Closed Pip's Creative Corner

[Welkamo]

So on another fanfic forum, there was a reading/reviewing event, and I... may have written 104 reviews/37,330 words and read 192 chapters. Fun times. Now here are my recommendations:

White Swan, Black Swan by @Sinderella
I should say right off the bat that this fic touches on some heavier topics, particularly sexual assault, toxic relationships, and drug dealing. But if you are able to handle the subject matter, I can't recommend it enough. It's a thrilling story that gives campy edge vibes that I LOVE. It's about two best friends, Noel and Odette, investigating deep into the Kalosian drug epidemic, finding out that things are certainly not what they seem...

26 Years by bluesidra
A story about family, identity, image, and trauma. But also about time travel. During the Darkest Day, Leon and Hanako are sent back 26 years to the Johto of the past. As they travel the region in search of answers, they also search through their own pasts and traumas. Oh also Morty is here and he's the best character ever. 10/10.

tarnishing by @kyeugh
Came for trans!Silver, stayed for some wonderful character interpretations and themes of trauma. It's an origin story for Silver that hits a lot of my buttons in terms of subject matter and themes. A highly emotional read with bite-sized chapters.

A Comprehensive Guide to Items in the World of Pokemon by @IFBench
Bench is such an inspiration to me in terms of worldbuilding. Their writing is charming and full of character, and it's clear they put a lot of thought into their worldbuilding. This little collection is focused on items, centering mostly on PMD items. The personal anecdotes from the POV character are super fun and add a lot of life to the fic.

 

[Welkamo]

I'm here to inform all of you that Pretty Princess Party is a game that exists and more people should be playing.

Developed by Nippon Columbia, it's a Switch game with the home design elements of Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, the cute and colourful aesthetics of a magical girl anime or Disney Magical World, and a charm all its own. I've been having a lot of fun with it. Screenshots incoming.

 

[Welkamo]

Foreword
As some of you who've read my fanfictions know, I write a lot of Hoenn headcanons. A lot. I also have a worldbuilding for Sootopolis City and its culture—its religion, its cuisine, its history, and its language... kind of. In my head, Sootopolis's language is "a mix of Greek and Japanese", but up until now, I never really thought about what exactly that means.

And then this video came up in my YouTube recommendations, which reignited my special interest in languages (well, that and buying language books at Barnes & Noble) and the motivation to figure out the Torchic Sootopolitan language. And then I found this series on making Creole conlang languages, and now here we are.

So uh... welcome.

But like... what do these words mean????
Sometimes groups of people with different languages interact, and sometimes these groups need to communicate with each other. In order to communicate, these groups will develop a pidgin language, which is a combination of two or more languages with very simplified grammar and vocabulary. Sometimes, though, a pidgin will survive long enough to develop more and more, and once the pidgin has native speakers, it becomes a creole language.

Greek is a language of the Indo European family. It's the native language of Greece, a country in Southeast Europe. It has about 13.5 million native speakers.

Japanese is a language of the Japonic family (most consider Japanese to be a language isolate, or a part of the very small Japonic family alongside the Ryukyuan languages). It's the native language of Japan, a country in East Asia. It has about 128 million native speakers.

Most languages develop naturally across time. A conlang (constructed language), meanwhile, is deliberately constructed. Conlangs are often seen in fiction, such as Klingon and Elvish.

 

[Welkamo]

Vowel Power...el
This was the easiest part, lol. I did learn a lot about phonology (the branch of linguistics that focuses on phonetics, which is, like, mouth sounds), so lemme share that.

Before you say it, yes this is from Wikipedia. Shut. Shut up. Many Wikipedia articles list sources it's okay GO AWAY ENGLISH TEACHERS—

This is a vowel chart. You probably know the vowels a, e, i, o, and u (and sometimes y but that's English vowels not vowel linguistics so it's not a vowel now), but there's a lot of vocal nuances in how vowels are said across languages, and several languages have more than 5/6 vowel sounds. That doesn't matter now, because the chart we're looking at is:

If this looks complicated, don't worry. It's just a fancy way of saying "the vowels are almost the exact same to the point that I'm just going to favour the Greek pronunciations in blue because that would realistically be the simpler and more common pronunciation because reasons."

Consonants are where it gets... complicated.

 

[Welkamo]

Complicated Consonants (not anymore!)

In contrast to vowels, which are produced with an open vocal tract, consonants are produced with a partially or fully closed vocal tract.

One day I will organize this into, like, those charts you see on the phonology Wikipedia articles, but that... is a headache for another time.

Oh also the second column is how each sound is written.

I did remove some sounds from both languages but if I really really need them I can add them later. Sometimes conlangs work on a matter of removing rather than adding.

 

[Welkamo]

So I have time to do stuff again. Let's organize my Pokémon cards.

I have a lot of cards. A. Lot. I had just finished sorting through one binder when I found ANOTHER binder of Pokémon cards. Oof. Some of these cards were from @columboisreal, some of them were from another friend, and some of them were ones I got myself.

Anyway, here are my favourites.

Spoiler: Swablu

https://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/5/5d/SwabluEmeraldBreak59.jpg

Look at this FAT. BIRD. Look how happy this birby is. The joy and innocence on a summer's day.

Spoiler: Chansey

https://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/a/a9/ChanseyIslandsAwaitYou42.jpg

I love that stupid smile.

Spoiler: Minccino

File:MinccinoLegendaryTreasures104.jpg - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

This. This is the thesis of Pokémon. The bonds between humans and Pokémon.​

 

[Welkamo]

So on a whim I made a ship tournament bracket and decided... why not unleash this on you guys
( @sleepwick this is your and your bracket's fault /lh)

Spoiler

Basically basically I will start with the matchups on the left side. 1v1 (or 2v2 I guess lol), wherein you vote for the pairing you prefer more. The one with the most votes by Nov. 6, 6:00 PST (give or take) moves on to the next round.

ROUND ONE (for ease of clarity)
Wallace/Nessa VS Wallace/Clair
Wallace/Archie VS Wallace/Lucy
Wallace/Volo VS Wallace/Grusha
Wallace/Siebold VS Wallace/Diantha
Wallace/Grant VS Wallace Tucker
Wallace/Sabrina VS Wallace/Malva
Wallace/Lance VS Wallace/Cynthia
Wallace/Harley VS Wallace Melli

(Smash announcer: ready? GO!)

 

[Welkamo]

Hey maybe I should do my headcanons here (requests OPEN)

So you can find your favorite headcanons

forums.bulbagarden.net

Reposting from my fanfic blog because I talked about making the conlang here more so than I did there.