#also i know like LOADS more spanish than i thought

[imflyingfish]

Aggh feeling super proud of myself like im getting on so well atm im learning to drive and im learching french and my art is going really well and ive been enjoying spending time with myself and ive been organising more things for my future and now it feels possible and i hit that deadline and ive been more equiped to deal with things that definetly would have given me a breakdown in march and like. This year is going to suck and im not getting everything i want done but its not going terribly either

[lunarw0rks]

i forgot what i wrote in the ask that got eaten tbh but anyways more valeria thoughts because i need her

OH WAIT I REMEMBER

thoughts about valeria coming home from a long day and using you to destress but the day also wasn’t easy on you and one of her degrading comments goes a little too far, hits a little too close to home.

her being the absolute master of reading body language, catches onto the slight shift in your demeanor before you can even safe word/signal out and everything comes to a complete stop.

and like the switch between the domme/intimidating persona and the one where she genuinely cares about you is night and day. before you know it, she’s hovering over you, cupping your face in her hands and scanning you worriedly.

maybe i just need to be comforted… i think being in her arms would solve 99% of my problems tbh

-🎧

(it's egregious how long it took me to respond to this and i apologize pookie.)

﹌﹌afab!reader. dialogue would be in spanish. implied, notorious purple strap, naturally.

valeria is used to tears, whimpers, even you— clawing at her even when you don't want her to stop. she's a seasoned dom by this point, and even more so when she finds that one special partner.

though she loves you more than anything, she still uses you to distress. and we all know she's got loads of stressors, so it's more often than not you're subjected to some rough play. all in good fun. you're pampered endlessly afterward. and of course, it's pleasurable for you.

but sometimes it's just too much.

like any other hard session, you're limp below her at this point. so many rounds that you've lost count, and you can't feel your limbs. only the nerves ablaze at the apex of your thighs. the sting of her strap abusing your cunt repeatedly, past the point of pleasure. it's only seconds before you register the discomfort— and even less before valeria slows to a stop.

"shit." she curses, "i'm sorry, amor. was i too much?" kisses along your wet cheeks to pry you from your dazed state, until you give her a nod, a look, anything. it'd be dumb of her to expect you to get words out right now, and she's able to read you like a book.

even quicker, she reaches for a towel (fresh, folded, and laid out beforehand) and smooths it along your sweaty skin, her hooded eyes trained on you through it all. wipes you clean and cares extra for any bruises or marks.

absolutely no sessions for at least a while after. insists on having the chef make you something filling and made with love, all while she's getting you in some flexible clothes and clearing her calendar for the next day.

[aklxojjk]

Chica Tímida

[ Gekko x Fem!Reader ] Gekko looks through your phone and finds the Spanish lessons Reyna was giving you.

note - This has the smallest amount of lore, reader understands Spanish but doesn't know how to speak very well, i got most of my Spanish from my Mexican friend so if its wrong please let me know. ALSO ENGLISH IS NOT MY FIRST LANGUAGE SORRY FOR THE GRAMMAR.

w/c - 2k

warnings - Smut, praise, dirty talk, dirty talk in Spanish, very passionate, riding, fingering.

purple text is Reyna and green is Gekko in case y'all get confused.

MDNI

You sit up in your small but comfortable bed rubbing your eyes, looking at your clock it shines a bright 7:00 AM at you. Groaning slightly you get up and make your way to the bathroom, turning the lights on you start brushing your teeth immediately. After getting done with your daily skincare routine you change into more acceptable clothing, since you sleep with just panties and a shirt on every day.

Making your way to the kitchen you see a bare-faced Reyna drinking some black coffee. 

"Good morning chica." She says in between sips.

"Morning... I just had the worst sleep ever, felt like I just took a nap, you?" Yawning you make your way to the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee and some scrambled eggs with bacon.

"it was alright, our work has been pretty complicated lately" She looks at you with a sly smile. 

"Why are you looking at me like that Reyna... What did I do this time?" you give her a smile taking the seat in front of her, taking a sip of your coffee.

"How have you and Gekko been?" Her tone is playful.

"We've been good unless he told you otherwise…?" your statement comes out more like a question.

"No, he told me you guys were closer than ever... but he wishes you were closer if you know what I mean." she sips her coffee nonchalantly.

"I see, I mean the only reason I've been hesitating is because I wish I could talk to him more you know... sensually but in Spanish." looking away from her, you feel your cheeks grow warm. 

Your relationship with Reyna has always been really good even before Gekko joined the team, but recently you noticed that she has been talking to him more, and that made you feel as if you couldn't share information with her about your relationship with Gekko. Maybe it was the fear that she would disapprove of you guys relationship or perhaps you were just too timid to share all the details.

"How about I teach you some phrases?" 

"Please do" Pulling up the notepad app on your phone you give her a nod as if to say 'I'm ready'

"Just give me your phone I'll write them down for you"

You immediately give her the phone and finish your breakfast, grabbing her empty plate and putting it in the sink. When you come back she puts your phone in front of you, smirking.

"'Okay let's see if the pro has game" You smile at her and pick up the phone.

qué guapo estás

me encatas

estoy loca por ti

Estoy pensando en ti todo el tiempo

estás bueno

cógeme

https://www.spanish_pillow_talk.com

You can understand most of these except for the word before the link, they were normal compliments one would give their partner.

"What does cógeme mea-" Your sentence is cut short when wingman jumps in your lap, meaning Gekko is not too far behind. 

"Hola amiguito" 

"Hi wingman" you say before squeezing the poor little guy.

"Hola mi Reyna, hola mi cariño" his arms wrap around you from behind and you feel his head on top of yours, before you could look up he gives you a quick kiss on the forehead and heads to the kitchen to grab his breakfast.

"Te ves guapo hoy." you immediately shift your gaze to Reyna looking for some sort of approval, and she nods slowly. 

"Only today? I thought I looked good every day." His laugh can be heard from far away, that laugh that you so loved. 

"You know what I mean" Rolling your eyes you click on the link that Reyna had left on your notes, the website took a while to load so you just went to get water. 

"Gekko you've got training later today with Harbor, I totally wish I could stay pero yo tengo una meeting con brimstone" Reyna stands up making her way out the door.

"So I was thinking we could hang out before you have to train" You come back to the table water in hand, and as you sit down you notice your phone is missing. 'Where is my phone?' you thought lifting the table cloth and checking all of Gekko's pets to see if they had it, but your phone was still missing.

"So what exactly do you mean by "hang" before I train" he has a slight smile on his face, he's holding your phone reading something off it.

"just hang out in your room- Oh." you quickly snatched your phone off his hand, checking what he was reading. Your phone read: 'Pillow talk in Spanish' 

“just hang?”

"I was asking Reyna how to uhm compliment you in Spanish and she… she recommended that website!" your nervousness gave it away, he knew you were lying.

“so Reyna recommended you to talk dirty to me? no necesitas mentirme, estoy tan duro pensando en ti” He’s no longer interested in his food but rather you.

You look down at your notes analyzing everything you could say to him right now. “okay maybe we won’t just hang, but please speak slowly so I can understand you.” Eyebrows dropping as if begging him for mercy. 

“Of course,” He took his time throwing all the trash out and leaving the dishes in the sink, but once he was done he lifted you making your legs wrap around his waist. “I’ll do whatever you ask me to”

As he walked to the room he kept giving quick pecks on your lips and cheeks, making you blush as you looked him deeply in those brown eyes of his. Gekko is okay with PDA but knowing you don’t like it, he chose to not embarrass you in case someone comes out of their room.

Stopping the kisses to get the door open, he sits down on the edge of the bed with you still in his lap. He pushes his lips against yours again when all of a sudden he bites your lip softly and you open your mouth just enough to let his tongue in, the heat is intensifying and your moans start getting more audible. Your hips can’t help but grind against his clothed dick, which he responds with helping hands deepening the friction. You both break the kiss to catch your breath but when you are about to go back in he makes you stand, then spins you around so your back is facing him and he sits you down again on his lap. 

“Relax cariño,” You feel his warm breath as he gets closer to your neck, then your shoulders, then up to your face… teasing you slowly as he leaves a trail of kisses. His hands caress your hips just above your panties, his digits twirl around the cloth, he subsequently slides it off your thigh then drops it on the floor. “Estas tan mojada” he whispers in your ear as his hands roam all around your thigh but not where you need him most. One of his hands leaves your thigh and you feel his digits go up and down your slit, spreading it, collecting some of your wetness.

your hand covers your mouth making it very hard for him to hear you, you didn’t mind that since this whole situation made you so timid.

 “Why are you so quiet.. am I not doing this right?” You feel Gekko’s frown as he kisses your neck before he pushes his fingers inside you, gently pumping you, curving them ever so slightly trying to find your sweet spot.

“Cógeme porfa..” You didn't mean for it to come as a whimper but you’re glad it did because he started fingering you deeper and faster, every pump hitting your sweet spot and making you huff and whimper out his name. 

“I will as soon as you cum” his voice low as he concentrated on making you feel good, his free hand stops roaming your hips now cupping one of your breasts fidgeting with your nipple. He knows you’re close and that's turning him on. “Tan hermosa” his whispers in your ear tickle, you turn your head to look at him with eyebrows furrowed and lips parted. 

“I’m about to- “ his glistening wet fingers slide out of you leaving you with a feeling of emptiness, but that's instantly replaced with pleasure when he starts rubbing circles on your clit. You can’t manage to get any words out as your orgasm takes over you, leaving your legs trembling and your eyes closed shut. 

His fingers start rapidly rubbing your sensitive spot as you're coming down from your high, the movement makes you throw your head back against his shoulder. Once you’ve stopped trembling you hide your face on his neck, kissing it and marking your territory.

He once again makes you stand up only this time though he stands up with you sliding his pants down, he sits back down on the bed with his arms behind him to support him. 

You try to be sexy by leaning down and rubbing him through his boxers but he pulls you in by the waist forcing you to fall on top of him, you lift yourself off of him and pull his boxers down. One of his hands is firmly gripping your waist and the other is still behind him. 

“Me encanta cuando me miras así” This is probably the most you have used your brain to speak Spanish but it pays off seeing the look he gave you. 

“yeah?” the hand on your waist forces you down on him earning a moan from you as he took you by surprise, you both let out a groan as more of him slides inside. Both his hands grab a hold of your ass and start moving you, making you grind on him. You speed up as he adjusts himself inside you, thinking the grinding isn't enough you start to bounce on him. He lays back down pulling you with him, kissing you passionately as his back hits the mattress. 

“qué rico mami, me encantas” He whispers sweetly in your ear while his hands rub your back, his lips giving you a small kiss on the cheek, then your lips, then down your neck. “I love you”

“I love you too” You’re drunk off his love, eyes closed, smiling at anything he says, craving his touch as you push your body against his. All of that comes to an end when you open your eyes and go back to riding on him, he pulls you down just enough to be able to grab your boobs. You look at him sweetly and he does the same to you, he adores you.

His eyebrows furrowed as you picked up a pace and his hands left your torso and are now on your hips again, making you grind faster. One of his hands leaves your side and holds your face making you look at him as he’s about to cum. He wants to see your face when you finish with him inside, he wants to see you throw your head back, your mouth part open, and he wants to hear you moan his name.

His eyes are closed but he tries to keep them half open as he's about to cum, your mouth agape slightly as you feel your second orgasm arrive. You push your lips against his own as you both moan in each other mouth, his hands never leaving you.

Gasping for air you part ways, getting off him and lying next to each other you both stare at each other. Nothing but love in both your eyes, smiling wide you giggle a bit.

"¿qué~?" he hugs you as you both laugh

“you should speak Spanish more often, you sound so sexy” You say with your face in his neck

“you should too, i loved it.”

[winterwhisperz-blog]

Hey i just read your touchstarved headcanons and I LOVE IT!!!

And Here’s my request is that can you do a scenario of TS boys with MC who can speak different languages??? (like Italian or French)

Don’t worry i am a patient person and I won’t rush you. And i hope you’ll make more scenarios of the TS boys in be future.

YES HI HELLO !! I am, SO SO SORRY for taking two thousand centuries to respond to this—I’ve been pretty stressed over work so I haven’t been able to write headcanons as much— BUT TYSM FOR THE ASK !! IM SO HAPPY YOUVE ENJOYED MY HEADCANONS !

I do want to apologize in advance that these are going to be shorter and less one-shot like, than my others. These will be more like my Kuras Headcanons I made awhile ago—(Life has been kicking my butt lately so my motivation has been LOW)

But I hope you still enjoy them !!

Also huuuuge thanks to @danyvhell-writes

For helping me with these ideas !! You’re a saint 🙏

ALR LES GO

Note: gn reader! Fluff

Warnings: PROBABLY OOC PLS DONT HATE ME

Ais

ALR ALR AHAHAHAHA

So, one of my besties would do this A LOT where she would just switch into Spanish and I’d just be there like ???

So I thought it would be funny if you did that with Ais here

Imagine you’re in some kind of argument, a stupid, light one you know— and to annoy him

YOU JUST SWITCH INTO A WHOLE DIFFERENT LANGUAGE

He’s completely stunned, red eyes wide as you just start rambling, (very passionately) in a language he doesn’t understand

As you go on though, he just becomes utterly impressed, watching your mouth as he studies the words coming out of it (and just because he’s flirty LMAOOOO)

After you’ve had your fun, he comments something like “Impressive, Sparrow.” And then asks you, ofc, if you can teach him what you said

To tease him a bit more, you don’t tell him for a bit until he BRINGS OUT THESE GIANT PUPPY EYES

So you do start teaching him, just long evenings hunched over books or a paper as you teach him different phrases and words, the candle light dancing on his focused gaze.

And one day, out of the blue, he starts calling you Sparrow in the language you were speaking(and you also hear him practice words while talking with Princess—AND ITS SO ADORABLE)

After he’s becoming pretty good at it, you then proceed to tease other people(Leander) by randomly switching mid-conversation into a different language <33

Leander

NOW WITH THIS ONE, it reminded me of this really cool video of a guy switching between loads of languages in one song

IMAGINE showing this off to Leander one rowdy night at the Wet Wick

Maybe it’s even one of his favorite songs ??? And hearing you sing it in so many languages would absolutely knock him off his feet.

Another thing I think he’d go CRAZY FOR

Pet names, in whatever language.

Like ?? You call him something like “Mi amor…” for Spanish, or “Tesoruccio.” For Italian ??

He’s done for. Doomed. Dead. Will beg you to repeat it over and over while he showers your hands or arms with kisses.

He’s also one that would definitely be okay with you calling these pet names in public—he wants to be all smug that HES the one called yours.

He probably also learns whatever language you speak as well, might already know it because bro probably had tutors that taught him so many languages man.

In return for the pet names, he probably calls you something like “λατρεία μου” or “latria mu” (My adored !!! 🥹 in greek)

Kuras

NOW, THIS IS INTERESTING

I’m guessing since Kuras is an Angel, he knows like ??? Every language?

So when he finds out you speak others, he’s instantly curious, impressed, and now it’s quiz time.

You pass by a certain object, plant, anything, and he asks you how to say it in your language(s). Even if he may already know, he likes to hear it coming from you, enjoying the glint in your eyes as you explain things.

Another thing he’ll do, is when you’re having a library date, he’ll hand you a book and request you translate it. Either from your language to—whatever language people speak in Eridia ?? Or from that language to yours.

These will turn into nightly strolls with you translating a poem or book as he strides beside you, golden eyes locked on every word.

In return, he’ll translate whatever text into a language you don’t know. (I wonder if angels have a specific language??)

A name for him, I think it’d be cute if you called him 아름다운 천사 (Beautiful Angel in Korean !!)

Whether this is after or before you know he’s an Angel, he finds it both amusing and endearing. (Or painfully ironic if his life as an Angel is a tough subject)

Mhin

OKAY SOSOSOSOSO !! Mhin evidently thirsts for knowledge, they’re a lil nerd and they’re rlly bad at hiding it (A mood really. one of the reasons I love them <3) and my friend mentioned they’re more of a listener? So like I can see them just—paying very close attention to every word you say

At times they may not seem to be listening to you as you ramble, or catch a few words of slang from your language(s). But they’re actually secretly a sponge and soak up every little detail.

And now this may be just me but Mhin gives off such I must impress you with all my random facts vibes.

They ask questions about the languages you speak, the slang, the meanings, how to pronounce things correctly, everything

And then they do their own research, soaking up all they can before appearing to you one day and just starting the conversation in your language(s)

When you show any sign of being impressed, they will look away blushing and try to act cool but nahhh buddy you aren’t fooling anyone we know you spent forever working on that

Similar to Ais, lots of late night lessons where you get to teach Mhin about your language(s)! Just you two looming over an open book, Mhin scribbling down notes, looking so concentrated and you even spot a smile starting to form as they start getting better and better. (I love themmmmm 😭)

Mhin asks you to quiz them a lot, and looks so !! !! Just proud of themself when they pass. (Before realizing it and their self loathing kicks in and they revert back to >:( ) You want to tell them that they don’t need to be quizzed but look at their face !! Let them impress you okay !! They’re top 1 student !!

If you want you can joke about them having to call you Professor(Mc) or something but ur just gonna get a deep frown and glare like 😒 nuh uh AHAHSHS

Vere

Ohhh vere my nemesis. (He’s the toughest for me to write i have to like mentally and physically ambush him in a fast food parking lot before I can get anything outta him)

(I love him so much though so here we go !! Thanks to my friend for giving me a lot of help in this one because otherwise I’d be a doomed woman)

My friend brought up since he’s a fox, he’s very sensitive to sound !! So when you’re speaking in your mother language, he notices how your tone might change, watches as your tongue moves against your teeth or the top of your mouth, idk but he makes it a sensual thing somehow 😭

Definitely flirts with you in your language(s), says the most outrageous thing and watches as you get stunned or flustered by it, absolutely delighted that no one but you (or anyone who’s unfortunately being nosy and can understand) knows what he’s saying.

Okay this may be dumb but it’s so funny to me imagine Vere like putting on his most smooth, seductive tone, convincing the people around that he’s gonna say like the most erotic thing but he ends up just saying something like 💀 “Avocados” in your language(s) or like “Leander looks like a chicken breast” he does it to see you laugh but also because Leander overhears and could tell his name was said and thinks Vere is like— finally coming around but only you two rlly know Vere is just sexily roasting him.

Due to recent lore being dropped, and in his lil character sheet, it says Vere has a huge love for the arts. I think it’d be really neat if you introduced him to things specifically written in your language(s) !! Like books that originated from your country, plays that are only acted in that language(s), just a tour of the language! And if he doesn’t know your languages(s) then teaching him is gonna be like 💀 somehow so flirty

Will definitely call you Professor(Mc) but he makes it sound absolutely horrendous and cringey and you will regret it you probably should turn back

Jokingly will ask if you’ll give him a golden sticker if he behaves—do it, just to humble him.

OKAY WE’VE REACHED THE END WOOOT WOOT !!!! I DIDNT THINK I’D MAKE IT !!! Been stuck in this endless void for ages !!

Hem hem, thanks so much for the ask !!! I’m so so sorry it took forever 😭 writer’s block nearly had my head this time uh oh

Thank you again to my bestie for helping me out !!

Now I hope you see the most beautiful sunset, eat your favorite dessert, learn something new, and have a happy spring !! 🫶🩷✨

[blueseer]

Best of 2023- Best of the Best

One Piece Live Action

What? Me picking One Piece for anything best of the best related. I surprised myself. I’ve never seen an episode of the anime (on my own, I have watched a couple here and there just because my boyfriend is obsessed) but I was interested in watching the live action, especially after hearing all the good stuff about it and I’m glad I did.

For starters, it looked great. Production wise it was beautiful. It was playful, colorful, and whimsical without looking ridiculous or unbelievable. It just added character, haha.

Then talking about the characters they were also loads of fun. There’s just someone for everyone. Do you like the goofy yet well meaning leader, the actual brains of the operation, the cool silent type, the comedy relief, the wanna be suave one, there’s plenty to pick. There’s also many side characters or even villains/antagonists for you to pick.

I liked that every main character had their time to shine. They were able to cover everyone’s backstories while keeping the current storyline moving. And, you know I like myself a good backstory. Even the characters you’re not supposed to like per se have some sort of charm (Buggy) or understanding (Arlong). Not that they have an understanding but as in I have an understanding at to why he might do the things he does.

It’s a very character driven show (from what I gather anyways). So, my personal favorites were Usopp because he just always managed to make me laugh and I also had a soft spot for Coby because he was good boy.

I just really enjoyed it more than I thought I was going to. So much so that I saw it twice, once in español. (My mom’s primary language is Spanish and I showed it to her because I knew she’d liked it. She thought it was a bit weird because she didn’t know it was based on an anime but she enjoyed just as much).

[wickjump]

hello!! I am super busy atm so I'm not able to scour through your blog, but I was curious about something. What's your opinion on Dream x Error? I believe the ship is called Insomnia? Can you give me some of your headcanons, why it wouldn't work, or general information you have on it? I've never seen the two paired so I have no idea how it could work! Any info you could provide would be nice.

Also I noticed a ship on your blog called Hyperinsomnia? What's that? Is that a poly relationship? I've never head of it before so I'm super curious!

LOVE THEM 10/10 SHIP TYSM FOR ASKING. okay hypersomnia is the poly ship of ink x error x dream, inspired because i like pj gradient and palette equally and can never choose between them, so why not just. poly it all together? then i thought of them more and started to really like their dynamic and the loads of potential they had. i like errorink, drink, and insomnia, so why not combine them into the best possible ship ever?

insomnia is great on its own too and that’s what this ask is about so by golly will i answer. canonically, dream respects error and what he does (this means that in dreamtale, error’s morals are different, considering canon error has no reason for what he does and is kind of nuts). and even with canon error, i can still see it. maybe i’m biased, who knows, but i love them. this is because error has emotions, he’s able to be sympathized with, and he can be reasoned with to an extent. the extent is very small, but it is there.

while error is erratic and unstable, i genuinely feel that dream could curb this behavior over time, think discord from mlp but a lot slower of a change. error is a fucked up fella so i don’t see it being the perfect relationship with their canon selves, but i can see it nevertheless. looking back at this, i’m totally biased rip. but still.

i feel it’d be healthier than a ship like errorberry because dream has the power to leave and fight back more than swap could, so the lack of power error has over him would make it much more equal and error would view him in a much better light than a ‘normal abomination’ or something of the sort. dream’s extreme empathy and error’s struggle with it would probably cause a few disagreements though

fanon? even better. mostly because fanon tends to have error a less sporadic character and has him follow a pattern. this dream would be able to work with a lot easier, and they’d be a lot smoother of a relationship and dynamic and be a lot healthier overall.

as for headcanons, i like to think dream and error hold hands with mittens or gloves, and i’m also a fan of the headcanon regarding dream translating undernovela for error, as error canonically doesn’t speak spanish and guesses the context. i also like the idea that error makes dolls for dream a lot more than he would anyone else, because dream never had toys as a kid because it was the 1500s and he was also homeless. this is once more inspired by something else (nxzlian’s art of dream holding a doll of passive nm), but. but… but error making dream a doll of passive nm….. and dream cries and error is worried he fucked up…. but it becomes dream’s favorite thing and comfort item idk…. or dream coming to the antivoid to destress and since error is so sensory avoidant his everything is the perfect way to get dream to calm down…. i dunno man i love em.

i really really love them and i love their vibe and the possibilities regarding them and. ugh them 💕 they have so much potential and they’re fairly underrated, but if you know where to look there’s still a good amount of content for them out there!!!

and i’ve already talked about hypersomnia here, in case you want to check out more info on my thoughts regarding them

wow ok this is way too long i’m so sorry

[saintsenara]

I really want to hear your thoughts on the wizarding world. So I have a question about British wizards' language skills. Canon tells us very little about British wizards and their relationship to languages. We know that Fleur, Victor and Madame Maxime can speak more than one language. (They are not British). However, we do know that there is at least one British wizard who speaks several languages. Percy and Ludo say that Barty senior speaks over a hundred languages. So, do you think British wizarding society has a general opinion about learning languages or is it more about what class a wizard is born into or what their future career plans are? After all, Hogwarts doesn't teach languages to students. I'd also like to hear your thoughts on these characters and their language skills. Do you think they can speak more than one language? Voldemort (parseltongue doesn't count), Dumbledore, Barty jr and Bill Weasley.

thank you very much for the ask, anon! and what an interesting question!

in harry potter, language-learning is one of those things which - since it's not a key aspect of the story - ends up not having any specific worldbuilding. and so it's one of those parts of the books in which the wizarding attitude towards foreign languages just seems to be exactly the same as the real-world british one.

which is - like everything in britain - enormously rooted in social class, and in things [like race and ethnicity] which intersect with this.

you will often hear, for example, that the working-classes don't bother learning foreign languages - but what is meant by this is that working-class people don't choose in large numbers to become proficient in the specific western european languages [french, german, italian, and spanish] which signify that someone is well-educated, culturally-sophisticated, and mentally non-parochial to the british cultural and intellectual elite. working-class people may very well speak one of these four languages - especially african and caribbean dialects of french - as native or heritage languages, and they may very well speak urdu, yoruba, albanian, polish, turkish, and so on for the same reasons... it's just that this isn't recognised as something impressive.

but it is certainly true that language-learning for reasons other than heritage generally isn't considered to be particularly important in class-brackets below a certain threshold in the middle-middle- to upper middle-classes.

partially this is for boorish, parochial reasons which align with certain strains of political and social conservatism. uncle vernon, for example, would regard language-learning as woke nonsense and be horrified if dudley came home from school and asked to be given loads of italian novels for his birthday... he would have a similar reaction if his son announced his intention to start playing the violin, take ballet, write poetry, become interested in impressionist painting, or eat the local food while on holiday.

[the grangers, in contrast, appear to come from the europhile wing of the upper-middle-classes - and would, therefore, regard it as horribly parochial to only speak english. we know they go on holiday to france in prisoner of azkaban - and i think we can imagine that this isn't the first time they do so, and that hermione and her parents can all speak conversational french. indeed, if hermione was privately educated prior to starting hogwarts - and all signs point to yes - she would have studied french at prep school.]

but british monolingualism is also partially because the global hegemony of english means that being able to speak anything else isn't crucial for travel, employment, or - indeed - emigration, since brits who aspire to move abroad often want to go to places like australia and new zealand.

and so language-learning has become - like music - an academic subject which seems to be thought of by many brits as "not a key skill" - unlike, for example, something like maths. nice to have if you've got a grip on everything else, but not a necessity... and so, for british children who are educated in state schools [public schools in the us], foreign languages are only compulsory for three school years [years 7-9, the equivalents of years 1-3 at hogwarts]. some schools insist on a language being taken at gcse [exams taken at the end of year 11 - hogwarts year 5, what owls are a pastiche of], but this is not mandatory.

[although it was at my school. slay.]

so it makes sense within this cultural context that there are no languages on the compulsory hogwarts curriculum - the intended audience isn't expecting there to be.

[although it's worth saying that ancient runes - while i know it has a whole fanon surrounding it which makes it a sort of spellcasting system - is a pastiche of latin/classical greek as school subjects, so there is at least one elective language students can study].

of course, it makes less sense that this is the case when we remember that jkr did french at university... and it also makes less sense that this is the case because hogwarts is based on real-world institutions - britain's elite boarding schools - which do prioritise language-learning, since the students come from class-backgrounds which value multilingualism as a signal of cultural status.

[seriously - while i accept that this is anecdotal - it was so striking to me when i was at university that all but three of the thirty-or-so people i ever met doing a degree in a foreign language, whether a european language or not, was privately educated. add in classical languages and that ratio gets worse.]

but i think we can get around this by noting that hogwarts is set up in a way which presumes that its entire student body has had a wizarding primary education - and not only that, but an elite one [since hogwarts does, even if this isn't the doylist text's intention, seem to apply some sort of selection process which means that students who aren't from well-heeled backgrounds stand out enormously]. and then by presuming that the primary curriculum which someone like draco malfoy would have studied [at home, probably with a governess] would have included some sort of language tuition.

i imagine that this tuition would be in a muggle language - non-human languages [like mermish or gobbledegook] seem to be regarded as sufficiently "niche" in the eyes of the population that they wouldn't be taught as a general skill, but either learned in one's own time or as part of the training for specific careers, such as goblin liaison; the fact that barty crouch sr. speaks so many just for fun is a way canon hints at him being a bit... weird - and i imagine that this muggle language would be french.

this is not, however, because i go in for the fanon that all purebloods are of recent french heritage and retain close family connections in france [names like malfoy and lestrange are anglo-norman - which means they arrived in britain a thousand years ago with william the conqueror, and are as meaningfully english as the word "beef" or "monarchy...], but because french is generally considered the most "useful" language to learn in britain because france is literally next door.

[irish is sobbing.]

when it comes to the characters you specifically asked about...

lord voldemort's pre-hogwarts education is a bit of a mystery - in that the fact that the text isn't concerned about fleshing it out means that he ends up being far better educated than would normally have been the case for a child of his background [simply by virtue of not being functionally illiterate...].

even if he went to a moderately well-resourced school by random chance, though, he's extremely unlikely to have formally learned any foreign languages. but the fact that the most common fanon locations for the orphanage are parts of east london which had historically large jewish communities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries means that he'd have had a fair chance of picking up snippets of yiddish while he was wheeling and dealing around each day. east london also had a large irish community, and if the orphanage is a catholic one [which doesn't really work canonically but which is a headcanon i'm nonetheless wedded to], then he'd probably also have a bit of latin.

once he's at hogwarts, i presume he must take runes [since he's heavily implied, like all male characters the series considers to be intellectually brilliant, to have taken twelve owls]. nonetheless, while he's clearly a nerd - and while he loves a language puzzle, since he spends his teenage years coming up with an anagram of his own name [...] - he has a slightly harry-ish preference in canon for only enjoying lots of flicking-through-books research if it's for a tangible goal [i.e. opening the chamber of secrets]. i can't see him scouring textbooks in an effort to teach himself the european languages his posh friends would have learned at home unless he thought doing so would be unequivocally beneficial to him.

indeed, we canonically know that voldemort can't speak german, since when he's on his hunt for gregorovitch in deathly hallows a woman speaks to him in that language and he just defaults to the british standard of speaking louder in english... and i think we can reasonably assume on these grounds that he can't speak french either.

but he must be able to speak albanian fluently - simply out of necessity, since he spends so much time in the country.

and it's also interesting to me that during his ten years in europe after murdering hepzibah smith [so c.1955-1965], he is implied to spend a lot of time in communist europe, even if not in countries which were fully behind the iron curtain [he must, for example, meet karkaroff - and potentially dolohov - in some part of the eastern bloc, and the bulgarian delegation at the quidditch world cup know who he is]. i think it's entirely reasonable to suppose, then, that he must also be able to speak some level of russian.

dumbledore - on the other hand - can probably speak french, german, and italian, which would have been expected of the sort of late victorian young man who was preparing to embark on a grand tour, and which he undoubtedly taught himself in order to keep up his correspondence with the "most noted magical names of the day" [including grindelwald, to whom he probably spoke german].

i also quite like the idea of him as the sort of late victorian orientalist who crops up again and again in british history, who speaks a language like hindi, arabic, or ottoman turkish with a cut-glass english accent.

the various non-human language he speaks in canon - such as mermish - are presumably also self-taught, and the question which preoccupies me the most in relation to these is whether dumbledore can speak parseltongue?

after all, we know it's a language which can be learned by non-parselmouths - since ron manages to speak it in deathly hallows - and so it must have an actual structure rather than just be vibes. and if dumbledore can't understand it, then what the hell did he think was going on in the memory of the gaunts he shows harry?

barty crouch jr. was definitely forced to have endless lessons with tutors hired by his father, who wanted him to match his two hundred languages, but then forgot everything he knew about mermish the second he started school.

i am sure that - even if he doesn't seem to be able to during the canon timeline - bill weasley learns how to speak french fluently the second the war's out of the way. since this is a basic courtesy if your partner and her family is from france.

i am also sure that the three delacour-weasley children are raised to be bilingual, and that they take great pleasure in bitching about the three potter-weasley children to their faces.

the more interesting question, though, is whether bill can speak any gobbledegook.

it's implied that he might through his job - and he's asked in order of the phoenix about whether there's any pro-voldemort talk among the goblins at gringotts, which suggests that he's known to be able to understand any gobbledegook chit-chat he overhears. but it still always strikes me in deathly hallows that the imperialism really jumps out when bill's speaking to harry about griphook:

“I know goblins,” said Bill. “I’ve worked for Gringotts ever since I left Hogwarts. As far as there can be friendship between wizards and goblins, I have goblin friends - or, at least, goblins I know well, and like.”

this really doesn't sound like a man who takes the time to speak to his "friends" in their own language...

the fact that even the good guys treat non-human magical communities with - at best - paternalistic contempt is a really noticeable theme in the series [and, crucially, something which the series doesn't seem to think is a particularly bad thing]. and so i quite like the idea that someone like bill would have a lack of ability to communicate in gobbledegook, and that this would never be something he interrogated.

[starsfic]

I saw the idea of Mirabel joining the Owl House crew and I have few headcanons for it.

Pure Mirabel ones

Mirabel is the voice of reason between the adopted Clawthorne siblings, but it doesn't mean she doesn't have her crazy moments too.

She gets drawn into Luz's phone more than King because she's floored at what people can have outside Encanto.

Instead of using glyph paper like Luz Mirabel actually sews or puts glyphs into clothes or her shoes/slippers. When she dances with them on it is a terrifying display.

Mirabel is studying glyphs mainly so she can help lighten the load of her family, since she knows they're under a lot of stress.

Her Palisman is a Spectacled Bear, she calls Specs and she also carves him.

For Luz and Mirabel

Luz and Mirabel when planing something together will usually discuss the idea in Spanish so they don't have eavesdroppers.

Despite only being a year apart, Mirabel thinks of Luz of a little sister she never had. Despite the fact Luz is actually taller than her. Mirabel is five two while the Average 14 year old girl is five four

The two often trade art tips of their respective art talents, with Luz teaching Mirabel how to draw and sculpt, while Mirabel gives her sewing tips and teaches her to dance and sing.

She definitely did sew a witches hat for Luz.

For Mirabel and King

Mirabel will sew him new 'generals' for his army sometimes, many of them animals from Columbia.

When Mirabel first saw him, she picked up with spin and nearly called him cuter than Antonio

Whenever Mirabel sews King always ask if she can sew him a cape fit for the king of the demons.

When she heard Kings 'Squeak of Rage' she nearly fell over trying to keep herself from laughing.

For Eda and Mirabel

When she first met Eda her first thought was she was gonna reprimand her, until Eda just said good job.

When Mirabel told Eda about Encanto, the first thing on Eda's mind was to punch every spoiled village person square in the face.

Since Mirabel has a passion for music Eda tries to teach how to play string instruments but to varying degrees of success

Ooh, fun! Here's five from me:

Mirabel and Luz had to find a common Spanish ground because Columbian Spanish and Dominican Republican Spanish use different words in various things.

Since Mirabel is older and Hexside seems to be divided by age, she ends up in the Blight twins' and Viney's grade. She actually met Viney first.

Mirabel at first loathes the Golden Guard because he reminds her of Isabela, except actually willing to harm. Then she gets to know Hunter and then meets Terra, which causes her to switch her hatred.

Luz insisted on cutting the Palistrom wood in half so Mirabel could carve Specs.

They have to be careful not to open the portal in the Encanto bc Mirabel didn't have Vee to conveniently take her place. Antonio is on the lookout for that weird owl.

[yuanf3]

VIXEN — HAN SEOUL-OH

2. chapter two — "heart-to-heart"

series masterlist

A/N sorry everyone for the delay, got caught up with school - anyway, here's chapter two, hope you like it <3

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The sun bore down relentlessly, casting waves of heat that seemed to dance off the cracked pavement. Beads of sweat formed on my brow and I let out a breath but remained focused, my hands steady on the wheel of the 86’ Honda Civic. I sat patiently, my eyes fixed on the men across the street, their movements deliberate as they loaded duffel bags into the sleek black SUV. 

Come on, let's go already.

As they finally finished — thank fucking God — and climbed into the vehicle, I fired up the engine of my own car and reached for the burner phone, fingers dancing over the screen to dial Dom's number. 

"Four's on the move," I murmured into the receiver before hanging up, my attention shifting back to the road as I subtly tailed the SUV.

Minutes ticked by, the world blurring past as I kept a safe distance and weaved through the bustling streets, the black SUV never far from my sight. Then, like clockwork, I spotted a familiar 70s Dodge and beat-up Nissan idling at the intersection ahead, and I briefly glanced to my left, catching my brother staring at me. A sudden sense of realization crept into the back of my mind. I shook my head, scoffing. Our plan was working.

Another heartbeat later, and we split off in different directions, each of us playing our part. My heart raced, fueled by adrenaline cursing through my veins when Tej's voice crackled through the radio on the passenger seat, his words slicing through the tension. 

"I know y'all said they were consolidating the money somewhere, but, y'all ain't going to believe this."

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I stood under the scorching midday sun, squinting against its relentless glare as it beat down on the streets of Rio. The heat was oppressive, mirroring the tension that hung thick in the air around us. My eyes narrowed as I caught sight of the imposing building ahead, its stone facade gleaming in the sunlight — a freaking Police Station.

The irony wasn't lost on me, and I felt a wry smirk tug at the corners of my lips. Police officers bustled in and out, seeming oblivious to the criminal activity unfolding right under their noses. I wanted to scoff at the whole situation. Hernan Reyes, the notorious drug lord, hiding his ill-gotten gains right under the nose of the law. It was audacious, I had to give him that. But it also made our job that much more difficult.

"Well," Brian muttered under his breath, his hands in the pockets of his jeans, "this job just got a lot harder."

“No kidding,” I chimed in, standing beside him and crossing my arms over my chest, my expression a mix of amusement and disbelief, “We’ll have to get even more creative.”

Rome's voice cut through the tension, his disbelief palpable. "If he's moving it into a police station, he's got some serious brass in his pocket."

"Looks like this is going to be a shorter trip than I thought," Santos said in Spanish, his tone heavy with defeat and resignation. Leo's agreement was swift and vehement, "Hell, yeah, we can't do this."

“'Can't'? You mean, 'shouldn't,'" Han’s words sliced through the conversation, drawing my attention. I turned to him, a flicker of surprise at his perspective dancing in my eyes. A small smile passed between us before I quickly turned away, squashing any flicker of conflicted emotion this man’s smile stirred within me. 

Before I could dwell on it further though, Dom's voice broke through the internal turmoil. "I say we stick to the plan."

"You say what?" Roman's incredulous voice broke the silence, injecting his trademark skepticism. His words drew my attention, and I turned to him, intrigued by his reaction. He looked at Toretto as if the man lost his mind. Couldn’t blame him.

"This just went from Mission: Impossible to Mission: In-freaking-sanity," he continued to exclaim, his frustration evident in his tone.

I exchanged a knowing glance with Brian, a small smirk playing at the corner of my lips. Roman's dramatic outburst never failed to entertain.

"Whatever, man. I ain't scared, I'm just letting you all know, going in that building is crazy," he finally declared. With a shake of his head, he turned and walked away.

My brother followed his suit as he muttered, "I got this.”

Aware of the moment of silence and a whispered conversation between Leo and Santos, I stepped closer to Dom, the midday sun beating down on us, casting harsh shadows across the pavement. 

"Don't worry about him," I said, my voice carrying a hint of amusement. "Pearce is a full-time drama queen, but he'll come around. Besides, we’ve faced crazier situations than this before."

Dom nodded, his expression still serious. "Yeah, but this time we're walking into the lion's den. Reyes isn't going to make it easy for us."

I couldn't deny the truth in his words, but I had to maintain some semblance of optimism.

"True, but that's never stopped you before. You've always found a way to come out on top,” I replied, my tone firm, injecting a note of reassurance into my voice that I hoped would bolster his resolve. 

"We gotta make sure everyone's on board before we move forward,” he said, his gaze scanning the scenery ahead of us. He seemed lost in his thoughts as if this job put more pressure on him than anything ever before but he’s been like that since I’ve met him. I guessed losing the love of your life had that effect on you. 

I’ve never gotten a chance to meet Letty. It was ironic actually because my brother met up with her quite often in our apartment during her undercover work to take down Braga but I was either out with friends or working. Brian sometimes shared a few stories about her from the time when he wanted to make a detective, how he always thought that Letty had seen right through him but she never said a word. Things would’ve been different if she did. That’s why in some kind of a twisted way, I owed her. 

"Agreed," I affirmed, crossing my arms on my chest and then shrugged, following Dom’s gaze. "No biggie. Just remind them of the 11 million they're getting."

My attempt at levity didn't go unnoticed. I grinned and watched as a brief crack in his serious demeanor appeared and a hint of a smile tugged at the corners of his lips. Bullseye. 

It was good to loosen up a bit, especially during moments like this, so I liked to think that sometimes optimism was the best thing one could ask for in times of struggle. And I was here to provide it. 

Because God only knew how much I needed it.

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The dimly section of the warehouse cast shadows across our faces as we gathered around the table. Out of pure coincidence, I stood beside Han, my senses on high alert while the place seemed to shrink with every second that went by. I felt like I was sixteen again, having a crush on a boy who helped out in Brian’s garage part-time, only to find out he was gay and worked there to ogle my brother. Tough times. Learned my lesson, never again. 

That’s why irritation grew inside me like a parasite and the uncomfortable feeling of awkwardness washed over me as the scent of his perfume lingered in my senses and my attention was divided between the man to my right and the task at hand. His presence was like a magnetic force I couldn't ignore, even as I desperately tried to focus on Mia’s briefing.

"The beauty of public offices?” She leaned over the table, a roll-up in hand, exposing the blueprints of the Police Station we wanted to break into. I was aware of the fact of how ridiculous it sounded. “Public records."

Brian's finger jabbed at a point in the labyrinth of walls and measurements. "This is where he's keeping the money. The vault in the evidence room."

“Um. Uh, yeah. Can I get everyone's attention, right here, for a second?” Tej interjected, raising his finger. “We're talking about breaking into a police station.”

Silence fell upon us as everyone waited for him to elaborate. “Is anyone listening to those words? Anybody? Popo? Five-O. One-time. Pigs. People we don't like.”

He’s got a point.

"You know, police stations are designed to keep people in, not out,” Han spoke calmly, glancing toward Dom, who observed with a cautious and sharp gaze. I could almost see gears turning in his head like the man was coming up with a detailed plan on the spot. 

My brother nodded in agreement. "That's why it's a stealth mission. We'll be in and out before they even know we were there."

"Well, we'll need to get eyes in there,” I chimed in, already getting an idea of what we could use. Or rather who. “At least to find out the make and model of that vault."

"So the vault and then, so…” Roman muttered probably to no one specifically, seemingly lost in thought, making a sudden, weird gesture towards the papers. “It's crazy. Who's supposed to do all this?"

Without missing a beat, I exchanged a knowing glance with Brian before turning to Pearce. Another wave of silence settled between our group as the man in question looked around, bewildered by our sudden focus on him. I raised my eyebrow, waiting for him to realize what was going on. His eureka moment occurred a second later.

"What do you mean? Why me?"

"Because you got the biggest mouth,” I stated matter-of-factly as if it were the most obvious answer in the world. My smile was sweet as honey when I earned a scoff from Tej, a couple of snickers from the others, and a very offended stare-down from Rome.

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The sun cast hues of orange and pink across the sky as I stood alone on the rooftop of the warehouse, the wind whispering against my bare skin. I closed my eyes, allowing myself to relax, even if just for a second. It was moments like these that made me forget the troubles that constantly haunted me. 

Brian, Tej, and Rome had gone to the station to get an idea of what exactly we were about to encounter and it was nothing that we hadn’t expected already, so Santos and Leo had taken over to blow up a few pipes in the main bathroom. It wasn’t much of a surprise to see these two smiling like Cheshire cats when they heard what their job was. It was safe to say that I had my doubts but hey, gotta be positive, right?

Just as I began to lose myself in the beauty of the scene unfolding in front of me, my phone interrupted the moment with a sharp ding.

“There goes my peace,” I muttered to myself. Sighing, I pulled the phone out of my pocket and glanced down to see a text from an unknown number flashing on the screen. My brows furrowed and I quickly unlocked the screen, my eyes going back and forth as I read the message that immediately sent an unpleasant shiver down my spine.

Have fun in Brazil, love. I’ll see you soon.

The words hit me like a punch to the gut, igniting a surge of anger and panic within me. It was like the wind got knocked out of me and my heart sank as painful memories flood back, memories I've tried so hard to bury from a time when I had been naive and desperate. I never told Brian how badly I’ve struggled after I’ve moved to London. I didn’t want him to know about that part of my life where I made mistakes that almost cost me my life.

Those first few months after my move, when I was vulnerable and alone, struggling to make ends meet and juggling between studies and two jobs, were terrifying. My brother was gone, disappeared without a trace, I was hit with the enormous amount of assignments and I was about to be evicted from my apartment.

Then I met Owen. He appeared like a savior, dazzling me with his charm, his sophistication, his extravagant gestures that seemed straight out of a fairy tale. Back then, I had been naive, craving affection and stability in a city that felt alien and hostile. 

I thought I loved him. He had swept me off my feet with his lavish dates, his expensive gifts, his promises of a life I had only ever dreamed of. And as simple as that, I had fallen. Oh, how I had fallen, head over heels, straight into his trap. I hadn't even stopped to question the sincerity of his words or the intentions behind his actions. I was too enraptured by the illusion he had crafted around me, too desperate to believe that someone like him could truly care for someone like me. Someone so insecure and scared.

I didn’t realize who he was until it was already too late. The facade had slowly begun to crack, revealing the darkness lurking beneath the surface. And then, when I finally dared to confront him, to demand the truth I had been too afraid to seek, he’d shown his true colors. The subtle manipulation, the way he always seemed to know just what to say or do to keep me ensnared in his web. I was so blinded by the illusion of love that I never stopped to question the price I was paying.

And I’ve paid a fortune. I’ve paid in tears shed in the dead of night when I thought no one was watching. In missed calls from my friends, whose concerns were silenced by Shaw, and in the gradual erosion of my self-worth, chipped away bit by bit until there was almost nothing left. It was a miracle I’ve managed to leave him, but I wouldn’t be able to if it wasn’t for Hilly and Jessie. 

Now, a fury surged through my veins. I wanted to throw my phone against the concrete floor, to scream out in frustration and defiance. But instead, I took a deep breath and forced myself to ignore the message, to push it aside like I've pushed aside so many other reminders of my past. If he was going to try and get me, I’d welcome him with open arms and a gun pointed at his head. 

With a sharp exhale, I dismissed the text, refusing to let fear consume me. The hatred I’ve felt towards Shaw had reached a level that could no longer be described with words but with actions. 

As I stared at the vanishing sun, lost in my thoughts, I was abruptly startled by the sound of footsteps approaching behind me. Instinctively, my body tensed, ready to defend myself against any potential threat. But before I could react further, a familiar voice broke through the tension.

"Quite the view, isn't it?"

Han's voice was calm and reassuring, instantly soothing the frayed edges of my nerves. Slowly, I turned to face him, my heartbeat gradually returning to its normal rhythm. He had a small smile engraved within his stoic expression.

I nodded, a faint smile tugging at the corners of my lips. "Yeah, it is."

"Brian sent me up here to find you,” he said and stepped closer, his presence comforting yet electrifying all at once as he stood next to me. “They're looking for you,"

Sorry. My crazy ex just texted me and almost scared the shit out of me. I felt like that would’ve been a conversation breaker, so instead, I sighed, tearing my gaze away from the horizon with a pang of guilt for disappearing without a word. Should’ve told someone I was coming here. "Well, you found me."

My gaze caught with his as his gaze lingered on me with an intensity that sent an unexpected shiver down my spine. There was a brief silence between us, but it was not uncomfortable. Instead, it was filled with an unspoken understanding, a sense that Han saw right through the walls I've built around myself, and at that moment, I couldn't help but wonder what he saw when he looked at me. 

I felt exposed under his scrutiny. It was as if he saw through the facade I'd carefully crafted, glimpsing the turmoil that lay beneath. Panic threatened to claw its way back into my chest, but I pushed it down, refusing to let it surface.

Swallowing the bitter taste that formed in my mouth, I decided to break the silence, my voice steady. "I just needed a moment alone.”

"I get it," he replied simply, his tone gentle yet reassuring. His dark eyes met mine, and a shiver ran down my spine. But beneath the surface, there was a tension, a hesitation that I couldn’t quite shake. This was dangerous. This… This whole situation was a disaster waiting to unfold and I couldn’t afford to let myself get too close. I burned myself once and I got a reminder of the consequences not that long ago. Fear gripped me tightly, twisting my insides into knots as I tried to suppress the memories of my past but I wasn’t brave enough to do so.

Instinctively, I step back, creating a safe distance between us. It's not that I didn’t trust Han, despite meeting him only a few days ago. I didn’t trust myself and there was something about our connection that both enticed and terrified me. 

God, I was a mess, wasn’t I?

"Come on," Han's voice interrupted my tumultuous thoughts, breaking the spell that bound us in this moment of uncertainty. "Let's head back down."

I nodded silently, torn between the urge to flee and the longing to stay. But as I took a step forward to walk past him into the warehouse, heading towards the stairwell, I fought to ignore the ache that spread in my chest.

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series masterlist

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

From David Sedaris via Bari Weiss and Free Press.

>>>>>

The New York apartment building Hugh and I live in isn’t terribly big. I wanted a nice view, so we’re on a high floor, the drawback being that we need to rely on the elevator—not for going down so much, but only my friend Dawn would carry a load of groceries up twenty flights of stairs. The building has doormen, so between me and the street there is definitely one, but more often, two or three occasions for small talk. Nobody likes this kind of thing. That said, there’s a definite art to it.

Not long after we moved in, I was heading to the lobby, and a neighbor I would later get to know as Tommy boarded the elevator one floor below mine. He nodded at me, and as the doors closed I raised a finger. “May I ask you a question?”

“Not if it’s about how much to tip the doormen at Christmas,” he said.

That was exactly what I was going to ask. Quick, I thought, think of a replacement. “Can you recommend a cobbler?” I asked.

Now it is five years later. I’m on my way to the lobby and when a woman boards at 14, I ask, “How long have you known your dentist?”

She thinks for a moment. “Fifteen years. Why?”

“Just curious,” I say. “I knew my old one for almost that long but then we moved to New York and I had to start over.”

“And where did you move here from?” she asks. And then we’re off, pleasantly conversing until we part ways on the ground floor.

How long have you known your dentist is such a good icebreaking question, a real keeper in my opinion. I didn’t make it up, it’s not mine, rather I found it on Duolingo, an app my friend Dave turned me on to. He’d been using it to learn Spanish. Me, I started with Japanese. It offers over forty languages, free with ads, and free of them for a pretty nominal charge.

Each program features the same cast of animated characters: the excitable little boy, the bored teenage girl with hair covering her face. There’s an athletic-looking blond fellow, Vikram, who wears a turban, and Bea, who, according to her profile, is of West African heritage: eleven in all, including a talking bear named Falstaff. Sometimes Duolingo will give me a sentence in English: “How many desks are in the room?” and I have to translate it into Japanese choosing from the menu of words written in hiragana at the bottom of the screen. Other times I have to read a sentence out loud and the characters will either accept or reject me, based upon my pronunciation. My least favorite is when they give me the sentence and I have to write it in whichever language I’m studying. If you’ve only ever learned English you maybe don’t know that in other countries, “I gave her the suitcase,” might go, “I gave to her the suitcase,” or “I had to her the suitcase gave.” You have to grasp a new word order. Then there’s the spelling to worry about.

My friend Mike is learning Yiddish with Duolingo and one of the sentences it taught him is: “My uncle is a broken man.” I used its French program to freshen up before a trip to Paris not long ago, and was both surprised and not by the question, “What is he doing in our bed?”

I’m a dilettante, and always have been. Rather than really buckling down and mastering anything, I flit from one language to the next. Thus I noted how different Duolingo’s Japanese was from Duolingo’s German version. In the latter, the characters have definite opinions. “Your apartment is dark and ugly.” “I don’t like your sweater.”

They give the impression that German people are direct and judgmental, but also outdoorsy, generous, and sure of themselves. Thus such sentences as, “I’m sorry, but your doctor is playing volleyball today,” “I am giving one hundred toilets to my father,” and “Spain needs us.” There’s a lot of talk about witches, but no mention of them dating one another, this as opposed to Duolingo’s Japanese program where seemingly everyone is gay. “Is that your grandmother’s new girlfriend?” is one of the questions I was taught. Suddenly the guy with the headband on had a husband as well as a son. Even the bear was dating another guy.

I often complained about the last Japanese learning program I used, Pimsleur. So much of the talk was, as it is on their German and Polish and Romanian courses, about drinking. “Do you want a beer? Wine? Sake? Whisky? How many bottles? Should we drink at your place or mine? What time should we start drinking? Do you know what Tenaka-san drinks? Does his wife drink too? Have you ever had drinks with his parents?”

Pimsleur taught me a lot of practical things though, like how to make reservations and buy train tickets. “Which track do I leave on? At what time do we arrive? Is it an express train or a super express train?”

When it comes to icebreaker questions though, the type one might ask in an elevator, both Pimsleur and Duolingo pale compared to Teach Yourself Japanese, a book a woman in England sent me a few pages of. It was what her dad used back in the ’50s, and it includes the phrases: “What will become of us if father dies? Grandmother has turned blind. The man with small hands is my friend. I no longer take any pleasure in my work. Shall I kill myself tomorrow?” and “It is only the third bottle from the left which has poison in it.”

What age, I wonder, are these students? If you no longer take pleasure in your work I’m guessing you’ve been at it for a while, yet your grandmother is still alive, and newly blind? And just how small are the friend’s hands? I’m thinking of someone with the equivalent of raccoon paws, trying to open a bottle of pills he can kill himself with.

Depressing phrases or practical ones, you’ll never become fluent through an app or a book, no matter how many hours you devote to it. You have to talk to actual people. My friend Scott has tutors in both Japanese and French and is miles ahead of me in terms of conversing and understanding. He does his lessons once a week on Zoom. I suppose I could do the same, but I’m afraid I won’t like the tutor, and won’t know how to put an end to our relationship. It’s the same reason I don’t see a psychiatrist or hire a trainer.

Most of the doormen in my building are from Ecuador and one, Adrian, has, at my request, started speaking to me exclusively in Spanish. I took it in high school, so we didn’t have to start from scratch. The problem is that, because he essentially works for me, he’s not going to be as strict as, say, the French teacher I had in Paris. Not that I’m not progressing. Recently I learned that Adrian calls his mother Gordita, which means little fatty. It’s a nice bit of information to start your day with, though it leaves me wondering, and phrasing the question to myself in Japanese, French, German, and now, tentatively, in Spanish, “What does he call me?”

Image: Nobody likes small talk. Yet it is an art worth mastering. (Photo by Anthony Rizzuto/Anthony Angel Collection/PhotoQuest/Getty Images)

[A link to David Sedaris reading his essay below]

[0keny]

"Can I request some angst between alpha earth! Gekko x reader.

When the alpha version of (y/n) died of illness and she was Gekko’s friend with whom he has feelings, it tore him to pieces that she died in front of his eyes while he was holding her hand.

Now back to the present, Gekko was fighting a new agent from the omega earth and when he saw a familiar face it bothered him the most. This version of (y/n) was the opposite of his (y/n), which is a menace. (similar to jinx from arcane?)" - Requested

THIS MADE ME SO SAD, it's a great idea, but omg bro, this just... Made me cry while writing it. Loss is hard to deal with but this situation is just a punch in the gut. (Also I didn't know if you wanted to stay anonymous or not I'm sorry aaaaa)

"Glimpse of us"

Gekko/Mateo x GN!Reader

Song: Glimpse of us-Joji for the first part, (duh ajsjsj)

2 song: Dynasties and Dystopia-Denzel Curry

CW: this is just depressing. Use of guns, crying, mentions of death, mentions of depression, mentions of ED'S.

This might be very triggering to some, specially for those who have lost someone. Pls read at your own discretion, take care of yourselves and spread love. ♡

Viper warned everyone mixing love and business, specially in your line of work, "don't get too close" she said, but once KJ and Raze started, it was kind of hard to stop a bunch of young adults from doing what was only bound to happen.

Everyone knew the risks, still did it anyway.

But your hands were cold, rigid and tense. That was the only thing going through Mateos head at the moment.

He could hear the cries of all the other agents gathered around the room, but they sounded so distant, so fake.

HE was supposed to protect you, the love of his life, but nobody saw this coming, not you, not him, not even Sage.

The machines around the hospital room beeped, he didn't wanna believe it. This was not real, you were fine, you were just having a bad day, right? This is not happening, this is just not possibl-

"Mijo..." Reyna said, interrupting his obsessive train of thought, gripping his shoulder tightly and wrapping her other arm around his waist from behind. "Lo siento."

When it finally hit him, he couldn't stop the warm tears from dampening his face, they wouldn't stop, they didn't stop. He shook his head, gripping your now limp, cold leg over the sheets, repeating curses and prayers in Spanish, hoping, praying this was all just... Some sort of twisted joke.

It wasn't.

You really are gone forever, he thought to himself.

After that the days and weeks blended together, everyone was worried for him, he's was the one that took your loss the hardest, but can you blame him? You were his everything.

He lost his appetite. Boba tasted so disgusting in his mouth now, the chewy bubbles wich made him so incredibly satisfied now were disgustingly gooey. Video games were incredibly dull, boring and difficult. Everything he once shared with you just felt... Wrong. The only thing he even remotely enjoyed was skating, it felt like he finally got a chance to breath whenever he went out, specially at night.

One day Sage and Brimstone came to talk about the situation with him, recommended him to see a specialist about it and very reluctantly, he did.

Some time passed, everything felt a little brighter, Viper, to the surprise of everyone, helped Gekko get a little memorial up in your honor, for everyone to see at the protocol. Everyone started acting calmer, more cheerful, the environment was more chill and lively than ever and even tho they lost someone very important, it felt like a storm had finally passed. Some days were still hard, but knowing (Y/N) they would of liked to see everyone move on with their lives.

Everything was pretty quiet for a while, missions where going good, it seemed like Gekko could finally turn the page and move on. Until a certain mission went south.

For a few days, the protocol had been planing to retrieve a big load of radianite from omega earth and they would of succeeded on getting it back if it weren't for a mysterious person giving the agents hell.

"Fast, aggressive, unpredictable" were the words Kj, Neon, Phoenix and Jett used to describe this person, some of them were incredibly angry, asking brim to send them again so they could have a rematch with this so called "threat", but he refused, opting to send Harbor, Omen, Reyna, Fade and Gekko to scout the area better while Cypher and Kj tried their best to learn anything they could on the new omega earth agent.

The day of the mission finally came and at the death of night, all the agents appointed to the mission moved, silent and slow.

There were helicopters on top of them, scanning the perimeter but failing to spot and stop the Alpha team from infiltrating what it seemed to be a once bright and loud city, reduced to nothing, as it was now used as a radianite storage facility.

Mateo's eyes where playing tricks on him, he could of swore he saw a figure moving in the shadows, but Fade assured him she didn't sense anything but his fear around.

They split into teams, Reyna was gonna scout the main entrance to the small city, Harbor and Omen were gonna go to the site now named "A" and Fade and him would go to the site "B", trying to find any valuable information of the last apparition of the new agent and their radionite.

Everyone scattered, taking their positions. Everything seemed normal, as normal as an alternate reality goes, until Fade seemed more quiet than normal.

Gekko tried his best to get a hold of her, searching for trails she might of left behind, calling her name through the ear piece, but he had nothing. Panicking, he called the everyone, frantically communicating to everyone how he just lost fade, he was assured help would come shortly, he sighed a breath of relief, but it was short lived.

His eyes landed on a dark figure looming over what seemed to be Fade, in the ground, with a gunshot wound to the left lower side of her abdomen.

The browned eyed man pointed the gun towards the black figure, wich it seemed to take notice of.

"Drop your weapons! You're surrounded." He said, knowing full well that was a lie. The figure moved, putting their hands on the air. "I said drop your weapons, slowly."

"How about this, pretty boy..." the figure finally showed their face, pointing two gun barrels directly at his forehead, revealing your face, for the first time. "YOU drop to the ground, call your friends off and then we'll have a deal"

He froze

His precious friend

The love of his life was once again in front of him. Emotions flooded his mind. Sadness, confusion, nostalgia, happiness.

You looked so different, what happened to you?

You looked almost unrecognizable to him, if it wasn't for your face looking over all the same, he would of confused you for someone else.

Millions of tiny pieces of memories he tried to blurry blurry deep inside his mind came crashing down at him, like a million little needless just pricked him right in the heart.

Time seemed to freeze and through all the noise surrounding his head, he heard you say:

"You afraid of ghosts?"

A loud bang was all that was heard around the city after that.

Thank you for reading! If yall want apart two I'm down, also, I did this like, in two separate days Hswjjrkfkc, I hope you like it! C:

The end is kinda cringe don't even say anything 'bout it or I'll cry

[searchingforserendipity25]

Explore my bookshelf!

I was tagged by @sallysavestheday, thank you!

An estimate of how many physical books I own: ♾️

Favorite author: Right now? Silvina Ocampo. Read an anthology of her short stories this winter and it changed the way I think about writing, and also about people.

A popular book I've never read and never intend to read: what's going on with The Midnight Library's promotion team to make them so powerful? It seems fine enough but I'm tired of it already

A popular book I thought was just meh: Asimov's Foundation. Please don't kill me! It's very interesting and well-executed, but a little too interesting and well-executed.

Longest book I own: Janson's The New History of Art.

Longest series I own all the books to: Edith Blython's The Five maybe?

Prettiest book I own: Also Janson's The New History of Art.

A book or series I wish more people knew about: Jorge Amado's Sand Captains was foundational to me. José Eduardo Águalusa does fantastic realism, loneliness, love and trauma in brilliant ways. So many! Mia Couto's whole oeuvre is winning a Nobel in the next ten years, you heard it first from me. Also D. H. Lawrence's The Fox is terrifying? I'd have thought tumblr would be all over it.

Book I'm reading now: Lídia Jorge's The Bird Painter is electrifying and so tightly written you get vertigo. I am reading and savoring it quite slowly.

Book that's been on my TBR list for a while but I still haven't got around to it: Hamnet! I know, I know. I have it on my shelf and it was a gift, too, I have no excuse.

Do you have any books in a language other than English: Portuguese, Spanish, and one (1) French Arséne Lupin paperback, in the hopes of one day getting truly into learning-by-immersion (guesswork and Google, mostly)

Paperback, hardcover, or ebook?: I am strategic about this. Mostly paperbacks to carry around and read outside, and especially on bus rides. Very few hardcover, but sometimes I can't help myself. I can't carry heavy loads for long, so heavier books are mostly cozy home-reads.

Tagging @mayfriend, @theworldisquietheretooquiet, @melestasflight, @welcomingdisaster, @thelordofgifs, @polutrope , @meadowlarkx , @jouissants and whoever would like to participate!

[rosaren2498]

As soon as I posted the first part, I wanted to do a sequel. So... here it is! This is the sequel to The Little Scar.

This turned out so much longer than it was supposed to be. I don't know what happened. Also, because I'm nothing if not indulgent and I hate the nickname 'princessa' (princess), Jake says 'Gatita' (kitten) in this. If that's not accurate, as I used GT, someone correct me please.

The ending might be anticlimactic. I'm not good at action, sorry.

I have plans to edit both of these later to be more of a reader pov

Warnings: semi-graphic violence, blood, abduction, feral!lunar system (yes all of them go absolutely feral), loads of cursing once said abduction occurs, likely bad Spanish

Dead Man Walking

The biggest problem with trying to find the man who had hurt her was that none of the boys had his name. They wouldn't dare ask their precious girl to sign or write the name of her abuser, so all they had to go on was her description: shoulder-length, curly, dirty blonde hair, blue eyes, and a meticulously trimmed goatee. It made finding him nearly impossible, that is, until two months after she'd told them everything.

---

Someone was knocking on the door. Well, Steven wouldn't really call it knocking so much as pounding. It was frantic, urgent, as if the person was desperate for the door to open. Steven paused the movie they'd been watching, and pressed a brief kiss to her forehead before he got up off the couch to answer the door. He didn't recognize the man standing on the other side.

His shaggy brown hair was disheveled, his piercing green eyes were wild, and he had a lithe build. He looked like he hadn't slept in weeks, and there was a shiner above his left eye.

"Can I help you, mate?"

The man's eyes darted left and right before he spoke in an urgent tone. "Is she here?"

Steven stiffened, his grip on the door tightening. "Who?"

"Please. You have to tell me if she's here. He's in London, he knows she's here too, and he's looking for her."

Steven felt a chill run down his spine and in a split second, his entire body language had changed. His hunched shoulders straightened, going rigid, his expression darkened, and his jaw clenched.

"Who is looking for her?"

The man blinked at the abrupt change in accent, but quickly brushed it off. "Wyatt."

There was a shatter behind Marc that caused him to whip around. She was standing in the living room, a broken glass at her feet, water on the floor. Her eyes were wide, tears quickly filling them as she stared at the man still standing at the door. Her mouth was moving and it took Marc a moment to realize that she was mouthing a name.

"Chris?"

The man stared at her for all of a second before breathing her name. Marc didn't have time to stop him as he rushed into the flat, right over to their precious girl. The man, Chris apparently, wrapped her in a hug, pulling her tight against his body as his shoulders slumped in relief. Marc stared, confused, wary, and more than a little jealous.

Chris pulled away, holding her at arms length and just staring for a moment.

"I thought you were dead! What are you doing here?"

His expression shifted from relief to fear and his grip on her arms flexed. "He's here. He's in London and he knows you are too. It's not safe here anymore."

If Marc was unsure about who Chris was talking about before, the way the blood drained from her face was all the answer he needed. Her tear filled eyes moved to Marc and he saw the way her hands shook. Without thinking, he closed the distance between them, pulling her tight against him; she clung to him like a lifeline.

"He won't touch you again." Marc's voice was a soothing rumble; he could feel Steven and Jake's respective rage mixing with his own. She sagged slightly in his hold, shoulders slumping and Marc felt a bit of pride at it; she trusted them to protect her, they made her feel safe, and they wouldn't let her down.

Marc cast a glance at Chris, who was watching silently. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and told her to take a seat on the couch while he cleaned up the glass and water. She tried to apologize for breaking it, but Marc immediately waved the apology away, telling her that it was just a glass; it wasn't a big deal. Instead of sitting on the couch, she made her way to the bedroom. Though a bit confused, Marc let her go. As he cleaned up, he eyed Chris.

"You're the one who got her out; the brother."

Chris flinched but nodded once. "Yes. What he did..." he trailed off with a queasy look on his face. He shook himself, as if shaking away the images in his head, and met Marc's gaze head on. "She can't stay here; it isn't safe. If I could find her, so can he."

"That won't be an issue," Marc said dismissively as he tossed away the pieces of glass.

Chris frowned and stepped forward. "You have no idea who you're dealing with. He won't stop until he has her back."

He stared at Marc's back, almost glaring, noticing the way his shoulders shifted, loosening, while the rest of his body seemed to tighten like a coiled snake, ready to strike at a moments notice. When he turned around, there was a dark, almost sadistic grin on his face. He no longer looked like the man who had been standing there just a moment before, though other than a subtle shift in body language, Chris couldn't have explained why he thought so.

"Or until he's dead."

---

Keeping her away from the conversation that had followed had been quite easy. She had found one of Marc's hoodies, put it on, and then said she was going to take a nap. As relieved as Jake had been that they wouldn't accidentally trigger her, he was also very worried about her. Even knowing that it was likely just her attempt to stay calm while they had talked didn't quell his worry.

Chris had been reluctant to help them find his brother, though it had seemed to stem from a worry for their lives. This amused the boys; they weren't going to be mentioning the Egyptian God they served that gave them the suit they were currently wearing, nor what abilities said suit gave them.

Still, he had agreed and now Jake stood on the rooftop adjacent to the warehouse Wyatt was meant to be in. There were guards everywhere, but neither Jake nor Chris had seen Wyatt anywhere; it made something heavy sit in Jake's stomach.

Despite the many guards, it was relatively easy to get inside once they'd knocked everyone out; that coupled with the eerily silent halls caused the heavy feeling to worsen.

"Something's wrong." Jake's eyes flickered to the nearest reflective surface, meeting his alters respective gazes; they looked just as ill as he felt. His gaze cut to Chris, who immediately met his eyes; he expected Chris to disagree with him, brush him off, but he was surprised when Chris nodded quickly, looking worried and... vaguely terrified?

"You're right. This is too easy. We need to go, immediately. He's not here and we left her alone."

Jake stiffened, whole body going rigid as he, Marc, and Steven all simultaneously realized what their bad feeling was. Without waiting for Chris, Jake took off in a dead sprint back to his cab.

---

His breath caught in his throat the moment he noticed that the door to their flat was partially open. His heart pounded in his chest as he shoved the door the rest of the way open and his knees nearly gave out at the sight that greeted him.

The flat had been trashed. Broken glass was everywhere, their kitchen table had been flipped onto it's side, one of the chairs was shattered. What made the white hot rage rise rapidly in his veins was the small amount of blood he saw on the floor near the coffee table; he somehow knew it was hers. When Chris stumbled into the flat behind him, breathing harshly, Jake turned to him with murder in his eyes and venom on his tongue, his voice taking on a strange mix of accents as all three of them seemed to speak at the same time.

"Find him."

---

She grit her teeth against the pain in her arm; his grip was just as fucking tight as it had always been, and she could already feel her arm beginning to bruise. Her head ached from the cut on her forehead that caused blood to drip down her temple. She was trying not to panic, but also trying not to wrench her arm from his fucking grasp; he'd only tighten his grip further.

She silently gasped as he opened the door to the fucking penthouse of the building he fucking owned and practically threw her to the floor. She scowled at the floor, flinching when the door slammed shut, the lock clicking loudly in the following silence. She was pissed and she was terrified. She closed her eyes and tried to even her breathing as she slowly stood up.

"I'm not afraid of you." She ignored the way her hands shook as she glared defiantly at him. "They'll come for me."

He stared almost dead-eyed at her. "Not if they're dead."

She thought of the fire in Steven's eyes the last two months every time he looked at the scar on her throat, she thought of the way Marc's jaw and fists always clenched whenever he caught sight of it, she thought of the look in Jake's eyes the night she had told them how she got it... and she laughed, her body relaxing.

There was no sound to be heard, but Wyatt knew without a doubt that she was mocking him. Fury quickly filled him and he backhanded her as hard as he could, a dark look on his face, relishing in the cut that opened up due to the ring on his hand.

She fell back to the floor but was on her knees in seconds, hand coming up to the fresh, thick cut now marring her cheek, blood quickly oozing from the wound. She narrowed her eyes and gave him a surprisingly giddy grin, body still weirdly relaxed.

All she could think of was what her boys would do when they showed; all she had to do was wait, and they never made her wait long for anything. Besides, she could still feel her phone in her pocket; the fucking idiot hadn't even searched her.

---

Jake was itching to bury a knife in the throat of this Wyatt, but he had to get to him first. He was practically vibrating with the barely restrained fury of three different men, and it was hard not to get lost in the red he saw.

"Do not let your emotions get the best of you. He will suffer for all he has done."

Jake wanted to ignore the deep voice of the bird-skulled God, but he knew he was right.

"Let them out. They can take some of the edge off by taking out the guards."

Jake gave it a bit of thought, and agreed with a nod, relinquishing control. He'd expected Marc to take the body and was slightly startled when Steven did; Marc was equally surprised, but only for a moment. The suit changed, causing Chris to flinch before staring.

"What the fuck?"

Steven did not reply, simply pulled out his truncheons, and threw a 'cheers mate' over his shoulder as he took off for the entrance, not waiting to see if he followed. Normally, he was the kindest, the gentlest of the three, but at that moment he violently beat every guard he came across with a rage that could've rivaled Jake's general demeanor in a life or death situation. He got about halfway through the building before allowing Marc to take over, and didn't flinch at how brutal his alter was when taking out the guards.

Steven watched almost passively as Marc broke bones, even slamming his heel into the front of one guards knee, breaking his knee; he simply blinked at the agonized scream the man let out before Marc rendered him unconscious by a knee to the face.

The floor to the penthouse was getting closer and closer, but their rage refused to leave them. No matter how many guards Steven and Marc went through, they still felt an itch under their skin, still felt an urge to inflict physical pain, to see blood; they knew that the only thing that would satisfy it was spilling the blood of the fucker that took their girl.

When the door was finally in sight, Steven took control and walked right up to it. With Marc and Jake encouraging him, he used the strength the suit provided and kicked the door open. It slammed violently against the wall, the sound echoing across the penthouse. Seconds later, a tall, well-built man dressed in a tight black shirt, dark-wash jeans, and combat boots stalked out of one of the rooms, an ugly scowl twisting his features; just as she had described, he had shoulder-length, curly, dirty blonde hair, frigid blue eyes, and a meticulously trimmed goatee.

"Ah. You must be the new boyfriend."

Steven's grip on his truncheons tightened and, before the fucker could say another word, Steven launched himself at him. He dodged the first two swings, but Steven swiped his feet out from under him, grinning darkly behind his mask as his back met the floor.

One of his truncheons was put away so Steven could grip the collar of Wyatt's shirt, leaning down to put his masked face close to Wyatt's.

"You're going to pay for ever laying a finger on her." His voice was barely above a whisper, but it clearly conveyed everything he and his alters had planned. He raised the hand still holding his second truncheon and quickly brought it down and across his jaw, reveling in the sharp crack! that sounded.

Steven and Marc took turns beating Wyatt until his face was swollen and bloody, then Jake finally took back control. He started with Wyatt's legs, easily breaking them and listening to him shout; Jake was impressed he was even still conscious. Methodically, Jake crushed every bone in his hands and then snapped his arms. He drew a crescent blade from the center of his chest, staring down at the bloody, broken, barely conscious man.

Chris bolted into the room, panting and a long dagger in his hand; it was tinged with blood. He saw the state his brother was in and smelt the blood in the air; his stomach rolled and he tried not to get sick. He looked away from Wyatt as his head turned to look at him.

"C-Chris... help me."

Chris flinched and clenched his jaw.

"He ain't gonna help you, pendajo. You were already dead. You died five years ago the moment you touched her, you just didn't know it yet." Without hesitation, without an ounce of regret, and with Steven and Marc watching, Jake dragged the crescent blade across Wyatt's throat. It slid across the exact area that he'd had her cut and they watched, emotionless, as he bled out, choking on his own blood.

When Jake was sure he was dead, he stood and turned towards the hallway the man had come from, intending to find the room she was in, but he froze when she was standing at the mouth of the hallway, eyes glued to the dead man at his feet. There was dried blood on her temple from some unseen wound, and fresher blood still dripping down her cheek from a gash. The sight had fury bubbling under the surface again. But he pushed it aside in favor of slowly stepping closer to her, hands raised as if she was a frightened animal.

"Gatita?"

Her eyes tore from Wyatt's dead body, landing on the white eyes of the loves of her life; she knew they'd come. Without hesitation, she closed the distance between them, throwing her arms around Jake and burying her face in his chest. Her breath hitched as he immediately wrapped his arms tight around her. She breathed in his scent, slowly relaxing; underneath the desert air, and sand that the suit usually smelled like, and the blood currently on it, she could still faintly smell the cologne Steven had put on hours ago.

She pulled back just enough to quickly sign the words that wanted to burst out of her. "I love you guys so fucking much."

She'd seen what they had done to Wyatt, everything they had done to him, and rather than their animalistic fury frightening her, it made her feel giddy knowing how much they loved her - and more than a little hot. She didn't even protest when Jake picked her up bridal style, just obediently wrapped her arms around his shoulders, burying her face in his neck as the mask retreated, allowing her to properly breathe him in. She closed her eyes as he carried her from the room, Chris leading the way in case anyone else attacked them.

As Jake held her securely against his chest, he pressed a firm kiss to her head, lingering long enough to whisper 'we love you too' against her hair. The gentle rocking motion of his steps, the safety she felt from being in his arms, and the love they had all just demonstrated - even her gentle Steven - caused her to practically melt in his arms. The adrenaline that had been pumping through her body since she'd been taken finally left, leaving her exhausted and sore. Safe and loved beyond belief, she fell asleep with her face buried in his neck.

[chezzabellesworld]

So how do we go to this to what we famously know now with Cardi B and Nicki Minaj this is the 2018 Met gala. Jeremy Scott was designing both Cardy and Nikki‘s dresses. I believe and the theme was Catholicism. I believe if not Catholicism religion. Azealia Banks said when you see wars with men in the hip-hop industry online, it’s really a love is tiff And as we know by now in the industry, your have to be pansexual or it will at least bisexual that’s just how it seems to work, I know a lot of you may not believe but I alone items but how come so I’m glad. It’s just like the Nikki and Kim situation, so if it’s the same situation, we have Nicki, Minaj and Lil’ Kim in the early 2000 late 2000s even Nicki Minaj is known by many ofher peers for not liking them specially women, and and industry, you’ll see love its death but the industry also loves a good PR move where they will set up a thing where two people hate each other did round to give them both publicity going into their charts and their kids are Sagittarius, son and Aquarius rising and a Virgo moon, Cardi B is a libra son and Aries moon, and wherever you want to believe which ever source some people said she said on Instagram is who she has Sagittarius rising and obviously say she’s an Aries rising and personally seeing the look more of a Sagittarius rising, especially of her hair and her look and her face shape, but I can always see the Aries rising in her. Let’s face it they’re both fire signs anyway, so they have quite quality qualities that are similar. Rhianna is an Aries rising and she has a cockiness and good sense of humour and can be a laugh so she could have that anyway from just having an Aries moon. So how did this all start this started when Cardi B and Nicki Minaj both worked on a track called motorsport ,with the with the Migos, and they were never in the video together, they would do it separately, and one of the verses on it, you felt was disrespectful to her from nicki….. so they change the lyrics so are they were aimed at quavo, instead because women be fighting a lot and these two women have more in common than they probably realise or care to realise and a lot of it came from Nikki was defending for my remember black women, because Cardi B said some, women’s child look like a monkey and Dominicans are so I’ve been told very funny about their race. They don’t admit to being black a lot of the time when it’s clearly they’ve got black and Spanish roots so having her cancer cancer rules anyway, but Mars cancer even more so because you have to remember with Mars that Mars is your essence of your characteristic, how you move in the world, how you are every day how you are physically physically as in moving around and physically how you look so I has been up for a lot of times same how they talk with Meghan Markle who also has her Mars in cancer. It’s just one of those things are going out in her life. The picture we have at the top is at the Gala and Cardi B is pregnant and I don’t know if anything gets happened at this point I’m guessing not, but I feel like something might have, but Cardi B let’s face. It was probably stripping to Nikki‘s songs so when it came where they had their fight it was at the harpers, bizarre fashion event and Cardi B threw a shoe at Nicki Minaj Nicki Minaj kept saying I’m right here I’m right here get me I’m right here but no realised that she had her bodyguard which I thought was weird is a female someone called raw Ali, she’s really pretty, but she’s very big anyway they’re two different sides. Of course you leave the event with a massive bump on her head so she got she said she got hit by security or hurt by security where as Nikki said on her radio that she got beat in the crap out of my raw Ali, who is Nikki security so maybe she saying in undertone I don’t know but maybe Nikki had loads of security around her and that’s why she didn’t get hurt because card had only just come out that year so she’s not gonna have as much money or as much of

Team.

Anyway, Nikki‘s Capricorn, marsis in opposition to Cardi B‘s Mars in cancer, so saying that Cardi B could’ve felt frightened by Nikki‘sm Nikki’s essence and her character and her personality and her energy ,in a manipulative way, because cancer can be manipulative, and Capricorns can initiative but mars and Capricorn love fame Capricorn,in MARS I see it being a massive fame placement and a lot of charts because I’m also doing scrapbooking too with my astrology and then, Cardi B‘s whole aggression could’ve felt frightening to Nikki‘s image. Anyway, we’re gonna leave it at that leave fusing to Azealia Banks and all her feuds had enough of that for one day. These women have both matured and become others, and as far as I know, there’s no more feuds with these two. Let’s keep it that way let me know who side you’re on. Let me know if you’re on impartial. Let me know if you think it was all here and let me also know what you think on the matter. Thank you kiss kiss kiss XOXO 

[rosesandalfazemas]

Chapter 1 Chapter 2

Chapter 3

4.  The Lightning Wasteland (Spanish version here)

@engportevents

The sky was pink and the mountains orange, and when the wind passed coming from a black void, it became an iridescent blue; tall grasslands up to the waist of an adult, but clearly untouched by any human. Virgin and natural.

It was a narrow place with its limits, since its white edges fell violently vertically towards nothingness, from which seemed to come a noise similar to the waves of the sea that crashed against white cliffs; even whiter than those that existed in the Earth dimension.

It was like a primitive projection of the same soil they inhabited and had left, to cross here. The directions were the same, the geographical forms too; it changed the logic of time and physics, but it made everything quite recognizable. Especially since in that place the connections were tangible; and Arthur was being pulled as if by a very long invisible umbilical cord, happy to return to his womb.

“Come, get up.”

There was no need to move the mouth the way they do in the mortal realm. Their thoughts were more powerful and it was the true way of communication on that side.

"Where are we?"

Gabriel stood up and noticed his nakedness, like that of his partner. The only difference between their appearances in the mortal world was that their eyes seemed to emanate light from within, and their fibers became a little more visible, revealing their skin. In addition, the blonde had blue Pictish markings on his body, in the form of complex drawings that had already lost their meaning over time.

"On the border of the Emerald Forest," said Arthur, pointing north. "Beyond those hills begins Fairyland."

Gabriel turned on his heel, confused.

“Is there more than the forest on the island? You said that all this was your continent.”

"Of course there's more, don't you remember?"

England pointed to the west, and among the natural fog of the area, which seemed to be the gateway to  the human world, a very distant structure could be seen, in the shape of several superimposed towers.

"The Great Gray Castle" whispered Portugal, looking towards said direction "Where all the European kingdoms were born"

Arthur then pointed south, where there seemed to be other intersecting mountains farther away.

The hills, which seemed to almost be floating by themselves, had a huge bush with kilometer-long roots, which covered all the space that could be seen. It was not very tall but it was voluminous in leaves; bone-colored, as if petrified. But each part of its branches were covered in flowers, loaded with small cream-colored petals, which fell off like drops and danced in the air that passed them, in large numbers. And its branches, circular and entangled in themselves, protected the small fruits with sharp and long thorns along their entire length.

“The Holy Hawthorn” whispered Portugal, taking a few steps forward. “The last drop of light of Uriel, my godfather. It’s..."

"The Lightning Wasteland."

Evoking that name changed the landscape. The sky turned green and the winds blew in the direction of the floating islet, between the narrow land they stood on and what seemed to be the beginning of Europe, between the Iberian zone and Belgium.

"This..." Port took a few more steps, astonished "I thought it had disappeared."

"Why would it, dear?" Arthur walked over and stood next to him. "Actually, they’re relieved that you remember now."

"How is it still there? I know what you had to do to create it.”

“I did what was necessary. Even though I was very young, it was one of the brightest ideas I had in my life.”

"Also the most irrational..." replied the brunette, looking at him out of the corner of his eye, and the blonde puffed out his chest, with that big smile that victors emanated before their victories.

“That is precisely why I am proud of it. Their livelihood is still alive." Bright eyes looking at the others, "I tore out a piece of the Great Gray Castle to knead the earth, and plant its thorny seed to hold firm forever, individualized from all else."

"You almost disintegrated yourself in the audacity."

"It was worth it. It’s still here, precisely, because it was built with my love. A love that has never ceased." Gabriel suddenly turned to better see him "It is the reason why it continues to exist. Because I can lie about anything to the universe and the universe will believe me; but I never stopped loving you, Gabriel Dos Anjos, never."

“Arthur...”

He wanted to kiss him, on an impulse of his human rationality. But, they were nothing there, and everything. And so...

“We can’t be here, at this deep level” recalled Portugal, coming out of his own emotion. “We are the main form; and if we don't move, the other facets will start closing in on us.”

"Are you afraid of that?" England looked at him curiously, and the other rolled his eyes.

"I’m not afraid. But they can't all be stacked in the same place; they’ll disturb us.”

"It's true," the blonde conceded. “That is why we must go quickly to the Lighting Wasteland”

"But... how will we do it?" The Lusitanian looked forward again "It seems to be floating in the mid air."

"It's floating, yes, like a boat in the ocean" England smiled "I did it that way on purpose. It can only be accessed in one way: flying"

"Flying?" Gabriel looked at him suddenly "We can't fly!"

"I can’t, but you can."

Portugal stopped, a great pain in his temple made him shake his head with concern. He recognized the feeling; its other forms, the facets throughout its history and centuries, that made it up and had once been the main body of the country's vessel, were drawing closer, drawn like moths to the light. And for all of them to get out of their place and get closer was not the idyllic state that a Nation could have as such; above all, considering that he needed coherence so that his people were in the same place from which they left and to which they returned in their homes.

"We have to go, now." the man said worriedly. The blonde then reached for his ear, scratching it annoyed.

"Yes, they’re coming" he sighed tiredly and somewhat indifferently. “Surely the Pirate will want to know how to navigate the Empty Sea and fail… again.”

“How am I supposed to fly!? I don't know how to fly." The brunette looked at him desperately, holding his hair that fluttered in the wind.

"Not with that body, of course."

Gabriel paused for a moment, until he realized what he was suggesting.

"You must be kidding, Artinho."

"Of course not! Here everything is possible. You only have to think of your original form; as if you imagined it on the human plane” he made a gesture. "I assure you that you will succeed."

"But-!"

Louder noises began to mobilize the meadow hills behind them. Steps of various types; sighs, noises, groans, screams and laughter.

"Here they come, and they are deploying amongst themselves," the blonde deduced. "Maybe the more solid ones will reach us, I don't know" he scratched his chin. “I lost the motivation to come and see them.”

“Arthur!I can’t concentrate enough to do this! I haven't done it in hundreds of years."

“Think fast, marido” he squinted, “Or this will become a problem in a few minutes.”

"I-!"

The noise grew shriller, and the sky turned purple, beginning to thunder without a storm.

“Caralho, Arthur! You- you’re having fun with this, aren’t you?”

"I know you can do it! It's like taking a bicycle again after a lifetime without riding on one; muscle memory, the body remembers right away.”

The noise became annoying alongside the flashes in the sky, which looked like horizontal lightning.

"That's a stupid comparison!" raised his voice.

“Oh Arthur~ Where are you, you bourgeois rat? I have a gift for you.”

“I also want some…”

Behind them, two figures began to take shape among the wind-swaying grass. They were copies of them but dressed in extravagant ways, looking at them heavily.

“What are you doing here, modern forms? You’re far from home.”

“Perhaps they want to lend us the continent for a while. It's been a long time since we crossed the Bridge.”

The newcomers laughed together in a metallic voice, as if canned somewhere. As they approached, one drew a long golden scimitar, the other two silver and emerald pistols. They walked with a circular gait, swaying their hips as if they were dizzy, but it was the forging of their feet, raised in the swaying of the ships that they’d sailed at sea.

"How are you, Tiger of the Seven Seas?" Arthur turned to him calmly, "You’re active today."

"I won't waste an opportunity like this, Sir Arthur Kirkland." the pirate captain whispered, holding up his wide-brimmed black hat, while its feathers flew along with his red jacket in the wind.

"That much is clear, and you came with the Golden Ottoman Gypsy Thief" he greeted the other, who gave him a half smile.

"I’m the best navigator in the entire Dream World, cari," the brunette buccaneer answered. “Finding you was child's play.”

"I know. And you know as well as I do that it’s not prudent for you to stray from your plains or your seas, gentlemen."

“Nor you from yours, modern form... for that reason, we came to take advantage of your absence, like the good criminals that we are.”

As they got closer, Gabriel noticed that Arthur was looking at them calmly, facing them without moving - much more used to seeing them head-on. Then, he realized: he was buying him some time. Because if their copies managed to touch them in this place, it could mean a fusion that would be reflected in the human world anachronistically... and it would not be pleasant at all.

“I would love to stay and chat with you and update you, but we have a short stay due to scheduling, and we must leave now.” Kirkland smirked.

“Where? You have no place to escape to here.” the Gypsy scolded. “You don't even know where you are.”.

“Oh, we know perfectly well. However, we won't be stepping on anything else while we’re here.”

On the next step from the clones from their Pirating Era, the earth trembled slightly under their feet; the mist that seemed to overshadow the entire environment dispersed from the air and swirled behind the blond, like a kind of whirlwind that started small and grew with consistency and shape. When the vortex absorbed the air currents in its favor, it began to rise upwards, before the astonished eyes of their clones who had never seen anything like it.

“What the hell is that?!” The English pirate asked suspiciously, pointing with his sword. “Is it a spell, modern form?”

"No. It is the power of a dominant clone, Tiger."

Before they could say anything else, a roar seemed to stop the winds; taking the breath of the two pirates, who looked up in astonishment.

From behind the mist a gigantic figure loomed, rearing up on its full form, looking down with its aquamarine eyes.

"Is that... is that me?" asked the Gypsy, astonished. England smirked.

“Yes and no, gypsy. We'd love to philosophize about it but, like I said, we've got things to do,” Arthur said with a haughty nod. “My husband and I must leave now."

Out of the wind-swept mists a gigantic four-legged dragon was seen, sitting beside England’s form. It was more than five meters high and wide, with membranous wings and blue scales, iridescent to green and gold according to the reflections of light. It blew smoke from its snout, staring down at them.

"Marido," the creature's hoarse voice whispered, shaking its head and tail restlessly. “Let's go now."

"Of course, darling."

The dragon spread his wings several meters to the sides, in a stretching position. He leaned in slightly and Arthur climbed onto his neck and sat between his shoulder blades. In the next second, despite its large body, the serpent flapped its wings and took off into the air with great speed.

“Oh no! You won't get away this time!”

The British pirate pointed his pistol into the air as the dragon spun for momentum and launched. The shots grazed the Englishman's temple, whistling near the dragon's ear.

"I told you, riding a bike!" Arthur yelled into the air, slapping his husband on the back of the neck. "I knew you'd remember."

"Close mouth" the creature answered categorically, while they flew at full speed.

In a matter of seconds, the Empty Sea was visible behind the white hills and, a while later, the Holy Hawthorn was present on that piece of floating island; there, where clearly only a being like Portugal could reach.

[nordic-language-love]

Hmm French or Spanish

I'm heading back to the UK at the end of the year and I'm considering studying with open uni starting in October '24. I'm not settled on a course yet but I'd like to take either French or Spanish alongside my main focus.

Spanish:

Already have a load of books and resources saved, including spreadsheets I made specifically for reviewing vocab/grammar

Lots of Spanish music I like

I have more friends who have learned Spanish and speak Spanish

More widely spoken

Probably more opportunities to use it further afield

Passionate and fun but also has way more chill than French

Orthography makes sense and functions entirely as expected

Dental fricatives

French:

I've said for ages I'll go back to French one day and I finally feel ready to do so

More likely to visit France than a Spanish-speaking country

Still understand more than Spanish (enough to follow a kid's TV show with French subtitles) despite barely touching it since I was 17

Learning a language fewer of my friends speak means I won't compare myself to them actually

My bf studied French at A-level and still understands a fair bit and I know he's never gonna study languages with me but this might be the closest thing?

I kinda have an urge to learn French rn (but how long will that last)

Both?

Indisputably a bad idea

But also...

Maybe I could try both for a bit and see which one I vibe with more?

Terrible idea honestly