#i'm still working on mai's speech patterns btw

[bellaxgiornata]

Hi...do you have any suggestions for a beginner fanfic writer?? Maybe some tips?? Love your work btw....i absolutely love your falling for the devil series

Ahhh, thank you so much!! 💖I'm glad you enjoy FFTD!! That series also tends to be my favorite of everything I've written, too. There's just something about FFTD Matty...

I could certainly give you some tips/suggestions that I've learned along the way! I've been writing and reading fanfic since 2005 so I've been around for a bit 😅 Though if there is something more specific that I didn't address--like something more specific with writing or editing or something--you (or anyone else who's curious) can certainly always send me an ask and I will always answer when I have a few minutes! But I'm not going to claim I'm remotely an expert on all of this, either. This is just from my experience and talking with other fic writers.

As always, the answer is below the cut!

First, I think it's always important to keep in mind that the more you write, the better your skill will grow with writing. Which goes for everyone, no matter how long you've been writing for or whatever your age is. I always see an improvement in my writing when I read something from even just a few months ago. And I even cringe at things like the very first Matt fic I wrote or even some early FFTD installments. So don't be too hard on yourself!

I think it's also important to remember to not compare yourself to others. We all have different styles and voices and that's a wonderful thing in writing. If everyone wrote the same or had the same ideas, there'd be nothing interesting to read. Everything would sound the same which would be boring. Personally, I didn't find my writing style/voice and grow comfortable with it until almost a year and a half ago when I started writing for the Daredevil fandom, so it's completely okay if you are still searching for yours.

Don't let any negative comments you might ever receive writing fanfic drag you down. Everyone gets them, and some fandoms have different dynamics than others where it may happen more often than in another one (though come on y'all, can we please practice the don't like don't read rule??). I think anyone who writes fanfic long enough will receive at least some hate. I've certainly gotten plenty over the years, and yes, it sucks and it can hurt or piss you off, but you have to remember to brush it off. There are likely many others enjoying your story to make up for that one person who's being rude. Block buttons can be your friend if you need them.

If you're having trouble writing a character that already exists in the fandom, studying them in the source material is always a good route. The amount of times I've gone and re-watched Daredevil, Punisher, or Kin in order to feel like I capture any of the characters in there just right is absurd, but it really does help to see their mannerisms, speech patterns, and to begin to get a feel of how they'd react in different situations based on how they've reacted in the show.

Lastly, when you write chapters for your fics and it begins to feel daunting, know that you can always break things down into more manageable chunks. I used to struggle to write much at a time until I learned to focus on the story in this way as opposed to focusing on everything that I still needed to make happen. Just focus scene by scene or even line by line. How to get Character A to do this or get to that point, for example, and it should hopefully seem significantly less terrifying. If you try to think of everything that needs to happen in a chapter all at once, it might begin to feel overwhelming and you may have the urge to give up. Try breaking things down and focusing on one thing at a time.

I could absolutely go on but I don't want to ramble! If there's something more specific you're curious about that I didn't touch on, or maybe you'd like more detail about, absolutely feel free to send me another ask! And this goes for anyone who made it through all of this! I always love chatting, sometimes it just takes me a moment to have time to sit down and answer. Hopefully any of this was useful/helpful though! I am always happy to help encourage others to write!!💕

[okthatsgreat]

For the headcanon thing, I'm specifically asking you for a Celeste headcanon on behalf of that person who didn't get Celeste headcanon. Checkmate, Lee - rotate Taeko Yasuhiro in your mind until the headcanons manifest. 😎👉👉

UR KIDDINNGGGGG oh god. ok concentrating concentrating

headcanon a (realistic): do not bring her to board game night if you were planning on winning or having fun. she takes every single game so seriously and kicks ass every single time. she becomes a millionare in monopoly and nobody was aware that was even possible. shes even good at quiplash because she memorises the stupid jokes that her classmates keep repeating day after day and puts that into the text box each time. of COURSE her classmates are going to pick the answer that says "freeby fazber" why WOULDN'T they

headcanon b (may not be realistic but it is hilarious): see the thing about celeste is it is truly impossible to tell what parts of her story are real and what are complete lies .. i think she lives an extremely average life outside of being "celestia ludenburg" and that is why she created this false persona in the first place. born to a working class family definitely went through it a bit when she was younger but was able to garner quite a bit of notoriety and wealth from gambling to get her own place-- but definitely not enough to live in luxury. enough to get her out of poverty but not enough to avoid living paycheck to paycheck yknow. the REAL headcanon i have is that every single time she brings one of her classmates back to her home she rents out a different spot each time just to keep them on their toes. eventually she lets one of them (idk sayaka maybe) finally enter her actual house and its this one bedroom apartment with no air conditioner and a bunch of gothic lolita posters everywhere and sayaka genuinely thinks shes being pranked until celeste is like "no im being serious. youve signed a non disclosure agreement btw this information will not be leaving this room"

headcanon c (heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict on friends): i dont think even celeste is aware of what her true personality is anymore. i really do like to believe that there are parts of it that are still left over, most of which is fuelling this deeply rooted imposter syndrome she certainly tries not to dwell on, but by all means her desire to seperate herself from taeko yasuhiro has caused her to practically forget who she once was. telling celeste to "stop lying" is much easier said than done, and i think it'll take years before she could ever reach the point where she is truly authentic and "herself". and even then celestia ludenburg will certainly still remain in a lot of her actions and speech patterns. she wont just wake up one day and suddenly be vulnerable and fragile and guilty, it's gonna take her a loooooooong while to adjust

headcanon d (unrealistic, but i will disregard canon about it): i think she's a bit geekier than she lets on GHFDKG its that small bit of taeko thats still there......... she would never admit it in a million years but sometimes, SOMETIMES, shes able to listen in on hifumis ramblings and go "oh i remember that show. his opinion about this character is totally wrong. oh well time to add that to the list of things i do not like about that man." oooooooo also fun fact whenever i write celestia in my "danganronpa is a reality tv show thats been going on for ages" aus i always always write her as a character that adapts with the changing trends. same with ibuki!! her aesthetic adapts over the years towards what is more recognisable with the target audience at the time, and while it definitely isn't as noticeable as ibuki's style swap there are certainly a LOT of wild changes team dr tries to throw at her before quickly reverting her style back and pretending it never happened ghfjdksgk

headcanon ask game!! :)

[notsodailycake]

Emergency Doodle commissions!

My ko-fi!

>Will require a clear description and/or reference images of your character(s);

>Will also need a description of the character's personality so i can have a full understanding of what I'm working with;

>Specify what pose you want them in;

>If you want to add the same character more then once, it will still be the same price as if to add another character;

>I can draw the furry buddies along side of/interacting with the stickman figures if you'd like;

>Furries can be drawn in the stickman figure as well, the furry buddies are the only ones exclusive for furries;

>Any complicated details (ex: clothing patterns) will be simplified or removed;

>Can add speech bubbles, it wont cost extra.

.

[Note: I can and will deny any commission that deems inappropriate for me or does not apply with my conditions]

Also PLEASE keep in mind this is in no way my profissional work, so any replies may range between really fast to really slow and to please be patient with me!

.

But ok, so i dont wanna sound desperate...but I'm desperate. Dont wanna get into too much detail why, but things are a tad bit tough for me rn regarding money, luckily nothing too serious, but still kinda a bit for me to beg just a little, hence the emergency on it

These are fairly simple, and the cheapest i can really go

I'm really embarrassed to even do this tbh, I'm not the type to promote myself like this alot (not even on Instagram, but i do this more often there), or ask for help, but things are getting complicated rn and it cant get a part-time job at the moment, so I'm sorry,,

If you can't afford this or just dont want to, it's alright, just sharing this is good enough of help!

I'll keep the status of these commissions in check on my pinned post if you want to commission me but saw that this post is old btw :>

[evilkitten3]

no words to spare

AN: So I asked if I should write something for my OCs, and… people seemed to like the idea! So here goes nothing, I guess. Let me know what you think! Kitty out.

Title: no words to spare

Summary: The hardest – and easiest – part about hating Mai, Hector thinks, is that she's too cruel to even pretend to hate him back.

Main Characters: Hector Stonefield, Mai Wakaba

Pairings: Implied Hector/Kotomi, implied one-sided Mai/Akiko

Extra Note: The majority of this story is told almost entirely from Hector's point of view, and is thus very biased. Mai is an extremely complex character, if only because I've put more work into her than most of the others (though I still have some issues with her that need to be sorted out), and Hector is one of the ones I have the most trouble writing. I hope this doesn't through anyone off of the characters – I do intend to write more, especially for the others, but I made a draft of this one a while back, so I figured I'd make some touch-ups and share it. I hope you like it!

For the most part, the others don't interfere. Katsuya and Kotomi have both known Mai long enough to know that befriending her is generally either something you do immediately, or never at all. That wasn't to say befriending her later was impossible, of course – just a year before beginning at Central Academy for the Magical Arts, Mai and a boy from their old school, Noah Dubinsky, had mended a previously antagonistic relationship that had been going on for about three years prior, and the two were now relatively good friends.

But every time Noah had been anywhere near their friend group – particularly Emi, who'd once been brought to tears by Noah's blunt and insensitive nature – after befriending her, Mai had been there as well. There had been no difference in her demeanor, and even people who'd known her all their lives couldn't explain how they knew, but there had been a threat there.

You are a friend, Mai's presence has said. I like you now. But you are not as important to me as the people you have hurt in the past. You have the opportunity to make thinks right. Waste it, and there will be consequences. The group had for the most part not noticed, but Katsuya had because Katsuya knew Mai, and he made sure to be as close to Noah as possible without being weird in case things got out of hand.

Hector Stonefield had never met Noah Dubinsky, and it was unlikely that he ever would. He'd never heard of him either. The two had absolutely nothing in common aside from one tiny thing: both had gotten off on the wrong foot with Mai from the start. In Noah's case, he'd said something that he hadn't realized could be seen as offensive, Mai had interpreted it as an insult towards someone she cared about, and the two had spent the next few years glaring at each other, slipping snide remarks across the room, and smirking when the other got in trouble. When exactly that had become friendship was unclear, but it had happened. Hector was a different case.

For starters, Mai had never once done anything to offend him, as far as anyone could tell. He was rooming with Katsuya and Jaren (or he had been, until Nikolai had arrived at the school and Jaren had agreed to room with his sister to keep things simple), and thus inevitably met their friends. Their first meeting had been fine. Hana had waved politely, Mikasa had nodded and gone back to her book, Emi had winked, Akiko had given him a beaming smile, Kotomi had blushed and shyly mumbled out a 'hello', and Mai had been as friendly and welcoming as she could be.

And Hector had looked her in the eye as she grinned widely at him, and he had realized that he hated her. He'd tried to be quiet about it – Kotomi was a sweet girl, and he liked her a lot, and Katsuya and Jaren were nice enough, and the other girls were fine, and he didn't want to offend any of them. But he could not stand Mai Wakaba and he couldn't for the life of him figure out why. Even after realizing that she had survived the explosion at the CETMUD facility, the one where his mother had died, he knew that wasn't why he hated her.

He figures it out when their group is watching Akiko run with the track team, and they're all cheering and clapping (well, Mikasa is reading a book, but every now and then she glances up to watch with a tiny smile, which is probably as much support as she's comfortable with giving), and out of the corner of his eye Hector sees Mai. She's wearing her huge grin, eyes shining as she calls out words of encouragement, and it all seems perfectly fine until–

Until someone trips Akiko. It might have been intentional, maybe not, but Hector sees Mai's face change. The crowd boos as Akiko hits the dirt, but Mai has no expression on her face that Hector can identify. Her eyes are just a little wider than usual, but her knuckles are stark white against her tanned skin as she grips the bleachers. Mai is protective of her friends, especially Akiko, and everybody knows it.

Just for a moment, Hector sees murder in her eyes. He sees the girl who so often jokes about her uselessness in terms of both practical, everyday things, and in most combat scenarios, and he sees that girl replaced with someone ready, willing, and 100% able to kill any and every living creature between herself and Akiko's safety. For just one moment, Hector thinks he might be about to die.

And then Akiko's back on her feet, and Mai smiles again. Only this time, her mouth stays flat and her eyes soften and it occurs to Hector that he's never seen her smile like this before. He wonders if he's ever really seen her smile at all.

"You really don't like me all that much," Mai says one day, when Hector is in the library studying because the Common Tongue isn't the one he's most familiar with, and even if he speaks it fluently, his writing is always marked with spelling problems and grammatical errors. "Right, Hector-kun?" He doesn't get why she uses honorifics from the language spoken in the Far East of Lux to CAMA, the center of the Seven Kingdoms, when the Common Tongue is the one she grew up speaking. He knows she doesn't speak that tongue with her extended family either – she uses the cultural language, with hard "ch" sounds and backwards writing. He only knows that because he's seen her use it with Katsuya, when annoyed or frustrated, and he knows because she punctuates her Common with words from that tongue that can only be curses. He doesn't know who she speaks the Far-East Luxian too, except Kagura and Kotomi, but both speak Common just fine. In fairness, she does have heritage from that area – most of their group does; it's obvious from their names alone. Hana is the only one who's ever been there, as far as Hector is aware (not counting Kotomi, who's lived there her whole life, and Kagura, who's been all over the place but isn't really from anywhere), but most of the others don't speak the language at all. Mikasa and Akiko know a couple words, and Katsuya and Emi probably do too, but even Kotomi and Hana keep their languages separate. Mai… doesn't. Her speech is filled with every language she knows, and the lack of reaction from everyone else makes him think that's normal for her. He's met her little brother once – he doesn't talk like that.

And then there's "Hector-kun". He knows what it means, of course. Kotomi told him about both of her native tongues before she brought him to meet her fathers, and he knows about the honorifics of the Far-East of Lux. But Mai doesn't refer to anyone else like that. She likes nicknames – like "Koko-chan", "Ai-chan", "Emichi", "Mikami", "Katsu-chan", and the like. Hana is "Hana-senpai", but that seems like an inside joke between the two. Hector can't tell if it's because she knows he hates her or if she just hasn't thought of one yet. Not that he wants one, of course – he hates her nicknames, and he doesn't know if he'll be able to stop himself from punching her lights out if she tries to call him something so childish and silly.

"No, I don't," he agrees, because he's an honest person and because Kotomi isn't anywhere nearby. "I don't like liars." Mai nods.

"I figured as much," she says cheerfully. He wonders if she actually thinks he buys it, or if she just doesn't care enough to drop the act. "You're pretty observant, for royalty." Hector chokes then, because he's never told anyone where he came from. He doesn't lie about it unless absolutely necessary – he really hates liars – and there's really no way Mai should know about it. Granted, he hadn't bothered to change his name, but he shouldn't have had to – he knew his elder brother well enough to know that his name wouldn't be brought up after he left. At least, not without a swift and almost certainly deadly response. "We really don't have much in common, you and I," Mai notes. "Aside from our friends, I mean." She laughs, and the sound makes Hector feel ill.

"What do you want?" he demands. He isn't going to be polite to someone who's been lying to his face, who is lying to his face as they speak, but she doesn't seem bothered. Her infectious grin – like a terminal disease, he thinks, that no one else seems to want to acknowledge; a plague smile – widens.

"I just thought you should know," she says, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "I really don't mind. There's no reason to pretend you like me when you don't; Koko-chan knows that not everyone can be friends." Does she? Hector wonders. He cares about Kotomi a great deal, but she's always been a bit naïve. "Besides," Mai adds. "You hate lying, and you're really not very good at it. So don't lie, okay? I think it makes the others more uncomfortable when you pretend everything's fine instead of acknowledging how much you hate my guts." Hector's jaw clenches.

"I don't want to be lectured about honesty by you," he spits out, glaring at her.

"So you want to keep lying?" Mai asks, feigning surprise. "I didn't think you were that kind of person. But honestly, I don't mind." She beams at him, and he wonders how it's possible to hate a single person so much. "If you hate me, that's fine. But there's something I should tell you." Hector slams his book shut, stands up, and turns on her.

"What?" he snarls. "What the hell do you–" she pokes his nose.

"I don't hate you," she tells him, smiling. It's not her real smile, but it's not a fake one either. Her lips are turned up slightly, and her eyes are crinkled at the corners like she's laughing, but there's a glimmer of something else behind the amicable mask that's laughing at him. You really thought I'd hate you too, the smile taunts him. You really thought you were worth at least that much. "I don't hate you, Hector-kun. If you were in trouble, I'd do anything I could to help."

Mai wraps her arms around him in what Hector feels is less of a hug and more of a coil, a snake wrapping around its prey to choke the life out of it – a venomous snake, no less, one that could kill him quickly with poison but was too sadistic to let him die so simply. "That's what friends are for," she whispers in his ear. Hector tears himself away and sprints out of the library, away from Mai. He doesn't realizing he's going to his room until he gets there, flinging the door open and throwing himself on his bed. Katsuya isn't there, and that's a relief, because he doesn't want to explain to his roommate why he's crying into his pillow.

When he leaves, nothing will have changed.

In the library, Mai calmly hands Hector's abandoned book to the librarian, asking him to hold onto it until Hector realizes he forgot it. She walks out with her hands in her pockets, wandering aimlessly through the halls of the school. Dinner will be in a couple of hours, and she thinks she might want to go for a swim first.

When she next sees Hector, she'll smile at him and he'll glower at her, and Kotomi will laughed and shake her head, and it will be like nothing ever happened.

And, as far as Mai's concerned, nothing did.

[kazeofthemagun]

♛ - Alchemic-elric

Send me a url and I'll tell you the following:

@alchemic-elric

🔮 my opinion on;

character in general: Oh boi~ Ed is one of the most unique characters I've had the pleasure of getting to know. I enjoy the series he is from a whole lot - hell I just got the manga - and watched most of the animation available, aside from one of the movies. Edward Elric hits the comedy and badassery vibes splendidly. I also like how his personality isn't the stereotypical quiet "genius kid" - he is a whole explosive barrel of surprises with compelling character flaws. His color pallete is satisfying (because that plays a big role for me) and represents him very well. Ed is definitely up there among the chars I'd love to meet IRL, lol. He's a presence that inspires due respect, seeing as he had endured so much so early and even as a young teenager he's kicking ass left and right and is more capable than most adults - while still retaining flaws you would expect from a kid, helping to cast him in a more relatable light, even if it is hard to relate to the kid prodigy aspect itself. I love to see his growth throughout the series, as he makes his way through all the obstacles and trials life throws at him and his brother. ^^

how they play them: Kira plays Ed amazingly. For me, FMA is a fandom I follow on the side among other things, but I started chatting to the mun and followed, and started to read some of the stuff they write on the blog and I have to say? Honestly, when I think of Ed I think of yours. His speech patterns, (also, Ed is finally allowed to say the fuck word cuz it ain't monetized media lmao) his emotional complexity (researched so well btw), all the little tidbits that make sense in a canon perspective, like the explained workings of the automail, how it affects him and how he maintains it, the love of cooking much like the love of alchemy, gosh there's just so much, so much love poured into this muse, I know he's a huge part of your life and it shows. I know how it feels to have a fandom/character you are so passionate about, for me its obvs FFU and also God Eater but you're making me delve deeper into FMA again and appreciate it with this enhanced perspective now, which comes from hanging around your blog. As I said, your Ed now lives rent free in my head and that's what I see when I look at canon Ed now, lol. And that means YOU DID A DAMN GOOD JOB WOOOOO!

the mun: You're awesome, how tf do you write so much?? So many threads?? So many people! Ahh! Hahah, teach me. (jk on the teach part obvs - I'm just gushing about the amount of writing energy haha) Chatting to you is always fun, I love to see how excited you are about the fandom and your boi. I learned of you through Kumo and became interested in your main, which was a good choice to make and I get to enjoy writing scenarios from time to time and seeing this alchemy boi react. >:)) Also whenever Cloudy shows up and starts arguing with Windy I laugh out loud. I appreciate you throwing him at me sometimes, despite being involved in so. MUCH. STUFF. already like holy shit! XD I admire that. Both the boundless creativity and still interacting with followers unrelated to your main fandom. So much nice all around. Ty for being a fun part of the dash as always ;)

🔮 do i;

follow them: Yes!

rp with them: Not this blog

want to rp with them: Depends - I am always open but fandoms may not mesh too well. Characters may or may not. All in all am open to try but I'm perfectly good interacting OOC and with asks ^^

ship their character with mine: obviously not

🔮 what is my;

overall opinion: Very positive! I highly recommend @alchemic-elric to all my followers who'd like to look into the FMA fandom! :D

[dedalvs]

As a deaf person with limited/no context for how words sound, I'm finding the conlang community's fixation on starting with sound to be a huge stumbling block when trying to learn how to make conlangs that aren't signed. Do you have any advice on how to work around that?

Two three actually four things:

(1) “Phonology” doesn’t simply refer to sound. (I mean, etymologically it does, but not in linguistics.) Phonology refers to how a language uses unanalyzable, meaningless units (phonemes) to create larger chunks that do have meaning (words or affixes). In a spoken language, this refers to spoken phonemes (e.g. /p/, /b/, /d/, etc.). In a sign language, this refers to places on the body, motion, and handshape. If you know ASL, compare the sign for APPLE to the sign for ONION. These are almost exactly the same sign. You put your hand in the 1 handshape with the first two segments completed curled under, you put it up to your face and twist a couple times. The difference is whether you put your hand up next to your eye, or up at your cheek. That’s the only difference between those two words. Thus, the difference between APPLE and ONION in ASL is the same difference (quantitatively) as the difference between English “meet” and “mitt”. I share this example to show you how the principle behind the arrangement of both systems—signed and spoken—is the same. They differ in their expressions (i.e. through speech sounds and through movements done with the hands and body in particular places), but the notion is that there are certain things that have no meaning (for example the place next to the eye in ASL), but you can use those things in combination with other bits that have no meaning to form meaningful units.

There aren’t a lot of signed conlangs because many conlangers aren’t as familiar with sign languages as they are spoken, and also because they are very difficult to record on paper. Any hearing person who’s studied ASL will be familiar with this: You go to class and learn, but what do you write down? I imagine every learner kind of tries to invent their own notation system to help them remember, but ultimately you just have to memorize it. That doesn’t really work for someone creating the language, though. Video is the best way to capture a sign language, but it’s not super practical (though it’s getting easier). I tried to create a phonetic transcription system for sign languages called SLIPA. I’m not sure if anyone has used it, but I think the principle is sound (or sound enough). Plus, as with the relationship between narrow transcription and romanization, I think it makes sense for the creator of the language to create a more streamlined system for use with their language that can then be explicated in a page with SLIPA.

(2) There are still other conlang types that make no reference to sound but aren’t signed. I made one called X. It’s a purely visual language (think hieroglyphs but with no phonological component whatsoever). There’s a lot to be done in this area of conlanging. You can go the picture/glyph route I did, or you could just do something totally different, as with Sai and Alex’s UNLWS. You could also do something like this:

#$% = cat

#$%* = cats

##$% = big cat

##$%* = big cats

#$$% = small cat

#$$%* = small cats

After all, even letters are just symbols. They can stand for whatever you want, or nothing at all! As long as you can describe what’s going on, that’s all that’s necessary.

(3) To your main concern, saying “the conlang community’s fixation on starting with sound” is, to put it mildly, unfair. I start with the sound system in the spoken conlangs I do, and I mostly do spoken conlangs. If I’m writing a book on how to create a language, that’s where I start, because I’m writing it. But just because I do it that way doesn’t mean most do. Even if you go to a forum or mailing list and you see most people falling into that pattern, that doesn’t mean that’s representative of the community either, because there are any number of people who simply aren’t replying or aren’t volunteering their methods. We’ve had the discussion within the community time and time again about where one starts a conlang, and there’s a significant chunk that start with the syntax. They’ll use English words or just nonce forms to realize the grammatical idea they’re interested in, and only grudgingly turn to the phonology after they’re done. Some don’t even get that far, because their interest wanes when it comes to phonology. This split even exists in linguistics, where we refer to P people (phonetics/phonology) and S people (syntax/semantics). Ask any linguist: these camps don’t always understand one another. The same is true in conlanging. A P person sees an S person’s awesome subordinate clause marking system with a makeshift phonology and says, “Is that your phonology? It’s a little unrealistic.” An S person looks at a P person’s incredible naturalistic vowel harmony system and says, “Why waste your time on that if you’re not even going to speak it? It obscures the morphology. I can’t make heads or tails of it. Just show me the interlinear.” And these are all hearing conlangers! If you’re only finding conlangers who are talking about phonology, then you need to look for other conlangers—like the Jeff Jones and Gary Shannon type of conlangers. This was, admittedly, an easier task when the community was smaller—before social media, ironically. But I swear to you: There are TONS of conlangers who share your interests.

(4) There are also lots of spoken conlangs that don’t bother too much about phonology. There are minimalist conlangs which, by definition, don’t really have a lot of material to work with, so there’s not much to design/learn in the way of phonology (e.g. three vowels, seven or eight consonants, no consonant clusters). There are also a priori auxlangs or otherwise non-natural spoken languages where you don’t find assimilation or dissimilation, or anything like that. If there are five vowels and ten consonants with ©V© syllables, then there are 555 possible syllables (if I counted right), and every syllable is valid and pronounced exactly as it’s supposed to be, and can occur next to any other syllable. Then there are other conlangs with complex but non-natural phonologies, where there are many distinctions to be made (many of which wouldn’t exist in a natural language), and the speaker must make them. I’m thinking of Ithkuil. There, is admittedly, some small amount of variation is allowed, but otherwise the way that sounds are arranged is almost mathematical. There is no concern for how the sounds fit together, or whether two words sound too similar: The grammar says what sounds go where, and that is that. Any type of project like I’ve described above incorporates aural phonology but in a way that I think makes a little more sense to an S person.

***

If you have a particular project in mind but the approaches you’ve seen don’t match it, do a little digging and find a similar project, and see how they got going. If you have the start of something and want to know about a similar project, just send another ask, and I’ll see what I can find (most of the early conlangers have websites that are still up. Btw, newer conlangers: Even though no one does websites anymore, we need a way to see your work! Hunting through Tumblr posts/tweets/FB group posts doesn’t work!). But if I can add a tl;dr to this: THERE IS NO RIGHT OR WRONG WAY TO CONLANG! You’re good, I swear! And hey, if no one can approach the way you want, why not invent it yourself and detail it? You may be creating a method/approach that will be a great help to others down the line!

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

I've noticed a lot of the captions you write on your drawings are existential in nature. You write interesting little blurbs about the transience of life and the existence/nonexistence of God. Could you tell me more about your thought process behind writing these statements? What message are you striving to convey? (I'm larping as an NPR host btw)

In the comments section there is this description of the process I use when I am writing captions:

"1. Read book or excerpt.

2. Write a sentence in the voice of the narrator or speaker, or whatever is most natural for the material.

3. Re-read sentence, and see if it sounds natural. If not, go back to step 2, and repeat several times until sentence sounds like real narrator/speaker, or something close enough that you are satisfied.

4. Write sentence.

5. Write paragraph, and continue the style until you run out of paragraphs (or, maybe, decide to go another way).

6. Read over and revise paragraphs until you think they make sense and are appropriate for the tone of the piece.

7. Write the pieces you are working on, then make sure they look fine by going back and re-reading them a few times.

This process works well because it is mostly about writing what sounds natural to the character or narrator – which means that I try to write like a narrator who is writing, or who is trying to write a book / a letter / an essay, etc. But, it does often feel like I am writing like a narrator because my actual style is very distinctive."

That description of the process reminds me of something TNC's narrator says in CII:

"I must be boring, and even when I am trying to entertain myself, I cannot be understood."

The narrator in TNC is saying something like "I would like to be entertaining, but as it happens my speech is not entertaining, so I may as well just tell you the truth about myself, which is boring," which is something I have also said.

I am a boring person with no interesting qualities! And I guess I am not actually boring. It sounds better in a voice that is talking like someone who would be interesting in a lot of ways and whose actual speech patterns are not necessarily boring.

Or maybe I'm just trying to sound cool. If I'm saying something like "oh yeah, I'm basically a real estate agent who happened to get extremely obsessed with the concept of the novel and now I can write a novel or a whole series of novels." I'm not exactly supposed to sound cool in that way, because it's just kind of a natural-sounding, ordinary thing you say about oneself, and it does not mean that it would be cool to write a novel about some guy doing that in a novel. But it still is cool, in the same way that people often say "what do you do for a living?" when they are just trying to get conversation going and don't want to talk about their job. The question is still a question people would get, if the person had a novel as their "job" or some other unusual thing that makes them unusual. If I were telling a story about a guy who has a novel as his job and gets up every day to work on his novel, that would make it cool, the same way that "my job" can sound cool.

The narrator of TNC is not supposed to be cool. But it's cool in the same way "I don't know if I'm a real estate agent but I was an English major at the University of Iowa." "I can't stand most of the people I used to work with at my last job." "I do a lot of the same things when I watch TV that you do when you play a game."

I like the style I have developed, but I'm not sure if it comes off as self-conscious coolness. The coolness isn't there because I am a cool person – it's just the sort of thing I tend to say, and would say even if I didn't have all this stuff to talk about. I think people who are trying to sound cool would not do the same thing, and wouldn't say the same things about themselves. I guess I am doing a bad job of talking in a way people trying to sound cool would talk, but I am also a bad example of someone who would talk that way.