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valdaycare-au · 7 months

Note

How come exactly all of them got hired or found the job? (Like for example how did Sasha, who is literally from the russian tundra, found a babysitter job to be fitting, and how did all of them got to be in the exact same workplace???)

Heya! Iris here, in charge of most of the writing (the post text and even some of the in-character responses for the ask submissions) and lore alongside Domi who was in charge of the beautiful, crispy, amazing art you guys are being served with our blog! Now yes, there is lore, there is a story to be told about all of these and we actually planned to do a weekly post about the backstory of how the daycare came to be and how all of the sitters ended up in Little Wonders but both Domi and I are college students and alongside with the submissions, we got dumped so none of the lore tidbits we initially planned are done.

I do, however, have written very juicy notes about that so we'll give you a little preview of the sitter's backstories.

Please take note that this is written within the convenience that all of the agents are living in the same country (or in this case, are immigrants and/or have been born in said undisclosed country) and that the tale of their residence in that country isn't within the scope of this AU. After all, it is quite realistic for other ethnicities to move in and live in other countries for their own reasons.

So, let's begin! (I apologize in advance for the poor verb tenses [i made sure to beta read it, of course] and the google translated spanish. I should really get a hold of my past duolingo lessons 😔)

Sage - Ling Ying Wei

So she is the one that started it all. Little Wonders was quite the old daycare center and as an immigrant in a foreign country, it was quite hard to land a job because of racism and other horrible human things that weren't really inherently helpful. She landed the job at Little Wonders who was owned by an unknown individual who wanted to build a daycare. But the economical inflation caused prices to skyrocket, and the expenses in the daycare had grown demanding—Ying Wei ended up being alone after the owner and everyone else left due to the lack of budget and the loss of their clients because it has gotten unaffordable. (In short, you know those games like Lily's Garden? Yeah, she's Lily and the daycare is her garden.) Ying Wei felt lost, so she decided to vent it out to a friend and this friend decided to help out.

Skye - Kirra Foster

Kirra was the friend to the rescue. Having met in a forum online years (if not decades) ago, Ying Wei and Kirra are tight-knit and are like two peas in a pod that were separated from each other and had been joined again. She is, to put it simply, one of those dedicated online friends that you have. (Except that she actually managed to meet Ying Wei a couple of times and unlike most of us.)

In any case, Kirra heard that Ying Wei was suffering and told her everything. She flew to the country to console her, talk, and eventually offered to help her restore the daycare in its former glory for the reason that it held a special place in her friend's heart. She thought that it was quite absurd—why would Ying Wei, a normal employee, be left with this bankrupt daycare when it's supposed to be the owner's responsibility to rebuild it again? But nonetheless, she stayed and told Ying Wei that she'll only stick around once the repairs and the recuperation is done but like her internet bestie, she grew fond and excited for the daycare's great comeback.

We'll get through this, Ying Wei, you and I. You're the bloody rightful owner of this daycare, 'n we'll make it prosper again, yeah? [redacted] isn't going to get a single penny from when you finally make this work, hear me?

Kirra, I legally do not own the daycare nor do I hold the title. They're still going to get a cent.

Eh, fuck that! I'm telling ya, Ying, if they do come back, we're going to demand full ownership of this place, yeah? Cheer up, mate.

Sova - Sasha Novikov

He was a man destined for greatness—until some tragedy happened that had completely scraped his dream and his career down the drain. Immigrating to a different country, Sasha worked as a salaryman with a discouraged outlook in life. Despite being discouraged, he worked hard and diligently and earned promotions and raises to accompany his loyalty and services. But sometimes life grows bleaker and Sasha thought that his journey as a salaryman was now coming to a close. He decided that he wanted to do something meaningful and thought of jobs that would make him feel fulfilled—finding the hiring poster for Little Wonders flying right to his face (literally). He thought he wouldn't be accepted considering his experiences as a sitter was lacking, but he did. He immediately proved himself to Ying Wei and Kirra and became a formidable member of Little Wonders.

Wh-what the—? A hiring poster for a daycare?

Chamber - Vincent Fabron

Being a Frenchman born in a life of nobility and privilege; Vincent found himself enjoying life in another country after moving in with his parents after graduating with latin honors in Mechanical Engineering in France. It's not like his parents told him to get a job anyway and there's a vast new world to explore; so explore he did. Unfortunately, Vincent got carried away and ended up spending more and more until he was reprimanded by parents who didn't exactly care but felt like they should hold him off anyway.

He was forced to get a job. And getting a job wasn't exactly easy even with connections. If it were in France, he would've landed a job easy but this is a different country. He was forced to grovel. 5 months had passed, and he still wasn't able to find a job. In a moment of desperation, he found the job listing as a babysitter and for some miraculous reason, he was accepted. Maybe it was his strong demeanor, maybe it's his suave and silver tongue, but Vincent who only knew how to take care of dogs ended up as pretty problematic babysitter who tolerates children more than caring for them. Due to the lack of manpower, Ying Wei couldn't bring herself to fire him. He did and still does try to do his job properly and has resorted into doing administrative work more than actual babysitting for the daycare. (But with the presence of new competition, he finds himself working with the kids once more as he now sees his job being compromised.)

Madame Ling, I finally caught them like you requested.

VINCENT WHY ARE YOU HOLDING THOSE KIDS BY THEIR SHIRTS?! ARE YOU INSANE?!

Gekko - Mateo Armendáriz de la Fuente

Wanting to create money for himself and get a working experience from all those seminars his mother (practically) forced him to attend, young and bright Mateo applied for the job recently as a part-timer for the daycare under the recommendation of his family friend and considered aunt, Zyanya Mondragon (who has connections with Miss Ling but that will be elaborated in the future, hopefully?)

As a bubbly and cheerful young man with hopes and dreams (which the other sitters envy), he drew the attention of the children with extreme ease and was regarded as the rising rookie within the staff as he easily befriended the children and played with them. While Vincent saw and has since labelled the college student as a threat (just a little bitter), Sasha and Ying Wei found him as a great addition to the team and had considered hiring him as a full-time babysitter once he graduated college. Mateo is currently majoring in Architecture.

Tienes esto, pequeño. You underwent training, you even got a certification for babysitting specifically. You said you want to earn a little more money so you don't burden your mother, don't you?

L-lo sé, lo sé... I'm just worried that the kids I'll take care of won't like me... you know. They're kinda brutal, mi reina.

Ay, you're a nice kid, Mateo. Cree más en ti mismo, ¿por favor? You're going to do just fine.

Okay, okay, okay.

____________________________

In any case, these can still change overtime until it can be finalized. In the meantime, we both just want to have fun for now and enjoy writing how the sitters react to people wanting to date them. Would there be a dating sim revolving the mommies and daddies—I mean, the sitters in the future? No. JK. Unless? 🤨

We're glad that you're also having fun with this silly little AU that we have! (Hopefully you guys stick around us because we seriously have so much in store. We haven't even introduced the parents yet, but make your guesses!!) All the best and thank you so much for 100 followers here on Tumblr!!

We also created a Twitter/X Account too, yes this is an actual link and not a sentence I wanted to underline for emphasis (because we both thought that Domi might want to separate some non-AU art from her account, but we both love the reach it gives her). Please give us a follow! We love you!

-Iris and Domi

#daycareval #daycareval-ask #daycareval-lore #daycareval-comic #daycareval-story #daycareval-sage #daycareval-skye #daycareval-sova #daycareval-chamber #daycareval-gekko #valorant #valorant sage #valorant skye #valorant sova #valorant chamber #valorant gekko #valorant fanart #valorant au #daycare au

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study-with-aura · 6 days

Text

Wednesday, April 24, 2024

I was not sure if this was going to get posted tonight or not. The internet has been acting funny, and I think it's a DNS problem since the speed is nearing 100 Gbps, and it was any website loading that was timing out. I changed the DNS, and that seems to have helped. I wonder what is causing it to act up.

Today was good, long but good. I had trouble sleeping last night. Insomnia periods are not fun, so I hope I am not slipping into one again. Every now and then I will wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to get back to sleep for another hour, which is not good because normally I would get 8.5 hours of sleep without that. With that, that sleep time drops to about 6 hours! That is not healthy!

Saying of such, I am going to get ready for bed now. Pray that I can sleep well!

P.S. If you look at my biology section below, you will see a link to a YT video on the video I had to watch for Bio today. It is informational but quite disturbing at the same time. You have to watch it to the end. If you are looking for something that will make you go "what just happened?", I recommend watching it. If you know anything about that particular organism, you will understand it, but it is still questionable.

Tasks Completed:

Geometry - Properties of Triangles Review + honors review

Lit and Comp II - Reviewed Units 22-24 vocabulary + read a biography about Theodore Roosevelt + read more on Theodore Roosevelt + read the beginning of Theodore Roosevelt's First Annual Address + took a quiz on Much Ado About Nothing (100%) + completed a page of timed writing on a play topic

Spanish 2 - Presented my clothing "design" presentation to my dad + reviewed preterit, imperfect, present, and future verb tenses

Bible I - Read Matthew 5

World History - Wrote a short essay on how the interference of the Soviet Union and the United States impacted Korea, Cuba, and Vietnam

Biology with Lab - Watched a very weird video lecturing on protists + looked at a protist image gallery + finished up my experiment + finished typing up my formal lab report

Foundations - Read the definition of truthfulness + completed next quiz on Read Theory + finished writing my speech (last day for writing/speech presentation on Friday)

Piano - Practiced for two hours in one hour split sessions

Khan Academy - Watched World History Unit 6: Lesson 11 (parts 6-7) + completed High School Geometry daily mastery challenge

CLEP - None today

Streaming - Watched Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War episode 7

Duolingo - Studied for approximately 30 minutes (Spanish, French, Chinese) + completed daily quests

Reading - Read pages 161-196 of Ruthless Vows by Rebecca Ross

Chores - None today

Activities of the Day:

Personal Bible Study (1 Corinthians 10)

Ballet

Variations

Journal/Mindfulness

#study blog #study inspiration #study motivation #studyblr #studyblr community #study community #study-with-aura

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spanishskulduggery · 3 months

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Hello,

In the sentence "Me alegro mucho de que se haya acabado la escuela", can you explain the "de que se"?

Multiple things happening here, but it's multiple moving parts.

You're dealing with a reflexive verb + subjunctive clause of an impersonal expression that uses se.... I'm going to explain it in painstaking detail so let me know if there's anything that doesn't make sense

This is subjunctive

The de que indicates a subjunctive phrase with two subjects separating clauses - where alegrarse is the first verb, and the second verbal clause is using haber in subjunctive

Because they're separate clauses - two different subjects and two different verbs, they need the que to separate them

alegrarse is "to get happy" as a reflexive verb which is where the me is coming from for me alegro - since me applies to yo, and alegro is the yo conjugation you can tell it's reflexive; in other words subject and object are the same

alegrarse (de algo) is "to be happy (about something)" OR subjunctive is alegrarse (de que algo pase) "to be happy that something is happening" - again that subjunctive has two separate clauses there; it takes de as its preposition

haya is subjunctive of haber, but the real point here is that the expression is an impersonal or passive one - essentially adding a se is saying "school is over" or understood as "he/she finished school"; I couldn't say specifically because there's no subject so my mind immediately goes to 3rd person impersonal [a lack of a subject, often done with se; exactly the same as se dice "it is said / they say" or se habla español "they speak Spanish / Spanish is spoken"]

Additionally just to note that haber + participle is sometimes used by people in place of preterite... like haber acabado is "to have finished" but people might use that as preterite "finished" [acabó / se acabó] instead; they're technically different tenses but Spanish sometimes doesn't use the preterite - so if you see me using a past tense voice instead of "to have done" which is what haber + past participle literally means that's why

Breaking it down as we go:

me alegro is reflexive "I am happy" or "I am glad", or "I get glad"; alegrarse takes de as its preposition. You can say me alegro de eso "I am happy about that"

alegrarse de + que is where you separate the clauses; me alegro is a yo phrase, and then the second one is impersonal 3rd person "the school was closed"

The next part of it involves se + acabar with haber there as well. haberse acabado - acabar by itself is "to finish", acabarse or haberse acabado in this case comes out as "to be done" or "to be finished up" [it can also be "to run out" (like time or flour/ingredients etc), or "to be done with"]; se ha acabado would be regular present tense in 3rd person: "it is over" or "it is finished up", while the present subjunctive is se haya acabado in 3rd person

...

Putting it all together: me alegro de que se haya acabado la escuela comes out as "I am glad that school is over/out" or possibly "I'm glad they finished with school" which I think could potentially be like "I'm glad that they're done with their schooling" or something along those lines

The de que se is more correct with verbs that use a de and then have a separate clause:

Estoy seguro/a de que tienes razón. = I am sure you're right. [indicative] No estoy seguro/a de que tengas razón. = I am not sure you're right. [subjunctive]

The de is considered more correct but there are people who colloquially leave it out; like antes de que + subjuntivo "before (something happens)" is sometimes written as antes que + subjuntivo. It would likely be marked incorrect if you were taking a formal test and it's more informal writing

Additional Notes: If you were using a different verbal expression that was personal - meaning had a clearer subject - that second reflexive wouldn't be necessary: me alegro de que hayas acabado "I'm glad you finished" or "I'm glad that you have finished" more literally

This would be like me alegro de que hayas terminado con la escuela "I'm glad you finished school" which is using hayas the subjunctive tú form of haber

Or a reflexive might be like me alegro de que te hayas graduado "I'm glad that you graduated"

...

And this is just a note on the passive/impersonal which is 3rd person, usually singular

You'd be forgiven for not knowing when 3rd person is supposed to be impersonal/passive or an actual 3rd person; when it's vague, Spanish-speakers tend to go by context (which subject was last talked about; ¿Has oído lo de María? Me alegro que se haya graduado "Did you hear about Maria? I'm so glad she graduated")

If it's very vague or if you could be misunderstood, people tend to state the subject specifically to erase doubt - ¿Has oído lo de María? Me alegro que su hija se haya graduado "Did you hear about Maria? I'm glad her daughter graduated"...... if you didn't include su hija, the context would make it seem like Maria was the one graduating because of Spanish normally omitting the subject

In your particular case, I tend to think it's acabarse la escuela "for school to be out/over" or idiomatically for "someone to de done school"

...

One more note! alegrarse is reflexive "to be glad" or "to get glad"

There's the potential you might see alegrar(le) "to make someone glad" which works like gustar but also causes subjunctive

me alegra que se haya acabado la escuela "it makes me happy that school is done with"... a more roundabout way is "(that) school is done with makes me happy"

me alegra is "it makes me happy" vs. me alegro "I get happy"

They look almost exactly the same but there is a difference grammatically; this would be more distinct if you used a different pronoun - te alegras / te alegra, se alegra / le alegra or les alegra, nos alegramos / nos alegra

One is a reflexive, one is indirect object - but both indicate a subjunctive clause. I just didn't want you to be confused if you happened to see an O in one sentence or an A in a different one and get confused, because it's different grammar for something that comes out very similar in translation

In English, me alegra and me alegro both come out as "I am glad" while the truer distinction is like "I am happy" vs. "it makes me happy"

#asks #langblr #spanish #learning spanish #language #learn spanish #spanish grammar #long post #subjunctive #subjuntivo #la gramatica

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trivalentlinks · 7 months

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gendered pronouns

been seeing a post going around about how older relatives using incorrect pronouns for their trans family members just makes the older relatives seem senile to outside strangers

and while i get where this is coming from, when i observe this kind of thing happening (older people i don't know getting their relative's pronouns wrong) i just kind of assume their native language doesn't have gendered pronouns

my parents and many of their friends are straight and cis, and they all routinely get pronouns wrong (including of their own spouses, whose gender they definitely 100% know) when speaking languages with gendered pronouns, and i'm pretty sure it's because their native languages don't have gendered pronouns

i don't know why gendered pronouns are exceptionally hard, but empirically they seem to be

like, their native language also doesn't have verb conjugations (so nothing like 'i see' vs 'he sees' using different words), but these friends and family members don't seem to have trouble with that

same with declensions (HE chases the cat vs the cat chases HIM), their native language doesn't have that, but i almost never hear people making mistakes like this when speaking english

but gendered pronouns seems to be really hard for some people, even when they've lived in the west for years and years

i wonder if it's part of a greater pattern of it being especially hard to think about gender in contexts where you're not used to thinking about gender

like, i am not a native speaker of spanish (was in spanish-as-a-second-language until age 11, when my parents forced the school to put me in regular classes) and even though spanish has several constructions that don't exist in english or chinese (like a whole other future tense that conjugates with the subject), the one thing i screw up the most is noun genders

(like remembering that it's 'el tequila' and 'el problema' and 'el mar' (the sea) (masc.), but 'la sal' (the salt), and 'la sangre' (the blood) (fem.) often times i'll have to say 'el sangre' out loud and then be like, no, that didn't sound right, let's try again)

#gendered pronouns #grammar

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90sbee · 4 months

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Sometimes I feel bad about taking forever to edit/proofread shit, then I remember I'm writing in my second language and all the translator's training makes me incredibly perfectionist because I pretty much know how to edit at that level of detail and not for, you know, fun.

Like oh no. Are you sure that word actually works there? Are you sure you even know that word? Please check the punctuation again. Also yes that may be a stylistic choice but it may be too bold. Replace it with something else. Have you already checked your tenses? For the love of god, do it again. Does this sound natural? Remember to use verbs when possible instead of nouns, otherwise it's gonna sound awkward. Also no, you'll probably never write naturally in English cos you'll never get all the subtleties of English as a native Spanish speaker. Don't even try, just translate into Spanish and that's it. Also, are you sure that that word makes sense there? Where did you even get that word from? Is it slang? The dictionary definition doesn't help. Are you sure your parallel texts back-you up properly? Are you even sure those are good sources? You know what, just, scrap that whole sentence and start all over again.

#this is a draft a month old and i dont even want to check it again. not proofreading we post and die like men #boludeces y reclamos mios(?#mine #bee's wips

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absinthe-and-abstinence · 3 years

Text

An Unhealthy Obsession: Chapter 9

The Shocking Conversation

TW: Electrocution, swearing

Hi everyone! I'm back from vacation, which means that more content will be coming soon! Everyone's kudos and comments have been amazing, and I'm excited to hear your reactions. Thanks again, and see you soon. : )

Previous Chapter | Master List | Next Chapter

The next few days seemed more relaxed, and it felt as though Spencer was warming up to you more. After you launched yourself on him that first day, you reeled back a little bit more – not entertaining any impulses that came your way. Even as you caught him humming to himself while pouring coffee, you kept your distance.

You weren’t sure how many books he had finished since staying here, but he was found with a different one each morning and evening. It didn’t seem to matter if they were English either – he picked up a few in German, Dutch, and French. The one thing you learned that surprised you was:

“You don’t know Spanish?”

He shrugged, putting down a copy of El Laberinto de la Soledad. “I hadn’t really needed to learn it before. I figure I know French and some Italian, so I have some basic Latin understanding.” He looked towards you and smiled. “I assumed it’s enough to get me by.”

You crossed your arms and leaned against the wall of the study, seeing which novel he might choose instead. “Spanish is the easiest language to learn.”

“Not necessarily. Norwegian is actually simpler for most English learners to pick up. Because of its Germanic root, a lot of words are similar sounding with similar meanings, and there’s only one form of each verb per tense.” He walked over to you, putting his hands into his pockets. “Swedish can be picked up with ease since it and English share so many conjugates, grammar rules, and word order.”

He now stood only a few inches from you, hovering around the doorframe. “Check.”

“Si no te quiera - serías absolutamente molesta.”

He chuckled. “I’m guessing I should pick up Spanish, then?”

“Your memory isn’t echoic, is it?”

“No – just visual.”

You laughed. “Then maybe.”

He raised an eyebrow and leaned in further, making you sweat. You weren’t sure if he knew how uncomfortable he made you, but if he did – he was doing it very well.

---

Each day he seemed more comfortable in this space, and you wondered how much of it was a charade to stay afloat, or his genuine reaction. You had to remind yourself over again that he was an expert when it came to dealing with criminal masterminds and learned how to change his behavior to deal with them, and for him – at this point – you were what people might consider a criminal. Even if you hadn’t killed anyone, you had kidnapped a federal agent.

He hadn’t escaped yet, however. Or even tried to, as far as you could tell.

The collar remained around his neck and even though he passed by the front door often, he never made a move to turn the handle. As much as he told you that your behavior didn’t make sense, his behavior also confused you.

When you had originally planned on taking him home, you imagined dinner dates and many nights of tender love. Instead, you sat on the couch with him in the evenings, laughing at cartoon sponges and starfish. It had been a while since you had sat down and watched the episodes, and being with someone seeing it for the first time made you appreciate it more. Although, you couldn’t tell if you just had fun watching the show, or the quality time you were spending with him.

You had just sat down to dinner one night when Spencer decided to start the conversation.

“I think you’re at an unfair advantage here.”

Puzzled, you glanced towards him. He was resting his face on a bridge he made with his hands, staring back at you with the world’s best poker face.

“What are you talking about?”

He used one of his hands to gesture to the room.

“All of this.”

This didn’t ease your uncertainty, so he inhaled sharply and continued.

“You know…so much about me. It’s terrifying, actually, how much you know. You know about my team, the cases I’ve worked on, parts of my child, my favorite things—”

“Only some of your favorites; I don’t know them all yet,” you interrupted.

He continued, fixing the correct. “Most of my favorite things, the books I read…and yet, I’ve been thinking.” He brought his hand back under his chin and took a pause.

“I don’t know a single thing about you.”

You didn’t quite know how to react to this. It wasn’t the way you thought this conversation was leading towards, and you never really thought about it. You decided to wade a little deeper.

“I thought you were the behavioral expert – I’m sure you’ve profiled me already.”

He lowered his head and moved his hands down into his lap and licked his lips. “Yes.”

“…And?”

He paused, puzzled. “You want me to tell you your profile?”

“I think it’d be fun.”

He scoffed at that. “Fun…most unsubs don’t consider getting profiled ‘fun.’”

So. He still thought of you as an unsub. An attacker. You couldn’t quite blame him, but the words sunk into your chest. He didn’t seem to see this reaction from you and moved forward.

“Um…heh. I, uh, you’re what we call in the industry as an intimacy seeker. It’s a rarer form of stalking. Oftentimes, intimacy seekers,” he said, licking his lips once more, trying to steady his breath, “try to establish intimate relationships with their victim. They can believe the person of their obsession and them are ‘meant to be together’ and can act irrationally to make that happen.”

All you could do was listen.

“It’s usually associated with bipolar disorder, since symptoms like psychosis and mania are often co-morbidities. It can also stem from childhood neglect or isolation, so we tend to look for people who struggled socially or with making friends growing up. People who never got a real sense of being loved or admired, so their ideas of love and attachment manifest differently.

“I’ve also thought about erotomania – or the delusion feeling that someone is in love with you, often attached to being unattainable. Like being in a higher social class, being wealthier, being in an already existing relationship, or even being fictional.”

Your heart held still – your breath uneasy with apprehension.

“I’m not sure now how much I agree with the original profile.” He furrowed his brow and started fidgeting with his hands. “In most cases like these, the unsub tends to throw themselves onto the victim – usually with physical affection in some sense. They tend to care more about themselves and their experience of pleasure with the victim rather than the victim themselves. The first day here, I had a sense of that. But since then,”

He glanced over at you, the first time he had done so since explaining. The hairs on the back of your neck stood up and you had trouble keeping your hands from shaking. “You’ve not really done anything. I mean, you’ve ran your hand through my hair,” he said while mimicking the action, “or giving me a kiss or two, but nothing really passionate or sexual.” He rested his elbows on the table.

“It just doesn’t really make sense.”

You sat quietly, taking in the information he had just relayed to you. Biting the inside of your cheek, you ran your mind over the words isolation and struggling socially. That part was true, however, you didn’t want to admit that or get too deep yet. You tried to twist the conversation on a different path.

“Well, you did get a few things wrong.”

His eyes, which had stayed focused on you while you pondered, narrowed in. He rubbed his hands together, as if he was the one anxious now.

“I don’t have bipolar – I mean, of course, I do have issues,” you said, while tapping the side of your head, “just different ones in here.”

He crinkled his forehead as if that wasn’t the part of the profile he expected to dissect. You continued.

“Also: I don’t like you because you’re unattainable. It never had anything to do with class or wealth. And as we can both see; you are somewhat attainable.” You winked, and he glanced down, avoiding your gaze. He turned his head slightly, and you swore you could see the glimpse of a blush there.

“Besides, you don’t really fit the profile for a victim, either.”

That got his attention.

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” you replied, waving your hand in circles, “I thought that usually if there’s an unsub, there’s a victim. And in those cases, they usually try to call out for help, run away, escape, fight the unsub, or react in some way.”

“You,” you said, placing your elbows down on the table and leaning in, “haven’t done much escaping or reaching out for help.” You gestured to the front door. “You haven’t even tried the doorknob or seen if a window is unlocked.”

He cleared his throat and frowned.

“I, um, usually would. But I, uh, have another issue to worry about instead.” He brought down the collar of his shirt more to show the collar full of blinking electric lights that illuminated around his neck. “That, and these of course.” He brought up his hands, taking turns touching the cuffs that were attached to each one.

You asked him a question you weren’t sure you wanted to know the answer to.

“Have you tried breaking the code yet?”

He sighed, putting his hands back down. “I have, but since it’s a numerical code with a fair amount of digits, it’s taking me a while to go through them all. I started at 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 and I’m working my way up.” He shrugged. “It’s not the most time-efficient, but it's effective.”

You wondered what sequence he was up to now.

“By the way,” he asked, “what does happens if I try to leave here with these on?”

Shit.

“Umm…” you replied, pursing your lips.

The honest answer was that you didn’t really know at all. Was it stupid to place something around your own neck, and someone else’s, without knowing the consequences? Probably. You didn’t even know if something would happen at all. Odds on that there wouldn’t be a reaction at all. You debated back and forth between scaring them with a dramatic result of him leaving, or being honest. As much as it made you worry, you spoke again.

“I’m actually not sure. I’ve never used them on somebody before or tried them out for myself. You’re more than welcome to see what happens.”

His eyebrows raised and his eyes widened, surprised. “Really?”

You shrugged, getting this far anyway.

“What’s the worst that can happen?”

You walked over to the front door as he watched you curiously. You gestured the doorknob to him, and he got up slowly and walked over. Before opening the door, he asked:

“Are you sure?”

You gave a slight nod, and he took the doorknob in his hand and turned it. The door opened, naturally, but he still jumped a little. You let out a little laugh and he took a step outside.

“Ah, outdoors. How I’ve missed you.”

You walked over to the doorframe and leaned your body against it. “Did you?”

He looked back at you, still standing in front of the front door.

“There’s a big yard in the back. We could make it into a garden or something.”

He laughed. “I didn’t miss it that fucking much.”

His colloquialism caught you by surprise as he descended down the front stairs and towards the driveway. You never heard him swear before, and while it didn’t surprise you that he might, the action still took you off guard.

By the time you had absorbed his last statement, he had made it halfway up the driveway. He spun his body towards you and spread out his hands.

“So far so good!” he exclaimed.

He grinned as he continued to walk backward, stepping up further and further the driveway. You walked down from the front door down towards the front of the steps, wondering if he’d take the chance to run off or come back to you.

You didn’t have enough time to get very worried as a yelp of pain interrupted your thoughts. You focused back in to see Spencer had gotten past the driveway onto the main road, and you had just enough time to see him drop to the ground.

You ran as fast as you could over to him, his moans of pain striking you. He convulsed on the ground, making random rapid movements. As you got closer, you could see the veins on his neck and hands popping. He gritted his teeth but winces of pain made their way through.

You wrapped his hands underneath his back, careful to avoid his arm’s movement, and tried to hoist him up. He couldn’t stand or support himself at all, so you brought one of your hands up underneath his armpit to hoist him up more. His body shook intensely, and feeling his quivering body against yours filled you with worry and concern. You took one of his arms and placed it around his neck, holding onto his hand.

His lower body dragged a little on the driveway until he finally got enough motor function back to support himself little by little. By the time you reached the front door, he was able to walk again, albeit his body still shaking and his breathing heavy.

You brought him over to the couch, where you were able to support him as he laid down. He inhaled deeply and placed his hands over his face.

“Spencer, I am so, so sorry.”

The words weren’t enough to describe how horrible you felt and the guilt building inside of you. You had him here to take care of him and love him, and yet he had ended up in excruciating agony due to you.

The room was silent for a while as you watched his body relax and his breathing slow down. Finally, he spoke as he folded his arms around his stomach.

“You know the human body has an inherent high resistance to electric current, which means without sufficient voltage a dangerous amount of current cannot flow through the body and cause injury or death.” He turned to look at you with a painful smile.

“Whatever the current amount is on these restraints felt pretty sufficient.”

You opened your mouth to apologize again, but he shushed you, placing his index finger a few inches from your lips.

“Don’t say anything. I wanted to test it out.”

He took his eyes off you and brought back his arm. He outstretched both arms and stretched out his hands.

“I’m just not going to be leaving with these on at all.” He sighed, then remarked, “Back to the code again.”

You didn’t have any words to say to him. What could you say? What was there to say? You leaned over to place your hand on his shoulder, which promptly gave you a jolt of static electricity.

You shook your hand, and couldn’t help but laugh. “Every day you shock me.”

He sat up, smiling. “Was that a pun?”

You put your hands behind your back.

“Maybe.”

He ran his hands through his hair.

“You’re such a dork.”

“Are you positive about that?”

He turned his body to sit directly in front of you.

“You wanna know what being electrocuted feels like?” he asked.

You waited, and he leaned in closer to you. Only a few inches from your face, your heart began to beat loud and your hands started to clam up. Unaware if either of you could tell you were blushing, he grinned.

“It Hertz.”

You smiled back with a toothy grin.

“Now look who’s the dork.”

You both sat there, close to each other, unaware of what to do now. The space felt personal at first, but as the silence continued it became more awkward. You were the first to break away from contact.

“So, since you’ll be here for a while still, do you want to pick out a board game or a movie or anything?”

“That’s a very abrupt change of conversation.”

He really was such a dork.

“I’d suggest a video game, but I’m afraid you’ll fry any electronics around you right now.”

He chuckled at that.

“You can always read too, if you want.” You started to ramble. “The study is always open and if you’re running out of books I can go and pick up more. Or—"

“Actually, I’ve got a different idea,” he said, interrupting.

That got your attention.

“And what would that be?”

He patted the seat next to him on the couch, and you sat there, listening. As he continued, you scooted back a bit more, not wanting to be too close. He began to fidget with his hands, moving his head down to watch them instead of you.

“I’ve been here for a little while, and by the looks of it, I’ll be here longer still. I wanted to bring it up earlier today, but then we got into the whole ‘profile thing’ and that…detracted from there.”

You crinkled your brows as you leaned in and listened.

“I really don’t know anything about you. Maybe I’ve psycho-analyzed you to an extent,” he said with a shrug, “but even then, not all of the profile fit right either. So I’ve got a game for you.”

He turned and glanced at you. “It’s called ‘Q&A.’ I’ll ask you a question, and you answer it.”

“That’s not much of a game.”

“You asked me what I wanted to do, and I’m telling you what I wanted to do.”

“It’s not much of a name either.”

“I’m bad at naming.”

You contemplated for a minute, then answered.

“How about you ask me a question, I’ll answer, and then I get to ask you one too?”

“…Do I have to answer as well?”

You laughed. “That is the general idea.”

He fell back into the couch cushion and stared up at the ceiling.

“But you stalked me. You already know everything about me.”

You crossed your arms and folded your legs into criss-cross style. “Not everything, like I said earlier today. I know your career and childhood mostly,” you said, not noticing how creepy it was until it left your mouth. “I don’t know the more personal things about you.”

He didn’t take note of this and replied.

“Guess I just have a lot of catch-up to play, then.”

He took a moment and stated; “I do get the first question. Y’know, since it’s my game and I can come up with the rules.”

You laughed at that and he took his eyes off the ceiling towards you. There, in them, you saw that glimmer again.

“What’s your name?”

It was until this very moment you realized you hadn’t ever told him your name before. He might’ve seen it on an attendance sheet back at the lecture hall, but didn’t have a face to connect it to. Besides, why would have he cared then?

“It’s Y/N. My, um, name’s Y/N.”

He pursed his lips and echoed your name back slowly.

“Y/N.”

The way he said your name choked you. It felt warm and inviting, and as he mused over it, it felt like you were hearing it for the first time.

He licked his lips and repeated it again.

“Y/N. It suits you.”

You couldn’t care how many times he repeated it. It felt wonderful to hear. Almost too wonderful, that you almost forgot your turn.

“My turn for a question now.”

You thought for a while until you came up with one you had wondered about for a while.

“What’s your favorite color?”

He scoffed.

“You watched me for how long, and you don’t know my favorite color?”

You shook your head.

“Mmm….” He thought for a while. “White. White or a sage green, I think.”

“Just, pure white, or a shade of white?”

He grinned. “Nope. My turn – that still counts as a question.”

You frowned a little, although you weren’t that upset.

“How old are you?”

While that may not usually be a tough question, for the scenario, it was. You were living in 2009 here, even though your reality was in the 2020s. If you told him you were born in 1995, he’d think you were a teenager, and then you’d really be in over your head.

“I’m 27,” giving him your real age. “Now,” you continued, “plain white or a shade of it?”

“I didn’t realize we were the same age. Or at least until October, anyway.” He paused before deciding. “Alabaster.”

Alabaster. It was such a soft, cream color. He fit him perfectly.

You continued to ask questions back and forth, not realizing how late it would start to become as you laughed and talked together until the wee hours of the morn.

#criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds fanfic #spencer reid x you #spencer reid/you #spencer reid/reader #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid imagine #spencer #spencer reid #yandere fanfic #yancore #yandere #an unhealthy obsession #chapter 9 #fan fiction #fanfiction

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nordic-language-love · 3 years

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Language Learning Log 2021 - Week 28 (12.07 - 18.07)

Norwegian

Read 3x Harry Potter og Mysteriekammeret chapters

Listened to the radio

Listened to 1x Siri og de gode hjelperne episode

Watched 3x Kveldsnytt broadcasts

Italki lessons (1h 45 mins)

Spanish

Collins Spanish Grammar & Practice: Adjectives exercises 9-20

Spanish Tutor: Unit 3 exercises C-O, Unit 4 exercises A-O, Unit 5 exercises A-R

Listened to 3x Hoy Hablamos episodes

Listened to 2x Lost in Barcelona episodes

Watched 1x Dreaming Spanish video

Read 1x article (read aloud)

Watched 2x SKAM España episodes

Japanese

Duolingo: Hiragana 1, Intro 2, Counting, Time

Summary

All in all, a fairly mixed week. I’m feeling burned out and depressed and anxious and I feel like I have nowhere to turn to and I’m not about to bother anyone with my own stupid non-problems. But then, I’ve been feeling that way for months, so I guess I’m gonna just keep pushing on through and hoping that things will change soon. I have my italki pre-approval meeting on Wednesday and then I finally get to start teaching. I’m terrified, but hopefully having something extra to do and keep my brain occupied will help (it’s a risk though because if I get even 1 not-so-great review my confidence will probably be ruined, but I have nothing else going for me so I guess it’s worth a shot). A change is as good as a rest, right?

Norwegian

I tried out a new italki tutor this week and she was lovely! We had such a nice relaxed conversation :) She said to me she wasn’t sure what exactly I wanted to learn from her because I speak so well and she didn’t have to correct me at all haha. So next time I’ll come armed with some more advanced topics to discuss instead of just making small talk about familiar topics (performance arts, cats and the pandemic mostly).

I’m still not sure what to do in regards to tutors... I’ve been using two different ones and the original plan was to alternate weekly. Unfortunately because I have Problems, that ended up being two lessons a week. But now I feel like shaking it up and trying out different tutors but I still like the ones I have? And I’d feel sad if I ditch them (even though one of them is always rescheduling and honestly I’m kinda sick of it lol). But also I want to cut down to one session a week again (that makes me sound like an addict which tbf isn’t necessarily inaccurate) and if I’m trying out different tutors then I won’t be able to keep up lessons with my current tutors.

I’ll think about it.

Spanish

I can feel myself getting burned out with this intense Spanish already lmao. I guess because I’m just trying to get my grammar back up to speed and refreshing vocabulary. Also, I’m mostly using textbooks and the immersion I’m doing is quite difficult so I can’t just relax and enjoy it. I need to find something fun to get into! I started watching SKAM España in an attempt to do just that, but I don’t really understand much without English subtitles. Still, it’s something. And I enjoyed Dreaming Spanish and didn’t find that too hard, so I’ll try watching more of that this week.

I’m still considering italki lessons. Once I’m back up to speed on a few more verb tenses I probably will (right now I’m aware of them and roughly how to form them/use them but they need refreshing for sure). I’ve had a look at some tutors and there’s a few that look nice and aren’t too pricey. Although I’ve gotta say, I wish more of them would tell me about themselves and their classes in their bio/intro video. They basically all just list their qualifications and it’s. so boring? Like congratulations you’re qualified so is every other professional teacher on this website that’s literally what professional teacher means. I wanna know if you’re someone I can vibe with, y’know?

Japanese

Again, I’ve just been working with Duolingo refreshing certain skills. And once again, I’m realising that things that once made no sense at all now click and I can recognise a lot of kanji that I previously struggled with. It’s actually inspiring me to get back to it properly because I can see how much progress I’ve actually made. But it’s probably a good thing to go over and strengthen my foundations right now.

#progress report #langblr #language blog #learning languages #norwegian langblr #spanish langblr #japanese langblr

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luulapants · 3 years

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the passcode thing is cool as shit. if youre still infodumping what is your FAVORITE thing about a language. or languages in general. talk for a long time about some nerd shit is what i'm saying

You want a long infodump of nerd shit?? HERE IT COMES

My absolute favorite area of study in linguistics is pidgin and creole languages and, in particular, this really weird theory around them being the secret to discovering the “root code of language.” To start, you need to know what a pidgins and creoles are and what the difference is:

The word “pidgin” is based on a transcription of how Chinese merchants pronounced the English word “business.” And that’s a pretty apt description! A pidgin is a sort of broken mashup of two or more languages that occurs when speakers of different languages, who don’t speak one another’s languages with much fluency, have to interact and figure out how to communicate with one another. Historically, this often happened during trade and commerce interactions.

Imagine you’re a French merchant arriving in Haiti and trying to sell gun powder to a local who speaks no French whatsoever and you don’t even know what language this dude speaks. And you’re pointing at your wares and shouting “Poudre pour les armes!!” which to him probably sounds like “Pood pore lay zahhm” and the local kinda squints at you and says “Poud zam?” and mimes shooting a gun. You’re sick of shouting and you think he gets what you’re saying, so you’re just like “Oui, sure, poud zam,” and now gunpowder is “poud zam.”

Generally, one language provides most of the vocabulary for a pidgin, whichever is most widely spoken or is spoken by those with the most prestige or power. That’s called 'lexification.' So, for instance, Haitian creole is 'French lexified.' The vocabulary will be colored by local accents, though, and depend on what sounds everyone knows how to make (if half the people don’t know how to trill their ‘R’s, that sound will be left out of a Spanish-based pidgin).

When it comes to grammar, though, pidgins are distinctly lacking. Communicating grammar by pointing and shouting just doesn’t work that well, and you can mostly get by without a lot of grammatical nuance in those contexts. “Me give gunpowder. You give one-two-three bag gold.” BOOM, commerce accomplished.

You really only need more comprehensive structures once the pidgin enters the private/personal sphere, and THIS is where creoles come in. A pidgin becomes a creole the moment it becomes someone’s mother tongue. The second a kid is raised speaking pidgin as a first language, it’s considered a creole. And the reason we make that distinction is where things get very interesting.

Unlike pidgins, creoles are grammatically complete. But it’s not like anyone sits down and says, "Okay, kids are learning this now, we have to figure out the grammar rules.” It’s actually the opposite. Children naturally fill in the grammatical gaps of a pidgin. Studies that compared adult pidgin speakers with their creole-speaking children found that the children had formed grammatical constructions... pretty much out of nowhere. They do it naturally. Instinctively.

Now, this makes sense if you’ve ever spoken with a child who is still learning their first language. Have you ever heard a kid say ‘mouses' instead of 'mice'? It’s because they’ve learned the grammar rule for how we pluralize things in English and simply over-applied it. Kids will take the barest hints and grains of grammar in a pidgin and apply them over an entire language. And if there’s nothing to go off of? They make it out of nothing.

One really fascinating thing about creoles is that a lot of them share similar features - even when they were made in very different places, based on very different languages. Since a lot of modern creoles were created during the colonial period, one theory was that those features come from common ‘substratum’ languages (languages that didn’t lexify the pidgin) that were spoken by the African slaves transported around the world. While this may have contributed to some language similarities, attempts to trace back the linguistic origins of the populations that created the original pidgins has generally disproved this theory. Another WILD theory was that all creoles were originally based on Portuguese. Don’t ask me how this makes sense. It doesn’t. But there were whole ass professional academics spewing that shit.

A more contemporary - and exciting! - theory is that these common features come from a “root code of language” buried in the human brain. Basically, that children can and will learn whatever grammatical constructions exist in the language they’re taught, but when there’s nothing for them to go off of, there is a very old basic language instinct that reverts them to our oldest, most basic grammar forms. One example is reduplication or the repeating of all or part of a word. Instead of using a suffix for pluralization (mouses), you just say the word twice (mouse-mouse). Instead of saying ‘really tall,’ you say ‘tall-tall.’ This does exist in some other languages but is particularly common in creoles.

Creoles are often seen as “simple” or “incomplete” languages. While they are simpler in some ways, native speakers are still able to convey complex ideas, which makes them more complicated in others. For instance, creoles tend to have a smaller vocabulary. However, to make up for this, they tend to be highly metaphorical in their constructions. In Tok Pisin, the creole of Papua New Guinea, most fibrous materials are called 'gras' (as in ‘grass’ - it’s English-lexified). But to distinguish between them, you have ‘gras bilong het’ (hair), ‘gras bilong sipsip’ (wool), ‘gras bilong solwara’ (seaweed).

Grammatically, creoles tend to have fewer verb tenses and tend not to have case markers. But it would be a mistake to say that all creole grammar is simple. To use Tok Pisin as an example again, that language has way more pronoun distinctions than most languages. Instead of just “we,” it has words for “you and me,” “me and another person [not you],” “me and two other people [not you],” “me and the two of you,” “me and all y’all,” and “me and all of them.” They have different forms of ‘you’ depending on if you’re talking about one, two, three, or more than three people - same with ‘he/she/them’! (And their pronouns are nongendered.)

Grammatical simplicity doesn’t equate to a lesser language, in any case. And it can tell us a lot about how languages develop over time. Creoles have fewer irregular constructions than older languages, which makes sense - irregular constructions are often vestiges of old words or grammar that no longer exist. A lot of grammatical complexity is just the result of things being added to a language or changing over time. If creoles are using a “new” root code sort of grammar, it makes sense that it wouldn’t be as “complex” - they haven’t had time to fuck it up yet!

So these are some of the many, many reasons I love creoles. I hope you enjoyed this infodump <3

Ask me about linguistics!

#creole #pidgin #language #linguistics #infodump

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izzymrdb · 4 years

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Writing: Conlangs

Okay, so, when I started writing and making worldbuilding, nobody told me that making conlangs is something that I would have to do for my fictional fantasy worlds. So, here’s my quick guide on conlangs.

1. The Basic Conlang

So, you need to quickly make up a foreign language for your story but you don’t want to put any effort behind it. The character will likely call it just ‘foreign tongue’ and mention that they can’t understand it. Cool, I too sometimes want to pass go and collect my 200 monopoly bucks.

Sometimes, you need to name your basic conlang. Fuck, you don’t know how to do that? Here’s what I do when I need to do that.

a) Quickly find a real life culture that your ‘foreign language’ relates to. Mine is greek and I’m basing it off the Underworld, so what do I do? Google Translate a word [Dark = Skotádi] and that’s my root, from there I mess with it until I get [Skotádi = Skotoilan] Tada!

b) Keyboard smash. Nope, I’m being serious. [ktdu] is my first slap on the keyboard and I’ll add random more letters until [ktdu = ketaildu] Tada!

c) Fuck it, I’ll make this super obvious. Magic language? [Mageia] Language of the gods? [Ancient Tongue] we’re here to write a story, not a linguistics paper.

2. Basic Conlang with Extra Steps

So, you’ve got a basic conlang but you want to add words from your conlang, yet you’re not Tolkien. That’s fine, it’s hard to be Tolkien, I’m pretty sure the wack early 20th century drugs have helped him somewhere there.

You have two ways to go about this; a) you don’t care and that’s fine because a lot of readers don’t wanna learn a new language for a story either, or b) you actually make a few words and write it down for later.

a) Keyboard smash or google translate what they say a million times over until It’s not recognisable as any human language. {fwfhjBylfe} is now [Fewi flohuj by lefe] is now (Strong wine for me!) and you never have to care about it again

b) Like with basing it of a culture, grab a random language and play with it! Write your results down so you can use them again!

3. Conlang like a Tolkien nerd

So, if you’re like me and you love having a system, you might want to legit make up a whole language for your story. ‘fuck’ you say, about five minutes in, ‘I didn’t think that far ahead’ you say as you stare at the paper with no idea where to start.

That’s fine, I’m here to help because I did the exact same thing!

a) Find a language group to base your conlang on! I based my conlang ‘The language of the sea’ or ‘Halmaheran’ on (Ancient) Greek because of the mythology- but wait, that’s not all. I also added spanish and portuguese as they’re sailing empires once and have had a lot of connection with the sea. Tada, that’s the first step!

b) You got a language group, yay! Now you need to start with some words. Ugh, gross, right? Wrong! Let’s make this fun! When you start learning a language- what do you learn first? Greetings? Yep! Write down the greeting in each of your base/root languages and play with each word. My [Ya= Hi] turned into [Yas = hi], you don’t have to be fancy. [Adios= Aoas]. Easy, right?

c) Go a bit deeper now, how would you address people? What’s your word for king? In greek, it’s [Basileus] so I took the root of [Bas]. Mine is [-bas] so my character is addressed as [Poseidon-bas]. But he’s also a dad, what then? [Pater] Explore with the basics of the language! Don’t forget your [I,my, you, your, they, their] translations!

d) Now is the tricky part. Go for questions. The root for knowledge with mine is [Ka] so everything that involves questions/answers has [ka] in the word. [Why= ka] [Who= Lenehka] and when you respond the [ka] is more emphasised so [Leneh’ka mou Izzy= my name is Izzy].

e) Got your questions? Go for verbs. Verbs are super hard, but trust me- if you get verbs, the rest is easy. Verbs have verb tenses so [To know= Katalovne] but [(Past) I Knew= Katalovnou’re] and [(Past) We Knew= Katalovnus’re] are different. [(Past) They Knew= Katalovnois’re] and [(Future) They will know = Katalovnois’ro] are also different. Play with your basic Past/Present/Future and They are/You are/I am verbs.

f) Finally, sentence structure. Your sentence needs an order, maybe it’s {Object, Verb, Subject, Conjunction, Verb, Subject} or {Adjective, Object, Verb}. Do what works for you!

Tada! You’ve got a conlang! Don’t forget to write stuff down for your conlang cause forgetting your entire system sucks. Go forth and write!

#write #writeblr #conlangs #language #fanfic writers #fanfiction #fantasy #fiction #writer #writing struggles #writing tips #tolkien #Original language #original fiction #how to

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morethanaprincess-a · 3 years

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Continued from here for @crossxskulled !

Sonia swallowed, goosebumps emerging over her bare forearms. He'd asked for her help and she'd given it, but had she been too frank, too liberal, with her advice? She never meant to anger him and yet across from her, Ryuji seemed to be reaching his boiling point. As much as he could tolerate, at least, of her feedback regarding his rather unsatisfactory preparation for the upcoming exam. Sonia didn't doubt that he tried, and thus she supposed it simply didn't come easy to him. A lot of things didn't, she guessed, at least in comparison to her own life and skills. And yet he kept beating on, towards a goal he kept in his sights no matter what deemed to throw itself into his path.

"I'd never mean to offend you, Ryuji-san, and I admit tutoring is not exactly a skill of mine," She assured him quickly with a repentant look, "I just wanted to help is all. And you really do have a good start, it's just that some of the verb tenses are mixed up and some of the nouns are misplaced, the ones in particular that sound like one another but can mean a completely different thing. I remember when I first came here and thought my classmate looked particularly cute in her kimono before a dancing performance, and when I meant to say 'kawaii' I accidentally told her she was 'kowai' and she had the greatest tantrum right before she was to go onstage! So it's a challenge yet very important to get it right." At least Hiyoko had forgiven her. Eventually. Once Sonia had presented her with a giant box of gummies from across Europe in a variety of flavors.

But his will to succeed seemed to outweigh his anger, a relief for her as she reached for her tea, needing some refreshment if she were to explain in further detail any of her notes made to his work. Yet what he asked instead gave her pause, her sip of tea halfway up her straw as Sonia contemplated her answer. Did she give him the truth, or did she tell him an answer to settle his own anxieties?

She exhaled in resignation. Lying came difficult enough as a Princess when she needed to tell a half-truth, but as Sonia Nevermind, she could not look him in his brown eyes and fib. His question was a sincere one, and he deserved an answer of the same caliber. The blonde took a small sip of her tea, if just for reinforcement to her resolve in being frank with him. "About five minutes," She replied sheepishly, setting her glass aside. "Though I looked it over once again an hour later in case I'd made any mistakes, or I'd missed anything you needed to change."

"But I've had years to practice my English, so please do not compare abilities!" She continued to reassure him. English, German, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, and so forth: anything beyond the traditionally spoken French and Italian that was prevalent throughout her country. But languages had come to her both early in life and naturally, as needed for a future monarch to converse with various dignitaries and fellow royals. "And you will be a proficient English speaker, that I have no doubt. I'm not sure if it'll help you, but what's helped me learn new languages is not a textbook or drills but practical application. Do you have a favorite film or television show in English? Perhaps watching it with only optional subtitles and repeating those lines can help. Or visiting areas of Tokyo where foreigners congregate. I know of some restaurants that serve English foods, perhaps even American or Canadian foods, where you could practice your conversation." There was always the option of books and magazines in English too, but she decided to give suggestions two at a time, if just not to overwhelm him. Or at least, she'd try not to.

Unfortunately, she had a sinking suspicion that she was failing in that task. The prospect of being swept up into frivolities, especially in his company, was looking both more and more appealing and more and more awkward by the passing second, though Sonia was willing to suppress her own nerves for the sake of fun: away from schoolwork, from responsibilities, even from dreams to just be teenagers for as long as they could.

#crossxskulled #Non-Despair AU: Hope's Peak Academy verse #(Poor Sonia: she's trying to help and yet it's not going too well)#(Also hi! It's great to hear from you and write with you again)

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aewriting · 4 years

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So, I was innocently doing some Duolingo this morning when I started getting flooded with past-tense declarations of love. Which made me think of Malex, naturally. And this quick, cracky, fluffy little fic was born.

Words: 2187

Relationships: Brief Forlex, Endgame Malex

Warning for brief mention of homophobia, Duolingo frustration

***

“What the actual hell?”

“Alex?”

Alex looks up from his phone. Forrest is standing at his kitchen counter, frowning slightly at him. “Everything okay?”

Alex rubs tiredly at his face, puts his phone to the side. “Yeah, fine. It’s just… have you ever used Duolingo?”

Forrest snorts a little. “I mean, yeah, a little bit. Why?”

Alex shakes his head slightly, looks away. “It’s, it’s nothing. Stupid.” He pauses. “I’ve been brushing up on my Spanish. It used to be a lot better, but with being away all these years, not using it…” He shrugs. “Figured I’d download Duolingo, start working through it, you know?”

Forrest’s brow is furrowed. “Don’t you have a bunch of friends that speak Spanish, though? Liz, her cousin?” He smiles a little, then. “Kyle? The doctor?” He raises an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t mind watching you and Dr. Kyle speaking Spanish to each other, you know?”

Alex fixes him with a look. “Yeah, they all speak it, it’s just… I dunno, I want to have at least the basics down before I go to them for help. I feel like once I have a good base again, I’ll ask one of them to do some practice with me.” He shakes his head. “I don’t even know what I want to get out of this, just figured it’s better than, like, mindless scrolling, you know?”

Forrest cocks his head to the side. “Sure.” He’s opening the fridge. “Want anything in your coffee?”

Alex’s mouth twitches a little. This is… far from his first morning after, with Forrest. He’s taken his coffee black. Every time. And yet, every time, Forrest offers him sugar, cream. He can’t decide if he’s just trying to be a good host or if he really doesn’t remember. “I’m good, thanks,” he says politely.

“Okay,” Forrest says with a smile and a wink. He’s in a t-shirt and boxers, barefoot, as he brings the two steaming mugs over to the couch where Alex is sitting. Places Alex’s on the coffee table and sits down next to Alex. Close enough to touch.

“So what did Duo do to piss you off?” he asks, smirking.

Alex laughs a little, rolls his eyes.

“Come on, that’s not the face of a man who’s happy with an owl.”

Alex grabs for his mug, takes a sip. It’s good. They’re good, right? Like, Forrest is nice. And trying. “It’s just, I’m learning tenses now. And I can’t figure out why in the world they choose the verbs they do. Like at a beginning level, you know?”

Forrest is looking amused. “Can you give an example?”

Alex sighs. “Like… love. I swear I have had about five questions all in a row about love. Amor. Did… did you love me? Me amaste? Then, Sí, te amé. Um, mucho.” Alex swallows, suddenly a little uncomfortable. “Like, it’s just, just kind of bullshitty, you know? Like, who needs to say that right away, in Spanish?” He glances around him, holds up his mug. “Like, be useful! Teach me how to say ‘I finished my coffee,’ you know?”

Forrest is looking at him a little oddly, then looks away. Blows on his coffee to cool it. “I have to imagine that a decent percentage of people use an app like that to… I dunno, impress someone? Someone they like?”

Alex looks at him quizzically. “You think?” He shakes his head. “I dunno, I would think it would be more for work. Travel. Even just, like, keeping your brain sharp, you know?”

Forrest eyes him. “I learned German for a guy.”

Alex scoffs. “Of course you did.”

“I mean, it was for a guy and my research,” Forrest says playfully, nudging at Alex with his shoulder.

“Multitasking,” Alex says wryly.

“You know it,” Forrest says with a small smile, which disappears quickly. “You… you ever actually said it to someone?”

Alex looks at him, confused.

“In, in English, I mean,” Forrest clarifies, but Alex is still looking at him blankly. “Ever said I love you?” Forrest swallows, a little nervous. “I mean, this is not a pressure thing – these are early days, I know that. But… but I know you were pretty closed off, when we met. Just made me wonder if you ever had something serious? With someone?”

Alex’s jaw is tight as he responds. “I’ve never said I love you.”

***

“Oh, fuck you, Duo,” Alex mutters, clicking off the phone and putting it face down on the table.

“Who’s Duo?” Rosa asks, suddenly right in front of Alex’s booth. “And what did he do to you?”

Alex laughs at that. “It’s an app. Teaches you different languages. Makes it like a little game.”

Rosa quirks an eyebrow. “And what language are you learning, Alejandro?”

Alex chuckles. “Spanish.”

“Ahhh,” Rosa says, sliding next to him in the booth. “Por qué? Un hombre?” she asks suggestively.

“No!” Alex exclaims. “Why does everyone think that? No, I just wanted to try to get back some of the Spanish I lost over the years. I mean, I’m living in New Mexico now, and I’m embarrassed by how much I’ve forgotten.” Rosa’s just looking at him, eating one of his French fries. “Seriously, why does everyone think I’m doing this for a guy?”

“Um, because you and Forrest broke up, and now you’re back on the market?”

Alex’s mouth drops open. “How did you know that?”

“Small town,” Rosa says, popping another fry in her mouth. “I hear things.”

Alex shakes his head a little. “Well,” he says, eager to change the topic. “I think even Duo thinks I’m doing this for… certain reasons.”

Rosa’s face twists a little. “Okay, who the hell is Duo?”

Alex picks up the phone, unlocks it. Frowns as he looks at the screen.

“’The man has curly hair,’” Rosa reads, grabbing the phone from Alex. “Okay…” she says, giving Alex a sidelong glance.

Alex snatches the phone back from her. “Here,” he says shortly. “You just need to do a few, get them right, then…” He quickly presses some buttons, holds up the phone. “Here. This is Duo. He’s this little green owl, and he’s supposed to, like, encourage you, but sometimes if you go a few days without practicing he just ends up, like, harassing you.”

“Great work! Let’s make this a bit harder!’” Rosa reads with fake enthusiasm as she looks at the screen. “Harder, eh? That how you like it, Alejandro?”

“Rosa,” Alex warns, half-heartedly.

She grabs the phone again. “I wanna do one.”

“You speak Spanish already.”

“Oooh, matching!” she exclaims. “Montar… well that’s easy. To ride.” She sets the phone to the side, fixes Alex with a suggestive look. “Alejandro, seriously, what have you told Duo here?”

“Shut up.”

***

“What the hell?” Alex mutters, rereading the sentence. The screen is a little hard to see in the bright sun.

“Something wrong?” Michael asks, closer than Alex realized. “Besides your brake pads, that is.”

Alex sighs, pockets the phone. “Yeah, about those.”

“It’ll be about an hour still. Want to wait for it?”

Alex glances around the junkyard. No one’s here, the weather’s pleasant. “I’ll wait.”

“Okay,” Michael says, turning and making his way toward Alex’s car. A part of Alex hopes he’ll turn back around and… what? Visit? Shoot the shit? With a sigh, Alex takes the phone out again. “I’ve never had a cat that speaks,” he mutters. “Yo… nunca…he… tenido…”

“You should’ve brought this in earlier.”

Alex clicks off the phone again, rolls his eyes a bit. “Yes. Thank you, Michael.”

Michael raises his hands in faux surrender. “Hey, I’m just saying.” He sighs a little. “Glad you brought it in.” He looks like he’s about to turn around again, but instead he squints at Alex. At the phone. “Who you texting?”

Alex narrows his eyes, looks at Michael. Michael, who seems awkward, suddenly. Alex watches as he runs his hand through his curls, shrugs a little. “Nevermind, none of my – “

“It’s Duolingo,” Alex says.

Michael sticks out his lip a little, and Alex has to look away quickly. “That the app that teaches you different languages?”

“Yeah,” Alex says. “I’ve been trying to improve my Spanish.”

“Ahh,” Michael says, like he knows something Alex doesn’t. “Certainly can’t hurt. ‘Round these parts.”

“What?”

Michael shrugs. “You know. Lots of people here speak it. And you’re here for a while, right? Till you get out?” he says, slight edge of bitterness to his voice, the way there always is whenever Alex’s military service gets mentioned.

“This whole thing just started out of embarrassment, actually,” Alex says, and Michael looks at him, confused. “I knew way more Spanish back in school than I know now. Like, I remember the good stuff – curse words, things like that,” he says with a smile. “But it’s like my brain completely blocked out all the grammar rules.” He shrugs. “But sometimes they put together the most bizarre questions. Like this one,” he says, clicking on the phone and bringing up the half-finished item. “I’ve never had a cat that speaks.”

Michael barks out a laugh. “Who the fuck has?” he asks. Then grins. “Yo nunca he tenido un gato que habla.”

“What?” Alex laughs. “I didn’t know you knew Spanish!”

Michael shrugs. “I’m not, like, fluent, in it.”

“You were able to just translate some nonsense sentence off the top of your head,” Alex says skeptically.

“Okay,” Michael says. “I have a good memory, you know that. Picked up a lot when I was working at Foster Ranch, right out of high school. I definitely know how to tell you to fix a fence, ride a horse, that kind of thing.”

“Montar,” Alex murmurs, remembering his chat with Rosa.

Michael looks at him a little strangely. “Yeah.” He looks for a moment like he might say more, but doesn’t. Exhales loudly and gestures to the car. “Well, I better get back to it,” he says.

“Yeah, of course, don’t want to delay you or anything.”

“Yeah,” Michael says. Grins. “Just give a shout if you get stumped.”

***

(One month later. The Wild Pony.)

“Dúo surfea muy bien.”

“Duo surfs very well,” Michael translates. “Because of fucking course he does.”

“You seriously know a lot of Spanish. You’re not even looking at the screen.” Alex hits continue. Freezes. “I’ll just do this one,” he says hastily, pushing buttons.

“Too tough?”

Alex looks at the screen. Te quiero. “Yeah,” he says with a thin smile. “Too tough.”

***

(Two months later. Crashdown.)

“Podemos usar Internet en cualquier lugar.”

Michael’s eyes narrow. “We can use the Internet anywhere,” he translates. “Easy. Hit me again.”

“Okay,” Alex says, bringing up the next screen and reading the Spanish quickly. “Siempre te he amado.”

He looks at Michael questioningly… Michael, who looks stricken.

“Michael?” Alex asks, frowning.

Michael chuckles a little. “Um, I‘ve always loved you. That’s what it says, siempre te he amado.”

Alex looks down at the little word options at the bottom of the screen. Fuck. That’s definitely the answer, but he doesn’t punch it in. Not yet. Keeps looking at Michael. They… they’ve been dancing around each other, around this, for months. Years, really, if he’s being honest.

“Siempre te he amado,” he repeats quietly. Swallows. “It’s the truth,” he says finally.

“Es la verdad,” Michael mumbles, still looking away. “Next?”

Alex puts the phone down. “No, Michael. No. I mean… I mean, yes, I guess it is la verdad, like that’s the Spanish for it, but… but I was trying to, to say…”

Michael has gone very still now, is just looking at Alex. “What, Alex?” he breathes. “What were you trying to say?”

“I’ve always loved you, Michael. That… that’s the truth.”

“You, you being serious right now, Alex?”

Alex nods his head quickly. “Yes, Michael. This isn’t… isn’t Duolingo Spanish, right now. This is me. And you. God,” he says, feeling the flush creep across his face. “We have enough trouble just being straight with each other in English.”

A slow grin starts spreading across Michael’s face. “If you really think about it, we’ve never been straight with each other.”

And Alex can’t help his own smile, either. “Definitely not.”

“Not at all,” Michael says, sobering a bit.

“We’ve worked so hard,” Alex says softly. “At, at building something between us. Something new. Like, a real friendship.”

“That’s what you said you wanted,” Michael says, a little edge to his voice.

“That and more, Michael,” Alex says. “I want more. If, if you do, too.”

“I do,” Michael says, biting his lip. He looks down at their shared booth, looks back up. “I’ve always loved you, too, Alex. Still do.”

The phone emits a little ding, and Alex looks down.

It’s Duo. Waving.

“Perfect timing,” Michael says wryly. “What does that little fucker want?”

“Wants to tell us ‘Great work!’,” Alex reads. “’Let’s make this a bit harder!’” He laughs a little, at that, looks at Michael, and shrugs. “Ready if you are?” he says, a question in his voice.

Michael smiles at him, big and genuine. “Well if Duo says so, let’s give it a go.”

#my fic #duolingo made me do it #malex #forlex #rosa ortecho #roswell nm

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spanishskulduggery · 3 years

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Hi, I'm the anon who wanted to learn some basic Spanish and I'm looking for grammars

♡♡♡

So my first recommendation is for www.studyspanish.com/grammar because they have a really good intro to the basics of pretty much all of the grammar (minus some more advanced things)

Also I would recommend: https://tildesites.bowdoin.edu/~eyepes/newgr/ats/

And I can't go over every single piece of grammar in Spanish but I will do a very bare bones overview of the major tenses/moods that you'll find in Spanish and a basic explanation of them

If you're a beginner a lot of this may go over your head until you're there but I'm not totally sure of anyone's level so!

Strap in everyone, it's a long post again and I'm going to explain like a solid 65% of the most important Spanish grammar concepts including tenses and moods, and even I think I need a read more for this one.

I didn't include things like concordancia "agreement (between nouns/adjectives)" and other fundamentals because I assume you probably are aware of those and so I'm focusing more on verbs and tenses/moods, but if you are a total beginner I'm more than happy to discuss the fundamentals in more depth

As always if anyone has any questions on anything I've mentioned here specifically, please let me know. I have no problem delving deeper into specific concepts but this is just a general overview of most of the big grammar concepts you're going to come across as you learn Spanish.

First things first, they don't totally teach you this in Spanish, you kind of just have to figure it out yourself or delve into it later on by yourself but there are tenses and moods. I mean they teach you that there are tenses, but they don't totally explain the idea behind tenses and moods and I think it helps to know them to keep them straight.

It's not required learning but it is helpful for overall concepts. It is required learning if you're going more into the linguistics side of things though, but practically speaking you don't really need to know what a mood is to use subjunctive, but I find it helps.

What is a linguistic mood?

In Spanish a mood [modo or "mode"] refers to the ways in which grammar should be used. The moods encompass the tenses themselves.

There are three moods, and really you only need to worry about two.

There's the indicative, subjunctive, and the imperative.

Getting imperative out of the way real quick, it's commands. Commands are very easy to spot because they boil down to affirmative commands ["do it"] vs. negative commands ["don't do it"]. There are some things to mention with imperative but I'll do that towards the very end for miscellaneous grammar concepts

Indicative mood is hard to explain linguistically. It's honestly mostly defined as "not subjunctive or imperative". This is default explanation of things. Most of the tenses are indicative - present, preterite, imperfect, future, conditional.

Subjunctive mood is harder to explain but really important. It doesn't totally exist in English, at least not in a noticeable way so it's something that people really struggle with. Subjunctive mood is usually described as the mood you use for desires, wishes, polite requests, imposition of will, hypotheticals etc

You usually find that subjunctive is 1 of 2 things. It's usually either a kind of imposition of will, where it's one subject making a wish/request or imposition on another subject like quiero que hables "I want you to speak"....... or it's subjunctive clauses. Subjunctive clauses tend to be kinds of conditions, that something will happen once a condition is met; "until", "unless", "so that", "as long as", "provided that", "even if", "as if it were"... Those are kinds of subjunctive clauses.

Some subjunctive clauses make more sense than others for English speakers. It can be its own sort of topic.

...

A Tense on the other hand [tiempo or "time"] in Spanish refers to the time in which grammar is used.

A mood is used to explain the way in which Spanish gets used, but a tense determines if you're talking about it being past, present, or future... or something in between.

You can usually divide the tenses between past, present, or future. There are some "in-betweeners" which I'll mention in miscellaneous but in general it's like this:

Present [things happening now at this very moment] = Present Tense, Present Subjunctive

Past [things that happened or things started in the past (either completed actions or ones that may still be going on)] = Preterite, Imperfect, Imperfect Subjunctive

Future [things that will happen or have the ability to happen] = Future, Conditional, Future Subjunctive [*obsolete now mostly], Imperfect Subjunctive [sometimes] .......also ir + a + infinitivo expressions are somewhere between present tense and future, it's a thing, we'll get there

Again, tenses don't have much to do with the imperative mood because a true command is always "do it" or "don't do it" at that moment. If you're saying "I want them to do it" or "I wanted them to do it" that becomes subjunctive.

Present

The present tense is probably the most important tense because it encompasses a lot of things and it isn't always talked about fully. Plus it's the tense you use the most.

The present tense as the name implies talks about things happening now. Most of your declarative statements are things happening in the present. "I am", "you have", "we are here", "it is blue", etc tend to be present tense

The other facets of present tense are what make it more important than most tenses. In present tense there are two other important functions: "continuous present" and "short-term future"

Continuous present is synonymous with the gerund/progressive forms which I'll talk about more below in miscellaneous. What continuous present means is that you may be translating it as the -ing forms in your head. For example: leo may be "I read" as a present tense declarative statement like leo mucho "I read a lot"... or it could be leo "I am reading" depending on context. It's very subtle but something like leo el libro could be "I read the book" OR "I am reading the book". If you knocked on someone's door you would hear ya voy "I'm coming (right away)"

With the gerund forms, you are specifically talking about something happening right at that moment. But it is a function of present tense as well. Both are correct, mostly synonymous, and useful in their own ways but I mention it because it isn't often mentioned

There also exists a facet of present tense that is understood as "short-term future". There exists the possibility to use present tense to talk about things you plan on doing shortly or things that will happen in the very near future. This is somewhat different than ir + a + infinitive forms since those can be in any tense. It's just something to be aware of.

Preterite

Preterite tense (also called simple past) is nice and easy. It exists only in the past tense and it's for completed actions.

The hallmark of preterite is that they're actions rather than descriptions, and often involve set time phrases like ayer "yesterday", antiayer/antier "the day before yesterday", anoche "last night" or they include things like times, dates, days, or implied time frames

Think of preterite as "I did it", no muss no fuss

Imperfect

Imperfect tense is all muss and fuss

In linguistic senses, "imperfect" means "not yet completed", or "not yet past". You see it used for description rather than concrete actions and so it is very commonly used for narration and description; telling time in the past, talking about something's appearance or moods, and uninterrupted actions

In the context of preterite vs imperfect the very basic (possibly too reductionist, even) is that the imperfect tense is often used to set up a situation while preterite marks the action that interrupts the setting

In other words; dormía y sonaba el teléfono "I was sleeping and the phone was ringing" is all imperfect and it seems to imply the sleep was not interrupted. Saying dormía y sonó el teléfono is a mix of preterite and imperfect "I was sleeping and the phone rang". It stops being description and marks an "interruption" and if I read that, I would assume either "I" woke up, or we're paying special attention to the fact that the phone rang, and that it's not just casual description

Just like present tense, imperfect tense can be used as "continuous past"... saying leía could be "I read" [past] or "I was reading" [past continuous]. You could also say leí "I read" for preterite, though that's a completed action. Saying leía "I read" sounds more like description to me

You will also find that imperfect tense is used for "used to" to describe habitual things. This can be done with the verb soler [which only really exists in present tense as "to be in the habit of" or in imperfect "used to"]. Imperfect is a simpler way but it is important to note.

So for example: iba a la playa could be "I went to the beach" [description], "I was going to the beach" [continuous", OR it could be "I used to go to the beach" [habit that may or may not continue]

You often see this "used to" with certain time phrases or something qualifying it like cuando era niño/a "when I was a kid" or something like that. It's just important to note because saying something like vivía en Londres could be "I lived in London" or "I used to live in London"... If you saw it as vivía en Londres cuando era joven "I lived in London when I was young(er)" is more specifically a "used to" sort of phrase.

Future

Future tense is exactly what it sounds like

Actions that will happen in a long-term setting. Things that WILL happen, that imply more certainty.

You'll also want to note that it means "shall" as well. It's less common in English to say that, but in older texts and especially the Bible you're going to see future tense like that... no matarás is "thou shalt not kill", literally "you will not kill"... same with no robarás "thou shalt not steal"

Depending on tone, you might see no volveré translated as "I will not return / I won't return" or "I shall not return / I shan't return". Future tense has a sense of finality to it, very much like preterite does in past.

In general I would say that the future tense is unremarkable and kinder to non-native speakers, but do note that there are Spanish speakers who sometimes use future tense the way English might use present tense; serás idiota for example is a way to say "you're an idiot" rather than eres idiota (present tense)

I would say think of that particular expression as "stating the obvious" or "it's a foregone conclusion"... I only mention it because in some countries, especially Spain, you will see future tense used like that sometimes

Present Subjunctive

Present subjunctive is subjunctive mood that takes place either in the present, or the short-term future. It carries that same continuous and short-term future vibe

Again, subjunctive typically works with a set of 2 clauses [that is, two different subjects and verbs] with an imposition of will in some way... or subjunctive clauses. These just happen to be in present

So for example; quieren que (yo) hable con ella "they want me to talk to her"... has two clauses [ellos/ellas quieren and then yo hable] with a kind of imposition of will

This is common for polite requests or someone giving orders; exige que hagamos la tarea "he/she demands we do the homework"

Subjunctive clauses in present are more straightforward once you know the clauses: sea lo que sea "whatever it is / whatever it may be", or para que sepas "so that you know", or antes (de) que te vayas "before you leave"

Conditional + Imperfect Subjunctive

These two are often taught together and for good reason

The conditional tense is indicative, but it talks about something that will happen... as long as a condition has been met. It can be a little harder to nail down, but in "if/then" statements, conditional is the "then"

Conditional talks about things in the future and that can make it difficult for English speakers because we use the same conjugations for multiple things.... podía hacerlo "I could do it" is imperfect so it's past, it means I had the ability to do it... and podría hacerlo "I could do it" is future, so it talks about something you do have the ability to do, but you haven't done it yet

Though I do need to say that "should" is usually either in present tense or conditional: debo decir "I should say" or "I must say"....

But then no debería haberlo dicho "I shouldn't have said that". That kind of should is very often conditional and that can be weird for people

The main thing to know is that conditional isn't unlikely or doubtful, it just hasn't happened yet... but it COULD.

Imperfect subjunctive on the other hand is a very wide topic. What you need to know for this to make sense is that once upon a time in Spanish imperfect subjunctive was used for the past tense subjunctive [imperfect being "not yet complete", again]... and then you had a separate branch of subjunctive that was more future and that would have been your hypothetical situations and contrary to fact statements

Today the same tense pulls double duty so that's why it's a big topic

You'll see it for past tense subjunctive: querían que hablara con ella "they wanted me to speak with her"

But you'll also see it for more nebulous or doubtful futures. This is the kind of imperfect subjunctive that gets used with conditional tense.

In "if/then" statements, imperfect subjunctive is the "if". And that's what we mean by hypotheticals and "contrary to fact statements"

si fuera jefe/jefa "if I were the boss" is your if statement. I would call this contrary to fact. It implies "I" am not the boss

The "then" would be in conditional because you're talking about some condition being met... si fuere jefe/jefa, no lo haría "if I were the boss, I wouldn't do it"

Or, si tuviera dinero, viajaría en el extranjero "if I had the money, I would travel abroad". You can translate it as "if I were to have".

But don't hate on Spanish for doing this. English does it too. We say "if I was president" and "if I were president" and they both mean a contrary to fact future.

...Oh also I should mention that if you look up imperfect subjunctive conjugation you'll find two forms. So like you'll see hablara, hablaras, hablara, hablaran, habláramos... and you will see hablase, hablases, hablase, hablasen, hablásemos

Both conjugations are correct, but there's a lot of history involved in this that I can't totally get into without it being a big discussion.

Suffice it to say, it's historical, and Latin America tends to use the -ara and -iera forms for both. Spain makes more of a distinction, where they'll use -ara/-iera for past subjunctive, but use -ase/-iese more for the hypothetical subjunctive

So just as an example: both Spain and Latin America would say querían que lo hiciera "they wanted me to do it" because that's past subjunctive

But Latin America would say si tuviera dinero, compraría una casa "if I had money I would buy a house"...

And Spain would more often say si tuviese dinero, compraría una casa "if I had money I would buy a house"

Again, both are totally fine, but I personally don't use the -ase/-iese forms very much in my own life. I see and read them more than I use them myself, but I'm also in the United States and not Spain.

And that's your bare bones overview of the tenses and moods

I'll also just include some other key miscellaneous grammatical concepts real quick:

Silent Subject (sujeto tácito)

This is very basic and not talked about often, but in English we're taught that we always need to put the pronouns in our sentences. It's always "I do this" and "you do that"

And that makes sense for us because our conjugations have less variation; "do" could be anyone

But in Spanish, it's not as common to include the subject because the subject is often implies by the verb. If hablo only exists for yo, and hablamos is always nosotros/nosotras... then mentioning the pronoun seems irrelevant because it was implied

However, habla and hablan are different; habla could be "him" or "her" or "it" or even usted. And hablan could be multiple people but is it ellos or ellas or ustedes?

It becomes more common to mention the subject if there's a chance you'll be misunderstood

The general rule is you mention your subject and the verb... and you continue on until your subject changes and then you mention a new subject so no one's confused

As an example; ella habla con Marco y siempre menciona sus amigos y familia, pero Marco no habla mucho sobre su vida personal "she talks to Marco and always mentions her friends and family, but Marco doesn't talk much about his personal life"

When it's obvious like yo [except in certain tenses], you rarely mention the subject. Saying something like yo hago la tarea, yo limpio la sala, yo leo el libro doesn't come across as "I do the homework, I clean the room, I read the book"...... it comes across as "I am the one who does the homework, I am the one who cleans the room, I am the one who reads the book"

When you mention the subject over and over when it's obvious it sounds either like bragging like "look at all the things I do aren't I great!", or it sounds like complaining "I'm the one who did this, I'm the one who did that, not you, it was me"

When it's obvious you tend to keep the subject out. But you can put it in when you want some emphasis! Such as yo mando aquí "I'm the one in charge here / I give the orders around here"... which is kind of like if you'd italicized or bolded the "I/I'm" there

Infinitives

Infinitives are the dictionary form of verbs, you probably know that already even if you didn't know what they were called

They're unconjugated so the show up ending in their -ar, -ir, or -er forms... hablar, vivir, comer for example

By themselves you read them like... hablar "to speak/talk"; that's what I mean by dictionary forms

When you come across multiple verbs together, one is conjugated and the other tends to be in either infinitive (or gerund but that's next)

So, quiero aprender "I want to learn", quiero nadar "I want to swim", or quiero aprender a nadar "I want to learn to swim" for example

Also be aware that infinitives can be used as the noun forms of verbs. That is, they are "the action or result of a verb". In English we tend to translate them as the progressive forms, but in Spanish the gerund is a verb conjugation implying motion or continuation

For example: errar es humano, perdonar es divino "to err is human, to forgive divine".

Or hablar es fácil pero escuchar me cuesta "speaking is easy but listening is difficult for me"

Gerund/Progressive

The gerund form (also called progressive) is the equivalent of the -ing forms in English

In Spanish they usually end in -ando, -iendo, sometimes -yendo, and there are a few weird ones here and there because of irregular verbs

They're different somewhat in that in Spanish, gerund is a form of motion or movement in some way, so we don't use them quite the same way that Spanish does - see above with infinitive

You're using this when you're specifically talking about something in the moment.

Very often you're going to see gerund forms either by themselves, or you'll see them with the verbs estar, ir, andar, seguir, continuar or some kind of verb of motion or continuation

As an example teniendo esto en cuenta "keeping that in mind"

Or... estoy aprendiendo "I am learning", voy aprendiendo "I'm learning" [as in "it's a process and I'm in the middle of it" or "I keep on learning and I am making progress"], or sigo aprendiendo "I'm still learning".

Additionally you can see infinitive and gerund used together in some cases: quiero seguir aprendiendo a nadar "I want to keep learning to swim"

Past Participles

The past participles are other conjugations of verbs

While the infinitive is the noun form of a verb, a participle is the adjectival form of a verb

These mostly end in either -ado or -ido... although there's a whole host of irregular ones that you need to memorize

By themselves they can be just straight up adjectives and can lead into the passive voice... or just used by themselves

dicho eso "that said / that being said" where dicho is the past participle of decir

Or something like limpiado "cleaned" is the past participle form of limpiar "to clean"; and you could say el suelo limpiado "the cleaned floor" or la ventana limpiada "the cleaned window"

Past participles lead straight into passive voice, or the perfect tenses

Perfect Tenses

Speaking of the perfect tenses, these are "tenses" that are sort of their own thing but they use forms of the verb haber + past participles

The perfect tense is like a time traveler. It can exist in any tense and any mood (minus imperative). It's function is to make everything just a little more past tense

Again, if "imperfect" means "not yet completed"... then "perfect" means "already completed", since it literally means "done thoroughly"

The perfect tenses make use of haber and you most frequently are going to see present perfect and the pluperfect [sometimes called pluscuamperfecto which is "more than perfect"... aka "past-er than past"]

These follow very closely with English.

he hablado is "I have spoken/talked" (present perfect), and había hablado is "I had spoken/talked" (pluperfect)

The goal of perfect tenses is to make everything a little bit past tense while still keeping the impact of it in the present which is why I say it's a time traveler.

Instead of hablé "I spoke" you're saying he hablado "I have spoken", which means that you're now reporting on what happened once you did it. Maybe you're saying "I've talked with them and this is how it happened" or "I've already talked to them and it made no difference". Either way you're reporting on a past event but it still has bearing on the present.

Pluperfect is the same just more past. You're using the imperfect form of haber + past participle and it's very common in 3rd person narration. This is something that someone "had done". It's still got some bearing on the present but the action took place further in the past

había hablado con él antes "I had spoken with him before" makes it sound like you're reaching further into the past, but you're still going to report on how it went

But like I said, they could be used in any tense or mood except imperative; si lo hubiera/hubiese sabido, no lo habría hecho "if I had known, I wouldn't have done it"

Indirect Commands

Indirect commands are the murky space between the subjunctive and imperative moods

It's very simple though. It's basically you're telling someone else to have something be done. Kind of like delegating a command.

que canten for example is "let them sing", but it could be translated as "sing" as a plural command... it's sort of like pointing to someone and being like "I want them to sing" or "go tell them to sing"

Indirect commands are more polite than regular commands. A command can be rather brusque and impolite, depending on how it's said or phrased. Indirect commands are just nicer.

Instead of hazlo "do it" you might soften it with que lo hagas "go ahead and do it"

Indirect commands can be more impersonal and distant however. They can be used as a more... patronizing tone almost? For example: que así sea is "so be it". Literally that's "let it be so"

"We" Commands

The "we" commands are technically imperative mood but I mention them separately because they show up a lot as "let's"

For example hablemos con ella "let's talk to her"

Or something like seamos amables "let's be nice"; no seamos crueles "let's not be cruel"

It's a less common type of command, where you're part of the nosotros group, but also issuing a command to everyone else in the nosotros group

Sometimes the "we" commands are done just with present tense, but there's always the option: nos vamos could be "we're going" but may be "let's go"... while vámonos is "let's go" specifically

Oh did I mention you can stick object pronouns and reflexives onto these? Because you definitely can; hagámoslo "let's do it" or hagámonoslo "let's do it (for ourselves)"

The next ones are bigger and more confusing so I'm just going to attach my tags and other things that might help if that's okay because they are important but they're big and confusing:

Active Voice vs. Passive Voice

Indirect Objects

Direct Objects

Reflexives / Pronomials Additional reflexive stuff Dativo ético which is very advanced and confusing but involves reflexives so I will include it but just be aware it's like advanced advanced stuff

This is also not including spelling changes for stem-changing verbs and verbs with certain endings like -car, -gar, -zar.

And I also didn't mention irregular verbs just in general so they're really that's more of a linguistic thing. I can just tell you some verbs are irregular and require memorization so you get the spelling right and so you sound smart

I also didn't include por and para because good lord that is a huge topic and very confusing for people so really just better for me to link to more info on it rather than try to explain it because it's hard to do briefly in a way that feels complete and makes sense

Also I didn't include different verbal expressions like tener expressions. Those are important but sort of separate grammar concepts in my mind. If you've studied other Romance Languages you probably have seen them and are familiar, but it's more of a translation thing because English speakers are more likely to say "I am hungry" rather than "I have hunger" for example.

#Spanish #learning Spanish #reference #langblr #language #languages #la gramatica

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pellucidity-is-me · 3 years

Text

Peter Pettigrew and Latin

Summary: Final installment in my Marauders and Latin series. Part 4, but works as a one-shot. I’m working through each Marauders’ relationship with Latin, and this is Peter Pettigrew. I’m also writing a very long story about the Marauders’ years at Hogwarts—you can find the link on my blog description!

Wordcount: 2111

Peter Pettigrew doesn't really ever find out what Latin is.

And he doesn't really care, to be honest.

The first time he has an actual conversation about the language is in the dormitory with Remus Lupin, who is Peter's best friend. They both adore James and Sirius, of course, but they can recognize that they're the underdogs. They aren't as loud and brash and bold as their dark-haired counterparts. It's always been James-and-Sirius, and then Remus-and-Peter. Remus and Peter are the afterthoughts, but that's okay.

Well, that's what Remus says, anyhow, but Peter knows the truth.

It's actually closer to James-and-Sirius and Remus, and also Peter. Remus and James are close because James loves having someone ill to take care of (and Remus is always poorly, for reasons unknown). Remus and Sirius are close because Sirius loves to vent about his parents, and Remus is a very good listener. Peter and Remus are close because they're similar (again: Remus says so, but Peter thinks he's just being kind). Remus has special and separate bonds with each of the other Marauders, but Peter is only close to Remus.

And it's so annoying. Peter spends more time around Sirius and James than Remus ever will. Remus is either ill or visiting his ill mother all the time. Remus doesn't join in on some of their more boisterous pranks. Remus sometimes prefers to spend time in the library rather than with his friends. It's Peter who gets into trouble for the sake of James and Sirius. It's Peter who claps for James when he does a fancy trick on his broom—Remus either reads a book or teases him. It's Peter who spends as much time as he can with James and Sirius, and Remus who is only their friend when he feels like it. So why is Peter still treated as an add-on? It's not fair.

Peter doesn't resent Remus, though. How could he? Remus is kind to Peter when nobody else is. Remus talks to Peter when nobody else will. Peter is always Remus' first choice, and that means the world.

James and Sirius are in a detention today, and Peter is doing schoolwork with Remus. They're talking about spells, and Remus says something about Latin roots. "What are Latin roots?" says Peter. "Are they like tree roots?"

Remus doesn't laugh, even though James and Sirius might've. He leans forward slightly and his eyes light up, just as they always do when Remus gets excited about something (they didn't used to, but now they do. Peter wonders what's changed). "It's a language," says Remus, "a very, very old language." He presses his lips together, and Peter knows that he's about to make a joke. "Older than Professor Dumbledore, even."

Peter laughs, but Remus isn't done yet. "Older than Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall combined. And older than Sirius, even though he thinks he's so old and wise just because his birthday is before ours." Remus smiles at Peter's laughter before continuing. "It's nothing like English. In English, we change the endings of verbs when the subject changes. In Latin, you change the ending of nouns, too—and adjectives have to agree with gender, and there's a whole separate tense just for when you aren't sure about something..." Remus rambles for a bit about the wonders of Latin, but Peter zones out for a bit. He doesn't really understand. "...But even though it's so different from English, a lot of the words we get—and a lot of the magic spells, especially—come from Latin," continues Remus. "Especially the big words. So when you know some Latin vocabulary, then you can guess what a word means based on the parts of Latin in it. That's a Latin root—it's part of the word that stems from Latin."

Root. Stem. What's up with all the plant terms? "Sounds complicated," says Peter.

"Oh, it is. Terribly complicated. I learned a bit of it before I went to Hogwarts, but I was never particularly good at it. I worked hard, though."

"Why'd you learn it, then?" asks Peter. He can't fathom the way that Remus' mind works sometimes. Who would learn for fun?

"Well..." Remus seems to be thinking very hard. "Sometimes languages are difficult to learn because they're always changing. Like French and English and Spanish and things. The vocabulary and slang changes all the time. But Latin isn't changing at all—it's been the same for years, and it'll never change again." He pauses. "And then there's the rules themselves. Latin has a lot of rules, but that means that it's predictable. It has relatively few exceptions to the words. And... I always found it fun to memorize things." Remus shrugs. "My life before Hogwarts was always very predictable, so Latin was comforting, in a way. Things that are constantly changing are a bit like moving targets, aren't they? My life's not predictable anymore, of course," Remus finishes with a laugh.

"It's not?"

"Are James and Sirius ever predictable?"

"Well... no." Peter smiles, but he's a bit concerned. "Does that mean you don't like us?" He dares to use the pronoun us, even though he knew that Remus was chiefly talking about James and Sirius. Peter likes being lumped together with his friends.

"That's not it at all," says Remus, waving his hands. "I think you're great. It's not what I'm used to, but maybe... it's better than what I'm used to. Moving targets are a little more fun, I think."

Peter disagrees, but he'll never say so. He thinks that his own relationship with the Marauders is a bit like a moving target—and, unlike Remus, Peter isn't quick enough to hit it. In fact, he's not even quick enough to see it until it's far too late. The expectations are always changing. The Marauders are too quick for Peter, too fast for him, too bright. Every time Peter feels like he's caught up, his friends have already moved on.

But Remus can keep up. Whenever Sirius makes a snide comment towards Remus, Remus can fire back with one equally snide. Whenever James starts babbling about things that Peter doesn't understand, Remus can keep up and ask questions without seeming stupid. Remus is a lot like Peter, but there's just something there—and Peter doesn't think it's intelligence, but it's something akin to it—that makes him a good, exciting friend.

And whatever it is, Peter doesn't have it.

At first, Peter tries to be just like James. He copies James' excitement and nonchalant attitude. He runs his hand through his thin, blond hair (it doesn't have the same effect, but he does it anyway). He thinks that perhaps he'll play Quidditch someday. He could be on the same team as James. Wouldn't that be grand?

Then Peter realizes that he's started too high. James is perfect, so Peter needs to aim a bit lower. So he makes jokes that he isn't entirely sure are kind, just like Sirius. In second year (after they'd already found out about Remus), Peter makes a rather unsavory joke about werewolves to Remus' face. Remus jokes about werewolves all the time, but there's something about Peter's joke that makes him go pale and shaky. He laughs it off, but Peter feels awful. He stops trying to be like Sirius. Sirius sometimes makes Peter feel bad about himself, and he doesn't want to do that to anyone else.

Peter decides to aim even lower. He's going to be like Remus, who seems to fit in without even trying. Peter tries for Remus' brand of deadpan humor. He sits with his hands folded, just like Remus. He lets his mouth twist upwards when he's happy instead of breaking into a huge grin. He tries to be kind to everyone, even when it isn't true. He starts lying a little bit more, just like Remus—about tiny things, just like Remus. Peter even begins to do schoolwork more, like Remus.

James and Sirius seem playfully exasperated about Remus' desire to do well in school. "That's our Moony," they say, shaking their heads and going outside to play Quidditch. But when Peter stays in to study, they look at him and scoff. "It's not that hard, Peter. You don't really need to revise for the Potions exam. It's the first one of the year. It's gonna be easy. How thick can you get?"

So Peter stops trying to be like Remus. He isn't sure what secret ingredient Remus has that makes James and Sirius love him unconditionally, but Peter has no good relationship with his friends. Even Remus seems to prefer James' company to Peter's on occasion, even though Remus and Peter are supposed to be best mates.

After a while, Peter starts to notice flaws in his friends. They are no longer the paragons of light that he once thought they were. Peter, ironically, notices flaws in Remus first.

Remus is self-pitying and self-centered. Everything always has to be about him. Whenever Peter tells him something even remotely sensitive, he can tell that Remus is pitying himself in his head, even though he doesn't say it aloud. Remus' life is worse; Remus' life is always worse. Peter doesn't mind at first, because Remus is right. But... after a while, it gets tiring.

And Remus pretends that he thinks something of Peter, but Peter knows that too much of it is a farce. Remus is better than Peter. He has suffered more, and he has still come out better. He is a harder worker, a better listener, and better with people. Peter's too slow, too hesitant, and not funny enough for Remus' tastes. And Remus knows it—he's just too polite to say so.

That hurts more than Sirius and James' disparaging comments, actually. With James and Sirius, it's obvious that the three of them are not on equal footing. But Remus seems to offer Peter crumbs of friendship that taste sweet in Peter's mouth and turn to plastic as they go down. Does Remus even like Peter? Peter isn't sure.

Oh, perhaps he's overthinking things. Perhaps Remus is a much better person than Peter thinks he is. Perhaps they all are. After all, Sirius makes exactly the same belittling comments towards Remus as he does Peter—the difference is, Remus can laugh them off, and Sirius respects him for that. And James may be conceited, but there's something much brighter underneath. James is so empathetic that it almost hurts.

Peter almost wishes that he were a werewolf.

Forget almost. Peter wishes that he were a werewolf. Maybe that's the certain something that Remus has and Peter doesn't.

James and Sirius may be the mascots of the Marauders in public, but Remus is the mascot in private. He's the glue that holds their little group together. James and Sirius would never get rid of him: no, it's too much fun to be friends with a werewolf. They love it.

James bends over backwards to take care of Remus when he's poorly. Sirius relishes the danger of having a werewolf friend. Everything is always about Remus, and Peter wants everything to be about Peter. He doesn't even need all that much; he only wants people that genuinely like him. Peter is only a Marauder because of a mixture of chance and Remus. Chance gave him position: it was the reason that he was placed into the same dormitory as the rest of them in the first place. Remus gave him means: he was the one that convinced the other Marauders to treat Peter nicely, even though Peter is now trapped in a group that isn't anything like him.

Well, he's not trapped. But he wants to be.

Peter wants to be equal with his friends more than anything. He wants it so much that his heart aches. He's happy to have friends, of course, but sometimes he feels as if he is merely witnessing a friendship instead of participating.

Peter doesn't know much about the Latin language, but he does know that a moving target is much harder to hit than a stationary one. "I think I'd like Latin," says Peter.

Remus smiles—closed-mouth, as he always does—and folds his hands on his lap. "So did I," he says, "but there are better things, aren't there? And much more useful things. Like this charm, for instance—I think you're waving your wand a bit too much. Try a smaller movement. There, that's it..."

Peter resolves to enjoy his friendship, as strange as it might be. He will not be self-pitying like Remus. It doesn't matter in the long run, does it?

#peter pettigrew #young peter pettigrew #marauders fanfiction #harry potter fanfiction #marauders #latin #extremely nerdy #im sorry #i don't actually know latin #i have learned what i know through the Power of the Internet

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purplesurveys · 3 years

Text

1194

survey by n0b0dysp3rf3ct

What’s your favourite song to sing to? These days it’s Sweet Night by V, but it always changes tbh. I don’t really have an all-time favorite song to sing along to.

What’s your relationship like with your exes? Nonexistent. I’m good at blocking off people and memories like that, no matter how special the relationship had been or how much time we spent together. I don’t feel guilty about it; I actually feel more at peace this way.

What mistake do you find yourself making over and over again? Procrastinating and putting off things I could literally finish in 10 minutes or less. I’ve been better about it, to be fair to myself; but the habit comes out every once in a while and I always end up kicking myself in the ass for not already knowing any better.

What are you afraid to lose? Hmm...probably people, especially my friends. I’ve been starting to think more about this these days. My two best friends are in very good, committed relationships, and I know that one day they’ll have lives and families of their own, maybe even move out of the country. I’m finally acknowledging the fact that maybe I am afraid of getting left behind and ending up alone. Those thoughts make me sad, though, and I hate being stuck in feeling sad, so I try to shake them off and focus on my happiness in the present.

What’s one of the hardest decisions you’ve had to make? Agreeing to break up with Gabie. I never liked admitting defeat, so that was a particularly brutal afternoon.

Have you ever gave up on a love interest as they acted differently around other people? I’ve never been in this situation.

Do you think you’re ready for love? What does love even mean to you? I’m taking a break from it, actually. I was in a relationship that I put a lot of effort in for a long time, and I don’t mind focusing on myself for now especially considering I put myself in the backseat for the entirety of said relationship. I feel no need to jump into another relationship any time soon.

What was the last thing you turned down doing? Angela was showing me some shops that were starting to put up offers for the new BTS Hybe Insight photocards. Those photocards are only being given away to visitors who go to the new Hybe museum, and we didn’t want to technically pirate them, so we both chose not to buy. We can wait till we can travel to South Korea together and get the photocards for ourselves :)

Have you ever fell for someone who was clearly bad for you? Technically...yeah? She eventually ended up being bad for me, but I didn’t know it at the time.

Are you a party animal? No. I like attending parties, but I never want to be the center of attention.

Who are you the biggest fan of? My best friends.

When was the last time someone really let you down? I haven’t felt that disappointed in anyone in a while.

What song can you not help but dance to? Mic Drop.

You’re DJ for the night - first track to get everyone going? ...Now that I mentioned it, Mic Drop. The Steve Aoki remix in particular. Sorry folks, y’all are getting K-Pop tonight.

Have you ever been too scared to tell someone how you felt about them? Yes.

Where do you feel the most inspired and creative? Erm, never? I never feel creative. But when it comes to being inspired, I usually feel it when I have one-on-one talks with Bea. She schedules a brief talk with me once every few months just to catch up and ask me how I’m doing, work-wise and growth-wise. I find that it really helps and I always exit the call wanting to perform better at work.

Have you ever been hit on by a pushy person? No.

When’s the last time you met someone for a coffee? I’ve never done that.

Describe the ideal man or woman for you: Kim Taehyung. That man is doing a stupid great job ruining everyone else for me.

What place in nature would you love to visit one day? Somewhere with auroras.

What accent do you find attractive? Like I’ve said on previous answers, I like Florence Pugh’s accent, whatever it is. I could listen to it all day.

What do you think you’re really good at? I’ve always loved writing and I’m pretty confident in my skills.

Do you have something you’d like to tell someone right now? I know Jo is going through a breakup and I want to reach out and share a few reassuring words, but I’m not very good at that kind of stuff. And since she isn’t initiating, it might mean she wants her own space for now too.

Have you ever had feelings for a friends partner? Never.

What career would you love to pursue: I’m more than okay with my current field. But had things turned out differently, I’d most likely be taking up law.

What was the biggest lies you’ve told? I never like lying so I try to make the ones I make as trivial as possible.

How can you tell if someone loves you? Idk for the most part I believe people have different love languages, so expression is always different for everyone. I don’t wait for people to act a certain way for me to deduce that they love me.

What’s one of your fondest memories? Front row at a Paramore concert, 2017. I went alone and danced without a care in the world and sang along to every song, and it was one of the nicest couple hours of my life.

What’s your favourite thing to do that doesn’t cost much? Taking surveys is literally free.

What do you feel unnecessarily judged for? I feel like I would be judged for having an entire blog just for surveys, which is exactly why I don’t share about this hobby with anyone. Not even my ex knew about it until much later on in our relationship.

What are you proud of yourself for? Still being here is a big thing.

What relaxes you after a busy day? As is pretty obvious already at this point, BTS. I like looking for funny compilations or interviews of theirs to watch to de-stress.

Have you ever known someone who suffered from drug addiction? Nope. Not that I know of, at least.

Why did your last relationship end? She wasn’t in it anymore.

Who do you have a crush on? Taehyung :/

When was the last time you stayed up all night? I was up until 4 AM earlier, if that counts. I don’t really do entire all-nighters anymore; latest I can do is either 4 or 5 AM.

Have you ever been someone’s rebound? No.

What would you fight LTR for the right to do? I don’t know what that is or who they are.

When did you last apologise? What was it for and was it accepted? Some work stuff came up today and it was something I needed to ask my manager about, so I had to message her. I apologized profusely before and after my main message since it’s a weekend and I HATE making my co-workers think about work on weekends, but the matter was a little urgent and it couldn’t wait. But eventually the thing got sorted out, so I followed up with a message asking her to disregard my question, and I sent her a heart GIF as well.

Have you ever been to Cuba? I haven’t, but I’d like to visit.

What do you feel positive about? That I am most likely ordering Frankie’s tonight because I’m having a serious craving for spicy Korean wings that I can’t ignore anymore.

Do you know any Spanish? I’ve retained the words, sentences, and verb tenses I was able to learn when I was still training on Duolingo; and Filipino has a lot of Spanish influences, so I wouldn’t say I’m completely unfamiliar with Spanish. I wouldn’t be able to last a conversation, though.

If you could go on a road trip now, where’s you go? Continued from this morning. I’d probably just go back to Tagaytay. La Union could be a great road trip spot as well.

When in danger are you more fight or flight? Flight. What makes you irrationally angry? When people speak excessive Taglish, especially in a work setting. Most Filipinos are fluent in both, so I’d wish they’d pick one and stick to it. I find code-switching pretty unprofessional for the most part.

Do you feel self conscious about a certain body part? Sure.

Is there someone you’ll always be there for? If so, who? My best friends.

Have you been accused of being manipulative? Gab probably did a few times, but I barely remember those memories anymore.

What’s the most romantic thing someone has done for you? I literally can’t remember anymore.

What or who do you miss from your childhood? The ability to be carefree and the greater space to make mistakes.

Do you miss late night calls with a certain somrone? No, I hate calls.

What would you like to do again some time? Be able to go back to coffee shops.

What’s your least favourite season? Summer.

Do you know someone who’s ridiculously arrogant and entitled? A lot of boomers and older Gen X-ers.

Have you ever considered violence to solve your problem? No.

Who’s the best dancer you know? That I know in real life? Aubrey. Overall, Park Jimin.

What’s the best bit of advice you’ve received? I can’t seem to remember the exact same quote they gave me, but it was Andi telling me a few months ago not to rush my healing so I can avoid potentially harming myself in the process.

How good a swimmer are you? Not very good. I just like swimming leisurely.

What’s your favourite baby animal? Puppies and baby elephants.

What’s the best compliment you have received? It’s always nice to be told I’m strong.

What’s your favourite gemstone? Don’t have one.

Do you bounce back well when things go wrong or does it take a while? It takes a while, but I always get there eventually.

What’s an underrated colour/shade you really like? Not sure; the colors I tend to lean towards I think are pretty popular choices.

What insult or label would hurt you the most to recieve? Being told I’m useless or a burden.

How often do you notice the attractiveness of strangers? I rarely find strangers attractive.

Are you good at hiding your emotions? No, I practically wear them on my face.

Are you romantic? More than I’d like to admit.

#survey #surveys

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remywrites5 · 4 years

Note

Could you please do a teachers AU with Wolfstar or Jegulus?

“You’re going to do great little brother!” Sirius said, playfully jostling Regulus’ hair as they walked together into school. “You excited for your first day?”

Regulus rolled his eyes at his brother’s enthusiasm. “You make it sound like I’m attending the school and not teaching here.”

Sirius shrugged. “You can still be nervous.”

“I’ll be fine,” Regulus assured him, straightening his tie and trying to be as calm as he wished he felt. It was a bit difficult to feel like he hadn’t gotten the job just because his brother also worked there. He knew Sirius had put in a good word for him with the headmistress, McGonagall. He didn’t want his peers to think less of him because of it.

It was the beginning of a new term and Regulus was going to be teaching French. Sirius taught art and his boyfriend Remus was the librarian. Sirius had assured Regulus that they were all like one big happy family there anyway and Reg would fit right in with all the rest.

Sirius dragged Regulus to the teachers lounge since they had some time to kill before classes began. There were already a fair few professors already there, some scrolling through their phones, others chatting with each other and an older gentleman in the corner reading the paper.

“Oi Jamie!” Sirius called out, waving someone over. “This is my brother Reg that I’ve been telling you about!”

Regulus felt every muscle in his body tense as James Potter made his way over to them. His dark hair was messy in an effortless way that seemed deliberate. His dark framed glasses were stylish and fit his face perfectly. A decent height, he wore shorts and a football jersey, both tight enough to show off just how fit he was.

Oh fucking Christ, Reg thought to himself. He hadn’t had a crush on someone in quite some time. He thought he had gotten over childish nonsense like that.

“It’s nice to meet you,” James said, smiling broadly at Regulus. “Sirius has been talking about you constantly.”

Regulus sighed and glanced over at Sirius. “I haven’t even started yet and you’re already embarrassing me?”

“ I didn’t say anything embarrassing!” Sirius said quickly. “I was talking you up, you ungrateful git.”

James laughed as Sirius cuffed Reg upside the head. “It was only good things, I promise.”

Watching James Potter laugh was the greatest thing Reg had ever seen. He felt himself falling deeper into the desperate state of the absolutely smitten. This was not how he wanted to start off his new job.

***

James came bursting into Reg’s classroom while Reg was in the middle of going over verbs with his fifth year students. James looked around and actually had the decency to look a little cowed by his interruption. “Sorry, I’ll come back later.”

Reg stared after James’ retreating form in absolute befuddlement. He schooled his expression quickly and got back to the lesson. James reappeared after the bell rang, having apparently realized that that was when classes were finished. “It happened again,” James said without a greeting, slamming a letter onto Reg’s desk.

“Another female student wrote you a love note?” Reg said in surprise. He picked up the note and began to read it. He barely got a few sentences in before he had to stop. “Oh my.”

“I know!” James said, throwing his hands up in the air in exasperation. “What about me says hey I’d like to do something highly illegal!”

Regulus snorted. “Everything about you says that,” he teased, folding the note back up and holding it out for James.

“Bin it,” James said, shaking his head. “Christ, what am I going to do?”

“I think you’re going to have to speak calmly and rationally to this student and let her know you’re flattered but you’re her professor and it’s inappropriate.”

James winced. “Fuck, that’s going to be an uncomfortable conversation.”

“Yes, I imagine so,” Regulus said, tossing the note into the rubbish bin. “That’s what you get for being so dreamy, I suppose.”

James grinned and leaned over Reg’s desk. “You think I’m dreamy?”

Regulus gulped. He’d meant it to be a joke and had thought James would take it as one. “You know you’re good-looking, Potter. Don’t go fishing for compliments. You’d hardly have the entire female population of the school in a tizzy if you were unattractive.”

James wiggled his eyebrows playfully. “Yeah, but I like hearing you say stuff like that.”

“Why?” Reg challenged, lifting his chin up defiantly. He was going to give it back as good as he got.

“Maybe I like the way you parlez-vous Francais.”

Regulus laughed and stood up. “Your accent is atrocious.”

“I guess I’ll need private one on one tutoring, Professor.”

Regulus rolled his eyes and shoved James towards the door. “I’d have an easier time teaching a rock to speak French.”

“I’m not that hopeless!” James insisted, letting himself be lead to the door. “We could have a little wine and some cheese. You can teach me to roll my r’s.”

“Rollin R’s is Spanish, Jamie.”

“Well I know kissing is pretty French. We could do some of that.”

Regulus huffed out a breath in annoyance. It was a major problem with James that he never quite knew if James was kidding or not. It seemed like James didn’t take much seriously. Over the past month he’d come barging into Reg’s classroom and doing what felt an awful lot like flirting. Still, nothing had ever come from it because Reg didn’t know if Jamie was sincere or just taking the piss.

“I think you have more pressing things to worry about than a snog with me,” Regulus said with a pointed look. He opened the door with the intent to usher James out of it.

Instead James put his hand up and closed it again, leaning in towards Regulus and practically trapping him against the wood. “The thing is, no I don’t,” James said softly. “The need to kiss you has become problem numero uno.”

“That’s Spanish again,” Regulus said, his eyes darting around looking for any place that wasn’t James’ lips. “Or possibly Italian.”

James smiled. “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?” he asked, bringing his hand up and cupping Reg’s cheek. Reg’s gaze immediately snapped up and met Jamie’s gaze. “Now I know that one is French.”

“Do you know what it means?” Reg challenged, quirking an eyebrow at James and pretending that his heart wasn’t threatening to beat out of his chest.

“Something about sex?” James said with a shrug.

Regulus chuckled. “J’ai très envie de faire l’amour avec toi.”

“Fuck,” James said, stroking Regulus’ cheek. “I think that might be the sexiest fucking thing I’ve ever witnessed.”

Regulus turned his face into James’ hand and pressed a soft kiss to the center of his palm. “What do you want from me, Jamie?”

“Are you asking about my intentions?” James inquired in amusement. “Because Sirius already grilled me about them when I told him I was going to ask you out.”

Regulus’ jaw dropped in complete mortification. “You asked my brother’s permission?”

“Well yeah,” James said, lowering his hands down and shoving them into his pockets. “Sirius is my friend and I wanted to make sure he wouldn’t have a problem with it. Not that I would have stopped if he had because I’m…you know… pretty far gone on you anyway.” James rubbed the back of his neck nervously and ducked his head down. He risked a glance up at Reg through lowered lashes.

Regulus smiled and took a step forward, crowding into Jamie’s space. “So are you ever going to kiss me or are we just going to keep talking about it?”

James got a dopey look on his face and surged forward to kiss Reg. It was sloppy with a little less finesse than Reg would have preferred but Reg couldn’t fault James his enthusiasm. He slid his fingers into James’ hair and took control of the kiss, slowing it down into something a little less frantic. James hummed against his lips and followed Reg’s direction.

“You can be taught,” Reg teased, breaking the kiss after a moment.

James huffed and brought his arms around to encircle Reg’s waist. Reg was reminded of how strong James was from the way he held him. “I told you I wasn’t hopeless.”

“Not completely,” Reg teased, pulling James down into another kiss, letting his tongue slide into James’ mouth.

“Reg, do you have that – “ Sirius burst into the classroom without knocking and stopped midsentence was he caught them snogging. Reg and James quickly pulled away from each other. “At school Jamie? For shame!”

“Oh like you don’t sneak down to the library to snog Remus on your off periods,” James said accusingly, crossing his arms over his chest. Regulus took a moment to admire what that did to his biceps and then turned his attention back to his brother, pretending his face hadn’t gone bright red.

“Guilty as charged,” Sirius said with a shrug. “I’m just glad you finally did something about it so I don’t have to hear you whinging anymore.”

“I didn’t – “

“He did,’ Sirius said with a knowing grin at Regulus.

Regulus sighed and rubbed his forehead. “What was it you wanted, Sirius?”

“Oh right,” Sirius said, suddenly remembering why he had barged into the classroom in the first place. “Do you have that book on the French masters? I was planning on talking about Cezanne today.”

“And you waited until today to get it?” Regulus asked in annoyance. He went over to his bookshelf and found the book in question. “What if I hadn’t had it?”

Sirius shrugged. “Then I would have talked about Renoir or something. It’s art class, I basically can do whatever I want and then tell them to go colour.”

“Must be nice,” Regulus grumbled, shoving the book into Sirius’ hands.

“Thanks!” Sirius said, taking the book and heading for the door. He turned back and grinned at them. “You know I’m happy for you two.”

“We’re happy you’re happy, now get the fuck out,” James said, tugging Reg back towards him with intent.

“Okay! I’m going. I’m going!” Sirius said, slipping through the door and closing it behind him.

Regulus buried his face in James’ neck and nuzzled him softly. “Well now you don’t have to worry about his approval.”

“Didn’t need it to begin with,” James said, pressing kisses to Regulus’ temple. “I couldn’t have stayed away from you regardless of what he thought.”

“There’s going to be a horrible scandal when people find out we’re dating,” Reg said tilting his head up and kissing James softly. “Every woman in this building is going to hate me.”

“Might stop the love notes, though.”

“I’m not entirely sure you didn’t just write those to yourself,” Regulus teased, nipping playfully at James’ bottom lip.

“You think I’d stoop that low?”

“I think you’ve a very high opinion of yourself,” Regulus countered, pressing kisses along James’ impressive jawline. “Which I’m assuming will only get worse once you realize I’m crazy about you.”

James chuckled and captured Reg’s lips again in a heated kiss. “So you might be writing me a few love letters of your own, then?”

Regulus smiled. “I just might.”

#Jegulus #I write things #teacher AU #I threw a little wolfstar in there for you too #fluff #long post #anon prompt #kissing #James Potter x Regulus Black

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