#i really like how my brain reads it and how some of my (spanish speakers) friends pronounce it hehe :-)

[exoexid]

eunwoo is such a cute name!!!

[11vr1]

Been Away ⭒ Miles Morales

Synopsis › You were tired of his secrets and lies, so you did the one thing you promised you’d never do and walked away. But Miles Morales wasn’t going to let you go so easily.

Pairing › Earth-42! Miles Morales x Fem!Reader

Inspo › “Been Away” - Brent Faiyaz

Includes › ATSV SPOILERS, Angst, the tiniest bit of fluff, pet names, spanish, a microscopic amount of manipulation, toxicity, going back to your ex, stalking, harassment, mentions being mugged, mentions being stabbed, mentions the police

P.S. › I do my best work when I’m sleep deprived.

P.S.S. › Reading comments and reblogs really make my day, even if you’re telling me my commas suck. Requests are also open.

Y/n pulled down the sleeves of her crocheted sweater as she stepped out of the bodega, white plastic bag of chips and candy in hand. The sun was close to setting behind skyscrapers and plunging New York City into its usual state of terror. It was dangerous to be alone on the streets, but Y/n figured she’d be fine walking a few blocks to her friend’s place. She pushed through sidewalk traffic, passing others who were just as eager to be safe in their homes.

Her phone chimed with a text.

Unknown: Turn left.

She paused, looking up to scan her surroundings. There was nothing strange or out of place. Just stores closing up for the night and people minding their own business. Despite how normal everything seemed to be, Y/n knew better. She spared a glance at the alley to her left, immediately deciding against it and kept walking.

Another chime. She ignored it and the next. Stopping wasn’t worth possibly ending up on the eleven o’clock news. At least that’s what she told herself. The less rational part of her mind had a thought. In some ways more terrifying than being mugged.

Tucked away in her pocket, her phone rang. This time she checked. Unknown. Y/n scoffed, rejecting the call.

Unknown: One more chance.

Unknown: Take a left.

Unknown: I won’t ask again.

Her phone rang once more. With a long, begrudging sigh Y/n swiped to accept. “I thought you weren’t going to ask again,” she said, her eyes darting warily to the darkening street.

“Make a left, Y/n,” a deep distorted voice ordered from the other line. Her heart dropped. Maybe the irrational part of her brain wasn’t as off kilter as she thought. The call hung up like she didn’t need anymore convincing.

The yawning mouth of an alley stared back at her. She took a calming breath, inhaling the morning rain before stepping away from any potential witnesses. Her footsteps echoed in the eerie silence of the alley. Her skin heated in either fear or anticipation, she didn’t know. “I don’t have all night,” she spoke into the open air. “I will leave.” Y/n attempted to hide the tremble in her throat.

Her ringtone was shrill in the alley. She jumped. The bright smiling photo of her friend illuminated her face. She did not hesitate to answer. “Hello?”

“Thank god! You’re still alive. Are you close?”

“Yeah, I’m almost there, Ellie,” Y/n began to exit the alley. “The bodega line was long.” She rustled her haul of snacks.

“It’s getting dark. I can send my brother to meet you. Ya know he’s always had a bit of a thing for you and now that you’re single…” Ellie trailed off. Y/n could practically hear her smile.

She rolled her eyes, laughing nervously, “You don’t have to make him come get me. I’ll be—” She was cut off by her own scream ripping from her throat. A streak of darkness and neon flashed in front of her, swiping the phone from her hand. Her grocery bag tumbled to the concrete as she stumbled over her heels. Cold metal met her back. A well defined arm snaked around her waist, held her impossibly tight.

“Y/n? Y/n!” Her friend’s voice rose over the speakers.

The smooth phone screen pressed against her cheek. “Tell her you’re okay then hang up,” the same warped voice demanded in her ear.

Y/n felt her lips move before he ended the call. Some quick lie about a monstrous rat. Blood thrummed through her skull along with her ragged breaths.

“Let me go!” Y/n wrestling out of his grip with no resistance, finally turning around. She halted. Pixelated eyes narrowed at her. What had she been expecting? Was a mask better?

Getting slashed for the money in her wallet and being left for dead by a dumpster was starting to sound more appealing than her current situation.

Mechanic panels whirred and parted open. Rich, penetrating dark eyes took in every inch of the girl in front of him, peeling back layer after layer in that calculating glare Y/n knew all too well. “Hola, mami.”

She hoped to never hear that name fall from anyone’s lips. Much less his. Y/n allowed a selfish moment to let her gaze wander. His braids were fresh, obviously not her work. Fade clean. Jay’s untied. Bronze skin annoyingly flawless. He was the same, except for the faint bags decorating his eyes. His chuckle bounced off the brick walls, catching her. It was sobering.

“You have one minute, Morales. One minute before I run screaming and call the feds on your ass,” she crossed her arms.

“Morales?” Miles raised an eyebrow. “Damn. Is that what we doin’ now?”

“Fifty.”

He circled her like the predator he was, each footstep deafening. “You look good, ma. Where you goin’ so late? It’s not safe.”

“You know where! You’ve been following me, remember? How long have you been doing that for? Just another secret, huh?” Y/n was on the verge of yelling, her initial fear replaced by pure rage. “You’re not even going to deny it.”

Miles dared a step forward. Y/n took two back. “You’re afraid of me.” Her lack of an answer was a shattering confirmation.

“I’m afraid of what you do, Miles,” she motioned to his suit, the spray painted insignia physically painful to see on his chest. The Prowler. She would have never fathomed the possibility if she hadn’t seen him in action herself. “You’re a criminal. You steal. You’ve killed people,” she choked trying to swallow back tears.

He dragged a gloved hand down his face. “You don’t understand.”

“You’re right! I don’t get it. You changed and I don’t understand why.” Her waterline welled. Three months of suppressed feelings threatened to rear their ugly heads when he was near. Because of him, of course.

It was ironic how much he made her feel, even now. Ellie, other friends, Y/n’s family never fully warmed up to Miles. He was unfeeling, nonchalant, closed off. They couldn’t see how a girl like her could fall for him and stay. At least that’s the promise she made.

“So did you. You walked away. Left me. What happened to our forever, Y/n?”

“You expected nothing to change? In what world would I not react or feel some typa way?” She tensed. Another wave of anger seared through her veins. How dare he turn this on her? “Oh wait,” her laugh was humorless. “I was never supposed to find out.”

“I have to do this. The world ain’t right and I need to protect the people I care about,” he placed a hand over his armor, over his chest. “I couldn’t do shit about my dad, but you…” He stalked closer. This time she didn’t back away.

Miles grasped her hand, placing it over his heart. She couldn’t face his intensity for too long, not without air. He wore the same musky cologne she gifted him for Christmas.“Mirame,” he tilted her delicate face towards him. “Mi corazón, I can keep you safe. You gotta let me. If something happened to you I don’t know what I would do.” His chiseled features twisted, barely able to utter the words. He finally closed the space between them, resting his forehead against hers.

“One minute,” Y/n whispered. It had been more than one minute.

Without separating, he slowly slipped her phone into her back pocket, letting his fingers linger by the waist of her jeans. “Call them. I’ll stay right here and you can end this. You’ll never have to see me again. Prometo, mi corazón.”

She should have listened when Ellie told her to stay away. Undeniably gorgeous, genius level intellect, sexy accent. There was always a catch, she said. She was right. But there was one drawback not even her best friend predicted.

Y/n pulled away. Suddenly the autumn air was too chilly through her sweater. She unlocked her phone. Typed 9-1-1. She looked up through her lashes at Miles as if he would melt into the shadows and escape. She didn’t expect sheer defeat to paint his face, unhidden behind his usual mask of indifference. Her thumb froze.

Miles Morales had Y/n entranced. He’d woven himself into her being, hollowed out a space in her soul just for him. Those titanium claws were in deep and she didn’t know if she had the strength to pry them out or wanted to.

Y/n pocketed her phone. She resigned to every emotion she harbored for the boy in front of her. She chose every wrong decision. “Go, Miles.”

His grin was smug. “Should I call you?”

“Don’t push it, Morales.” He draped his arms around her shoulders, dragged her into his warmth. “I’ll unblock you. Sound good?”

Miles angled his head. His smile stretched to his eyes, showing those rarely seen dimples. “Sí, mami. Whatever you want.”

[what-even-is-thiss]

Hey I saw you talk about comprehensible input for Spanish, and you said it was easy and it seems effective. I'm learning German, and I wanna ask what comprehensible input is and how I could do some of that

Comprehensible input means watching or listening to stuff in the language where you understand 90% or more of what’s going on. If you’re reading it’s more like 98%. Early on this usually means either watching stuff for babies or watching stuff made for adult learners if that exists. Watching stuff for adult learners is generally better because it works better if you’re interested in what’s going on. Once easier stuff is too boring for you then you move on to slightly harder stuff etc etc. it’s supposed to take about a thousand hours of good quality input for you to be able to understand native speakers with no issues give or take depending on your native language and the language you’re studying. Right now I’m at like 50-ish hours in Spanish which means I’m watching slightly harder videos that still have a lot of visual cues but it’s not piss easy either. I can also understand most quick things I overhear people say on the street to each other but I don’t really know how to talk yet. My brain hasn’t pieced that part together.

For German specifically resources for this are YouTube channels like Comprehensible German and Natürlich German. And Deutsch Welle’s learn German section of their website has a couple series like Nico’s Weg that follow a similar idea.

The key is to not translate in your head or assign meaning to specific words or try to figure out the grammar when you watch videos or read but just try to understand what’s going on.

Some people supplement this with flash cards strictly doing vocabulary and no grammar. Especially if good comprehensible input resources aren’t available for the language you’re studying. Doing vocabulary drills and watching tv with subtitles in the language you’re learning can also be effective.

Another way to do this if you can’t afford a special class or there’s no good videos available but you do have native speakers on hand who are willing to be a “language parent” for you is for them to sit down with you and only teach you the words for yes and no and then they pick up something like a kids picture book and start pointing at things and slowly explaining it to you and asking you questions like you’re a baby for an hour or two every day. Most people do not have a native speaker on hand willing to do this though. But if you do then this video where a guy documents learning Arabic with this method should give both you and the native speaker an idea of how this works.

If you want resources googling “comprehensible input (language)” should get you started. There’s also a lot of different communities for language learners of different languages or language learning generally on Reddit like r/French, r/Portuguese, r/swahili or r/languagelearning for example. Most of those places have a dedicated page for compiling resources from the community and you can also ask questions to the community and in my experience they’re usually pretty helpful people.

Right now I’m mostly using Dreaming Spanish for Spanish but also other channels like Easy Spanish and Español con Juan. I’m also dabbling a bit in the channels Comprehendible Japanese and Nihongo-Learning for Japanese but Spanish is my main priority right now.

[sleepy-writersblock]

Miguel O’hara x reader|| roomates (pt 1??)

Authors note: wrote this after an experience i had with an ai bot- so yeah its a little stupid but i find it funny

No use of y/n ; you dont know that he is spiderman ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ; fem written in mind but ig it could be whoever? (I think?); NOT proofread.

Mdni

———————-

Miguel o’hara. He is Your roomate and one hell of a man. You guys had been living together for about two years now after you couldnt fully afford an appartment on your own and decided to share one with somebody. And god was it interesting

You were sitting on your bed, laptop open and reading, when Miguel walks to your room and leans on your doorframe. Oh no, not just against your doorframe, but against it, with only shorts on, and wet hair.

“Hey, can I ask you a favor?” He says scratching the back of his head, running his hands through his damp hair.

You look up at him and right back down to your screen to avoid eye-contact. Its like he does this on purpous, its like he sees your face, sees the blush. You almost want to ignore him so a stutter wouldnt fall from your mouth, but you can just ignore him.

“Uhm- yeah, what can i do?” You ask back still wildly embarassed. Its a common occurrence, so you arent sure why it effects you so much.

Wait- wait no. You know exactly why. Its because you are head over heels with him.

Sure you have some other celebrity crushes but him? He beats all of them.

“Could i have one of my shirts back, i let you borrow some and i need to do laundry today-“ he responds.

Oh. Was that it?

“Uh yeah let me get you one really quick” you say standing up and walking to your closet. Before you can grab a shirt for him he makes his way over to your bed and sits down.

“What were you watching?” He asks referencing your laptop as he picks it up.

Okay its time to panic. The thing you were reading? Spiderman fanfiction. He was one of your celebrity crushes and you couldnt let Miguel know, he would tease you for the rest of your life, and not only did you read that stuff? You wrote it.

You drop the shirt and run back reaching fir the lap top, climbing on top of him as he pulls it away from you further. Panicked you reach for it as far as you can, going as far as clawing at him to get it back.

“Whoah whoah whats in here that i cant see?” He teases

“Miguel please dont! Thats uh- just a book!” You reply back still fighting to get that laptop back.

“Well with how you are reacting it isnt just some book hmm?” He laughs back. You can see his eyes scanning the digital characters, word by word his face grows redder. You still attempt to reach for it but it was just too late.

“Tsk- spiderman huh? You like him?” He says smirking. He had to be teasing you right? You swear normally he would have taken a picture of it and show it to you every now and again in the future to embarass you. But he is being so nonchalant.

“D-dont read farther-!“ you warn him. You recognize the page number, as this was one of your works, and ahead was some of the most mind corrupting media you have ever produced.

You see his eyes scan the pages as you lie helpless, still sitting on his lap, Avoiding eye contact with the brown-haired male. He chuckles as his face grows a deeper red. As he reads on the story seems a bit too familiar. The roomate of the ‘reader’ is actually spiderman, they fall in love and have fun. The roomate. Could it be him? Of course its him, you indulge in your deepest fantasies when you read and write.

“Wow- this is some good writing, too bad you dont have a spiderman roomate” he says winking at you. Wait- winking-

“H-huh?” You exclaim

“Oh come on, its obvious who this ‘tall, dark haired, spanish speaker roomate’ is” he says giving you a smirk. He leans in to where you are sitting on his lap and brushes his lips against yours.

“And i could help you re-create this book. Scene. By. Scene” he chuckles darkly.

Thats it- your brain dosnt work anynore. The way his voice darkened and he leaned in made you lose it. You leaned in to close the small soace between you- you finally kissed him. And he kissed back, hard. There was only one way that this could go any better, and that would be if he was spider man… but thats just wishful thinking. Plus. You had a long night ahead.

[coquitokisses]

Trusting Again | Bucky Barnes (introduction)

series masterlist • m. masterlist

spotify playlist • moodboards • files

After having spent much of her childhood being trained in a private organization in Bulgaria, Catalina Navarro is finally free when she is rescued by Nick Fury during a SHIELD mission.

Nick took the responsibility of taking care of Catalina and thus preventing her from falling into the adoption system. He saw how much potential she had and as she got older, he thought that she could use everything she knew for good so at the age of 16, he decided to get her into SHIELD and since then she has worked for the organization as an agent and spy.

In 2014, Catalina witnessed the Winter Soldier event in Washington DC. A few months after all the files, from both SHIELD and HYDRA, went public, Catalina decides to help Steve and Sam find Bucky.

But when she finds him, instead of bringing him with her, she decides to let him go. An action that will have consequences later on..

A/n: hiiii! I have a few things I wanna clarify before starting the story

— I said it before but I’ll say it again, this story is 18+, it contains strong language, explicit and/or implicit sexual scenes, topics like mental and/or psychological health and PTSD.

— The story takes place during Captain America: Civil War, but there'll be a prologue which is set in 2015 just to give a little context of the story between Cat and Bucky. Then it’ll go along with the MCU timeline, although the story will be one year ahead (for example, Infinity War happens in 2019, not 2018, but everything will happen according to the timeline)

— I'm planning on following the order of the rest of the movies probably till Avengers Endgame (if things go how I've planned) maybe till TFATWS but I’m not sure yet, however, there may be some changes to the storylines of the movies just so I can introduce Catalina's character into the story.

— My first language is not English, is Spanish. I am bilingual, even tho I don't really talk in English just because I really don't need to, but I wanted to make this story in English. In case there's any errors/mistakes well now y'all know lol my brain process things in Spanish first and then translates them to English.

— This story is available on wattpad as well, (even tho I don’t really use that account much, the user is -dolcekisses) but I’m also uploading it in spanish in case anyone wants to read it, my user is coquitokisses (same as here lol) and the account is in spanish if any of y’all are spanish speakers.

— Also, I don’t know how many chapters this story will have lol (with everything I have written, notes etc, I think maybe like 55-65? I’m not sure, is that a lot? Lmao I’ll just go with the flow)

— When I started the story I started writing it in 1st person (my oc’s pov) but I actually write my stories in 3rd person now so there’ll probably be some times where it’s narrated in 1st person and some other times in 3rd. Sorry about that lol

— I chose Eva de Dominici to be the face claim of Catalina Navarro (my oc)

That'll be all, besties, I hope you like this fanfic as much as I do, let me know what y'all think, feel free to comment your opinion! Feedback will be appreciated <3

I'll see you in the prologue!

Likes and reblogs will be appreciated!

[favoriteblogonthecitadel]

15 questions for 15 friends

Thank you @pigeontheoneandonly for tagging me! :)

ARE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?: My mom apparently read through a few baby name books to find my first name, but my middle name was picked after my grandma.

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?: A week or two ago. I was feeling particularly sensitive (thank you, hormones) and I was curious whether my dog, who expresses love by licking, has figured out by now that my weird human kissy sounds are my equivalent of affection. So I started Googling "does my dog know--" and came across so many searches along the lines of "does my dog know I love them?" that I started crying about how much people love their pets and how much they want to make sure the pets are aware of this.

DO YOU HAVE KIDS?: Nope.

WHAT SPORTS DO YOU PLAY/HAVE YOU PLAYED?: I rotated through a bunch of sports as a kid (roller skating, swimming, basketball, flag football). In my adult years, I'm more of a "go jogging or do a YouTube workout routine once a month" kind of person.

DO YOU USE SARCASM?: Yes, but I tend to accidentally make it very deadpan, so people who don't know me well are often confused because they think I'm serious lmao. I do love using sarcasm around those who know me, especially my partner. Good-humored sarcastic/silly banter is a love language and the way to my heart.

WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?: The look in their eyes. I get a feeling for someone's attitude and intentions pretty intuitively from this, and decide how genuinely myself I want to be around them.

WHAT'S YOUR EYE COLOUR?: Brown-eyed gang unite!

SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?: Well-earned happy endings and well-justified scary movies (not a fan of watching people suffer for the sake of suffering, but some themes in scary movies are fascinating).

ANY TALENTS?: Words. Writing is part of it, but I've also been told I have a way of saying things that just clicks or expresses things thoughtfully, which I take as a huge compliment. I also make really good brownies and recently learned I'm a great teacher.

WHERE WERE YOU BORN?: The Yucatán Peninsula.

WHAT ARE YOUR HOBBIES?: Reading, gaming, writing, teaching my cryptid dog how to behave in polite society.

DO YOU HAVE ANY PETS?: See above! Yali is a xoloitzcuintle, but has also been described by myself and my friends as part cat, part jackal, part deer. Yali picture under the cut :)

HOW TALL ARE YOU?: 5'4"

FAVOURITE SUBJECT IN SCHOOL?: I love learning in general, but I think my favorite subject was languages; which, growing up in Mexico, mostly entailed learning English. Once I tested out of that, I switched to French, which was also fun.

DREAM JOB?: I plan to be the clinician that people go see when they need to check in about their brain's health. I also want to be a leader in the field to help make sure that Spanish speakers, low-income/uninsured, and other marginalized folks have access to those services.

Tagging @isayashai, @daggertongue, @miniature-space-hamster, @metzlishepard, @creaking-skull, @dandenbo, @hungerofhadarr, @whimsyswastry, @rowanisawriter, @greenteabtch, @galpalaven, @neonbutchery, @laelior, @tiny-banana-time, and @vlwl! Plus anyone else who feels like joining! Edit: adding @aphoticfairy because I missed it!!<333

[panic-at-the-waffle-house]

I don’t like BookTok :)

I know the is isn’t the “hottest take” but I just don’t like it for a lot of reasons, one big one is that it spreads the idea of “you can’t read that book”.

Growing up, I always lived by the idea that you should read what you enjoy/makes you happy. Reading in general does wonders for the brain and creativity. This is coming from not only an avid reader, but someone whose mom was a reading teacher, albeit for elementary school. The growth of all of the students was amazing and they weren’t English speakers at all. She had students who could fluently speak it/read it to kids who knew nothing. I grew up in a VERY diverse town in the Midwest. Like white people were the MINORITY. So that also meant we had a lot of different cultures and different books/entertainment that was specific to that culture.

Anyway back to books lol.

The biggest critique I have with BookTok is that if there’s a book or series you like, someone is bound to nitpick it for some reason. I love criticism of a book, I think it’s great and being able to point out flaws leads to deep discussion. But a lot of the time, people like these books simply because THEY LIKE IT. You don’t have to like it, but they like it. Main examples are books by Colleen Hoover (I have my gripes with her, I can’t stand her books), but the people who read her books enjoy them so I’m not going to harass or bully them for something they enjoy. SJ Mass is another author who gets a lot of flame, again for reasonable reasons, but even I have enjoyed her books.

I really got into YA fantasy like early high school and late middle school. One of the first series I read was the Throne of Glass series which I picked up since my mom had the first book. I actually really enjoyed it and I was in like 7th grade at the time so some of the simplicity and common tropes were well worth it for me. But as I got older and tried to re-read the series, I couldn’t. I fell in love with the side characters more than the main ones. (Dorian was my number one boy and he still is. I was so excited whenever he appeared. Still my fav character.) I didn’t care for Aelin, Rowan, or some others simply because I just didn’t really care for them. They’re fine, just not my favs and I know some people love them which is valid.

I couldn’t even finish ACOTAR. I got halfway through and DNF’d it. I don’t care for first person point of view in general and I didn’t like her characters or the plot. Roman e was never my thing—I love it as a side plot but if the entire book is about romance I find it boring. I barely made it through The Selection.

Before fantasy YA, I was big into dystopian. THG was my first real YA book and I loved it, with the Maze Runner after it. It’s my favorite YA fictional series to this day even though it has its flaws. The move from dystopian to fantasy was very much in a certain span of my life and now I see it being so popular in media which is great. Except for the people who don’t know how to respect OPINIONS. Not only that, but gatekeeping makes me mad.

All through my life I liked reading classics, classics of every region. My mom always had classic books lying around so I would pick them up and the ones from the different ethnic groups and cultures were always at the public library for me to read. That’s how I got books like

Crime and Punishment- Russian Literature

No Longer Human- Japanese Literature

The Iliad- Greek Literature

Dracula-Irish Literature

Journey to The West-Chinese Literature

The Idiot- Japanese Literature

Don Quixote-Spanish Literature

And so many others at an early age. Some of them are well known and some aren’t—which is normal. But when some people who read classics look down on others or say “you can’t read that because you’re doing it to be quirky”, it bothers me. I always wanted to talk to others about these books and damn it I was STRUGGLING to find people to talk to about The Great Gatsby who actually liked it in seventh grade. This is PROMINENT in the BSD fandom since the characters are named after famous classical authors and some people are stuck up, not wanting these books to be read.

It never made sense to me. Maybe I’m the stupid one.

Overall, there are very few people on BookTok who I enjoy watching or listening to. Each series has its highlights and its flaws, like humans do, so just let people enjoy a book damnit. And if people want to vent or explain why they DONT like a book let them damnit.

Anyway what’s a book that scarred you for like???? I read Where The Red Feen Grows at like 10 years old and am still traumatized by it. :D

[thewarriorspecial]

A long post on writing and languages and insecurities

I went ahead and started in the translation project because I’m excited for it but also I’m seeing a pattern developing in the poll and I like to deliver.

the amount of colloquial expressions that I use for tone and dialogue just…don’t translate. This will be my biggest hurdle. I’m far from fluent. I’m leaning on online translation tools to get the noun or verb I need and then conjugation charts to try to match the tense of the story.

if you’ve politely not mentioned that I cannot spell or conjugate in my mother tongue, thank you, but take solace that I know and I’m so much more aware of it now lol. I feel like I’m better at English by trying to learn other languages. Hm that’s a sad thing to type. Moving on.

I think I’m going to be brave and try to make friends with the French and Spanish speakers at the new job and maybe like talk to them to learn. My skills always degrade because I watch stuff or read but I don’t actually speak so it’s like there’s this enormous downed tree in my mind and I just don’t have the ability to jump it so instead of responding in the target language, my tongue goes all gooey and I just go ummmmm. But I’ll get there one day.

I read something once and I wish I could find it where the author was describing how their voice changes and they “feel” different as they spoke in different languages. I was fascinated by this concept and I feel like I’m seeing it as I translate some of the GLs dialogue in my fics.

Hal and Guy especially are so so much more cool and sexy in Spanish I have to say. I can’t quite explain the change in the tone but I am rewriting a little bit to accommodate my lack of slang and accents to characterize. As I was writing for Kyle, he feels less cool and authentic and it inspired some little WIPs where I have him talking about feeling like he doesn’t know himself or wishes he was more a part of his own heritage. So that was interesting. John always comes off as just slick and natural no matter what I do with him. In my head he just is unflinchingly honest and himself and he applies himself fully to everything he does. He’s passionate without all the show and pizazz of the others. But I also haven’t read him as much as I wish I had. I mostly know him from the Justice League animated show. I adored him and I hated Batman lol. I didn’t feel any love for Bats until Kevin Conroy, go figure. I had a subscription for the DC comics app for a bit and the nearest comic shop to me is over an hour away. I just don’t make it out often enough to read the way I wish i could. For all my love of Green Lantern and space operas and Star Trek and the Lensman series and all that I’m actually not that well read. I feel like less of a fanatic fan and more like a Tik Tokker on a parade float; waving at the real fans and tossing the occasional, unsolicited WIP that’s promising but never finished.

Is it the imposter syndrome getting to me or is it the glaringly weak characterization im delivering staring me in the face? Eh. I enjoy writing. My amateur yet passionately created half-works be upon y’all.

To quote my fave, good old Henry (Rollins): “My mind is like a ball of Teflon; coated in obsidian and impervious to the uptake of ka-nah-ledge.” I feel that in my soul, i really do. Henry and I read and forget so much because it keeps the brain demons busy.

And so the reading/writing hour bell tolls and it’s time to get out of bed for another shift. Off I go!

as always, thanks for reading

[hellyeahheroes]

Not really having energy to adress everything piece by piece, step by step. But

Yes, I'm talking from place of hurt, I acknowledge that. And it may be why when I I see a "it's like [popular thing] for [group]" comparison, it usually reads as "it's like [popular thing] for [people I look down on and believe should be looked down on by everyone]".

And I apologize if I have unknowingly comitted some ableist assumption or exclusion of autistic people, but my brain is never going to look at "people who like [an event in history best known for horriffying bodycount]" and read it as "group of people who share the speaker's special interests" instead of "derogatory way to signal the speaker things this group of people is fucked up and should be excluded".

Maybe if it was followed by more specific signifier. I'd probably not think that if someone said "people who like black death aesthetic", I'd think "speaker means people who like to dress like plague doctor". Similiarly to how I'd probably read "people who like the Spanish Inquisition" as "speak thinks this group of people are sadists or religious zealots who enjoy torture of others", while "people who like Spanish Inquisition aesthetic" as "people who like to dress in red robes and round red hats and pose to photos next to historic iron maiden".

Also, new way tumblr shows reblogs ommits names of the posters, making it impossible to find who wrote which part, so I can, say, check their blog and see they're renfair enthusiast, so surely this psot was made in jest. And removed from context or to see this is just friends shittalking each other, it does sound like bullying and gatekeeping I have experienced too much in life.

-Admin

i still can’t believe renaissance fairs are real

[sizzlingpatrolfox]

How many languages can you speak (besides Spanish which is your native tongue)? I'm asking because I saw your post where you talk about teaching yourself Swedish

What language learning methods do you use which are working for you?

I can only speak Spanish and English. I can understand portuguese, which is like a given if you're a native Spanish speaker simply because they're so similar, but I can't speak portuguese. I understand it when I read it or hear it.

I've been trying to learn a 3rd language for theee longest time though. I did like 5 months of German in 2012 or 2013, but then quit because it was half online and I didn't really like online classes.

In 2011 my family and I were host family to a girl from Iceland who came to Argentina as part of a cultural exchange program and she stayed with us for half a year, so I got familiar with Icelandic. Then, in 2016 I watched skam and realized it was very similar to Icelandic (which is really easy btw), so I started doing Norwegian lessons on duolingo, and it was really fine, I did well. I was in a groupchat with people from Norway and other Scandinavian countries where we'd have easy, starter-level conversations in Norwegian. But then the skam hype died down and so did the group, and even though I kept up with my duolingo lessons, I didn't really have anyone to practice Norwegian with, so I forgot it.

I just started Swedish lessons last week after watching young royals because while watching I realized I could understand some phrases since Swedish is so similar to Norwegian and Icelandic. And that's it for now!

Duolingo worked for me with Norwegian, and so far it's working for Swedish as well. But tbh Scandinavian languages are sort of simple in their grammar and sintaxis. They're not as complex as English or Spanish. So duolingo works for these two, but I don't know if it'd work for more intricate languages.

I'm hoping Swedish will be the one that I'll finally stick with though, and I'm thinking of looking up like an actual academy here in my city where I could attend real classes once I get my finances in order. I've always been interested in languages and the ways learning a new one develops the brain, so I've really wanted to learn another one for the longest time.

[japanese-cryptic-beauty]

Post 2: Correcting Post 1

Or: The journey of Japanese is a journey of folly.

So, I wrote that Japanese has pitch but it's usually not important for meaning, you just sound unnatural.

... Which is something you could say ... Kinda ... sorta ...

Only the Universe has been bombarding me with the importance and prevalence of pitch ever since. So I want to qualify the statement, at least.

Check out this interesting post I found here. Now, if I read this slightly cryptic answer right (it talks about "word-accent" which I assume can mean both "pitch" - Japanese, Chinese - and "stress" - English), pitch is significant to distinguish words with same sounds (homonyms) as follows: Chinese - 71%, Japanese - 13%, English - 0.47%.

Unsurprisingly, in a language (Chinese) using (in its standard pronunciation/main dialect) 5 pitches to differentiate words, pitches are "damn important" (71%). But 13% is actually also quite significant. Your mileage may differ.

Personal bias in skimming information

Now, for me, myself, this is not so surprising. I may have come across the information that pitch exists in Japanese probably twice but my brain may have chosen to willfully ignoring it.

(Textbooks may mention it but then omit it to not overload beginners, I guess.)

Thing is, I have a horrible history with learning how to stress words in other languages. These little accent-y things and squiggles on top of words? They're my nemesis. So I guess I wanted there to be no equivalent of that in Japanese.

I had three years of Ancient Greek in school, an investment of my time that taught me a valuable lesson: Don't learn Ancient Greek. I'm kidding - or am I? - the valuable lesson was to do my choices in a less knee-jerk way. In hindsight, nothing of value would have come of learning Ancient Greek even if I did well. Your opinion may differ. Fine. I really think it's a colossal waste of time unless you make a job choice requiring it. The best it could have done for me was get better at the learning itself or the learning of languages in general. But it failed in the most important thing that language does: connecting people. If it fails at that, it barely has any right to remotely exist as a subject. Nobody likes you Ancient Greek, go away.

Besides the letters, Greek gave me major problems with the stress accents. Put it on a syllable and I would never manage to pronounce the word. I always put the stress wrong. My brain hasn't unlocked how that works. I notice the same in Spanish. I may emulate a speaker (not that I speak Spanish, but when I repeat after someone), but even then I might not even hear the difference.

I know I've aggravated my Swedish teacher for not hearing the difference between his "ooh" and "uh" sounds he was making for the letter "u." (Ironically a song based entirely on the sound "U" is now playing on shuffle.) Hopefully continued exposure and awareness of the problem might help...

There's some good news, though

While my chosen learning method of WaniKani doesn't display stress, it features two speakers, Kyoko and Kenichi that say the readings. I wondered on occasion if they were real, but they do use pitch when pronouncing words. (And they might slightly vary between each other.)

So there's a neat little feature:

You pick your speaker and chose to let pronunciation play out every time the reading is featured - in case of reviews after you transcribed it yourself first.

I have to admit I was in the habit of not playing it when I could do multi-kanji word readings well, but this exposes me to pitch and pronunciation peculiarities I might otherwise ignore.

More exposure!

[EDIT:] Probably more good news, depending where you come from

So, in researching this I came across this article. It provides two pieces of context that I want to quote .

A reply to a letter to the editor of a manga magazine printed in Romaji (without accent marked) quoted in point 5: "When two or three words sound exactly alike except for pitch accent, context is going to resolve the ambiguity virtually 100 percent of the time. In practical terms, accent is probably the least important aspect of Japanese pronunciation no matter what your level of language skill."

In other words, even bad pitch accent will be understood almost always. This is where I first will employ the most horrible, stereotypical example that's ALWAYS trotted out to justify anything: the chopsticks/bridge example.

Chopsticks and bridge both transcribe to "hashi" (and to the same Hiragana). They only vary in rising and falling pitch. Now you could argue that makes pitch important. But as the above quote states - context usually resolves that quite reliably.

I mean, having browsed reddit and Quora for a while, you will inevitably see this being trotted out, and people ask the rhetorical question: Don't you think it's important to know if the bridge is burning or a set of chopsticks?

Rhetorical questions are, of course, only questions in the most technical sense. They're usually just people being smug or actually making biased or even bad faith arguments.

As mentioned above, people are not dumb. Japanese is already incredibly context-sensitive. You constantly have to keep track of things said before - because omission is common. You can leave out the subject because you mentioned it before as "the topic." Good luck with translating that, AI...

You usually can infer what is being said. But propagators of the burning chopstick dilemma are trying hard to make you think their way. Or are they even trying? It's so tired an example. If there were lots of these, surely people would quote them, too? Who cares what's going on with the damn bridge, anyway?!?

Okay, moving on.

I found this from point 6 a very useful and probably true assessment: "People without hearing impairments can mimic the melody of language, but they can hardly interpret visual accent markers into the oral/aural domain without special training because visual and auditory stimuli are processed very differently in the human brain. In all likelihood, the author of the above-mentioned letter simply feels more comfortable visually with accent markers. But using such markers to speak Japanese creates pronunciations that are worse than a crude synthesizer."

Well, I was notoriously bad at it in one language already. I guess I will hold my horses on trying to make that my method. Thankfully, audio material is available in enormous quantities, so we can learn from the melody of native speakers. And that is good news.

[young-dumb-and-vaccinated]

The Cult Girl (Hannibal x Female!Reader) pt. 13

Hello friends we have come to the end of Cult Girl. Thank you all for hyping me up throughout this story and giving me the confidence to actually post my work. Y/n and Hannibal throw a dinner party.

The sunlight streamed in through the window, illuminating the entire kitchen in that homey mid-morning glow. You were enjoying your coffee and scrolling through an article on your phone.

"Senator Hatch reportedly coughed up his late wife's toe on the floor of the precinct." You read out loud. "Huh. Wonder how that could have happened."

You side-eyed Hannibal, who was contentedly sharpening his knives. Placing a rather large meat cleaver to the side, he met your gaze. "I have my ways."

You finished off your coffee and brought the mug to the sink. "There was no way Theresa was going to survive that night, was there?"

"Clever girl." Hannibal praised.

"You were going to kill her if I didn't, were you?" You felt a smile coming on. "Did everything turn out as expected?"

"Darling, this all went much better than I could have ever hoped for." He smirked. "See, I had the whole evening mapped out. I was hoping you'd be the one to deliver justice and kill her, but I had to prepare for the possibility that you wouldn't."

You folded your arms and leaned against the island. "Is that why I was so sick that day?"

You could have sworn you saw some hesitation in Hannibal's face. Maybe even a touch of regret. "Yes. You needed an alibi. It was as easy as removing a single birth control pill from your packet. You'd see it was missing and think you'd already taken your medicine-"

"So I'd neglect to take my focus meds." You cut in. "Yeah, I knew something was off."

"By the end of the day, you'd be experiencing full withdrawal symptoms." Hannibal nodded. "I don't take any pleasure in upsetting the delicate balance of your brain chemistry, and for that I am sorry. I did what I had to."

"Yeah, don't ever do that again." You ordered, no disarming smile in sight. "I need those meds to function."

"I promise you, darling," Hannibal said, sincerely. "I would never keep you from being anything but your very best. I was just looking after you."

"I suppose now that all this is out in the open, you won't need to pull any shit like that again." You muttered. "But I'm still going to keep my pills at my apartment."

"That reminds me." He said. "Would you like to invite your roommates for dinner tonight? I've prepared a wonderful Spanish-inspired menu that's perfect for entertaining."

"I'd love for you to meet my friends, but, they all keep such weird hours I doubt they'll all be free tonight." You shrugged. "I'll give them a call though."

"Wonderful." He smiled. "You make arrangements while I prepare the kitchen."

You stepped into the office and called up Pilar. She answered within the minute.

"[F/N]!" She near shouted. "Holy fuck, how are you doing?"

"I'm actually doing..." you looked back into the kitchen, watching your beloved Hannibal in his element. "Really well."

"I heard about your cousin." Pilar cut in. "One down, two to go."

You snorted. "No fucking shit."

"Sorry, was that okay for me to say?" She apologized. "I know you said Theresa was a bitch, but it's your trauma and I-"

"No, you're fine." You laughed. "She was a bitch. Hey, do you have any plans tonight?"

"Uh, no. I don't think so." She answered. "Why?"

"Hannibal wants to invite you all for dinner tonight." You said with an audible smile. "Y'know, to celebrate the bitch's death."

"Yo! Steph!" Pilar shouted across the room. "Wake Randy up! We're having dinner at [F/N]'s rich boyfriend's house!"

You could make out Stephanie's voice in the background. "It's about damn time. We've been waiting for her to redistribute the wealth."

"She means thank you for the invitation." Pilar corrected.

"It's not like I had to twist his arm or anything. It was his idea." You chuckled. "He loves having guests. And excuses to dress up."

"Oh so we're getting fancy, huh?" Pilar's voice turned up in excitement.

"Hey [F/N]!" Randy snatched the phone from Pilar. "Text me the menu for tonight. My girlfriend'll steal a nice bottle of wine to pair. She's a pro, she works over at Cavatappi's wine and spirits."

"Much obliged, Randy." You said. "I'll see you guys at seven."

You returned to the kitchen with a smile. "They're coming."

"Well, we don’t have a moment to lose, then." Hannibal placed something wrapped in butcher paper on the counter. "Come now. Let me show you how to properly prepare a heart.

You and Hannibal spent the rest of the morning and the whole afternoon preparing a bountiful meal. You reveled in the irony of finally finding a space for Theresa in your life. That space just so happened to be on the stove.

Seven came far too quickly, but your friends were always a welcome sight. You greeted them at the door with hugs, Hannibal watching with stoic adoration.

"Guys, this is Hannibal Lecter, my partner." You introduced. "Hannibal, this is Pilar, Stephanie and Miranda."

"It is a pleasure to meet you, ladies." Hannibal greeted. “Please, make yourselves comfortable.”

"Here you go, Dr. Lecter." Randy handed him a bottle of wine. "Thank you for inviting us."

Hannibal examined the bottle. "Yes, this will pair quite nicely with our meal. Thank you very much. [F/N], could you show our guests to the dining room?"

You nodded and accepted the bottle, given the extra responsibility of pouring. You led your friends to the dining room and wasted no time distributing the alcohol.

"A toast." Stephanie rose her glass. "Too many of history's worst have had the privilege of dying on their own terms. Today, we celebrate the death of one who didn't: Theresa [L/N]."

"She will join her sisters Nancy Reagan and Madame Nhu in hell tonight." You concurred, tapping your glasses together with a series of satisfying clinks.

"Okay, you need to spill." Randy scooted her chair up and leaned towards you. "How the hell did you get away with it?"

"Well, it helped a lot that her husband was already a felon." You teased. "If I didn't kill her, he was going to eventually."

Pilar made a face. "I can't believe it took actual murder to get that latter-day lump thrown in prison."

"Well, the LDS church is a very influential organization with a stronghold on all of Utah." You explained. "There's a long history of legitimizing sex abuse there."

"We know, cult girl." Stephanie laughed. "You remind us every time your pedophile cousin-in-law comes up. Relax and take your victories where you can get them.” 

“Ladies,” Hannibal entered. You rushed to his side to help him with the dinner plates. “Have we ever tried organ meat before?” 

Everyone’s eyes found Pilar. 

“Braised liver is delicious and you guys are just cowards.” Pilar protested. “I will die on this hill.” 

Hannibal smiled and presented your friends with their plates. “You are a woman of good tastes, Pilar. Our first course is Riñones al Jerez.” 

“Kidneys.” Randy translated. “Who’s kidneys are we eating today, Dr. Lecter?” 

He tilted his head. “Theresa’s, of course.” 

“I don’t care whose organs you harvested.” Stephanie said, her eyes rolling back into her head. “This is delicious.” 

You and Hannibal shared a glance and a smile. 

You and your roommates devoured the Riñones al Jerez, then dug into the next serving of heart stewed with chickpeas and olives. You finished off the evening with natillas de leche and a bottle of Sauternes Hannibal just happened to have lying around. 

“This is the first time since like, Keith Raniere got sentenced that I’ve seen [F/N] happy-drunk.” Stephanie observed.

“Or even just... happy." Pilar said, looking at Hannibal. "I'll have some of whatever she's having, please."

"My pleasure." Hannibal poured her another glass of wine.

Your phone began to buzz on the table, capturing the attention of your guests. You didn't even need to look at the caller ID to know who it was. Nobody else in the world had such horrid timing.

"Shit, you've got to answer it here!" Stephanie pleaded. "So we can all give her a piece of our mind!"

You looked over to Hannibal, who you knew was just as curious.

You dragged the answer icon across the screen and put it on speaker. You gestured for your friends to be quiet. "Yeah?"

"Well look who finally decided to pick up." Grandma said. "Thank you for gracing me with your attention. I know you have so much going on right now, you're just too busy to pick up the phone and talk to your grieving grandmother."

"For your information..." you stumbled over your words. "I was interrogated by the police yesterday. I think that counts as having something going on."

"Are you drunk?" Her voice was laced with a disproportionate level of disgust.

"I'm grieving too, Beatrice." You counter. "What, suddenly you're the only one who can drink the pain away? That's not very democratic of you."

"In your state, you shouldn't even be thinking of alcohol!" Grandma scolded. "You of all people should know the effects alcohol has on an unborn baby."

You smacked yourself on the head. Of course Theresa would plant a seed to fuck you over one last time. "Did Theresa actually tell you I was pregnant?"

"It was her last message to me, actually. Anyway, you're coming home." Grandma said, without so much as waiting for a response. "I won't have my great grandchild living in that dangerous city that your cousin was killed in."

You exchanged looks with your friends, who were going through the same combination of emotions as you were. Grandma's words just seemed to fade out as you shared an entire nonverbal conversation with the people around you.

"And you're leaving that terrible, terrible man."

Hannibal raised an eyebrow and looked at you, waiting to see how you'd respond. You knew what you had to do. It was finally time. You did something you should have done a long time ago.

"No." You said, your nerves loosened by the wine.

"What?"

"No. And I mean it." A big smile crossed your lips. "Theresa lied to you. I'm not pregnant. And you have to live with the fact that your granddaughter's last words to you were a blatant lie."

Hannibal looked at you with pride and your friends began to silently gas you up with encouraging gestures. "

"...And that you're the only one to blame for her deception." You continued. "You raised her in your own image."

"This is why I refuse to let you raise my great grandchild with that man!" She wailed. "He's twisted your mind against me! He's made you cruel!"

"Hannibal made me see clearly that you made me cruel." You said with absolute certainty. "You'll never see me again."

"Don't be like your mother, [F/N]." Grandma snarled. "Don't cut people out for trying to help."

"You'll never see me again." You repeated and decided to leave it at that. You ended the call and blocked the number, joined by an eruption of excitement from your friends.

It was finally over. Your life could truly begin.

[apostaterevolutionary]

So I ended up quitting duo recently for other reasons (the courses continuing to degrade in quality and the focus on money over actually teaching over the last couple of years) and I see a lot of people asking for alternatives. I’ve tried a lot of language apps and though I haven’t found one that is 1:1 what duo used to be, I can give my impressions of the ones I think are most worth trying. Ymmv depending on what language you’re learning, but most of these are at least worth giving a try

Drops: if you want a fancy flashcard app, this is the only one I liked. You have to pay to get more than 5 minutes a day, but the app itself really makes thinks stick in you head better than any other. Idk what it is, but something about it really puts information in your brain

Busuu: the lessons themselves are a bit lacking, but a paid subscription gives you access to the community, where you can type or speak practice sentences (not pre-made ones either, ones you actually have to make) and native speakers can provide feedback and corrections. You can also help out others learning your native language and that interactivity is really nice

Memrise: probably the closest to what duo offers. I understand they just changed how their courses work, so it could be different now, but I found the lessons were mostly geared towards people who are learning for travelling. They also have native speaker examples with videos of people actually speaking the words you’re learning. It is lacking in terms of grammar though

Lingodeer: I really liked the layout and design of this. Lacking in speech correction (you listen back to what you said and compare it to the example) but it does cover the 4 areas of writing, reading, speaking, and listening. It is a paid app after a few trial lessons though. Best for Asian languages, it’s catalogue is a bit small right now, but it’s good for some languages

Babbel: also very duo-like, but paid (check ytube for sponsored vids to get a deal). Wasn’t bad, but the trial lessons were also short. For my language, the course was extremely short and not worth it, so check that as well. If you’re learning something popular like French or Spanish, it might be a good choice

Rosetta Stone: my local library offers a free sub to this, which is the only reason I tried it. I found the lessons a bit repetitive because I came in as a beginner to intermediate learner, but if you’re starting from scratch, it would probably be a good choice. Check with your library though, cause it’s VERY expensive at full price, I can only recommend it if you get it for free or at least a discounted price

Mango languages: I wasn’t impressed by this one but a lot of people had recommended it so maybe give it a try. I understand it may be free with some libraries as well (and check to see what your local library offers regardless, libraries are great!)

Speakly: the method is a bit too immersive for me, a lot of “word in context” stuff. Which doesn’t work well for my brain, but might work well for yours. Spoken examples are also actual real recordings from real humans, not computer generated. Free version is available but the paid version is better

Pimsleur: okay I haven’t actually tried this one yet, because it focuses mostly on speaking/listening only, but it’s been recommended a lot, so I think it’s worth checking out for yourself depending on your goals

It’s also worth checking if there are any apps specific to your language, because some do exist. I found one with short stories at different levels I can read. Heck, just type “learn [language]” into the app search and see what comes up. Check your library to see what they have free access to, as mentioned above. Check ytube too, there’s a lot of people offering whole courses for free there

Otherwise, if none of that works, I can only recommend looking for a course or tutor (online or in person) to help you out. The sad thing is duo’s been getting worse over the years and it’s not the app it used to be. If you want to use it, that’s your call, but I quit at the start of the year because I found it just wasn’t teaching me anything anymore the way it used to. I expect that with the above announcement, that’s only going to get worse. Anyway, I hope this helps someone out, there are more apps out there but these are the ones I liked at least some aspect of and I did not include the ones I didn’t like

Heads up to not use Duolingo or to cease using it

In December 2023 they laid off a huge percentage of their translation teams, replacing them with ai and having the remaining members review the ai translations to make sure the translations are “acceptable” (Note how they use the world acceptable and not accurate)

Link to the tweet that informed me of this:

https://x.com/rahll/status/1744234385891594380?s=46&t=a5vK0RLlkgqk-CTqc0Gvvw

If you’re a current user prepare for an uptick in translations errors as I’ve already seen people in the comments say they’ve noticed

[insecateur]

Re: fic bilingualism. I remember a looooong way back reading this one piece fic which had like. Gratuitous japanese inserted every other sentence and it was not very good lol.

Anyway regarding languages, i feel people don't realize how complex they can get to be. Like, i don't know much about french but i am sure like any other language it has its variations. Like i am 70% sure the french spoken in paris is not the same as french spoken in belgium lol. Or even how much languages influence eachother (I think its really cool the amount of arabic influence/words spanish has!)

Sorry about this dnfnfn

gratuitous japanese is a classic i don't really see it anymore but it used to be everywhere when i was younger 😭

you are right about the complexity of languages... when i translated stuff into french for my friend's fic some of what i came up with actually confused someone who knew french from québec haha. cuz it was slang basically. i think it's totally fair for people to not know a language and still want to use it but there's really no excuse not to find someone who can speak it to help... the internet is global!!

when i was working on translating stuff for my friend i actually stumbled upon an overwatch fic where someone had asked a french speaker to translate lines for widowmaker (tl;dr i don't have a lot of experience writing Sexy Times in french so i was looking up turns of phrases on AO3 to see if they were actually used LMAO. i ended up asking another french friend who has more experience with this for advice, too) and they were really good!! and like obviously if you don't speak french you won't really notice the difference but if you DO speak french your brain will absolutely gets stuck on the wrong translations and it will take you out of the story. and it's not like A Crime, when it happens i'm able to refocus and ignore it, but it is kind of annoying. cuz like i said it does make me feel like people just don't think about the fact that People Who Know The Language Will Read This As Well

also don't be sorry i'm happy to discuss anything... it's interesting!

[sugar-petals]

My Lady, how does one go about learning a new language? I'm here trying to expand my ligustic territory.

go by your strong suit:

audiobooks and youtube, perfect if you learn sonically. like a challenge? try spanish, it’s thrice as fast as most other languages. spaniards really emphasize the spoken word rather than the written one, they pack in all that information. listening is great fun though and if you learn this way, it’ll be worthwhile. if you go one step beyond, portuguese. super important to listen closely there. as a bonus, it’s way slower.

if you learn by reading, french is the way to go. spoken french swallows half the word so you need to start by knowing the spelling first anyway. also, written french is simply extremely satisfying. german is also important to read to know where we separate words. it’s similar to dutch. listening to dutch is harder than reading it.

if you love to write, pick up russian. it really takes some time until you rewire your brain for cyrillic, a lot of ‘false friend’ letters, that’s why it’s so important to write. but once you get into it, wow you progress faster and faster. another favorite for avid writers, hindi.

haptic learning: you use post-its on items in your room(s). i recommend thai since the letters are essentially beautiful swirly ornaments, it’s a pretty af alphabet. also, written arabic will do you a favor, it’s like you’re painting. you’ll see how much of a kinesthetic-friendly language it is.

visual learners do well with written chinese. most characters are calligraphic depictions of items and people. they understand the principle the fastest while other people struggle big time. your eye goes: i see herbs peeking through soil (艹) garden/field (田) tail (犭)... that’s a cat (猫)! and you picture a tail looking out of a catnip plant in your garden. learn japanese along the way, it incorporates kanji characters, same idea.

verbal learners and extroverts head straight to arabic. yep. arab speakers are the most flattered when you pick up their language and do conversation. pronunciation is key as they have a completely different phonology for e.g. q, h, th, g, gh sounds. another pick for verbal learners, again, portuguese. or any norse language.

if you’re good at maths and logic in general, latin is your friend. the grammar is almost never arbitrary like say german where we do the strangest things with verbs. similarly, written chinese is very regular.

if you pick up languages through music, korean is a no-brainer. it’s all so goddamn catchy. whenever i learn korean vocabulary, i can reference bits and pieces to k-pop right away. the songs also teach you the bit of word contraction that native speakers add. tumblr is full of blogs posting vocabulary lists for every new release of your favorite, it’s glorious.

BONUS - if you learn through memes and rolling on the floor... get into slavic languages, you won’t regret it.

[morganaspendragonss]

Hey! I absolutely love your "the lovers that went wrong" fic - ive been back to reread it several times now because i think its such a good idea and I love the relationship with TK and his mum - if only the show could give us something as good as that! - I was wondering- only if you were interested, could you write something from Carlos' pov with his parents? maybe they can see that TK is more than a friend and they talk to Carlos about him and TK and why he's feeling insecure? if not np :)

thank you so much anon, that’s so sweet of you!! i love this prompt, too - god knows the show probably won’t show us carlos’s pov. it was my pleasure to write it.

a note on the spanish - technically, i do speak spanish but it’s still very much a word in progress, so if any spanish-speakers want to correct me then please do

ao3 | 1.6k | 2.04 spoilers

Carlos can feel TK's eyes burning holes into the side of his head, but he doesn’t look around. He doesn’t want to see the confusion and hurt he knows TK must be feeling - and if that makes him a coward, then so be it. His parents’ gazes are flicking between them, so Carlos distracts his mom by pulling her into a hug, grateful for the brief opportunity to hide his face. 

Behind them, his dad is shaking TK’s hand, and Carlos’s entire brain is screaming wrongwrongwrong. This isn’t supposed to be happening. Not like this. Not yet.

He’s not ready.

His mom pulls away and Carlos forces a smile back on his face. They stand in an uncomfortable silence for a few moments, Carlos feeling like he’s being scrutinised.

Then, TK speaks. “It was great to meet you, Mr Reyes, Mrs Reyes,” he says, “but I should go. I told my dad I’d meet him and I’ll be late if I don’t leave.”

The lie rolls off his tongue, smoother than Carlos’s had, and Carlos dares a glance over. What he sees is so much worse than he imagined; to any other person, TK looks the picture of innocence, smiling kindly, eyes wide and bright. 

But Carlos knows him. He can see the tense set of TK’s shoulders, the way he’s subtly put more distance between them, the hurt hidden deep in his eyes. He feels sick with guilt, but there’s nothing he can do to fix it. Not here.

“I’ll drive you,” he offers, but TK firmly waves him off.

“No,” he says, jaw clenching minutely. “My dad’s place isn’t too far; I can walk.”

“But -”

“It’s fine.” 

Their eyes meet, and Carlos is suddenly hit with the force of what he’s done. Everything he’s been so scared of - TK deciding they’re not working, running away, Carlos getting his heart broken - all of that might happen now after all. 

And it’ll all be Carlos’s fault.

TK’s hand lands on his shoulder. “I’ll see you around, Carlos,” he mutters, and then he’s gone, striding back the way they came and taking half of Carlos’s heart with him.

“Is everything okay, mijo?” his mom asks, as Carlos keeps staring after TK even though he can’t see him anymore. 

Carlos doesn’t have an answer to that - the casual way they parted cut deeper than he’d ever thought possible, and he doesn’t know if it was just TK keeping up the act or his way of hurting Carlos the way he’d been hurt. Carlos wants to believe it’s the first one, but his less charitable side can’t help but wonder.

He can’t tell any of this to his mom, though, so he braces himself and turns back around, smiling. “Yeah, of course,” he says, surprised by how steady his voice is. “What are you guys doing here? I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

“Clearly,” his dad remarks, faintly amused, but before Carlos can figure that out, his mom is taking his arm and dragging him along with her.

“I was planning on making my chiles rellenos tonight, but your father forgot the chiles when he went shopping the other day.” She sends a reproachful look behind her, but the effect is offset by her fond smile. “You know they do the best ones here, so out we came. And here you are.”

“Here I am,” Carlos agrees through gritted teeth. He tries to extricate himself from her grip. “Look, mami, I don’t want to keep you. I’ll go, and you can -”

She stops suddenly, planting her hands on her hips. “I don’t see my only son for weeks, and the second we run into him, he wants to escape?” she demands. “No. You’re coming home with us, and you can help me with the food.”

“It’s hardly been weeks, mami,” he says weakly, knowing he’s already lost this argument. When Andrea Reyes makes up her mind, nothing can sway her.

“Psshh, details.” She waves her hand dismissively and takes his arm again, leaving Carlos no choice but to follow her to their car. He directs a wordless plea for help back at his dad, but he just holds his hands up, shaking his head. 

“Your mother’s right, you know,” he says. “We barely see you these days. Give us the afternoon, at least.”

Which is how Carlos ends up in his mother’s kitchen, silently helping her prepare chiles rellenos and trying not to wallow in his grief over TK.

He fails miserably - miserable being the operative word.

His mom is being suspiciously silent, and if Carlos had any energy left, he would call her out on it. He knows they’re going to end up having a discussion at some point, but he’s in no mood to provoke it. Easier just to let her initiate it herself.

“That boy at the market,” she starts eventually, far too casually for Carlos’s liking. “What was his name again?”

“TK.”

She hums. “You’ve never mentioned him before.”

He sighs heavily. “We’re friends, mami,” he reminds her wearily, the lie coming easier this time, which is something he really doesn’t want to read in to.

“I never suggested otherwise,” she says. “He seemed nice.”

“He is.”

She sighs, clearly fed up with his reticence, and sets her knife down. “¿Qué pasa, mijo?” she asks, turning to face him.

“Nada, mami, no pasa nada,” he insists, though he’s not entirely sure why he’s still bothering to lie.

“Don’t pull that shit with me, Carlos Reyes,” she says sharply, startling him. “Soy tu madre; te conozco. Now, I’ll ask again - what’s going on?”

He meets her gaze, seeing only warmth and concern there, and it nearly breaks him. “It’s difficult to explain.”

“Try me.”

Carlos bites his lip, deciding how best to break the news to her. He’s still not ready, not really, but he’s made his bed. Time to lie in it.

“I’ve met someone,” he hedges, trusting her to fill in the blank of TK’s name. “I’ve known him for a while, but we’ve only been seeing each other for the last four months.”

There’s a brief silence, then, “Why did you not tell us?” she asks, her tone gentle, not at all accusatory. “Is it not serious?”

He hesitates, swallowing past the lump in his throat. “I don’t know,” he admits, half-whispering. “I don’t… He… I…”

Carlos shakes his head, giving up on speech. He doesn’t protest when his mom reaches up to draw him into an embrace, resting his head on her shoulder. 

“I’m scared, mami,” he chokes out, squeezing his eyes shut and letting the tears fall. His mom holds him tight, rubbing comforting circles on his back as he shakes in her arms. 

They stay like that for a while, until she moves her hands to his shoulders and eases him away from her. “Why are you scared?” she asks. Her eyes narrow. “He’s not hurting you, is he?”

Carlos recoils at the thought. “No,” he says, the words bursting out of him in a half-shout. “He would never.”

“Then, what is it?”

He hesitates again, the thought of telling her everything suddenly very daunting. She clearly notices, as she reaches around him to push the half-prepared food away. Carlos’s eyes widen at that; his mom never stops cooking once she’s started. She smiles ruefully, then leads him over to the couch, pulling both of them down onto it. 

“Tell me.”

And Carlos does. He doesn’t divulge all of their long, complicated history, but he tells her enough for her to understand. He talks about TK’s reluctance to start anything, his own determination to try anyway. He talks about those days after TK got shot, and the solar storm, and that night under the stars when they finally agreed to give them a shot.

He talks about his fears that it’s all just a fantasy, that any day now the rose-tinted glasses are going to come off and TK is going to realise that he’s made a mistake, and Carlos will be left behind again. And he talks about his guilt for even thinking it, the way he wants so badly to believe that this is it.

Because, for him at least, Carlos is fairly sure that it is. He just wishes (hopes) the same is true for TK.

When he’s done talking, he glances hesitantly over at his mom. She’s watching him with a small smile on her face, her hand gently squeezing his knee.

“Oh, Carlos,” she says, shaking her head. “You’re in deep, aren’t you?”

He grimaces and nods. “I’ve ruined it all,” he says. “I hurt him, and now he’s never going to trust me again.”

“Oh, no you don’t,” she admonishes. He frowns up at her, only to meet a spectacular frown of her own. “You’re going to go to him, right now, and explain everything like you’ve just done for me. He’ll listen, and if he doesn’t then clearly he’s not good enough for you.”

“He’s good enough, mami,” he says, cracking a small smile. “I don’t know where he is, though; he was lying when he said he had to meet his dad.”

“Then you’re going to go home and wait,” she says, matter-of-fact. “If half of what you’ve said is true, he’s going to want to talk just as much as you do.”

Carlos doubts that, but he supposes it’s as good a plan as any. He could call TK, but he doesn’t want to rush him. Better to let him decide when he wants to talk to Carlos - Carlos had been the one to hurt him, after all.

He leans into his mom’s side, smiling at her. “Thank you, mami.”

She kisses his temple. “Te quiero, my son. Now, go. If this boy is as good as you say, I’ll never forgive you for letting him go, let alone him.”

Carlos laughs, then gets to his feet and leaves his parents’ house, filled with a sudden determination to fix this.

He doesn’t think he could live with himself if he didn’t at least try.