#which programming language to learn first

[ukulelegodparent]

Heartbreaking: This German almost died bc they had to manually select Germany as their location on a German-language website, bc the default was Switzerland or Austria bc that's where the company is from

[thunderheadfred]

Hello it’s 4:30 AM and I love Dakota language

[vanilla-voyeur]

There are so, so, so many reasons why this incredibly fake story is incredibly fake. But I just keep reading the API technobabble and I can't stop laughing.

Mf out here bragging about how not only is their code unreadable and unmaintainable, but also their documentation is unreadable and undiscoverable. The problem that this creative writer has is that they need to be indispensable in this story, but unfortunately an indispensable programmer is uniquely gifted at making themself superfluous as quickly and efficiently as possible in as many contexts as possible.

The "nobody is familiar with Python" part is probably my favorite. Python is one of the easiest programming languages to learn. It's so easy that it's the language that engineers (real engineers like chemical engineers, biomedical engineers, material engineers, not software engineers developers) use to help them automate things in their work. Anyone who is familiar with any other programming language can pick up Python in under an hour. You who are familiar with zero programming languages could probably pick up a decent amount of Python in a month. Try it! It is probably easier than you think.

More reasons why this fake story is fake:

This is posted on r/antiwork. It's one of the subreddits infamous for fake stories of bad bosses

It's a multipart series. One of the tropes of fake Reddit stories is the escalating updates. Creative writers hear an encore and they keep going back for more

It's a bit ambiguous how long this person has been in industry, but given the context of missing multiple children's school functions, I think 10+ years of experience is a cautious estimate. That is long enough in software for you to be a team lead, if not a people manager yourself. This person should be training junior devs. They explicitly say that they aren't

Software is incredibly collaborative. There's no way a manager would turn down an offer to train new devs on the existing tooling

Moreover there's no way the code got push to production without several eyes on it. Most companies do either code reviews or pair programming or both. It makes no sense that zero other people understand what's going on with this code. Unless it's really buggy

The fact that someone tried to use it and it corrupted a CSV file (??) shows that it's actually really buggy. If the software was so good, anyone would be able to run it

That goes double for the documentation being so bad that nobody knows how to read it. The entire purpose of documentation is to explain how code works. You failed at your one job.

If the only documentation is something that's hard to find, that looks bad on OOP for two reasons: 1) Documentation is normally put inline next to the code precisely for the reason that it would be easy to find. Don't want to see what a nightmare their code with no inline docs looks like. 2) Their programming practices are so bad that their other documentation is hard to find. The program should have a file called README that either has all the documentation or tells you where to find all the documentation.

This violates NDA so bad

"Out of compliance" for what? Which regulation? Why do they have a deadline to regain compliance? They should already be suffering whatever fines or consequences or whatever for already being out of compliance. It would make more sense if they were at risk of being out of compliance if they didn't implement XYZ by January

There's a lot of weird wording here that indicates a lack of familiarity with software: "complex API", "documentation library", "single threaded". That's not how we use those terms

If you're a software developer for a company the size of Disney (ABC's parent) then what OOP asked for is your starting salary straight out of undergrad. Def not a raise for a senior engineer who's been in industry 10+ years. Def not more than their manager is making.

At a company that size, your direct manager has no ability to decide what the terms of your hiring agreement would be. Def not over text. It would need to go through HR and probably legal as well

"Legal checked the contract and there's a clause stating" lmao get outta here!

[vanishintoyou]

i gotta make some goal list or something for the end of april or something

[thunderlina]

In the wake of the TikTok ban and revival as a mouthpiece for fascist propaganda, as well as the downfall of Twitter and Facebook/Facebook-owned platforms to the same evils, I think now is a better time than ever to say LEARN HTML!!! FREE YOURSELVES FROM THE SHACKLES OF MAJOR SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS AND EMBRACE THE INDIE WEB!!!

You can host a website on Neocities for free as long as it's under 1GB (which is a LOT more than it sounds like let me tell you) but if that's not enough you can get 50GB of space (and a variety of other perks) for only $5 a month.

And if you can't/don't want to pay for the extra space, sites like File Garden and Catbox let you host files for free that you can easily link into NeoCities pages (I do this to host videos on mine!) (It also lets you share files NeoCities wouldn't let you upload for free anyways, this is how I upload the .zip files for my 3DS themes on my site.)

Don't know how to write HTML/CSS? No problem. W3schools is an invaluable resource with free lessons on HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and a whole slew of other programming languages, both for web development and otherwise.

Want a more traditional social media experience? SpaceHey is a platform that mimics the experience of 2000s MySpace

Struggling to find independent web pages that cater to your interests via major search engines? I've got you covered. Marginalia and Wiby are search engines that specifically prioritize non-commercial content. Marginalia also has filters that let you search for more specific categories of website, like wikis, blogs, academia, forums, and vintage sites.

Maybe you wanna log off the modern internet landscape altogether and step back into the pre-social media web altogether, well, Protoweb lets you do just that. It's a proxy service for older browsers (or really just any browser that supports HTTP, but that's mostly old browsers now anyways) that lets you visit restored snapshots of vintage websites.

Protoweb has a lot of Geocities content archived, but if you're interested in that you can find even more old Geocities sites over on the Geocities Gallery

And really this is just general tip-of-the-iceberg stuff. If you dig a little deeper you can find loads more interesting stuff out there. The internet doesn't have to be a miserable place full of nothing but doomposting and targeted ads. The first step to making it less miserable is for YOU, yes YOU, to quit spending all your time on it looking at the handful of miserable websites big tech wants you to spend all your time on.

[3liza]

after meaning to get around to it for years i finally listened to almost the entirety of Sold a Story and it is as groundbreaking as everyone says it is. it's also the most confusing, to me, single event in American culture in my lifetime and my reasons for thinking that are pretty complex so im not sure theyre fully formed yet. there's a list of shit in this podcast that made me feel like i was going insane

i KNEW something was going on at a population level, i've been noticing it for years, people kept telling me i was imagining things, but i was RIGHT, two generations of kids have been reduced to barely-literate levels of language function because of this shit and you CAN see it and hear it while talking to people in the world!

the entire adoption of the Calkins programs in the first place were based on the majority of people responsible for American child education deciding basically overnight that "children don't need to learn phonics in order to become strong readers" which is literally and not figuratively equivalent to saying "children can learn algebra without learning what numbers are". it is so self-evidently false i dont even know how to respond to such an assertion. you have to be fundamentally devoid of common sense to think this is true. language is comprised of sounds (phonemes), sounds are represented by letters, letters make up the alphabet, the alphabet makes up words, and words make up sentences. you cant just skip over the parts of this you dont like, it's the basis of our entire civilization. "i dont need to learn individual notes i just want to play to saxophone" okay well. too bad? you cant

american primary education apparently has no communication whatsoever with the scientific fields of human behaviorism, pediatrics, neurology, linguistics, the science of learning generally, and there is next to zero communication between teachers who are actively responsible for educating children and the entire research field of educating children. they just dont talk to each other, at least in huge swaths of the country. in retrospect this is obvious, i just have been assuming incorrectly this entire time that maybe, surely, some aspect of how our public schools are administered is in some way being guided by scientific evidence and research. this has apparently not been the case for 20+ years. Lucy Calkins herself claims she "didn't know" that the research on how children acquire language had been essentially settled by the 1990s, she just wrote her stupid book based on her own self-assurance that what she THOUGHT children were doing when they learned language was correct. she ddin't check, she didnt ask about research or studies, she didn't test her hypothesis, she just told everyone she had figured out how to teach kids to read based on nothing but her own untested assumptions. and everyone was like "okay sounds good". every single person involved in this process is or was in a position of responsibility for educating american children. and almost none of them thought to ask "okay, but have you tested it? does it work?" because they didn't test it, and it doesnt work, and for some reason that was never even brought up

teachers kept being interviewed on this podcast who kept saying things like: "they never taught us how to teach children to read" and "they didn't teach us how children learn so i had no idea how it worked" and then explaining this was why they were so easily hoodwinked by the Calkins program. i don't understand this. what is actually taught during the two year degree programs at teaching colleges? if it's not child psychology, pedagogy, neurology, and actual techniques for teaching children, what are they teaching you to do there? one of my friends who went to a teaching college told me they mostly provided classes on lesson planning.

individual teachers apparently are not reading books or articles or papers on any of these subjects either. so having graduated from a teaching college knowing nothing about children, teaching, or even basic english literacy ("i didn't know how to teach phonics and no one told me" is another thing actual teachers kept saying on the podcast. girl, SESAME STREET can teach basic english phonics, and it does), almost none of them actually do any investigation on their own. they just show up to their workplace (the school) and "teach" whatever admin hands them. ?????????????? how is this possible?

i realized last night in a fugue of post-exertional malaise that the three-cueing method of teaching reading is training children to approach language very similarly to how a large language model does it. they laboriously instruct the children to guess what the next word in a sentence will be, often by actually covering the word with a post-it note and then cajoling and badgering the child until he guesses the word under the post-it, based on the vibes on the sentence he's reading. this doesnt teach you to read, it teaches you to act like youre reading

this isnt directly addressed in the podcast but we used to just teach everyone english like it was an actual system that has parts and rules and structures, because that's what a language is. everyone would start with phonics and the alphabet, then later do stuff like sentence diagramming and grammar, neither of which have been taught in primary schools in decades. i think i was probably the very last generation of kids to get ANY of that stuff unless they went to an exceptional school, and it was only because my 8th grade teacher knew it was important and went against school admin's instructions in order to teach it. the couple days of sentence diagramming and grammar he gave us, out of SPITE, have been more useful to me in reading and writing than the entire rest of primary english education i received in public school, and i didn't even go to a school that had adopted three-cueing stuff yet.

[v6quewrlds]

THIS LOVE I HAVE FOR YOU, JUSTIN HERBERT.

pairing⠀⁎⠀justin herbert x high school sweetheart!reader. word count⠀⁎⠀9.4k.

summary⠀⁎⠀you've spent the last ten years of your life supporting, adoring, loving justin herbert. for ten years that was all you needed: loving justin. until a night out with colleagues strikes you with the realization that loving justin has come at the expense of choosing almost anything else.

author's note⠀⁎⠀did a ridiculous amount of reddit forum research on finance + private equity for about three sentences. loved writing this one! potential au/series <3 warnings⠀⁎⠀3rd person (she/her), angst, language maybe?, one usage of y/n.

When you're sixteen years old, you think you know everything. You're in the throes of adolescence, your whole life ahead of you, and you're certain that the person you're with now is the one you're going to be with forever. You make promises in the hallways of your high school, whisper plans that your teenage brain isn't fully capable of understanding the sheer magnitude of into the phone, and organize every waking breath around the desperation to be together.

She had been that girl. Obsessing over emoji choices, angling her selfies just right, and idly writing his name in the margins of her notebooks in swirled cursive. Justin, Justin, Justin; she painted her entire world in shades of him.

For ten years, those shades of Justin, all things Justin, had been her entire life.

College was a learning curve for them both, but they managed to make it work. Justin's football scholarship had taken him just a few miles from home, and she had followed. She chose a safer, albeit more difficult major, finance, which kept her mind occupied while Justin's star on the football field grew brighter. Weekends were spent at his games, cheering him on as he threw touchdown after touchdown, her heart swelling with pride. Weekdays were spent in the library, her nose buried in textbooks and assignments, the fizz of energy drinks and the hum of her beat-up, noisy laptop her only companions.

Reaching the second semester of their senior year offered only a week of respite before Justin was thrown in the world of NFL Scouting. Her own dreams of graduate studies and a career in private equity felt like whispers in the shadow of his burgeoning football career. The conversations grew shorter, the dates grew less frequent, and the shared glances grew colder. Yet, they held on, promising each other that once he was drafted, once he had a team, once he had a season under his belt, things would go back to normal. But "normal" remained a mirage on the horizon, a concept that grew more and more distant with each passing day.

The only point of "normal" in their lives was her commitment to being exactly what Justin needed. She'd put aside her own aspirations to support him, to be the rock he leaned on. She'd given up on the idea of going to graduate school across the country on the east coast, accepting the offer of USC's more expensive Master of Science in Finance program to be close to him, to be his source of "normal" so far from home.

Paradoxically, his star power had awarded her praise and made her invisible at the same time. Everyone knew her as "Justin Herbert's girlfriend," the one who'd been with him since high school, who'd stuck by his side through it all.

She still remembered the way she had been praised online for a week after his draft night. When his name was called, 6th overall, he rose to embrace his parents first, his brothers, then her, a gesture that had been captured by cameras and splashed across the internet. "The girlfriend who said no to a full ride for love," the headlines had read. They raved about her dress, her smile, her poise. How she never hogged the spotlight, never took the shine away from him.

Their parents had always been thrilled, beaming with joy at the thought of their star-crossed love story. Holly had a running list of gorgeous wedding venues, while her father had mentally started envisioning the father-daughter dance. But as the years went by, and the seasons changed from football to weddings, she kept wondering when it would be their turn.

"Soon", was always Justin's promise. "Soon that'll be us. Signing marriage certificates, sharing a first dance, honeymooning in Hawaii". But soon had become a taunt in her mind. The season had a way of swallowing up time, leaving her with crumbs of attention and a mountain of empty promises. Her own life had become a series of "not yet"s and "just wait"s. And she had, she had waited.

She waited so long that she no longer had to carefully construct a hopeful response when their friends and family spoke about their future together. She waited so long that the question of "when are you two tying the knot?" had become a greeting rather than a curious inquiry. She waited so long that Justin's non-reaction to her hints about marriage had turned into a hope that by just ignoring it, it would come sooner.

All of these realizations had floated near her consciousness, just out of reach with the constant buzz of Justin's schedule. But during a night out with her coworkers, it had all crystallized.

She wanted to go to Johannesburg. It was possibly her most defining characteristic aside from who her boyfriend was, a desire that had been with her since she was a child, sparked by a documentary she had watched with her mother. She'd always dreamed of seeing the wildlife, the vibrant culture, and the stark beauty of the city she'd seen in the footage. So when another third-year associate, Noel, asked why she had never gone, she blanked.

The truth was, she had never left the country. Not once. Justin had never shown an interest in traveling, always citing his discomfort with flying private or his need to unwind at home, in Oregon, after the season. So, she never got a passport, hoping her lack of documentation would keep her from even looking at potential flights. But tonight, she finally had to admit to someone else what she had been too afraid to admit to herself. "Justin's schedule keeps us pretty busy," she'd murmured, her voice barely carrying over the chatter of the bar. "We haven't had the chance."

The silence that followed her confession to Noel was deafening. The realization hit her like a ton of bricks, leaving her chest tight and her eyes stinging. So the conversation moved on, but the weight of her truth remained, a leaden presence in her chest.

Lightheartedly, the conversation eventually moved to relationships - or the group's general lack thereof. Not her. When Jordan casually asked how long she had been with Justin, she felt like a spotlight was shone on her. "Ten years," she replied, her voice a mix of pride and something else. Something that didn't quite fit with the expression on her face.

The group's collective gasp was a mix of awe and sympathy. "Ten years?" Folake questioned, a hint of pity in her voice. "And you've never been with anyone else? That's… intense, girl. You're only 26."

Her cheeks warmed with a rush of embarrassment she hadn't felt since high school. She took a sip of her drink, trying to swallow the discomfort. "It's not like that," she protested, her voice small. But the words felt hollow, even to her own ears. "We're good together. I've known him forever." She lifted her drink to her lips again, adding a monotone "literally" for good measure.

Her coworkers nodded politely, but their expressions remained skeptical. They were all young and eager, exploring the world beyond their cubicles, and she suddenly felt ancient and untouched by the world beyond her relationship. The realization grew sharper with each nod, each kind but knowing smile.

Her mind raced as she headed home that night, her thoughts swirling like a tornado of doubt and regret. While she had spent her college years tied to the sidelines, her peers had traveled the world, stayed out all night, and experienced the thrill of one night stands and heartbreaks. They had grown into their own people, shaped by the people they'd loved - and grown to hate. They'd learned from their mistakes, grown stronger, and had stories to tell. But her? All she had was Justin. For ten years, Justin was enough. But now, with the starkness of her own stagnation laid bare, she was no longer sure if it was enough.

The floorboards creaked under her feet as she entered the living room, the house eerily quiet without the usual background noise of Justin's video games or his humming of some Yacht Rock hit under his breath. She inhaled deeply, smelling the lingering scent of his meal prepped dinner - something packed with protein and greens, a meal she had learned to cook because it was what he needed.

She tiptoed into their bedroom, her eyes immediately picking up on his sleeping form despite the darkness. The TV was off, remote discarded haphazardly on the bedside table. She took a moment to simply look at him, the man who had been her entire world for so long. His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, and she felt the tug of something deep within her, a strange cocktail of fear rising in her throat.

As if symbolic of that fear, she could feel her drinks come up, threatening to spill the truth along with their contents. She swallowed hard, gingerly sitting on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping slightly under her weight. She tried to ease her breathing, the quiet of the night seeming to amplify every little sound.

Then the sheets rustled, and Justin's eyes blinked open. "Babe?" he murmured, his voice thick with sleep. "When did you get back?"

"Just now," she replied, her voice wavering slightly. She stared at the floor, avoiding his gaze. Swallowing thickly, she added, "Go to sleep, J. I'll come to bed in a minute."

Justin exhaled deeply through his nose, nodding without protest and closing his eyes again. She chewed her bottom lip nervously, burying her face in her hands. How could she explain that she was breaking down because she had never truly lived? Because she had given up so much of herself for him that she didn't know who she was anymore?

She loved him. She swore she did. But as she stared at the ceiling, listening to his even breaths, she couldn't shake the feeling of emptiness. The house, once filled with the warmth of their laughter and shared dreams, now felt like a museum of memories rather than a living space. Each room was a shrine to a past she wasn't sure she wanted anymore.

"So, Saturday morning, Pat's gonna come over to help me with that entertainment center," Justin announced casually at breakfast the next day, his eyes on his phone. She stared at the cereal in her bowl, her spoon hovering above the surface.

"Okay," she replied, her voice barely above a whisper.

He didn't look up from his phone. "It's been sitting there for like a year, might as well get it done since I have some time."

She nodded, her mind racing. Time. That's what it boiled down to. Time for him to build his man cave, and no time for her desires to travel. The cereal in her bowl had gone soggy, the taste of the milk turning unappetizing in her mouth. "Hey," she started softly, unsure. "Can we… talk about something?"

Justin looked up, his eyes scanning her face, looking for a clue to her mood. "Yeah, sure," he said, setting his phone aside. "What's up?"

She took a deep breath, her heart racing. "Do you ever wish you had explored other options in college?" she asked, her voice quivering.

Justin blinked, once, twice, the question seemingly catching him off guard. He paused, tilting his head as he considered his response. "What do you mean, like majoring in something else?"

"No, I mean… with us," she clarified, her voice growing stronger. "Do you ever think about what it would have been like to date other people?"

Justin balked at that, as if immediately rejecting the idea. "What other options?" he asked, his tone one of genuine confusion. "I had you."

The simplicity of his response hit her like a sledgehammer. He had never doubted them, never questioned their destiny to be together. He had never felt the need to explore other relationships because he had her. But she was doubting, she was questioning, and it was tearing her apart.

"I know, but…" she said, pushing her cereal bowl away with a frustrated huff.

Justin's eyes tracked her movements, a frown furrowing his brow. "But what? Why would I need anyone else when I have you?" He reached out, placing a gentle hand on her arm. The warmth of his touch was familiar, almost comforting. Almost.

She looked at her hand, feeling the weight of the promise ring on her finger. "Because maybe we've been too comfortable," she murmured. "We've been together since we were sixteen. We've never really lived apart from each other, never experienced other relationships, other people."

"Babe," he began, his voice low. "Are you being serious right now?"

Her throat tightened as she met his gaze. "Yes," she whispered. "I just… I think we need to take some time apart."

Justin's hand retreated from her arm like it had been scalded. He sat back in his chair, the color draining from his face. "What?"

"I know this isn't what you want to hear," she started, her voice shaking, "but I think my entire identity has been wrapped up in being your girlfriend for so long that I don't know who I am without you." She watched as Justin's eyes searched hers, desperation and confusion swirling in his gaze. "I don't know if this is what I want anymore."

Justin's jaw clenched, his knuckles turning white as he clasped his hands together. "Are you breaking up with me?" the words spilled out. "Did I do something?"

She hesitated, her heart aching as she watched the shock wash over Justin's face. She had never seen him so vulnerable, so lost. "I don't…" she trailed off, averting his gaze. "I just think we need some space to figure out what we want."

His hands unclenched and he sighed, the sound heavy with disappointment. "Okay," Justin said finally, his voice barely a murmur. "I guess if that's what you think you need." He drew in a slow breath, closing his eyes and pinching at the bridge of his nose, as if trying to hold back his emotions.

Her eyes filled with tears as she watched him process her words. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "It's just…"

"It's fine," Justin said, his own voice tight. "We can take a break or whatever. I don't care."

But it wasn't fine. Not for either of them. The air in the room had thickened, their shared history hanging heavily around them like an invisible shroud. She felt like she was drowning in the weight of the words she had just spoken.

"Justin," she began, her voice cracking, "I'm sorry. It's just…" But she couldn't find the words to explain the maelstrom of emotions inside her. She felt guilty for her doubts, for the years of sacrifice she had made, for the future she was now unsure of.

Justin's eyes searched hers, his face a canvas of pain. "You don't have to justify it to me," he said. "I just don't know how we're gonna explain this to everyone else."

It was wedding season. A lineup of white dresses and happy couples with months-old RSVPs that now felt like a cruel joke. The thought of attempting to explain to her family and friends, to the brides and grooms who had eagerly invited them, was nauseating. So they agreed, not to lie, but to omit. They would still attend the weddings, dance, laugh, take photos, and play the part of the happy sweethearts.

The first wedding they had to face was a family friend of hers, someone she had known since childhood. The ceremony was held in a picturesque garden, the flowers in full bloom and the air filled with the sweet scent of roses and the distant chatter of guests. Justin looked dashing in his baby-blue button-up and dress pants. His skin glowed under the soft sunlight, and a pair of black sunglasses hung casually on his collar.

Her yellow bridesmaid's dress, her fourth in five years, hugged her body in a way that highlighted her figure. The fabric whispered against her skin as she walked down the aisle, her eyes focused on the altar. She felt Justin's gaze on her, the weight of his stare heavier than any bouquet. She didn't dare look at him, afraid that if she looked at him, she'd shatter the illusion or crumble on the spot.

The wedding was a blur of forced smiles and small talk. Every time her thoughts drifted to their impending breakup, she'd be yanked back to reality by a well-meaning auntie or uncle asking when it would be their turn. She would laugh politely, playing along, while the ache in her chest grew sharper with each passing minute. Justin, ever the charmer, fielded questions with his media-trained ease, but she could see the sadness lurking beneath his surface, a numbness that kept the creases from reaching his eyes when he smiled.

His familiar way of reaching out for her burned. The habitual hand splayed on the small of her back, guiding her through the crowd, the casual kiss on her forehead as he left her side to refill their drinks. It was second nature, and she hated herself for craving it even as she knew she needed to break away.

"You ready to go?" Justin's voice broke through her thoughts as the reception began to wind down, the newlyweds having made their grand exit. She nodded, clearing her throat and forcing a smile. "Yeah, let's get out of here."

They left the party hand in hand, a silent agreement to keep up appearances, but the second they were out in the open air, she let go. They walked the two blocks to their rented hotel room in complete silence. The room, much like their RSVPs, had been booked, for a couple, nearly a year in advance. A king-sized bed with crisp, white linens taunted her from the center of the room.

"I can call the front desk," Justin offered, his voice strained. "See if they have a single room available."

Her gaze remained on the bed, her heart racing at the thought of sleeping in the same room with him. She took a deep breath, willing her voice to be steady. "No, it's okay. It's just one night." She turned to him. "We've shared a bed for years. What's one more?"

Justin's eyes searched hers, his expression a mix of hope and despair. He began to say her name, breathing every syllable out as if it were heavy on his tongue, but she stopped him with a shake of her head.

"Justin," she said firmly. "I'm the one who put us in this situation. It's my fault. I don't want to cause any more trouble than I already have." She pasted on a smile that she hoped was convincing. "Let's just get through the night. I know you're exhausted."

He nodded, his throat bobbing with the effort of swallowing his emotions, all the thoughts passing through his mind dying on the tip of his tongue. She felt a heavy weight settle on her shoulders as she approached the bed. She slid under the covers, turning her back to his side of the bed, willing sleep to come and relieve her of the turmoil in her heart.

She was fast asleep by the time Justin finished his shower. The room was dark, the only light coming from the gap of the curtains allowing the city lights to leek into the room. Her rhythmic breathing filled the space, a sound that had once been comforting but now almost felt like a countdown. He slid into the bed with as much grace as he could muster, his movements calculated not to wake her. But as the mattress shifted, she rolled towards him, her head coming to rest on his chest.

Her skin was pebbled with goosebumps from the cold, her breaths shallow and quick. She was still asleep, her search for his warmth unconscious. He could feel the heat of her cheek against his bare chest, the softness of her skin against his. He wanted to turn the other way, to maintain the space they had agreed upon, but he knew her too well.

She didn't sleep well when she was cold, and the chill in the room had always been the perfect excuse for their cuddling. Realistically, he could call down to the front desk, request a blanket, and she would sleep well enough, but he didn't want to. He didn't want to give up this moment of closeness, of normalcy. So he lay there, feeling his chest rise and fall with each of her breaths, feeling her warmth spread through him like a warm blanket. For just one more night, he could pretend that she hadn't broken his heart. That she didn't want something that wasn't him.

He knew he should move her, give them both the space they needed to begin the process of breaking, but he couldn't. Instead, he wrapped his arm around her, pulled her closer, and kissed her forehead, her skin smelling faintly of the floral perfume she'd worn to the wedding. For a brief moment, everything felt as it had before their conversation—right, complete, as if their hearts were beating in sync.

The next wedding was for a college friend of theirs. It was an elegant affair at a historic mansion. High ceilings and chandeliers reflected in the polished floors, creating a dazzling display that managed to distract the other guests from the fact that she and Justin had kept to separate sides of the venue.

Justin had been avoiding her gaze all night, his heart hammering in his chest every time he caught a glimpse of her in her floor-length gown that brought out the warmth of her eyes and the radiance of her brown skin. He watched her mingle from the other side of the room, a chilled beer in his hand, his smile plastic as he talked with friends he hadn't seen in months, others in years. They all asked the same questions, the same "What's the mood in the locker room?" or "How do the new guys look?" and dreadfully, "When are you gonna be sending out your own invitations?" His answers were rehearsed, delivered with the same charm that had won over so many, but for some reason had pushed her away.

"Yo, Herbo!" A deep, jovial voice boomed across the reception hall, cutting through the chatter and the clinking of champagne flutes. Justin looked up to see one of his old college buddies, Jeremiah, striding towards him with a beer in hand. Jeremiah Wells was a towering presence, with a smile that could ease the pants off a snake. "How's the off-season treating you?"

Justin managed a smile, his eyes darting to her across the room, who was deep in conversation with two of her old college friends. "It's… yeah, it's been good, Wells."

Jeremiah slapped him on the back, bringing him in for a hug. "It's good to see you, man. And Y/N too, of course." Justin nodded, his heart twisting at the mention of her name. "But where is she?" Jeremiah scanned the room, his gaze finally landing on her. "Oh, there she is."

Justin's ears perked up at that. For all of Jeremiah's easygoing nature, he had always had a keen eye for the truth. He had a high level of intuition, a trait that made him an excellent day trader, and it was clear that he sensed something was amiss with her and Justin. "Is everything okay with you two?" he asked, his smile still in place but his eyes searching.

Justin took a sip of his beer, trying to swallow the lump that had formed in his throat. "We're fine. You know, life gets busy. Shit happens." He hoped the steadiness in his voice would be enough to throw Jeremiah off, but the way his friend's eyes searched his told him it wasn't.

"Come on, man. You can tell me," Jeremiah urged, leaning in closer. "If you guys are going through something, maybe I can help. Give you a different perspective?" He nudged Justin gently, his expression earnest.

Justin felt the pressure building behind his eyes, the strength in his posture threatening to crack. He took a deep breath, trying to keep the emotions at bay. "Jere," he began, his voice gruff. "It's not that simple."

"Try me. I swear on my life," Jeremiah said, his voice low and serious. "If you just need to vent, I got you, man. Whatever's going on, you know you can trust me."

Gray-green eyes flickered over to her. She was laughing at something one of her friends had said, and for a moment, Justin felt a pang of jealousy. He remembered making her laugh like that, the way her eyes crinkled at the sides and her mouth stretched wide, revealing that familiar row of teeth. He missed it. He missed her.

He didn't know how he was supposed to let that go.

"We're taking a break. Or breaking up? I don't—" he shook his head, cutting himself off. "I don't know what we're doing."

Jeremiah's smile faded, his eyes searched Justin's. "For real?"

Justin nodded, the motion almost imperceptible. "Yeah," he said, his voice thick with unshed tears. "For real."

Jeremiah's expression grew serious. "Shit, man, I had no idea." He took a step closer, his hand resting on Justin's shoulder. "But I'm guessing that was kind of the point? Not letting anyone know?"

Justin nodded again, his throat tight with the effort of keeping his emotions in check. "Yeah. She came home one night and said she needed to find herself and explore her options. Said she didn't know if this was really what she wanted." His voice cracked on the last word, and he took a deep, shaky breath. "We've got one more wedding to get through before we start telling anyone."

Jeremiah's gaze remained on him, filled with concern. "Justin," he said, his voice gentle. "Is that what you want? To 'explore other options'?"

Justin took a long pull from his beer, the cool liquid doing little to ease the burning in his chest. "I don't know," he admitted. "But I love her. And if that's what she needs, I'll do it."

If the way Jeremiah's lips pressed into a thin line told Justin anything, it was that his friend wasn't buying the act. "I didn't ask what you thought she needed," Jeremiah said, his eyes unwavering. "I asked if that was what you want."

Justin took a moment to consider the question. The truth was, he didn't know what he wanted anymore. All he knew was that the thought of her with someone else was like a knife twisting in his gut. "I just don't want to lose her," he said finally. "But if this is what it takes for her to be happy, then I guess I'll have to figure it out."

That wasn't it either. Jeremiah laughed, a low, knowing sound. "So I guess the answer to my question is 'no'?" A dark eyebrow quirked up. "If you don't want this to be the end, you gotta tell her, Justin. You can't just sit back and hope she reads your mind. If she's feeling lost, you've got to be the one to help her find her way back."

Justin stared into his beer, the condensation on the amber bottle pooling down the side, creating a wet ring around the bottom. "What if she doesn't want to come back to me?" he murmured, the words barely audible over the music.

Jeremiah's grip on his shoulder tightened. "Then you fight for her, man. You don't let the girl that you love just walk away without showing her what she's really giving up." His voice was firm, filled with the kind of conviction that only came from personal experience. "But you've got to be honest with her. If you keep playing this game of pretend, you're just going to end up hurt. Both of you."

Justin nodded, the words resonating deep within him. He knew Jeremiah was right, but the fear of rejection was paralyzing. What if she truly didn't see a future with him? What if he was the reason she felt so stifled? The mere thought of it was enough to make his heart ache. He took a deep breath, nodding with pursed lips. "Thanks, Jere," he said, his voice hoarse. "I'll think about it."

They stood there for a moment longer, the music and laughter of the wedding party a stark contrast to the gravity of their conversation. Then, with a final pat on the back, Jeremiah excused himself, leaving Justin alone with his thoughts.

He couldn't help but watch her across the room, the way she moved, the way she talked, the way her eyes sparkled with life. It was as if he was seeing her for the first time in years, really seeing her, and the pain of knowing he could lose her was unbearable.

He shifted his weight, leaning his back against the bar to get a good look at her. From across the room he was reminded of the first time he realized he was in love with her, before he could fully articulate all the intricate little meanings of love. It was at his Senior Night, after the final football game of his high school career. He had been surrounded by the cheers of victory, the smell of the field still in his nostrils, but it was her, with her smile and those damn beautiful eyes, that mattered most.

It took an entire PowerPoint to convince her to walk with him on the field. She was worried about taking the moment away from his parents and friends, but he insisted that she was just as much a part of his moment as anyone else. So, she'd walked with him, reluctantly, but with him nonetheless. He remembered the fro-yo date afterward, the way she'd laughed to the point of snorting when he'd accidentally spilled a spoonful of sugary ingredients all over the floor. He remembered her dragging him to the bathroom to retrieve a handful of paper towels to escape the glare of the unamused teenager behind the check-out counter. He remembered the way her eyes had shone when he'd told her that he'd follow her anywhere—even to the ends of the earth, if that's where her dreams led.

And here he was, a decade later, wondering if he had ever truly followed her anywhere at all. The realization was a slap in the face. He had been so focused on his own dreams, his own ambition, that he had failed to support hers. He had been so caught up in following his dreams that he wasn't sure if she was living out hers.

It was then that her point became clear. The weddings were a microcosm of their life together—beautiful, expected, but ultimately not hers. Just like her dreams, just like her life.

Finding a realtor had been surprisingly easy. She had a great job, an excellent credit score, and a clear idea of what she wanted. A one, or two-bedroom apartment with a decent view, a reasonable commute to work, and a park within walking distance. The real estate agent, a bubbly woman in her mid-20s named Esme, had shown her half a dozen options before she finally found the one. It was a cute, modern space with an open-plan living room and kitchen, and a balcony that looked out over the city lights. It checked every box and added a few more she hadn't realized she had.

"I think we like this one!" Esme announced in that sing-songy tone of hers. She shoulders wiggled in a little dance as she bounced over to her.

She nodded, her eyes scanning the space. It was a nice place, no doubt about it. The white walls contrasted nicely against the dark hardwood floors, giving the room a clean, spacious feel. The kitchen was on the smaller side but functional, with a sleek fridge and a gas stove that called to her inner chef. The living room held a plush couch and a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf that seemed to whisper promises of quiet nights and good reads.

But there was something missing. As she wandered from room to room, her excitement was tainted by the ghost of what once was. Justin would hate an apartment like this. He had always talked about a house with a big backyard and enough space so they could host barbecues and watch the sunset. She could practically hear his grumbled complaints in her ear. Not too loud that the realtor would be able to hear. No, he was always much too polite for that. He would grumble just for her with a pout that was so cute it made her want to laugh, even when she disagreed with him.

They had talked about their dream house so many times over the years. It had grown and evolved as they had, but it had always been a shared vision. Now, as she pictured herself living here alone, the vision felt like it was slowly slipping away.

"I do like it," she smiled weakly at Esme, who was watching her expectantly. "I… I think we can move forward with this one."

Esme clapped her hands together with a cheerful smile. "Perfect! We'll get the paperwork started right away. It's a popular building, so you're lucky to have snagged it." She began to gather her brochures and keys. "I've had a few clients wait just a little too long and miss out. But with your income and credit score, you should be good to go!"

She nodded, trying to keep the smile plastered on her face as she thought about the last time she had moved, the excitement of moving into her home with Justin after college. How they had toured homes in South Bay, looking for the perfect place to start their life together. Now, that perfect place with the marble counters she chose and the custom pool tiling Justin picked out was drifting farther out of her reach.

"Thank you," she said to the realtor as they exited the multi-storied, sleek apartment building, her voice a mere echo of its usual self. "I'll try to give you the green light as soon as I can."

Esme nodded understandingly. "Take your time! This is a big step. But I'm here to help." With a cheery wave, she left her side to find her car.

She stood on the sidewalk, the evening air thick with the scent of blooming jasmine and the distant sound of a laughing child playing in the nearby park. The realization hit her like a ton of bricks: this was it. This was her new life. No more sprawling suburban mansion with Justin's elastic headbands scattered on every surface possible, no more weekends spent hosting pool parties for their friends. She took a deep breath, trying to hold back the tears that were beginning to spill over.

With a click to her remote control, the driver's side door of her sedan opened. Her hand trembled around the handle as she slid into the driver's seat, the leather cool against her skin. The door shut with a solid thunk, and she sat there, the sun beating down on the car through the window. Her eyes stunk, her breath hitched, and the tears she had been holding back for weeks finally fell.

Her chest heaved with the weight of her sobs, the keys still clutched in her hand, the metal digging into her palms. Her tears fell hot and thick on her cheeks, mixing with her makeup and leaving a salty taste on her lips. She didn't bother to wipe them away, letting them flow freely like the emotions that were tearing her apart. The dashboard of her car was the only witness to her pain, the only place she could let herself break down without fear of judgment or pity.

It was a painful, aching cry that seemed to come from the very marrow of her bones. The kind of cry that left her feeling both raw and exhausted. The kind of cry she hadn't had since her grandmother passed away. As her tears fell, she struggled to catch her breath, her heart feeling like it was being squeezed in a tight grip.

There was no relief in her sobs, no catharsis in the release of pent-up emotions. The reality of their impending breakup was sinking in, and she felt like she was drowning. She had never felt so alone. Despite the years they had spent together, it was as if she was just beginning to understand the depth of her sacrifice. She had been a silent cheerleader, a supportive girlfriend, but in the grand scheme of her life, she had willingly taken a back seat. And now, as she faced the prospect of starting over, she wondered if she was even making the right choice.

They had one wedding left. One last day to play the happy couple before they would finally, truly, be apart. In forty-eight short hours, the last ten years of her life would be over.

Yet, she couldn't bring herself to tell anyone.

The next wedding, a breezy ceremony down by the beach, was the last hurdle before their charade ended. The sun was warm on her skin as she stood in her bridesmaid's dress, a soft blush pink that matched the setting sun. A solid, white platform supported the couple and the wedding party as they exchanged vows, the ocean waves playing a soothing melody in the background.

Justin stood on the other side, his groomsmen's tuxedo fitting him like a glove, the light playing with the strands of his dirty blonde hair. It was a miracle he wasn't shifting uncomfortably in his suit, considering the heat of the late afternoon sun. She took a deep breath, trying to focus on the words of the bride and groom. The gel inserts in her heels were doing wonders for her soles, but she felt anything but grounded. She felt like she was floating, detached from her body, watching the scene unfold like a movie she was supposed to be experiencing first hand.

The ceremony seemed to fly by in a blur, and before she knew it, the officiant was prompting the bride and groom to repeat their vows. She glanced at Justin to find his eyes already focused on her. His hands were clasped tightly together, as if attempting to hold onto something unseen, his expression was one of quiet desperation. The love in his gaze was palpable, and it took every ounce of her willpower not to crumble on the spot.

"I, Alannah, take you, Tai, to be my lawfully wedded husband," the bride's sweet voice filled the air, and she felt the tension in her chest tighten.

"To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part," the bride continued, her voice strong and clear.

Confident.

Sure.

She felt the words hit her like a wave. Tears pricked at her eyes, the very same affect reflected on Justin's face. She knew he was thinking about their own future, or lack thereof.

When the groom spoke up to echo the vows, Justin broke. He had to look away from her, his eyes stinging with a pool of tears. The weddings had been torturous, but none more so than this one. They had always talked about their future, what their wedding would be like, the vows they would write for each other. It was cruel irony that the final wedding of the season was their closest friend's, and they would have to stand there, just across from each other, and watch someone else live the fairy tale that should have been theirs. The fairy tale that once was so close that Justin had started brainstorming all the promises he'd make to her at the altar.

She watched as he tried his best to keep his composure, feeling the weight of his pain mirroring her own. The wedding was beautiful, filled with the kind of love and promise she had always hoped her own wedding would hold. Yet here they were, standing before their friends and family with the fractures of their relationship laid barely beneath the surface, ready to shatter at any moment.

She barely blinked before they were inside for the reception. The ballroom was a whirlwind of activity, with guests mingling and congratulating the newlyweds. The sound of clinking glasses and laughter filled the air, the kind of joy that made her heart feel both full and hollow at the same time. She found a seat at the bridesmaid's table and picked at her dinner, her appetite lost in the sea of emotions crashing against her.

Neither of them had looked at each other since the vow exchange, the weight of the words still heavy in the air. The reception was a blur of small talk and forced smiles. They danced with other people, their bodies moving through the motions while their hearts felt like they were stuck in quicksand. But as the night grew late and the party grew tired, the DJ announced the final slow dance.

The opening chords of the DJ's song of choice filled the reception hall, and she recognized it instantly.

If I go a million miles away

I'd write a letter, each and every day

Nothing Can Change This Love by Sam Cooke began to play. The slow, soulful melody drifting through the speakers like a ghost from their past. It was their song, the one they had heard in a movie and decided it was written for them, the one they had danced to in the kitchen when they were both miserably under the weather, the one they had talked about playing at their wedding. Her heart lurched as she felt a hand gently on her shoulder. She turned to find Justin's blue eyes filled with a silent plea.

"Dance with me?" he asked, his voice maybe the softest she'd ever heard it. His eyes searched hers, looking for something she wasn't sure she had the power to refuse.

She felt the air leave her lungs as she nodded. They took their places on the dance floor, their bodies close but not quite touching. The music swelled around them, a poignant reminder of their shared history. The dance floor was crowded with other couples, but she could only see him, feel him. His hand found its way to the small of her back, pulling her closer, and she laid her head on his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart.

Make me weep and you can make me cry

See me coming and you can pass me by

But honey, nothing, nothing, can ever change this love I have for you

Her body melted into Justin's embrace as they swayed to the rhythm, her hand resting on his shoulder, her cheek pressed against his chest. The warmth of his body seeped into hers, bringing a comfort she hadn't realized she missed so profoundly. His heart thudded beneath her ear, a reminder of the love they once shared, the love she was trying so hard to let go of. She could feel the dampness of his shirt where her tears had fallen, a silent confession of the pain she was in.

You're the apple of my eye

You're cherry pie

And oh, you're, you're cake and ice cream

You're sugar and spice, and everything nice

She could feel the vibration of his voice in his chest as he softly sung along to the lyrics, the words muffled and filled with a sadness she hadn't heard in his voice before. His hand slid up to the nape of her neck, his thumb brushing against her skin in a way that sent shivers down her spine. Her eyes closed and she let herself lean into him, the fabric of their wedding party attire rustling as they danced. It was as if the world around them had disappeared, leaving only the two of them, their hearts beating in a silent admission of love and loss.

You're the girl of my, my, my, my, dreams

That had always been his favorite line of the song. She knew it well, had heard him whisper it into her ear countless times, had felt it in every kiss and caress. Now, it felt like a knife twisting in her chest. She didn't know if she could do this, didn't know if she could stand here and pretend like this dance didn't mean anything when every fiber of her being was begging her to stay, to forget the ache of her heart and the doubt in her mind.

But if you wanted to leave me and roam

When you got back, I'd just say 'welcome home'

'Cause honey, nothing, nothing, nothing can ever change this love I have for you

She felt the warm, steady trickle of tears continue slip down her cheeks as she listened to the lyrics, feeling Justin's warmth and the gentle pressure of his hand guiding her through the dance. She could hear the way the lyrics caught in Justin's throat, the tremor of his voice as he sang along to the song, their song.

I know, I know, I know, I know, I know that nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing can ever change the love I have for you

The last lines of the song left her lips, finishing off where Justin's voice had completely given out. They held each other tighter, the music now just background to their silent, desperate conversation of touch and regret. Her breath was ragged, her chest heaving with the sobs she'd been holding back for nearly two months.

Justin leaned down, his cheek against hers. He didn't say anything, just held her there, the two of them moving in unison to the music that had played so many times before in happier moments. She felt his breath against her skin, the warmth of his body surrounding her, and for a moment, she pretended they were in their kitchen again, just two teenagers lost in the music and perfectly content with their love alone.

But the moment was shattered when the song ended, the applause of the guests echoing through the ballroom. They separated slowly, awkwardly, like two magnets forced apart after years of clinging together. She could see the wetness in Justin's eyes, the unshed tears that mirrored her own. He opened his mouth to speak, but she shook her head, the words caught in her throat like shards of glass.

He nodded at that, releasing her hand to shove his own into his pockets. Then he turned on his heels and disappeared into the crowd. She took a deep breath, trying to compose herself. She turned in the opposite direction, finding the bathroom to touch up her makeup before returning to the reception floor to enjoy the last few moments of mingling.

In the haze of her emotions, she had completely forgotten about the hotel room. Another room booked nearly a year in advance with a king-sized bed meant for two, for a couple that was no longer. As the reception wound down and the last of the guests bid their congratulations to the newlyweds, she found herself unable to move from the spot where she had been standing. The reality of the night ahead washed over her like a cold shower.

The silence in the car on the way to the hotel was oppressive, each mile feeling like a countdown to the end of an era. Her eyes remained fixed on the road ahead, avoiding the reflection of the city lights in the rearview mirror, which only served to remind her of the apartment she had just seen two days prior.

They managed to make it up to the room without a word, the weight of the evening pressing down on them like a heavy fog. Visibly, they both looked exhausted, drained from the weight of every emotion under the sun passing through them like conducted electricity. Once inside, she made a beeline for the bathroom, shutting the door behind her with a soft click that echoed through the suite.

All she wanted was to get out of her dress, take a shower, and crawl into bed. But even in the solace of the bathroom, she couldn't escape the universe's inconvenient timing. The dress that was perfectly tailored to her measurements and had slipped on so easily early that day was now unfathomably difficult to remove. The metal zipper seemed to have a vendetta against her, sticking and snagging with each painful attempt to pull it down. The shake in her hands and the tears welling in her eyes didn't help the process. It was as if the dress had become a metaphor for their relationship - something that once fit so snugly now felt suffocatingly tight.

She wasn't sure how long she had been fighting with the zipper when Justin's voice called out softly, "Hey, do you need help?" His words pierced through the silence. He was close, just beyond the door as if he had heard her frustration and come running. She took a moment to compose herself before responding, "Please." The door creaked open, and he stepped in, his eyes avoiding hers in the mirror. Gently, he took over, his strong hands making quick work of the stubborn zipper. The dress slid down her body, revealing her bare back to the cool air. She stepped out of the dress, the fabric pooling at her feet.

She sniffled, failing to maintain her composure as she wrapped her arms around herself. Justin took in the sight of her, his heart clenching. He had seen her in various states of undress over the years, but this moment was different. This was not intimate, but a silent understanding that this could the last time he'd ever see her like this. Vulnerable, near naked, and so utterly beautiful.

"Hey, talk to me," Justin whispered, reaching for a white robe to hand her. The fabric was soft, the hotel's emblem embroidered neatly on the chest. She took the robe, her trembling hands proving useless in the task of tying it. Justin stepped in, his hands deftly wrapping the material around her, his touch gentle and tender.

She turned to face him, her eyes swimming in unshed tears. "I can't," she whispered back, her voice cracking.

Justin took a deep breath, his own eyes glistening with the same pain. "Can't what, baby?" He stepped closer, his hand resting on her shoulder.

"I can't talk to you," she managed to say, her voice barely above a whisper. "It's too hard. Seeing you, touching you, it's too much." She took a deep breath, willing herself to stay strong. "I'm not ready to let you go, but I feel like I have to."

If Justin could fall to his knees and thank whatever deity had brought him to this moment, he would. Instead, he swallowed his pride and fear, and wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly. He could feel her body tremble against his own, and for a moment, everything was right in the world. "You don't have to," he murmured into her hair, his voice thick with emotion. "We don't have to do this. I don't want to do this."

'Want'. His conversation with Brandon echoed through his mind. He could practically hear him say, 'What do you want, Justin?' The answer had always been relatively simple. But now, it couldn't be more simple. He wanted her. The woman who had been his everything for a decade. The woman whose hand he had held through countless highs and lows, whose smile had been the brightest spot in his darkest moments.

"But we—" she started, only to be cut off by Justin who shook his head.

"No," Justin said firmly, pulling away to look at her. "We don't have to do anything we're not ready for. I know we said we'd go through with this, but I can't lose you." His eyes searched hers, looking for a glimmer of hope. "I don't want us to go on a break or break up. Not because it would be inconvenient or… or because I'm comfortable. I don't want to lose you because you're the only woman I've ever loved."

She looked up at him, the robe feeling like it was made of lead on her shoulders.

"Every time I've told you I love you, I meant it," Justin continued, his voice shaking. "I can't imagine how much it must hurt you to think that I don't mean that wholeheartedly. I know I've dropped the ball; I know I haven't been there for you like I should have been. But, baby, I want to be. I need to be."

She felt her resolve slipping. "Justin, you're going to be okay," she said, trying to convince herself as much as him. "You're a catch. You're going to find someone who'll love you for you."

He took a step closer, his eyes searching hers. "But I don't want anyone else. I want you. Only you." His hand reached out to wipe away a tear that had escaped down her cheek. The touch was electric, sending a jolt of feeling through her body that she hadn't felt in so long. "You said that you thought we didn't experience enough of the world to know that this is it for us," he said, his voice low and earnest. "Well, I'm telling you now, I don't need to. I know that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. And I will do whatever it takes to make this work. To make you happy."

She exhaled but didn't speak, allowing him a chance to finally fight for her. "I can't let you walk away from me without telling you that I've spent the last ten years of my life in awe of the woman you've become," Justin whispered, his thumb lingering on her cheek. "I want to wake up to your smile, watch you conquer the world, and be the shoulder you lean on. I've made mistakes, I know, but I want to learn from them, and I'll keep learning. For you, I'll do whatever it takes."

"But, you could make another woman so happy," she replied, her voice cracking with the weight of her words.

"I don't want to make another woman happy. All I've ever wanted is to make you happy," Justin said. It was his turn for his voice to crack with emotion. "If you want us to start over, relearn each other, explore who we are now, I'll do it." He took a deep breath, his eyes never leaving hers. "I will relearn everything about you, no matter how long it takes, because my favorite part of living this life is living it with you. I don't know how I'm supposed to let you walk when you're everything I need. You're all I've dreamed about and everything I've planned for."

He reached for her chin, tilting her face up to meet his gaze. "I love you. And I'm not willing to let go." His voice was a gentle plea, the desperation in his eyes mirroring the tumult in her heart. "Give me a chance to make it up to you," he whispered, his thumb brushing away another tear. "Give us a chance. Please."

Her breath caught in her throat, the words she had so desperately needed to hear echoing in her ears. The love she had pushed aside in her quest for self-discovery rushed back to the forefront, threatening to drown her in its intensity. She searched his eyes, looking for any hint of doubt or insincerity, but all she found was raw, unencumbered love.

All she could do was nod, the dam of her emotions giving way. Justin's eyes searched hers, hopeful and desperate. "We can work on us," he murmured. "We can grow together, support each other's dreams, and build the life we've talked about for so long." He paused, his heart racing. "Just please say yes."

Her eyes filled with fresh tears as she whispered, "Yes." It was the softest, most hopeful sound she had made in weeks. She wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his chest. The relief that flooded through him was palpable, radiating off of his skin, his embrace tightening around her. He took a deep breath, inhaling her scent as if it was the sweetest perfume in the world.

[ruhua-langblr]

Language Apps Suck, Now What?: A Guide to Actually Becoming "Fluent"

The much requested sequel to my DL post that was promised almost a year ago.

I'm going to address all of the techniques that have helped me in my language learning journeys. Since 95% of these came from the fact that in a past language learning mistake, they are titled as my mistakes (and how I would/did things differently going forward). For those that read to the bottom there is a "best universal resources" list.

Disclaimers:

"Fluency" is hard to define and everyone has their own goals. So for the purpose of this post, "fluency" will be defined as "your personal mastery target of the language".

If you just want to pick up a bit of a language to not sound like a total foreigner on vacation or just exchange a few words in a friend's native language, feel free to ignore what doesn't apply, but maybe something here could help make it a little easier.

This is based on my own personal experience and (some) research.

Mistake 1: Asymmetrical Studying

Assuming you don't just want to do a single activity in a language, or are learning a language like ASL, a language requires 4 parts to be studied: Speaking, Listening, Writing, Reading. While these have overlap, you can't learn speaking from reading, or even learn speaking from just listening. One of my first Chinese teachers told me how he would listen to the textbook dialogues while he was biking to classes and it helped him. I took this information, thought "Yeah that's an idea, but sounds boring" and now regret not taking his advice nearly every day.

I think a lot of us find methods we enjoy to study (mine was reading) and assume that if we just do that method more ™ it will eventually help us in other areas (sometimes it does, but that's only sometimes). Find a method that works for you for each area of study, even better find more than one method since we use these skills in a variety of manners! I can understand a TV program pretty well since I have a lot of context clues and body language to fill in any gaps of understanding, but taking a phone call is much harder—the audio is rougher, there's no body language to read, and since most Chinese programs have hard coded subtitles, no subtitles to fall back on either. If I were to compare the number of hours I spent reading in Chinese to (actively) training my listening? Probably a ratio of 100 to 1. When I started to learn Korean, the first thing I did was find a variety of listening resources for my level.

Fix: Find a variety of study methods that challenge all aspects of the language in different ways.

A variety of methods will help you develop a more well-rounded level of mastery, and probably help you keep from getting bored. Which is important because...

Mistake 2: Inconsistent Studying

If there is one positive to a language app, it is the pressure it puts on keeping a streak. Making studying a part of your everyday routine is the best thing you can do. I benefited a lot from taking a college language course since I had a dedicated time to study and practice Chinese 5 days out of the week (and homework usually filled the other two). Memorization is a huge part of language learning, and stopping and starting is terrible for memorization. When I was in elementary school, we had Spanish maybe a couple times a month. Looking back, it seems like it was the first class to be cut if we needed to catch up on a more important course. Needless to say, I can't even speak Spanish at an elementary level.

However, I'm sure many people reading this don't have the time to do ultra-immersion 4-hour study sessions every day either. Find what days during the week you have time to focus on learning new vocab and grammar, and use the rest of the week to review. This can be done on your commute to school/work, while you do the dishes, or as a part of your morning/evening routine. Making this as realistic as possible will help you actually succeed in making this a habit. (Check this out for how to set realistic study goals)

Fix: Study regularly (ideally daily) by setting realistic goals. Avoid "binge" studying since remembering requires consistent repetition to be most effective.

Mistake 3: Resource Choice

This is really composed of two mistakes, but I have a good example that will cover them both.

First, finding resources that are at or slightly above your level is the most important thing. Easy resources will not challenge you enough and difficult resources will overwhelm you. The ideal is n+1, with n as what you know plus 1 new thing.

Second, getting distracted by fancy, new technology. Newer isn't always better, and there are often advantages that are lost when we've made technological developments. I often found myself wanting to try out new browser extensions or organizational methods and honestly I would've benefitted from just using that time to study. (Also, you're probably reading this because of my DL post so I don't think it has to be said that AI resources suck.)

A good example of this was my time using Clozemaster. I had actually recommended it when I first started using it since I thought the foundation was really solid. However, after long term use, I found that it just wasn't a good fit. The sentences were often too simple or too long and strange for memorization at higher levels or were too difficult at lower levels. I think that taking my textbook's example sentences from dialogues into something like Anki would've been a far better use of my time (and money) as they were already designed to be at that n+1 level.

Fix: "Vet" your resources—make sure they will actually help you. If something is working for you, then keep using it! You don't always have to upgrade to the newest tool/method.

Mistake 3.5: Classrooms and Textbooks

A .5 since it's not my mistake, but an addendum of caution. I think there is a significant part of the language learning community that views textbooks and classroom learning as the worst possible resource. They are "boring", "outdated", and "ineffective" (ironically one of the most interesting modern language learning methods, ALG, is only done in a classroom setting). Classrooms and textbooks bring back memories of being surrounded by mostly uninterested classmates, minimal priority, and a focus on grades rather than personal achievement (imagine the difference between a class of middle schoolers who were forced to choose a foreign language vs. adult learners who self-selected!) People have used these exact methods, or even "cruder" methods, to successfully learn a language. It all comes down to what works best for you. I specifically recommend textbooks for learning grammar and the plentiful number of dialogues and written passages that can function great as graded readers and listening resources. (Also the distinction made between "a youtube lesson on a grammatical principle" which is totally cool, and "a passage in a grammar textbook" is more one of tone and audio/written than efficacy).

Classrooms can be really great for speaking practice since they can be a lot less intimidating speaking to someone who is also learning while receiving corrections. Speech can be awkward to train on your own (not impossible if you're good at just talking aloud to yourself!), and classrooms can work nicely for this. Homework and class schedules also have built in accountability!

Fix: Explore resources available to you and try to think holistically about your approach. CI+Traditional Methods is my go to "Learning Cocktail"

Mistake 4: Yes, Immersion, But...

I realized this relatively quickly while learning Chinese, but immersion at a level much higher than your current level will do very little for you. What is sometimes left out of those "Just watch anime to learn Japanese" discussions is that you first need to have a chance at understanding what is being said. Choosing materials that are much higher than your level will not teach you the language. It doesn't matter how many times someone at HSK 1 hears “他是甘露之惠，我并无此水可还”, they will not get very far. Actual deduction and learning comes from having enough familiar components to be able to make deductions—something different than guessing. An HSK 1 learner, never having heard the word 老虎 will be able to understand "tiger" if someone says “这是我的老虎” while standing next to a tiger. This is not to say you can never try something more difficult—things should be challenging—but if you can't make heads or tails of what's being said, then it's time to find something a bit easier. If mistake 2 is about the type of method, this is about the level. If you wouldn't give a kindergartener The Great Gatsby to learn how to read, why would you watch Full Metal Alchemist to start learning a language?

Side note: Interesting video here on the Comprehensible Input hypothesis and how it relates to neurodivergence.

Fix: Immerse yourself in appropriate content for your level. It's called comprehensible input for a reason.

Mistake 5: On Translation

I work as a translator, so do you really think I'm going to say translation is all bad? Of course not. It's a separate skill that can be added on to the basic skills, but is really only required if you are A. someone who is an intermediary between two languages (say you have to translate for a spouse or family member) or B. It is your job/hobby. In the context of sitting down and learning, it can be harmful. I think my brain often goes to translation too often because that's how I used to learn. Trying to unlearn that is difficult because, well, what do people even mean when they say "don't translate"? They mean when someone says "thank you", you should not go to your primary language and translate "you're welcome" from that. You should train yourself to go to your target language first when you hear the word for "thank you". A very literally translated "thank you" in Chinese "谢谢你" can come off as cold and sarcastic. I don't tell my friends that, I say "谢啦～". Direct translation can take away the difference in culture, grammar, and politeness in a language. If there is a reason you sound awkward while writing and speaking, it's probably because you're imposing your primary language on your target language.

Fix: Try as hard as you can to not work from your primary language into the target language, but to work from the structures, set phrases, and grammar within the target language that you know first.

Mistake 6: The Secret Language Learners Don't Want You To Know...

...is that there is no one easy method. You are not going to learn French while you sleep, or master Korean by doing this one easy trick. Learning a language requires work and dedication, the people that succeed are those that push through the boredom of repetition and failure. The "I learned X in 1 year/month/week/day!" crowd is hiding large asterisks, be it their actual level, the assistance and free time available to them, "well actually I had already studied this for 4 years", or just straight-up lying. Our own journeys in our native tongue were not easy, they required years and years of constant immersion and instruction. While we are now older and wiser people that can make quick connections, we are also burdened with things like "jobs", "house work", "school work", and the digital black hole that is "social media" that take up our time and energy. Everything above is to help make this journey a little bit easier, quicker, and painless, but it will never be magic.

I find that language learning has a lot in common with the fitness community. People will talk about the workout that changed their life and how no other one will do the same—and it really can be the truth that it changed their life and that they feel it is the ultimate way. The real workout that will change your life is the one you're most consistent with, that you enjoy the most. Language learning is just trying to find the brain exercise that you can be the most consistent with.

Fix: Save your energy looking for shortcuts, and do the work, fail, and come back for more. If someone tells you that you can become fluent in a ridiculously short amount of time, they are selling you a fantasy (and likely a product). You get out what you put in.

For those that made it to the end, here are some of my "universal resources":

Refold Method: I don't agree with their actual method 100%, but they've collected a lot of great resources for learning languages. I've found their Chinese and Korean discords to also be really helpful and provided even more resources than what's given in their starter guides.

Language Reactor: Very useful, and have recently added podcasts as a material! The free version is honestly all you need.

Anki: If I do not mention it, the people with 4+ year streaks with a 5K word deck will not let me forget it. It can be used on desktop or on your phone as an app. If you need a replacement for a language learning app, this is one of them. Justin Sung has a lot of great info on how to best utilize Anki (as does Refold). It's not my favorite, but it could be yours!

LingQ: "But I thought you said language apps are bad!" In isolation, yes. Sorry for the clickbait. This one is pretty good, and more interested in immersing you in the language than selling a subscription to allow you to freeze your streak so the number goes up.

Grammar Textbooks: For self-taught learning, these are going to be the best resource since it's focused on the hardest part of the language, and only that. If you're tired of seeing group work activities, look for a textbook that is just on grammar (Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar is my rec for Chinese, and A Guide to Japanese Grammar by Tae Kim is the most common/enthusiastic rec I've heard for Japanese).

Shadowing: Simply repeat what you hear. Matt vs Japan talks about his setup here for optimized shadowing (which you can probably build for a lot cheaper now), but it can also just be you watching a video and pausing to repeat after each sentence or near simultaneously if you're able.

Youtube: Be it "Short Story for Beginners", "How to use X", "250 Essential Phrases", or a GRWM in your target language, Youtube is the best. Sometimes you have to dig to find what works for you, but I imagine there is something for everyone at every level. (Pro tip: People upload textbook audio dialogues often, you don't even have to buy the textbook to be able to learn from it!)

A Friend: Be it a fellow learner, or someone who has already mastered the language, it is easier when you have someone, not only to speak to, but to remind you why you're doing this. I write far more in Chinese because I have friends I can text in Chinese.

Pen and Paper: Study after study, writing on paper continues to be the best method for memorization. Typing or using a pen and tablet still can't compare to traditional methods.

The Replies (Probably): Lots of people were happy to give alternatives for specific languages in the replies of my DL post. The community here is pretty active, so if this post blows up at least 20% of what the last one did, you might be able to find some great stuff in the replies and reblogs.

I wish you all the best~

[moiraimyths]

The Good People (Na Daoine Maithe) | Official Trailer

The Good People (Na Daoine Maithe) is a lore-rich and choice-driven historical fantasy visual novel inspired by Irish mythology and Celtic folklore. Play as a tenant farmer from mid-19th century Ireland, whose path becomes inexplicably entwined in fairy affairs after getting robbed by the roadside and lured into the mythic and war-torn world of Tír na nÓg: A once unified land, now divided into the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. Will you escape and return home with your stolen belongings? Or does fate have something else in mind?

🍃 STEAM 🍂 ITCH.IO 🍃PATREON 🍂DISCORD 🍃

Eager to play? Certain route content is available NOW in early access on Steam and Itch.io! For more information, click below👇

Meet the Cast

Facts & Questions: The Game

🍃 The Good People (Na Daoine Maithe) is a Kickstarter-funded project currently in development. Due to the scope of the story, we will be releasing it serially over several years to Steam and Itch.io, and discounting it while in early access. The earlier it's bought, the cheaper it will be overall, and you'll only need to buy the game once!

🍂 Not all routes are currently available! As of Nov. 1, 2024, you can play half of Shae and Maeve's routes; both approximately 50k words. If you're not sure about paying for an unfinished game, feel free to check out our free demo first. It consists of Vol. 1, Book of the Traveller (the pre-route content). Differences between the demo's Vol. 1 and the paid game's Vol. 1 are marginal following our August 1, 2024 re-release of the demo.

🍃 The Good People (Na Daoine Maithe) has a recommended reading order (Vol. 1, then 2, then 3, etc.), which will correspond to the release order of the routes. For more information on our reasoning behind this, click here.

🍂 Due to its setting, The Good People (Na Daoine Maithe) will occasionally feature instances of characters speaking in Gaeilge, i.e. the Irish language. All instances of Gaeilge are linked to an internal translation tool, which is voiced by Nigel McKeon, a Gaeilgeoir.

🍃 The main character is yours to shape. At minimum, you must choose a nickname, pronouns, and one of four default appearances, the last of which can be your own artwork (instructions are included in the game's files). You may also choose to discard the True Name…

🍂 All routes, both current and upcoming, will have both romantic and platonic choice options. If you're uninterested in romance, feel free to make friends instead! No matter the nature of your relationship, you will still be able to reach the good end. (Want to learn more? Refer to this post!)

🍃 Our cast consists of two men, two women, and two non-binary characters. All are romancable no matter the MC, but some characters are asexual or on the aromantic spectrum, which may impact aspects of their romances.

🍂 If you are a Mac user and are having issues launching the game via the Itch direct download, refer to this guide for troubleshooting before sending us an ask. We strongly recommend purchasing the game through Steam instead of Itch if you are a Mac user; it is the best way to avoid issues with launching the game.

🍃 NDM is very intentionally set just prior to the onset of the Great Famine, which is both thematically and textually relevant to the leftist, anti-imperialist story we're aiming to tell. If you would like more insight into this, refer to this post.

🐎 There are secrets to be found in this game, with more yet to come. Prepare yourself for a lot of horse related shenanigans. 🐎

Facts & Questions: The Company

🧵 Moirai Myths is a five-person company based out of Canada. The core devs/founders go by Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. All writing and programming are done by this collective, i.e. the Fates.

🪡 Moirai Myths has a two person in-house artist team consisting of Kazane, our Character/UI Designer, and Melinoe, our Environmental Designer. In addition to them, though, we have had a number of guest artists assist us with the creation of sprites, CGs, and an assortment of other materials. If you'd like to meet them, check out our about page on our website!

✂️ Moirai Myths stands with the people of Palestine 🇵🇸

Disclaimer: This description will be updated periodically. If you're reading this in a reblog, you may want to check our current pinned post for potential changes.

[what-even-is-thiss]

If you’re having trouble picking a language to learn you might want to evaluate why you want to learn a language in the first place

Do you want to do it to connect with your relatives? Because you’re moving to a country where you don’t speak the language? Then you already know what you have to do. Get out there and start watching YouTube videos and bothering your grandma to teach you, silly. Just do it.

If you just want to speak a second language for its own sake and don’t really care what, just pick a language that’s common in your region and/or will help you in your career. These types of languages will likely have local news stations in the language, local people to talk to, local language exchanges, a presence on streaming services in your country, etc. In the US this is almost always gonna be Spanish. Sometimes it might be something like German or Chinese but it’s usually Spanish. I give this suggestion because then your motivation is always staring you right in the face at the library when there’s a whole section you can’t read and motivation can sometimes be the hardest part of language learning. And if there’s a lot of stuff to watch and a lot of people to talk to that can also keep you from getting bored.

If you wanna be quirky or different but still want something easy just pick a language with a lot of speakers that isn’t spoken much near you that preferably also has a large presence online so you can watch and read content in that language. So if you live in the US likely something like Mandarin, Japanese, Portuguese, Arabic, Hindi, Russian, Korean. These languages also have a lot of monolingual speakers so they have a lot of tv, books, and movies made for them and they’re writing in their own language on social media websites.

If you want to learn a dead language decide which ancient culture you’re personally most abnormal about and pick that one. If you’re doing it for spiritual reasons to read a holy book then again you already know what you’re supposed to be doing, silly. Get reading. Find a quirky teacher on YouTube.

If you want to learn an endangered language and/or are interested in language preservation see what endangered languages live near you and if they’re open to outsiders learning them. Local universities often work with minority language groups to make dictionaries and they may have a program locally to help preserve the language you might be able to participate in. If that’s not possible where you live for whatever reason, I’d suggest finding one that you just really like and whose speakers are happy to teach to outsiders. If you’re looking for ones with a lot of resources available to you then something like Hawaiian or one of the Celtic languages would likely be your best bet, but look around. There’s a lot of people out there doing the work to make endangered languages more accessible.

If you wanna play on hard mode then pick a language that’s spoken in a country where almost everyone speaks English because you’ll have to defeat the locals in 1v1 combat before they’ll let you speak to them in their own language. So basically learn a Scandinavian language.

If you want to learn a conlang (why?) then decide which kind of nerds you want to make friends with. If you want to make friends with regular nerds, learn something like elvish or Klingon. If you want to make friends with people that just like conlangs, learn Esperanto. These are generally the most active conlang communities. If you want to just learn a language in a week and only sort of approximately say what you mean then learn toki pona.

If you’ve fallen hard in love with a language then pick that one. It doesn’t matter if it’s impractical or you don’t have a concrete reason. If you know that your love for that language and its culture is enough to keep you going then it’ll keep you going. You’ll find resources if you’re determined enough. Go. Be free.

[ellipsus-writes]

Each week (or so), we'll highlight the relevant (and sometimes rage-inducing) news adjacent to writing and freedom of expression. (Find it on the blog too!) This week:

Censorship watch: Somehow, KOSA returned

It’s official: The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is back from the dead. After failing to pass last year, the bipartisan bill has returned with fresh momentum and the same old baggage—namely, vague language that could endanger hosting platforms, transformative work, and implicitly target LGBTQ+ content under the guise of “protecting kids.”

… But wait, it gets better (worse). Republican Senator Mike Lee has introduced a new bill that makes other attempts to censor the internet look tame: the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act (IODA)—basically KOSA on bath salts. Lee’s third attempt since 2022, the bill would redefine what counts as “obscene” content on the internet, and ban it nationwide—with “its peddlers prosecuted.”

Whether IODA gains traction in Congress is still up in the air. But free speech advocates are already raising alarm bells over its implications.

The bill aims to gut the long-standing legal definition of “obscenity” established by the 1973 Miller v. California ruling, which currently protects most speech under the First Amendment unless it fails a three-part test. Under the Miller test, content is only considered legally obscene if it 1: appeals to prurient interests, 2: violates “contemporary community standards,” and 3: is patently offensive in how it depicts sexual acts.

IODA would throw out key parts of that test—specifically the bits about “community standards”—making it vastly easier to prosecute anything with sexual content, from films and photos, to novels and fanfic.

Under Lee’s definition (which—omg shocking can you believe this coincidence—mirrors that of the Heritage Foundation), even the most mild content with the affect of possible “titillation” could be included. (According to the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, the proposed definition is so broad it could rope in media on the level of Game of Thrones—or, generally, anything that depicts or describes human sexuality.) And while obscenity prosecutions are quite rare these days, that could change if IODA passes—and the collateral damage and criminalization (especially applied to creative freedoms and LGBT+ content creators) could be massive.

And while Lee’s last two obscenity reboots failed, the current political climate is... let’s say, cloudy with a chance of fascism.

Sound a little like Project 2025? Ding ding ding! In fact, Russell Vought, P2025’s architect, was just quietly appointed to take over DOGE from Elon Musk (the agency on a chainsaw crusade against federal programs, culture, and reality in general).

So. One bill revives vague moral panic, another wants to legally redefine it and prosecute creators, and the man who helped write the authoritarian playbook—with, surprise, the intent to criminalize LGBT+ content and individuals—just gained control of the purse strings.

Cool cool cool.

AO3 works targeted in latest (massive) AI scraping

Rewind to last month—In the latest “wait, they did what now?” moment for AI, a Hugging Face user going by nyuuzyou uploaded a massive dataset made up of roughly 12.6 million fanworks scraped from AO3—full text, metadata, tags, and all. (Info from r/AO3: If your works’ ID numbers between 1 and 63,200,000, and has public access, the work has been scraped.)

And it didn’t stop at AO3. Art and writing communities like PaperDemon and Artfol, among others, also found their content had been quietly scraped and posted to machine learning hubs without consent.

This is yet another attempt in a long line of more “official” scraping of creative work, and the complete disregard shown by the purveyors of GenAI for copyright law and basic consent. (Even the Pope agrees.)

AO3 filed a DMCA takedown, and Hugging Face initially complied—temporarily. But nyuuzyou responded with a counterclaim and re-uploaded the dataset to their personal website and other platforms, including ModelScope and DataFish—sites based in China and Russia, the same locations reportedly linked to Meta’s own AI training dataset, LibGen.

Some writers are locking their works. Others are filing individual DMCAs. But as long as bad actors and platforms like Hugging Face allow users to upload massive datasets scraped from creative communities with minimal oversight, it’s a circuitous game of whack-a-mole. (As others have recommended, we also suggest locking your works for registered users only.)

After disavowing AI copyright, leadership purge hits U.S. cultural institutions

In news that should give us all a brief flicker of hope, the U.S. Copyright Office officially confirmed: if your “creative” work was generated entirely by AI, it’s not eligible for copyright.

A recently released report laid it out plainly—human authorship is non-negotiable under current U.S. law, a stance meant to protect the concept of authorship itself from getting swallowed by generative sludge. The report is explicit in noting that generative AI draws “on massive troves of data, including copyrighted works,” and asks: “Do any of the acts involved require the copyright owners’ consent or compensation?” (Spoiler: yes.) It’s a “straight ticket loss for the AI companies” no matter how many techbros’ pitch decks claim otherwise (sorry, Inkitt).

“The Copyright Office (with a few exceptions) doesn’t have the power to issue binding interpretations of copyright law, but courts often cite to its expertise as persuasive,” tech law professor Blake. E Reid wrote on Bluesky.As the push to normalize AI-generated content continues (followed by lawsuits), without meaningful human contribution—actual creative labor—the output is not entitled to protection.

… And then there’s the timing.

The report dropped just before the abrupt firing of Copyright Office director Shira Perlmutter, who has been vocally skeptical of AI’s entitlement to creative work.

It's yet another culture war firing—one that also conveniently clears the way for fewer barriers to AI exploitation of creative work. And given that Elon Musk’s pals have their hands all over current federal leadership and GenAI tulip fever… the overlap of censorship politics and AI deregulation is looking less like coincidence and more like strategy.

Also ousted (via email)—Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. According to White House press secretary and general ghoul Karoline Leavitt, Dr. Hayden was dismissed for “quite concerning things that she had done… in the pursuit of DEI, and putting inappropriate books in the library for children.” (Translation: books featuring queer people and POC.)

Dr. Hayden, who made history as the first Black woman to hold the position, spent the last eight years modernizing the Library of Congress, expanding digital access, and turning the institution into something more inclusive, accessible, and, well, public. So of course, she had to go. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The American Library Association condemned the firing immediately, calling it an “unjust dismissal” and praising Dr. Hayden for her visionary leadership. And who, oh who might be the White House’s answer to the LoC’s demanding and (historically) independent role?

The White House named Todd Blanche—AKA Trump’s personal lawyer turned Deputy Attorney General—as acting Librarian of Congress.

That’s not just sus, it’s likely illegal—the Library is part of the legislative branch, and its leadership is supposed to be confirmed by Congress. (You know, separation of powers and all that.)

But, plot twist: In a bold stand, Library of Congress staff are resisting the administration's attempts to install new leadership without congressional approval.

If this is part of the broader Project 2025 playbook, it’s pretty clear: Gut cultural institutions, replace leadership with stunningly unqualified loyalists, and quietly centralize control over everything from copyright to the nation’s archives.

Because when you can’t ban the books fast enough, you just take over the library.

Rebellions are built on hope

Over the past few years (read: eternity), a whole ecosystem of reactionary grifters has sprung up around Star Wars—with self-styled CoNtEnT CrEaTorS turning outrage to revenue by endlessly trashing the fandom. It’s all part of the same cynical playbook that radicalized the fallout of Gamergate, with more lightsabers and worse thumbnails. Even the worst people you know weighed in on May the Fourth (while Prequel reassessment is totally valid—we’re not giving J.D. Vance a win).

But one thing that shouldn't be up for debate is this: Andor, which wrapped its phenomenal two-season run this week, is probably the best Star Wars project of our time—maybe any time. It’s a masterclass in what it means to work within a beloved mythos and transform it, deepen it, and make it feel urgent again. (Sound familiar? Fanfic knows.)

Radicalization, revolution, resistance. The banality of evil. The power of propaganda. Colonialism, occupation, genocide—and still, in the midst of it all, the stubborn, defiant belief in a better world (or Galaxy).

Even if you’re not a lifelong SW nerd (couldn’t be us), you should give it a watch. It’s a nice reminder that amidst all the scraping, deregulation, censorship, enshittification—stories matter. Hope matters.

And we’re still writing.

Let us know if you find something other writers should know about, or join our Discord and share it there!

- The Ellipsus Team xo

[dedalvs]

hey friend, i know you’ve been a pretty serious supporter and user of duolingo for a long time (so have i!), so i’m curious what your feeling is about the announcement that they’re going to be doubling down on using more and more AI for content creation, including using it to avoid having to hire actual humans?

personally, i’m really disappointed - i’ve disliked how much they’ve been using it so far, but the app is otherwise a great tool, and all of the other apps seem to use it, too, so it’s not easy to just jump ship to an app that isn’t using AI. i’ve seen a lot of responses that are like “hurr hurr just use a textbook idiot” which i find really unhelpful; learning from an app is easier and a lot more convenient in a lot of ways than having to use analog materials, especially if you study a high number of languages. still, i don’t ethically feel that i can keep giving them money if this is the direction they’re going.

what are your thoughts?

This is going to be a longer answer than you might have expected.

In 2001, fellow undergrad. Reiko Kataoka (now a professor at San Jose State) resurrected a club that had been dead for a few years at UC Berkeley linguistics: The Society of Linguistics Undergraduates (SLUG). One of its former undergraduate members, Alan Yu (now a professor at the University of Chicago), happened to be a graduate student at Berkeley at the time, so he helped her get it off the ground. The club was exactly what I was looking for at that time: a group for ling. undergrads. to get together and talk about language and linguistics, my new favorite thing. It was great! I even put together a couple phonology problems using my conlangs to distribute at a meeting. The following year I became the second president of the new SLUG and helped to create the SLUG Undergraduate Linguistics Symposium, where I gave my first talk on language creation. Being a part of this club was a major factor in shaping my undergraduate experience at Berkeley.

When I graduated I went to UC San Diego to pursue a graduate degree in linguistics. Part of the reason I chose UCSD was because it was an incredibly inviting atmosphere. Before we accepted they paid for prospective undergraduates down to San Diego and housed them with current grad. students who told them about the program and took them out for dinner, etc. It allowed prospective students to ask questions they wouldn't ask of professors (e.g. who's got beef with who). It was really cool, and so in our second year, we continued the tradition of housing prospective grad. students. Since we both went to Berkeley, my ex-wife (also a Berkeley ling. grad.) and I hosted Klinton Bicknell.

Klinton, it turns out, was the current president of SLUG. I didn't know him while I was at Cal, but we did overlap. It turns out he had renamed the club SLUGS, which I thought was weird. He said "It happened organically" and laughed in an off-putting way. He very much gave off the impression of someone who will smile at you and say whatever is necessary for you to go away. Klinton ended up going to UCSD the following year and I ended up leaving the following year.

Fast forward to 2016. HBO had put the kibosh on Living Language Valyrian, and so I turned to Duolingo. They had previously reached out about putting together a Dothraki course, but I declined, due to having a book out, Living Language Dothraki. With no hope for Valyrian, I asked if they'd be interested in me putting together a course on High Valyrian, which I did. I had some help at the beginning, but, truth be told, most of that course was built by me alone. I became very familiar with the Incubator, where Duolingo contributors built most of their courses. It was a bit clunky, but with enough elbow grease, you could put together something that was pretty darn good. It wasn't as shiny as their in house courses, because they couldn't do things like custom images, speaking challenges, etc., but it was still pretty good.

At the time I joined, everyone who was working in the Incubator was doing it for free. We were doing it because we wanted to put together a high quality course on our language of choice on Duolingo. When Duolingo went public, they realized this situation was untenable, so they began paying contributors. There were contracts, hourly wages, caps on billable hours, etc. It essentially became an as-you-will part time job, which wasn't too bad.

The Incubator faced a couple potentially insurmountable problems. When the courses were created by volunteers, Duolingo could say "This was made by volunteers; use at your own risk", essentially. Once they were paid, though, all courses became Duolingo products, which means they bear more responsibility for their quality. With so many courses (I mean, sooooooooo many courses) it's hard to ensure quality. Furthermore, "quality" doesn't just mean "are the exercises correct" and "are the sentences interesting". Quality means not being asked to translate sentences like "Women can't cook" or "The boy stabbed the puppy". With literally hundreds of courses each with thousands of sentences written by contractors, there was no way for Duolingo to ensure not just that they were staying on brand with these sentences, but that they weren't writing ugly things. There were reporting systems, there were admins that could resolve things behind the scenes, but with so much content, it became a situation where they would have had to hire a ton more people or scale back.

We saw what Duolingo did before with one aspect of their platform that had a similar issue. If you remember way back, Duolingo used to have a "forum", that was a real forum, but for most users, what it meant was on every single sentence in Duolingo users could make comments. These comments would explain grammar points, explain references, make jokes, etc. It was honestly really helpful. But, of course, with any system like that comes trolls, and so volunteers who had come to create language learning resources also found themselves being content reviewers, having to decide which comments to allow, which to delete, who to ban, etc. As Duolingo became more popular, the troll problem grew, and so eventually Duolingo's response was to kill the forum. This mean you were no longer able to see legitimate, helpful comments on sentences. They threw the baby out with the bathwater.

This is why it was no surprise to me when they shuttered the Incubator. The technology was out of date (from their standpoint, you understand. Their in house courses were way more sophisticated, but they couldn't update the Incubator without potentially breaking hundreds of courses they hadn't created themselves), quality assurance was nearly impossible, and they were also paying people to create and maintain these out-of-date courses they had no direct control over. Of course they closed it down. It would've taken a massive investment of time and resources (and capital) to take the Incubator as it was and turn it into something robust and future proof (think old Wordpress vs. Wordpress now), and Duolingo wanted to do other things, instead—like math and music. And so the Incubator died.

But that wasn't the only reason. This was something we heard internally and then heard later on publicly. There was rumbling that Duolingo was using AI to help flesh out their in house courses, which was troubling. This was before the big Gen AI boom, but after a particularly pernicious conlang-creation website I won't name had come to exist, so it caught my attention. I decided to do a little digging and see what this was all about, and I ended up with a familiar name.

Klinton Bicknell.

Indeed, the very same Klinton Bicknell was the head of all AI ventures at Duolingo. Whether enthusiastically or reluctantly or somewhere in between, he was absolutely a part of the decision to close the Incubator and remove all the contractors who had created all the courses that gave Duolingo its reputation. (Because, seriously, why did most of us go to Duolingo? Not for English, Spanish, French, and German.)

I know you sent this ask because of the recent news about Duolingo, but, to be honest, when I saw one of these articles float across my dash I had to check the date, because to me, the news was old. Duolingo isn't just now replacing contractors with AI: They already did. That was the Incubator; those were contractors. That is why there won't be more new language courses on Duolingo, and why the current courses are frozen. This isn't news. This is the continuation of a policy that had already firmly in place, and a direction that rests solidly on the shoulders of Klinton Bicknell.

But you don't have to take my word for it. He's talked about this plenty himself:

Podcast (Generative Now)

Article in Fast Company

Article in CNET

Google can help you find others.

At this point there's a sharp and baffling division in society with respect to generative AI. On the one hand, you have those of us who disapprove of generative AI on a truly fundamental level. Not only is the product something we don't want, the cost—both environmental and ethical—is utterly insupportable. Imagine someone asking you, "Hey, would you like a sandwich made out of shoelaces and shit?" And you say, "God, no, why would anyone ever want that?!" And their response is, "But wait! To make this sandwich out of shoelaces and shit we had to strangle 1,000 kittens and drain the power grid. Now do you want it?"

On the other side, there are people who are still—I mean today—saying things like, "Wow! Have you heard of this AI thing?! It's incredible! I want AI in everything! Can AI make my table better? Can I add AI to my arthritis? We should make everything AI as quickly as possible!"

And conversations between the two sides go roughly like this:

A: Good lord, now they're using AI art on phone ads? Something has to stop this… B: Yeah, it's so cool! Look, I can make a new emoji on my phone with AI! A: Uhhh…what? I was saying it's bad. B: Totally! I wonder if there's an AI shower yet? Like, it could control the temperature so you always have the perfect shower! A: Do you know how much power it takes to run these genAI apps? At a time when we're already struggling with income inequality, housing, inflation, and climate change? B: I know! We should get AI to fix that! A: But AI is the problem! B: Hey ChatGPT: Teach me how to surf!

It's frustrating, because the B group is very much the 💁 group. It's like, "Someone was using ChatGPT and it told them to kill themselves!" and they respond, "Ha, ha! Wow. That shouldn't have happened. What a learning opportunity! ☺️ Hey ChatGPT: How do you make gazpacho?" There's a complete disconnect.

In terms of what you do with your money, it's a difficult thing. For example, I've used Apple computers consistently since 1988. I'm fully immersed in the Apple ecosystem and I love what they do. They, like every other major company, are employing AI. If you go over to r/apple any time one of these articles comes out, it's all comments from people criticizing Apple for not putting together a better AI product and putting it out faster; none saying that they shouldn't be doing it. They're all ravenous for genAI for reasons that defy my understanding. And so what do I do? I've turned off the AI features on all my Apple devices, but beyond that, I'm locked in. From one direction, I look like a hypocrite for using devices created by a company that's investing in AI. From the other direction, though, I am using their devices to say what they're doing is fucking despicable, and they should stop—and I'll keep doing so so long as there's breath in my body.

Duolingo isn't necessary the way that, say, a computer or phone is nowadays. Duolingo is still usable for free, though, of course, they make it a frustrating experience to use its free service. (This is certainly nothing exclusive to Duolingo. That's the way of everything nowadays: streaming services, games, social media... Not "Well give you cool things if you pay!" but "We'll make your life miserable if you don't!") If you do use their Incubator courses, though, I can assure you that those are AI-free. lol They're too outdated to have anything like that. Some of those courses are bigger than others; some are better than others. But all of them were put together by human volunteers, so there's that, at least. At this point, I don't think Duolingo needs your money—nor will they miss it. They're on a kind of macro plane at the moment where the next ten years will either see the company get even bigger or completely disintegrate; there's no in between. They're likely going to take a big swing into education (perhaps something like Duolingo University [Duoversity?]) and it's either going to make a ton of money or bankrupt them. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

I've taken the Finnish course in its entirety and we're doing Hungarian now, and I've learned a lot—not enough, but a lot. I'm grateful for it. I like the platform, and I agree with the basic tenets of the language courses (daily shallow intake is better than occasional deep intake; implicit learning ahead of explicit instruction is better than the reverse). I'm grateful they exist, I'm grateful we can still use them (because they can always retire all of them, remember), and I think it's brought a lot of positivity to the world. I think Luis Van Ahn is a good guy and I hope he can steer this thing back on course, but I'm not putting my money on it.

[troublesh00terfaery]

BELOW 18 PLEASE DO NOT INTERACT. THIS WORK IS NSFW! KEEP OUT! [THIS WORK IS PURELY FICTION]

[Alhaitham x AFAB! Reader]

Words: 3,003 Synopsis: In the heart of Sumeru, thrives the peaceful and unique kingdom to which governed by the monarchy. A young prince experiences a strange succession of dreams to which a mysterious woman comforts him. Wouldn't it be delightful to make this dreams into a reality? Tags: AFAB! Reader, slight teasing, Prince! Alhaitham x Goddess Reader. Pronouns for AFAB reader are she/her. Alhaitham slightly obsessed with you. So far, this will be main tags, more will be added on the following chapters. A/N: after a year of not posting, I AM BACK! AND YES, WITH MORE WORKS. I PROMISE I PROMISE! This idea has been in my head for quite sometime and I personally think you guys will be enjoying this. Should I make a series for the Sumeru men? Prolly. ALSO I DID NOT PROOFREAD THIS SO APOLOGIES, ENGLISH ISN'T MY FIRST LANGUAGE. -Circe,xoxo. <3

FOLLOWING, REBLOGGING, INTERACTIONS, AND FEEDBACKS ARE APPRECIATED

"My Lord, the scrolls have arrived." One of the scribes of the King arrived, offer him a handful of nicely kept scrolls.

For the past three months, Alhaitham has kept himself confined by the study. The setting filled with scrolls of knowledges, as if he tried to absorb every detail he was trying to comprehend. He only replied with a nod and took the scrolls and placed it by the table.

Alhaitham was the only son in line to the throne and he was no ordinary prince. With his knowledge and skill, the other neighbouring nations spoke of him warmly, although setting aside his stoic and rather cold demeanour upon interacting.

The past three months, a mysterious woman had appeared in his dreams in successions. Seemingly telling an ode to him but he couldn't remember what it was, only her beautiful face could he remember. Drapped in white linen and surrounded by padisarah flowers, she would comfort him in his serene dreams to only wake up with scrolls beside him and a cold cup of tea.

It haunted him, every move he made and every thought he had, it followed and haunted him. At times he could not sleep and tried his best to decipher what was it about. He would find himself drawing pictures of this mysterious woman to only ruin it, frustrated and convinced himself that it didn't look like her nor it was not her. Questioning his ability for artistic work he had learned.

At first, he was rather indifferent. It didn't bother him about this mysterious yet ethereal looking woman to appear in his dreams once in a while but as it went on oftenly, this somehow awakened something in him. His curiousity has took over him, trying to look for answers. He was not a man of spirituality but as the dreams went on, he had to summon a spiritual leader to interpret his dreams which he rather finds ridiculous. He was afterall, programmed with knowledge, rational, and logical thinking and approach.

But it did not help him at all, his curiosity grew and grew for this woman in his dreams. At some point, he would forcefully make himself fall asleep to see her again and promised to ever probe her, but her could not dream of her. Thus, he concluded that she would only appear in his dreams when it's: 1) it's night, and 2) when he doesn't force himself to fall asleep.

He wasn't a believer of such. In fact, as the dreams came in successions, he was concluding that he was either sick in the head or he lacked sleep. Given in his work focused nature, he deduct the idea that we was just lacking sleep but somehow, it made him rather stuck in a same routine where he longed for this mysterious woman in his dreams. Who was this woman? What did she mean? Was she real? What is she even?

Of course you were real, in fact, appearing in his dreams was not coincidence. You were indeed a living being, but not an ordinary one. Hindered from the advancement of Sumeru, lies your monastery filled with padisarahs and gold entombed monuments you refuse to leave for it is a sanctuary you have cultivated. It is true to what they say, the Sumeru has still secrets to be revealed, and you were one of the secrets yet to be come upon.

The dreams the prince set genesis when he stumbled upon an old scroll he found during the expedition a month prior his dreams. It was a shabby ancient scroll he found in a mausoleum to expand their territories in the vast lands of the sands. This way, they could keep a hold of the expanding group of eremites and their illegal trading and activities, as per the orders of the king himself to his only successor to the throne.

At first, he didn't pay much attention to the scroll as according to Alhaitham, it wasn't something he nor scribes comprehend. Although a shaman suggested this could be an ancient text telling a story of a goddess who secluded herself from the world. To his prior knowledge, Alhaitham considered the idea rather off. He digressed the notion of a goddess secluding herself from the world. Why would this goddess even seclude herself?

"Are you certain of this?" he asked the shaman, as if questioning the capabilities of the elder.

"That is for you to find out, your highness." the shaman replied.

Ridiculous. Alhaitham thought. He has never heard the tales of this mysterious divine being, nor was taught to him.

Unbeknownst to him, this would eventually trigger a response from you. You could hear his curiosity from a radius away and found it rather amusing. It didn't bother you that nobody prayed for you nor called out for refuge in your arms but this man has had you delighted. Is this an acknowledgment from a being the gods were referring to?

His growing curiosity was getting louder that you had to appear in his dreams. It was mere simple dreams, you appearing and observing him from a far, to showing him your small abode, to entertaining him by playing an instrument as he watched from a close distant.

And it got to the point that you teased the poor scribe by planting a small kiss on his lips. Upon breaking the kiss, he could only stare at you with feverish desire. His colorful eyes looking answers as you cupped his cheeks and feel his strong jaws clenching, urging himself to stop. He returned the favor by brushing his thumb to your luscious and plump lips, grazing his nose bridge by your supple cheeks and leaving kisses and hushed breaths. His palms making its way to your waist, as if trying to remember every detail he could remember. You let him, of course. Everything was new to you, the feeling of intimacy and the warmth of his touch would surge an unexplainable excitement to you. Something you lacked for years and something you, unexpectedly, found a need.

"Please, tell me who you really are and I would search for you in every nation." he begged, his head resting by your shoulder, seeking for both solace and answers as he left kisses over your exposed collar and neck.

You could only reply with a soft chuckle and cup his cheek and pecked a kiss on his cheek. It's a never ending question left unanswered. It was a cue to stop the dream and awaken him from his slumber. A kiss that would blur his vision and awaken him from his dream.

Even if it was only a dream in his point of view, he was still in your domain. Everything was real and it was beyond scientific explanation to prove that every time he was dreaming, everything was happening was happening in your domain. But could he really comprehend and figure out it was the goddess he denied of existence?

"Your grace, your father has called for you." a scribe entered his study, to find Alhaitham lazily looking by the painted ceiling. Seemingly awoken by the morning breeze of the open space of his chambers. The smell of incense from last night was freshly burnt out and the hues of the sunlight passing through the long curtains.

He tilted his head and responded with a nod. Few moments has passed, the prince presented himself to the king. Surprisingly, the king thought it would have been another day to nag the prince to get out of his chambers but there he was, walking towards the king in his seat.

"Father," he greeted.

"Ah yes, son." he spoke, delighted with the presence. Alongside the king was their pet, a Rishbolan tiger, Jihan, to which Alhaitham smiled as the big feline nudged its head to his legs before positioning itself beside Alhaitham.

"How was your night?"

Alhaitham could only remember your face and your soft chuckle. It took a moment before he could respond in his usual laidback demeanor.

"Nothing special." he replied. "You called?"

The king wasn't new to his straightforwardness and thus explained to him. A mysterious woman was spotted near the Vissudha expansion. The king explained to him that the guards spotted the woman just a few meters away from the construction the king has started two years ago. The woman was reported to be rather composed, explaining as to why she freely roamed the ungoing site. The site itself was dangerous, filled with wild beasts and noxious florals thus the only personnel allowed within the Vissudha expansion were architects and members of the royal committee.

"Oh." Alhaitham nodded to his father's story.

"The guards and the look outs commented on her knowledge with the terrains around Sumeru." the king replied. "So they brought her here."

"She's rather adventurous for exploring the area." Alhaitham circled the study table of his father before he comfortably sat by the sofa.

"Dare I must say, but her extensive knowledge with the sands is quite admirable."

"Oh?"

"Yes, in fact, I had spoken a few words with the young woman." The king chuckled, amused. "She's quite brilliant, suggesting a further expansion by the sands. Especially the mausoleums!"

Alhaitham could only respond with a hum. Seems like the women in Sumeru are rather peculiar for roaming carelessly, he thought.

"If I can guess, she's at your age or probably younger. Must have come from a noble family, and archons, her beauty is otherwordly!"

At his age, Alhaitham isn't new to his father's suggestion of him marrying. He was at the age, it is just that his son didn't pay attention and put the importance of it at this moment. He knows it so well that his father would insist upon meeting this woman and thus readied himself by rejecting his father's notion.

"You should meet her."

"No," he replied. "I have scrolls to keep and manage, father." he stood up, Jihad yawned from his action, causing for the feline to stand up and flex its body before nudging and circled the prince. "Jihad…"

The feline responded with succession of chuffs.

"No, no, guards please escort the young lady." the king hurriedly instructed, halting the young prince from walking away. The young prince heaved a sigh, and sat back by the wide sofa once again. This time, Jihad had placed himself by his lap and offed himself to his usual sleep.

The king himself was delighted to see the prince not walking away thus, became slowly impatient to introduce this lady and a few moments has passed, the guards themselves arrived by the king's chambers. Accompanying this said lady to meet the prince.

Each tick of the time, Alhaitham grew impatient with the little meet and greet. He angled his face to towards the curtains, he rubbed his forehead using his middle finger and his index finger whilst his thumb rested on the temple of his forehead. His other hand rested by the felines body to which Jihad appreciated by chuffing.

This was a waste of time, according to Alhaitham. He wasn't aware his father was a matchmaker, so eager to get his only son to be wed. The thought of being married has Alhaitham furrowing his brows.

"Ah, Alhaitham, come meet the young lady." The king softly spoke. Alhaitham could hear his positive remarks to this young lady to which she replied in small and shy chuckles. If he was to judge her, he would find her peculiar and mindless for roaming the area alone. Who on earth would walk alone confidently in an area yet to be finished with construction and still to be tamed?

"Father, I do not have time for this discussion you are initiating--"

"It is an honor, to finally meet the prince." the young lady spoke.

He took a peek from his fingers to have a view of the lady just a few meters away from him. And there she stood, wearing a simple white clothing and a scarf that was loosely wrapped around her hair, a few loose strands of her hair swayed by the wind.

Eyes matching the gaze of the royal prince, a small smile forming in your lips. Upon having a clear view of you, Alhaitham realized what was in front of him. Dumbfounded and speechless, he slowly stood up and awoken the tiger that comfortably laid himself by his lap. Jihad yawned and chuffed, excusing himself by jumping just below the luxurious sofa.

All he could do was to stand there and thought to himself this must be an illusion, or one of his dreams. Silence enveloped the study of the king as he observed you gaze at him with those beautiful yet studious eyes. It's like he couldn't decipher if it was truly you in his dreams or a different person.

There you were, standing in your corporeal form but nothing changed, only the clothing of choice. Ever so radiant, ever so ethereal. The prince couldn't utter any words as he was dumbfounded by the person in front of him. Was his head playing tricks with him? Probably the light? With every inhale an exhale you did, it was proof of life that you were indeed real. After nights of longing for you, you were finally here. In his reality.

Truth be told, this wasn't a scheme you would normally do. Why would a goddess, who voluntarily secluded herself from the world to live in her curated domain, leave her sanctuary? But oh, maybe it was his effect on you? Something finally ignited your curiosity from the outside world. A prince, a brilliant and handsome one.

The king was rather amused with the reaction of his son as he slowly approached you but then halted, as if doubting your existence again.

"Ah, seems like the prince is astonished by your beauty, my dear lady."

The warmth of the king only made you smile as you gazed at Alhaitham. He on the other hand somehow doubted every inch of life in you thus his brows furrowed. The king was indeed right, Alhaitham couldn't deny the beauty in you. You radiated of something out of this world, a beauty that could make a man lose his mind. Lethal, he would call it.

"They were right, your highness." you spoke. "He was indeed a beautiful prince."

Alhaitham stood there, ready to speak.

"Where did you come from?"

That was rather an unexpected question, you thought.

"I was just roaming around the area because I heard there was a constructio--"

"I am asking where are you from." His tone was stern but calm, probing the situation more.

You wouldn't tell him of your sanctuary. It would be ridiculous and of course, it was a secret.

"I came from the desert."

"Which part of the desert exactly?"

"Hadramaveth."

"Ridiculous, that area is out of the reach of the palace nor the council."

"Well I suppose you should widen your expansion within the desert." you replied with a monotone. "After all, the king mentioned you have an ongoing expedition, why not discover it yourself."

He could only stare at your answers, his hawk-like gaze observing you as if he was to judge you of your being. You actually forgot to distinguish whether this was his usual attitude compared to his demeanor during his dreams.

"That area of the desert is out of reach because of its harsh desert." he crossed his arms. "It is an untamed land filled with sandworms and consecrated beasts."

The probing session awakened Jihad whom approached his prince, slowly circling him.

"Well indeed, your grace." you replied. "But there is an area where humans can live, just the passage between Hadramaveth and the Tanit camps."

"To which the eremites occupy." he rebuked. "So, you are an eremite then?"

"No, of course not." the question made you furrow your brows.

"Then answer my question, where are you from?"

The king felt the tension between the two of you. You initially thought that he was going to be delighted to see you in your human form instead of his dreams. But here he is, questioning you. A human, questioning you.

"Now, now, Alhaitham." the king awkwardly chuckled, stepping in. "I think you are scaring the young lady. She offered help to navigate the sands."

"I already sent my men, no need for navigation." Alhaitham looked at his father.

"Your men are headed the wrong direction," you replied. "They're still at the mausoleums."

"And how do you know this? Are you certain they're my men? What mausoleum are you referring to?"

Well, shoot. Of course you couldn't tell him that you can just see everything in a snap. That would ruin your plan. Think. Think. Think.

Now you were certain this was a bad idea, you should've just shut yourself inside that sanctuary of your comfort instead of feeding this man of his wants. What is he up to anyway? You scolded yourself.

"Your highness--"

"That's enough. Guards, please escort this young lady to her quarters." the king sighed.

"No, father. She will be accompanying me in my study." Alhaitham turned his back, walking away and his tiger following along. "She'll have to map the desert out."

You stood there, dumbfounded. This was different man, a different man in his dreams. Where was the man who would look at you with those longing eyes despite being close together? Where was that man who would listen to you play the harp and smile as your grazed your fingers through the strings? Where was the man who would ask for your touch and comfort? Where was he?

You couldn't move from the unexpected reaction from him. Was he not content of seeing you? The silence enveloped and only the heave of the king snapped you back from the heavy thought. Alhaitham stopped as he noticed you were not tagging along.

"Come," he looked back with those stoic eyes.

What an unexpected turn of events.

A/N: FOLLOWING, REBLOGGING, INTERACTIONS, AND FEEDBACKS ARE APPRECIATED! Make sure to follow the first hashtag #Circeworks୨୧ to be updated with my future works! Happy reading faes!

[clever-ludicrous]

How to Actually Learn a Language (Without Wasting Time)

Polyglots will do anything to sell you something, so here’s the fastest and most basic technique based on my research.

—

Step 1 – Getting the Absolute Basics In

This is where most people already get lost. If you search social media for how to start, the advice isn’t necessarily bad, but it often makes you dependent on a single resource, usually an app that will eventually try to charge you. Duolingo, for example, has turned into a mega-corporation that perfected gamification to keep you on the app.

Remember: free apps make money by keeping you on their platform, not by helping you become fluent.

At this stage, the goal is not to gain conversational skills but to avoid overwhelming yourself and get a feel for what you’re actually getting into. All my recommended resources are free because I believe learning a language should be a basic right. I wouldn’t advise spending any money until you’re sure you’ll stick with it. Otherwise, it can turn into a toxic “but I paid for this, so I have to keep going” mindset that drains all the fun out of learning.

• Language Transfer – Highly recommended for Spanish, Arabic, Turkish, German, Greek, Italian, Swahili, and French.

• Textbooks – Simply search for [language] textbook PDF, or check LibGen and the Internet Archive. Don’t overthink which book to choose—it doesn’t matter much.

• Podcasts – Coffee Break is a solid choice for many languages.

• YouTube Channels – Join r/Learn[language] on Reddit and find recommendations.

—

Step 2 – The 20/80 Principle

The idea is that 20% of words make up 80% of everyday speech.

What you’re going to do:

Search “Most common words [language] PDF”.

This list is now your best friend

For flashcards, I highly recommend AnkiPro. It lets you import pre-made lists for Anki/Quizlet and has an archive where you’ll definitely find the most common words. But it lacks audio. The real Anki program has it, but only on PC (unless you’re willing to pay $30 for the mobile app). Use AnkiPro for now—we’ll come back to repeating phrases later. In the meantime, find a YouTube video with the most common words pronounced, or use Google Translate for audio.

(Knowt is a free alternative for Quizlet if you prefer that)

These lists will spare you from learning unnecessary vocabulary at this stage. Spaced repetition (which Anki uses) can take longer, but it’s worth it because you want these words to stick. Anki will only introduce a small number of new words per day. Once you start new words, write phrases using them. Doesn’t matter if they’re random just try to use them.

—

Step 3 – The First Breakup With the Language

This isn’t really a step, but I have to mention it. For me (and for other language learners I’ve talked to) this is where motivation crashes.

The dopamine rush is over. Your ego boost is gone. You’re stuck understanding just enough to notice how much you don’t understand, and topics are getting more complex. Everything feels overwhelming, and motivation drops.

This is normal. You have to push through it.

I’ll write a separate post on how I manage this phase, but for now:

• Take a step back and make sure you understand the basics.

• Find something that keeps you motivated.

• Consistency is key. Even if it’s just five minutes a day, do it. (Edit: You can search online for inspiration on scheduled plans. I found one that organizes language exercises into different categories based on how much time you have each day, which seems helpful. https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/s/sSGUtORurM

Personally, I used AI to create a weekly plan kind of as a last resort before giving up on the language, but try looking for pre-made ones first.)

I personally enjoyed story learning during this phase. And don’t forget the frequency lists are still your best friend. For story learning check out Olly Richards books!

—

Step 4 – Immersion

Your brain needs active and passive immersion. The earlier steps were mostly active, and now you’ll start the fun part.

How to Immerse Yourself:

1. Join some kind of community.

• I enjoy Reddit/ r/lean[Language]. Do this in your target language, but also in the language you already speak. Post that you’re looking for a chat partner in your target language. The most people are nice, and the mean ones will just ghost you anyway.

2. Watch shows.

• Subtitles only in your target language or drop English subtitles ASAP.

3. Listen to podcasts.

4. Read

I personally dislike media made for kids (except on low-energy days). For real immersion, pick something for adults.

5. Translate, write, and speak.

Before this, you wrote simple sentences using vocabulary. Now, put them to work:

• Translate texts.

• Keep a diary.

• Write short stories.

• Complain about the language in the language.

It doesn’t matter, just use it.

—

Step 5 – Speaking

Start speaking earlier than you think you’re ready. Trust me. This is probably where most people disagree with me. I do think you should start by focusing on input, but the importance of output isn’t talked about enough.

Now, the real Anki (or any program with phrases + audio) comes into play. At lower levels, it doesn’t make sense to just start talking, since you wouldn’t even be able to recognize your mistakes. Here’s what you’ll do:

1. Repeat phrases out loud.

2. Record yourself speaking.

3. Compare your recording to the original audio and adjust your pronunciation.

If it’s a tonal language (or if you struggle with accents), start this even earlier.

Other Speaking Strategies:

• Shadowing – Repeat after native speakers.

• Reading aloud – Your own texts, books, anything.

• Talking to yourself.

• Talking to natives (if you’re brave).

I’m not here to fix social anxiety, but I am here to help with language learning, so just speak.

—

Final Thoughts

• These steps overlap, and that’s fine.

• This is supposed to be fun. Learning just because you’re “too deep in” or because of school won’t cut it.

• If you’re lost, take a step back.

• I’m not a professional. I just think a straight answer is way too hard to find.

—

If you have anything to add, feel free to share.

[severedfromthesource]

Androids and Electric Sheep

Ren is experiencing an unusual bug. Features F resus, M rescuer, CPR, stething, mouth to mouth, internal defibs, sex leading to cardiac arrest, sex acts both with consent and a person who cannot consent. I got too invested in the preamble so I highlighted the moment resus actually starts if you want to skip it.

No matter how advanced technology gets, it’ll only ever be used to fulfill man’s most base desires. Case in point- RN-34678. Or Ren, when the barcodes make my eyes glaze over and I get sick of calling them the number slurry X Tech names absolutely everything. Ren is as sophisticated as they come. Actual artificial intelligence. She makes the predictive text and ‘can’t even draw fingers’ image generating 21st century jokes people passed off as AI look like even more of a waste of time than they had been in those days. They might as well have been Speak n Spells. The collective power of every single basement dwelling crypto whizz kid with miles of wires and burnt up processors and bricked up video cards dedicated to their etherium farms pale in comparison to the computing power it takes to run Ren’s brain for an hour. She understands nearly 6,000 languages. She learns and retains information, consuming nearly 160 TB of memory every 8 hours. The bio-organic lace that makes up the net of her brain is a miracle, with the possibility of infinite memory. She is perfect in every sense of the word.

She is a glorified fuck toy.

The second the first android became commercially available, one of the first markets they hit was sex work. If nothing about late stage capitalism drove you crazy, that would have. Fuck curing cancer, or making androids for the dangerous, back breaking work people wreck their bodies to do, X Tech decided people needed a sex doll with a 100k price tag. The world’s most expensive cum sock. And yeah, alright, maybe I’m just bitter, partially because there’s no way in hell I could ever afford one, even as an android technician. But what a waste. She sits on my examination table, dutifully unzipping her black leather catsuit. Her managers always manage to stick her in something stupid looking, so overblown and sexualized they stop even being sexy at a certain point.

She looks up at me with lilac eyes. Last time they’d been blue. I like this shade better, I think, though I could do without the electric blue bob they have her wearing today. ”Your crash reports say you’ve been throwing error codes whenever a stream donation comes in over 2k,” I say. Which, for a bot like Ren, is quite a lot of her donations. “It’s probably just a bug in payment processing.” I look again over her diagnostics, floating on the screen at my desk. “Any complaints I wouldn’t find in the debug menu?”

”My heart has been feeling strange,” she says. I pause and look at her over the top of my glasses. “Well, firstly, it’s not your heart. An aether pump does not a heart make. Secondly, it shouldn’t feel like anything. You’re supposed to ignore the inner workings, it’s all background programs, runs without you thinking about it.” She shrugs. Her shoulders are pale as she rolls down the catsuit and pulls her arms from the sleeves, bunching up the tight leather around her midriff. Her breasts are small and round, standing upright as pretty as a Botticelli painting. I’d noticed the small bumps on either side of her nipples (Christ, did the things ever go soft? Or were they just always cutting glass?) but didn’t register until I saw them now that her managers had pierced them sometime since our last checkup. Little silver bars were stuck through the pink nubs, with winking silver balls on either end. Alright, cool, chill.

I clear my throat and pull up my rolling stool. “Well, let’s just take a look then.” I shift once I’m seated to alleviate the pressure of my stiffening cock. Listen, I’m not a technophile, honest to God. I go out of my way to filter out androids when I’m scrolling through porn sites because, despite the leaps and bounds we’ve made in technology, the uncanny valley is still a thing. It feels weird getting off to bots. But then there’s Ren. And fuck me if she isn’t the most attractive thing I’ve ever seen. I put a hand on the back of her neck, my thumb resting at the diagnostic mode button hidden just under the edge of her jaw. I feel the soft bump that sinks in when I press. Her lilac eyes flash black with snatches of white text, then roll back to lilac. Damn, she smells like a new car.

I glance back at the monitor, and as I suspected, nothing comes up about the aether pump. It seems in perfect working order. Still, I dig around my box of scrap wires and spare tubing until I find my mostly neglected stethoscope. I don’t often have to use it, but I feel a trill of excitement go up from my stomach to think I get to use it on Ren. I plug up my ears and put a hand on her shoulder, taking the bell of the steth in my other hand. Her breasts rise and fall with the rhythm of her breathing, set to mimic human intervals. The real purpose is to cool down her insides and keep her from overheating, but just like the aether pump and its auditory cues, its designed to mimic humans as closely as possible. After a guy fucks something like Ren, he gets the added benefit of being able to lay next to her and listen to her breathing. Feel her heart beat. Doesn’t matter what the purpose of the design is for, it matters so he doesn’t feel like he’s fucking a 100k fleshlight with arms and legs. I press the steth to a spot above her breast and it sinks into her pillowy soft skin like it was real. Cool it, Christ, you can’t get so hot and bothered over everything. Heel, boy.

But my thumb makes a slight imprint against her tit, and it’s hard to think of anything else. Same thing happens when I press the steth against a space under her breast, and it lays warmly against the back of my hand. The pump, like the fake lungs, is designed to look and act and even sound like a heart, pumping coolant through her body. I tell her it’s not a heart out of some petty, pedantic need to distance myself and my unique humanity, but truth is, the thing is a heart. She could die if something went really wrong with it, and a lot of bots have. Sudden cardiac arrest was one of the main bugs in the 2.3 rollout. It got so bad, tons of models in the service industry had to be recalled, because mechanical line cooks and servers were dropping if the ovens got too hot. My hand still on her neck, I pull her forward and press the bell to her back. Her forehead brushes against my shoulder, her gaudy blue wig draping against the side of my neck and jaw. I tilt my head just enough my nose brushes her hair. Fuck, she really does smell good.

“Well, I don’t hear any irregularities,” I tell her, because I don’t. The thing is pumping liquid aether around her body at around 70 bpm, like it should. She draws up from my shoulder, glancing at me sideways. “It only seems to happen with clients,” she says, drying out my throat in an instant. “Clients?” “Mhm. Whenever one of them climaxes. If they do it inside me, my heart starts going very fast. I get foggy and I can’t think afterwards.” I swallow. “Right,” I say, “I mean… I can’t exactly test that, Ren.” She touches my wrist. “It’s rather frightening, Doc. I worry…” She pauses, and I try very hard not to say out loud what I’m thinking. You shouldn’t be frightened of anything, Ren. You’re not supposed to feel any of this. She sits back, bringing her hand up, her fingers curling against where her pump lies in her chest, half covering her nudity.

She doesn’t want to get recalled. I wince in spite of myself. If she has the same defect others in her rollout had, she’s going right back to X Tech. I push the steth around my neck, scooping back hair from my face. “It’s a pretty fatal system flaw. It… I could… Well, I-“ I can’t look at her. Fuck, I really can’t look at her. My face feels hot. This is the plot of like, 90% of bot R34 on the internet. I might as well be a pizza delivery guy and she a lonely housewife who’s a few bucks short on a large sausage. She ‘breathes’. Her chest goes up and down, the lights winking off her pierced nipples. She’s so goddamn gorgeous.

“Doc?” “Thinking,” I huff. I spare a glance around the other cubicles bordering mine. Big glass offices, designed for this exact stupid fucking thing I’m about to do. The first guy who got caught with his dick in a bot ruined it for everyone, so now my coworkers and I are subjected to rat lab cubicles where we can look in on each other at any given moment. People around us testing reflexes, repairing cosmetic damage, quashing bugs. What I was about to do was also technically debugging, but there was no way in hell my boss was gonna see it that way if he saw my flat ass pumping in and out of a bot worth more than I make in a year on the other side of plexiglass. Alright, cool, chill. I scoop up my backpack with my work laptop and sling it over my shoulder. “Bathroom,” I whisper.

Cut to Ren and I, locked in the women’s bathroom. We have three women in the office, and their cubes are on the other side of the building, closer to another bathroom. This one is usually empty. Cut to her, awkwardly standing in front of a toilet. Me, on the verge of being the Most Fired Man Who Ever Lived. For extra security, I’d stuffed us both into a stall, locking it behind me too. It's cramped, which adds to the feeling this is absolutely not what I'm supposed to be doing. But hey, it's my job, isn't it?

I awkwardly maneuver around her and sit on the toilet lid, hastily undoing my pants. God, this is shameful. And weirdly hot? I can't tell if it's just Ren or the dozen or so corporate regulations and general laws I'm breaking doing this, but I can feel the pulse in my cock, pressing up against the inseam of my jeans. Those lavender eyes flick from my face to the swollen, flushed skin, and the outer rim of her pupils flash with color. I help her roll down the leather catsuit and then, holy shit, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I’m inside her. She feels real. My hands on her back, my face buried in her tits, her thighs on mine, she feels realer than any woman I had ever known. My breath warms her artificial skin, and the barbell through her nipple is cold, the contrast making me shiver whenever the hot skin of my cheek touches the metal. My fingers slide up her stomach, her hips bucking and pumping me in and out of her. She’s tight. Really fuckin tight. I can feel her aether pump, the artificial heart, throbbing in her inner walls, harder than any real heart I’d ever felt. It adds to every stroke, a thumping sensation that’s nearly making me come after a couple thrusts. Christ, I might as well be sticking my dick right against the chambers of her fake heart.

The job. Right, I’m doing a job. Fuck, I’ve never loved my job so much. “Lemme- ngh, God, fuck- lemme see i-ins-side your ch-est, R-Ren.” She’s straddling my lap, panting like a porn star, her bob swinging back and forth, and she nods. The synthetic skin goes translucent, a dull blue glow that starts at her collarbone and down to the bottom of her ribcage. I spare only a brief chuckle, Man, we never could get rid of those stupid gamer lights, before I try to focus my attention on her inner workings. The aether heart is basically a simplified human one, drawing hot fluid in one side and squeezing out coolant through the other in an eternal ebb and flow. And right now, it’s going insane. The valves are snapping open and closed rapidly, the thing shuddering instead of really beating. There’s a little display window pinned under her collarbone, and it’s clocking her at 150 bpm, the green spikes of her heartbeat saw toothing across the round display port. Not totally dangerous, but as I pump inside of her and she bounces on my thighs to match my quickening pace, it keeps climbing.

Alright. As much as I want to be stuck in here forever, with a beautiful woman bouncing on my dick in a way I’ve only ever dreamed of, I have to figure out what’s wrong. I wrap my arms around her body, pulling her flush against my chest. “Hold onto me, ‘kay?” I breathe against her ear. Her arms slid around me, nails brushing briefly against my shoulder blades. I take in her scent. Focus on the sensations of her body, the sharp cold of her piercings, breasts pressed against my chest, her warm, throbbing cunt. It doesn’t take long. I start to lose the rhythm as my breath shortens, my strokes shortening too, until finally I can take it no more. I come, hot seed filling her up, bathing my cock, spilling out from between our sexes. Her back arches, a cry ripping from her throat of the most exquisite ecstasy.

Then she dies.

No, seriously, the bot quits all at once. I’m there, still trying to enjoy the feeling of my load making her even tighter and full, when she goes completely limp. Her arms slide down from my back, and the artificial pulse I feel in her cunt just stops all at once. She’s dead weight on top of me. “Fuck,” I spit, trying to readjust her, but she’s goddamn heavy. “Ren? Hey, Ren- man, what the fuck-”

I look up at her sternum to see the aether pump has stopped. The little internal monitor is reading a flatline. I fumble to unlatch the bathroom door, my other hand cradling her back, as I awkwardly shift to try and swing it open. Both of us end up in a heap on the floor when I try to pick her up. I'm apologizing to her slack and lifeless face as I disentangle myself and hastily zip up, then lay her flat on her back. Her perfect round breasts sit in the open air, her still heart glowing between them. I set my laptop beside her and hook up a USB into the command port hidden behind her ear.

There was no tip off in her crash reports, but looking now, I can see the absolute mess of code in the last few lines she ran before arresting. I clean up some of the irregularities, get rid of the redundancies, and hit reboot. Two small circular nodes glow within her chest, then snap against the chambers of her heart. Basically built in defib units. Her body jerks, hand twitching in against her cheek, her back arching slightly. Her naked shoulder blades slap against the tile floor as she falls back, limp again. But she doesn't move. Her pump is still. I glance at the monitor and see FATAL SYSTEM ERROR flash across the screen. Fuck, am I going to have to do this manually?

Growling in frustration, I throw my hands against her sternum. It's easy to get the right position when I can see her heart lying beneath a few layers of synthetic skin. Squaring my shoulders, I push down hard. Unlike with real CPR on a real person, depth doesn't matter, nor the risk of breaking ribs. She's basically Wolverine. A hydraulic crusher couldn't break her ribs. They yield though, and bow in against her spine as I rhythmically pump her heart. The force ripples through her whole body. Her stomach pops up, her shoulders shrug in, her head rolls back and forth. I look from her face down to her tits. I can't help it, they're swaying with each compression, the light catching her piercings. I can feel the cool metal rest against my fingers. The position my hands are in leaves my fingertip pressing against her nipple, still standing upright from our exercise. A shiver runs through me. Am I seriously getting hard again? It's hard not to. My eyes drink in her still body, the remnants of our session dribbling down her thigh, her breasts bouncing like they had when she was riding me.

I can almost see the corner of the screen light up with “Kink Unlocked: Reviving Dead Girls”. I glance at the monitor and see the reboot option has lit up again. When I take my hands away from her chest, I see her aether pump jerking as if trying to start again. Once more I charge the internal defibrillators. While they hum to life, I partake in a ritual that isn't strictly necessary. The hero always gets to indulge in mouth to mouth with the downed heroine. She doesn't actually need air, but her lips are slack, full and inviting. I press mine over hers, breathing air she doesn't need into her mouth. I can feel her cheeks puff, and I'm surprised but excited to see her chest rises too. I give her a few quick bursts of oxygen. Her chest jerks up and I only allow it to fall part way before I give her another, making her chest rise and fall in short hyperventilations. My hand finds itself running up her stomach to feel the motion of my breaths, up over her breast again. It fills my palm as I breathe a long, slow draft into her throat, and I roll her nipple between my fingers. She sighs out recycled air against my face when I break the seal of our lips.

Man, how do EMTs not cum when they resuscitate hot girls? The whole tableau is so erotic, I can feel my pulse once more jerk in my cock. The defibs once more slap the chambers of her artificial heart and she thrashes under the current. Her breasts sway and she again falls limp to the tiles.

“Come on, Ren,” I say under my breath, watching her aether pump swelling at uneven intervals. The chambers aren't beating right still, snapping open and closed out of sync with one another. I again check her code on my laptop, using one hand to tap through my options. The other I lay against her sternum. It occurs to me I really don't know what the fuck I'm doing. Whatever feels like it helps, I guess. Or whatever feels good. I grind my heel in against her heart in slow, rhythmic compressions with one hand. “Come on, work with me here. Breathe for me. Do something, at least let me know you're not completely bricked.” The idea that she might be makes me swallow hard. I like Ren. I don't want to ship her off to the junkyard as much as she doesn't want to be shipped.

When her heart goes still again I lace my fingers together and start pumping her chest anew. I forget my laptop entirely- this isn't a software issue, it's the hardware in her chest acting up. If I can just get the damn thing to reset. Swinging my leg over her supple thighs, I straddle her so I can use my whole body. Like this, I can feel the motion my work creates in her otherwise still body. Each powerful thrust against her pump rolls the kinetic force through her whole body. Her feet swing back and forth. The force rolls from her chest, down her stomach, even rippling her thighs. Each compression makes her stomach roll out, only now I can feel it between my legs.

Fuck it, I'm already fired. These life saving efforts have got me hard all over again, something I would have thought impossible. I unzip and thrust into her almost in one motion. It's next to impossible to actually pump into her while I'm working her heart, so I mostly settle for letting her body rock into me while I do CPR. Only when the prompt for the defibrillator pops up again do I allow myself to roll my hips into her while it charges. The thing whines quietly as I brace my hand against her chest, driving my cock deep inside her. It slaps her heart again and she arches her back, filling my hand against her sternum. Her inner walls clench with the electricity and I groan as I roll in and out of her. That's when she draws in a breath and moans all at once. Her eyes flutter open and she instinctively begins to grind her hips in rhythm with me. Before long I'm filling her up all over again and I collapse on top of her. She's back. The thought strikes me as I look down and see her aether pump snapping out a normal, if elevated rhythm. I roll off onto the welcome chill of the tile floors, my arm still slung around her.

“You okay?” I pant, my eyes half lidded as I look at her. Ren nods, smiling weakly in return. Then she’s wrapping her arms around me, burying her face in my shoulder. I hesitate, the shame of what I had done to her when she was basically dead starting to creep up now that the high is waning. But eventually I slide my arms around her in return, drawing her close to my body. “Thank you, doc,” she whispers.

“Don't mention it.” Seriously, don't mention any of this.

[steviewashere]

Okay, I'm getting on here to be a little bit pissy. I'm sorry in advance.

I am so in love with the headcanons regarding Steve's hearing, whether it be that he's hard of hearing, actively in the process of losing his hearing, deaf with a hearing aid, or just completely deaf—every version is fucking fantastic. I'm hard of hearing myself, it's fucking great that this representation is being written or drawn. I love it.

However, I'm going to hold your hand as I say this, stop using language such as "when he learns to lipread" or "eventually learns to lipread." Please stop.

He shouldn't have to learn to lip read. That shouldn't be an eventual skill he learns.

And, gonna give you a little bit of history here, it's historically ableist to require a deaf/hoh person to learn lip reading. From the late 1800s and into the late 1960s, there were literally programs across America that would force deaf children to write, speak, and lipread English—they were punished for signing to others in their schools, in public, in their dorms. And that didn't change until "Total Communication" was brought forth as a possibility, a philosophy that declared children would learn better using their preferred communication—whether it be oralism (the practice of writing, speaking, and lipreading) or via signing. However, oral schools that implemented total communication into their core programs had sign language that was structured with English grammar, this is commonly known as Exact Sign Language, or Exact English Sign Language. It's not American Sign Language.

Also, children who were approved for Coclear Implants in the early 1990s, were sent from residential deaf schools into day schools (public schools) that had a primary focus on oral teaching; pushed into day schools with little to no support, were discouraged from signing with even their parents. This was due to the fact that it was believed that signing at home would slow down their learning.

I am such a fan of deaf Steve or HoH Steve, but you have to be careful the language you're approaching his character with. If he has a sign language interpreter, then he most likely already knows sign language and will, also, most likely rely on an interpreter for communication with hearing people. If he is going deaf (maybe because of head trauma, maybe he gets into a traumatic accident, maybe he gets sick and just loses his hearing, maybe he listens to music too loudly and damages his ears that way), Steve will most likely already have the skills to write and speak in English, but lipreading is a skill that's difficult to garner.

I'll say, too, lipreading is fucking difficult because hearing people are so used to speaking (most of the time. I'm not talking about non-verbal hearing people in this conversation)—hearing people will typically talk fast, which makes lipreading muddy and indecipherable. I've been trying to learn this for years and I'm fucking over it, I can't do it. I speak and write, but I also use ASL, too.

Saying that Steve needs to lipread, that's ableist. Saying that he eventually or finally learns to lipread, that's ableist. Fuck it, I'm gonna say this, too—requiring or not giving Steve the option to decide whether or not he wants a hearing aid or implant device is also inherently ableist. Deaf people are (and should be) allowed to have a choice on having to hear. My own sibling made the decision recently to stop using the cochlear implant they've had their entire life because they weren't even given the choice to get one in the first place (and decided they were done with it), they hated the feedback the cochlear had, and it was just irritating in the sense that it would fall off, the volume control would change all on its own, and they just didn't like it. That's their choice. It's important to give a character that choice.

I let this get away from me, but I despise how people talk about his options for communication sometimes. It just rubs me the wrong way. And I think it's best we all reanalyze how we approach his characterization, especially how we can approach crafting the characterization without alienating a group of people.

*this post has been approved by my deaf sibling (who was born deaf), and obviously by me (somebody who can only hear out of one fucking ear. seriously be careful about volume control on your ear buds. and also wear ear plugs at shows. it hurts like hell to damage your ear drum.)

Here's a whole Wikipedia article about deaf education in the US (just in case you wanted another reason to hate America, but also if you're curious. definitely something everybody should learn).