#kitashvi

“Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you’ve written, then pass on to at least five other writers.”

Tagged by @distracteddream!

1.) Psychopomp (Space Australians)

For a really new fandom (micro-fandom, maybe, only time will tell). I really like this work, and it was fun to write something for a fandom that’s still so new there’s very few canonical characters.

2) Justified King (Yu-Gi-Oh!)

One thing I’ve found intriguing is standing at the end of canon and writing about its very beginnings. Hindsight almost always brings up new points of view, and it’s 20/20 in a way that reveals more crucial nuances than writing events as they happen. Yugi is, as always, one of my favourite characters to write because of that - and I love the unique speculation of knowing the ending and figuring out what happened to get to that ending.

3.) My Name (Yu-Gi-Oh!)

A self-prompted work. Though it’s short (meant more for the tumblr medium on which I originally wrote it than AO3), I liked the subversive nature of it - which character am I writing, really? It’s a challenge to the fandom, as most of my works are, about what truly defines a character, and where the edges blur.

4.) Baku-Ra (Yu-Gi-Oh!)

It’s such a silly title - and punny, an entertaining combination. The work, however, is not so silly, even if it gets a little tongue-in-cheek at times. In this one I dabbled some more in Slice of Life themes with the little details, and attempted to use it as both backdrop and a means to spur the plot on. The results were admittedly a bit mixed, but it’s a topic I had been wanting to write for a while.

5.) Riddling for Mettle (The Hobbit)

What if what if what if. It’s a common theme for me to puzzle over, and a hallmark in the fanfiction genre at large. I picked this one over Primroses because- well, why didn’t Bilbo do this? The gaining of the One Ring is such a momentous occasion that it hangs on a knife-edge balance. Literally anything could have happened, and it made me wonder why Tolkien wrote it the way he did. Certainly Bilbo could have gotten the Ring one way or another, but what are the other ways? As it is, I also enjoyed the opportunity to explore the social dynamics of the Company, and how Bilbo in particular fits into it.

Dayum *rolls up sleeves* All right, let’s do this.

1) What’s your native language? English.3) What language(s) are you currently studying? Zulu and Japanese. Well, I’ve put a pause on Japanese for a year while I’ve been studying to get my Matric because that many subjects is too much. I will carry on with studying it properly when I graduate. Still studying Zulu though.5) Do your friends speak other languages? Most of the people I know are multilingual. Hell, where I come from people only speaking one language are in the minority.7) What do you call your favourite animals in your target language? I love dogs and penguins! In Zulu a dog is “inja” and in Japanese it is “inu”. The Zulu word for penguin is “iphengwini” and in Japanese it’s “Pengin”. Basically in Zulu and Japanese they use the same words as in English but with a different accent.9) How long have you studied your target languages? Zulu it’s only been a few months and Japanese...I had to study it on and off so that’s a little harder to place but I started when I was nineteen or twenty.11) What’s the funniest word in your target language? I don’t know if this is funniest to say or funniest meaning. In Zulu I think the word “Nini” is kinda cute though. It means “When”.13) One thing you dislike about your target and/or native language? When it comes to Zulu, the concords are killing me.15) Why are you learning your target languages? I started language learning because I desperately needed a hobby that made me feel productive and like I was accomplishing something. I started Japanese thanks to my obsession with Japanese video games. I was always so bummed out about all the amazing games I could not play because I didn’t understand the language. My reasons for studying Zulu are more practical and less like a weeaboo. I have to pass a Zulu exam or I can’t graduate high school and knowing Zulu would greatly help me get work. I’ve missed out on so many jobs because I don’t know the language. Also, not knowing the native language of the country I live in feels very disrespectful. 17) What was/is the first language you want/ed to learn? Russian. I liked how it sounded. Never got around to it though. 19) Do you listen to music in your target languages? If so, who are your favourite artists? I listen to Zulu radio and have no favourite artists and with Japanese I like to listen to covers of Vocaloid songs. I quite like Reol.21) What’s your favourite method of studying? I was actually gonna make an entire post about this so I will get back to you on it. Just so you know, it involves YGO.23) Favourite blog in your target language(s)? There are no Zulu blogs and I haven’t found many ones only in Japanese. I follow a few fanartists though. 25) Ever speak to your pets in your target language? Other people do this too?! I mean, what, no, that would be weird.27) How do people usually react when you mention that you’re studying your target language(s)? Do their reactions annoy you? Make you happy? They tend to be positive. My mom was annoyed with me studying Zulu though. Thinks it’s too hard. Thanks for the vote of confidence, Ma.29) Do you have any advice for someone who’s never studied a language before? Shit, fam, don’t do it, it’s not worth the pain! Save yourself! Get out! RUN!31) Are there dialects in your country? Do you speak one? This is a bit of a confusing and complicated one for me to answer. So I won’t,33) Doyou ever want to have a career in languages? I think being a translator would be amazing. Actually, I want to be a game developer and one of the things that keeps me going when it comes to studying languages is being able to translate my games into that language to make them more widely accessible to others. 35) Doyou have any big travel plans for the future? Well, I would definitely like to travel one day. Not sure if that will ever happen though. 37) Doyou know any obscure/useless words in your target language(s)? I might know a few in Japanese...thank you, Japanese YGO manga and YGO video games.39) What’sthe most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you while studying your target language(s)? I once tried to say “Why is your penis on the table?” in Zulu and accidentally said “Why is MY penis on the table”. 41) Haveyou ever had a negative experience with a native? The two biggest bullies I had when I was in Senior Primary where Zulu speakers. I ended up punching one of them. I think I was ten.43) Tell me about your best friend in your target language(s)! I will only speak about them in Japanese because there is something I have forgotten how to say in Zulu and I am too tired to check my textbook. Me being tired is also why I only wrote two sentences. サムはかっこいいです。でもミアは変態だけです。45) Doyou ever think in your target language(s)? Odd sentences here and there.47) Have you ever met a stranger in public with whom you spoke your target language(s)? I meet Zulu speakers every day.49) Doyou have any language pet peeves? We could be here all day with me going on about them.

I really only have one WIP at the moment, so some of these will already be answered in this ask.

2: Post a line from your WIP with no context.

A vacation, though, now that was a productive distraction; he’d even packed his fishing gear in anticipation of some prime time relaxing.

4: Describe the setting of your WIP.

Answered!

6: Search for the word “dream” in your WIP. If you find it, paste the line and explain the context.

Daydreaming, he has also heard it called, but Teal’c found the term difficult to agree with given the memories currently marching under his closed eyes.

Not much to explain this one, unless I give away the rest of the paragraph and thus the story - Teal'c's just being rather introspective right now.

Let! Her! Say! MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

oy i’m sorry about #2 did you mean from glorious to transcendent? because i’m like 98% certain that’s what you meant

embrace the suffering and become a tortured writer who has to scribble everything in notebook margins and then curse out their own terrible handwriting when they have to transcribe everything later? (speaking from personal experience? me?)

i actually have worked in notebooks at work. i’ve been gifted like a bagillion of those tiny moleskin notebooks over the years, and have wept sadly each time, because my thoughts...are not important enough for notebooks that cost more than three dollars. so i end up never using them ever. (also, the spacing between the lines is like half a space too big for me, and i really just wish stuff in america came printed in grids or just with no lines at all so that i could adjust my handwriting size to my preference. half of my buying notebooks/journals process here is just me opening notebook after notebook in the shop, checking the line spacing, sighing heavily, and putting it back. then, i find the one that is perfect internally, but it’s got like a badass dragon on the cover that is rad as hell, but not professional enough to carry around and have people consider me Grown)

anyway, i used to work part-time in a school, so also i have some commandeered schoolchild-type notebooks i use to draw up endless charts, chapter by chapter, in my more complicated stories where it’s way hard to keep up with who knows what at a given time. i use smaller, more agenda-like notebooks [and those bagillion baby moleskins, reluctantly] to do finer detail stuff, like work out character motivations or invent kurta idioms or plot chess moves, depending the fic project du jour. i also fill them with coded spanglish so that no-one else totally understands them if they look over my shoulder because my coworkers in most of my jobs have always been fairly staunch “American” speakers. so hey, even if someone does one day call me out for plotting fanfiction on the clock, i’m just gonna applaud real slow and be like “you...you had to really try to understand that that’s what i’m actually doing right now, friend, so i’m not even mad. i’m just really impressed as well as on the verge of mega creeped out by your dedication to getting all up in my business like this. daaaamn.”

notichiman replied to this post where i reveal that fluffy romance is not my forte:

This is why I love your fanfics my dude

leopika is not my happy place, what can i say

@fish-tetris also replied to the same post about my romance fic failure:

:D :D :D :D

the console itself is around 400$ (like 5100 rand, i think? can’t remember if my conversion is right), and the actual games depend on where you buy them, but i’ve seen them usually retail around 30$-50$ (380-640). definitely cheaper if you buy online from like ebay versus an actual store like gamestop