#✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*still haven't learned my lessons || TWEETS*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

[amalthiaph]

I took an interest in The Bad Batch around the tailend of S2. It's not news to Tumblr that I almost slept on this show. And I cannot thank Caleb Dume enough for being the reason why I pressed the play button for this one. While I haven't been around for most of its active run, and I wish I had been, the last year has been among the best months of my life.

This show challenged my morals, and taught me lessons that I will forever take with me.

Tech taught me to embrace and take pride in who I am. I now think that I am not something that needs to be cured. I needed to be understood and accepted. He taught me that we deserved to be loved and be allowed to live the way we want to (as long as we are not causing harm to ourselves or to others).

Hunter taught me that at the end of the day, we're all still humans. We make mistakes. We fail. But we can learn from them, and we can strive to be better. And I should also take care of my hair bec I cannot accept that a man in a galactic war have better hair than me (Okay, did you honestly think I'm gonna be serious this entire essay?)

Crosshair taught me that at the end of the day, we really are still humans. Sometimes, we make choices that not everyone will understand or agree to. Sometimes, we don't even understand our own choices. But we can learn from them, and we can strive to be better. And that I should also go to therapy bec istg my hand shakes like hell I always need to rely on a pen stabilizer when doing my artworks.

Wrecker taught me that in this world where we can be anything, always choose to be kind. He is a great man who would always be there for everyone, and I hope that one day, I can be that person too. He is afraid of heights, but he climbs and go on high places anyway. Like him, I should also start conquering my fears. Dear Wrecker, I did try conquering my fear of heights last March 9 but I can't. I will try again.

Echo taught me to always fight for the greater good. Almost two years ago, me and a group of people campaigned for a great tomorrow. With pink flags and pink balloons, we worked on our little thing I like to call our rebellion. Sadly, we lost. At times, I am thinking of just giving up bec that's democracy and I cannot go against the people's decision, but characters like Echo and the rest of Rogue One taught me that nothing should ever stop me for fighting for the people's rights and that my love for my fellow citizens should always come first before hatred.

And lastly, Omega taught me to be curious, or more likely to not be ashamed for being curious. Learn about the world. Learn about lots of things. We never know when we need it. While I could say be good at strategy and win 30 grand on card games, nahhh, I'm not that smart.

I also learned to reevalutate myself as an artist. This show taught me integrity. I had ranted about this lately but these characters challenged me in terms of art. I knew that the creators aren't best at proper representation. While I could draw them as they are in the show, I choose to stand for what is right, and represent them as properly as my skills could. In the more technical side, I became good at drawing armors. And this little Actors AU Draw Series taught me to be responsible; I tried my very best to create and post them on time. This increased my productivity.

But enough about me.

There's something I realized two nights ago; we, the fandom, are Bad Batchers ourselves. We can consider ourselves a family, but not one of us is the same and we're all interesting, and capable in our own unique ways. We can have our own opinion and stand about something and still coexist. Like our favorite charactera, we embrace and celebrate our differences.

This show may end. No more Bad Batch Eves, no more cryptic tweets that cause us to hyperventilate, no more Bad Batch Wednesdays but it will live on, through us.

I know there will be a day where we decrease in number, one by one, little by little, but still, the show will live on through our actions, our opinions, our choices we make after May 1, 2024 because I know that all of us were changed in some ways by these characters and this show.

To the crew, your cryptic tweets caused me sleepless nights, but thank you so, so much. It is through your hardwork that we had this wonderful show. Thank you for making every second of the past year so worthwhile and enjoyable for me and for everyone.

However this show will end, whether happy or sad, I am glad it happened. However short my time was with them, I am happy I had been here. However short my time with everyone in the fandom was or if some of you leave one day, still, thank you so much for being part of my life; I am so happy I met all of you.

To Clone Force 99, thank you. I've never loved anything like this before. May the Force be with you.

[chaoticallyfluffy]

I hope this doesn’t come off as me pressuring you, but I saw you have a fic that says it’s being rewritten, so I’m just wondering if that’s still happening or if you will be discontinuing it?

Again, no pressure. If you don’t want to continue the fic then that is completely understandable and I hope you’re putting yourself first <3

Don't worry, that's not pressuring at all, thank you for being kind and for reading my fic! I'm so happy you liked it enough to ask about it :D (unless you’re just curious and didn’t read it which is also cool!)

It is still happening! I have the draft of the first 7 chapters done and a short outline of the rest (12 chapters planned and 25k words written so far!) but a lot has been happening so I haven't gotten around to finishing them yet. I think the best option for this fic right now is to completely finish drafting the entire thing and then post each chapter as I edit them.

I am also working on many different fics, drawings, animatics, for my main blog and fake tweets for my side blog, as well as real life things like physiotherapy. Not even including my disabilities which make it hard to do very much at all, it's a lot to juggle!

I really enjoy doing all these things (except the disabilities which I could go without) and being able to switch between projects whenever one becomes more of a hassle than a joy. This does make it hard to update things, though, which I'm really sorry about! I decided months ago not to post anything unless I'm 100% finished with at least the draft, but that was my first fic so I hadn't learned that lesson yet when I posted it. There are many other half finished fics just like that one that I will also post someday, I just haven’t posted them yet so I don’t make anyone wait this long again.

It will most likely still be months before I can post the new version unfortunately. I have been slowly chipping away at it and trying my best to make sure it's worth the time you all waited when it is finally released!

Thanks for the ask, and I hope you enjoy it when it eventually comes out!

[mallorymerlant]

so. woke up this morning and saw kit's coming out tweet. i haven't stopped crying eversince. the way people pressured him, an 18-YEAR-OLD to come out before being ready is truly disguisting. i am incredibly sad because of 2 things:

1) i have sooo much love and empathy for kit. he, as both an actor and a person, has been such a comfort to me and many others oven the past few months. i am a 19-year-old queer woman and an empath and i can't help but put myself in his shoes. the pressure he has felt /still feels is probably immense and i can't even begin to imagine the pain he carries, growing up infront of what has appeared to be such a ruthless society.

2) i am a queer person and i've known it for years. i am not out to the majority of people in my real life and seeing people's behaviour on the internet DOES impact my confidence about being out, figuring out my identity and just being openly queer in public spaces. i understand that a lot of people are fighting for queer actors to play queer roles and there is a good intention behind it. HOWEVER this has gone out of control. let's say a straight actor does play a queer character and profits off of it. it's not ideal but it will ALWAYS and FOREVER be better than pressuring ANYONE (even more so a CHILD) to come out before they are ready. queer people's safety should be everyone's primary concern.

The aftermath of this will not only be for kit, but for countless other queer people (like myself) who will see this and feel pressured and scared to peacefully exist in public spaces on their own terms. i hope you all can offer comfort and love to kit in this incredibly difficult time. and most importantly learn your lesson and be there for the queer people in your real lives. this whole situation is beyond heartbreaking and should have NEVER happened in the first place. i love you kit, and i am here for you. you don't deserve any of this.

[krvstil]

@estelle: 😍😍😍😍😍😍 🤷🏽‍♀️🤷🏽‍♀️🤷🏽‍♀️🤷🏽‍♀️🤷🏽‍♀️🤷🏽‍♀️

[arcadiii]

1, 6, 11, and 15 + the fic of your choice 😁

A... a fic of MY choice? You've asked for it now, because I'm choosing TWO OF THEM (cackles in orange)

overwritten, overridden (1, 6, 11 + 15)

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

OK, it's no secret that I was inspired after watching the O&Y episode, but it might be a surprise to you that I'd already HAD the idea of writing an Amnesic Marcy AU. I was originally going to go down a 'Sleeper Agent' route but after watching O&Y and seeing The Core in all its awful glory, seeing the binary codes and just the fact that this computer was being uploaded into Marcy really inspired me to work with the computer allegory that you see in O&O.

6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

Ignoring that my other fics so far are oneshots (or an unfinished AU), I think what makes it different is probably just sheer amount of stuff I’m throwing into this? I’m trying to cover so many different aspects from character development, to relationships to plot lines that it’s kinda insane. I’ve said in the below question, but I also have some special teachings that I’m working into this which I try and stand by myself which is what makes this fic special to me!

11: What do you like best about this fic?

I've already said in another ask that I love the POV changes and the angst - but another think I love about this fic so far is the underlining lessons(?) I'm trying to include in there. I don't know how much of them people have picked up on yet (there's a key one I know some people have spotted so far) so I won't say anything more, but let's just say I have another lesson to teach you all which will come into play. :)

15: What did you learn from writing this fic?

So, is it bad if I say I learnt that I'm actually pretty good at writing and I've learnt to be more confident with it?

I've always loved writing but I've always been way too scared to actually share it with anyone, so O&O was kind of a test for myself. It's the first fanfic I've ever written and published, so to see people commenting and enjoying the work I've written has definitely bumped my confidence.

I'm still learning though, I can already see how my writing has improved from the first chapters of O&O to my more recent chapters, so I'm excited to see how much more I can evolve my style!

change of plans (1 + 6)

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

OK, I don't know if you've read this one Lex, but the real reason I wanted to talk about this oneshot, is I because I wanted to shout out about my inspiration for this one.

My original inspiration for this was a nice little tweet by Kayseix where they'd basically said, imagine a specific angsty scenario. So, me being a happy little angsty writer thought, yes I can do that.

Then I made the mistake of reading @ghostadventurespirit0rb's fic there's just too much that time cannot erase as well as MidnightCrossroads' fic they see you when you're sleeping. The defining factor of these two fics? They are angst written in second person - and they both absolutely destroyed me.

So, they basically inspired me to try writing in Second Person which lead to this angsty oneshot! All three of them are amazing writers, which I highly recommend, so go check out their work if you haven't already!

6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

This ties into the above question! It's all written in second person, which is something I don't typically do! It amplifies the angst I'm trying to inflict on you portray in this fic. :)

[isnotys]

Seamless Part 4

Summary: After being Shane Dawson’s assistant for a year, things couldn’t have been going better. However, Shane had other plans. He has decided that your next move is to jump headfirst into your true passion and with some unexpected partners.

Warnings: None

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Inspiration for the name of this series

It has been a few weeks since meeting the twins and honestly, my mind is still reeling from it. We have kept in touch because Shane made a group chat with all of us in it and they wished us a Merry Christmas. From then on we’ve just shared silly Tik-Toks and funny tweets, nothing too serious.

The Christmas break was great, Ryland’s family is so welcoming and supportive. We had an exquisite Christmas Eve dinner and spent that week disconnected from the internet. Sometimes it is necessary to take a moment and reflect. Life in LA moves so much quicker and the crazier it gets, the harder it is to remember what you are chasing. Maybe I do want something more than what I have allowed myself to want. 

But after this great week away, today is the New Year’s Eve party and I’ve been keeping busy preparing the food and helping Ryland and Morgan decorate, to avoid thinking about seeing the twins again tonight. They are great and I genuinely like them, but I don’t know how much we really have in common. I am from a small college town and can only hope to achieve half of what they have done. I have to admit it, I am intimidated. As much as I’d like to think the opposite, they could only ever see me as a fan, not as a friend. Needless to say, I feel very out of place. 

However, Shane is low-key (high-key) making me attend this party, going on about “connecting with people” and “giving myself and others a chance.” To be fair, he is absolutely right. However, it has always been hard for me to keep friendships, mostly because people aren't always honest about their intentions and LA seems to be exactly that but multiplied by a hundred. Obviously, not Shane’s friends or the twins, but generally and me already feeling a bit intimidated, it’s clearly not helping. Hopefully, tonight will be different. 

“Guys! Are we ready for the best night ever?!?!” Shane asks entering the room. He’s clearly a little tipsy already and oddly enough not wearing his iconic pig shirt. He is wearing all black suit, with a black shirt underneath. Accompanying him is Garret, who is wearing black dress pants and a bedazzled Gucci shirt which Jeffree bought him for Christmas. 

“Where is the food?!?!” Garret asks half yelling, but completely serious.

“Nothing is ready yet, Garret. You’re gonna have to wait a few more minutes, hun.” I say to him as Morgan walks up to him and hands a box of Cheez-Its.

“No eating before dinner guys!” I say to them sounding like the world’s most annoying mom and they both just laugh at me.

“Someone is nervous,” Shane teases. “Listen, I get it, but today is just like a family gathering. Except, no one is getting offended although, there’s gonna be some shade thrown for sure.”

“But what about the twins?” I ask nervously.

“Aw, that’s CUTE! I remember wanting to impress my crush when I first moved to LA hopefully, your pants won't rip,” Garrett says unironically. 

“You have nothing to worry about, y/n. They’re not typical LA douchebags,” Shane says patting my shoulder completely dismissing Garrett, as usual. He really is a dad to all of us. 

“I don’t have a crush on either of them for the record,” I murmur nervously. 

“That is like saying I don't like Shane. I’ve seen the way your eyes were sparkling at dinner last time, hunty,” Ryland teases. 

“You can’t deny you are a fan at the very least, y/n,” Morgan says with her mouth full of Cheez-Its still. “It is like me trying to deny my life long love for donuts, it’s pointless.” I roll my eyes and keep making my vegan banana bread for dessert. Not just because it so happens to be Grayson’s favorite. 

A few moments later, people start to arrive. Sadly, Trisha couldn’t make it, but Jeffree comes in, wearing a beautiful olive green, skintight dress with a Gucci coat, and he is accompanied by boyfriend, Nate. Jeffree’s presence is anything but bland and ordinary. Yet, he oddly feels approachable and humble. The guest list also includes; Drew, Andrew, and my queen, Jenna Marbles alongside Julien Solomita. They really are a match made in heaven. 

I am helping Ryland serve some drinks around when I see them. I immediately get this intense rush of feelings that runs through my body, as if Zeus himself had struck me with his lightning bolt. I feel my face burn and my knees weaken out of pure terror. 

The night is pitch black and the air smells of expensive perfume and alcohol. Suddenly, my glittery teal dress feels too revealing, too short, doesn't fit right and is definitely not pretty enough. But they look out of this world. Ethan is wearing red pants and an LV t-shirt, while Grayson looks absolutely breathtaking with tight lavender dress pants and a black t-shirt. 

They smile when they see me and start walking toward me. “Hi, y/n! How have you been,” Ethan says giving me a side hug. My nose is filled with his almond scent and I can’t do anything but swoon. 

“Good, great to see you both,” I say trying to sound calm, cool and collected as Grayson hugs me as well. When he pulls away we lock eyes and I am about to lose consciousness, but then I notice Ethan smirking to my right. My face feels warm and I want to run away, but I try to smile through it.

“How was Colorado?” Grayson asks looking at Ethan all serious, “Shane said you weren’t having it with the weather.”

“Yeah,” I have no idea why Shane would be talking about me with the twins, but I continue, “I don’t like the cold. I didn't live long enough in New York to get used to it. However, it was really nice to get away from the crazy LA scene.”

“I get what you mean, it’s like sometimes you can’t even hear yourself think,” Grayson says.

“Yeah, like everyone wants you to do something that might not be what you want and could only benefit them,” Ethan continues.

“That’s how I feel, as if I can’t trust anyone outside of my circle. It’s all so kill or be killed here,” I say feeling like we are finally connecting. Maybe I have been so scared and in my head about my own insecurities that I haven't given them a fair chance. 

The twins and I stay together for the rest of the night, talking about the most random things and some deeper stuff too. Turns out they were bullied in school, I was too, but they are so sweet I can’t even fathom the thought of someone truly disliking them, let alone wanting to hurt them. 

The night is coming to a close and we are all three outside sitting by the pool. It feels like I have known them for years. Like souls that have known each other from a past life recognizing each other in this one, we are seamless.

“What’s the greatest lesson you’ve learned this year?” Grayson asks looking at me breaking a few minutes of silence after our last deep conversation.

I give it some thought, but I’ve known all along, “That rejection will never hurt as much as regret. What about you?” 

“Live every day as if it’s your last,” Ethan says still looking at the dark sky. There isn't a single star out there tonight. 

“That you gotta step into the daylight and let it go,” Grayson says smiling at me. I can’t help but smile as well. That dimple is to die for.

“You stole that from Taylor Swift, sir,” I blush furiously and he laughs, which sounds like the laugh of an actual angel.

“I stole that from your Twitter bio actually, but what can I say?,” Grayson laughs again and Ethan just pretends to have been listening to the conversation all along. I just pretend Grayson didn't just say that he was looking at my twitter and try to keep the small amount of dignity that I have left and play it cool. 

The countdown begins and I am welcoming the decade with two of the people I have admired the most. What could be better than this?

[splitscreen]

Seeing a new still of Nick in 3x12 on reddit and knowing they decided to cut it out makes me sad. I just hope they haven't pissed Max and he's willing to return next season. That is unless they wrote him off completely and this is how his story ended

so for anyone who doesn’t know, some episode stills have been unearthed. here is the still of a scene that was supposedly cut from episode 12, showing soldier!nick in chicago, i presume:

now as far as my feelings on this... they’re complicated. of course i am sad and upset we lost out on some nick content. and i’ll admit, yesterday afternoon i was spiraling down into this really bad headspace where i was thinking this. i was like... they cut all of the nick stuff because we wanted it too much, it was done out of spite, poor max, i hope he isn’t upset, etc. i was really upset. i couldn’t make sense of it.

but then we found this still and at first i was more upset. like... what an insult to injury, first they reduce nick’s screentime to almost nothing and then they actually had scenes they filmed and they just didn’t use them? 

but then i started talking with friends and we came to this realization that like... they filmed this stuff. we’re not talking like they wrote nick stuff and then decided to axe it before it made it to production. no, this stuff made it all the way to production. and they cut it anyway. tv/film production isn’t cheap. why would they do that? they know we’ve all been desperately wanting nick all season.

we came to the realization that, whatever this scene was, whatever nick in chicago stuff they filmed, was probably something to try and push their ambiguous nick storyline. which, once they aired it in 3x06, did not go over well at all. so many people saw right through it or downright hated it, and nick fans, myself included, have been extremely vocal on social media about nick and how much we love him and, in more than one instance, how our hulu subs depend on what they do with nick and nick/june. i went back on twitter and found several instances where tweets about how hulu subs were dependent on nick content got several hundred likes and dozens of retweets. that’s not insignificant. 

so if they filmed all of this stuff that was doubling down on making nick look like a terrible person and they knew they would get a huge amount of backlash for it, it’s not like they could go back and reshoot the scenes. they had already wrapped on production by the time they’d have realized the ambiguous nick stuff was going over like a lead balloon and people were not happy about it. at that point, all they could do was cut it. 

so if we look at it that way (which is how i’m choosing to look at it, until we can get a look at the season 3 scripts to confirm/deny), then we actually saved nick’s character. and honestly? i’d rather not see him than see him do questionable shit. and i hope max realizes this. because if this does end up being the reason cuts were made, i’m ok with it. 

and hopefully, they’ll learn a lesson and course correct for season 4. i’m not overly optimistic about this at this point, but so far they’ve done nothing to fuck up nick or his character and seem to realize now doing so would be a huge mistake. so... season 3 has been a bust, but maybe next year we’ll see more good nick blaine content. 

[onelifeforlouisandi]

It's sad that anon is basing their opinion of Oli on unsubstantiated rumors. Haven't we learned our lesson with all the astroturfing that's gone on over the years? All the lies that have been spread by those "in the know". Remember that one about how those with connections to the band had it on good authority that Harry was NOT going solo and Azoff was going to "save the band"? We know how that turned out. But sure believe that Louis would remain friends with Oli if those stories were true. 1/2

2/2 it's not like Louis hasn't been deliberately maligned in the public (Zayn too). They've exploited Louis moms death, Fizzy's death, used Lottie and Louis bio dad against him. You don't think it's possible in an effort to demean Louis within the fandom it's possible these narratives & accusations aren't true? With the added bonus of hurting Louis by hurting someone close to him. What better way to punish or get compliance? I don't understand this fandom willingness to always drink the Kool Aid

I still think that anon was a harrie because they were hating on Louis too much. If you hate someone that much you shouldn’t be their fan. I deleted one of their asks where they were very angry with Louis. Anyway, yes, I do remember those days. I laughed quite a bit when those fake experts and in-the-know fakers were spewing shit and people were believing them. Funny how all of them are gone now. The azzoff will save the band is my favorite one because it was sooo obvious he wasn’t and he even twitted once that he liked modest and thought their were doing a good job, but you know this fandom, people prefer to believe in things that don’t exist. Same with the Oli, Calvin debacle. I don’t remember seeing tweets about it, but if they exist, tweets are hardly proof of anything, but like you said, people never learn they will forever believe in tweets, damn is 2019 and people believe in tweets.

[amstories]

thoughts on mtod series

at first, i really wanted to write a series related to my college degree and i saw the perfect opportunity to start writing it when i thought of 576hwy's plot. while writing 576hwy, i started to think of making it as a standalone novella instead since i don't have any rough plot about the next installments yet. yes, i may have the titles and book covers already but i didn't want to base the plot on the titles i've thought of. i'm just not that kind of writer. i want my titles to be based on the plot.

good thing i stumbled upon a tweet that i cannot recover anymore. i don't know why i didn't mark it as bookmark. anyway, the gist was, "keep writing even when you're old. the older you are, the more experiences you can write."

then it hit me. i won't be able to write the stories i have written if i didn't experience them (or at least, the people around me). i have nothing to share to the world if i didn't learn the things i have learned before. so it's okay.

it's okay that i still haven't written any outline or rough draft of the next installments of mtod (and possibly the rest of my upcoming stories). i still have a lot of lessons to learn and things to experience.

another point i wanna ramble on is pursuing mtod as a series instead of a standalone novella. honestly, i was getting lazy to think of the plots of the next installments. i've mentioned it on my twitter account before for accountability but i'm gonna say it here again. the reason i'm gonna pursue it as a series is because i want to share to the world what really happens inside the laboratory. there are a lot of stories about doctors, nurses, and surgeons. although i cannot represent other healthcare professions, i wanted medical laboratory scientists to be represented somehow.

even when there are a lot of medical technologists in the philippines, i believe it's still one of the most underpaid and underappreciated professions in the country. and that's just sad.

that's why i'm gonna continue to write this series. although i still don't have plans to write the next installments in the near future, i will surely go back to this series when i have enough experiences to share already.

nagsusulat, AM

[ybyg]

久しぶりでしょうね？ Let's catch up.

I haven't been diligently studying Japanese due to... just life. Some unavoidable things happened and I had to live through the nightmare. It's all right now. I think. I'm here to update you about how miserable it's been trying to catch up with what I've missed and maybe talk about the time I spoke to JO1's Sho who can speak English and I wanted to make an effort to speak to him in Japanese but failed (without sounding like a twat who's showing off).

Continue reading under the cut.

Note: I barely edited it, so if it sounds out of place, or my Japanese sounds awkward... tough luck, I'm probably not going to edit it.

1. Wanikani update

レベル１０に入ってでした。正直は、まだレベル9ですね。This thing levels up as soon as you learn everything there is on the level you formerly in, without taking into account if you have complete at least a round of revision on the last thing that you've learned (they call it 'review' on WK).

The SRS thing is proven to be the best method to recall phrases and kanji. I'm paying for Wanikani (okay, the thing is good. I like it) and have Anki installed and haven't reviewed anything since I created my decks. But it works alright. I may have the worst memory/information-retaining brain and it might've taken me forever to recall what 予 is (it's beforehand, apparently), but I can still remember the ones I've learned the longest; basically from levels 1-4. (I'm learning 予 in the latest level, that is level 9. I'm still suffering turbulence here.)

I haven't seen my stats. Let's have a look, shall we?

I live by the words 'it could've been worse.'

My percentages used to be at least in the 90% across the board, but I just jumped straight into reviewing and clearing over 900 radicals, kanji, and vocabulary without revising, hence why I've done terribly and now it's bringing my stats down.

Radicals I can't believe I fucked up my radicals. They were supposed to be the easiest. I have no words.

If you need a single tip to start learning kanji, you can start by learning its components, and that is the radicals. It'd be easier for you to create stories for mnemonics. Other than that, try Heisig's Remembering the Kanji.

Kanji I am aware I could've done better at this, but kanji itself is just confusing. It's sometimes easy to predict some of the words, like ち that's used for earth or soil (地) and pond (池)--and not to mention the difference is just the radicals soil and tsunami--but I deduced that some aspects of nature fall under the ち umbrella.

And then there are devils like 他 and 地. Ugh. I'm going to leave it here.

Vocabulary

I know what the word 交じる stands for, and then you have 交わる which is thrown into the mix just to confuse me, and that just pisses me off every damn time.

I honestly know the meaning better than the pronunciation... which is dumb because if I were to speak in Japanese, I'm supposed to say the words majiru or majiwaru, not to be mixed or to intersect.

One thing about WK: you might understand the meaning differently. For example, they may offer the word substitution, but I would think of another word, replacement. Unless you input the word 'replacement' into the system, it would still be wrong in your reviews, and you're expected to remember substitution instead. And as an ESL, well, sometimes I'm just expected to drill the word substitution into my brain. I barely use the word daily anyway. So, you're expected to do extra work in order to learn, which is not a bad thing, but it can be annoying sometimes.

To recap, I don't do terribly despite not doing WK for a few months, but I could've done better. It's still in the okay territory, but I'll do my best to improve my reading skills and expand my lexicon.

What's next? I still have to clear up 92 lessons which include the level 9 that I've yet to cover and the entirety of level 10. On top of that, the tens and hundreds of reviews need to be cleared out daily... it's still going to be a rigorous routine when it comes to this one.

2. Grammar (and Reading)

In order not to spend my own money on learning materials, I persuaded my mum to get me みんなの日本語 (MNN); both workbook and notes for Level 1, and I chipped in with my Kinokuniya discount card. Yes, I am 26, but my finances haven't been the greatest as of late, so if anyone needs to hire a writer/social media manager, please send me a DM.

I digressed. Anyway, I've reached the 4th chapter, and it's been great so far! The workbook is completely in Japanese, and as someone who can read hiragana, and to some extent, katakana, it's definitely a great book that helps me improve my reading skills. I wish WK and MNN were at least streamlined because the kanji on WK has the tendency to be more scattered due to the complexity of certain kanji despite them being N5-N4 kanji.

[I edited out a paragraph on Kanji levels and complexities but would like to highlight the inconsistencies in the kanji levels that's shared on the Internet, including in WK. I suppose you will never find the one true answer as to which level does 傘 (umbrella) belongs to: is it N5 per stated in Jisho, or is it N1 as stated in WK? I guess you will never know...)

I prefer MNN over Genki as Genki explains points in English and annotates translation/furigana as bright as day underneath the Japanese texts. As a high-functioning English/romaji reader, my brain isn't doing the hard word; it's just reading the English and romaji. MNN forces me to read in Japanese and makes me translate the sentences on my own, so I am actively learning from the activity. Whilst it has a separate book that explains the chapters in English, I find it very helpful for me to immerse myself in Japanese then flip through the English version of the book just to see how well I understand the lesson. I would suggest Genki for absolute beginners and MNN for those who are in the lower-intermediate level.

I've been reading JO1's mails and articles related to them with varying degree of successes. The shorter ones are simpler and more manageable, but reading longer ones make me quit halfway. I should be reading more so it'd be easier for me to recognise the ones I've yet to learn and strengthening those I've learned.

3. Active learning (Speaking, Listening and Writing)

I've tried to speak in Japanese to myself, and it's mostly え、なんだろう今。。。、ヤッバ、マジ？、いいですね！、ほんまに？ and the latter being 'really?' in Kansai dialect (関西弁), thanks to half of the members of JO1. Since I'm learning 'textbook', formal Japanese, I'm still finding it extremely difficult to communicate in vernacular/colloquial Japanese. Not that I'm familiar with 敬語 (keigo/honorific language) either, just trying to fit the よ, ね, です, します, ません et cetera have racked my brain and I'm at the precipice of trying not to lose my mind. Perhaps, if I tried harder, I'd be able to use it comfortably. But for now, please let me suffer from my stupidity.

Since I wanted to 'try harder', I'm currently going through Making Out in Japanese (it sounds crude, but so far it's been very mild and helpful)

I haven't been writing in Japanese, which is horrible, because what's the use of reading when you can't write. I tried making my own flashcards which ended up taking too much time so I turned to digitalised SRS instead, which can be both annoying and unhelpful sometimes. I'm not a fan of learning through the screen as it takes too much space on the table and plays a part as my focus destroyer. But I can't complain as these devices do make things infinite times easier for me.

For the past couple of weeks, I've interacted with more Japanese JAMs (that's what JO1 decided to christen their fans) and have made the effort to type in Japanese, albeit broken Japanese. I employed my brain, Jisho and the untrusting Papago and Google Translate (the translation sites merely help me check if my sentences make any sense). I bet they're reading my tweets and messages thinking, 'What the fuck is this person on about?' Well, I don't know either.

And here comes the horrible part.

I won yonton (용통 in Korean, basically a video call) and had the chance to speak to the JO1's leader. Which is awesome, yes? I had a week to prepare and that particular week leading up to the event had given me multiple heart attacks. Some dramas happened, an interview happened... and I had only a few days left to prepare. Towards the end of the week, I decided I was going to do 自己紹介 (self-introduction) in Japanese. I know enough to say *キラです。クアラルンプール出身です。マレーシアJAM です, though that sounds super awkward. What I did on the day was the exact opposite.

Well, it's a known fact that the leader speaks English. Heck, it's an open secret that we know he went to a school that had an English department, whatever that means. As the owner of this brain who've spent approximately weeks and hundreds of hours on Japanese, I think know enough to say those words. But what did I do?

I spoke to him in English.

Of course, like everything, it takes a while to set in. That evening, it occurred to me that not only I had spoken to him in English, I also didn't let him speak. I didn't let him finish his sentence.

To be fair, it was only for 30 seconds. I don't need him to speak, and I wanted to, for once, assert my dominance. (The running joke here is that he plays the character of a freaking flirt, and as a lesbian whose compulsory heterosexual crush is him, I have the inclination to get the man to sit down and shut up for once. I guess I did?)

It's not me if there's no faux pas. Anyways...

Today's the 290th day since I started using WK, basically the beginning of my journey to relearn Japanese. Will I be able to communicate at least on a conversational level by the time I'm 30? We will see.

If you're reading this and needs recommendations on resources that are free, hit me up!

またね。

[krvstil]

@estelle: every word used on my timeline right now is used in the wrong context

[krvstil]

@estelle: stream i think im okay and you'll fall in love

[krvstil]

@estelle: just tryna find someone to eat fruit with me on a balcony in lingerie sippin champagne

[krvstil]

@estelle: halloween is awkward

[krvstil]

@estelle: why is everyone talking about Prague?

[krvstil]

@estelle: been confused for the last few hours im gonna go get drunk