Notes from inside the Archive.

More writing

• Character Development · 17 August 2026

  

  Building Lucien: Generative AI Meets Linguistics, Historical Research, and the Old Storytelling Problem of Creating Someone People Actually Want to Talk To

  Most of this information would be unnecessary in a conventional language-learning product, but it’s indispensable to Lucien.

  6 min read

• Historical Research · 9 April 2026

  Inside Domingo's Bakery

  What the archives told us about flour, price controls, and daily life in a nineteenth-century Mexican city.

  9 min read

• Culture · 21 March 2026

  The Silk Traditions of Suzhou

  Looms, canals, and the seasonal rhythm of a craft that shaped a city's language.

  8 min read

• Accessibility · 2 March 2026

  Designing Accessible Educational Media

  Captions, transcripts, contrast, and motion — treated as design decisions rather than compliance work.

  10 min read

• Behind the Archive · 14 February 2026

  How We Research Every Character

  Primary sources, period dictionaries, and the questions we ask before a character says a word.

  12 min read