Please Stop This - Tumblr Posts

You can literally have "I'm not a unicorn and I'm not into non-monogomy" in your dating bio and you'll still get a message saying "so this is actually a joint account for me and my s/o and we're looking to share 🥺"

Like holy fuck it's no different than a guy asking a lesbian out because "I'm really into you cant we try?" Like holy fuck what makes you think I'd change my mind for a girl who looks like she smokes crack out of a tin can and a guy missing half his teeth and chromosomes?

Character: *speaks in a different language* Oh, whoops, sorry! It's hard to switch back sometimes!

Me: Ew, no, stop that. That's not how that works

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Bi/Multilingual characters consciously switch between languages, unless they've been afflicted mentally, such as being delirious or running on a dangerously high fever. Please, if you're including a bi/multilingual character and want to intergrate that naturally into your story, just do a bit of research.

Reddit gives a lot of advice, as well as tumblr and maybe TikTok if you find the right side of it.

Bi/multilingual characters are only really likely to switch languages mid-sentence if there's a specific word that doesn't translate exactly to the general language. Even then, it's not likely that they'll instantly switch.

They may also switch languages for specific idioms or phrases that aren't common in the general language or just don't translate well at all.

Troubles with language: if they forget a word in the general language, they're likely to just go 'that thing' or try to describe it until someone else finds the word for them. Sometimes, they'll know the word in another language but not the general one. In most cases, if they can't remember the word in the moment, they'll remember it later and slap themselves in the face.

The more languages a character speaks, the more likely they are to forget words. Also, it's incredibly hard to become fluent in a language unless you interact with others speaking the same language. Colloquisms and such are hard to pick up on unless speaking and interacting with natives or that specific culture.

Some letters/characters are incredibly hard to pronounce properly unless you've been corrected on them multiple times and actually taught them by natives, though they most likely don't care about butchered pronounciation, unless it's a specific dialect. In that case, some might find it insulting.

I'm not bilingual or multilingual, so if you want proper advice, go to those reddit pages or tumblr posts that are actually written by people who are. Still, all this advice I've given is from my own research for my fanfics.

Seeing authors abuse google translate and go, 'yay, representation!', is very frustrating, especially because it relies on stererotypes and thus diminishes the representation. It happens more often than not, and that's really sad because you can make bilingual/multilingual troubles so funny.

Forgetting a word so you just shrug and start a new conversation because it's easier than trying to figure out what the word is. Swearing in another language so children don't pick it up, only for them to also speak that language. Speaking in a different language just to annoy everyone else who doesn't understand.

There's a lot of potential for comedy with this, but not when it's 'oops, it's hard to switch back/I get confused sometimes.' And, no. They do not switch when excited. It's a conscious decision, unless they're really, really out of it.