#katwylder

[infinityactual]

Blue Team trolls John and Lasky at the same time.

[nicolemakes]

NicoleMakes - Picarto

NicoleMakes is live on Picarto.tv! Watch our streamer do Creative stuff and chat with likeminded people. 1109 have watched NicoleMakes’ stream!

Hello followers!  In about 15 minutes I will be streaming some CAD on Picarto.  I will be continuing with a project for my talented friend @katwylder - A super heavy surface to space transport!

[shortlifelongart]

Your reputation: friend to all creatures and flowers

I TRY TO BE! ;____;

[dedalvs]

You've talked before about how authors sometimes make things difficult for a conlanger by just coming up with bits and pieces of a language that need to be worked around. I've got several projects I'd love to do a ton of languages for, but I don't know if I have the skill or time/energy for that part. So if I were to hire a someone for that in the future, how can I make their job *easier*? Or at least not harder than it needs to be?

You could make it easier by working with someone at the beginning, but I know that’s not always possible. What you want to do is create a naming language for each place where you want a language to be in the future. I described how to do that here, and the original essay about creating a naming language is here. In general, though, to make things easier, don’t use too much dialogue (any, if you can avoid it). If you have names of things, make them simple, so you don’t end with something like “His name was Moq, which meant the effervescent one who dances with honeybees and makes sandwiches for friends when they are tired, but only on the weekends in the Feqlengi tongue”. Don’t name the language if you don’t have to, and if you do, try to avoid having it end in -i, -an, -ese, or -ish, unless it’s clearly supposed to be the English version of the name. Don’t use any diacritics except for the following, which may only stand for the specified sounds:

ü [y]

ö [ø]

ä [æ]

Don’t do anything with your romanization at all. The letter should stand for the most obvious sound it should make, according to an English speaker (if you’re writing in English). So none of that “The D is pronounced like the CH in ‘cheese’” nonsense (note: this advice also holds for conlangers). And though this is going to be hard to figure out, try to avoid saying anything in the naming language that could preclude grammatical developments. So if you have something like Mendalk means “Iron Mountain”, and it’s the name of a city, then it’s probably a compound, and probably one of those is going to need to mean “iron”, and the other “mountain”, or something very like it, but if we don’t see any evidence for the ordering, the conlanger can decide later. If we do, then the conlanger has to hope it’s consistent. Also, though, with names like this, you generally don’t see things like articles, so this potential language, at this point, could have definite articles and indefinite articles, or neither, or both. If, on the other hand, you have something like Tun pekali men dalk, which is translated as “We rode to the iron mountain”, then chances are there are probably no definite articles in this language, which means it’s one fewer choice the conlanger gets to make. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it might end up not working down the line for the way the language ends up being, if that makes sense.

Anyway, in general, do as little as possible. But don’t let it slow the writing—either way. After all, we do this on computers, right (the writing)? So if you’re writing something, just do this:

As they passed through the BoboZZZ gate, the air grew cold, and MumuZZZ shuddered, pulling his tepaZZZ scarf tightly about his chin and nose.

So, like, the point is at some point in time you want to have words for these things in some language, but you don’t need them yet. Just write whatever, and add something that allows you to quickly find it later using the “Find” function. I usually do XXX, YYY, ZZZ, AAA, etc. just because. Just needs to be some string that will not accidentally occur in the course of typing. Obviously, it’s best if you can make it consistent, so you could do a “Replace All” without having to go through each one individually, but even if you do, it won’t take that much time—much quicker than if you had to go through by hand, reading every word. Don’t let the conlanging slow down your writing if the conlang is there for the setting.

Oh, but as a side note, if you are having a language, think about it when you use words like “inch”, “foot”, “cup”, “meter”, etc. This is where you can have your conlang do some work for you!

Anyway, just some general advice. And despite the fact that I love language and love conlanging, I really do recommend separating the conlanging and the writing, even if you’re doing both yourself. It feels different to be in a conlanging flow vs. a writing flow, and it’s a shame to have either interrupt the other. Since it’s not difficult to go back and edit things on a computer, there’s really no reason to let yourself get interrupted, unless the particular bit is deathly crucial to the plot (or figuring out elements of the plot is vital to determining how some word is going to sound, or even what tenses you’re going to have, etc.). Personally, I find editing fun! It’s its own thing that feels different from writing. Much of the conlang work can be added afterwards if you have it in mind as you’re writing and can seed the variables throughout your text.

Hope that helps!

[whattheheckisagender]

You'd fall in love with a soft-spoken, but strong-hearted girl who cares deeply about her friends and her tradition, but is willing to defy convention to do what she things is right. Has an interest in obscure magicks. Possibly someone with a floral name like, I dunno... Rose, or Lily, or Daisy.

oh my gods i totally would she absolutely sounds like my type

[sunflowerpaladin]

I'm trying to figure out a D&D character for a friend's game, and I'm having a really hard time picking a class. Do you have any advice? Two other players already have an idea (cleric and warlock). I'm torn between doing something new and playing a non-magic class, or using one of my characters from a previous game.

I’m partially biased because I never play magic users but you should go for a non-magic class! My two favorites are Fighter and Rogue! I’ve never played Barbarian but I think they’re a more complicated non-magic class. But yeah go for something new! 

[naiyion]

I commissioned KatWylder to draw my character Jay and his raven friend. Thanks Kat Wylder.

[infinityactual]

Lasky, for the character ask.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

How I feel about them: -incoherent screaming-

All the people I ship romantically with them: John obvs. Palmer and Miller.

My non-romantic OTP for them: Palmer, full stop, hands down.

My unpopular opinion about them: I'm not sure this counts, but he doesn't like to drink. Afaik it doesn't say anywhere in canon that he does (pls lmk if I'm wrong) but like. God that's such a tired stereotype. He like the very occasional fruity cocktail, and it's a hard stop after two.

Cos after that, his clothes disappear.

One thing I wish would happen/had happened with them in canon: I hope he survives Infinite and gets to do something truly badass. I'd love to see him put his pilot skills to use.