#because no one in my family pronounces it the portuguese way

[strawbeb]

it’s always so funny when i have to explain to people that the reason i have a portuguese surname, despite not being portuguese, is because they colonised my country. it’s extra funny when the person is portuguese themselves. like you’re trying to find solidarity with someone who is, presumably, from the same country as you, which is nice. unfortunately, my ancestors were executed by the portuguese for rebelling against them

[ryuusei-niu]

I want to talk about Leo and spanish, because I see a lot of "bilingual Leo" that doesn't make much sense.

Soooo, let me start with this: Leo was not born in a country that speaks Spanish. And only his family talked Spanish. Therefore he would know what the language is like.

But let's not forget that he lives in a place where people speak English.

Well, let me explain this theory based on my life:

I'm argentinian but my mother is Brasilian. Since I was little, Portuguese was spoken in my house. Portuguese was my first language because we were moving to Brazil and I spoke fluent Portuguese until I was 6 years old. But then we stayed at Argentina. So, I had a lot of problems because I did understand Spanish, but I had a lot of mispronunciation and I mixed words between Spanish and Portugues. Over time I had to adapt to speaking Spanish full time, almost completely forgetting Portuguese. Nowadays I'm almost 19 and I haven't spoken Portuguese for years, but there are a lot of words that I thought my whole life were Spanish and weren't.

Based on Leo's story, he might be similar to me in this stuff.

Having said this, let me tell you situations that happen to me with Portuguese that I think would happen to Leo with Spanish:

He forgot how to form complete sentences in Spanish. And even when he tries to relearn Spanish, it is difficult for him and he can't speak or write things in Spanish.

He almost completely understands if someone speaks Spanish to him, though. Maybe he would miss some words but he understands a lot reading or hearing.

He has Spanish words that he always thought were English.

"And then we went to the ferretería and... Why are you looking at me like that... I said something in Spanish again, didn't I?" "Yeah, you did."

Piper and Jason got used to it and know the words he always gets confused.

And there are other words that he refuses to say in English, probably the most common ones, just because he likes how it sound at Spanish.

So whenever he needs to talk about it, he asks Jason or Piper to do it for him.

"I want the... Jason, fresa" "Strawberry flavor, please" "Thank u so much, man"

There are a lot of words that sound funny in English because they resemble words in Spanish

"I'm embarrassed." "You're embarazaste?" "...Yes?" "Wow, Frank, what are you going to name the baby?" "I hate you very much."

Mispronunciations everywhere. But it's something that happens some days. But when it happens it is horribly noticeable.

I mean, he does speak English very well. But sometimes...

SOME LETTERS ARE REALLY DIFFICULT TO HIM SOMETIMES.

People bullied him when he started school because he mispronounced some letters. Like R.

(I think he would have the opposite problem than me, since I was pronouncing the r very soft or as a j without meaning to because in some Portuguese words it sounds like that. So I guess he would have a very strong R.)

Sometimes he would get angry with his mother for instilling Spanish in him so much and that's why the kids make fun of him for talk like that.

Now he miss that his mother speak in Spanish to him.

"DIOS MÍO.", "POR DIOS, JASON", "CHIN", "CARAJO", "JESÚS, MARÍA Y TODOS LOS SANTOS".

Sometimes he says a lot of things in Spanish and makes it seem like he knows how to say them but in reality he used the translator.

"is that a Spanish dictionary...?" "*Kick it under the bed* No, of course not, why would I have one? I know Spanish, muy bueno. Mucho."

"It's very plane." "What? It is not a plane, Leo." "Yeah it is? Like, It is not curved, it has no disturbances. Plane surface." "FLAT, LEO." "NO WAY IT IS THAT. THEN WHAT DOES PLANE MEAN?!#@+$-1(?!"

Now he understands why people looked weirdly at him when he said plane.

He also forget words in Spanish and remember them in English. When this happens he stares at the space and feels his whole soul had lost its essence.

'espanish'

As Spanish speaker, it's very difficult to say 'isn't'. #Team It is not.

"Taired. Terid. Teerid. Tarid. Tæ—" "Tired." "That thing."

"you know, the— the thing. El coso. The coso of the cosito of the cosa—" "You forgot in Spanish too, right?" "Shut up."

SONGS. MEXICAN SONGS THAT HIS MOTHER LISTENED BECAUSE HIS GRANDFATHER LISTENED BECAUSE THEM MAKE HIM REMEMBER HIS HOME.

He doesn't know most of this song, he never listen to this song like, wanting to. They were on the radio, or a CD that his mother was playing while working. But he has those songs on his soul and he recognizes most of them. He even knows how to sing them even if he didn't read the lyrics.

(I'm not Mexican, so please I want Mexican people to make a playlist of which songs he would know. Please I need to know)

He sometimes hears Nico speaking in Italian and for a moment he is there processing because he thought it was Spanish.

(also, this whole thing could apply to Nico and Italian).

[hiwelcometothemonstersancturary]

Kickin and the Worldwide Communication Errors

This takes place in the "Angel saves everyone" AU, around a year post-game! Kickin and Hoppy have an argument over who knows brazilian portuguese more, and things get funky when he has the chance to prove himself to the others. No warnings necessary except for some swear words here and there. This work has been requested/commissioned by @jmr0303 as a way of supporting me. Thank you so much!

“EU SOU O MELHOR FALADOR DE PORTUGUÊS DESSA CASA!”

Kickin’s yell echoed through the house. There, standing straight on the sofa and pointing directly at everyone else below him, he felt like he might as well have worn the argument just by dramatics alone. He was the king of the living room, an unstoppable force in the art of speaking their parent’s native language, the…

“É ‘falante’, não ‘falador’”.

Kickin blinked, staring down at Hoppy. She crossed her arms, lying against the armchair, while Boxy Boo sat next to her on the floor, drawing something with his crayons. To add insult to injury, Hoppy was smirking.

“Face it, Kicks”, she pointed at him. “I’m the best”.

“Não é, não!”, he groaned, trying to pronounce each and every word as best as he physically could. “If we don’t count dad, I’m the best. I started learning way before you!”

“You could have started learning three decades ago, and it still wouldn’t matter. You gotta use your brain to do this sort of thing. Not like you would know that!”

“Says the girl who doesn’t know how to write the right porquê!”

“Says the chicken who has to ask dad to speak slowly so he can understand how to say hi in Portuguese”.

“… Says the giant bunny who still has to clean the play room for me”.

“Dad!”

Kickin jumped out of the sofa in instinct, already fearing trouble. Angel popped up from the entrance that led to the kitchen, their talent for scaring everyone getting the best of him yet again. Kickin had a theory that the reason why Angel of all people always scared him was because they had some sort of “parental power” or something like that. It was embarrassing. He had dealt with worse things than them! But, hey, at least Hoppy also got scared, and now she was looking away from their dad, which meant one thing:

Kickin won the argument. Hah. HAH!

“Go on, girl, you can do it”, their parent continued, scratching the girl’s head. “Can you help ya sister for me, Boo-Boo? I’ll put your drawings away for ya”.

Boxy purred in affirmation, happily spinning in place.

“Great. Kicks, could you turn on the lights outside? It’s getting kinda foggy, and I don’t want Theo to get lost on his way back home again. You know how he is…”

Kickin nodded: “Yes, sir!”, he smirked. “On my way! Good luck with cleaning your mess, Hoppsy”.

Angel was too confused to ask him what that was about, but Hoppy blew a raspberry at him, marching out of the living room. Heh, that was the price she deserved to pay for interrupting him and Bubba’s weekly walk through the woods that one time…

Speaking of woods. Kickin didn’t know it at that moment, but his knowledge of Portuguese would be challenged very, very quickly, as the world’s most lost man had just appeared in the family farm’s vicinity.

The man’s name was Francisco, also nicknamed Fran by his friends. He was just a tourist on vacation for a few weeks, wanting to experience the beauty of nature while hiking, and maybe even bring a souvenir or two back to his family, all the way back in Portugal. He was in the USA with a few friends, hikers just like him.

He, however, wasn’t at the farm with a few friends, hikers just like him.

Fran had taken a pause, a very quick pause, mind you, just to take a break from hiking. It was a pretty safe trail, so the group decided to go ahead and meet him in another spot. Which was a thing that he could do, mind you, and a thing that he had done before, mind you (!), if it wasn’t for the fact the world’s thickest and densest fog to ever exist on planet Earth had just settled in all around him.

The man couldn’t even distinguish what was right in front of him. It was a miracle that he could barely see his own feet! How was he supposed to go back now? He sung to himself in an attempt to calm down his own mind, but after the first few minutes of trying to find out where was he, Francisco found out that maybe he was outside the trail. And then he retraced his steps, and the minutes that would have taken him to go back turned into a whole hour, and he still had no idea where he was. Him singing Nevoeiro certainly wasn’t helping his case. Francisco was thinking about just accepting defeat and wait for the fog to go away when a miracle happened.

There, in the distance, a series of lights popped up. Lights! In the middle of a forest! It didn’t take him much to decide to approach them, and, next thing he knew (after almost falling down quite a few times), he was on what seemed to be the backyard of a… Farmhouse? So close to the trail? Well, it looked like one, so it must be one, right? It’s not like he had many options, regardless.

Oh. Speaking of options…

He was running out of them. Sure, Francisco knew the basic basics of English, he knew how to say “hi” and “how are you” and “the books are on the table”, but asides from that, only God himself could help him. Or, well, his phrasebook could, if he hadn’t left it with one of his friends. What was he thinking?! Okay, he wasn’t planning to get lost, which is fair, but now he is lost, and he barely knows his English, how was he even supposed to explain his situation, and oh God, what was that sound?!

And now, we circle all the way back to Kickin, who believed, until five seconds ago, that he was completely alone in the backyard, until he heard someone singing in the distance.

He very quickly noticed a mysterious figure in the fog. Kickin’s vision was pretty good, but he had no idea who that was. Too tall to be Ollie or one of the minis, too small to be anyone else. That was a complete stranger right then, right there! His dad wasn’t expecting a visit, so who…

“Hi! Uh… Help…!”

Kickin squinted at the voice. Just what…

“Help!”

“Who are you?”, he asked, very suspiciously, and not daring to approach.

“Hi!”, oh, wait, he could see that guy better now. “No English. Português? Uh, Portuguese?”

Kickin blinked. That accent… WHAT. A Portuguese speaker popping up in the middle of nowhere just when he just had an argument over his own understanding of the language? Was God or someone blessing him with an opportunity to rub his knowledge on Hoppy’s face? Dang, he was feeling lucky.

Kickin cleared his throat. “Eu falo um pouco!”, he announced to the stranger, hoping that his own accent wasn’t too heavy.

“Meu Deus, que milagre!”

A miracle? Yeah, Kickin could believe that. He gave the stranger a smirk, now finally able to see him: Just a normal-looking guy with a beard, short curly hair and equipped with a big backpack. A hiker, he assumed.

“Meu Deus, nem acredito que também falas português!”, the man approached him, very, very happy. Kickin felt himself squirm, only understanding the “you also speak portuguese!” part. “Ando há horas por aqui! Não faço ideia onde está o meu grupo. Estávamos a caminhar, tive de fazer uma pausa e depois perdi-me. De onde és?”

Uh.

Kickin forced his smile to stay on his face.

What the heck did that guy just say. He spoke way too fast for what the critter was used to! The stranger was… Hiking? And then got lost? Urgh, sounds bad. And that question? Where was he from? Uh…

“… Brasil”, he managed to reply, about saying Brazil instead. “De onde… Você… É?”

NAILED IT.

“Lisboa! O que um brasileiro está aqui a fazer? Perdeu-se? Hah, hah!”

Kickin laughed.

He had no idea what the guy is talking about, but it’s okay, he could CERTAINLY figure it out. Eventually

“Onde estamos? Não é um trilho…”

“... Uh...”

“Uh?”

Okay. What. Kickin rubbed his neck, already irritated at himself. He just understood a bunch of gibberish. Angel did tell him about different accents, but dang, this was hard.

“Que lugar é este?”

AH, YES, YES, YES, HE UNDERSTOOD IT NOW, HAHAHAHAHAHA. Now, all he had to do was answer. Ahem:

“Tamo na fazenda da minha mãe!”

“Fazenda?”, the man tilted his head. “Ah, a quina!”

… What. Kickin swore he had just said “we’re at my mother’s farm”, fazenda means farm, so why is this stranger saying quina? What does quina even mean? Oh, he must have said something wrong. More embarrassed than before, Kickin decided to repeat himself:

“Não, uma fazenda!”

Maybe this was one of those situations where people used a different word for the same thing? A regional stuff? Kickin didn’t know where the heck Lisboa was located at. Brazil was way too big and he didn’t know enough. Argh! Now this felt humiliating! Better redirect the guy to Angel, then:

“A fazenda da minha mãe. Ela pode ajudar você. Ela fala brasi– português melhor do que eu”.

“Ah, que bom, que ótimo, que maravilhoso!”, the stranger nodded, more than happy to know there was someone out there who knew Portuguese better than Kickin did. Hopefully, he could still gloat to Hoppy how good he was getting! “Estou tão feliz que haja uma rapariga que me possa ajudar!”

[something something] happy that there’s a rapariga that can help me?, Kickin thought to himself. What does rapariga mean…?!

He went through his mental dictionary. Rapariga… Reminds me of rapaz. Guy? No, it’s not “guy”.

Rapariga…

Rapariga…

Rapar…

His eyes went wide.

“UMA O QUÊ–”

WHO THE FUCK CALLS SOMEONE’S MOTHER A RAPARIGA?! W-WHAT WAS THIS GUY THINKING?! WHAT?! Kickin grunted, now more angry than ever before. What was he supposed to say? He knew his swear words, but which one should he say?! ARGH, if only he could just punch that guy without causing even more problems–

“Kickin! You okay, kid? What’s taking you so long to… Uh?”

“Mom!”

Kickin approached Angel. Ah, he was so, SO freaking lucky! The human tilted their head in confusion, obviously noticing the guy standing right in front of the critter, but unable to see who was it.

“A hiker got lost”, he explained. “I think, I don’t really care, he just called you a fucking rapariga–”

“A what?”

“A rapariga!”

“… Where is he from?”

“Lis… Lis-boa. Lisboa. What state is it at?”

Kickin’s parent expression changed, going from confusion, to amused. He crossed his arms, feeling even more offended, before Angel opened their mouth:

“Kickin, Lisbon is in Portugal, not Brazil. Let me talk to that g…”

“Oi? Você é a mãe deste rapaz?”

“Sou, sim!”, they nodded at the stranger, just as Kickin was crossing his arms in annoyance and anger. They exchanged a few words that the critter for sure did NOT get, and then. And! THEN!

Angel laughed.

Loudly laughed.

“What’s up?!”, Kickin demanded, annoyed. “Dad!”

“Oh my God–”, Angel wheezed, finally finding the stranger. The man seemed confused, of course he was, HE BETTER BE, but Angel gave him a pat in the back, wiping their tears off: “Desculpa, ainda não ensinei meu filho como que o teu português funciona. Ele achou que você fosse brasileiro”.

“Achou?”, the stranger chuckled. “Ah, me desculpa! Eu não achei que–”

“Ah, não esquenta a cabeça não, fica tranquilo. Só fala mais devagar pra ele entender melhor”.

“Mãe!”, Kickin called again. “O que foi?!”, he demanded right after.

“He was speaking Portugal’s version of Portuguese, Kicks. Rapariga is just ‘lady’ to them. He wasn’t calling me a slut”, Angel shrugged, still giggling.

Kickin could feel his face turning red, despite that not being exactly possible, giving all of his feathers. He felt like an ostrich wanting to burrow their head SOMEWHERE. Damnit, his only opportunity at proving himself, and it was with someone who didn’t even SPEAK Brazilian Portuguese?! Just like that?! Oh, Hoppy was going to be so annoying about this…

And then Kickin noticed that his dad was inviting the stranger to come inside, away from the cold, and now he wanted to die, just imagining Hoppy annoying him. Urgh!

Well! Whatever! He wasn’t a COWARD, he could still show off his skills, now that he knew what the heck was going on. Kickin marched his way inside, more determined than ever, almost not noticing how the hiker seemed surprise at seeing him. The critter guessed the guy didn’t notice he was talking to a giant chicken, somehow. Either the man had poor eyesight, or that fog was really that bad. Regardless, Angel explained that the kids around the house are the ones from the PlayCo. situation, then offered the visitor – Francisco – some coffee.

“Quer pão?”, Kickin offered. Bread always goes along coffee, Angel had taught him, and it would be rude to not offer food.

“Só um cacetinho, por favor”.

Kickin blinked “Um cacete?”

“Pão, Kicks”, Angel corrected him. “That’s how they say it”.

“Cacetinho?’”

“Don’t even try using that word to escape the swear ban around the little ones”.

“Yes, sir”, he nodded,.

Imagine calling something a cacete, Kickin thought to himself. Cacetinho… It’s like calling bread “little fuck”. The fuck..., and then he shook his head, noticing that the younger toys had noticed a stranger in the house. Angel asked the critter to keep an eye out for them, and he accepted the challenge, of course, despite being very annoyed by it. Kickin didn’t want to be just a babysitter! He wanted to learn! Which was extremely weird coming from him, but anyways, he wanted to learn and hear and show EVERYONE what he was REALLY capable of! And maybe make Angel proud in the process or something…?

But, soon enough, everyone noted that the fog had cleared. Not by a lot, but enough for them to see what was up ahead. Francisco left the house and rub the back of his neck, clearly embarrassed. Kickin stared at him, trying not to look too curious (he was too cool for that), while Angel talked something to the hike.

“Parece que o trilho esteve mesmo na minha frente o tempo todo…”, Francisco muttered, thankfully slow enough for Kickin to understand that...

Ah, now that’s embarrassing.

Kickin could see a small pathway close to the woods, a place he had ignored up until that moment. So that was the trail that guy was talking about! It was right there all along! Francisco apparently had wondered around in circles for a whole hour before finding out there was a house right in front of him.

“Consegue voltar desse jeito, Francisco?”, Angel asked the man.

“Consigo, sim. Obrigado pela ajuda, Raphael”.

Angel then gave Kickin a look, and he sighed.

“Desculpa pelo mal-entendido”, Kickin apologised. Francisco shrugged and told him it was no big deal, and, after that, the critter watched as the hiker slowly went back to the trail, safe and sound.

Coincidentally, a small group of three other people popped up in the distance. They gave Francisco headpats and hugs, and Kickin realized that they must be his hiking group, likely going back to rescue their friend. Well, too late for a rescue, but at least they were all reunited. Fran waved back one last time, and then he and the others disappeared back to the trail.

Well, that sure must have been a crazy adventure for Francisco… Kickin hoped he had made a good impression, and wasn’t just a weird overgrown son that couldn’t even say tudo bem without sounding incomprehensible.

“That sure was something!”, Poppy muttered on the window. Kickin hoped no one had seen him jump from her sudden apparition. Was she learning that from Angel?! Really?! Argh! “I had no idea there was a hiking trail right next to us!”

“Me neither, Pops”, Angel went back in, Kickin following behind. “I didn’t know there was even a trail to begin with…”

“I’m worried about it, dad”, the doll continued, still on the window seat. “I don’t think leaving that over there will be a good idea”.

“Yeah, speaking about that. We should make some signs pointing away from the farm. Don’t want people using the ‘sorry, got lost on the trail conveniently close to your house’ excuse to bother you kids. That guy over there got really unlucky…”

Kickin gave Angel a smug smile before pointing at his own chest: “Thankfully, yours truly was there to help!”

His dad playfully shook their head, punching one of his arms in what the critter knew was a very good sign of approval: “Sure did, Kicks. Sure did”.

“Excuse me”.

Kickin never felt unhappier to hear Hoppy’s smug, smug voice. He didn’t even react when she, too, gave him a (playful) punch, this time to the back, and wrapped her arm around his shoulders:

“You call THAT being better at Portuguese than ME? Pffft, a kid would be better than you!”

He rolled his eyes: “At least that guy found ME instead of, I don’t know, CATNAP! I was able to help! What about you, who had your ass stuck on the play room cleaning your own mess?”

“Well, I–”

A loud, loud series of screams echoed in the background. Kickin didn’t recognize it from anyone in the house, and it was far too distant to be coming from WITHIN said house. He felt a momentarily shiver until he and Hoppy exchanged a stare, and, at the same time, realized something very important:

“Oh my God, Catnap found the guy”.

Silence.

They heard even more screams, all very different from the first.

“… And his friends, too”.

Then Hoppy wheezed as a response, and Kickin laughed out loud. Angel sighed (of course), rubbing their temples and quietly praying for a miracle before giving the duo a look, to which they laughed even harder, and now Angel was giggling as well.

Another series of incoherent screaming echoed. It sounded pitiful, to say the least, and that roar? Yeah, Francisco and his friends were in for one hell of a time.

“Look on the bright side, dad!”, Kickin pointed out. “Now the rumors of a giant monster will keep the hikers away from us!”

“Or the rumors of a chicken who can’t even say fazenda will–”

The yellow critter gave Hoppy a well-placed punch in the back, enough for her to feel it, but not strong enough for her to be able to complain. She blew him a raspberry, he returned the gesture, and now, Angel was leaving the house.

“Poppy, you take care of these two, I’m going to take care of Catnap”.

“HEY!”

“Wish me luuuck~!”

And off they went!

[canirove]

Meu Amor | Chapter 17

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Masterlist

"Rúben... Relax" I say, holding his hand.

"I am relaxed."

"No, you are not" I say, trying not to laugh. "You are so tense you may pull a muscle."

"She's right, sir" Paul says. While Rúben is in London, he keeps being the one who drives us around.

"Ok, fine. I'm tense. And nervous. But I'm about to meet your family, a family who happens to be Manchester United supporters. How do you want me to be?"

"I'm sorry" I say, moving to give him a kiss on the cheek. "Did that help?"

"A bit."

"What about doing some breathing exercises?"

"Like the ones women do during labor?" he asks, trying to hide a smile.

"Or when the only lose cobblestone in London attacks you and you twist your ankle. Lucky me, the strongest arms in Portugal caught me."

"What a night that was, uh?" Paul says.

"One I will never forget" Rúben says while kissing my hand, his body already starting to feel a bit more relaxed.

━━━━━━❃━━━━━━  

"Mum? Dad?" I ask when we walk into their house.

"Oh, there you are!" my mum says, coming out of the kitchen and giving me a hug. "And you must be Rúben? Did I pronounce it right?"

"You did, ma'am" he says with a shy smile I had never seen before. Where has my confident Portuguese boy gone?

"Call me Helen, please. It's so nice to finally meet you in person" she says, giving him a hug. "And dear God, you are even bigger than I thought."

"Where is dad?" I ask before she starts drooling over him.

"He had to go out to your uncle's, he had a problem with his car. But come, I'll show you around the house. You can leave your suitcases there" she says, grabbing Rúben by the arm. As they start walking, she turns to look at me, mouthing an "oh my god" and making me roll my eyes.

━━━━━━❃━━━━━━  

"I don't know how you two are gonna fit on your bed, honey" my mother says while we are at my old room.

"It's just one night, we'll manage." Tomorrow the four of us are flying to the south of France, where we will be meeting with my brother and his wife.

"I think your brother's bed is bigger. Let me go check" she says, leaving the room.

"She is... Touchy" Ruben chuckles.

"I told you she was obsessed with your arms."

"It must run in the family."

"Ha ha."

"His bed is as big as yours" my mother says, showing up less than a minute after she left. "So I guess you'll have to squeeze a bit. But I don't think that'll be a problem, uh?" she says with a wink. Who is this woman and where has my mother gone?

"Helen?" my father calls from downstairs.

"Coming!" she says, leaving my room smiling like an idiot. Another thing that must run in the family.

"Sorry about her. I've never seen her behave like that before."

"It's ok" Rúben says, sounding way too serious.

"Are you ok?" I ask, holding his hand.

"Nervous."

"Rúben, I told you it'll be fine. They all like you, my dad included.” Is this how he feels when I say his dad doesn't like me?

"Yes, you are right. C'mon" he says kissing my hand and walking downstairs. Now this is my confident boyfriend, Manchester City's captain.

"So this is him" my dad says when we step into the living room. "Nice to meet you, boy" he says, offering him his hand.

"Sir" Rúben says, taking it.

"That is a good shake. Though with an arm like that..."

Now my dad is also complimenting Rúben's arms. Great.

"Take a sit, I'll bring something to drink. What do you prefer, water or juice? My daughter told me that you don't drink tea or coffee" my mother says.

"Water will be fine. Thank you, Helen."

"Oh, I love the way you say my name" my mother says, leaving the room all flushed.

We were worried about them not liking him, but we should had been worrying about them liking him way too much. Because that's what happened for the rest of the day. My parents were constantly complimenting him, either for his body, for the way he played football, for how well he spoke English ("way better than that Grealish boy", my dad said at one point), and even for his style. I, of course, agreed with all of it, but I am his girlfriend. That's my job, not theirs.

"I'm honestly worried they may try to steal you from me" I say to Rúben while putting on my pajamas.

"They can try" he laughs. "You know I only have eyes for you."

"For now" I say, getting in bed. When it is his turn to do the same, he barely has any space left.

"I think I should have gone in first."

"Ok" I say, trying not to laugh.

Once he is laying in the bed, the space left for me also is almost nonexistent.

"I'm afraid it's gonna be a spoon night. For both of us."

"What an awful way to sleep" he says, moving so I have a bit more of space.

"You can try and joke as much as you want, but I know you'll struggle. So please, try not to kick me out of the bed. I don't want to scare my parents."

"I'll try" he says as he puts one of his big arms around me, pushing me closer to him.

"I love you" he says, kissing my neck.

"I love you too.”

━━━━━━❃━━━━━━  

"Do you ever think, God, how did I get so lucky?" my mum asks me while we watch my dad and Rúben help Paul get all the suitcases on the car.

"Every single day" I say, my eyes fixed on Rúben and the way his muscles move under his t-shirt.

"Your dad is ok too. I guess."

"Mum!" I say, trying not to laugh.

"You could have come help us instead of just staring" my dad says, walking towards us.

"We pack, you put it on the car. Team work. Isn't that right, Rúben?" my mother asks him.

"I..." he mumbles.

"Don't put the boy on that situation" my dad says. "C'mon, let's check if all the doors and windows are locked."

"Yes, my love" she says, grabbing his arm and giving him a kiss on the cheek.

"Do you think we will also be like that in 20 years?" Rúben says once they have disappeared.

"I hope I’m not thirsting about my children's partners.”

"Besides that" he laughs. "Do you think we will still be that in love?"

"And more" I say, throwing my arms around his neck and kissing him.

━━━━━━❃━━━━━━  

When we meet with my brother and his wife in France, their reaction to meeting Rúben is similar to my parents. They are starstruck, and can't stop complimenting his body.

"I'm sorry about my family's behavior" I say to him while we are alone that night.

"Their behavior?"

"Yeah. It's like they just see you as a body and can't stop talking about it. And you are so much more than that."

"I'm used to having that first impression, meu amor. I don't mind."

"Are you sure?"

"I am. You also started to see me as more than just two big strong arms once you got to meet me a bit more, didn't you?"

"I did" I say, blushing.

God, that feels like ages ago. The first dms we shared on Instagram. Our first meeting in London and that stupid cobblestone. Though I may have to end up thanking it for making me fall.

"By the end of this trip, the same would have happened to them. I'm gonna charm them not just with my body, but with my brain and amazing personality too."

"Wow, you are so modest" I chuckle.

"I know" he smiles.

"But you actually are modest. Especially keeping in mind that you are a football player" I say, getting closer to him and hugging him by the waist.

"Thank you?"

"You are modest, and intelligent, polite, sweet, caring..."

"I like what I'm hearing, keep going" he says, hugging me back.

"Saying that makes you a little less modest."

"Well, I'm a football player" he shrugs.

"You are. And you are one of the best out there. On and off the pitch, always supporting your teammates and having a moment for the fans. And you also happen to be extremely hot, super handsome, and a great lover."

"Just great?"

"That just made you lost another point on the modesty category."

"You are the one saying that you are having the best sex of your life, not me."

"Fine" I say, rolling my eyes. "You are the best lover I've ever had. Happy now?"

"Very. But you are missing the most important thing about me."

"Which is?"

"That I'm the luckiest man in the world because I get to love and being loved by you."

"Jesus, Rúben. That's so cheesy. Even for you" I say, laughing and blushing at the same time.

"Just stating the facts" he says before kissing me. And it is a kiss that feels like what he just said. That I'm the luckiest woman in the world because I get to love him and be loved by him.

[a-mag-a-day]

MAG 33 - I think I accidentally skipped this episode during my first run because when I heard it on my second listen I didn't remember any of it, not Tim and not the statement. I think that's also why I totally missed the Lukas family until Peter Lukas himself stepped into the Institute. So… When I first listened to this episode, I was on my way home from the dentist.

"Boatswain" - one of many English words, of which I don't understand why it's pronounced the way it is.

Ha Tim, back when he was still a cheery character.

Oh someone's pissy when they realize they made mistakes…

You hear voices in the background, like the door is open and we can hear all the commotion of a workday in the Institute.

"Ohhh… okay… Alright, so what happens if more than one statement is given on the same day?" - Well, if it's intentional like MAG 39 and 40 it just gets the suffix A and B. But if it's… probably unintentional? (like MAG 15 and MAG 150… though the 1 and 5 coincident is funny…) nothing, just the same statement number.

God, hearing Jon spiraling into the stress of the chaotic Archive pluuuus him feeling that there's something very wrong with some of those statements is really sad to hear…

"It’s getting bad. I mean, Martin keeps showing me his tongue (uncomfortable laugh) and asking if it “looks infested”." - hehehehe

05:06 "container ship", thump… Is some of this intentional? With 4 of these in the previous episode and now again and the statement hasn't even started yet…

"Well, that and my bad Spanish." - ok, the majority in Brazil speaks Portuguese and not Spanish. I tried to google Spanish-speaking regions but all I can find is like, close to borders with Spanish-speaking countries. Porto do Itaqui is not near a border. I thiiiink, I remember them talking about this in a Q&A or something? That this region is Spanish-speaking? However, I did also google Itaqui (without the "Porto do"), which actually is near a border, but it's not the same as Porto do Itaqui!!! XD Porto do Itaqui is in the north of Brazil and Itaqui is in the south bordering to Argentina, which would probably make sense for this region to speak Spanish xDD

Just the nature of this statement, having a work place requiring a group with a secretly creepy boss… Having one space, which will be occupied by another "victim", only to then purposefully get rid of one member to do it all again… It reminds me of Krabat, a German fantasy book by Otfried Preußler (Haaa, get a load of this letter! ß!). It's really cool, if anyone wants to check it out, it's been translated into English and by googling this I found out it's apparently one of Neil Gaiman's favorite scary stories for children! Cool, didn't know that. I grew up with Krabat, so there's that.

"Hell, not being too comfortable around people is a damn fine reason to go to sea." - Yeah but… What if the crew is like reaaaally shitty and then I'm stuck on a fucking boat with them for God knows how long, having to work with them…

21:31 "interesting", thump.

22:27 "Elias", thump (understandable xD).

22:39 "this", thump

22:52 "UK" and "even", thump thump, the hell??

22:58 (twothousandand)"ten", thump…

I propose a new Magnus drinking game: Every time you hear a thump, drink!

It's the eyes surrounding Jon bouncing off the walls

[zoradementio]

Interesting thing I just realized about the Four Lords & Miranda

So, we know that Resident Evil: Village takes place somewhere in Romania. You can tell because the currency in game is Liu, which is the real-life name of Romania’s currency. But when thinking about the Four Lords and Miranda, something struck me as odd. Namely, none of them seem to actually be directly of Romanian decent, at least based off their names. Let’s start with easiest origins to hardest.

Donna Beneviento: Although the surname does not seem like an actual surname (or at lest is not common enough to have been listed on sites like Behind the Name), the origins for both are definitely Italian in origin. Donna, though being a name mostly used in English, comes from the Italian word for “lady”. While Beneviento could come from a few places. For one, it could be taken from a city in Italy called Benevento. Second, it could be a combination of the Italian word for good “bene” and the Spanish word for wind “viento”. And finally, the surname also sounds similar to “benvenuto” an Italian word meaning welcome. Another note is her mother’s name, Claudia. Although the name is used in many different countries, it is included as being both Romanian and Italian. Heck, the name is even pronounced the same between the two (KLOW-dya rather than the English KLAW-dee-ə). This could mean that Donna’s mother was either a village native or a foreigner like presumably her father. Angie is a very similar case. Though the name Angie itself is more of a specifically English name, it is a shortened form of Angela, a name that does again appear in both Italian and Romanian. But for the most part here, all roads lead to Rome(an Italy).

Karl Heisenberg: While the name Karl can come from a a good many places, based on his surname I’d say he’s German. “Heisen” likely comes from the German word “heißen”, meaning to call. Meanwhile, “berg”, meaning mountain, is a common word used in Germanic surnames. Though, to be fair, the reasonings behind the surname could also be aplied to Norwegian as well. But I doubt a surname would uses the word for “the elevator” in it. So yeah, I’d say it’s safe to say he’s German.

Miranda: Since she doesn’t have a surname to worry about, that means we’ve only got to worry about her on a first name basis. Miranda is a name that can be found in both English and Dutch. Now, I can’t be quite sure which side of that to pin her down as. Hell, even the name Eva doesn’t help much as it’s found all over the fucking place. My best guess would be that she leans more towards English decent, but either or could go.

Salvatore Moreau: Here is where we get into the trickier ones. Now, Salvatore, at least based on the spelling, is the Italian variation of Salvador. However, we never got a pronunciation of the name (at least to my knowledge) so it could be either “sal-va-TO-reh” or “sal-va-TOR”, which if it was the later would make the name more similar to a Late Roman version of the name, Salvator (note the lack of terminal e). Though, one other thing to note is that apparently during certain periods of the 1900′s, it was also a relatively popular French name. Thankfully, Moreau is the one surname of the four that actually shows up on Behind the Name. It’s listed as a French diminutive of the Late Roman name Maurus. Based on all that, I would guess that he’s probably French. Frog legs, yum.

Alcina Dimitrescu: Now this is where we truly enter Village of Shadows difficulty here. For one, Alcina is a name that originated in theater, specifically from an opera of the same name. Although the name is sometimes attributed as a feminine version of the Greek Alcinous. Her last name’s origin is not better. Her name comes from “Dimitr” the Slavic rendering of Demeter with the  Romanian patronym, “escu”. On top of all that, in-game, the name is pronounced as if it were French. Her daughter’s names aren’t much help either. Bela, based on how it’s spelled, is either Georgian, Spanish, or Portuguese, Cassandra is English, French, and Greek, and Daniela is all over the place. So, my best guess is that Alcina is either Greek, Slavic, or is actually the only household that actually has any amount of Romanian decent.

“So what?” I hear you ask. “It’s an RE game, it’s not like any of this is actually important.” But there is another aspect I’d like to point out. And that is the names of the other villagers. All of them are Romanian names. Even Elena’s last name, Lupu, is a Romanian surname. So this does beg the question, just why and how did four families find their way to a middle of nowhere village in Romania and establish themselves as the fore-founders of it?

[writingwithcolor]

Hispanic naming conventions

@a-vague-yet-menacing-agency asked:

I had a few questions about Hispanic naming conventions. 

I'm Portuguese so there's a similar (to Spanish) convention with two last names one taken from the mother and one from the father but the order is reversed (mother's name first, then father's) so when Portuguese people come to Canada or the US the mother's surname often becomes a "middle" name and then the father's surname is used as the "last" but both names are kept up to 4 gen. Given the order for Spanish names (father's first) 

I'm assuming if one drops part of the name it never gets added to the middle. Which makes me wonder how "integral" it feels to have both last names instead of just the dad's part. I have several characters this aPos to, but: my surname is hyphenated so I get mad if people leave off half my surname, but older gens of my family used the middle name, they only go by half their last name. Is it reasonable for people to use half if legally they have both? Or do people usually get mad like me?

I’m not as helpful because I am also Portuguese. In Bermuda, the mother’s surname was dropped altogether like in the United States. I’m aware of the tradition, but we have lost it in our family and it makes me mad, too! 

When it comes to names of any kind, I highly encourage correcting them if they make a mistake. I grew up with a difficult to pronounce surname. People use uniqueness as a way to mock immigrants and minorities often. So I remember a list of mocking pronunciations.

I’ve been guilty of mispronunciation a few times myself. The girl who’s name I kept mispronouncing said. “It’s alright.” I stopped our work, took her hands and said, “No, it’s not. One is your name, one is not. It is important you are treated with respect.”

It is important to address this issue in your writing the way you would address it in person. If your character wouldn’t directly address it, but there is internal conflict, show it. If they, like me, would correct themselves or others, show that.

Different areas handle legal naming differently, so if you are writing outside of your country, you’ll have to check the local laws.   

-Laura

Question open to followers. 

[lucy90712]

Mcyts with a Portuguese,Brazilian s/o (hc)

Request: Hi :) Could I request a headcanon for George,Sapnap and Quackity with a s/o or their crush having their first language brazillian portuguese? I don't know why but I think Quackity would do a stream of them speaking spanish and his s/o speaking portuguese since they're smiliar languages but idk ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ thank you <3

~

George:

He would tease you for the way you pronounce somethings wrong or when you can't remember the English word for something. If you are trying to explain a word that you can't think of he will watch you struggle even though he knows what you are trying to say because he finds it funny watching you find every possible way to explain the thing. Eventually he will tell you he knew about 0 minutes ago and you get mad at him but he gives you cuddles to make up for it even though you both no he'll do it again another day.

Although he loves your accent and could listen to you talk for hours on end and he does, any time that you are telling him stories or ranting he won't stop you or even interject so that he can just listen. Sometimes you might get s bit insecure that you are talking too much but he will encourage you to keep going because he just wants to hear your voice. If he can't sleep he will get you to talk to him and play with his hair which sends him right to sleep because your voice calms him.

He would also love trying some of the traditional food from where you are from although he can be kind of picky he is always up to try something once and he likes most of the things you make. He also enjoys going food shopping with you and watching you get excited that they have something you had growing up that you haven't had in years or when they have something new that you have never tried and you try it together once back home.

You also teach him a bunch of words which he can say to people to confuse them most of which are insults but he also learns the Portuguese word for my love and calls you it all the time which you find so endearing especially when he started to call you it and couldn't quite pronounce it correctly but he soon learnt. Try's to get you to teach him swear words but you refuse to because you know that it will work against you in the long run and he knows that too but at least he tried.

Sapnap:

He is so confused when you speak Portuguese to start with and he doesn't understand a word you say for a while so you can say things about him when you are annoyed and tell him it means something else which you do for quite a while but eventually he learns more and you can't get away with it anymore. He is definitely interested in learning Portuguese not only from you but from different apps and loves seeing your face when he says something new that you haven't taught him. One time he told you a full story in Portuguese and you were stunned to say the least but also so proud that he has not only learnt so much but that he is doing it for you.

Would love going to where you/ your family are from to take in the culture and meet some of your family members who just adore him and the effort he makes to speak to them in Portuguese even though they know enough English to speak to him just fine. He is like that with your parents too even though they raised you bilingual he likes to show that he appreciates their heritage which they think is very sweet so he is a big hit with the whole family. His family love you as well because you have taught him so much and they got to see a different side if him when he went to them excited about what he had learned.

Sometimes he likes to try and make you traditional dishes which he isn't as good at but you still appreciate the effort and as time goes on he gets better and occasionally he will make something better than you can. You also try making Greek foods for him so some nights you make each other food and then try it to see how the other did which doesn't always go well and sometimes ends in you just ordering food instead but it was fun trying so who cares.

Quackity:

He would love having you teach him Portuguese while he teaches you Spanish because although they are somewhat similar languages there are still some differences which you both find interesting. Half the time you don't notice the differences until one of you says something and the other has absolutely no clue what they are saying or thinks it means something wildly different. You both have your favourite compliments that you tell each other all the time, in fact they are some of the first things you taught each other. Pet names are also never in English because its just much more fun that way and it feels more heartfelt.

Would get you to do alt Spanish streams with him where you speak Portuguese the whole time and he speaks Spanish, the viewers would love it and feel appreciated when either of you notice them and can speak to them in a language that most streamers can't. It can get a little chaotic when you two try and talk over each other and everything just becomes a jumble of words. Those streams soon become fan favourites because you two are very chaotic but there are also some really cute moments between the both of you which are always clipped and put all over TikTok and you only know that because you often get tagged or see them on your for you page.

You both would make the mistake of telling each other how to say swear words so when you two argue or are ranting there is no stopping either of you from bringing out the best insults you know which normally ends arguments because you both get so creative that you just have to laugh at what the other comes out with. Arguments are never serious when involving you two and they always end with you both cracking up at the other until you have forgotten what you were even arguing about in the first place.

[ducklooney]

Ideas for the second season of Legends of the Three Caballeros

The Legend of Three Caballeros, I have to admit one of my favorite Disney cartoons that I really enjoyed. Unfortunately, that series had a bad fate, because it was not released on Disney channels until it appeared on the Internet three years ago. After that, it was shown at Disney Plus the following year. I expected Lot3c to get a second season two years ago, but it didn’t happen. It will now be streamed to Disney XD in August, and I recommend many to watch this series to get as many views as possible. I thank Matt Danner, many animators and many voice actors for this series which in my opinion was one of the best 2010s series of this era.

 Although Lot3c (short for Legend of the Three Caballeros to Know in the Future) has one season and 13 episodes for now, that series had a great story, lots of adventures, socializing, friendships, fighting villains, as well as classic comedies. I know a lot of people won’t like me saying this, but I liked that series more than the Ducktales reboot, but that’s my opinion. If that series gets more support and more viewers, according to Matt Danner, the main creator of this series, we might get a second season. So, what will the second season be like now? I will say the following about that, and you can help me give me your ideas, what you would like to see in the second season, if we get it.

1.Season Jose (Ze) Carioca

As confirmed by Matt Danner, we would get the second season of Lot3c, with the main focus on Jose (Ze) Carioca. The first season was around Donald Duck, the second would probably be around Jose, and the third season around Panchito. What could we see that season?

My opinion is that if Jose gets his season, we could get that the main place for that season will be Brazil, Jose’s habitat. Jose lives in Rio de Janeiro and there we could see everything from carnival, through football to traveling through the Amazon forest. There would also be a part of the focus on Aracuan Bird, since it is also his birthplace in the Amazon.

I have nothing against Eric Bauza, as he is a great voice actor, but for that season he would need someone who can speak Brazilian Portuguese well, certainly speak English, but with a Brazilian accent. Perhaps the voice actor for Jose could be either Mark La Roya or Bernardo De Paula, having previously starred Jose in Mickey Mouse Cartoons and Ducktales. Also, Jose should finally pronounce his name correctly, as it should sound, and not as it has sounded lately and it is not said (Hose), but Jose (Zose). Brazil is not a Spanish-speaking area, but a Portuguese-speaking area. Here's how his name should sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oktf8JLmSDc

As for the characters that could be in Brazil, I will say in the next part.

2.Characters from Ze Carioca comics

For those who don't know, Ze Carioca has a very good foothold in Brazil, especially in comics where they betray themselves under his name and also Ze has his family and friends and rivals. In a similar way as Donald Duck has his family and friends according to comics in Europe and America, so does Jose Carioca in Brazilian comics. To be honest, I don't know that world that much, nor have I read a lot of comics about them, I mostly learned all that over the internet and by reading some comics, so I have some knowledge about it. Please forgive me for this if I am wrong about the names of Jose's friends and his relatives, as well as about the transcription of their names.

For the second season, if it’s in Brazil, characters from Ze Carioca comics could show up and I’m sure Brazilians would be happy about that. First would be Jose’s friends like Nestor (black crow or bird), Alfonshino (a duck resembling Fethry but a normal duck), Pedrao (an anthropomorphic dog), who could be portrayed there, and they share similar virtues and flaws with Jose and together they entertain and help each other. Donald and Panchito could learn from their friend Jose, how they can have such good friends in their hometowns and keep together, regardless of various changes during their lives.

Next up would be Jose’s rival, Ze Galo (rooster) who sometimes annoys Jose and the two of them are rivals and compete around various things. Not to mention that they clash over the same girl (more on that later). Donald and Panchito would see that Jose's life is not as easy as it seemed and how Jose is a story, because Jose likes to tell his stories in an interesting, romantic and exciting way so as to exaggerate his events, even though those events were not of special significance. They would learn from Ze Galo that Jose is not like that and there might be disappointment, but Donald and Panchito would reconcile with Jose and still be best friends.

Jose's girlfriend Rosihna Maria Vaz (an anthropomorphic species of chicken) who is like Daisy Duck who is a real beauty and the daughter of a rich man (Rocha Vaz). Jose has problems with Rosinha, even though he used to be on good terms with her and Donald would certainly help Jose do that to impress the girl, much like Donald did to Daisy. Let's face it, I'm not forcing Jose to be with Rosinha, Jose may be with Panchito and Donald, as love affairs, but I mentioned Rosihna because she often appears in Brazilian comics. Also, she’s not bad, I’d love for Daisy and she to meet and be best friends. If Donald and Jose can, so can the two of them.

Also, some of Jose's relatives could be present in that series, so that Donald and Panchito would know that Jose has a large family, and Donald would show even more solidarity with him, because Donald also has a lot of relatives. And I would certainly mention the most important members of Jose's family, Jose's nephews Zico and Zeca Carioca, but in the next part.

3. Donald and Jose's nephews (Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck and Zico and Zeca Carioca)

Given that Jose has his nephews who are often present in Brazilian comics, but unlike Donald, Jose sometimes treats his nephews badly. He is not an awful uncle, as awful as he is, but sometimes he allows his nephews to do what they want, even when they should not work according to their age. Jose could learn from Donald how to be a great uncle, because Donald can be good with children (his nephews, also Donald good with Daisy’s nieces, April, May and June Duck). If you could see how well Donald treats Jose's nephews, maybe Jose would be ashamed and learn from Donald how to be a great parent. It could be one good episode around parenting business, because Jose is the only official parent who adopted Zico and Zeca. If Zico and Zeca could show up, Donald’s nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck could also show up. I know, that the original plan was for Donald’s nephews to be Donald’s assistants in Lot3c, but Danner decided to have Daisy’s nieces instead and it’s not a mistake to use them the right way and I liked that. But it is a pity that HDL and AMJ did not appear together, where we would see their rivalry, but also the friendship between the two groups of triplets, it would be interesting and comical to watch. It would also be nice to see them go on adventures with the Cabs, especially to Brazil, where they would meet new friends. HDL would probably be ashamed of how AMJ treats Donald better, unlike them, and they would probably learn how to treat Donald. And to use a classic version, similar to Ducktales 1987, with HDL really sounding like boys and having a childlike spirit in them, but there would also be a difference in traits between them. It would be good to see the friendship between Donald’s and Jose's nephews, because if Donald and Jose can hang out, so can they. That would be good for creating heritage Cabs.

4. Donald's cousins

Donald’s cousins like Gus and Fethry could show up there going on adventures with Donald and meeting Jose and Panchito. They would also be in Brazil where they would meet Jose's friends. I’m not saying this nonsense, because Fethry Duck is very popular in Brazil. A short presence of Gladstone Gander would also be desirable, as his father Goostave Gander is similar to Baron von Sheldgoose, so perhaps the mystery of whether Donald has any blood ties to Sheldgoose would be partially revealed and it would be comical to see.

5. More Adventures and more villains

Well, when traveling to Brazil, there could be adventures through the Amazon forest, but also the discovery of various secret temples and meeting Amazon sorcerers. Xandra would definitely be present there. Except in Brazil, there could be adventures in Latin America (it was already in Nazca and Mexico), as well as meeting new friends and enemies in those areas.

Also, Baron von Sheldgoose and Lord Felldrake with Leopold would go to Babe Jaga and ask her for help. Lord Felldrake wants to get rid of Sheldgoose, but he has to get various artifacts to get rid of him. It might be interesting to see here. Also, Cabs after Latin America, could go to Slavic countries, because Baba Yaga is a witch from Slavic mythology. Cabs in addition to new rivals, could meet new friends. It’s a shame that Disney didn’t create characters that are from Poland and Russia (except for Peter from the movie Peter and the Wolf, there are either villains or third-rate side characters left) that could fit into the Duckverse, and in Poland and Russia and other Slovenian countries have a lot of fans who love Donald Duck and his world. Politics should not be confused with that, but it is not okay to avoid it. Also, adventures in China, Japan and East Asia and India would also be a great idea to get to know their culture. Without the use of politics and ideology. Japanese would surely like this.

The appearance of Green Bat (Jose as a superhero) would be a good occurrence.

The finale of the second season could be the re-release of Felldrake with other dangerous villains, but the end would surely be another victory for the Cabs with their relatives, friends and their nephews.

Of course, these are just my ideas and my suggestions, if you have ideas you can express your opinion here, and you can disagree with me. I would just like it to be the second season of Lot3c, but it all depends on how it will be. I hope it will be, but I’m not sure.

[blissfulalchemist]

OC Name Meaning

Tagged by: @adelaidedrubman to give the meanings of the names of my ocs! Thank you for the tag! Tagging: @belorage​ @florbelles @honeysides @heroofpenamstan @jamesbvchanans @strafethesesinners @agentnatesewell @themysteriouslou @lilwritingraven @johnnycranes @chyrstis @writerofblocks @vasiktomis @i-am-the-balancing-point​ @shallow-gravy @shellibisshe @fadedjacket @lee-by-thy-side and anyone else that wants to! Let me be your excuse!

Catlina: My own creation but a play one the name Catalina meaning “Pure”. Her name was meant to be Catalina but it got misspelled on the birth certificate and she insisted on it being pronounced as it was written. Rojas: Derived from the spanish word for red

Chance: Meaning “good fortune”. Picked by his mother as he was to be her turning point for making a better life. Ruicknar: from my own creation so it didn’t have to simply be Rook. The odd spelling coming from my own last name in having a double O sound.

Lancelot: While in French it means “land” or “servent”, it was picked for the Knight in Arthurian legends. Powell: Derived from Welsh meaning “Son of Hywel” which itself means “Eminent”.

Lizette: From Hebrew origin meaning “God is my oath” or “God’s promise”.  Rojas-Seed: meaning her life has been hell from the get go.

Hypatia: Greek meaning “Highest”, was named after the philospher/mathematician/astronomer Hypatia of Alexandria Caro: Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Jewish (Sephardic and Ashkenazic) meaning “Dear” or “Beloved” Tia: Meaning “Joy”

Constantin: Romanian version of Constantine that derives from the name Constans which means “Constant” or “Steadfast”. Was also named after his father John Constantine, whom his mom slept with because she has a thing for Sting. Enache: Hebrew origin meaning “Comforter” or “Healer”. His family in ages past were the healers of their villages and the name stuck with them.  Conner: Irish origin meaning “Hound Lover”. The irony of his future in ffxiv being Emet-Selch aka Hades’ assistant is not lost on me as many have to go through Conner before being able to talk to the man.

Stasia: Origin Greek meaning “Ressurection”. Stasia has been born again and again in terms of identity and yet it has the sound of stasis which means never changing which is a nice juxtaposition as her downfall is due to her lack of wanting to adapt to a new world in terms of magic. Liana: Hebrew in origin meaning “My God has answered”. Her birth name that she has little ties to now a days. There was no rhyme or reason to the name just needed something a little filler and it ended up working out!

Carly: Meaning “free woman” (from Middle Low German “kerle”) and “warrior”, “army” (from Old High German “heri”). This was so much of a happy accident as at the time that I picked her name she was just a character that was just there and so it was a filler name. But in many ways this fits her from her escaping the abuse of her mother, to being a loyal follower and soldier in Stasia’s army.

Hayat: Arabic meaning “Life”. His father picked the name because when he first laid eyes on Hayat you could just feel the life in him and swore you could see him smile and look around with such wonder. Khademi: Arabic meaning “He who serves and cares”

Clio: Greek meaning “Glory”. In Greek mythology she was one if the nine muses, the goddess of history and heroic poetry. The woman that raised Clio and served as a mother figure gave her her name and followed in the Greek tradition of naming a child after traits one wants to see in their child’s life as the woman had already named her own children after grandparents. The same applies to Clio’s last name and while Clio knows her true last name she keeps the one given to her by her mother figure. Zandra: Greek meaning “Defender of mankind”

Aria: Derived from Italian meaning “Song or Melody”. Was picked by her grandfather in a moment of clarity from his dementia in the days of his wife passing since he couldn’t remember what she picked. She loved listening to the arias in operas, they were her favorite thing like her granddaughter would have been. Dawson: English origin meaning “Son of David”

Sahar: Arabic meaning “Dawn”. She’s the dawn of a new age for Marc from a meta perspective and is the opposite given its association with the sun and Marc being of the moon. In universe though her mother saw her as what could have been a new beginning for her, but would eventually shine her light on the world that her mother at the time couldn’t find. Mahin: Persian meaning “Related to the Moon”. Sahar’s family way way way back were devout followers of Khonshu (one family member even becoming his fist) and kept their name even after the age of that god passed. 

[readersperspective]

Writing Advice Bilingual Characters

As some of you (who read my reviews) already might have noticed, I am bilingual myself. Sadly, multilingual people do not get represented well a lot in media, so yeah... some advice for writing them. It will certainly not capture every aspect of being bilingual, but it might give you a first idea.

There are different ways to be multilingual.

People who grew up with more than one native language will almost certainly speak all of them fluently. Most of them have two (their parents’ language and their country’s language, or the language of one parent and of the other) but I also know a family where the children grew up with four native languages (the mother speaks Portuguese, the father Italian, they talk to each other in English, and live in Germany, where the children grew up)

Some people speak two or more languages, but cannot write all of them - especially when the alphabets are not the same, for example English and Russian or Arabic. This affects mostly children of immigrants.

Some people can read and write a language quite well, but are not good at speaking or listening comprehension. Those people often learned the language at school with a bad teacher or by themselves with books and apps.

Some people, again mostly children and grandchildren of immigrants, can read and understand a language, but don’t speak it. Mostly, the parents decided to not teach the child the language, and they learned it themselves by listening to their parents talk to relatives.

Confidence can play a big role in this. I understand the dialect of my grandparents without a problem, but I would never try to speak it. I can’t even imagine forming those words with my mouth, and it would sound terrible.

People who learnt a language at school can reach completely different levels of that language. I started learning English at age 6 and am completely fluent by now. Other people in my class barely understand more than easy conversations in English.

Most people will do their very best to hide their accents.

If the person is not a native speaker, but fluent in a language, their accent will be a mix of whatever they can find at the moment. Media is a big influence in that.

Since I watch more British than American TV, my accent sounds a bit british, too. When I watched “Call the Midwife”, I often even unconciously copy the accent of Laura Main. I don’t know why her, but my brain just liked it, I guess.

Also, we will use words, phrases and sentence structures from so many different sources.

People who learnt English through the internet (aka most of the younger generation) will have problems to not use swear words when actually being in Great Britain or America. They just do not have the weight for us, since on the internet they get used all the time.

I have never in my whole live heard a multilingual person switch languages mid-sentence on accident.

We will do it on purpose, though, if the other part of the conversation understands both languages.

Also, we will maybe say the word in another language if we forget the meaning.

Multilingual people that are not natives in the language they usually use in their day-to-day life (immigrants, for example) will often count and calculate in their native language. For example at a restaurant where they calculate the price in their head, they will probably do it in their native language.

Conversations with multiple multilingual people can be very different.

If one person only understands one language, they will probably try to include that person by speaking the language they share. I can say from experience, though, that if eight native Germans that have varying levels of English language skills will sit together with one introverted Turkish person with medium English language skills, they will go back to German quite often. It’s not nice, but sadly natural.

In general, people will try to speak in their native language if possible. You can take two people that share a native language and also both speak English and let them walk around in London - they will probably speak their native language, no matter how well they speak English.

Multilingual people that share multiple languages will switch on purpose when they feel like they can express their thoughts better in the other language.

Many languages have taken words from English.

Especially young people take a lot of English filler words and phrases (or insults) and put them into their native language. “Help, mein Deutschlehrer überfordert uns mit Hausaufgaben, like, what the fuck, glaubt der wir haben nichts besseres zu tun?” Is a sentence you would absolutely hear from a German student.

Many young people that don’t live in Great Britain or America will not use these words and phrases around their parents. First of all, our parents often do not speak English as well as we do, but more importantly, our parents do not like us using English instead of ur native language.

Many professions nowadays have an English name, I don’t know why. What used to be a Hausmeister is now a Facility Manager. The longer the English phrase for your profession, the more likely you will not be taken serious by older people.

Once you have more than one native language, you learn new languages more easily, for some reason. I know a girl that speaks 7 languages, at age 20, 5 of them fluently.

"You speak English quite well” or phrases like that said by a native speaker can be the best compliment ever, or more uncomfortable than nice.

When you are translating for your family and hear that sentence, it is super nice.

When you are only speaking English, that sentence indicates that your accent is still heavy. You do not pass as a native speaker.

When you are a native speaker, that sentence is just weird.

You can indentify the people that learnt a language through reading by giving them words that are pronounced untypically.

For years I thought “precious” (a word that is heavily used on the internet, especially in fan communities, but not that much in school) was pronounces pree-ci-ous. I was shocked when I heard it for the first time.

There are situations where even quite fluent non-native speakers will not be able to understand or talk in their second language.

The first few minutes after standing up (although that can change when the person is really fluent)

When they are in great pain

When they are in great fear

When they are under great stress

Sometimes even when they did not use that language in the last few days

Translating in realtime is terribly hard and will fuck your head. When I was on holiday with my parents, I often had to read the information signs in museums or at sights for them and translate. It’s easier when you first read the text and then summarise it in another language, but trying to translate it sentence by sentence is painful and you will question your abilities in both languages.

This gets just more horrible when under pressure. While we were in England, a visibly stressed young woman came to us and asked us if we had 5 pounds, she had lost some money she needed to take the train back home. I repeated her sentence to my father. In English.

Also sorry to the poor worker at McDonalds who I talked English to while speaking German to my English exchange student.

People abroad will absolutely become friends with every person that they hear speaking their language. While being in London, we overheard a man talking to his son in German about taking a photo, and I immediately asked (in German) if I should take a photo of both of them together. We talked for fifteen minutes after that, even though we had never met before.

On that note, in tourist citys the people that try to sell things to tourists usually speak a lot of languages enough to say things like “Oh, I speak a bit of [language], too, but not well. Didn’t pay enough attention in school. You look like nice people.” Makes it so easy to sell things.

Idioms are literally hell. Best example has been in the news currently, with Greta Thunberg literally translating a Swedish idiom in a tweet not realising that “putting someone against a wall” means something totally different in English. 

Idioms will be hell for you as a writer, too, though, as long as you do not fluently speak both of the languages or at least one of them is fictional, because it’s quite easy to mess up if you use idioms that jus aren’t normally used by people speaking that language.

Bilingual puns are amazing, but sadly rare.

Those are the things I thought of first... Maybe you can find some ideas or inspiration there for your characters, too. The best thing of course is to let someone proof-read your character if you are uncertain, but this hopefully already helped you a bit!

[thenamesblurrito]

Cybertronix and accents

So, Cybertronix does have different dialects, most notably those of the colonies, the “founder’s tongue” of the old city-states where insular cultures have created their own version of the planet wide language, and the half code/half dialect junker talk, incredibly mutable and diverse, sometimes practically a foreign language to a junker from just the other side of the same city. Different dialects are still all Cybertronix, and mostly mutually intelligible, but they contribute a lot to perception and personality.

This means, of course, I’m gonna assign human accents to represent the vibes of a character’s speech.

(by the way, if you’re worried that I’m just taking a grab bag of random foreign accents and throwing them around, I’m not. Most of these accents I’ve heard from real people before, usually other uni students or roommates. I’m not just relying on stereotypical media portrayals and bad voice acting, I’m drawing on personal experience and associations with fond memories of my international friends.)

-40′s/50′s American Television Actors Accent: bog-standard “proper” Cybertronix, which of course is mostly just Iacon, Praxus, Polyhex, and Altihex. Upper class society in Rodion also sound like this.

people who sound like this: Orion Pax, Minimus Ambus, Arcee, Blackarachnia and Deadlock but very rough around the edges. Shockwave affects an accent like this to be more acceptable to his audience in the Senate. The Grand Architect technically has this accent, but the most striking thing about his voice is how impassive and intimidating he sounds, rather than his pronunciation.

-Posh Snobbish British Schoolboys Accent: much of Vos, where the higher you go, the more upper class you are, and thus the more posh and snobbish you are.

people who sound like this: Starscream, but he affects a heavier accent than he had as a middle class child. Skywarp and Thundercracker have mostly dropped theirs. Brainstorm, Perceptor. Slipstream has a very posh accent.

-German, But Like Specifically A Bavarian Accent: Tesarus, Helex, and parts of rural Tyrest. A strong, “noble” accent left over from a huge united empire prior to a united Cybertron, still considered a mark of a member of the backbone of society.

people who sound like this: Predaking, Tarantulas, Fort Max, Tailgate, Dion.

-German, But Like Specifically A Westphalian Accent: Tesarus mostly, with some communities in Stanix and groundside Vos. Considered rougher than the more “cultured” version above.

people who sound like this: Blitzwing, Makeshift, Jhiaxus, Shockwave when he gets too emotional or tired and forgets to stay upper class. Forestock also tries to drop this accent, but a lil less successfully.

(I’m also imagining some mix of Standard American German and Pennsylvania Dutch accents to be an in-between blend of standard Cybertronix and thicker Tesaran-style dialects.)

-Swiss French Because I’ll Be Damned Before I Willingly Give Anything Of France To Any Character Of Mine, Even An Accent: Tyrest and some of Praxus, also Crystal City. Lovely and charming, supposedly a mark of someone graceful and benign.

people who sound like this: Councilmember Tyrest, Skyfire, Terminus although he’s lost much of his accent. Prowl, Bluestreak, Smokescreen in his natural voice but he often obfuscates his accent.

-That Brooklyn Or Jersey Accent Where You Pronounce It Like Joizee: lower class Iacon, Polyhex, and most of Rodion. Sometimes called the junker’s accent (which is terribly inaccurate), folks with this accent aren’t going to be lauded by the upper class anytime soon. Full of slang and euphemisms.

people who sound like this: Rumble and Frenzy, Ravage, Powerglide, Swindle. Nightracer, Bludgeon, Wheelie, and Red Alert all have a specific version of this that marks them as junkers. Springer used to, but he’s started copying Prowl’s accent now. Hot Rod to a small degree.

-An Absolute Ace Aussie Accent: Carcer! Which, much like Australia, started as a penal colony that then turned into a regular colony and then a nation proper. It’s younger than the other colonies, and far from Cybertron, so they’re considered kind of backward and stupid, which means anyone with their accent is often automatically dismissed.

people who sound like this: listen I need you to imagine Ariel speaking like Steve Irwin but about to punch a croc instead of wrestle it. Also Obsidian.

-Brazilian, But Like Specifically Recife Accent: Tyger Pax, thickest in the city itself. Very animated and vibrant, super expressive, sometimes criticized for being loud, but it’s also very fun to listen to.

people who sound like this: Jazz, Alpha Trion but he sounds like he’s faking it, First Aid. Rosanna has been touring Cybertron as a pop star for long enough that she needs to deliberately practice her accent to keep it.

-Brazilian, But Like Specifically Southern Accent: Velocitron! Not only is the accent notable, but the speed at which they speak is very distinctive. They gotta say Everything Right Now Immediately.

people who sound like this: Moonracer, Swerve, Blurr (but he’s got a stutter too), Override, Knock Out.

-Portuguese, As In The Country, Which Is Different Than A Brazilian Accent: Eukaris! They speak very casually, unhurried, like a nice warm evening around the dinner table with family.

people who sound like this: Lickety-Split. I haven’t decided who else is from Eukaris yet.

-Sort Of Yiddish, Sort Of Polish, Sort Of Greek, I’m Thinking Specifically Of One Tricultural Friend’s Accent: Much of Tarn, a few parts of Kaon, and bits of Helex. Not wildly different from standard Cybertronix, but strong and heated and very opinionated, a good accent to be angry in.

people who sound like this: Cogman, Wheeljack, Lugnut, Megatron though he’s lost some of it.

-Russian, Not Evil Movie Villain Russian, Just A Real Russian Accent: Kaon and a good half of Tarn. They are very precise with what they mean, but not so much with the grammar and order of their words, which means their precision communication is often lost on outsiders.

people who sound like this: Strika, Damus, Wasp.

-Very Sweet, Folksy Ukrainian Accent: Devisiun! On a colony where everyone is born with siblings, most folks also adopt a pattern of speaking with or over people, especially with family and people they know best. A Cybertronian will consider a Devisian rude for talking in the middle of their sentence, but that’s a normal conversation for a Devisian! They’d consider it rude if the Cybertronian didn’t start responding to them in the middle of their sentence.

people who sound like this: Jetfire and Jetstorm, complete with finishing each other’s sentences.

-Korean Accent, Which Is Actually Closest To The Original Primal Vernacular: Caminus! They held on very tightly to their roots as a colony founded directly by one of the first Primes, so they’ve preserved a version of the first language that, while mutated by usage over the megavorns, is still closely connected to the tongue of the ancients.

people who sound like this: Windblade, Chromia, Firestar, Flareup, Nautica, some people swear Maccadam has a hint of this accent.

-Deep Southern Redneck Bumpkin Drawl From Down On The Range Accent: the moons! Luna 1 and 2 have very similar dialects, and very thick country drawls.

people who sound like this: Ironhide, Cosmos, Bulkhead, Kup uses this one because he picked it up on an early visit to Luna 1 and liked it so he keeps it.

[normal-thoughts-official]

how many languages do you think magnus can speak? (and cat and ragnor and even raphael)

great question!!!! id like to preface this by saying "a lot" cuz tbh i think magnus is the kind of guy who likes to learn languages and who can learn them with relative ease (like seeing the way he pronounced "lorenzo rey" so perfectly i think it indicates to someone having ease with languages you know what i mean? he switched from english to spanish super quick and effortlessly) but the ones i think he definitely speaks:

obviously "indonesian" (indonesian didn't exist at the time he was born but malay, which indonesian derived from, was the universal language in indonesia so ya know)

i like to think he'd speak javanese as well but i think that's kind of unlikely considering how he always implied indonesian/malay to be his first language :/ and if that were his first language then he probably wouldn't have a need to speak javanese. i think it might have been because his stepfather wouldn't want him to be taught javanese, and at the time the dutch colonizers spoke malay with the natives at home and all according to what i've read. but there's also the possibility that he'd learn it later because he'd want to learn his mother's native tongue you know, even if he could no longer speak it with her. maybe sometimes he kind of "prays" to her in javanese. haha im fine

he probably speaks or used to speak (cuz i think after a while it would become rusty esp since he probably only associates it with bad moments/things) dutch even if only a little (again according to my research most mixed families in indonesia in the 17th century spoke malay at home, so) 

he DEFINITELY speaks spanish, and pretty well if the way he pronounced lorenzo rey was any indication (again not only the perfect pronunciation but the very easy switch that would indicate he was very familiar with the language). not to mention it makes sense since he dated imasu (who was peruvian) for quite a while and also raised raphael

obviously he speaks english udhaiudhsa both US american and british english since it was (implied? said?) that he used to live in england before he went to the US

he probably speaks french as it used to be the lingua franca (in the western world) up until 1919

he probably speaks whatever asmodeus' language is? probably some demonic language other than french i mean or whatever. of course asmodeus is probably omnilingual or something of the sort if he can go around having kids with ppl from all around the world in so many different times daiohdajosi but i think he would want magnus to speak... edomese? or something since his plan was always that magnus would rule edom by his side anyway

he probably speaks the seelie language (or at least one of the seelie languages if they have multiple)! whatever that is. i totally think he would want to learn it just because it would make him able to communicate with such a huge amount of people and also would probably make it easier to read some untranslated books on magic, you know, stuff like that. so i can definitely see that being a thing

i like to think he learns quechua for imasu uwu 

i like to think he learnt catarina's native tongue! and that she also learnt malay/indonesian you know daijdaosi because they are soft bitches and they know how lonely it is to not ever be able to speak your native tongue (both due to separation from your land and just the fact that language evolved with time so no one alive REALLY speaks their language you know). they might not be fluent but they know it well enough to hold a conversation or to use pet names and stuff like that

and that's the specifics i have! but again i do believe magnus would like to learn a lot of languages, sometimes just for the shits (hyperfocusing on languages anyone??) esp because he has, you know, infinite time daohdsaoij and i think he would like to learn new languages and speak as many as he could. so yeah i definitely think there are more. he would probably speak most languages that have a lot of speakers like arabic (at least standart arabic), mandarin/chinese, hindi/urdu, bengali, etc. just found out portuguese is the 7th most spoken language in the world so i'm gonna go ahead and hc that he speaks brazilian portuguese (the most common branch) because i: can. and then some just for the shits because he wanted to and/or found them beautiful like swahili, yoruba, guaraní, etc 

i think ragnor only speaks english tbh dajdsaodijaoidsja he seems very Monolingual but maybe it's just the White Anglo vibes that ooze that kind of entitlement doaijdosaj either way i think he would know at least pet names in indonesian/malay, whatever catarina's first language is, and spanish, for his friends. possibly also french because again it used to be the lingua franca up until very recently

catarina i think is definitely like magnus in the sense that she loves learning and speaking new languages! i like to hc her as native african but i haven't really decided on which ethnicity she would be so idk what language that would be. then obviously there is whichever language the colonizers imposed on the country she lived in. then: probably arabic (particularly if she's from north africa), english, indonesian for magnus, spanish for raphael, probably french because lingua franca, and i hc she just likes learning languages from the other native groups near where she's from? i also like to think she likes to learn languages that are at risk of extinction because she thinks it would be such a shame to actually let them die and she knows the pain of seeing ur language be smothered like that. so she speaks a lot of languages with few native speakers and she loves it. she also uses that to learn more about their medicinal practices because you know, she IS a nurse AND a warlock and there's so much to learn you know. also good opportunity to use her knowledge :) so yeah

as for raphael i think he only speaks english and spanish, as well as indonesian and cat's native tongue. he hasn't lived as long as they have and he's been busy and struggling(tm) for a lot of his life so he hasn't had the time to learn as many languages as they do. i think over time he would also want to learn yiddish for simon and meliorn's language because i can and will shove the polycule wherever i can lmao. and yeah that's what i have :) thanks for asking, i had fun with this

[victimhood]

Characters and Languages in my TOG football AU

For context, this is the universe within my fanfic The Beautiful Game. This is a post I’ve wanted to make for some time, based off the fact that:

1) In The Old Guard canon, we know our characters speak many languages

2) Elite football is one of the few professions where people pick up multiple languages by necessity, for communicating with staff, teammates etc. Just look at how impressive Romelu Lukaku is.

And so, just for my own nerdy benefit, here goes:

Andy: English, French, Ukrainian, Russian (+ learning Italian for her new job)

I regret not being able to flesh Andy out more in my fic, but Andy is Ukrainian and also holds a Canadian passport. She played for Ukraine, but grew up mostly in Canada where she can be more open with her sexuality.

Booker: French, English (+ learning Italian for his new job)

Booker is the least multilingual character in my fic lol. He spent his first 20 years in France, and then he spent the next 6 years in England. He knows a lot of Algerian slang words that are now colloquial French. He will learn one more language due to work which you will find out in the epilogue LOL.

Nile: English, Spanish, Catalan, high school French, (+ learning Italian as an American expat in Italy)

Nile grew up in the South Side of Chicago, and then moved to California for a year. She makes the effort to learn Spanish to communicate with the Hispanic community around her, and took French in high school because it was cool. Her Spanish is gloriously Mexican and Puerto Rican-inflected. She then lived in Barcelona for 6 years, so that’s where she picked up Catalan.

Yusuf: Maghrebi Arabic (Tounsi and Darija), Dutch, French, English, Catalan, Spanish, Italian

Yusuf is the most multilingual character within the AU!!!! How sexy is this dude. His family is Tunisian, and his parents moved to the Netherlands where there is a large Moroccan community--so within the family they use the more Tunisian inflected form of Maghrebi Arabic, but with their community it is way, way more Moroccan inflected. (ref: Yusuf says wilywilywily to Booker in ch.75). He speaks French because...*shakes fist* (colonialism), he speaks Dutch because he had to learn that in school, he speaks English because pretty much every Dutch person speaks excellent English. He learned Castillian Spanish for fun on the side, and then moved to Barcelona where he picked up Catalan to impress the locals. Nicolò di Genova taught him Italian when he moved to Italy. (Side note: the reason why he’s referred to as Yusuf all through the fic is because the Dutch j is pronounced as y. There’s no...Joe...in the Anglicized way. Yusuf does have American relatives and thus there are American Joes in his family LOL.)

Nicolò: Italian, French, English

HAHAHAHAHA bet you weren’t expecting the one in the middle!!! Nichi also does a terrible version of Ligurian for his mom. (Like, his mom speaks Ligurian to him and he replies in Italian. This is a total dialect call out because this is how I sound like talking with my parents but with our language/dialect.) Nichi picked up French in school for the second language requirement. He has NEVER told Booker about this and has NEVER spoken to Booker in a word of French. However, he speaks to Yusuf’s Tunisian relatives in French. Nichi did spend a year in England, which helped his English a bit.

Lykon: French, Portuguese, English, Wolof

I made him part Senegalese, part Guinea-Bissau. Actually, my dearest wish was to make Lykon descended from griots but I just don’t have the level of knowledge to write that competently. His family lives all over the place too, and he also holds EU citizenship via Belgium.

Quynh: Vietnamese, French, English 

Quynh is a transnational adoptee in my fic, so her mother tongue and original language is Vietnamese. However, she was adopted by French parents and grew up in a wealthy part of Paris (16th Arr), so she was schooled in French. She went to the US for her postgrad studies (PhD), so her English is excellent as well.

[myheartisbro-ken]

you mentioned in a comment on a supercorp fic (i feel like a stalker, yikes) that you got in contact with darren doyle and he gave you some tips on using kryptahniuo, the sentence structure, the krius thing, etc.. would you mind sharing them? because i feel like i've sucked all available resources dry, and as a huge kryptonian nerd, i'd really appreciate it! (ofc, feel free to ignore me and pretend like this never existed if i'm intruding or unknowingly acting like a jerk.)

Okay, soooo, this is all from 3 years ago and I don’t have the best way to make myself clear when talking to people, but I’m gonna put here the things that are relevant and cut out my cringey communication. This is also for anyone who writes and would like to know a lil bit more about the language, or just people who enjoy conlangs. The vocab is over at kryptonian.info, but this is a clearer explanation of some things I had a bit of trouble with.

It’s pretty long though, so strap in.

Here we go:

Me: I was kind of having a hard time trying to figure out what the present form of zhao would be since it already ends with an 'o' and the present suffix is 'odh', I wanted to say 'I love you' with zhao , and on your page I could only find the ukiem sentence. Would it be zhaodh? And how would the full sentence be? What about shovuh, would it be shovuhodh?

Doyle: Sweet! I'm glad to help (I only wish the writers of the show would help instead of butchering the grammar ... and pronunciation)

Ok ... give me a moment to work on this...

Ok ... /zhao/ ... this doesn't end in /o/ (as in go) it ends in /ao/ (as in cow) which is a different vowel. Even if it did, though, you would still go ahead and use the /odh/ suffix. Two vowels in a row in Kryptonian is going to be super rare (pun intended), but in those cases Kryptonian phonetics will use a slight "w" sound to separate the vowels.

So ... it would be /zhaoodh/which would be 3 characters in Kryptonian writing: zh + ao + odhSo, your sentences would be: /zhaoodh (khuhp) w rraop/ and /shovuhodh (khuhp) w rraop/The subject is optional

Also, this is a sentence that would likely be gendered (familiar and/or intimate speech)

So, "I (female) love you (male)." would be: /zhaoodh (khap) w rrup/

BUT

Let's talk about informal speech, because the I love you stuff gets weird ...

zhao and shovuh are primarily nouns, but at some point they got codified as type 1 verbs (taking suffixes)... and grammatically (especially formal writing) type 1 is kind of the "proper" way to use them. But in day-to-day speech, these usually get treated as type 2 verbs (no suffix)

I should back pedal briefly and say that all this applies to /ukiem/ (familial love) ... and actually to /:jev/ (n. happiness, joy) with /:jevodh/ meaning essentially "like" or "enjoy"

So anyway, the informal variant ends up as something like /zhao w rrup/ (you would almost never use the subject with the type 2 forms of these words) Total side topic ... (hope I'm not overwhelming you here) ...

Since type 2 verbs mark tense with a vowel change, there is an interesting result with /zhao/ ... since the past and future versions end up being /zha/ and /zhi/ respectively which also just happen to be the words for "yes" and "no" which also act as augmentative and diminutive markers...

It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation as it's unclear if the "will love/did love" meanings gave rise to the "yes/no" meanings or if the existing "yes/no" words guided the vowel shift as /zhao/ went from noun > v1 > v2

Me: Okay, first, in the verb section of your page you say that not using a suffix creates the potential form of the verb, yet there is a prefix, kai, for potential, so if someone were to ask 'can you do...' say, 'can you speak/say this' would it need the prefix and then the present suffix, or just not use either. Like, would it be 'ta-kai-ehworodh rraop w [thing]' or 'ta-kai-ehwor' or just 'ta-ehwor' or is all of that completely dumb and I totally misunderstood everything? (I'm also not sure when I should and shouldn't use the hyphen) And the second is simpler, I guess: going by 'us-kah' as like a petname for your child, would the same apply to a parent, such as saying 'jeju-te' in sort of the same way kids say 'mommy' and not just expressing relationship. And could that apply to a person's name as well? Like, idk if that works in english, but say you have a nickname for someone and then you say 'that's MY [nickname]', (I do that for my aunt in portuguese, which is why I'm asking)

Doyle: Dang ... the "suffixless form of the verb forms the potential" is actually a holdover from an idea when I first started making the language that eventually got abandoned. Thought I removed references to it, but I missed that I guess.

Hyphens are just there to help show the morpheme breaks when explaining the language. If you are just writing Kryptonian, then you wouldn't use them at all.

so /?takaieworodh rraop ki kryptahniuo/ would be correct

Ok ... the "familial-possessive-honorifics" ...

They kind of act like an honirific (Mr., Mrs., Sir, Ma'am, Señor, Señorita, San, Sama etc.)

They attach using the proper noun punctuation...

So ... Kal-El => /kal,ehl/

Mr. Kal-El => /kal,ehl,jran/

(I'm not related it Kal-El)

Let me start over on that last one

I am talking to you about Mr. Kal-El, I would say ...

* (neither of us is related to him): /kal,ehl,jran/

* (I am related to him, but you aren't): /kal,ehl,te/

* (we are both related to him): /kal,ehl,kah/

* (I am not related to him, but you are): /kal,ehl,ni/

* (Neither of us is related to him, but we are talking about someone who is related to him and that relationship is pertinent to the conversation): /kal,ehl,cheh/

So in that sense, these are honorifics ... they are more formal, not less

so ... us,kah for a child probably wouldn't end up being a pet name

and it means "our" child ... so even less likely in that sense (us,te would be "my child")

and it uses the less intimate gender-neutral form

wait ... scratch that ... /us/ is masculine (derp derp)

so, a more likely candidate for a pet name for your child would probably be /us kir/ (little boy) or /is kir/ little girl

you could also do something clever like /krius/ or /kriis/ (that second word would be pronounced "kree-yees") ... borrowing the "bright" prefix and applying it to the child noun

For Kryptonians that wouldn't have as much of the meaning that an English speaker would assign to "bright" (smart, clever, etc), but more of a sense of "joyful", "pleasant", "you-light-up-the-room" kind of sense.

An English equivalent to /krius/ would be something like when you refer to someone as "my little ray of sunshine"

getting back to your actual question ...  

/jeju,te/ and /ukr,te/ would also be more formal. Kids (especially older kids) would be expected to use this form in public when addressing parents

but at home it would probably be just /jeju/ and /ukr/

for the very youngest kids, /jeje/ would be "mommy", and /uku/ (or even /kuku/) would be "daddy" ... but, unlike some dialects of English (especially in the Southern states), those variants wouldn't last very long as kids would be encouraged to use /jeju/ and /ukr/ as their speech developed

So ... ummm ... I'm not sure if I've answered your actual question ... if I have, I may have indicated the opposite... Kryptonians would remove the "my" on a petname ... does that sound right ... hmmm ... thinking about it

Shoot ... I guess I don't really know how to give you a solid answer on that one. Pet names can be funny things, I think ... because even in English I can see formal titles being absorbed as "cute" ... like having a little fluffy dog that you pick up and in a cutesy voice call "Sir Snuggles"

so ... armed with the info for "normal" speech/grammar ... pick whatever feels right to you!

Me: The first I wanted to ask is if 'Awuhkhu zhadif khap w rrip' is correct for 'I'll never leave you'

And the second I tried to make it out, but the result looked weird so I was just very unsure about (while the other I'm a bit more confident about) so how would 'please don't leave me' be, cuz 'please don't' is a full prefix, right? so it'd be 'please don't' prefix + leave + present suffix and then the pronoun separately. By that logic it'd be 'sozhaoawuhkhodh khap' is that correct?

Now there's actually a third one that I don't even know where to begin (mostly because I didn't try too hard) but I wanted to know would you say the sentence 'she left me alone' or 'my mother left me alone'?

Doyle:

/.awuhkhu zhadif khap w rrip/ ... yep, that's correct!  

/sozhaoawuhkhodh khap/ ... yep, that's right too

or you might go with the future tense, especially if those two sentences are going together

/sozhaoawuhkhu khap/

actually ... whoops... /khap/ is the object of the sentence...

/sozhaoawuhkhu w khap/

Let's see for "she left me alone", I would use the malefactive and the past tense of "to go" (which I just realized wasn't in the dictionary - doh!).

So ... let's see... go+past-perf she w me mal.

hmmm... alone, though ...

cause/PST she be/PRS me w alone ki go/PST/PRG ... ?

/podh zhehd nahn khap w chahvymah ki rrosh/ (that last verb wouldn't take a suffix, derp) ... "She made me alone by going" ... hmmm...

You could always just use /podh zhehd nahn khap w chahvymah/ ... she cause me to be alone ... that's probably the closest to the English 

So that’s it, so much information that I thought it was actually a longer convo

[fullsunalicia]

Can I request about she being brazilian instead?..

sure bubs! thank you for your requests <3 i hope you guys don’t mind that i combined those, since they’re pretty similar! if not, please let me know and i’ll fix it!

Moon Taeil

wants to know EVERYTHING. every single memory you connect with home, your favorite place in your hometown, where you went to school, just wants you to spill!!! brazil is such a beautiful country, and he wants to know all about it!

definitely wants you to teach him some portuguese. i think everyone in nct would learn atleast a few words, because they love learning new stuff, especially something that connects them to you!

plus, it’s so endearing to listen to taeil try to pronounce difficult words :( PLS he’s so cute

Seo Youngho

a m a z e d. brazilian and korean??? huh?? how cool is that!! you need to spill every detail of your parents’ love story. mr johnny would like you to spill the tea, ma’am. definitely bawls atleast once (1) because that shit is so cute.

just like everyone, he’d be so curious about your home and your native tongue, and he demands to have you speak to him in portuguese. can’t understand for shit tho

learns atleast a little to impress your parents the next time they meet!!

Lee Taeyong

flustered. that’s such a cool heritage to have and he honestly can’t decide if he’s envious or proud to have such a stunning girlfriend ?? like ?? wow. lee taeyong must be the luckiest man alive!

different from johnny, ty gets the gossip straight from the source! he bores you to death by forcing you sit down with him and your mom and listening to her for houuuurs about how it all happened

he just wants to treasure you and your values and get to know your culture !! (since he’s planning to wife you up teehee)

Nakamoto Yuta

happy yuta is happy !! as a part of nct’s foreign line, he’s honestly going to be giddy ALWAYS when he gets to meet someone else who isn’t from korea, or not entirely. and if it’s his girlfriend?? even better!

i feel like even though he’s been in korea for so long, he still gets homesick pretty badly. maybe it’s not as frequent anymore, but when it does, yuta feels really down. so to have you share that sentiment with him, it feels like such a relief! you guys carry the same burden

whenever that happens, you plan a big movie marathon with japanese and brazilian movies and spend hours on end cuddling and translating for the other !! he loves you. yuta wants you to know you’re not alone.

Kim Doyoung

this man is so smart he’s going to know some basic portuguese by the end of the week. if you told him about your heritage on monday, doyoung’s gonna walk into the kitchen sunday morning with a “bom dia. tudo bem?” like - what ????

he’s not very fazed by it, since he fell in love with you just the way you are. that doesn’t depend on what nationality you are. still, he makes himself a note to celebrate your culture with you and make the effort to bond with your parents about it, aswell!

first one to sit down in your momma’s kitchen and taste some brazilian dishes. ngl

Jung Jaehyun

is in awe! he loves the fact that your parents’ love transcends countries, no matter if you live in korea or brazil. it’s honestly very romantic to him and he wishes for your relationship to be like that, aswell. soft boy jaehyun :(

wants to try all of your favorite dishes and wants to travel to your hometown and learn all the places by heart where you hang out and get streetfood and everything else !!!!!! he loves you so much and this is just another part of his journey on getting to know you

you weep a little when he tells you “te amo” in front of your family home in brazil. god where can i find myself a jung jaehyun

Kim Jungwoo

sweet babyboy acts disappointed that you’ve just told him now, but he can’t contain his excitedness for long. how cool is that!!! his sweet baby is part brazilian !!!

BIG fan of listening to you speak in your native tongue with family members. when you first spend christmas in brazil with him and your relatives, he spent the entire evening playing with your fingers and making heart eyes at you while you speak in portuguese

it just sounds so dreamy ?? gosh your voice was given to you by an ANGEL. and for his s/o to speak in a foreign language so smoothly? wow....

Dong Sicheng

like any other member of nct’s foreign line, sicheng’s eyes will immediately light up when he first finds out about your roots. he feels so connected to you because of the fact that you must’ve gone through the same struggles, or atleast some of them!

to make you both feel home, he proposes the idea to have a dinner solely with chinese and brazilian dishes!! it’s so much fun that you spend hours prepping food and giggling around while smudging oil on the other’s cheek or pour some flour there.... until you cook to much and have enough to feed ot21

sicheng loves you no matter what your nationality is, but he’s so glad that you want to teach him all about your heritage and the family stories and everything beyond that. you’re his soulmate! knowing everything about you comes with that. i’m gonna cry i love sicheng

Mark Lee

honestly i could go in depth about how mark would be so shocked but why put it into words when there’s the perfect kaomoji to explain it. this is him, an accurate portrayal: （＊〇□〇）……！

another member of the foreign squad, mark loves exchanging memories of your hometowns and comparing experiences when being in another country! it’s different and the same at once, and it’s a very wholesome experience for both of you. you’re close already, but at the end of it it feels like you’ve seen an entirely different side of each other. a good one!

sweet babyboy learns all the portuguese pet names in the world to make you feel loved :(( he wants to give you a piece of home because to mark, you already are his home.

Lee Donghyuck

look me in the eyes and tell me donghyuck wouldn’t IMMEDIATELY beg you to teach him all the swear words that come to your mind right now. do it. change my mind

besides that, he loves listening to you tell stories about your upbringing with two parents that come from different countries. he cannot properly relate to it, but he’s still going to genuinely invest himself into it and laugh and empathize with you. haechan loves you so, so, so much, and your culture is a part of you. so he’s going to love that, aswell.

you will regret your decision to teach him said swear words the second your dad walks into the living room to the sound of donghyuck cussing out his mario kart character in portuguese. rip y/nhyuck,,,,, you will be dearly missed,,,,,,,,,,