#a shit about consonant clusters

[bookwyrminspiration]

kotlc characters if all their names started with the same letter:

sophie selizabeth sfoster

biana bamberly bvacker

dexter dalvin ddizznee

fitzroy favery fvacker

keefe k[NOT-YOUR-LEGACY-BOY] ksencen

linh lhai lsong

tam tdai tsong

wylie wzoran wendal

marella madene mredek

[spocks-kaathyra]

WAIT okay I don't know how to word this at all but basically the way we perceive speech sounds is through like. different frequencies are amplified or dampened by the ways we shape our vocal tract and we hear those differences in like which frequencies are louder and which frequencies are quieter and that's how we recognize different phonemes. or something. so if like aliens have a different hearing range and/or differently shaped vocal tracts they could have an entirely different phonemic inventory than human languages??? like shrimp colors but it's alien phonemes???? this might seem like a really obvious realization but like those guys could be distinguishing vowels based on formants we can't even perceive!! their hearing range could start above 5000 hz and they wouldn't be able to hear the difference between any of our vowels!! enough with giving klingon uvular plosives or whatever to make it sound ""exotic"" that shit should be UNPRODUCIBLE with a human vocal tract and UNPERCEIVABLE with human ears!! no wonder they need universal translators when your ears could be physically unable to distinguish between alien phonemes??? sorry I'm realizing that this really is an incredibly obvious thought just couched in overly technical language but I'm excited about it nonetheless. spock's surname is unpronounceable bc it's got a bunch of consonant clusters? NO it actually has secret vulcan phonemes distinguished by differences in frequencies above the human range of hearing so u can't even perceive it correctly let alone pronounce it. cardassians have a hearing range significantly smaller than humans so they physically cannot understand most human languages...

[svartalfhild]

Poetic Names in Dunmer Culture

I have a notion about Dunmer naming conventions that my little linguist brain keeps coming back to, ever since I learned that Vehk, Seht, and Ayem are the "poetic" forms of Vivec, Sotha Sil, and Almalexia's names. It got me thinking: what if regular Dunmer have poetic name forms as well?

I think it would be interesting if they had them as a version of a nickname, but with more specific and honored meaning, something that indicates not just familiarity but a bond worthy of poetry, something that you have to earn the right to call someone.

The House Dunmer of course can call their gods by these names because the Tribunal love to brand themselves as servants of the people, who all have a closeness with and reverence for their gods. Basically, it's acceptable because religion things. Also love how this makes saying "B'Vehk" roughly the same as saying "sweet Jesus" lol.

But like with normal people, I imagine it functions similar to getting to call someone by a nickname, except way more intense. Like you're either close family members, ultra bffs, lovers, or people who went through some shit together (e.g. soldiers who fought together, rivals who destroyed each other's lives, etc.). That's right folks! It doesn't have to be a bond based on love! It can be hate! Because it's the Dunmer, so of course. It just has to be Significant. Like Victorians calling each other by their first names but kicked up a notch. Or like going "bestie!!!!" (affectionate) or "worstie!!!" in the most deadpan way possible.

Anyway, so here's where we get to the linguistic part of this sociolinguistic headcanon. There are clearly conventions to how a poetic name is formed, based on the data given to us by the gods' names. The process is (usually) this:

Keep the initial letter of the original name. If the initial letter is a consonant followed by another consonant, the second consonant is considered part of the initial cluster and doesn't count towards #3. If the initial letter is a vowel other than a, the first consonant or consonant cluster remains as part of the first letter and doesn't count towards #3.

Add a vowel/diphthong by taking the final vowel/diphthong of the name and alter it according to specific patterns.

Add the second consonant. If the second consonant is the same as the first letter, use the final consonant instead. Y never counts as a consonant for this. Certain consonants must be altered according to specific patterns.

Vowel/Diphthong Changes:

a -> e, eh aa -> a, ah e -> e, eh i -> e, eh ii -> i o -> a, ah u -> u y -> e, eh ia -> ye ea -> ya ie -> ye iu -> yu ay -> ae ey -> ae ae -> a, ah ue -> u

h follows a vowel when the final consonant is k, m, n, or t

Consonant Changes:

b -> v c -> k d -> t th -> t

Poetic Name Examples:

Drelyth -> Drel Vavran -> Vehn Indrasi -> Indres Alarue -> Aur Tremona -> Trehm Ervynu -> Ervun Naryu -> Nur Aymillo -> Aymal Thathas -> Thes Llaals -> Llas Nethis -> Neht

That should give you an idea of how it goes. There are probably exceptions to these rules, and of course a lot of the poetic names are going to be the same, but there are lots of real world names that share nicknames, so I'm not bothered about it.

Also! I think this is exclusive to House Dunmer, and it's not something the Ashlanders do, because I think it started with the Tribunal.

I think Dunmer do have more conventional nicknames sometimes, but they're usually used by non-Dunmer or family members in a super casual way. I almost think of it like using -kun in Japanese when it's between Dunmer.

[abidethetempest]

Eliksni Conlang Progress

Velask! this is my first progress post, hopefully the first of many! i have been really waffling on whether or not i wanted to even share any early content yet, but then i realized that was really just me being scared to show off my art and i'm not about that shit (plus i want to have a record of my progress to look back on)!!! so i'm gonna show off my art >:DDDD

so here's most of what i have now! beware, very long post below the cut:

Phonology

i hope to god tumblr didn't totally cronch that image. so yeah this is the rough phonology, emphasis on rough. full disclosure, everything i know about the IPA i learned for this project like a week ago. i'm a total noob, and i'm sure an experienced conlanger or linguist would look at this and their soul would exit their body in horror or smth equally dramatic. but in my defense, i did have to work backwards to build this based on existing material instead of making it all myself, so it was a lot more restrictive and difficult.

Short Vowels

ɪ: i

e: e

æ: a

ə: e or a (always unstressed)

ʊ: u

ɑ: aa

Long Vowels

i: ii

ɔ: o (primarily used before r)

Diphthongs:

eɪ: written as “ey” or “eh”

eə, written as “eyr” (pretty much exclusively seen paired with r, which is the reason for that spelling)

aɪ, written as “ei”

oʊ, written as “oh”

these diphthongs are used to represent a number of sounds that canonical sources do not differentiate between in writing. There might have been a way to do this using rules for pronounciation instead, but it was honestly so frustrating to think i had nailed down a good rule only to find one or two exceptions that i just decided to chuck canon out the window and make some damn diphthongs.

(if you don't know/understand the IPA, I highly recommend checking out this video for a great overview)

Phonotactics

this is also a very rough draft version, doubly so since the only person who has to care abt writing/speaking Eliksni rn is me. but this is my current basis for how i make, pronounce, and write words. i will definitely clean this up if/when i start making guides on using Eliksni, but it makes do for now.

C^3VC^3

Onset: all phonemes

Nucleus: all vowels/diphthongs

Coda: all consonants including clusters

stress on first syllable in most two syllable words

in three syllable words, stress on second syllable if it contains a k or a long vowel/diphthong

stress never on prefix

single "i" is short if surrounded by other letters and long if left open on either side. "ii" is always long and is written that way in words where it is surrounded by letters. Words that start with single i will be spelled with ii if they are compounded with another word. ex) ikrim (time), draiikrim (forever, lit. “all time”)

Consonant Cluster Rules

I only have rules for clusters of two so far, but I am going to flesh out the rules for three-consonant clusters soon since a few of those have cropped up in my lexicon building exercises. The chart for these is in an earlier post if you want to see it all color-coded and whatnot

C: can only pair with H to for CH, all romanizations using C in place of K are done so for aesthetic purposes (i only preserved the use of C as an occassional K because I like how it looks in romanizations, the actual Eliksni alphabet will never substitute C for K)

H: can only precede another consonant as part of the vowel in the nucleus, except for Y (functionally, H being attached to a vowel makes it part of that vowel, but i wanted to highlight this feature to make it very clear that H cannot precede another consonant on its own)

J: never pairs with another consonant. (i wasnt even going to include J as a sound in Eliksni, but there had to be two (2) damn canon names w J in them so i felt a little obligated)

Y: functioning as a consonant, Y cannot pair with any other consonant.

Z: never pairs with another consonant at beginning

Making this bigass chart was unironically so fun. i love you spreadsheets <3 i love you color coding <3 no i am not neurotypical why do you ask

Syntax

VSO 

verb-adverb

adposition-noun

possessor-possessee

Noun-adjective

thats it lmao! i'm not even sure if this is gonna stay the same, the only sentences i've written so far have been very basic and all like 3 words long. this is definitely an aspect i am expecting to change a lot over time as I refine how i want things to flow.

Stop! Grammar Time!

(i've waited three years to make that dumb joke lol sorry)

unfortunately grammar itself is no joke.

these are the affixes for conjugating verbs in Eliksni. There are 3 tenses currently (if anyone saw that post I made a few days ago abt the second past tense, i do still plan to implement it, just haven't had the time to think of affixes for it or decide how i really want it to work)

For the sake of time and bc this post is,,,, really damn long already, I won't be including the example conjugations i did here. might make a separate post with that so i can also show off how the mood markers work.

speaking of...

Mood time! i will readily admit this shit kinda confuses the heck outta me, though i understand the basics at least in theory. Some are more intuitive for me, like the imperative and interrogative. i might even drop the subjunctive, although i do want to at least try to grasp it first. Also shout out to the imperative for being irregular bc of ✨worldbuilding reasons✨, we love to see it.

and FINALLY

Noun case markers! Something my time learning German actually prepared me for!

There are only two cases in Eliksni, nominative and accusative. All other situations where other cases like dative or genitive would be used will be done periphrastically using prepositions and such. I was inspired by the lack of gendered third-person-pronoun in Mando'a, which is why there is one pronoun to refer to someone in the third person regardless of gender. If gender absolutely need be specificed, an adjective corresponding to their gender (ie: masculine, feminine, nonbinary, etc) is used.

and that's what i've got after about a week's worth of progress! for the sake of good recordkeeping, the date at the time of writing this post is 7-12-23.

feel free leave any thoughts (but please be gentle! i'm very new to this)!

[skyeventide]

prefacing that I’m not super good at translating from quenya to sindarin and I’m better the other way around because I do know quenya sounds and a number of rules whilst knowing jack shit about sindarin ones (and this is to say that if someone knows more, you can chime in)

someone on discord asked for the translations of the father-names of the sons of Fëanor to sindarin (and Curufin’s mother-name), so here we go:

nelyafinwë > neilfin / nailfin is also an option but nailfin is objectively terrible so I’m not going there

canafinwë > caunfin / canfin; so the root in primitive elvish is √KAN which stands for crying aloud, and caun is both outcry and chief, which fits. I almost added gonfin. can you imagine gonfin. but also I’m unsure that -cáno behaves the same way as a word beginning rather than as a -gon suffix, so idk that it works at all

turcafinwë > I literally don’t know. the primitive elvish root is √TURUK, which gives trunc as a Sindarin derivative. and it means, like. great stake. great stake?? I am also certain that “cf” is not an acceptable cluster in Sindarin, and nc doesn’t survive medially and would become ng. so... trungfin? is ngf an accepted cluster of consonants? idk, this name defeated me, we’ll just say it’s trungfin or just keep it as turcafin because it makes sense. could also just have fun with the great feanor vs fingolfin name-off and go for the tur- route. maybe it’s just turfin

morifinwë > morfin; thank you boy for making my life easy here

atarincë > adarig; there’s an attested cognate from lepincë which is lebig (little finger), so adapting -cë is easy, and I’m thanking discord help here for pointing that out

pityafinwë > nibefin / nibenfin (? never sure about the clusters here, nf in this case); there’s an alternative version of the quenya given as nityafinwë and the small/petty dwarves are named niben-nog, but pitya-nauco in quenya. so I’m just making my life simpler and using that nitya cognate

telufinwë > telefin / thelefin / delefin; idk this one was convoluted, there’s a reconstructed *meth that offers thele/tele/dele as alternatives and related words, and given the direct quenya cognate in métima, I’m just gonna go with that

[mallowstep]

📖 (foxstride)

ask thingy

@foxstride

okay i mentioned this to you on discord but i didn't go into it but. okay. okay. the au where mistyfoot is hawk, moth, and tadpole's mother. this has been just. it's been chewing on my brain and i don't know when i'm going to write it so since u gave me a blank canvas, i'm going to ramble about it for as long as i can.

cw: implied/referenced sexual assault; brief suicidal ideation; standard tigerclan content (abuse, child abuse, starvation, dehumanization, etc.); referenced force feeding

okay oh my gosh okay. this has. so obviously i've been thinking about riverclan lately. a lot. it's rcam. anyway. i don't want. i'm trying to get to the point and not loop around aimlessly for two hundred words but okay but okay. anyway.

i've been thinking of all the different ways i can deeply traumatize misty, storm, and feather. and maybe stone. maybe i'll let stone live at some point. that'd be fun.

right so i've been thinking of that and my ideas are all over the place. i'm going to let primrosepaw live at some point. at one point i'm going to have stormpaw, and maybe primrosepaw or reedpaw (and...what's the other one? is it perchpaw or pikepaw? whatever) the point is i'll have some collection of stormpaw and some or all of mistyfoot's kits escape but not misty and feather so we can do survivor's guilt and.

anyway so i was writing the excerpt for the primrosepaw is definitely there au (it's kind of not Tethered because most of these aren't mutually incompatible like that au could be any of the others), and tigerstar has that dialogue about kits yeah?

so when i was writing it, i was thinking about just. he's trying to dehumanize all of them, right? that's his goal with that line. he's separating mistyfoot from her kits, trying to erase the meaning of their relationships. that's like. that's what i was considering when i was writing it.

buuuuuuut. y'know. my brain is chewing on it. and it just. hm. Hm. what if. what If tadpole, moth, and hawk were misty and tiger kits. hm. hmm. hm.

and so i am just instantly. very on board with this. there's so much potential.

so i Think the point of canon divergence is the rescue attempt. i haven't decided if stormpaw is successfully rescued or not. featherpaw doesn't for reasons i'm circling around to, but stormpaw may or may not. it certainly Matters in a broad sense but i haven't made up my mind, and i doubt i'm going to write Multiple aus about this. i mean i might u never know but it'd b like writing an alternate stolag: i mean i suppose i Could but it would feel weird.

okay almost burnt my dinner i said i'm very this has just been slowly rotting my brain out. i like Angst and it's been a while since i've written any.

okay there was fmtws but really that got me started. i'm not a fluff person. and y'all know that by now.

so Back On Topic. so Anyway after the rescue attempt fails/partially fails, tigerstar takes his anger out at the apprentices being Alive on featherpaw and she gets to. uh. help tigerclan practice fighting.

"Let me see her," Mudfur hissed. "No," Tigerstar said. "I've told you." Mudfur growled. Featherpaw dragged herself to her feet, and Mistyfoot glanced back at her. They would leave they would leave they would leave and then she could lie down again and try not to think. "You're not my leader," Mudfur said, and Featherpaw winced. Mistyfoot could see what was going on, but she was sitting still as a stone. Mudfur pressed into their — Mudfur pressed in, laying a wrapped bundle at Mistyfoot's feet. "Let me—" "No," Mistyfoot said. "Just go." Mudfur dipped his head. Tigerstar's steps moved away from them, but the shouts and arguments surrounding Mudfur were just buzzing noise in Featherpaw's head. She made out, "She's going to die," and she thought, that wouldn't be the worst thing.

thank You featherpaw. you will suffer for the au as a whole. anyway this takes place...i'm not Quite sure but mistyfoot does have a reason for not letting mudfur in. and that reason is she is in Denial about being pregnant.

if mudfur comes in he'll know (i have not forgotten that cats can smell unlike the erins), and mistyfoot is acting in denial. altho she rationalizes it to herself as being for mudfur's protection: runningnose is a medicine cat too, and so tigerstar could off mudfur without much effort.

(also i tend to mix up mudfur and mudclaw sometimes understand i am talking about the riverclan medicine cat, not the windclan deputy. i just mistype them sometimes.)

anyway so she has a legitimate reason (mudfur's continual survival, which is better for her and featherpaw longterm), and she does not want mudfur to know.

yeah.

all in all, this happens before the great battle. mistyfoot fights in it (again, denial), featherpaw and stormpaw are reunited (yes i think i made up my mind), (wait maybe stonefur lives too, and then both pairs of siblings reconnect, and stonefur is like "oh Shit" and. okay yes. maybe. i don't know.)

(there's a Lot. ohh maybe. wait best of both worlds okay. mistyfoot Thinks stonefur is dead. but stonefur doesn't get a proper burial but at the same time riverclan is Not going to go for their deputy on bonepile and even if they do go for it, they're not going to stripe his bones nor are they going to let a Physical Cat Corpse rot in camp. so when firestar and greystripe rescue stormpaw, stormpaw Insists they go back for his body, and then they realize he's Alive but obviously mistyfoot doesn't know.)

(there then i get the Best of both worlds. and stonefur and feathertail are in the Chronic Pain club.)

(also the thing w/ fighting is also what happens in "someday when the world is much brighter". not that Particular scene or in that Particular way, but it does happen. i mean almost exactly in that particular way. but that scene is from a different fic.)

anyway okay moving on i did add too much chili powder to my dinner but that's fine i'm still not over when someone refused to give me more harissa because "it's spicy" like yes i know i guarantee my mom makes it spicier.

back on topic sorry. i've been writing this as i do other things bc i have so much to say about this and i don't want to wait for tomorrow to share this because it's been just Rotting away my brain.

anyway so siblings reunite. it's...terse. it's complicated.

there's some parallels going on right? like because both featherpaw and stormpaw are basically in the mindset of looking after their mentors (which mistyfoot and stonefur feel Terrible about), everyone has survivor's guilt (i don't know what to call like, survivor's guilt when it's not actually survivor's guilt so if someone has a correct word please let me know) except for Maybe featherpaw.

featherpaw might be the Only one here who doesn't have survivor's guilt. i don't really want to explore the one way she could end up with it. that's past my comfort level at the moment.

but stormpaw and mistyfoot are the most physically healthy, and stormpaw and stonefur escaped.

stormpaw: i have not been hurt by this in any way

everyone around stormpaw: you have definitely been hurt by this

stormpaw: i have not been hurt by this in any way

stormpaw and featherpaw become warriors, leopardstar makes mistyfoot deputy (because stonefur is still recovering and also no longer wants the position. mistyfoot doesn't either but she's in denial and she doesn't want anyone else to have it. mistyfoot is visibly pregnant and still kind of in denial at this point. like it's been at least a moon and she is refusing to talk about it.)

right so i think stormpaw's name is going to be stormheart because i don't know it was always weird to me that stormfur and stonefur have the same suffix. like given Everything that's going on it feels weird to me. ig it'd actually be less weird in this, given that stonefur is still alive, but do you know How Close stonefur and stormfur are. they're one consonant cluster off. they're One consonant cluster off.

so leopardstar names him stormheart. feathertail can keep her name because it's pretty.

mistyfoot is a moon away from kitting. she refuses to talk about it. to anyone. whatsoever.

feathertail and stonefur decide to stage an intervention.

(they leave stormheart out not because he's not part of the found family, but because mistyfoot literally will not tolerate a single word about this. like a single word. like she will growl at you if you look at her stomach for too long.

so given the fairly high odds that mistyfoot gets violent, they keep stormheart out of it. she's the least likely to attack stonefur and feathertail.

stormheart finds out about this later and is like "do you guys realize if this went south you had absolutely 0 control over the situation. like what are you guys going to do. you incapable of doing anything to stop her if something goes wrong."

feathertail is like "yes. that's the point."

feathertail is both kind of right and also very internally messed up from being used for "training" when she wasn't allowed to fight back. feathertail also hates if you call her by just her prefix. she does not tell anyone this. misty is aware of this, and she tells stone and storm, and riverclan does eventually figure it out. plus it's not like feathertail is close enough to anyone else for them to call her "feather".

okay i'm getting off topic sorry i've been working on a tpb thing for swtwimb, and the one scene i have is cats making fun of her for not fighting back (again she is not allowed to they might kill her if she does), so they call her "featherkit" and that eventually gets brought down to feather and i'm rambling anyway On topic again.)

so stonefur and feathertail are like. "mistyfoot you are like. a half moon away from kitting. it is impairing your ability to do warrior duties. you need to like. acknowledge this."

anyway after a very terse conversation. after a veeery terse conversation, where mistyfoot is like. very close to just absolutely abandoning riverclan. they get her to admit that yes she is pregnant and yes she needs to stop doing warrior duties for the moment.

she wasn't exactly Healthy when she was pregnant because even tho tigerstar made a Point of making her like. eat enough to be healthy and also not violently attacking her. she had still been starved for...idk long enough for her ribs to show. i'm not sure what the exact timeline on this is yet.

also then After Tigerclan she did not eat as much as she should have because (a) denial and (b) she had been forcefed and so now she's. not doing that.

oh wow i've written long enough for my grammar checker to turn off again. that hasn't happened in ages.

all bets are off from here on out re grammar and spelling.

okay so mistyfoot isn't going to move into the nursery. i believe mosspelt has had a litter of 3 kits, or will have one as we see in asir, but mistyfoot isn't. she's not moving into it. stone, misty, storm, and feathertail share a den. no one else is allowed into it for Any Reason.

so anyway, they expand the den. riverclan as a whole might? i'm not sure who's good at weaving bc i don't have headcanons for this time period. probably not feathertail, but possibly stonefur. hm. anyway, they expand the den, mistyfoot will raise the kits in this den, everyone is on board with this.

mostly because it's this or mistyfoot like. runs away. which obviously no one wants. riverclan is on the side of...the four? riverclan is on the side of the four. even if they're not like, even though the four don't trust them, feathertail and misty especially (stone and storm tolerate it much better). but even tho things are complicated, riverclan is certainly going to do actions. they're certainly going to try to demonstrate their support.

okay so mistyfoot gives birth to her kits, and she is. not feeling good. about it. she's feeling terrible about it actually. she's feeling terrible about things. she doesn't want to name them.

usuuually in this situation, after the queens (collective) decided its in the best interest of the kits to be raised by someone other than their birth mother, the kits would be given to another queen.

but see. feathertail, stonefur, and stormheart are All attatched to these kits. deeply attatched to them. and mistyfoot is not willing to give them up either.

so mistyfoot isn't willing to give them up to another riverclan queen, and feathertail, stone, and storm all Want to raise them, and also don't want to give them to another queen.

the queens confer with mudfur that it is absolutely the worst possible thing they could do to forcibly remove the kits from mistyfoot. like that is the Worst option. they'd be lucky to get the kits alive, feathertail and mistyfoot are likely to abandon riverclan, and if misty and feathertail abandon riverclan, stone and storm will follow.

they're stuck in a standstill for a while. the four eventually do name them hawkkit, mothkit, and tadpolekit. the kits are about a moon old and ready to be weaned. mistyfoot is still extremely tense about the affair, but she's willing to part with them. she's able to recognize that's in the best interest of the kits, mosspelt's litter is about the same age, moving them into the nursery is going to give them a more normal upbringing, everyone is on the same page.

feathertail, who's having a lot of self worth issues, decides that moving into the nursery is her best bet for clan usefulness (which (a) feathertail you cannot keep up with kits and (b) the whole Place she's in is bad to begin with), moves in with them.

the kits decide feathertail is their mother now (they're old enough to understand that she didn't give birth to them, altho i haven't decided if they remember misty as their mother and if they're told any information re their birth parents depends exactly What kind of angst i want to write), and feathertail is. okay with this.

unlike asir, she's not blindsided with the tigerstar-is-their-father reveal, so she does have some issues with hawkkit reminding her of tigerstar, he's not really her Big Bad Trauma Nightmares. she has way more issues with the riverclan warriors directly involved in her abuse.

anyway, i don't know what happens tnp era stuff. i haven't gotten that far yet. maybe this will be another au where hawk and/or moth is a prophecy cat. i'm not sure. i haven't gotten farther than this.

but here you go i started writing this like an hour and a half ago and while i did stop to eat, i also just finally put everything i have for this au on one page and i hope and pray that will stave off the brainrot until i have a chance to actually write it.

[theater-of-dimensions]

I've just had a linguistic epiphany

(American) English doesn't have a voiceless r sound

That's why Americans can't pronounce French

Holy shit

I always wondered why Americans have so much trouble pronouncing certain longer consonant clusters in French without inserting vowels where there aren't any, and the example I usually think of is Sartre. Ok, uvular fricatives/trills can be quite hard to do if you're not used to it, but people tend to pronounce it kind of phonetically (as in, they're pronouncing the e after the second r). But even when I specifically say that the e is silent, they can't quite seem to do it without either the e at the end or a new e between the t and the second r.

And I just realized! That's probably because American English doesn't have a voiceless r! So they're trying to pronounce the r after t (which is voiceless) and at the end of the word (so there's no more voicing after it either), which is really awkward to do with a voiced r (even if we stick to uvular trills, it's not a very nice sequence of phonemes to try to articulate).

I also don't know jack shit about rhotics, but I imagine American English being a rhotic dialect is a big part of this too. As far as I can tell, the effect of this is that the letter r tends to kind of just color the adjacent vowel, rather than being its own distinct phoneme? But I have no idea what I'm talking about in this specific topic, so if someone else knows pls do share!

[legionofpotatoes]

we decided to watch all story cutscenes from the new resident evil village videogame on a whim, since it’s not really our cup of tea gameplay-wise but seems to be this massive zeitgeist moment that made us morbidly curious. And I know how much everyone cares about my thoughts on things I know very little about, so. let’s get into it huh gamers. and yeah spoilers?

for context, I’ve only played resident evil 4 and a small portion of 5. I also read the wikipedia entry for 7’s plot recently. all this to say I was only vaguely aware of how tonally wacky the series was going in

I also completely gave up following the plot of the mutagens’ soap opera, so that paid off in spades here as you might imagine

anyway so that baby in the intro. that baby’s head is just massive. humongous toddlerdome. when ethan finds the baby’s head in a jar later on. there is no way that head would fit into that jar. bad game design. no not even game design. basic stuff. one hundred years in prison for jar modeler

if I see a single functional hetero marriage in video games I will cry tears of joy. I understand their misery is kind of The Point irt them badly working through the hillbilly romp trauma but like. sheesh. at least set that up as an emotional story goal the plot will help resolve. but nope they start off miserable and it goes nowhere

I know I know the mia thing has a huge wrinkle in it but like. not really in terms of dramatic function?? set up a happy end to the re7 nightmare (miranda can keep up appearances for all she cares) and then take that all away from angry griffin mcelroy for manpain. it will still absolutely work to set up the dramatic forward momentum. why throw in this cliche Hollywood Tension in their marriage if you’re not going to address it oh maybe because it’s normalized as automatically interesting because nuclear families are a self-propagating pit of a very narrow chance at emotional happiness relying on social stigma to preserve their empty function oops my baggage slipped in yikes abort mission

I called him griffin mcelroy because I saw his face on twitter and. yeah. I will continue to do this occasionally. my house my rules

... fuck the reason I’m hung up on this is specifically because the rest of the game is so tonally dexterous (which is a shining point to me! more on that later!), and yet they felt weirdly compelled to create the aesthetic trapping of a family-at-odds trope without following it through too well. a sign of both the good and the bad stuff to come

but listen the real reason why I wanted to talk about any of this is to nitpick the fascinating backwards-engineered nucleus of the entire thing; in that this game essentially creates a melting pot of just SO many disparate horror tropes and then makes a no-holds-barred unhinged effort at weaving thick lore to piece them all together. it is truly a sight to behold. like straight up you got your backwoods fright night situation, your gothic castle vampires, your rural-industrial werewolves, and don’t forget your bloated swamp monsters over there, with then a hard left turn into robotic body horror, and the entire ass subgenre of Creepy Doll writ large, and the bloodborne tentacle monsters, and a hellboy angel bossfight, which rides on the coattails of a mech-on-mech pacific rim bonanza, and just jesus henry christ slow down

almost all of these are textural hijack jobs that don’t really get into the metaphor plain of any of those settings but the game sort-of makes an argument that the texture IS the point and revels in it. It is kind of admirable almost. The same reason why the intro felt boxed in and unmotivated is also why the rest of the game just blasts off of its hinges to the point of complete and self-indulgent tonal abandon. I kinda loved that about it. lady dimitrescu made sure to hold her hat down as she bent forward in mahogany doorways and then suddenly she’s a giant gore dragon and you settle in your temp role as dark souls man with Gun to take her ass down. Excellent??

this rhino rampage impulse to gobble up every horror aesthetic known to man comes to head when the game wrestles with its FPS trappings in what is the most hilarious solution in creating visceral player damage moments. Since most cinematics and the entire game is in first person, that leaves precious little real estate for the devs to work with if they really want to sell griffin’s physical crucible. To wit. This dude’s forearms. Specifically just the forearms. They are MASSACRED throughout the story. The poor man lives out the silent hill dimension of a hand model. by the end cutscene he looks like a neatly dressed desk clerk who had decided to stick both his grabbers into garbage disposal grinders just a few hours prior. like in addition to everything else it manages to rope in that tinge of slapstick violence into its general grievous genre collection except this time it IS for a lack of trying! truly incredible

but wait his miracle clawbacks from everything his poor paws go through are retroactively explained away, yes, but far too vaguely and far too late to console me as I sat and watched everyone’s favorite baby brother reattach an entirely severed hand to his wrist stump by just. placing it on there. and giving it a lil twist ‘n pop terminator-style. and then willing his fingers back into motion right in front of my bulging eyes. this game just does not care. it does not give a shit. and boy howdy will it work to make that into one of its strongest suits

cause generally speaking resident evil was THE premiere vanilla zombie content destinaysh for like a decade, right? and as the rest of the world and mainstream media started encroaching and bloodying its blue ocean it went and just exploded in every single conceivable horror trope direction like a smilodon on catnip. truly, genuinely fascinating franchise moves

yeah the big vampire milf is hot. other news; grass... green. although I do love the implication that her closet is just identical white dresses on a rack. cartoon network-level queen shit

apropos of nothing I’ve said there’s also this hobo dante-devimaycry-magneto man, and I can’t believe this sentence makes sense. anyway he made that “boulder-punching asshole” joke referring to chris redfield and it was probably the only easter egg that really landed for me and boy did it land hard. I have not seen him punch the boulder in re5, mind. I had only heard about how funny it is from friends. and here this dude was, probably in the same exact mindset as me, trying to grapple with that insane mental image. with you on that ian mckellen, loud and clear

I advocate vehemently against the shallow pursuit of hyper photorealism in art direction but I gotta admit it works really in favor of immersive horror like this. the european village shacks especially gave me super unchill flashbacks to my rural countryside retreat in western georgia. I could smell the linoleum dude. not cool

faces are weird in this game. can’t place it. nice textures, good animation, but the modeling template is... uuh strange? and the hair. it has that clustered-flat-clumpy look that harkens to something very specific and unpleasant but I just don’t know what. sue me

griffin’s mental aptitude to take all this shit in stride and end every seemingly traumatizing bossfight involving some fucking eldritch being yet unseen through mortal eyes by essentially throwing out an MCU quip is just. What the fuck dude? I mean that was funny how you casually yelled the f-word at a god damn werewolf that you considered a fairy tale an hour ago but are you like, all right?? it was swinging a sledgehammer the size of a bus at you, ethan

oh oh the vampires are afraid of cold and your last name is winters. I get it haha

Pro Gamer Nitpick: boss fights seemed a bit unnecessarily long?? idk why the youtuber we picked decided the ENTIRE propeller man fight counted towards the vital story scenes he was stitching together, but man mr big daddy lite there really had some get up and go huh??

why are they saying dimitrescu.. like that. is it really how you say that word or is the english language relapsing into its fetish for ending every single word with a consonant at all costs

I’m not saying it’s a dramatic miss of a twist in context of all that’s going on, but the “you died in the last game actually and have been DC’s clayface ever since” revelation is low-key. it’s. it’s just funny to me, I dont know what to say. century-old god-witch fails her evil plan after she mistakenly removes heart from what was definitely NOT just some white guy with eight fingers after all

chris realizing he’s about to become the player character and immediately swapping out his tsundere trenchcoat for the muscletight sex haver sweater

the little bluetooth speaker-sized pipe bomb he taped to his knife was nuclear?? really??? I must have missed something because that is just too good. I buy it though I totally buy it. chris just got them fun-sized nukes in his car trunk for, you guessed it, Situations

anyway this is all for now just wanted to briefly touch on how unexpectedly funny and tonally irreverent this seemingly serious game turned out to be. did not articulate any cathartic story beats whatsoever but my god it had fun connecting those plot points. he just fucking put his severed hand back on his stump and it Just Worked todd howard get in here

[ginwhitlock]

Southbound : Chapter 6

After the Cullens leave her behind, Bella is left to pick up the pieces by herself. A year after her eighteenth birthday, a split second decision lands her in her truck, running far away from everything she has ever known. She decides to go south. What will she find in San Angelo, Texas?

After Peter left, the air between us felt stagnant, cold, like a pond left uncovered in the first freeze of winter. The man in front of me didn’t smile, didn’t even fake a breath for my own comfort. I know he could feel the shard of glass slowly sinking into the pit of my stomach; the fact of its direction changing, resigning, surpassing my throat to lodge itself in my skull as a sharp ache not lost on me. 

And I’m sure, not on him. 

I knew Jasper. I had sat feet from him not even years before. What had changed in those aching months? What kind of lust seeped into his unbreakable bones since? This man was toothier, slumping shoulders spread wide against the settee. Who was this brother of his and why did he have Jasper now? I mean— he had explained just moments ago the short extent of Alice and his separation, but the questions were tar in my brainstem: unmoving, guilty, painful. The faint imprint memory of his hand on my knee softened the creases under my eyes. His eyes were nothing if not full of memories.

He scared the shit out of me. The worst part of me liked it. 

The keys in my hand were jangling as I wrung my hands against the metal. They were ice cold from Peter’s grip and yet I never shied away from them, I rested into their cut, their steel mill scent. It’s all the comfort I had left in this unfamiliar sandy home. 

“You never told me where you meant to end up, Isabella.” 

The look on his face hadn’t changed from its hawk-like gaze, his mouth upturned in what was made to be sincere questioning.

My teeth seemed to buzz in my jaw as they clenched. I was stuck between trying to find the answer that made the most sense— but this far away haunted house was nowhere close to where I was headed. To be honest, I hadn’t even made a plan for my drive, the road had been a black licorice rope pulling me deeper and deeper south, its vines unswervable. 

Those damn carmine irises were still on my face. My hand settled on the silver scar.  “Somewhere without you— your kind.” There's a horrible dread that sinks deep into the pit of my lowest bones, down past the acid lining of my stomach. It wasn’t mine in the first place…

He smiled again. That fangy lip twitch he implemented earlier in his bedroom, his searing white canines glinting in the southern sun. Jasper did some twist of his knuckles as they rested on his denim knee, the bareness of the marble flesh punctuated. 

“Do you truly think your life will not continue to be… supernatural?” He paused something big and let his lashes point away from me, his gaze settling right behind my head, “The world has never been that kind. Especially to you, Miss Swan.” The way his tongue curled around my name made something twist in my gut. Something that felt like finally breaching the top of a rollercoaster after clunking around in the seat for several minutes. 

I took a breath, “No hope for me then, Mr. Cullen?” 

“Whitlock, darlin. Mr. Whitlock.” 

His correction was daring and quick, like a dare. The scared shitlessness was starting to turn. 

“Oh?” I’m sure my eyes were the size of dinner plates served on the damn moon. 

His quirk faltered as he refocused on the skin of my neck. “The Cullens aren’t the biggest fans of the ousted members keeping their name, I’m sure. Whitlock was my human name.”

My lip twitched, “Like Peter?” He did say they were brothers, it would make sense the tanner man kept it while Jasper stayed up north. 

“He adopted it when I changed him in the twenties. He didn’t need to remember his own.” 

The paint covering the living room walls was starting to feel warmer and warmer. There was a sort of mysticism in the air, the kind of feeling Phil said he got standing on the pitcher’s mound. This charge of electricity. And if I felt it— did the man in front of me do too?

“You changed Peter?” 

A hum came from his Adam's apple. I quickly stopped staring at its vibration, focusing on my still hands. “Is that where you got that name? The ‘Major’?” My legs felt like salt blocks sat out for the new fawns. 

Jasper kicked his foot out, inches from my own. “All in time, Isabella.” 

Why the hell was that the question he kept dodging?

I nodded against my own snooping judgement and sat up straight, gripping the cut key again. “Peter said something about seeing my truck?” As if on cue the sound of a backfire sounding across at least an acre of dirt, the laugh of the man in question following in direct response. 

He reminded me of a wilder, leaner, Emmett. 

I didn't know if that was a good thing. 

The blond rolled his eyes, something I would’ve passed out seeing months ago, which now just made him more and more intriguing. His hand raised without fantastical speed and made an ushering motion, inviting me silently to stand and follow him to the front door, not even twenty feet to our backs. I did as I… wasn't… told and raised to my shuffling feet, watching with barely suppressed intensity as he did the same, his shirt unbunching as his long legs swept past me. His strides were unhurried yet strong, quickly reaching the exit without me. Jasper’s slim fingers turned the knob gently and allowed the now open door to rest against his shoulder. 

“I’m sure my brother will find you the moment you start walkin’. I have to get to some business caused by my early departure earlier.” My shoes scuffed the hardwood as I passed by him, the scent of firewood and malt whiskey light in the air of the threshold. I nodded again as I looked back at the giant southerner. 

“So I’ll be making it back?” Half joking, half fearful the words slipped past my lips. 

He smiled truly that time, his teeth hidden behind his smile. “Of course Isabella. No one plans to kill you… for as long as I can see.” 

The door closed slowly as I turned away from him in only slight ease, the sound of his footsteps behind it unrecognizable. Texas dry wind called to me from the bare porch, wooden planks creaking ever so slightly underneath my weight. The world was quiet— in only a way nature could be quiet. Silence without loneliness. 

Another diesel racket sounded over the slight hill in the property, some of the only patches clustered with shruby, overgrown trees.  

“Bell!” 

There was a smile hiding under the surface of my skin, not the least undetectable. My stride started up again as I half jogged through the crab grass and rusty dirt. It had to be almost two or three o’clock now, the sun high and bright in the cloudless sky. 

Had the day gone by so fast— or so slow?

I couldn’t decide which it was. Not yet. Not now.

The baked exterior of my cab was just in sight over the small hill, somehow further away from the bare dirt trail than it had been this morning. Had the black eyed man… moved it? It didn’t run, at least not by my hand, he would’ve had to have pushed it… or picked it up. 

God, Peter was starting to turn out more and more like the biggest Cullen boy by the second. 

My shoes were caked in dead weeds and clay dust by the time I reached the freckled vampire— an attribute I still hadn’t made sense of. His cowboy hat was a stark black against his darkened porcelain skin. He smelt rough like a redwood forest, something private. Secluded. Peter’s hands were covered in the ink black of motor oil and grease, the solutions clinging to his perfect fingernails. 

He had to be related to Jasper somehow, there's no way he wasn’t. I was sure of it. 

Or maybe I was just hoping.

Silly girl. 

His eyes could’ve mirrored his brother’s and I wouldn’t have noticed anything past the sight just behind him: my truck was pulled at the seams. 

“Sorry bun, I think your baby might need some extra attention before it gets anywhere near a highway.” My breath was loose in my throat, air whistling behind my eyes. The transmission was the only thing complete under the hood. The engine block was propped up by a chain tied to a lone pecan tree, the rest of the assembly laid out on a blanket on the pitted ground. The well of tears hit the back of my eyes before he started to speak. 

“I had to take the engine apart to diagnose the problem— something to do with some coils. It ain’t as bad as it looks, I promise, Bell.” I nodded for the fiftieth time that day, my words fleeting in the paralysing tunnel that had become my voice box. The only thing I had kept when I left was now in pieces at my feet, the soil unforgiving and rough against the cotton blanket they sat on. The downpour of fear came down my sinuses and filtered out through my spine, the tips of my fingers pulsing with thunder. Peter stood, apathetic to the storm raging through my body, his stance curling around my own slightly, as if in defense to the world around us, to the truth in front of me. 

“How long will it take to fix?” My voice was weak and pitiful, stripped of its playful kick Peter initially instilled. 

He twitched his shoulders in a shrug. “Could be a week or more. Maybe two.” His own speech didn’t reflect his burdening appearance. It was almost airy, a light glee hidden subtly behind the consonants. 

My brain stored the small inflection for a much later time. 

“You know,” he started, his massive wiped hand drawing to my shoulder, “me and the Major don’t mind some company around the house. The old thing could use some life in it while your truck gets some beauty work done.” His suggestion wouldn’t have sounded like such a question if anyone else had uttered it, but the draw of the Whitlock boys held a certain power over my otherwise powerless existence, at the moment. I wanted answers, stories, the in and outs of the clan I had called family as a younger girl. 

I wouldn’t admit to anyone else my other wants. 

Hell, I couldn’t even admit them to myself yet. 

I made a sound in the back of my throat that made up for another nod and pursed my lips in false thought, the field stretching before me in an unwavering sea of curiosity. 

“Only until she's fixed. I’ve served my time living with vampires for two lifetimes.” 

There was an explosion of a laugh from Peter’s tan lips and I smiled in turn. The truck was a cesspool of terrifying possibilities, insecurities. But for right now, the horrible itch in my brain led me further into the immortal light. 

The cold digits of the human drinker felt featherlight against my back as he sputtered to an airy stop. “You are truly something Bell.” My teeth poked through my lips as I looked into his face and found simple lineless skin and sandy curls. My eyes rested back on the rusted out birthday present and sighed. “Do you want any help?” It sounded almost like a plea, the time splitting me farther and farther. 

He shook his head with vigor. “Baby doll, I’m not sure you’d make it go any faster.”

I had half a mind to slap him on the chest, no matter the bruising I’d sustain. 

“I’m not that dimwitted.”

He sucked unneeded air through his teeth and let me go, stepping towards the hull. “Just believe me.” 

I shook my head like a dumped dog and looked back towards the house, just barely noticeable at this distance. The question bounced around my stomach before it left my mouth, “What is Jasper up to?” 

Peter raised a brow and picked up an impact wrench.

“I’m not sure you’d want to know.”

[imuybemovoko]

Some info about Aylaan

Since I use some of this conlang in my title thingy and the banner image, I figure it might as well be the first one I start to explain. 

Most of my conlangs are a part of a setting I’ve been slowly developing for years that’s an alternate future of Earth where some apocalyptic shit happens and it gets so bad that some people lose their spoken languages and replace them a few generations later. I might explain that more in a different post. Aylaan is a descendant of one of the languages that finds its origin in this time. I’ll discuss it at the time of humanity’s largest interstellar war to date, which is a war between a colony that fell victim to a cult’s control and the rest of our inhabited stars. It’s the most commonly spoken language in a large part of North America, centered around the southwestern United States but extending as far as the Mississippi River. Aylaan is written with the Hacik alphabet, which first came into use sometime shortly after the Great Collapse. I don’t have a good digital representation of it yet (the sample in the banner image was hand drawn in paint.net) so maybe I’ll discuss it in more detail later. The grammar gets kinda crazy so I’ll probably discuss it one piece at a time over a bunch of different posts. For now, I’ll just cover the phonology and the romanization and some other basics. 

Consonants: 

/m n ŋ p t k q t͡s t͡ʃ pʼ tʼ kʼ t͡sʼ t͡ʃʼ ɸ θ ð s z ʃ ʒ x ʕ h r l j/ <m n ň p t k q c ć ṗ ṭ ḳ c̣ ć̣ f þ ð s z ś ź ç ɣ r l y> /m n ŋ p t k q l/ may be geminate between syllables ...I go back and forth on whether to list [w] as a phoneme and the diphthongs involving it as vowel-consonant sequences or to list it as an allophone of /ʊ/ when it occurs in diphthongs. In my documentation I use w in the romanization but I go back and forth between w and u in actual practice, so a sequence [aw] may be written <aw> or <au>. I suppose I’d be more inclined to analyze some dialects one way and others the other way, there’s a bit of variation in how vowels are treated. Yes I romanized x as ç, it was an early aesthetic choice which I’m less sure about now but haven’t bothered to change, don’t @ me lol

Vowels:

Vowels vary somewhat by dialect. In most cases the vowels can be listed as simply /a e i o u/ with long and short variations, but in the standard dialect, short vowels have quality differences too and in western dialects, the quality distinction is used to the exclusion of length. (The further east you go, the more it relies on length, until in the far east, the quality shifts haven’t actually taken place and the sole distinction is length.) I will therefore list the vowels as they occur in the standard dialect: /a ɒː ɛ eː ɪ iː ɤ oː ʊ uː/ Diphthongs may only form in short vowels, and only pairs of short i or short u and a different vowel may exist (hence my indecision when it comes to listing these as vowel pairs or sequences of a consonant and a vowel.) I’ve used w and j in the phonemic transcription here, and I’ve also used the short-vowel qualities, mostly for my sanity. /ja aj jɛ ɛj jʊ ʊj jɤ ɤj wa aw wɪ ɪw wɤ ɤw wɛ ɛw/ <ya ay ye ey yu uy yo oy wa aw wi iw wo ow we ew>

Primary stress falls on the first long vowel or diphthong, before the first geminate consonant, or, if none are present, the initial syllable. 

Syllables can have an onset containing up to two consonants which either follow a sonority hierarchy or are a reversal of a voiceless stop /p t k q/ and a sibilant fricative /s ʃ/, i.e. a cluster like /st/ and an onset of up to two consonants which also follow sonority hierarchy. This may result in gemination if the onset of one syllable and the coda of the previous match and are single consonants. Long vowels never precede geminates. 

Word order is verb-initial with descriptors that follow what they modify, indirect object (...usually) last, and some complexity involving obviation and a person hierarchy. Basically, the lower one on the hierarchy must be after the higher one in the word order, then agent and patient is marked by direct or inverse voice. The lower in the hierarchy is typically marked with an obviate, but a special proximate marker only occurs in inverse voice. Subject pronouns most often drop in direct voice. I’ll give an example of each with the same nouns and verb: Mene þaayareň. seek-1S ring-OBV Menoþelir ňa e þaayareň. seek-3S-INV PROX 1S ring-OBV “The ring seeks me.” Since an inanimate object seeking someone is unusual, this takes a lot of funky marking to indicate that this is actually what’s happening. This is of course not a full explanation of this system, that would take a lot of space that I don’t want to use here. 

This language has been in progress for close to 15 months I think. It’s the most developed in its family. I started the proto-language sometime early last spring. I have several other languages that are related to this one and I’ve been slowly expanding the family. I’ll showcase its relatives, and my other conlangs, like this at some point.

[ndscottsummers]

[cracks knuckles] okay folks here’s some thoughts on doug ramsey setting out to create a language for mutantkind, mostly ignoring what canon has to say about the matter. i am not a linguist so take what i say here with several grains of salt, but i am a conlanger so, yeah, take what i say here with several grains of salt.

doug seems like someone who probably started conlanging before his mutation manifested and then threw himself into it even more enthusiastically once he started exercising those super-pattern-detection muscles, so i’m assuming he knows what he’s about. no need to worry about him understanding the basics of the craft, we can move on to other things. (also, side note, holy shit i want to see his portfolio. i bet it’s mind-blowing.)

doug also has two huge advantages over anyone else who has ever tried to make a conlang usable in day-to-day life by people from a wide variety of linguistic backgrounds: he has that cool mutation that means he probably has a good grasp on a ridiculous number of communication systems, and there are telepaths around who can download the language from his mind and upload it into other people’s.

there are two major goals for this language:

it should be easily usable by the largest percentage of mutants possible

it should be difficult to interpret for anyone who hasn’t had it uploaded into their brain

(we’d want a signed language as well as a spoken language; i’m not familiar enough with the mechanics of signed languages as a class to know how separate those two would be or if they would be essentially the same language with different mediums of communication. the points i’m going to make should apply to any configuration with appropriate adjustments for the medium; my examples are going to be spoken language-focused bc that’s what i know.)

i don’t really know how the whole telepathic fluency thing works, so here are some assumptions: it may make sound production easier but it won’t bring you up to a native speaker’s level re: phonology, it will give you the rough equivalent of natural fluency in all other areas, and it works as well for writing and reading as it does for speaking and listening.

first things first, we want the phonology to be simple. we want to hit phonemes that appear in lots of different languages families across the globe and we want to avoid sounds that are relatively rare. sorry, huge mass of english vowels! we just want a couple. maybe four. five if we’re feeling adventurous. also say goodbye to /θ/ (the first sound of ‘think’) - that’s a rare one, globally! and, to take the focus away from english, no pharyngeals or clicks either.

we also want to avoid weird consonant clusters that might trip people up, so you know what, let’s just say that the only possible syllable structures are V and CV. no vowel clusters, either; that V syllable can be tacked onto the beginning of a word but nowhere else. if my experience is anything to go by you’re not going to be able to tear diphthongs away from the anglophones but it’s okay for there to be differing accents; we just want everyone to be able to produce + understand the language without much difficulty, and telepathy can smooth over some of the bumps.

so that’s phonology out of the way, and now we’re getting to the good stuff: morphology and syntax. telepathy means we can go absolutely WILD with this. phonology has a lot to do with muscle memory and actual physical ability to move one’s tongue and throat in certain ways, but the rest of grammar is all in the mind and as long as a telepath can put it in your head you are good to go.

sadly i don’t know that i have the experience or linguistic knowledge to propose good ideas here, but you know doug has been sitting on some sweet shit. he’s got a handle on some really obscure grammatical features, he can pull details from language isolates and extinct languages and alien languages holy shit you guys the game is won* and he can make them play nicely together. we want phonology to be simple but we want everything else to be complicated in order to stymie attempts at outside interpretation, and if we can go overboard without damaging people’s abilities to use the language then full steam ahead! (there are going to be some limitations, probably, but still; we can have fun.)

if you can drop a writing system into someone’s head then i’d want to say go logographic, but that does have a muscle memory aspect to it and also poor doug would have to figure out all of those logographs, so maybe not. an alphabet is boring and if you’re doing a 1:1 sound:letter correspondence then it’s not adding much to keeping the language secret; same with an abugida. a featural system would be a step up until part of it is cracked, at which point the dominoes start to fall. canon hoxpox already has a thing going with a combination alphabet/logography which is cool, but i think we’d be better off with a combination syllabary/logography. we’re already doing mostly CV syllables and throwing some logographs in would confuse the situation enough that the number of symbols needed to understand the language would, i think, fall nicely into the ‘learnable but difficult to figure out without a guide’ category.

if we want to go really off-script the language can be highly idiomatic as well; i’m thinking trigedasleng from the 100, which iirc evolved from an english-based code rather than mainstream english. then even if they do figure out your writing system and also somehow figure out translations for individual words, they can’t necessary interpret what it is you’re actually saying. that may or may not be more difficult to get across via telepathy, but if you went too far with it you would end up with longggg average utterances.

anyway those are my opinions on how doug would approach this project! i really, really want to see what he would make of this, wow.

*how many features of the average alien language would be comprehensible to the human mind on a level that would allow even telepathy to bridge fluency gaps? i don’t know but doug** is going to find out

**can doug even do alien languages bc of like, basic cognitive differences? he’s done them in canon but does that make sense? send in your theories

[softshelltaakos]

alright, folks! if you know me you know that i 1) received the taz graphic novel for the holidays and 2) have hated the taz graphic novel since before it came out, and that 3) actually reading it in no way improved my opinion.

let’s review.

disclaimer: i love the mcelroys. i truly do. taz has gotten me through some very difficult stuff and i have a tattoo. all this to say i’m not doing this because i hate them or because i like hating things — on the contrary, i’m doing this because i care a lot about the podcast and analyzing things is what i do for fun and also because, like, it has issues that i want to talk about!

there are spoilers for the graphic novel and the whole of the podcast under the cut.

this is part 1, in which i’m talking about the actual storytelling and writing; for character design thoughts, you’re gonna have to stay tuned because i’ve been working on this for three and a half hours and i have shit to do. so!

let’s start off with the things i actually liked. there are a few!

the main characters get little intro cards, which i think are pretty cute. this isn’t all of them, but here’s a sampling (forgive my messy collaging):

[ID: four panels.

the first introduces magnus burnsides, a barrel-chested white guy with auburn hair and a fluffy beard and sideburns. he’s saying “trust me, if the law hassles us, i’m the guy you want at the front of the wagon. but look, if you want to drive so bad, i might let you spell me the next time the dwarf has to stop for a pee break.” there is a scroll with his name listed, as well as his race (human), class (fighter), and proficiencies: battle, carpentry, and “everything else... apparently”

the second introduces taako, a skinny mint-colored elf wizard. he’s blonde with pronounced lower lashes and a big pointy nose. he’s saying “hell, no! i’ve got stuff to do. i’ve read the books. adventurers are supposed to, like, forage for food and shit. bor-r-r-ring! no, thank you. not for taako.” the proficiencies on his title card are spell-casting, transmutation, and gastronomy

the third introduces merle highchurch, a brown dwarf with white hair pulled back into a bun and a big poofy beard. he’s saying “i’m studying my cantrips!” and his title card proficiencies are “healing... supposedly,” “religion stuff,” and bleeding

the fourth panel introduces griffin mcelroy, a white human man with brown hair and glasses wearing a collared shirt. he’s saying “guys! it’s me: griffin! your dm!” his title card shows his race as “actual human” and his class as “dungeon master,” while his proficiencies are podcasting, karaoke, and “weaving a rich tapestry of drama.”]

then there are a few cute references to other mcelroy stuff:

[ID: two side-by-side images. the first is a photo of justin mcelroy wearing a bib with “shrimpin’ ain’t easy” written on it in crayon. the second is a close-up of a similar bib on a goblin -- though the text is distorted, it’s the same phrase.]

[ID: magnus thoughtfully says “unless...” and the other boys echo him in traditional mcelroy fashion.]

barry also wears underwear that read “meloincloths” around the waistband, which i didn’t take a picture of because it was small and also i didn’t really want to take a picture of barry bluejeans’s underoos. but that’s cute!

as it mentions in magnus’s titlecard, there’s a running joke about him being proficient in everything. that gets some play in the podcast but it comes up a lot more here and i think it works pretty well and establishes early on that magnus is cocky and headstrong and all that. it’s actually introduced in the very first panel of the comic, where he mentions his vehicle proficiency, and then it comes up several more times.

there are some moments that shift out-of-character dialogue to in-character dialogue, and i think it works sometimes. notably, it occasionally happens with griffin’s dialogue, which i think is a good way to include his voice without constantly breaking the fourth wall. it’s done some, obviously, but it’s not to the point that it’s intrusive.

[ID: a panel featuring taako approaching the other boys, who are playing cards while they wait for him to scout the next room out. magnus asks, “would you say it is spooky... or beautiful?” and merle cuts in “or spookily beautiful?” followed by magnus finishing up with “or beautifully spooky?”

taako responds “if you were a gerblin you would actually find it a pretty chill den to, like, hang out in.”]

i also like the introduction of the voidfish static. i think it’s appropriately dramatic and does a pretty good job of emulating how it’s presented in the podcast.

[ID: a panel featuring killian, an orc woman with a crossbow. the lighting is dark gray-blue-green and she’s shouting something unintelligible marked by a cluster of consonants and a shaky, brush-strokey speech bubble distinct from the other speech bubbles stylistically.]

the scene where taako grabs the umbra staff is also appropriately dramatic, as is merle trying to talk down gundren/bogard from the gauntlet’s thrall, but those are full page images and very large, so i’m not including them.

then there’s this panel of lucretia, which slays me:

[ID: a closeup of madame director lucretia, a black woman dressed in blue with white hair, though her eyes are out of frame. she’s holding a white oak staff in her hands. she’s stopped mid-sentence and there’s a little jaggedy line near her head indicating surprise.]

this is lucretia turning around and seeing the boys for the first time since she dropped them off at their respective “homes.” she’s caught off-guard and i think this is a beautiful way of noting that without giving too much away, and this is a good moment of foreshadowing that she knows much, much more about them than she’s letting on. she catches herself quickly and gets back into the swing of things, but i think this is a very lucretia panel, and it’s probably my favorite panel in the book.

now it’s time for the negative.

first off, a nitpick: there are moments where the characterization feels very off -- at one point magnus is said to have been the kid who “always reminded the teacher that they had forgotten to hand out homework,” which... does not really match what we know of young magnus. at all. travis describes him as “a good but kind of rebellious kid, like he was probably kind of a little bit of a turd [...] who was kinda sarcastic” (ep. 60, the stolen century part one) which feels super incongruent with the homework thing.

my issues with characterization come into focus most strongly with taako. while a lot of moments get his voice down pretty well, there’s a major issue in his presentation, which is that from the very beginning, he’s bragging about his tv show.

[ID: several panels in which merle and taako are talking. the first is a wide shot with taako’s voiceover saying: “--and then the lights come up, and there i am, standing under a magnificent banner that reads:”

the second is taako posing under a spotlight, speaking in large, fanciful script: “sizzle it up with taako”

panel three is merle asking disinterestedly “so it’s a show... about cooking?” and taako replying emphatically “it’s about life!”

in panel four he adds “...told through the perspective of fine dining.”

another panel collaged in features a cookbook with taako’s face on it labeled “perfection: cook the taako way” and taako excitedly saying “i know that smell!! that’s my recipe for haunch a la taako!! it was in my very first cookbook!]

now, we all know that by the end of the show “taako -- you know, from tv?” has become a catchphrase of his, and i understand the desire to retcon that kind of thing into his personality from the start. it seems like a natural way to add character early on when in the podcast, the boys are still pretty underdeveloped at this point.

here’s the issue. neither tv nor the title “sizzle it up” are mentioned at any point during here there be gerblins. in the eleventh hour (e48, part 8 of that arc) we’re told that we’re six years out from the mass poisoning in glamour springs. while the maxfun donor bonus episodes, like the liveshows, play it a little bit fast and loose with canon, and this episode was the 2015 bonus episode (e48 didn’t come out until september 2016,) that’s the only real explicit sizzle it up development we have until the eleventh hour. i’ve transcribed some of the bonus episode below, as transcripts for it are not available via @.tazscripts.

justin: taako-- i’m sitting in a corner by myself with my hat sorta pulled down low so people don’t recognize me. and i’m just trying to eat my meal but i keep changing the items that i’m trying to eat into different substances, so every few minutes you hear from my corner of the tavern:

taako: damn it!

clint: i hate asparagus!

griffin: i turned this sandwich into wood!

[...]

justin: mainly, i’m just trying to be nondescript. 

[...]

justin: the whole time i’m talking to [the tavern owner] i’m like, keeping my face down so he doesn’t recognize me.

griffin: why would anyone recognize you?

clint: why?

justin: well, taako, uh, used to host a cooking show. it was a very, very, very popular cooking show. uh, and--

griffin: what was it called?

justin: what?

griffin: the show.

justin: sizzle it up with taako.

this episode is when the boys take the job with gundren off of craig’s list, so the time gap between this and episode 1 is negligible at best. there is a moment where the other boys recognize taako and he doesn’t lie about his identity, but:

taako: (begrudgingly) yeah, i’m taako, i’m disgraced, you might have heard about the [poisoning] thing.

so... he’s clearly not putting himself on display the way he does later in the podcast. in episode 40 (lunar interlude III: rest and relaxation) which came out in may of 2016, we get the first reference to the poisoning itself:

taako: one time i transmogrified something that, uh… i transmogrified it into something you really shouldn’t eat, ever? for life, to live, i mean? And, uh, a lot of people ate that. and that went... so sideways. um... i-- i just decided i would never again cook for people i cared about, because i couldn’t risk, um, y’know, something happening to them. until i get this under control, i guess.

so we know that even at that point this is still something that troubles taako greatly. one might even say... he’s traumatized! and doesn’t talk about it! he does not go into detail about sizzle it up with anyone over the entire course of the podcast except for june while she is literally possessed by the chalice and forcing him to relive it. So. kind of a weird character take.

to skip ahead a little bit, most of the moonbase stuff is fine, but there’s one omission that feels very weird to me.

[ID: three panels. the left is a shot of the elevator hallway leading to the voidfish’s chambers. thb follow killian towards the elevators; johann is walking away from them. he’s a black human man with natural hair dressed in a silly bard outfit with a violin strapped to his back. he’s carrying a ton of scrolls.]

these three panels are the only time we see johann in the book. in the podcast it’s johann that escorts them to the voidfish’s chambers and inoculates them. it makes sense that this has been changed to lucretia in the gn; it gives her a much stronger entrance and cuts down on scene changes. but it also cuts out a lot of establishing things about johann that are all extremely important and set up not only his character arc but several core plot points.

it’s during that scene that we hear that johann’s greatest fear is being forgotten, and that that’s exactly what will happen to him and all of the other bureau employees when they die. it’s during that scene that we learn the basic mechanics of the voidfish and the mission of the bureau. it makes sense that some of that is going to be handled at the beginning of the next book (presumably) and i’m glad that lucretia is introduced here, but the gn adjusts it so that killian takes the boys into the elevator. that’s johann in the podcast, and it easily could have been johann here. it would’ve been a good chance to establish at least johann’s fears, which would be a weird and creepy setup for the voidfish mechanics when they do get revealed.

it’s just odd to me that johann, who is the reason for the song half of story and song, gets the short shrift here.

i’m gonna wrap up with one last thing. i wanna talk about arms outstretched.

griffin: and you’re both getting pulled into the rift now, and-- but with a 20, taako, you fight against the pull and both of you are flying backwards towards the center of the room, back towards the catwalk. and merle, you’re standing in front of the two liches, one in the form of magnus and one not. lydia just is there in her spectral form. and you’re standing next to a taako who’s gone completely catatonic.

[...]

griffin: okay, then, m—magnus and taako, you two are flying back towards the center of the room. the pull of this rift is still trying to suck you in. and out of nowhere, just merle turns around—turns his back to the two liches—and just outstretches his arms and as he does, you see, like, spectral versions of his soul-wood arm sort of reach out and grab you and he’s also pulling you back in too, now. and he rips both of you towards himself.

i don’t think it’s a stretch to say that this is one of the most emotionally charged moments in the show, and it’s that because it’s a moment where we see, crystal-clear, real character development and growth.

magnus, who rushes in, who has never wanted anything as much as he wants to be reunited with julia, actively resists the pull of death to help his friends.

taako, who’s good out here, who is so selfish that an entire town died because of his ego, risks his life to help his friends.

merle, who can barely feel his holy connection, who barely ever even heals, breaks planar bounds to help his friends.

we’ve been with these characters for 56 episodes. we’ve seen their worst regrets, we know their tragic backstories, we understand why they’ve been the jackasses they’ve been, and now we see them moving past that to work as a unit. one might even say as a family!

arms outstretched is a moment that has been earned over the course of those 56 episodes.

enter the graphic novel.

[ID: a full page. flames are everywhere and panels are intentionally chaotic. dialogue reads:

merle: maybe now would be good?

magnus: i’m a hero, not an idiot.

taako: actually, you’re both idiots!

he outstretches his arm from his position safe in a well.

taako: come on!

merle and magnus reach for taako’s hands. there is a closeup on their arms: merle and magnus each hold one of taako’s with one hand. then there’s a panel showing an explosion.]

this is obviously intended as a way to foreshadow arms outstretched. and typically i’m not against foreshadowing! i think one of the benefits of the graphic novel is that it’s an opportunity to insert foreshadowing in cool ways that were not necessarily possible given the in-progress nature of the podcast -- like i said earlier, that lucretia panel is a really great example of it. you can’t foreshadow arms outstretched in episode one because you have no idea it’s going to happen.

but here’s the thing. you also can’t foreshadow arms outstretched in episode one because it hasn’t been earned. these characters are not those characters yet. they don’t know each other. taako actively shuts down the title of “friend” earlier in the book. they’re not even coworkers yet. and you could make an argument that in the face of death, taako would try to save them, but... would he? really? he’s a pragmatist, and that’s putting it nicely. during the stolen century the only person he tries to get to safety at the risk of his own neck is lup, and, uh... neither of these guys are lup. hell, he doesn’t even know about lup right now, and we see in the podcast that not remembering her leaves him colder and more self-centered. he knows people are dust, but he doesn’t know there are people that aren’t. i truly don’t buy it.

the nature of adaptation is that things are going to change, and that’s fine; but this is such a major shift that it left me really jarred and unhappy with the writing. in the podcast itself, we get this:

killian: c’mon c’mon c’mon c’mon!

clint: decision made.

justin: yeah, i follow her.

travis: i follow her.

clint: me too.

griffin: the three of you dive into the well.

it makes sense that the gn adjusts this slightly so that magnus and merle try to pull some heroics and save everyone; i don’t have a problem with that. that’s a good adaptation of character that hadn’t exactly been seen yet, but comes to be a core enough part of the characters that it makes sense to insert it earlier. but even then, they could’ve gotten to the well without taako’s help. it’s just such a weird rewrite, and i really think it weakens the impact of arms outstretched itself.

i’ve been meaning to get my thoughts on this out for nearly a month at this point so if you’ve stuck with me this whole time, wow! thanks! i appreciate it! i’m not a professional, and obviously the mcelroys signed off on this, so i don’t really have space to say “oh, taako would never do this” or “oh, magnus was never like that” on a canonical level -- i know travis says something along those lines in one of the ttazzes. but as i said at the very beginning: this story means so, so much to me, and it’s really deeply frustrating to see an adaptation that handles things so... weirdly.

[thethespacecoyote]

"are you bleeding?" and/or "you should see the other guy"

sorry this took so long anon but i had fun with this! a bit of a fighting club sort of send up  with omegaverse

Jack had been hearing rumors about the alpha fighting ring deep within Helios for awhile now, but had largely dismissed them as that—just rumors.

But then he’d caught Rhys’ little musclebound friend running his mouth off about it one day when he’d snuck up on the pair’s conversation, and even with instinctive lip-lock Vaughn got whenever the intimidating alpha came around, he still caught enough verification to get his interest piqued. The beta hadn’t been very forthcoming with any more info, quickly excusing himself from Jack’s presence—thankfully, however, Rhys could be coaxed far more easily, and by the time they started heading home themselves, Jack had the location and time of the fighting ring squeezed out of his lover.  

Jack thought it might be a lark to tussle with the wannabe tough-guys a place like this would inevitably draw for a bit. Figured it’d be a bit of a show, for the CEO of Hyperion himself to roll up and take on a couple challengers. Rhys seemed a little reluctant, annoyed he’d let Jack wring the information out of him, but when the alpha teasingly offered to buy him ice cream afterwards for being such a good sport, it buttered him up enough to convince him to tag along.

The fighting ring sat hidden in a grimier part of Helios, far away from the remodeled splendor of the Hub, as well as the bulk of the apartment blocks and offices. The hallways he and Rhys followed grew dimmer and grimier the farther they walked, with only the occasional cleaning roomba attempting to tidy up the musty floors. They even found streaks of graffiti on the walls, both remnants from the Lost Legion occupation and fresher, more juvenile messages criss-crossed over the stained steel.

Rhys followed close behind him, occasionally grasping at Jack’s arm and swearing at the random, metallic noises echoing through the halls.

“Jack…this is creepy,” Rhys grumbled as he pressed himself close to the CEO’s side. “That ice cream better be amazing.”

“Hush, kiddo, I told you already I’m gonna make it up to you,” Jack reassured as the rounded a corner, both quickly detecting loud, rhythmic sounds from further down the dingy hallway. Rhys grumbled in soft discontent, but didn’t dig his heels in nor insist they turn around and head home, continuing to follow Jack towards the source of the noise.

It didn’t take too long to find. Two more corners and a creaky, half-broken automatic door later and he and Rhys were greeted by the sight of a large, already raucous looking crowd. Their nostrils both flared at once, quickly picking up on the heavy, musky odor of alphas that smelled soaked into everything. The crowd clustered in some vague semblance of a line outside what must have been an old office at one point, by jammed open glass doors and the busted ID placard sparking besides it. Jack felt Rhys press closer to his side, an affronted hiss building under his breath as he eyed the gathered alphas suspiciously.

“If any of them touch me, you’re going to have to kill them,” Rhys muttered as he followed along Jack, the pair walking right up to the double doors past the line. Jack’s presence, predictably, didn’t go unnoticed, as heads turned and eyes widened all along the group of alphas as they passed.

“Holy shit—“

“—it’s him—“

“—he’s really here!—“

Jack’s ego puffed bigger and bigger at the chorus of whispers as he strode right up to the two, beefy alphas in unbuttoned dress shirts that passed for security. They let him in without question, and as Jack passed on through the entrance to the ring he could hear them gossiping in low voices, like awestruck teenagers.

Shock and excitement rippled through the crowd as soon as Jack entered the huge, dingy room proper, all gathered quickly bursting into raucous, unhinged cheering when the CEO roared and threw his metaphorical hat into the ring, swaggering about as the organizers scrambled to find him an acceptable challenger.

Scars of old motivational posters on the walls and abandoned, half-broken cubicle walls—some of which had even been ripped off the carpet and shoved away from the crowd—confirmed Jack’s earlier hunch regarding the room’s origin. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember which department used to occupy this area of Helios, but the idea that an old button-down cubicle farm had been infested with such a dingy, violent spectacle got him a little giddy.

Soon enough Jack was ushered away from Rhys and into the ring, where he stripped himself of his more restricting garments, draping his jacket, vest, and undershirt on the battered metal barrier separating the arena from the audience.

Jack felt deep in his element. Roaring crowds, all eyes watching him, voices chanting his name in between calls for blood. His heart raced, leaping against his sternum and itching for the fight. He jumped about the perimeter of the ring, occasionally slapping high-fives or bumping knuckles with the spectators as he waited for his opponent to step into the fray.

Jack had left Rhys with his gun, not fully trusting the hoards of sweaty, hormone-flush alphas, even with his presence warding most of them away from messing with his mate. He could see Rhys awkwardly fidgeting the handle of the gun sticking out of the chest holster, his expression alternating between a disapproving frown and the undeniable excitement brimming just below the surface. After another pre-victory lap, Jack finally bounded over to where Rhys had come to lean up against the railing, fingers drumming up against the dented metal.

“How about a kiss for good luck, sugar?” Jack leaned up and over the barrier, cheeky grin splashed across his face. Rhys rolled his eyes, but smiled and planted a kiss right on his alpha’s lips anyway.

“Go get ‘em, tiger.”

A voice suddenly crackled over the transformed office’s old loudspeaker, static hissing on each consonant as it announced Jack’s presence—little redundant, the alpha thought, but whatever—as well as the name and title of his challenger. Jack’s eyebrows raised up in interest as one alpha parted off from the crowd clustering up against the barrier, vaulting up and over the boundary and landing with a resounding thump in the ring.

He looked like nothing special when compared to the rest of the masses, generically muscles in the arms and chest, with his hexagon-patterned jacket slung all casual over his shoulder, like he fancied himself some kind of old-fashioned street tough. The only thing distinct about him was the angled, freshly shaved cut of his facial hair that spiked up along his jawline that didn’t add much to the intimidation factor, in Jack’s opinion.

The CEO grinned wildly and he sized the other man up proper, hands on his hips as he swaggered forward. He sniffed the air, trying to get a decent read on the alpha, but the hundreds of odors clustered around the ring smothered his senses. The guy had to be a little bit scared though, right? Staring down Handsome Jack, of all people? He figured a little pants-pissing would be in order.

Maybe he needed to turn it up a notch.

“Well well well, this is it?” Jack boasted, more to the crowd than his challenger. “This is the son of a taint who decided to challenge Handsome Jack himself? Gotta say, I admire your balls, kiddo. It’ll be fun to rip ‘em off your carcass.” The crowd roared its approval as Jack cracked his knuckles, smile wide and brutal as he circled his opponent. To his slight surprise, the other alpha didn’t look all that phased as the corner of his mouth quirked up in a confident smirk.

“You going to keep that mask on the entire fight, old man?” His adversary growled, tossing the coat off his shoulder and onto the railing behind him. “Probably makes it a little hard to see properly…sure those eyes aren’t painted on?”

Old? Now that was something that got Jack’s blood simmering. Rhys could get away with something like that, poking fun at his age, since he knew the omega didn’t mean it. But this little prick? Oh, now he was going down.

“You think this is a handicap or something, buddy?” Jack laughed away his anger, pointing at the mask. “Trust me, keeping this on won’t screw with my eyesight at all—in any case, even the blind could see you’re a blowhard little bitch.”

Delighted howls vibrated through the crowd, and Jack could see his opponent’s cheeks redden slightly. He quickly hid part of his face—including that awful beard—behind a pair of clenched knuckles, lips tight and apparently unwilling to talk any more shit.

Fine by Jack, honestly. The point here, really, was to speak with their fists.

The flickering, green-white lights above cast a grimy sheen on the already sweating skin of both Jack and his foe. The air was warm, humid from the hundred panting, spit flecked mouths gathered around the ring, fanatically thirsty for blood. A primeval fervor thrummed through the air like a constant deep bass, shaking through Jack’s muscles and squeezing adrenaline through his veins. His nostrils flared, the scent of alpha hormones the strongest here in the ring, the heart of the violence —the cacophony of senses driving him mad and pumping him up to fight, to draw blood.

Jack rolled the sleeves of his sweater up to his elbows before he fell into a ready stance, fists clenched and guarded in front of his body. He shifted his weight steadily from foot to foot, rocking back and forth in place as he waited for the buzzer to sound.

Briefly, Jack caught where Rhys was standing  out of the corner of his eye. He turned to wink and sent a short, reassuring finger-gun straight at his mate’s engrossed pout, a split second before the raspy buzzer rang out across the arena.

His opponent’s sudden rush of speed nearly caught Jack off guard—fortunately, he quickly sidestepped the rushing alpha, giving him a wide berth as he skidded to a halt right in front of the metal barrier. Jack again danced out of reach when the alpha surged after him with two wide, swinging blows, the momentum leaving him wide open for Jack to charge in and sink a fist right into his opponent’s abdomen.

It didn’t wind him quite the way Jack wanted, but the punch distracted his opponent enough for Jack to catch a glancing blow against his cheek before the other alpha’s fist socked into Jack’s shoulder, driving the older alpha away.  

His arm trembled slightly from the blow, pain ringing down to his elbow. Jack shook out his hand, leaping back to put some space between the two of them. A moment’s recovery was all Jack needed, and as his adversary lunged after him he sprung ready to meet the oncoming assault.

Jack could tell already that the guy had been hoping to overwhelm him with pure brute strength straight off the bat, but the older man’s unexpected speed and agility had cut that strategy off at the head. Not that Jack had ever thought he could possibly lose this fight, but now he felt even more confident than he had beforehand. One-hundred percent assured he could wipe the floor with this guy as soon as he either tired him out or frustrated him into making a key mistake.

Jack laughed as he continued dodging and deflecting the guy’s punches, feet dancing on the floor of the ring. He nimbly hopped on the clean patches in between fresh and old blood alike. Jack felt alive, far more fleet and forceful than any other alpha his age could claim to be. And when he landed and clawing punch against his younger opponent, it only served to inflate his throbbing ego further. Blood surged through his veins like fire, and he couldn’t help but laugh triumphantly when his knuckles connected once against with his adversary’s chin with an audible crack of teeth.

“Give up yet, kiddo?” Jack gave the other alpha a scant moment to recover from the blow—though really, it was more so he could have a chance to properly taunt his foe. That was part the fun, anyway, make the guy really feel the shame of his oncoming loss.

Unfortunately, the guy remained annoyingly tacit, merely panting a couple of times and wiping blood away from his lips as he shot an angry glare in Jack’s direction. The CEO smiled, holding out his arms in a mocking shrug, trivializing his enemy’s intensity.

“What, don’t wanna pipe up? Come on! Are you an alpha, or just a kicked puppy?” The crowd’s laughter echoed triumphantly in his ears, though he thought he heard a couple errant voices calling for his ass to be kicked. He narrowed his eyes and glanced about, making a mental note to do a little purging of the audience after the fight. Just to remind those dissidents just exactly who he was, if they’d been dumb enough to forget.

But that would have to wait ’til after—his opponent was charging again, emboldened by a second wind as he knocked a flurry of punches about. Jack’s forearms rang with the blows as he tried to block them, one even catching the clip of his mask as he just barely dodged his head. Flecks of red flew through the air, his adversary’s knuckles sliced open by the edge of his clasp, but he didn’t seem to care as he continued pummeling Jack’s guard.

Distracted by his adversary’s sudden resurged strength as he was, Jack failed to notice the large puddle of fresh blood—presumably from one of tonight’s previous fights—until his sneakers were already sliding through it.

He managed to catch himself before he slipped and fell completely, but it gave his foe an opportunity to strike him off guard. Jack grunted as a hand lunged forward grabbed the front of his sweater, yanking the collar sharply against his neck as it pulled him forward, right into a cruising fist.

Bright colors burst in Jack’s vision as something in his face snapped. He suddenly felt weightless, as if his soul had been knocked right out of his body by the blow and try as he might, he couldn’t claw his way back in time before his sight went completely black, and he fainted dead away on the ring’s stained floor.

The sounds of the world around Jack rushed in long before his sight returned. Along with the pain—the pain was bad enough to nearly knock him out again, but then he caught a whiff of Rhys’ scent through the blood and sweat of the ring and his eyes flew open, suddenly concerned for his mate’s welfare.

“Rhys—ow—“ Jack swore at the sudden lancing pain in his head, his vision blurring all dizzy as he swayed. He fell back, only to be caught by a warm hand that then carefully laid him back against the floor.

“Shhh shh shh, easy.” His omega’s soothing voice, the one he used when Jack had had a long day or a nightmare, rolled over him, easing the throbbing pain just a tad. After a moment’s recovery, he tried opening his eyes again, keeping them to slits just so he could see Rhys’ face above his own.

Jack had already sensed his mate’s worry through his bond, so the concern in his eyes and pouting lips surprised him little. Yet with his fuzzy, fractured mind, it was hard to put two and two together as to why Rhys was so upset. Jack squinted in thought.

He…he remembered the fight, the fact that he was winning up until the point where he slipped and…

Pain, blood, then nothing. Jack hissed at the sting of the memory, as well as the throbbing in his head and face. He tried to relax in Rhy’s hold as he pried his eyes open wider, taking in his mate’s face further. As soon as the fuzziness started to dissipate towards the periphery of his vision, he noted something glistening and red near Rhys’ port.

“You’re…you’re bleeding.” Despite the fact that he was in no position to fight any longer, Jack felt a surge of rage at the cut on his omega’s temple. Rhys touched his fingers to the blood leaking from the cut, before snorting and waving his hand dismissively.

“That’s nothing. You should see the other guy.”

“Other guy?”

Jack raised his head as best as he could without risking further pain. From across the dingy ring, he could see two other alphas dragging Jack’s former opponent by the arms. With his blurry vision he couldn’t tell if the guy was still moving or not, but the copious amount of blood staining down his shirt told him all he really needed to know.

“Holy crap…”

Rhys smirked proudly at the awe in Jack’s voice.

“Did you think I was just going to let you forfeit because you got knocked out cold?” The omega’s cybernetic fingers, stained and tacky with drying blood, stroked Jack’s hair back off of his forehead. “You dragged me all the way here. There was no way you were losing. Not on my watch.”

A dumb smile spread across Jack’s lips as he looked up at his mate with a dreamy, glassy-eyed glance.

“Baby….if I didn’t have a concussion right now…this would make me super horny.”

Rhys answered him with the typical, resigned sigh Jack had long gotten used to, but the omega’s thrill and pride from his victory shone through nonetheless as he leaned down and brushed his lips against Jack’s uninjured cheek.

“Save it for after we get you home and patched up, handsome.”

[mara-the-cactupus]

Let’s Hit the Highway at Warp Speed - 5

- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - (ao3) -

Jim drove them past open fields and blue sky, blaring rock music so loud that the cars opposite them were probably getting hit with bursts of sudden noise as they sped the other way. Finally, when the sun was high enough in the sky to hide the shadows from view, Nyota unbuckled her seatbelt, leaned back around the passenger seat, and turned off the radio with a click. “Hey, what was that for?” asked Jim indignantly, glancing between the backseat and the road. Nyota had settled back into her seat and was picking at fries from a paper drive-through bag; Spock was still methodically chewing his salad. “We’ve been listening to that for the past five hours,” said Nyota, brushing salt off her fingers. “It’s time for a break.” “Aww, come on,” Jim moaned. “We just had a break! Besides, you can’t cut off the Beastie Boys in the middle of a track.” “I just did. And stopping at a drive-through does not count as a ‘break.’ Spock agrees with me, don’t you, Spock?” The Vulcan peeled his gaze away from his lettuce. “I would agree that six-point-six minutes of silence hardly qualifies as a ‘break,’ when compared to the overall length of the music. Additionally, I have found this music to be somewhat… distracting from my concentration.”

“There.” She pursed her lips smugly. “Do you need me to drive again?” Jim sat up a little straighter at her suggestion. “Nah, I wanna reach Colorado first.” “Fine,” sighed Nyota, rolling her eyes. “Just let me know if you get sleepy.” “Will do. Now, by all means, continue whatever it is that requires your concentration, Spock.” “I shall endeavor to do so,” replied Spock, setting aside his fork. “I am teaching Nyota the written Vulcan language.” “Wait, what?” Jim glanced back over his shoulder; Nyota had handed Spock a notepad she’d been writing in, and he was now scanning over her handwritten symbols. “Most impressive… she has already memorized the basic script, and with the added distraction of your music.” Nyota beamed. “I’m used to it,” she explained modestly. “My dorm had thin walls.” “Excellent. Now we can start attaching sounds to symbols.” Spock followed his words with a harsh glottal noise, which Nyota attempted to mimic. “Oh, great,” muttered Jim. He turned down the volume knob and furtively switched the radio back on, the music soft, humming to himself to supplement the sounds that Nyota and Spock were making in the backseat as he sped closer to the old truck ahead of them. He glanced over at the lane for oncoming traffic – yes, clear, damn that double yellow line – and then over his shoulder, getting ready to swoop past the truck in an illegal maneuver– SCREECH. He slammed on the breaks, hurling the three of them against their seatbelts as the van jerked to a halt. There was the sound of three heads smacking back into headrests, and then a general squeal of complaint from the engine. They took a collective breath. Jim, coming to his senses first, hit the safety blinkers and cranked the gearshift into reverse, backing them up a few feet and onto the shoulder. “What,” began Nyota, peeling herself from her seatback the moment the van settled to a stop. She craned her neck around to see through the windshield, and her eyes widened. “Don’t tell me we almost crashed into that truck.” “It– I– In my defense, its break lights are dead,” said Jim feebly. “By my estimation, we were three-point-one seconds away from impact.” The two humans turned to stare incredulously at Spock, who was positioned in the middle back seat with a full view of the windshield, looking somewhat ruffled. “Three-point-one?” “Plus or minus one half-second,” he clarified. The slight break in his voice was the only hint that this situation was anything other than normal. “Holy shit,” breathed Nyota. “Okay, I’m getting out.” Jim followed her lead, killing the engine and stumbling out of the van with a cautious glance at the mercifully empty road behind them. Meanwhile, the door of the truck too had opened, and an irritated voice could be heard grumbling from inside. “Dammit, first the lights, now the engine… I’m a doctor, not a mechanic, for god’s sake!” A man emerged from the vehicle, stretching his limbs stiffly and surveying the damage. Then he turned, and caught Jim’s eye. “Oh dear lord, please tell me I didn’t almost murder three people,” he said, horrified. “I, um, was following you pretty closely,” admitted Jim. “So if it’s any consolation, it would have been my fault too.” The man gaped at Jim, with a look that said very clearly that this information was definitely not a consolation. “Why don’t we move off the road?” suggested Nyota, glancing nervously behind them. “Great idea,” said Jim. “If we push, can you steer the wheels towards the shoulder?” “You better be the one to do that, kid,” said the man, still looking shellshocked. Jim shrugged and headed for the driver’s side door. Nyota planted her feet in the ground, hands on the back of the truckbed; the man quickly copied her, with Spock bringing up the rear. “Okay, on three!” called Jim. “One– two–” They pushed, and suddenly the truck was moving forwards, gaining speed. Nyota took her hands off, surprised, as they swerved off the road and Jim hastily corrected the wheels. The man glanced over with a puzzled look, too, before they both saw the cause of their confusion: Spock, his fingers on the rim of the truckbed, propelling the entire vehicle forwards with such ease that he looked like he was pushing a shopping cart through the cereal aisle. “Aaaand… stop!” called Jim from the front, climbing onto the seat to engage the emergency brake. He hopped down, ambling towards them with an expectant look on his face that faltered slightly when he saw the two humans standing dumbly several feet behind the truck. He glanced between them and opened his mouth to ask a question, then thought twice. He turned to the man instead. “Got any tools?” Ten minutes later, he was giving the man a full autopsy report. “The battery’s dead; if we can’t jumpstart it that means you need a new one… you’ll need new brake lights, of course, and your mirror’s broken too… these wires are fraying… and this buddy over here’ll need to get replaced too, unless you want your engine to explode. How many miles did you say were on this thing? I’ll be honest with you, it would probably be cheaper just to get a new car.” “Yeah, tell me something I don’t know,” grumbled the man. “I’m telling you, the ex-wife didn’t even fight for this truck, that’s how worthless it is. She took everything she could get her grubby little hands on. But this piece of shit? Nah, this ain’t worth a dime.” “Wait wait, hang on.” Jim pulled out his phone. “I know a gal. I mean, I met her once at a music festival– we met in the parking lot, actually; she had this really cool bike–“ “Oh my god, please don’t say that you slept with her,” muttered Nyota, from her perch on the hood of the Enterprise. Spock stood between them, arms neatly folded behind his back, observing silently. “I didn’t, actually; she had this stick and I saw her beat up some guys who tried to flirt with her. But the point is, she’ll buy it off of you for cheap. Trust me, it’s better than getting towed.” He crowed triumphantly, holding up his phone. “We’re in luck! She’s just seven minutes away!” “You track her GPS?” asked Nyota incredulously. “No, she uses these special radio frequencies to communicate,” Jim explained. “I plug in our coordinates, and… ta-da!” “Yeah, you lost me there,” grumbled the man. “Well, assuming this girlfriend of yours doesn’t beat us all up with a stick, what am I supposed to do after that? I got nowhere to go and no car to get me there. I suppose it’s just the Lord’s way of punishing me for leaving the South behind.” Jim glanced at Nyota before replying. “Well… you could catch a ride with us,” he offered. “We’re heading west, planning to stop off in Colorado tonight.” The man considered this for a moment, gazing mournfully over at the small assortment of bags piled into the back of his truck. Then he looked at the van. “Thanks,” he mumbled, looking sheepish. He cleared his throat. “I’m Leonard McCoy, by the way. Doctor.” “Jim Kirk,” said Jim wryly, shaking his hand. “And these two mononym’d fellas are Uhura and Spock.” “Actually, I too have a family name,” Spock corrected. “I am S'chn T'gai Spock.” “Sichin-ta-what?” “S'chn T’gai,” parroted Nyota. Spock nodded approvingly, and she turned a smug smile on Jim. “It has less vowels than English,” she explained. “Think consonant clusters, like in tsunami or splice. You get more extreme versions in Armenian or Polish, like the word wszczniesz…” Jim frowned, glancing at McCoy, who was staring at Uhura with a kind of tired disbelief. “But tsunami… never mind,” Jim said quickly, as she opened her mouth again, no doubt to chide him from mispronouncing the word. He glanced up at the road. “Hey, speaking of things that appear suddenly on the horizon…” A motorcycle rumbled into view, heading towards them from the opposite side of the highway. Jim waved his hands excitedly as it passed, and the bike did a U-ey, sliding smoothly to a stop beside the Enterprise. The bike was large, and had a certain custom feel about it: based on the skeleton of a factory model, it appeared to have been stripped, then rebuilt, combining elements of different motors and metals until the end result was an inventive, practical machine with much more storage space than would be expected from your average motorcycle. In addition to a boxy sidecar attachment, the front and back ends both extended out into functional compartments. On the “dashboard,” between the front handles, a sort of police radio-like contraption was secured to the makeshift windshield. “Sweet Jesus,” muttered McCoy. Then the biker stepped down, and took off her helmet, revealing dark bangs and a braid streaked with white. “James Tee,” she said, by way of greeting. “Jaylah!” replied Jim. “Glad you could come.” “You are lucky I am nearby,” she said, marching over to the hood of the truck. “I am following a signal east. This is the one, yes?” “Yep, it belongs to him,” explained Jim, gesturing to McCoy. Jaylah’s gaze swept over him, then lingered on Spock and Nyota before she turned her attention back to the truck. “You said you met her at a music festival?” Nyota murmured, taking in the dark leather jacket and medium-brown skin. “When was this, exactly?” “Spring break,” Jim replied. “But she mostly hung out in the parking lot, haggling for monster-truck parts.” Nyota raised an eyebrow, amused. “Yeah, she’s definitely out of your league.” “Hey, yours too,” pouted Jim, looking wounded. He grinned when she gave him a sharp glare. “Okay, so maybe you’ve got a better shot. Just don’t flaunt it. Did I mention that she likes the Beastie Boys too?” They broke off their whispering as the biker in question came back into view, running a hand along the side of the truckbed and kicking the tires to check for air. Then she marched up to McCoy, and started counting out dollar bills. They haggled over the price for a few minutes, and Jim wandered back to the Enterprise, plopping down in the front seat and busying himself with fiddling with the air conditioning. Finally, the two shook hands, and the doctor began unloading his bags from the truck, depositing them in the luggage compartment under the van. After a last check of the truck, he handed over the keys. “All aboard?” called Jim, as Nyota, Spock, and McCoy piled into the backseat. “I gotta sit facing forwards or I’m gonna throw up on you,” McCoy warned, causing Spock to inch over to the far windowseat warily. Nyota took the seat across from Spock, slamming the door behind her. “Good luck, James Tee,” shouted Jaylah, through the open window. “Good luck, Doctor Bones!” She waved at the other two, catching Nyota’s eye. “You too!” Jim grinned, waving back. He steered the van back onto the road again, and soon she and the truck were fading into the distance in the rearview mirror. “Doctor Bones?” Jim repeated, when they had hit ten above the speed limit again, and were cruising smoothly. “Don’t ask,” grumbled the doctor, ignoring Jim’s grin. Jim clicked on the radio, turning the dial up to its original volume. “Welcome aboard the Enterprise, Doctor Bones,” he announced cheerfully. “Next stop, Colorado!” Nyota rolled her eyes as the music drowned him out.

[ejsponge61]

Atlanta and the Rise of African American English

           In the months leading up to its premiere on September 6th of 2016, buzz for the television show, Atlanta, had been growing. The city has been in the spotlight in the last few years. Over a decade ago, Tyler Perry used the city as a filming location for his first Madea movie, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, and ever since, Hollywood has flocked to the area due to its lower relative cost when compared to other locations in America. Movie franchises such as Guardians of the Galaxy and Fast and the Furious have filmed in the city. At the same time, hip hop had blossomed in the Metro Atlanta area, and artists from the region, such as Ludacris and 2 Chainz, were gaining national recognition. This lead to Atlanta becoming a national center for hip hop culture for over the last decade. People looked forward to the show’s depiction of black culture in such a distinctive place, and the show also seemed to be the culmination of years of attention the city has been getting. So, because of this, the show was greeted by widespread success.

           The pilot episode, “The Big Bang”, set a record for most viewers for most viewers of a basic cable comedy premiere, with 1.8 million tuning in. With an average of 888,000 viewers for each of the ten episodes, the entire first season of Atlanta was a financial success. However, the show was also critically acclaimed. The show has won 2 Golden Globes, for best Musical or Comedy Television Series and for Donald Glover as Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical Series. The show has also taken home an AFI award, two Critic’s Choice Television awards, two Writer’s Guild of America awards, and is also nominated for four Primetime Emmys later this year. For the Stone Mountain raised writer, lead actor, and creator of Atlanta, Donald Glover, all this success and acclaim is surely much appreciated. However, some might be surprised by the mainstem success of the show.

           Because the show is set in modern day Atlanta, Georgia, and is written by someone who was raised in the area for most of his youth, it features heavy use of an African American English, specifically of the Southern variety. There are many scenes that would show this, but the best example comes from the second episode of the series, “Streets on Lock”. The protagonist, Earn, was involved in a shooting in the prior episode and is now awaiting bail within a holding area in the local jail. One of those waiting in the room turn to him and express their frustration.  The scene can be viewed here and a transcript can be seen below.

Man: Ridiculous, man. Man, what'd you do to get in here?

Earn: Um Damn, man.

Man: [stammers] I should've just went home, boy. Shit, instead I'm in here, locked up, 'cause this fool I ain't seen in about 11 years, man. Boy, I was at Five Points, 'bout to catch a bus, feel me? And this nigga I ain't seen led me and come on talking about, “Man, listen, hey, I ain't seen you in about 11 years, boy. Let's hang out. You know, get a beer.” So, I followed him to the goddamn gas station. We get two beers, ain't get but two of 'em, but they were the big ones, though; they were the big ones. Anyway, so he like, “Man, come on, let's go up to the house and drink 'em. “So, we get to the house, he like, man, my old lady [murmurs] So we gon' drink 'em on the porch, feel me? I'm like, “Boy, APD be rolling through here, boy.” And he done talked me into it, so, sure enough, APD done roll up and seen the goddamn two cans out there. Locked me up for public intoxication. You know man I'm in here, man, ‘cause this nigga, man, I ain't seen in 11 years, man. I'm gonna be in here till Tuesday 'cause I ain't cash my check.

Earn: That's messed up.

Man: Damn, man, I should've went home! Shit!

Grady: Hey, man, I said I was sorry. I just ain't seen you in, like, 12 years.

Man: Man, fuck you, Grady! Shut up!

           This section displays a lot of aspects of African American English. He uses both boy and nigga as a term of address, and he pronounces boy as bwa. He removes unstressed syllables in some words, such as leb’m years instead of eleven years. He uses filler phrases, but they are sped up to the point where words change, such as him saying “Know what I’m talmbout?” rather than “Do you know what I’m talking about?” He removes consonant clusters at the end or beginning of some terms, such as ‘cause instead of because and gon’ instead of going. Also, the southern aspect of the dialect pops up in the vowel sounds he uses, such as jest instead of just. This might be the heaviest use of African American English in the show so far, but it is still fairly representative of its use throughout the show. However, the use of African American English to this extent has historically been uncommon in hugely successful shows such as Atlanta.

            Ever since the 1950’s television has been dominated by shows that have predominately white staff members, and those shows have commonly been the ones that are most consumed. Early television was dominated by variety shows, like Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts, game shows, like The $64,000 Question, and news programs, like 60 Minutes, but sitcoms were and have also been immensely popular. Much like any other genre, the most watched sitcoms were still largely white. In fact, about thirty years after I Love Lucy, nearly twenty years after The Andy Griffith Show, and a decade after All in the Family, a show with a predominantly African American cast was the most watched television series in America.

            From 1986 to 1989, The Cosby Show was the most watched television show in America and it also won multiple Emmys and Golden Globes during its run. Despite the recently discovered controversies and atrocities committed by its star, The Cosby Show was one of the earliest examples of a mainstream, but also positive, depiction of African American life in America. Bill Cosby himself played a doctor, his fictional wife, played by Phylicia Rashad, was an attorney and their family was upper middle class. These aspects made the show more accessible to Caucasian viewers, and the cast resonated with African American viewers, so the show succeeded. However, these very same aspects that made the show easier to watch included the deemphasis of African American English, and honestly, race wasn’t focused on much in the series. Other sitcoms of the time, such as The Jeffersons and Diff'rent Strokes, heavily embraced African American English. In addition, The Jeffersons would often make jokes relating to race, using terms such as “nigger” and “honkey”, while Diff'rent Strokes was infamous for its uncharacteristically serious episodes that would tackle issues such as race. Mentions of race in The Cosby Show were often relegated to discussions of the Civil Rights Movement and black musicians such as James Brown and Lena Horne, and African American English wasn’t really spoken by any of the main characters.

            So, why is Atlanta, thirty years later, able to be so successful both commercially and critically while other black sitcoms have been either wildly successful without the use of African American English or have not reached such highs while using the dialect. Well, to understand the answer to that, other aspects of pop culture must be analyzed, as television, music, and film are all related to one another.

            Atlanta is far from the only media property to feature African American English. Even before the aforementioned The Jeffersons and Diff'rent Strokes, black characters in film had been using the dialect. One of the earliest examples of the dialect in film is the 1934 film Imitation of Life. In it, Louise Beavers played Delilah Johnson, the maid of the main character, Beatrice “Bea” Pullman. Beavers, who had grown up in the North and in California, had to study hard and long to nail the “southern negro dialect”. Her portrayal was relatively well received, as her role was one of the first times in American cinematic history that a black woman’s problems were given major emotional weight in a major Hollywood motion picture. However, she was given even more criticism for the role, as it continued the portrayal of black women by her, and by other blacks in Hollywood, in roles that were subservient to whites. In fact, almost every role that Beavers took before or since Imitation of Life was either a slave, servant, or maid, as those were the only roles available to blacks at the time. Still, while this use of African American English seemed to have mixed reception, countless films and shows have used African American English since. Some of the most authentic of these come from African Americans who have created and casted (or stared in) their own works.

            These works didn’t appear until the late 1970s and 1980s, and Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, is a great example of one of these later works. The film takes place entirely on Stuyvesant Avenue, between Quincy Street and Lexington Avenue, in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn and tells the tale of heated racial tensions between a black neighborhood and an Italian family that owns a local pizzeria. The film has a mostly African American cast, Including Samuel L. Jackson and Martin Laurence, and is written by Spike Lee, whom is also black. So, this film contains heavy use of African American English, from the protagonists to the more ancillary characters. The film was a critical success, is considered one of the most impactful movies of the 80s, and is still considered to be Spike Lee’s most compelling work by most. Similar to Atlanta, the uses of the African American English dialect didn’t prohibit viewers from understanding the dialog or off put them from the deeper messages of the film. However, while Do the Right Thing was a considered a commercial success at the box office, it would take a couple more decades before films with African American English would begin to lead the box office.

            In 2015, the N.W.A. biopic, Straight Outta Compton was released to critical and commercial success. The film told the ups and downs of Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, DJ Yella, MC Ren, and Eazy-E, otherwise known as the hip hop group, N.W.A., and the controversies that came with their massive success.  The film heavily used African American English in line with how it was used in the late 80s and early 90s. It made $ 157 million domestically at the box office, over three times it’s $50 million budget, and made over $200 million worldwide. It is not only the highest grossing film by a black director, F. Gary Gray, in the United States, but also the highest grossing music biopic of all time, beating Walk the Line. So, with Do the Right Thing, African American English was proven to not be a hindrance to critical acclaim, and with Straight Outta Compton, African American English was proven to not be a hindrance to financial success and mainstem appeal.

            Now, if you’ve notice, there is a trend with the last two features mentioned. Both Do the Right Thing and Straight Outta Compton are heavily tied into the culture of hip hop music. In Spike Lee’s film, one of the most important characters, Radio Raheem, carries a radio that blares loud hip hop music with him in most scenes. In addition, aspects of hip hop culture, such as radio DJs and stylized brass knuckles, are found in the film. In Compton, the very subject matter of the movie is based around hip hop. N.W.A. is one of, if not the, most influential hip hop group of all time, and their influence can be seen not just in their genre of music, but throughout all of pop culture. Even if one is not a fan of rap music, the names Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, and maybe even Eazy-E are familiar to any consumer of popular culture. In fact, the show Atlanta also has a lot of influence from hip hop culture. The main character acts as an agent for his relative, Paper Boi, who is an up-incoming rap artist. All of these have heavy influence from the musical genre of hip hop, and it is the rise of hip hop over the last few decades that may be responsible for the widespread adoption and acceptance of African American English in mainstream pop culture.

            African American English has historically been much more common in music rather than in other non-literary art forms. Some of the earliest examples of African American English in music can be found in blues, R&B, jazz, and spirituals near the beginning of the 20th century, like with W.C. Handy’s 1914 song, “Saint Louis Blues”. In the song, Handy writes “Cause my baby, he done left this town,”, which uses “done” to indicate the recent past. Another great example would be Nina Simone in 1967’s “It Be’s That Way Sometime”, which uses the habitual be and drops constants like s at the end of adverbs. But going back specifically to hip hop, the uses of African American English are rampant.

            In 1979, The Sugarhill Gang released the first commercially successful hip hop song, “Rapper’s Delight”, and it is considered to be the song that introduced the genre to the United States as a whole. In the song, one of the members says “At the age of seven I was rocking in heaven dontcha know I went off.” This phrase contains a combination of don’t and ya, similar to how the scene from Atlanta contained a combination of talking and about. Also, later in 1983, Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five released the song, “New York, New York”, which is considered one of the first rap songs to use “nigga” as a term of address. This trend would be a staple of rap and hip hop for the rest of its existence, especially once N.W.A, or Niggaz Wit Attitudes, rose in popularity later that decade. In addition to these grammatical qualities, hip hop has also created and spread lexical items that are now specific to African American English. For example, in the Kanye West and Jay-Z song, “Otis”, Jay raps “the big face rollie, I got two of those”, where the term rollie is a slang term for a Rolex watch. In the Kendrick Lamar song, “Mamma”, he writes “Tossin' footballs with his ashy black ankles,” where ashy here means dry skin. Also, law enforcement has been given many nicknames in hip hop, such as 5-0, po-po, and twelve.

            Now, as rap music has continued to change and popularize African American English, it has also grown into the current largest musical genre. According to Neilson Music, R&B/hip hop is now responsible for 25.1% of all music consumption, beating out rock for the first time since Nelson began measuring music. And hip hop didn’t get this big by itself, as many of hip hop’s most prominent artists have collaborated with those outside of the genre. In 1985, Run DMC released a cover of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way”, with Steven Tyler and joe Perry as guest vocals. Jay-Z worked with Linkin Park on their 2004 joint album, Collision Course, including their hit song, “Numb/Encore”. Kendrick Lamar worked with Taylor Swift for her hit song “Bad Blood” in 2015, and earlier this year, Katy Perry featured the popular Atlanta rap group, Migos, in her song “Bon Appétit.” This has led to everyone in America being a fan of at least one song from the genre, with even our former president, Barak Obama, showing his love for rap artists like Kendrick Lamar and Chance the Rapper.

            All of this evidence shows that hip hop is quickly consuming all of popular culture, and with the rise of hip hop comes the rise of the culture that the genre was born from. That leads to dances made popular in rap songs, like the Dab, being done by even Ellen DeGeneres. This has led to rappers being popular enough to cast in multi-million-dollar motion pictures, such as Ludacris being cast in the Fast and Furious movies and Donald Glover being cast in Spider-Man Homecoming and Star Wars. And this has also lead to African American English being exposed to more Americans than ever before. While everyone in the country might not speak African American English, everyone now either has a friend who speaks it, or consumes media in which its use is very common. African American English is no longer commonly used to paint characters as a negative stereotype. African American English is now being used by black storytellers and artists to more accurately portray their experiences and to bring viewers and listeners in their own perspectives.

            Atlanta is able to be as successful as it is because the environment in which it was release has changed dramatically. No longer does a black sitcom have to deemphasize race to reach massive critical and commercial success. No longer does the use of grammar and lexical terms from African American English have to mean a show won’t reach the widest audience or win any major critical awards. Thanks primarily to the rise of hip hop in mainstream culture, shows like Atlanta are allowed to thrive, and it is to that genre that most of these shows are in debt.

            However, with the use of African American English being more widespread than ever, this has led to some non-whites using the dialect. In hip hop, it is commonly done to show “street cred” or to fit in with other rappers. But in some cases, specifically with the use of nigga as a term of address, much criticism has been given to those who attempt to use the dialect without being black themselves. However, if hip hop continues to grow in popularity, then everyone will have to deal with some big changes either way. We’ll all either change to align ourselves within the previously set rules of African American English, or we will simply change those rules according to how the dialect is used in the future. And only time will tell if we’ll still be using the same dialect we are discussing today.

[chromemuffin]

Shoukoku no Altair Liveblog (Chapter 5)

A lovely image. The lines are lighter/clearer in the digital version, but this one has the translation of the names and their titles so. I just love these portraits though, especially how some of them fall out of the frame (Shara! And the tall dudes). And wow, for once you don’t look like a tiny child, Mahmut! He still comes up to Zaganos’s chin, though he is a little taller than Shara. (despite me dragging him for his stature, I’m not much better irl. I am also short enough to be inconvenienced by the world around me.)

Before I even get started on the gut-wrenching situation Mahmut has found himself in from last chapter, let me comment more on those portraits.

I love the detailing on the frame, and the designs at the bottom that symbolize each character. Not going through all of them, but here are some nice details I noticed:

Iskander looks puffed up. :3

I keep meaning to mention this, but haven’t found a place to bring it up since noticing it after the first chapter. Iskander is shaded so that there is a light band in the shape of a crescent moon on his forehead.

Louis’s pants/leggings/whatever these are have some sort of pattern or embroidery on them. The manga-ka’s attention to detail is nothing short of amazing. Not to mention the circles on Mahmut’s standard outfit, which have to be drawn every time he appears in it.

So the eyepatch twins are Colbert and Eleanor? I remember Eleanor’s name mentioned last chapter. And seems they are also from the Cult of the Red Snake, as is evident by the Arbok-like creature. Arbok is based on the Indian cobra, for the pattern on its hood, but I’m not well versed in snake species so idk what the symbolism here is. It looks very happy for some reason, though.

Chapter 5: The Citadel

Onto the actual chapter! We left off with Mahmut getting punched in the gut by an ugly rusty looking club of a sword.

Chill, dude. Seriously. 

Poor Mahmut.

I don’t think his leg gets cut here, there’s no blood, so does that mean you are supposed to use that sword to bludgeon your enemy to death? It looks like a club, really it does.

(And I can kind of see how this outfit was supposed to be a dress, there are just so many folds and stripes involved it just looked like one big cloak.)

Stop being creepy, eyepatch dude. The font makes it more ominous too. (Also, he has very pointy ears.)

Oh? What have you got there, Iskander? The basket Shara carried their clothes in? Looks like Mahmut sent him on a mission of some sort. Also, an interesting note. Apparently golden eagles fly with a slight V shape in their wings, like an airplane.

Interesting, another crest. This is the place Leredrick is from, if I recall.

Oh, man. This lady’s dissatisfied face.

Ha! ‘I’m outta here’. She even does a little hand wave to say, ‘this isn’t worth my time’. She’s so done.

Well, that escalated quickly.

A lot of these characters pull off dramatic, menacing, sinister, and ‘I don’t give two fucks’ very, very well.

HAHA yeah awkward moment when you realize it was all a sham and there is absolutely nothing you can do to take it back.

But, who is this I see approaching:

Iskander, what are you up to.

Looks like a bird and a dancer are here to save the day.

OF COURSE, eyepatch lady has to go and ruin it. Oh nooo, Shara.

So it was the container Mahmut keeps meat in for Iskander, not the basket. Poor birdie, gotta work nights too. xD Eagles aren’t nocturnal. And he has to sacrifice his food to boot.

But where he is dropping it off?

“Once the Imperial Army gets here, we will have to fight on their side. Once we do, the Empire will save the hostages. All we can do now is hope the Empire will keep their promise.” I’m not so sure about that anymore, Ibrahim. They seem kind of trigger happy.

And back to Zaganos. What have you been doing this whole time? Preparations I guess.

Uh...what is that...Zaganos is the ‘Poison’ General so...I love the detailing on the jars/bottles, though. Each one is different for some reason. Are they each a different poison or did he just decide to stick them in fancy containers? Yeah, they didn’t exactly mass produce things back then, but these aren’t even all in the same style.

Zaganos really does not hold back, does he. Though he does seem to be thinking about the decision here, it is a pretty underhanded tactic. Well, at least he’s not jumping at the bit to use it.

Well, who do we have here? People from the Empire, right. Why are they attacking the guys sent by Louis...? Aren’t they on the same side...And since the name of the eyepatch people’s cult is Swedish, maybe that means they are more like mercenaries Louis hires, rather than actual soldiers from Balt-Rhein.

Gllad is an awkward name to my English speaking self. You don’t see that consonant cluster every day, and it’s one letter off from Glad (in Japanese it is グララット, guraratto, so yeah, that matches).

I like this more formal introduction to these two, though, purely for the fact that the antagonist actually got injured (it’s like, a scratch on the arm but whatever) before the main conflict with them even starts.

I see. So Leredrick just doesn’t want to follow Louis’s plan (quite an extreme way to say ‘fuck you I’m doing my own thing’ considering they’re on the same side though lol).

Poor kid. Stop bludgeoning him with your club sword, you jerk.

UGH, his expression morphing into resolve and defiance. Aand then back to pain.

LOOKS LIKE IT CAN STAB. will you please leave him alone already you ass

Even worse than a pointy sword, it is uh apparently CRACKING bones. And he has to twist it around, pouring salt in the wounds much.

Now that’s just painful to watch urggh. And that is a LOT of blood on the next page.

What’s going on...I think I see a wing shadow there... (and the text box from hovering over the image whoops)

AHAHA THAT’S GREAT. Seeing her just go fwip! Gone! was greatly needed after seeing Mahmut freaking tortured in an alleyway.

Shara’s expression is great, too. And I really like the flow of the lines framing her on this panel. It’s just so fluid and swirly.

Holy mother of- that is a lot of birds. Way to go, Iskander! OH. Was he...maybe dropping his container of meat to attract the other birds? It seemed that he was dropping it off near a tent earlier.

Mahmut is a summoner of birds. That would be his special power in a fantasy land.

And this is actually really fucking terrifying. More terrifying than just Iskander coming at you with claws outstretched. Apparently the largest of the golden eagle species can have a claw on each foot that is only a tiiiny bit shorter than that of the harpy eagle (the largest eagle in the world, and a deadly thing that can carry deer into tree branches and can easily cut you to the bone). Female golden eagles can be the size of a man’s torso. So, WOW.

And now we get smug Mahmut! God, this kid’s expressions.

This is a massive page (I think it’s a 2-pager actually). Just...drawing all that detail. The cover coming off (with those stripes), the frame of the tent, the birds, the people and all the supplies that formed a wall around them.

Oh.

OH. Not so high and mighty now, are we.

YES. SAVED BY A DANCER AND A BIRD.

Methinks you owe Iskander some meat. What a good birdie.

I’m surprised you can move that arm of yours, though.

BUT. I have not forgotten Zaganos, who is preparing to use some very deadly concoctions. Oh, never mind! They got the message to him on time.

Very nice horse. I like the tassels it’s decked out in.

lol She’s great. Got a passed out/dead guy right next to her too.

“All the troops were drunk at the time or something.” Better than knowing you were outsmarted by a kid, a dancer, and a bird right.

His faces are...haha and he even has a hand on one hip. *pokepoke*

We don’t know much about them yet, but these two are rather fun. ‘Killed by falling rocks’...Ok...

OH YEAH. EYEPATCH DUDE. HE’S STILL THERE.

So, falconers usually use a whistle to call their bird back to them, but it looks like Mahmut uses his for other purposes.

Like smacking swords out of people’s hands. What happened to his club sword?

It also has the little wing symbol on it. Actually, is it a whistle? I can’t really remember if it was ever mentioned anywhere that it was. I just assumed.

Ooh, this battle is not over yet. Man, Mahmut is tough. He was still able to fling that thing around with his injured shoulder. Adrenaline is a godsend.

Very nice. You can see a bit of blood (!! he really needs to get that treated) and it seems he let the sword fly out of his grasp on purpose to-

Choke him, apparently, nice.

But the question is: What would Mahmut have done in if he was in Ibrahim’s situation? Interesting. He’s talking about how he is helping Ibrahim out, not based on his actions here, but because they’re friends.

WELL, you certainly got back at him. Is he dead? And what happened to Eleanor after she got carried off by the birds? Are they both dead.

Anyway, I’M SO GLAD THIS DIDN’T END IN TRAGEDY. I still have 17 more volumes to go for that to potentially happen!

Iskandeeerrr I like his little jesses. Iskander is half the reason I’m looking forward to the anime.

Btw, you owe him some meat, Mahmut.

They cleaned this up for the digital release (it was originally spread across 2 pages and thus a little awkwardly split up).

STOP. You’re not allowed to make me cry this early in the series. (kidding, I don’t cry easily, but damn. That was a great ending to this arc.)

...What is with your expression, Iskander.

That is the look of a bird that has seen some shit. My cat makes the same expression sometimes for no good reason.

The credits page is a nice touch. You usually don’t get one like this. I love Mahmut petting Iskander up there in the corner. Birds like to be scratched, too!

...Though Zaganos has this, like, Medusa hair going on. Does it get worse without the hat?

AND THAT’S THE END. DAMN was that an emotional rollercoaster.

← back・onward →