#okay yayyy its not broken

[unamusedyams]

Maybe he learned it from somewhere

If it's unclear I'm referring to the whole "Revenge Guac"😭 Shadow absorbing a lot of Maria's mannerisms and speech patterns sounds cute... and I can't get over how ridiculous he looked saying that with his whole chest.

[cherry-luvz]

Cockwarming with K.MJ.

Genre - Smut and fluff.

Warning- G!P Minji, just cockwarming, Don't be a dud- wrap your bud.

Paring - GP!loser!Minji x gf!fem!reader.

Synopsis - Its winter, and Minji needs warming up. You’re her only option.

Word count - 1.4K

MINJI - Red.

READER - White.

It was a chill einter eveling and Uni had just broken off for two weeks of holiday to enjoy Christmas with loved ones.

You where on your phone when you got a text, It was around 07:45PM when your phone pinged you decided to check as saw that it was your gf texting you.

Min Min 💬

-> Baby? 🤭

-> Yes, minji?😑

-> Can u come over, to my place? 🫶🏻🫶🏻

-> no. 😾

-> PLSSSSSSS ���🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

-> still no, Its freezing cold outside! 💀💀 I ain’t walking in that cold ur crazy ☠️☠️

-> PLSSSS BABY PLSS!! 😿😿

-> Give me one gd reason y I should go to ur house..😑😑

-> Bc yk 😏😏

-> Ik? Wdym..? 🥸

-> 🙇🏻‍♀️🙆🏻‍♀️ ❤️😏

-> 😰😰😰😰😰

-> so watcha say bbg? 😼😼😼

-> nty I’m gd fr 😊👍

-> 😔😔😔😔 please love 🥺

-> Bro u just wanna get freaky min.😑

-> That’s not true! 😞

-> Yh sure. 🙄

-> please!! I’ll give cuddles..! 😖❤️

-> U promise? 😑

-> I prowmiss🥺

-> Fine i’ll come but u have to come pick me up.😑

-> YAYYY.. wait do I really..?😽😦

-> yh u do i ain’t walking in the snow🙄.

-> okay okay i’ll be there in 40😖.

-> aww ty see ya!

-> See u soon bbg, luv u😽😽

-> Ily too ❤️

You sighed and got up from your bed, you put on a pink skirt, nude coloured tights, a crop top, a white puffer jacket with a scarf and you small bag which held your phone, lipstick, lipgloss, Vaseline, mini perfume and your purse.

You styled your hair and then put on log warmers with socks then you put on your Ugg’s. You grabbed your keys and exit your apartment complex

It was snowing outside and you waited for your gf to pick you up as she said she would. Around 10 - 15 mintes later a black BMW pulled up in front of you.

The person rolled down the window, “Hey baby, hop in..” She said with a smile and leaned over to the passenger side opening the door.

“New car..?” You said, climbing into her car.

You then closed the door and put on your seat belt, “Yeah, my nice new sweat baby!..”

“Hmm but I thought i was your baby.?” You pouted looking up at her as she put her hand on your knee, her touch was cold, you shivered.

“You are, but this is my like.. ‘car’..”she said and you nodded.

You looked out the window, watching the snow fall, Minji had her left hand on the wheel and her right on your lap.

40 MINUTES LATER

Minji parked outside the gate, minji was from a wealthy family so she lived in the luxury apartment.

You watched as she beeped a black card and ths gates open. “We’ll be at my place soon..” She said gently gripping your thigh.

You nodded, “Okay..”

She drove for another 5-10 minutes and you guys reached a huge luxury apartment. “Were here baby..” she said as she parked the car in the in the parking lot.

You undo your seat belt at the same time she does hers, she got up and got out of the car doing a quick jog to your side opening the door for you.

“Thanks luv,” You said getting out as you held her hand, “Ha anything for my princess..”

She closed the door and you waited for her to lock the door, she then took your hand and you guys walked into the building.

After a few minutes You where at your gf’s house, she took off your shoes for you, put on your puffer jacket down as well ad you’re scarf and sat next to you.

Minji were cold from the snow so she shivered, you look at her. “You cold.?” You asked her and she yawned.

“Yeah.. i’m freezing..” she leaned back in her chair and you looked at her, she the smirked looking at your thighs.

She like you wearing skirts, it was a complete turn of for her. You looked her hear, feeling her gaze on yo, “What are you looking at, luv?”

She wrapped her arm around your waist, squeezing it gently. “I love your skirt baby~” she said looked at you with a smirk.

“Perv.” You muttered as your face heated up, she chuckled. “But you love it don’t you..?”

You did, you did love it. You felt as she pulled you closer, her gaze going towards your lips. “Mhm so soft..” she rubbed the bottom of your lips.

You blushed as she came closer, leaning in to kiss you. As you guys lips met you blushed even more, you felt as she pulled you into her lap making you straddle her.

You guys continued to kiss as she placed her hands on your waist while you had your hands on her shoulders. She pulled away and smiled at you, “You’re so pretty baby, but I’m a little cold.. you wouldn’t mind cock warming me?”

You felt the boner she had your breath hitched. “I-i..” you stumbled over your words. “..o-okay..” she smiled and pulled down her sweatpants.

You looked down as you saw her cock, it was a pretty pink colour. She smiled and kissed your neck.. “A-ah b-baby..” you whimpered as you clutched onto her shirt.

You felt her move your panties to the side and teased her cock to your hole. “Hmm so wet for me princess.. so fucking wet..”

She pushed into you and you sat down on it, “a-ah!” You moaned.

“Fuckkk princess..” she grunted.

You sat there cock warming her, you wanted to move so bad. You felt her hold your hips down not letting you move at all.

You whimpered as you clenched around her, placing your head on her chest. “Oh gosh thats a dangerous game to play bbg..” she said gripping onto your hips.

You clenched again, “Ahhh.. hmmpf..” you moaned.

She gritted her teeth, “if you do that one more time I’m gonna fuck you till you can’t walk..”

You clenched around her one last time and she, keeping to her words, pinned you down and pulled up your crop top up and sucked on your breast as she pounded into you.

“Hmmpf a-ah! Mommy fuck.. ah” you moaned and your eyes teared up from too much pleasure. “You’re my cock slut isn’t it? Fucking slut.”

You nodded as she continued to pound into your tight cunt, “Ah mhmpf.. mommy..”

“Hmm oh gosh baby..” you felt as she pulled you closer and pounded into you deeper and deeper.

You felt her cock touch your cervix, “Oh gosh ah.. yeah mommy ahh hungggg right there hmpff!!..” your eyes rolled back.

Minji noticed, she had hit your g-spot and continued to do so, “Mhm your so gushy and warm~”

Your mouth formed a ‘o’ shape as you felt a knot in your stomach. She continued to bully her huge cock into you tight cunt, you whimpered and felt her grip getting tighter.

“Hmpf mommy..” you moaned as you felt the knot slowly coming undone. “You gonna cum?” She asked you and you nodded, slowly opening your eyes.

“C-can i cum mommy..? I’ve been hunggnnggg.. a g-good hmpfffff g-girl..” you clenched more onto her shirt.

She leaned down next to your ear, “Hmm go on baby girl, cum for mommy..” she whispered as she moved even faster.

You felt the knot come undone and you cumed, “Oh gosh minji fuck..” your body shivered and you cumed all over her cock which she was still moving in and out of you, letting you ride out your orgasm.

“Now let mommy cum you.. ya?” You nodded and felt as your vision became hazy and she smug, she knows you were brain fucked.

It was a bit sore at first until you felt another orgasm creeping up apron you, “M-mommy i-I’m gonna a-ah cum.. a-ah..a-again..” you mentioned.

“Me too, get ready for mommy’s fat load.” She said as you fell her cock twitch a bit in you.

You felt as her thrusts become more and more sloppy. “H-hmpf.. baby.. mommy’s gonna cum..” she whimpered.

You whimpered, “Fuck cum with me baby..”

And you did so, you felt as her load filled you up as your leg twitched, your cunt throbbing and Minji lying on top of your chest.

She then sat up after catching her breath. “Fuck”

She gently pulled out watching as your pussy gently pushed out you and her’s cum mixed together. She saw the creampie and chuckled.

“Hmm.. best sex ever babe. Loved it..” she said as she put your panties back on. You rolled your eyes and gently sat up, “I feel sticky..” You said and got up but your legs gave away.

Minji quickly caught you. “Gosh..” you muttered.

She chuckled, “Hmm i did really fuck you till you can’t walk..”

[losver07]

I WROTE SOME WOLSTAR YAYYY (idea from this post)

tw: religious trauma, internalised homophobia & mild swearing

But What If

“Moony?”

He lays in the silence for a few seconds, part of him hoping he was heard, part of him wishing the darkness would swallow him whole.

“What is it?,” comes the answer, muffled by the sound of bedsheets ruffling with movement. Remus is now looking at him, face pale in the moonlight. He takes a deep breath.

“What if they're right?”

The werewolf furrows his brows, still half-asleep and confused. For a second, he thinks he might be talking about quidditch, or something related to one of their classes, but he doesn't find anything mildly coherent, so lets Sirius speak.

“Who?”

“The muggles,” he whispers back, letting his gaze wonder anywhere but the other boy's face. Right now, he can't bear to see Remus and talk to him at the same time without completely breaking down. And he doesn't want that. “What if there is someone up there? Not God, just... someone. Something.”

Remus, now aware of what's about to come, sits up on the bed and casts a silencing spell. He still whispers, however, when he asks:

“Does that scare you?”

Sirius closes his eyes, trying to distract himself, like one would from a bleeding wound.

“It shouldn't, shouldn't it?”

Remus forces himself not to give him a lecture, not to tell him about the church convincing its members trough fear and torture, about the inquisitions and persecutions. He figures Sirius already knows everything he needs to know. He's seen the books on his nightstand.

“It's okay to be worried,” he tries. Sirius doesn't buy it.

“Yeah,” he laughs, the volume of his voice rising along with his sarcasm, “especially if you've broken, like, every single fucking rule good people are supposed to follow.”

“But you love breaking rules,” Remus smiles, trying to ease the tension. “It's what you do, you can't be blamed for it.”

“But what if I can? What if these rules actually matter? What if I deserve to be punished?”

That's when Remus realises, he actually believes in what he says. He's not scared it might be true, he really thinks it is, that some day he will have to face everything he's ever done wrong, and deal with the consequences.

“You don't.”

The problem, he recognises, is that even though Sirius is an angel directly descended from heaven, in the mirror of his mind he sees a demon.

“No, you don't,” he insists. “If they are right, I will die and go to hell and you will go to heaven and I won't be able to see you again. They won't even have to torture me, I'll just be left alone on a corner thinking about you, and it will be enough to make me regret everything I've done, to everyone.”

He's crying now. They both are. Each one staring at a different point in the bed curtains, trying to make their breathing sound even.

“Padfoot...” Remus whispers. He wishes he could hug Sirius, but doesn't reach out. He can't.

“I don't want that, Moony,” the long-haired boy says, with a voice as thin as a thread.

“I know,” Remus answers. “It's okay. That's not going to happen, okay?”

He's not sure he believes it now. But he has to. He needs to.

“I'm sorry,” Sirius whispers, voice wet with tears.

“It's fine,” he keeps promising, and finally finds the courage to lay back down, next to Sirius, and pull him into a hug.

“I'm so sorry, Moony...” Remus hears as he buries his face in a sea of black curls, brushing against his cheek to remind him where he is, to make him forget about what could come after this. He is here, they both are. And that's enough for now.

“Me too,” he says. His shoulder is getting wet with the salty tears of a pair of sea-blue eyes, and he thanks whatever God is seeing them for it. He's grateful he can cry now, he can hug and he can worry and he can love. He's glad he's afraid of losing this, because otherwise he may not try as hard, feel it as much as he does now.

And that's good. That's the only good that matters.

“I love you,” Sirius sniffs, holding on to Remus as if he were about to lose him. And maybe he is. Maybe they'll lose each other, but for now they have the chance to fear together. And that's enough for now.

“I love you too.”

[compassmili]

⛓️ — How does their base EGO manifest? What does the room in it look like?

🎨 — Do they have a signature color? What's its name and why was it picked?

🌈 — What would be their title if they were a Color Fixer?

🍎 — What would their Distortion look like?

For Gaia and John

YAYYY

JOHN

⛓️ — How does their base EGO manifest? What does the room in it look like?

Okay not going to lie the wording on this one is giving me hell. Maybe her E.G.O itself manifests on the iceberg due to her desperation to survive... I hadn't thought about the actual reason for the manifestation, honestly, but that seems to work rather well. Especially since Estella in immediate danger as well, so her determination and desperation would've been at an all time high. Her cell on Mephistopheles has a few inches of water on the floor and sheets of ice floating around. There's glass shards everywhere from broken picture frames that once held photos of her in her youth. When her mental state worsens (Or however worse it can already be LMFAO) the room floods, often leaking out into the hallway + her screaming can sometimes be heard. I HOPE THIS IS WHAT THE QUESTION MEANT?

🎨 — Do they have a signature color? What's its name and why was it picked?

Yes! Forlorn Navy (#22274D). Navy because it's a dark blue and. Ocean. Water. And forlorn was picked because John's existence is a hopeless and pitiful one :] In the beginning of the development, I was actually considering lavender as her color, too!

🌈 — What would be their title if they were a Color Fixer?

THE NAVY HEART! Navy again because of the waters + her Sinner color and heart because of her lifelong determination and persistence :] Also as a Color Fixer she'd generally be way fucking nicer LMFAO and quite generous

🍎 — What would their Distortion look like?

I'm so bad at these. Um. Um. Lots of ice involved. That's kind of all I have for this. SORRY.

GAIA

⛓️ — How does their base EGO manifest? What does the room in it look like?

I'm unsure how it would initially manifest, especially since her backstory as of right now is... Minimal, to say the least lmfao. Maybe after the death of Lace (her girlfriend)? Or whatever bad shit happens to Lace. I haven't quite decided what horrors Lace goes through. Gaia's cell is pitch black with the only light coming from the candles she watches over and keeps lit as though it's her only lifeline. Pages litter the floor, the notes she’s obsessively taken as she tries to piece her life together. When she’s doing poorly, the candles flicker, threatening to go out and leaving her helpless and alone. She can sometimes hear a voice speaking to her during these times, but the words themselves are indistinguishable.

🎨 — Do they have a signature color? What's its name and why was it picked?

Choleric Midnight (#640B6A)! Gaia is vaguely based off of a system member who's favorite color is purple so that's why purple was chosen lmfao. Midnight because Gaia is associated with darkness and the night and choleric because she's an asshole :sob:

🌈 — What would be their title if they were a Color Fixer?

The Violet Oracle...? Something something something Oracle of Darkness and all that

🍎 — What would their Distortion look like?

THIS ONE I CAN ACTUALLY ANSWER BECAUSE SHE DOES DISTORT! Actual design is undecided, but it focuses on birds (Especially owls) and time. Her face is obscured (Likely by a set of wings) and there's a gaping hole in her chest. A clock serves as a halo + She gains harpy legs + Her forearms are covered in feathers and her long acrylics turn into talons. After she recovers from Distorting, she has patches of down feathers on her chest and inner thighs and gains a nictating membrane :] Hopefully this is all alright? Again, Distortions aren't my specialty... I do like the idea of it permanently affecting her body, though.

[vaguehotels]

BLOG REDESIGN WOWOWOW IT LOOKS SO COOL!!!!!!!

(Idontgetanyofthereferencesbutilikethecolorssorrylol)

YAYYY THANKZ

*looks at you with my big sad wet eyes*. you should watch "who killed markiplier?". its about 50 minutes broken up into 4 videos and its genuinely so good. once you get over the mental hurdle of mark playing... nearly every character, its so so so clever and well thought out. the lore for wilford especially, the guy my theme is based around, is such a treat to piece together. even if you dont care abt markiplier (i did not at all b4 i started watching wkm) you can get into it. after wkm theres "a heist with markiplier", "a date with markiplier", and "in space with markiplier", as well as "wilford motherloving warfstache" and "damien". the first three function like basic choice making visual novels which is SO FUN. especially in space and heist theres a ton of fun endings to discover (AND characters. yancy sweep)!!!

SORRY old fixation rant. if nothing else i would actually die 1000 times (/pos) if you watched wmw because its my favorite of the non-playables apart from the final chapter of wkm. it might not make like... any sense but you'll see why i like wilford so much okay byeee

[3vi3evie]

How I got Male Manipulated by a TWINK pt 5/6(edit)?

okay guys… so yesterday jasmine sent like an anonymous report of this website our school uses and the police showed up at Jake’s house. he then like left the friend group chat and put “goodbye” on his insta note. Like what do you want that attention so bad… I just really need him to get better. pmo … then i had to talk to the school counselor today at like 10:30. So I was in science (Jake’s in that class and so is Miranda and Delilah) and Jake wasn’t there but he came to class with a note at like 10:25 but then I had to go to the counselor so that’s sus. I explained most of the things to the counselor and she said it was toxic and that what I have been doing is good and to make sure my friends set up boundaries as well so he doesn’t talk to them and stuff. she also said I have to report stuff if he’s gonna kill himself and bro I do not wanna talk to the police … but idk im scared bro… anyway that was just a quick update but tmr i get to see Billie eilish!!!!!!! yayyy ok bye ho

EDIT: bro he’s being fucking crazy. his insta notes are wildds. ima type them out but they won’t be exact.

“Idk if that was u but u need to stop its serious” he’s referring to the cops to his house i think

“try being taken from ur family forever” it’s not that deep lil bro that’s not gunna happen. obnoxious much

“this isn’t okay” WE ARE TRYING TO GET YOU HELP OMG PLS

I just really need him to get help and he can’t just dump his problems on people who aren’t like doctors and stuff. Also putting that on the internet? that’s kinda not… bro needs an evolution. an update even bc he sounds like a broken record

[johnmalevolent]

heehoo new malebolent!!

oooookay the title is the widow. from the graveyard?

oh Marie's the widow!!

RIGHT HE SLEEP WALKED

what happened to the woman with mr scratch???

YOU WERE THO, JOHN???

well yes. comparatively.

wait did he

omg

oh

right mr scratch had access to his memory

ITS SO SILLY TYPING MR SCRATCH SORRY. feels like a teddy bear's name to me

I MISS JOHN SO MUCH.

he. his voice. its exceptionally soft this episode

you had one job arthur

"its fine its fine" 🥺

oh shit

HUH

twins???

mampus mampus mampus :(

how would you know arthur

hmokay but. he doesnt know if marie deserves this or not

OKAY WAIT THOUGHT INTERRUPTED I HEARD YOU WHIMPER AT TIMES WHAT THE FUCK THAT WAS SO SOFT. THE EMPATHY IN THAT SENTENCE. SORRY. THOUGHT CONTINUES

idk compared from his old view that people who were involved in cults willingly or not deserved everything bad happening to them. huge difference.

anyway

sorry for loving john's voice too much i guess as if

"we have to try, no?" 🥺

arthur sounds so eepy

OH he's still in bed. that makes sense

yayyy washing up

KELLIN

I FORGOT. GOD.

the fucking jumpscare

crystal :((

lighter. he said the thing he said lighter

LIES :(

anytthing to say about that john

oh so you do have something to say

john youre not being subtle <3

JOHN YOURE NOT BEING SUBTLE <333

sorry everything happening is very horrible terrible absolutely no good but you have to understand i miss john so much

okay window

broken and then mended?

oh iceee

how would there be ice on the window

is there ice or just pattern looking like ice

odd how

GOD THE SCARY WIND THING

please whats happening whats gonna happen

nothing??? really???????

too much nothing is getting suspicious

cross?

why would there be a cross on top of a bed

wait

under or top???

WHAT.

huh

heartbeat???

the fuck

heartbeat? hello?

what john

what

fresh?

fresh blood or

but

how

marie knew? or not? (1) if she did. why not clean it, (2) if she didnt. how???

okay so. not just the window which means may not be an effect of ice or something

why are the glasses the same

shopping :^) okaimono episode :^)

huh

uuygghhhh the fly noise stopppppp

KICK WHAT

oh okay not a body

what about dust

huh like a seal or something?

and in his sleepwalking state arthur broke it?

which of course cant have been the only thing holding mr scratch subdued but

yeah

knew it!!

dont tell me its salt

another piece of glass...

warped too.........

huh

mr scratch doesnt know about the dreamlands so i cant really make a connection with arthur getting isekai'd through a mirror

although not directly

lick on what

OOH!

something behind the shelf?

ooooooor the books have something...

YEAHHHGGGG

oh shit

A ROOM

well done :D

cok kaget hpku lugur santai dikit john pls

hwhdhhshdhehdhssh

yay scary room time

AHHHH HURRY

hooyay

i forgot parker is his fake name im gonna cry

oscar?

he?

he was your husband?

whuh

hayooooo arthur

awas

LHO HARA WESSS

oh kirain ketahuan

albert. okay

im bad at catching nameesssss

desks have had nothing so far

finally

book...

SYMBOLS!!!!!!!

but scratch doesnt know about the dreamlands

related? or not?

thats so loud...

his "just wait ;)"

awww Marie

john rly says "dont forget about the main quest"

butcher lore!!!

that was sooooooo good :)

[gaysimpsstuff]

can you write a drabble of s/o age regressing after a scary situation and maybe hawks or dabi (whatever you feel) hugging them and just general fluff and comfort? I totally understand if you don't wanna write this so no pressure!!

Yeppers! As someone who experiences something similar to age regression/ little space, this will be based on my own experiences

Genre: Hurt/comfort

Type: headcanons/drabble

Warnings: Age regression/little space, crying, Manga spoilers for Dabi's backstory, reader being adorable

Other: I'm not %100 sure if I'd call my experience 'little space,' it's something that only showed up in the past year or so. Also, I usually only go into 'little space' when I'm very happy or comfortable or I'm doing something childish, and even after talking to people who actually age regress, I'm not sure what to call my experience.

Fluff Taglist: @smolchildfangirl @combat-wombatus @mandalorian-baby-bird @waffleareniceandfluffy @catcherisvibin @thesubtlewhore @popcatx0

Touya Todoroki/Dabi-

I feel like he doesn't understand it at first; like mans has never even heard of people who age regress until he met you.

When you first mentioned it to him, he was so confused.

"Okay so- hang on what?"

The first time you actually do it in front of him he literally has no idea what to do, he's so confused and probably more scared than you are.

He has the best intentions, but he did lock you in a room and call Toga for advice when you started to cry.

When you got big again, you were pissed.

And reasonably so.

It took a while, but he eventually got used to your little space and figured out what to do when you did this.

There was a point where he tried to deny how cute he thought it was- you acting like a child and doing childlike things.

He uses it as an opportunity to atone for the things he did as a child to his younger siblings, and as a way to feel like he can actually take care of something.

"Y/n, I'm back!" The door swung shut behind him as he stepped into your apartment, looking around, he couldn't see you. The whole place was a mess, books torn off their shelves and even some broken dishes in the kitchen.

Dabi frowned, he'd seen your apartment like this a couple of times before, usually what happens when you absolutely can't take it anymore.

He peeked inside your room, finding you sprawled on top of the sheets with your clothes still on, fast asleep.

He wished you'd called him, he knew he told you he was on a mission and not to bother him but if you had called he would've dropped anything and everything to appear by your side to comfort you throughout whatever caused this. He crept into your bedroom quietly, pulling the blankets you had kicked onto the ground up and over your body, turning the lights off.

He sighed, grabbing the broom and sweeping up the glass from the broken plate, and throwing it away. He put everything back in its place, even vacuuming the carpet so it was nice and soft when you woke up.

He was just finishing wiping down the counters when he heard you coming out of the bedroom. He turned his head to see you waddling towards him, rubbing your eyes and yawning.

"Touya?" you murmured, looking up at him "What are you doing here?"

"I live here too, y'know, it's only natural I come here in my free time," he explained. He felt your arms wrap around him, face pressing into his back.

"Warm..." your voice was soft, and he had to stop himself from burying his face into his arms to escape from the pure ball of cuteness that was hugging him. "Wanna cuddle."

He glanced over his shoulder at you, finding you staring up at him with a pout on your face, oh yeah you were definitely in 'smol mode' as he sometimes called it.

"Wanna cuddle, hm? Sorry baby you gotta wait until I'm finished cleaning."

"Nooooooo" you whined, slowly sliding down his body until you were clutching his leg. "Want cuddles!"

"Just let me fini-"

"Do that later! Cuddles now!"

Dabi chuckled, pressing a hand to his face.

"I can't- I just can't you're too cute like this." He shook his head, laughing now. "Okay fine, I'll cuddle you ya clingy lil baby~"

"Yayyy!" you were on your feet a moment later, arms in the air, giggling "I wanna wear your coat!" you pointed at his jacket, and he chuckled again, shrugging it off his shoulders and flinging it onto your back, helping your arms into the sleeves that were just a little too big for your body.

He pressed his lips against your forehead, looking down at you, he only saw pure love and admiration staring back up at you.

He had to protect this little bundle of joy in his life, this human that made him feel so happy, he would never let anything bad happen to you. When you were big again, he'd ask you what happened, and he'd make sure you'd call him if you were ever stressed.

But he did like the adorable faces you made when you were little.

Keigo Takami/Hawks-

He's a pro hero, he's done his research; so he knows what 'little space' is before he meets you.

But I can promise the commission probably made it seem like something gross, but you're his partner, he knows you're not some horrible person, so maybe he understands age regression wrong.

So.

Many.

Questions.

Like constant questions- it almost feels like he's interrogating you, like seriously it's getting old, Keigo

But he's so precious you kind of have to answer his questions.

Like Dabi, he finds you acting little to be the most adorable thing in the world, sometimes he leaves kid's stuff around the house hoping to trigger your little space so he can hold you and play with you.

He thinks of it as practice for when the two of you have children

The one day Keigo has off, to regrow his wings, all he really wants to do it sleep. Just lay in bed, wrapped up in his blankets and just dream and nap and snore and do nothing.

But little ole you had other plans.

"Keigooooooooo!"

The blonde bird boy shot upright in bed upon hearing your distressed call. He sped down the hall into the living room, panicked, only to find you sitting on the carpet with a box of crayons next to you, a coloring book open, page half filled in.

You looked up at Keigo with wide tear-filled eyes, shakily holding up the blue crayon snapped in half. Your lower lip quivered as you whimpered.

"I-it broke!" you cried, "I'm sorry it broke, Kei!" Keigo melted on the spot, slightly annoyed that you woke him up for something so small, but also-

Holy fuck you were just the cutest thing in the world.

He hoped your only stress would forever be broken crayons.

"It's okay, Y/n, things break sometimes, you're not in trouble." he cooed, sitting down next to you and patting your head.

"But- but it broke!" you exclaimed, sniffling

"It still functions though, doesn't it?" He scooched the coloring book closer to you, and you pressed the pointed end of the crayon against the paper, coloring the smiling puppy dog's nose blue.

You lit up, a bright smile spreading across your face, you cheered, bouncing up and down and hugging Keigo.

"It still works! It still works, Kei!" he giggled, holding you close to his body and enjoying the way you laughed.

"That's right! There's nothing that can't be resolved!" He pressed a kiss to your cheek, but couldn't hold himself back from attacking your entire face with little kisses.

"Keiiii noooo that tickles!" you giggled, pushing at him gently.

"One more? Please, baby?" he pleaded, pouting a little.

"Okiii!" you sat up, pressing your lips to his, pulling back with a laugh. "Can I have a juice box?"

"Of course," Keigo's face softened, you were just too precious, too cute, to perfect.

He really did hope the only thing you'd ever worry about was the crayon.

[lovesung127]

thoughts on wayv's album phantom

Phantom- love love love yangyang, hendery and winwin's deep voices in the beginning. winwin has lines it's insane. kun and ten ate on the vocals. xiaojun's high note ughhhh. i love yangyang's rap part. and the chorus eats so HARD AGHHH. the bridge is so crazy omg. THEY ALL LOOKED SO GOOD IN THE MV OMFG

Diamonds Only- i love love love. like the thickness of xiaojuns voice is so delicious i love. yangyang looked so hot in the track video i was melting. I LOVE THE PRECHORUS I THINK THATS WAHT ITS CALLED WITH XIAOJUN UGH. the chorus is sosoo good.

Good Life- okayyy i like the instrumental. this song is very summer by the beach at a resort vibes and im all for it. idk whos part it is I think it's either winwin or hendery BUT I LOVE IT. oooo the little instrumental break with the vocals is so good. HEHEHE YANGYANGS LITTLE SPEAKING PART HEHEHEHHE

Broken Love-oooo their voices are so pretty omgomg. i love love love this song. this song is very winter vibes perfect for the weather. hendery's rap ate. YASSS THE ENDING IS SOSOSO GOOOD

Bounce Back- OH??? THE OPENING ?? MY JAW IS DROPPED. YOOOO THE PRECHORUS??? YOOOO THE CHORUS? GIRRLLLL THIS SONG IS CRAZY omgomgomg xiaojun and yangyangs lines heheehe they all sound so hot. YAYYY WAV IS BACK WITH AN ASS SHAKER. OKAAYYY THE BRIDGE. the high notes??? BROOOO the ending is insane.

Try My Luck- whoa the opening is crazy. i thought this was gonna be a ballad but getting hit with hendery's rap OMFG. BROOO I LOVE THISSSS. this song is crazy. wait idk whos vocals they are BUT OMFG LIKE RIGHT AFTER THE CHORUS UGHHHH. F IT UP YANGYANG OKAAYYY

okay overall thoughts: THIS ALBUM ATE DOWN UGHH. NOT ONE BAD SONG AAAHHHHHHHH. i am speechless they really came back with a BANG. okay so I think my fave songs are broken love and bounce back and try my luck. but we have to see bc the songs are all too good. GO STREAMMM AND STAN WAYV

[seodami]

Dearest treasure | KTH

|PART1| |PART 2| |PART 3|

Summary: Every kid in town was afraid of Kang Taehyun, the old -slightly creepy- man living alone for years and years in the same run down house. Every night he would go into his backyard with a shovel and dig a hole into the earth. No one knows why and there are kids rumouring about him burying people. Jungwon was a bright kid, wanting to find out the truth behind this widely spread rumour for a school project. And what he found out would change his life forever.

Genre: fluff, angst, flashbacks, story of life, snippets of life, tiny bit humour

Warning: old Taehyun, mention of death, mention of suicide/suicidal thoughts, death

Word count: 10152 (all 3 parts)

Pairing: Kang Taehyun x reader, (Yang Jungwon)

Note: Wow okay so this story took me a while to write and I listened to hours of das music to finish this🥺 this was honestly an emotional rollercoaster. But I’m so glad it’s finally finished so I can post it on here yayyy!!! I hope you like it an enjoooyy (please tell me if you cried I would really appreciate your responses haha bc I did)

Main masterlist

2089 (present)

Deathly silence hung in the air as thick as smog. In Jungwons eyes pooled tears, ready to spill over the edges to fall into free fall and drop heavily onto his trousers. His heart was burning, not finding any suitable words of comfort or understanding for the old man in front of him. His throat felt like it was tied up so tightly, he couldn’t breathe. Oh, how didn’t he know? Oh, how could anyone talk bad behind his back? So much hurt…

Mr. Kangs head hung low, not daring to make any other noice than his sniffling nose. Hot tear drops were silently dropping down, it felt suffocating just watching him so full of hurt and sorrow. Suddenly Jungwon felt sorry to let him relive his whole life together with the terrible pain even the young boy could feel.

“I- I…I never could…forgive myself. It was my fault-“ the once handsome mans face was dark and the wrinkles now seemingly even deeper full of regrets and unspoken words. “You wouldn’t understand, boy-“

Jungwon couldn’t form any appropriate words at that moment and let the sadness let him take away just for a little longer. His story was heavy… he felt like he just heard something he shouldn’t have heard. Something so private and fragile. It had touched him more than he had thought.

“I didn’t want to live anymore… it was all worthless since then… I had no motivation to keep going.” His voice became a tad more stable, yet still quiet and weak. His tired eyes met the innocent boys and for a second the old man could see his younger self inside his big brown eyes. Sadness and nostalgia rolled over him and he averted his gaze.

“I tried ending my life many times since that day- it never worked no matter how much I wanted it… and then I just…I just mouldered…alone, broken- and just a shell of my old self. I wasn’t the once happy, bright, clever boy anymore. I could never be that again…”

Jungwons heart felt heavy, breathing wasn’t bearable. His hands unconsciously reached forward to the tiny lost figure sitting in his sunken mould. It was a simple touch but for Mr. Kang it was the first reassuring and comforting gesture he had received in a long long time. It made him tear up stronger, still staying silent. The young boy wanted to be there for the old man. He wanted to show him that he wasn’t alone in this.

Moments of depressing, yet healing silence passed, just the ticking of the old clock in the dark living room was heard. “I’m so sorry Mr. Kang…” Jungwon finally whispered, unsure if the man spoken to even heard it. He couldn’t do much but be there in this moment. Quite honestly he felt like crying himself. But he wanted to stay strong for him.

“One day-“ Mr. Kangs voice shook a little but he kept talking. “-I remembered the time capsule. My dearest treasure. So long ago. And I made it my life mission to find it. One last moment to hold onto and…look back to.” A thick single tear slowly rolled down Jungwons cheek. So that was it. That’s why… and everyone had dragged the vulnerable man down, putting even more dirt into his deep wounds.

“I-I searched everywhere. But…but i just…forgot. It’s my last wish before I finish this…” life he wanted to say. Finish his life. It made the school boy unbelievable sad. Oh how much he must’ve suffered his whole life. And before Jungwon could’ve decided differently, a strong feeling of wanting to help and support creeped up to him.

“I’m gonna help you Mr. Kang. We will find your treasure.” Jungwon reassuringly took the heavy, wrinkled hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze. It was the first time since that day, that he felt hope again. Just a tiny tiny splinter but it was there. Hope.

The next hours, both of the males digged holes through the whole garden, not saving any sweat, too focused on finding the mans greatest desire. Mr. Kang had already reached his limit after three holes, following with the 14 year old boy leading him towards an old wooden garden bench to rest on. Jungwon on the other hand was full of verve and energy to fulfill his dearest wish. To find his dearest treasure. Mr. Kang watched him with surprise and thankfulness, never had anyone gone all the way out to help him with something so important to him. There was never someone who he could’ve went to. After that day, he had broken off all the contact with his old friends. He wanted to feel alone at some point. He deserved the pain. That’s what he had always told himself. But now he was old and weak and just wanted nothing more than to be finally reunited with his beloved family. He missed you everyday. He heard his daughters laughters everyday. And he saw his son running around outside in the garden everyday. He finally wanted to be with his family everyday.

It had already gotten dark and cold at this point, Mr. Kang had brought the hard working boy a jacket and a warm tea. The sun was already long gone, just the small lights from the veranda and from the street shined over towards them. Jungwon was still digging, his once tidy school clothes now full of dirt and dust and drenched in sweat. He couldn’t give up. He knew that. So he kept digging and digging. The moon was fondly watching at the pair below, shining just a tad brighter tonight for them. Short friendly small talk about school went quickly over to heartfelt conversations about life and this and that. Nobody, not even the moon, would’ve thought that the bitter, lonely 87 year old Taehyun and the bright, cheerful 14 year old Jungwon would’ve ever even crossed paths, yet life showed again how unpredictable and full of surprises it could be. This night, a tight bond between the two men was woven. So unexpected but yet so lovely.

The clock already told them it was 6 minutes before midnight when another noice cut through the silent night air. A metallic sound. Gasping, Jungwon threw the shovel away, excitement now rushing through his veins. He fell onto his knees, not caring about the moist soil on his trousers. His hands digged through the last part, brown earth now sticking behind his nails, and moments later, he pulled out a medium sized metal box, securely wrapped in plastic. Jungwon felt like he just won the Olympics, he felt like he did it. He did it…

A quick gaze onto the bench showed him the sleeping old man, now seeming even tinier than before. With shaky steps and a weird feeling of proudness and fulfilment, Jungwon waddled over to the sleeping form, gently waking him up. The box in his hands was tightly in his grasp, not letting go. Mr. Kangs heavy lidded eyes flew open in an instant when he saw the metal box in the boys arms. Tears burned in his thankful eyes, reaching towards it with shaking arms. Everything felt heavy, yet his heart felt the lightest it had felt in a long long time.

“Thank you…so much.” Tears were now unstoppable rolling down his cheeks. It squeezed Jungwons heart, knowing he could make this man happy again, fulfilling his last wish. The both of them moved up to the house again, warmth engulfing them with its now familiar scent. Comfort. The old man reassured the boy to stay but seeing the box being opened, Jungwon felt as if he got to see something way too private. But he stayed, looking over the sniffling mans shoulder when he pulled out a small pink toy dolphin. His hands were shaking. “This was my daughters. It was her favorite toy when she was…two years old.”

Taehyuns heart clenched, seeing all his treasures in front of him. He desperately pressed the small toy against his chest, letting all his emotions in. It was intense, yet it was all he ever wanted. Seeing the familiar drawings of a green giraffe, sitting on a cloud with a family next to it. He could read all their names above the figures. Oh Taehee…

Looking through the photographs, old memories surfaced and made the man tear up even heavier. He didn’t knew how much he really had missed them. It was as if his empty shell was slowly filled again, reliving all of your best and worst moments. He saw a picture on his old friends Hueningkais 18th birthday. All of his friends were there, cake smeared all across your faces, the brightest smiles someone could ever see. The day he had first met you… Another picture had all of your friends sitting around a small bonfire, being cuddled inside blankets. Taehyun saw his younger handsome self smiling unsure into the camera with you sitting beside him. He could only laugh sadly at the memories of your camping trip where he first had kissed you, the guilty feeling just as clear.

“She looks so happy here…” Taehyun noticed with a testy smile, gently touching your face on the picture, seeing you and him laying on a bed, arms tightly slung around your frame, as you held the camera. His large eyes showed nothing but the purest form of love as he looked over to you. Oh he was such a lovesick fool. “You were a pretty couple…” Jungwon whispered, glancing over the handsome young man and the pretty women. He wished to find someone in his life later, he could look at with just as much love as he did. Taehyun nodded, pulling out the next photo. It was the two of you kissing in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, big smiles on both of your faces. Taehyun remembered, it was when he courageously decided to fly around half the globe to you to fix your relationship. He didn’t want to give you up, thank god he didn’t. Another photograph showed you holding your first ultrasound picture, tears streaming down your face. You were both so young and already on the way to becoming parents. It was scary, yes it was one of the most scary moments in life but it was all worth it. The next picture showed you in the hospital bed, looking weak, yet happy. Taehyun was kneeing down next to you, his gaze focused on you and the tiny newborn baby in four arms. A tear dropped down onto the photo but he quickly wiped it away. “Our little Taehee…”

The next picture showed a kissing couple dressed in a gorgeous white dress and a neat black suit. The priest between them was smiling fondly at the newlywed couple. On another one he could see the couple dancing in midst of their guests, white petals laying all over the place. Taehyun sobbed, holding a hand over his mouth. Jungwons hand reassuringly squeezed his shoulder. He was there for him. Taehyuns and your parents were dancing next to you, he could see his friend Yeonjun and Beomgyu dancing with each other playfully and many more of their closest circle. It had been so long. And he missed it. It was such a happy memory.

There were other photographs with you being pregnant, both of your baby pictures, your friends and your parents and a ton of little Taehee running around bubbly in her adorable dresses and overalls. Taehyun hadn’t seen these pictures in a while and it tore his heart into a million pieces. The last picture was inside your new house, the house he never could bring over him to leave. You were all sitting on the carpet, smiling into the camera. The little baby boy snuggling closer in his blanket and the girl pressing a soft kiss onto his tiny head. Taehyuns arms were slung around your frame, head laying on your shoulder relaxing. They were so happy. So happy.

He pulled out an edition of your favorite book with a hand written text inside: ‘For Taehee and Taejun- may they find wisdom and happiness in their long lives. From mum and dad’ Taehyun remembered. Oh he remembered everything. You two would always read this book together since your honeymoon, where you discovered it in one of the local bookstores. Since then it had always be your favorite book. And it hurt him seeing his children never got to read it. Their future was just robbed because of one moment. It was unfair. Why did he get to live when they couldn’t? He never understood.

The last thing Taehyun pulled out of the box was the pink letter littered with dozen of glitter stickers. ‘To my love’ stood on top of it in your cursive handwriting. He gulped, knowing exactly this was made for him personally. It was the letter he dreaded reading. The moment he waited for. The reason he wanted to find this box in the first place. His love. Jungwon stood stiff and still next to him, not daring to say a word. With shaking fingers, he carefully opened the envelope without tearing it. He could immediately recognise your pretty handwriting and already teared up when he read over the first sentence. ‘To my dear love Taehyun, whom I always love’ with another nod, he dared reading through the heartfelt letter.

‘So this is where life led us, what? To be quite honest with you, my 17 year old me would’ve never thought about marrying the handsome boy from Hueningkais birthday party, let alone have his children and buy our first house together. Life went wild with us, am I right Tae? But I regret nothing. Not even when I stole your favorite hoodie out of your closet without you knowing. Everyone was so done with my reckless personality and I often felt misunderstood in my younger days as you know. But you just always seemed to just see the best in me. Even when I felt like giving it all up. You were always there for me. And you were the only one to fully understand and accept me how I am. This is something I never told you in person but I can’t remember how life was without you before. In my mind, you were always there and I know that you will always be there for our family in our long future. I hope when you read this, we are both still happily married, watching our children and grandchildren laugh about all our ridiculous photos inside this box. And Taehee, oh she must be so happy to see her favorite toy again haha. Taehyun, you are my best friend, my first love, my first heartache, my true soulmate and the best husband in the whole world. You are and will always be my love, no matter how time will turn our lives around. We are always together. I love you always,

Your dearest wife Y/N

(P.S. don’t worry about getting old, you are still my handsome prince I fell in love with!)’

At this point, Taehyun was a sobbing mess, not caring what the young boy might think of him. This letter had touched his soul, his deepest heart. He felt every word you’ve written just as if it was you whispering each of them into his ear. He never felt the urge that strong before to be by your side, hug you, kiss you all over your face, tell you how beautiful you were and whisper how much he loved you and would forever. His life made sense only with his family by his side. There was nothing left to live anymore for Taehyun. And he knew that for a long time already.

Jungwon in this moment didn’t knew what to do anymore. He felt like he had fulfilled his mission, making the old man happy for a last time. With quiet steps, he took his video camera, he totally had forgotten and put it in his backpack laying on the floor abandoned. It was his sign to leave, let the man dwell in his emotions and memories. He was done here. With careful steps he went closer to the sobbing man again, softly putting his hand on his shoulder. He looked up as if he knew what the boy was about to say.

A small smile was on his wrinkled lips, clenching on the boys heart. He weakly pushed himself up just to pull the sweaty, in dirt covered student into a warm embrace. It was the first hug since ages it felt like. The hug remembered Jungwon of his own grandmother and tears stuck in his throat. He missed her. “Thank you so much, Jungwon. You are a wonderful kid. You’ve fulfilled my dearest wish. I will forever be thankful to you. May you be blessed forever. You were the only one willing to listen. Thank you.” Jungwon nodded in his shoulder, trying not to burst into tears on the spot but failed nevertheless in the end. He was so glad seeing the happy man in front of him, now seeming even younger than before. The deep sunken eyes didn’t seem frightening anymore. They were warm and welcoming. He could see sparkles of youth inside them. Yes, Jungwon did the right thing.

When the clock showed sharply half an hour past midnight, Jungwon bid his farewell to the man, he weirdly would consider his friend now, knowing he could sleep well tonight. Taehyun insisted on him keeping the jacket he gave him as well as one of the pictures inside the box for his school project and as a token of gratitude. On his quiet walk back home, he smiled endearingly down to the old photograph he carefully held in his hand. It was the last picture. Where the family of four smiled happily into the camera, sitting onto the fluffy rug Jungwon recognised now. He would treasure this picture forever. It was a generous gift, knowing how important it had been to Mr. Kang. He was so thankful.

The next day, Jungwon excitedly presented his project in class. Even though his mother yelled at him concerned where he was until this late, he managed to edit the video for his project, tearing up in the process but still felt motivated to keep going. It was important that he made this his best project. Not for him or his grade, no, it was for Mr. Kang. He was determined to change everyone’s horrible opinion about the old man.

It was eye opening for everyone. Even Park Jongsong, the scary older student, couldn’t come up with a counter attack and stared wide eyed at the screen in front of the class. It was freeing, knowing that just a bit of courage and kindness could lead you to such wonderful moments. He changed everyone’s opinion about ‘Killer Kang’. And he managed to make an old sad man happy again.

After school, the kind student hurried over to Mr. Kangs house. In bright daylight, the garden looked like a battlefield with tons and tons of freshly digged soil laying all around. Now with a much happier feeling, Jungwon crossed the chaotic lawn, knocking energetically onto the old wodden door. After a while he still hadn’t heard any steps so he tried knocking again. “Mr. Kang? It’s Jungwon. I wanted to show you the finished project. It went amazing.” The boy excitedly bounced on the balls of his feet, too giddy to stand still. There was still no answer, so Jungwon made his way towards the backyard, now being familiar with every inch. He had a weird feeling in the pit of his stomache.

And when he saw the open veranda, the old man sitting in his mould on the old couch, Jungwon let out a relieved breath. With careful steps not to step inside one of the many holes in the ground, he made its way over to Mr. Kang, not without knocking on the wall outside. Still no answer. Maybe he hasn’t heard it or he was sleeping. Jungwon waddled over to the familiar couch, seeing Mr. Kang sitting in his usual spot with his eyes closed. He looked so peaceful, Jungwon first thought the old man was sleeping tightly. Yet when there was still no answers or reactions from his side and when he noticed there was no movement of his upper body, he understood…

Mr. Kang passed away last night. Tears welled up in Jungwons eyes and he heavily let them flow when he saw all the contents of the metallic box scattered around the small desk in front of him. The photos, sorted into time accuracy, the book untouched, the adorable drawings of his young daughter, the green giraffe smiling cheekily at him. The pink letter was open and the neat handwriting was still the same as yesterday. And in Mr. Kangs hands, layed the pink toy dolphin.

Jungwon went onto his knees beside him on the fluffy carpet, letting his hot tears fall freely without restrictions. He may had lost a friend today but he knew deep down, the old kind man was happily reunited with his family. He had gained everything he lost. And for that…how could Jungwon still be sad?

For now and forever, the courageous 14 year old boy, who acted righteous and kind, carried Kang Taehyuns life story out into the wide world, spread his last words so no one would forget the once mysterious man everyone feared to look at. Kang Taehyun, a man who got everything he wished for and then got it taken away from him. A man, who loved dearly. A man, whose story would never be forgotten.

[madraleen]

Any Way The Wind Blows (Rainbow Rowell) – 4/5 stars. More arbitrary stars under the cut, and jot-it-down-as-it happens commentary.

5 stars for Simon, Baz, and SnowBaz. 5 stars for the Salisburys, would recommend for a long lost family. 4 stars for Penny and Shepard. 3 stars for friendship shenanigans. 2,5 stars for Agatha, my sweet summer child why. 2,5 stars for the non SnowBaz-related conflicts, because huh? 2,5 stars for plot, because how did we get here? ??? stars for pace.

Commentary

-Lady Ruth!! We have an uncle! Simon, let’s find Jamie! -Simon, for fuck’s sake, answer the man’s texts, he deserves that much. Break my heart with unanswered texts, why don’t you. -I know this must happen. I know they must separate and breathe. I know. But it hurts. -Where is Agatha? I need her and her not giving two shits about any of this, I’m overwhelmed. -I don’t want Baz to find Simon. Somehow, I think that’ll be worse. Leaving him with a note is the worst thing (well, second worst next to saying nothing, I guess). -Lmfao, never has art in a book scared me so. A wand? Is it Baz’s? Why is it bent? WhAT DOes It ALL MEaN! -SIMON. I love you so much, Simon, please, use your words, even if it’s to give him closure, a reason, something. It’s hard, but Baz deserves it and you deserve it, please, love. -This is exactly how I’d pictured Baz reacting to Simon breaking up with him. -“Use your words,” he sneers. (That’s right, that’s my boy). SIMON, you’ve just cut out my heart and stomped on it, ey. -I understand Simon, but I also stuttered out cries when he said it’s not working between them because he’s not a magician. Baz, I’m with you, I support you, I love you. -I love that Baz’s brain works sharply even as he is in distress. - I do believe they’re endgame, so I’m super excited to see HOW, after all this. -“I never thought I’d be the first thing you ever gave up on.” Bazzzz, my man, the shade, I love you! -I expected the breakup in the beginning so that we’d have time to build up to being a thing again, but oh man. I understand Simon looking at Baz and only seeing who HE isn’t and what HE lost, but oh man. -Agatha is the best, yes Agatha, bring us relief! -Oomph, I’m so sad. How do we fix this, Baz is completely broken and Simon completely lost and overwhelmed. -Is there an overarching plot? There’s so many things – the goblins, Fiona’s rummaging, the curse, missing Jamie, maybe NowNext. Who’s the main antagonist? -Honestly, I just want to read about fierce Agatha and splendid Shepard rn, everything else hurts. -Please remind me henceforth to refer to vampires as “sexy bedbugs.” Thank you, Baz, I’m with you, I love you. -I absolutely adore Baz’s relationship with Daphne and his siblings. I’ve loved it since the glimpses in Carry On. -I think Fiona is seeing Nicodemus, I’ve believed so even before picking up the book. -Simon Snow is on our door?!?! What’s happening, what is happening! I’m getting whiplash! I was not prepared, wait, help! -“This is our soundtrack now.” Omfg, I love Baz. -But damn, I love Simon, I love his voice. If it all goes well, I can’t wait to reread the book with the necessary peace of mind to soak it all in in its proper context. -Lmfao, Simon says, "I came to tell you something" and I am honestly scared to turn the page and see what it is. This is going splendidly. -Baz slams the door on Simon’s face?! I fucking gasped and clutched my peals!!! Oh M Y GOD. -“I never believed in us”??? I understand what he’s saying, but oh my God, why have you come, Simon, why are you here, this hurts! -The way they CRY differently, Baz more restrained and Simon just letting the tears fall and licking them as needed, I absolutely adore it. -Where is this going, Simon, we’re all crying, are you happy now? (I know you’re not, I’m sorry, I love you, this is just hard). -This part is really just me hitting the book and biting my hand and muttering, “We’re fine, we’re fine, we’re fine,” with the occasional cry of “RAINBOWWWW.” -Simon is saying I love you Simon is saying I love you Simon is saying – AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. I gasped. So hard. Deep breaths. We’re fine. It’s fine. -I love this “trying” so much. I love my boys so much. -My heart is whole, my crops are watered, flowers are blooming, birds are singing, Simon and Baz are sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. -Simon is relieved that he’s still with Baz, I’m relieved that he still has wings, all is right. -“I just want to be with you,” I say. “And this is where we are now. I’m a broken-down mess, and you’re a rat-drinking monster.” Poetry. POETRY! -Shepard, you’re all I

need, these people are too much for me. -Reading fanfiction of what. Reading fanfiction of what, Penny. -Oh shut up, Shepard saved her chalks. -We should go to the Mage’s estate. -I love Simon. He has this pureness. -“Simon took the napkin, then licked the butter off his arm.” Yes, Simon, I love you. -Catch me at 1am making love oaths to Simon. Really, I can’t blame Baz, it’s just a Simon thing. -Omfg hold me, we’re going to Lady Ruth’s! -Low-key loving that the Salisburys and the Pitches are on good terms already. Love that the boys are hitting it off with Lady Ruth. -Smith-Richards is promising people magic? Oh. Oh, this took a turn. I have zero idea where any of this is going. -Okay, hello, I love Lady Ruth. -Obviously I’m more invested in Baz and Simon than in anyone else, but every time there’s a Baz or Simon chapter, I’m actually petrified at what might come. -Smith is shady, I don’t like him. -Baz really be serving looks in this book. -“I would have liked to have had you for a friend here.” Oh my bb boy Simon, that is so soft. -Oh shut up, Baz left a rose for Lucy. -WILL there be an emergency? Will Baz drink Simon’s blood? Why are we dwelling? -Simon, talk to Penny, my love. I know we’re doing the thing where you’re both recovering from your co-dependency, but seriously, love, talk to her. -Come on, Shep, kiss the girl!! Oomph, they’re so cute. -Oooh, we’re doing the deep cut, we’re doing Philippa, we’re tying off threads, nice! Also ouch. But nice. -NICODEMUS, called it. -Yayyy, the gang is reuniting. But who are we fighting? Who’s the antagonist? Why are the goats leaving? -Baz has a key?! Whoa, Simon! -Well, fuck indeed about your magic, Simon, but did you try calling the sword? -"So no one is cursed…” “Just you, babe.”Ahahahahaha! Sorry. -Will a goblin attack the flat? What was up with the goblin back at the beginning? -“Mmm,” he mmms. POETRY! -I’m sorry, Simon, you have a key to a hidden waterfall?! Care to elaborate? -Baz, my love, let Simon take care of you for once, it’s okay. He wants to do it. He can do it. -“I love you,” he says. “It’s good.” Awww, my bb Simon. -What do you mean immune to magic? What’s happening? -Oh wait, he’s culling the less powerful mages? Is that it? -I see you lying, Simon Snow. -Wait, but why is Simon immune? Is it because he’s a dead spot? -It IS a culling. -…What, that’s it? We’re just arresting Smith on a rooftop? That’s it? -IS Simon a dead spot? And if he is, does that mean that the magic will return? What does it all mean??? -But how did Lucy die??? -“y” S I M O N you’re a texting icon, I love you. -Baz, my man, I’m with you as usual, I don’t want the wings and tail gone either. -I have ten pages left and I’m hysterically hopeful and scared, with the amount of threads that are still loose. -But... a family sword? -Kinda disappointed that Simon didn’t get his magic back, but it’s a bold move, I respect it. -Agatha gets the epilogue?? That’s a choice.

[ajolote-mexicano]

*asks about your hollow knight crossover*

Anon I owe you my life

SO

its all scatered but due to (smth i have to figure out uyghg) ghost gets brought to the ut game after a no mercy reset, Ghost just having ended the hollow knight ending, and while the radiance manages to come as well, her power is greatly weakened here

frisk n chara act as ghostly (?) narrators for this scared Lil monster (who they later learn is not a monster at all)

flowey cannot for the life of them find their soul after their first encounter and that immediately throws him off

okay so chara and frisk (who im going to refer as fc ) are like wtf but since they last did a no mercy they want to help this little dude do things right, and help them reset when they inevitably kill a monster bcs all they know its violence and danger, in a way the trio help each other with their trauma

so Toriel thinks a few monster might have escaped and are living somewhere outside, giving her hope, even making the little monster another outfit, but since ghost still has to leave the whole fight happens, but now she shuts herself off out of shame and grief

(I don't know if toriel finds out ghost is not a monster or if I wanna do that at the end)

the journey trought the underground still happens, with fc teaching ghost sign language trought it

FC tell ghost that maybe once they complete the journey they can go back home, (maybe with the help of the kings soul?)

the fun values are just right, and they met gaster's followers, who comment on how ghost has something that feels familiar abt them

anyway so flowey is following ofc but is afraid of ghost bcs 1, no soul, and two, they're a new event in their resets and can fight, so they keep their distance

but still theres a lot of stuff familiar abt them, like how they react to certain events, or how just out of the corner of their eye they can see glimpses of their long lost best friend and someone who looks extremely faimiliar

so, since they have no soul, but seem able to control it he gets immersed in them because no soul vessel solidarity, he tells Asgore abt how this monster kid might have the key to freedom, (he still wants the human souls after all) and so asgore still tries to kill them

ghost, being reminded of the pale king goes absolutely no mercy on asgore, trying to get his soul to try and go back to everyone, but oh suprise, radiance is mbig mad so she stops them, finally having some sort of control over asgore and making the weakened goat monster try and fight them again, but before she can do more damage look..! is your favorite flower getting six human souls!

omaga flowey fight ensues, but oh no..! whats that? some of his attacks look sickly orange dont you think

so flowey now has to struggle for control of the human souls + the radiance + whatever game 4th wall breaking fuckery is going on

everyone is like wtf but the rest of the game goes as normal up until the true lab ending section, where alphys tries to study the radiance (idk what happens here dkfjdfjg but nothing mayor as the game continues )

so! new asgore fight, ghost uses the pie to lower asgores defenses...but!!

so now all his orange attacks are radiance infected, but its still pretty minimal

where everyone in the underground comes to help their small bug friends the asriel fight happens, ghost, chara and frisk fighting asriel once again

the ending comes, and the barrier is broken! yayyy

but theres now some orange mushrooms in waterfall, and the golden flowers also get an orange hue

so now everyones is like wtf but

they pretend they do not see it

exept alphys, as flowey asked her about the vessel and she takes interest in them,asking ghost if they have something to do with void because she feels like they could help w something, then she promises to help them go back after they explain their situation

this is at the end scene, once the credits start however, the screen starts glitching,

ghost and the fc gang find themselves in the pause screen, an all black void screen

uh oh old man gaster is there, since hes also void he could connect to different universes and hollow could help him get out, but (might change) he needs the radiance gone, he brought them here, but can't take them back, so good thing alphys is here! so after some fuckery they go back to hollow knight and chara and frisk are still there as ghostly companions

they get out the black egg w/o anyone noticing, tho hornet goes ape bcs it seems like the radiance is returning

the only way to defeat the radiance is to achieve the godseeker dlc ending, in wich chara and frisk help w the fights

during hornets fight she seems to notice something, using some time to ask ghost abt stuff w the radiance and if theyre okay, but the godsekker notices and cuts it short

hornet sees godsekker and finds them, determined to defeat the radiance herself

its all messy from there on but like, hornet does the godsekker trial too, helping in keeping the radiance at bay, and once its time to defeat the absolute radiance everyone helps

once its done ghost says their goodbyes to chara n frisk (idk how they return but alphys helps skdjfn) and nods to hornet, hornet waking up where she feel asleep next to two empty masks

when the cf gang returns home its to their normal timeline, as if they ended the pacifist route as normal, except theres a new house where an old royal doctor lives

hes retired, and (pretends?) not to know about the other timelines, Alphys is confused about the timelines but understands more overall

aaaand since ghost is a god now, they can say fuck it and go visit sometimes, no one remembers them but they experience dejavu

idk if fc would visit hallownest thooooooo

like, maybe they do and get scaled down , and when ghost visits they either get scaled up and stay tiny due to no more timeline messing, idk

aaaaaaaaand that's all I have skjdfnsdjkf

Thank you so much for asking aaaaaa!!!

Feel free to (please) ask me more!

[stray-tori]

TUMBLR DID IT.

RETAGS IN ACTIVITY.

YAYYY-

except if its xkit i havent tried deactivating it but it looks built-in...

edit: Hold on, its broken lol. im seeing no reblogs at all in the activity page. great.

edit 2: okay if i filter OUT likes, then I see reblogs. epic. but i’d still like to SEE the likes, just maybe... not taking up that much space. Or being able to toggle to see “only replies / retags / reblogs with comments” like xkit did :(

[fandom-will-be-my-fall]

Melodies of Doom

Hey there y’all, I’m posting a ficlet here now bc I don’t find it to be good enough for my writer’s blog. This is a reader-insert thingy. Very short, too.

Working for Zim had its benefits. If only a few, there were still some.

One of them was hanging out with GIR.

He wasn’t the smartest little robot out there, that’s true, but he was honestly precious. A loyal, goofy little servant who malfunctions from time to time and does crazy things. He just wants to be accepted. I like him a lot.

I thought taking him grocery shopping was a good idea since he’s super strong and can carry stuff for me, plus, as far as I know, he isn’t very busy. Sure, he might have a secret life like Parry the Platypus, but how much is the probability of that? He mostly just stays around the house and eats sweets, occasionally takes a pig home, or goes on a mission with his master.

Unfortunately, the radio couldn’t drown out his (in fact horrible) singing.

- …Doom doom doom do-doom, doom do-doom doom…

It became harder and harder to pay attention to the road. The first few minutes I didn’t mind, but it quickly got unbelievably annoying. I didn’t have the heart to yell at him though, so I needed to be tactful.

I briefly turned to him with a frown and sighed.

- GIR, could you-

- DOOM DOOM DOOM DOOM-

- Could you please-

- DOOM DO-DOOM DOOM DOOM-

- Do you want to… DO YOU WANT TO LEARN A NEW SONG?

Finally, he stopped. He turned to me with eyes sparkling of excitement.

- Yeeeees?

- …So um…

Let’s be honest, anything would be better than the Doom Song. However, that anything just wasn’t willing to come to my mind. Up until an iconic tune hit my ears and saved me from my misery; I turned up the volume of the radio and started singing along.

- Somebody once told me, the world was gonna roll me, I ain’t the sharpest tool in the she-ed…

All Star! Perfect! He listened to my voice with curiosity. Maybe if I continue, I can engrave it into his tiny mind.

- She was looking kind of dumb, with her finger and her thumb, in the shape of an L on her forehead…

He seemed to like what he hears, tilting his head from side to side to the rhythm. Aww.

- Well, the years start coming and they don’t stop coming, fed to the rules and I hit the ground running, didn’t make sense not to live for fun, your brain gets smart but your head gets dumb…

I sang along cheerfully while speeding through the street with relief. I’m positive I did humanity a favor.

Our trip ended at the same time as the song did; I felt a little sad even, for having to finish it. I got out of the car with my cotton bags in hand.

- Well that was nice… You can sing this song when we go back to Zim, I’m sure he’ll love it - I added, just for the sake of the meme.

- Okay! - he replied, like the cutie he is.

I broke into a small smile at the thought, then waved my arm around opening the autodoor as if I had telekinetic powers.

- Alright, to the cookie aisle we go!

- YAYYY!!! COOKIES!!!

…

We got back to the base, carrying a shitton of bags, most of them filled with snacks and only some contained miscellaneous groceries. I climbed into the trashcan where I belong, GIR following me happily.

When we were underground GIR kicked in the door despite it being fully capable of opening on its own and went:

- SomeBODY ONCE TOLD ME-

Zim was working on a machine at the moment; it made a broken noise and fell to bits in that instant. Needless to say Zim was pissed.

- GIR!!!

I stared at the scene with wide eyes. Maaaybe I shouldn’t have taught him this song.

- …Oops.

[janetbrown711]

Don’t be silly. I want to stay up with you.” Louie and someone

"Don’t be silly. I want to stay up with you," Louie smiled up at his uncle as he hugged him. They were both sitting on the sofa in the living room of the boat, and the little toddler had broken out his puppy eyes for this. "This is just to get out of bed time isn't it?" Donald raised an eyebrow. "What? Of course not! Its because I looooooove you," he snuggled himself into his uncle's arm. "Har Har Lou. I know what's going on here. Go to bed," Donald laughed it off and went back to his laptop. Louie broke the hug and crossed his arms with a stubborn huff. "Well that's no fun," he pouted. Donald snorted. His littlest nephew never ceased to amuse. "Well... What are ya doing?" Louie crawled back over and looked at the laptop screen. "Looking for a new oven," the last one had been broke for a week. It had near exploded while he starred taking dinner for when the boys got home. "Oooo I like that one," Louie pointed to a shiny green model. Donald shook his head with a smile and clicked on it. It was a pretty sleek design but it was far too expensive. "Buy it! Buy it! Buy it!" The little boy smiled up at him. "I..." Donald grimaced. "Pweeeaaassseeee?" Louie pulled out his extra extra special puppy dog eyes he used when he wanted something. "I'll add it to cart and we'll see," Donald patted his head and added it to cart. "Yayyy," Louie was satisfied. Donald sighed tiredly and continued looking down bland models of ovens he knew would all break in about a year and were all too pricey. It wasn't helping that Louie was there pointing out all of the green ones and insisting he should buy it. With his sharp mind he'd be able to notice he got a new one that wasn't green and have a fit. "Are you gonna buy other things unca Donald?" Louie asked. "Oh um... No. Not for now. Maybe later," Donald closed his laptop. "Why not?" Louie cocked his head. "Because we don't need anything new right now. We got what we need right here," Donald gestured to the room. Louie looked around and shrugged. "I guess," he complied. It was obvious he didn't agree. Donald sighed. "Look kiddo, its the best we got so... We're gonna keep it that way, okay bud?" he asked. Louie sat and thought a moment."Okay," he shrugged. Donald sighed and wrapped an arm around him."You know I try right?" Donald asked. "You try very hard Unca Donald," Louie nodded. "Good," he smiled and kiss the top of his head. Louie 'bleh'ed in protest. "Now its time for bed.""No! I wanna stay with you!" Louie protested profusely. "C'mon Louie, its time for bed. Please, go to sleep," Donald pleaded. "No!" he shouted. "Louie," Donald gave a stern frown. "No! I wanna stay with you!" Louie held onto his uncle. He was shaking. Donald immediately changed his tone. "Why do you say that Lou?" he asked genuinely. "B-because... I-I don't wanna loose you..." the boy didn't look up at him. Donald held him close. "Louie I'm gonna be okay," he tried to assure. "B-but I-I dreamed..." he had a nightmare. Of course he did. That's why he was being so extra clingy all day. "It was just that. A dream. I'll be okay," he kissed the top of his head and Louie didn't protest this time. "O-okay. I'll believe it if you do," Louie face a crooked and tired smile. "Attaboy," Donald smiled too, "Do you think you can sleep now?""I-I wanna sleep with you..." Louie said. Donald slowly nodded. "Well alright, come on them," Donald got up and helped the little boy up and together they went to bed.

[lingthusiasm]

Transcript Lingthusiasm Episode 18: Translating the untranslatable.

This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm Episode 18: Translating the untranslatable. 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 18 shownotes page.

[Music]

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

Lauren: And I'm Lauren Gawne, and today we're talking about how to translate untranslatable words. But first, it's our Patreon anniversary!

Gretchen: Yay!

Lauren: And we are super excited to revisit the topic that we visited for our first episode, which is swearing. Yayyy, rude episode on Patreon!

Gretchen: So our first Patreon episode was all about the sounds of swearing and swearing in different languages, and this time we're talking about the grammar of swearing, and we already have reports that it made somebody laugh out loud in public, so maybe don't listen to it around young children or in public, because you might have to explain to them why you're laughing so hard. You can go check that out at patreon.com/lingthusiasm.

Lauren: We also, conveniently for our anniversary, unlocked a new Patreon goal, which we are really excited about. This one is a goal to commission some Lingthusiasm-themed art.

Gretchen: Yes! So we're very excited to have some exciting art and for you guys to get to see concept sketches and where things go from here! Stay tuned for more exciting Lingthusiasm art news.

[Music]

Gretchen: Untranslatable words! Lauren, have you come across any untranslatable words lately?

Lauren: It's because I came across, like, three in the space of a day that I was like, "We really have to talk about this topic." Because it's a bit of a linguist meme, or talking about language meme, is this idea that there are some words that just aren't translatable, or meanings for which we don't have a single word and maybe we should. So the first is a Language Log post from Mark Liberman. He was talking about how there was a big, windy, wintry, weathery event in Philadelphia that meant that there were a lot of discarded umbrellas left around, and he talked about how there's no word for a dead umbrella.

Gretchen: Isn't the word for a dead umbrella just "dead umbrella" or "broken umbrella"?

Lauren: Well...

Gretchen: I don't know why this has to be so hard!

Lauren: We can chat about it, but he felt like it was something that needed a word and a blog post. And the other one –

Gretchen: Is it an UNbrella?

Lauren: An unbrella.

Gretchen: We need to write in to Mark.

Lauren: Yep. We solved it!

Gretchen: You have your umbrellas and then you have your unbrellas.

Lauren: And the second blog post about untranslatable words, or no word in a language, was from my favourite gynaecologist, Dr. Jennifer Gunter, who has a really fabulous blog, and she she was talking about – I'll just read the quote. "I believe there is no word in any language to describe that unique experience that's simultaneously running out of both pads (or tampons) and toilet paper when you're sitting on the toilet and in immediate need of both."

Gretchen: This is a terrible situation, but I think she's described it! I don't know, like, am I the untranslatable word sceptic here? But I think she's, you know, just put several words together and it did a pretty good job of describing this relatable experience.

Lauren: But there's no single word that encapsulates – I mean, there are plenty of single words and most of them are more appropriate for a Patreon episode than this episode – but none that specifically encapsulates that meaning.

Gretchen: Yeah, I mean, so this is a thing that I've been thinking about in terms of what I've called "the schadenfreude effect," which is, you know when you learn the schadenfreude and you're like, "Wow! The Germans! They really do have a word for everything, like taking pleasure in someone else's misfortune! It's not just me who's uniquely terrible by doing this sometimes! Other people do this too! Whoa, mind blown!" And the thing that I think makes us resonate with these lists of untranslatable words or ideas that certain concepts are untranslatable or there should be a word for something is that words are way of packaging our experiences, and if we have a word for something, then we know that someone else has thought of packaging that particular experience before. And so saying, "Oh, is there a word for this?" is also kind of trying to reach for "haven't other people also had this common experience" or "isn't this something else that other people have also felt."

Lauren: I really like that you've coined the term "schadenfreude effect" to really encapsulate the meaning of feeling pleased that you found a word that neatly translates a concept that you thought didn't have an elegant word for it.

Gretchen: Yeah, it's kind of when you encounter a word that describes something you're already familiar with. And I came up with it actually because there's this paper that I really like about people learning words and how best to teach people new concepts and new vocabulary. And so they did this study, and I think was a biology class or an economics class, I don't remember, an intro class at a university somewhere, and some of the students got a reading, kind of your standard textbook reading that is, like, you know, "Mitosis is blah blah blah..." and "Supply and demand is blah blah blah" – I don't remember whether this was biology or economics, so...

Lauren: The biology/economics textbook.

Gretchen: In the highly in-demand Intro Bio/Econ course! So anyway, they got your kind of standard reading that had a bunch of terms with their definitions, and then the other people got a different reading which was a version where you had all the concepts explained to you, saying, "There is a concept in biology where cells divide blah blah blah" or in economics where people buy things at different rates. And then for those students, they got to class and they got a brief list of vocabulary words that said, "These concepts that you were exposed to in the reading, here are the words for them." And then they did a post-test on how well the students did in learning these concepts, and they found that the students that had been exposed to the concept before the jargon did better than the students that were exposed to the jargon and the concept at the same time or even the jargon first.

Lauren: So it's not just a matter of smashing words into your brain.

Gretchen: Yeah, and it's – you know, when you come across a word like "schadenfreude" and you're like, "Wow, this is so satisfying to learn this," the reason it's satisfying to learn the word "schadenfreude" is because you're already familiar with the feeling.

Lauren: Right.

Gretchen: And it's less satisfying to learn a word like, I don't know, "mitosis" or something because you're not familiar with this concept before you learn the word, so you're having to learn the word and the concept at the same time.

Lauren: I guess it's why – and this is gonna date this podcast horrifically – why "hygge" has resonated so much with people in the last 18 months. It's just been like a hygge bonanza of like –

Gretchen: Mm-hmm!

Lauren: – Danish/Scandinavian, cosy, thoughtful, living books.

Gretchen: Yeah, and it's all about this, like, okay here's this concept that we'd like to be able to reach for, or this idea that we'd like to be able to articulate better, like, doesn't everyone want more cosiness in their lives? And it comes with a lot of cultural stuff, but it's around the idea of people wanting more cosiness, or more of whatever it is that thing that the Danes have. I think this is the same reason why words like "tsundoku" often show up on untranslatable words lists as well. So this is the Japanese word for the pile of books that you haven't gotten around to reading yet.

Lauren: What's wrong with "my pile of unread books"?

Gretchen: Yeah, I mean, I know a lot of people who talk about their "TBR pile," which is their "to be read" pile, or their reading list?

Lauren: Mmm.

Gretchen: And as far as I can tell,  they're used pretty similarly to "tsundoku"! But we're familiar with the idea of "of course you have this pile of books you haven't gotten around to reading yet."

Lauren: Yep.

Gretchen: And, oh, isn't it convenient that there's this convenient package for this thing that you either are intimately familiar with, or that you would like to be more familiar with, as in the case with "hygge."

Lauren: It's interesting how sometimes these words will enter into English. So, like, schadenfreude I think is – I mean, you can tell from my very Australianising of it, like it's a comfortable piece of my vocabulary, I can use it actively in a sentence, and I feel really comfortable with it. But, like, I think "hygge" is kind of crossing into that at the moment? I don't – I think it's too faddy, personally.

Gretchen: Yeah, I think it may still be too much of a fad at the moment, but it may be crossing over. I heard someone saying "tsundoku" in a sentence in English, but she was someone who'd lived in Japan for a while, so I don't think she was using it Anglicised? So I don't know which ones of these are crossing over.

Lauren: Yep.

Gretchen: But one of the things that I always think about what I think about these lists of "oh, here's a bunch of words that are untranslatable," is first of all, well, here is this convenient column B where someone just provided a bunch of nice translations for them. So how untranslatable are they, really? And also that if you look at a language just through the lens of its lexicon, you can end up with some really weird conclusions.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: And my favourite example of this is French doesn't have a word for "please." Therefore, obviously, the French, they must be very impolite...maybe. But what they do have is a four-word phrase, "s'il vous plait," which comes in another form, which is "s'il te plait," which both mean effectively "please." And in fact they come in formal and informal versions, this phrase that means effectively "please." And so, sure, if we look at the lexicon of French, the individual, atomisable words with spaces in between them, like, "Oh dang, there's no equivalent for please! Like, how do you even be polite in this language?" But if you look at it even just one step further in subtlety, of course there are lots of ways to be polite in this language! And so, seeing a language just through the lens of its lexicon – on the one hand, it gets us some of these interesting packages, but on the other hand it misses out on a whole lot of what a language actually is if all we're doing is looking at the lists of words and their translations.

Lauren: It reminds me of the "there's no way to say 'yes' and 'no' in Mandarin" meme?

Gretchen: Mm-hmm.

Lauren: That there isn't just a convenient word like "yes" we see that you can use to answer an affirmative, and no equivalent of "no" that you can just use to say no to a question that someone asks. And it's because you say – if, you know, someone says, "Do you want this?" you use the equivalent of "want" or "don't want."

Gretchen: Oh, Gaelic does this too.

Lauren: Yeah! So just because you can't find "yes" or "no" in a simple word list doesn't mean you're unable to say it.

Gretchen: Like, "Whoa, you can't do negation or affirmative in these languages!" Clearly the speakers are capable of agreeing and disagreeing with things.

Lauren: "Yes and no are untranslatable!" And it's just like, oh, they have some way of expressing affirmative and negative. Life is going on.

Gretchen: Yeah! But something that interests me is the subtler domains where things are actually harder to translate as well. And one of the big areas for me for that is poetry, because what makes a poem, essentially, is that you have a relationship with form and meaning that is aesthetically pleasing.

Lauren: And contextually dependent.

Gretchen: And different languages do have different relationships between form and meaning. So to take a very simple example, a pair of words that rhyme in English don't necessarily rhyme in another language you might be trying to translate a poem to. So if you have something like "roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and I love you" the kind of classic, four-line, parodisable poem in English –

Lauren: All versions of that poem are said in deep, deep earnest, Gretchen. It's the most moving piece of poetry.

Gretchen: So moving. Why wasn't this our Valentine's Day episode? 

Um, so you have something like this, but "blue" and "you" rhyme in English, and they don't rhyme in many other languages. There's no particular reason why they have to rhyme, it's just they happen to in English and so they make good subjects for poems, and that's why we don't say "violets are purple" because "purple" doesn't rhyme with "you." And so when you try to translate that in another language, either you've got to be unfaithful to the meaning and use a different pair of words that do rhyme, or you've got to be unfaithful to the rhyme and then not reproduce the aesthetic experience of getting the poem. And so because there's this inherent asymmetry, because different languages have different words – shockingly! – it's really hard to translate things that rely on both the form and the meaning simultaneously.

Lauren: I remember learning to read Old English poetry, and I just couldn't get my head around it – it involves alliteration, they weren't really big into rhyming.

Gretchen: Mm!

Lauren: And I was just like, "I don't have a feeling for this being good." You know, my Old English teacher would just be like, "Yeah, this is such a great poem, you can feel the rhythm!" and I'm just like, "Oh, but there's no rhyming..."

Gretchen: Everything's gotta rhyme.

Lauren: Yeah, I don't know how to evaluate this.

Gretchen: I remember I tried to read Hamlet in French once because, you know, whatever.

Lauren: How did that go?

Gretchen: Well, what was really interesting for me is, you know, the thing about Hamlet, and Shakespeare in general, is that Shakespeare is all in iambic pentameter, right?

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Gretchen: And so you have your, like, duh-DUH beat, your iamb, with weak-strong –

Lauren: Yeah, even my "mm-hmm" was in iambic pentameter, I was really impressed. Mm-hmm.

Gretchen: Mm-hmm! There you go. And you have five of those per line, but in French you can't do that, because French doesn't have word-level stress the way English does.

Lauren: Right, yeah.

Gretchen: And I'm sure we'll probably do, at some point, a full stress episode, but in French you just only ever stress the thing that's at the end of the whole sentence or phrase. That's it, that's all you do, you have to do it that way.

Lauren: Okay. Yup.

Gretchen: And so you can't divide a poem into beats like that, because French doesn't do beats that way. And so what French poetry has instead that's, like, stylistically similar to iambic pentameter is something called the alexandrine, which is twelve syllables per line. So iambic pentameter gives you ten syllables per line, the alexandrine gives you twelve, which is pretty similar, and so this translation of Hamlet was all written in alexandrines with the twelve syllables per line.

Lauren: So they get an extra two syllables per line.

Gretchen: Yeah!

Lauren: The whole thing goes for like an extra 20% of time.

Gretchen: But it often takes more syllables to say the same thing in French anyway.

Lauren: Oh, okay.

Gretchen: Because French is kind of spacious like that.

Lauren: Yep.

Gretchen: So I think it kind of balanced out. But yeah, you just got this very different –

Lauren: And was it in modern French or ye olde French?

Gretchen: I... don't remember. I think it was in pretty modern French, though, it didn't feel super ye olde.

Lauren: Right.

Gretchen: But I also don't necessarily know what ye olde French would sound like, you know?

Lauren: Fair enough! Because sometimes, like, translating across time – you know, we talk about translating between cultures and what I think is, dare I say, a bit of fetishisation of, like, Scandinavian and Japanese social life that we overextend, one way of kind of borrowing their words that translate interestingly. And we forget that translating from older texts, like translating from Shakespeare, or going back further to something like Beowulf, there's actually a lot that's not easily translated between those.

Gretchen: Yeah, and when you're translating something like – you know, Shakespeare's stuff was written in current English to the original audience he was writing to, he wasn't writing in fake ye olde English, and so do you try to be faithful to that for the modern reader, or do you try to reproduce the experience of the modern reader in experiencing that as something old? Something I've been really fascinated about recently has been the Emily Wilson translation of The Odyssey.

Lauren: Mmm!

Gretchen: Oh, it's so cool. I follow her on Twitter now, it's really great. So, she is heralded as the first woman to translate The Odyssey into English, which is kind of shocking that we've gotten this far and it took that long.

Lauren: I'd have to say most of the versions that I have ever come across have been quite dusty, dry, like they feel like they were written at the time of Homer, even though they're in English.

Gretchen: Well, not quite Homer, but like this kind of 1800s feel.

Lauren: Yep.

Gretchen: And that's the thing, like even the ones that were written in, like, I don't know, the 1950s, often have this fake ye olde thing because, like, oh, well, Homer is a classic and so you need to make him sound olde.

Lauren: So what's Emily Wilson done?

Gretchen: And so Wilson doesn't do that. She's not doing ye olde, and her first line that she translates the poem as is, "Tell me about a complicated man," which is referring to Odysseus.

Lauren: Oh, that could be a text that I sent someone.

Gretchen: That's an Avril Lavigne song! Like, "Odysseus, why did you have to go make things so complicated? Right now I'm just unweaving this loom and man I really hate it!" You know, like, that's a very real translation! But she also – and this is something that the other translators also don't do – she also translates the whole epic poem in verse, and she does all of her lines in iambic pentameter.

Lauren: Right.

Gretchen: And the other translators tend to render it in prose, or in, like, shortened lines, but without paying attention to that beat in the same sort of way.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: And so I'm also really holding out for the audiobook version of this translation of The Odyssey, because I want to hear it read. It was originally an oral piece of a literature, and I really want to hear someone render it to me in that sort of way.

Lauren: Mm, that would be fun.

Gretchen: Yeah! I'm excited. It's one of my post-book projects, I'm gonna dive into that pretty deeply, I think.

Lauren: Awesome.

Gretchen: Yeah! So untranslatability, when it comes to things like how do you render – and I think the Greek word that she's trying to render with "complicated" is "polytropos"? I'm probably getting that wrong. But it means, like, "many-turning"?

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Gretchen: "Poly" meaning "many" and "tropos" is "turning," like a heliotrope is a flower that turns towards the sun.

Lauren: Yep.

Gretchen: But "many-turned" is not really an idiom in English. And so different translators try to render that idiom in different sorts of ways that both try to make it legible for the reader and also try to make it sound somewhat idiomatic and give you a sense of the feeling of the source text, in a short amount of space.

Lauren: I mean, idioms are super difficult because they're often multiple words, or if it's just one word, alluding to the whole idiom. Like, idioms already come as complicated sets of words that have a specific meaning that you can't just go, like, "word + word." You know, "looking a gift horse in the mouth," you can't say "look + horse + gift + mouth = ..."

Gretchen: That's a nice Greek idiom, Lauren!

Lauren: Yeah, I'm just keeping on-theme. You have to know about how gifts work and how horses work – and actually I don't actually know how horses' mouths work, I just know that you want to make sure they're healthy and that's apparently the mouth!

Gretchen: Yeah, I remember I was reading a book that I'd – when I was practising French I was reading stuff in French I'd already read in English.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: And the English passage of this book had said something like "doing this thing was carrying coal to Newcastle," which, I've never been to Newcastle, but I know that this is an idiom for, you know, Newcastle is a big producer of coal and so why would you bring coal to Newcastle, Newcastle already has the coals.

Lauren: Yeah. Was it "taking croissants to Paris"?

Gretchen: I wish it was! They just said something like "it was just a drop of water in the ocean".

Lauren: Taking mustard to Dijon.

Gretchen: I don't think those are idioms in French the same way that "coals to Newcastle" is an idiom in English, right? So that would be kind of bringing you out by saying, "Oh, what what is this weird idiom that they have?" So instead they had just "is a drop of water in the ocean," which is kind of idiomatic, but is also something you could interpret at a very literal level and it doesn't particularly require context for the idiom.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: Because also the book wasn't supposed to be set in France, so it'd be weird to have a very French-y idiom.

Lauren: Uh-huh. So, we can have this kind of translatability complication over time in English, but we could also have it over space because English is a language that is spoken in many places, and many places have their own words that have their own specific meaning.

Gretchen: Yeah, I really do like adding to those "untranslatable" lists, like, here's this very specific meaning that this Japanese pile of books brings to you. English has a specific verb for "to deceive someone into watching a video of Rick Astley's 'Never Gonna Give You Up.'"

Lauren: Hey, wait! We do!

Gretchen: What does it say about the English speakers that we have the verb "to rickroll."

Lauren: Oh my gosh. It's such a profound reflection on what it means to be an English speaker on the internet that we have created the word rickroll.

Gretchen: I know, right?

Lauren: I never thought about it like that before, it's really fun to flip this trope around!

Gretchen: Yeah! You know, like, the English speakers – like, it's gonna be on a French word list somewhere and be like, "Look at those English speakers, look what they've done!"

Lauren: Oh, that one's gonna date really badly as well.

Gretchen: Nah, rickroll's a classic. And there's different words in Canadian English and Australian English that sometimes have different connotations.

Lauren: And since we bump into this occasionally, I thought we would do a mini quiz round!

Gretchen: Okay! Are you gonna quiz me?

Lauren: I'm gonna quiz you. I have some words here that have very specific meanings in Australian English.

Gretchen: Mm-hmm.

Lauren: And I want you to have a go at what you think they mean.

Gretchen: Okay.

Lauren: The first word is "bogan."

Gretchen: I'm familiar with "bogan," but I don't know if I could actually define it? Is it kind of like a hick, but in Australia? Or like a chav, but in Australia?

Lauren: I like that you're going for definition by triangulation.

Gretchen: Yeeeah... like, it's kind of more like working-class, salt-of-the-earth, but also the people that politicians kind of try to make up to?

Lauren: Yeah, that's actually – you did pretty good there. That's good.

Gretchen: Yay!

Lauren: But you can identify them from the particular sports that they're interested in, like the footy, like the cricket, something something outdoors, something something wearing flannel.

Gretchen: Okay.

Lauren: It's kind of a set of meaning that goes together to define –

Gretchen: I mean, in Canada they like the hockey, so I think I may somewhat understand this demographic.

Lauren: Yeah. The next word is "mateship."

Gretchen: So, because I know that you say – people say "mate" in Australian English to be like, "G'day, mate," or like, "What are you doing mate, that was a bad idea." So mateship is like the quality of having mates or like the relationship that you have with your mates? Or... this kind of thing?

Lauren: Uh, yeah! I mean, that is great, you've just kind of said the meaning of both of those words at the same time. Good start!

Gretchen: Is there something else I should be adding?

Lauren: It's something to do with the ineffable quality of reciprocal support. It's tied in a lot with the idea of community – not gonna lie, it has a kind of Anglo vibe. It's –

Gretchen: Oh my god, it's Australian hygge.

Lauren: It's Australian political dog-whistling to like –

Gretchen: Ohhh.

Lauren: – you know, the way things should be, i.e. back when Australia was quite Anglo. (It never really was, but that's another point.) Or this kind of idea of Australians as like battlers forged through hardship and adversity and are now somehow all kind of closely knit for that. Is my kind of definition of mateship.

Gretchen: Okay. Yeah, I definitely don't have the political context there.

Lauren: It doesn't stir your soul? That's what it's meant to evoke.

Gretchen: It just... ships my mates, mate!

Lauren: The final one is "early mark."

Gretchen: I have no idea.

Lauren: Have a guess, just make up...

Gretchen: A... like, something that... like, when you're like "on your marks, get set, go" so it's like the early... first thing you do?

Lauren: Mmm... no.

Gretchen: I told you I didn't know!

Lauren: This one is not even – like, so this is not a word that I have in my active vocabulary.

Gretchen: Okay.

Lauren: And it shows that like even in a country like Australia, which has a really quite homogeneous use of language across Australia, given how big it is, this is from New South Wales and Queensland?

Gretchen: Okay.

Lauren: And an "early mark" means you get to leave school or work early.

Gretchen: Ahhh!

Lauren: I have no idea why. New South Wales never really explained it to me.

Gretchen: I have a word for that, but I don't remember what it is.

Lauren: Is it "leaving work early"?

Gretchen: Yeah, okay. No, no, there's like an idiom to it, and I'm sure my high school self is reaching through time and being like "how did you forget this??"

Lauren: It was very important to you.

Gretchen: Yeah, it was really important to me for 13 years, and now I can't remember. I can remember the concept, but not the term.

Lauren: Well, there you have – it's an untranslatable word for you, Gretchen! It's a concept you're very familiar with and you've never had –

Gretchen: No, it's a schadenfreude thing!

Lauren: It's the schadenfreude effect from English to English.

Gretchen: Okay, can I give you a Canadian one?

Lauren: Sure.

Gretchen: So, are you familiar with the Canadianism "toque"?

Lauren: I am, but I feel like I'm not gonna know where to draw the boundary on it.

Gretchen: Okay, well, try.

Lauren: So, I know it's a hat.

Gretchen: Mm-hmm.

Lauren: Umm... yay for having Canadian rellos.

Gretchen: "Relatives" for the non-Australians.

Lauren: Thanks for translating for me! 

Gretchen: Welcome!

Lauren: Um, it's a hat, but it's like a hat you wear in the cold.

Gretchen: Mm-hmm.

Lauren: Like, I'm gonna translate it into my English and say it's a beanie, which is like a knitted, or like thick, woollen hat that doesn't have a brim or anything, it's just like an egg-warmer for your head.

Gretchen: Yeah, Americans do call it "beanie," so I wasn't sure if you'd have beanie as a term, because it's like kind of warm to wear beanies in Australia. So yeah, people call it a beanie, I have a beanie as something very different.

Lauren: What's a beanie, then, for you?

Gretchen: A beanie is one of those, like, round caps that has like a spinny thing on top? That they wore in like the '20s or something?

Lauren: Ahhhh. No. Gee, that's so confusing. How do we even talk to each other? Sometimes it's a complete mystery to me.

Gretchen: I know.

Lauren: It's going to be very difficult if I ever come and visit you in the cold. "Don't come here with a beanie, you need to bring a toque."

Gretchen: I may own a few toques, but I do not own any hats with little spinny things on top, and I do not aspire to.

Lauren: Ah, well. So, even when we speak the same language, we still kind of reach these moments of translation where we have to hopefully figure out that we're not talking about the same beanie.

Gretchen: Yeah. I know, personally, I think that my favourite really difficult word in English to translate is "the."

Lauren: That's not gonna look nice on any lists, Gretchen.

Gretchen: But it's so difficult! Because, you know, some languages don't have articles like "the" and "a" and "an" at all! Russian doesn't have them, Chinese doesn't have them I don't think, and there's a whole bunch of languages that don't have this at all, and so trying to translate into those languages is really hard, and for speakers of those languages, trying to learn English and being like, "Should I be using the 'the'? But how do you know?" And then there's a bunch of languages that have, like, several of them!

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: And then even languages which have what is ostensibly still a definite article don't use them in the same sorts of ways.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: So in English, if I want to say "I go for a walk on Mondays," I don't put the "the" on Monday. But in French, if I want to say "I go for a walk on Mondays," then I have to say "le lundi," not just "lundi."

Lauren: Go for a walk on the Mondays.

Gretchen: Go for a walk the Monday. Singular.

Lauren: Okay. The Monday.

Gretchen: Yeah, so it's like, even in languages that ostensibly have things that map to this category, figuring out how to use them slightly differently depending on the language is a rich and difficult area of of investigation.

Lauren: So, we've established that it's not untranslatability, it's unable to translate into a single convenient word. And it's not untranslatability because it happens across Englishes, too...

Gretchen: Mm-hmm.

Lauren: So what is happening here?

Gretchen: I think it's about – there's two kinds of meaning that come with a word.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Gretchen: There's the kind of one-sentence, easy-to-describe, dictionary sort of meaning.

Lauren: Yeah. Which is what we often think of as meaning.

Gretchen: Yeah. And then there's all of the kind of surrounding context: the social context, and when you learned a word, and what it means to you, and these kinds of things. You know, I was coming across in one of these lists a word about, I think it was a Swedish type of coffee break.

Lauren: Fika!

Gretchen: Fika!

Lauren: It's a good one.

Gretchen: And they were saying, "Well in the Swedish coffee break you're not allowed to talk about work, and you must only talk about things that are not related to work."

Lauren: Uh-huh.

Gretchen: And I don't necessarily think that it is an intrinsic property of "fika" as "fika" specifically. I think this is a Swedish property of coffee breaks.

Lauren: Right.

Gretchen: Like, I know what a coffee break is.

Lauren: So it's conflating the coffee break and the – oh, I always think, 'cause with fika it's about having coffee and food, I think of it as, like, "let's do coffee"? You know, the act of doing coffee.

Gretchen: Yeah.

Lauren: That's what I think of fika as.

Gretchen: Let's get coffee, or let's do coffee.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: Not just like you're sitting by yourself at your desk having sad desk coffee.

Lauren: That is definitely not fika. I know that, and I'm not Swedish.

Gretchen: But you know, the cultural things are like what you do at a coffee break, or, you know, if you talk about different – I don't know, to go back to the school example, different recess traditions, or different school break traditions, like do you go out and play in the playground, or do you stay inside because it's very cold in Canada in the wintertime sometimes and they wouldn't let us outside, even with our toques.

Lauren: So, now that we have the concepts of these two forms of meaning, do you want the jargon?

Gretchen: Yes, I'd like the jargon.

Lauren: Okay. So the specific, to-the-point meaning – dictionary meaning, more or less – is "denotation." Which I always remember because denotation and dictionary start with the same letter.

Gretchen: Mm!

Lauren: And then connotation is all the context to the meaning. (Do you see what I did there?)

Gretchen: Ah, good.

Lauren: So I'm gonna explain denotation and connotation using sandwiches.

Gretchen: Okay.

Lauren: And of course we pulled sandwiches apart – not literally, just semantically – in a Patreon episode. But I want to come back to sandwiches and talk about a historical anecdote in my family that kind of explains where denotation and connotation are in tension. So as I've mentioned, my grandmother is an English second language speaker.

Gretchen: Mm-hmm.

Lauren: I've mentioned it on the show before. She's a Polish and German native speaker, came to Australia, had to learn not only English, but also raise a family of very Anglo-educated children. So, my grandfather's English, they went to school in English, and they wanted to kind of fit in with the other kids. And so the denotation of a sandwich is very simple: it's two pieces of bread with filling between it.

Gretchen: Yep.

Lauren: And my grandmother would send my mum and her siblings to school with sandwiches, but where my grandmother fell down was on the connotation of a sandwich, because my grandmother took the "two pieces of bread with some kind of tasty filling" quite liberally.

Gretchen: Uh-oh!

Lauren: There are stories of her sending my mum to school with butter and peanuts? Because she couldn't get the hang that peanut butter was a specific thing? Or sending them to school with – and I've never tried this, personally – but like chocolate biscuits in bread.

Gretchen: That's very interesting!

Lauren: And so this is completely violating the idea of what a sandwich – what its connotation is. But she's still meeting the denotation of it.

Gretchen: Yeah, I mean, I think in our sandwich episode she's passing the sandwich test with flying colours!

Lauren: She's doing better than a burrito!

Gretchen: Yeah!

Lauren: Or a pierogi.

Gretchen: Yeah, or a pizza or whatever. Like, she's got the the two pieces of bread, which is pretty key, and you could make a chocolate chip cookie sandwich...

Lauren: And so when we have these ideas of untranslatable words, we're trying to pull all the connotation along with the denotation. I mean, sometimes it's just denotation?

Gretchen: Yeah.

Lauren: And the denotation that it has cuts the world in a particular way our language doesn't, and that would be nice to have. But often we're trying to drag a lot of the connotation along as well, and I think that's why "hygge" feels like such a complicated thing to bring into English, because we could just say it means cosiness, and we've kind of hit the denotation pretty well.

Gretchen: Yeah.

Lauren: But we want to bring alllll of the Scandinavian knitwear, candles, prettiness in along with it.

Gretchen: Yeah. And it's kind of aspirational, like, this is how it could be. There's a quote from Dinosaur Comics that I really like that expresses this. So they're talking about meanings of words and what's the opposite of various things, and T-Rex is getting more and more frustrated and says, "Language is hard!" And the other character says, "No, life is hard. Language is just how we talk about it."

Lauren: Oh, that's so true. And it does – these connotations make it really hard, they make it hard especially for machine translation, because machines can't weigh up all the different connotations of different words in a way that a translator can. And that's part of the skill of translation, is knowing what words to use that have the same connotations.

Gretchen: Mm-hmm.

Lauren: You know, if you're translating a scene about someone at a market, then the word "cheap" as opposed to "inexpensive" – something that's cheap has this connotation of inferior quality compared to using the word inexpensive.

Gretchen: Yeah! Or "a good deal," you know, they could be the same thing, like a "bargain."

Lauren: Oh, yeah! Suddenly that's not only like – it's like good cheap.

Gretchen: "Wow, that's good cheap!" And, you know, "bad cheap," or "inexpensive," there's all these different levels there and –

Lauren: But words are connotation magnets. I mean, it's why we need euphemisms all the time, because as soon as we start using a word in a particular context, it just amasses all these connotations and they become either pejorative and negative and that's how slurs kind of get cycled through, which is not great, or they kind of make all these other cultural inferences.

Gretchen: Yeah, and I think that one of the things that talking about words as "untranslatable," even though it can be satisfying to say, "Oh wow, here's these new concepts!" or "Here's the thing that I hadn't thought about in this way before," in some respect, every word is untranslatable and yet we managed to learn them all anyway.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: How do we learn any new word if no word has an exact equivalent somewhere? Well, you know, we live a life and we figure it out! And in many cases, the word side of translation is very easy. It's the grammar side and the aesthetic side that's a lot harder.

Lauren: And all those connotations. I know when I learnt Nepali, I had to keep track of three different formality levels, which, like, I know how to be polite to different people to different extents in English, but suddenly I had to do it in another language and in the grammar, and I remember just knowing who to use which level of formality with was a whole set of translation that I took a long time to really feel comfortable with, so I would definitely agree that the kind of grammatical encoding of things adds a translation complication that can be quite hard to master.

Gretchen: Yeah, and yet you don't see different forms of "you" in "difficult to translate" lists, even though maybe they should be there.

Lauren: We're gonna start our own very exciting list.

Gretchen: Let's make a "difficult to translate for linguists" list! I'd be down for this!

[Music]

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

Gretchen: And I can be found as @GretchenAMcC on Twitter, and my blog is AllThingsLinguistic.com. To listen to bonus episodes, ask us your linguistic questions, and help keep the show ad-free, go to patreon.com/lingthusiasm, or follow the links from our website. Current bonus topics include the semantics of sandwiches, language games, how to teach yourself linguistics, and a double feature: two episodes about swearing! And you can help us pick the next topic by becoming a patron. Can't afford to pledge? That's okay too, we also really appreciate it if you can rate us on iTunes or Apple podcasts and recommending Lingthusiasm to anyone who needs a little more linguistics in their life.

Lauren: Lingthusiasm is created and produced by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our audio producer is Claire, our editorial producer is Emily, and our production assistant is Celine. Our music is by The Triangles.

Gretchen: Stay lingthusiastic!

[Music]

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