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Comments

Conlang

How Do You Talk About Beverage of Choice (10/30/16)

I shamelessly borrowed the prompt from meme, so I'm gonna fish out my answer from there for the language I did this exercise on.

In Tatan:

Where "blooded" means member of their clans and "unblooded" means not a member of their clans.

  1. Would you like some tea?
  2. (polite, unblooded)
    1. M'lakega patai aij schashat?
  3. A little, yes.
    1. Schasheda.
  4. A full cup, please!
    1. Schasheta.
  5. (unmarked formality, unblooded)
    1. M'lakega patai atschash?
  6. (informal, blooded)
    1. Tai m'lakega aischash?
  7. Yes. (would I?)
    1. Jeh.

Jeh is a bit of an odd construction. They call it an intensifier and it can be translated, "You think," "Would I!", etc. sarcastically, enthusiastically, or angrily depending on context. This language has no words that literally mean yes or no.


"How would you answer that you don't want tea? Politely."

Of course, I left my numbers at home, but basically, zero tea, maybe with a thanks on the end.

Kanrashash is some tea (lit. four tea), and I can't remember zero, but it's formed the same way, so Ecanraschash, if that's actually zero instead of one. No, danre is one, so ecanre must be zero. I'll go with:

Ecanraschash. Narega kai.

(zero - tea). (make gratitude) (I).

No tea, thank you.

Lexember 01 (12/1/16)

My word for the day is

ruk|lo • no blood, i.e. no violent action that would draw blood or cause death a verbal noun construction, from ak|lo, to bleed

Language: Akachenti

Lexember 02 (12/2/16)

/a:gi/ • parent or aunt/uncle, whether related biologically or simply acting in that relationship a noun of direct address with undecided orthography for the long vowel

Language: Akachenti

Lexember 03 (12/3/16)

nlakos • /n!akos/ • the plan(s) that certainly are, will be, or have been implemented, as in Hinlakos? Are those the plans? or The plan, please?

definite noun construction, can be used denuded without prefixes in certain contexts

Language: Akachenti


There is! A proposed plan is either a different word or a different construction off the same root, though I haven't entirely determined the root in this case. A pipe dream plan is just a different word altogether, from the root meaning "to wish for, without much hope of success." Though I haven't pinned down that one either. Ugh.

In short, I learned a new construction yesterday, that of the definite, which is an evening construction that adds —s. What I don't know yet, is how it morphs or does not morph the original ending of the word root and therefore, how precisely to bend the root in other directions.

At least I do know now how to reference my parent/aunt/uncle once possession/relation has been established or implied: a:gis. Frankly, using the definite itself may be enough to establish possession/relation.

Characters

Skylight

  1. Comment 1
    1. Too many things! Okay, the one that keeps happening when I'm supposed to be working on other things is about a superhuman post-military operative and... I'm all over her timeline, what am I saying? It's a bit literary and character-oriented, but she's also embroiled in a mess of active stuff so I might manage a plot trying to tell her story of figuring out how she fits into a world after where she came from.
    2. Skylight is the character and is fascinating to me, which is how I got into the mess of writing this unnecessary story instead of something else already started in the world. (Okay, so the world is bigger than the project and I've been embroiled in it for years now.) I like her because she's stoic but not actually that quiet and she's a total goner on a quiet guy who's sentimental and she loves it. She's dominant and "punches holes in the world" and doesn't like to touch people because she could make them vanish permanently if she's not careful and works too hard and is harsh and ruthless and not all that merciful, but she's loyal, loyal, loyal and she cares more than she knows how to let on.
    3. One cool thing... The things I find cool aren't usually what anyone else does. I think the coolest thing in this world, Kingdoms and Thorn, is probably the teams and how they operate. They're half family, half professional and they have their own culture and subcultures that I can't seem to get enough of exploring. It's kind of a half and half world, because I started it set in the real world and decided that was a powderkeg and demanded too much research, so I made it its own world, and the worldbuilding after that decision has all these new cultures and languages interacting, but the worldbuilding before is more like ours with higher tech. The way the teams are insular and use foreign languages as private languages between themselves and fit into multiple cultures but have their own and are loyal to each other more than to anyone else, including their birth families once they meet them again is just super fun to work with and create.
    4. The first idea is both preserved and moved past because basically, I split it. The original idea was twelve kids get genetically modified by the military, break out, and start their own culture/society in a jungle. Came a long way from there. The culture that developed out of that initial story (when I was what? eight years old ish) became a secondary world SFF, Vardin. The variation where they stayed military until they were teenagers and eventually destroyed the military program that had made them grew into Kingdoms and Thorn and changed a whole ton of a lot. Like, a lot, a lot. I originally wasn't going to write both worlds, just stick with Vardin so there wouldn't be duplication of characters/powers, but then someone prompted a tiny ficlet and went, OMG, I love it, and next thing I know I've written more for Kingdoms and Thorn than anything else ever.
  2. Comment 2
    1. I've been pondering this since it popped up as I was heading into bed. I don't think in terms of conflict, being rather fond of characters as people with very complex lives and relationships, and not being much of a plotter. By which I mean, I generally commit fic with the intention of reaching a particular emotional moment and commit short stories by deciding the beginning and ending emotional states of the characters. Which is story and a plot by some definitions, but definitely is interesting when thinking of central or external conflicts.
    2. Which is to say, Skylight has struggles, plenty of them, but she's largely resigned to or at peace with herself and who she is, so I'm not sure if she's at conflict with herself, but I don't know. I haven't used that term in so long, I'm not sure I'm defining it right.
    3. Her primary struggles are with fitting and belonging I think. In specific, the opening of her story always comes to me as the moment Math told her she punched holes in the world and that was her special ability. Realizing that she was that dangerous was something she did not really make peace with. Part of her training so hard and so long and sometimes almost too much is an attempt to master herself to the level that she won't hurt the people she loves.
    4. Her leader made her practice her ability on people and had to pull rank to do it. That had a pretty dramatic effect on Skylight in that her belonging to Wolf and her team is associated with her choice to follow Wolf. Because she belongs there, she adheres to their rank and obeys Wolf. At the same time, I'm not sure how conscious it is that obedience equals belonging, more a case of she is absolutely loyal to her team and will not even allow Wolf to push aside rank in favor of the personal when it comes to making big decisions. Wolf's decisions go. That's how Skylight lives.
    5. Then her roommate, Arc, is one of the very few team operatives who remembers her family. Being able to remember put it more strongly in Skylight that she wanted to know her own family. Skylight was one of the majority though, in that she does not remember and also that she was an orphan in the first place. When she finds out later, after the Rebellion, that she was midadoption process when she was taken and does have family, even if surrogate, she wants very strongly to find her place with them. Balancing her closeness with her team and her closeness with her family though is sometimes difficult, and I'd say her biggest struggle is that, figuring out how to have both and find a life that works for her in keeping both and near her if possible.
    6. She constantly worries at the front of her relationship with Math if she's giving enough to it or expressing care/love enough since she's stoic, harsh, merciless, ruthless, and works waaaaaaay too long and hard and has insomnia so does not even choose to share rooms with him even after she marries him. She spends time in his room and has him in hers enough, but she doesn't usually sleep with him, and in their team work, she outranks him and keeps the personal personal and the professional professional.
    7. So in short, she struggles with balance and is aware of her struggle with it. And it shows up strongest in wanting her relationships to be strong and to care for people, but not knowing how to show it. They are pretty strong though anyway, but they probably wouldn't be if the people she cares about weren't as understanding in general or of her in particular. She had to work very hard to earn a relationship with any but two members of her adopted family because she's stoic, she's reserved, and she doesn't really know how to, or even think to try to, make people trust her.
    8. That's a pretty long answer, and I'm not 100% sure if I hit what you were really asking, but I hope I came close.
  3. Comment 3
    1. Immediately following the Rebellion, she definitely "retires", but she misses her team and ends up rejoining Wolf in quite a bit of active duty after she'd basically gone active on her own on behalf of her adopted mother (long story), but then comes back to "retired" for a while afterward. I think she'll always been in and out as long as there are people who can call her in when they need her. She's not the kind of person to stay inactive and when she's out, she's basically training other specials in how to control/use their abilities.
  4. Comment 4
    1. I don't even know. The problem with Skylight is I'm all over her timeline. I've seen her as student, as mentor, as leader, as follower, as lover, as killer, as friend, as sister, as enemy, as daughter. Not mother. She doesn't want kids and Math agrees with her (they don't want to pass on their genes, but Skylight admits she doesn't really know that'd she want them even if it weren't an issue). I don't know how to fit all the pieces together yet into her story, but she's a team person. I have characters that operate on their own but she doesn't and doesn't care to.

Posts

100 Words Fic

Prompt 1. Sweet

Math was staring at her oddly.

Skylight cocked her head slightly in question.

"That was sweet of you," he said slowly, glancing back toward the girl she'd just been working with. "You were gentle with her. A student?"

"Yes." Skylight glanced back as well. "She's not like us. She doesn't know what she's doing or even if she wants to, but she knows she has to learn."

Another young girl saddled with a power she'd never asked for and the ability to hurt the ones she loved without trying.

"She's just a child."

Math and Skylight, they were never children.

Prompt 2. Night

Skylight stumbled into the bed beside Math. They both had a history on the right and wrong ends of lethal weapons. It didn't surprise her when he woke up.

"Hey." His arms closed around her, then froze when she winced.

"Just gently." She tugged his arm across her stomach and sank back against his shoulder with a sigh. She was bruised from shoulder to hip, too tired for gracefulness.

"You okay?" he asked, voice quiet in the night.

Post-mission, another coup counted, another look of self-disgust in the mirror. She pressed her face into his neck and nodded without words.

Prompt 3. Sleepless

It was getting to be a habit, passing Riho at some corner or table as he muttered over artwork and barely nodded in Skylight's direction. He knew by now her tendencies to wander late at night.

She paused at his elbow, then frowned at the drawing. "That's not me," she said sharply.

It clearly was. Sleeping peacefully, curled up on the couch.

"It does look like you," Riho replied, unbothered.

Skylight shook her head. "I don't sleep like that."

"You don't sleep at all," he retorted.

She gave him a flat stare before moving past. She'd sleep—just not peacefully.

Prompt 4. I've Got a Bad Feeling About This

"Skylight's smiling."

Ice Queen delivered the words flatly beside him, and Math wasn't sure at first how to read the emotion behind them. Then again, he couldn't see Skylight's smile, and he knew perfectly well not all of her smiles boded well.

"Which smile?" he settled for asking.

Ice Queen's voice was a little lower, more focused elsewhere when she answered, "The scheming one."

Considering they were dealing with a target Skylight didn't much like, his fondness for cruel lessons one she was more than capable of returning, well...

Math winced. "That's probably bad."

Things were about to get messy.

Prompt 6. Fall

Fandom: Legend of Korra Pairing: Kuvira/Bataar Jr.

When people talked about falling in love, he was pretty sure they didn't mean like this.

Bataar Jr. had been up in the tree for good and legitimate reasons, the scouting of locations for wires Bataar Sr. wanted laid down, when he caught sight of the new girl. She was wearing new clean clothes, her hair in a long braid, and she was smiling.

Make that smirking at him where he'd literally fallen at her feet.

"Kuvira." He scrambled to his feet and brushed himself off.

"Hello, Bataar."

He blinked at her, struck that she knew his actual name. "Hi."

Other Fic

Baavira Drabble

Bataar Jr. liked his workspace to be near the window, though he never explained to his father exactly why. "The view is inspiring."

Bataar Sr. merely raised his eyebrows and shrugged, never noticing that the 'view' was a certain metalbender practicing dance steps that made Junior's back ache in sympathy.

Kuvira liked to do her personal dance practice near the compound. She laughed it off to Suyin as being used to training in the gardens from all those metalbending lessons as a child.

She never explained that she could see a certain engineer through the window as he worked.

Ficlet: The Jasmine Dragon Post-ATLA Iroh (9/14/16)

It was good to be back in the Earth Kingdom.

Some would think it strange, even wrong, for the former crown prince of the Fire Nation to prefer this little tea shop—his own!—in the land of his exile to the palace at the capital of his homeland, but Iroh was proud of his nephew, Zuko, and pleased to leave the ruling to him. He'd learned enough and matured enough to do what he was born to.

Iroh had earned this resting place, and he looked around at the dusty tables, the welcoming walls. It was good to be back.

He settled in easily, giving it a light sweep and dusting, then putting on the tea. No need to hide anymore his bending, but there was something pleasant and familiar in lighting the fire with stones and setting the tea to boil, then sinking back onto a bench with a deep sigh as steam from the jasmine tea carried the scent of its leaves into his lungs.

Yes, it was good, so good to be back.

All the Poetry Poems

Prayer 003.

As God is my witness
And God is my grace,
May light of His love
Shine bright through my face,
Through my eyes and my hands—
Be a light in this place

Image (poem)

Moments pass in crystal mirrors
shining in another's eyes
Catch the sun and make it shimmer
cast it back into the light
I will be your bright reflection
if you will be my inner sight

Who Do You Think I Am?

Who do you think I am? the daughter of pain
Once upon a time I knew my name
You think I am the monster in the night
And never asked who taught me how to fight

Who do you think I am? I could be yours
The changeling child stol'n away in night hours
I was raised by military hands
On your behalf, I have razed foreign lands

Who do you think I am? your conqueror
Though I have deposed your emperor
Thrown down those I know have spilled your blood
But isn't it easier 'stead to blame us?

Who do you think I am? the daughter of pain
This blood I can't wash out has made a stain
Upon my soul and conscience, the price for life
That I should be the weapon out of sight

Who do you think I am? I could be yours
I wanted to be someone's, like before
Before I was a weapon, I was a child
I was not a monster nor born wild

Who do you think I am, your conqueror?
I took my freedom, but did not defer
Yours or bring down powers innocent
Of the blood of children that they spent

Who do you think I am? the daughter of pain
Once upon a time I knew my name
And one day, I vow, I'll find again
Who I always knew I might have been

like the lightning

Kiss me like the lightning

Make my insides spark so bright

Let your fingertips like thunder

Make a rumbling throughout

Stare at me like stormclouds

Fix me with your nimbus gaze

Make everything around me

But you to fall away

lumen

the light plays music

across my fingers

golden notes

like dawn, my hope

Spilt

All I hoped for, all I wanted

Right in front of me

I knocked it over, poured it out

I spilled the cup of tea

I sniffed, I sopped, I mopped it up

I sighed most wistfully

But, alas, resigned myself

It wasn't meant to be

Mystique

blood is silent, yet it cries

it whispers in your foreign eyes

the worlds are spinning on your tongue

are you ancient; are you young?

We - a poem

love is a heart that bleeds
when yours is hurt
love is a soul that aches
when yours is burned

love is a hold that warms
when you are cold
love will stand behind you
when you're bold

love is the shout of joy
in your success
love is happiness when
your dreams are met

love is two hands twined
the eyes that meet
and speak without our words
all that we need

restless

quiet moves in quiet places

unstill, unwhispered, full of faces

they open up their silent mouths

a room unempty of quiet shouts

dreams remembered

I've forgotten how to dream

once I knew, I'm sure I knew

you know the vivid way it seems

that life is seeping out and gleams

that is how I always dreamt

I never wondered what it meant

that I could wake from such a life

it shook me up, it made me cry

I used to try so hard to lose

the things I dreamt, I'd gladly choose

to walk away into my day

so hard, so fast, it fell away

I realized once not long ago

that all the dreams I used to know

that used to burn in me, aglow

seem like photographs so old

I've forgotten how to dream

I used to know, I'm sure it's so

do you remember how they gleamed

vivid, seeping from their seams

February 9

The daily shuffle

back and forth,
forward and back—

Mind the track! I feel the pain

within my throat,
within my chest—

the daily grind,

it never ends.

February 19

Life is a shattered mirror
spiderweb memories fragile
like ice after a hoarfrost night
before it is thick enough to hold
our weight—just hold my hand
I won't let go
I know it's cold
I know you see your breath and
know it's going to be a long way down
but that is life

March 1

The light goes spinning around and 'round
I close my heart, but it makes no sound
I open it up to Your great light
That my heart may joy and faith 'come sight

March 3

the top of the world
seems lonely, wind cutting ice
tears from my lashes

March 5

catch morning sunlight
waking my eyes—sharp, gentle.
forgive winter's bite

The Way She Moves (sonnet)

I also wrote a whole ton of poems this weekend, but I liked this one the best, though it would probably be improved by understanding the context of the characters. (He can see motion and mass but not color or light, and I wanted the challenge of describing her through his eyes. They were both raised from childhood by the military.)

The Way She Moves (sonnet)

The way she moves, all confidence and grace
The fire's dance compared is commonplace
Her violent touch to conquer foreign land
Is gentle when she touches me again
I touch her warmth and trace her many scars
Against the softest skin, cascade of stars
Her voice is low, a rasp within my ear
Like shivers in the thunder that I hear

They say my lover's ruthless and she's harsh
They say she knows no mercy nor no fear
They say that they can see the scathing arch
Her eyebrows make and all her coldness hear
They've never felt the way she clings to me
Nor understood what is necessity


March 29

Wrote a couple short poems:

light
is the
song on my lips,
the fruit of our joy
in each other,
is us


Joy,
the light
within your
beautiful eyes
shining bright
at me—
my.

May 1

months pass; leaves fall
little children grow so tall
footprints damp in rampant piles
colors bright for just a while