#so the orthography is probably ass

[imjustanasshole]

I was just sitting here, studying, and listening to my funny little gay byler playlist when my funny little gay brain had an idea for a funny little gay scenario so I'm going to explain it because there is no way I'm gonna be thinking about this all day on my own.

So we all know that Mike wants to be a writer, right? I'm assuming that's like an established fact (no idea if it's 100% canon but idgaf, it's canon). And as a fellow writer apprentice I know for a fact that the first thing you have to learn is to write in all four literary genres (drama, fiction, nonfiction and poetry), and then when you find the one you're most comfortable with you look into the subgenres and usually find one (or two) and kind of stick with it (this is not always the case but it's the most usual).

Right, so you may be wondering why the fuck am I ranting about my special interest instead of just getting to the point but bear with me dear.

I imagine that Mike is probably more inclined to fiction, and inside that either fantasy or sci-fi (because of the whole being a DM thing, which involves A LOT of fantastic writing and plotting), but he still tried other styles because why not? It's not like he can really experiment with anything else in his life, so might as well. When El and Will moved to California my boy probably had way more free time than before, and I'm guessing he started writing more to distract himself.

--

So he suddenly found himself writing poetry. About nothing in particular, a few of them were about saying goodbye to the summer and welcoming autumn, in others he romanticised random moments, and there were some that he just shoved on the bottom of a drawer in embarrassment when he realised what he was doing. But he had never told anyone about them.

Writing letters to El was easy, like everything with her, they were all organised and simple to read since it was still kind hard for her. He always knew what to write to her about: how was everyone doing, the begging of the school year, his teachers, a lot of 'I miss you's... And asking about Will, he always asked about Will. He found it easier than directly writing to him, since every single time he tried to his mind went blank after "Dear Will".

One afternoon, after recklessly neglecting his best friend for weeks, he decided that enough was enough and promised himself that he wouldn't get up from his desk until he had written a letter to Will. And so he started to write. He spent hours and hours writing and erasing and scratching words, using multiple pieces of paper, saving some and throwing others away, extremely focused. So much that he didn't even hear his mother calling him at dinner time, Nancy had to go up and knock on his door, which made him snap out of his trance.

"Mike, dinner!" She yelled from the hall.

He went down and ate with his family but couldn't concentrate, he wanted to make sure the letter was good, Will deserved at least a decent letter. So as soon as he was dismissed he ran up stairs and locked himself in his room. He suddenly realised he had blacked-out completely and didn't remember essentially anything that was on the papers, so he grabbed what at the time he had considered the best draft and started reading through it. He was shocked. For a moment he thought he was accidentally reading one of his practice poems, but soon realised he had never wrote one titled "Dear Will", well, now he technically had. It was line after line of poetry, describing the feeling of missing Will with metaphors and comparisons such as how the trees miss their leafs on winter. 'You're my summer, Will' he had written on the third page 'I long for you like I do for the flowers on winter'.

What. The. Fuck.

By the time he finished reading through everything it was already past midnight. Mike was speechless. He kept staring at the letter as if hoping that it would change the content on its pages.

He couldn't understand. He had never had any trouble switching back from poetry when writing to El, why was it different with Will? Why did he write him a poem?

Then he abruptly came to a realisation.

"Oh no." He mumbled to himself getting up from the floor. "No, no, no." He staggered towards his desk, landing on his knees. He pulled out all his poems from one of his shelves and he scattered them on the floor. "Oh no."

All of them were about Will. Of fucking course.

The place were they met, their sleepovers, old campaigns, his old house in Hawkins, his drawings... Even the poetic description of an "imaginary person" was just a written portrait of Will.

Mike's whole body went numb. How could it be? Is this even a coincidence? Was Will his muse?

"No." He said, a little louder than intended, and he threw all of it to the trash. He wanted to scream and cry and burn it all.

He just decided to go to bed and never think about it again. But of course, things are never that easy for Mike Wheeler, aren't they? Through his head echoed the question 'Is Will my muse?' Over and over. He knew one thing was true, that letter was one of the best things he'd ever written. Could he even call himself a writer after throwing away his best work?

He groaned and got up from his bed, then he rescued all the crumbled pieces of paper from the trash can and hid them very deep inside of one of his drawers. All would be well if he never wrote a letter to Will ever again. Yes, that's it, that's the best solution. The only solution.

--

Yeah so, that's it, I didn't plan for this to be a whole ass one-shot, just a little thought, but now it's done so thanks for reading!!!!

I thought this could be a cute explanation for why Mike didn't write to Will and heard about him through El instead, but it's just an idea.

edit: I had to go through this again a day after and I changed some minor things (mostly just orthography), I think it's better written now. anyway thanks to everyone who interacted, you're all so nice :')

[tanadrin]

i should say i wouldn’t consider the chinese writing system “dogshit.” it is in fact much more usable than many historical writing systems that are even clumsier, like Sumerian--which mixes purely semantic determiners, logographs, and purely phonetic characters in a way that’s difficult to visually separate, and is also probably deliberately a pain in the ass in a way that provided job security for ancient scribes. sumerian cuneiform is dogshit! chinese characters are well-adapted to the chinese language, remain readable even as the language has undergone major phonetic changes, and are reasonably compact and attractive. switching writing systems isn’t free, and as long as the cost of maintaining your current system outweighs the cost of implementing a totally new one, it makes sense to maintain the current system. the functional problem with chinese characters is their very large number, and the resultant lack of elegant electronic input methods or easy systems for ordering them.

that said, you’d be mad to use it as the basis for a new writing system, if you were a speaker of a natural language in need of an orthography. there’s no good, consistent input or ordering scheme (besides “use pinyin,” which is effectively just ceding those tasks to the Latin alphabet), acquiring literacy is very difficult, and it’s possible to be able to read a large number of characters without being able to write them at all, which is not a problem that afaict most alphabets (which are graphically much simpler) ever have.

so outside the context of historical path-dependency, for most things you want a writing system for nowadays, you would be better served with a syllabary or an alphabet.

[jbreenr]

Déjà Vu –Bucky Barnes.

Summary: You and Bucky keep having those kinds of encounters and none of you know how.

Warning: poorly written smut (if you're under 18 please, don't read), unprotected sex (don't do that, kids. be responsible), alcohol, a bit of swearing, i think that's it.

Word count: almost 4k.

A/N: so, this is the first imagine i post here and it also is the first one in english (not my first language) so don't be too hard on me, i tried my best. lack of vocabulary, grammatical and orthography mistakes are all my fault. corrections, feedback and suggestions are always welcome.

Inspired by Déjà Vu –Voilà.

ᴹʸ ᵍⁱᶠ

You weren't sure how it happened, let alone how it all started, but here you were, legs tangled in bed sheets that were not yours, head resting on a pillow that was not yours, the air smelling like a cologne that certainly was not yours, and a strong and now partially warm metal arm wrapped around your waist.

Trying to turn to face the owner of said arm seemed to be the most difficult mission you ever had due to the buzz in your head that made you stop for a second so the room would stop spinning before your eyes.

You knew the headache was going to be bad, except you did not think this bad.

The first clear memory of last night popping in your head: you asking Sam to hand you the fifty dollars of the bet. Of course you were able to drink all those shots and stay on your feet for the rest of the party.

It had started boring as usual. Not that the music was bad or too low, but the fact that you had to attend every single party Tony hosted should be considered torture. You only wanted to go to bed, for God's sake!

The dance floor was full of people, the sofas were all occupied and the bar was not the exception; two bartenders were not enough to keep everyone happy with a drink on their hand.

Still, you managed to have one the whole time you were there and by the time you were taking your ninth shot, you started to feel a little dizzy. Maybe, it was the way you sat up too fast and turned on your heels with a specific destination: the improvised dance floor.

If you were staying, at least you'd make sure it was worth it.

Taking Sam's hand (the one that was not filling your cup with tequila again) and putting the money inside your bra, you tried to guide him to the center of the dance floor but, considering the big amount of people trying to do the same, you decided you'd be dancing somewhere near the sofas where Steve and Nat were sitting, talking.

Your dance moves were all innocent, even ridiculous; arms and hips moving to the beat of the song in a synchronized rhythm, changing your weight from foot to foot slightly to give the illusion of a real choreography, Sam doing the same in front of you.

Laughing at your own movements, you jumped turning to the left, trying to recreate La Macarena –or your version of it– when you saw him.

Dark long hair tied up in a small ponytail brushing the back of his neck, a pair of shorter locks falling to the sides of his face, framing it perfectly; black suit trousers so tight on his legs that you were sure they were going to break at any moment; light blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up his elbows, making him look thicker than usual; vibrant blue eyes sparking like reflectors from where he was sitting; flesh hand playing with a glass of what seemed to be whiskey; vibranium arm with thin golden lines caressing a blonde's tight…

You snapped out of your trance only to evaporate the sweat in your body with the rush of hot anger that ran all the way from your toes to your ears.

Why were you angry? You had no idea. You only knew that it was unacceptable. He could not do that. Not in front of you.

It was until you took a wrong step back almost falling on your ass that you noticed you had stopped dancing. Sam's hand wrapped around your arm to keep you from actually falling. Steadying yourself, you cursed yourself for listening to Nat when she said that you'd look amazing in those high heels. Who would pay attention to your shoes when you were wearing a freaking black strapless dress that did little to cover your body?

The answer was looking right at you, sitting in an armchair next to that beautiful woman, who was talking about something he had lost interest moments ago when his eyes finally met your figure from a far, now traveling down your legs to lock his gaze on your heels.

Even from where you were standing you could see his jaw clenching and his hand forming a fist, the hand that was not tapping the blonde's leg. His drink, now forgotten on the table in front of him.

“You alright?” Sam's question was followed by his hand leaving your arm. You turned to him.

That's when you had the idea. Probably, the worst and best idea you had ever had.

“Yeah,” you said nodding. “We were in the middle of something, right?” The innocent look you gave him made him follow the game.

“We were, indeed.”

“Let's keep doing it, then.” The smirk on your lips, making Sam raise his right eyebrow in confusion.

And it felt as if the universe wanted it to happen, as if the Gods wanted to know what was next because just as you turned again, softly slamming your back to Sam's chest and started swinging your hips against him, the electronic music changed to a song you knew would help you with what you had planned.

“(Y/n), what are you doing?” Sam's laughter rumbled in your ear as you swayed.

“Just dance, Falcon. Have some fun.”

Raising your arms, you gave him permission to place his hands on your hips, which he did hesitant at first. But when he understood (or at least, he thought) that you were only enjoying the music, his grip on you became stronger and more confident. After all, most people around you were dancing the same way.

Opening your eyes, you tried to find the super soldier but in vain. The sofa he and his friend had been sitting on was now occupied by other people and you could only imagine one reason.

The song was coming to an end and you turned again to face Sam, who was smiling at you.

“It was a pleasure to dance with you, but right now, I need to go dust my nose.” You said in a false cordial voice and bowed with exaggeration, placing your hand in the cleavage of your dress.

“Those drinks are making their work already? Ouch!” he complained when you hit him in the shoulder. “The pleasure was mine.” He bowed back and walked to the other side of the dance floor, easily finding another partner to spend the rest of the party with.

You didn't need to go to the bathroom. Not really. That was only the excuse you gave to finally head to your room and take off that dress and heels that were killing you.

You hadn't taken three steps out of the party when you felt a hand close on your arm and drag you up the stairs.

In all honesty, if his grip wasn't that firm, you could have fallen on your knees more than once on your way to where the bedrooms were.

Only when the door was closed behind you was when you noticed you were not in your room. The bed was perfectly done and the nightstand didn't have your current reading on it. You were in Bucky's room.

Blurry memories of previous visits filled your head like flashing lights: your hands tightly clutched around the headboard, your feet slipping from the edge of the bed, your back pressed against the wall, your knees and elbows buried in the mattress. It felt like you'd been there a thousand times before.

Bucky wandered around the room like a lion inside a jail, his steps heavy against the floor and his hands trying to pull back the hair tickling his cheeks.

With a loud sigh, he finally turned and almost ran in your direction. The look in his eyes was something you've seen somewhere before.

“Wha-- what the fuck you think you were doing back there?” His question took you by surprise, even though it shouldn't have. It had been your main goal all the time.

“'Doing' what? What do you mean?” You decided that playing dumb was the best way to get on his nerves and apparently, it was working.

The super soldier bit the inside of his cheek trying to keep his composure. He was not having any of it.

“Don't try and act all innocent, as if you didn't know you were practically offering yourself to Sam with that stupid dance of yours.”

“I'm surprised you even noticed,” Taking a step ahead, you shortened the distance between you two. You knew he wouldn't find you intimidating, but at least he'd know you weren't afraid of him. “when you were too busy lifting the little skirt of that girl up her legs.”

His eyes darkened and he took a step closer, his face staying only a few inches from yours.

“'Little skirt', uh? What about this pathetic attempt of a dress?” His hands traveled from the sides of your breasts to your hips and stopped at the hem of the dress (that was too short for your liking, but you weren't going to tell him so).

“Sam seemed to like it.”

Faster than you thought was possible, he gripped the hem and drew you towards him, making your smaller form crash against him, your lips barely touching his while he leaned to be at your height.

“Do I look like I care about what he likes? Not even you care about it.” His grip on the dress had softened unconsciously. “I know all you wanted to do was to make me all bothered, except you did not think I'd fix that with someone else, someone better.”

With all your strength, you pushed him back by his chest –which only caused him to take three steps back of pure shock– and your right hand landed on his face with a SMACK!

If his eyes were dark before, now they were on fire. Anger and something else that you couldn't decipher radiated from his pupils.

“Fuck you, Barnes.” Your voice, nothing but poison.

Bucky started to shorten the distance again and you didn't know what to expect: Him yelling at you? A punch? Both? Either way, you were prepared for anything.

Or so you thought.

His metal hand took you by the waist pressing your bodies together and his flesh hand traveled to the back of your head to push your face to his in a hungry kiss.

At first, you were surprised. That was not the kind of smack you were wanting for. Not that you were complaining.

His tongue wanted to make its way inside your mouth but you wouldn't open it, so he took a handful of your hair and pulled, making you whine at the feeling and finally parting your lips just enough for him to do as he pleased.

You tried to resist, how much you wanted to but oh, if it was impossible. So you let yourself get lost in the kiss.

The familiar sensation in your lower belly and the way your legs trembled told you that you were fucked and before you knew it, you were gasping for air. Seemingly, you had forgotten how to breathe while Bucky's lips devoured yours in such a feral way.

With a quick movement, Bucky let go of your hip and hair and his hands went directly to the back of your thighs, indicating you to jump and cross your feet on his lower back, which you did gracefully despite the amount of alcohol in your system.

At no point your lips separated, not that any of your wanted them to.

Your hands intertwined in the back of his neck and pulled his hair softly making him groan in your mouth. It was not difficult to get rid of the hair tie, and once it was gone, Bucky's hair fell to the sides, brushing your face.

Bucky moved to the bed and sat on it, keeping you on his lap, straddling him. His hands moved all along your legs, just the way you imagined he did with his friendly friend back in the party and your blood boiled.

Pulling his hair again, but with more strength this time, you separated his face from yours, looking into his eyes with what he interpreted as disgust.

“Really think that Barbie is better than me?” you asked, your heavy breathing causing your breast to rise ang go down rapidly.

Bucky smirked, clearly enjoying the view of you asking such a thing. “You know I don't, doll. Just gotta make sure you don't forget I'm better than him.”

Having said that, the sound of a zipper opening was audible and soon the cold air of the room hit your back.

You recognized the feeling of Bucky's hands traveling from your thighs to your waist under the dress, to end up pulling it off of your body and tossing it across the room. It, falling right in the same spot they always did. Your lips, only separated when you rose your arms to take off the dress.

It was Bucky's turn to pull away, eyes glued to your bra. Its intense red color was driving him crazy, but not as much as the thong, which was far from being a proper piece of underwear, covering your drenching cunt.

With a quick movement, Bucky undid your bra, letting it fall past the bed with the fifty dollars slipping right after. And as if you didn't feel too exposed already, his hands ripped the thin sides of your remaining clothing, dragging it from behind, causing the fabric to rub against your clit roughly. You closed your eyes when a moan escaped your lips.

The sound of the fabric tearing apart bringing a memory of that night you were feeling waisted.

“Hey! Those were my favorite!” you had said right after he ripped your baby pink lace panties.

“Not anymore.”

Bucky's lips traveled from your jaw to your neck, finding that spot that had you trembling in his lap.

Deciding he was wearing too much clothes, your hands found their way from his still covered shoulders to his chest, looking for the first button, willing to unfasten it but once you realized it was going to be a more difficult task than you had expected, you decided to give him a payback for what he did a few weeks before.

Grabbing the shirt tightly, you pulled it, causing the buttons to fly out in all directions, clacking against the walls and floor.

“Are you kidding?” Bucky's mouth was no longer on you. “It was really expensive!” His eyes, telling you he wasn't lying. You almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

“Not anymore.”

A knowing look took over his face. He also remembered.

“Nice one, doll. Let's see what else we can reprise from that day.”

Taking you by your ass and making you gasp, he stood up and turned to the bed, throwing you into the center of the soft mattress the second he was fully facing it. You felt small compared to him, his big frame taking off the now useless shirt obstructing the view of the rest of the room for you.

Watching him undo his belt and pushing down his pants and boxers at the same time was too much for you to witness. You closed your legs trying to relieve the sensation between them.

“No, doll. Don't do that, that's why I'm here.”

His palms massaged your ankles, both flesh and metal hands cold, taking off your heels.

His delicate touch was killing you, you wanted him to go higher, to go faster, to touch you where you needed him the most.

And it was as if he read your mind. His face lowered to rub his nose against your left leg, placing a kiss in your ankle and traveling up your thigh with his chin rubbing your skin. His facial hair tickled you but you didn't mind. You liked the feeling.

His face was at the height of your core and he knew by the way you buckled your hips that you were soaked. He didn't need to check to be sure, he could smell it.

Wet kisses and purple hickeys adorned your stomach by the time his mouth reached your breasts. One, he massaged with his metal hand, the coldness provoking goosebumps to run all over your body. The other was being attacked by his tongue and sucking lips.

When his teeth bit your nipple, your back arched and one of your legs slightly raised having minimal contact with Bucky's hard dick. The pressure of your chest against Bucky's mouth, muffled a groan coming from his throat.

With a soft pop he released your tit. “You know?” he asked, opening your legs and positioning himself between them. “As much as I'd love to take my sweet time with you, I can't wait to fuck you into oblivion.”

His tip was leaking precum already, you swore you saw his member twitch the second you bit your lower lip.

He started teasing you, rubbing his shaft from your entrance to your clit repeatedly, coating himself with your juices.

“For God's sake, Barnes, just do it!”

That was everything he needed to hear to finally enter you, stretching you out with his hardness without any warning.

A loud scream was swallowed by Bucky's lips when he leaned to kiss you. Tongues fighting for dominance in a heated battle.

His vibranium hand had yours pinned above your head, immobilizing them and keeping you from moving, from touching him. Flesh hand next to your head, preventing his full weight from crashing you.

Seconds passed until he felt your body adapting and accepting the new intruder, that's when he began to move, a slow pace at first, it felt like he wanted to make sure you were really there, too caught up in the painful pleasure he was feeling.

He separated from your face, enjoying the moment, you were just fascinated looking at his expression.

When a particular deep trust hit your g spot, the moan that left your mouth brought Bucky back to reality. His eyes opened in a snap and what you saw in them made you want to run away from that room and to stay under him forever at the same time.

Lust and hunger danced on his eyes, fire and need distilling from his pores.

The concentration look in Bucky's face gave you the second best idea of the night.

“C'mon, Barnes.” Containing a cry, you murmured. “I know you can do better.” Saying that you knew was more of an affirmation than a comment in the heat of the moment.

An arrogant smile drawn on Bucky's lips was followed by him quickening his pace. His now warm metal hand let go of yours to take control over your hips that were bucking up to meet his, accompanied with the hoarse sounds coming out of your mouth. He pinned you down with his fingers buried in your flesh, surely leaving some dark bruises to remember his excellent performance.

One of your hands flew back, trying to hold onto something for dear life while the other scratched, with black painted nails, Bucky's back. Meanwhile, he kept pounding you harder with each trust.

“You like it, baby girl? Bet Sam can't do it as good.” His words were dry, forcefully said along with one of his hands finding you where your bodies connected and pressing your clit roughly to prove a point.

It was talking all of you to find a coherent sentence to give as an answer. The way his body slammed yours, creating a delicious clapping sound, having your full attention.

“Wouldn't be so sure about that.” You almost whispered in a voice you didn't recognize as yours.

“Really?” One particular deep trust hit that sweet spot again making you arch your back and clench around him. A high pitched sound leaving your lips and a low groan leaving his. “Cause, from where I see it, it is me who's giving you the time of your life.”

He repeated the action again and again. Your breasts bounced up every time your bodies collided.

“Fuck.” Bucky's lips kissed your shoulder, his breath made you shiver and the feeling of his teeth grazing your hot skin causing a new memory to pop in your brain.

“God, you're perfect.” His hands squished your butt cheeks and moved you up and down to keep you riding him.

“Is that what you say to all the girls you get laid with?” You rolled your hips, challenging him to tell you.

“I've only said that to you, doll.” His words muffled in your neck followed by an assault of bites and dark marks.

He resumed the movement of his fingers against your clit, faster and applying more pressure this time.

“Ugh, just like that, yeeees!” A single tear of ecstasy fell from your eye, ruining the white pillowcase with the smallest stain of eyeliner.

As pleasure took over your body, you struggled to keep your eyes open. Your mouth parted and let a sinful groan fall from it when your orgasm finally hit you.

“Yes, baby girl, cum for me.”

Your clenching walls enveloped him so tight that his movements faltered for a second. He quickened the pace, riding you out of your release and spilling inside you, coating you with his seed.

An experimental trust before he pulled out of you made you cry out. Both your juices and his cum dripping in the now ruined bed.

Bucky rolled to his side and pulled you closer to him, embracing you in a hug. Your breathing, slowly returning to normal.

“Damn, we're gonna regret this in the morning.” You affirmed half asleep, resting your head on Bucky's chest.

Your head position didn't let you see Bucky's sad smile. “Yeah, we will.”

Once you turned your whole body to Bucky you couldn't hide the confused look that took over your face. You didn't remember how you got there, let alone why you were there. Why was it happening to you again?

Watching him like that, so peaceful, it almost made you feel bad for what you were about to do.

“My God, Barnes, let go of me!” you said loud enough to make him open a lazy eye trying to focus on you, the sound of your own voice increasing the pain in your head.

“What are you doing here?” His raspy voice did things to you in ways it shouldn't.

“That's an excellent question. I'd like to know the answer too.”

He sat, the sheet falling from his shoulders to where his public hair started. Immediately, you turned to the ceiling.

“Last thing I remember is you dancing that silly Friends routine with Sam and then… a smell of coconut.” That was the scent of your body wash.

You knew you were naked, except your brain didn't process what that meant until then.

“Ugh, not again.” You covered your face with your hands, trying to keep the sheets at the height of your chest with your arms to cover it as much as possible. “This can't keep happening.”

“Why not?” His question was followed by a yawning. “It is always good to wake up to your back pressed against me.”

[buckysgirls-stuff]

what about New Years Eve and unexpectedly Bucky (or anyone) kisses you at midnight?

Just like it did before- Bucky Barnes new year one-shot

Masterlist

You weren't having much fun, your friends, the ones who persuaded you to come on the first place, were dancing on the dance floor behind you and you didn't know what to do, other than keep drinking mojitos and champagne; one after another... until you felt like it was enough to go home without any problem. Your best friend, (y/f/n) was in "something" with Sam Wilson, and that was enough to be invited to the new year's eve in the Stark Tower, you thought it would be fun... get out of the routine and have some fun maybe, meet the earth's mightiest heroes, see the fireworks and go back to your misery.

There weren't much people as you expected, what you heard was that Tony Stark gave each Avenger permission to invite at least ten people each, and Sam didn't know that much people besides the ones on his help group for the veterans, and most of them didn't like fireworks... so he asked your bestfriend to invite her closest friends and there you were... drinking as much free alcohol as you permitted yourself.

While drinking the last drop of champagne (at least the last one you were planning to drink), someone appeared next to you; tall, so much bigger than you, brunette, pale, handsome... very handsome; you easily recognized him, mostly for the metal arm that now was standing over the bar table, next to you.

"Whiskey, please" he said in a very deep voice

You were drunk enough to look at him with no shame, but not enough to talk to him. "The winter soldier..." welp, yes, you were. Well, shit.

"Hhm" he sighted "yeah, some people call me that" he said drinking a the whole thing and asking for more

"I'm sorry, I don't trust my word filter when I'm like... this" you apologized

"Don't worry, you are the first person that has ever talked to me in this whole evening..." he drank another big sip "so thank you for not running away" he said lower, but you heard him anyways

"Why would I do that?" You said in a whisper

"Well, most people is afraid of me..." he looked down at his empty glass "and I'm guessing that the only reason you are still here is because you are drunk..."

"Actually I was about to leave..." you said before you thought "I mean... not because of you... I don't feel like partying and I really wanted to go home" but now you don't... "but now I don't" for fucks sake... ugh

"And what's the reason for that?" He said shyly

"Now I have someone to talk to"

...

Bucky, as he insisted you to call him, is the only person who you truly enjoyed being with. For the next two hours you sat there and talked like you knew each other for so much longer... he told you about the war because you asked about it, you loved that theme for some reason and hearing it from someone who is not your grandparent's friends is so much better, Bucky was fine telling you about all of that stuff because of the fascination you showed with every word that came out of his mouth, no one has looked at him like that is a really long time. You told him about what had you tied to your bed most of the time, and he listened you with so much attention... you haven't talked about what had you like that with anyone, not even your bestfriend, because you thought that no one showed interest enough... but Bucky was different. He told you that it was almost impossible for him to get drunk, because of the serum, but you were so excited to put that on doubt. While you drank just water, you asked for the most strong drinks and combinations that you knew, some of them were not even known by the bartender, but they were enough to have Bucky almost drunk... almost.

"I haven't felt dizzy since the 40's"

"It is so weird to hear that" you laughed. You didn't wanted to be fully drunk, so you kept drinking water until you decided that one last champagne for you and Bucky was the right way to end the night "cheers, for... us, and this new year coming up"

You both clinked glasses and drank what was on them. From far behind, a curious Steve Rogers was wondering what was happening and who was the pretty girl that had Bucky's ass out of his room that long, he was happy though, that his friend was smiling for the first time to someone that wasn't him.

"Are you staying for the fireworks?" You asked while watching all the people going to the balcony to watch the fireworks as the time was coming

"Not a fan of the sound... but I like the colors..." he stood up and helped you to get down of the tall chair

"Same..." you thought you were going to where the rest of the people was, but he guided you to the opposite side "where are we going?"

"Maybe you would like this view better..." he took you to one floor up, where the view was even crazier

"Wow..." the lights of New York shined under your feet as you came closer to the edge "this is... amazing"

"I know..." he sighed "it is so different from then..." Bucky said nostalgically

"I can imagine..." you could hear the people shouting the count down,

10... 9... 8...

"Bucky, do you want to get in? I can assume the sound of the fireworks can make you feel... you know... uncomfortable" you looked at him, genuinely worried

7... 6... 5...

"No" he said firmly "I can handle it... also" he looked at your left hand asking for permission to hold it, you accepted it "this" he hugged your hand with his fingers "will keep me in this reality, away from those thoughts..."

4... 3... 2...

You got closer to him, asked for his other hand, the metal one, he hesitated at first, but then he put it onto yours. You slowly got closer to him...

1...

"Happy new year, Bucky" your face was so close to his, both of you got closer at the same time, kissing each other with confusion, passion and need.

"Happy new year, t/n"

And for the first time in decades, he was fully Bucky, he didn't felt the winter soldier inside... he forgot all of those years in just seconds; he was a young Brooklyn man who liked a girl... it felt just like it did back then, even better.

As your lips separated, the sounds of the outside were back, giving Bucky a flashback of the war... his mind was getting black, he closed his eyes with fear... but you hugged him with no hesitation. He opened his eyes to see if it was real... and it was...

"I'm here, it's okay to have those fears... you'll be fine, I'm here..." he hugged her back, tightly while watching the beautiful colors and shapes of the fireworks from outside the building.

Bucky felt hope... there was no trace of the Winter soldier on his mind. Bucky felt like he was in the right place. And he was.

__________________________________________

This was so fun and nice to write... even though is 5 am I loved writing this. Thanks for the request! Now I feel so much more relaxed to sleep

Please keep sending me requests! Thank you!

And thanks for reading! I would really appreciate a reblog so more people can read and request more ideas!

Please leave your feed back! And just to let you to know that English is not my first language so there is probably some bad orthography, if there is, please let me know so I can fix it!

Lots of love x

[holdouthepalmofyourhand]

Can you give some examples of stuff the guy got wrong please this sounds hilarious

I honestly can't even remember many of the times (which I guess were many since he commented on one of my post just to say how awful I was).

Actually the exact thing was that I posted something without like perfect syntaxis because I was like copying a meme style and he was like "that's badly written" and I was like "ehh, it was on purpose" and then he was like "I'm only saying so you see how awful is that people just comment to correct your posts" and I was like ??? (especially because I don't correct people's orthography and grammatic and stuff because that's privileged bs).

So I had to REALLY think back to when I had corrected him about whatever and the two times I came up with was once when he was having a whole ass discourse on Facebook about how it was interesting how some women singers also had songs that were "mean" against men in very similar terms to songs that men have written against women (it was about like popular Mexican music) and his one main example was a famous singer that has a song calling men rats, BUT (and it's a big but) it only took me a fast Google search to see that the songs were actually written by men so I was like "ehhh" because the whole bloody Facebook essay was based on an example that just wasn't it. Lol.

And then the other time I could think of was when someone else posted something about like millennials and idk (I mean it was irrelevant so I can't even remember) and he gave a whole comment about like "younger millennials and older millennials", but what he really meant was like "millennials and gen z" so I was just like clarifying where the sort of generational gap actually was, and he got angry 😅 (probably because the post was by an university professor and he felt I was diminishing him in front of someone he respects - which honestly wasn't my intention - but also I don't care about that professor and his PhD cause he dated a friend of mine and was an asshole)

But anyway he is that kind of men that are fake woke and even call themselves feminists, but then they post like "whyyy would you say ALL MEN, it hurts my feelings" 🙄, so I have him muted now but I see his posts sometimes because a friend loooves to tell me the silly stuff he posts.

[ephemerational]

The Bridge

"I just... I just fucking wonder, you know."

A sigh which sounds weightier than it probably is. Probably just a light breeze passing by and needing some thoughts to accompany it. The usual kids clatter out on the street, one of them called Sven, two of them called Issa, though for different reasons and by different parents. The others also have names, but attention hadn't yet turbulenced upon them mid-flitter-by.

"Well... Don't we all? D'Ya want some tea?"

Kettle already hissing but they're just asking for the question’s sake. D'Ya. Smirk based flavor profile, the way their tongue maneuvers it. Very floral with all the rest taking a backseat.

"Nah, I'm good, I think"

"K. But-"

"Like, why it there?"  Arms fully outstretched gesturing in a sudden burst of energy.

"Loaded question"

"Who built it?"  Habitual walk-back to accommodate a conversational quirk. Successfully it seems, as their roommate is now willing to respond.

"Jelena construction, on behalf of the city council. They in turn on behalf traffic-stuck citizens one would imagine"

"Okay, When?"

"When we weren't looking?" The one who says it enjoying this answer far more than the one who's thinking about the bridge again, but it's no crime indulging once in a while. It always comes aback and forth.

"Okay, but do you actually not know?" They ask skeptically while slowly getting up to walk some circles.

"1998, summer." Tounge click. The children outside don't mind.

"Figures."

"Facts even"

"And you know this why exactly?"

"Same reason why you're just fucking wondering, I guess. It's a big ass bridge which just sort of ends halfway and which I can see every day from this very window. Curiosity."

No one says something stupid like "immanently meaningful", but only because the architecture says it for them, and their failure to respond has been the punchline to multiple breakfast conversations already.

"Sure. I mean you can list more answers to searchable questions if you want to-"

"Oh I'm out, 'xept some more half-forgotten trivia about the Jelena"

"Huh."

"Disappointed?"

"Not really, just surprised, but I guess it makes sense: that no one'd be fucked to write too much shit down about abandoned stylistically boring bridges."

"T’was on an album cover once."

"Any good?"

"Noupe"

"Uhh send it to me anyway if you find it again. But you get what I mean, right? Beyond the brick and mortar. Why is it like this?"

"That a very-"

"Locked and."

"Okay, then I'm not gonna call it that, but it's still a deeply forest-missing-itself-for-the-very-concept-of-obfuscation-type question"

"I know. Wanna go it word by word? "Why" "is" "it" "like" "this"?"

They take the teabag out, even though it's a bit early, because they know it’d otherwise be forgotten. "Sure. "Why". The big W"

"Ah yes, my favorite quirk of fake orthography"

"Well, I was just going for a Bush joke. Like not any particular one. The concept. Fake orthography?"

""Y", the big "w""

"Oh."

"Motion to pretend like we forgot you just called a question-word "the big w" despite them almost all starting identically"

Motion approved with a bored handwave

"So, you want to go it causally or teleologically?"

"See I want to say teleologically, because that'd move us away from the pointless facts, but then one of us would inevitably bring up that the bridge might exist so we can have this conversation, at which point I will have no choice but to physically vomit, no matter which of us succame to temptation."

"Succame?"

"I'm almost certain that's a viable past tense"

It’s not, or at least not depending on who’s definition of "viable" one adheres to. Not that it matters, as neither of them ever succame to prescriptivism. Issa isn’t a valid abbreviation of Isabelle either, and yet it’s how one of the two girls got her moniker. The other is named for the mythological nymph Issa of Lesbos, or perhaps for the town, which is in turn named for the nymph. Not even the parents can say for sure which it originally was, just that they like the sound of it. Issa good succession of syllables. Slips off the tongue. Sven, for his part, is named after a friend of his father, who happens to have worked on the half-finished bridge and who happens to have been to the ruins of Issa once.

"Huh."

"But yeah even though the bullshit meta-line has been contracepted, I think we can blitz through causal reason pretty quickly: There's a half finished bridge, because finishing it would have been additional work, and the cost-benefits-analysis on the thing flipped somewhere mid construction. Either because the cost went up or the relative benefit down. Cost up in this case."

"And CB-calc is relevant because the cluster of things that is people is both responsible for inducing events at the anthropological scale and prone to slotting CB-calc into their decision making. People exist because yada yada."

"Yes"

"Teleologically, any random event which its existence has enabled could be the point, but since I don't know who the universe thinks it is, maybe we need to scale it to human parameters. Like "whose end would it serve, if it serves any?""

"Today on "other ways of saying "who cares"""

The bridge likes to imagine that a few people do. The daily double-taking passersby, the teenagers who do cannonballs from it in the summer, the teenagers who deal drugs beneath it, the vagrants whom it occasionally shelters from the elements, just as much as the old woman who sits down at its farthest point twice a month and paints the other shore, each version growing a bit more experimentally surrealist. The breeze might also care as it whistles by, though it’s difficult to tell with breezes.

"Yeah. Does it spark joy?"

"Not exactly."

"Really?!"

"No, like, I like it. Obviously not practically, but aesthetically. A lot even. Top three inanimate objects I have seen probably, in those contexts where it's supposed to be stunning..."

"...Just..?"

"Conventionally beautiful things just are pretty, like independently, right? They can be enhanced or detracted from, but their average appeal is someplace above standard."

"Mhm"

"But that's not true here. When the sun's setting and the mood's good, it's a goddamn work of art worthy of being put on an album cover, and when it's downpour with a side of dead-shoreline-reek then it looks like the literal mass of concrete garbage it is. Still a different sort of album cover, I guess. Just kind of goes along with what the rest of reality is doing at any given point. Respectable, sure, but-"

"So what you're saying is that it's symbolically meaningless."

"No, I'm saying it's *profoundly* symbolically meaningless. The fact of its semiotic indistinction itself being somehow greatly resonant for some reason. It doesn’t spark joy, but it sparks something. Sparks it hard."

"That's dangerously close to saying the bridge is here for us to talk about."

"Fair, so "is""

"Isss."

"Isssss."

"Isssit?"

"Existentially speaking?"

"Sure"

"Seems to be"

"Is it all the things we claim it to be too?"

"I hope so. Do you intend to claim false things?"

"Not today"

"Then that was pretty painless"

Motion to lie tabled. They'll likely warn each other before they do it anyway. It all comes aback and forth with the breeze and whatnot. D'Ya. D'Ya ever. "D’ya ever get the ball back" , Issa to Issa, the response isn't heard.

"You expect more out of it?"

""It"?"

"Yes."

"You tell me."

"I think that's another bit of shrubbery." They contemplate leaning against the sun-warmed wood of the door. "When we ask "why is it like this" then on a surface level "it" is just bridge-stand-in, but really you're already talking about the whole situation: the one in which you are looking at the bridge and seeing some issue with that."

"How broad do you want it?"

"More specific than the whole-ass human condition and less specific than the single-ass bridge"

"Well personally I'd almost go full self-object with that phrasing . "Why is it like this" as "why is my mental process in such a way that this is relevant""

"And why is it?"

"Probably the whole-ass human condition, but ask my therapist for specifics"

"I tried, but even after a solid few cocktails they won't break their previous peychinttt confienita- confffffidentiaal- den-tuality."

"To avoid the unpleasant mouth sounds problem, try to pray secrets from my SLP instead"

"You don't have an SLP... Do you?"

"I also don't have a therapist..."

"Disagree"

"In that case I must wonder why you're trying to get confidential info from yourself through cocktails"

"Aren't we all?"

"Stop. "Like""

"I dunno. Fucking "resembling""

"Resembling what?"

""That""

"Which is?"

"A pointlessly meaningful seeming bridge"

"It does seem to resemble one of those, but I thought we settled on internal-it, not bridge-it."

"Still, same. Why is "it" [my thinking about the thing] like "that" [a vaguely meaningful seeming bridge that just randomly stops someplace]?"

"To rhyme?"

"Is that a causal or a teleological reason?"

"Both probably, but that's more of a late-evening type discussion. Was any of that helpful?"

"No. Fun and vaguely cathartic, but not helpful. I just... I just fucking wonder."

No one had noticed the old woman setting up her canvas at the bridge’s brink, but even if they did, they probably wouldn’t ask her opinions on the matter, though she has a great many of them. She’s getting closer with every painting, she thinks. With every brush stroke. The bit of concrete is never actually in the pictures, and that’s important, somehow, she’d say. They’re from the bridge’s perspective. Lack-ward. She’s getting closer. Not to the other side, but to its absence. Meaning-wise.

[tiny-loudness]

Why are there two Wikipedias in Belarusian? The two Belarusian orthographies and why this is a question of policy

You may have noticed that there can be two Wikipedias for (sort of) one and the same language: Norsk and Nunorsk for the two Norwegian written standards, a few Chinese Wikipedias. You can choose between Cyrillic and Latin scripts to read the edition of the site in Serbian. The same thing is with Belarusian – you see Беларуская and Беларуская (тарашкевіца) in the list of languages. Should you assume that each of the two orthographies is used by a half of the population or at least by a significant number of people?

The short answer is no – Belarusian is written (and spoken – there are some differences in pronunciation and vocabulary between the two norms, though very few) by almost everyone in the official orthography (Беларуская). The classical written standard (Беларуская (тарашкевіца)) is used by a few mass media (I managed to find four of them) and by a small number of Belarusian intelligentsia.

❓ Why is that so and why are there these two written norms in the first place?

❗ And now, my fellow nerds, it’s Belarusian language history time!

1. The establishment of the two orthographies

The first official orthography and the set of grammar rules in the newly independent Belarus were set in 1918 by a linguist Branislaw Tarashkyevich. It was called Taraškievica (after its author), or (later) the classic orthography. Between Cyrillic and Latin alphabets, both having been used before for writing Belarusian, Cyrillic script was chosen.  

In 1933 a reform on Belarusian orthography was introduced. It was carried out by a commission in which no linguists were included; the reasons for the reform were almost exclusively political: the first orthography brought Belarusian closer to Polish, and the politics of Russification was being pursued in the USSR and similar reforms took place in other USSR minority languages to assimilate them into Russian culture and language. Unlike Taraškievica, the new official orthography (or “Narkamauka”, as it is informally known, after народны камісарыят, People’s Comissariat) didn’t represent phonetic peculiarities of the Belarusian language as well as the previous orthography did, bringing some of the language norms closer to the Russian ones.

2. Post-USSR time

In 1990s after the dissolution of the Soviet Union some mass media began using Taraškievica again. But in early 2000s many of them went back to the official written norm; I can’t positively say what the real reasons for that were.

From one point of view, the reasons were quite simple: Belarusian language teachers wanted to use books, newspapers and TV programmes to teach children Belarusian, so it was better to use one variant of orthography to avoid confusion. An editor of a newspaper in Belarusian explained it as a measure to attract new readers, that had had problems reading the paper in the classical orthography. People of different political views adhere to this point of view.

Another point of view claims that those were political reasons. The fact is that writing in old Taraškievica, as well as speaking Belarusian, using the old white-red-white flag and the “Pahonia” coat of arms are all aimed at alienation from the Soviet past, when people were discouriged from using their native languages instead of Russian. On the contrary, the state policy now doesn’t tend to alienate from it: for example, the state symbols are the reformed Soviet ones, and the Russian language is mostly used officially. The opinion of those people is that the reason for the change was pressure from the authorities. 

Aaaand here come political quarrels and fights, let’s leave the topic.

I think that the people who write and edit Wikipedia pretty much fall under the description of intelligentsia (regardless of political views) – that is, those who are interested in language, culture, and science, who care about what happens around them and are ready to do things voluntarily and create something.That’s why there you have it – an entire edition of Wikipedia in the written norm that very few people in the country know anything about – by the way, the edition that was founded before the one in the official orthography.

3. So if the changes were unnatural and imposed, should we go back to the classical norm?

Alright, let’s get back to linguistics. That’s a difficult question. Some reasons why we should:

The first thing you hear when you start learning Belarusian spelling is my all-time favourite rule “як чуецца, так і пішацца” – “you write it as you hear it”. (“As you hear it”, yes, I’m looking at you, English and Russian, it works like this too) The first three for-Taraškievica arguments I’m going to mention deal with reduction of the exceptions to the rule:

The soft sign (ь): the first thing associated with Taraškievica is this letter of the alphabet – you find arguments like “who cares about the soft signs as long as people speak and write Belarusian” or “YOUR NATIONALIST ASSES CAN TAKE THOSE SOFT SIGNS AND SHOVE THEM UP YO-” in the holywar discussions about Belarusian politics and orthography.  The letter is used much more widely in the classical orthography to notate the assimilating softness of consonants. I know, not everyone is a linguist here, I’m going to explain that! Belarusian is said to sound soft and melodious -- you can agree with that or not (I do, though), but there definitely are more soft consonants in the orthoepic norm of the Belarusian language (than in Russian, for example). “Narkamauka” doesn’t have soft signs after the consonants which aquire their softness from the soft consonants after them; that’s why in modern Belarusian most people make a mistake of pronouncing them hard.

Showing the assimilation ( ≈ change) of sounds preceeding certain types of consonants: безь мяне, ня бачу, бяз рук instead of без мяне, не бачу, без рук (without me, [I] don’t see, without hands)

The letter ґ:  in the 2005 variant of normalization of Taraškievica, a new letter is introduced: ґ, indicating a plosive [ɡ] (same as the English [g], as in ‘get’), as opposed to the fricative [ɣ] (the voiced variant of the [x] sound, as in Scottich English ‘loch’). I remember our Belarusian teacher mention that both sounds exist in Belarusian and asking us to remember a few words with the [g] sound. Introduction of this letter would help people avoid pronunciation mistakes.

Many geographical names are the old, pre-revolutionary variants: Расея, Менск, Гародня, Эўропа, Ангельшчына instead of Расія, Мінск, Гродна, Еўропа, Англія (Russia, Minsk, Hrodna, Europe, England). (Probably another feature of the orthography rather than an argument for it, though, I just wanted to mention that too) 

Now the last and the most subjective argument I’m going to mention, which seems to me the most persuasive one: when I read the ‘Morphology’ table, almost all the features of Taraškievica mentioned in it just sound better to me. I can’t explain it clearly: I just look at the classic orthography’s morphological norms and think: “That’s what it’s supposed to be, that sounds so much more natural, so less forcedly Russian-like!” 

However, there are arguments for leaving it as it is:

The change will inevitably lead to confusion 

If it has been so widespread for quite some time, maybe we should accept pronouncing those sound hard as a norm and never bother about it?

While writing this, I looked up Belarusian words with the [g] sound and found a list of like 40. Around a half of them I don’t remember hearing ever before, in about 10 of them the two sounds are interchangeable. I mean, a special letter for like 40 words...?

Again, should we maybe leave those variants of geographical names instead of the old ones sounding a little bit odd now, as well as the small exceptions from the “you write it as you hear it” rule? It won’t be as bad as the English spelling rules (or a lack of them *looks at the English language angrily*).

Another subjective opinion here: in Taraškievica some transliteration rules are different: the syllables ‘la’, ‘lo’, ‘lu’ are transliterated with a soft [l] in words of Western European origin except for Anglicisms. That leaves us with бiялёгiя, лёгiка and фiлязофiя instead of бiялогiя, логiка and фiласофiя (biology, logic, philosophy). Non-East-Slavic people, just believe that for me as well as for many other people it sounds terribly weird.

All the fights around the Belarusian language would probably just discourage people (especially children and teens) from learning to speak Belarusian casually. (Ask me if you want to know why they don’t speak it now, it’s a long story)

So, again, should we?

If I were to decide, I’d change a few things to the classical orthography. I am really for the old morphological rules and reducing the exceptions to the “you write it as you hear it” rule. And for some reason I like the soft variant of pronunciation. But for god’s sake, no ґ‘s and фiлязофiя’s!

Again, this change is also a question of politics – and whether anyone will bother with it. I guess that's unlikely.

A few sidenotes just to clear my consciense (probably skip that)

No, this isn’t a particularly important issue. But it deals with linguistics and the history of language – and isn’t it curious that an entire edition of Wikipedia, as big as the one written in the official orthography, exists in such a little-known spelling?

I’m not a linguist, though I have taken a course in linguistics at college. I’m just curious about languages and I have read a ton of articles on the topic and tried to pick out the most significant and interesting.

Speaking Belarusian casually is associated with people from rural areas as well as with intelligentsia. And I can’t say that the official policy discourages people from speaking Belarusian... oh man, that’s so complicated and I don’t want to make it about politics, google it, the post is already way-way-WAY too long. 

P. S. I like the pettiness of the authors of the Taraškievica and “Narkamauka” Wikipedia pages about the two written norms. Each one goes like: it’s obvious that our orthography is much better. Here are the arguments proving it, which we present from a totally neutral point of view, as we do in Wikipedia.

My other posts about the Belarusian language The linguistic situation in Belarus (I’ll probably write a longer version explaining it in detail… one day)

[aeondeug]

It is done. I liked it overall but feel dissatisfied with the ending going “LOOK AT THESE POTENTIAL PROBLEMS” and then it not having a fucking sequel. I suppose perhaps that will happen at some point but at least Mistborn seemed more of an open and shut case upon the first read through. Getting to the other two novels it was very clear this wasn’t the case but had he ended it there for some reason I think I would have been satisfied. Elantris is just kind of unsubtly going SEQUEL HOOOOOK and I’m kind of pissed about that. I am somewhat annoyed at how little explanation the Fjordel magic system got and how what explanation AonDor got was handled. The entire fucking way it is pronounced and the lack of ANY explanation as to how it is done in the book, be it in the index or somewhere in the middle of the novel, is probably the most grating of the issues I have with that. The pronunciation of Aons could work with this ass backwards fucking orthography. You just had to actually fucking introduce it to the reader or at the very least include it in the Aon listing in the back.

I got neither of these things and instead have to use an explanation from the website.

This is deeply upsetting to me. Almost as upsetting as the entirely, with the exception of one word, untranslated Dula language. Yes I suppose most of the meanings were intuitively graspable but I’m still pissed at this. It just kind of looked like the fantasy language version of that crap where fanfic writers add in anime character’s verbal tics, and without the author’s note explaining what the fuck it meant.

That out of the way though I did like how most of the conflict in the plot wasn’t physically oriented. There wasn’t like war and shit constantly or even some sort of swashbuckling adventure. I like my violence as much as any woman does, but I do have a fondness for people fucking talking and politically maneuvering. And by god there was a lot of that in Elantris. It was most of the book in fact. Also my issues with how Aons were explained aside I did like the system a lot. I also liked the way the reveal towards the end was handle. That sort of shit has clearly be a strength of Sanderson’s from the get go and I’m happy to know that. The cast of characters I mostly liked, though Raoden was probably the least interesting for being so...good? Like the people liked him and they liked him because he was super good. And that’s kind of dull compared to Hrathen’s struggles with faith and a boner and to Sarene’s being a loud, pushy bitch who wants to be accepted. I know Raoden had like problems and stuff but he just felt too goody goody to be truly engaging. I liked Raoden but he was the least interesting of the main view point characters and certainly when compared to Mistborn’s characters. Hrathen was also obviously my favorite because I have a boner for religious people and their struggles. Overall I’m happy with his arc and its conclusion.

Really coming away from it I just feel that’s kind of strikingly obvious that this was his first novel when compared to Mistborn. I have my share of problems with Mistborn but a lot of my little complaints with Elantris were either fixed or, via the sheer power of people bitching, cut out entirely. There’s a lot of improvements between Elantris and the first Mistborn novel. Enough so that Elantris was kind of hard for me to read at times.But at the very least it didn’t have “BUT YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO SAVE ME” like Well of Ascension did.

[viohra]

Zehzhik Orthography Change: Łł → Ľľ

Ľ ľ – [ɮ]

Reasons:

L with a háček aethsetically matches up with š, ž, č, and ř

ř and ľ are minimal pairs (of sorts) and thus must match

in my handwriting, it’s hard to tell the difference between ł and t

the transcription of lʻ /lʔ/ will probably never happen so there will never be confusion

Why wasn’t it like this before:

[ɮ] is a relatively new phoneme and didn’t appear as often (now I’m working it in)

my keyboard already did ł with OPT+L

programming keyboard is a pain in the fucking ass

im lazy

polish looks cool

my phone keyboard only has the option for ł – I don’t know how to make my own custom keyboard for iphone, so I rely on text replacement to get by – I type the shortcut separately and the edit it into the word • dh = ð • dth = þ • rh = ř • qh = ʻ • *lh = ľ

im lazy

Example:

Vaľjaľ kaľakva käľösivä faľaassa. Vhiľäðöäľ žoľęppi vloľaaei šainevj eľsiyst. Üľessä veľelt hiľä y üľelakri rovjekkevanki.

/vɑɮʲəɮ kɑɮɐkvə kaɮøsiva fɑɮɑːsːə ǁ ʋɪɮæðø̯æɮ ʐoɮɛpːi vloɮɑːej ʂɑjnɛvʲ eɮzijst ǁ yɮɛsːa vɛɮɛlt hʲilæ ɨ yɮɛlɑkri rovʲɛkːɪvɑŋki/

You were urged to pick two fish with your thumb in the hall. You had to transcend through dark yellow for the dark purples to appear on your chin. In public you joined wood and bus into a mechanical monstrosity.

[arabellaflynn]

My response to extended periods of stress is to distract myself by cramming new things into my head. I had a terrible semester at college once and front-loaded the entirety of the sci.electronics.repair FAQ into my brain. It wasn't useful at the time, but I can repair the shit out of a VCR now, so I assume I'll use it someday. I am so overloaded I am about to claw my own face off, so naturally I am teaching myself Hebrew. I've been using Duolingo to do it, which is frankly a very bad idea. (I should really be using Ha'Ulpan, which is where you'd typically go for a crash course in Hebrew before emigrating to Israel, but that costs money, so no.) Duolingo is billed as a way to teach yourself a language, which it is not. It is a way to memorize a bunch of interactive flashcards. This might be effective for people who don't care how language works -- which is most people -- but it's awful for people like me, who hang all of their memorization off of a framework of base patterns. Duolingo explains nothing. The "lessons":

Do not teach the alphabet. Hebrew is written in this sort of half-assed abjad, where most but not all vowels are not marked in non-teaching texts, and some but not most unmarked vowels are actually represented by a placeholder Alef. 'Aba' is father and 'ima' is mother, but they are both written Alef-something else-Alef. Look at that and imagine how the vowel change looks totally mental to someone who spells things in a full alphabet. Alef comes out looking like it says about six different things, one of which is nothing.

Do not explain the orthography. There are several pairs of letters in Hebrew that do, or at least can, say the same thing. Tet and Tav both say /t/; Kaf and Qof both say /k/; Yod and Ayin are both sort of /j/ and sort of not; Vav and Bet can both say /v/, although both also have other readings; Samekh is /s/ and Shin can be read that way as well. Some other apparent character pairs are actually the same letter that has a 'sofit' form when it comes at the end of the word, which on the Hebrew keyboard is a different key (as opposed to the Arabic IME, which auto-corrects to the final form when it kerns all the cursive joining). I still have no idea if there is a rule behind Tet vs Tav; Yod vs Ayin and Kaf vs Qof are almost certainly because they once represented different sounds (Yaa vs 'Ayin and Kaa vs Qaf are still separated in Arabic), but I don't have enough context to guess which is likely to be which in Modern Hebrew.

Do not consistently read new vocabulary words out loud. If you're not going to explain the letters to me, the least you can do is read me the word so I can figure it out myself. Of course, it also never explicitly mentions that you read all this right-to-left, which seems like an important note to give when you're using a left-to-right language for instruction. You would think it would be obvious when everything is right-justified, but this is the kind of stuff you shouldn't take for granted when building beginning lessons in anything.

Do not use any nekkudot. A nikkud ("point") is a diacritical mark, mainly underneath the consonant but occasionally beside, inside, or above it, that explicitly indicates ('dagesh') a pronunciation change or ('nikkud') an unwritten vowel. This is how you teach people to read Hebrew, in Hebrew. You use it for small children. Or, if you have any sense, novice adult learners.

Do not explain any grammar. There is no explanation of why "you" is sometimes 'at' and sometimes 'atah'. No explanation of why sometimes the present-tense verb has an '-et' on the end and sometimes doesn't, even when the subject is 'ani' in both cases. (Answer: Hebrew inflects according to gender of both subject and speaker, which seems like a thing that should be noted for anglophones.) You are left to guess at wtf to do with prepositions and particles like Ha, V', Be, Le, and others. 

Do not consistently account for the direction switch of Hebrew input. Firstly, there's no warning that the thing expects you to type in Hebrew; I installed a Hebrew keyboard before I started, but I also have six other keyboard layouts on the phone, because I'm me. If it wants you to type a full sentence, it can get the text running consistently right to left, but there are exercises that want you to fill in just one word, and that breaks it horribly. The words run right-to-left as intended, but they are arranged left-to-right in English order.

Do not listen to its own internal dictionary of synonyms. I have run into this in other languages and it drives me crazy. There are exercises where it asks you to translate a sentence in the target language into English. If you tap 'derech', Duolingo tells you it means a way, a path, or a road. Translating 'derech' as anything other than "way" in the English sentence gets you marked off. If there is some reason why 'Ha'yeled roah derech' could not mean "The boy sees a road" isolated from context, Duolingo does not give it.

I am already cheating by being a linguist who has some idea of how Semitic languages work. My one attempt at an Arabic class was a disaster for non-Arabic-related reasons, but I do know basic things like the idea behind an abjad, handling regular transformations of letter shapes at the end of a word, and how words are constructed by adding vowels/prefixes/suffixes to a triconsonantal root. These would be completely alien to most English speakers. There is a systemic way to accomplish transformations like the one from "(male) child" ('yeled') to "(female) child" ('yaldah') or "children" ('yeldim'), or from the noun "food" ('okel') to the verb for "to eat" ('le'kol'), but it is never actually pointed out.

I also have a living resource who grew up speaking Hebrew and enjoys teaching people things, usually at great length. I can ask the Eccentric all the weird stuff and he'll give me a long, detailed answer, fully 60% of which will have something to do with the original question. Technical grammar questions can be Googled to good effect, but the answers to cultural questions are, at best, unreliable. (Example: "Does Modern Hebrew have regional accents?" Google answer: "Modern Hebrew is very young and spoken in a contained geographic area. While there are some tiny variations in pronunciation and vocabulary, these are so slight it is unlikely a non-native speaker would ever notice them." Answer from actual Israeli person: "Absolutely, remind me next time I see you and I'll do imitations, some of them are hilarious.") [The question of accents is especially pertinent; I am never comfortable in a language until I sound like myself, and since I don't sound like a textbook all the time, this usually means picking a dialect to drop into. My informal Japanese tends to stay Tokyo-standard in grammar but in tone is rather bokukko, for instance. It's marked in speech (although often the actual pronoun boku is used in internet Japanese by female blog authors who don't want to be explicitly female in text), but I am clearly a non-native speaker, and I feel it conveys a proper warning that I am not going to do well by Japanese standards of femininity. There are a few potential accents I could wind up with in Hebrew. American is fairly far down on the list; I'm usually pretty good at not sounding like a Yank. The letter Resh is most universally difficult for non-native speakers. I could probably use the French or German R and be understood (both voiced uvular fricative /ʁ/, the French one higher and more nasalized), but the Resh as given in the only explicit explanation I've found is actually supposed to be a uvular trill /ʀ/, which occurs more towards the hard palate than either of those, and with a rounder sounding chamber behind it. It comes so far forward that it is the closest thing I have ever seen to the theoretically-impossible velar trill. Wikipedia says this is an Ashkenazim thing, which explains why you hear it so much in Yiddish. I would definitely be understood if I used the Arabic alveolar trill /r/, which is noted as a variation common among the Sephardim, but it's also associated with Arabic-speaking refugees, and I feel like that might not be the accent I want if I'm going to be practicing this on Israeli friends. I've no idea which one the Eccentric uses; I gather he has one parent from either tradition and they lived in Jerusalem, so who the fuck knows. It's impossible to pick up from his English. He's made no effort to zero out his accent, but he has had three decades to nail the English retroflex alveolar approximant /ɻ/, and more or less does. Chet is voiced /χ/, and undotted-Khaf is unvoiced /x/, both of which I have.]

An irksome aspect of learning Hebrew is the transliteration system. There isn't one. You notice that my Japanese is italicized and the attempts at Hebrew are in single quotes? This is because the Japanese is brought straight across using a standard Japanese-to-Latin alphabet system used in some textbooks and on the internet. (There are other, more precise systems, but they involve diacritical marks that can't be typed on a pure-ASCII keyboard.) The Hebrew is... uh, approximate. There is no way to unambiguously transcribe Hebrew text in Latin letters that is immediately readable to people whose languages use the Latin alphabet. Duolingo doesn't even try. I type things using the Hebrew IME whenever possible, because I'm trying to learn to spell, but when the Eccentric explains things to me he does it with the regular QWERTY keyboard. It has quirks. Words whose transliteration ends in '-ah', as in the new year's greeting 'shanah tovah', are words that end in He, a letter which normally says /h/ but when word-final represents /a:/ for grammatical reasons. He also consistently writes his Vav as "U'" when it's used as a conjunction, even though it's pronounced /v/. My guess is that this is how it is taught in Israeli schools. There seems to be a system behind it, but it does not make sense unless you also read the original Hebrew.

This is all somehow working anyway, probably because I'm me. I made it to Day 18 of my first ever stab at learning Hebrew before I started scaring up podcasts. It only took me that long because I had to figure out how to search for the word for "Hebrew (language)" in Hebrew, because searching in transliteration gets you nothing. Day 20 I picked up a series of linguistic interviews put out by Leshoniada (לשוניאדה, a word which gave Google Translate shitfits, but which the Eccentric informs me is a portmanteau that comes out something like "Grammar-lympics"). The details escape me completely, because I lack vocabulary, but because Hebrew has a very regular stress pattern (word-final, almost always) individual terms are easy to pick out. Between that and a lot of straight-up imports from Greek, the topic of the first episode was easy to get.

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