Oh Mr. Coal...

"Mick was not addicted to liquor, he did not crave whisky. Nature had given him too much strength and energy, and he was too healthy in body and soul to become a slave to the baneful habit of drinking. But people talked over drinks, and now more than ever Mandy felt the need to talk. How else to get along with people, he didn't know."

- 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗽𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 "𝗕𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗗𝗮𝘆𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁", 𝗝𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗟𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗼𝗻

Thank you for your patience, guys Finished! The upper part of the fifth page of my comic

a texan’s unofficial guide to writing a southern accent

Obligatory disclaimer that southern accents vary significantly, and I can speak on a general Texas accent. Also, this is nit-picky, so don’t take it too seriously. Mostly just “hey here’s some fun ways to make your writing more realistic.”

1) Most people writing a southern accent love to use “ain’t” and “y’all”. Great start, but when those terms are surrounded by non-contracted words, it starts to lose the accent (and look a little funky). Think “how’re y’all doing” rather than “how are y’all doing.”

1.5) “Ain’t” is often paired with “nothin’”. “There ain’t nothin’ wrong with that” vs. “There isn’t anything wrong with that.”

2) Southern accents don’t only drop the last letter on -ing. “Something” becoming “somethin’” is definitely accurate, but I also hear a lot of “around” becoming “‘round” and similar things.

2.5) On a slightly related note, if you’re doing a southern accent, keep in mind that the way someone writes out words “in a southern accent” does not always reflect how it would be pronounced. “Somethin’” is nice short-hand for “oh this is dropping off that sound at the end,” but I usually hear it pronounced like “suh-mn” (which is unreadable and bad for writing). I don’t even have a strong accent, and I do this.

3) There’s a lot of jargon! I’m not sure if this is specific to my region or more general, but a common one I hear a lot is “fixin’ to” as a substitute for “going to.” Like “I’m fixin’ to start dinner” rather than “I’m going to start dinner.” In addition, theres a whole world of fun southern terms and phrases (big fan of “oh, bless his heart” as a patronizing, fake nicety). Lots of fun church-themed and farm-themed terms and turns of phrase.

4) “Y’all” is a super common gender-neutral term, but “folks” is used equally in my experience. I’ve heard it used to refer to family (“his folks” to mean “his parents”), to refer to specific communities (“those folks—“), or just as a general substitute for “people” (“folks these days—“).

5) “Howdy!” is severely underused in writing! It’s super common around where I live, and it’s just used as a greeting.

Go forth and have fun!

making aus for ocs are so funny cause like. theyre already in a situation… but what if they were in a DIFFERENT situation

it’s two a.m. i just wanna write and entire story .

anyone else want engie?

also me

but i stay silly! *←said in the most world-weary voice you ever did hear*

Chaotic academia

Is not being able to decide what book to read because you want to read them all at once.

It’s keeping a click eraser in your hair for when you mess up but then forgetting it’s there until the end of the day when you go to lie down in bed and it stabs you in the back of the head.

It’s staying at YOUR SPOT in the library at your uni until the workers kick you out at closing and knowing all their names bc this happens all the time.

It’s spending way more than you can afford on used books you can’t help but buy because they’re your comfort, your company.

It’s sitting out in the middle of the street at night and breathing deeply and the feel of the pavement under your hands and the sounds of the darkness and just wanting to stop, to think, to feel something, anything at all because you’re so inexplicably numb and you just want to be still, to be present in that moment

It’s changing your major four five six times and having crises about what you want to do in life and getting pissed because damn it i want to do it all; I want to study chemistry and latin and history and archaeology and paleontology and literature and Celtic history and music because there’s so many incredible things to learn in the world but I just don’t have the time to do all of them so don’t waste a single fucking second doing what you don’t love lest you look back on life with regret