#new basic dialects

[dimalink]

Basic dialects – poisk (search)

So with  this word “POISK”  (search), I want to give a name to all of these. And, clever word – dialect. For programming language basic. There were lots of them. Theme is interesting. I want to search for something.

And, I get interest – what else Basic – there were for soviet 8 bit computers. There was big zoo with them. It has its own architecture. Compatible with American computers solutions. There were lots of things.

And about how to write program there. I want to find something like BBC Basic for SDL2. Modern and still same time – closer to 80s version of BBC Basic. So, a retro programming. To find this way but about soviet computers. I am so sad and sorry, but find nothing.

And it is sad thing. There were lots of computers there. Everything is so interesting. Poisk, Sura, Agat. There are no lots of information about them. For example, Sura – it is its own version for MSX standard of computers. It is its own way, something like that. It is very interesting to programming with that Basic. Or what it was there like Basic.

And I find nothing. So – it is next – I need to buy retro computer from 80s. At working condition. To turn on it someway and connect to monitor. And emulate cassette using smartphone. And only this way to get to know what Basic was there. And to programming something for that machine too.

By the way, to get machine, it is better in working state. Or you need to be a friend with soldering iron. And understand how that tech works, to repair it. I have no skills about this. This is hard. I only about Basic, by now.

It will be so cool to write programs. With basic. Such computers. As Sura, Agat. There are lots of them. I even do not know all the names. Everyone has their own realization, its own dialects for basic. Or maybe another programming languages, which were selected as main. As a star level, with easy access for a use, with idea- not have programming so hard.

Its own graphics they have. Its own graphic modes. Possibilities.  Screen resolution. Color palette. Some special features or what way to write programs. So, I start do dreaming already!

Maybe, as I can say, something it will be after some time! And now - poisk! Search! Search condition.  

iron (hardware) and programs. From time to time i restore computers, retro computers. Try retro soft. Check some programs. And write about all of these. Dima Link is making retro videogames, apps, a little of music, write stories, and some retro more.

WEBSITE: http://www.dimalink.tv-games.ru/home_eng.html ITCHIO: https://dimalink.itch.io/

[tovaicas]

anyways my friends activated my conlang brain and I've made smth insane as usual

red is influences, blue is Elezen-family languages, green is like a mix bc I see the Alliance cities as having a trade language (that critically is limited to them).

I see Duskwight as a separate language from Black Shroud Elezen (but sharing a lot - easy enough to learn for those speakers). Coerthan and all its derivatives are a whole different language under the Elezen umbrella and isn't mutually intelligible with BSE. Because they split so early, they probably don't share much more than root words and etymologies; within the same family so not difficult to learn for other speakers of Elezen languages, but very distinctly different.

(also I'm not listing them but the branches extend to include other diaspora Elezen languages)

[agapestricken]

so... if i had a nickel for every time i introduced a gotham rogue into the DC community on here that other muses can spot are probably more than likely than not a native gothammite because they have a strong accent (which would be russian, in ana's case), i'd have two nickels. which isn't a lot, but it may or mayyy not be a coincidence that it happened twice LOL

[theres-whump-in-that-nebula]

When British writers come up with an American character’s dialogue and give them the most painfully British things to say with their American accent and inflection and it makes the actor come off as stiff. :P

[omanu]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

[sixth-light]

Yet another good reminder that even other Anglosphere authors have to basically arm-wrestle US book editors to be allowed to retain any vestige of their own dialect and culture in their writing and this is why lots of people have Opinions about American...everything.

[celtrist]

Next thing you'll say is he doesn't have a tail

ref to this pic

EDIT: Just to keep things clear I didn't really think about bringing it up but not everyone's gonna click to see the first picture and might be confused. Alastor was stated to know only a little bit of broken French, the reasoning due to being from New Orleans. Speaking standard French is very much not a thing in New Orleans, so he would logically only know French-Creole. This is very different from the standard French language and a large misconception that people from New Orleans speak regular French. So yes, he does speak some French, just not as well as people make him nor would it, in theory, be the regular French that everyone makes him speak [but I wouldn't put it past the writers to not do that research but maybe I have too little faith in them]. I'm not from New Orleans, I visited it once so it's not like I'm an expert. But I HAVE looked into it and just bothering with one Google search will tell you it's not common and you'll even have a special term called "Louisiana French" pop up. With that all said, these were statements made on years past streams and could've been changed in the official series. However, as of right now, the official statement is that he speaks only a little broken French that should technically be French-Creole if they're going by and that he's from New Orleans to know that language. And again, I don't have a lot of faith in writers to do the research into it being Louisiana French rather than regular French, but now I'm rambling lol This is just a bit of context for this comic so people who were curious can understand it a bit more. And it's totally possible I got something wrong, so feel free to point it out when I do. I just like to dig into the nooks and crannies of information for things :3 2nd EDIT: Just for any future reblogs, I did get somethings incorrect in the above (not surprising), so here's some of the corrections I got:

@mangotangerine: "A tiny nitpick - it would likely be Louisiana Creole, which is one of the French-based Creole languages (Haitian Creole is prob the most well known as it has about 10-12 million speakers vs Louisiana Creole which has around 10,000 due to multiple factors but especially legislation in early 1920s outlawing it). Louisiana French is an umbrella term for the various French dialects/etc in the region (e.g., the dialect Cajun French)." (We actually had a whole conversation in the comments of this post and highly suggest looking down there in case you're interested in learning more!)

@alyssumflowers: "I am from New Orleans and a little bit of a language nerd. You're confusing some things here. Cajun French is a dialect of French. My great grandmother spoke it fluently, my grandfather in pieces.

Louisiana Creole is another language entirely. The word "creole" means mixed and a creole language is basically a mixture of two or more languages. Sort of, it's a linguistics thing. Anyways. Louisiana Creole has next to no speakers left and I've had a hard time trying to find somewhere or someone to learn it from because I really want to." (Always great to hear from someone who has more insider knowledge on the subject! So I wanted to give this it's share due as well, hope you can fine somewhere to learn it! /ᐠ > ˕ <マ ₊˚⊹♡ )

Thank you for the comments! My previous statement still stands about Al probably not speaking normal French, but I wanted these corrections still known and pointed out :3

[wisteria-lodge]

In defense of T'Pau and her unusual grammar:

So in "Amok Time," (right before Spock goes into heat) we meet T'Pau, this grand high elder of Vulcan who is officiating Spock's wedding/fight to the death.

She has a very specific way of talking. Some examples:

"Thee names these outworlders friends. How does thee pledge their behavior?" "If thee wishes to depart, thee may leave now." "Are thee Vulcan or are thee human? "I grieve with thee."

If this is supposed to sound archaic and Shakespearean... then it's just completely wrong. "Thee" is not even slightly conjugated. If you're using thee/thou/thy correctly, that first sentence should be:

"Thou name'st these outworlders friends. How dost thou pledge?"

BUT my point is, I don't think this is supposed to read as "archaic" (also, if that were the case, wouldn't the universal translator just kinda auto-update the vocab?)

What is actually going on is Quaker Plain Speech.

Thee/Thou/Thy used to be English's set of informal pronouns, which you used for close friends and social inferiors. The Quakers came over to America in the 1600s, and were very into the idea of simplicity and equality for religious reasons. No titles, "Friend" as the default address, etc. They also artificially got rid of You/Your/Yours, English's *formal* pronouns, because they were what you used for talking to a social superior, and they were trying to get away from that sort of thing.

Skip forward like a hundred years. Language changes. Standard English drops Thee/Thou/Thy completely. The Quakers KEEP the pronouns, but the usage simplifies. Now they basically just have "Thee," and use it for everything, and don't conjugate the verbs around it in any special way. "In the eighteenth century, "thou hast" disappeared, along with the associated second-person verb forms, and the otherwise strange "thee is" became normal "plain speech."

Which is EXACTLY how T'Pau talks.

(I found this scene from The Philadelphia Story (1940) where Jimmy Stewart walks into a Quaker library, and the joke is that the librarian talks to him in Plain Speech - "What is thee wish?" and he (confused) responds in Shakespearean English - "Dost thou have a washroom?")

So I think that when Theodore Sturgeon wrote "Amok Time" in 1967, T'Pau's style of speaking was meant to communicate not necessarily "old-fashioned" but more "religious/ceremonial" and maybe "isolated." Especially since he's from New England, the right spot to run into Plain Speech in the wild.

In-universe, I think that (because it's a very important occasion) T'Pau is speaking a hyper-simplified, hyper-logical ceremonial Vulcan dialect, which the universal translator is rendering as the most stripped-down and "plain" English style of speaking possible.

[cheol-e-kat]

Hi! I love your works! For the bingo list can I request monster with cheol? I loved the mingyu one a lot

Thank you! 🫶🏻

so demon!cheol is maybe a bit different, but i hope you like him - he needs his own long fic tbh

♡ kat

bingo squares: monster

pairing: choi seungcheol x f!reader

genres: monster!seungchoel, demon!seungcheol, magic au, fluff, dark themes (they can both exist)

summary: y/n is stuck with the most useless demon to exist until he suddenly makes himself very useful

word count: 2.9k

warnings: below cut

monster fucking, oral sex (f. receiving), fingering, penetrative sex, cum eating, monster dick, breeding kink if you squint, eggs (iykyk), implied impregnation

having your own demon was largely useless. at least if that demon was seungcheol. his most useful feature was running errands - like picking up milk and cat litter. 

but the rest of the time, he mainly spent lounging around your apartment, usually reading whatever books were around. in fact, your book collection seemed to have suspiciously grown of its own accord since you ‘inherited’ him from your grandmother. you weren’t sure where he was getting them from, since half of them were in an italian dialect that your phone couldn’t recognize, but there they were, taking up space, just like seungcheol. 

having never really met your family, it had been shocking to have a demon show up and knock on your door, to say the least. in fact, you treated him like you would treat any psycho off the street and slammed the door in his face and locked all the locks. 

except, surprise, he could basically walk through walls. which he did whenever it was least convenient, like when you were showering and he had some random deep thoughts to share about a news article (you canceled your new yorker subscription because of him). 

or when you were napping, and he wanted to play animal crossing. 

or when you were dead asleep and he wanted to play the cat restaurant game on your phone. 

he refused to have his own phone. because yours existed, and he only liked the cat game and sometimes wordle when he was “acutely bored.”

you often wondered if killing him had any consequences. especially since you had already tried breaking whatever it was that bound you together, but that apparently involved some ancient-level crap beyond burning sage, so you had given up. but would you be prosecuted for slaying a demonic creature, you wondered, but decided he would probably just show back up, no worse for wear.

not to mention, you had been in a fairly foul mood lately. very snappy with everyone - you scowled at a baby for fuck’s sake. so you decided you needed a little personal reset, and that meant getting the worst excuse for a demon ever, out of your hair, at least for an hour if you were lucky. 

your plan was simple - give him an insane amount of errands that required him to roughly hit up every borough of the city. you made a tediously long list of things you needed - you fully knew that besides refusing a cell phone, he refused to use his abilities (whatever those were) to get around the city, not to mention he said he found the subway “enlightening.”  you rolled your eyes, making detailed notes of exactly which market he needed to visit for which item. 

in all reality - if someone really questioned you, you would have to admit that, despite how obnoxious you often found seungcheol, he was insanely handsome and maybe intimidating - at least based on the way people literally moved out of his way on the sidewalk, which was perhaps his most impressive trait. 

but he was also persistently around you and with zero boundaries, which meant you couldn’t just invite someone over for a quick fuck. you needed some time to do it yourself, maybe even a few times. and then you would feel like mary-sunshine again. but you needed him out of the apartment! especially since he had been showing up in your dreams lately, which was really fucking with your mind. his handsome face invading your dreams had to end.

but even as you were making your insane list, you could feel him hovering around you. when you felt his chin rest on your shoulder, you wanted to elbow him in the stomach. 

“why do you want mixed olives from there? there are already olives here, and you hate those,” he commented, his husky voice way too close for comfort. 

“some recipe i found,” you mumbled. 

“but you can’t stand them,” he tried again.

you shrugged, and he only leaned closer, his arms gently encircling you as he read your jumbled handwriting. you were mostly used to this too. he had an infuriating way of getting very close, sometimes without you even noticing. you thought it was solely to annoy, but no, he genuinely didn’t seem to understand why you constantly tried to have space from him - and made up for it by crowding you even more when any opportunity presented itself. it was a losing battle. 

you had given up explaining to him how your bed was yours because he insisted on napping there after watching whatever daytime tv show he was suddenly obsessed with - and that was months ago. 

but today, he would be out of the apartment. you were making sure of that. no random appearances. just peace and quiet and you and your vibrator doing god’s work. 

you finished the list and turned, pressing it to his chest, “if you wouldn’t mind doing the one thing you do for me.”

he watched you for a moment like he was on the verge offering some pithy response, but he just sighed and took the list. and then proceeded to take ages to actually leave. you stood watching him fumble around for who knows what, tapping your foot impatiently because you hadn’t considered that even him leaving could be such a production. 

“stop glaring at me,” he called out, “i’m leaving, okay - to run all of your precious errands,” he was annoyed, but at least he was walking out the door. you ran behind him to lock it. 

and finally, you could get down to business. you practically ran to your room and dove under the covers. this was a timed thing - you couldn’t waste a second. 

you pulled up some very dubious porn, but whatever - it was for the greater good. you didn’t bother taking off your sleep shorts and underwear, just shoving your vibrator down your pants where you needed it most and proceeding as required - lube wasn’t a luxury you could afford in the race to have several uninterrupted orgasms. 

but no - no, no, no - you’re brain froze. you had felt the small shift next to you in bed. your eyes went wide, then squeezed shut as you tried to stop everything you set in motion. you were dreaming - this wasn’t real.

but no, it was real - because he spoke. “when you’re finished can i have your phone?” he whispered, he was lying on what you begrudgingly acknowledged was his side of the bed. 

how was it that this was the one time you wanted him out of the house, and he basically made everything appear from thin air all because he wanted to play the cat restaurant game. on your phone, which was in your bedroom. with you. playing the kind of porn you would rather die than confess to watching, while you were furiously trying to stimulate your clit. 

you froze completely - you were mortified, but also how was this your life, you wondered. 

he poked you cheek gently, “y/n? i need to check my tips jar - it maxes out at 40,00 little fish monies.”

“seungcheol, fuck off,” you whispered with every ounce of civility you could muster. 

“you’re almost finished - just like a minute or so and then i check my game,” he trailed off. 

you thought you might combust, turning to look at him, “I’LL BE FINISHED IN A MINUTE? no! and you know what? no more cat cafe!”

“cat restaurant, actually,” he corrected, smiling - dimples on full display. 

“i don’t fucking care! no more cat-based food games on my phone, i’m deleting them and your games account!”

“noooo,” he whined, as you navigated to the games hub - he was suddenly straddling you and fighting for your phone - he could pry it from your semi-warm dead hand as far as you were concerned. 

you wrestled back and forth until he finally had you trapped under him using what felt like more than his body weight.

“don’t you dare delete my account,” you were surprised to see his eyes were a glowing deep blue instead of their normal dark-coffee brown, “do you know how many ads i’ve sat through to expand my cat empire, y/n - i finally have the little spa area open,” he sounded so serious and simultaneously so ridiculous. 

you glared at him, trying to focus all your rage on him for ruining your afternoon of solo sex. 

he stared at you for a moment, swallowing hard - “look what if i help you with your endeavor, and then you won’t need to do anything permanent,” he offered, his eyes drifting towards your phone, which only made you tighten your grip on it.

“helping me with my problem would be you disappearing forever,” your voice was more acidic than you meant it to be. 

he immediately pouted, “look, it’s a genuine offer, okay - i do have experience,” he stared at you with big, round eyes that could unquestionably peer into your soul. 

you groaned dramatically and tried to pull out of his grip, which was completely useless. “what is it with you and the cat games?” you asked out of pure exasperation. you had already given up on an orgasm, having switched your vibrator off almost the instant you heard his voice. 

“you know, you sit down and watch happy little animals sit and eat and eat and sit - you just get to turn your brain off for a bit, it’s nice,” he shrugged, still watching you. 

you stared at him for a moment, finally sighing, “just get out, okay, let me change and you can have your game back,” you folded like a sad, wet paper bag. 

you closed your eyes, waiting for him to let go of you and leave. instead, you felt a small kiss on your cheek. your eyes snapped open to find him still leaning over you. 

“let me help,” he said, voice gentle, his hands squeezing your wrists softly. 

you wanted to smack him - him and his stupid cute face. why couldn’t he just actually go to the stores like you had asked, you wondered to yourself.

he rolled his eyes, leaning down to whisper, “because i know when you’re up to something,” his lips brushed your skin. 

it was genuinely trying on your mental faculties that he knew what you were thinking. literally, every thought. it was why he never even asked for the passcode for your phone. and why he regularly answered questions you never verbalized. 

“so then you could have just let me have time to myself,” you pouted. 

“mmmh, but i can be so much more helpful with this little project, instead of going to get the olives i know you don’t like from a store across town in the rain,” he whispered and nipped teasingly at your earlobe. 

you shivered from the contact. you tried to make your mind blank, not exactly wanting him to know how good it already felt to be under him - he already knew too much about you. and this would only serve as reasons for him to be clingier. 

“maybe i don’t want help,” you whispered, your anger growing at the intrusion. 

he nuzzled closer, “i don’t think that’s true since you keep drafting messages to the guy you met a few weeks ago,” he whispered, kissing your throat gently. 

you felt the gentle pressure of his teeth on your throat and whined softly - the feeling was indescribably good. he purred, knowing you liked it, as his lips teased lower. his tongue marking your throat and collarbones. he worked his hands under your shirt, leaning up enough to pull it over your head. the way he gazed down at you was unexpected - his normal apathy was gone. his hands went to your breasts, massaging them, his thumbs brushing over your already pebbled nipples - he was gentle, taking his time teasing you before he dipped his head down, his lips making contact with the sensitive skin of your tits. you felt his teeth graze your skin as he sucked one nipple and then the other. 

he finally leaned up, looking a bit disheveled, and licking his lips, “i want them full,” he murmured. you weren’t completely sure what he meant, but you didn’t really care either as he made his way down your body, leaving a trail of kisses and bites. he pulled off your sleep shorts and underwear and lifted your hips so he could easily work his tongue between your slick folds, finding your clit almost immediately. 

the way he sucked the bud between his lips was mind numbing - you couldn’t help reaching down to grab his hair roughly, wanting him to know what you were feeling in the moment. your whines and moans weren’t enough, he needed to feel you gripping his long hair and pulling it every time his tongue made the most perfect contact. and when he added his fingers, you entered another plane of existence, pulling his hair, arching off the bed and moaning his name in a way that should have been embarrassing. it was like you had never been properly touched by a man in your life, and you were finally learning what pleasure was. 

you came quickly - your cum rushing past his fingers, which he seemed to enjoy based on the way he licked into you, lapping at your opening. you could feel his tongue working impossibly deep inside you. you knew without asking that he wanted you to come again. 

his fingers worked your clit while his tongue was still exploring your sticky walls, and you felt it again, the sweetest pleasure flowing through every part of your body. he leaned up, licking his lips, giving your pussy a gentle smack. 

“feeling better?” he asked, almost sounding sincere. 

you sighed and nodded, “much better.” you didn’t move, but found yourself wondering if he was as god at fucking as he was at eating pussy. 

he grinned, his hands tracing over your hips and stomach, “is that what you want now - my cock stretching you open,” he glanced up, watching you for a second before glancing back down. 

you could feel the way his fingers were carefully prodding your stomach - it was almost like he was looking for something. 

“is your dick as good as i think?”

he nodded without looking up, “you won’t even know what to compare it to,” he grinned, voice smug. 

you didn’t say anything - you just watched him undress, noiticing how good he looked, and that, at least from your angle, his cock looked fairly average. but then he was between your legs again, kissing you, licking into you, “you have no idea how perfect you are,” he whispered, his fingers still working to prep you. 

you had thought it often enough, and you knew he knew, but you found yourself confessing how gorgeous you found him. he smiled, kissing you just as he began sliding his cock inside you, “let me make you full,” he whispered when he started to move. you nodded, not caring what he did because you knew how perfect it felt. 

you were sure you were even slicker than before as he began moving inside you, but even though you could feel how thick and long his cock was, you knew you were taking every inch of him without any pain. it didn’t matter how brutal his pace was either, you only felt the pleasure of him stretching you wider than you thought possible - going deeper than you knew was possible - you were sure you could feel his dick slamming into your stomach with every thrust. you wanted to feel how deep inside you he was, but he kept pinning your hands back against the mattress, thrusting harder.

“i’m exactly as deep as you think, pet,” he groaned, snapping his hips, “i can go even further if you want.”

you laughed softly, even as you heard the deep, shivering moan that came from him. you felt the odd sensation of something entering you - not his cock or fingers, something cool and almost heavy - you orgasmed, seeing bright lights flashing behind your eyelids as you felt the same sensation, something entering you - something smooth and round going deep inside and clinging to your inner walls. 

“you’re really doing it?” you managed to whisper. 

he moaned, “told you i want you full,” he whispered, voice ragged as you felt another object pumped into your cunt, “want to breed you full, pet - make you mine forever,” he whispered, finally pulling out. 

you stayed in his arms after, enjoying how safe you felt.

“i’ve never given them to anyone before,” he whispered, kissing your temple.

you fell asleep cradled against him, your cervix full of his precious eggs. 

a/n: i love writing cheol, especially cheol in magical aus because low key i had this idea and now i want to know way more about him

♡ kat

bingo card master list

bingo v. 1 ⋆.˚ bingo v. 2 ⋆.˚ bingo v. 3 ⋆.˚ bingo v. 4 ⋆.˚ 333 followers bingo ⋆.˚

seungcheol: knotting + marking | professor (prof. choi, pt. 1) | monster | spanking (neighbor seungcheol) | big dick + hate sex | forced masturbastion (prof. choi, pt ii) | voyeurism + punishment | coffee shop au + forbidden relationship (untitled alpha!!cheol pt. 1) |

mingyu: lingerie + praise kink | bed sharing + big dick | praise + worship kink | vehicle sex + oral fixation | drunk pda + no underwear | enemies to lovers + tentacles |

seungcheol & mingyu threesome: oral |

tag list: @syluslittlecrow ☁︎ @gyuguys ☁︎ @haik-chu ☁︎ @tinyelfperson ☁︎ @lovetaroandtaemin ☁︎ @unlikelysublimekryptonite ☁︎ @gigglensnort ☁︎

♡ if you want to be tagged in my posts, go [here] & this is my [master list] if you want to read more

[what-even-is-thiss]

Free or Cheap German Learning Resources for all your Hochdeutsch Needs

I will update this list as I learn of any more useful ones. If you want general language learning resources check out this other post. This list is German specific. Find lists for other specific languages here.

For the purposes of this list "free" means something that is either totally free or has a useful free tier. "Cheap" is a subscription under $10USD a month, a software license or lifetime membership purchase under $100USD, or a book under $30USD. If you want to suggest something to add to this list, include things in this price range that are of good quality and not AI generated.

WEBSITES

DW - A public broadcasting service from Germany that also has a German learning section. They have videos, tv series, and lessons from beginner to advanced. The website is free to use with an account.

Gothe Institut - An organization affiliated with the German government that administers language level tests and promotes German culture abroad. They have a lot of free exercises and test questions. If you're willing to pay they may also have classes available in your region.

thegermanproject.com - A free website with explanations of beginner German concepts and stories to read for people at the beginner level.

germancorrector.com - A free website that will correct your spelling and grammar. You can also set the dialect to Switzerland or Austria.

Your Daily German - A blog in English by a native German speaker named Emanuel who makes posts about grammar, vocabulary, tips, and suggestions for reading.

YOUTUBE CHANNELS

Comprehensible Germani - A comprehensible input channel with German lessons in German using visual aids. Has content from beginner through upper intermediate.

Learn German - A channel that explains certain concepts and provides listening practice. The channel uses a mix of German and English.

Chill German - A channel that makes vlogs in slow German. They have videos from beginner to lower advanced levels.

Natürlich German - A comprehensible input channel that talks about different aspects of German culture and other topics as well. Has videos for complete beginner to lower advanced. This channel hasn't updated in a while but there's a large archive to watch through.

Easy German - A channel that has a combination of videos about basic German phrases for beginners and videos with interviews on the street in German speaking regions. The channel has dual language German/English subtitles on screen. The hosts of this channel also have a podcast for intermediate to advanced learners.

Expertly German - A channel about learning German with discussion of grammar, vocab, and business German. The channel is entirely in German.

Deutsch Mit Lari - A channel with a mix of German Lessons and vlogs in slow German. Content ranges from beginner to intermediate. All content and explanations are in German.

Learn German With Anja - A channel with a mix of lessons and videos on culture and living in Germany. Videos are in a mix of both English and German and often have dual language subtitles on screen.

READING PRACTICE

German graded readers by Olly Richards Short Stories in German, Intermediate Short Stories in German, Conversations in Simple German, Western Philosophy in Simple German, World War 2 in Simple German. Books tend to range from $4-$20 depending if you buy the digital or print versions. The books can also generally be found easily at used book stores or used on Amazon for cheaper.

Dino Lernt Deutsch - A series of short stories for beginners about a man named Dino lost in various German speaking countries. The full series new in print costs about $25 but it can be bought used or as a digital edition. Each individual story can also be bought separately

Nachrichtenleight - A website with news articles in simple German. The website is entirely in German.

AlumniPortal - Website with articles about business, academics, and other related topics organized by difficulty level. Has articles from upper beginner to upper intermediate. The website is entirely in German.

Grimm Stories - A website with an archive of the original Grimm's fairy tales. Language may be a bit archaic. The website is available in multiple languages.

PODCASTS

Slow German Podcast - Advertises itself as being for beginner to lower intermediate. The host talks about everyday topics such as seasonal weather and describing your apartment.

Easy German Podcast - The hosts from the Easy German Youtube channel talk about different topics, news, and answer questions from listeners in clear and understandable German.

News in Slow German - It is a podcast with news in slow German, including international news and culture news. Only a small section of the program is available for free.

Top-Thema Mit Vokalbeln - A podcast from DW for lower intermediate learners that discusses news topics in simple German and provides vocabulary lists related to the episode topic.

German Stories - A podcast for beginners in a mix of English and German that gives lessons through dialogues and short stories.

Speaking of Berlin - A podcast by Babbel of Berliners telling personal stories in slow German.

SELF STUDY TEXTBOOKS AND DICTIONARIES

Complete German All-in-One from McGraw Hill - a textbook that also doubles as a workbook. It’s more expensive at about $30. It’s difficult to find intact used copies of this book because it’s also a workbook and people tend to write all over it and tear it up. However the sentence builder and grammar sections are sold separately for much cheaper if you just want one or the other.

German Made Easy - Individual books in this series tend to be about $10-$20. From what I’ve read it’s just fine but it’s cheap and has all the beginner concepts you need and used copies are fairly easy to find online.

Easy German Step By Step - This is McGraw Hill’s budget option at $12-$16 new. Though as this one isn’t a workbook, it’s easier to find used copies. It focuses hard on only the most frequently used vocabulary and grammar concepts to get someone started as quickly as possible. It’s also available in audiobook form.

German Grammar Complete - This book is a full comprehensive guide to all levels of grammar from absolute beginner to college level. However it’s on the more expensive side at $30 and the workbook is sold separately.

DK German to English illustrated dictionary - This dictionary is sorted by topic and includes pictures and English translations. This is a new edition and is slightly harder to find used as I’m writing this. The base price is about $20 but there are older editions of this dictionary that might be easier to find used.

Merriam-Webster’s German to English Dictionary - The OG. The legend. The menace. The classic bilingual dictionary. Simple. Many words. Decent explainations. Only $8 new. Easy to find used older editions.

SERIES FOR LEARNERS AND KIDS TV

Hallo Aus Berlin - A series infamous among German students everywhere. Made in the early 2000s for use in classrooms, it has ten episodes of kids talking about certain topics like numbers and going out to a restaurant. It also has a number of songs. It’s cringey but in a fun way in my opinion.

Löwenzahn - a kids tv series aimed at very young audiences that’s been on for several decades. Every episode discusses one topic like bridges or factories so you’ll hear certain words repeated a lot. Theres only been a couple of different hosts so the presentation style remains consistent and unlike some other shows for kindergarteners it’s not obnoxiously loud and can be enjoyable for adults.

Sesamstraße - Sesame Street in German and localized for the German market with different themes and characters. In their YouTube channel you can find clips from as far back as the 1970s.

[chimielie]

“I really like this place,” Yachi says brightly, “the owner is really nice, and he doesn’t mind when I take ten minutes to decide what I want. Once I took twenty minutes and he actually just brought me food, like, decided for me, and at first I thought that was so nice! Then I got worried that maybe I should be upset that he didn’t let me choose, but then I remembered that I could just come here again so I wasn’t missing out on anything. The food was really good, anyway.”

You hover between the cool interior of the restaurant and the summer daylight as she speaks, unwilling to walk away even though she’s holding the door open and probably letting all the cold air out. With a short yelp, she realizes how long the two of you have been standing there and crosses inside. You stand behind her in the line behind the counter, shuffling forward as you read the posted menu.

“I think I’m gonna get the salmon,” you decide. “Hey, so how are things with that girl you’ve been seeing?”

“They’ve been good!” You’re about three people away from the counter, but the first one is line is like, a really huge guy with a booming voice who has been talking forever. Maybe he knows the cashier? “She’s really pretty, and she doesn’t mind or get impatient when I’m anxious. She also gets anxious!”

“That’s great?” You pat her on the shoulder. “I’m really happy for you, Yachi.”

“Me too,” she beams at you. “What about you? Have you met anyone?”

“No,” you snort. “I’m on the apps. So dating is basically a cesspool.” The giant guy who was ordering seems to be done now, but he’s still talking, being slowly dragged away by the elbow by a guy in a cardigan and glasses. You slide your phone out of your pocket and open your dating profile. “See?”

At that moment, your phone pings with a new notification.

Atsumu liked you!

He’s not… bad looking. If you saw him in real life, you’d probably hide behind a bench or something and stalk him with your eyes just so you could look at him as long as you wanted, actually.

He’s your age, a pro volleyball player, his hair dark where it’s been shaved short on the sides but dyed blond up top. He has a kind of sardonic, dead-eyed expression in all of his photos that you think is really funny.

My love language is… arguing in missionary.

You smother a laugh.

“He’s kind of cute!” Yachi peers at your phone. “Kind of scary…”

“Please, I could beat him up,” you laugh. “I don’t know, he’s fine, I guess.”

You swipe left. He’s hot, but definitely a fuckboy. You’ve reached the counter, anyway, and a pro athlete on the apps is like, so many red flags.

You look up at the cashier.

You look down at your phone and click undo. The profile reappears.

You look up at the cashier.

“Fine, you guess?” Scowls Atsumu, 23, (volley)baller. Or maybe not, considering his Onigiri Miya apron. “Welcome to Onigiri Miya, what can I get for ya. Geez.”

He talks in Kansai dialect, you note, which you’ve always thought is melodic. Pretty.

In real life, Atsumu is very pretty. His eyes have midtones of honey and amber that don’t show up on photo and give him a sparkling dimension that sort of detracts from his aura of evil. Even though he’s scowling at you, you want to ruffle his hair and bite his cheek.

“Um, I’ll have the salmon ball,” you say. “And, yeah. I guess.”

He scribbles so hard he breaks the tip of his pencil. With a grunt of disgust, he tosses both notepad and pencil over his shoulder.

“What, pro athlete not good enough for ya?” He points at Yachi, who squeaks. “And for ya?”

“What?” She says, looking terrified. You put a bracing hand on her shoulder.

“Your order,” he drawls.

“Oh! I don’t know.”

“Two salmon balls!” He yells to the back. “‘S on the house.”

“What?” Yachi gasps. “We couldn’t possibly—”

“You’re clearly not a professional athlete,” you say. “You’re a cashier.”

“This is charity work!” He snaps. “My teammate is right over there if ya need proof. I’m Miya Atsumu—this is my brother’s shop. I help him out on my off days.” He emphasizes his family name, underlining it on his apron with a finger.

That’s really sweet. You swoon a little inside, then shake yourself.

“You’re off every time this time this week?”

“Yeah, about,” he turns and bends over to grab his hastily discarded notepad. You do not make a secret of checking out his ass and quirk your lips into a smile when he turns back around, one he matches with reckless abandon. He has nice teeth, not perfectly straight, that imply that maybe he didn’t need braces growing up.

“Let me repay you for the meal,” you put a hand on the counter and lean across it, biting your lip, stomach singing with nerves. “Eight, next week?”

“Nah,” he shrugs you off, gestures for you to move along so he can get to the next customer in line. Your stomach drops, and so must your face. “Too far away. I’ll see ya this Friday for dinner.”

[max1461]

Thinking about this post. "The only way to make a cell is from another cell" is somewhat of a troubling fact to me. I mean, not for any practical reason, just because it underscores the precarity of *gestures broadly*.

It's like, some people talk about trying to de-extinct the mammoth. And people are trying to sequence the genome of the mammoth, I don't know if they've done it yet. But even if they do, one of the problems with the idea of de-extinction is... to grow a baby mammoth, you need another mammoth! Last time I heard people talking about this, I think they were talking about using an elephant as a surrogate mother. But imagine if elephants were extinct too.

The point is that information is often tied to the systems that transmit it; even if you know everything in the mammoth genome, once all the mammoths are gone there's nothing capable of reading and using that information. Like when you can't read the data on a perfectly good floppy disk because your computer doesn't have a floppy drive.

This is related to why language death troubles me so much. Even the most well-documented languages aren't actually that well understood; linguists have produced more pages of work on English syntax than maybe any other specific descriptive topic and yet still the only reliable way to get the answer to any moderately subtle syntactic question is elicit native speaker data. We know almost nothing, we can barely extrapolate at all! And every language is like this, a hugely complex system that we know basically nothing about, and if the chain of native speaker transmission is ever broken it's just gone.

"Language revival", I mean from a totally dead language, is kind of a myth. It's like the "came back different" trope. In Israel they revived Hebrew, but Modern Hebrew is really not the same thing as Biblical Hebrew at all. I mean in a stronger sense even than Modern English isn't Old English. All the subtleties of Biblical Hebrew that a native speaker would have had implicit competence with died without a trace. All they left is a grainy image, the texts. The first generation of Modern Hebrew speakers took the rough grammatical sketch preserved in these texts and imbued it with new subtleties, borrowed from Slavic and Germanic and the speakers' other native languages, or converged at by consensus among that first generation of children. There's nothing wrong with that, but it would be inaccurate to imagine Biblical Hebrew surviving in Modern Hebrew the way Old English survives in Modern English. For instance, you can discover a great deal that you didn't know about Old English by comparing Modern English dialects. There is nothing you can discover about Biblical Hebrew by comparing Modern Hebrew dialects in this way.

There's nothing wrong with this, of course. I'm not like, judging Modern Hebrew. I'm just making a point.

Mammoths died recently, so we still have (some of?) their genome. Something that died longer ago, like dinosaurs, we have traces of them in the form of fossils but we could never hope to revive them, the information is just gone. Even if we're not aiming for revival, even if we just want to know stuff about dinosaurs, there's so much that we will never know and can never know.

We imagine information as the kind of thing which sits in an archive, because this is the context most of us encounter information in, I think. Libraries, hard drives. Well obviously hard drives don't last. And most ancient texts only survive because of a scribal tradition, continuous re-writing, not because of actual archival. So I think that imagining archives as the natural habitat of information is sort of wrong; the natural habit of information is in continuous transmission. Information is constantly moving. And it's like one of those sharks, if it ever stops moving it drowns. And if the lines of transmission are broken, the information is gone and can never be retrieved.

Very precarious.

[cescalovestowrite]

In my opinion we don't focus enough on this passage told by Pausanias. This is HUGE!Odysseus allows Penelope to choose who she prefers to follow, with the distinct possibility that Penelope will choose her father. In fact, in the "son-in-law's marriage" (i.e. the one in which the spouses move to the bride's father's house) the woman's position is much stronger than in the "daughter-in-law's marriage". By following Odysseus, Penelope chooses to abandon her family and will be asked to get used to a series of new habits, customs, even a different dialect.

So basically Odysseus makes a choice we wouldn't expect, Penelope does the same. Maybe it's just my impression, but it seems to me that one of the many things they have in common is doing things that were a little strange for the time. I won't go into this further, but there are many aspects of Odysseus to discuss in these terms, perhaps I will make a dedicated post later.

The veil is, we could say, the symbol that separates Penelope's life as a maiden from her life as wife of Odysseus.

I had also read an interesting comment about Penelope's use of the veil by an Italian scholar, which reads as follows: "Like her husband Odysseus once used to keep his eyes lowered, because he was thinking, and then his gaze would escape everyone; so Penelope, when she went down into the great room, lifted her peplos on the cheeks, so that the minimum of her expression could be seen".

Food for thought.

[onetwofeb]

Goethe once asked Hegel what the 'dialectic' is, and he responded very beautifully, almost therapeutically, "[it] is basically nothing but the regulated and methodically cultivated spirit of contradiction which is innate in every human being."

Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann, trans. John Oxenford, New York, 1998, entry for 18 October 1827, p. 244

[read-marx-and-lenin]

Do you have any video essay recommendations? I find them more accessible for my brain than books but I haven’t found many good commie ones to dive into more theory. Tysm!!

I'm not a huge video essay person, but I do spend a lot of time on YouTube, so here are some of the communist creators I know about. While there are a lot of "leftist" creators out there, I'll be focusing on creators who are on the Marxist side of things.

Hakim is probably one of the bigger explicitly communist creators out there, and while I haven't seen every one of his videos, the ones I've watched have been pretty good.

Fellow Traveller is an underrated one, and while the quality of his videos is a bit scattershot IMO, he does some good deep dives into the history of various socialist nations.

revolutionaryth0t is a newer channel that I found out about recently, and so far her videos have been pretty high-quality for a channel that's less than a year old.

Luna Oi is a Vietnamese Youtuber who primarily focuses on presenting information about Vietnam for a Western audience. She's also got an ongoing translation project for translating Vietnamese dialectical materialism textbooks into English, with the first book already available for purchase or free digital download.

azureScapegoat isn't very active these days, but his videos on Cuba in particular were very informative for me when I was first "unlearning" capitalist propaganda.

Even less active, DPRK News Room is the channel that produced the documentary "Loyal Citizens of Pyongyang in Seoul" that you will see me recommending all the time, and while they have on average maybe one video a year, they have made some very good ones.

And on the subject of the DPRK, while this channel isn't explicitly communist and tends to avoid politics, DPRK Explained is a high-quality source for general information about the DPRK that avoids a lot of the anti-DPRK bias that a lot of Western sources tend to have. If you simply want to learn basic facts about DPRK history and DPRK culture without the sensationalism, you should check them out.

If anyone else has any suggestions or wants to criticize any of the channels I've mentioned, feel free to leave a note.

[obsessedwithceleste]

So American

Lorenzo Berkshire x reader

Summary: based on this request🫶🏽 So American by Olivia Rodrigo is ON LOOP💕

word count: 3.4k

©️ obsessedwithceleste. all works posted here belong to me and should not be reposted or copied in any way or form.

Pushing open the heavy doors, eyes begin turn and you try to ignore all the chattering and stares directed your way as you make your way into the dimly lit defense against the darks art class room.

You knew people would talk. Transfer students were rare. And transferring during the sixth year? Basically unheard of. So the intrigued whispers were valid you supposed. But that didn’t make them any less annoying, and didn’t make you feel any less self conscious.

“You’re the new student aren’t you?” A voice asks, startling you.

You look to your side to see a girl with pale skin and short, cropped black hair staring up at you from her seat. A slight smirk dancing on her lips as she leans back in her chair.

“Uh yeah, that’s me,” you reply cautiously.

You hadn’t made any friends quite yet, though not for lack of trying. It was all just a bit overwhelming.

The girl tilts her head, looking at you in consideration.

“Sit.” She says, patting the seat next to her. “I’m Pansy. Pansy Parkinson. I want to hear all about wherever it is you came from. I’ll bet Daph and Milly would too. We don’t get new students often.”

"Yeah, I kind of got the sense," you reply, gingerly taking a seat.

The two girls sitting at the desk in front of Pansy look back, offering friendly smiles as you place your bag on the ground beside you.

“So where exactly did you transfer from?” Pansy asks, leaning in.

“I’m from America. I just transferred here from Ilvermorny,” You reply.

“That is so wicked,” Daphne gasps, beginning to look excited.

“Have you ever pet an eagle?” Milly asks.

Pansy turns to the girl, making a face. “Millicent, it’s the American muggles who worship eagles,” she says with an annoyed huff.

You open your mouth to correct them when a voice from behind you interrupts.

“Hey, that’s my spot.”

The four of you turn now to see a boy with platinum blonde hair glowering at you. A rowdy looking group of boys surrounding him.

“Oh bugger off Draco. Haven’t you met the new student? They’re from America,” Pansy says, dismissing the boy with a wave of her hand.

“Yeah? How’d you find yourself on this side of the ocean?” The boy, Draco asks, crossing his arms.

“My mom works for the American ministry, our family got sent over as part of the ambassador program,” you reply easily, not really liking the boy’s tone.

“Ha. Mom. Listen to them, they’re so American!” One of the other boys laughs.

“Oh shut it Lorenzo,” Daphne sighs, giving the boy a light whack on the arm.

“Wow, I'm using American dialect, who would’ve thought? It’s almost like I’m from America. Shocker,” you retort.

Pansy lets out a snort. “Oh I do believe I’m going to like you.” She says, giving you a large smile. “And Draco, for Salazar’s sake, go sit with Enzo. Not everything is about you.”

“You’ll have to excuse the boys, they’re, well- boys. They’ll grow on you,” Daphne tells you with a grimace.

You let out a laugh as the professor appears at the front of the room and a hush falls over the classroom.

You do your best to concentrate on the lesson, not wanting to start the year off with a bad impression, but can’t help but notice the cheeky smiles the brunette boy, Lorenzo, keeps shooting you from a few rows over. No matter how many times you try to refocus, your eyes keep wandering over, meeting his. Pushing him from your mind, you force yourself to once more to focus on the professor at the front. His long, black hair was awfully greasy.

“Professor Binns is a drag. He’s dead, and wants us all to die of boredom so that we suffer with him,” Daphne tells you.

“And Flitwick is a bit of a loon, but at least he’s entertaining,” Pansy adds.

“And course there Snape. Scary as all hell, but won’t bother you long as you’re quiet and mind your business.”

Tapping your glass with your wand, you shake excitedly as it fills to the brim with coffee. You had a particular weakness for iced lattes and hadn’t had a good one in ages. The group of Slytherin girls had once again accosted you, not that you minded, and had taken it upon themselves to give you a full run down of the school. Now, the four of you sat in the Great Hall as it slowly filled with students eager for dinner.

“Hey ‘merica,” a voice greets cheerfully from behind you.

You turn to see Lorenzo grinning down at you as he takes the seat on your open side, the rest of the boys joining as well.

“Havin a cup of coffee?” One of the other boys, Mattheo, asks in what’s probably the worst American accent you’d ever heard. Somehow the teasing was significantly less charming when he did it.

“Bloody hell Lorenzo, Matt, leave the girl alone. Being from America is not her only personality trait.” Pansy says with exasperation.

“Oh come off it Pans, I’m only teasing. Besides, look at her, drinking iced coffee, so American.” Lorenzo laughs.

“Sorry I’m not interested in drinking your dried leaf water,” you reply, rolling your eyes. But you can’t help the small laugh that escapes you.

Lorenzo gives you a satisfied smirk before going to fill his plate with food, and when you turn back to the girls, a huge smile is plastered across Daphne’s face.

He so likes you. She mouths, looking rather giddy.

You choose to ignore the girl however, opting instead to turn back to Pansy.

“What does the rest of your schedule look like tomorrow?” She asks, leaning over to look at the class list you’d placed on the table before you.

“Dunno. Dumbledore just gave me the list when I arrived, didn’t really get a say in picking classes,” you reply with a shrug.

“He clearly has taste, I’ll see you tomorrow in herbology ‘merica,” Enzo butts in, glancing at the page himself.

“Oh shove it pretty boy,” Pansy retorts, not even bothering to look over at the boy who was smiling down at you warmly.

“Don’t worry love, I’ll save you a seat.”

The rest of dinner goes smoothly as you seem to fit right in with the group of Slytherins who had apparently decided to keep you. While a bit of a prick at first, Enzo was growing on you, laughing at all your jokes and over all just making you feel at home.

“I don’t know what you put in that boy’s tea, but it’s working,” Daphne says lightheartedly as the four of you leave the dining hall.

“Sorry?” You ask, caught very much off guard.

“Enzo. I’ve never seen him warm up to someone so fast. He’s usually a right foul git,” Milly explains.

Pansy sighs, “What Millicent means, is Enzo isn’t usually one to be overly friendly to new people,” Pansy says.

“Oh. Well, I don’t know that he’s friendly with me, so much as teasing constantly,” you reply, growing nervous as you’re not quite able to make out the direction of the conversation.

“Oh no. He’s totally into you, he wasn’t being a complete pompous prick tonight” Daphne reassures confidently as you make your way back down the stairs to the dungeon.

“You are so lucky that we’re here to guide you,” Pansy declares.

The next day, you find your way out to the greenhouse and are honestly unsurprised to find that Enzo had stayed true to his word, saving you a seat next to him at one of the creeky, wooden tables covered in greenery.

“Didn’t pick you out to be one for herbology,” you comment idly as you take your seat next to the pretty brunette boy.

Lorenzo smirks over at you. “Think I can’t get my hands dirty?” He asks with a teasing grin.

“Well we wouldn’t want you breaking a nail would we?” You reply, shooting a sly look back at the boy.

“Not to worry love, lucky for you, I’m the best herbologist in the class so you won’t have to worry about my pristine nail beds thank you very much.”

“Lorenzo Berkshire, you are an arrogant prick,” you say with a laugh.

“You like it.”

You feel heat rushing to your cheeks as you turn away, eyes roaming the greenhouse for the Professor. You see the plump old lady waddling up to the front of the room, a cart of strange cactus looking plants following dutifully behind her.

“Well?” She prods, once she’s standing at the front, gazing ahead at the rows of students. “The Mimbulus mimbletonia isn’t going to walk itself to your stations now is it? Come along!” She urges, gesturing for everyone to approach the cart to collect one of the oozy looking plants.

You see Lorenzo’s nose scrunch up in disgust as you both choose a pot from the cart.

“Careful not to touch the boils,” Enzo murmurs to you, gingerly lifting his plant and making his way back to your table.

You follow closely behind, noting the rather putrid smell the plant emitted. You let out a shudder.

“Who can tell me the properties of these lovely specimens?” The Professor, who Lorenzo whispers is called Professor Sprout, asks as students are still moving around to collect their plant. “Mr. Longbottom?”

“It’s known for being rather squirming I think. And if you poke the boils, it squirts out stinknap. My gran used to collect bottles of the stuff,” a timid looking boy answers from the back of the class.

“Excellent! 5 points to Gryffindor!” Sprout exclaims gleefully, clapping her hands with excitement.

Lorenzo scowls at the boy who visibly shrinks back.

“Mr. Longbottom was quite right! We will be extracting the stinknap from our Mimbulus mimbletonia today as it’s a rather rare potion ingredient indeed!”

Professor Sprout goes on to demonstrate the technique used to extract the foul smelling liquid and you force yourself to listen intently, not wanting the rancid smelling odor all over you.

Once Professor Sprout releases the class back to perform the task themselves, you’re pleasantly surprised to find that Lorenzo is able to replicate the process with flawless precision.

You watch in fascination as the boy’s usually soft features harden with concentration as he carefully fills his first vial. You watch him fill a second before moving over to your own plant to copy his process.

“Make sure you keep a consistent pressure, that way it won’t spurt out at random,” the boy tells you as your vial slowly begins to fill. You keep a steady concentration, determined to impress the boy, eyes not leaving the task before you.

The vial is almost full when you suddenly feel yourself being shoved forward. Your concentration broken, the boil spews out the foul smelling liquid, covering your robes in the sticky substance.

Whipping around, you see the tall boy from earlier, Longbottom was it? Looking at you with wide eyes.

“What the bloody hell Longbottom?” Lorenzo snaps, glaring at the boy who’s now visibly shaking.

“Sorry! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to bump into you! Just almost dropped my plant is all, I’m sorry!” The boy stutters, stumbling over his words under Lorenzo’s piercing stare.

You feel bad for the boy as it was clearly an accident, but can’t help being annoyed that you’re now covered in manure smelling gunk.

“It’s fine,” you sigh, stripping your robe off. Surely Professor Sprout would understand you not wearing your foul smelling robe. You grimace seeing the slimy substance splattered across the fabric. The poor house elves wear going to have one hell of a time getting that stain out.

With a quick nod, Longbottom scurries off without another word.

“He’s always been a bit of a wanker,” Enzo mutters, still glaring at the retreating back of the boy before turning his attention back to you. “Here, take this,” he says, shrugging off his own robe and offering it to you.

“Oh, it’s really fine,” you try to tell him, but he insists. After a bit of back and forth, you finally give in, sliding the still-warm robes on.

“You’re pretty wearing my clothes,” Lorenzo tells you with a satisfied smirk.

“Oh shove off,” you laugh, feeling heat rise in your cheeks once more.

“Oi, shove off,” he mimics with an ever familiar teasing grin. “Your accent is so American.”

“Yeah? You like it.”

It was a windy day for a quidditch match you thought as you brushed your hair away from your face for what felt like the thousandth time.

“Do you have quidditch in America?” Daphne asks from her spot right next to you in the stands.

You, Daphne, Pansy, and Millicent had managed to wade through the crowds of students to the front of the stands, securing a perfect view of the pitch.

“Of course. I used to play for my house at Ilvermorny,” you reply, watching as the two teams enter the field.

“Really? I was never much into quidditch, but Matty always likes when I watch his games. He’s the beater, just there,” Daph chatters, pointing out the curly haired boy on the field below.

“And there’s your lover boy. Lorenzo’s a chaser, long with Theodore and Marcus,” Pansy adds, giving you a playful nudge.

You just roll your eyes at the girl’s playful antics, but can’t help the small smile that forms on your lips as you see Enzo wave up to the stands in your direction. Of course Pansy takes notice, but says nothing, allowing her smug smile to speak for itself.

After your herbology class, Lorenzo just kept popping up everywhere. It probably had something to do with the fact that he was friends the group of girls that had accosted you, but he always seemed to have an eye for you.

Just this morning at breakfast he had taken his usual seat beside you, determined to ensure your presence at his match today. He’d even given you one of his thick green and silver scarves ‘so that you’d fit right in’ he’d said.

You watch contentedly as the match begins, the dark green robes contrasting nicely against yellow. Lorenzo weaves through the air with enviable agility, working seamlessly with Theo and Marcus. It’s not even ten minutes in when Theo is able to make the first goal of the game.

“Slytherin usually has a pretty easy match against Hufflepuff,” Pansy tells you, eyes not leaving Blaise as he and Mattheo wreak havoc on the other team.

Pansy’s words seem to ring true as the match goes on with Slytherin able to take a sixty point lead.

Watching the match it’s easy to begin missing home. Quidditch had been something you looked forward to every school year, and you missed your teammates. Watching Lorenzo, Theo, and Marcus now and the ease with which they worked together to make the game seem effortless felt like a blow to the gut.

It was a fun match to watch, and you couldn’t help but cheer wildly when Lorenzo scored yet another goal. But in the back of your mind, you wished it was you on that pitch. You really hadn’t felt a sense of homesickness since moving, so it surprised you that it was hitting you now of all times.

Still, you continue to smile and cheer, hoping the adrenaline of Slytherin’s win would overtake you as you and the other girls rush down to the field to congratulate the boys on a match well played.

“Hey ‘merica, enjoy the match?” Lorenzo asks, his charismatic smile practically glowing as he steps off the pitch.

You’re about to respond when you get your first real good look at the boy in front of you.

Shit.

His fluffy, brown is tossled from the wind and you can see the sheen of sweat across his forehead. And his uniform. God, his quidditch uniform fit him deliciously.

“It was great,” you finally spit out, horrified by the way your thoughts had spiraled dangerously off course.

Making eye contact with Enzo though, you’re a thousand percent sure the boy knew exactly what you were thinking if his sly smirk was anything to go off of.

Daphne swoops in to unknowlingly save you however, as she sidles up next to you.

“Enz, did you know y/n played quidditch in America?” She asks, resting her arm on your shoulder and cocking her head to the side innocently.

Lorenzo’s eyebrows shoot up at this as he glances down at you in surprise.

“Really? We’ll have to go flying sometime then.” He replies, his smile reverting comfortably on his face.

"Yeah! Today seemed like such a nice day for flying though," Daphne comments.

“‘Fraid I don’t have my broom,” you respond, trying to make out what Daphne was getting at.

“That’s alright, I have mine right here,” he says, thumping his broom lightly on the ground.

Daphne watches the two of you banter with delight.

"You should take her flying Enz. Come on y/n, I saw the way you were looking at those brooms earlier. You totally were thinking about going for a ride," she tells him. You can tell she's egging the two of you on.

"Oh, I don't know if now's the best time-"

"What's Enzo doing now? You're not cutting out of the afterparty now are you?" Mattheo asks, coming over and wrapping a sweaty arm around Daphne. Her nose wrinkles in disgust, but she doesn't say anything.

"Think I'm going to take 'merica here for a spin on the broom, hear she used to play quidditch herself," Lorenzo tells him before you can protest. "We'll be back before the party starts, we'll meet you there."

As though it had already been decided, Lorenzo hops back on his broom, patting the spot in front of him, gesturing for you to get on.

"Go on, we'll catch up with you later," Daphne says, shooing you forward.

Hesitantly, you climb on, hyper aware of the fact that Lorenzo's arms were now wrapped securely around you, his breath tickling the hairs on your neck. He kicks off, and the two of you soar into the sky, your friends getting lost in the distance.

You feel a smile grow on your face as the wind blows wildly through your hair. Leaning forward and closing your eyes you revel in the feeling of freedom that flying brings you. You'd missed the feeling of being on your broom more than you'd realized.

"Having a good time love?" Enzo asks, his voice sending shivers down your spine.

"Mhmm. Didn't realize how homesick I'd get just watching a quidditch match. Seems so silly," you reply.

"It's not silly," Enzo reassures, "were you any good?" he asks. You can't see his face, but you can practically see the teasing grin in his voice.

"My house won the cup two years in a row," you boost proudly. "I was a chaser too. Maybe I should join the quidditch team here."

"Yeah? Think you could beat me?"

"Why? Afraid of a little competition? It wouldn't be the first time us Americans beat you Brits," you taunt.

"Ha ha, 'merica. Original." Lorenzo responds dryly. You can feel the boy shaking his head at you from behind.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm so American, I know."

"You are though! What kind of psycho puts ice in their water?" He protests.

"Those of us who want cold water! Obviously. But in all seriousness, you wouldn't stand a chance against me on the pitch" you laugh.

When you don't hear Lorenzo laugh with you, you lean back, turning to find your noses brushing as he stares down intently at you. You suddenly realize that your back is now nested contentedly into his chest as his arms tighten around you. It feels as though all thoughts disappear from your brain as you lean in, closing the gap between you.

It starts out gentle at first, as if Lorenzo was shocked that you had actually kissed him. But as soon as realization fully hits him, he takes over with a determined hunger, moving his soft lips eagerly against your own. You find yourself lost in the warmth spreading over you as the whole sensation leaves you buzzing. His lips work against your in a mesmerizing dance, your head spinning as you melt into him.

You don't even realize immediately when your feet touch the ground once more, forgetting that you had previously been soaring over the school grounds just moments ago.

"How?" you ask, your mind still hazy.

Lorenzo just laughs, his hands grasping your waist to steady you.

"What can I say? Maybe I'm just the better flyer."

"Oh as if, you just distracted me," you scoff.

"Yeah? Let me do it again."

I simply do not want to talk about how long it took me to write this okay? Okay.

Anyway, channeled my inner Mean Girls obsession into this one, cry abt it🫶🏽