#just to add more info this is like in the middle of a letter completely unrelated to what he's talking about in that letter

[dailykafka]

— September, 1920 / Letters to Milena

[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

[indigowallbreaker]

RAREPAIR SHIPS WOOO

How about "loose hand-holding" with Dorothea and Linhardt? :)

Sounds good!

(Currently accepting rare ships! Click here for the info post!)

--

Linhardt opened his eyes with much reluctance. He could have easily slept another hour or two-- but something was nagging at him to wake up. Something important. He stretched his arms above his head and realized he was still at his desk. The tome he had been reading last night lay open before him, marked with a small dot of drool. Linhardt wrinkled his nose. Hopefully whatever word he had accidently blotted out in his slumber hadn't been overly important.

Important... something important had woken him...

A glance at the time piece on his desk gave him the answer-- the important thing was a meeting, and more importantly he had missed the start of it by about an hour.

With a great sigh, Linhardt stood from the desk, straightened his clothes so they would look less slept in, and left his study. Others may have run down Enbarr’s palace hallways upon learning they were late for a meeting with the Emperor and her advisers-- but not Linhardt. As he was already late, Linhardt saw no point in running. He was content to keep a gentle pace and yawn his way down the stairs.

Where there wasn’t urgency, however, there was guilt. Linhardt had promised Dorothea to be more on top of things now that he was helping finance her orphanage. Arriving late to meetings due to oversleeping like this definitely didn’t count as being on top of things. He fully expected a lecture from Dorothea or even Edelgard and honestly, he might let them do it for once. Maybe. Exhausting as it sounded.

As Linhardt approached the meeting room, the doors opened and everyone started filing out. Linhardt held in a curse. He’d missed the meeting completely. That would surely add a few minutes to his soon-to-come lecture.

But no one said anything as they left. Petra gave a wave and Hubert nodded in acknowledgement, but no one chided him on skipping the meeting. Even Edelgard walked past with only a “good morning” before returning her attention to the papers in her hands.

The last to leave was Dorothea. She smiled when she saw him and outright laughed when he gave her a confused look. “Well, good morning to you too!” She teased, reaching up to sweep aside some hair that had fallen from his sloppily made bun.

“Is everyone just planning to yell at me later?” Linhardt asked. “Because if so, I’d really rather get it over with now. It’s not too late to get Edelgard and Hubert back here.” 

“No one’s going to yell at you, Lin. Here-- I took notes for you.” She handed Linhardt a page full of her typical shorthand and curly letters. He took it but still raised a suspicious eyebrow. Dorothea huffed. “You really can’t accept that you’re off the hook this time?”

“Not until you give me an explanation, no.”

Dorothea rolled her eyes. “I told everyone that you were up late looking up building sites for me. I told them that I felt bad for working you so hard and that we should let you sleep in today.”

“You don’t need to make up excuses for me like we’re still in school.” Though even as Linhardt said that, gratitude and relief were rushing through him. No need to avoid anyone for fear of a lecture, no looks of disappointment, and he would be able to catch up on the meeting thanks to Dorothea’s notes. “But feel free to do so anyway,” Linhardt finished.

Dorothea laughed again and slipped her hand into his. She didn’t actually hold his hand-- simply hooked her pointer finger around his middle one and let their skin touch. It was comforting. Casual. Easy to pull away from if he wanted. “I do need you to review sites for the orphanage at some point soon.”

“I can work on that today, I suppose.” He gripped her hand in silent permission.

“Thank you, Lin.” Beaming, Dorothea pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I���ll check in with you later.”

With that, she was off, trailing after the others down the hall. Linhardt carefully folded her notes and slid them into his pocket. A quick trip to the library for maps, an order to the kitchens for some breakfast, and he would get to work. 

Work. That usually sounded exhausting. But for Dorothea, Linhardt found it didn’t seem so bad.   

[astronicht]

Another great question! The short answer is: there is no shorter Beowulf, because this one is all we've got. Is it typical? Boy it would be cool if someone could figure that out! Beowulf has survived in one single extant manuscript (link is just wiki), and there aren't really any good comparable epic poems where we CAN see how an Old English oral performance might be, as you describe the Iliad and Odyssey, flexible. Could scops have shortened it by taking out a few verses everyone knew were optional? Or could they have only recited one of the three arcs and considered that a complete performance, please pay me now? Could some actual performance versions be longer, since Beowulf's middle arc is more fleshed out than the other two? Sure, but we have so little data that even that is hard to discuss (though I'm sure someone has -- oral poetry is not my area of expertise) (also, and I cannot stress this enough, this was a shitpost).

And it's also worth noting that, to my (limited) understanding, oral poetry does have the ability to be very conservative; you can't change or add or subtract things without being extremely careful not to mess up the complex rules about stressed syllables and alliteration (it's not easy; people today still argue about how lines should scan). So sometimes things really can remain unchanged for what feels like a really long time.

So for this 21st century era (and for the beowulf speedrun) we just have one Beowulf, typical or not.

That manuscript looks like this btw (link also has some good info), and is actually bound together with a few other wonder tales-- only these tales focus not on the semi-mythical Denmark of Beowulf, but semi-mythical West Asia and India. For Silmarillion fans, one of these (Alexander's Letter to Aristotle) involves two ancient sacred trees that prophesy life and death.

I pulled up the sketchy online Old English version of Beowulf and yeah it has 3,182 lines. If you took 5 seconds per line you’d need four and a half hours to recite it (or specifically to recite the one version that got both written down and preserved for a thousand years) (only a little charred). But I mean 5 seconds per line is for chumps who don’t want to unlock the Beowulf speedrun.

Also ok for SCIENCE I timed myself and quickly reciting the first 5 lines took 16 seconds, let’s call that fifteen because I mispronounced meodosetla. At that pace (if you could keep it up consistently and I mean never cough never take a drink) you’d be looking at 2.65 hours, or 2 hours and 39 minutes (or 159 minutes). This is actually 20 minutes shorter than the theatrical run-time of Peter Jackson’s Two Towers (179 minutes).

Now, the original post was about reciting Beowulf in an hour, so 2 hours and 39 minutes is not gonna cut it, and is so far over time that even doubling your pace can’t save you. You’re gonna lose this speedrun and Æthelflæd’s new scop poet is going to laugh at you. However, there’s a cheat to exploit here. In the period when Old English (language of Beowulf) was spoken, people often just said there were 12 hours in a day and 12 hours in a night, no longer how long or short daylight actually was. This made the concept of a daylight hour stretch in summer, when daylight lasts way longer than 12 hours. There’s a good article on this I’ll find it if anyone wants it. I don’t actually expect anyone to have read this far.

ANYWAY, the longest day in Jarrow (furthest north Old English speaking town I could think of) in 2024 (sorry this data is not calibrated for the 10th century) was of course midsummer: June 20th, at 17 modern hours 22 modern minutes and 1 modern second. This means each early medieval hour that day actually lasted 1 hour and 26 minutes. Still not nearly enough lads, but this is when it becomes a skill game. Because I wasn’t going ALL that fast. We need to squeeze 159 minutes of Beowulf (aka basically Two Towers) into 86 minutes. If you could half my pace-per-five-lines from 15 seconds to 7.5 seconds, you’d be able to do it, one day of the year, in Jarrow. Iceland is cheating. Good luck.

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Yes! With some nuance. Part of the reason this exchange exists is that the line between dubcon and noncon is a blurry one, and different people draw that line differently. Please be sure to be just as clear in your "DO NOT WANT" list as your prompt.

Timeline

Sign Ups Open: March 7th

Sign Ups Close: March 31

Assignments sent: by April 9th

First check-in: May 31

Second check-in: August 1st

Fics due: September 15th

Fics will start posting: October 1st (thus, noncontober)

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Please add information about what you would like to see in a fanwork created for you. You may also include likes and prompts here or in your outside letter. If you choose to link to a letter, please make sure it is complete by the time signups close.

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Broad DNWs for "noncon" or "dubcon." However, narrower DNWs such as "violent noncon" or "cute romantic dubcon" will generally be enforced.

[harrypotter-imaginess]

A/N: So this imagine is based off of a letter commission I did for @weaponb33​ It’s kind of like the back story, which they got the actual letter and what happens afterwards. It’s basically been in my drafts until they told me they got their letter so I wouldn’t ruin the surprise lol

I might do a part two, but I definitely won’t be saying what’s in the letter, because they paid for that y’know. However, if you want, you can order your own custom letter with this prompt-

Ko-Fi l Etsy l Commission Info Here

- You’re both probably friends

- You’re always his partner in herbology

- “Oh be careful Nev, your earmuffs are slipping”

- You lean over, adjusting them so they cover his ear completely

- You don’t notice he’s as a red as a tomato

- “T-t-thank y-you” he mumbles

- Everyone knows he has a crush on you

- “So when are you going to make a bloody move on them?” Ron asks

- Everyone but you that is

- Neville flushes at the thought

- You’re so lovely, you basically sparkle

- How is he supposed to manage a sentence around you

- “Well if you can’t manage the words why not write a letter?” Dean Thomas suggests

- The rest of the boys are waiting for Neville to flush as red as a tomato and insist he couldn’t possibly do something like that

- But instead they find Neville with an inquisitive look on his face

- “That might work...”

- There’s a riot in the fourth year Gryffindor boys dorm room

- Or at least that’s what it sounds like as all the boys rally around Neville coaching him on what to write

- “After the part where you say the world looks brighter, add that it’s like it’s sparkling-“ Ron starts

- “And in the next paragraph add some ellipses, that will add the tone” Harry adds from beside him pointing to the middle paragraph

- “Are you sure I should ask them to meet me so late at the clocktower?”

- Upon Dean’s advice he wrote in the letter that if you want to go with him to meet him at the clocktower at midnight, and if not they could pretend like nothing happened

- Dean nods

- “You need to know their answer, otherwise you’ll just drag it out-“

- “Like ripping off a band aid” Harry nods

- They keep look out for any professors while Neville scurries to your common room door

- The gaggle of boys nodding enthusiastically from behind when he looks over his shoulder

- He gulps

- Looks like it do or die

- And it occurs to Neville that he could walk away right now

- He could admit to the other boys that he didn’t have the guts to go through with it after all, or shove the letter in his robes and lie and say you rejected him

- And walk away from the whole situation like nothing happened

- It’s the safest option, things can go just like they always have

- Nothing has to change

- He takes a deep breath

- And he’s scared, scared you might not feel the same, and be disgusted by his feelings-

- But he’s even more afraid of not taking the chance and always wondering “what if”

- So he slides the letter under your door.

- He sighs

- “Let’s hope I don’t die”

[theboombutton]

Please say more about aspirated medial stops, I was talking with my brother in law the other day about how we (Californians) don't say t's in the middle of words and I'm really curious about why that is and if this is a universal thing in all accents of English now

Disclaimer: I do have a Bachelor's in linguistics, but I got it more than a decade ago so it is possible that some of the information in this post will be misremembered or out of date.

tl;dr

Knowing how to pronounce t in different locations in different dialects is a nightmare. Old-fashioned British Received Pronunciation pronounced t in the middle of words, but there's a UK language drift called T-glottalization in which ts except at the start of words are often being replaced with glottal stops? It's really obvious in lower-status dialects but it's been creeping into RP as well.

American English usually does a weird muscle flex called a "flap" or a "tap" that's something like a really short d, or a single roll of a rolled r. I think there are some UK dialects that use this tap as well.

I belieeeeeve that Indian English usually pronounces word-medial ts, but I haven't run an actual analysis on the applicable coworkers' speech because that'd be kind of creepy?

No idea about Australia or New Zealand.

As far as I know, there's no special reason why these particular drifts are happening. Linguistic drift and accent shifts are just something that happens with living languages. If anything, we have immensely slowed the natural process of language change through the invention and widespread teaching of standardized writing.

Glossary

Sorry, I tried doing this without a glossary but I kept having to do weird info cul-de-sacs to explain myself. I've ordered them according to approximately when they'll come up?

lol I failed so hard at this, about halfway through the post I started using words without putting them in the glossary first and man idk I've been working on this post for 4 hours now and I don't want to go back through and put definitions for some of this shit, sorry

Phoneme - A single language sound, as it is stored in your brain. Represented with slashes around it, e.g. /t/.

Phone - A language sound as it actually comes out of your mouth. Represented with square brackets around it, e.g. [t].

Phonology - The study of speech sounds, from internal representation to external expression, but not including the study of how they are physically created in the mouth (that's phonetics). Not to be confused with phrenology, the racist pseudoscience of head shape.

Word - Can have a few different meanings in a linguistic context. In this post, will usually refer to either a lexeme or a phonological word. You should be able to tell from the context.

Phonological Word - What you probably think of when you think of a "word." A unit of speech that you could naturally pause on either side of, but could not naturally pause inside.

Lexeme/Semantic Word - A single phonological word and its attached meaning; or, phrase of multiple phonological words, which holds a meaning which is different than the sum of its parts. For example, "Carry the bucket" is not a single lexeme; but "Kick the bucket" is.

Voiced/Voiceless - A sound is voiced if you use your vocal cords to make it, and voiceless if you don't.

Stop - Also called a plosive. A stop is a kind of consonant you make by stopping all air flow. The stops English uses are p, b, t, d, k, g, and the glottal stop.

Aspiration - A puff of air following a sound, usually a voiceless stop. In phonetic notation, it is indicated by a superscript h following the consonant, like [pʰ].

IPA - International Phonetic Alphabet. A standard set of symbols based on the Roman alphabet and used to refer to roughly the same sounds regardless of language.

Glottal stop - A stop which is performed not by your tongue, as in most stops, but by your vocal cords. Think of the word "Uh-oh" - the way you completely stop airflow after the "Uh" instead of just letting it flow into the "oh." That's a glottal stop.

Praat - An audio analysis program tailored specifically for viewing waveforms of speech sounds.

INFODUMP TIME

So the thing about saying words is that the ideas of sounds that you have in your head ("phonemes") don't translate one-to-one to the sounds that come out of your mouth ("phones"); and the ways that these sounds get modified vary between different dialects.

Please keep in mind that when you try to speak slowly or clearly, the sounds that you make change. Linguists are primarily interested in natural speech patterns, not what we do when we're trying to enunciate.

Tater-Tot

Let's take the lexeme tater-tot, because it's the first word I can think of that has all 3 of the major weird things that /t/ does that vary by dialect.

Let's start with the word-initial t. Phonologically there are actually two word-initial t's in tater-tot, the one at the beginning of 'tater,' and the one at the beginning of 'tot.' This is because "tater-tot" is two phonological words despite being one semantic word.

In American and British English, we aspirate our word-initial voiceless stops if they're immediately followed by a vowel, which means we pronounce /p/, /t/, and /k/ as [pʰ], [tʰ] and [kʰ] respectively if they're the first sound in a word (and immediately followed by a vowel). This means we add in a little puff of air following the consonant if it's the first sound in the word. In Indian English, they don't do this - a word-initial /t/ is pronounced [t], without the extra puff of air. To American & British English speakers it can almost sound like they're saying [d], because we're not used to hearing a word-initial /t/ without aspiration.

Next we've got a word-medial t, the second t of "tater." Here, Indian and British RP English speakers pronounce it as a plain [t], with no aspiration. American English speakers pronounce it as what's called a tap or a flap, which is sort of like a half-formed [d] but is actually more like a single roll of a rolled r - and so its IPA symbol is [ɾ]. And many less prestigious British dialects, including Cockney and I believe Scouse, replace it with a glottal stop, with IPA symbol [ʔ].

And our final t is the word-final t of tot. This is a tricky one to peel apart. English generally doesn't release word-final stops - that is, you put your tongue in the correct place to stop airflow to create the stop, but you never actually move your tongue out of the way to "release" the airflow you stopped. So the easy read on the word-final t's pronunciation is that it's [t̚], an unreleased t. However, in many dialects and situations /t/ is replaced with or co-articulated with a glottal stop - for example, after an [n] or an [m], /t/ is almost always pronounced as [ʔ] in English. But unreleased stops after an oral vowel are difficult to tell apart, and if the tongue is in t position while the glottis cuts off airflow - I genuinely don't know.

Tuck/Stuck

These are good for a comparison between an aspirated [tʰ] and an unaspirated [t]. In American English, tuck is [tʰʌk] and stuck is [stʌk].

Truck

American English does weird things with syllable-initial /tr/.

I want to introduce you to the "sh" symbol, ʃ. ʃ is a voiceless postalveolar fricative, which means it's created by air rushing through a narrow space when your tongue is behind the alveolar ridge. Incidentally, when you move your tongue from [t] position to [ɹ̠] position (ɹ̠ being the symbol for the version of non-rolled r that most English dialects use), it will naturally create the ʃ sound as it moves.

We have a special letter combination to the phonemic /tʃ/ in English. It's "ch". As in "change."

You almost certainly pronounce "truck" as [tʃɹ̠ʌk] "chruck" and just don't notice.

So what's going on with Martin?

So first off, Jonny is probably wrong about how the Archivist says "Martin." Complete deletion of the r in that position is standard in RP. I haven't fed The Magnus Archives into Praat or anything, so it's possible he's letting a hint of a rhotic accent bleed in to the Archivist's RP - but I really doubt it.

This isn't unusual! It's very common for people's internal concept of what sounds they mean to make, to get in the way of them accurately identifying what sounds they're actually making. No one thinks they've ever said "chruck" until you point it out to them.

I would probably transcribe the Archivist saying "Martin" as [mɑ:tɪn].

Jonny's attempt at saying "Martin" in an American accent was something more like [mɑ˞ɹ̠tʰɪn]. He did a good job of rhoticizing the vowel, but in his focus on the r completely messed up the second syllable.

I'd transcribe my own pronunciation of "Martin" as something like [mɑ˞ɹ̠ʔn]. It's been my observation that t-glottalization in American English is especially common when adjacent to nasals - and if there's one thing American English likes, it's syllabifying liquids in word-final syllables.

OK I've run out of steam now

This was fun. Sorry about the declining quality of explanation. Please feel free to ask more if you dare to reignite the flames of infodump

[catwithaknife]

What in the world is kibbe? Info dump me! 😸

ooh ok! this is gonna be looooong but i promise i’m trying to be concise

kibbe is a fashion system based around accentuating your own body type rather than trying to “correct” it into looking like whatever’s currently seen as the ideal. it has thirteen categories on a sliding scale of “yin” (short-looking, delicate, rounded) to “yang” (tall-looking, strong, sharp) with various combinations in the middle. this picture from aly art on youtube shows how bone structure can vary on our faces:

i can’t find an inclusive body one (or a face one that isn’t completely white) but it shows the general idea - if your features are almost entirely small and rounded then you could be a romantic (beyoncé looks romantic, meagan good looks theatrical romantic), if your features are almost entirely long and sharp then you could be a dramatic (duckie thot looks dramatic, lizzo looks soft dramatic), if you’re somewhere in the middle in a very blended way then you’re a classic (lupita nyong’o looks soft classic, zoe saldana looks dramatic classic), if you’re in the middle in a way where some features are very yin and others are very yang then you’re a gamine (gabourey sidibe looks soft gamine, fka twigs looks flamboyant gamine), and if you’re in the middle in a more broad way then you’re a natural (tatyana ali looks soft natural, zendaya looks flamboyant natural).

here’s a test you can take that helps you look at each of your features. your answers are categorised with letters (a = dramatic, b = natural, c = classic, d = theatrical romantic, e = romantic), and the way your answers add up can give you a general idea of where you might fall on the scale. i’m a flamboyant natural, so i’ll use that as my example - i have a long “vertical line” which means i look tall (your actual height isn’t the deciding factor, it’s more about how tall you look - lucy liu could be a dramatic as she looks pretty tall, despite being 5′3), and my bone structure is broad in an elongated-looking way (wide cheekbones, broad shoulders, broad ribcage, wide hips, long hands and feet, long limbs), which makes me a natural on the yang side. however, if i only went by my test answers i’d be categorised as a soft natural instead (my waist and hips are allegedly romantic answers despite being part of my broad skeleton), so you have to use your own judgement a lil bit and see what feels the most like you!

once you know your type (or if you're unsure and want to try stuff out), you can see what clothes suit your body the most, rather than just looking for what would “minimise flaws” like we’re usually told to do. the regular body shape categories (apple, pear etc.) usually place me as an hourglass, which they would also do for beyoncé. however, i have a larger, longer, stronger-looking skeleton, so the curve-hugging, rounded “yin” stuff that suits romantic beyoncé would clash oh so much with my natural bones and make me look like i’m hulking out of my clothes. i always feel too big when i try to follow trends or dress for an “hourglass”, but i feel really good about myself when i wear the stuff that kibbe recommends for flamboyant naturals. it’s actually helped me a lot with my self image, so i’m very thankful for it. it also proves that every single body type is beautiful in its own way, that we can look stylish even if we’re not sample sized, and that we’re all sexy as hell regardless of whether or not we have a tiny waist or long legs or big boobs or whatever we’re told is the “feminine ideal” this week.

TL;DR: the combination of your bone structure and (less importantly) where you store body fat usually lends itself well to certain clothing lines that accentuate your body instead of fighting against it in an attempt to look like some “ideal body”.

VIDEOS body type test - aly art kibbe types of plus size models - merriam style signature looks for the body types - aly art /r/kibbe

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Higurashi Gou Ep24 [Final]

Technically this is the final episode of Gou, but we’re getting a sequel later this year, so what I said last week about pretending to be surprised about this not being the end of the whole story still applies, lol.

Thoughts under the cut.

Even though this is the season finale, there honestly isn’t a whole lot to talk about with this episode, and it doesn’t even necessarily feel like a conclusion to the current arc. I wonder if it’s like Re:Zero’s second season, which was originally planned to be two consecutive cours, but got made into a split-cour because of production delays, which lead to the end of ‘part one’ feeling anti-climactic because it was only meant to be the middle episode of the season.

But on the note of the sequel, we now know it’ll start airing in July, which is kinda interesting since several different TV stations had already leaked the existence of at least one more cour of episodes immediately after this one, so I get the feeling that it was originally meant to start in April, but got pushed very recently to July. Considering that Gou already got delayed a season because of production delays, it’d make sense if Sotsu was originally meant to air in April after a one season break, but now it’s getting delayed as a consequence of Gou also being delayed.

I wasn’t 100% convinced about the rumors and leaks related to Sotsu, but it’s been pretty obvious for a while now that we were getting some sort of sequel, so this isn’t really a surprise. I’m curious to see if Sotsu will be one cour or two cours long, though. Usually split cour anime have both ‘halves’ be the same length, but I’m not really sure if there’s another two cours worth of material left in the story, now that so much has been revealed. But this whole arc has been way slower than I thought it’d be, so for all I know they might spend two whole cours just on explaining how the question arcs worked, and wrapping things up.

On the one hand it’s almost funny to think that we might get multiple arcs in Sotsu dedicated to explaining the Gou question arcs before we even return to the cliffhanger from Nekodamashi, but on the other hand it’d be nice to get a lot of time dedicated to those arcs, if it at least means that characters like Rena, Mion, and Shion get more screen-time and development. The trailer that’s been posted for Sotsu already hints at more Rena content, so that’s exciting.

I’m not entirely sure what to expect from the answer arcs, though, since unlike with the original VN it kinda feels like we can already piece together exactly what happened in each arc just from what we’ve learned in this one. It seems like basically every arc just boils down to ‘Satoko steals a syringe of H-173 and sets up a new ‘culprit’ in each arc to make Rika feel like she’s trapped in her loop of tragedy again’. So I feel like there just isn’t a whole lot to explain about that, especially since all of the arcs should have basically the same ‘solution’.

I know that at this point this is just a full on sequel, but I kinda hope they go back over material from Tsumihoroboshi and Meakashi in order to do more with Rena and Shion, even if it wouldn’t be new info for people who’ve read the VN. Unless things go in some really wild and unexpected directions, I think that’d be the only real way to do a whole set of answer arcs.

Realistically, the thing that will probably add some spice to the answer arcs is the whole plot point being introduced recently of Satoko’s loops causing permanent character development in everyone around her. So on top of probably going over a lot of existing material from the VN answer arcs, there should be new stuff that goes into the effects of having characters like Rena, Mion, and Shion remember more and more about previous loops, and how that influenced their actions in the question arcs. I don’t really know how much that’d impact the actual mechanisms of how each arc played out and how the murders and stuff worked, but from a narrative standpoint it’d be fun to see how this whole thing plays out.

And to be honest, even though this is a sequel that doesn’t really work properly for new fans, I could totally see them spending a lot of time more or less rehashing stuff from the VN that we already know about. It kinda feels like from day one they’ve been making genuine attempts to include enough info from the VN to make this accessible for new fans, but it doesn’t really work out properly.

On the whole topic of the permanent character development thing, I think it’s actually a really neat plot point, although it does feel like it answers enough of the mysteries that there isn’t really anything left to explain about how the question arcs worked. But I think the whole concept of people’s development piling up and persisting across time like some kind of supernatural entropy is really interesting, and it’s already something that was established in the VN. Basically the whole reason Rika even managed to win originally was because everyone was slowly remembering old loops. Gou just took that idea and decided to take it to it’s logical extreme.

I also like how it plays into the whole idea that Rika and Satoko’s goals are completely incompatible with each other, and only one of them is going to be able to ‘win’. Satoko’s looping is causing the people creating Rika’s tragedy to change their minds and back off, which is exactly what Rika would want, but it’s not what Satoko wants. She wants to keep Rika stuck in this loop until she gives up on leaving the village, and having characters like Teppei and Takano grow up and abandon their evil deeds is a hindrance to her plans.

It also helps clarify that Satoko started taking a more active role in causing the tragedies in each loop because the other people who would otherwise trigger those things aren’t involved anymore, so she has to step in and do it herself. Which is kinda morbidly funny in a way, but it does help explain why she wasn’t just sitting back and letting the ‘original’ tragedy play out each time.

This episode also more or less explains why Takano apparently had a change of heart and abandoned her goals, and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it, but I think I like how they handled it. It’s probably something that would have worked better in a VN format that could dedicate more time to her thought process, but I liked how it was triggered by her reading her grandfather’s letter. The whole concept of the scrapbook and the letter kinda feels like something Ryukishi came up with when writing Gou to make things work, but the important part is just that the final straw to changing her mind was to do with her grandfather not wanting his research to become a burden for her. I was kinda worried that they’d just have Satoko give some kind of lecture to Takano that would somehow change her mind, but it makes a lot more sense that it didn’t even really have to do with Satoko. And ironically, Satoko probably didn’t even want her to change her mind, since now she has to do everything herself, lol.

I think they probably should have done a bit more to hammer in the idea that Takano was slowly pushed towards a place of uncertainty and doubt over the course of the loops, though. At least with Teppei we got a whole montage of him having memories of violently dying as a result of his own awfulness, but we only saw Takano have one memory of Matsuribayashi, which she didn’t even seem all that fazed by, and then she has one sentimental moment that totally changes her mind about her entire goal in life. That feels more like a pacing problem than a fundamental issue with the idea of Takano being able to change her mind about things, but there’s only so much they can do in the time-frame of an anime. I do kinda feel like this whole arc in particular could have been more efficiently paced, though. At least in hindsight, I think the whole St. Lucia’s section should have been shorter [but also more intensely depressing for Satoko, to really drive home how she felt after it all], and more time should have been spent on the second half of the arc.

Anyway, this episode also gives us even more increasingly blunt hints that Satoko is literally just Lambdadelta, so that’s fun. I know there’s a lot of debate about it, but at this point it feels like Ryukishi is going out of his way to make it happen, so I don’t really think it’s some kind of elaborate misdirection. I don’t really expect the connection to get much more explicit than it is right now, but who knows. Things might get really weird in Sotsu.

[apathycarestostudy]

How to Journal: From one Beginner to Another

So you want to start journaling and have no idea (or patience) how to get into it to where it becomes a permanent habit. If you’ve failed to keep one going, if you’re just starting out, or you don’t know what to do with one — these tips are for you. 

1. Define your goals

What exactly are you planning on gaining from this? Most commonly (to my knowledge), the top reasons why people journal is to manage their lives, and have a private outlet. There’s a million things you can do with your journal, and more often than not you can make a hybrid of sorts if you prefer, so don’t worry about mixing genres. This is your journal.

A side note though, if you’ve tried to keep a journal before with some goal in mind (ex: study journal) and failed, please don’t sink into aversion and say it’s not for you. Oftentimes it’s our mindset that’s blocking us from succeeding in anything, so hopefully with these tips (and the plethora online) you’d be able to keep going. 

An accompanying note to the side note  — if you really tried, quit wasting your time. Some things are not for everyone, and at this point in life, you know that. Don’t throw away your journal though. You’ll thank me later.

2. Name your journals!

Okay, so this is not a legit tip. It’s just something I do that helps me maintain this habit. I’ve got two journals: Dumpster and Shadow. Dumpster was my first ‘conscious’ journal. I bought it with the intentions of writing down college tips for my younger siblings first, and then my insane musings later. I stopped and occasionally felt guilty about it, and when I wanted to buy another one and start afresh, the guilt would keep from doing so. After I got over my stupidity and got a dual journal set, I started using one as an outlet of sorts and put away the other for when I finished this. Why these ridiculous names you ask?

About 75% of Shadow’s entries are of me ranting about people and my habits, 15% are declarations of doing better, and 10% are stuff I’m doing at the moment, new music I’ve discovered and stuff. My goal of keeping this is to freeze my thoughts at the moment and look back on them and reflect. Maybe get some advice, and most definitely see how stupid I was lol. So it’s shadowing my life so to speak  — hence the name.

Dumpster is the first journal I was talking about, and the name is pretty self explanatory. The things I want to rave about and the stuff I don’t want ruining the sanctity of Shadow goes in there. Besides that, I put in a tracker for stuff I get fed up not doing, to-do lists for days I have no direction, and very recently, my wishes and goals, as well as a list of accomplishments I’ve made in the past for when I feel like I can’t do something. I don’t write in Dumpster as often, but it’s not seldom either.

This was pretty long for a non-legit tip. But here’s a good thing you can pull from this, besides the humour  — when you don’t know what to write, start off with an opening tag (Dearest Dumpster, Yo Shadow...) and start talking to it about what’s going on or what’s on your mind. The whole dear diary thing is legit. And if you sit down with nothing in mind to talk about and you start off with that, you start to write a letter of how ridiculous this is and boom! - you’re writing.

3. Write the date, always!

I just thought of a situation where you don’t need to just before I started typing this part smh. So...you don’t really need to do this always. There are special cases, but I strongly suggest you do. When you get to look back at this later down the line, you can see how long it took you to get off a certain mindset, how much improvement your work has made  — like a time capsule. You gotta have a date for that of course! Freezing your thoughts and being able to look back at them is one of the reasons I started journaling, and dating your entries help if you're forgetful. Some people take it a step further and include the time as well, so if you’d like, why not? Especially if you have a certain period of time you like to journal and then end up writing at a different time than your usual; did your temperament change at all? It would be an interesting thing to note in my opinion!

4. The area you pick is both meaningful and meaningless.

Here’s the thing. I tried writing in one spot everyday at the same time, and it didn’t work for me. I came to begrudge that spot and not being able to do anything else in it. Obviously, the mistake here was that I was too extreme with the whole ‘pick an area and stick to it’ here but after a bit of experimenting, I realized that the key here is your state of mind. If you are the type to have things in order and prefer to be set in your routine, I would suggest having that extreme approach. If you’re a bit moody like me and tend to suddenly want a shift, follow your gut. If you’re on a bus and thought of something you’d like to write, write it! If you’re in the middle of cooking, switch off the stove and jot some stuff done. The area you pick can be meaningful, but it also doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

ALSO, STAY SAFE. DON’T LEAVE THE STOVE ON AND RUN TO GET YOUR PEN.

5.  Privacy? Code names? Being careful in general.

If you don’t live alone, I suggest you protect your safe space, It’s not for any particular reason other than holding on to your flow, because if you misplace your trust in someone and they end up reading it and bring something up, it could really dampen your spirits. If you have some sensitive info in there, it would hurt and discourage you if you don’t be careful. It might seem like a chore, but it’s worth it in the long haul. I live with my siblings, and I trust them completely not to touch my stuff, but I still don’t refer to them or other people in my journal explicitly. They’re all under code names. It’s also a fun little thing you know, screaming about what tea tree oil did in class and nobody’ll ever figure out who you’re talking about.

Of course, if you’re keeping a digital journal, that’s a bit easier. Slap a lock on that -

That’s mainly all you need to push you forward or help you start. You may reach a couple more roadblocks. Here are a few suggestions and reminders I’d like to add so you can breeze through the tough parts a bit quicker:

Create a twist that you can look forward to. Switch up the pen colour after two weeks of writing, make a page full of stickers or quotes, make a list of new songs you discovered that week - anything!

Don’t be afraid of going off track. If you intended it to be one thing, and want to write something else, go for it. See it as more pages being filled.

Your journal, your rules. 

Writing block isn’t the end. Try writing unsent letters, or pick a random prompt and try expounding on it, or maybe draw your interpretation of something and jot down your judgment at the end of it.

 Re-reading is the icing on the cake!

Here’s to our collective success~

[jthebeauty]

Jeeeeeeen! I saw that you said you were one the ace spectrum and I’m curious as to how you realize that? I’m questioning my own sexuality rn and a lot of info online is confusing to me LOL. You dont have to answer if you aren’t comfortable tho ofc!

hey nonnie :) ofc we can talk about it! i’m more than comfortable with sharing my story & experience. <3

cw: first kiss, kissing in general, sex talk, sti mention, children mentions, relationships. long post ahead.

growing up, i always naturally admired the romantic aspects in a relationship.

things like dates, breakfast-in-bed, writing love letters, holding hands, cooking meals together, taking silly photos together, (and all that other sappy stuff) really shaped what i desire in a relationship. fun fact; ever since i was 8 or so, i knew i wanted to spend my honeymoon in paris, france (the city of love they call it 😌).

i need to go back into my past a lil’ so you can see where i’m coming from & where it started. 😬 sorry if you get a lil’ uncomfy. 😭🙏🏽

so. i had my first kiss in kindergarten with a handsome guy; a handsome guy who i’d probably still be nervous around as adults. idk, i haven’t seen him in person since i was 14. anyways, i was five years old at the time & the memory of our kiss still runs in my mind here n there.

we liked each other again in grade 6 & we communicated via sticky notes (bc we couldn’t talk during the lesson). 😭 but yeah, he cared a lot about my feelings & always knew when something was up. he’d rub me on the back & talk with me to make me feel better— he was genuinely a sweetheart.

so at 11 years old, due to my “kiddy crush/relationship” experiences with that guy, i viewed relationships as something cute & romantic.

sex was never really on my mind throughout middle school unless it concerned p.e. (physical education). but if anything, p.e. most likely contributed to how i am today. in health class, we talked about sti’s n stuff & i just remember being like umm… if i were to have sex, it’d have to be with someone i know really well & trust. i still feel this way today.

all of that wasn’t planned though, that’s just how it naturally was in my mind— even with peers constantly discussing who did what with who and where around me. sex talk (& rumours of that kind of stuff) were always around me, yet it never interested me or sparked curiosity within me.

i didn’t know for sure that i was on the ace spectrum till high school.

i started speculating when i was about 15 or so (after i had kissed my best friend romantically… more than once). i was able to confirm this once i had my first serious relationship at 16– borderline 17.

i was always excited for the romantic stuff like dates, texting good morning/night messages, even taking polaroid pictures together (once again, sex or anything beyond kissing wasn’t really on my mind for some reason). we even used to call each other practically every day once school ended & we parted ways. real sappy stuff lol.

i also need to add that we didn’t date until we had known each other (as friends) for a good 9-10 months. i knew of my ex since grade 9, but we didn’t become friends until grade 10.

my ex isn’t the first person i have kissed romantically, but they were another person who i had kissed after having some sort of close friendship with (or else it wouldn’t have happened to begin with).

in conclusion, i was in a +2.5 year relationship with my ex. i take relationships seriously, as i’m not one to do flings, one-night stands, situationships, or hook-ups/sneaky links. they don’t interest me one bit & i honestly kinda forget those kind of things exist (i think mainly bc of the pandemic & i’m under the assumption that people aren’t going out as often as they used to).

looking over everything that i can recall from my life, i lowkey consider myself a hopeless romantic LOL. i often read erotic romance novels that revolve around forbidden romance, enemies-to-lovers & stuff of that nature. i was (& still am) obsessed with romance.

i can experience sexual attraction, i’m not completely disinterested in the idea of sex. i want to have kids one day & get married— it’s just a matter of who.

i came to the conclusion that i strongly identify as demisexual & graysexual. i bounce between the two bc i really can’t just pick one. and it’s more than okay if you find yourself in this situation too— you don’t have to pick one & stick to it.

when my ex & i were together, i did experience sexual attraction (bc we had an emotional connection/bond + romantic feelings), but the more we got settled into our relationship, the less those sexual feelings would pass in my mind. i’m the kind of lover that shows my love & affection by cuddling, talking, or helping my partner— stuff of that nature.

for me it was just a matter of thinking “would i do this with a stranger just because they’re attractive?” or “would i do a fwb situation with ____?” and the answer to those kind of questions would be no. i’m just not interested or appealed by the idea of doing things like that with someone who i’m not romantically AND emotionally involved with. the only way we’re doing that, is if we’re mutually romantically AND emotionally involved with each other.

i guess you could say that sex is something “special” to me as well. i just seriously can’t do it with anyone— not even if i find them attractive, it takes so much more than that. but on the other hand, i’m just more of a romantic person anyways.

irl sex is never really at the forefront of my mind & if it is, it’s gone within a few seconds of reflecting on it. in fact, i kind of cringe thinking on past sexual incidents with my ex… like my brain just won’t allow me to reminisce about them & i’m actually glad bc i just don’t feel like purposefully thinking about irl sex anyways. 😭

sorry for the long post! i just really wanted to be transparent with you. but the above is mainly why i see myself on the ace spectrum. it took me a good 4-5 years to come this realization, so i really do feel you nonnie.

if there’s anything you wanna know further, feel free to swing on by again or message me on discord (if you have me there). i really do wish you all the best in navigating your sexuality, it seriously can be reallyyy confusing (especially with the internet as you said).

sending kisses to you my love. take care. 😚❤️

[mvdcleines]

hi, everyone!!  this is dede (19, she/her, utc+2), and i’m pleased to introduce st. margaret mary’s favourite eccentric artist and the life of every party on campus, miss marie-madeleine lefebvre! more info under the cut. feel free to add me on discord (@***** ***#0688)!

the basics.

name: marie-madeleine lefebvre

age: 26 years old

occupation: graduate student (art history major)

chastitiy club position: secretary / dealer

the story.

I’M FEELING DEVIOUS.

as a young girl, they told her she was special. that she was the most intelligent child they could ever hope for, that one day, she would have some sort of great destiny to fulfill, something incredible to contribute to the world. and that, they said, is why she couldn’t just stay in school along with all the other children she’s ever known. it would be better for her if she learned some actual new things, they explained, and that is why this special program some unknown third party recommended to them would be the perfect solution. of course, it was in the pyrenées, far from normandy, where her home was and where they themselves were - but it would let her reach that potential that was inside of her already. she wanted to become learned and well-respected like papa, didn’t she? that’s what they thought.

YOU’RE LOOKING GLAMOUROUS.

the route of mathematics they chose for her back at home was something of a mistake, quickly corrected by those at the gifted children’s program. they trained her in all sorts of knowledge, skills and sciences. the work was hard, harder than ever before. she didn’t have to really study before, she just… remembered what was said in classes. now it was a completely different world from what she’d known, and the change didn’t seem to be for the better. her days passed her by quickly, over textbooks, required reading, notes and guides, learning to have a sharp mind as well as excellent manners, to think critically while following every possible rule of savoir-vivre known to the world. she didn’t want to be worse than all the other students there, didn’t she? that’s what they thought.

LET’S GET MISCHIEVOUS.

the life they had planned for her down to the second couldn’t seem appealing anymore as soon as she could really grasp it - when she had some time to even think about it, that is, in the middle of the night. there had to be more to being a teenage girl than absorbing facts like a sponge. a purposeless sponge, since now it didn’t seem so eager to have the floor wiped with it. the ability to pick one’s own courses came soon after that. of course, the choice was mostly up to the parents. but not if someone decided to, say, not read the letters they sent at all and refuse to answer any calls before picking what would distress them the most - any and all art-oriented courses the program had to offer. and after learning she was immensely dedicated to and rather proficient in painting, they wouldn't forbid something that brought such promise, would they? that's what she thought.

AND POLYAMOROUS.

when one achieves small victories, they only fuel the need for newer, bigger, more impactful ones. her case wasn't any different. she could find an academic path she was truly interested in and wanted to continue pursuing - could securing a social standing possibly be harder? she'd read and watched stories about wild, free-spirited women. surely such a woman would be appreciated in these strict surroundings as a break from the monotony. and so she was - the next year, when she was young and sweet, only seventeen, was an endless series of laughs. she laughed when a new social circle accepted her at her table in the cafeteria. she laughed as she choked on her first cigarette. she laughed, pulling the hands of two different boys at once, looking if no teacher could see them running to an empty dorm. she laughed when an older friend brought her a bag of coke for the first time. and when they told her to take her things, she laughed still, walking out the gates. nothing they did could bring her down, could it? that's what she thought. 

WINE AND WOMEN AND WONDERFUL VICES.

all the pointless knowledge forced into her head wasn’t something she terribly missed. there was, however, still a host of problems to be taken care of. the first was, of course, the family she’d left back home. they were displeased with her getting expelled to say the least, and didn’t seem to be easy to appease. the second was her art. for all her distaste for the schooling system, she did at last have something she wanted to practice - something she wanted to master, to turn into a career, to be better, the best at. as luck would have it, both these problems had a solution. the family, thinking it would be an excellent continuation of her education, pulled some strings to get her accepted into some catholic university in paris - paris, with all its sights and nightlife, was an offer she couldn’t refuse. besides, the art history courses seemed cut out for her. she quickly regained the exact reputation she had in her previous environment - of the life of the party, the one who makes life interesting - and can still pull her weight and pass any exam after a year of slacking off in the brief moments she’s not painting or attending yet another rager. she couldn’t have it any other way, could she? that’s what she thought.

WELCOME TO THE CULT OF DIONYSUS.

the newly revived chastity club was something she chose to look into for one reason and one reason only: it seemed like the most hilarious extracurricular concept she’d ever heard of in her life. to be fair, it was even funnier when she discovered the true purpose of the club - and when she just sort of stayed there. the people, contrary to what she’d assumed, were not complete prudes - well, most of them - and they seemed to see the potential in her. she truly was valuable to their grand operation - with her reputation, her contacts and all the events she got invited to. before she thought about it twice, she was their partner in literal crime - and they’d somehow managed to become her closest companions at st. margaret mary’s. the sweet rush of adrenaline dealing provided her with wasn’t comparable to anything. maybe except for how at home she felt among these people, no matter how sappy that sounded. they needed their secretary, and she needed them, didn’t she? that’s what they thought.

the headcanons.

while the style marie-madeleine practices currently in her works (and has been for a while) is decidedly surreal (some would go as far as to call it psychedelic… i wonder why), she has dabbled in impressionism in the past, leaving it after she found it too restricting (and after she started, to put it mildly, enhancing her perception with recreational substances while painting more routinely).

despite the gifted children’s program having taught her critical thinking and a rational, mostly agnostic approach to life, marie-madeleine is very superstitious and interested in the occult, frequently giving semi-clandestine tarot readings to fellow students at st. margaret mary’s, an activity frowned upon by more religious classmates and the school itself. no one truly knows if she actually believes what she says she does or if these practices are more ironic on her part, simply another facet of the eccentric artist mythos she’s built up around herself.

marie-madeleine prefers to use her full, hyphenated first name instead of just marie, even if most people end up calling her just that out of convenience; some would say she revels in the biblical ‘sinner’ allegory, and she frequently makes jokes about her new testament namesake.

she’s gotten in trouble with the chastity club a few times before for exchanging their stock for notes she couldn’t be bothered to take but needed to study for major exams, although substituting some of her own money for the earnings she would have otherwise brought in always got her off scot-free.

she has, at some point, come across the concept of gifted kid burnout and recognized it in herself, although it didn’t bother her like some may think it would. like all her non-social responsibilities, it was just another thing to push to the back of her head.

she has a few bottles of bourbon, her alcohol of choice, hidden in strategic spots around campus, including her handbag, some of the ladies’ rooms and more. no one knows where they all are - probably including marie-madeleine herself.

marie-madeleine has always harbored something of a fondness for greek mythology, just for the sheer absurdity of it all and for what terrible beings the gods really were. then again, she’d been taught the old testament multiple times, and it didn’t seem that much nicer. whenever someone tells her she’s being a disappointment to god (more often than you’d think), she likes to think dionysus would be proud of whatever she’s doing.

she likes to write on the back of her paintings, but not just write anything - what she does is use a rather simple code she devised to mark what sort of influence she was under while painting the work in question. it just seems reasonable not to forget that.

while her drinking and drug use is pretty out of control, she doesn’t smoke as much now as she did when she was a teenager. perhaps it’s because drugs are more easily accessible to her now, or maybe cigarettes just got too boring.

she would never tell anyone this, but she has a particular love for fluffy things, especially clothes - during colder months, when no one can see her, she walks around her apartment in a thick, fluffy robe and matching slippers.

she’s a cat person if the choice is only between that and dogs, but what she really prefers pet-wise is birds. she currently owns a black-headed caique named amadeus.

despite needing it to keep up the chastity club rouse, she doesn’t keep up an appearance of religiosity in front of classmates, as it would directly contradict most of her image at st. margaret mary’s. when it comes to staff, however, she’s a perfect, if unconventional, follower of jesus christ as far as they’re concerned.

she thinks it’s very funny to sneak up on others and then say something out loud when she knows it will scare them nearly to death. complaints have been heard, but not taken to heart.

her favourite holiday is surely halloween, partially because everyone suddenly wants her to do their makeup, partially because there’s twice as many parties as usual, and partially because of how triggered the most religious of her fellow students get, which she finds hilarious.

she likes to gesticulate a lot while speaking, and has gotten in trouble for this back at the gifted children’s program when she accidentally slapped a bypassing teacher in the face.

despite acting like a leo (or perhaps aquarius) stereotype, she is actually a sagittarius (shocker).

she grows vegetables on her balcony, and somehow always forgets to collect them until it’s too late. it just happens every time and she’s stopped fighting it at this point.

it’s sometimes funny to her how much conspiracy and care is being put into the chastity club’s weed trade, simply because of how lightly she views weed when compared to what she usually stuffs her system with in her spare time.

tba!

the aesthetics.

a red wine stain, striking against silky fabric. the devious smile of someone who knows exactly what will happen next. a worn-out deck of tarot cards. traces of cocaine on a marble counter. the bold, firm strokes of a brush on canvas. a half-eaten plum. a shawl flowing along as you move. the remains of paint on your fingers. a small bottle of bourbon hidden behind books on a shelf. healing crystals. ignoring responsibility until it goes away. golden hoop earrings. a broken high heel.

the wanted plots.

the good influence ( 0/1 ). another person different from marie, but in this case, they managed to strike up a friendship that probably ends with them lending her a few brain cells in exchange for what amounts to the ‘ted, i’m gonna teach you how to live’ gif from himym.

the rival ( 0/1 ). was it something in their shared past? just a general friction between people, as it often is? no matter why, these two don’t like each other in the slightest and will do most anything to show the other who’s the better... well... chastity club member here.

the neighbor/roommate/someone crashing on her couch ( 0/1 ). just because domesticity is adorable.

more to be added, but if you have ideas, hit me up!!

[hauntedbubblewriter]

Just a second longer... Part 4

Summary: “What If we would date for 24 hours? No awkwardness just a perfect day without any worries”

Pairing: Jung Wooyoung x Reader

Words: 1,987

Genre: Fluff

Chapter: 4/4

Previous Chapter: Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3

A 24 hour relationship brought more than just a 24 hour heartbreak. The feeling of missing something stayed very strong with him from day to day.

He knew it from the point he closed his eyes that he didn't want her to leave, how frightened he was to open his eyes and finding no one in front of him. He should have told her to ignore the idea he had at the start. It was idiotic, he never expected to get so close to someone in just 24 hour, just the mere thought was ridiculous, he had the idea because he was bored of the stupid small talk, the awkward dates. He wanted to try something new something dumb, honestly he didn't even believe someone would even do something like that and The 20$ he got from San for his win on their bet about it didn't cheer him up either. San of course saw right through him as he gave him the 20$. It wasn't like he tried to hide it in the first place. Wooyoung sat down next to him on their usual spot in college with a light smile and the simple question "Where are my 20$?" In disbelief he pulled out his wallet "You found someone crazy enough? On a speed dating Event? Those people really must e desperate wow." 

Just that simple comment broke that fake smile of Wooyoungs face. "she wasn't crazy" he mumbled, defeated he took the 20$ and slumped down on the bench. "oh I expected more triumph here? What happened?" San knew more assumpations wouldn't help this situation so rather than making it worse he would just let him talk. He hasn't seen Wooyoung this disappointed in a long time. "Just as planned, it worked out perfectly as planned" the statement itself would have sounded positive if his voice didn't sound like he had ust lost something very dear to him. "I had the best 24 hours I could have wished for, she was everything I didn't know I wanted and then the 24 hours ended...." he stopped himself when the memory repeated itself in front of his mental eye. "and she left?" San added his voice was careful, well trained with former events of an emotional Wooyoung. He was sensetive way more sensitive than most people expect him to be and in this state he snapped easily, saying words he didn't mean. So San stayed careful with his words , but there  was no explosiv outburst, no train of tears nor shouts, just a weak "yeah". Wooyoungs head hung low mustering the floor beneath him. In his eyes was no hate, no saddnes nor anger just emptieness and San hated it. There was nothing worse than seeing his best friend so defeated. He couldn't bare it. Before he had formed a thought his arms were already around Wooyoung to give him some kind of reassurance. They stayed like this for a while till San had the idea to cheer him up with a movie night with his favorite movie to be exact.That should distract him at least. If San were capable of finding her he would do that but both of them knew he couldn't so at least he should try and make him feel better. 

Wooyoung was happy to have a friend like San so when they collected the Popcorn and ordered Pizza while setting up the movie he felt bad that he couldn't put on a smile and act like everything is fine. He was never good at controlling his emotions. So the last thing he wanted was to destroy the mood, but the memories of her stayed vividly in his mind with a simple subtitle below. "You lost her" and that knowledge would haunt him till the end of his days.

A 24 hour relationship brought more than just a 24 hour heartbreak. The feeling of missing something stayed very strong with her from day to day. She had cried the day she had left him but that was about it. She wasn't containusely desperate and depressed, she just felt empty. On the next Monday she simply fell back into her routine, but even in the middle of all the stress the picture of him, simply standing there, his eyes anxiously closed. She liked to believe that what happened was what he wanted, what she wanted, but every time her head pushed the memory back into her mind, she couldn't help but feel dumb. The person she left standing there didn't look like someone who was happy about the departur, herself was desperate to stay, but she didn't and she couldn't stop looking back and regretting it so badly.

She couldn't change it now tho. No matter how badly she wanted to go back, time doesn't play by her rules. So Weeks over week went by and no signs of Wooyoung were found. Her Subconscious brought her back to the restaurant they first met, in the end he was no where to be seen somehow she was glad about that, scared to find him in the Speed Dating event again, that he already was happily talking to someone, prettier than herself, maybe funnier. Just a better version of a girlfriend that would bring him the happiness he deserves. It wasn't rare that those thoughts filled her mind. Reminding her that she had no knowledge about his feelings or what he was doing now. Hell she barley even knew anything about him. Did he study? Could he be at this campus? What are his hobbies? There was so much more to discover for her and she had messed up that opportunity. She had messed up the chance to wake up to a loving smile.

She didn't want to give up that easily, so when she had a bit of spare time she would go through social media. Looking for "Wooyoung" just to realize she didn't even know his last name. The search brought her no where. The results stayed the same occasionally adding a new profile or removing one. It was hopeless and even then she tried to check as regularly as possible. 

Another thing that was a regular part of her life was the small cafe her friend worked at she always stayed there with a hot tea while working through her notes and trying to get her schedule fixed of the next week.Today was another one of those rather stressful day. It was the last finals week. Her auto pilot for learning had set in while she went over the most important notes. Despite her looks she was actually very good at her studies she might have not been the best of her course but surely on the top half of it. So when her mind didn't desperatel clutch onto the memories of the best day of her life it worked, its all she knew that kept her of thinking about him, to function through the day all she did was work on her studies. 

So y/n was mindlessly reading over her behaviorism notes when a familiar voice returned to her "Do you mind if I sit here?" Her head was stuck in her auto pilot so taking in the info that someone would like to sit at her messy table full of notes what made no sense to her, so instead of whispering out a mindless "sure" she actually averted her eyes from the paper in front of her and towards the voice that triggered too familiar memories at once. There he was, simply standing there with a shy smile on his lips, the whole confident energy he had was coated in a veil of uncertainty. For the first few seconds she was sure that John B. Watson bored her to sleep and she was dreaming, Wooyoung standing there waiting for an answer. Before anything could stop her she was standing and wrapping her arms around him, finally feeling the soft sweater under her skin, feeling his breath on her neck and she almost asked if he was really here. 

Wooyoung was so overwhelmed when he saw her, he almost run over to her, but then he stopped himself as a wave of hestiation stopped him. Not even close to being strong enough to stopping him from going to her completly, but with calm mature steps. As calm and mature it was to leave San and Yeosang on the counter with his americano order. Then everything happened so quickly his mouth was already asking for the spot next to her when their eyes locked onto each other. Her bored eyes turned into a glossy glimmer of happiness and her lips peeked up right away.

If you would ask how San had interpreted that moment he would have described it as "two deers caught in a lovelight"

When she hugged him all the weight of those weeks without her dissappeared as if he wasn't trying to find her for the last 26 day he couldn't help but holding her as close as possible.He wouldn't want to let her go ever again. He wanted to stay in that protective space and protect it at the same time. "You have no idea how much I missed you" her voice cracked a little as if she still cound't believe what was happening at the moment. "I missed you as well. You have no idea how much I actually missed you. I" he started rambling but she couldn't help but laugh at him, maybe out of disbelief, maybe it was her bodys way of trying to handle how overwhelmed she was feeling. "Yahh Don't laugh at me now" he complained playfully and that just made her laugh even more. Wooyoung himself couldn't stop that big smile on his face honestly he didn't want to, he wanted to feel the complete wave of joy that he actually managed to find her again. Maybe it was destiny or just luck. Whoever he had to thank for this he would write the biggest "Thank you" Letter in the whole universe. 

"Maybe your interested in another 24h date but let's add an + afterwards so it's an infinite 24 hours" his suggestion was idiotic but so idiotic it became cute again, but instead of answering she just looked into his eyes with a bright smile and kissed him. The hesitation of the last few weeks was gone and everything filled this moment full of passion and love Wooyoung returned the kiss so natrually but he just couldn't stop smiling into the kiss with pure happiness

"is that answer enough" she asked after she pulled away to look at him again just to actually be sure she didn't mistook him for the wrong person.

Wooyoung just nooded before he returned to kissing her and no more words were needed.

DUCKING HAPPY END

HELL YEAH

here some small bonus stuff:

Sans first instinct was to yell at him that he tried to get away with paying again even tho he invited him and Yeosang here, but when he saw where Wooyoung was going he understood an instead of asked the waitress if they had popcorn, while pulling out his phone and recording that event that was about to happen.

Meanwhile Yeosan was utterly confused.

-----------------------

"Maybe your interested in another 24h date but let's add an + afterwards so it's an infinite 24 hours" his suggestion was idiotic but so idiotic it became cute again, but instead of answering she just looked into his eyes with a bright smile and kissed him. The hesitation of the last few weeks was gone and everything filled this moment full of passion and love Wooyoung returned the kiss so natrually but he couldn't just stop smiling into the kiss with pure happiness"

y/n: he is talking bullshit again what should I do Brain: Kiss him y/n: okay

-----------------------

Did I forget to upload the final chapter?

Defiently

Am I sorry?

Ohh of course I am

Did anyone care

Nope

[yarilokadalov-uxui]

R2 Prototype User Testing Feedback

Logan:

Went to categories

Was confused by what title related to which picture

Scrolls down to find yogurt

Wasn’t sure how to get back to categories

3 options on the bottom too big, make 75% size

Search slightly smaller fix that.

Body text looks too similar to subheading. Make sub heading bold

Skip to food that starts, should be a bit more separate from when the categories

Make skip to letters smaller and add more space, plus add a box around the letters, use light green colour

Make the backgrounds white/whiter to make the green pop up more.

Got to Assets and quick edit all colours, fonts, and icons etc

Play around with colours, drop shadows, gradients

 Andrew:

Gradient from white to green may look good

Add an extra font to make headings separation more visible

Make the word ‘good’ green and the word ‘bad’ red to make the message more clear faster

 Jasper:

Comment: Text size on table, too small It’s a fair bit of info

Suggestion: On Avocado page: show “3-4 days” in massive text, “because that’s what I came to the page for” place  in the middle maybe? [Visual hierarchy]

Questions:  “How long can I store an avocado for?”

Suggestion: Back Buttons would be nice.

Confusion: The letters on the categories is a bit unorthodox. Suggestion: Alphabet down the scroll reference to contacts.

Confusion: logo and wordmark confusion, functionality of the apple logo: “The apple and the eat by date looks like one big logo to me.”

Suggestion: I’d be nice to be able to dismiss the sidebar by tapping on the inactive part of the side menu [ grey bit on the right].

Comment: Would use search bar way more than the categories

Suggestion: Having auto complete on search?

Suggestion: And if there’s something on the database, it is suggested to the search bar to show something like “no results found”. [Feedback in response to an interaction like searching].

Suggestion: Typography refinements as well.

All of this feedback is super appreciated and has really helped me personally realize just how many different things you can miss when creating a prototype. We intend on implementing as much of this feedback as we can in order to create a more polished final outcome. 

[firstdove15]

2019 Fic Roundup

I actually wrote enough this year to answer most of these questions. 😂 If you haven’t done this yourself, feel free to join in the fun! ❤️💕

Stats

Total words written: 18,030

Shortest story: The Death of a Montague (832)

Longest story: Akane One-Half (ongoing) (14k+ in general; roughly 11k this year, FFN)

Fics Posted (Gen)

Akane One-Half: More like updating because I’ve been writing on and off for two years but I did add three chapters this year.

Through the Forest: It’s technically gen because Pidge and Lance don’t have romantic feelings for each other (yet). It was completely inspired by @krissychan2 ’s art of them as nymph and fairy respectively.

Fics Posted (Plance)

Love from the Future - Inspired by a prompt generator that said to write about a person who gets a typewriter and finds a love letter from the future and they attempt to find that person. I didn’t follow the prompt to the T but I had fun with it. And getting encouragement from @rueitae during the letter part meant a lot because I was worried about it staying in-character and whether or not it was going to be too fluffy. X3

Chocolat - Self-indulgent oneshot inspired by a little college get together. XD It was actually originally going to be part of a multichapter story (that I thoroughly outlined from beginning to end, no less!) but it just didn’t work out. OTL

Fics Posted (Rosvolio)

The Death of a Montague - The prompt was to write a fic based on a song for Rosvolio and I knew right away I wanted to do it to Brendon Urie’s Death of a Bachelor. Plus I’m a sucker for guys taking on the wives’ last name. XD

Specifics

Best Title: The Death of a Montague. Only because of Brendon Urie though since his title was genius to describe a man happily getting married. Same thing here on top of Benvolio cutting off the last remaining ties to his abusive uncle.

Worst Title: Probably Through the Forest. I could’ve picked a better title to reflect the game Lance was playing on Pidge or his motives, but *shrugs*.

Favorite opening lines:

-

“I caught you, you sneaky little bastard!”

The fairy in her hands didn’t even try to struggle from her grasp. Instead he licked the remaining berry juice off the corner of his lips and grinned at her. “So you have, little nymph.”

-

I was fresh off of writing for Akane One-Half so, yeah, that’s why you’re seeing swearing from me here. XP

Favorite closing lines:

-

The card included two ticket stubs for the Killbot Phastasm movie that long faded. He wondered if Lance knew she kept it all these years.

He put the card down and got to work. He’d let him find it. It would be another opportunity for her to talk about her feelings with current Lance rather than past Lance.

He smiled at the thought.

Tonight would be a good night.

-

Endings aren’t my strong suits but I did like tying up the stable time loop. XD

General Questions:

- Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?

Given my personality, just about what I predicted. I wish I had done more though. Oh well, that’s what 2020 is going to be for. XD

- What pairing/genre/fandom did you write most?

Plance/fluff/Voltron respectively. Especially fluff because The Death of a Montague was fluffy and Akane One-Half had some fluff toward the end of the last chapter I posted on FFN.

- What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?

Rosvolio/Still Star-Crossed for sure! I wish I hadn’t taken so long with the soulmate AU but I’m still in the middle of writing it so it’ll be for this year. XD

- Did you take any writing risks this year?

Other than trying to get familiar with Pidge and Lance’s personality? Not really. 😅 I almost did with one of the oneshots in mind to take place after Through the Forest (I actually had a rough draft of it), but I was worried one of them would be too dark. I mean, I’ve written dark stuff before, but someone probably would’ve been like, “What the heck, Faye?!” and I wouldn’t have blamed them one bit. XDD

- Do you have any fanfic or general writing goals for the new year?

Well, I saved up and got a new laptop so I’m just hoping I’ll be more productive this year writing wise.

- What’s your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest?

Hoo, boy. Tie between Through the Forest and Love from the Future. The former because I was happy to write something coherent inspired by a beautiful piece of art and the latter because fluff. ❤️💕

- Okay, NOW your most popular story.

Definitely Love from the Future and I’m okay with that. XD

- Story most underappreciated by the universe:

Haha, Chocolat. Which I am also okay with because 1) It was literally just posted and 2) It was super self-indulgent. XP

- Story that could’ve been better:

The Death of a Montague. Most of my energy went into the sonnet (it took me HOURS to compose that sonnet alone 😂) so I felt like I didn’t put as much heart into the rest of the story. T_T. But a good amount of people enjoyed it and I appreciated that.

- Story with the sexiest scene:

HAHAHAHA! I JUST CAN WRITE A CHASTE KISS SCENE.

- Most “holy crap, that’s wrong, even for you” story:

N/A. Again, if I had gone with that oneshot as a sequel to Through the Forest, that would have been a different story. To be fair, it was going to follow the aftermath of the Thing™ rather than during, but still….

- Saddest story?

Eh, none of them really? I mean Through the Forest has super light angst but only toward the end. Pidge clearly missing her brother and the story alluding to Lance having lost someone permanently. The second other sequel would have been part fluffy part angsty but… there is a reason I haven’t gone through with them for editing/posting…

- Most fun?

Let me shake it up and say Akane One-Half. XD Everything is still a puzzle and I think I’m getting the gist of how most events will go.

- Story with single sweetest moment?

Chip and his scenes with Lance and Pidge, I think in Love from the Future. ❤️💕

- Hardest story to write?

I mean, I had challenges with the parts that were supposed to be the meat of the story (e.g. the love letter and the sonnet) but outside of that I could recognize when something needed to be cut or expanded on and I’m happy for that.

- Easiest/Most fun story to write?

Chocolat. XD Got to include Hunk being a troll and not being afraid of Pidge’s wrath because he’s currently overseas. He has to come back to America sometime. 😂

- Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters?

That’s part of the point of me writing Akane One-Half. Wanted to see if changing the situation would change their characters and I’m having fun figuring it out. Waiting for someone to complain about certain characterization later down the road but…*shrugs*

- Most overdue story?

Complete wise: The Death of a Montague

WIP wise: The Rosvolio soulmate AU. I got a bit ambitious on how the whole soulmate thing works in that AU and I’m working on it not being so info dumpy. 😅

- What are your fic writing goals for next year?

1) Finish the Rosvolio soulmate AU fic

2) Update Akane One-Half faster (Like I legit have two arcs written in first drafts and detailed notes for the two arcs after that. I have no excuse 😂).

3) Write that Plance Vampire/Fledgling-esque AU. I will figure something out, dangit.

4) MAYBE write a long ATLA oneshot based on that Probending AU an artist made for Katara, Toph, and Azula with Suki as their coach. It wouldn’t take me long to find the artist and give credit if I do go this route. Just thought it’d be fun to explore Azula’s character based on what Aaron Ehaz had in mind.

5) (super tentative) Write that oneshot idea I had for Dororo. I miss my babies. 😭

Welp, that was fun! Saw @rueitae ’s post and wanted to give it a shot if I published four things and updated one this year. 👍 Hope you guys have fun with this is you decide to do it!