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jamtland · 7 months

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After seeing your post about Sweden's human name, do you mind explaining what your favorite human names for the other Nordics are and your reasoning?

Especially Norway -- I'm still rather fond of Lukas for familiarity's sake, but would love to have a better alternative! I understand why people don't like Bondevik after a quick search. I've seen people use Thomassen recently and have started using that instead

Sure! I'll also add links to posts made by users from these countries if you need a more reliable source (except Iceland, I haven't seen an Icelandic Hetalian on Tumblr yet).

Norway

If you're looking for infomation about anything relating to Norway, not limited to names but also history, traditions and modern culture, YOU NEED TO TALK TO OUR RESIDENT NORWEGIAN @ifindus. They have done university-level research in Norwegian history and I am constantly learning new things about Norway from their posts, which says a lot as someone who has half his family from Norway. It's thanks to Findus that I learned about a very common misconception about Norwegian names that I will explain below!

Unlike people from English-speaking countries, Danes, Swedes, and Finns, Norwegians do not use "middle names" in the sense of "alternative first names that are mostly ignored except on official documentation". It's very common for creators to give Norway a name like "Lukas Øyvind Haugland" with the idea that he goes by Lukas in daily life, and Øyvind is a mostly unused middle name. But that's not how it works in Norway! Instead, both Lukas and Øyvind will be recognized as his first names of equal priority, and he will be referred to using the double name Lukas Øyvind. Findus can explain this better than I can, but you cannot simply smash two names together to form a Norwegian double name, as many name combinations, such as Lukas Øyvind, sound ridiculous. Paraphrasing Findus' words, there are no definite rules that make certain double names realistic or silly, it's mostly a feeling that the name "sounds good". There are however common patterns, such as the first half having less than or equal syllables to the second, both names having the same "vibe", and not having too many consecutive consonants.

Thanks to Findus' advice, I recently changed my name for Norway to drop the "middle names", cutting it down to Sigurd Fjellanger. Sigurd, an Old Norse name meaning "victorious guardian", is the most popular first name among Norwegian creators because of its uniqueness to Norway and use in all time periods. Fjellanger is my personal choice, as I want a nature name for Norway that refers to his home region. Nature names in Norway often indicate where a person's ancestors were from as they were historically chosen from names of towns and farmland. Fjellanger means "mountain fjord" and is associated with coastal western Norway, which is where my Sigurd's hometown is. Findus uses the last name Nordvik which means "northern bay" and is not associated with a specific region (their Norway moves around the country and does not have a fixed hometown). Patronymics (names ending in -sen) don't have strong regional associations and Thomassen is a common, neutral-sounding name.

It seems like I have unintentionally written a long post again. Other characters under the cut.

Sweden

The other Nordic countries use "middle names", but like in real life, these extra names will never be seen outside of these name posts. My full name for Sweden is Björn Axel Johan Stjernqvist because he's my country and I can make fun of him. Björn is a very Swedish Old Norse name meaning "bear" while Stjernqvist, meaning "star branch", is a lame reference to his Hetalia name that also contains the word "star". 95jezzica is from Sweden and recommends the classic Svensson as his last name, but I personally avoid giving very common names to characters in case I know or will meet someone with that name. I also prefer to choose nature names unless there is a meaningful (parental) connection to the name in the patronymic. Double names are also used in Sweden, but they are much rarer and are associated with the older generation. Swedish double names are connected with a dash rather than a space, like Lars-Erik.

Denmark

My beloved Denmark has the name Søren Mathias Holgersen. Mathias is not an Old Norse name. It originates from Latin and means "gift from God", which is what he is to me. Holgersen is a reference to the legendary Danish hero Holger Danske. Some creators think that the name Mathias is inaccurate for Denmark in all periods, but that's only true for the pre-Christianization era. There are 22,7k people currently named Mathias in Denmark in 2023 (this is not including the alternate spellings). In fact, none of the popular alternative names for Denmark that begin with M, Mikkel and Magnus, are of Old Norse origin either. But that's alright, because Denmark was the most strongly influenced by continental Europe culturally and has the weakest Norse influence out of the Scandinavians. This post by someone-you-do-not-know from Denmark discusses what's wrong with the Hetalia name suggestions for Denmark and offers additional suggestions. The OP has a personal reason for disliking the name Mathias, but the name is otherwise alright to use.

Finland

I unfortunately don't speak Finnish and don't know much about Finnish naming traditions, so I use a name that has been personally recommended by Finns and is quite close to the Hetalia name: Timo Kalevi Väisänen. The middle name Kalevi was randomly mentioned by ask-finny from Finland and I'm not particularly attached to it either, so I'm open to changing it. Nordickies is also from Finland and has made two very helpful posts about analyzing Finland's Hetalia name and resources for researching Finnish names.

Iceland

Iceland has a very strict naming law which could make choosing his name easier or more difficult depending on how you look at it. The first name Emil is permitted on Iceland, but it's a modern trend name that doesn't have an Icelandic history, its use began after the release of Astrid Lindgren's book Emil i Lönneberga. Steilsson is illegal as it would mean that Iceland's father was named Steil, which is not a permitted name (nor did it ever exist in the Nordic countries). Like Finland, I kept his Hetalia initials and gave him the name Eiríkur Stefánsson.

#ask #hetalia #hws denmark #hws sweden #hws norway #hws finland #hws iceland #aph denmark #aph sweden #aph norway #aph finland #aph iceland #character development #the more you know #long post #I just noticed the coincidence of Stjernqvist because names like these were created by smashing two often unrelated words together #but in the modern day Star and Branch are related terms #in the context of Star Branch Clone Fork Pull Request that is #Björn is a software engineer to me and I'm laughing so hard at his tangentially programmer name

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creachureboy · 1 year

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Random SFW alphabet letters for Vasily/reader and Saichi/reader

I just wanted an excuse to write them thank you very much. Also the last one for Vasily's sounds suggestive but I think it still counts as SFW

Saichi

Fight - How would arguements with him be like? Would he be quick to forgive?

If anything, the last thing he wants is to be upset at you. He's the biggest sweetheart, and the closest you ever get to arguements are disagreements you both are able to resolve with a bit of talking. The one time you both truly argued was when he was being controlling, but it ended up being because he was just really worried for you and was only acting in such a way because he thought it was in your best interest. But once you both heard each others' sides of the story, all was forgiven as you talked and hugged it out.

Love language - How does he express his love?

His main love languages are probably acts of service and words of affirmation. If there's ever any task you need even the tiniest amount of help with, saichi will be throwing himself at it to help you in a heartbeat. He really enjoys giving you kind words too, as if he's telling you all the things he wish he would hear towards himself. He absolutely melts when you reassure him with your words, as it's proving all of his self-doubt wrong.

Pet names - What cute nicknames does he like to call you? How does he respond to petnames?

Affection-starved sweetie probably is unfamiliar with being called petnames, so you'd have to be the one calling him by them first. He starts off flustered by them, but after a while responds to them just fine. He likes that you have a special nickname for him that you don't call anyone else, it makes him feel important. He tried coming up with nicknames for you by asking himself "what's something I like that I can compare you to?" and suddenly you're now a bunch of different kinds of food. He usually just copies the names you give him, and if you tell him which petnames you like being called the most, he'll definitely call you those. Saichi's too embarassed to use them while others are around, but if its just you and him, you'll hear them in practically every other sentence.

Vasily

Fight - What would arguements with him be like? Would he be quick to forgive?

Vasily is the type to never raise his voice no matter how frustrated he gets. He always talks calmly to you and keeps anything hurtful that comes to mind to himself - he wouldn't say them, he knows he doesn't truly mean them. But sometimes his annoyance may slip through, whether its through giving you the cold shoulder or handling his equipment a little too roughly. But he always recognizes when he needs some time to cool off, and would distance himself from you until he calms down so you can talk it out. He doesn't like being upset at you, and the last thing he wants to do is hurt your feelings on accident.

Kisses - How does he like to kiss you? How is he with recieving kisses?

He likes to kiss you wherever is convenient in that moment. If your hand is on his cheek, he will kiss your hand. If you're nestled in his arms, he'll kiss the top of your head. If he's resting his head on your lap, he'll stick his head under your shirt and kiss your stomach. He enjoys when you do this same thing for him too. Of course, he loves to kiss you on your lips, but he would never limit himself to just kissing you there.

Pet names - What cute nicknames does he like to call you? How does he respond to petnames?

Oh mygod he calls you the most romantic sounding stuff. He'll call you his sunshine, his angel, the love of his life. If your name has multiple syllables, he likes to call you a shortened version of it. Sometimes he comes up with something new, and its really a coinflip if it sounds poetic (ie calling you his guiding moonlight) or if it sounds Hmmm (ie calling you his sweet cream pie).

#golden kamuy #headcanons #vasily x reader #vasily pavlichenko #golden kamuy x reader #sugimoto saichi #sugimoto saichi x reader #saichi sugimoto #imagines

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chilope · 4 months

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the thing about talking is that its the very scariest thing in the whole entire wold and basically the whole time youre doing it youre thinking "uh oh sisters i am not doing this correctly" and generally that means not talking but then sometimes the inherent weakness and limitations of the human form lead you to dabble in a little talking, as a treat, and then of course you talk bad because talking good is probably not real and SOMETIMES you *dont* feel insane when youre talking but then as soon as you stop talking you realize that actually that was the most insane at talking youve ever been forever so now you gotta REALLY be on your toes with the talking because if you arent anxious and second-guessing yourself constantly then that is evidence that you are doing the worst possible job so you gotta stop talking BUT THEN people are like. are you mad at me :( and you gotta be like. no there are worms in my brain sorry i love you youve never done anything wrong in your whole life <3 so basically thats how it is normally but sometimes people are like. if i dont talk ill die and then the stakes are so high theyre the highest possible stakes so you gotta really dig deep and find a way to say words that arent insane which requires carefully analyzing every syllable before expressing it but also you gotta. be in the moment. and basically its easy and comes naturally to me so dont even worry about it <- guy who said hes going to bed 3 hours ago

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transgenderer · 11 months

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i think that paper that claims all the 17 languages it tested transmit information at the same bitrate is probably kinda bogus. it comes down to their way of estimating bitrate

In parallel, from independently available written corpora in these languages, we estimated each language’s information density (ID) as the syllable conditional entropy to take word-internal syllable-bigram dependencies into account.

this is a bad way of thinking about the information transmitted by language! its totally meaningless! i mean, its an interesting result, but i dont think this tells us about the different rates at which languages convey, yknow...meaning!

they defend it with this:

As a preliminary analysis, we checked whether our definition of ID provides a relevant measure of linguistic ID, using the syntagmatic density of information ratio (SDIR), defined in (9), as a control. SDIR quantifies the relative informational density of language L compared to a reference language, based on the semantic information expressed in the context of a limited oral corpus (see Materials and Methods below for more details). It thus provides the ground truth on the semantic information conveyed by the sentences in the spoken corpus. Following (9), we used Vietnamese as a reference, such that a language L with a ratio bigger than one (or, respectively, less than one) is denser (respectively, less dense) than Vietnamese in terms of semantic information. By contrast, being estimated from a very large written lexical database, ID subsumes an overall syllable usage disregarding any semantic consideration. The preliminary analysis nevertheless shows that the two information quantification approaches are connected; we obtain, for our data, a very high correlation between ID and SDIR (Pearson’s r = 0.91, P = 3.4 × 10−7 and Spearman’s ρ = 0.80, P = 0.00011), which suggests that, despite differences in material (heterogeneous and written corpus versus parallel and spoken corpus) and nature (an entropy measured on a large lexicon versus a normalized ratio derived from small texts), our ID is a good estimate of the average amount of information per syllable.

anyway the really bizarre thing about this study is they have this whole system where they have speakers read some pre-written text aloud to get the syllable rate, which they then combine with the syllable information density to get the total information rate, but surely the more natural measure is just...the time people take to say the same statement? a statement should have a fixed amount of semantic content! i mean, then you get into the ambiguities of translation. but that seems less bad than this silly definition of information

anyway the other study they cite is more in that vein, but considers information density as per syllable instead of syllable per time, but this one says that their per-time measurement *correlates* with the per-syllable measurement, but the per-time measurement already divided by syllables per second! which means their information-per-syllable measure has to be wrong, right? because they explicitly measure significant differences in syllables per second!

idk. it seems like a weird messy kind of poorly designed study. also both studies use read-aloud speech instead of produced speech and i know you kind of need to do that for standardization but also like come on man. you know that totally bungles your results. reading aloud is totally unlike thinking from your brain

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raayllum · 1 year

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followup to this

The boy doesn’t take a sip of his tea, merely staring into the watery brown contents with the familiar focus of being so intent on something you can’t quite put it into words. It is an expression Kpp’Ar had seen many times in the shiny surfaces of various projects over the years, added to later by the dark glimmer in Viren’s eye.

Mages, Kpp’Ar thinks. Always better with magic than they were with people or words, even the best of them. They were all the same, down to their bones.

“Death magic is a dark business, boy,” Kpp’Ar says, easing himself into the far more comfortable of the two chairs at his table. He can’t remember the last time the other had been used. Had been pondering over chopping it up to use as firewood. “You’re sure you’re not looking into it for yourself?”

“My father doesn’t even have a body anymore,” Callum says shortly. “He got cremated at the funeral we missed because we ran off with an elf and a dragon egg. Can you answer my question, now?”

“There are plenty of dark magic spells that can bring someone back from the brink of death,” Kpp’Ar relays, “but only one that can outright resurrect someone. It is exceedingly difficult, requiring many rare ingredients, some of which are quite dangerous to acquire.”

The boy drags a hand through his windswept hair. “And an experienced dark mage, I’m guessing?”

“There are old histories of the Oracles of Ophidian conducting the rare resurrection on children who had passed, but that was ordinarily in groups... It would be a significant risk for a mage to undertake alone, no matter how powerful.”

But this boy knew Claudia too, Kpp’Ar judged, by the look in his likewise green eyes. Claudia as she had become, not the eccentric, adept child Kpp’Ar had known her as. Claudia’s gone. She—she turned traitor too. And Viren is dead. I-I need to make sure she couldn’t bring him back.

“So she could,” Callum says, mouth jagged around the edge of each syllable.

“Yes,” Kpp’Ar says, “with a great deal of effort. But it wouldn’t matter anyway. The magic wouldn’t be permanent. The records vary, but... The spell wouldn’t last forever. A month. Maybe two. Then you go back in the grave.”

Callum stares at him. “But the the children—”

“There was an archmage of some sort who worked with them, to make it permanent. They were his disciples. But the name’s been lost to time since then.” Even if Kpp’Ar’s grandmother had given him the staff and the box, made him promise to hold onto them, to not go too far in. To never whisper his name to one who could not be trusted. Aaravos. He’d given Viren the staff, too late to take it back, but had destroyed the box in his fury. Something about the box having a mirror, a perfect replica.

Callum’s brow furrows, but he doesn’t push at it. “So Viren’s dead for good, either way,” he says, glancing up. There’s anger in his eyes that Kpp’Ar didn’t expect, not relief.

Kpp’Ar nods, a strange lump in his throat at the thought. Viren had been the closest thing he’d ever had to—well, a son, if he was being honest with himself. But he’d been wrong to think he could make a spear a walking stick. “Even dark magic has its limitations. But why the inquiry?” What makes the boy tick? “You can’t have come all this way just for this?”

“My brother is very understanding,” Callum says, rising and straightening out his scarf.

“Viren never trained you, did he?” Kpp’Ar checks, because now he must be sure.

“No,” he answers, glaring now. “No, Viren—Viren never spared me little more than a glance. And I’m a primal mage. I just—a-a friend wanted to make sure he was dead. That’s all.” He fidgets with the end of his scarf, lost for a moment the way Viren had been, after Lissa had left. When Viren had already damned himself.

“A friend,” Kpp’Ar says.

The boy looks up, young and wounded. “Trust me, I’ve learned my lesson about trying to fix things with magic.” Then he casts his gaze around for a distraction and well, if that isn’t familiar to Kpp’Ar, he doesn’t know what is. Green eyes land on the half-finished cuckoo-clock bolted to the wall and he strides over. “What’s this?”

And well, it’s been even longer since someone asked after his work with genuine interest than they’ve sat in his kitchen chair. Kpp’Ar isn’t sure who he’s indulging more as he answers, “An old project.”

Callum meets his eye, lips twitching. Mages, all the same, as he asks, “How does it work?”

So Kpp’Ar tells him.

There are many ways to mend broken things, if you can.

#post ttm #kpp'ar #callum #brotp #my fic #ficlet #dark magic #headcanons #fic #tdp #the dragon prince #may still have a part 3 of their goodbye but idk #rayllum #death by a thousand cuts era

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ukfrislandembassy · 3 months

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Kinda spitballing a hypothesis here based off of an I once saw somewhere in the conlanging corner of the internet (I think it was on an episode of Conlangery talking about extremely regular philosophical languages? @gacorley might remember), but I've got an idea about lexical structure, because it seems to me like there's two opposing trends in Language when it comes to semantic fields.

On the one hand, from the perspective of acquisition and to some extent production it's nice to have words that are derivationally related to each other, both because it makes it possible to 'work out' the meaning of the word even in the absence of actual real-world context and because new words can easily be coined to fill lacunae in vocabulary. 'My father is a weaver; What does he do for a living? He weaves' kinda stuff.

But on the other hand, from the perspective of perception you don't really want words that sound similar to each other, particularly in the same semantic field, because when you're talking about those topics, well, if everything sounds similar (especially in a noisy environment where you might not be able to hear entirely clearly) then you're going to start to get confused very quickly. 'Judges judge what judgements are just' sort of thing (see also 'oligosynthesis'), as well as of course 'Acronym and Abbreviation Overload' type phenomena (after all, there's only 26 possible syllables in an acronym...).

I think the fact that languages will vary between favouring one over the other does likely have impacts on learnability. The effect is not going to be major in comparison to other things, but there's unlikely to be nothing there.

For instance, obviously for a speaker of a language that makes a lot of use of derivation (Russian, say), English must be made harder to learn by the number of separate roots needed (like we have entirely different roots for the meat of domestic animals for pity's sake!).

But at the same time, for me, a native speaker of English, part of the irritation of learning Russian is that nobody is there teaching you the derivational morphology that enables you to make a guess at the approximate meaning of расследование from identifying the root (след 'trail') and building up from there (verbaliser -ова-, prepositional prefix рас- and adjectivaliser/abstract nominaliser -ние; the end result means 'investigation'), nor am I really that used to making use of that because in English you so often can't.

I'll note that this is kind of similar to a proposal made in Trudgill's Sociolinguistic Typology (2011), where he points out that small sound systems like Hawai'ian can be found in isolated languages precisely because all the words start to sound the same and context (i.e. shared background information between participants, more available in smaller societies) is more necessary to disambiguate what's being said. I think what I'm proposing is kinda orthogonal to this, because both extremes are kinda difficult, and there's several kinds of factor which can influence a language's tendency in either direction (English for instance has its several layers of historically more prestigious foreign vocabulary from having spent time as the language of an underclass, while 'pidgin-adjacent' creoles are of course forced to 'make do' with limited lexical resources they have, thus giving rise to stuff like Tok Pisin gras bilong fes 'beard'), but perhaps that's something for me to write about somewhere else.

#linguistics #typology

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gamegem92 · 11 months

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What Lies Deep (Jelly Jamm AU)

(Made this for mermay, and I might make it a full AU!)

(Your prompt: Bello is a merperson who gets injured and washed up on the shore of a beach unconscious, and is found by Goomo.) Soooo, trigger warnings for injuries, and of course, slight platonic Goomello/Honey-Cinnamon-Tea. Also, the language Bello originally speaks in is mermish, but he learns English/Jammbonian along the way!

~~~~~~~

He didn’t think it was real.

The very few times that Goomo went to the beach, he found a couple of shells or coastal dodo species, but he didn’t expect to find someone washed up on the shore, much less a kid his age.

The young boy had a complexion of red with matching hair that smelled like sea salt, a missing tooth on one side, and odd glowing marks across his body. There was one thing that bugged him, however: he didn’t have any legs, just a long tail with a heart-shaped fin at the end, and there were more fins across his body.

He didn’t expect to find the odd creature, per se, for it was actually Rita, who he was taking on a trip there, who found the strange boy on the beach. They immediately brought it back to the castle and informed the Queen about the boy with a tail, and she told the other kids to help while Goomo kept the boy at home with him. Ongo patched up his injuries, and Mina was building an enclosure for the boy from the water.

Rita usually came over to check on him and his damp friend, which she called “Ruby” because of his ruby red scales. Mina usually came over to study the odd creature while it was unconscious, and found out that it was scarred and wounded. Ongo… well, he knew something about it that could help, but none of the other kids could understand what he tried to say.

Now was an eventful day; the water boy was finally waking up! What do I say, what do I say?! “Hi, I thought you were dead!” No, no, no, he’ll think I’m trying to kill him! Maybe, “Welcome to the neighborhood”? He probably doesn’t know what that is! I know! I’ll ask if he’s okay! What can go wrong? The other boy’s eyes slowly opened up, a similar ruby red to his scales, and fins flaying outward as if he was trying to stretch.

“Excuse me, are you…” but before he could finish the sentence, he was lost in its gaze, stumbling over each syllable in awe. The creature was curious, and its markings lit up. The markings included, but weren’t limited to, a stripe across the chest patterned with gold scales in a lightning bolt shape, rings and stripes around his arms in a silvery white and a deep blue, and scales of the different colors dotting his tail and making odd little patterns.

It stared in confusion before trying to get closer, only to be stopped by the walls of his tank. “Y-you… you’re beautiful…” After hearing this, the water-dwelling boy pouted. “I-I-I’m so sorry! I just… never saw anything like you, a-and-“ it seemed to laugh a little, before answering in a language unknown to him. All he could hear was “Dal em setanim…”

“So… I found you on the beach, and you were unconscious, so I thought I’d keep you here, is that okay?” He said nothing, but his scales did light up. The smile on the odd water-dwelling boy’s face was enough of an answer for Goomo. “Great! So, do you have a name? I, uh, don’t want to call you ‘it’ all the time…” “…Name?” “Y-Yeah, what do you call yourself? For instance, my name is Goomo! And… you are?”

“B-Bello.”

~~~~~~~

Bello was adjusting nicely to his tank, but he got bored easily. Mina brought some books for him to read- or rather, for him to have Goomo read them- and tried teaching them how to speak each other’s language.

Rita began to accept that the odd fishy boy was part of the neighborhood now, and even helped him adjust, even if she still called him “Ruby” sometimes. Ongo sort of spoke to Bello too, even understanding what he said. But Goomo still felt like a stranger to the ocean dweller.

Bello has learned how to speak Jammbonian as well, but he could only parrot little phrases and words here and there. Whether he knew what they meant or not was another story altogether. Even so, they had little talks in order to understand each other.

Today, it was Mina’s turn to visit them, and the boys were genuinely interested in hearing a story today! “What’s the book about today?” “What? What?” “This,” she opened the book to a page with a picture of a young woman with a long coat and a sword, “is the journal of Lady Kazamira.” She read them tales of seafaring adventures and daring sword fights, but then one story peaked Bello’s interest.

It was about something that Kazamira called “merpeople,” and Bello immediately spoke up after hearing some depictions. “Ffuegane! Dat… is mee!” Mina and Goomo looked up at him as he said this. “Wh-what did he say?” Mina thought for a moment, and then she began to realize and speak up, increasingly energetic. “Ffuegane is how they say merpeople in second order Mermish! Of course! His tail, a-and his need for constant hydration or contact with water, the markings… your roommate is a young merperson!”

Goomo couldn’t believe it. They were real. Kazamira’s stories were based on something true. “Y-You’re a-“ Bello emitted a quick grunt before realizing that the others couldn’t understand, and tried speaking their language again. “…eeas. I am!” “That’s so cool! C’mon! Let’s hear more stories about merpeople!”

“If you like this book so much, you can keep it. There’s even a translator in there!”

~~~~~~~

The few days that went by, Goomo learned how to speak Mermish and how to care for and maintain his merman roommate. Bello learned a little, too- he learned some of his own kind’s history! Meanwhile, the enclosure was almost complete! Maybe I should enjoy a little fly-by and check on the progress?

Carefully placing a blanket over Bello’s tank, he started up the flight function and began to plink away on the built-in piano keys. “Looks great so far…” The tune he played was nothing too fancy, just a little song that flowed like water and could easily be hummed to… but then… he heard something.

Was that… singing?

Before he turned around, he engaged autopilot and looked for the source. It was Bello singing! Goomo could NOT believe it. “Y-You’re a great singer!” “Krrr?” The young merman hid under the blanket yet again. “No, no, no! It’s okay! You’re really good at singing, too!” “…thank you.” It was obvious that Bello was not used to having others hear him sing.

“You know…” Goomo walked up to the tank. “I’m a little shy about my piano skills… what do you say? It can be our little secret!” “See-crit?” Oh, right… he doesn’t understand certain words… “I won’t tell anyone about your singing, and you don’t tell anyone about my ability to play piano, okay?” “…Truth.” What was the young merman saying? Tell the truth? But he was so scared!

“I-I can’t do that! What if they laugh at me?!” Bello didn’t change his response at all, restating “truth” in a much more firm tone. “…You’re right. But what if-“ “They laugh… their problem!” After hearing that, he felt a little better. As he turned off autopilot, he safely landed his home and began to head for the door- “Mrrrrrr!”

Bello seemed to be making lots of sounds, as if he wanted him to stay for a little longer. The words that he were focused on were “Oowii” and “Hhu-hng,” meaning that he wanted his attention, and something about the heart… “What is it? What are you trying to say?” “…Why I was… hurt…”

He explained to Goomo that in the beginning, he was hunting for a bit, and he was considered the oddball of his own little schooling, but he ran- er, swam- away, trying to find a place of his own where he was the leader. Unfortunately, he couldn’t exactly stay on task, and he got distracted by the surface easily.

As a result, hunters easily spotted and captured him aboard their ship. He managed to escape, but not without scars from the sharp sticks they held and bruises from his attempts to swim after his tail became weak from the lack of water. “I’m sorry you had to go through that… I promise, with all my heart, that you will never have to go through that again as long as I am here!”

Bello seemed to smile after hearing that. “So, what are we waiting for? Let’s go check on your new home!” “New home!” Goomo picked up Bello’s tank of water and placed it on top of a rolling cart that he was provided, dragging it over to the exact area where Mina said the tank was.

Gently eyeing the handiwork, it was perfect. There was an area for everyone to walk in and see the charming little merman swim around, and steps to walk up and interact with him. The actual tank part had a water filter to keep it fresh and a bed of sand with aquatic plants and small prey creatures to simulate Bello’s hunting and foraging instincts, and the best part: he could see all his new friends, including his best friend.

“It’s still a work in progress,” Mina added, “but I assure you, soon enough, it’s going be perfect!” “What do you mean? It’s already perfect! And Bello really seems to like it, too!” “But there needs to be waterways so he can travel Jammbo and visit you! It-“ Bello immediately tried climbing into the special containment zone for him, and immediately loved it. “…alright, I guess we could do the waterways together for now.” “Where should we start?”

Bello immediately traced a line from his containment to Goomo’s house.

“I think Bello has a good idea.”

#jelly jamm #jelly jamm au #Bello #honey cinnamon tea #goomo #mina #rita #ongo #mermay au #mer au #mermay #feel free to draw Bello’s mer design #Just as long as you credit me #It’s mostly platonic but they do trust each other more at the end

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heathersbutincorrect · 1 year

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I am in the mood for some chanduke so here you go. Slight nsfw!

The routine always sent Heather Duke in circles. Gaining and losing the same fifteen pounds for months made her even more of a bitch than usual. And then, a month ago, something shifted that changed everything for her.

It all started like usual. Heather was alone at home in the middle of one of her binges. Two empty boxes of granola bars were on the floor with a mountain of wrappers. She’d also polished off five cans of tuna, a tub of icing, a sleeve of cookies, all the leftover Chinese takeout, and four containers of yogurt. She was currently digging into the last of the ice cream. Her stomach hurt, but she kept going. She didn’t stop until the ice cream was all gone. She sprinted to the bathroom. There was only so much time to get it all out. About halfway through, she saw and tasted blood. She scrambled into the wall behind her, breathless and frightened.

The phone rang. Duke was quick to get rid of the evidence before limping her way to answer it. Her stomach really hurt still. She picked up the phone.

“H-hello?”

“Jeez, finally! I’ve been calling for ages. I assume you were up to your usual routine. You finally done?!” As Heather lectured her, she wondered what to do about her massive stomach ache and the taste of blood in her mouth.

“I…um…” Heather had no idea how to tell her what happened or if she would even be heard. What did she have to lose anyway? “I think something is wrong, Heather.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

The phone, which was at its limit on the cord anyway, fell to the floor. She had to expel everything else. Now. Whatever Heather had to say became lost in the background as she leaned over the sink. Red. More red.

Time was glued together, and then stretched to impossible limits. The front door opened at some point. Footsteps sprinted inside. Heather was vaguely aware of flashing lights. She was only just barely able to get out that she didn’t want to go to a hospital before she lost consciousness in a torso with red fabric that was almost as red as what she had thrown up into the sink for minutes on end.

Two voices entered her barely conscious, drugged up awareness. One was frantic, the other calmer but very exhausted.

“Is she dead?”

“No, Heather.”

“Well can you check?”

“I don’t need to check.”

“Just look, Veronica.”

“Okay fine. See? She’s not dead. Since when do you fucking care, anyway? You sent her on this path.”

“I didn’t know. I didn’t know it was actually serious. Can you just save the lecture for when she isn’t dying right in front of us?”

“Fine. But only because you had the sense to call 911. I’ll give you that. If this really is some kind of new leaf, you’ll have to prove it.”

“Where’s McNamara?”

“Coming straight from cheer. I told her her as soon as I could. Just get some sleep. It’s been over a day. I’m impressed you didn’t get us kicked out when visiting hours ended last night.”

Duke forced her eyes open. Heather was standing, a hand on her hip. Clearly in her impatient posture. Veronica was slumped in a chair and half awake.

“W-wat-“ Talking was hard, but it seemed only one syllable was enough to spring Heather into action. She ran over and picked up a cup, pushing something ice cold past Duke’s chapped lips. An ice chip. Not water, but something. She let it melt in her mouth.

“Jeez,” Veronica mumbled before leaving the room temporarily.

If Heather was trying too hard, well, Duke didn’t care. For the first time in ages, she could see Chandler with very little makeup on. What few people knew is she had a couple freckles that she kept covered up. Right on her neck. The girl was so close that she could reach out and touch them if she wanted to. Why the hell did she want to? Heather would kill her for-

“I’m sorry,” Heather whispered, breaking the silence. “I was trying so hard…to cover…how…”

Last summer. June 13th. She remembered being caught crying over cake and drunken kisses that led to so much more. She still wanted more. Every binge and purge she could possibly do did not fill the hole that was left behind by the promise she’d been forced to make. Pretend it never happened because it meant nothing. Duke didn’t know whether to be upset or angry or whether to forgive or not forgive the behavior from the last six months. She wasn’t sure if she felt anything at all, for she’d spent so long suppressing it.

“What if…” Her voice came out clearer now that a few ice chips had gone down her damaged throat. “What if you were too late, then?”

“Let’s not think about that. Look, you’re going to be in here awhile. I want to do everything I can to show that I’m…sorry…and…and I should’ve listened to Veronica about everything.”

Duke really didn’t want to think about Veronica right now. Or even McNamara, who seemed to be running late as usual. Neither of them were in the room, so they didn’t matter at the moment.

Which brought them to today. She was slowly mending. Therapy and medicine and mealtime and therapy and-well the routine was a little boring but at least she wasn’t puking blood anymore. Chandler looked at her curiously, wondering what Duke had called her into her room for a visit for. Neither of them had talked about June 13th…but they hadn’t not talked about it either. The evidence was usually all over Heather’s neck by the time she left for the day.

Veronica knew. She always knew. But she said nothing. Smart girl.

“Just kiss me.”

The words came out almost without her permission. But it was what she wanted. It was what she always wanted. She wanted a little control. Maybe even to dominate this pleading girl halfway on top of her body. Perhaps she could use this guilt to her advantage. After all, it’s what Heather would do. She smiled to herself as Heather obeyed her command. Finally some leverage in her life. And this was only the beginning.

#chanduke #heathers the musical #heathers #heather chandler #heather duke #fanfic

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cerastes · 2 years

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Ultimately, I think Endwalker is my favorite expansion, Shadowbringers is still immensely great, but Endwalker had something that Shadowbringers and every other part of the game lacked. Yeah, the climatic conclusion to the entirety of the game’s arc was satisfying and well-composed, but it’s not what I’m talking about. Endwalker was the first time in the entirety of FFXIV that I could honestly say “yeah, the game’s main narrative has finally addressed me in a way that matters”. It wasn’t DRK quest, it wasn’t Shadowbringers, it wasn’t even the majority of Endwalker, just one scene, one very important scene:

“Did you have fun?”

I’ll be candid with my words and spare no syllable as to my honest opinion from here on out: Every compliment Y’shtola paid me, every laurel Thancred adorned me with, every bit of adoration and affection towards me for being me that the main cast has paid me has felt like sand and ash in my mouth. I hate it when they do that. I do not want it. I want to earn the praise for something only I could do. That, all of that, is directed at The Hero, the personage of salvation, the powerhouse of Eorzea, the cardboard cut-out of limited choices and options that would inevitably beat all challenges and break through all hurdles. Those are words for literally no one, and at the same time, everyone. They are not for me, they are for everyone who could fulfill that position, so, every other player, ever, and for no one in the scene.

It is something that I’ve learned to simply mostly ignore when playing games of this narrative nature, and a little bit of sand and ash trickles into my mouth every time. Better than just filling it with bile. It’s whatever. Those are not compliments for me, those are compliments the narrative lobs at me in hopes of making me feel special and loved and important and a bunch of other things I did not earn.

So it is meaningless. As far as I’m concerned, my character and the MSQ version of my character are two separate entities. Given that I don’t self-insert in the first place, this only creates an even more distant separation from what I believe MSQ wanted out of me, emotionally speaking. This didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy the narrative, however, given that, once this partition is established, the narrative is rather enjoyable throughout the game starting with Heavensward, taking a huge hike in quality in the excellent Shadowbringers and even more so in Endwalker. As I’ve said many times, I enjoy what this game does with its writing.

But even then, it meant having to deal with being Oh So Special And Beloved for arbitrary reasons, which I couldn’t stand. Let me earn that. “But by that point, you’ve earned it, no?” It feels no different than when people are flocking at you for very little reason in ARR, so no, I’d say I don’t agree. Rather, it feels as an extension of that, and I get why it is like that: People Like That. People self-insert, people like feeling appreciated and loved and being complimented and having their game avatar be The Coolest And Best And Most Special. It’s worthless to me but I’m not gonna pretend it isn’t a good move for the game overall. As I said, it’s something I put up with in these games, and thankfully, everything else about the game more than makes up for that.

And this leads us to the main point, to why this scene had such a profound impact in me: It was the first time, and only time, in which I felt, innately, without thinking about it: “My character and the MSQ protagonist are one”. For that one scene, this was the case. I felt addressed and validated.

And it’s all because Hydaelyn asked me if I had fun throughout this adventure, throughout this monumental journey. It legitimately got me emotional.

She didn’t call me the strongest, the best, the chosen one, didn’t say she loved me, didn’t tell me I saved the world and would save the world some more, didn’t tell me all about how cool I am. Everyone’s the strongest, everyone’s the best, everyone’s the chosen one, everyone’s loved, everyone’s saved the world and has saved the world and will save the world, everyone is the coolest. It’s worthless to be told these things.

Hydaelyn, no, Venat instead asked me if the experience was cool. If I had fun. If I enjoyed the trip. If the adventure was good and worth it. God, my heart jumped, I smiled, I gripped my mouse and made it creak. That, I loved that, it made me so happy. I did enjoy it. I thought it was fun. I loved the adventure.

From one adventurer that has seen so much to another, that question is the most important. It wasn’t the praise and love other MSQ characters drop wholesale on your front door every time they open their mouths, the accolades, the admiration that everyone with a game key can experience. It was the single most personal thing the game has done, in my opinion, to have the person that was ultimately most like you, ask you what you thought of the journey as a whole, if you enjoyed it, if you had fun.

That was, to me, the most disarming and wonderful moment of the game. Who Venat was and whose sundered fragment of a soul you were at that moment was meaningless, from adventurer to adventurer, from one whose very profession and calling in life is to experience and take the world in to another:

Did you have fun?

#endwalker spoilers #ffxiv

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eroticcannibal · 2 years

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hey, i'm a disordered autistic person and i think i'd like to be non-disordered. i want to be able to see my autism as just another part of me, rather than something that, at times, actively makes my life worse. is it possible to become non-disordered? if so, do you know how? sorry if this is a stupid question.

Now different people might have different opinions on this but imo the biggest thing is perspective.

There are undeniably many issues that come with being autistic in our society, but how much of that is inherent to being autistic? Evidence shows again and again that when the environment and the people around an autistic person are adapted to that person, the autistic person does better. There is more and more evidence that the widely accepted negative indicators of autism, eg meltdowns, are in fact not autistic traits but autistic trauma responses, and those raised by birth in the correct way do not experience the negative aspects of being autistic in the same way.

And even these negative parts, are you viewing it fairly? An NT some situations will struggle horribly too! You ever seen 2 people from very different cultures communicate? Its a struggle sometimes. Everyone has sensory limits and can and will meltdown if pushed too far. Their is very little about autism that does not have some analogous experience in NTs. But they are not judged so much when they hit a wall, because thats "normal", and they hit those walls less often because the whole world accomadates them. View you own burnouts and meltdowns and bad days with the same compassion you would anyone else.

Furthermore, everyone's neurotype makes their life harder at times. Even NTs. Those fuckers just cannot meet a deadline like I can with my adhd. And that can have serious consequences for them! But are they seen as disordered for it? Can NTs research and catalogue niche information like many autistic people can? Like hell can they! Must suck for NTs working in research, or writing essays for school. Their is no neurotype that gives you an easy ife.

And another important bit i think is self acceptance. You are who you are and you need to work with that. Do not aim for normal. Forget normal. Eg my kid hates the feeling of socks. So we dont make it wear socks. Sure there is more risk of blisters but with socks it is guaranteed sensory hell, so it risks the blisters. For a long time it didn't like its bed so we had sleeping spaces under tables and inside cupboards all over the house. It doesnt like the feel of shampoo so it doesnt use it. It doesnt like visual clutter so we hide food and drink bottles and controllers behind the sofa cushions. I've sewn buttons inside its sleeves for stimming and we cut the labels off all of its clothes. It cannot handle clothes very well, I could count the hours it has worn clothes over the past 2 years on my fingers and toes. Sometimes it doesnt like to speak normally so it only says the first syllable of words and thats fine. It has anxiety over owning things so I gift myself things it likes for it to steal from me later. You have to work *with* your quirks. You will not live a normal looking life but you will live one that makes you comfortable. And dont be afraid to ask people for help. We are a social species, we need to lean on each other.

Im sure plenty of followers have some takes so pls contribute.

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day6source · 7 months

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[NEWSEN] 'Letters with Notes' Release Interview

by News Reporter Hwang Hye-jin [1/2/3]

Singer Young K is accompanied by a variety of modifiers. Starting with the vocalist of "I Believe You" (DAY6) band DAY6, the lyricist, composer, bassist, radio DJ, and person Kang Young-hyun. He is a "hexagonal artist" who is not easy on anything, but never treats or throws anything lightly. Young K, who only ended his military career in April, will open the second act of his musical life with his new album "Letters with Notes," which will be released at 6 p.m. on September 4. This album is the first solo full-length album to be released since debuting in the music industry with DAY6 in September 2015, and two years after the first mini album "Eternal" released in September 2021. The album name "Letters with notes" means "letter written in notes" and "letter with notes". As the title suggests, it is a sweet letter that singer-songwriter Young K, who touches the hearts of listeners through his own lyrics and melodies, floats to the world on the threshold of autumn. The album, which begins with "waited" will be followed by the title track "Let it be summer," "Dreamer," "Bungee Jumping," "Natural," "STRANGE," "SOUL (Feat. Choi LB)" (Soul), "playground," "babo," and "what is…" (what is…). Like his previous work, Young K took the lead in writing and composing all 11 tracks. This is his new masterpiece, which has created many "Best Part" by living every day held by him for the past eight years. "nothing but" has its roots in its previous title song, "Guard You" Like the first line of "You're sobbing in my arms," the sad emotion line of the speaker, who can't let go of the ever-disappearing love, harmonized with the classic elements of British sound in the late 1960s and the straight and appealing atmosphere unique to American hard rock ballads in the 1980s. Young-K's new voice, which has become stronger, is expected to give listeners a deep resonance this fall. Until each line of sentence written with all heart and sincerity meets different high and low notes and becomes a sweet letter. I met Young-K, the writer who has been looking forward to "waited" hoping that time will pass faster than anyone else, and asked about his old sincerity, the best now, and new dreams in "Letters with Notes."

Q I’m curious about your thoughts ahead of your comeback after two years.

▲ I am very excited and nervous. It's the same at this moment as I'm doing the interview. (Laughs) I wanted to show a good performance with my first album in a long time. Actually, I think the biggest reason for singers to show their faces is the album. So, I wanted to work faster to let people hear the music and show my face.

Q When did you start preparing for the album in earnest, and what had the biggest influence on drawing up the rough sketch of the album?

▲ It was after I was discharged that I started recording properly. It's difficult to tell you exactly how long the preparation period was because I had already sketched it out in my head and imagined it. I think ‘my current self’ has the biggest influence when I’m working on a song. Since each song on the album contains a different feeling, it would be difficult to say that it contained the genre that I liked at the time. I did my best every moment while working on each song.

Q The album name is ‘Letters with notes’, which means letters written with musical notes. Who is the recipient?

▲ The recipient is the person who listens to these songs. The album name refers to letters with phonetic values, but it also refers to words and letters with phonetic values. As a lyricist, when I write lyrics, I tend to carefully choose the letters that best match the music. Since the song is relatively short, lasting just a few minutes, and has limited syllables, it is important to choose each word. All the things I wrote down with so much effort came together to form ‘Letters with notes.’

Q How satisfied are you with the completed album? Since you have created numerous masterpieces as a member of Day6 and Young K, expectations were high that ‘of course this solo album will be good as well.’

▲ Satisfaction with the album is high. But I don’t think I can say 100%. (Laughs) I think it’s about 95%. While working this time, I felt like I was lacking something. I want to see that as a possibility for development and fill it up. I think it's very fortunate if you are looking forward to my new album. Actually, what I still hope for is ‘an artist whose next move is expected’. I hope that I will continue to be an artist that people look forward to and look forward to. This applies not only to Young K, but also to Day6. If I was waiting and looking forward to it, I wanted to do the best I could, even if I couldn't meet and satisfy everyone. I did my best for every song.

Q I’m curious about the Day6 members’ reaction to the new song.

▲ Wonpil and Dowoon have not heard the entire song yet. Only Sungjin has listened to all the songs. My hyung told me that he likes the songs and that rhythmic songs go well together.

Jinyoung Park, the CEO producer of Young K's agency JYP Entertainment, said about Young K's first solo album, "He is a friend who truly perfectly embodies what I have always emphasized to my friends who make music, 'Start with the heart and finish with the head.'" Did you receive any advice or praise regarding this album?

▲ I once played the included songs to the producer when the album was not yet complete. At that time, the title song was not released. Even back then, he said, ‘You’re really good at it.’ I can't remember the exact wording, but he praised me. (Laughs) I haven't received any feedback regarding the title song yet. I think the saying, ‘Let’s start with the heart and finish with the head’ makes a lot of sense. I think if you aim for something like a successful melody, the results will come out a little differently. Even if I start with a melody or word or something I like, I don't try to only do what I like from beginning to end. At the organizing stage, I think we need to cool-headedly ask ourselves, ‘Is this really true?’ So, I plan to continue the attitude of starting with the heart and finishing with the head.

Q The title of the documentary produced as part of the comeback promotion is 'HEXAGON: 6 Sides of Young K'. Young K is also living diligently as a 'hexagon artist' who moves across various fields. Looking at artist Young K from a hexagonal perspective, I am curious about what his greatest capabilities are. Conversely, there are also capabilities that I would like to further develop in the future.

▲ It is a great honor to have the title Hexagon, Hexagon Artist, attached to my name. I am so honored, and thanks to that qualifier, I am determined to work harder in the future. However, hexagon artist... is not a title I gave myself. (Laughs) In fact, the more I work in all fields of life, the more I feel that I am lacking in many things. When making music, as a DJ, and as a person. I always try hard to fill those things. Even if I feel inadequate, rather than being discouraged, I think about what areas I can improve in.

Q Among the lyrics of the b-side song ‘let it be summer’, which was pre-released as a single on August 25th, there is a line that says, ‘I hope that the hot summer sunlight inside me never dies.’ What is the hot summer sunlight that singer-songwriter Young K, now in his 9th year since his debut, wants to cherish for the rest of his life?

▲ I had a hot feeling when I wrote that song. I wanted to convey the message that I hope this hot summer will continue. Actually, winter is a beautiful season, and spring and fall are both good. (Laughs) If you look at the period from spring to winter as the beginning and end of life, spring is when you are born, grow, and bloom when you are a child, and winter is when your hair turns white. So, I compared the time we grow up and live in our 20s and 30s to summer. The lyrics contain the idea that I want to keep the burning feeling of youth, no matter what season it comes, and carry it with me for the rest of my life. This is what I thought about when I was working on the 'Youth' series albums ('Shoot Me' and 'Remember Us' released in 2018), but the youth I thought about and defined was not from a certain age to a certain age. . The moment you think your youth is over is the moment it really ends. 'Let it be summer' was also written with the mindset that as long as I think I am youth, I can continue to live as youth.

Q Your first solo concert will last three days. What are the highlights you would like to convey from the performer's perspective?

▲ The biggest highlight of this performance is that all 11 songs from the new album will be performed live. It was also a big task. Because it’s a concert, not a showcase. Unlike a showcase, a concert is a space you come to enjoy. Since this is a concert held before the album is released, the audience will come without knowing the 11 songs, so I wondered how they could enjoy it while not knowing most of the songs. So, after it was decided whether or not to hold a concert, I sang each song as an encore song at the festival with more confidence. (Laughs) We also released the pre-release single 'Let it be summer'. I wanted to tell you about it first so that you can enjoy the concert in a more familiar and familiar way. I think the moment that got the best response during the festival pre-release stage was when I started saying “not yet” after the encore started. I said, “The next song I’m going to play is still~”. I think that was probably the moment when the cheers were the loudest. (Laughs) I think the reaction was the best when we said that we were presenting a song that wasn't yet known to the world.

Q What are your goals for this solo album?

▲ ‘Healthy and fun’. I hope I enjoy every moment. I think that way, the people who join us will also be able to enjoy it.

Q: Among the 11 songs, why did you select ‘nothing but’ as the title song?

▲ I didn’t choose it, because (JYP) has a confirmation system. (Laughs) From the beginning of the work until I write all the songs, I write them with love and do my best. I'm the type of person who works while thinking of every song as a title song, so I was actually happy with which song was selected as the title song. When I write every song, I often imagine, ‘What would it be like if I stood on stage with this song?’, ‘What would it be like if a music video was released and I started promoting with this song?’

Q Among the lyrics of the title song, there is a phrase that says, ‘This is all I have.’ What is ‘this’ in Young K’s life?

▲ In that song, it’s love, and if I had to choose just one thing, wouldn’t it be love? The emotion of love is the driving force that keeps me alive and moving. I think it's an emotion that includes all of these things: love for parents, love for fans, and love for music.

Q In the fan song 'Beautiful Feeling' released to commemorate the 3rd anniversary of Day6's debut, the words "The word love is not enough/This beautiful feeling", "Some people say love/But I have more/something more than that" There are lyrics that say “I think/If you know, let me know.” Now can you clearly define what that beautiful feeling is?

▲ Now, it can be defined as love. If this isn't love, what is it? (Laughs) I think the emotions my fans send me and the emotions I feel towards them are not just simple support. It's difficult to express what kind of emotion it is, but I think it would be very difficult not to express it as love.

Q How do you want fans who love this album to listen to it?

▲ I hope My Day will be incorporated into people’s daily lives. I wish I could be your comfort when you need it. It's just me too, but I hope that the music I make and play will provide comfort to My Day people.

Q DAHYUN of TWICE appeared in the music video for the title track. What made you act together.

▲ The music video story line was established first, and then the people at the company said it would be good to have a co-star. I was very, very honored to work with Dahyun because she was recommended to me. I was very grateful to Dahyun for acting so passionately and well on set.

Q When I watch the music video, I can see a more mature atmosphere compared to before enlistment.

▲ During my military service, I exercised a lot and grew in size. When I came back (to society), I heard a lot from people around me that I had gotten a little bigger. I heard a lot of people say that I was too skinny because I lost weight while taking care of my body. Ahead of this comeback, I tried to stay healthy. I guess my time to exercise has decreased. Rather than just deciding that I had to go on a huge, unconditional diet, I thought that I needed to stay healthy. I don't know exactly how many kg I lost since I tend to wear eye makeup. (Laughs)

Q On October 12, 2021, I became a hot topic by becoming the first idol singer to enlist on active duty as a KATUSA soldier. What impact did serving as a KATUSA Soldier have on Young K?

▲ While serving, I met and talked to a variety of people, and I think my scope of thinking broadened thanks to this. One of the things that greatly influenced me was the 2022 Eighth Army Best Warrior Competition (a competition that tests the physical and mental limits of soldiers). I felt the same way while preparing for the competition, and I felt like I was constantly hitting my limits throughout the competition. I did my best with the goal of completing the race, and after completing the race, I am approaching anything in the future with the thought that I can accomplish it with more effort. With the mindset that I will be able to do that in the future.

Q Even though you were an administrative soldier (member of the Korean Military Support Group, 8th U.S. Army in Korea), you volunteered and won.

▲ The only goal I had while serving was to regain my health. It wasn't 'let's build a healthy body', it was 'let's stay healthy'. The idea was to take care of my health again. When I was told that it was a competition where I would undergo various training sessions, I decided to give it a try, even though it might be physically difficult. I was just around 30 at the time. I decided to take on a new challenge in my thirties. Looking back on the time before I enlisted, it wasn't that my health wasn't all that good, but I think I prioritized my (singing) activities more than my health. Because I did my best. (Laughs) Fortunately, I was born with good physical strength, so I think I was able to carry on that well. However, I felt like I didn't put more effort into my health, so I thought I should take better care of myself during my military service.

Q After being discharged from the military, I appeared in various festivals such as ‘Beautiful Mint Life Festival’, ‘Seoul Park Music Festival’, ‘Have a Nice Trip’, and ‘Awesome Stage’. At the 'Seoul Park Music Festival', you also performed a cover performance of 'A Journey' from his solo debut album 'Pilmography' while member Wonpil watched from the audience.

▲ I missed the stage a lot. Due to the coronavirus, we were unable to hold face-to-face concerts not only during military service but also before enlistment. It was really nice to hear and see the fans cheering, laughing and having fun, and it was beautiful. I also gain a lot of energy when I make direct eye contact with fans and listen to their voices. Because I missed that time a lot, I wanted to perform on stage as soon as possible after being discharged from the military, and so many people invited me. That was fortunate. I prepared as best I could and enjoyed it as much as I could. More than anything, I wanted to enjoy myself. I think that I have to have fun in everything, including when I'm working on music and working on the radio, so that we can all enjoy it together. So, I try to enjoy everything as much as possible. Also, Wonpil said he would come at the right time (for vacation), and I sang Wonpil's solo song 'A Journey' there, and I was glad that people seemed to enjoy it.

Q The special stage of KBS 2TV's "Immortal Songs" on Armed Forces Day, which was presented last year, also received hot online attention. What is the memory of the performance of "Time of Our Life" performed in their military uniforms with Wonpil and Dowoon?

▲ I think it would probably be in the top 2 most memorable moments during my military service. We gathered at Dowoon's unit to play together before recording. We met up for practice after being apart for a long time, and we joked around and joked around as if we had been living together all along. And we annoyed each other. Those moments are the most memorable. It wasn't because I was wearing a military uniform and playing the bass, but because it had been a long time since I held the bass, it felt strange and my hands were awkward. So I practiced quickly and hard.

Q It is usually natural for popularity and awareness to decline during military service. Nevertheless, he continues to be highlighted as the sole lyricist of 'Time of Our Life' and 'You Were Beautiful', which unusually climbed the music charts several times, and as a co-composer and sole lyricist for the group High Key's 'Rose Blossom'. You got it. There are times when people get excited unintentionally when things are going well, so how did you feel when you heard the news of the turnaround?

▲ Rather than being excited, I felt much more determined to do better. And I thought about what I should do next. In fact, I think my desire to be active for a long time has become stronger than anything else. ‘I really need to do well. I need to sing well too. I need to write good songs too. To do that, I need to be really healthy. I thought, ‘Let’s take good care of our health.’ When preparing for this album and concert, I tried to take good care of my health and neck.

Q These days, even if you release a new song, there are many cases where it is not widely known or quickly forgotten. As I watch the songs I created, such as 'You Were Beautiful and 'Time of Our Life,' are loved and talked about for a long time and climb up the charts again and again, I wonder what it feels like as a singer.

▲ First of all, thank you for continuing to listen. (Laughs) To borrow Wonpil’s expression, one of the things I thought about and talked about with the Day6 members from the beginning was, ‘I want to make music that doesn’t age.’ I think this plays a big role in the band's music. The organic sound and the structure of the band, which uses instruments such as electric guitar, bass, drums, and keyboard, are similar to those of the past and present, so I think it will not be uncomfortable to listen to as time goes by.

Q If there is a song that you think is good but regrets not being better known, please recommend it.

▲ All unknown songs. (Laughs) Every time I write a song, I try my best to write it with love, so I hope that you will listen to it a lot. In fact, I think there are songs that give off more energy when sung together at a concert hall than when heard on audio. So even if there aren't many people listening right now, wouldn't it be okay if I could continue to sing it at concert halls?

Q What is the source of Young K’s sensitivity? What things bring you inspiration?

▲ I think it’s effort. There may certainly be some innate ability to write songs, but the first songs I wrote didn't have the same feel as they do now. (Laughs) I wrote a lot and revised it, but sometimes it wasn't accepted. I think the source is a lot of effort.

Q Your outside work is also receiving rave reviews. Following 'Rose Blossom', your name was engraved as a lyricist on the credits of two consecutive High-Key albums, including 'SEOUL' (Seoul), which was released on August 30th. In July, you produced Mnet's 'Queendom Puzzle' semi-final contest song 'PUZZLIN'', and in August, you also wrote the lyrics for Jo Yuri's new song 'Lemon Black Tea'. What do you think about the phenomenon where more and more people are visiting?

▲ I feel so honored when I receive an outsourcing offer not as a singer Young K but as a writer. I would be even more grateful if it were adopted. In fact, receiving external job offers and imagining and writing about new people is itself something that requires change for me. I think there will be progress within those changes, and I think there are some aspects that will result in my music and Day6’s music. If you have the opportunity in the future, please do your best. (Laughs)

Q ‘Rose Blossom’ has climbed the charts and is loved for a long time.

▲ First of all, from the time I wrote the song, it was not written with the intention of it being our (Day6) song. I wrote this song a few years ago when (Hong) Ji-sang, who I continue to work with, asked me, ‘I have a song with this kind of melody. Would you like to try writing the lyrics?’ I understand that at the time the song was written, it was before Hi-Key debuted.

Q From ‘Beautiful Mint’ to KBS Cool FM’s ‘DAY6’s Kiss the Radio’ to the Dongguk University festival at your alma mater, many people shouted “Young K Again” after you were discharged. How does it feel to receive a love call from the same place again?

▲ I was very honored when I received the offer again, both from the radio and the festival. Actually, the reason I thought I should release an album quickly after being discharged from the military was to let people know that ‘I’m back.’ Because if you’re a singer, you have to make a comeback with an album. I wanted to let you know that I worked quickly and came back in great shape.

Q I don’t think it’s easy to lead a radio program every day from 10 PM to 12 AM. Still, why did you decide to become a DJ again?

▲ I thought it was a great blessing to be able to meet listeners every day. You can feel and gain so many things while doing radio. I think my scope of thinking has expanded while hosting a radio show before enlisting. The world I feel now is a bit wider than the world I originally knew and lived in. Of course, I can't live the lives of all the listeners, but as I read their stories and positions with my own eyes and talked about them with my own mouth, I found myself thinking, even just for a moment, about what I would do if I were in this situation. I think I can now look at the world in a more diverse way. For example, a student listener once sent a story saying, ‘It’s Monday tomorrow and I really don’t want to go to school.’ The next story was that of a teacher (who didn’t want to go to school). (Laughs) As a DJ, I see the world from a more diverse perspective. I think we'll see.

Q How have you been able to make songs so well and perform so well in the past eight years? You host the radio every day and don't make a single mistake. Who is the person who helps Young K always do well?

▲ Well... Thank you. (Laughs) First of all, thank you for thinking that way. In fact, in that regard, I feel more comfortable now than before. In fact, I was more nervous at the beginning and middle of my debut. It was actually very difficult to say a single word. Even when doing things like live broadcasts, it was actually very difficult to do it without a script. Rather, as my fans gave me support and belief that no matter what I looked like and that it was okay for me to make mistakes because I was human, I started to think, 'It's okay to not be this nervous,' and I feel like I'm letting go little by little. But actually, even at this moment (of the interview), I am still nervous.

Q Next year, you will be entering your 10th year since your debut. Is there a part of you that made you think, ‘A singer who has been active for a long time will need these virtues?’

▲ I think that if you are a singer, you have to be good at singing, and if you are going to compose, you have to be good at making songs. If you're going to write lyrics, you have to use the words well to match the sound. I've been thinking about the criteria for singing well, but I don't think that just because you're good at producing high notes musically doesn't mean you're good at singing. Isn't it good to sing in a way that resonates with the listeners, not only when you hit a high note but also when you are chanting or whispering? I think the sound, melody, and lyrics are all like that. While working as a DJ, I got to meet many seniors (as guests), and those who have been doing it for a long time not only have excellent musical skills, but they also treat people around them very kindly, even to me, who is meeting them for the first time. I learned a lot from watching those seniors. I promised myself that I should do better to the people around me.

Q I understand that if you add the 11 songs included in this solo album, the number of self-composed songs will approach 170 (based on registration with the Korea Music Copyright Association). It's not important to simply write a lot of songs, but it's also proof that you've worked hard and been faithful to your job. I wonder how you feel when you see the ever-increasing number of copyrights. Separately, I’m curious about what copyright-earning songs are.

▲ Actually, my father manages my income... (laughs) I can only infer which song has the most royalties, but I don't know for sure. First of all, if you think about our songs, it's great that there are so many songs that we can sing, and that we can choose and sing them in a variety of ways at performances. If you think back to the past, when there weren't many songs, there were times when we would fill it with cover songs when thinking about the set list for a performance. I like that I have a lot of options now, and when it comes to cover songs, I can do them whenever I want.

Q About a month before enlistment, when you appeared as a guest on NOW's 'Music to You' hosted by Sang Yoon, you asked, "You have released a lot of music over a really long period of time. Do you still enjoy making music?" I remember that. Does 9 year singer Young K still enjoy making music?

▲ I think I’m much happier now than a few years ago. One of the reasons I asked my senior that question was because there was a time when I wasn't happy. At that time, I kept asking myself the question, ‘Is music a career I will pursue for the rest of my life?’ As I worked, I gradually stopped asking such questions. Also, My Day people continued to give me a lot of faith. As they gave me the belief that ‘I am a person who can continue to sing like this’ and ‘I can continue to go on stage’, I also felt the need to continue. I think it's a case that becomes more enjoyable as I do it. During my military service, I think I became more aware of ‘Ah, I miss singing.’ When I came back, I was busy working and it was fun.

Q If you look back on a time when you didn’t enjoy music, why do you think that was?

▲ I think it was because I thought my life as a singer might not be long. I think there were doubts like, ‘Can I do that well?’ and ‘Do I have the ability to survive for a long time?’ Now, those doubts have disappeared a bit, but I still feel like I have many shortcomings. I plan to fill it well in the future.

Q Many music fans say that they were comforted after listening to Day6’s songs. How do you hope the music Young K makes reaches the people who listen to it?

▲ I hope it provides comfort to those who need comfort, and I hope it provides excitement to those who need excitement. I hope I can provide laughter to those who need it. I think there are many different emotions you can feel even when listening to one song. I think it would be nice if you could feel it somehow.

Q Is there a difference in the way you work on Day6 music and solo music?

▲ When it comes to Day6, the members have their own colors and unique characteristics that only they can bring out, so we often work in a way that can bring out those. So, I think I started worrying about what kind of color I could express when I was working on my solo song. For a long time, I thought my vocals had nothing special. ‘Then what strengths do I have and what colors can I show?’ I thought a lot when working on my last (solo) album and also when working on this album. While working, I felt that I could create more diverse colors. I think we could have expressed that more in this album.

Q After discharge from the military and the release of this album, the second act of singer Young K has begun. How do you want to fill the countless pages of Act 2 going forward? Day6's 'military period' (military + gap period) will end with Wonpil's discharge in November, and I am curious about the full group's activity plans.

▲ I’m also very excited about Day6’s future. I'm really looking forward to what kind of music we'll make and how much fun we'll have on stage. In some ways, we have grown compared to the past. Through this album, I have shown the 'best I can do now' that I can show over time, and I am also looking forward to seeing what kind of color I can create by gathering the members and each individual's best. Wonpil is serving faithfully and is in good health.

#young k #day6 #day6 even of day #kang younghyun #brian kang #album: letters with notes #young k: interviews #[this interview was so long it started to lag LWKAEJGSDLK]#[anyways please enjoy!!]

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human-still-developing · 2 years

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Rhyming Poems: A Guide

Hi again everyone :))) Thanks for the amazing response on my previous post (Constructive Criticism: A Guide)....I'm still shook by how much it took off! Anyways, here's the latest edition of my writing advice column, all on the infamous rhyming poems <333 So sit back, grab a cuppa and let's delve into this notoriously tricky writing form.

Rhyming poems. We've all written them, generally in early primary school when we first read Dr Seuss. They seem like the most basic form of poetry; a clear structure and form that is easy to adapt! And throughout history, rhyme has left its mark on almost all of the iconic poetic works; whether it be the infamous Shakespearean Sonnet, the more modernist verse narratives or even simple nursery rhymes.

So despite rhyming poems being the first poems that almost all of us encounter, why are they so tricky to write??? Here are the main reasons (I've listed them here so when we talk about conquering the rhyming poem we can overcome these hurdles):

Rhyme limits the choice of words. Poetry as an art-form is EXTREMELY dependent on word choice, especially because so few are generally used (unless you are writing an epic). With rhyme, we can no longer have the freedom to choose what words fit....this makes it difficult to communicate a very specific and tailored message

Rhyme greatly influences the meter of a poem. While not all rhyming poems have to be as fixed of a form as sonnets (think iambic pentameter), there is definitely restriction of syllables, line length and verses in rhyming poems. This becomes even greater of a problem when rhyme schemes are introduced (think ABAB structures).

Rhyming is hard. This is perhaps the most obvious but greatest factor that deters poets from rhyme. It is hard! It's hard to rhyme and not sound like you are writing a clapping game. It's hard to rhyme and have a solid structure when you're delving into the fluid metaphysical. It's hard to create something stunning when you are so restricted!!

So with all these factors in mind, here are a few tips I've put together to make this writing form easier. Keep in mind, rhyme, like any other poetic device, is most effective when used in moderation! Be careful with how much you add! It's like sugar in a tea; some types taste good with entire spoonfuls while others require just a dash.

My biggest tip for rhyming poems is try not to close yourself in too early. Unless you have specific word pairs in mind, always try and end your lines (which are in the rhyme scheme) with easy-to-rhyme words. For example, instead of using "morning" , you might use "day". Of course this may seem like you are replacing sophisticated words for simpler ones but often these words are the ones that carry the most meaning and make your work accessible! You can also try for some nice metaphors to fit into these scheme.

Try and find rhyming pairs! Often when writing rhyme, it's hard to find suitable words that fit your message. Find words that rhyme and have a similar kind of 'vibe' BEFORE writing your verse to avoid this problem. For example, a key conceit in my upcoming sonnet is situated around the words "ebb" and "web".

Don't be afraid of half-rhyme! This is such a good way to get out of the 'clap game' trap that rhyming poems seem to fall into; it almost seems to break out of that strict form and allows you a bit of space to play. You can use half-rhyme if you have a key change in your poem or simply scatter it around to keep it fluid and moving. For example, Seamus Heaney (if you've read my other work, you'd know I'm obsessed with his stuff!) often uses half-rhyme in his Glanmore Sonnets as a subversion of the traditional Irish Sonnet. Half-rhyme also puts a modernist touch to the more traditional poetic forms :)

Finally, use all the tools at your disposal! I've seen so many 'professional' poets saying "Don't use free online rhyme programs" but imo that's just rubbish. EVERY POET USES EVERY TOOL AT THEIR DISPOSAL! I can say that from my own personal experience; I've published poems in some nice poetry magazines and I always use those dumb rhyme-zone tools to find the right words! They even have modes to find the "percentage" of rhyme so you can effectively utilise half-rhymes in your work as well. Don't discount these tools and don't feel like any less of a poet if you use them. THEY ARE DESIGNED FOR YOU; USE THEM!

So with that, I'll wrap up my rhyming poem guide. If I come up with any other tools, I'll add them and if you have any tricks, feel free to reblog and add as well :)) Rhyming poetry is hard and even if it doesn't work out quite as nicely as you intended, don't feel disheartened! It can take years of practise to master this form! But for now, happy crafting and feel free to share your work because I'd love to read it :) Re-blogs and likes are always warmly appreciated, as well as con-crit for my articles <3

Happy crafting,

Hics <3

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emojiglyphics · 1 year

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Should English throw out our alphabet and use Emojiglyphics instead?

It’s a bit of a silly question to begin with because it’s not going to happen. When English spelling is eventually reformed, it will be with a new system using the existing Latin alphabet. But since I’ve been spending so much of my time on this lately, I thought I’d explore the question inside the realm of fantasy.

First, we have to talk about the advantages and disadvantages of some types of writing systems, and their viability for English. These explanations will be SIMPLIFIED but for all you language heads who know what I’m skipping, know that I love you and I’m pulling for you.

Phonetic Alphabets

Phonetic Alphabets are the kind used in English, Greek, and Ukrainian. They have separate characters representing vowels and consonants. The major advantages are that the character set tends to be pretty small (20-30) which makes them quick to memorize. After memorizing a small character set and learning some rules, you are (hopefully) equipped to handle the entire dictionary of words. One small disadvantage is that since most languages have more sounds than letters, spelling rules can get complicated. But the major disadvantage is that as the spoken language undergoes natural and inevitable change, it diverges further and further from the written language until the two bear almost no resemblance. In some languages, there isn’t much to worry about. You can be accurately reading German or French after a week. But you can study English for a lifetime and not know all of its trap doors. And phonetic alphabets leave you on your own if two words are spelled or pronounced the same (or both).

Logographic Writing Systems

The most famous Logographic writing system is Han Chinese. (It’s technically a semanto-phonetic system, but that’s like... very technically.) In Logographic writing systems, you learn a new character for each word. The big disadvantage is obvious; you learn a lot of characters. They’re complex and often abstract, and there are thousands of them. But there are serious advantages. For instance, two people who speak different languages can actually read the same text and understand it. They are immune to pronunciation changes in the spoken language, which means that text remains comprehensible for a lot longer. What’s more, they could theoretically be much easier to learn than they are. Han characters didn’t start out as abstract as they are, they were once much more recognizable representations of the objects they stood for. The transformation into the characters we know today took millennia. But if you were to start a logographic system today, you could very well decide to make the word for “cat” a literal drawing of a cat.

Syllabic Alphabets

Syllabic alphabets encode an entire syllable in a single character. Typically, you start with a character that stands for a given consonant, and then tweak it indicate what vowel should follow. These are systems like Tibetan and Katakana. These have the same disadvantages and advantages as similar phonetic systems, but they have the added constraint that they assume certain qualities about the spoken language. Syllabic alphabets work well for Japanese because Japanese tends not to allow so-called “consonant clusters”, you usually find at least one vowel between all consonants in a word.

Abjads

Abjads are another system based on phonetics, except that they lack vowels and only use consonants. As you can imagine, this can lead to ambiguity, which I will wager is why they are associated with languages with a limited vowel inventory. It works great for languages like Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian. But they would not work well for, say, Danish which has 20 distinct vowels.

Egyptian Hieroglyphs

Egyptian Hieroglyphs could be described as a combination of an Abjad and a Logographic system. Egyptian had a limited vowel inventory, so it wasn’t too impractical to leave them out. But because of the way it mixes phonetic symbols with a logographic determinative, it doesn’t need to have as large an inventory as Han Chinese. Moreover, these characters are often pretty easy to figure out because for thousands of years, they remained fairly literal. A drawing of a man pointing to his mouth-- oh, this must be a word about the mouth. Learning unfamiliar glyphs is often a matter of learning more about the ancient world, far easier than memorizing a thatch of brush strokes, beautiful though they are.

What this means is that while Hieroglyphs certainly take a lot of work to learn, they’re pretty readable, especially for such ancient texts. In a way, hieroglyphs combine the strengths of both phonetic and logographic systems. The large number of phonetic symbols makes it easier to approach unfamiliar words. The character set is certainly not small, but it’s very much doable, and you can get surprisingly far from a limited set. The determinative clears up ambiguity between homonyms, and the literalness of the designs makes them easier to learn.

Unfortunately, it also combines some of their disadvantages. The phonetic components of the words will still eventually fall out of sync with the spoken language. Within the lifetime of Egyptian, the word “hand” when from sounding like “ka-raht” to “to-ra”, but the spelling stayed the same. And while the determinatives do look like the objects and concepts they represent much of the time, it often does it with objects that no longer exist or which we have little contact with in the modern world. And there’s still... many of them to learn.

So would Hieroglyphics be good for writing English? Kind of. I mean, we’d muddle through, right? It would be tough because English cries out for vowel representation. We just have so many of them. You don’t know how tempting it has been for me to incorporate a vowel system into Emojiglyphics. But I’ve been continually surprised at how readable it is, once the determinative is added.

Emojiglyphics

Emojiglyphics is basically hieroglyphics for English using a subset of currently available Emojis as its character set. The advantage, for me at least, is that they’ve already been created and there are tons of devices out there capable of stringing them together quickly. The other big advantage is that they represent things that people recognize. By necessity they are relevant to our current lives. They are also designed not just to be a collection of clip art, but to aid in communication. They are filled with hand gestures and facial expressions.

What this adds up to is that Constructing Emojiglyphics has been surprisingly easy to do. At least when it comes to the design part of it. Much tougher is actually using and documenting it. Which leads to the first disadvantage:

Emojis were not meant to be used this way. The web browser or text file can’t tell you’re making a word. The spacing is terrible. Emojiglyphics has been a joy to create but not to use. Also disadvantageous is that it’s been hard for people to understand which characters are phonetic and which are determinatives. All emojis seem to have equal status. Egyptian phonetic characters tend to actually look simpler, which helps set them apart. They’re also the first ones you learn, you spend a lot of time with them. By the time you’re dealing with determinatives in your study, you’re pretty confident you’ll never mix them up. One way I’ve tried to combat this is to use as many animals for phonetics as possible. But it may not be enough.

So should English be written this way?

Maybe by some people. If they feel like it. I don’t think it should replace the Latin alphabet mostly because of our incredibly deep vowel inventory, the number of people who learn it as a second language and already know the Latin alphabet, and the fact that it’s much easier to write by hand than Emojiglyphics would be. We’d have to make some kind of Emojimotic, making all the characters abstractions of the emojis and stripping them of their recognizability. Which is what tends to happen, I suppose.

But I find it very satisfying, and I think that if it ever got realized enough to be practical, it could be a fun way for people to communicate. If it ever got adopted by any significant number of people (and I’m not holding my breath) it would be bittersweet for me. It would mean that I had invented something people played with. But it would also be the beginning of the end for me. It would no longer be my project, it would be a living written language with a will of its own. People would invent new rules, new spellings. Things I never expected. Some would be delightful to me, others irritating. And my job at that point would be to shut the hell up about it because no one person can tame a language. .

#conlang #emojiglyphics.

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