed, in fact feeling quite beautiful - what had you nervous was the fact that you’d have to face Zuko immediately after the fact, seeing as you took the train home together after classes. His was the only opinion you cared about, and you wanted nothing more than to convince yourself that he hadn’t judged you as harshly as the self-hatred brainwashed into you made you believe.

When you emerged from the bathroom, Professor Cong stood in front of one of the empty easels in the back, smirking at the drawing the student had left there.

“Your boyfriend left you his piece,” he teased.

You blushed, glaring at him as you approached and snatched the sketch from his hands.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” you tried in vain to defend yourself.

Professor Cong just chuckled.

“I’ll believe that when I see evidence to the contrary,” he replied.

You looked down at the paper in your hand and felt the breath drain from your lungs, your heart and stomach soaring into your throat.

Zuko had drawn you in the image of Venus, your body draped in gossamer fabric and your head turned over your shoulder, eyes cast downward and lips slightly parted in a blissful, ethereal expression. In the corner of the page, he’d written “Aphrodite Kallipygos” in his sweeping handsome script, beneath which was his signature and the date. You’d never once seen yourself look so beautiful, let alone in the eyes of someone you loved so fiercely.

You swallowed hard, rolling the drawing and securing it with a hair tie from your bag before exiting the shop through the back, knowing Zuko would be in the alley waiting for you.

“Hey,” he greeted you when you appeared through the storeroom door. “Are you okay? You looked really ner-”

You interrupted him by throwing your arms around his neck, slamming your lips into his in a desirous kiss. It took him less than a second to recover himself from the shock of the action and curl his arms around your waist, pressing his body against yours and lifting you every so slightly off the ground, kissing you just as hard as you kissed him. When you parted, you were breathless, your cheeks fiery red and your lips swollen the color of vermilion. Zuko smiled at you, one side of his mouth curling up slightly higher than the other.

“So you liked it?” he asked.

You laughed, nodding.

“Zuko, I loved it,” you gasped. “I love you. I think I loved you as soon as I met you but that sort of thing is really cliche and stupid to admit.”

Zuko chuckled, raising his hand to your cheek and kissing you again, his lips soft and tender this time around. You sighed happily into his mouth, closing your eyes and losing yourself in the feeling of his body sharing the same space as yours.

“I think I loved you the moment I met you, too,” Zuko confessed, his nose grazing against yours as he pulled away. “But you’re right. That sort of thing is really stupid and cliche.”

You giggled, tugging gently on the collar of his jacket.

“Come on,” you prompted him. “Let’s go back to my apartment. You’ve already seen me naked; we need to make it even.”

Zuko laughed, wrapping an arm around your shoulders and leading you out of the alley, his side pressed firmly against yours.

“Fair,” he agreed. “But if you want me to pose for any art, you’ll have to sign some paperwork. I’m still Firelord, you know.”

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Transcript Episode 44: Schwa, the most versatile English vowel

This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm Episode 44: Schwa, the most versatile English vowel. It’s been lightly edited for readability. Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. Links to studies mentioned and further reading can be found on the Episode 44 show notes page.

[Music]

Lauren: Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics! I’m Lauren Gawne.

Gretchen: I’m Gretchen McCulloch. Today, we’re getting enthusiastic about schwa and stress. First, we made our LingComm grant goal! We’re now giving out three grants to linguistics communication projects. The deadline for those applications is the 1st of June wherever you are, which is very soon, so make sure to get those applications in. That’s 2020, in case you’re listening from the future.

Lauren: We’re actually giving out four. We are giving out more than we originally planned, thanks to Claire Bowern funding a fourth LingComm grant on a project that looks at minoritised languages.

Gretchen: Those grant applications are due on June 1st, 2020. If you’re interested in applying for that, go to the website lingcomm.org. That’s “comm” with two Ms. You’ll see all the details there.

Lauren: If you’re listening to this deep in the future, you can go to lingcomm.org to see what great projects we funded.

Gretchen: Indeed you can.

Lauren: We now have new Lingthusiasm merch. We have little badges for you to wear through Redbubble, which is really exciting. They’re super cute.

Gretchen: Interesting! I think I would call those “pins” or maybe “buttons.” Whatever you call them, they are round circular things that you can pin on your clothes or backpacks that say fun linguistics things on them.

Lauren: Hm. I’d call them “button badges” as well.

Gretchen: I think “buttons” is kind of ambiguous because you don’t know if that’s a kind of button you use that you sew into your clothing or that you pin into your clothing. Maybe I like “pins”? Anyway, you can get these at lingthusiasm.com/merch along with more sticker designs and other Lingthusiasm merch like scarves with the International Phonetic Alphabet on them and other fun things like that.

Lauren: This month’s Patreon bonus episode is about numbers. We look at different counting systems, different number systems, and what using your fingers to count says about you. You can get access to this and 38 other bonus episodes at patreon.com/lingthusiasm.

[Music]

Gretchen: Okay. I have a puzzle for us.

Lauren: Awesome. I love a puzzle.

Gretchen: I’m gonna give you a few words, then you can tell me what they have in common. Our words are “about.”

Lauren: “About.”

Gretchen: “Broken.”

Lauren: “Broken.”

Gretchen: And “council.”

Lauren: “Council.”

Gretchen: Any thoughts for what they have in common?

Lauren: My immediate thought was I’m sad we don’t have Lingthusiasm think time music.

Gretchen: We do have theme music. Maybe we could play it a bit again.

Lauren: Hm. Ah. “About, broken, council” – they all start with different letters. They all have different letters in them. I’m assuming it’s not something about what they mean. They’re all two syllables long.

Gretchen: That’s true. I should give you a couple more examples that also have this thing in common to see if that helps.

Lauren: Okay.

Gretchen: We have “about, broken, council, potato,” and “support.”

Lauren: Oh, “potato.” The goes my two-syllable theory. Definitely nothing semantic about their meaning. They still all have completely different letters. You’ve actually made it harder with more data, Gretchen. Harder. That’s not useful.

Gretchen: The thing we wanna think about is not just what letters are in them but what sounds are in them.

Lauren: Right.

Gretchen: Is there any sound that all five of these words have in common?

Lauren: If I look at the spelling, they all have completely different vowels. They don’t even have the same vowels. But if I listen to how they’re spoken, think about “about, broken,” and “council,” [Gasp] “potato,” and “support,” they all have schwa.

Gretchen: They all have schwa, which I know is your favourite vowel. I have created this quiz just for you.

Lauren: Excellent. Thank you so much. They all have this /ə/ sound. It’s the coolest little letter that doesn’t exist as a written letter in English. It’s one of the coolest sounds in English. I love it. We’re doing a whole episode. It’s schwa time.

Gretchen: It’s schwa time. So, /əbɑʊt/ has that /ə/ in the first syllable. /bɹoʊkən/ has that /ə/ in the second syllable. /kɑʊnsəl/ has that /ə/ there – /pətɛɪtoʊ/ /səpoɹt/. There’s the /ə/ going all the way through. Here’s your second quiz. There’s a special thing about this particular set of five words. They all have schwa in them, but they all have something else that’s different about them.

Lauren: They’re all spelt with the actual different vowels. When I learnt that schwa was the sound that hid across all of the vowels – it doesn’t matter what one you write, if it’s in an unstressed syllable, and we’ll talk about that, it becomes a schwa – it explained to me why I find writing some words so difficult. If you don’t know how to spell “potato” and someone says /pətɛɪtoʊ/, that could be a P-A, that could be a P-U. It’s really hard to tell. But all of those are written with different vowels but sound the same in speech.

Gretchen: Yeah! You get words like /dɛfənɪtli/, which was one of these words that I didn’t know how to spell for the longest time. It would give me this red underline and I was like, “Why? This looks totally reasonable to me!” Then, I had to learn that the schwa – /dɛfənɪtli/ – the schwa there wasn’t spelled with an A, it was spelled with an I. You really can’t tell in English because every single vowel letter can represent this particular vowel sound, which is really frustrating when you’re a kid learning how to spell and yet is really cool when you’re a linguist because it’s one of these mysterious things that once you notice it, it’s everywhere. Yet, you can go your whole life without noticing it.

Lauren: We talked about all the vowels back in Episode 17 with vowel gymnastics and how, unlike consonants, vowels exist in this space and they all shift around like a multi-dimensional slide trombone. I guess that’s why we went with “gymnastics” as an analogy instead of “multi-dimensional trombones.”

Gretchen: I mean, if someone wants to design a multi-dimensional trombone for me, I’ll take it.

Lauren: We talked a teeny bit about schwa in that episode, but I have been wanting to do an episode all about schwa for ages. Here we are. Exciting times.

Gretchen: I think we should also mention what schwa looks like when it’s written in the International Phonetic Alphabet because it is part of your icon or your whole icon on various different websites, is it not?

Lauren: Yes. If you’ve ever seen the upside-down E looking thing that is the Superlinguo logo, that is the sch – so schwa is interesting in that it has a name. It also has, like all of the vowels, a representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet. That representation looks like an upside-down E. I’m not normally one of these people that has lots of opinions about fonts, but when it comes to how it’s written, it is not an upside-down E. This is something I’m very fussy about.

Gretchen: What is the difference between a schwa and an upside-down lowercase E? Please tell the class because I don’t know.

Lauren: If you turn it back up the other way, it looks really unproportioned. It’s like the top of the E is just way too high up. It looks all weirdly stretched.

Gretchen: So, the thicknesses of the letters and so on are weirdly stretched? Is that the thing?

Lauren: Yeah. The height of that little loopy bit of the E, if you turn it back the other way and try and use it as an E, looks a bit – it just makes it look like the E is gonna fall over. It’s really wobbly.

Gretchen: Okay. I feel like we need to point this out that you know this because you made schwa cookie cutters.

Lauren: Yes. I designed and 3-D printed a schwa cookie cutter a few years ago for Christmas gingerbread.

Gretchen: Then, a very helpful person on the internet said, “Couldn’t you just have used an E cookie cutter and turned the cookies upside-down?” and you were like, “No, no, no, because the thickness is different.”

Lauren: No. You absolutely cannot.

Gretchen: I feel like, historically speaking, it probably was an upside-down E though because I know a lot of the IPA symbols are upside-down versions or rotated versions of existing letters because that way they didn’t have to typeset new letters back in the metal printing days. But I believe you that, now that we have digital formats, schwa can have slightly different line thicknesses.

Lauren: Yes. It has its own representation. It has a name that not many other vowels have names. Technically, it’s a mid-central vowel, which just means it’s just in the centre. It’s not high. It’s not low. It’s not front. It’s not back. It’s not any of these dimensions that we talk about. It’s just the most /ə/ vowel that exists, which is why everything ends up going towards it when it’s not stressed because it’s the least exciting thing to do with your mouth. There’s actually a Wikipedia entry for the mid-central vowel – that /ə/ vowel – but schwa is so iconic there’s also a separate Wikipedia page just to talk about it as “schwa.” This is how strong its brand is.

Gretchen: Schwa’s brand is strong. Especially for the vowels, normally if we talk about vowels, we talk about /i/ or /ɛ/ or /ʊ/. You just say the name of the vowel – or sometimes people say the name of the symbol. Like, “small cap I” or –

Lauren: “Open O.”

Gretchen: “Open O” or something like this. Schwa has got this name that doesn’t refer to the shape of its symbol, it’s got its own name. The thing that’s always tormented me about the name “schwa” is, like, it’s a cool name. I will grant you this. But it doesn’t have schwa itself in the name.

Lauren: This is true and very disappointing.

Gretchen: Other symbols, like “theta” – /θɛɪtʌ/ has a theta in it. Great. We’re doing a great job. Good job, theta. Schwa does not have a schwa in it, and I find that kind of disappointing.

Lauren: Disappointing.

Gretchen: However, I looked up the history of the name “schwa.” Apparently, “schwa” used to have a schwa in it and then it stopped, which I now think is even better. The word “schwa” is from the Hebrew /ʃva/ for which the classical pronunciation was apparently /ʃəwa/.

Lauren: Ah, so before modern Hebrew, it had a schwa in it. It was like /ʃəwa/?

Gretchen: Exactly. /ʃwa/, /ʃəwa/ – maybe we should start calling it /ʃəwa/ because then it would have a /ʃəwa/ in it.

Lauren: Amazing. I think one of the things I like about the name of schwa is that the name itself encapsulates its history.

Gretchen: Yeah. Initially /ʃva/ or /ʃəwa/ is the name of one of the sets of dots that indicates this sound – because Hebrew writing, along with Arabic, are normally written with just the consonants. Then, if you want to indicate what the vowels are, you can add these extra little dots and bits above and below the consonants which, most of the time, aren’t used but are sometimes used for children or for contexts where you wanna be super precise. One of the names of these sets of dots indicating the vowels is /ʃəwa/, which was used to indicate either the /ə/ sound, the schwa sound itself, or /ɛɪ/, which in most languages the /ɛɪ/ sound is written with what English calls a letter E. If you think of the /ɛː/ as in /kæfɛɪ/ or /foɹtɛɪ/, those Es are that /ɛɪ/ sound. This kind of explains to me why it’s an upside-down E and not an upside-down literally any other vowel because every vowel letter can become a schwa sound because in this origin it could be used for either one of these two sounds.

Lauren: Nifty. Even though it’s pronounced /ʃva/ in modern Hebrew, the spelling of “schwa” itself is actually from the German spelling for it. I think this was one of the reasons I like the name “schwa” is that it encapsulates its history being borrowed from Hebrew orthography. Then, in the 19th Century, a lot of German linguists used it for that sound. That S-C-H spelling is the German spelling rather than any other language. Most satisfyingly, it was first used by a guy called Schmeller who has his name spelt S-C-H as well.

Gretchen: Johann Andreas Schmeller, who also used the schwa. Maybe that’s why he liked it.

Lauren: It became big in the 19th Century and definitely by the end of the 19th Century/Early 20th Century it was being used in texts to represent that sound.

Gretchen: Schwa is also very common in German. A lot of words that end in E in German have that E pronounced as a schwa. The name what in English would be Gabe – the German name /gaːbə/ – that /ə/ at the end is also a schwa.

Lauren: It definitely pops up in a lot of languages because it’s quite efficient.

Gretchen: You also get this optional schwa sound with Es at the end of the word in French. You can have /lɔ̃ːg/ but also /lɔ̃ːgə/, which is the word for “long.” There’s an E there that can be optionally pronounced. When it is pronounced, it’s pronounced kind of like schwa. This gets to something interesting because German and French have these schwas that are spelled with the letter E at the end of a lot of their words. English, instead, has these completely silent Es at the end of a lot of its words.

Lauren: The bane of all children learning to read in English – the silent E.

Gretchen: Oooh, “bane.” There’s an example! Words like “bane” and “fame” and “fine” and “bone” and “meme” – that one is not one that I learned when I was in Grade 4 spelling class. There’re all these words that end in silent E in English. The rule that I learned when I was in Grade 5 spelling class was the silent E makes the vowel say its own name.

Lauren: Oh, I like that. I never learnt that. That’s very handy, trying to get your head around the rules of reading English.

Gretchen: Yeah. It’s really nice.

Lauren: I’m really jealous that I never learnt that very efficient way of thinking about what E was doing.

Gretchen: But it’s a rule that’s kind of unsatisfying to me as a linguist now because why should adding an extra vowel to the end of the word change how the vowel in the middle of the word is being pronounced? That’s something that I found unsatisfying as a budding linguist. What sort of process is that?

Lauren: I am going – I mean, I know the answer. But if I had not known the answer, I would’ve taken a wild guess at it being retrospectively attempting to make sense of a historical process by pretending that there’s some kind of reason for it.

Gretchen: I mean, that’s not not what’s going on.

Lauren: The reason why they had to retrospectively come up with this rule is because the E used to be pronounced. It used to be pronounced as our friend schwa. They weren’t just one syllable words. The were two syllable words. It was /banə/ – “bane” – and /famə/ and /hamə/.

Gretchen: Oh, so the schwa actually used to be pronounced there. You’d get, instead of “fine,” like /fɪnə/. Instead of “fame,” /famə/. Instead of “home,” /hoʊmə/ or something like that.

Lauren: Yes. You had two syllables instead of one syllable that we have now for “fine,” “fame,” “home.” Those syllables started with a consonant, ended with a vowel. Then, over time, that schwa comes off at the end. It’s not as easy to always pronounce it – a bit like with the French example. In French at the moment, you can pronounce it, or you don’t have to. It’s starting to erode away at the end of a word. That was the process that happened in English.

Gretchen: Right. This is really interesting because in English and in other Germanic languages as well there’s a difference between the kinds of vowels that you can have in a syllable where there’s a consonant at the end and in a syllable where there isn’t. We have English words “hid” and “hide,” which have /ɪ/ and /ɑɪ/ in them both between H and D. But there’s a word like “hi,” but there isn’t a word in English /hɪ/ or /fɪ/ or /kɪ/ or /mɪ/ even though all of these can be perfectly good as long as there’s another consonant in them.

Lauren: This is where the rules of English syllables interact with the rules of what sounds can go into them. We used to have two syllables in words like “fine” and “fame,” and now we have one. That little E sits there to remind us as a written fossil even though we don’t pronounce it anymore.

Gretchen: It reminds us that the vowel that’s in this first syllable, which is now the only syllable, is the kind that can exist without a consonant after it. Because we can have a word like /hɑɪ/ and not a word like /hɪ/, if there’s that E at the end – you have /hɑɪd/ or something – then that reminds us – and by “us” I mean people who know this history, which is not most modern contemporary English speakers – that this is the kind of word that has the vowel that can exist in open syllables.

Lauren: For the rest of us, it’s just a handy way to spell properly.

Gretchen: There was a special reason why it was schwa that was so easily lost at the end of all of these words like “fine” and “home” and “hide.” That’s because schwa is what’s known as a “reduced vowel.” It’s physically produced for a shorter amount of time than a full vowel like /ɑɪ/ or /i/ or even /ɪ/.

Lauren: It’s what allows us to just sneak it in really quickly in syllables that we’re not really focusing on.

Gretchen: If we produce some syllables faster or quieter than other ones, those faster or quieter symbols tend to also have schwas.

Lauren: This is why schwa crops up in all of these words regardless of what vowel they’re spelt with. I’m pretty sure Lauren who really struggled to spell words because she couldn’t distinguish the vowel because it was being pronounced with schwa when she was learning to spell would’ve said, “Why don’t we just spell all the words with schwa and be done with it?” That wouldn’t be the most practical solution.

Gretchen: The problem is, if we respell English to be consistent and every time we say schwa we write schwa, it works in the short term because we have this transparent relationship between the sound and spelling, which is nice. But the annoying thing – this fact that you can write any English vowel letter for the sound schwa – is also a fact about the structure of English. There are all these words that are related to each other where we can see that relationship more clearly based on the spelling than we can sometimes with the pronunciation. The spelling can help us notice when words are related to each other. If we take up a word pair like “acid” and “acidity” –

Lauren: “Acid” and “acidity.” Well, that -ity bit on the end of “acid” that turns it into “acidity” also changes the vowel to a schwa.

Gretchen: Yeah. /æsɪd/ and /əsɪdəti/ – in the first one we have /æ/ as the first vowel and in the second one we have /ə/. Yet, it still seems pretty intuitive that these words are related to each other. It’s just that when we do have this -ity on the end, we pronounce the main word – instead of /æsɪd/, we say /əsɪd/.

Lauren: It would be inconvenient in the even medium turn to lose the relationship between, say, “courage” and “courageous” just because we have that -ous on the end of “courageous.”

Gretchen: It’s the same thing there. /kʌɹəd͡ʒ/ – the second syllable -age, there’s a schwa. But /kʌɹɛɪd͡ʒəs/ – now there’s a different vowel there. It’s just because we’ve added the -ous on the end. Yet, it’s nice that these two words that are very clearly related to each other still look the same.

Lauren: I guess it’s particularly true as well of those word pairs in English that only differ because of stress. Like /ˈɹɛˌkəɹd/ and /ˌɹəˈkoɹd/ – only different because of stress. Then, we’d be spelling them differently because each one has a schwa in the opposite place.

Gretchen: /ˈɹɛˌkəɹd/ – the schwa is in the /-əɹd/. /ˌɹəˈkoɹd/ – your schwa is in the /ɹə-/. You’d have to /ʃwap/ the – swap the [stutters] /ʃwaz/ – /ʃwap/ the /ʃwʌz/? Wow. That’s really hard to say. Swap the schwas. You wouldn’t know what vowel to recover from the syllable once you started stressing it. It’s the same thing with -ity and -ous. When you make “acid” into “acidity” and “courage” into “courageous,” instead of stressing the /æ/ and the /kəɹ/, you’re stressing the /ɪd/ and the /æd͡ʒ/, if you will.

Lauren: Adding the extra bit to the word shifts where the stress is.

Gretchen: It’s these unstressed syllables where schwa – not every unstressed syllable in English is a schwa, but a heck of a lot of them are.

Lauren: I think we’ll keep the spelling system as it is.

Gretchen: This was something that always used to come up for me back when I used to teach Intro to Linguistics. People would be trying to write things in the International Phonetic Alphabet for the very first time, so they’d go through each word, and they’d say it really slowly and carefully. What that would mean is that instead of saying /əsɪdəti/, they’d say something like /æsɪdɪti/. Okay. Or, instead of saying /kʌɹəd͡ʒ/, /kʌɹɛɪd͡ʒəs/, they’d have /kʌɹɛɪd͡ʒʌs/, /kʌɹɹɛd͡ʒ/.

Lauren: They’ve gone back to stressing every syllable, so the schwas evaporate.

Gretchen: Right! They’d write these words and they’d have no schwas in them all over the place. You’d have to say, “You can say this word like this -- if you’re really saying it slowly and carefully, and you were saying each syllable at once maybe to help someone spell it, you do have the full vowel there some level,” psychologically, for a lot of people, especially because of the spelling that’s influencing you to tell you it’s there. But in normal speech at a regular pace, most of the time you do say schwas a lot. It’s an interesting tension where many of our schwas actually represent a sound that we could recover if you say the word slowly and carefully enough, which is also a reason to keep the spelling where it is because there is some psychological reality to the non-schwa version as well.

Lauren: This discussion is very English-focused, I should say, because it’s something that English seems to do in particular in terms of having this kind of stress and this reducing to schwa on unstressed syllables. In fact, it’s a fairly prominent feature of the English accent. I imagine it’s something that gets transferred when English speakers are learning to speak other languages. It’s probably the closest I’ve come to having the ability to understand what the English accent in other languages must sound like to native speakers of those languages. They must just think that we’re failing to hear vowels all over the place.

Gretchen: “Why do all of your vowels become the same vowel?” I think the inverse is also the case is that it’s one of the trickiest things for people who are learning English from a language that doesn’t do this, which is most of them, to do is be constantly trying to hit this vowel that I don’t even have. “Don’t you want your vowels to all be very distinct from each other?” Schwa or not schwa is this very English thing. The stress part about it being very important which syllable’s stressed and which part of which word is stressed – that’s also a very English thing. I find the most interesting place to notice how important stress is in English is when it comes to poetry.

Lauren: Sure. Because a lot of poetry relies on having certain numbers of syllables. Using stress is one way to explore the rhythm of a poem or a poetic construction.

Gretchen: Right. Some of the oldest English Mother Goose rhymes, nursery rhymes, have a consistent number of stressed bits per line rather than a consistent number of syllables. If you have something like “Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock.” There’s three stress bits per line, but the number of syllables is quite different. The same thing with limericks in English, it’s not that there’s the same number of syllables in each line, it’s that the stress pattern is you have to have three stressed syllables, three stressed syllables, two stress, two stress, three stress. You can do that with a varying number of actual syllables in it. Something like, “There once was a man from Nantucket,” three stresses – “once,” “man,” “tuck.” Nine syllables. But “A tutor who tooted the flute,” also three stress – “tu,” “too,” “flute.” That’s eight syllables. And “A wonderful bird is the pelican,” ten syllables but still three stresses.

Lauren: It’s funny. My brain is so tuned to listening to the stress in these, I actually found it hard to count the syllables as you were going because I was so tuned into the limerick structure of stress.

Gretchen: A lot of very English-y poetry styles, as long as you get the stress right, you can really mess with the syllables because English pays a lot of attention to the stress. Whereas, in French, they don’t have this individual, unpredictable stress at the word level the way English does at all. There’s no /ˈɹɛˌkəɹd/ versus /ˌɹəˈkoɹd/ in French. Everything just gets a bit of stress at the end of the phrase or sentence or utterance or whatever you’re saying. You might say something like “Bonjour,” but you could also say, “Bonjour, comment ça va?” and you just stress the “jour” or the “va.” You don’t have to go anywhere in between and stress anything else. This means that French poetry can’t do this stress counting thing because there’s no stresses for them to count.

Lauren: Ah. Normally, I spend a lot of time going, “Oh, poor English speakers. They’re missing out.” But poor French speakers! They’re missing out on limericks.

Gretchen: I really don’t know how you do a limerick in French. I think you’d have to pick a number of syllables that is approximately equivalent and just do that.

Lauren: We talked about this schwa-syllable relationship being very English-focused for this episode, but it’s not the only language in which schwa appears and is a little bit easy to drop once you have reduced the pronunciation of schwa. French was one example you had. In Indo-Aryan languages as well – these are the languages of the same Into-European family as English but they’re over on the Indian subcontinent, so Hindi. I know about this because I had to learn Nepali. They have schwa as a vowel. A bit like the Hebrew writing system, for this vowel in particular, they just don’t write it down. You have to know when to pronounce this vowel by memorising. For some languages in the family it’s just gone altogether. It’s another example of how schwa in some languages can be really eroded. But not in all languages.

Gretchen: This is actually true in Miꞌkmaq as well, which is an Algonquian language spoken in Eastern Canada. In their writing system they use the apostrophe to represent the schwa sound, but the apostrophe is only added when the schwa is quote-unquote “unpredictable.” If you can predict the schwa, then you just put in the schwa where you know it’s supposed to go because as a speaker you say it. Of course, I am not very good – I don’t speak Miꞌkmaq so I’m not particularly good at predicting where it goes.

Lauren: Unpredictable schwa is almost cooler than unstressed schwa.

Gretchen: You can kind of predict it. Speakers actually know how to do it properly, but it’s not always represented in the writing system which is, I guess, something it has in common with Nepali.

Lauren: Schwa has so many cheeky personalities.

Gretchen: Schwa also shows up in English – speaking of being cheeky – as the vowel sound that people end up producing, if you’re an English speaker, when you’re trying not to make any vowel sound at all. If you’re trying to say the sound that the letter B makes, but you don’t wanna say B, you just wanna say that sound by itself, you probably end up with /bə/, which is still a vowel, it’s just schwa. Because that’s the least vowel you can make.

Lauren: Just adding a little bit so you can get that /bə/ across.

Gretchen: Yeah. It also shows up sometimes in people’s names. I knew somebody called /ksɛnjə/ and a lot of English speakers couldn’t pronounce that /ksə/, the KS, at the beginning of her name, so a lot of people ended up saying /kəsɛnjə/ by inserting a little schwa between because that was how they were able to keep both the K and the S.

Lauren: Very handy. Although, I like unpredictable schwa in Miꞌkmaq, one of the best things about schwa popping up in the particular context of unstressed syllables in English means that schwa is set up for being just a really great source of jokes because, when it comes to English, schwa is never stressed. I think that’s a life motto we can all get behind.

Gretchen: This means that there are people who’ve made t-shirts saying, “I want to be a schwa, it’s never stressed.”

Lauren: There’s a great photo from Sandy Abuadas who has made cookies for her students with schwa on them so that her students’ finals will be stressless.

Gretchen: I love it! It’s so good.

Lauren: It was very cute.

Gretchen: I think the stress part – in the technical sense, there’s this very tempting pun with the stress part in the vernacular sense.

Lauren: I think because it’s a sound that is everywhere and ubiquitous but, until you study linguistics, you don’t know that it is all around you. Not only is it around you, but it has its own symbol and it has its own name. I think that’s why it’s a classic linguist iconography to have fun with.

Gretchen: I hope that learning about schwa has not been stressful!

[Music]

Lauren: For more Lingthusiasm and links to all the things mentioned in this episode, go to lingthusiasm.com. You can listen to us on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, or wherever else you get your podcasts. You can follow @Lingthusiasm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr. You can get IPA scarves, IPA ties, and other Lingthusiasm merch at lingthusiasm.com/merch. I tweet and blog as Superlinguo.

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Lauren: Lingthusiasm is created and produced by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our editorial producer is Sarah Dopierala, and our music is “Ancient City” by The Triangles.

Gretchen: Stay lingthusiastic!

[Music]

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