#and the letter w is the only one with more than three syllables i think gamers are right it should be said 'dub' instead of 'double u'

[crazyw3irdo]

i know i only posted this an hour ago but id like to thank everybody for not bullying me for describing these as a tail and a fancy hat i was sure someone was gonna do that

wait that last poll i reblogged got me curious

[prodigal-explorer]

how to write speech impediments

(this is part of my series, how to write children in fanfiction! feel free to check it out if you want more info like this! though this guide is mostly directed towards writing children, it is also helpful for writing about speech impediments for people of all ages, since speech impediments don't always go away in childhood.)

there are a lot of different speech impediments out there, but the main one i see represented in children in fanfiction is what's known as an articulation error, mostly in the letters "r" and "l". this leads to the child saying the word "playground" and pronouncing it like "p-way-g-wound". while this is a speech impediment that is common in children, there are other speech impediments that are just as common. here are a few:

1 - stuttering:

now, i see a lot of stuttering that is written incorrectly. most of the time, stuttering is not just repeating the first syllable of the word three or four times. stuttering is a condition in which your muscles twitch or move uncontrollably while you talk. a lot of people interpret stuttering as a nervous tic, but the term for that would be stammering. stuttering is a different ballpark. here are some possible symptoms of stuttering:

repeating sounds or syllables. this is the one i just talked about. while it is commonly the first syllable that is repeated, this isn't always the case, and this is only one symptom. here is a bad and a good example of this symptom in writing: -bad: "w-when will my leg f-feel better, d-daddy?" -good: "wh-when will my leg fe-ee-feel better, d-d-da-daddy?" there are a few subtle differences between the bad and the good example. the first difference is that instead of just the first letter being written in the stutter, it's the entire first syllable that is either being stuttered from the get go, or it is being developed through the stutter. this better illustrates for the reader what the stutter actually sounds like to a listener rather than just showing a reader that it's there. also, in the word "feel", the stutter is placed in the middle of the word rather than the beginning. since stuttering is an unpredictable and uncontrollable muscular movement, it is highly possible for a stutter to show up in the middle of the word versus purely in the beginning. this will make the stutter more accurate. the last difference is that there are more beats in the stutter than just one. not all stutters are the same, and sometimes, it takes longer or shorter for the muscle movements to stop. this also adds accuracy. 

holding or drawing out certain syllables or sounds, or pausing for a long time in between words. this one is a little tricky to write, but it is completely possible. this is when the word gets "stuck", so the word draws out for longer than what's intended, or there's a longer pause than what's considered normal. i'm not totally sure of the scientific reason why this happens since i don't see how a muscle spasm could affect the length of a syllable or pause, but if you want to write about it, i think that would make the stutter more rounded out. in this example, let's try combining the first symptom with this second one: -example: "wh-when will myyyy-...leg feel bet-better, d-d-da-daddy?" i changed the example a little bit, because too much stuttering at once can be overkill in writing. though it is possible in real life for stuttering to be word after word after word, it isn't always the case, and too much stuttering in writing can come across as mockery. anyway, in the word "my", the child draws out the letter "y", as their brain is stuck on it as it is trying to figure out how to create the words that follow it. again, this one is a difficult one to put into writing because it isn't a common stuttering trait, and it's hard to place. but if you want to, it would be an interesting one to try out. 

blocking. blocking is very frequent pauses in between words, whether it's a silent pause, or there's a filler word (such as um, or ah), that takes up the space. from my experience with stutters, when blocking is involved in the stutter, it is usually the primary trait in the stutter and the other possible symptoms are either absent or minimized. this means that if you did include blocking, it would probably replace a lot of the other stuttering symptoms that are in place. here is an example of blocking in writing: -example on its own: "when, uh, when will my leg, um, feel better, daddy?" -example mixed with other traits (not impossible, just less common than the former): "wh-when, uh, when will m-my leg feel, uh, better, d-da-daddy?" a common misconception with blocking is that it only appears in speech when the child is nervous, guilty, or otherwise in an anxious state of mind. though this is sometimes true, since emotions affect some speech impediments, this is definitely not always the case. all symptoms of stuttering, including blocking, can occur at all times, no matter how the child is feeling. also, common filler words vary based on location. for example, in america, the more common filler words are "um" or "like", while in western europe, "ah" and "uh" are a bit more common. 

word switching. this is the last specific symptom i will touch on, but i'm sure there are more. feel free to do your own research! word switching is especially common in children with larger vocabularies because they have more words to choose from. word switching is when the stutterer realizes they are struggling to get a word out due to the spasms, so they try to change the word into a shorter/easier one. here is an example in writing: -example: "it's actually a really c-co-com-com- hard thing to do." in the example, the child was trying to say a longer word, "complicated" or "complex", but the stutter was getting in the way, so the child switched to the word "hard" since it's shorter. something to keep in mind with word switching too is that it doesn't always work. and usually, word switching is a sign of embarrassment about the stutter, or frustration with the stutter, or a general rushing in trying to get the sentence out.



alright! now that we know a lot more about stutter symptoms, we can talk about the other characteristics of it:

-stuttering affects the whole body, not just the mouth. the muscle spasms can occasionally "spill over" to other parts of the body such as the face, neck, shoulders, and arms.

-sometimes, stutterers develop physical habits that they do while stuttering such as excessive blinking, avoiding eye contact, making certain facial expressions, or clenching the fists.

-emotions can affect stuttering. though stuttering doesn't only happen when one feels strong emotions such as fear and stress, such emotions can worsen stuttering, making symptoms more prominent. also, fatigue can affect stuttering. usually, relaxed and well-rested stutterers have less stutter symptoms.

-sometimes, stuttering doesn't occur during certain vocal activities such as singing, reading out loud, or talking to inanimate/non-human subjects.

-stuttering can lead to a lot of insecurity, which can attribute to mental health conditions down the line such as depression and anxiety.

congrats! now you know a lot about stuttering! feel free to do more research, this is just a basic guide to it. let's look at some other speech impediments now!

2 - articulation errors:

articulation errors are the most straightforward and common speech impediment traits. the trick to these, though, is knowing that there is a wide range of different types of them. articulation errors occur when people struggle to form certain speech sounds because they have trouble putting their tongue in the right positions to do so. lisping, for example, is a type of articulation error.

here is a list of different sounds that are common articulation errors:

the letter "l". this can make words like "library" sound more like "why-brary" or "i-brary".

the letter "r". this can make words like "tired" sound like "ti-oh-d".

the syllable "th". this can make words like "earth" sound like "ear-f", or words like "that" sound like "d-at".

the letter "s". this is known as lisping, and it can make words like "sit" sound like "th-it".

these next articulation errors are most common in children just learning to talk, so typically under five years old:

cluster reduction, which simplifies a word that has two or more consonants in a sequence. this can make words like "spoon" sound like "p-oon".

velar fronting, which is a complicated thing to describe, but essentially, it is replacing certain consonant sounds that require a certain tongue placement with other consonant sounds that require less effort to access. this can make words like "go" sound like "d-oe" or words like "cup" sound like "t-up".

final consonant deletion, which is exactly what it sounds like, not pronouncing the final consonant of a word. this can make words like "dad" sound like "da".

palatal fronting, which is essentially taking sounds like "sh" and "ch", and replacing them with a sound that is produced closer to the front of the mouth. this can make words like "sheep" sound like "seep", words like "chair" sound like "tair", and words like "bridge" sound like "brid".

there are more articulation errors than just these, but these are more common ones. now that we know a lot about articulation errors, let me tell you how to write them: don't. while for stuttering, it makes sense to write out the stutter, it's unnecessary and slightly offensive to write it out phonetically every single time a child makes an articulation error. instead, my recommendation is to only write it out occasionally, and to mention at a point in the story (not through speech) that the character has an articulation error. something else you can do is simplify the sound of the speech impediment, making it clear that there is one without writing out the exact phonetic errors. here is one bad and two good examples: -bad example:

"mama, my teef hurt! i don't wanna go to bed, i'm not tiohwd!" -good example #1:

"mama, my teeth hurt! i don't wanna go to bed, i'm not tired!"

four year old roman spoke with indignant sharpness, though he clearly struggled with pronouncing a lot of his syllables, leading to words that took a moment for virgil to decipher as he heard them.

-good example #2:

"mama, my 'teef' hurt! i don't wanna go to bed, i'm not tired!"

the key to articulation errors is subtlety. the issue with the bad example is that it sacrificed contextual clarity, flow, and respect. somebody who struggles with reading phonetics might not be able to understand that strangely written out version of the word "tired", and if somebody reading does struggle with articulation errors, seeing their struggles written out in such a way can come across as very offensive, especially when such articulation errors in the context of the story are seen as valid reason to infantilize or coo at a character for how "adorable and childish" they are. it's also just lazy. if the only sign that indicates that a character is a child is a written out articulation error, then you are not writing with specificity or respect.

the first good example is a lot better than the bad example, firstly because it doesn't sacrifice contextual clarity. anybody reading the story can clearly comprehend what the child is saying, and also has it explicitly spelled out for them that the child has articulation errors, so that part of the child's character is not sacrificed either. the only potential problem with it is that a fast reader could accidentally glaze over the explanation, but that is not the writer's responsibility, and a way to help prevent this issue is to mention the speech impediment periodically throughout the story.

the second good example is a good one as well, especially when combined with the first good example. not every word with errors is spelled differently, but the one word that is spelled differently is put in between apostrophes to symbolize that it is purposefully spelled wrong to imitate the sound of the articulation error. i would still be careful of overly offensive spellings, but for a simple error such as the one i wrote, it's a little less obnoxious, and it is clearly just a way to further express the impediment's existence.

i know it's a little complicated, and there's some gray area when it comes to what is or isn't offensive, but a good rule of thumb is to try and put yourselves in the shoes of someone with articulation errors. would you want to read something like this? does it make fun of or infantilize your impediment? or does it simply acknowledge its existence?

3 - other speech impediments

now, the first two types of speech impediments are the ones i went to the most detail to in this guide because they are the most common ones, and they are the most common ones that are written incorrectly. but there are other types of speech impediments that are less common, but i encourage you to research them anyway. i will be posting links at the bottom of this with all my sources, as well as some additional resources!

now, here are some other speech impediments that can be found in children:

-tongue-tie, aka: ankyloglossia. this is a condition that makes it difficult for children to move their tongues, in which the tongue is stuck to the roof of the mouth. it is a congenital condition (people are born with it), and there are different types of tongue-ties that create different difficulties. it doesn't affect speech as much as it affects the breastfeeding process, but it still affects speech considerably. speech therapy can help with tongue-tie, but sometimes, surgery is necessary.

-developmental verbal dyspraxia or apraxia. these two things are similar, but what makes them different is the severity. the cause of this impediment is unknown, but it is essentially when children know what they want to say, but they are physically unable to form the words. developmental verbal dyspraxia is having partial inability to speak with accuracy, while apraxia is the complete loss of the ability. this condition is quite rare, and it requires very intense therapy compared to other speech impediments.

---

if you're still here, thank you for reading all of this and educating yourself about speech impediments! i hope this helps you on your writing journey! i am someone who had a lot of speech impediment issues as a child, and still continues to struggle sometimes with these things, so it means a lot that you plan to do research to make your interpretations of these struggles more respectful and accurate!

sources + additional resources:

speech impediments

stuttering

types of articulation errors

tongue-tie/ankyloglossia

developmental verbal dyspraxia and apraxia

my personal experience with speech impediments

[crescentmp3]

Tell us about Turkish poetry! :)

HII <33 HI HI HI <33 HII THANK YOU HII

ok so !! in turkish poetry there is "ahenk unsurları", which roughly translates to "factors of harmony" . these are used to create harmony and aesthetical pleasure in poetry . these have existed in our poetry even before islam ! thats about before the ottoman empire was a thing , to put it into perspective

firstly i'll go over "aruz ölçüsü" ! this is one of the main things in divan edebiyatı ( divine literature ) , in its poetry characterized by using complex language full of arabic and persian words , being written in couplets , and using the aruz ölçüsü . the aruz ölçüsü consits of syllables that end with a constonant ( close ) and syllables that end with a vowel ( open ) . these will follow set molds and keep this mold in every couplet !

then there is "hece ölçüsü" ! this is one of the main things in halk edebiyatı ( folk literature ) , in its poetry characterized by using simple spoken language , being written in quatruplets and using the hece ölçüsü . this follows either the 5 , 7 or 11 rule , in which every line follows that number for how many syllables it has . my favorite literature type to write poetry in is the folk literature ^^

we have very strict rules for rhyming — for the end of word stems ( we have many particles added to words so stem is important ) there is the kafiye / uyak ( same thing two names ) ; if there is only one letter they share its a half rhyme , if two its a full rhyme , if three or more its a rich rhyme ! if its two words that sound the same with different meanings its a cinaslı rhyme , and if its two words that sound the same with the same meanings its a tunç rhyme !

then we have "kafiye şeması" ; rhyme scheme , in which you pick what order you rhyme in . these are done by looking at the last letter of the first line and assigning it a letter , then looking at the next one and assigning it the same letter if its the same sound and a different letter if its a different sound . the scheme will decide what order the rhyme goes

let me take a quatrain from one of my poems to demonstrate this ^^ //

gümüş gibi parlayan sevdalı Ay,ㅤㅤㅤa

tatlı tatlı parlayan o yıldızlar...ㅤㅤㅤb

geldi yine bugün aydın Dolunay;ㅤㅤㅤa

ninni söylerler Gökkübbe'de onlar.ㅤㅤㅤb

// i have also added colors to the ends of the letters to demonstrate ! this quatrain here uses the cross scheme , which goes abab .

we also have straight scheme ( aaaa , aaab , aabb , etc. ) , knitted scheme ( aba , bcb , cdc , etc. ) and spiral scheme ( abba ) .

in traditional folk literature , cross , straight or spiral scheme will be picked and be stuck to for that quatrain , but it rarely may change between quatrains , though that may take away some harmony . knitted scheme was introduced later after west influence

anyway !! next up is alteration ; using two or more constonants in a quatrain / couplet more often than others to create harmony ! here is an example from the poem "çile" by necip fasıl kısakürek //

sokaktayım, kimsesiz bir sokak ortasında,

yürüyorum, arkama bakmadan yürüyorum.

yolumun karanlığa saplanan noktasında,

sanki beni bekleyen bir hayâl görüyorum.

// here , k and s have been alterated between for this quatrain . they have been highlighted for easier viewing ! you can see they're used more frequently than other constonants . this creates harmony

next up is assonance ; the same as alteration , but now with vowels ! here is an example from "eski şiirin rüzgârıyla" by yahya kemal beyatlı //

dünyada ne ikbâl ne servet dileriz

hattâ ne de ukbâde saadet dileriz.

// this poem has assonance with a and e !!

we than have choruses , which is what you'd think it is ! repeating a line in a poem for harmony . here is an example from "dostlar beni hatırlasın" by âşık veysel , a well known poet ! //

uzun ince bir yoldayım

gidiyorum gündüz gece

bilmiyorum ne hâldeyim

gidiyorum gündüz gece

// the bolded line is the chorus , which is repeated as you can see !

next is voice flow , which refers to the tone one reads a poem with ! this includes putting oneself in the shoes of the character the poem is spoken by ( can be the author themself , can be a character ) and is done to get the theme across . this is pretty simple , and would need an audio sample to show , so i will not give an example .

i'll leave it right here since this got way too long ^^ hope that doesn't bother you !!

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Rafael 🥺🥺🥺

CW: Pet whump, referenced implied noncon/dubcon, captivity, isolation, intimate whumper, creepy whumper

Follows this piece where Chris overcomes his freeze response to try and help someone

It’s 2:30 in the morning. The house is cool and silent and still around him as he stands in the master’s library, where the only phone he’s ever seen that wasn’t the small, slim things his master and mistress keep in their pockets or purses or always on themselves.

He’s not allowed in here, books make his head hurt and we wouldn’t want to give you wrinkles in that pretty face from all that squinting, Raf. But he’s here, anyway.

They’re asleep, down the hall, in their room. The both of them, the mistress breathing low and deep, the master softly snoring. He can hear them from here, and it’s a soothing comfort to be able to track their sleep even now.

His heart pounds while he stares at the phone, dressed only in the loose, slightly sheer black pants he’s allowed to wear to sleep, when they have done with him for the night, when he is no longer between them, taken and taking, eyes closed and body repeating patterns while his mind goes somewhere else.

Red bruises darken around his neck and shoulders, the lipstick at least washed away and leaving only blood vessels burst under his pale skin to color it. She loves to leave the lipstick there, and they love to see who can mark him more, counting up the new places, telling who did what by the smear of Rouge, or Addict, or whatever other name she gave to the slim little tubes that littered her vanity. 

He lays back for their inspection, smiles up at the mirror they’ve had fixed to the underside of the canopy over their bed, and drifts away while they laugh over and around him. The loser makes the drinks, after, and he gets one, too.

Whiskey and honey-syrup with rosemary, washed down, but the taste never leaves, not all the way. He tastes them when he falls asleep.

If he falls asleep.

Now, he’s clean except for the way he always feels a slight, nearly invisible layer of grime on his skin, and his skin is unmarked except for the bruises they will carefully cover with the turtlenecks he wears in the morning.

He’s clean... except that he is never, ever clean. 

His name is Rafael.

Something else was his name, once upon a time. Some other blend of letters, some other murmured syllables spoken on someone else’s tongue. He knows that much - they tell him far more than he has ever asked to know. 

They found him, Master and Ma’am, hungry and dirty and cold. You were so desperate for a hot meal, someplace to sleep, you told us you’d do anything. They offered him safety, and someone to care for him, and he got into their car. It’s what he wanted. You wanted to leave it all behind, you know. We gave you the chance. 

We offered you a choice, and it wasn’t like anyone else was going to help you, Raf. You didn’t have a soul in the world who even gave a damn if you were alive.

He signed up for this.

Didn’t he?

The voice of the man in the museum comes back to him with his scarred face and soft green eyes. Somebody loved you. They lie to us. Pushing the plastic feather into his hand, whispering numbers to him. Rafael’s neck aches under his collar, throbs with the blood pooling from their teeth tearing at him and telling him he likes it, and he’s never thought to argue before.

But he doesn’t.

On his own, he dreams about softness, he closes his eyes and runs fingertips along his own palm and imagines it’s someone who simply wants to hold his hand. Alone, Rafael thinks about a dim sweet warmth, even as they tell him he wants their too-bright light baring him to hands and teeth like fang and claws, to desire that digs deep and draws blood. 

Somebody loved you.

It seems impossible.

They lie to us all.

In the dark of night, with the barest hint of moonlight coming through the great windows along the wall, the saturated purple of the feather is a cool, faded lavender. Rafael rubs his thumb along it, following an instinctive movement. He can see, he thinks, the faintest hint of indents in it, like the man he saw at the museum had been chewing on it. Marks like teeth, like the marks on his side, the way they laugh on either side of him, his mistress murmuring, they could identify us with dental records by that one if we dumped him, darling, and his master kissing her, then him, then laughing too loud, laughing harder when Rafael flinches from the sound and the fear of being abandoned.

They’d found him abandoned and taken him in. They gave him a home and he traded away whatever life he’d had to get it, willingly, happily, wanting to be loved and kept and held. 

But... what if that wasn’t what happened, just because they said it was?

Somebody loved you.

He moves closer to the phone, letting his fingers trail over the cool dark plastic, smooth and shining in the dark. His eyes close, and he breathes, in and out. The room smells like old books, and the leather of the chairs in here. Like a candle his mistress insists on lighting once a week in the room. 

When they have him in here, he’s blindfolded to keep him from seeing the books. 

The man in the museum had been one, he knew it instantly. No collar, though, and not with an owner, but he still... Raf had known. He always knew, and when he’d seen the scar, he’d known that the man wasn’t one, not any longer. 

Whispering to him that there is another way to live.

Rafael takes a deep breath, picks up the phone, and swallows back the burst of fear. It’s just a few numbers. It’s just a few words. He can always choose not to go, if they come. He can sign up for this again.

He can take it back.

5. 5. 5. 7. 2. 3. 3.

The click of the little dialpad as he touches the numbers seems impossibly loud, but with each pause between he listens, and he can still hear them sleeping. He’s okay. He’ll be okay. 

It’s just some words, a number, a whisper, a plea.

Did somebody love me once, in a way that wasn’t like this?

The phone settles cold against his ear, and he grips the feather in his hand like the medallion of a saint.

He doesn’t know saints. He doesn’t know why that thought came to mind. 

Holy St. Anthony, gentlest of Saints, your love for God and Charity for His creatures, made you worthy, when on earth, to possess miraculous powers. Encouraged by this thought, I implore you to-

“Hello?”

Rafael nearly forgets how to speak, between his shock that anyone picked up and the sudden burst of sharp pain that wipes the momentary prayer from his memory entirely. “H-Hello. I-I... I was, I am.. um. I n-need...”

“Do you need help?” The voice is low and compassionate, deep and with an accent he can’t place. 

They’ll help you, the man from the museum said.

“Please,” Rafael whispers. “Please, I need-... I need help. I, I need... I need out.”

“I’m going to trace your call,” The voice says quietly. “For the purpose of this conversation, you can call me Heather. I’m a liberated pet and I’m here to help. Do you need a rescue?”

Rafael feels tears threatening to fall, and he clutches the feather as tightly as he can. “I don’t know. It’s not-... It’s not, they don’t-... I’m n-not hurt, I just-”

“You don’t have to be in physical pain,” Heather says, quiet and certain, “to be wounded. I need about sixty-seven seconds more to get your location. Do you want to leave?”

No one’s ever asked.

He swallows. “Y... yes. I don’t want to be-... to do this anymore.”

“Okay. It’s okay, this is what we do. What’s your name and designation?”

That’s easy. He answers thoughtlessly, memorized words falling off his lips like petals from a dying flower. “Rafael, my number is 453266, designation Romantic, Facility 012.”

There’s a pause. “You’ve come a long way.”

He swallows “H-Have I?”

“I’ll explain later. It could take us up to fourteen days to effect a rescue. Will you be reasonably physically safe until that time?”

There’s a scrape in the hallway, a footfall. Rafael’s breath catches as he realizes he forgot to keep listening for their breathing, checking that they were asleep. “Oh, no. I have to go. He’s-... I have to go. Please, please find me, please-”

“I’m killing this number as soon as you hang up. It’s okay. We’ve got you. We just need a little time-”

He drops the phone back into the cradle right as his master appears in the doorway, leaning against it on one arm. His eyes glitter dangerously with reflected moonlight.

“Raf? What was that?”

Rafael swallows, lifting his chin as he turns, putting his practiced flirtatious smile on his face. Head tilt, half-lidded eyes. Let the look of sleepy affection wipe away the terror still crawling over his skin. His master moves towards him, naked but he can do more damage naked than Rafael could do in a set of armor.

“I had a-... a nightmare, a false memory,” Rafael says quickly, and steps to his master, feigning gratitude, warmth, happiness at seeing him. “I don’t know what happened. I w-woke up with the phone at my ear.”

“Hm. You haven’t sleepwalked in a long time.” His master moves past him, looking down at the phone, then back up at Rafael. In the darkness it all seems amplified, every threat a near-murder, a knife held precariously against his throat. “What did you dial?”

“I-I don’t know,” Rafael lies, clinging to him, every inch the pet scared of himself, not of the master. “I just heard beeping when I-... woke up, I guess.”

There’s a pause, and the master hums, picking the phone up, hitting three buttons Rafael doesn’t look at, but he knows - he’s having the phone redial the last number called. Raf closes his eyes, and he prays, to nothing and no one and maybe just to the dark of night itself. 

He exhales when the only sound is a woman’s tinny voice stating this number is not in service at this time. 

His master chuckles, sounding relieved himself. “Well, no harm done, I suppose. But we’re going to have to tie you to the bed at night again, aren’t we? Keep you from wandering.”

“Is that a promise?” Rafael’s voice is shaking but he drops it to low and husky to cover it, his heart pounding and body frozen as he turns into his master’s body, tipping his head for a kiss. 

He hates being tied to the bed. 

You love this, Raf. You told us it was your favorite way to work when we found you. But it’s not work anymore, is it? It’s your life.

He hates it.

The man’s voice in his mind again as he slides the feather into his pocket. They lie to all of us.

Nobody loved you, that’s why we had to take you in.

Somebody loved you. 

“Honestly, Raf, is that the only thing you think about?” His master’s tone is playful, flirtatious. His voice dips lower and Rafael keeps his smile firmly in place, widens it a little. 

Inside his head, he thinks, you wanted me to only think about this. I know I didn’t start this way.

Further back, far enough inside he knows it will never show on his face, he thinks, I thought about dinosaurs instead today. I thought about the feather, and the number, and I thought about how maybe you’re the one lying, and I was the one telling the truth.

I just can’t remember what truth I told.

“Back to bed for you, I think,” His master murmurs, presses a kiss over a bruise. Rafael shivers and pretends it’s from desire and not from the ache. “I’ll get out your favorite ropes.”

He hates the fucking ropes.

“Perfect,” Rafael says, and his voice comes out smooth, and soft. “You know I love the ropes.”

-

Tagging: @burtlederp , @finder-of-rings , @endless-whump , @whumpfigure , @astrobly @newandfiguringitout , @doveotions , @pretty-face-breaker , @boxboysandotherwhump  , @oops-its-whump  @cubeswhump ,  @whump-tr0pes  @downriver914 @vickytokio @wildfaewhump

[tanadrin]

No, I mean they used <i> and <u> for two different sounds each. Both the consonantal value (/j/ and /w/, as in iacet and vox) and the vowel value (/i/ and /u/, as in id and lux). Like sure, they're similar, but they're phonemically distinct! /jd/ and /lwks/ are not valid Latin syllables, and /iaket/ and /uoks/ would have to be three and two syllables respectively instead of one.

Long vowels matter because it's all about relative quantity. A long vowel is a separate phoneme from a short vowel: even if you're speaking slowly, the a in terrā is different from the a in terra, and more importantly, it changes the meaning. If you have important minimal pairs like that, it's a good idea for the orthography to reflect it!

(IIRC the distribution of long vowels in Latin is also pretty predictable outside of case endings. but as long as we're quibbling about orthography for the bit, I think we can safely say an orthography well-suited to a language with phonemic vowel length should distinguish all phonemic vowels)

(and further to that point: non-rhotic English doesn't have phonemic quantitative distinction in its vowels. It does have long vowels: the /u:/ of "lose" is usually held longer by most speakers than the /ʊ/ of "foot." But the major distinction in English vowels is quality, and most of what English speakers call "long" vowels are actually diphthongs that developed from long vowels in the Great Vowel Shift. Most non-rhotic varieties of English only have three long vowels, and none of them have the same quality as a short vowel. Non-rhotic English does have true long vowels--but they mark them orthographically with an <r>, because that's how they developed historically.)

So no, I don't agree that the Latin alphabet, as the Romans used it, had "more than enough letters" for univocal pronunciation. I think that Latin spelling is simpler than English spelling, and it's not bad. I just have a quibble with the notion that the Latin alphabet is particularly well-designed or well-suited for Latin. It's the Latin borrowing of the Etruscan borrowing of the Greek borrowing of Phoenecian--of course it's a bit of a mess, because the history of writing is a bit of a mess!

The actual reason we need a revolution is because it's the only way to ever get an English spelling reform done

You are wrong for six reasons:

English is an official language in 67 different countries. You will not successfully coordinate a revolution in 67 different countries.

The lack of an official English orthography is good, actually. Academie Francais-style attempts at language planning are cringe as hell, and often ineffective. They are not the product of sensible policy, they are the product of head-up-your-ass nationalism, and their decrees usually reflect that fact.

English spelling is fine. English orthography correctly predicts the sound of words in the vast majority of cases; where it fails, it's usually because a vowel isn't reduced quite enough. It's true that you can't really reverse pronunciation to get spelling, but in almost all orthographies there are multiple spellings to a single pronunciation.

Where English spelling is truly irregular, it's typically to preserve etymological transparency, which is actually a good thing in a writing system.

English orthography is complex, but it must be so: there are more phonemic consonants in English than there are consonant letters in the alphabet used to write it, and many more phonemic vowels than there are vowel letters. If this displeases you, take it up with the Romans and their shitty alphabet; it's not the fault of English.

English orthography is also conservative, but this is also a good thing: it means it's possible to read texts written in Early Modern English, and even in some forms of Middle English, with only moderate effort. If (for instance) we used a purely phonetic writing system, English of only 300 years ago would look very strange on the page, and English of 600 years ago would be nearly incomprehensible. As it stands, a fluent English speaker can read Shakespeare with only light editing, and can read Chaucer with the help of a few footnotes. That's pretty good for a phonetic script!

[sabraeal]

Climb to the Rooftops

[Read on AO3]

Written for @another-miracle; a birthday fic that is COMING OUT ON TIME would you look at that (though I am definitely doing some fancy footwork to make it work out in both time zones 😂 Yixin asked for the Post-Rescue Tanbarun Tree Scene for WFB, and then I said, I could give you that, but what if I told you about a secret scene instead...

And then Yixin told me to write whichever one was Obi POV

He knows her.

That’s what keeps running through his head’s hamster wheel as he clomps up the student center steps. He knows her; he’s always known her. If he reached out on that park bench, if he’d grabbed her with both hands and just said, don’t leave me--

He would have been laid flat on his ass, courtesy of that mean right hook her dad taught her before he bounced. And there’d be another demerit on his record to boot, one more instance of anti-social behavior to make him even more unadoptable than he already was. Doc was always destined to go to a loving home, complete with cozy hideaways and towers of books, with warm firesides and even warmer grandparents, and he...

Well, he wasn’t meant for anything like that, no matter who he clung to. Sometimes shit just happens, and no wishing on stars thirteen years gone can change that.

It’s good to see her though. He’d always wondered what happened to his muppet girl, whether she’d gone off and had her happy ending just like she said she would. And now he knows she did.

He glances down at the peanut butter canister in his hand. Well, at least for a little while. That’s the thing about happy endings; they don’t really stick.

Obi hesitates, one foot poised over a step up, his hand wrapped around a ruddy safety rail. “Um, Doc.”

It takes her three steps to bounce to a stop, just enough to let her look down instead of up or across. He’s got double vision for a moment: Doc in the here and now looking at him with so much hope and anxiety that he’s half-afraid she’ll shake apart like a Hot Wheel in a blender; superimposed over the little girl in his memory, round face beaming up at him and her worries far behind her.

She’s got more freckles now, though most of them are hidden beneath her coat, fading without the direct application of summer sun. More inches too, though not as many as he’d given her in his head; for once he’d given more benefit of the doubt than nature could provide. And her hair-- well, that’s the same. Red. Fluffy. Muppety, too, if it’s the morning.

“Obi?”

He should really be paying attention to this conversation he fucking started, instead of just staring at her like a creep. “I just wanted to check in.”

“Oh.” She goes rosy under the freckles he can see, shifting the urn from her hands to her elbow. “I’m-- I’m fine. I’m glad that we could find--” one arm juts out, trying to encompass both them and the containers-- “everyone.”

“Yeah, I got you, but I meant...” He angles a pointed look over her shoulder. “Why are we going up?”

Doc’s jaw drops, and he sees it, the way panic crests right behind her eyes.

“Not that I’m suggesting we don’t.” He takes the next step slow, just enough to put them on equal standing. Except it doesn’t, it puts him a little above her; the beginning of really looking down. His heart flutters in the exact way it shouldn’t when he’s carrying human remains. “I’m just saying, if we’re going to carry geriatrics up a few flights, the elevator’s better for their hips.”

He expects her to laugh at that one, or maybe even roll her eyes, but instead Doc breaks out into a full-body Chihuahua tremble.

“Obi.” Her eyes are so big in her face they might swallow him whole. “We can’t take the elevator.”

“We...can’t?”

Her head jerks in the scarcest side-to-side. With one long, steeling breath, she informs him, “We’re going to do something a little illegal.”

His brows raise. “Illegal?”

The urn bobbles treacherously as her hands fly up between them. “Only a little!”

“You cashed in your favor with me,” he repeats slowly, savoring the thrill that zips through him with every syllable. “To do something illegal.”

Doc deflates with all the gravitas of a popped kiddie pool. “I’m sorry, I should have asked if that would be okay. Especially with, um...”

She’s far too polite to say, your presumed preexisting criminal record, Doc just hasn’t realized it yet. Not when she doesn’t know for sure whether it does exist or not. It’d be easy to help her along, but it’s kinda satisfying to watch her flounder, fishing for the pieces of him she does know.

“If it’s a problem,” she says finally, lifting her eyes to his. “You don’t have to--”

“The only problem is how hot that is, Doc.” He wraps a hand around the rail beside her, leaning in close enough that her eyes nearly cross watching him. “Are you gonna get into your old field hockey kit and punch a girl up there too?”

She blinks, heels clunking into the concrete rise. “I don’t think it would fit. The skirt would be too short, at least.”

Are you sure, he wants to say, stretching every last inch over her, but instead he rumbles, “Honey, you’re saying all the right things to me--”

“Hey.” A finger presses into his nose, hauling his words up short like a pileup. “No call list.”

“Ahh.” Her mouth twitches as he pulls back, rubbing at his nose. “Haah. You know I hate that.”

“Then stick to the list,” she informs him pleasantly. “Besides, are you really trying to flirt with a girl in front of her grandpa?”

“Well.” He holds up the tin, giving it an experimental shake. “You think they’d mind?”

There’s a quality to the silence in the stairwell that clues him in to the fact that he’s cocked up real good this time. First with the tomb joke, now asking if grandma might be watching from beyond the grave, objecting to his game. At least he knows he never had a chance; otherwise he’d have to go take his hopes out behind the woodshed--

“No,” she hums, confident. “They’d like you.”

It’s a good thing she doesn’t get it in her head to try the nose trick again; it’d push him right over. He can survive a lot, but four flights is pushing it. “Doc,” he huffs, scratching the bristle at the back of his head, “I don’t think--”

“Well...” She’s thoughtful when she puts her back to him, bouncing up the next couple of stairs. “Opa would. Oma would think you needed to be fattened up.”

He laughs, but even to his own ears it sounds busted up, wings broken. “Sounds like my kind of lady.”

“Ugh,” Doc sighs from one landing up. “She’d love that you said that.”

“That just makes her even more--”

“Don’t.”

RESTRICTED ACCESS, the doors says, bright red letters fading against the plastic sign. ALARM WILL SOUND.

Doc’s been bullish these last few flights, pushing a pace that makes him want to remind her he’s a hitter, not a runner, but now--

Now she shuffles on the stairs, daunted. “Do you think it will really...?”

Obi thinks this might be a private university, funded by mommy and daddy’s pockets to keep their babies safe, but alarms go off all the time. Unless this building has a rent-a-cop watching daytime TV down in the atrium right now, it could take hours for someone to answer the call, especially mid-afternoon on a Saturday.

“Who knows.” He’s not sure what she’s got up her sleeve that involves two dead people and a rooftop-- especially when even Doc is quick to admit it’s got at least a toe on the wrong side of legal-- but it probably won’t look good if they’re interrupted, even by the Diet Coke of the law enforcement vending machine. “Maybe you should plan to keep the fancy speeches to a minimum.”

“Eulogies.” Her thin fingers flex over ceramic, white where they press in. “You mean a eulogy.”

“Gesundheit.”

Doc turns her head, real slow, letting him soak in every drop of her disapproval. Well, that’s one pigtail successfully pulled.

With a breath so deep it makes her pea coat really earn the name, Doc nods. “Right. Okay. I think...”

Obi expects some dithering, some real soul-searching doubts being dragged out for airing right here in the stairwell. Doc likes that sort of thing, taking everything out of her head so she can fold it all up real nice again, but instead--

Instead she barrels across the landing, plowing right through the metal door, a whole stretch of gray winter sky stretching out before her. There’s one blink, two, and then-- well, the sign wasn’t kidding. The alarm does, in fact, sound.

He catches the door with a hand; it’s weighted, ready to swing right back into place and-- if he knows his doors-- lock right behind her. Not that it’d be a problem if he meant to stand around on the stairwell and act as look out; a role he’d be happy to play if that’s how Doc wanted this whole show to run. But right now she’s slumped at the ledge, every last ounce of her usual moxie wrung out.

Maybe she might tell him to stand back, that this is something she’s got to take on alone, but Obi knows every aching line of that pose by heart. A car can keep going for fifty miles once it hits empty, but that just means you’ll never know when the tank runs dry. That’s where she is right now, stalling out at her limit.

And that’s what he’s here for, to push her that last inch over the finish line. Besides, he can’t just stand back, not when he’s grandpa’s ride.

“So.” There’s a shim in a corner-- a naughty thing to have around an emergency door like this, but Obi’s not about to tattle. He’s perfectly happy to wedge someone else’s problem right where the paint’s flaked off the door. “What’s the problem?”

Doc blinks, one hand trembling on grandma’s lid. “W-what?”

He settles grandpa on the ledge, arms folded around him, taking in the sprawl of buildings below. Clarines isn’t as big as one of those state universities, but it makes Tanbarun look like a college playset instead of a campus. Both of them have those stuffy brick and marble buildings they like up here, the kind that say academic and too good for you loud and clear, but whereas Obi’s walked across Clarines for thirty minutes and still never hit the edge, it looks like he could lap this place in twenty. No wonder Doc was miserable here; the real mystery is how she managed an entire year in this fancy rat cage.

“There’s got to be one.” He knows better than to look at her; if he’s going to make her talking about feelings, the least he can do is give her the privacy to have them. “You were all gung-ho a minute ago, ready to do your thing even if you had to punch out a cop to do it--”

“--I didn’t say that,” she murmurs--

“--but now you’re just standing here.” He shrugs, chancing a glance from the corner of his eyes. “Looking lost.”

“I just...” She shifts, head twisting toward him, he doesn’t need to meet her gaze to know it’s wild, desperate. “It doesn’t feel right that they don’t go together.”

It’s his turn to stare now, lost. “O...kay.”

“What if...” Her teeth fold over her lip, worrying at places already worn. “What if I left them go, and they don’t find each other?”

“Ah...?” It seems like a bit of an oversight now, not asking what the plan is, but he ventures, “You mean...the ashes?”

Her mouth twists up, annoyance in every wrinkle. “It sounds weird when you say it like that.”

“No, no, I’m just...” He glances down at the tin between his arms. “I’m just putting things together. There’s nothing wrong about how you feel, Doc. Not like anyone’s really written a book about how this works.”

She looks up at him, so guileless. “Of course they have, Obi. There’s a whole section in the bookstore for it. It’s just that they’re all written by charlatans and quacks.”

Whatever the conversational version of whiplash is, Obi’s experiencing it now. For a minute all he can do is stare, taking in the abject disapproval rumpling her face, and then he-- he--

He laughs. Because this is what he’s into. The sort of person who pumps the breaks and spins the conversation 360 without even a courtesy ‘buckle up.’

“Listen, I’ve been thinking...” He taps the top of the tin, the metallic ting drowned out by the blare of the siren. “What if we just...mixed them? Then when you release them--”

“--They’re already together.” Doc blinks up at him, eye shining like he’s her savior, the center of her world, the answer to her cosmic question--

The way she really shouldn’t, when she already belongs to someone a hundred times better than he’ll ever be. Not when she’d never mean to get his hopes up.

“Thank you, Obi,” she breathes, a smile dawning on her lips. “That’s exactly what we need to do.”

Like all his good ideas, it’s easier said than done. On the ground, it’d been breezy, the sort of gentle push he’d come to expect from New England right before it got its first good snow, but up here--

“Here, take this.” Obi shrugs off his jacket, hurriedly pushing it into Doc’s boneless hands, but it’s too late-- they’ve already lost a bit of grandma. “Hold it up.”

She stares down at it, thumbs rubbing over the leather in a way that makes his shoulders itch. “Hold...?”

He swings out one arm-- the one not holding a geriatric-- yanking it wide. “Like a wind screen. I don’t want to lose Oma’s pinky toe or something.”

Doc blinks, stretching the coat between her hands. “Pinky toe?”

“Wouldn’t that make you cranky in the afterlife?” he asks, shaking more of Oma loose in a lull. “Losing a toe? Or a finger. Like just the last knuckle. A bit of your nose.”

The leather starts to ripple as the wind spins back up, and Doc stomps a foot down on the end of it to keep it from smacking up into his face. He appreciates the effort; it’s hard enough trying to pour from a large container to a small one without his zipper clocking him over the eyebrow. “Would that really matter?”

He shrugs. “To some people, probably. I got plenty of nose to spare.”

Doc mouth curves shyly, hunching down to hide behind his coat. “I think it’s fine just as it is.”

“Haah.” It’d be nice if she could give him a heads up when she plans to make his heart pound like that. “Think you might be the first to think that.”

“I don’t know,” she hums, eyes electric with some mischievous spark in their depths. “Maybe I’m the first to say so, but you certainly weren’t getting any complaints a few nights ago--”

He huffs. “Drunk college girls aren’t exactly arbiters of taste, Doc.”

She fixes him with that steady stare of hers, the one that’s so earnest it makes his heart make a bid for freedom through his throat. “I think,” she says, each word weighed before she lets it free, just like a good scientist, “that they did just fine.”

He smothers a whimper into a sigh. “Maybe your grandparents don’t mind me flirting,” he mutters, hunched over that stupid peanut butter tin, “but I’m sure they wouldn’t like you returning the favor.”

She blinks, head cocked. “Did you say something Obi?”

“No,” he says, just a little louder. “Just talking to myself.”

“You know--” he sets down the urn, wiping the sweat off his forehead-- “this would have been a lot easier going the other way.”

“We can’t.” Doc’s mouth twists up into that troublesome knot. “Opa always said he never wanted to be in one of those big fancy vases. And even if he would never know, I...”

Obi sighs, hanging his head. “Yeah, I know, I get it, just...complaining to complain. You know how it is.”

She stares down at him like he’s a fish on a dock telling her about the dangers of air. He shakes his head, stifling a laugh. Of course Doc wouldn’t get it; she could lose a limb and she’d still be thankful for the other three. Probably point out how much better things were now that she didn’t need to keep track of all of them. He might complain like it was as easy as breathing, but Doc-- Doc would take every last uncharitable thought to the grave.

Haah, give her some time. A few more months around him, and she’d discover some things to complain about. People always did.

“So,” he says, picking grandma back up. “Why here?”

Doc blinks. “Huh?”

“You know, on top of the roof of the campus center at one of the prestigious universities on the East Coast?” He raises a brow. “I know you used to go here, but most people just settle for leaving dog shit on the stoop when they want to send a ‘fuck you,’ you know.”

Doc unleashes a sound that can only be termed a squawk. “What? What do you mean most people--?” She shakes her head. “No, I don’t-- I mean, it’s not supposed to be a, um...”

“Fuck you?”

“Ah...yes. That.” She grimaces. “They met here. And when I tried to think of places they might want to be...”

Her words drift to a stop, but it’s gentle. They don’t abandon her, leaving her high and dry, but she just...stops saying them, letting the wind carry them away.

“I couldn’t think of any place else,” she admits, fingers tightening in the leather. “They always talked about Tanbarun so fondly, and I...I always thought it sounded like paradise.”

“But the roof?” Obi asks, incredulous. “Is it just easier to scatter the ashes, or...?”

“It’s where they met,” she repeats, like that makes any sense at all. “They used to have movie nights up here, played on one of those reel projectors,”

Her gaze swings out over the concrete like she could see it; all the hippy bean bags piled up, big screen pulled down and movie hardly able to be heard over the wind. Not a bad picture, he’ll admit. Wholesome, just like he’d expect out of the people who raised this Precious Moments doll of a person. Doesn’t really explain Mukaze, but well, shit happens. Half the people who raised him don’t deserve the person he’s become either. “Nice story.”

She’s hardly here with him, eyes hazy and distant, stuck in a past only she can see. “That’s what I always thought. I always wanted...” Her voice trails off again, but this time her smile falters, topping like china from a wobbling shelf. “I always wanted to have a story like that too. But it, um, didn’t really work out that way.”

He shouldn’t say anything. He’s not some neutral party, here to give her that impartial, unbiased pick-me-up she wants to hear, like telling her won’t rips a strip right off his back, so-- he should keep his big mouth shut.

But he’s never been good at any of that being smart shit. “It’s not like you didn’t have your own meet cute, it just wasn’t here. It was, er...”

Huh, now would you look at that. He’s never actually asked.

“At a record store,” she supplies slowly, like she has to think on it too. “Between the aisles after I missed my bus. No--” she laughs, more bitter than he’s ever heard her-- “after I chose to miss it.”

“See?” he hums, vibrating the knife deeper. “That’s already a good start.”

Her lips press thin. “I suppose...”

“No supposing about it.” He taps grandpa so the ashes sit flat before he starts another pour. “If I know anything about your Oma and your Opa-- and I don’t know nothing besides what you told me--” and what he saw a decade ago, sitting on that park bench-- “I don’t think they care whether you met your person at a rooftop movie or in a Walmart--”

“Record store.”

“They have CDs too,” he informs her, just as prim as Doc gets with him when she indulged the one pedantic bone in her body. “But the point is, they wouldn’t care where it happened, they just wanted you to find what they had.”

“I...” She deflates, the leather bowing over her legs. “I know. I think they used to worry that I wouldn’t, especially since I wasn’t really, ah...”

“Looking for it?” he offers.

She nods, relieved. “Yes, that. After my parents, I think they expected a much more, um, active interest in...anything. And I wasn’t.”

He doesn’t need to hear her say it to know that there’s more to it than that, that what she means to say is, and I don’t think they understood.

“Well, nothing for them to worry about anymore, is there?” She blinks up at him, alarmed, and he adds, “You and chief are kind of a done deal right?”

“Ah!” It’s hard to tell with the wind slapping both their cheeks red, but he could swear Doc’s blushing. “I don’t-- it’s not-- we haven’t really talked about--” she heaves a heavy, resigned sigh-- “I mean, I...I guess?”

“As done as it can be without getting PR involved.” He gives her the sort of eyebrow Kiki might. “I’m sure that if they’re out there floating on clouds or whatever, or, i don’t know, free energy in the universe, molecules just bumping around...they’re happy for you.”

“Right.” Her reply’s so faint he nearly misses it, but the wind that snatches it away carries it right by his ear. “Yeah.”

“All right, I think I’ve done as much as I can do.” Obi levers himself to his feet, brushing off his lap before handing her the tin. “You ready for this?”

Doc stares down at the canister, jaw set, the same way he’s sure it looked right before she threw herself out a window. Certainly looks the same way it did when she tried to bean Itoya with her purse.

“Yeah,” she breathes, fingers tightening around the metal. “I think I am.”

The wall’s not tall, but neither is Doc; she has to go up on tip-toe to throw an arm over it, the wind already pulling at the ashes laying loose at the top. Her brow furrows, mouth working for a good minute before she manages, “It’s time to say goodbye, I think.”

Obi stares. Sure, he’d said to keep it short and sweet, but if it’s taken this long for the rent-a-cop to hustle up, maybe she can spare the people who raised her more than--

“Thank you.” He’d thought it might be hard to hear her over both the alarm and the wind, but somehow all her words fly true, brightening the air. “For...everything. I don’t really know how you...”

Her breath catches, but her eyes are clear, no tears streaking down her face. “But that doesn’t matter, does it? You did everything and more. But I think...” She sniffs, taking a moment. “I think I can take it from here. I’ll miss you, Oma. And Opa...”

She takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I forgive you. For whatever still needs forgiving. Rest well.”

Her hand tips, just the barest degree, and the ashes scatter, wind whipping them past, twisting high over the quad.

“Hey.” Obi steps up beside her, shrugging his coat on over his shoulders. If it’s a little gritty-- well, good thing Doc thing thinks Oma would like him so much, because part of her might linger until the next wash. “I’m pretty sure it’s super illegal to scatter human remains like this.”

“Oh,” Doc hums, shoulder bushing his arm. “It absolutely is without a permit. I was not joking about the slightly illegal thing.”

Obi grins. “Well good thing that no one ever came to check on the--”

As if summoned by the mere mention of potentially having something approaching good luck, the door bar rattles, accompanied by some creative cursing.

“Who the fuck is leaving this open?” A gruff yet feminine voice demands, as if she might be able to shake down the universe and pick up the answers from what fell out of its pockets if she just rattled it hard enough. “Bill, is it you? God, what did I say about using the roof for your smoke breaks--?”

The door swings all the way open, and there she is, a security guard with shoulders that could have dropped straight from the Lowen family tree. Obi would take a picture if he wasn’t sure that would get him thrown in the campus drunk tank.

She takes one glance at them, then another angrier one. “Who the fuck are you?” 

“UM,” Doc shrills informatively.

“No, wait.” One broad hand waves in front of her. “I don’t care. What are you doing up here?”

Doc flounders in the face of authoritarian disappointment-- which is fine by Obi. This is his wheelhouse, after all. It’s nothing to reach out, cinching Doc’s waist against him, grin wide. “Sex, obviously.”

If it were possible for a body to choose the time and place of its expiration from this earthly dairy aisle, Doc’s mortified stare suggests she might curdle on the spot. “Obi.”

The guard’s glare is a study in skepticism, taking in the both of them, and then the concrete wasteland around them. “Here? With your clothes on?”

“It’s our kink.”

“Please,” Doc mutters against his shirt. “Don’t talk.”

The guard spares them one last weary look and sighs. “You know what? I don’t care. Just get out.”

Doc certainly doesn’t need to be told twice. Obi’s got his mouth open, what can’t you let us finish first about to spill right out, but her small hand clamps around his, and she drags him right off the roof.

“SORRY,” she yelps as they pass. “WON’T LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN.”

“Yeah,” Obi agrees with a grin. “Next time we’ll fuck on some other roo--”

Doc pauses for one moment, just long enough to raise a finger and inform him “DON’T.”

This time he lets her drag him off, grinning.

They’re halfway down the stairs when Doc finally slows, her cheeks reaching a shade of red that looks more lipstick than lobster dinner. Her hand wraps tight around the rail, and it’s not until he saunters down the last couple steps to stand beside her that he realizes-- her eyes are screw tight, breath coming in ragged bursts.

“Hey,” he murmurs, trying to ignore the spark of alarm zipping under his skin. “Did you just realize we could have used the elevator?”

Her fingers, already wrapped tight around his palm, squeeze. “Obi...”

The muscles in his arm lock, the way he’s sure lizard tails do, right before they drop them off and run. “Doc?”

Her head turns toward him, and when her eyes flutter open, they’re bright, clear. “Thanks. For being there.”

“No. No, no,” he murmurs, his fingers spasming against hers. “You’ve got it all wrong. I should be the one thank you for letting me. No one...”

No one has ever asked me to be there, he doesn’t say. No one but you.

It’s too much when she’s looking at him like this, like he’s not just a stand-in but her first choice. Like there’s more to how he feels than some one-sided over-investment. It brings him so close to feeling like someone, like the kind of guy who might be her person--

And maybe he could have been, if he hadn’t let some asshole rip her right out her arms in the middle of the night. If he had a record of being something other than a professional disappointment.

The grin doesn’t sit right on his face when he says, “No one’s ever asked me to get rid of a dead body before.”

Doc blinks, then rolls her eyes. “Come on,” she sighs, tugging his hand. “Let’s go.”

“Back to the hotel?”

“Well,” she wheedles. “That. And I dropped the tin when the guard surprised us...”

“Ah I see.” He slips his hand from hers, grin finally sitting the way it should. “So we’re adding evidence removal and obstruction of justice to our list of crimes.”

She tips a dubious look back at him. “Are you complaining?”

“Doc,” he breathes, pressing a hand to his chest. “I would never. I’m touched that you would even think that I could--”

“Come on, Obi,” she laughs, hopping down the steps in front of him. “I’d like to do this sometime today.”

His mouth curls as he watches her back. “Your wish is my command.”

[salomewithfeather]

MORSE-CODE

There's this cute little morse-code-tapping idea going around in 'incorrect-quotes-blogs' or 'writers-prompts-blogs' and I would just like to maybe make it easier for everyone to a) read the dashes and dots b) stop others from innocently propagating false information even if it's just via a cute little trope.

For the sake of brevity and maybe legibility and logic I'm going to talk about the most basic (Western) alphabet only - there are more advanced morse codes for numbers, abbreviations, asterisks and language-specific letters but I'm going to call them garnish to the main course that is the basic morse-alphabet (as I learned it).

Throughout this rant please remember that I am mostly talking of my subjective and personal experience. This is a hopefully helpful rant, not a scientific essay.

So...

Intro - How I learned Morse

The way I learned Morse-Code when I was young (10?) was by using cue-words for the alphabet's letters. The cue-word for the letter A would be "An-ton", for example. And we'd learn to break these words/phrases into their syllables.

I've learned that language-users break their syllables up in different ways sometimes, because other languages deal with silent vowels at the end of a word, or its beginning, where my mothertongue (German) has very few of these issues.

But there are some words I think you could loan, even from a language as difficult as German. I'll get to those later.

All Dots or All Dashes

There are at least seven letters of the alphabet you don't have to learn too hard for, seeing as they're relatively easy to discern because they're only dots or only dashes.

E, I, S, H are respectively one dot, two dots, three dots, four dots.

E . I . . S . . . H . . . .

On the other spectrum we have T, M and O which are respectively one dash, two dashes and three dashes.

T - M - - O - - -

Alternatively there is fourth all-dash character in the morse-alphabet, though the expression is not universal in all langauges. The two letters C and H coupled to make CH can be shortened from their respective two letters to a four-dash.

CH - - - -

It is possible that this morse-character is more useful in the context of the German language than the English one - I have had very little actual comparison.

When is it a dot or a dash

Here's the slightly disheartening thing.

In my research into the world of the international/ English morse-alphabet I was surprised to find that the use of cue-words or -phrases to remember the morse alphabet were as good as a non-issue.

I was more surprised to find that even in the context in which I learned the morse alphabet (as a fresh young girl scout) cue-words were still not a given rather than strict memorization of this letter is this blip-sound and this other letter is a combination of shorter and longer blip sounds. It makes it more difficult, I think, to remember and handle the morse alphabet.

As I stated above, when I learned MC, the letters of the alphabet would receive cue-words/phrases we'd break up into syllables. The number of syllables would indicate how many dots and-or dashes would comprise the letter.

Anton, for A, has two syllables - An-Ton - and is therefore made up of two blips.

But how would we know when to put a dot or a dash?

I don't know which genius made up the cue-words and -phrases for the German-speaking Scout Community, but they managed to twist it in such a way, that a cue-word-syllable containing the letter O would indicate a dash, whereas all other syllables without the letter O would indicate dots.

A for Anton would therefore be a dot and a dash.

A An-ton . -

Following this rule, we could make up all sorts of cue-words or phrases to the odd looking squiqqles (full Alphabet see below) - so long as we could break the cue up into syllables and ensure that every dash-syllable would contain the letter O.

Loan Words

Both because I mentioned them in the Intro as well as to illustrate my point, here are some cues for a handfull of letters that I think should translate well-enough even for English.

A An-ton (dot dash) . - C Co-ca-co-la (dash dot dash dot) - . - . I I-da (dot dot) . . M Mo-tor (dash dash) - - N Nor-den (dash dot) - . R Re-vol-ver . - . S Sa-bri-na . . . U U-ni-form . . - V Ven-ti-la-tor . . . -

The Entire Alphabet

A long list of dots and dashes, but without cues

A . - B - . . . C - . - . D - . . E . F . . - . G - - . H . . . . I . . J . - - - K - . - L . - . . M - - N - . O - - - R . - . S . . . T - U . . - V . . . - W . - - X - . . - Y - . - - Z - - . .

A few words to conclude

It may have come to your attention that some letters mirror each other - such as A and N, D and W, or K and R, and as someone who could never quite remember the cue-word for K it helped a lot to know that I simply had to invert the dots and dashes of the letter R to get there.

I'm sure there's a myriad of ways to actually remember the morse alphabet and the more I think about it, the more I believe that my research has been hasty. I don't believe that no one in the English-speaking community has come up with something like cue-words. So consider this more of a 'adding my own twist to it' rather than a 'this is how to'.

This is another way how to. One that ten-year-old me found much more easier to learn than dots and dashes.

I hope it might help you too.

[atmo-spherique]

Kaminoan: Phonetic Inventory and Counting System

While discussing clone things with @daitoshi​, they offhandedly mentioned the weirdness of the number of clones in a batch (and incidentally the general structure of the GAR). Apparently this was all the inspiration I needed to decide I was going to create base-4 counting system for the Kaminoans. 32 clones per batch seems pretty random, but it is just 2 x 16 (2 x 4^2), so in a base-4 system, it’s no more random than say 200 (2 x 10^2) is in base-10. Base-4 also ties in thematically with DNA irl, so that’s fun for a bunch of cloners!

I’ve put together a guide to my process and rules for the enjoyment of all. And by enjoyment, I mean frustration because this counting systems it incredibly upsetting.

We normally assume most human counting systems are base-10 due to our (standard) number of fingers. How the heck to do count to four with three fingers, then?? Well, this is how Imma say the Kaminoans count on their fingers:

Does it make sense? I guess. Does it seem probable? Not really. But the joy of conlanging and worldbuilding for aliens is you can always just be like, “Whatever, their alien brains are built differently.”

Anyways, we’re gonna want some names for these numbers, so we gotta come up with some mouth sounds to represent them.

We do not have a lot of canon (or legends) words for Kaminoan stuff, and what we do have is of course plagued by the same issue that every collection of made up words in SW suffers from: absolutely no internal consistency. Okay, well maybe there is some internal consistency, so let’s look at what we got:

PEOPLE

Taun We Lama Su Kina Ha Ko Sai Nala Se Erla Halle Burtoni

PLACES

Tipoca Timira Derem Baran Wu Su Des Slici Tal An Glascretia Razoral

STUFF

aiwha nahra

AIWHA POD STORY

Protas Melkorr Kikla Thalina iiaa oii sso uded

DAITOSHI

Sre Len

Taun We, Lama Su, Nala Se: these are iconic of the vibe I want the phonetic system to embody. So, what features from this data set should I keep for the phonetic inventory?

I dismiss Glascretia and Razoral outright since they have a very “fake English vibe.” Same with Protas and Melkorr, since they just seem to be plays on Proteas (Greek myth) and Melkor (Tolkien) respectively. Also, I throw Halle Burtoni right out the window because every other Kaminoan we meet sounds like their name came from the same language. What the heck happened here?? Whatever language she’s named in, it’s not the one I’m building.

Get rid of thalina, too; I don’t like the <th> just because. Additionally, I’m not sure what the <h> in nahra represents (is it silent? pronounced? part of a digraph with <r>????), so we’re gonna ignore it for now. Finally, the terminal <d> in uded doesn’t fit the vibe I want to go for. I consider keeping the terminal <s> in Su Des but eventually decide against it.

From Tal An and Erla, I decide that approximants can occur finally.

I take <c> and <k> to represent the same phoneme.

For absolutely no good reason, I have always assumed the <wh> in aiwha was inspired by Maori, so I’ll count that as one phoneme. However, I decide to have all approximants have a voiced and voiceless form. So, I end up not using the Maori rendering anyways.

Great, overall we’ve got what looks like it could be a very CV syllable structure. In order to match the vibe I’m going for, I won’t complicate that too much.

We have several C<l> consonant clusters, so we’ll say that it can occur initially. And since we said all approximants can occur finally, we’ll just say all approximants can occur in this position, too. Plus, since I’m mostly just doing this project to amuse Daitoshi, this also allows for their OC’s name to be permissible in the system.

Now, what is going on with these words from the Aiwha Pod short story?? Suddenly double letters. Okay. We’ll say <a> and <i> have long forms, and then we’ll say <u> does as well for a more balanced system. Same with <s> and then <h>, again for balance. Do these words represent diphthongs? Meh. I’ll say no, they’re bisyllabic because I want them to be.

After all that, we’re left with :

m /m/ n /n/

p /p/ b /b/ t /t/ d /d/ k/c /k/

s /s/ ss /sː/ h /h/ hh /hː/

lh /l̥/ l /l/ rh /ɻ̊/ r /ɻ/ wh /ʍ/ w /w/

i /i/ ii /iː/ u /u/ uu /uː/ e /e/ o /o/ a /ä/ aa /äː/

ai /äɪ̯/ au /äʊ̯/

(C1)(C2)V(C3)

C1 = -approximant if occuring in cluster

C2 = +voiced approximant

C3 = +nasal or +voiced approximant

Yay! Let’s work on naming some numbers now.

We’ll obviously want unique names for 0-4. Additionally, the number 9 is very significant in the GAR; squads consist of nine troopers, so every other division ends up divisible by nine. Cool, let’s give 9 a unique name and let it play a role in counting. I also give 36 and 144 unique names, thinking of things like “dozen” and “gross” and “score” in English. Aside from these, we’ll want the various powers of 4 to be something simple.

Futz around with the phonemic inventory, maybe drop it into a word generator, and here are the unique number name around which all other numbers will be based:

And there you have it! The basics, at least. I’ve worked out the names of number 0-64 with which, as long as you know the powers of four, you can work out any number you’d like up to 206 billion~!

Additionally, I decided to create a numeral system (I mean, it’s only four characters, so why the heck not?) very loosely inspired by the structure of the DNA nucelobases (adenine, guanine, thymine cytosine), so here’s that:

And here is a list of the names of all of the numbers through 64! The general rule is simply that if the smaller integer appears first, it is multiplied by the following. If the larger integer appears first, it is added to the following. Aside from a few of the earlier numbers, it’s pretty regular! 9 lends its name to its multiples, and of course 36 (and 144) have unique names, as mentioned above. After hitting 64, the numbers repeat (the same way that they do in English after 100).

*both rai hhel and kwado lho are used, though the latter is rarer

Aaaand for examples in this system, I thought I’d convert some clone designations into it :3

Rex 7567 → 1312033

each digit: lho hhel lho kwa abo hhel hhel

full number: rai hhelto lho whenau kwaiil hhelte hhel

abbreviated: tehhel tekwa abo hhelte hhel

wooooow you can immediately see why they wouldn’t go with base-4 designations haha

Fives 5555 → 1112303

each digit: lho lho lho kwa hhel abo hhel

full number: rai te lho whenau kwaiil hhelrai hhel

abbreviated: telho tekwa hhel abo hhel

maybe we will just call him “Telhon” in Kaminoan :)

Cody 2224 → 202300

each digit: kwa abo kwa hhel abo abo

full number: kwate whenau kwaiil hhelrai

abbreviated: kwate dokwa abo abo (or perhaps “abora” for “double zero”)

I accidentally made his name start with “Kwate” which sounds enough like his nickname I suppose :)

And that’s it! If you read this far, um, thanks (unless you’re Daitoshi: curse you for inspiring me to create this). idk why you would, but anyone is welcome to use this for whatever purpose. Would love to see what you come up with if you do, though, so hmu~! ;)

[myownworstenemyyy]

can I request “I always made you think your feelings for me were totally one-sided…that wasn’t true.” with javi :)

edit: this is Part 1 of the Crystal Clear series

feeling angsty, are we, nonny? 😏 i was so excited to write this one! I hope you like it and mayhaps a part 2 is in the works 😉💕💜💜

prompt from this list: “I always made you think your feelings for me were totally one-sided…that wasn’t true.”

word count: 1.7k (gif by @bestintheparsec)

warnings: swearing (obvi) ; cheating on someone ? kinda briefly ? (idk man)

masterlist | also, this fic was heavily inspired by the song Crystal Clear from the beautiful Hayley Williams 🥰

AO3 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

“I wanna make it crystal clear that I won't give in to the fear.”

The Texas heat is always unforgiving this time of year. But your garden was starting to look horrendous, so you had decided to just suck it up and get some yard work done. Now, as you kneel in the dirt, your gloved hands deep in the soil and back aching from bending over for so long, you think maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. 

The sound of rocks shifting under heavy footsteps has you looking over your shoulder to see a figure approaching. You raise your hand to shield your eyes from the sun shining so brightly behind the stranger, their silhouette being the only thing you can make out. “Can I help you?” you say in a polite, yet cautious voice. 

Your heart nearly stops when an all-too-familiar baritone replies, “Hola, bonita,” as he stops a few feet in front of you - well, technically behind you. Slowly rising to your feet, your eyes fully adjust to the sunlight as you take in the sight of the first man you ever fell in love with. Javier.

He mostly looks the same, save for the slight tan of his skin, along with a few worry lines and wrinkles that have formed over the years since he-

Since he left you.

“Javier,” you state, your voice betraying you when it cracks on the last syllable. What is he doing here? When did he - come back?  

The silence drags on as the two of you study each other, though his expression is much softer than your confused one. “What are you doing here?” you ask at the same time he says, “You look good.” He chuckles, the sound making your stomach flip as your cheeks flush. 

That laugh - god, it’s been so long since you’ve heard it, the last time being the night before he left for Columbia to aid in the capture of Pablo Escobar. Though at the time, you didn’t actually know it would be the last time you’d see him for years to come. You didn’t learn that bit of information until the next morning when you woke up to find a letter in your mailbox - a short apology for his sudden departure. 

But you’d suspected it was more like “fleeing,” especially after you’d told him how you truly felt about him just the night before. Though you suppose you should’ve known better - Javier Peña never was a man who could be committed to one woman for longer than a few nights. Even if that woman was you - his best friend since elementary school. 

Lost in reminiscent thoughts of the two of you together, you don’t notice Javier taking a couple steps closer to where you’re standing. “I just got back a couple days ago and...I needed to see you,” he looks away for a moment, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

Well, at least he has the decency to look ashamed.

“OK, you’ve seen me. Now you can go,” you turn around and head towards the front door to your house, leaving your garden a half-done mess. You’ve just reached the first step of the porch when he reaches for your wrist, “Wait - I...I’m sorry, for leaving.”

Releasing a weary sigh, you turn and face him again, his eyes filled with sincerity and something akin to desperation. Your heart instinctively aches to comfort him, but you know that’s not your place - not anymore. “Why?” you ask quietly and the regret lining his features tells you he knows you’re not just referring to why he’s sorry, but why he actually left in the first place without so much as a good-bye. Because you both know you didn’t deserve to find out he was leaving from some piece of paper left on your fucking doorstep.

“I didn’t know how to tell you - that I was assigned to the unit in Columbia. And I couldn’t face you - not after everything you’d said...about-”

“I remember,” you cut him off, tears burning at the corners of your eyes. You bite your bottom lip as it threatens to quiver, the emotions you’ve been suppressing for so long rising to the surface. “You broke my fucking heart, Javi,” your voice breaks, barely above a whisper, as a tear glides down your cheek.

“I know,” he admits in a voice just as softly as he closes his eyes for a moment, releasing a shaky breath, “God, I know, bonita. I - I always made you think your feelings for me were totally one-sided…” he takes a deep breath, sliding his hand down your wrist and holding your right hand in both of his, “but...that wasn’t true,” he confesses, his words landing like a punch to the gut.

Your breath hitches when you finally process what he’s said, the meaning behind his words gripping your heart like a vise. He...feels the same way? 

His dark eyes search yours, pleading for you to understand - for you to forgive him. But you’ve fallen speechless as you try to think of a response, barely able to voice a weak, “W-what?” 

As you remain in a state of shock, Javi reaches for your other hand, coming to stand in front of you, his eyes never leaving yours. “Bonita, I-” he starts but then his brow furrows as he looks down at your left hand, his fingers feeling for something under your gardening glove. 

The look of realization on his face is what finally snaps you out of your trance-like state. You swallow hard as you remove the glove from your left hand, bringing it up closer to eye level to show him-

“I’m engaged,” you croak out, your words laced with regret, and you quickly push away every thought rushing to the forefront of your mind. You refuse to acknowledge any bit of reasoning as to why your heart is breaking from sharing the news of your engagement with the man who basically just confessed his love for you.

“Oh,” he swallows hard, his gaze fixated on the simple diamond that suddenly feels like it’s cutting off circulation to your finger. His grip loosens as he releases your hands, wiping his own hand down his face as he turns away, muttering, “Of course you are - soy más pendejo,” he trails off, his back facing you.

You're frozen at the bottom of the porch, clutching your gardening glove to the point of making your knuckles ache. His hands rest on his hips, his head dropping for a moment as he takes one, two, three breaths before turning to face you once more. 

Your heart begins to race as he watches you for a moment, his expression unreadable. Though, the sadness in his eyes is impossible to miss. 

Clenching his jaw, he nods his head once like he’s come to some kind of decision. “Felicidades, bonita. I hope your prometido knows how lucky he is,” he offers a tight-lipped smile before turning on his heel and walking away. It takes a minute for your legs to finally spring into action as you stumble after him, “Javi, wait!” you drop the glove on the ground, no longer caring about the mess in your front yard.

He skids to a stop but remains facing forward, his shoulders tense. Walking around his brooding figure, you face him head-on, “It’s been years since I’ve even heard from you, Javi - you can’t just-” you shake your head incredulously, all the hurt and confusion from his abandonment manifesting itself as anger, “you don’t get to do this to me. You don’t just get to leave, come back and say you have feelings for me - and then fucking leave again!” 

Your chest rises and falls with the same fierce intensity coating your words, but you refuse to back down, “Why did you even come here if you were just gonna leave the minute I rejected you? I mean, what the hell was I supposed to do after you left? Sit around and sulk because my best friend - the man I love - decided to take a job in Columbia, and didn’t even say good-bye?!” 

Your hands fly to your hair in frustration as you start to pace up and down the sidewalk, angry tears welling in your eyes. No, I’m not crying over him again - I did enough of that when he left. But the memory of you sitting on the hardwood floor in your living room, clutching his letter to your chest as you sobbed for hours, has fresh tears spilling onto your cheeks.

“‘Love’, not… ‘loved’?” he asks carefully as he watches you closely, holding his breath while you wipe your face clean with the front of your shirt. You look at him with a furrowed brow, “What?” The adrenaline from your outburst is quickly fading, exhaustion taking its place.

After a beat, you meet his eyes, which are swimming with emotion as he elaborates, “You said ‘the man I love’... not ‘the man I loved.” His face gives nothing away, but you're taken aback when you see an echo of something in his eyes - hope.

You slowly shake your head, “Javi-” but he cuts you off with a desperate plea.

“Please, just-” he takes a step toward you, his hands reaching out to lightly grip your arms, “tell me - tell me you feel nothing for me anymore and I'll leave you alone...for good.” And from the pained look plaguing his features, you know he’ll keep that promise - he'll walk out of your life, taking all the pain and sorrow he’s caused you along with him.

You grip his forearm with a shaky hand, holding onto him like he’s the only thing anchoring you to this moment. Your lip trembles and his brow furrows deeper in concern as your breathing picks up, your entire being overwhelmed by the emotions boiling over within you.

“I...can't,” you breathe out, looking into his dark eyes as you bring your hands to his face, your fingers hesitantly stroking his cheek. His chest is rising and falling to the same tempo as yours, his lips slightly parted as you trace your fingers over his bottom lip, mesmerized by the curve and slight pout that permanently lives there.

“Bonita-” but it's your turn to interrupt him, only this time it's not with words. You cradle his face in your hands and push up on the tips of your toes until your lips meet his - and the rest of the world fades away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Translations:

bonita - pretty / beautiful

soy más pendejo  - I'm the biggest dumbass 😂

Felicidades - Congratulations

prometido - fiance

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

tag list: (let me know if you wanna be added/removed)

@spacegayofficial @themandjalorian @hiscyarika @mandoispunk @madadlorian @pedrolorians @forever-rogue @longitud-de-onda @certifiedskywalker @dindjarindiaries @no-droids-allowed @aerynwrites @buckyodinson @lannister-slings-and-arrows @gooddaykate @fanfiction-trashpile @arrowswithwifi @letaliabane @thinemineours @ham4arrow @kaelyn-lobrutto24 @thisainttheway @bluemoon-glen @katialvi  @bestintheparsec @24kgolden @livasaurasrex @c-ly-g @triggerhappyflyboyy @fangirl-and-stuff @mrsparknuts @and-i-swear-we-are-infinte @behindmyeyes-insidemyhead @kimljn @kristalhi @fatbottomedcurls @auty-ren @mabelleen @rzrcrst @pascalisthepunkest @blushingwueen @lovingtheway @beskars @mandoandyodito @roxypeanut @rosamedina92 @sinnamon-bun @ct-arc-5555 @keeper0fthestars @poe-pascal @spacemacandcheese @destucky45 @marvelwars @synystersilenceinblacknwhite @frietiemeloen @waywardodysseys @thick-dick-daddy-mando @haildoodles-writing @walkerchick007 @miraelles

[ohmightydevviepuu]

our little life (rounded with a sleep) / chapter 1

our little life (rounded with a sleep) chapter one / AO3

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful detective. She had blonde hair, green eyes, no family, and she was good at finding people; in fact, she proclaimed this on her office door. “Swan and Humbert,” it said. “Private investigations, missing persons, and bail bonds.”

Only lately, she's been thinking that maybe it should say "Emma Swan: Loner, Loser, Complicated wreck."

Her partner's been killed on a case after she made a deal with her landlord to find what had been taken from him. But when she tracks a possible perp to a bar on the outskirts of town, Emma will find out exactly how deep the rabbit hole goes.

(a FULL rewrite of "the stuff that dreams are made of" completed as part of the 2020 Captain Swan Big Bang Rewrite-a-Thon)

--

with awe and infinite thanks to @captainswanbigbang and the team of mods there ( @optomisticgirl,  @phiralovesloki, @spartanguard, @shippingtheswann)   for running an insanely first-class event.  thanks also to the crew in the discord, who helped me plug MANY a plot hole, and especially to @shireness-says who kept me accountable on so many nights when i was floundering.  

i lost track of how many times i begged @thisonesatellite, @profdanglaisstuff and @katie-dub to read or re-read sections of this; especially to @thisonesatellite who’s been working with me on this story since before the event was official and dedicated many countless hours to suggesting--gently--that i stop banging my head against the wall.  @profdanglaisstuff came through and saved this story AT LEAST three times.  (that is probably a lowball estimate TBH)

--

CW:  canonical character death (minor character) rating:  T/M (mild implied violence, language) AO3

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful detective.

She had long, blonde hair that curled just so at the edges of a face with skin as fair as snow, save for the hint of a blush across the apples of her cheeks.  Her eyes glinted green, like emeralds in the sunlight, and the fall of her lashes was thick and dark.  Emma Swan looked like nothing so much as a fairy-tale princess, but if Emma Swan knew one thing about her life it was this: nothing about it was a fairy tale.

Her hair, for starters, was the product of nearly an hour’s work in front of a mirror most days, curling it and drying it and styling it just so. Twenty minutes perfecting the “no makeup” aesthetic with no less than three base layers before the foundation swept across her cheeks; the thickest mascara wand she could find and the darkest shade of black available completed the look unless she was feeling particularly ambitious and added lash primer.  Contact lenses instead of glasses, though her eyes were naturally green which meant that at least one of her parents probably had green eyes, too, not that Emma knew for sure either way.  But she was beautiful, which was a thing she did know for sure, capping it all off with a carefully curated collection of leather jackets and knee-high boots, black trousers and jeans and pencil skirts, for a look that said very clearly do not fuck with me.

Emma was her actual given name, or at least it was according to the one tangible thing--besides her eyes--that she knew she had gotten from her parents. The letters had been lovingly stitched into the hand-knitted blanket in which she had been found near a diner by the side of the road in Bumblefuck, Maine sometime in the first few hours after she had been born.  Her last name, Swan, had been attached by the one family who had considered adopting her, and had stuck on every piece of official paperwork that followed her from foster home to foster home after they had traded her in to have their own kid.  Sometime around her fourteenth or fifteenth birthday, soon after the first time she had run away, Emma had decided she might as well keep it as not.  Something about believing in herself and saying ‘fuck you’ to fate because no one else was going to do it for her.

No fairy godmothers in this world.

Emma Swan also had a talent:  She was good at finding people, and she proclaimed this fact on her office door.  “Swan and Humbert,” it said.  “Private Investigations.  Missing Persons.  Bail Bonds.”

So, Emma Swan was twenty-eight, as of today; beautiful, but prickly, which was the nice way that people said it.  “Unfeeling bitch” was what Graham Humbert called her, and most days, he meant it as a compliment. 

Last night he had meant it to wound her.  “Heartless bastard” was what she had called him in return after he’d crossed a line she had never intended them to cross.  As Emma pushed the office door open, she was wondering if she should change it to “Emma Swan:  Loner, Loser, Complicated Wreck” before deciding that would probably scare potential clients away.

And for now, at least, she still had a partner.  If she hadn’t scared him away, too.  Emma was furious just thinking about it--their partnership was supposed to be easy and constant, one of the few reliable things she’d found in this life she’d scraped together for herself.

“He’s not here, is he?” Emma asked, sighing, as she walked into the outer office.

“Mmmm?” Ruby murmured, not looking up from her makeup mirror as she fluffed her waist-length, red-streaked black curls until she was satisfied with their volume. “Graham just phoned, actually, said he was gonna be late.”  She pouted into the mirror, testing the longevity of her red lipstick, and finally looked up.  “Whoa, Em,” she said, gesturing at the cropped red leather jacket Emma had selected for the day’s ensemble.  “What’s with the battle armor?  You can’t be like this today, you have a client waiting.”  Ruby snapped the mirror shut and nodded at the inner office door with her chin.

“Like what?” Emma challenged.

“Nope,” Ruby said.  “Not going there.”

Emma glared, just for a second, and cracked a small smile.  “Sleazy divorce case?” she asked, almost hopefully.

“Ah.”  Ruby nodded, like that explained something. “You’re in that mood.  Explains the outfit.  So we’re not solving the mystery of True Love today, then?”

“No mystery,” Emma said.  “Sooner or later, the people you love let you down.  Life lesson from me to you, Ruby.  At least then, they end up here--and we need the eighty bucks an hour.”

“You make it sound so tawdry,” Ruby complained.

“These are our people, Red.”

Ruby paused, eyeing Emma up and down one more time, lingering on the red leather.  “What did he do?” she asked, lowering her voice.  “Do I need to, like, rip out his throat or something?”

And--it wasn’t like Emma hadn’t felt a flash of something when he’d kissed her in the office late the night before, it’s just that it was easier to feel nothing when what you were feeling, most of the time, just plain sucked.

Emma didn’t answer and the silence stretched out until Ruby expelled a breath.  “Okay,” Ruby said, not sounding happy about it.  “Whatever. But--trust me, Emma.  We need this client.”

“He just needs me?”  Emma asked.  “Or, I guess, just one of us?”

“Actually,” Ruby said.  “He said he wants you. He was specific,” Ruby said.  

Emma had a good reputation for someone her age and especially for someone whose resume most closely resembled one of the people she was trying to track down.  But the truth was that clients who came in with a specific personnel request generally went straight for Graham.  

“Right,” Emma said.

“But lower your shields a bit and, you know, smile--but not the kind where you show your teeth because you don’t want to scare them off.”

Emma pushed the corners or her mouth upward with her middle fingers and made sure to bare as many teeth as she possibly could.  “All the better to eat you with, my dear.”

Ruby gave her a wink and an air kiss.  “Any time, babe, you know that.”

Emma laughed, breaking into a real smile.  “I’ll leave that to Victor, I think.”

“It’s cute,” Ruby said, “that you think he’d care, except to come and watch--or maybe help,” and smacked her lips again when Emma rolled her eyes and turned toward the door marked ‘Private.’  She ran a hand over her hair to smooth it, squared her shoulders, and straightened her jacket.

“Shoulders back, chin up, tits out, Em,” Ruby muttered.  “It’s worth way more than a sleazy divorce case, I can smell it.”

Emma braced herself, opening the door and shutting it behind her.

Her visitor stood in the center of the room, facing the window and leaning on an ornate walking stick.  He turned around at the sound of the doorknob and smiled, a sickly, fake thing that flashed just a hint of a gold tooth.  “Ah,” he said. “Miss Swan.  It’s nice to see you again. I’m Mr. Gold--”

“I remember,” Emma said, “sir.” Sir because if what her landlord charged for this place was any indication, to say nothing of what his made-to-measure three-piece suit must have cost, Ruby was right:  they needed this case.

“I have a proposition for you, Miss Swan,” he said.  “I need your help.”

--

Emma sank slowly into her swivel chair, turning to face her visitor and smiling politely--the tight, thin kind that showed no teeth.  She took him in:  his charcoal grey suit with a hint of a sheen on the fabric, the blood red dress shirt underneath, the black tie streaked with gold and just a hint of purple with a matching pocket square at his breast.  

“It would appear,” he said with no preamble, his voice low and soft, “that I’ve been robbed.”  He spoke with a smoothed-over accent; Scottish, perhaps, but every few words there was a syllable with a cadence so foreign Emma couldn’t even begin to place it.

“You seem unsurprised,” Emma remarked cautiously.

“Other attempts have been made in the past,” he said, tapping his cane lightly against the heel of one of his polished leather shoes.  The walking stick, it turned out, was quite genuine, as the man had hobbled slightly when crossing the room toward the visitor’s chair at Emma’s desk.  “I am a man of means with collections representing many varied interests and there are always those who come to me for--” he paused, and Emma sensed the deliberation with which he chose his words, “--help.  Sometimes I am able to oblige them; other times, I leave them to their own devices.”

“You’re saying that you’re a target,” Emma said, “and that something has been taken from one of your collections?”  He nodded, and his hair nearly brushed the tips of his shoulders.  It was long for a man of his apparent dignity, with strands hanging around his face and nearly in his eyes.

“What can I say, Miss Swan?” he asked rhetorically.  “I’m a difficult man to love.”

His eyes had clearly been following hers as she made her mental evaluation of him, and the effect he gave was almost that of a reptile.

“Here’s the thing, Mr. Gold,” Emma said, keeping the smile intact and speaking softly.  “A missing object, stolen from your shop--it sounds like the kind of job the police should handle.  Though I understand why a man in your position might choose discretion above all else, I also know that a man of your means would typically have no cause to approach someone like me directly--which tells me that whatever has gone missing is something of such value that you can’t even take the chance that anyone knows it’s missing.”

His gold tooth glinted again as he parted his lips and nodded his head, almost as if in appreciation.  Emma took it as a confirmation--not that she needed it. Her life had taught her many things, and her skill at reading people had gotten to the point where if she was concentrated and detached, she could tell a lie better than a polygraph.

“What’s been taken from me, Miss Swan,” he said, “has been in my possession for longer than you’ve been alive.”

Emma nodded.  What he said was not a lie.

“Okay,” she said, leaning forward and bracing her elbows on her desk.  “So tell me what I’m looking for.”

“You misunderstand me, Miss Swan,” he said, tilting his head at an angle as he, too, shifted his weight forward.  “I have no need for you to retrieve my stolen property.  I merely require your assistance in apprehending the man who had the audacity to violate me in such a brazen manner.”

Emma gave Gold a long, hard look.  “Robbery is a public menace.  You’re asking me to aid in what could be construed as obstruction of justice.  And you won’t even tell me what--?”

“Let’s just say,” he said, “that it’s a precious object and leave it at that.  Further, I will give you my assurances that it poses no danger to anyone as long as I get it back as quickly and quietly as possible and that it remains my secret.  But it is imperative that I find this person sooner rather than later.  I am, you might say, on something of a schedule.”

“You have a funny definition of justice, Mr. Gold,” she said.  

“My dear Miss Swan,” he said, the tooth glinting, “who said anything about justice?”

“What did they really do?”

“They stole,” he said, and nothing else.

Emma sat back and crossed her arms.

“I would hate to think that I’ve made a mistake in coming to you, Miss Swan,” Gold said, his voice still low, the words turning silky. ”It was my understanding that you are quite...dedicated in your chosen profession and have, for the most part, a record of success in finding those whom you seek.”

Emma managed not to flinch.  He couldn’t know that much about her from the cursory background an internet search would reveal; couldn’t know that she never had found her parents, because the kind of assholes who hand-knitted their kid a blanket and then left said kid on the side of the road were also the kind of assholes who had left absolutely no trace of their identity in any system Emma had access to.   

Had they ever even held her?

She’d never let herself hold her son, because Emma knew exactly what kind of asshole sent their kid out into the world on their own:  the kind that couldn’t be a parent.  The kind that needed to give that kid their best chance.

If she’d held him--if she’d given herself at least that--maybe it would have been easier.

Hell, it certainly couldn’t have been any harder.

“Miss Swan?”

Emma drew in a deep breath and set her shoulders.  “And you have a history with this person, I take it?”

“Miss Swan,” he said, and the laugh that accompanied it was a distinctly unpleasant one, “you will find that there are very few people in our little corner of the world with whom I do not have history.  And this man, I am sorry to say, has an unfortunate history of taking what is mine.”

Emma nodded, slowly.  “Okay,” she said, with some reluctance.  “I’ll check him out.”

“I’m sure you will,” Gold said smoothly. “In return for this service, you will of course expect payment.”

“Our hourly rate is--”

Gold was uninterested.  “Of no importance,” he said dismissively.  “You may invoice me, assuming I don’t find him first.  If I do...let’s just say that bad things happen to bad people.”

“Is that a threat?” Emma asked, incredulous.

“More of an observation, or perhaps an incentive,” he said, and the sickly smile was back.  “Do we have an understanding?”

She nodded again. “Deal,” she said.

“Grand,” Gold said, licking his lips.

“What’s going on in here?” said a voice from the doorway, lilting and accented and familiar.

“Graham,” Emma said, “Mr. Gold would like us to take a case on his behalf.  Mr. Gold,” Emma turned her attention back to their new client, swallowing her reservations because she was good at her job.  She needed that comfort--that belief--because her job was all she had, no matter what Graham thought he wanted.  “This is my partner, Graham Humbert.”

As Graham stepped forward and offered a hand, there was a look on his face that Emma had never seen before.  His eyes were bloodshot, as if he hadn’t slept properly--or at all--and his gaze focused on Gold as if he was the only thing in the room.

Something flickered across Gold’s face before he offered Graham his hand to shake.   “Indeed,” he said. “Miss Swan and I have just struck a bargain.”

Emma was sure she imagined the flash of fear that briefly overtook Graham’s features.

--

There were flowers on the table when Emma got home--she grabbed them and dumped them straight into the trash.

“Oh!”  Her roommate, Mary Margaret, walked in.

It all came down to the number seven, which was the number of addresses she’d had in the past ten years, assuming that eleven months in the Arizona Correctional Facility for Women counted as an address.  Graham had hired her, and she’d stayed, in spite of the lack of dental or any other benefits.  Mary Margaret Blanchard had not been looking for a roommate, but they’d met each other and there was the offer of the spare room that wasn’t even properly a room, more like a lofted open space just big enough for a double bed and a small wardrobe, before either of them was quite sure what had happened.  Something had clicked, and Emma had unpacked the three cardboard boxes that contained all of her possessions and tucked the one small cigar box that held her life, such as it was, away in a corner of the office.  

She had a roommate and a job and friends and she hated Graham for putting all of that at risk for something that would never work.  Because if Emma were the type who allowed herself to believe in such things, she’d have said that finding Mary Magaret--and Ruby, and Graham and her job and her life here--had been like coming home; as if she had always been meant to be there.

“Can you believe this shit?”  Emma gestured at the flowers.  “Graham think this is gonna work on me?”

“Yeah, no, those are mine,” Mary Margaret said, then corrected herself:  “Were mine.”

“From the married guy?  Seriously?”

“I know,” Mary Margaret said, then:  “Wait.  How did you know?”

“You’re an elementary school teacher,” Emma said flatly.  “I’m a private investigator.”

Mary Margaret sighed.  “It’s a disaster,” she said.

“It can’t be that bad if there are flowers,” Emma said, eyebrows raised.

“No, that was--no,” Mary Margaret said.  “I just can’t seem to--I feel like a different person when I’m around him.  It’s like I can’t help myself, like I have this need to be with him.”

“Trust me,” Emma said.  “Married guys are never worth it, no matter how good the ‘flowers’ are.” Emma made exaggerated air quotes with her fingers.  “If you need an itch scratched, stick to one-nighters with no attachments, like I do.”

“Yeah, but that’s because you’re--”

“Because I’m what?” Emma’s eyes flashed green in challenge.  Unfeeling bitch, he’d called her, then walked in on her meeting looking like shit, but otherwise as if nothing had happened between them.  

That fit with what she knew of him; Graham was a kind, good-natured guy, and most days Emma felt lucky to have him in her life.  It’s easy, between them.

“Never mind,” Mary Margaret said.

“No,” Emma said.  “Tell me.  What do I do?”

“You’re just,” Mary Margaret said, gesturing expansively, “protecting yourself.  With that wall you put up.”

“Just because I don’t get emotional over men--”

“You don’t?”  Mary Margaret was not the type of person who snorted derisively, which Emma was grateful for more at that moment than she might ever have been; especially since Mary Margaret had no real notion of exactly how much Emma was, in fact, protecting herself from.

Because she did not get emotional over men.

“All I’m saying,” Mary Margaret said, “is that the floral abuse tells a different story.”

“Come on,” Emma said.

“I mean it, Emma,” Mary Margaret said.  “That wall of yours might keep out pain, but it will also keep out love.”  Mary Margaret was all about “mawwaige” and “Twoo Wuv” and refused to give up hope that Emma would find both of those things. 

God, was there something in the water today?  This felt like the second time, at least, she’d been forced to endure some version of this conversation.  One more minute and she was likely to start screaming about patriarchy and freedom and submitting herself to an institution that fails as often as it succeeds, and for what?  A bullshit ideal of fairy tales and happy endings?

Certainly Mary Margaret’s sordid affair was a horrible ‘Exhibit A’ in the case for True Love.  

“He kissed me,” Emma confessed, watching the progression of emotions cross her friend’s face:  happiness, confusion, disappointment, resignation.

“And?”

“It wasn’t a bad kiss,” Emma admitted, watching Mary Margaret’s eyebrows shoot up. “It was nice, I guess.  Easy.”

“And?” Mary Margaret said again.

“And,” Emma emphasized it, “I’m neither of those things?” She threw her hands in the air.  “It’s not what I want, Mary Margaret.”

“Are you sure?”

There was a knock at the door before she could respond, and Emma went to answer it.  Sheriff Nolan’s hand was poised to knock again as she opened the door, and Emma spared a glance at her roommate, barely resisting the urge to roll her eyes at the married guy her friend had been not-so-secretly seeing.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Emma said knowingly, and was surprised at David’s hand on her shoulder.

“I’m here for you, actually,” he said.

--

Heartless bastard.

Emma would have laughed, except she was crying and trying not to throw up at the same time.

--

@kmomof4 @stahlop @katie-dub @imlaxdris71 @snowbellewells @mariakov81 @shardminds​ @carpedzem​ @anne-and-gilbert​ @teamhook @winterbaby89​

[meichenxi]

I hope you don't mind me asking, feel free to ignore this, but you mentioned you have synesthesia. I'm curious, how does this work for you? From my understanding (which is limited) everyone experience a bit differently. It just sounds really interesting, so I hope I'm not overstepping 😅

No not at all!! It’s a really interesting topic :D (and I’ll answer your other ask in a bit if you don’t mind once I’ve got some good resources together!)

This is going to be long, because I think it’s really fascinating! So I apologise in advance. It’s also going to get quite linguistics-y, because that’s what I’m here for always. 

So my synesthesia presents itself in a number of ways. Most obviously, I have the ‘normal’ bog-standard colour-grapheme synesthesia, whereby every letter or word is strongly associated with a certain colour and sort of...feel. So for example <k> is a sly orange, sharp and mischievous. Not all letters have very strong impressions; <I> and <i> for instance are both just sort of wishy-washy and pale cloudy lemonade colour. 

Also! I have evidence for the psychological reality of the syllable and the phonological word. Often word- or syllable-initial consonants ‘colour’ the rest of the word, especially with ‘light’ vowels like <e> or <I> or <y>. So for example, even though I’m not sure whether your username is a name or a word or what exactly, it’s ‘split’ into two halves: <karo> with an orange undertone, whilst still being able to see the ‘colour’ of the other letters, and <lincki> which is a pale yellow, despite the presence of the <k>. 

One other interesting thing is that these associations seem to come from quite well-founded generalisations based on place and manner of articulation. We’ve all heard of the Boba-Kiki affect (if not, look it up) where ‘kiki’ is the sharp, pointy object and ‘boba’ is the flat, blobby one, despite them both being non-words. This holds with my synesthesia too, so there are seemingly articulatorily-founded patterns!! For instance, many of my plosives are middle to dark blue; almost all of my voiceless/voiced pairs match up with the voiced version being darker than the voiceless version (except /k/ and /g/, and that’s because of the ‘orange’ pressure from palatals and ‘green’ pressure from velars, I think); many of my palatals are on a spectrum from pale yellow-white to orange, etc. My back vowels are dark, warm, deep colours, and my front vowels are lighter. I’d be interested in knowing if this holds with other people with synesthesia: I can only do so many experiments on myself lmao (and trust me I’ve done a lot).

Each letter also occupies a certain ‘space’ in the air, like the spikes in a line graph. This is how I read quickly; I memorise the ‘shape’ of the word (which doesn’t always map on to the physical shape) and use that. 

One weird thing which happens is that phonemes and graphemes don’t always have the same colour!! Which leads to very interesting results. For instance, <u> is a sort of terracotta brown, so I hate this letter in most words (I have very strong opinions about a lot of this. I hate <p> and <b> with all of my heart). But the sound /u/ is a deep, crystal midnight green! So if I hear the word ‘Undomiel’ (thank you Tolkien), it’s incredibly beautiful. Writing it down, though, I can’t stand it, especially clashing with the pink of <m>.

This is why I dislike some languages so irrationally for no reason I think. 1) I don’t like their colour palette. If it’s all over the place or a mess or a horrible sludge-green, sorry, I’m probably not going to learn it. 2) The colour palette of what I’m hearing and what I’m reading don’t match. This could in theory happen with English, but doesn’t, because I’m so used to it I think. But this is why I dislike French so much (sorry everyone!!), because what I’m hearing and what I’m seeing literally clash in front of my eyes and it’s gross.

Where it gets really interesting is in foreign language acquisition. What happens with tone? Non-Latinate writing systems? 

I don’t have as strong associations for sounds which have no representation in the Latin alphabet (so, say, the distinction between Hindi aspirated and non-aspirated stops), because a lot of it is still based on graphemes, but that representation is still there. Sometimes it’s a modified version of the representation of a phoneme I’m familiar with (for example, the heavily aspirated Irish /t/ is a lighter blue than my /t/, and the non-aspirated Hindi /t/ is a darker version), but sometimes it’s a murky new colour based, occasionally, on place of articulation. For example, whilst <ch> should be orange and then terracotta brown in terms of graphemes, the German ach-Laut is a completely different colour to the German ich-Laut!! The ach-Laut <ch> is a dark green (which makes sense, since my velars and uvulars are usually dark green), but the ich-Laut is an orange - because, again, palatals are orange!!! Isn’t that cool? 

Features have psychological reality guys!

Another interesting thing is that I often acquire a colour-based distinction long before I consciously notice a difference even if it’s not phonemic. This is nuts!! So for instance the standard Mandarin /t/ is pronounced slightly differently to the English /t/ (both have aspiration, but slightly different places of articulation); and correspondingly, way before I learnt this or could hear the difference consciously, I noticed the colour of the Chinese /t/ was a different shade of blue!! Similarly, when I was in a Hindi-speaking environment in India I noticed that I was remembering whether words had one of (many) t-like phonemes based on colour alone; I couldn’t tell you if it was aspirated, retroflex or anything, but I could tell you, if I thought to ask, what colour it was, and so produced the correct sound appropriately - because it’s a dark blue word, right? Importantly, I wasn’t making a conscious link between those features and the colour, so if you asked me what it ‘being a dark blue word’ actually meant phonetically, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you until I sat down and worked it out myself after looking at Hindi phonology. It’s just ‘dark blue’, so you pronounce it in a ‘dark blue’ way.

I mean ultimately this is just another way of distinguishing sounds so it’s not actually that exciting, it’s just conceptualised in a different way, and still takes a long time to develop, so it’s only happened with languages where I’ve been immersed for a couple of months or more, rather than say, French or Spanish. But it’s still kind of cool. 

As for tone, tone contours also colour the word!! I don’t know if this is influenced by anything in particular (common words with those tones, maybe?) but it’s fun. The first tone is a sort of yellow; the second tone is a steely blue; the third tone is like /w/ which is a deep green; the fourth tone is a red. 

One exciting thing is also that, the more I read Chinese, the more I ‘see’ the colour of a word. This isn’t just me knowing the pronunciation; if I know the pinyin but it isn't a familiar word, I don’t see any colour. Only if I’m very familiar with that phonetic component (because guess what!! That has an affect), a similar word, or the word itself do I see the colour. Which is just wild. So, can confirm that my brain is processing phonetic components via analogy on a similar level to ‘letters’, which is really interesting. Usually the character is just the colour of the initial, sometimes coloured by the final; it’s not as detailed as the representation in the Latinate alphabet. 

In other non-Latinate writing systems, the more I’m familiar with the system, the more I see the colours. These are usually colours of the phonemes not graphemes where they differ; so for hiragana, for example, /u/ is its phonemic dark green, and not its graphemic rusty brown. 

This colour palette is really useful in conlanging btw: I don’t have to actually think up a phonological system, I just have to think ‘autumnal’, and I get words that look similar. 

Numbers are also highly coloured for me, as well as being gendered (really brain??) in a very predictable way - all even numbers are female and all male numbers are male. This is probably the strongest of all my synesthesia: I genuinely mentioned this to someone when I was about eighteen and just assumed that the rest of the world knew this too, it was so obvious. What this means is that I remember things in ‘colour palettes’ and I have quite a good visual memory because of that - I just remember the ‘shape’ and ‘colour’ of the numbers and then can reconstruct it in my head. Some numbers are also ‘higher’ than others, like if you imagine a graph, so I can map out a sequence of numbers using the ‘peaks’ and ‘dips’ in space. I was doing a psychology test looking into people with synesthesia once actually where you are flashed a sequence of numbers, and then have to type them backwards. I was able to type about 12/13 numbers backwards in after being flashed for one second, compared to an average of 4 or 5. I couldn’t remember the actual numbers; but I knew that there were purple edges, then a yellow spike and a green blob etc, and so could look at the ‘picture’ and work it out from there because the representations were so stable. 

It’s actually really helpful sometimes! I remember numbers/words in these ‘colour palettes’, and once forgot the last two digits of my PIN when in China (6 digits, not 4, which I was not used to). But because I had chosen the number myself and the other digits were a sort of gloomy heather-purple/black/grey, I knew that the last two digits had to match that palette and ‘shape’ (how high a number rests in space). So I was able to guess them both within three tries!

Other things: people’s personalities and events sometimes are associated with colours, as well as music and sounds to a limited degree, but I don’t know enough about music theory to know if what is ‘purple’ or ‘lush green’ actually has any impact. It’s not individual notes alas - that would be so useful/cool. 

The personality thing is a bit annoying - I am often terrible at remembering people’s names if they don’t match with their personality in some way. I have two friends called Liam and Adam, and to this day (despite being friends with them for years and years) I still have to stop myself calling Adam ‘Liam’. I think everybody knows the phenomenon of ‘but he just looks like a Liam!’. It’s like that, but so strong I have to correct myself basically every time. I also get names that have the same ‘colour palette’ but nothing alike mixed up: for example Henry and Carl or Mary-Anne and Belinda. 

One other thing that is difficult is that if the orthography and phonology are particularly mismatched, or use letters in ways I’m not used to, this really hinders learning. I learnt some Medieval Welsh a few years ago as part of my degree and couldn’t remember anything because it was all just green. Or I kept writing /b/ instead of, say, /t/ or a dental fricative, because I knew it was a ‘blue’ sound, but couldn’t remember exactly which one. It sometimes leads me to make mistakes that are really stupid and probably don’t make sense to anyone else - /k/ doesn’t sound anything like /j/ but because they’re both orange-coloured, I’ll often mix them up especially if /k/ is next to a high vowel. 

So, that was very long!! Thank you for the ask :D But I hope it was interesting to any fellow linguists or language-lovers out there, and if there are any psycholinguists in the room, I have made a chart of all of this and mapped it out so hmu if you want some data lmao

Do you experience synesthesia too? What’s your experience like?

[kkruml]

STAY CH 14

It’s been 7 months since the last post- THANK YOU to anyone out there who’s still reading this story. @abreathofsnowandwaffles has been one of my biggest supporters since literally day 1. @missclairebelle you dazzle and amaze me with every word you write. I am so lucky to have your guidance as I hack my way through this thing called fan fiction. Words are not enough- I love you both.

Mood Music

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

AO3

Previously

The lines of his face contorted slightly before shifting back into place, his indecipherable façade restored. Nodding, he forced the words out. “Would ye stay here, wi’ me?”

Stay.

Here.

With Jamie.

In truth, Jamie’s flat had become her haven, their space together. Her final thoughts while being discharged from the hospital were not of her flat, of the crisp linens neatly lining her bed. It was here, the mess of blankets and pillows strewn across his mattress. The smell of his body wash that lingered on his towel in the morning, the warm light peaking through the kitchen curtains as she sipped her tea.

The thought of convalescing here lifted a weight she hadn’t noticed she’d been carrying. Her lips softened into a smile as she nodded, “Yes.”

His posture relaxed slightly, and the corners of his eyes softened as his gaze held hers. The weight of his intensity forced her to lower her eyes back to her glass, and with a heavy sigh, she felt his hand lazily travel the length of her shoulder to the base of her neck.

“Been a long day, come here,” his voice was soft, low and melodic and pulled her close to him. Resting her hand on his shoulder, she felt his fingers slowly intertwine in the curls that cascaded from her messy bun. “Do ye trust me Claire-that everything will be okay?”

His fingers swirled in small rhythmic circles against her scalp. The combination of Oolong, heat of Jamie’s steady breath, and dull pulsing of his heart against her skin lulled her into a quiet trance.

Her eyes fluttered shut as she settled against his side. The words came easily, without effort or question. “In this I do, and in this I will.”

CLAIRE

It was unseasonably cold. Even for Scotland.

Fumbling her way from the couch towards the bedroom, Claire shuffled to the dresser. Clumsily she found the drawer knob, the worn wood smooth under her fingertips as it creaked open. Eager hands, expecting various folds of cotton, hit the bottom with a thud.

Empty.

Whisky eyes glanced over to the laundry basket, but found no mound of clothing staring back at her.

Empty?

“Ja-“ she started, feeling the warmth of his fingers against the small of her back finish the question for her.

“Aye… Sassenach?” his voice was breathy as his lips hovered just above the exposed skin on her neck.

“Wh… What happened to all of your clothes?”

Small, swirling circles against her waistline paused.

“Weel.. err.. I, uh…” his voice wavered as his fingers pressed gently into her flesh.

Through the fog and haze of the accident, she recognized that stutter. Her mind’s eye flashed a glimpse of his face the night they met- the same uncertainty etched into his words as he drummed his fingers against his leg. “Cat got your tongue, Jamie?”

A wave of hot breath skated across her skin as he sighed.

“I just thought- that maybe… ye’d like to leave some of yer wee Sassenach things here is all,” he stated plainly.

“Just what do you think I have- a cedar trunk full of eighteenth century garments?” She attempted a teasing tone, but her heart skipped a beat as she eyed the room.

A small clearing on what would be her nightstand, an empty hook on the back of the door for her bathrobe, and perhaps most notable of all, the bed. Normally a pile of covers with pillows haphazardly askew, the bedding was now neatly tucked and smoothed over- with two fresh matching pillowcases side by side against the headboard.

 “Aye,” his breath quickened as he countered, “I had a daft notion ye might want to leave a few wee things here…”

My things. Here.

“That DVD collection of yers catchin’ dust,” his voice broke through her thoughts as he continued, slightly more self-assured, “yer favorite mug fer yer tea, perhaps a brush for that bird’s nest ye have atop that beautiful heid of yers.”

She smiled to herself. Little nick nacks, seemingly trivial pieces of her daily existence it hadn’t occurred to her that he’d noticed, let alone wanted in his flat. 

“...But then the accident h-happened and- and it didna seem fit to take advantage of ye in that state.”

And then- the accident. She remembered Boston, and her desire to start things anew- in Scotland. And then she woke up in the hospital. Dark black spots shaded her memory of the earliest moments of them.

Attempting to shift the conversation, she fought the tightening of her throat as she asked, “My state?” 

A strong hand slowly snuck around her waist and settled against the crest of her hip bone, two fingers lightly tapping the delicate skin just underneath the cotton of her shirt.

“Oh aye-” the warmth in his voice a low hum that skated across her skin, “Half yer colleagues saw yer wee granny panties ye only wear when it’s laundry day.”

She scoffed in mock indignation, the last of her frustration lifting from her shoulders. Not moving, she relaxed into his warmth and sighed in contentment.

After a soft exhale, he whispered, “Mo nighean donn… I want ye here with me. “

And there it was. 

A sweet truth that had lingered just beneath the surface. 

Breath put to the very question that had played in her head since she met him. What was this? This delicate tether between them, at first as delicate as lace but now stitched firmly together with late night truths and early morning contentment. It wasn’t usual; that first night at her apartment he had said it was different, and they’d spent the last months writing their names on each other’s souls. 

The sound of his voice lingered between them, it soothed her and sent a tingle down her spine. It was a question- carefully yet earnestly crafted as to give no expectation of an answer. She felt the ground beneath her tilt slightly, and she cleared her throat to steady herself.

Three words. Three little words that matched the pulse in her wrist- quiet, constant, and restless as they bubbled and fought to break free. For weeks and months, these words fluttered on the tip of her tongue but never gave breath to them. Until now.

The sounds slowly built in her chest, enveloping her in a warmth matched by the comfort radiating from his skin behind her. They trickled free from her lips, delicate and yet certain at the same time

“I love you.”

Each syllable hung suspended in midair, she could almost see the outline of each letter as she waited for his breathing to resume. Muscles in his arms first constricted and then relaxed before he wound himself securely around her. 

“And I…” he whispered into her curls, ”you.”

In a moment that lasted both an instant and an eternity, they stood motionless. Their breath mingled and their heartbeats pounded to the same rhythm. She felt the last remnants of earlier frustration seep from her bones and she was left feeling weightless. A soft sigh escaped her lips and she savored the feeling of utter contentment.

“So... is that a yes then, Sassenach?”

Bringing his hand to her lips she smiled and said simply, “Yes.”

                                           ______

Water. Soap. Scrub. Rinse. Gown. Gloves.

The ritual of surgery was a dance, delicate steps made in rhythm to the steady rhythm of her pulse. She could trust it, a communion that had never failed her in all her years of study and practice. Countless hours in the OR had trained her hands, each movement burned into each digit. Carefully and meticulously studied and executed with an air of ease. What her body betrayed, her mind would perfect. With eyes closed, she visualized the instrument tray- scalpels parallel and waiting to serve their purpose. 

Her mind was midway through a line of interrupted sutures, fingers moving in perfect harmony with the vision in her mind when with a turn of the wrist, a hot flash of pain tore through her radius. “Mallaichte bas!”

Murky sounds, like voices underwater broke through her concentration. 

“Huh?” she mumbled, her right hand instinctively cradling her left wrist, gingerly massaging it.

“I said ‘are ye alright,’ Sassenach?”

Slowly opening her eyes, the perfect line of stitches she had imagined slowly faded and she was left with only the uneven lines of hardwood floor beneath her feet. 

“Yes, I’m fine,” she managed through clenched teeth. Sensing her tone was ill placed, she sighed and softened it with, “Sorry to bother you.”

“Dinna fash yerself, just thought a fairy must’ve lured ye up a hill and brought me a changeling,” he said with a failed wink.

“What on earth are you talking about, Jamie?” her voice shifting from frustration to confusion.

“Did ye no’ hear yerself? Ye have quite the mouth on ye.” At that, her eyes darted in his direction, a smirk quirked to one side waiting for her.

“Did I offend your delicacies with my crude British tongue?” Despite herself, she quirked an eyebrow to match the lilt in her voice. Damn him. She didn’t want to be in a mood to joke. 

“Och yer not normally a close-mouthed woman Claire- and ye ken I love ye for it.” He paused at that, the newness of that word off his tongue curled his lip, and her heart skipped a beat. “But now yer startin’ to swear in my mother tongue wailin’ about black death- tis only a matter of time before ye bring a curse upon this flat.”

The sharp pain in her wrist was ebbing to a dull ache. 

Gaelic? 

The corner of her mouth lifted into a smile as she rewound the last few minutes in her head. Had she really spoken in Gaelic… instinctively? The last several weeks had held little amusement other than scouring various Gaelic materials, studying. But had she actually learned enough to start speaking without effort? Her fingers were tracing the incision on her left wrist as he sunk into the mattress beside her. 

“What’s wrong, mo ghraidh?”

Taking a deep breath, she exhaled loudly. “It’s my bloody hand. It’s useless.”

“Och.” The thick Scottish sound filled the room, the warmth in his voice seeping into her skin. “Just takes time. Hasna been that long since the accident.”

“Eight weeks, Jamie.” Spitting the words out, she felt her blood pressure rise. She was a doctor, she knew protocol. That a healed bone alone did not promise full function without rehabilitation. Still, the freedom she felt once freed from the cast was short lived, and she was left feeling weak and foreign in her own skin. 

“What if you couldn’t play music? What if your hand was…” she paused, not wanting to finish the sentence. Flashes of his perfectly ruddy skin torn violently to shredded flesh with mangled bone ripped through her mind. She shuddered at the mere thought of his perfect hand enduring such trauma. Taking a deep breath to clear her head, she started again, “What if you couldn’t do what was naturally in you to do?” 

“Are ye sayin’ ye like my music, then?” His face betrayed the measured tone of his voice, a look of pride barely held in check as his brow quirked. 

His attempt at distraction- at redirection- was kindly meant, but she was determined to hang onto her frustration. It was one of a few companions she’d had these last several weeks. 

Turning to face him, her weight shifted and he leaned in closer. “You have music… I have healing. What if I never get my range of motion, my strength back? A surgeon cannot heal without her hands.”

                                              ______

JAMIE

What if?

That wasn’t an option. No. She would be whole again. 

I have music.

She was right.

Blinking slowly, a shadow of an idea whispered in his ear. 

I have music.

Letting a smile tug at his lips, he held up his hand in a pause as he shuffled out of the room. Hearing a deep breath and loud exhale, he chuckled to himself. 

She will be whole again.

Returning with a few determined steps back into the room, he paused at the sight of her. So utterly unaware of herself, she had taken to focus on a few unruly curls hanging over her face. Her right hand studiously picking at the frayed ends, her left hand cradled protectively at her side. 

“Alright then,” he started, determined to change her focus. “Let’s see what ye’ve got Sassenach.”

“Beg pardon?” Her eyes widened, the swirl of whisky amber churning.

“Let’s have ye give it a go,” he gently slid the guitar onto her lap, angling it precisely between the curve of her breast and line of her arm. It sat precariously fixed at her side as he continued, “Ye said once they let anyone on stage- let’s see how ye fair with it.”

Slipping behind her, he laced his arms through hers, leaning into the smoothness of her body. “Now ye take yer left hand and put yer wee fingertips here”- gentling placing her fingers on the second fret before enveloping her hand in his- “and here.”

Taking her right hand in his, he pulled them down over the cords. Feeling the vibration and hearing a somewhat muted cord, but a cord nonetheless, echoed through the room. 

“And just wot do you think you’re doing?” Under the facade of incredulity, he heard a sense of wonder. 

“Ye’ve spent sae many hours scouring my bookcases looking for Laird knows what- this is a better- and more entertaining- use of yer time.”

“More entertaining, you say? For whom, exactly?” Feeling the smile in her voice, he let out a heavy sigh and nuzzled his nose into the curls at the nape of her neck. Her voice was shy as she asked, “Would you show me a few more?”

This just might work.

Slowly, and carefully, he showed her cord after cord. Pausing occasionally as her crude British tongue broke his concentration, he watched her fingers move slowly from string to string. Kissing her shoulder, and feeling confident he had shown her enough cords to pique her interest, he reluctantly disentangled himself from her.

Slowly shuffling to the hall, he turned at the doorway for a final look. He stopped to take her in. 

A look of determination set on her face. Her left hand was rotated and gripped the guitar’s neck with purpose. The loose white shirt, his shirt, hung off her shoulder- exposing the faintest of black ink on her shoulder. 

Grabbing his phone from his pocket, he swiped the screen and held the phone up. He watched her form come into focus on his screen and hit the shutter button, watching a freeze frame of this moment flicker and disappear. 

[survivetoread]

The Devanagari script and how it is used in Marathi‍

If you are studying Marathi online, you probably want to study its writing system first. Doing so is not necessary to speak Marathi fluently, of course—there are many illiterate Marathi speakers after all (including children too young to read and write). However, as my langblr will make extensive use of Devanagari, there will be no getting around it.

There are plenty of guides and apps already present that can teach you Devanagari.

My personal favourite is this guide by Sarvabhashin, which is used to teach Hindi. Contrary to many guides, it does not teach you the letters in the traditional order, and instead focuses on similar shapes and sounds so that you can learn much faster. There are also plenty of practice exercises in it—excellent if you like to be kept on track.

Most guides on learning the Devanagari script, including the one above, are written with Hindi in mind.

Marathi pronunciations for Devanagari letters are mostly similar to those of Hindi. However, there are several critical exceptions, which I am going to list below.

ऐ

This letter is pronounced as if it were a flowing combination of अ + इ. This is in contrast to Hindi, where it is pronounced as the ‘a’ in the English ‘dare’.

औ

This letter is pronounced as if it were a flowing combination of अ + उ. This is in contrast to Hindi, where it is pronounced as the ‘o’ in the British English ‘not’.

अं

There’s a lot to process with this one, so I’ve given it its own article.

ऋ

This letter is pronounced as ‘ru’ in Marathi, in contrast to ‘ri’ in Hindi.

अ‍ॅ

This letter is pronounced as the ‘a’ in ‘action’, or the ‘a’ in ‘ant’. In Marathi, this letter is used in loanwords from foreign languages, particularly English. It is uncommon in Hindi, and some would argue it does not exist in the Hindi alphabet.

ऑ

This letter is pronounced as the ‘o’ in ‘body’, or the ‘o’ in ‘lock’. In Marathi, this letter is used in loanwords from foreign languages, particularly English. It is uncommon in Hindi, and some would argue it does not exist in the Hindi alphabet.

क़ / ख़ / ग़ / ज़ / फ़ / ड़ / ढ़

The nukta is not used in Marathi, and so these none of these Hindi letters exist in Marathi. Most of these sounds are also not found in the Marathi language.

Two of these sounds (ज़ and फ़) are indeed found in Marathi, however, and we will have a look at them shortly.

च

This letter has two sounds in Marathi. One is the traditional Sanskrit ‘ch’ sound, as found in ‘church’, ‘chess’, or ‘check’. The other is a ‘ts’ sound, which is found in Slavic and Chinese languages. An English approximation of this sound is the ‘ts’ in ‘cats’.

It is not always obvious which sound you should use in which instance, as the difference is never marked, not even in a dictionary. The only way for you to learn this is by trial and error.

ज

This letter has two sounds in Marathi. One is the traditional Sanskrit ‘j’ sound, as found in ‘journal’, ‘jeep’, or ‘jail’. The other is a ‘dz’ sound, which is very uncommon in any language. It is pronounced very similarly to the ‘z’ as found in the English ‘zero’, ‘zen’, and ‘zest’.

It is not always obvious which sound you should use in which instance, as the difference is never marked, not even in a dictionary. The only way for you to learn this is by trial and error.

झ

This letter has three sounds in Marathi. The overwhelmingly common sound is the traditional Sanskrit ‘jh’ sound. It is somewhat similar to how you might pronounce the ‘dgeh’ in hedgehog.

Additionally, झ may be pronounced as an aspirated version of the ‘dz’ sound of ज. One example of a word using this pronunciation is झाड [zhāḍ] (tree).

The third pronunciation is in fact identical to the ‘dz’ sound of ज. झ is pronounced this way when it is used in loanwords from foreign languages, particularly from English.

This is a convention that exists because using the letter ज may cause readers to mispronounce foreign words. For example, ब्राजिल may be pronounced as ‘brājil’ instead of the intended ‘brāzil’.

This convention is not a hard-and-fast rule, so you may yet see ब्राजिल and the like.

ण

This letter uses a difficult-to-pronounce ‘hard n’, which is found in Punjabi and Dravidian languages. This is in contrast to Hindi, where it is pronounced identically to न. If you cannot pronounce it in the Marathi way, then pronouncing it as the ‘n’ in ‘den’, ‘hen’, or ‘net’ will suffice.

ष

This letter is pronounced identically to श in Marathi. That is, it is pronounced similarly to ‘sh’ in ‘short’, ‘shape’, or ‘sheep’.

फ

This letter is formally pronounced in the Sanskrit style as ‘ph’, i.e. as an aspirated ‘p’. Think the ‘p’ in ‘pig’, ‘pit’, or ‘push’.

However, most Marathi dialects use the ‘f’ sound instead, like ‘f’ in ‘fan’, ‘fit’, or ‘fall’. I recommend using the latter pronunciation for common use.

व

This letter is pronounced much the same as in Hindi, most of the time.

In some circumstances, it may be pronounced with more of a ‘w’ sound, such as in the word किंवा [kiṅvā] (or). This is a very subtle accent thing, so you don’t need to worry too much about it. Just pay attention to native speakers and speak as they speak.

An additional note is that its usage differs from Hindi when it comes to loanwords from foreign languages.

Hindi uses व as a substitute for both ‘w’ and ‘v’ as they are seen in English. That is, विलियम [William] and वनेसा [Vanessa] both use व.

However, Marathi uses व only as a substitute for ‘w’ and it uses the conjunct व्ह for ‘v’. Therefore, those names would be transliterated as विलियम [William] and व्हनेसा [Vanessa].

This is not a hard-and-fast rule, so expect to see exceptions.

ळ

This letter does not exist in the Hindi alphabet at all. In Marathi, it is used as a ‘hard l’ sound, which is very difficult to pronounce. It is found in very few languages, even in India.

If you cannot pronounce this sound, pronounce it identically to the ‘l’ in ‘love’, ‘luck’, or ‘life’.

ज्ञ

This conjunct is a rare combination of ज + ञ. In Sanskrit, it is meant to be pronounced as it is spelled, i.e. jñ. In Hindi, it is pronounced with a ‘gya’ sound.

In Marathi however, this conjunct is traditionally pronounced with the difficult ‘dnya’ sound. You start with a द sound and it flows into a न्य sound.

If you can’t pronounce this unusual combination of letters, then you can get away with using the न्य / ञ (nya) sound by itself.

र्‍य / र्‍ह

These difficult-to-type conjuncts are a unique feature of written Marathi. They are alternate combinations of र + य and र + ह, but they follow an important rule.

You see, when ‘r’ is joined with another letter in Hindi, it always goes at the end of a syllable, rather than starting a syllable itself. For eg. in कार्य [kārya], the syllables found are kahr-yuh, and not kah-ryuh.

In Marathi however, the ‘r’ can sometimes start a syllable of its own. In these cases, the conjunct is written as र्‍य or र्‍ह.

A good example of the difference between र्‍य and र्य can be found in the Marathi words सुर्‍या and सुर्या. Here, although the two words would be transliterated the same way, as suryā, they are pronounced differently.

The first word, सुर्‍या, has the following syllables: su-ryah.

The second word, सुर्या, has the following syllables: sur-yah.

This may be a difficult distinction for speakers of most languages, including English, but it may come more naturally to speakers of languages were syllables starting with ‘ry’ do exist, such as Japanese.

[mysweetestcreature]

Tomorrow Never Knows (President!Harry) Chapter 5: Chasing Pavements

(Banner by the wonderful noblewomankat!)

***

Masterlist

***

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

“You said that!?” Cici gasps, her eyes bulging. Y/n had just told her about what had happened in Spanish class earlier that day. The rest of the period had been awkward to say the least. After a long ten minutes of silence –– and her tummy growling since she had skipped lunch to work on her fondant flowers –– the first thing he had said to her was “Tengo una barra de granola en mi mochila...Puedes tenerlo si quieres...” (“I have a granola bar in my backpack...You can have it if you want...”). And it had only made it all the more difficult to look at him afterwards because how can someone really be that sweet?

Y/n shrugs, shaking her head as she uncaps her water bottle. “Yup...” She knows she probably should have let him say his piece before cutting him off so abruptly, but in that moment all that was going through her head was “stop this before it’s too late” she didn’t want to hurt more than she already was and it was as though she was slowly being suffocated just waiting for him to rip the bandage off.  

“What if he was going to confess?”

“For some reason, I’m seriously doubting that.”

(To be frank, she’s surprised that Cici of all people would be the one to question her decision to keep her. While she was out yesterday, she heard from Maxxie that Cici had accidentally let Zoey fall during cheer practice when she was meant to catch her.)

“Okay, but what if,” her friend starts, zipping up her bag and hoisting it over her shoulder. “and only if he was going to say that he’s actually madly deeply in lo-”

Y/n’s hand rises up. “That’s where I’m going to stop you,” she warns before letting out a deep sigh. Nothing right now makes sense, especially when it comes to Harry. If she wasn’t sure where they stood before, now it’s close to impossible to pinpoint. All she can definitively say is that she just wants to move on from this because honestly, it’s already drained so much out of her. In the last few days she’d questioned every interaction to have happened between them, and each analyzation ends with her wishing she hadn’t let herself fall so suddenly. “Look, after what happened at the game, I don’t know what to think, but I rather not talk about it anymore.”

“Talk about what?”

Cici’s face turns sour at the sound before turning around and greeting its owner with a forced smile. “How tragic it is that you sprained your wrist,” she tuts her tongue three times. “It’s so fortunate that you didn’t break anything, huh?”

Zoey remains unbothered.

“Isn’t it?” she smirks. Her eyes shift to the right, and it’s Y/n who’s become her new focus of attention. Almost immediately, Y/n’s fingers curl tightly inwards, she swears the crackling sound of her taut knuckles can be heard throughout the entire gym. But she too does her best to remain unflinching, no matter how much Zoey’s gaze makes her insides flip in ferocious cycles. 

“Y/n,” Zoey’s mahogany lips wrap daringly around each letter of her name. “I hope what’s going on between Harry and I doesn’t bother you.”

“Why would I be bothered?” she challenges.

The giggle that emits from the girl has the same effect as poison coursing through the veins. “I mean...” She flips her ponytail back over her shoulder. “It’s really only a matter of time until...you know.” Her brows wriggle suggestively. 

“W-wh-” but it’s like her lungs have completely collapsed, and she’s unable to gather enough air to breathe out even just a single syllable. Now she can’t help but ask herself...is there actually something there? Had that been what he was so eager to tell her? 

“That’s funny,” Cici is quick to interject, and Y/n is thankful that the void of perpetual silence can be avoided. Her friend takes a step forward, positioning herself as a protective barrier between her and the redhead. She moves even closer, hands firmly set on the curve of her waist, head tilting the slightest bit to the side. “I’m pretty sure Harry told me he was allergic to plastic,” she says, followed by a playful quirk of the nose. 

Zoey huffs, her hand flying up to cover her face. “It was for my deviated septum!” she screeches. 

“I can think of a few other things that could’ve used some work, but then Mommy and Daddy would be out of money.” 

“You know what, Fenderson? You’re just a jealous bi-” Zoey snarls, fists forming at her sides.

“Davenport!”

Everyone’s head snaps at their coach’s roar. Cici and Zoey back away from each other, at least five feet separating them. 

***

The last person Y/n expects to see after practice is standing right in front of her locker, his head hung low and matted hair still dripping at the tips. His lips are parted slightly, muttering inaudible words under his breath as though he were saying a prayer. He doesn’t seem to notice her standing just a short distance away.

She clears her throat, shifting her weight to the other foot as she squeezes the strap of her bag even tighter in her palms. Why did he have to be here? With that confrontation with Zoey not even ten minutes ago, it’s the last thing she needs right now. Not to mention how she has to convince herself not to admire how cute he looks with his dimples sunk in as he looks at her in that way he always does. Like she’s all he sees. And that’s why she has to stop. 

Thoughts like these are the reason she got hurt in the first place. 

“Y/n...” He’s quick to face her, even quicker to near come her. “Can we...can we talk? Please?” he pleads, taking her hand in his. 

She allows herself to gaze down at their hands, if only to remember how it used to make blush. Now, it just feels bittersweet. “Look, I have to go.” She pulls out of his grasp as Zoey’s words rewind in her memory. “My mom is waiting for me outsi-”

“Can I just ask you one question? Just one,” the last part is barely above a whisper. Her shoulders sink down, and she nods tiredly. She watches as his chest fills with air. “Just tell me if you meant what you said.” he blurts out. “In Spanish class. You really want to forget about it?” The looks in his eyes, she can’t quite put her finger on it, but it sends a chill down her spine as the bones in his jaw clench harshly. 

Unable to meet his stare, she looks away. 

“I just think that we’re better...” she trails off, feeling the lump in her throat begin to force its way up, “we’re better off forgetting about that day.” It’s like nails against the chalkboard as they reach her own ears. She closes her eyes as she awaits his response. “It was dumb.”

“Is that what you...” he swallows hard, “is that what you really think?”

She’s taken aback by his question, and before she knows it, she’s looking back into his green eyes. “I mean...” her lips press together as she finds that last bit of momentum while they hold each other’s gaze. It’s right there on the tip of her tongue, but it’s like it refuses to jump out. You can do this. 

“Yes.”

Harry steps back slowly, still looking straight ahead, but his eyes have shifted, and she can feel they’re not on her. 

He offers her a small smile. “If that’s really what you want, then yeah. We’ll just,” he swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, “pretend like it never happened.” 

“Like it never happened,” she repeats hesitantly, turning to her locker. Her hand is shaking as she tries to put in her combination.  “So, I guess I’ll...”

“So, I’ll just see you tomorrow then,” he finishes the thought. 

***

Saturday, October 11, 2008

“In the US, nearly 40% of marriages in 2007 ended up in annulment and divorce. This not only changes the structure of the individuals, but any family (e.g. children) involved in that union. In these modern times, many couples with children choose not to wed, and some have the grandparents raise their grandchildren as an alternative. Is the traditional family still the best option? Or are there more benefits to the contemporary family?”

“I didn’t get a word of that,” Harry sighs, plopping down on the couch. “We should just take a break.” 

Maxxie rolls his eyes. “We literally just started practicing five minutes ago!” he exasperates, tossing the notecard onto the table. They have a debate competition on Tuesday, and their teacher had suggested they pair up and get some extra practice over the weekend. “What’s up with you today?” 

“Nothing,” Harry shakes his head. It’s not like he just got his heart smashed or anything. Forgetting is easier said than done, something he’s come to realize in these past few days. He blames himself for having not just said what he set out to. Why was it so hard to just say it? Imagine how problem-free he’d be right now if he had been more courageous. Maybe that’s why she would rather forget about how he had wanted to kiss her. Because he fell flat and missed his shot. 

“You sure?”

He takes one of the decorative couch pillows and hugs it close. “No, I’m not.”

Maxxie sits down on the floor beside him. “Want to talk about it?” he offers, nudging him in the side. “My mom just bought a tub of Neapolitan, and my sister isn’t home to fight us for it.”

“Y/n makes the best Neapolitan cupcakes,” Harry smiles softly. “They’re Mason’s favorite.” 

“Oh boy,” Maxxie snorts, having an inkling as to where this conversation will lead. “Yup, I’m going to get that ice cream. You hang in there, buddy. Friendly’s is on the way.” 

***

Monday, October 13, 2008

“I really don’t have time for this right now,” Harry grimaces, trying to but unsuccessfully dodging Zoey in the hallway. She hounded him after last period, and no matter how many excuses he makes up (she wouldn’t believe his actual reasoning) he’s beginning to think he’ll never be able to prepare for the oral presentation on the effects of the Civil War he has later. 

“Oh, come on. Don’t be like that, Harry,” she coos, her unwavering persistence managing to back him up against his locker. “I just feel like we haven’t talked much lately.” She places a hand below his shoulder blade. “I’m starting to feel like you’re ignoring me.”

Harry groans internally, peeking down at his watch. If he doesn’t at least glance at his notes, Mr. Noone is going to give him a mark lower than he’s used to. It’s history for crying out loud! This is his thing! “We can talk later, okay? I have class in like ten minutes and I really need to-”

“So, I know it’s like really early, but I already have ideas for the outfits we’re gonna wear for the winter formal,” she starts, pulling out her phone. “This is the color I’m thinking for my dress, and it would totally make your eyes pop with the matching tie.” 

“Matching tie...?” he repeats the words unsurely. It’s October, the dance being about two months from the day. At this point, it’s the last thing on his mind since his love life is basically in shambles, and thanks to the person in front of him, nonetheless. “Zoey, I’m not taking you to the formal.” 

“Don’t’ be silly. Of course, you are!”  she chirps, continuing to browse through pictures of dresses she’d saved. “I was thinking that this violet one would totally look great on me!” 

“Zoey,” he says again, much firmer this time. It’s enough to tear her away from her phone. 

She looks at him annoyedly. “What?” Her foot begins to tap impatiently as her eyes dart to her side.

***

She can’t even count how many times she’s almost been late for Cell Biology. It’s not that she wants to skip out on Dr. Lang doing her best to drill meiosis into their brains until they can recite it forwards and backwards and any other way she chooses (she’s already started having dreams about it in her sleep). No, it’s because when she has a lot on her mind, she bakes. When she bakes, time is but an irrelevant detail, and the world outside the kitchen is but a nuisance to her concentration in her safe space. 

If only she’d packed her darn notebook after Spanish, but she’d been too keen on getting out of there as quickly as possible that everything she’d planned had fallen through. Well, she’s sure paying for it now. With only three minutes until the bell, and the Biology lab being halfway across campus, the best course of action might be to just sprint to class, or better yet to save herself the exhaustion, get a late pass from the nurse. 

From: Maxxie

        Heard from the other section that Lang is planning a pop quiz. Where are you?!?

Her heart begins to race as she quickly taps on each key. 

To: Maxxie

        Omg! I’m coming! Stall her, will you? Give me like five more minutes!

Just as she turns the corner, she’s immediately forced to stop in her tracks, her breath stopping halfway up its passage.

“Zoey,” it’s Harry, even from afar, she can still pick out the low rasp of his voice.  

Though, he’s not alone. “What?”

Y/n recedes, hiding herself behind an open janitor’s closet door. 

“This.” Harry gestures between the two of them. “I feel like I need to make it clear that I-” But Zoey cuts him off, her arms wrapping around his torso as she hops onto the tips of her toes. Her lips attach to his. 

A feeling of déjà vu settles heavily on Y/n’s shoulders as she turns on her heel. Maybe she will stop by the nurse’s, but not for a late pass. She proceeds down another corridor without looking back. 

*** Unlike the last time, he’s swift to push her away.  

“You really have to stop doing that,” he sighs, and the back of his hand brushes over his mouth. He doesn’t even know how to put this kindly, and he’s usually well versed in making things sound better than they actually are. Like that time he’d broken his nan’s favorite vase that she’d gotten from her nan, or when he had to explain to his mum why he had brought a duck home from the park. But he’s just about had it with this. “There’s nothing going on here. I’m sorry if that sounds really douchey, but I’m not...” He scratches the back of his neck. “I’m really not into you like that.” 

***

He’s finally made it to last period, and all he has to do now is to stand up in front of the class and recite his oral presentation that he’d managed to memorize during US Politics since Mr. Hastings wasn’t feeling well and put on a movie for them instead. 

“You ready for your oral?” he asks her when he takes his seat. “I think I want to go first just to get it over with.” He laughs to himself as he gets his things settled. 

“I guess,” she answers curtly. 

Harry glances over at her, taking note of how she keeps her eyes glued to the doodles in the margins of her notebook. “Hey, um...after practice do you maybe want to go to Ruben’s?” he smiles. “My treat.” 

“I have to babysit my brother, sorry.” 

“Oh.” A pout finds itself on his lips. “That’s fine. Maybe next time, yeah?” 

She sets her pen down, turning to him, her features neutral. “Yeah, maybe.”

***

Friday, October 24, 2008 

“I want to watch The Little Mermaid!”

When Y/n was eight years old, Disney movies were on loop from the time she got home from school (after finishing her homework, of course) up until Jeremy had to forcibly carry her up the stairs and tuck her away in bed. In a world full of bright, lively animated color and magic in possibly every second that plays on screen, the feelings that these movies had provided her had formed some of her favorite childhood memories of being snuggled up under a warm blanket with a nice cup of cocoa nestled in her lap while she let herself be absorbed into their vibrant universe. 

Each film had its own unique story and set of eclectic characters to make audience laugh, empathize, and if particularly effective, even cry. But there was this consistent concept that bound almost every single one of them, this seemingly intangible force that she had never quite understood until now. 

Of course, she can’t really say with confidence that she can fully comprehend such an abstract and deeply internalized theory, but if what she’s feeling in the present moment can be any indication of firsthand experience, then she’s right on the money. 

The first time Y/n Y/l/n fell in love, her heart was broken almost immediately. And that’s the part of the movie that no one ever talks about, not really. In a typical hour and half feature, two people meet, and like magnets are drawn to each other as though it were destiny. Sure, there’s going to be some sort of obstacle they have to conquer, but everyone knows that a happy ending is inevitable –– it’s just how it is!

Except fairytales aren’t applicable to real-life scenarios, and not every challenge can be overcome because that’s just how life works. Someone explain to her why in the world she would want to watch a movie that had given her unrealistic perceptions of something that ended up sucking so much that even these few weeks later, she can barely look him in the eyes for more than twenty seconds at a time. 

So, as Y/n stares down at her little brother, her lips tightly pursed and eyes narrowed in an almost alarming manner, she believes this might be the first time she’s ever wanted to pass up an offer. 

“Why don’t you pick another movie? I think we have Horton Hears a Who lying around here somewhere?” 

Mason scrunches his nose with distaste. “That movie is lame!” he whines, “I want to watch Sebastian!”

Y/n shifts in place, tucking one leg into her thigh and pulling her sleeves over her hands. “But you know, that movie is just so...you know,” she tries explaining. “I mean, that whole ‘love at first sight’ thing seems a bit silly, don’t you think? Like just because he might seem like the most perfect guy in the world doesn’t mean he really is, right? No matter how cute he is or how thoughtful he can be, it doesn’t prove that he’s the one for her. He almost married another girl!”

“But he didn’t!” Mason counters. “They live happily ever after in the end, Y/n.”

Just as she’s about to retaliate –– and she really can’t believe she’s about to have this argument with a six-year-old –– her mother sits herself down beside Mason. The little climbs into his mommy’s lap, finding a comfortable position and grinning widely when he sees the plate of goodies she’s just brought over. 

Olivia reaches over, pushing her daughter’s hair behind her ears. “He’s right, you know,” she says knowingly, propping her chin up with her hand. “Things take time. Mulan saved China after going to war, and the Beast turned back into a prince after ten years. Most of the time, the best things to happen come at the end.”

***

Harry hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in days. 

And it’s not because he’s had nonstop tests and quizzes in all of his classes (he thinks the teachers have planned to make everyone’s life miserable by assigning their assessments on the same day in the same week) or that their neighbor’s, the Lee’s, just recently got a Pomeranian that barks twenty-three out of twenty-four hours a day and drives his sister up the walls. 

No, it’s because he hadn’t expected them to turn into this. To this day, her words from two weeks before play over and over in his head like a broken record, no matter how much he begs for his mind to shut off. He still can’t figure out how she expects him to forget about all of that? Like it meant nothing to either of them? Obviously, he can’t speak for her, but to him, it definitely wasn’t nothing. He doesn’t even know how to talk to her normally anymore, unless it’s about school work or what they had for dinner the night before or even if she has a lot of homework in any of the classes they don’t share just because he feels it’s the only way she’ll give him the time of day anymore. It’s become incredibly frustrating for him, they had grown to be good friends since they met over a month and a half ago, at the level where they could openly joke with each other and talk completely nonsense and steal fries off each other’s tray during lunch. Now, it feels like they’ve backtracked ten steps into negative territory, and he’s become trapped in a room without a door.

So, as he tosses and turns under the cotton sheets, unable to find a position to soothe his back and support the ache carried in his neck, he thinks he might have just become an insomniac with how his mind refuses to shut off for at least six hours. All he really wants is for this horrible feeling go away, and if not, maybe just until morning when this vicious cycle of self-deprecation starts over. Everything just feels a mess, and no word of advice, not even from Maxxie, his mum or granddad –– and yes, he spent about an hour on an overseas call that will surely come out of his allowance for the next two months because these phone companies charge a damn fortune a minute –– can help him recover from this fuck up. 

“For fuck sake...” he groans, his hands aggressively wiping down his face, dragging down on the darkened skin under his eyes. 

He can’t even remember a time when he didn’t feel like complete shit, that’s how much he hates this predicament. Why are things so much simpler in his head? Tell the girl he fancies that just one flutter of her lashes, he’s weak at the knees and would go through hell to move mountains if she asked him to. But right now? He’d be surprised if she asked him to do anything but awkwardly peek at his notes because she missed something their teacher said. 

Only when a faint light passes through the spaces between his fingers does he bother to let himself be strayed from his thoughts. His phone begins to vibrate on his nightstand, and he begrudgingly tells his sore arm to extend itself in its direction. The crease between his brows deepens when he sees the name flash on the screen. 

“Hello?” he answers skeptically. 

“Did I wake you?” the voice on the other end asks. 

Harry snorts, his hand returning to his forehead and pushing his hair back. “I haven’t slept in days,” a loud sigh follows. “What can I do for you, Cici?”

“Look, I know things are weird between you and Y/n right now, but...”

“Getting friend zoned will do that to you, I guess,” he says, completely deflated. He sits up, his knees bent and other hand wrapping around his blanket-covered ankles. 

It’s Cici’s turn to let out a humorless chuckle. “Well, you’d have to have feelings for her to get friend zoned.” Harry waits patiently, counting down silently.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

“Oh, get the fuck out!” she screams into his ear. 

“Yup,” he lets the “p” pop off his lips. 

The line becomes static for a moment, and he has to check that the call hasn’t dropped. He releases another long breath. “You, um...you still there?” 

“What? Oh! Yeah, sorry. I was just messaging Jared,” she replies. “Wait, so you’re telling me that you like...like Y/n?”

His falls back, eyes shutting tight. “I thought it was pretty obvious, if I’m being honest.”

Once again, the line grows quiet. He wonders if she’s pondering on the sincerity of his words or maybe she’s snickering at how idiotic he must sound right now. 

“But what about...aren’t you...you know...dating Zoey?”

“I don’t even li-” His eyes grow twice in size. “Hang on minute, is that Y/n thinks?” 

***

[wasalwaysagreatpickle]

Saturday 23 August 1828

7

10 1/4

Off to Halifax down the old bank to Mr Parker’s office at 8 20/60 went to Taylor’s about tin boxes, then called on Mrs Veitch, not at home, and then took Mr P- [Parker] my aunt’s deed of gift for receipt of ten shillings and natural affection, and other good causes of her 1/4 share of the Hampsted property to be sent to London to be registered – gave directions for preparing a paper to be signed by my aunt releasing the estate from the £1200 to which it is subject under my grand father’s and aunt Martha’s will – returned up the old bank and got home at 9 3/4 – breakfast at 10 – stayed down talking to Marian till 12 1/4 – 

Her expectation is from Miss Duffin of three or four thousand pounds and her further chance from Miss Mosey of Beverly thinks she may get between the two as much as eight thousand pounds. Hopes to clear Skelfler has always had these prepossessions particularly of late. Mr Inman behaves as ill to his own family as to his wife. His brother Roger in partnership with him married a Lincolnshire farmers daughter. Marian told Mrs Roger in reply to Mr Inmans expecting that if we did not marry, his children would be provided for. That if she, Marian, died they would get nothing but if she was rich enough she would give the youngest her goddaughter a thousand pounds and Sarah five hundred and always take care that Mrs Inman was comfortable. Fears Mr Inman will spend all he can. Pitys Mrs Inman for this and if she can will make her an allowance of necessary if my father died. Had thought of living at Beverley with Mrs Brown and Miss Mosey, I said it would throw her into a different line from mine but if she got her eight thousand pounds it was well but Miss Mosey a year or two older than I and Marian might wait all her life – but it was a respectable place to be at and I was satisfied Marian thought I should not like it or she was getting accustomed to the people here and should like to live here but then she might not marry as I liked for instance, I should not like to marry Mr John Priestley no, of course I should not, and said I, there is a double awkwardness. It would be calculated that she should come in for the estate at my death so as she remained unmarried it was a different thing but if she married, the person should be told that they could have nothing to do with it but explained that my uncles motive was quite a conscientious one and had nothing to do with the unworthiness of anyone – should be glad if Marian did not marry for if she married to please me I should of course be sorry for her children who would be my nearest of kin not to inherit – if she did not marry it would be different – oh, said she, I could not promise not to marry that would be enough to make me wish it I don’t know what I shall do I should not think it right to marry as long as my father lived but afterwards I should wish to have a comfortable home and has no idea of ever marrying to please me. Should not like to live with my aunt and me or, as I understood, with me only. Had been used to be independent could not bear constraint should not like to be in Paris for long my society so different from hers I said if she would like to live here abouts why not say. Here there would be servants in the house and only one condition that of not having the Inmans no objection to Miss Button but to have as few Weighton people as possible, the fewer the better. Oh no, that was the thing she could not bear constraint else if she had four or five hundred a year and could have an open carriage would pay me rent and stay here as for that said I, it is all nothing I should not want rent I am only afraid of your marrying all in a hurry people might be glad to marry your apparent expectations and I should wish you to try whether you could not like a different rank in life. All I ask is this, try first you know nothing of the world as yet have no experience only see a little first promise me that if anything happens to my father you will stay quietly here and do nothing till you hear from in one way or other. You ought to come to Paris first and if you like not to be with my aunt and me you can have an apartment in the same house or near and be as independent as you choose. Perhaps you may like my friends better than you think. I want you not to be eaten up with ambition but a reasonable ambition is surely desirable ambition in any shape seemed not to her mind. Well said I, Marian, all I can say is there never surely were two people so nearly connected so, so totally unlike in every thing, we have not one idea in common surely it is a pity you know I never say more than this, however, I am better satisfied to have heard all you have told me than if you had kept it all as you intended to yourself. We need not perhaps say more on the subject we ‘have finished it off’ I hope you will get your eight thousand and that all will go well – Skelfler as we had observed before does not clear six hundred a year at which rates she will only have about two hundred and fifty per annum I said therefore that in this case she should live better with Miss Mosey than here. My father has paid off Mr Eden and got the money at four and a half percent of the trustees for Mr Clarke of Godmanham and Mr Jennings of York has the Skelfler paper – 

Came upstairs at 12 1/4 wrote the above of today which took me till 1 1/4 – at my letter drawer again – at 2 5/60 Mrs Henry Priestley and her nephew in law Mr Priestley Salisbury of Liverpool called and sat 1/2 hour – my father and sister at dinner did not come into the drawing room – 

From 2 35/60 to 6 1/2 looking over letters – dinner at 6 35/60 – from 8 to 9 1/2 again looking over letters – 

Read those from Mrs Milne (five of them) and my answers. What a correspondence. How she commits herself shocking, well I got off when and as I did. Does she keep and ever see my letters, what can she think why call me tuft hunter why say one syllable against me – 

Went down stairs for 35 minutes at 9 1/2 – came up again at 10 5/60 – Cordingley brought me up some silver and stayed talking 20 minutes – my father very poorly a little while before my return – looking very ill, and being very feeble – but now quite better again – all seems to go on pretty well – fine day -

[mellow-cello]

You mentioned once in the end notes of chapter 33 that you had, and i quote, ‘A method to your madness’ when describing how you wrote Harry’s stutter What was that? How did you know where to and where not to add a stutter? I’m writing a story with a character who has a stutter and after reading this fic, I’m inspired to nail his character now!

Heck I wrote out a great response and then lost it.

I’m definitely not an expert on this, and I’m sure I’m gonna get parts wrong in this, but I’ll do my best!

I guess I’d start with saying to listen to people with stutters. I think I mentioned it before, but when I decided Harry was going to have a stutter, I started watching a lot of Drew Lynch. I picked up a lot of patterns with his speech, things that he had issues with, for example words with repeated sounds (the word banana I think was something he mentioned having issues with) are something that can be difficult at times.

Also I write the stutter as I write the sentence almost every time (though I’ve actually completely forgotten to write it by accident and had to go add it in later). It may be a personal thing, but for me it makes the entire thing feel more organic. I enjoy writing dialogue a lot so hearing it in my head with the stutter helps me feel like it’s more real, I suppose. Also, part of the reason I used the potion to change the stutter (aside from developing character and relationships) was because I felt like I’d boxed myself into a very limited sound with the original, extreme stutter. Initially Harry stuttered more often than not over the words, where now it’s less than half the time on average, buuuuuut this isn’t static. How he feels can effect it greatly, such as if he’s dealing with anxiety or shock (anxiety makes it worse, shock can make it hard to complete words at all). Also, certain things like anger can make it less extreme (if he’s ranting the frequency of stutters will drop, though I haven’t done this yet with his current stutter if my memory is right...) I can’t say how accurate it is, but I used the King’s Speech as a kind of basis for this. There’s also certain... rules, I guess, that I have for what he can say. He always stutters over the words “uncle” and “Vernon”, and has never been able to say the word “abuse” (though he’s only tried once). With the “new stutter” (for lack of a better term), I have more freedom to single these things out.

The only other thing I’d note is not to just repeat the first letter of a word. Think instead about what sound is being repeated, and draw on that. Also, say it either out loud or in your head as you write it, and don’t be afraid to repeat entire syllables or cut up the middle of a word. So, say I was putting a stutter on the word “everywhere”. Instead of just going for the first letter by writing it as “e-e-everywhere”, I might instead throw the v in (ev-e-everywhere) or even have a restart of the entire word (ever-everywhere). Also, the sounds I target the most are W, S, and Y (though the stutter can appear anywhere or even not appear on these sounds, they’re the ones I usually gravitate towards), so instead I can put it halfway through by writing it as “everywhe-wh-where”. Basically don’t keep it as simple as throwing it on the first letter, though that’s still something that can appear from time to time.

Like I said, though, I’m not an expert on this. Make sure you dive into your research as well, and while you’re doing that you’ll probably find that a lot of people have different speech impediments and patterns. For example some come out by elongating out certain sounds (such as drawing out the ‘s’ or ‘n’ sound) or repeating entire words (like saying “where-where-where are you going?”). Keep in mind why your character has a stutter too; whether it’s from an injury or trauma or both. And if it’s an injury, what kind is it? A stutter caused by a concussion and one caused by a stroke may be two different things.

I guess my last note is to also try not to forget about readability? I can’t say for sure about how readable the stutter is in my writing since I don���t have a beta, but I try to walk the line carefully. Harry’s dialogue is meant to still be understood, but of course it’s a major part of his life. There are very very very few times he’s ever spoken without stuttering, and those are only short two to three word sentences. 

Damn, this got long but I hope this helped! If you have any other questions, feel free to ask!