#like I know I don’t have a typical finnish name but her trying to guess my name 5 times by just adding random letters together….

[drugsforaddicts]

I’m FREEEEE!!! 🥳🎉🎊🍾🥂

This past year was full of drama, shitty courses and teachers, I was ready to quit a 1000 times and I probably shouldn’t celebrate too much because year 3 will probably end me for good but agshsjdk 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

I got an internship from my uni so that shit is sorted AND I can do the innovation project alone 😮‍💨💛💛💛

RÄÄÄÄÄÄH FREEEDOOOMMM 🦅🦅🦅🦅

[lumilasi]

I saw this in my feed and since I was pretty bored and FINALLY free from the said boredom, figured I could do this one. I generally enjoy question based tags, especially if they relate to art/writing/fandom/are some general things about favorite colors, music, foods, things about your home country etc.

(basically, you can tag me in stuff similar to listed above things and I’ll probably do them if I see them/have time lmao)

Fic Writer Questions!

How many works do you have on AO3? 

44 total. I used to have more but I’ve deleted an old Bleach one I knew I’d never continue to write, and two bnha ones for the same reason (those two were also at the very beginning stages so nobody missed a lot anyway)

What's your total AO3 wordcount? 

4 269 068......wow. It’s even MORE than I even imagined. Over 4 million words. 

....Someone take my writing tools away from me lmao

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

 Three. I started with MCU, moved on to Bleach and now I’ve done most ofr BNHA

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? 

Crossroads - 3069 

Family Secrets - 3015 

Reanimate - 1534 

The neighbor - 809 

Espada and Fraccion - 782

.....Admittedly this list surprised me. Not the first three but the last two. The fifth is an one shot for Bleach that I wrote AGES ago. I also for some reason expected this list to match the bookmark list more lmao

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I always try to respond to every comment I get, but often times when it’s just one word or a heart emoji I don’t really know what to say, so I might not reply to those. I do appreciate every comment I get, and read every single one, even if I don’t respond

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending? 

I don’t do angst endings typically, but Family Secrets is probs the most obvious choice, given what happens at the end. 

- and its not even the real end, because I couldn’t help myself and made two more stories for the AU that was like “hey! this character I made you all love so much actually DIDN’T die, he just had unfinished business back home” lmao

Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you've ever written? 

Rarely, typically they’re between my own fics (the story that crosses the paths of Crossroads and Family Secrets AU’s, literally titled Crossover, creative name I know OTL I was out of ideas) 

Or between me and other people’s fics. Currently there’s two, both with Crossroads: one with Theteapotofdoom’s fic Something Good, and another with leontheneon’s fic Here with you. Both stories are basically a two part series that is non canon to actual Crossroads. The first story is finished, second one has two chapters left...that...I uh...struggle to write it seems OTL

(not tagging either person into this because Tea is very busy IRL right now so I don’t want to bother her, and Leon hasn’t been around in ages, IDK if they even use tumblr anymore)

Have you ever received hate on a fic? 

Not really no? I can only remember one time with somebody kind of demanding me to completely rewrite one fic in the past. It wasn’t really hate, more just...kinda unreasonable in my eyes? This was years ago by now.

While I did understand their side and the particular struggle they had (once they actually explained it, the first comment at the time came off pretty rude and demanding), I still feel them wanting me to re-write an entire multi-chapter fic just for them is a bit unreasonable, like said.

Like it wasn’t just couple of grammatical errors that was their issue, we’re talking weeks and even months long process of completely reworking multi-chapter story, because the grammar wasn’t tip top perfect. (I’m not a native speaker so there’s bound to be some mistakes; pointing out small occasional things is one thing - asking me to rewrite an entire multi-chapter story is another)

You can imagine that is not exactly high on my priorities list with IRL responsibilities and being more focused on the actual content of what I write, the ongoing stories I’m updating. This fic isn’t even finished yet either, so...yeah. Like after they explained their side of the story I was a bit more understanding, but its still....a bit ridiculous and unreasonable in my eyes to ask somebody to do such a massive overhaul when the story isn’t even finished yet?? Like maybe once its done and I have time I can go and edit it, but not when I haven’t even finished it lmao

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Nah. I don’t care about smut a whole lot personally. I much more enjoy writing emotional scenes, character interactions and mystery. Plot over porn basically lmao 

Have you ever had a fic stolen? 

I don’t...do people actually do this? It feels like such a weird and pointless thing to do. It’s fanfic. stuff you write for fun and for free, for people to read for free. I’d also imagine its pretty easy to get caught given AO3 shows when you first posted your story. 

Have you ever had a fic translated?

 Yes, a couple of times. In Russian and I think other one was Chinese?

Have you ever co-written a fic before? 

Writing the crossovers was kinda that? Like I asked feedback from Tea and Leon on how to write them. there was also actually third crossover story that was supposed to happen (only I wasn’t going to be the one to write it) but this project has been shelved as the other person had to drop majority of online activity due to some IRL health related things. (I’m just glad they recently contacted me to inform they were doing better)

What’s your all time favorite ship? 

Right now it’s..probably pretty obvious its Shigadabi, but I can never really say any ship is my all time fave, as it always changes depending on the fandom lmao. 

I guess my favorite character x proper sleep/emotional stability/happiness will always be the OTP

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Oof. I always try to finish every single one, and if I absolutely know I won’t, I tend to just delete them. Thankfully I’ve only done it thrice. Which I guess is still a lot, but compared to how much I write, in context not really? 

What are your writing strengths?

From what I’ve gathered of feedback, its typically emotional moments/character dialogue and interaction/character arcs and so. Mystery plots too. Or maybe that last one is just me lmao

What are your writing weakness?

Personally, while I tend to get positive feedback on both, sometimes I feel like I struggle to choose a good pacing for a fic, and fight scenes are always a pain. Namely, I might struggle with making the pace too long-winded and slow sometimes. Ironically, my IRL update pacing is probs a bit too fast in turn. (To add another layer of irony, I got an update ready for Unravel that I’ll post after making this tag)

Also writing shorter stories. I’ve been trying to write one-shots more (like the Spinaraki series thing) to kinda try and get myself to pack up my stories better and not let them always spiral out of control haha

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I did try to do that once with a fic I deleted, I had a native speaker help me with the canadian french bits. This person is no longer active on tumblr, and I deleted that fic because I realized I’d never finish it. 

Technically tho, as a non-native English speaker, EVERY word is in other language to me lmao. I could only add Finnish as an extra one easily, and it rarely makes sense to do so anyway.

What was the first fandom you ever wrote for? 

MCU. It’s what I originally made my AO3 for, as I felt brave enough to post things. I also can’t remember writing fandom related stuff before that, it was typically more oc related. Writing fics has helped me learn a lot about world-building, character consistency and all that stuff, without having to make everything from scratch (tho I do enjoy doing that as well of course). I feel like my original work writing has improved too thanks to my fic writing shenanigans in a way lmao. Tho that might just be me, IDK

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written? 

Oooof. This changes a lot depending on the time. I can never really pick just one either: my current favorites are Stringmaster, The neighbor and Family Secrets

Stringmaster because I love building the Steampunk AU, and Tomura’s relationship with Dabi and his Sensei, The neighbor because I personally think the romance build up in that one is probably one of the best I’ve done so far (the character dialogue in that is among my favorites I’ve written as well) and FS, because it taught me a lot about character building through writing a character like Hisashi.

 Plus I just really like Hisashi. 

And baby Izuku and little Tenko are super adorable. 

And Inko is the best mum.

 Also the fact the whole story is so ironic in a sense its still kinda funny to me. 

The only writer I know that might be around rn is @nightlilly0110 soo...I guess I’ll tag them if they want to do this! Anybody who’s a writer can snatch this too of course ;)

[shikitsune]

50 Questions You’ve Never Been Asked

I was tagged by @yuiaka Thank you so much! 💕

1. What is the color of your hairbrush?: Pink

2. Name a food you never eat?: This one’s difficult cause I’m really not picky. There are certain foods like paprika and raisins that I avoid eating but I usually don’t go out of my way to pick them out if they’re in my food

3. Are you typically too warm or too cold?: Recently, COLD

4. What were you doing 45 minutes ago?: I was probably.. Either on discord or studying for exams.

5. What is your favorite candy bar?: Hmmmmm.. I’d say Geisha or Kismet (both Finnish chocolate bars)

6. Have you ever been to a professional sports event?: Yeah, I’ve been in a few ice hockey matches.

7. What is the last thing you said out loud?: "Mee pusu syömää~” to my dog, trying to encourage her to eat.

8. What is your favorite ice cream?: Ben&Jerry’s no doubt. The ones with lots of caramel are the best!

9. What was the last thing you had to drink?: Uhhh probably water

10. Do you like your wallet?: Yeah, I do. It’s a bootleg Michael Kors wallet I got as a gift lol

11. What was the last thing you ate?: Rice and spicy sauce with chicken! Home made, I was kinda proud of it lol

12. Did you buy any new clothes last weekend?: Nope

13. The last sporting event you watched?: I don’t really watch them.. Maybe when ice hockey world championships were going on I watched some of Finland’s matches?

14. What is your favorite flavor of popcorn?: Butter

15. Who is the last person you sent a text message to?: I’m currently texting with my friend on Discord

16. Ever go camping?: I mean I have been at a summer camp? But I haven’t gone into the woods with like a tent and stuff. We once did that in my friend’s backyard tho grhdthetd

17. Do you take vitamins?: I try to remember take vitamin D every day but I... usually forget

18. Do you go to church every Sunday?: Nah

19. Do you have a tan?: Nope

20. Do you prefer Chinese food or pizza?: Both are good but right now I’m craving... Pizza!

21. Do you drink your soda with a straw?: Only if I have lipstick on

22. What color socks do you usually wear?: It varies so much lol

23. Do you ever drive above the speed limit?: I don’t have a driver’s license lol But I have been in the car when my stepdad is speeding countless times so that’s nice :)

24. What terrifies you?: uhhhhh it’s actually something very personal and deep rooted that I would rather not talk about as of now at least

25. Look to your left, what do you see?: My phone and a remote control

26. What chore do you hate?: dusting

27. What do you think of when you hear an Australian accent?: ahhhh I’m sorry if it offends anybody but when I hear an Australian accent I can only think of kangaroos 🙈

28. What’s your favorite soda?: Probably.. Coca Cola or Moomin soda!

29. Do you go in a fast food place or just hit the drive-thrus?: I prefer going in but I’m not against going to a drive through either

30. Who’s the last person you talked to?: On the internet, my friend. In real life, my dog lol

31. Favorite cut of beef?: The what now?

32. Last song you listened to?: It was some Hatsune Miku song that I came across on Tumblr today

33. Last book you read?: I think it was... The magicians by Lev Grossman

34. Favorite day of the week?: Saturdayyyyy

35. Can you say the alphabet backwards?: I think I could if I concentrated?

36. How do you like your coffee?: Oversweetened and preferably caramelized

37. Favorite pair of shoes?: Uhhhh I guess my high heeled boots

38. The time you normally go to sleep?: ........2am nowadays.... gosh

39. The time you normally get up?: 10am usually

40. What do you prefer, sunrise or sunsets?: Sunsets

41. How many blankets on your bed?: Two

42. Describe your kitchen plates: Most of them are pink and belong to the same series

43. Do you have a favorite alcoholic beverage?: I like cocktailssss and vodka shots

44. Do you play cards?: Sometimes with certain people

45. What color is your car?: I don’t have a car but my stepdad’s is white

46. Can you change a tire?: Nope

47. Your favorite province?: I honestly don’t know lol I live in Uusimaa but I haven’t had any experience living elsewhere so I can’t really compare

48. Favorite job you’ve ever had?: Hmmmmmm.. Maybe when I was at a subway car maintenance station? That was pretty chill

49. How did you get your biggest scar?: I don’t have many scars and the ones I do have are small. But I guess the biggest incident that left a scar was when I was little and this boy threw a branch at my face and it struck my eye really hard. At first I just thought I had a black eye but when I looked at my hands they were all bloody and I realized my eye was bleeding. The wound on my eyelid looked really nasty for a while and I had to wear an eyepatch but it healed completely and only left a small mark that you don’t see unless you inspect reaaaaaaally closely.

50. What did you do today that made someone else happy?: I told my friend how much he means to me and that made him really happy!

I tag: @yukinyaminyato @stealthgrass @mbejus @beananium @wicked-game-black-butler @rednite-dork

As always, no need to do this if you don’t feel like it! And if you’d like me to stop tagging you, tell me and I won’t tag you ^^ Peace 💖✌

[judefan822-blog]

actually more attractive than Origin

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[theawkwardterrier]

things left behind and the things that are ahead, ch. 8

AO3 link here

Elaine Macy was someone else before she married, but now she is this: just the right smile at just the right time, quick with a joke though careful about it (nothing too frequent, or too flashy - it doesn’t do to be known as a funny girl), the correct outfit to camouflage herself for any occasion and a handbag to match.

She has the feeling that Alice Little is the same.

Alice is new to it, certainly, barely two months married to one of the chiefs on the CIA Russia desk. (Elaine isn’t meant to know that, but it isn’t hard to tell. That used to be Elaine’s husband Paul’s job, and John Little puffed out his chest in the same way.) Still, there’s a bright, considered glimmer to her eye as she takes in the party from her place beside Elaine, a calculus of everyone there and mental map of how they are all connected and interwoven that Elaine recognizes from herself.

"Who's that over there?" Alice asks, apparently already having perfected the casual 'point and sip' maneuver that Elaine knows well.

Elaine takes a sip of her own drink while glancing over. "Oh, that's Mr. Butrick. Richard Butrick?" she adds at Alice's questioning look. "He was the ambassador to Iceland until a year or two ago, but now he's been made Director General of the Foreign Service." She laughs, a little party laugh that makes Alice give a smile that's more about commiseration than actual enjoyment. "Why, I guess that makes him the boss of this whole thing."

"What about the Secretary of State?" Alice asks. She sounds casually keen, but doesn't bother scanning around herself: she is good at this. "Isn't he the real boss?"

"I suppose," Elaine says. She takes another sip of her drink, larger this time, trying to get most of it down before it gets warm without seeming like a lush. "But Mr. Acheson is a busy man. A little get together at the Finnish consulate isn't exactly going to lure him out of either his office or his living room. I don’t think that he comes out for anyone less than the Swiss."

"It is a lovely party, though," Alice says, a bit too earnestly. Youth and inexperience coming out, Elaine decides; she had been like that once, impressed by everything in Paul's world, or at least looking to pretend that she was. "This isn't the sort of thing that tempts Mr. Acheson?"

"Well, he is nearly sixty, dear," Elaine points out. "Already overworked, I'm sure, poor man, and not exactly interested in spending a night out if he doesn't have to. And he apparently enjoys the company of his wife, so I'm afraid nothing here holds much appeal."

"Hmm." Alice smooths her hair a bit, starting to slip into a sort of polite boredom. (The flicker of something across her face - disappointment, or maybe annoyance? - must be imagined, Elaine tells herself.) Then her expression brightens and she says, even more quietly but with a bit of mischief to it, "I hope he doesn't have a wife, or I'll feel like such a boor for staring."

Elaine laughs. She knows exactly who’s caught her eye. This isn't her first time guiding someone through the disappointment. “He’s extremely taken, unfortunately. That’s Grant Carter. He’s married to Peggy Carter - see her over there, speaking with the young fellow from the embassy?”

“What does she do?” Alice asks, watching as Peggy Carter tilts her head and uses one hand to illustrate a point.

Elaine thinks it a bit strange that she assumes Peggy works, but Alice has certainly proven perceptive and there’s a strong air of competence to Peggy that doesn’t just speak of children wrangled and supper on the table come hell or high water. In fact, for the first time, Elaine consciously realizes that the Carters are practically the only couple divided yet speaking to people not of their same sex; nearly everyone else is either in a group conversation involving their spouse, or has broken off into male and female pairs.

“Elaine?”

“Oh, yes, sorry. She’s—” She knows exactly what Peggy Carter does - she’s heard Paul refer to her as “that bitch from SHIELD” often enough - but something in Alice’s face, an eagerness even more strange for the way she tries to conceal it, makes her change course. “I think she’s a secretary for someone at State. Perhaps the Bureau of Public Affairs? I’m not certain. We’ve never really spoken.”

“Oh well,” Alice says, so cheerfully that Elaine wonders whether she had mistaken her prior expression. “How about her husband? Have you ever spoken to him?”

“Yes, and he’s an absolute doll,” Elaine confides. “You wouldn’t think it, with those looks, but he’s just the nicest man. Why don’t we go over and meet him?”

Alice blushes a pretty rose. “Oh, I couldn’t. He’s talking to Caroline.”

“Coralie,” Elaine corrects automatically, and she has the sudden feeling that the mistake had been purposeful, some sort of test. She shakes her head, shakes it off; surely that’s ridiculous. Alice has just been introduced to a few dozen people tonight and she can’t be expected to remember every name. “Anyway, they won’t mind. Come with me.”

She leads Alice through the party, taking the opportunity to leave her empty glass on one of the heavy oak sideboards. Elaine is...well, she prefers “petite” but in truth it’s more like “diminutive,” and with her slight frame and soft voice, she can be lost in a crowd without much trouble. Grant Carter, tall and broad, is easy to keep in her sights, however, and they reach him after only one awkward incident of skirting a listing, red-faced Danish diplomat.

“Grant,” Elaine says warmly as he and Coralie shift to greet them. “Wonderful to see you. This is Alice Little. I think you’ve met her husband John?”

“Once or twice,” says Grant, smiling toward Alice. He has, Elaine notices, the closest teeth she’s ever seen to a film star. “It’s nice to meet you, Alice.”

Alice catches her breath a bit, which Elaine understands perfectly. She typically prefers clean-shaven men, but there’s a quality about Grant Carter that makes him difficult to look at, as if he’s something a bit more than human. It takes one a moment to entirely get their wits back once caught in his gaze.

“I used that cornbread recipe of yours to make muffins last weekend,” Elaine covers smoothly, “and I got absolutely rave reviews.” Well, a grunted, “Good,” from Paul, hidden behind the morning paper as he spread on more butter, but that was a high compliment from him.

“Isn’t that a wonderful recipe?” Coralie says, more enthusiastically than the comment truly warrants. “My family enjoys it so much.”

“Good to hear. It’s a favorite of mine too. When Peggy and I got together, that was the only thing I knew how to make. A friend gave me the recipe.” Grant still wears that lovely smile, but there’s something sad about his eyes, and Coralie glares over the top of her glass at Elaine as if to say that he had been in a perfectly fine mood before they showed up.

“You cook? I’m not sure that John even knows where the kitchen is,” Alice says with a sweet little giggle. Elaine remembers a time when she too thought it darling that her husband who had been to war could barely make himself a sandwich, when she felt so wonderfully grownup and responsible in her particular domain. She pities her past self, pities the future Alice, the one who will simply learn to carry on once the bloom has come off that particular rose. “Does your wife really make you take care of such things, Mr. Carter?”

“She has other things to take care of,” he says simply. “So I take care of her.” He looks over at Peggy, now speaking with the deputy attache of something or other, and the tenderness in his gaze somehow hits Elaine more deeply than the sadness there had. She swallows hard, wishing she had not finished her drink.

“What exactly does your wife do?” Alice asks. For all the sharpness that Elaine had quietly admired, it’s poorly done, too eager and badly timed; there’s nearly an audible effect as Grant turns his gaze back from his wife.

“She works with Mr. Howard,” he says. “At the State Department’s Bureau of Public Affairs.”

Elaine looks away to avoid giving him a sharp glance - how in the world could he have heard her invented story from all the way across the room? - but her eyes quickly fall on something which distracts her: Paul stumbling a bit as he makes his way over to her, the glass in his hand emptied for what she knows is not the first time this evening. (Everyone had pretended that the move from an international bureau to domestic was a gift to him, an easier job in return for years of service, but the truth was that the USSR was disintegrating and Paul couldn’t be trusted to be involved in such delicate business.)

“‘Laine,” he says, as he approaches, that familiarly clumsy pronunciation of her name. He pulls her against himself with too much force and not enough circumspection. Elaine separates herself as much as she can - this dress does crease so easily, after all - but he keeps a grip on her.

“Bit of a late night, isn’t it?” Grant says, and his voice suddenly has a new note to it, a solidity with an edge of menace that she’s never heard before. “Why don’t we all share a taxi and head home?”

“Carter—!” Paul starts, loudly and with obvious dislike, but Elaine drapes an arm about his shoulders, quieting him carefully.

“You’re right, Grant, it is getting a little late, but we have our car with us.” She laughs, too high, and forces her next words to be casual. “I drove here tonight. And to think my father didn’t even want me to learn!”

Grant looks as if he is going to protest, but perhaps he senses the way she is fighting just to keep looking at him. He nods, and his eyes follow, watchful, as she and Paul leave the party. She has the feeling that he is not fooled by the way it seems that they are walking out together.

“How gentlemanly of you to offer them a ride,” Alice chimes behind them, and Elaine’s last glimpse of the room is of her touching his arm and leaning far too close to him. She suppresses a snort. Alice has good instincts and there’s certainly raw material there, but she’ll have to learn to do a bit better than that if she’s going to learn to fit in Washington.

“I could likely have dropped a brick on his head and he would have kept talking,” Peggy calls from the bedroom. Steve can hear one of her dresser drawers opening and sliding shut again. “Thanks goodness you came to collect me or I would likely still be listening to him prattle.” She comes into the kitchen in her comfortable, heavy dressing gown and takes the cup of darkly steeped tea that he’s made for her, giving him a smile. He narrows his eyes back at her, because he knows that she doesn’t keep her robe in the dresser, and now he’ll be spending the time until they go to bed imagining what she’s chosen to put on underneath. It just makes her smile more widely as she sits down at the table.

“Did I see you speaking with Elaine Macy?” she asks innocently, bringing the tea gently to her lips and looking at him over the rim.

“Until her husband interrupted,” he says darkly. He likes Elaine very much. They both do.

“She was a factory floor supervisor during the war, you know. In charge of nearly a hundred people, and she’d started nurses training on the side. And now she’s tucked away at home, forced to smile and pretend everything’s alright because no one thinks she should strive for anything else.” She sighs. “It gets better, doesn’t it?”

“It does.” He leans against the counter, arms crossed. “But not soon enough, and not necessarily better enough.” The look they share lasts a long time.

“I saw you speaking to someone else as well,” she finally says. “Alice Little? I haven’t had the pleasure.”

“I have the feeling you will soon enough. It’s just like we thought. Although if these are the agents they’re sending for their ‘two more shall take its place’ bit, they’re in more disarray than we knew. Unless they’re just looking to fool us about how many moles they might still have planted, I think they’re truly desperate.” She frowns, and he knows she’s remembering Dottie Underwood, so entirely inhabiting a persona that Peggy, living next door, had never even suspected. “She had so many tells that even I picked up on them, and she wasn’t exactly subtle when she got close enough to stick a tracker in my pocket.”

“I had wondered why you left your jacket in the taxi.”

“If they want to find out where we live, they can put in the effort to try to follow me home from the market. Anyway, I thought it might make things easier if they didn’t think I’d been tipped. They’ll show up at a taxi lot in the middle of the night and probably decide that I’m just absent-minded and she should have put it somewhere else.” He tries not to think of the punishments these people dole out for failure. Alice, or whatever her real name is, might be dangerous to Peggy, dangerous to the world and to him, but she’s also a person who has been terribly mistreated.

“Well, how lucky she didn’t slip it into another pocket, then. If it had been your trousers they found there, it would have been hard to explain as absent-mindedness.” She sets her cup down, only a little skim of liquid left in the bottom, and adds, “Although I suppose they could presume I distracted you somehow.”

“I’m not sure that even you could distract me enough for me to forget my pants.”

“Is that a challenge? Because I’m certainly willing to try.”

“Maybe another time.” He grins at her. There are so many other times for them now. “Tonight I’m more interested in a different kind of investigation.” His gaze is very apparent as it drops to the place where her robe has opened a bit at the top.

She says in a lightly dubious tone, “That’s not usually your forte,” finger running idly around the rim of her cup.

“I’m learning from the best.” He pushes away from the counter. “Would you really deny me a chance to practice?”

“I suppose not.” She fakes a sighs and takes his hands, standing to lead him back toward the bedroom. There is still plenty to be done, but there are also plenty of tomorrows to do it in, and they’ll accomplish it all together.

More chapters here

[matan4il]

Some Eurovision 2018 thoughts

Because I promised @isabellaofparma I would post these, that’s why. I should note, I wrote most of this before the rehearsals and saved it as draft, so there are only a few added touches before posting. Also, can’t believe it’s almost a year since ESC 2017. @beautifulhusbands, remember when we chatted about last year’s competition? Good times. OK, here are a few thoughts about some of the songs by country... Hungary - thing for me is, I love rock songs at the ESC, so a rock song has to work really hard for me not to like it in this competition. Still, this one feels particularly authentic, so major kudos, it’s my fave rock song this year (sorry, @i-want-messed-up-with-you-4-ever, though the Netherlands’ country rock entry is nice too. @letthebluerain we also have a cute light rock song from Romania, but I have to admit I’m always disappointed when I don’t get a song in Romanian from the country I was born in. But I actually adore that we have more than one rock song this year, I like this diversity). @isabellaofparma, I still love last year’s Hungarian entry more, but that’s because it became one of my fave ESC songs ever, not because this year’s offering isn’t good. FYR Macedonia - I saw some people saying this song is a mess of genres, but I don’t think that’s the issue. You can throw in five different musical genres and as an idea, it could still work well. For me the problem is every time I get into a particular portion and genre and I start enjoying myself, the song switches over. So I’m left unsatisfied by the whole thing. Greece - I like this song. I adore all songs that are in their country’s native language rather than in English, even though I get why so many choose to perform in the latter. So this song gets points for that, has an ethnic sound to it which I also like and generally, it seems like Israelis tend to like the Greek songs. So yeah, one of my faves this year. I think it has a real shot at being the winner. (isn’t @nvrtickleadragon Greek? I like relating songs and countries to people. So go you!) Belarus - this may be weird but the singer reminds me of the guy who played the (more) openly gay teenager on Witness (I miss that show so much). That does things to me. So I like this entry, but it may not be for the right reasons. I think how this will do will greatly depend on how it’s executed on stage. Italy - I have to say, I adore the Italian tendency to send songs in Italian as it’s one of my fave languages. This entry is nice musically, though I think one of the singers is not as good as the other one and the disparity takes away some of my enjoyment. Also, I’m not fond of the tendency to send 'from the headlines’ songs, though relatively to the genre, this one is nice. All in all, my feelings are it could have been better and it could have been worse. At least the hook is catchy. (I believe @robertjacobsugdens is Italian, right? Again, me with the relating stuff to people thing. I do believe you guys will do well this year even if this isn’t my fave entry this year, nor my fave Italian song to the ESC) Also, technically, I wanna rant over the fact that there actually ARE pacifist bombs. For example, there are bombs used specifically to destroy other bombs in a controlled manner that saves lives. So. I don’t know. I don’t like an oversimplified message is what I’m saying, I guess. Kinda makes you wonder why I listen to ESC then, right? ;p France - This is another one ‘from the headlines’, so once more, I’m a bit meh. It’s a nice, lovely tune, I adore that France always sing in French, but the song becomes too familiar too quickly in my opinion. I’m sorry, @iamarobronniffler, I think you guys will get a high score, but I don’t think it will win... I also think it was sort of hurt by being one of the first songs to be released, which means people had loads of time to get used to it... Personal pet peeve is that the singer pronounces ‘Mercy’ not like the English word the name derives from, but like the French word ‘merci’, which is a nice touch, but it starts bothering me towards the end of the song, when the name is repeated (and mispronounced) so much. Denmark - ok, so on first listen? It’s a really strong entry. The drums are epic, the staging is good, the production of the song is tight, the legend behind the song of Vikings who decided not to fight is cool, it is a catchy song, Rasmussen has stage experience so the odds of him faltering on the night are slim, thus this song has SO MUCH going for it. Usually, if you have a song like this and you come from one of the two blocks (the Soviet or the Scndinavian ones) I feel like you have it in the bag. That’s how I felt about Sweden’s Heroes and Denmark’s Only Teardrops and they both won. But I feel like one thing that works against the song is that it has something about it that’s almost too serious and in a year where a lot of things are less so, plus this year is very innovative while this song is classically epic, that may work against it. Also, I feel like years when the Scandinavian countries send more than one strong entry, that end up splitting the Nordic vote and negates the block advantage. This year, you have Finland with a strong entry too, plus Sweden being Sweden. Basically, I feel like this could have been the winner in a lot of years, but probably not this one. Portugal - feels like an attempt to send a song in the same genre of their winner last year and I think the odds of the same country winning twice in a row with the same type of song is slim to none. That being said, I think this year’s offering is lovely and way better in this genre than last year’s Portuguese song. Sorry, I still don’t think that guy should have won. Sweden - hmmm, this will do well, first of all because it’s Sweden (really, @stulot, it’s ridiculous what an empire you are in this sense) and because it has a nice, young Michael Jackson vibe. But I really don’t think it’s gonna win. It doesn’t stand out enough in my opinion. Plus, the Danish and Finnish contenders are stronger IMO, so my guess is a lot of Scandinavians votes are gonna go there rather than to Sweden. It’s a good song, it’s just not enough of a competition when even within Scandinavia, it’s only the third strongest song. Ireland - the song is sooooo sweet, it’s almost too much so. It gets a bit better once you realize it’s actually about a relationship that has ended, it gives the idea behind it a bit of a twist than if it were just a declaration of sickeningly sweet love, but the real gem for this entry is the clip. It’s openly showcasing a same-sex couple and I am SO happy about that! Despite its gay reputation, ESC is actually more heteronormative than you’d expect, so that clip made me really happy. I want it to do better than it might have otherwise for that alone. I'm glad they’re bringing it to the stage in Lisbon too. I’m annoyed (though not surprised) that Russia said it would cut this song out. Thing is, Russia is allowed to do that in the semi-final, but not in the final, so for that reason if nothing else, I want Ireland in the final. (person from fandom that this made me think of, @dannymiller-irish-fan. Promise I’m done with the tagging now... I think) Cyprus - this is a very typical ESC song, it’s fun and tightly produced so it will do well, but I’m not happy about the lack of originality, plus the pushing of the ‘sex sells’ angle is not something that I subscribe to. Bulgaria - this song feels very current, easily a pop hit you could hear on the radio rather than on the ESC stage. I enjoy it, I think a lot depends on the live performance, how the staging will go, how will their voices blend live, but I think it can be the winner. Estonia - it’s weird, I think her voice is stunning beyond measure, the song is perfect opera pop, I enjoy it whenever I hear it and yet it’s not a song I can see myself listening to outside of the competition. Maybe because it’s not exactly one you can sing along to. All the same, another possible winner IMO. Finland - So this is the strongest Scandinavian contender in my book (so @youslicetheginger, I think you guys have a shot). The song is classic ESC, it’s also well produced and performed, which is really important, so that takes a bit away from the fact that it’s not that original. However, you gotta add in two more advantages, both originating in Saara Aalto being the one performing it (beyond the fact that SHE CAN FUCKING BELT). One is that she was on singing reality shows in both Finland AND the UK before the contest, which probably makes her the most established artist of the whole lot before the competition. That matters because while the Scandinavian vote is split up this year, she can make up for it through fans of hers from outside Finland and Scandinavia. The other is her being open about her engagement to a woman. This, together with the possible LGBTQ reading of her song, I think can also get her a lot of votes. So basically, out of the Nordic countries, I believe she’s gonna place highest. And I’m definitely a fan. Iceland - the most interesting things about this clip and its video: the church you can see in the clip, the streets Ari (the singer) walks down in it, are ones I’ve seen and walked too, which was pretty cool to me. Ari means Eagle in the Scandinavian language, which is a cool coincidence with the fact that in Hebrew, the same name means lion. ‘But Alice, these interesting tidbits have nothing to do with the song!?’ you say? Exactly. Sorry, Ari, you look like a lovely guy, you damn well can sing, but this is the biggest bore fest this year. You deserved a better song. Norway - This is the definition of “don’t know when to call it quits”. What’s worst to me is Alexander tried to make it better by saying kids keep asking him how to write a song and this was his reply to them. Either he’s lying and just trying to get the audience to go all ‘awwww’ over his very banal song, an inferior version of the song he had won with in the past... or he’s honest, in which case, STOP LYING TO THE KIDS, Alexander. That is NOT how you write a song. Ukraine - I think this is such a cool, different song performed by a cool, different artist, it’s upbeat, it’s not preachy, it’s unique, it’s catchy, I love it. I don’t think it will win, but it’s another one of my faves. Spain - this love song made me think of @imre-gr, of course. It is sweet and lovely. It was the first song I heard that made me smile, so how could I not think of you? But then, I have to admit that it is very much the typical ESC love duet and while it’s a very good version of it, in a year full of unique and different songs, I don’t think it stands a chance to win. Sorry. :( Israel - honestly, my first reaction when the song was first released was, ‘ok, so we will not win this year either’. I still think it’s too divisive to win (I know the bookkeepers disagree, but I think they mainly rely on how many views the song clips get on YouTube and that is NOT a measure for which one will win the ESC), I think the song’s too original, too creative and TOO out there, not enough people get why the chicken bits were included, too many people started arguing about whether this is a feminist song or an anti-male one, but I was happy to see it was less divisive than I anticipated and that a lot of people have responded so positively to the song, to its message of self-empowerment and to Netta. I can’t think of anything better than so many people seeing a woman who is clearly nothing like the thin ideal of beauty in our society singing “I’m a beautiful creature”, getting that she means it and agreeing with her. Netta in simply who she is conveys a real message and spirit of change for the better. The song itself tries to tackle a serious issue but without being preachy or heavy about it, make it fun for people when they sing about feminism and embracing yourself and your strength as you are. I feel like this attempt sometimes means the lyrics aren’t clear enough (as the song is inspired by the #metoo movement, ‘stupid boy’ doesn’t feel like a harsh enough term for the sexual harassment the song refers to, plus it can too easily be used to make it seem like the song is anti-male, because people take it as if ‘stupid boy’ is referring to all men rather than to jerks who take advantage of women), but I still appreciate what it tries to do. And at the end of the day, I think Netta is fabulous, I think she got her message across, I think her song became popular way beyond the bounds of the competition, so in my eyes, even if she won’t win the contest, she’s a true winner and wonder woman. I’m proud of you and thank you for representing in such an amazing way a huge part of the beauty of my country on its 70th anniversary. <3

[lingthusiasm]

Transcript Lingthusiasm Episode 6: All the sounds in all the languages - The International Phonetic Alphabet

This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm Episode 6: All the sounds in all the languages - The International Phonetic Alphabet. It’s been lightly edited for readability. Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. Links to studies mentioned and further reading can be found on the Episode 6 show notes page.

[Music]

Gretchen: Welcome to Lingthusiasm, the podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics. I'm Gretchen McCulloch.

Lauren: and I'm Lauren Gawne. And today we're going to be talking about the International Phonetic Alphabet. But first -- it was International Mother Language Day in February and even though it was a couple of weeks ago now on February the 21st, I think it's still worth saying a belated 'Happy Mother Language Day' to you Gretchen!

Gretchen: Happy Mother Language Day to you! Which we are wishing in our of mother languages of English, which is kind of boring.

Lauren: Both wishing it our mother languages. Do you have any other heritage languages that you wish to acknowledge?

Gretchen: I mean, technically Scottish Gaelic is probably a long time ago a mother language for me, but my ancestors were lowland Scots so it's a really long time ago. 

Lauren: Well happy Scots Gaelic day

Gretchen: Do you have any other?

Lauren: My grandmaternal language is Polish and thanks to generally typical Australian attitudes towards non-English speaking in the 1960s that wasn't passed on to any of my mother's generation at all. So yeah it's still a very recent part of our family history. I'm the only grandchild who ever learnt enough Polish to speak with my grandmother in her mother tongue

Gretchen: Oh that's cool

Lauren: Which is cool, I wish I still spoke that much

Gretchen: Well I mean it's cool that you learned it, it's not cool that no one else did

Lauren: It's probably questionable how much Polish I remember today. And yeah, I always like to think of my Nan and my lack of opportunities to learn Polish on February 21st. What have you been up to or what's coming up?

Gretchen: Well, by the time this episode goes out I will have been to South by Southwest, where I will have done a panel with Erin Mckean and Jane Solomon and Ben Zimmer

Lauren: How are you not going to like die of fangirling at people?!

Gretchen: Because I've already met all of them anyway?

Lauren: Awwww I'm so jelly

Gretchen: But they're really cool and I'm really excited to be on a panel with them! We're going to be talking about 'Word curation: Dictionaries, tech, and the future' which will happen by the time you guys get this episode so you can check out the hashtag that I'm sure will have some action on it and we'll link to that in the show notes. 

Lauren: I'm really excited for that panel. I'm looking forward to it hopefully - is it going to be recorded? Am I going to be able to see it as a non South by Southwest attendee?

Gretchen: I think there's going to be an audio recording on soundcloud that South by Southwest is going to put up online because they've done that for previous years. So I can't promise that they'll do that again but they seem to like doing it in previous years, I don't know why they wouldn't do it again so we'll link to that if we have it.

Lauren: Yay, excellent!

[Music] 

Gretchen: So there's a problem when you learn to spell English, which is that it's really hard to spell English.

Lauren: It's really a lifelong learning process as far as I'm concerned

Gretchen: It's a lifelong learning process. You know, some languages don't have spelling bees because their spelling systems are so consistent they don't need them - we can only wish! So, the English spelling system is especially ridiculous, it's got silent letters, it's got something around 14 vowels but only five letters to write them in. 

My favorite demonstration of this is that there's a phrase that has all of the English vowels and the phrase goes - I have to have to say it in a non-rhotic accent because it only works that way - the phrase goes 'Who would know aught of art must learn, act and then take his ease'. And each of those words has a different vowel in it.

Lauren: Cool!

Gretchen: And that's one way of remembering the vowels

Lauren: That's a nifty sentence!

Gretchen: Yeah, but if you try to write that down in English it's hard

Lauren: With the English orthography that we have, or the English writing system - orthography - that we have

Gretchen: And spelling systems are also inconsistent across different languages. Even languages that are consistent in themselves are often inconsistent when you compare them with each other. So, some languages use the letter J for the /dʒ/ sound [as in Jane], some languages use it for the /ʒ/ sound like French [Jean], some languages use it for the 'y' /j/ sound like German as in 'Jan' or 'Johann Sebastian Bach', some languages use it for the /x/ sound as in Spanish like 'Juan'. There's a whole bunch of different sounds you can use the same letter for depending on your language

Lauren: There's a really great tumblr post that kind of encapsulates this variety in the ways different alphabets that are based on the same alphabet English is based on, use their orthographies in different ways which we'll link to. When I first read this I was like oh look someone's just posting in Norwegian or Danish or something, but then if you sit there and read it and you know the orthographic conventions in different languages it says something along the lines of 'I wonder if English speakers will notice that I'm writing this in English but using the spelling conventions of my language'

Gretchen: And yeah a whole bunch of people have certain different versions of it - there's a Finnish one which is pretty good, there's an Irish one which is fantastic

Lauren: It's good, because once you know what the phrase is that gives you a feel for what the conventions are in different languages. For example I found the Polish one really easy to read and then for some of the others I was just basically guessing because I knew what the sentence was, and it really nicely illustrates this problem that we have that we all learn different spelling conventions for different languages

Gretchen: And we're not the first people to have noticed this problem! In fact people have been realizing this problem for quite a long time, as long as people have been writing with different systems. And it became especially apparent as writing systems became standardised in the 1700s and 1800s, when dictionaries are becoming popular and people were starting to write in a standardised sort of way and looking at other languages and realising that their standardisations were converging on something different

Lauren: I really love that historically there was no consistent spelling conventions, and so in Old English text we actually have a good idea of the different common literate dialects of people who lived in Mercia or people who live in Cumbria and because the way that they wrote English really reflected the way their accent worked. Once spelling systems became standardized that stopped being the case

Gretchen: It also became really difficult people for who are trying to learn English because even if you learn the spelling systems, then you pronounce the words the way they look and people look at you like "that's not actually how it's pronounced" and you're like "how was I supposed to remember that?" Various people came up with various proposals for spelling reform for either just like a more phonetic way of writing English in total, or for ways of adapting English words so that it could be used for specialised purposes like people who are learning the language, or people who want to write down specific things and annotate exactly how they're said

Lauren: And some people went for massive 'let's create an entirely new alphabet', some people just wanted some small reforms. So Noah Webster is probably one of the people who had the most impressive effect on English especially on American English. It was Webster who decided to take and consistently use conventions like 'i-z-e' instead of 'i-s-e' and using words like colour without the 'u' instead of with the 'u' as part of this attempt to make English spelling more realistically reflect the language that was being spoken

Gretchen: Yeah and there were other British reformers that were trying to do this, so there was a guy named Henry Sweet who came up with an alphabet called the Romic /ɹomɪk/ alphabet or the Romic /ɹɑmɪk/ alphabet, I'm not actually sure how to pronounce the name of this alphabet, which...

Lauren: If only was written down some where in a consistently pronounceable script!

Gretchen: If only! He didn't seem to actually write the name of his own alphabet anywhere in a consistent script so that's a shame. And that was based on mostly Roman letters but with adaptations for sounds that English had and Latin hadn't. And then there was Alexander Ellis who was apparently the real-life origin of Henry Higgins from 'My Fair Lady'

Lauren: Really?!

Gretchen: I dunno, that's what Wikipedia says!

Lauren: Okay, because I'm going to invoke the supremacy of David Crystal, if that's okay. I don't know if Crystal officially trumps Wikipedia, but in his book called 'Wordsmiths and Warriors' he says if Higgins is anyone it has to be Daniel Jones who is a phonetician who is very influential in terms of like codifying the vowel system. So what we think of is the modern International Phonetic Alphabet vowel space kind of started with Daniel Jones' cardinal vowels

Gretchen: I mean I don't know it could have been a composite or something

Lauren: I think to be honest that the most likely is that there was a genre of gentleman academic at the time who's very interested in these topics. Anyway, there was a lot of work being invested in generating some kind of writing system that accurately reflected speech

Gretchen: Yeah and so they made the International Phonetic Association in the late 1800s, which confusingly enough also has the acronym IPA, and they had some meetings and they were like, “yeah, we need to come up with a system for this”

Lauren: So the IPA is where the IPA was created

Gretchen: Yeah I hope they were all drinking IPA but I can't guarantee that

Lauren: In our reenactment that is definitely what's happening

Gretchen: Yeah, when we when we all get dressed up in historic costume (bagsies Henry Sweet), then we will all drink IPA

Lauren: I'm Daniel Jones apparently - no wait, I'm going to dress up as Cardinal Vowel, I always thought that would be a great linguist costume

Gretchen: Ah that's great! Were cardinal vowels invented yet?

Lauren: Well it was Daniel Jones who did that, I don't know when he was working

Gretchen: Oh ok good

Lauren: I mean we'll have to have a whole episode just talking about vowels and how they work, but that was kind of a thing that was figured out at the time

Gretchen: Yeah and they came up with some principles for future development of this International Phonetic Alphabet and these were: each symbol should have its own distinctive sound and the same symbol should be used for the same sound across all languages

Lauren: So instead of having the J sound sounding like /dʒ/ or /ʒ/ or /j/ or /x/ across different languages, every time that sound was used it would be used for exactly the same sound

Gretchen: Every time that *symbol* was used

Lauren: Yes sorry every time that symbol was used it would be used for the same sound

Gretchen: They also came up with some principles that influenced which symbols ended up being chosen for which sounds. So they decided to use as many ordinary Roman letters as possible and to have a very minimal number of new letters, and to use what they called quote unquote “international” usage to decide the sound for each symbol

Lauren: So they wouldn't like, take the symbol that we have for 's' and decide 'oh we're going to make that the sound for 'l' because we're crazy people'

Gretchen: Yeah, they didn't do that. But the other thing is, so if we look at the vowels, the IPA vowels look kind of weird from an English perspective. So the IPA uses the letter that we think of as 'i' to represent the 'ee' /i/ sound and uses the letter we think of as 'e' to represent the 'eh' /e/ sound and so on. And this doesn't make sense for English, but it does make sense when you look at a whole bunch of other languages like Spanish and Italian, and the way the Roman alphabet has been used for non-European languages generally falls along these principles as well. So they said, “Look, even though we're English speakers we're going to not do the English things”

Lauren: Okay, so they really did go with this kind of international general preference 

Gretchen: Yeah, I mean, they're still eurocentric, they're still starting with European languages and kind of working their way outwards, but they were at least not completely Anglo-centric, which is helpful here, because English does some weird stuff with its sounds

Lauren: Yeah and we only have 26 letters in the English alphabet, a few more if we kind of pull everything from across European languages, and there are so many more sounds that the world's languages can make, so once we've run out of kind of standard letters where do we go from there?

Gretchen: Where we are from there is often Greek letters or Latinised looking versions of Greek letters because those were familiar to these creators. Another thing that they did was they would rotate letters. and this was partly because the shapes are still familiar if you do that and partly because this is the 1800s and people were typing with metal bits of type. So if you just take a lowercase 'e' and turn it upside down, you can just print your new character by flipping or rotating an existing metal type bit rather than casting a new one 

Lauren: I have a really nice example from Australia, so I was at a workshop the other day and a colleague was showing me a booklet of Kamilaroi, so it's a language from the New England area of New South Wales in Australia, and William Ridley was working on this language in 1856. So this is even before the IPA was codified. And these languages have a sound like an English sound but you may not notice it in English because it's a sound at the end of words like 'sing' or 'bring', that /ŋ/ sound, but that sound can occur anywhere so you can have it at the start of the word as well as at the end. This /ŋ/ sound now has a symbol in the IPA that looks like an 'n' with a little tail and it's called an 'engma'

Gretchen: Yeah kind of like an 'n' with a 'g' tail shoved on it

Lauren: Yeah, and Ridley is one of the first people who adopted this symbol for use in his describing languages work in the 1850s, which was before the 1880s when the IPA was established. But this symbol had begun to be used for this /ŋ/ and it makes sense because it's like an 'n' and a 'g' squashed together. But when he sent it to the typesetters for his booklet they didn't have a /ŋ/ and so they just turned a capital 'G' upside down which sounds a bit crazy and it looks a bit crazy it looks like it's just full of upside down 'G's, but it meant that that was a way that they could represent this /ŋ/ sound. Apparently he sent it to some other journal in Europe and they just turned it all into a 'z'

Gretchen: Wow, a 'z'!

Lauren: Yeeeah

Gretchen: Wow, that's really bad! So I guess that's why it's good that another principle the IPA had was that the look of the new letters should suggest the sound they represent, so once you've learned the kind of basic ones and if you see a couple languages and you have a sense of what's used in other languages then you can often guess fairly accurately what an IPA letter is going to be like. So it's better to have a symbol for /ŋ/'that looks like an 'n' and a 'g' shoved together because that's how it's often written in different languages, a bit like an 'n' sound, a bit like a 'g' sound. 

Another one of their principles was that diacritics should be avoided where possible. So adding extra little like accent marks or other types of small bits on top of letters was something that they tried to avoid for their basic sounds. Diacritics were only was supposed to be for if there's a modified version of a sound, but not for basic sounds in general. So in the current IPA, you still get these rotated letters, which must make the IPA very difficult for people who are dyslexic; you get small capitals; you get Greek stuff like the Greek letter theta is used for the 'th' /θ/ sound, and the runic and ultimately Icelandic sound /ð/ -- so the symbol that looks like an 'o' with kind of a cross above it, that’s from Icelandic and it used to be in English before the Normans came, that got borrowed back in -- so borrowing from other established systems. Because then you could just go to Iceland and grab some of their metal type bits, I don't know, or go to Greece and get some from them

Lauren: It's something that was a problem with the original metal type but it's also been a problem for a long time with modern software. So for a long time computers didn't really have fonts that expanded beyond the kind of really basic font set of like English and French and some diacritics and some special things. If you have some older software or if you look at older digital documents you have, y’know, people using capital 'A' for particular vowel sounds, vowel characters in the IPA that are symbols in the IPA that aren't in regular type or y’know schwa would be a capital 'E' for example

Gretchen: Yeah you can even see this on some old websites, people will use a different system that only uses the basic 26, plus capitals to do the extra stuff or maybe some places use like an 'at' sign @ to indicate a schwa, because we've also had a different version of this encoding problem with technology

Lauren: So it's not just the metal type it's also modern computing

Gretchen: It's also the byte! It's the type and the byte!

Lauren: The type and the byte have been a problem, it's getting better

Gretchen: It's getting better thanks to Unicode, thanks Unicode! So yeah the first version from 1887 was designed to work for sounds in English, French, and German because that's what they were doing at the time. It's a bit weird compared to the modern IPA because we're used to seeing it as a chart and they just gave a list of symbols and keywords that stuff was found in for various languages. So they'd say something like okay this 'a' symbol is going to be like the sound in English 'father' or this symbol is going to be like the sound in German 'Bach' and they just give the keywords like sometimes you see in the front of the dictionary. And then later, so they kept on working on it in the late 1800s and then by the year they expanded, published a version that included Arabic and a few other languages’ sounds, that’s when they finally publish it as a table for the first time

Lauren: So why would it be in it table, for people who aren't familiar with the International Phonetic Alphabet?

Gretchen: The cool thing about the table is -- so our English alphabet that you learn as a kid is 'ABCD' in no particular order, that's just the order it is, that's just for historical reasons -- but the table is ordered based on how the sounds are produced. So sounds get produced with constriction in various parts of the mouth and with different degrees of constriction once you're in that place

Lauren: So it's a nice feature based table of all the kind of combination of features in particular places

Gretchen: Yeah, exactly. If you superimpose a mouth onto that table, it looks a bit weird but you can kind of do it and you can see where each of the sounds is produced

Lauren: I have a link somewhere to an audible IPA chart so you can click on the sounds and hear what they sound like, but the ones on the very left side are all produced with just the lips like /p/, and the very front of the mouth. And then the ones at the very right edge are all the way back at the far back of the mouth, and that's things like your velar sounds like /g/ get made with that soft bit there or your uvula like right down in the very far back in the mouth

Gretchen: Yeah, it goes from your lips, through your mouth along the roof of your mouth and back into your throat. And the weird thing about this version from 1900 is that it's a mirror image of that so it has 'p' and 'b', your labial sounds on the right instead of on the left

Lauren: Oh no, that would confuse me so much

Gretchen: You can see an image of it on Wikipedia, it's all like typewritten, we'll link to that

Lauren: Wow, awesome

Gretchen: But it looks really weird, and they also have the vowel chart and the consonant chart on the same chart

Lauren: Right, okay!

Gretchen: They just have like a really wide section where the vowels go

Lauren: How weird!

Gretchen: Yeah, which is something else that changed later

Lauren: So there's now a table for the consonants, there's a few consonants that don't even fit, and then there's a vowel chart that's a separate thing, but it's very similar principle like it starts at the front of the mouth and goes back

Gretchen: Yeah, and what's cool is that the version that we use today is actually very very similar to the version that was solidified in 1932, which was quite a while ago. There were some adjustments made in 1989 and then after that it's just like 'oh well we need to add this one symbol because we found some languages that use it' but pretty much it stays very similar for quite a long time once it's established

Lauren: Nice. So it goes from left to right all the different places in the mouth, and then from top to bottom there are different ways just looking at the consonants, the ways to pronounce different consonants so you have the very plosive sounds like /b/, /k/, /d/, /t/ - we call them stops - along one row and your nasal sounds, so your /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, sounds along another row...

Gretchen: It kind of goes in order of how much you need to drop your jaw. So if you think about the sounds in the top row, your mouth is the most closed when you're making like a 'p' or a 'b'. You have to literally close your mouth for a second, you have to close your lips to make those sounds. Whereas if you're making a sound like 'r' /ɹ/ you don't have to actually close anything you're letting the sounds kinda come through. So the 'r' /ɹ/ sounds are near the bottom, but the /p, b/ sounds are near the top

Lauren: I mean that's the thing I found super neat about it when I was studying the IPA in undergrad was just how elegantly it captures all these different parameters in one table

Gretchen: Yeah, just to realize that someone has thought this through, thinking 'ok what are all the permutations you could put your mouth in and which ones do people actually use and let's organize this'

Lauren: And English just uses one subset of it

Gretchen: Yeah, every language is going to pick some subset of the sounds in this table, or if it doesn't we have to add something. So one of the cool things that you can do with the IPA because it's based on different positions the mouth can be in is adapt it to other mouth stuff. For example, Lauren Ackerman, who has the linguistics blog 'Wug Life', has made a table of emoji with their mouth positions as if they're making sounds in the IPA. So you can look at this table and she has things like the surprised emoji, which has kind of a round mouth and so that's like an 'oo' /u/ sound because you have to round your lips for that, and the 'ee' /i/ is kind of like a smile, and it is completely ludicrous but also great

Lauren: These are the important things that linguists do with their downtime

Gretchen: Yeah and the other cool thing you can do with the IPA is because you can use it to represent mouth sounds is you can write beatboxing in IPA, because beatboxing is done with the mouth

Lauren: Oh yeah, that must look amazing!

Gretchen: It looks so cool! I have a picture of it, of a chart that some beatboxing linguist researchers made

Lauren: That is awesome

Gretchen: So we'll link to that too

Gretchen: I mean we both have a lot of love for the International Phonetic Alphabet, obviously it's something we engage with a lot in all varieties of linguistic work. I think it's worth mentioning though that like, it's not perfect for everything, it can get really annoying sometimes.

Gretchen: Yes!

Lauren: Particularly, as I mentioned in terms of the fact that font encoding on computers is still a problem, you still occasionally will get proofs back from a publisher for a journal article and all the engma, they're all mysteriously like really ugly still, we haven't quite got there with them being part of the font set for every single font

Gretchen: Yeah and it can be hard to write on a normal keyboard

Lauren: Yeah it's also really annoying to write on a normal keyboard sometimes. Also especially in the vowels, like I get a bit of like IPA anxiety when I use IPA and share it with people publicly, especially for long passages of text it's not always that easy to transcribe things

Gretchen: Yeah, and as fluent writers we've gotten used to the Byzantine nature of the English spelling system and we we also know how to talk, but thinking about how you talk in a more conscious way to say 'what sound am I saying here, what sound am I saying there' -- that’s different. So it can be hard to write extended passages in IPA. I know if I make a blog post that has an English sentence or two in IPA, I'll inevitably get some corrections from a linguist or something that says “I think you're probably producing this sound here” and I'm like “Oh yeah you're right” because there's no spellcheck for IPA

Lauren: Yeah and also even if there were a spellcheck, you and I would produce different IPA transcriptions for our own pronunciation of things

Gretchen: Yeah and we're pretty good with understanding people's different pronunciations of things when we're hearing them, because I guess humans have a lot of evolutionary practice at that, but for reading things we have a fairly standardised system. I remember when I was still a young linguist back when John Wells's phonetic blog was active. He's a well-known British linguist who's involved in some of the history of the IPA and he used to keep a blog and he would sometimes write full posts in IPA. And they were really interesting for me to read, to practice but I also found them very difficult because he would be transcribing his own accent. And he was British and so he wouldn't write all these 'r' /ɹ/ after vowels that I would, so I had to figure out where all these /ɹ/ were supposed to be. I'd end up reading his post out loud to myself and hearing the British accent being like “oh yeah this is what he's trying to say”

Lauren: You would be saying it in his accent?

Gretchen: Yeah, I'd be saying it in his accent, because you can write someone's accent, which is the cool thing but also the more challenging thing about reading IPA

Lauren: Linguists also talk about broad IPA and narrow IPA transcription - so like, you can do a kind of rough-and-ready, mostly correct transcription, or actually if you are a phonetician and you're looking really closely at how people actually articulate things, you discover all kinds of things that you need to transcribe to capture the correct and accurate transcription but which people don't hear kind of consciously or would find really weird when you've represented it to them

Gretchen: Yeah or don't notice

Lauren: And there's often like phonological processes, like when you tell people that the vowel that they use in the middle of 'handbag' is actually, for native speakers if they say it quickly, it often becomes 'hambag'

Gretchen: 'hambag', like a ham sandwich

Lauren: Yeah, like a bag-o-ham. If you write it out in IPA, people are like ‘that's incorrect,’ and you're like 'well that's what you said'

Gretchen: There's a fun story about that, so English speakers also often say 'sammich' instead of 'sandwich' because the 'm' the like the nasal sound becomes like the 'w'. Except for Anglo-Italians; so in Canada there's like Italian Torontonians and Italian Montrealers and people who grew up in those communities often have a particular accent. So in that accent they say 'sangwich' instead of sammich' because in Italian the 'w' sound is kind of more velar whereas in English it's more labial and so it like pulls the nasal along with it to be a different sound

Lauren: And when you start transcribing things in really close IPA you can see those distinctions, it's really cool

Gretchen: Yeah and we often just reduce the vowels in words that we’re saying quickly or in the small unimportant function words we often reduce the vowels all to schwa or something like that

Lauren: I still remember in in my undergraduate class learning that English vowels will often change into schwa, this is the /ə/ sound in unstressed syllables and it just made me realize that for a certain set of words, that's why I was really bad at spelling them. Because you sit there and you're like 'is it amu... amuni ammunition?'. I mean, is it ammunitiON or is it ammunitiAN? That’s not a great word to use as an example but it's the first one that came to mind. For certain vowels, because it's unstressed and it's a schwa, it’s possible that any of the vowel letters could be used to spell it. So you just have to memorize what the spelling is because your pronunciation doesn't help you. And that's why I tell people I'm bad at English spelling - it’s not my fault, it's the fault of my stress system and orthography!

Gretchen: The other thing is, is sometimes English orthography gives you useful cues to distinguish between certain words or when a suffix who's added sometimes the stress changes and you have to recover vowels that are kind of there but had turned into schwa. So if you take a word like 'electric' which becomes 'electricity' - in some senses it's weird that it's spelled with a 'c' and not with a 'k' or an 's' because 'c' is completely redundant, it always makes one of those two sounds, but it does reflect that when it's 'electric' with the 'k' sound and then when you add an '-ity' to it, the 'k' sound becomes an 's' sound because that's what happens with 'c', but it doesn't happen with 'k'. Or the vowels also change - with 'electric', 'electricity' you get different sorts of vowels. So it's kind of useful to have some of this stuff there that was historically there and has changed in its sound. But it also creates this extra layer of complication. Or you can get used to speed reading because a word always looks like the same in spelling whereas if you had to speed read a whole bunch of different accents then an unfamiliar accent might be harder to speed read, but then again it's harder to learn spelling in the first place if you have an accent that's less similar to the spelling system

Lauren: But we still love the IPA for all of the occasional detriments that occur

Gretchen: We still love it and it's still useful to have it as an option to write something very specifically even if you don’t want to do that all the tim. I find if I'm meeting somebody and they have a name I haven't heard before, then I write it in IPA and then I can pronounce it correctly when I'm talking back to them. People like it when you pronounce their names correctly. 

Lauren: That's handy. The Journal of the International Phonetic Association used to accept articles written in IPA, which blows my mind. So people would write about some feature of phonetics and they would do the whole thing in the IPA. I think it very quickly became apparent that that was more labour both to produce and to consume than there was any benefit in doing that, for many of the reasons that we've already mentioned

Gretchen: Like, 'hi I'm going to write about like long vowels in Sussex' or something and that whole thing would be in IPA

Lauren: Yes, I think academics clearly had more time on their hands 50 years ago.

Gretchen: I mean, to be fair, I have played IPA Scrabble, which is like Scrabble, but you do it in IPA

Lauren: Do you just kind of argue for your own pronunciation or do you have to do it in your own dialect?

Gretchen: The way that I've done it is I combined IPA Scrabble with Descriptivist Scrabble, which is a little bit like those bluffing games, so as long as you can convince other people that it's a word then it's a word

Lauren: Ah, I like that

Gretchen: Yeah, because like, dictionaries are arbitrary authorities anyway, so with Descriptivist Scrabble you can just use whatever means you have at your disposal to convince people that it's a word. Of course choosing an obvious word like dog or something is going to be easier to convince people than saying--

Lauren: blergh?

Gretchen: Yeah, than saying “blerg is a word, honestly it means a colour kind of like grey and blue at the same time” but you can try!

Lauren: There are heaps of cool things people have done with the IPA including someone has made a set of IPA Scrabble

Gretchen: Yeah so I posted on All Things Linguistic a set of frequencies and scores that you can use for IPA Scrabble tiles, because I made it with a friend in undergrad and we had figured this out. We just cut out bits of cardboard to make them, and then some undergrads at Yale came across this post and decided to get their friend who has like a wood cutting machine to cut these out of these gorgeous wood tiles and they sent me some photos which I've also posted. You can see those on the blog, they're amazing, so yeah so someone has made a wooden IPA set that I still have not played but it’s really cool

Lauren: IPA characters also make for popular tattoos because they're quite beautiful, so I've definitely seen a schwa tattoo and I've seen a glottal stop which is a little bit like a question mark - it's our logo!

Gretchen: It is also our logo. Do people get whole words in IPA or like phrases in IPA tattooed on them?

Lauren: Mmm I haven't seen any but if anyone has we will definitely be interested in seeing it

Gretchen: If you know any IPA tattoos please send them to us

Lauren: Well I've seen a couple but not that long

Gretchen: There's also a whole version of Alice in Wonderland that's published in IPA - so this takes us back to the Journal of Phonetics - and she's like talking to the Mad Hatter and so on and it's all in IPA. The weird thing about this particular version is that this publisher decided to also have capital letters

Lauren: Huh, interesting

Gretchen: And of course they had to make capital versions for all of the IPA letters

Lauren: Wow, that's commitment

Gretchen: Because you know if you think about it capitals are redundant, they don't add any extra phonetic information to a sound, so the IPA doesn't use them. And sometimes the IPA uses small cap versions of a letter to indicate a different sound because it's an extra symbol. And so instead this person decided that no, if I'm going to write it as a book I'm going to make capitals and so yeah it's very interesting how they decided them. 

Lauren: Yeah, there you go. My IPA nerd craft activity was to cross stitch the consonant chart, I did that quite a few years ago and it's a very useful adornment in the office when you just need to quickly refer to some of the symbols. I also was going to do the vowel chart but the modern vowel chart is very very complicated and messy which is why I went with Jones's much more elegant original cardinal vowels

Gretchen: Ahh so you did a simplified version

Lauren: Yep I'll put links to those in the show notes

Gretchen: And you also did a cookie cutter, right?

Lauren: Oh yeah! I made a schwa cookie cutter for Christmas last year, just what you need, and it's a 3D printable cookie cutter, so you can also download that design and print your own and make your own gingerbread schwa or shortbread schwas.

Gretchen: That's great. There's also an IPA version of the game 2048, which came out when the game 2048 was popular - so that's the one where you like slide the tiles around and you try to combine to make bigger and bigger things. And so you start with a schwa and then you combine them to make an engma, which makes no sense phonetically, and then you combine them to make an esh. Again, this won't teach you anything about phonetics

Lauren: But it goes into more and more elaborate and less frequent forms

Gretchen: Yeah it does get to more and more elaborate stuff, like you end up with like a glottalised bilabial click or something like that

Lauren: Right, it doesn't officially teach you anything about the IPA but it is a good excuse for a distraction

Gretchen: You should not do it if you're a student and you're about to write an exam on the IPA, this is not a good way to procrastinate

Lauren: Official warning!

Gretchen: Instead you should play IPA scrabble

Lauren: Much better way!

Gretchen: Which will teach you some more about the IPA

Lauren: Or read Alice in Wonderland

Gretchen: There's also a fun sketch from the sketch comedy show John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme, which is a sketch where some characters encounter some skeletons and the skeletons are pirates but these skeletons cannot tell you that there are pirates because they don't have any lips, so they cannot produce the 'p', sound so they call themselves 'kirates',

Lauren: Awww

Gretchen: And the characters who encounter them are very confused, like 'what are you?' 'we're kirates, I said we're kirates!'. Anyway, I am probably not doing it justice but you should listen to it, we have a link to that as well

Lauren: Excellent

Gretchen: Although they don't make the point which I kept thinking, which was like 'Well, if the don't have any lips, they probably don't have any tongues either, so they probably can't produce any sounds because they're skeletons'

Lauren: They probably don't have any kind of pulmonic air flow ability

Gretchen: Like all they can do is clack

Lauren: Yup, Morse code?

Gretchen: Yeah! So skeletons can communicate with us in Morse code, there we go

Lauren: Yeah. I was going to say sign language just because I always seem to want to mention sign languages because they're always cool

Gretchen: Oh yeah please do

Lauren: it's worth pointing out that like obviously the IPA is for all spoken languages, if you haven't figured that out by this point in the podcast, I'll just make that abundantly clear. It’s for all oral languages. In individual sign languages people talk about like phonemes and morphemes in terms of hand shapes so there are some hand shapes that are possible in some sign languages that don't occur in others. And so you have a similar kind of basic feature sets that you can refer to in in sign languages. But because it uses a more complex modal articulation system and it isn't just limited to the mouth, then it's a bit more complicated cross-sign-linguistically, but they do have their own kind of equivalent of phonemes or phonetics

Gretchen: There's a couple different standardised sign transcription systems, I don't know if any of them have caught on at an international level in the same way to the IPA has, I mean to be fair there there are other phonetic transcription systems that aren't the IPA, it's just the IPA has caught on more than the others. But you can transcribe signs, there's a couple different ways of doing that. There's also the fact that sign languages have alphabets that they use to borrow words in from spoken languages among other functions and within that there are sign equivalents of at least some IPA characters, which I know because I've been to linguistics conferences and seen interpreters signing talks and they will sign a particular IPA symbol when the person who's giving the presentation is talking about that particular IPA symbol

Lauren: There you go

Gretchen: Yeah, I cannot recite any of them for you, but I remember noticing it and thinking 'huh, ok I guess that's what they're doing’

Lauren: Man, awesome! 

[Music]

Lauren: For more Lingthusiasm and links to all the things mentioned in this episode go to Lingthusiasm dot com. You can listen to us on iTunes, Google Play Music, SoundCloud or wherever else you get your podcasts. You can follow at @Lingthusiasm on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr. I tweet and blog as Superlinguo

Gretchen: And I can be found as @GretchenAMcC on Twitter and my blog is All Things Linguistic dot com. Lingthusiasm is created and produced by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne, our producer is Claire and our music by The Triangles. Stay Lingthusiastic! [Music]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

[ayanxmi]

An unfortunate call-out post I have to make.

I make it a point to not get involved in drama, I make it a point not to go after others because it’s not my thing to bash on others, I even make it a point to not drag things out into public when I can because I don’t believe there is ever a point in time where it should be necessary to confront an issue by dragging them out into the public when it can be dealt with in private. It’s been exactly five years since I made my last call out post now, and I regret having made it to this day and I was genuinely hoping for it to be my last ever...

You guys probably already know what’s coming.

I have to be dragged into it again, because there are issues I cannot avoid about this anymore. I have to call out a someone named @fiber-slayer-red.

I’m just going to call it straight from the start: I don’t know you and before yesterday, I never even had an interest in you... but that was before yesterday, and now I could care less about ever knowing you to begin with. Hell, I wish I could actually forget about you now because it’d be better not to deal with you, but you went after one of my friends to defend your bullshit, and I have a very long laundry list here of not only what you have done wrong, but also, what you have done exceptionally wrong. But I won’t be talking specifically about all of the things that my friend, Kenzie / @vcgabcnd  brought up about you in her own specific call-out post ( which you guys should read, but no less required because I will talk about them a bit to get everyone up to speed ). No, I will instead talk about you and what you have done not only to a character I have been near to and dearly love for the last four years, but what you condone in doing so...

Let’s start off with a hypothetical:

Say, you wake up one day and it’s a perfectly ordinary day, nothing at all going on save for a need to write about things, draw stuff, live life. You know, the usual things you ‘ought to do if you want to live life. That’s the gist of how you were feeling that day, but you were genuinely not looking for any kind of drama whatsoever! Hell, you were beginning to prepare for Alien Day tomorrow because that was a thing that existed. But then, you get word from a friend that there’s someone out there who they are getting extremely uncomfortable with, like, extremely uncomfortable with after stumbling on a blog that was condoning things like incest, racism, discrimination in general, rape, plagiarizing, and so forth, knowingly or not, and your friend decides to confront it in a professional way:

Quite the jump, ain’t it?

( screen caps are, of course, courtesy from @vcgabcnd )

Probably by now, you can guess this not a hypothetical.

This is a real thing, and you are, of course, a real person. You take something that shouldn’t have been taken outside of that messenger and your inbox, something that should have been dealt with professionally and coolly over private. If you just agreed to talk it through and leave in there, you would at least have my respect, even if I dislike and heavily disagree your content. We could have gone our separate ways and Kenzie’s post, and most certainly my post, would not have to be necessary. But here we are, because you felt like you had to defend yourself, and couldn’t have been bothered to have enough of a spine to deal with it on your own, so you have to drag others to do your work for you. You made this a bigger issue than it had to be, so you have only yourself to blame for what comes next.

Where to begin?

How about we start with one of your biggest offenses, the white-washing:

( caps courtesy, again, from @vcgabcnd )

You are trying to defend your position because a character... looks like they couldn’t be Asian? I am a Native American ( of the Cherokee and Blackfoot tribes from my mother and father’s sides of the family, respectively), but I don’t look it because I’ve got a little bit of Irish blood from my mother’s side of the family, does that mean I am not Native American? Because your argument pretty much is trying to defend the fact that because someone doesn’t look a certain way, you can take a character however you want? That is unbelievably condensing and extremely ignorant of you. The thing is, what you are seeing in anime is in fact a cultural issue that’s long been discussed and explained, as it is simply a fact that comes from an idealized image of what the standard human looks like to them. To you, the character of Ryuko looks Caucasian, but in actuality, she is as Japanese as they come and the creators of the series intended for her to be Japanese. And to burst your bubble, but Japanese people are actually fairly pale looking compared to other Asian ethnicities save for a typical Korean, who are paler than that.

The thing is, when Studio Trigger ( or more specifically, Imaishi, Sushio, and Nakashima ) had come together to create the series, they had a clear image that they wanted to tell a story about Japanese people, and the Japanese sensibilities, mentality, and overall culture extrudes from every single pour of the series! The only reason why she seems white to you and why you defend it is that you perceive her as white, just as the very Japanese studio who created her perceived her as without a doubt Japanese. You are defending a perception; a perception easily dissuaded by the context of the entire series.

It’s set in Japan, it’s set in a very Japanese school, with Japanese mentality, and Japanese culture, and Japanese context with everything. So clearly, they are supposed to be Japanese, unless they are specifically stated to be otherwise—like Gamagoori, who is the only character in the entirety of Kill la Kill to be described as something other than Japanese ( he’s half American, possibly of Black descent, something that caused him a lot of grief in his childhood until he was able to cope with it thanks to his mother and his uncle’s support ). So unless it is stated otherwise, the intent of the series was to create Japanese characters, and Ryuko is no doubt intended to be Japanese.

What you see is a style that they are using to express their characters, something that permeates through all of their series. Want to know why that is? Look at Little Witch Academia. 

Akko is specifically described as Japanese, whereas Lotte is described as Finnish and Sucy is heavily indicated to be Filipino. But they all look somewhat the same in the skin color spectrum. Why? Because they weren’t designed to look that way. Again, you’ve got a Japanese creator creating characters that speak to their sensibilities. They aren’t going to go out of their way to make a character look exactly the way they are described unless that is their intent, and they have quite a few colorful characters in the series that do not fit the bill of what you are preaching and are unmistakably meant to be taken one way.

This is Wangari, she’s clearly African. But more specifically, seems to be Kenyan, given that she was named after a very famous Kenyan activist. Wangari was meant to be taken one way in terms of her design because they wanted to stress a specific point, and even then, you don’t get every feature with her and it’d be hard to pinpoint where in Africa she was from without the context. Why? Because it’s not the important factor in their philosophy. The importance is strictly in the characters. They frankly aren’t interested in making the characters look their race, because the concern is with the way they are portrayed. Would you rather have a character that looked their race but had no depth and were a gross stereotype and had no interesting look to them, or would you have a character with plenty of depth who escapes the typical stereotypes of what you’d expect if it meant that it didn’t matter how they looked? Because really, Trigger’s philosophy is more with the latter than the former. 

And so is most of Japan’s philosophy in creating their stories as well. That’s why you get such fantastical-looking characters that adhere to none of the stereotypical ways you’d identify with being Asian. That’s why you get Asian characters who clearly have blonde with blue eyes and have white skin, because they don’t care about how the character should look, but how they want the character to be expressed.

Another series? How about the one my character is from, Neon Genesis Evangelion?

Again, the point stands. They are all Asian save for Asuka, who’s only a third Asian ( the other thirds being American and German ). My own character, Rei Ayanami, who’s clearly paler than the other two and by your argument should be the most likely candidate to be white, is without a doubt Asian.

And she has more argument to be an artificial being than your Ryuko because she was literally made in a lab... but she is still Asian. Why? Because her genetic donor ( Yui Ikari ) was a Japanese woman and she was kept Japanese despite being grown in a lab, because her genetics were still very Japanese. And she has the soul of a God inside of her! But yet, she’s paler than the other two, looks the most white out of the other two, and would come off as white at a glance if it wasn’t for the blue hair and the red eyes which sold her as something entirely not human...

But out of the personalities, she is the most distinctively Japanese. Hell, her personality was modeled after the idealized woman of the typical Japanese man... as a critique and exploration of that specific character archetype. Why? Because Hideaki Anno wanted to explore the idea of an idealized woman and play to both of it’s sensibilities and the downsides of having such a character. Yet, she doesn’t look all that Japanese compared to the other two, and yet here she is.

And now we come back at Ryuko...

Yes, she has paler skin than what you’d expect from a Japanese person, she has colors you wouldn’t typically associate with a Japanese person, and her personality seems to spit in the way of what you’d typically expect from a Japanese person...

But that was the point.

She’s supposed to be a Japanese delinquent, someone who spat in the face of their typical image and went against their culture and they designed her as a reflection of such. Why? Again, because it was what they wanted to explore with the character. They wanted to explore a pent-up, angry, rebellious little shit of a girl, and she was designed to reflect it.

The fact she doesn’t look Japanese further adds to what the Japanese wanted to reflect out of her despite being distinctively Japanese elsewhere. Like, her politeness when she isn’t being pushed around, her way of referring to people she has an intimacy with. She even calls people by their family names rather than first until the intimacy is established ( case in point Satsuki, and even Mako herself wasn’t exempt from it at first ).

She was a character designed to be Japanese, despite not looking it, and to interpret her as anything else spits in the face of not only the creators, but the people that actually care about this character, and the actual people she is supposed to represent.

In conclusion, yes, you are white-washing. And you are defending your choice to make Ryuko something she isn’t because you perceived her differently than she was intended despite evidence to the contrary, and not caring about who you hurt or insult in doing so!

So, frankly, you can kiss my ass when you are sitting their calling my friend racist when she is calling you out for your bullshit to defend your action to undermine an entire people by changing a character who was clearly meant to be Japanese, and making her Scottish...

So who’s the racist now?

Oh, but we aren’t done yet! Hell no. We’ve still got a shit ton of stuff to talk about, @fiber-slayer-red. Time to get really intimate here... after all, you got plenty of experience, right?

Let’s talk about your not-safe-for-work antics and, more specifically, the ones with the incest and the rape.

My friend Kenzie made the same joke when she saw this but, I was honestly having some hope when I read this! I was honestly feeling you’d have some spine again and own up to the problem... but let’s face it—we weren’t ever going to get that, were we now?

( caps again are courtesy of, you guessed it, @vcgabcnd )

Talk about one hell of a 180°, eh?

You know the saying ‘ looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck ’? Well... going with that, you pretty much described incest perfectly! And before you even try and counter it with saying they aren’t related, you pretty much said they were related because she was taken in as her ‘ mother ’ regardless! And, like it or not, most places legally define sexual relations between relatives, blood-related or not, as incest. You are thereby committing incest by having a sexual relationship play out between a ‘ mother ’ and a ‘ daughter ’, whether you thought it was meant to be taken that way or not. You are writing as though it is, and your actual threads ( shitty as they are, and I do mean they are shitty. It’s disjointed, it’s grossly misrepresentative, and you make as much sense as Stephenine Meyer trying to talk about abortion ). And, while I am sure there could be some consensual relationship between can exist between non-bloods... you are not writing that. You are writing a sexually-abusive relationship between a mother and her adoptive ‘ daughter ’ according to your setting.

But most of all, you are saying that in the context you provided that it is fine, despite flat out calling it rape, because it is. Not almost, not ‘not quite’, not even similar to—no, what you described is rape. Non-consensual, completely domineering and demeaning, and absolutely sickening RAPE is what you just described. And you are okay with it, because she winds up being forced to relent and accept that is the way it is... and would even want being fucked by her ‘ mother ’ if the knowledge of her being her ‘ mother ’ didn’t exist, despite the absolute toxicity of their relationship and how your Ragyo ( @eyesofdecadence ) is clearly pressuring your ‘ Ryuko ’ into the relationship and quite clearly being treated like shit. You describe something absolutely sickening, but don’t see it as sickening from the context you imply from both your post and the behavior I’ve seen throughout your blog.

It’s all fun and games, right?

I am honestly sickened, and that’s not getting into your interactions with your Satsuki ( @unyixldingwill )...

( caps again, courtesy of @vcgabcnd, because of course )

And this is after you stressed she was a clone, wasn’t related to Ragyo, but somehow still related to Satsuki as a sister... and you don’t even bother to correct yourself on whether you mean a genetic or an adoptive sister altogether, but it doesn’t really matter when you stress how okay you are with these interactions, despite the familial connection, blood-related or not.

Need I say more?

Okay then, let’s talk about the fact how you clearly support pedophilia then, because even if Ryuko isn’t related to her, you are still roleplaying someone who is canonically 17... and Ragyo is canonically 45. And nowhere in your info page do you stress and age difference between your interpretation and the canon, but you clearly don’t give a shit about that either. You are having a sexual relationship between a minor and a middle-age woman and not call into question just how problematic that is in your writing. Even in Japan, where the series is set, despite having a lower legal age of consent, is not above pedophilia and is heavily against it!

You don’t care about the problems you are bringing up, and therefore also spitting in the faces of people who have been raped, who are dealing with toxic relationships, or have had really, really bad encounters with people much older than them trying to hit on them... and not just from a man to a woman either. Because, like it or not, there are men out there who have been raped, abused, and hit on by people much older than them and trying to have sex with them without their consent. Regardless of who’s getting raped, you are spitting in the face of them by trivializing an issue with such callousness as you defend your right to write it without knowledge of what you are talking about.

How is it that a series with a giant dark-looking dildo monster from outer space made by the night terrors of a man that is born by impregnating someone and ripping their way out of the guy’s chest to violently stalk and assault people to death get the horror of being raped and having to deal with personal violation better than you?!

( You can tell you took me away from Alien Day and made me have to deal with your shit, so I am doubly livid )

So, before I wrap up, lemme just say you have no idea what you are talking about, and as someone who personally has a mother who was raped by her own adoptive father while her mother watched?

Not to mention you do not even tag your posts, or put them under a read more.

You are vile.

Now, here’s the piece that I’ve been wanting to write ever since I started this post...

Back to the whole cornerstone of the argument; have you ever heard of the blog @horosuru? Well, that was me! I used to be that Ryuko. I’ve had three, almost four years now, of experience knowing the character and having played the character before I dropped her for the time being because of things with school and dissatisfaction of where I was taking the character. 

I was there, and I do deeply love that fandom. I have to say I cherish the series more than any other series I’ve seen ( save for Evangelion, and a few others ), but I also knew when to step back... to question if I was taking my portrayal the right way because not only do I have a very high opinion of Ryuko, but I also have a high opinion of the characters in the series, the world, and overall the series itself. I make sure everything I do fits to the character and to the series as a whole while still having fun.

But then, you spat in my face.

You first spat in my face when you stole my icons...

And yes, you stole my icons. And if you want me to prove, I can show you.

You stole from me, and you stole from me very recently at the very least.

Honestly, while this is a minor transgression to say the least compared to all you have done as of late, this not only got me involved, but made me very, very interested in seeing what else you’ve done... and I was not disappointed by what I found.

Though, this next bit is more personal opinion than damning evidence like that last few bits, I still feel this important to stress and my biggest gripe with you and why I’ve come to write this post after you attacked my friends trying to defend yourself...

That right there, just that little bit of text is the biggest slap to the face I could of ever gotten as a former Ryuko right there; you completely disregard her entire character in just one paragraph, you completely belittle her entire character development arc, the whole reason why she is the way she is, the entirety of her motivations, even her whole character is lost because you throw it out of the way to pursue your own agenda. 

You have completely reduced the motivations of a troubled girl who was abandoned by her father, left to grow up in a toxic environment of abuse from bullies because she was different, became vengeful and extremely tired with bullshit only to be called out of the blue by the father who seemingly never wanted her to begin with, only to watch him die before her before she could even hear his last words. All her life, she’s never experienced any kind of intimate love because everyone she grew to care about or had some relationship with had betrayed her because the gang / delinquent mentalities of the groups she associated with because they no longer agreed with each other. You get an extremely bitter person who went on a warpath through every single school in the Kanto region because the girl couldn’t catch a break and her only chance she thought at being loved was lost to her now and she was searching for her father’s killer not to avenge him, but to avenge herself and the happiness she thought could never have that the killer took from Ryuko... even if it killed her. The entirety of the first half of the series, up until after episode 12, was more or less her being suicidal and knowing it, she actually didn’t care if she died so long as she found her father’s killer... and she would have died if it was not for the friendships she established with Senketsu, Mako, and everyone else along the way, which helped her realize she was loved and she had the happiness she could have always wanted.

And you just throw it all away in one paragraph and through all of your writing, you reflect very little understanding of her character without any justification as to why she is the way she is. You spent time writing this, but keep the same character ( if amplify her worst characteristics immensely ), and you can’t do that if you try and call yourself different and have a drastically different motivation and a drastically different background than what she had in the series.

It makes you sound absolutely idiotic.

And you make me cringe at the sight of one of my favorite female protagonists ever being presented so horribly. All so you can have an excuse to write your pedophilia, all so you can write your rape and incestuous threads, all so you can get away with justifying your “ Ryuko ” is white, while attempting to keep the same character.

At least when I write an verse, I try and justify the reasons why my character is the way they are. At least when I write a verse, I go out of my way to explain why a character has ended up at the same point as canon version.

I’ve seen a lot of Ryuko over the years, and I’ve come to appreciate as many as I’ve come to see. I love to see all the varying ways they portray Ryuko and the ways that friends and people I’ve come to like, much like @vcgabcnd, or @fiberfused, or @halfscissors portray the same character. It fills me with joy to see it.

Your “ Ryuko ” isn’t a Ryuko, not to me.

You are vile, repugnant, and sickening to read into, and frankly, I don’t want to read into you anymore. But I have to, and I am willing to keep an eye on you for as long as possible, because I refuse to let you not just ruin one of my favorite characters, but also I refuse to let you attack my friends any longer.

I am willing to listen, I am willing to read anything you have to say, I’m willing to hear your pleas.

But I am not going to ever forgive you for any of this, and frankly, I could care less about you as a person.

And before you call me a fascist, or a racist, or a misogynist, or even a SJW as you are so fond as to call my friends who question your content, even when they are talking in a polite manner and wanting to keep it at a reasonable level, I could care less about policing you. I could care less about telling you to get off the site. Hell, I don’t care if you even take a word of what I said to heart.

I am not doing this for you.

I am doing this for me, and the friends I care about... I am doing this for the sake of others.

Why don’t you go choke on that.

The name is Niko, and if you want to send hate my way or want to discuss this further, I’m here. I will always be here, and I am just as ready to stand my ground because I genuinely believe you are a problem, if not to others, then to my friends... and you are a problem to me, Erron.

At least I can admit that.

[mcrmadness]

Die the asks thingy: everything divisible by three:D?

Oh my gosh I feel myself so stupid - I thought that was the question and not that you meant every question that has a number divisible by three! :D (I’m happy I realized that before answering something snappy like “Everything divisible by three is divisible by three ;D” lol.) But thanks! I need to do bit of counting here but let’s see what comes out of this!

This was to the Get To Know Me Uncomfortably Well -ask thingy. So many questions that I will leave only a few before the read more link!

3. When is your birthday? It was actually just a few days ago, so in June, and I was born in 1991. 6. What’s your lucky number? 13. 9. How tall are you? Short :D Only 156cm or so. No idea what that’s in inches but not much. 12. What was your last dream about? I don’t remember last night’s dream anymore but the one I can remember was from the night before and I dreamt of someone from my fave band visiting me at my parents’ house and he was giving us his signatures, I was talking non-stop and he was then sitting on the stove eating a piece of organic sausage, and I just cringed because he hasn’t eaten meat in decades and I wasn’t sure if he knew it was meat or how he even knew it was organic meat. And then he turned into a dog and wanted to leave and I let him out and told him “But I understand, I’m also an introvert and very sensitive.” and told him to send my regards to his bandmates. 15. Favorite song? I don’t really have just one favorite, I have several from all bands I listen to and can’t really compare them to each other. 18. Do you want children? Nope. 21. Have you ever been to the hospital? Yes. Had an open heart surgery at the age of 3, which is why I had to visit the hospital a lot before and after that. I still have to go to checkups every few years or so. I have also been to the hospital when I broke my arm at the age of 14.

24. Baths or showers? Showers. Bathtubs are becoming bit of a rarity in Finland and I’ve always lived in houses or flats with a shower only, bathtubs are more common in old places that haven’t been renovated yet. I remember when I was younger and my cousins’ has a bathtub and I always wanted to use it but I didn’t really get to do that because of how expensive it would have been and how much water you have to use to even get that filled. 27. Would you like to be a big celebrity? I don’t think so. I get too overwhelmed too easily, even tho sometimes I feel like I’d like to be a bit more visible. But I still have social anxiety which is why I often say that I’m an attention whore who is afraid of being the centre of attention. 30. How many pillows do you sleep with? Just one under my head but then I have several others in my bed, mostly I’m hugging this body pillow because it just feels better in my joints etc. 33. What do you typically have for breakfast? Just bread (rye or oat) with butter, sometimes with cheese, sometimes also with cucumber and herbal salt. And some days I’m more into eating oatmeal with milk and honey. Whatever it is I eat, I always get tea (Earl Grey with honey) afterwards. 36. Favorite clean word? Clean word? What is a clean word? I don’t get it :D 39. Do you have any scars? (I swear this question is in this ask thingy twice, somewhere in the end but it did not end up in my list!) Yes, the one from the heart surgery that will be lifelong scar, right in the middle of my chest. Then something I’m not sure if it’s from the surgery too or from the time when I was a teenager and my cat of that time tried to jump on me but failed and grabbed my leg with his claws. That made a nasty wound near my groin because I didn’t take care of it properly, and it maybe left a scar. It’s kinda hard to find anymore. 42. Are you a good judge of character? I believe so. I am very intuitive and can sense all kinds of things from people. I usually see straight away from people if I will get along with them or not. But sometimes I can also hold some prejudice that makes me not see clearly and later on have to admit to myself that this time I was wrong. But usually I do see this, it’s probably a lot harder to see from people you know than from people you don’t know, since that’s how you end up becoming friends with narcissistic people. It’s so much easier to tell other people that you know what, your friend/spouse sounds like a toxic person than see it when it happens to yourself. 45. What is your favorite accent? I guess this is about English and from these I have to say Scottish. I could just listen to that accent for hours and never get tired of hearing it :D It must be the r, it sounds so familiar because in Finnish we roll the r’s very hard. Lately I’ve also grown to tell Irish accent apart from others and I like the sound of that too. But if talking of others but native English accents, I have to admit that I really like it when people speak with an accent. And I’m especially drawn to German accent and I’m able to hear native Germans based on their English accent, I always love to play this guessing game with myself in my head where I try to guess someone’s nationality if their accent doesn’t sound like native English :D Finnish is also fun to find but at the same time I hate how it sounds because it remind me of the fact that’s how I sound, too. 48. Can you curl your tongue? Yeah. 51. Are you scared of spiders? Well, yes. Except daddy longlegs, they’re fun, but they also are not spiders, so... But yes, I am scared of spiders but at the same time I don’t really mind them because in Finland we don’t have many poisonous ones and those normally don’t find their way inside the houses, so the ones inside the houses are totally harmless and more of useful. So if I spot a small spider, I let her/him stay. And we have a deal: they don’t touch me and I won’t touch them. I’m more of afraid of touching a spider (or any bug) than just seeing them, so I won’t go in panic mode just from seeing them. 54. Are you a clean or messy person? I’m messy. I’d say hygienic, but messy. I have arranged everything I can put in order but everything that I can’t or that I have to use more than every now and then, will become messy very, very soon. 57. How long does it take for you to get ready? It depends, from 15-20min to one hour? I usually set my alarm so that I can snooze for 30-60mins and then I’ll have about an hour to get ready. If I have to shower, then I add one more hour to it. During work and school mornings I usually got up so that I was ready in 15-20 minutes because it was happening every day and I needed as much sleep as I could because I don’t know how to go to bed early enough. 60. Do you talk to yourself? Nope, I don’t like hearing myself because it triggers/worsens my depersonalization. Sometimes I might say accidentally something aloud without planning that and I always scare myself :D:D:D:D 63. Biggest Fear? Hmmmmm... probably fire. Or death itself. 66. Do you like long or short hair? On myself or others? On myself I have this... well not short but also not long? Because it’s the easiest to maintain but I also think I’d look terrible with too short hair. (But I already look terrible so that probably wouldn’t change a thing.) 69. Extrovert or Introvert? Introverted ambivert. 72. Are you scared of the dark? Yes. I am able to sleep without the lights on and I actually need the room to be dark, but I am afraid of the dark, especially outside. 75. Have you ever started a rumor? I don’t think so. But if I have, then it was in my teens and totally unintentional because I can sometimes be socially very, very stupid. 78. Have you ever done drugs? Nope. 81. Can you roll your Rs? Sure thing :D I mentioned it already but Finnish has rolled r’s only so I can do that. But also Finns who can’t roll the r exist and sometimes I place my tongue wrongly behind my teeth and lose the r. 84. What color is your hair? Dyed black. My natural hair color is “golden blond”. 87. Do you keep a journal? No, unless random Tumblr posts are counted :D I don’t like journals, they just make me sad because I know I’m the only person to read them so when I write, I imagine myself being old and reading them and it makes me so sad because I imagine that no of those things like bands exist anymore and all the people and animals have died or friendships have ended and whatnot. 90. What makes you angry? Injustice. Impolite people. People who don’t listen to others. Especially when I’m told “I don’t care.” I feel so much rage inside of me that I just want to punch them and it’s scary because I am in no way violent and I don’t want to punch anyone, but I just don’t even have words for how angry that makes me feel. 93. Do you want a boy a girl for a child? I don’t want to have kids. (But I am willing to take lots of cats and they can be both boys or girls, but only so that they can’t start breeding like rabbits :D) 96. How did you get your name? If this means my irl name: My mom came up with it as a longer version, then my dad came up with my middle name and they dropped the second half of the original name. So my parents thought it was a great name for a child. 99. Color of your bedspread? I don’t have one :D:D:D:D:D I have a loft bed so I don’t need to use them anyway.

[nanalikessurveys]

Let’s start off with some basics

What’s your name? Nana

How old are you? 21 What’s your hair and eye color? I have blonde hair and my eyes are blue/green/grey

How tall are you? 163cm

What’s your relationship status? Single Alright, enough of that. Let’s move on to the random shit.

What’s your favorite song? l’ve been listening In the Morning by Nao for awhile now What does that song mean? What is the message behind it? It’s a breakup song Is it your favorite because you relate to it, or do you just like the beat? I like it for the beat and her voice but i have to say i can relate to it

Have any pets? If so, what are they and what’s their names? Two cats, Kiki and Totoro, they’re still kittens and they are the cutest

Have you ever met your idol? No, i don’t even have an idol tbh If so, were they nice or were they kind of an ass? -

What’s your favorite method of gaming? (PC, Xbox, Playstation, etc) Playstation 4 If you’re in college, what’s your major and why did you pick it? I’m not in college How’re you doing today? Today has been great, nothin really happened tho haha What color are your bedroom walls? White Describe your favorite shirt. Atm i like my pajama shirt with a Betty Boop in it lol. it’s from Zara Use this space to tell someone off. I don’t feel like doing that What’s your view on smart watches? Cool or a waste of money? I think they’re cool but i wouldn’t buy one myself What is one poster that you have hanging on your bedroom wall of? I don’t have any posters on my walls How many times have you moved in your life? Twice If you moved, do you like where you are now better than where you were? I love living where i live right now, but i liekd my former apartments aswell What’s your favorite color and why? I’d say light blue because it’s calming and i just like it ? Do you have a calendar? If so, what’s the theme? I just have my bujo and it has a ton of themes lol Have any famous person’s autographs? No Do you draw well? I can’t What type of cell phone do you have? iPhone 7 Should you be doing anything else right now or are you just bored? No If you’re in school/college, what’s your favorite subject and why? I’m not in school atm but i’ve always like english Are you a cat or a dog person? Why? Cat, i don’t really have any experience with dogs, i think dogs are cute but scary lol. and cats are just relatable haha Tell me about the plot of your favorite book. My favorite book is probably Lolita, it’s pretty controversial and ….different but oh well. long story short it’s about a middle aged man who falls in love with a 12-year old girl Do you wear glasses or contacts? I sometimes use contacts, my eye sight is not super bad, i could handle living without them but i prefer not to What do you think about horror movies? I love them If you love them (I do), what’s your favorite? Misery, Carrie or the Hannibal-movies, especially Hannibal Rising Got any cool Christmas presents picked out for family or friends yet? Nooo not yet and it’s stressing me out Do you do Black Friday shopping or wait for Cyber Monday? I try to avoid those because i can’t handle big crowds lol Have any mental illnesses? Yeah

What’s your favorite word and why? I don’t have one What is the most expensive thing you own, and what is it? My sofa for sure Did you buy that item yourself? I paid it half with my mom Where do you work and what is your postion? I don’t work right now but i might next spring!! i was offered some coaching job awhile ago How often do you cuss? Now that i live alone i’ve started to swear ALOT when i’m alone lol, i don’t know why What type of car do you drive, if any? I don’t drive Are you happy with it? If no, what’s your dream car? I don’t have a dream car Do you have a lot of social media accounts? Which ones? Tumblr, Youtube and Instagram What is your favorite genre of music? Just something chill Does your family have holiday traditions? If so, what are they? Not really If you’re in a relationship, are you happy with it? I’m not How long have you been with your significant other? - Do you like psychology? (It’s my college major). I would want to study it if i was smart enough loool What is something your state is popularly known for? We don’t have states Do you like to do craft projects? If so, what’s the coolest thing you made? No, i’m not good at those Do you watch sports or do you think they’re overrated? No they are nto overrated, i like watching some What’s one occupation you think gets paid too much and doesn’t deserve to? Idk Do you straighten your hair? Not anymore, i used to when i was in 7th-9th grade Ever dyed your hair a color that isn’t natural? (blue, pink, etc) Red, pastel pink and pastel blue How’s your relationship with your parents? I’m really close to my mom, i don’t see my my dad that often but we have a good relationship still, it’s sad that we don’t talk much Do you still live with them or do you have your own house? I live on my own in an apartment 

What’s something you are currently saving money for to buy? Saving in general Do you smoke/vape? If so, what brand do you smoke/what device do you use? No Ever done drugs? No Tell me one of your worst habits. Swearing? spending too much money on stupid things? What’s a weird quirk you have that no one else you know does? Hmm, can’t think of any i want to share here haha If you game, what type of headset do you use? I don’t

What type of computer do you own, and do you like it? It’s a Lenovo laptop and it’s pretty good What’s the thing that annoys you the most? Mean and ignorant people What brand of TV do you have? Philips Are you excited for Christmas? (It’s December 1st today when I made this) Yeeeeeees i love christmas Tell me about your favorite vacation you’ve taken. I loved the vacation to Cyprus, the views were amazing and the people were so friendly. i was there with my mom and i think our relatinoship got even stronger

Tell me something cool about yourself. I guess i’m not cool since i can’t think of anything Did/do you get good grades in school/college? I was average and below average What’s your ringtone on your phone? Just default iphone ringtone What’s your favorite store to shop in? I don’t know If you won the lottery, what is the first thing you would buy and why? I have no idea How long have you had a Bzoink account? I don’t have one

Ever been to Field of Screams? If so, what’s your favorite attraction? No, i don’t know what that is Do you own a Polaroid camera? No Do you have hardwood floor in your room or carpet? I have laminated floor It’s a Saturday night, what are you typically doing? Chilling at home, eating and taking surveys, maybe watch tv

Do you have a lot of friends or do you not have any at all? I have one friend What’s your all time favorite movie and why? I’d say Carrie

How many blankets do you sleep with at night? With two now that it’s winter What’s the last TV show you watched? Did you enjoy it? This one finnish “talk show” i don’t know if it really counts as a talk show but anyway, it’s pretty funny Do you prefer cable TV or do you use Netflix? I use tv What is your dream job and why? Something to do with criminal psychology Do you think you would be a good therapist? I would like to think that What’s your favorite brand of clothing? Adidas or Nike

Did you like this survey? Yes i did

[colorfulsuitdestiny-blog]

Roanoke Virginia Cheap car insurance quotes zip 24005

"Roanoke Virginia Cheap car insurance quotes zip 24005

Roanoke Virginia Cheap car insurance quotes zip 24005

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Is it called a fix it ticket when you get a ticket for not having insurance in California?

Is it called a fix it ticket when you get a ticket for not having insurance in California?

I have just started an apprenticeship and wondering if I would be able to afford a car and insurance?

I have recently just started an apprenticeship in march which is only 12 months long, however there may or may not be a job at the end of it. I get paid 2.65 an hour, 5 days a week 9AM-5.30PM and I currently am doing my driving lessons but I am sick of relying on other people for lifts. Will i be able to afford a car and insurance on this pay? I'm really not bothered what car I can get as long as it gets me to work and back.""

Can you get a car loan under your name and the car insurance under someone else?

you see if i get the car loan and the insurance under my name then ill be paying about 600 bucks a month in insurance and thats way to much!!i can have the loan under my name but would it be allowed to have the insurance part in some one else?

Firm choice has lower grades than my insurance?

My firm choice has lower grades than my insurance choice. My firm choice is 240 points or CCC but my insurance is BBC. Will this effect which university i go to? If i was to get the grades BBC will i still get into my firm choice?

""What is the average malpractice insurance cost for a general radiologist practicing in Atlanta,GA?""

What is the average malpractice insurance cost for a general radiologist practicing in Atlanta,GA?""

Car Insurance for a 2007-08 Mustang?

Can anyone give me an estimate on about how much a 17-18 year olds car insurance would be if they were to drive a 07-08 ford mustang please.

Do teens need insurance when they are issued their learner's permit?

And if so what is the cheapest, most discounted method to get insurance?""

""Insurance rates for a 21 year old male, CA?""

I got my license when I was 19. I've been driving for two and a half years and barely found out I am not on my parents insurance. I was planning on buying a brand new car but I am now worried about insruance rates. I know they'll be high, but how high. I know insurance rates are based on age and experience. Is it likely I will be charged more because I have never been insured? Last time I checked for insurance I got calls for about 5 weeks straight. This time I don't want to give out any personal information. My question basically is will never previously having insurance before affect my rates?""

Health insurance for diabetics in Ohio?

I guess Ohio is one of 4 states which is not required for it's insurance companies to cover diabetes. I am a type 1 diabetic, and as of now I no longer have insurance. Does anyone know of any insurance companies who do cover diabetics in Ohio....I'm feeling kind of scared about not having insurance right now.""

Will my car insurance rates go up if i crashed a car as a valet?

backed into another car as a valet. My company has insurance. The insurance exchanged was my bosses, and the other 2 parties involved (car I was in and the car that was hit). My license number was taken down and I received a traffic ticket. Oh well. My real concern is does MY insurance ever find out about this? Or is it all on the company's insurance?""

Whats the different between Car Insurance and Breakdown Cover?

Thought It should be normally include in the Car Insurance.

Help with car insurance claim process?

A few days ago I scraped a co-worker's vehicle in our work parking lot. She wasn't in a proper parking space, but whatever, it was clearly my fault. I am paying for repairs to her car. I have pictures of my vehicle after the accident, but not of hers, because she left for the day while I was trying to find out who I had hit and find her in the building. I haven't brought this up with my insurance company yet. I initially thought I was going to be paying for scuffs to be buffed out of her back bumper, which wouldn't be cheap to fix but I figured it'd be inexpensive enough that I wouldn't involve my insurance. Today she handed me an estimate for $600+ for bumper replacement and paint work, etc. Fine. It was my fault. I'll eat it. But if I now want to involve my insurance, what do I do? Do I need her insurance info to file a claim? If I call up my insurance, does her insurance have to also become involved? I'm not even fixing my car - the fender's messed up but it's an old car and cosmetic damage doesn't bother me. I don't know what my insurance deductible is...if it's $500+ then I guess I won't bother and will just pay up in cash.""

The least expensive type of life insurance is _____.?

whole-life insurance term insurance endowment life insurance limited-payment life insurance

Will Florida drivers have to have car insurance?

do you need to have PIP insurance after october 1, 2007?""

Car insurance quotes?

About how much would car insurance cost for 16 year old teenage driver in florida. The car would possibly be a 2005 convertible.

Which car's owner will pay more for car insurance?

Car insurance costs more for cars that can accelerate faster than 10 mph per second. Which car's owner will pay more for car insurance? A. A car that accelerates from 0 to 50 mph in 4.5 seconds. B. A car that accelerates from 0 to 40 mph in 5 seconds. C. A car that accelerates from 0 to 70 mph in 9 seconds. D. A car that accelerates from 0 to 70 mph in 8.5 seconds.

Where is the best place to get cheap car insurance for young drivers in the uk?

Hey everyone, ive tried all the usual avenues to find cheap(ish) car insurance for my 18 year old cousin and to be honest they are coming back with ridiculously expensive quotes, does anyone know of there are any companies in the uk that do offer a good deal?""

Roanoke Virginia Cheap car insurance quotes zip 24005

Roanoke Virginia Cheap car insurance quotes zip 24005

Can someone explain health insurance to me?

We have never had health insurance. We really need to get it but cannot afford it. However, we are going to spend every dime we have to get it so we can go to the doc. Problem is--isn;t it more costly to get it because you have to pay the monthly fee plus atleast 80% of the bill and the doctors jack the bills up if you have insurance? Also, what would u estimate it would cost for a family of three(2 adults with one baby) no problems in the past, healthy, non-smokers and any companies you would recommend?""

Whats up with renter's insurance?

is there home insurance for apartment dwellers?

What types of risks can be transferred in insurance?

What types of risks can be transferred in insurance?

""Does the Pass Plus, bring your car insurance down, if so how much?""

my daughter has just passed her driving test and is now looking to buy her 1st car, so will the pass plus bring the insurance down""

What v8 is cheap on insurance for an 18 year old?

I'm an 18 year old guy on my parents' insurance and I have a 2003 Mitsubishi lancer that's probably not going to last me that long so I am looking for another car. I would like a v8 because I like the sound and I want descent performance but I don't want it to be too much on insurance. I was thinking about a Lincoln ls v8. Does anyone have any other ideas? Thanks.

Whats car insurance??????

im 17 and dont know much about it but they said i needed car insurance before i can buy a used car. how do i get car insurance and what happens once i have it..how much does it cost?

How much higher is insurance for a camaro z28?

i was wondering what the real world difference is between an early model fourth-gen camaro z28 versus a later model more modest car, such as a 2004 cavalier or 1999 acura CL? i have gotten quotes online but there doesnt seem to be much difference and everyone hypes the insurance for these kinds of cars so much. i am 16 and a guy so insurance is high in general. thanks.""

Luxury cars with low insurance rates?

I was wondering what types of luxury cars would have the lowest insurance rates? I would prefer either a sedan or coupe. So in the category of luxury sedan/coupe, what would be the lowest insurance rate? I don't care about the price of the car itself, I just want one that doesn't have me paying a bunch every month, non-stop. My definition of low is around the neighborhood of $60, preferably lower obviously. If there is no such thing, then please tell me the closest to it. Thank you in advance.""

What is the cheapest car insurance company right now!!!?

What is the cheapest car insurance company right now!!!?

Car Insurance and good grades ?

I hate All state as insurance. I am in college, how high does my GPA have to be and also how much do they lower insurance for having good grades?""

Do you think health insurance is necessary? Why?

Do you think health insurance is necessary? Why?

Reviews of Gerber life insurance?

Does anyone have any personal experience with Gerber life insurance, including the claims process? This is for a whole life insurance policy for an adult.""

Why does Infinity car insurance suck?

everytime i called them for help they always sounds like they are mad and rude at the same time, and they don't even care about helping me out just by the sounds of their voice!!! my question is what a good car insurance out there???""

What would auto Insurance cost me?

I am 16, live in Toronto. I am a male, and none of my parents have insurance so I will be on my own. I have an 88 avg in school. And I will look for a car with low insurance prices and that is safe.""

I cant find car insurance that will cover a learner driver and a passed driver for a month?

I am trying to pass my test as soon as possible but didn't have access to a car to do extra practice between lessons. So I have bought a car before I have passed so that I can go out practising with my mum. However I cant find any short cover (1 month) insurance which will insure us both, they seem to only do learner driver insurance which has to be bought on top of the normal insurance OR only insure drivers with a full license. However buying both together is over 300 for only 28 days for the ones I checked. Can anyone come up with an affordable way to practice in my own car? Thanks""

""Motorcycle with no License, Insurance, or Registration. ?""

I have a coworker that rides his bike without insurance, a license, and a suspended registration. He's under the impression that, at worst, he'll only be fined. What are the possible consequences if he is stopped by a police officer in the State of California or Oregon?""

What kind of liability insurance do gyms have?

I was playing some basketball on a guest pass at the gym yesterday. I rolled my ankle and just left thinkin it wasnt that bad, decided to sleep on it. turns out, it's a lot worse than I thought and I can't even walk on it today. I dont have any health insurance, or any means to pay these medical bills right now. Do gyms usually have insurance for things like this or are you on your own?""

How much money can I expect to recieve from my insurance company after my car is declared a 'total loss'?

I was rear ended (not at fault) the other day my car was totaled. My car was a red 1999 Ford Taurus SE with 146,000. At first i was happy it was gone, but im now starting to think im not going to receive very much for it from my insurance company. It had recently failed the state(MA) inspection and needed some work (about $500 to pass). I looked up the Kelley Blue Book private party value in fair condition and it gave me an estimate of $1,450.... Really? Thats it?""

Is the more smaller the car engine size the cheaper the car insurance will be?

Is the more smaller the car engine size the cheaper the car insurance will be?

How much would my insurance cost if self-insured?

How much would my insurance cost if self-insured?

Are SUVs more expensive to insure?

I know you can't tell me for sure whether or not one will be more expensive. But, generally speaking is a small SUV such as a Ford Escape more expensive to insure than say a midsized car like a Honda Accord.""

How can I get my my insurance to pay for my nose job?

I had deviated septum surgery last Spring and now I want rhinoplasty. My nose was fairly large before my surgery now I have an even larger bump on my nose. I know that my insurance ...show more

Im 17. How much should my parents expect to be paying for my car insurance?

Im 17, Soon I will be driving a 96-00 Acura Integra GS-R. I will be insured under my parents AAA policy. How much should my parents expect to pay?""

Why is insurance for a 2007 Ford Mustang convertible so expensive?

I recently got insurance for my car and they wanted 500$ a month for it, Cheapest one I found was around 300-400$ which when you think about it, is still pretty expensive...""

Can you have more than one car insurance policy?

Okay, imagine the situation. Mum's got a car (A), but it's too expensive to run. Son has just bought a car (B) but doesn't want to drive it much until next year. Mum's already got an insurance policy on Car A, she wishes to take out an insurance policy for Car B with another company, but still keep her insurance policy on Car A with her old insurer. So Car A - Insurance Policy A - Mum driver. Car B - Insurance Policy B - Mum driver, Son named. Many thanks.""

Roanoke Virginia Cheap car insurance quotes zip 24005

Roanoke Virginia Cheap car insurance quotes zip 24005

""So, is a MAZDA 3 sedan good for first time driver?""

insurance cost?( 19 and a female, live in sf) my dad could own the car and put me as co owner so that insurance wud be lower..hmm? fuel cost? and the cost of the car( including taxes and everything else) please help!""

Rental car insurance?

I am going on vacation, and I need to rent a car to drive. I have insurance through state farm, but dont have full coverage. If I am renting, I would like to have full coverage on the rental car, BUT the insurance from enterprise is WAY TOO expensive. I will end up doubling the price for the week. Does anyone know of any other ways to get insurance for a rental car without going through the rental car agency? I keep hearing about something called Unlimited Non-Owned Car Coverage, but I dont think state farm has that because I dont see it on their website. Any suggestions would be a great help.""

How to get cheaper car insurance?

Im 17 and looking to buy a ford ka. I have looked at quotes online with me as the main driver and using my parents as named drivers to try and lower the premium but the cheapest i have found on price comparison sites is 2100 for the year. I was wondering if anyone could help me and knew anything that could reduce the payment. Many thanks for your time, sam.""

Really dumb questions about car insurance?

This is my first time buying a car, and I have a question that may be kind of dumb. I live in Illinois, so it is illegal to drive a car that's uninsured. I don't have a car now, so I don't have a way of transferring insurance or whatever. - What do I do when I find a car and buy it and need to take it off the lot? I don't know what kind of car I'm getting, so I can't really get the insurance ahead of time. - If I did get pulled over for whatever reason, would the police be understanding if I just bought the car? - How quickly do insurance companies usually get you covered over the phone (particularly, Progressive)? - Do you have to pay a deposit? When? - When would my first actual payment be if I pay once every 6 months? I know these are dumb and basic, but please understand that I have never ever bought a car or gotten car insurance.""

Best insurance companies for 17 year old passed my test?

ok ive pased my test and i gettin a car this week and i need some insurance on the car obviiously lol, well basically whats the cheapest car insurance all you 17 year old have and who is it with, please :)""

Best car insurance out there?

im gonna be 18 soon, have had my licenses for a while, never been put on her insurance cause she wont let me drive. i want to buy a car but i don't want to buy a car and can't afford the insurance make about 30 bucks a week. whats the cheapest car insurance for a person with a 3.0""

Average Motorcycle insurance?

thinking about getting one. best route take as far as insurance, bikers course, type of bike. its my first bike.""

What's the Cheapest Car insurance for First Time Driver?

I just wanna have the cheapest car insurance. I dont need the insurance cover anything. just the cheapest! which company would be the best except geico, progressive or Liberty Matual? Something else?""

How much is ur car insurence a month?

im 16 and im not getting my car till 17 or 18 and i need to know how much money insurance is a month. i just need an estimate. Thanks

Which insurance company offers the cheapest car insurance for new and young drivers?

Which insurance company offers the cheapest car insurance for new and young drivers?

Car insurance estimate dispute?

I recently was bumped into in my parking lot and am trying to settle with their insurance company for how much the repair fee would be. I took it to one place and it was around $2100 with damage to both the front and back door (they said the front door would need to be replaced). I spoke with their insurance company and they said I needed to take it to their place to have an estimate. I took it to their place, and the guy asks me if I was going to have it repaired their or somewhere else. I told him I would get it repaired somewhere else, which meant I would get a check he told me. He inspected it and told me that there was a 50-50 chance it would need to be replaced on the front door so his estimate was only for $1300. He said if I go get it fixed and they say it is more, that their insurance will pay the difference. This sounded to me like they are trying to say if you want the cash you only get $1300. What should I do? Should I try to negotiate with their insurance company for the difference or get more estimates that say I would need the new door? I would like the check, but I feel like I am getting ripped off since it would take more to actually fix it more than likely.""

Temporary 2 week car insurance for 21 yr old?

My boyfriend i s coming over from australia and has an aussie driving licence, we are thinking of borrowing a car from my friend who is a second hand car salesman and hence has many cars hanging about but which are uninsured. Does anyone know if it is possible to borrow one of the cars (which are road taxed) and insure it for me for 2 or 3 weeks only (21, had a driving licence for 3 years) or my boyfriend (26, had an aussie licence for 8 years)?? Which company can we use?! Please help ASAP!""

Do car insurance quotes go up daily?

I am being quoted much more now than a fortnight ago

Insurance help at 18 years old?

hello i am a 18 years old i am lucky enough to have a very good job so i can afford to spend alot of money for a 18 year old on a car i am looking to spend around 11k in all even tho the cheaper the better its not buying the car that is the problem its the insurance on the cars i want to buy all being around 4k for any half decent cars ?? any help would be grateful for some facts and figures .... cheers alex

How much would insurance cost?

Im 16, and getting a 49 - 50 cc moped, i wanted to know how much the insurance would cost? it would be kept at a secure garage. Just give me a rough idea please, just an estimate?""

What car ins is the cheapest? in california...?

What car ins is the cheapest? in california...?

Health Insurance Vs No Health Insurance?

Joe is currently unemployed and without health insurance coverage. He derives utility (U) from his interest income on his savings (Y) according to the following function: U = 5(Y1/2) Joe presently makes about $40,000 of interest income per year. He realizes that there is about a 5 percent probability that he may suffer a heart attack. The cost of treatment will be about $20,000 if a heart attack occurs. a. Calculate Joes expected utility level without any health insurance coverage. b. Calculate Joes expected income without any insurance coverage. c. Suppose Joe must pay a premium of $1,500 for health insurance coverage with ACME insurance. Would he buy the health insurance? Why or why not? d. Suppose now that the government passes a law that allows all peoplenot just the self-employed or employedto have their entire insurance premium exempted from taxes. Joe is in the 33 percent tax bracket. Would he buy the health insurance at a premium cost of $1,500? Why or why not? What implications can be drawn from the analysis?""

How do I get insurance for my baby?

I'm 19 years old and pregnant and I've come across the problem of finding insurance for my baby. I am currently covered under my mom's health plan and can stay covered through college. Unfortunately, my baby won't be able to be covered under her plan seeing as how she will not be the legal guardian. Furthermore, I won't be able to get my own plan because I will not be working and will stay a dependent of my parents. Any suggestions as to the best route I can take to insure my kid? Thanks! Oh, and I also live in California if that makes a difference.""

How long have i had car insurance?

Can someone please tell me where I stand on the following: I have held a provisional UK license since 4/4/06 after a few months of driving lessons I took out insurance on my vehicle with Virgin so that I could drive accompanied by my parents. This policy was taken out on 31/7/06. On 9/11/06 I past my driving test. On 31/07/07 I renewed my car insurance with virgin and with the 31/07/08 soon approaching I must again renew my car insurance. The problem is I will in fact have had two year no claims on 31/07/08 which Virgin recognises, however when I go on their and any other online car insurers websites it says that my no claims (2 years) cannot exceed my full license period (1 year 9 months) So the question is, will my car insurance be recognised by other insurers as been held for two years?""

""Can Doctors offices charge you, when they lost your medical insurance card?""

I got my appendix removed in California and used the state insurance at the time (since I was low income and never had insurance). All the hospital bills are payed for; however, the surgeon has charged me an additional 1,445.00. I never even saw the surgeon after the hospital. I went in for follow-ups to his office but would always miss him. I gave my insurance card to front desk girl and she told me she didn't need it but just in case she made a copy. Now two years later I come to find out that there is this bill. What can I do?""

Which are the top 10 insurance company of USA?

I would like to know about top 10 insurance companies of US. Because I want to buy a life insurance policy. Before buying this I would like to compare the insurance quotes of top 10 insurance of companies.

Car insurance......Anyone else's gone up this year?

I'm still driving the same car and living at the same address, and I also took off 2 other named drivers from my policy to try to minimise the cost but it's still gone up by about 60 pounds......""

Cheapest place to get motorbike insurance?

hello im looking to get a skyjet125 ive got my CBT, this is my first bike where is the cheapest place to get insurance ? cheers""

""Caught speeding, 17 years old, Ohio, effect on insurance rates?""

I just got my first ticket after driving for about 8 months, was in my new car and acted like a complete idiot, was going 84 in a 65 mph zone, what's a good estimate on how much my insurance rates will go up? Percentages or actual amounts would both be helpful.""

Insurance/car question?

The title of my car is in my parents name but my husband and i are the primary drivers and we get in a wreck would we be held responsible because we are the ones with the insurance or would my parents be because they are the ones on the title??

Roanoke Virginia Cheap car insurance quotes zip 24005

Roanoke Virginia Cheap car insurance quotes zip 24005

How much would full coverage insurance cost?

I want to get a car loan to buy this 2004 Hyundai Tiburon. I'm 18, I've been in one accident. Around how much a month?""

Car Accident Advice: Someone hit me and doesn't want to go thru insurance?

Someone recently hit my car while it was parked across the street from my house. I almost thought it was a hit and run till I found their business card on my windsheild. I called her and she said she'd rather not go through her insurance but pay me directly for the damage to my car. I have been in accidents where I was hit but usually the other person just gives me their insurance info and I call them and get my car fixed fast, no problems. So I was already a little hesitant about agreeing to this, but I figured as long as it gets fixed it should be alright. So I did like she said and got an estimate from a body shop, then called her with it. Right off she said, Oh thats really high,(almost a 1000) and I reminded her that the damage is pretty severe, she backed into my rear passenger door, now entirely dented and scratched up. I know the estimate is fair compared to other work I 've had in the past. So anyways, I thought she'd decide right there like she had told me before, if it was affordable for her she'd pay me if not she'll go through her insurance. So since she acted like that was so much money I asked well does that mean you want to just use your insurance? She still sounded unsure and said she needs to figure this out. So it's been another day since that, still waiting, she did call again and say she's running it by her insurance agent to see which way would be better for her, insurance or pay me off. So I am still waiting, it's only been a few days since the accident but I am getting anxious because I kind of wish she would just give me her insurance info and go through it, my car would probably be in the shop already and this would be taken care of. But instead I 'm waiting for her. She still has not given me her insurance info, I don't have her license plate # or even what her car looks like, just a business card. And its a big inconvenience because I know I will be without a car for a at least 2-3 days, and even if she pays me she sure didn't mention a rental car. So my question is am I being too nice by waiting for her to decide whats best for her... and even if she wants to pay me should I have gotten her insurance info, like is that my legal right. So how long should I wait for her to decide?? Any advice would be greatly appreciated as obviously I should act fast. Thanks""

Cheapest car insurance????

looking for a cheap car insurance guys, plz help""

Will car insurance cover in case my friend crashes my car?

Will all kinds of car insurance cover a case when a friend borrows a car and gets in an accident? What do i need to look for in my policy to make sure that my car is covered even if someone else other than me drove my car.

UK car insurance with a US license.?

I'm 18 years old, just returned to the UK from a 7 year stay in the US. while in the US I got my license at the age of 16. and accumilated 2 years no claims bonus. for the first few weeks back in the UK I had insurance through Ecar. but had to terminate that today through a misunderstanding with their terms and conditions W/ No claims bonus. what would be the best insurance provider to go through? I used compare the market before and the cheapest (minus e car.) was 3500 a year. I am employed and own my own car (2002 fiat punto) and I plan on staying in the UK.""

""How much does a Cadillac converter cost? And, sound I report it to the insurance company?""

I busted a hose on my radator (which I didn't know at the time) so I left the car until I could get it towed away. When I returned someone had stolen my cadillac converter out of my car (which again I found out later). How much does one cost? What should I do? And, should I report it to the insurance company being as though the parts and the macanic work would probably be outragous? Please help me I really don't know much about cars and I don't want to get taken buy an auto part. Thanks""

How much will car insurance be for a sixteen year old girl who lives in California?

My parents don't have the money (plus they don't want to) to pay for my insurance, so even though i'm turning seventeen this year, I still don't have my license. I'm trying to get a job, though, and was wondering if anyone could give me a ballpark for how much it'll cost a year...I get good grades, I know some places will give you discounts if you have good grades...so yeah. :)""

Next to oil and gas prices are car insurance prices too high anyone agree?

Whats the deal the government wants everyone to participate in paying for auto insurance yet the prices are rediculous what happened to buying a car and registering it thats it? Does the government think about Americans servival aside from gas, food, children, mortgage blah blah blah............. or do people vote for laws blind folded????""

What can I do about auto insurance price gouging?

I backed into someone in a parking lot. Thay had a claim off $1000. this is my first and only accident. My insurance company say's because I was moving it's a collision and my insurance has doubled. this is wrong.

Car insurance rates in florida?

I lent my friend my car in florida and the car broke down he called for assistance and the tow truck hit the car will my car insurance go up i have geico

How much would these cars cost to run per month?

renault clio 1.2... citron Saxo.... corsa (old) including tax , m.o.t and insurance and watever you have to pay for :) x""

Totaled my car and my insurance company will no cover car rental?

I have Mercury car insurance and I pay for ful coverage, I just totaled my 12 month old Camry and now my agent is telling me that I do not have access to a rental car, that the only ...show more""

Can u use your parents health insurance without them knowing?

i wanna go to the doctors without my parents knowing using there insurance. is it possible? and i live in california and im 19 years old. help:(

Car insurance policy - car purchase date?

So I am currently trying to buy car insurance for myself, I am trying to get the insurance in my name so I can get no claims. The car is my mums however, and it is in her name, but the insurance can let me choose an otpion that says someone else owns the car. It asks when the car was purchased; now when my mum bought the car it didn't have a logbook, and we didn't get one for a year while it was sat at the back of our house. The date on the V5 is 2012 but technically we bought the car in 2011. Should I list the date we bought it or the date listed as registered on the V5? It makes a 250 different in the insurance quote for some reason o.O""

Gettng bike insurance in chennai?

am from chennai..want to take 2 wheeler bike insurance..used bike..2006 model pls advise me on best insurance company that offers reasonable rate.. i currently have united insurance policy,but feel it is costly""

What is the name of the cheapest possible car insurance ? and how much ?

i need full coverage cost on two cars

How much is a ticket for not having car insurance in California?

Freeway Insurance just called me and told me that my insurance was not paid last month and that it got cancelled. I could swear that I did pay and my bank overview says I did pay. This is the second time they call me to tell me that. I think those ****** bastard just want money. So I'm just wondering how much a ticket cost because I'm gathering money to open another policy but with another Insurance company.

""What happens if you have health insurance through your job, then have to get new health insurance?""

If you have health insurance with your employer then quit, how can you get new health insurance with your new employer because aren't they going to see all your pre-existing history from your old insurance company?""

Does anybody know where to get cheap auto insurance for a 18year old?

Does anybody know where to get cheap auto insurance for a 18year old?

Scooter insurance - where can i get cheap scooter insurance for my 16 year old son ?

My 16 yr old son is being quoted stupid prices - he has a 49cc and has past his cbt. can anyone suggest a company who specialise in young riders ?

Are private pilots required to buy insurance for their planes?

Are private pilots required to buy insurance for their planes?

What do I need to do for self employed medical insurance?

I am 43 I am married. My hubby has medical and I'm on his policy. He has retirement. I will be on his retirement. But he is 44 what happneds to me being self employed, if something should happen to him. Will I still get his retirement money? Will I still be covered medical? I am looking at an IRA account at the local bank next week. I have only been self employed for 5 years. I have worked for an employee up until now. I need help. I need to plan for the retirement years. Thank you for your time. Plus we both have life insurance incase of death. If he goes first I'll have money to pay for the house. But what then? By the time I'm too old to work how will I buy things?""

Do beneficiaries have to pay taxes on life insurance policies?

Do beneficiaries have to pay taxes on life insurance policies?

Car insurance costs help?

I'm getting a car. Is there some website that will tell me or help me figure out how much my car insurance will be every month?

First car accident - forgot to get insurance info?

I just got into my first car accident ever today. I have his license #, plate #, address, cell number, but I totally forgot to get his insurance info. The CHP officer did come and file a report though. Do I still need to get it or amI ok? Am I supposed to report to my insurance company now or wait until 5-10 days after the report is finished? Sorry, this is my first time so I don't know anything. My car is is a 95 Honda and he drives a Lexus. There were only some scratches on his car (very minor damages) and mine is pretty bad. Any advice would be appreciated. Happy Vday to me. =[""

Roanoke Virginia Cheap car insurance quotes zip 24005

Roanoke Virginia Cheap car insurance quotes zip 24005

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lv-travel-insurance-retrieve-quote-alfred-wright/"

[usstatesofsong]

Countdown to #Eurovision: Yearly Reviews - 1982

We’re approximately three months away from the next edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, and while we’re waiting for more of the 2017 songs to be released before reviewing them (as we did last year), we’re going to revisit Eurovision song contests from the past and rank our favorites in each contest.

Welcome to Harrogate! Well, where is that? In North Yorkshire, apparently... as if all people should know where that is, of course... It’s in England, where I participate in watching the last contest that I’m not too familiar with - for a while, that is. From 1983-1996, I’m well-informed about the songs and the presentation. However, I’m curious enough to watch this edition in full; it’s only a little over two hours long. British efficiency – but of course! Jan Leeming (I think that’s her name) would lead a very structured and quick songs presentation and voting sessions; the first song is already starting about 8-9 minutes in! When we get to 1997, it’ll be an entirely different era of Eurovision starting to take form, and I’m interested in seeing that, too. Her French is a bit awkward and clumsy, but so will be 1983’s English and French, soo… what can we say. They didn’t try to pull anything crazy, but the presentation of 1982 wouldn’t be very memorable as a result. Moreover, there were only 18 countries – Greece, Italy, and France all jumped ship. For shame!

Again – I only know a few of these songs. I also know that everyone’s immediate reaction to Bucks Fizz winning the year previously was to start dancing and actin’ a fool. But I’m ever-so-eager to learn what else will surprise me here. Let’s go!

(Click the titles of the songs below to listen to the full-length songs.)

1. PORTUGAL – Doce, “Bem-Bom” - 13th place, 32 pts

God damn, Portugal! For two straight years you sent really fun and interesting music! They don’t usually do ‘wacky’ entries, but this was as close as they got back in that day. I love the thumping drums that keep the song moving and interrupt this from being a true disco-beat. The four ladies who sing the song have fun dance moves, all black and white ensembles, and the “Hey!” shout followed by two claps during the choruses enhances this song. The only thing I could fault them for is the vocals themselves, which are very basic. It’s just fun, and a great start to the contest.

2. LUXEMBOURG – Svetlana, “Cours apres le temps” - 6th place, 78 pts

With a name like Svetlana, I’m going to guess she is not a native Luxembourgian. Well, whatever – she’s beautiful, and her voice soars high into falsetto-land. High and above the heavens, at the end! She is attempting to fly like a bird and starts prancing like a ballerina. I’m not sure how I feel about the song itself, given it’s simple pop feel, very typical for that era. But I think it holds up well for what it’s setting out to accomplish. This is much different, and much better than, their 1981 entry – but they would perfect it even more in ’83.

3. NORWAY – Jahn Tiegen & Anita Skorgan, “Adieu” - 12th place, 40 pts

Gah, they’re back!  Actually I read somewhere something interesting about this – apparently Norway was getting tired of being relegated so lowly in the voting, so they put forth some ridiculous amounts of effort in ensuring the lyrical and musical quality of the song would sound less ‘Norwegian’ and be more accessible. I think it paid off! I am fonder of this than Luxembourg’s song already, and it’s simple but steady… at least, steadier than Jahn’s microphone. Calm down, dude, no need to be nervous! It’s cute, it’s cuddly, and very loving. Good on you, Norway!

4. UNITED KINGDOM – Bardo, “One Step Further” - 7th place, 76 pts

Alright, so you’re at home in the UK, watching your act take the stage and thinking how awesome it is that your country is hosting the biggest television show in the world. Two singers, a male and female, proceed to sit on the stage. Then this tribal drum sound starts up, the title comes stuttering up the screen, and the dancers start rolling and … air-humping? Wow, Mom and Dad, we sure are a great country! The problem with this song is that it tries to do EVERYTHING at once. It’s over-the-top. There are great parts, and horrible parts. Her singing is more inconsistent than the guy’s, too. I wanted to really like this, but all I can remember is how the first 10 seconds of the song were completely unnecessary.

5. TURKEY – Neco, “Hani?” - 15th place, 20 pts

“Not there, honey!” Okay, then where? Well, it’s obvious to me that the 1970’s aren’t completely over yet in Turkey. Now, Neco has a great voice; it takes a lot of confidence and experience to lead an effort like this. Also, the sounds that take over toward the end – the electro-disco synthesizers and drums - make this song so much better than the year before. A solid effort from the country that had yet to see a Top 10 placing.

6. FINLAND – Kojo, “Nuku pommiin” - 18th place, 0 pts

Oh… This is that song… LOL. Well, Finland makes sure to expand your idea of music, that’s for sure. I don’t know how they expected to score well with this song; the first two lyrics (in English) sound like “Yo sir Kunaka, eating cock-aaaa” and the credibility flies out the door. The chorus is “Bomb me – bomb me – nuku bomb me – lean on help a bomb”… It’s a rock song in Eurovision, and it’s very new-wave 80’s rock. Now, this is one of those “so-weird-slash-bad-slash-odd-that-its-good” entries. I’m having a hard time doing anything but making fun of the song. But in 1982, this was too progressive, and he literally screams half the song. The breakdown at the end is very cool, and he has a Bruce Springsteen vibe. He loses that rep when he makes a snore sound at the end. I don’t care if this was part of the original composition, it’s dumb. Why do the Finnish insist on making awkward sounds in the last five seconds of their music? (See 1980.) The man at the giant drum does this pirouette move and fails to pretend to hit the drum on queue. Watch it, it’s hilarious!! I will have to balance these things towards the end with my voting. Summary: this song is awesome. But it’s challenging.

7. SWITZERLAND – Arlette Zola, “Amour on t’aime” - 3rd place, 97 pts

Well this pondered right into the hearts of the 50 and 60-year-olds watching from home, huh? I get a weird half-Aunt vibe from Arlette; not to mention, she’s trying to be Kate Bush a-la Wuthering Heights during her ESC performance, dress and all. She has the right voice to take this song to new heights, though, and it’s very schlager. But it’s not in a category of song that I wish to pursue after I’m done watching this song contest.

8. CYPRUS – Anna Vissi, “Mono i agapi” - 5th place, 85 pts

This has a very melancholic feel for a ballad, and I sure do love it. It harkens to “Johnny Blue” but carries a true sense of lament. This song shows off Anna’s vocals so much more than “Autostop” did, not to mention, her intonation is flawless. Literally not even one note was out of tune! I can definitely feel something going on here, and it’s probably the best ballad of the night thus far!

9. SWEDEN – Chips, “Dag efter dag” - 8th place, 67 pts

There was supposedly a band named Chips in the Irish National Selection, which could have caused the very interesting and odd situation of two groups with the same name in one contest! This is so lame, I’m sorry. Interestingly it’s similar in design and content to the 1985 winner, but for whatever reason I could feel the energy and jubilance of that song. This just looks lame, and outdated. Maybe it’s those loser saxophone players; I don’t know. There’s also some weird thing going on toward the end that lends influence by ABBA themselves. And ABBA you are not. Get off stage, please.

10. AUSTRIA – Mess, “Sonntag” - 9th place, 57 pts

You named your song ‘Sunday’? You... named your group “Mess”? This song is a mess. Well, this is the reverse of the UK – the female singer is much better than the male. But again, it’s a lame throwback song. Are there any redeeming qualities to it? Uhhmmm… well, they look colorful on stage? And the man did a good job at catching the girl? No, this is definitely a candidate for the big goose egg from me, which hurts – I really like most of Austria’s songs from the 1980s.

11. BELGIUM – Stella, “Si tu aimes ma musique” - 4th place, 96 pts

Yes! We have officially entered the world of 80s pop! It’s a bit schlager, but not too bad. And dare I say that Stella is knock-dead gorgeous. Yes, I do love your music! Now the lyrics end up coming off as a bit corny, and I’m not sure how well the Francophone countries scored this, but the composition boosts this one for me. It has a very sunshiney feel that was missing from the previous two songs, since those came off as so fake. This actually makes me happy!

12. SPAIN – Jan Lucia, “El” - 10th place, 52 pts

I was listening to the Spanish commentary leading up to this entry, and it was really conserved – but I imagine the hype was there! Lucia is such a diva on stage, and she controls the audience with her delivery. It’s very Spanish and it’s basically tango music, but I have to love the dance breakdown halfway through the song. What an interesting way to enhance its uniqueness. Spain has recovered from an otherwise dull past two years! So, knowing that ethnic can work, what do you think they’ll send in ’83? …. :D

13.  DENMARK – Brixx, “Video-video” - 17th place, 5 pts

Oh my god, Denmark, you actually sent new wave music to Eurovision!!?!?!? YES! The music television era has begun! Now, let me guess – the song did horribly with the juries. It is a tad short, and the front-man’s voice is a bit cringe-worthy at times. But talk about a song that can get stuck in your head… “Video! Video! Ja, video mej”. I’m definitely rewarding this some points if I can!

14. YUGOSLAVIA – Aska, “Halo, halo” - 14th place, 21 pts

Okay, I was watching the first 15 or so seconds of the beginning of this performance thinking, “Okay, so the only really bad comment I have so far is their clothing. Not a deal breaker!” but then they started singing, and I put my hand to my face. Not only does the orchestra have to literally quiet down so that these ladies’ voices can be heard, but then you’re welcomed with a bunch of 45-year-old housewife voices grooving and sidestepping to a schlager-fest. No thanks. There are… okay elements to this, especially towards the end, but it’s too late. The lady in the black dress looks so bored. It’s too bad because I recognize one of the singers (the one in blue) – she’d return in 1983 as a backup singer for a much better song.

15. ISRAEL – Avi Toledano, “Hora” - 2nd place, 100 pts

This is one of the other few songs I’m aware of (save for the winner) for a very hilarious reason. Problems with the design of the British stage become evident during this performance; at about 1:27 in from the beginning of the song, the female dancer on the back-right knocks over her microphone, making a very audible fall. You don’t actually see it fall, but when they cut to the next shot, you see it on the floor. The female dancer on the back left is looking over to her like, “God damn it you messed this up for us!” and I laugh it off. There’s just not enough space to do those dances on that stage. But listen – the song itself is fantastic, perhaps even the best dance song of the night. Very Israeli, but powerful, driving, and led by Avi, who sings it with all he’s got. An excellent entry! And just when you think it can’t get any louder and bombastic, it does! Whoever composed this song for the orchestra deserves a gold medal. For real.

16. NETHERLANDS – Bill van Dijk, “Jij en ik” - 16th place, 8 pts

Okay. I had to pause this video and get over some laughter – what is it with people not realizing how their lyrics could be interpreted in other languages? Surrounded with girls, Bill runs up in surprise, points to the audience, and croons, “Cake!” As for the song itself, it’s so 80’s. And then the female drummer winks at you with total honesty. And then Bill grinds against the magenta-dress-wearing backup singer. And then Bill gargles a Dutch lyric. Then he screeches a bit. And then he does the reverse splits. And points some more. And pirouettes. Good luck winning, guys. Now I want cake.

17. IRELAND – The Duskeys, “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow” - 11th place, 49 pts

The Irish brought disco schlager to Britain. Fitting! Given what the Irish have accomplished in all the years they’ve been doing this contest, prior and later on, this seems so lame and effortless compared to others. The only thing I can think of is that this music was big at that time in Europe. For what it sets out to accomplish, it’s not the worst thing in the world – I like the harmonics of the voices during the “Here today, gone tomorrow” lyrics. But it has not aged well. And the “la-la-la”s are a cop-out.

18. GERMANY – Nicole, “Ein bisschen Frieden” - 1st place, 161 pts

You know, this is a quite peculiar song to end the series of songs prior with! The order of the songs was always random in these days, so only one could wonder how Nicole would’ve finished if she were placed differently amongst the other tunes. Despite all this, this song rocked the show so hard because everyone felt the need to capitalize on what Bucks Fizz’s win brought to Eurovision; even Britain. Germany stripped it all down and sent a girl with a guitar to center stage, sit down, and sing a song about peace. And it was a great song, too; probably the best folk song ever entered into Eurovision. Definitely deserving of the win; Germany’s first win!

Just another anecdote - Israel and Germany would trade each other the douze points on the night, which was seen by many as a sign of putting past histories aside for the sake of music and peace. If only some of the countries participating today could do such a thing! Ahem, Azerbaijan...

My votes:

12 - Germany 10 - Israel 8 - Portugal 7 - Cyprus 6 - Belgium 5 - Denmark 4 - Norway 3 - Spain 2 - Turkey 1 - Finland 

(Luxembourg and Switzerland come close to scoring, though!) The “Big Fat 0″ award: Austria Honorable Mention: Luxembourg Worst Dressed: Sweden 

And here is the overall count of points thus far:

1st - 26 - Germany (1982) 2nd - 19 - Portugal 3rd - 18 - Greece (1981) 4th - 17 - Belgium 5th - 13 - Ireland (1980) 11 - Denmark 11 - Norway 10 - France 10 - Israel 8 - Luxembourg 8 - United Kingdom 7 - Cyprus 6 - Spain 5 - Turkey 3 - Finland 2 - Sweden

- 50SS

[thefoxlight]

Ég er þreytt

I am tired. A sentence that I will never forget in any language that I learn. Because it is always relevant... :D

So, life has been very up and down recently. Like, within one day I'd feel like shit in the morning and I just want stay in bed forever and in the evening I'd feel pretty good and comfortable. My body hasn't been so well but it's getting slightly better already. University classes are over by now, today was the last session of all of my seminars. One oral exam left, they will be testing my British pronunciation (the joys of studying English in Vienna, they force you to change your accent to a superficial British or American "standard" version...) and three papers to write for this semester. I'll do my best to finish them quickly but I guess I will end up writing them a day before each deadline as usual. Only this time I can't, really, because I'll be home for February and as usual probably not very productive there. So I really have to do my best to at least get them to a good level this first week of February that I'll stay here in Vienna.

Today it has been snowing quite beautifully. I did a little walk in the nearby park which I wouldn't have done had I not missed the bus that should have taken me to the Viennese train service office where I had to get the new ticket for the next semester, which I will need come tomorrow. So, thanks to missing the bus, I decided to walk through the park to the next station so I would not have to wait standing in the cold for too long. It was a gift to have done that. I managed to catch the time just before they cleaned all the paths from snow (why would you do that, it was only like 3cm of snow, come on) which was wonderful, having your feet crunch in new snow. I love that more than almost anything about the winter time.

I should go out into the nature more often. I live in a part of Vienna where that’s very easy to do and doesn’t take any time at all. But still, the time outside of studying, socialising and silking, I usually spent at home, in bed, reading, tumblring or watching Netflix. Gah, how typical. But the days are short right now and when it’s dark it’s no fun to walk around outside alone. Maybe soon again, once the sun is up for a bit longer. That should wake me up a bit more from my perpetual tiredness, too.

I want to become better. Better at bearing things, softening my moods, taking life as it is. I want to avoid complaining all the time and feeling discontent with how things are. Besides all the USA presidency sh*t, of course. THAT I will allow myself to stay very, very discontent with indeed. But regarding my personal life, I will do my best to become happy. Because things are good, actually. If the doctor in Hamburg which I will visit in February can help me to get to the bottom of some physical problems I have, my life should be free of unavoidable inflictions. I am a very lucky girl.

My friend mentioned a game to me today that she said I should absolutely try, and funnily enough, I already have it in my Steam library. I haven’t played a whole lot of games recently for some reason, even that has been too much personal effort for me to do in my free time. Netflix it always was. But now I really feel like playing again. The game is “Seasons after Fall”, a very cute little game. I bought it back then not just because it looked lovely and totally like a game for me. But also because the name seemed to allude to me personally. Which is silly of course, but I still consider it funny: “Seasons” is the translation of the name of my favourite Icelandic band Árstíðir, and “Poets of the Fall” is the name of my favourite Finnish band. The name of the game seems just like a mashup of these two band names, not entirely, but really close. I know it’s silly, but that really persuaded me to buy the game! :D I guess I’ll play it for a while now. Better than to continue to half-listen to my flatmate and her friend’s dull and absolutely loud conversations in the living room right next to the door to my room - at this hour, during exam week. Great. But I don’t mind so much anymore, she’s moving out this weekend and then my cousin will move in here. Which I anticipate will be really nice!

Hm, I’m sorry for writing very unexciting things here. It’s life as a student, nothing absolutely interesting is happening. For me, the most exciting event of my last few days was this: I reconciled with him. He came by today to help me with the British pronunciation - he’s English - but I know things can never be like I wish them to be. I guess I decided for myself to accept him as he is and enjoy the things he can offer me as a friend, or whatever. I just hope my feelings won’t mess with me anymore and turn me into a jealous angry demanding thing. But I think I have found a way to keep them in check, which is basically just really getting myself to understand that I can expect nothing more from him, that his actions will never align with what I wish for in a relationship. And I think that has become very clear to me, also in my heart, which is why I think I can handle this. So far, I’m doing much better in this regard, and I can accept the situation as it is. I hope that is not something which I am just trying to convince myself of, but really the truth. But ever since we talked about everything I have felt much clearer and much more relaxed. So I really think I will be fine. I should stop having my life revolve entirely around a certain other human being. It is not healthy. I should heed Snufkin’s (Moomin character) advice: “One can never be truly free, if one admires someone else too much.”

I’ll do my best, promise.