family bonding time

(it probably wasn't actually Idia's fault)

(or was it)

some quick initial reactions to celebrate Diasomnia Day One! it felt like a bit of a short intro, but oh, what a tasting menu of things to come.

i started listening to stellar firma, and I couldn't not draw them

Cinch had three charges in her care once, Celestia entrusted her with the day-to-day care of Prince Blueblood, the new Princess Cadence and her student Sunset Shimmer - running a kingdom is difficult enough alone without three young ponies to look after - so when Celestia is absent (often) that means Cinch was in charge of these three ponies. And while the matron of the castle was always rigid about rules and wanted her three charges to uphold her reputation and to build their own budding reputations high, she cared about them very much. You'd have to, spending your time with the same three young ponies for so long, guiding and teaching them to be their best...

By the time Ditzy came into the picture, Cinch was down to two charges. She refused to fail them the way she failed...

Well, with one down, there were two left and she cared so much she wouldn't let anyone ruin them, especially not themselves. Surely they would come to realize Cinch was only helping.

sousou no frieren ★ 07

isat pokemon au, my liege?

my rambling in tags

The call connects and there’s Roy, seemingly back at his own house, seated on a grey couch and wearing a scowl dark enough to match his t-shirt and jacket.

Trent smiles, though carefully not too wide. “Hello Roy. Thank you for agreeing to this.”

Roy grunts. “Better you than any of the other wankers,” he mutters.

Trent makes an effort to hide his grin. Visibly gloating about having the sort of access to Roy Kent that other journalists – independent or disgraced or otherwise – can only dream of isn’t likely to get him the exclusive comments that he needs from Richmond’s head coach on today’s kerfuffle.

“So,” he offers smoothly, “what do you—“

He’s cut off by the loud bang of a door slamming shut on the other end and a startled fuck from Roy and then there’s Jamie Tartt’s head coming into view as it flops down on Roy’s lap. He must have thrown himself down onto the couch.

“It’s all such fucking bullshit, man,” Jamie pronounces dramatically as he – Trent’s eyebrows rise another inch – grabs Roy’s arm and pulls it over his chest, claiming half a cuddle. “Did you know—“

“I’m in the middle of an interview, you twat,” Roy barks, but he does not, Trent notes with increasing interest and incredulity, remove his arm.

“Since when do— ?” Lifting his head from Roy’s lap, Jamie blinks at the screen. “Oh! Uh. Hi, Trent! How you doin’, you good?” His grin is wide, easy, with no hint of embarrassment, and Trent finds himself smiling back. Jamie has always been charismatic, but the last few years have seen his swagger turn into a good-natured charm that’s surprisingly hard to resist.

“I’m fine, thank you, Jamie. And regarding the news this afternoon, how do you—“

“No,” Roy immediately says, shifting to push Jamie off his lap in spite of the younger man’s indignant protests. “He has no fucking comment. He’s not part of this conversation. He’s not even fucking here.”

“The fuck are you on about, mate, he can see I’m— “

“Go to the kitchen,” Roy interrupts. “Get me a whisky. If I have to listen to you complain about wankers on Twitter or split fingernails or whatever, I need a fucking drink.”

“You’re an arsehole,” Jamie tells him from out of the picture, but he doesn’t sound particularly upset. “I haven’t even got any split fingernails.” And then he must be off because he doesn’t say anything else and Roy turns back to Trent, glaring like he’s daring Trent to say it.

Trent, with equal parts cunning and self-preservation, says nothing at all. Waits.

Eventually, Roy’s shoulders drop a millimeter. He lets out a huff. “Jamie’s fucking needy, all right? He needs fucking hugs and shit and he turns into a moody bitch prima donna if he doesn’t get them, so.” He presses his lips together, having apparently said all he intends to say on the subject.

Trent had noticed Jamie’s fondness for hanging off anyone's and everyone’s shoulder during his season with the team. He hadn’t known and would never have imagined, though, that Roy would ever be willing to indulge the tendency, especially not to this degree. And that rather begs the question...

“Roy,” he says carefully. “You know that, if the two of you are—“

“We’re not.” And Roy closes his eyes, shakes his head. Opens them, looking resigned, but looking a little bit wry too. “Be less fucking weird if we were, wouldn’t it? But we’re not. It’s just… “ He pauses. Shakes his head again. “It’s Jamie. Just… fucking Jamie.”

“Except you are not,” Trent says, just to be clear, just because being a bit of an asshole is a habit, and fun.

“Except I’m not,” Roy growls, and looks like he’s about to add something more – something scatching and imaginatively insulting, Trent assumes – but then he lifts his head, turning towards someone offscreen. “What— ? Yeah, we’re fucking done. Bye, Crimm,” he adds, and then the screen goes dark as Roy abruptly ends the call.

“Bye, Roy,” Trent tells the silence. “I’ll just text you the questions, shall I? You can get back to me when you’re done giving Jamie Tartt a cuddle.”

Sodor, 1923

Gordon: You, There! What Are Your Pronouns.

Thomas: what's a pronoun???

Gordon: Indicative But Not Exclusive Of Your Gender Identity.

Thomas: stop cursing at me!

Gordon: Can I Refer You As 'Little Tank Engine'.

Thomas: but my name is Thomas!

...

Gordon: You, Larger Seagull! What Are The Tank Engine's Pronouns.

Edward: Oh, we use he/him for Thomas! He haven't got a care for matters like that, though.

so in my previous post the other day I mentioned in the tags that I recently saw an OC name that was a string of five consonants followed by a single vowel and was baffled on how it was meant to be pronounced. I’m not going to say what the name was because I don’t want the person to feel called out—this post is not meant to be a criticism nor tutorial/lesson nor rant—just pure autistic rambling about this silly little interest of mine.

anyways, that name got me thinking: how many consonants could you put next to each other in a Na'vi word/name while still being phonetically valid? Well, I guess that depends on whether you’re counting by phonemes or letters.

First let’s go very briefly over basic Na'vi syllable structure: every syllable must contain one vowel or diphthong or pseudovowel. The syllable may optionally start and/or end with a consonant. Up to two consonants can cluster at the beginning of the syllable (there are some more specific rules for this but we’ll save that for later), but not at the end. Here’s some examples (remember that tìftang (') is considered a consonant):

taron - [ta][ron] ikran - [ik][ran] 'itan - ['i][tan] oare - [o][a][re] snafpìlfya - [sna][fpìl][fya]

Based on these rules, under the right conditions (a syllable that ends in a consonant followed by a syllable that begins with a cluster) you can string up to three consonants together and still be valid (note that you need at least two syllables to do this! The string of lfy in snafpìlfya works because the l and the fy belong to separate syllables! You would not be able to have all three together like that in a single syllable.)

BUT! What if instead of counting by phoneme, we count by letter? Let’s talk about something called digraphs. A digraph is when two letters are used to represent a single phoneme. For example, in English, th is a digraph: it’s not a t-sound and an h-sound right next to each other, but rather its own unique sound.

Na'vi uses a total of 11 digraphs: the consonants kx, px, tx, ts, and ng; the diphthongs ay, aw, ey, and ew; and the pseudovowels rr and ll. Sometimes the letters used in these digraphs can also be used separately (for example, with ts, both t and s are valid on their own), but sometimes they can’t—x is NEVER used outside of kx/px/tx, and g is never used outside of ng in the forest dialect (it can stand on its own in the reef dialect though, as long as it’s at the beginning of a syllable).

Let’s look at some more examples, but this time with words that use digraphs:

nantang - [nan][tang] tskxekeng - [tskxe][keng] flrrtsawl - [flrr][tsawl]

More specifically, let’s compare the words fnan and skxawng. Both these words have the same number of phonemes: f-n-a-n and s-kx-aw-ng, but because skxawng uses almost nothing by digraphs, it has nearly twice the letters! The only way to make it longer would be to replace that first s with a ts, thus giving you the longest possible syllable in terms of letters (tskxawng).

Why specifically ts instead of one of the other digraphs? Well, I mentioned briefly before that there are rules on how consonants are allowed to cluster, so let’s go over those real quick:

If you want to start your syllable with a single consonant, you can use any consonant you want. But if you want to start your syllable with a cluster, the first phoneme MUST be f, s, or ts (yes only those three), and the second phoneme MUST be l, k, kx, m, n, ng, p, px, t, tx, w, or y. The second phoneme cannot be f, h, s, ts, v, z, or tìftang. So for example:

fmi works, but not pmi tskxe works, but not ngkxe stawm works, but not ktawm flrr works, but not fvrr fngap works, but not ftsap syaw works, but not s'aw

Now, while any single consonant can start a syllable, only certain consonants are allowed to end one (and remember, clustering can only happen at the start, not the end).

The consonants that can end a syllable are: k, kx, l, m, n, ng, p, px, r, t, tx, and tìftang.

The consonants that cannot end a syllable are: f, s, ts, h, v, w, y, and z. So for example:

Tul works, but not tuz Kin works, but not kif Zup works, but not zuh Srung works, but not sruts Pam works, but not pas

Now, remember that this is for individual syllables. A word can have multiple syllables. Sruts is not a valid syllable, but something srutsen could still be a valid word because it is two syllables: [sru][tsen]

You might also see syllables like maw or pay that look like they end in w or y, but these still work because remember that the w and y in these words are not standalone consonants but part of the diphthong digraphs; the phoneme breakdown is not m-a-w but rather m-aw. So, maw works but not mow, pay works but not puy, etc.

There are also some special rules for pseudovowels. If you use a vowel or diphthong, starting and/or ending your syllable with a consonant is optional: a, ma, mak, ak, ey, mey, meyk, and eyk are all valid syllables.

But if you use a pseudovowel instead, the syllable MUST start with a consonant (remember that tìftang counts as a consonant) but CANNOT end with one. So 'rr, mrr, wll, etc. are valid, but not rr, srrk, plln, etc.

SO! With all that in mind! How are we gonna create our consonant monster word? We know that it’s gonna be impossible to have more than three consonant phonemes strung together, but we can mess around to get a whole lot more individual letters.

We’re gonna want to use as many digraphs as we can, so we’ll want to use either diphthongs or peusdovowels in the vowel slots. Syllables with pseudovowels can’t end in additional consonants so let’s use a diphthong for the first syllable, but diphthongs are spelled with a vowel first so let’s use a pseudovowel for the second syllable.

We’ll want a cluster at the beginning of the second syllable, and let’s use ts as the first phoneme since that’s the only digraph allowed in that position.

The beginning of the first syllable doesn’t really matter because there’ll be a vowel breaking up the chain anyways, but let’s digraph-cluster that one too just for the heck of it to make the word even more cursed. Let’s go ahead and tack a third syllable on the end as well, a short single-vowel one, because why not.

That leaves us with something like:

Tskxayngtsngrra

string of y-n-g-t-s-n-g-r-r, nine “consonant” letters in a row!! (albeit still only three consonant phonemes: ng-ts-ng). Syllable breakdown is [tskxayng][tsngrr][a].

absolute hot mess, but still technically valid! 🙃 lol

no one ever wants 2 talk about how fucked up adora & glimmers rlxnship was circa s4 but it was so YUMMY like their rlxnship wass ofrauoght for so many reasons but the root was that neither of them were able to communicate exactly why they needed. when they did neither of them could understand it. they love each other but they don't know how to talk to each other they're suffocating each other it's a kind of slow rot that starts once glimmer gets the authority and independence she once craved and it's not how she ever thought or wanted it to happen but she's going to do it and she going to do it right. she had to. she's the only one who can. but adora with her fused sort of savior guilt complex over angela sees the power and thinks it makes her more vulnerable and glimmer chafes under this bc even if angela's not here anymore she still has to prove she can do this. so she makes decisions that cannot be weak. she charges into battle she allies with shadow weaver to get stronger she goes off on her own and it all comes from a place of hurt but this hurts adora too bc adora obviously spent her whole childhood under shadow weavers power and she did very little good to adora who did idealize her but only bc of how manipulative sw is and the betrayal of it all still cuts deep. adora lashes out and glimmer interprets it as jealousy and immaturity and her inability to acknowledge sw's abuse of adora pushes them apart even further. they cant trust eachother enough to talk about the wounds that fuel these actions without risking another cut. the war is unrelenting and glimmer is desparste when glimmer believes light hope over adora she crosses another line. she doesn't listen to adora bc adora doesn't know anything about what's right this is just like shadow weaver and look at what i can do now because of her. adora failed her mother but glimmer won't fail etheria and again she betrays adora's trust. glimmer and adora's inability to comprehend eachother with the ugliest versions of themselves directly leads to the occupation of etheria. something has broken between them and no one knows if it can come back. on some level i think glimmer activating the heart is a greater betrayal than anything catra has done to adora—maybe not the greatest betrayal adora has committed against catra but the line between them is clearly antagonistic. glimmer is different. glimmer wasn't supposed to end up like catra. it doesn't matter tho. the love is still there.

Franziska’s insistence on perfection is an attempt to live up to her father’s legacy despite that legacy being built on lies and ruining countless lives including that of the person Franziska loves most. Accepting that she is not and cannot be perfect is a major step in her development into not only a better person but a happier one. And despite all of this, every time she declares her own perfection my immediate impulse is to agree with her

This 20s clip is basically the entirety of the family dynamic in a nutshell.

Somehow the idea of Curze whispering poison in his sister's ear repulsed Perturabo most of all.

Here's my half of the art trade with @opens-up-4-nobody who wished for

- anybody looking after/caring for Naruto and/or Sasuke

or

- Sasuke hanging out with a bunch of cats.

Well, don't mind if I do(odle). :D

Soft and domestic SNS >>>>>

Check out their wonderful half of the trade! Thank you again, this was so fun!

I'm gonna ramble about my headcanons for this in the tags so this post doesn't get to long.

rtd's finales are badly stacked conflicts that are suddenly solved by deus ex machina (but that doesn't matter bc it's filled with genuinely beautiful & heartwrenching character writing that will make you forget about everything) and moffat's finales are convoluted nonsense that make you confused as to what the fuck you're even watching. technically neither of these are good but between these two poisons i will pick the former every time

I wonder if Abby even realizes that her penance for what she did to Joel was to BECOME Joel.