#January progress

[rigelmejo]

Yo!

I am thinking of cancelling Glossika. I sadly didn't get through it as fast as I thought I could (cram in 2-3 months). It has been like 6 months, and I'm 3/4 through the sentences but still not done. So I feel it's a waste of my money if I can't buckle down and cram through the rest soon. I had planned to spend 3-5 months money on subscription, not this long. On the flip side: if I cancel Glossika, I'll switch to using free Comprehensible Japanese youtube channel. Which while great, would be largely words I already know. A big reason I intended to use Glossika to study was because it teaches over 5000 words, and other materials I have used to study taught 2000-3000 words so I figured I could learn at least SOME new words using Glossika. Because increasing my vocabulary is the main thing I need to do in Japanese right now, as well as focus on listening skills. Comprehensible Japanese youtube will let me focus on listening skills still, but there probably won't be any brand new words I'd hear and learn for a long time (dozens or hundreds of hours). With Glossika, I hear 5-15 new words each learning session now, meaning I get more exposure to new words quicker. And I have quite the habit of... restarting my japanese learning from the basics again, which prevents progress as I tend to just re-study beginner stuff I already know over and over...

I "worked" too hard in 2024, and my body responded by being very mad at me and sick for months. I am still sick. So I am going to try and do less intense study this year. I will be trying to find a relaxed balance... we'll see.

I'm still super into the Nature Method books... I got myself a copy of the All Spanish Method, and Francais Par Le Methode Nature. So I may read them this year... will I fuck up my own pronunciation? Yeah, yeah I will. But at this point it's a matter of... do I want to do something imperfectly, or not at all? Because the fact of the matter is these books are OLD, the Spanish one does not have audio anywhere (the French one does on Ayan Academy youtube), so I am not going to be able to just listen-to-proper-pronunciation-while-reading the Spanish book. So I either read it, or don't. I'd prefer to read it. There's always my dabbling in the Dreaming Spanish youtube videos to hear some proper pronunciation.

[nevertheless-moving]

thinking fondly of that star wars body swap au where 3/4 of the protagonists are experiencing relatively standard body swap shenanigans: bewildering friends and confounding authority figures, learning about each other and themselves, going outside their comfort zones. Meanwhile Cody’s just kindof writhing in eldritch horror inside of Anakin’s force-stitched-together-meatsuit.

Anakin (as Padme): “Man I can’t believe that Senator actually called me sweetheart, I can’t believe how patronizing these men are.”

Cody (as Anakin): [Scratching at his arm] “Yeah, that’s great. Uh, hey, quick question—why does my shadow keep turning into a death head mask?”

Anakin: “Huh? Oh, hey! Would you like at that! I haven’t looked at my shadow in years! It’s—it’s totally normal! I mean except for how it’s Padme—”

Cody: “This is—your shadow just always—does it ever...I mean when you’re around other people”

Anakin: [sucks in his breath through his teeth] “Did it kill someone else’s shadow? I hate when that happens”

Cody: [scratches arm harder, eyelid twitching] “This...happens often? What—why—”

Anakin: “I try not to think about it, ha! Anyway, have you tried smoothies since—[voice fades into high pitched static noise, distant sound of respirator breathing]

Cody: [scratches arm harder] (muttering under his breath): “don’t think about it. don’t think about it.”

Obi-Wan (as Cody): “There you two are—oh Anakin—I mean Cody, you’re bleeding! What happened?”

Cody: “I...misjudged the strength of the mech arm.”

Anakin: [gives thumbs up]

[cityrun]

my brother my brother my brother and me

[gravedigg]

They're in their honeymoon phase uwu. I redrew this old piece of mine, I hope I redeemed myself.

Full nsfw here

[wolfythewitch]

im so so confused rn the last time i had social media you were a mcyt artist??? now as far as i can tell you are in the bible fandom and the odyssey???????? im so lost bro like i wasnt on the internet for a full year but still lol??? love your artwork btw!!!

Sometimes we find god when we least expect it

[kusakichan15]

LOKIUS - FAKE PRIEST x DEMON AU 👀✨

To earn some money Kent decided to introduce himself as a travelling priest, Father Mobius, once he found himself in a village that was allegedly being tormented by a demon... Little did he know the demon was more real than he expected...

The demon, Loki, takes interest in the newcomer's sudden appearance especially when previous priests have tried and failed to make him leave... He decides to observe the new priest and realized that he's not actually what he says he is and has a little fun with him...

Now Kent finds himself tricked into a deal with a demon that has begun to follow him around in exchange for leaving the village and giving the people peace...

[gomzdrawfr]

Bam bing bong, summary of my doodles in 2024

[euphreana]

Captured AU - Page 2

Yeah, that doesn't look good...

Page 1 | Next

[whattheskyknows]

Can't believe I'm saying this, but I think I've just finished writing the final chapter of Galaxy Masquerade???

[brown-little-robin]

okay, I'm crowdsourcing advice for a minute, so bear with me and please lend some words if you have any:

I want to get out of the house more. Like, on a regular basis. Weekly, maybe. Preferably, I would like to be interacting with people—the same people—every time, for... like... accountability, but also because I am hoping to put myself out there as the 21st century's most neurotic platonic Casanova. Uh. Making a friend or more out of this would be desirable. But I think if I go out with the intention of making a friend, I will be disappointed.

So. I want to go do something, for that something's own sake. I don't want to go be fake once a week hoping to get a friend out of it.

However, the beautiful state of Iowa is a bit cultureless, and I am too introverted and easily overwhelmed for this world (e.g. going to bars is probably not gonna be my thing). So.... I guess.... any suggestions? opinions? thoughts on making friends in general, or finding good activities as an introverted adult, in general?

oh yeah, also: I am poor. that's a factor. so. signing up a class or similar is not a great option right now.

what the heck, I'll add a silly poll for fun:

[rigelmejo]

2/1/2023 Update on progress using Glossika Japanese. Lessons listened to: 37

This update is mostly for my personal tracking later. 

Downsides: I am struggling to get myself to listen to lessons. Based on time I have per day to listen to audio in the background, I should have gone through at least 100 lessons by now, and easily could’ve gone through 300. So 37 is... disappointing. I do relisten to the audios sometimes, so even though I’ve only gotten through 37 lessons I have probably listened to lessons 100 times. I suppose the upside is relistening to lessons before moving on is the actual way glossika recommends to study - listen to the prior day’s lesson before listening to the current day’s lesson. However, I was not trying to study how glossika recommended. I was trying to cram through as many audio lessons as possible so I could review if simply doing that and only that, was enough to learn a decent amount and see improvement. 

I desperately would like to get through all 312 lessons in a month. Just so I could finish and prove to myself if it helps or not! 

Since for me, a decent portion of these lessons are a form of audio review for me, so I do not need to be spending as much time on them as I am. I wanted to use these to review my knowledge and reinforce it, and strengthen my listening skills (and pronunciation knowledge) since I currently recognize more words by kanji meaning than by actually knowing their pronunciation (meaning I can’t recognize in listening words that I’d know if I was reading). So I feel I am... wasting a lot of my own time here, drilling beginner things I already know and working through the glossika lessons too slowly. Which is a bad perfectionist habit of mine that I often fall into when doing japanese study. oops.

I unfortunately have no solution to this tendency I have to avoid going through the lessons. I clearly am not super interested in the glossika lessons lol, they must bore me. For anyone else considering using glossika let this be useful to you: if you find it so plain its hard to listen to, it might be hard for you to push yourself to go through the lessons. The lessons are GOOD, don’t get me wrong. I just find it much ‘easier’ to make myself listen to a condensed audio of a video game (even though I know less words), or to play a japanese video game and look up words, than I find it to get myself to listen to simple boring daily life sentences in japanese/english. Just my personal focus issue. My brain loves to be challenged I think, even though I think in some cases like this it can make things less efficient.

Side studying I’ve been doing in japanese: I’ve played about 10 hours FFX and Persona 3 in japanese now. I went through about 300 memrise words in Nukemarine’s LLJ memrise courses before I got burned out with memrise again. I also have been playing like 50+ hours in the Yakuza games with english subs lately. While this doesn’t actually count as studying since I’m using english subs, I do hear the japanese audio frequently and I do think it helps me remember new words I’ve learned recently since I’m hearing them regularly and when I listen sometimes I try to compare the japanese I hear to the english subs and see if the translation changed anything. So all in all lets call the 50+ Yakuza games with english subs ‘mild review’ and count it as 10 study ‘review’ hours. 

So total study time these past 3 months has been: 10 hours video games in japanese, 10 hours japanese audio with english subs (so review but not real study), 50 hours of glossika audio (each audio is about a half hour and I relistened to most lessons 2-3 times so I’m guessing around 50 hours total), maybe 5 hours memrise and trying out the Listlang app, maybe 4 hours on Satori Reader (which later on in my journey I think will be an excellent study tool to prepare for reading but I don’t have the money for a subscription right now). 10+10+50+5+4= 79 study hours. ToT

79 study hours over 3 months. Yikes. I sure am lazy. so in ~90 days I did on average ~50 minutes of study a day. Okay... not entirely awful I guess. I usually make good progress with chinese at 1-2 hours study a day on average, so 50 minutes isn’t way below that amount... it could be way worse. I’m frankly amazed I made noticeable progress in the last few months then, damn, considering it wasn’t like a few hundred hours...

Upsides: Despite my apparently not very high study hours... I actually have noticed significant improvement. 

With Persona 3 - I played it 1 year ago and it took 1 hour to get to the save point. This month, it took about 20 minutes to get to the save point and I was able to get to the save point 3 times. So I was able to play the game 3 times faster, therefore I was able to read 3x faster. That’s a pretty huge improvement. I also was able to look up less words. When I played it a year ago I had to look up words frequently (about once every 2-3 minutes or more) and gave up even trying to read once I got to the school I just skipped text and tried to get to the save point as quick as possible and it still took an hour. This month when I played it I was able to only look up a word around once every 5 minutes, I could read the text fast enough that I did not need to skip text sessions to ‘speed up’ my playtime. I was able to spend some time actually exploring the character’s bedroom and school since reading was faster and therefore much more bearable. A 3 times faster reading speed is a REALLY noticeable improvement, I can’t express just how much easier everything feels when I can read faster. It makes the experience much easier and more bearable. Hiragana words and slang still made me feel very drained trying to understand wtf they meant by guessing, but it still felt 3 times easier than last year lol. 

With Final Fantasy X - I’m noticing improvement AS I play. When I started, the menu was challenging, now I find navigating the menu quite easy and honestly a game menu is a great way to repeatedly practice recognizing words until you learn them. So is the combat menu. It’s like how in english we never knew the word ‘ultima’ or ‘aeon’ as far as the actual attack or creature they mean in a game, but we learn because a game teaches us. This is comforting, we have to learn these kinds of words even when playing games in english... so learning them in japanese is not really much different. So yeah, the pause menu and combat menu are already notably easier 10 hours in then when I started. Common words specific to this game were also picked up fast - I know know summoner, summon, defeat, cheer, pray, temple, monster, magic, boat, port, waruiwa - (used as ‘im sorry this is a bad time’ sort of like sumimasen but casual to end a conversation), a lot of more casual word endings or word forms (Tidus and Wakka...). This is comforting, as now I expect if I played something like say Nier Automata I would pick up the technology words eventually simply because they’re used a lot. Or in Kingdom Hearts I sure would pick up hearts, darkness, light, friends, friendship, worlds, keyblade, fast lol. I am also noticing it’s much easier to follow what’s being said in scenes then when I started. When I started I’d usually understand 1 part of a sentence but not all of it, or 1 sentence but then not 2 more then understand on again. Whereas now 10 hours in I watched the scene on Mihen High Road where Yuna and Tidus talk in front of the sunset. I understood every word of every single line, except 1 single line I didn’t know one clause within it. So I understood the scene Really Well, well enough to compare the japanese translation to the english translation I remember. There’s still lines where I only understand part of them (like when Seymour says ‘Then pretend I didn’t say it’ I understood that line but not the one right before it, or when Gatta says Chappu says spending time with your girl is nice but... I did not catch the part where I know in english he says ‘protecting your girl from’ sin is better. I only caught the ‘your girl’ part beforehand and ‘sin’ part toward the end). But I AM understanding a great deal of full lines, which is fun as I’ve been comparing it to the english translation I remember to see what was changed in english or kept the same. Lulu is... really direct in japanese just like she is in english, which I was surprised by. There’s also a part where Seymour asks Auron “It’s been 10 years, how have you been” or whatever, and Auron literally says “I’m Yuna’s guardian, I’m busy” then walks away. It was just really funny to me how directly he shuts Seymour down. Or when Gatta says when he told Lulu about Chappu, she hit him too. 

When I started playing FFX this month I did not expect that I was going to eventually be able to understand the lines to this degree of detail. I thought at best I was going only be able to follow the main idea. Now to be fair: I’ve played this game before in english so I have that remembered english script in my memory to help me guess unknown words or lines. I expect a game I’ve NEVER played before would be considerably harder. However, this speed of progress bodes well for if I wanted to play Nier Replicant or Nier Automata. Apparently the navigation menus will not take more then a few hours to get comfortable with in japanese, and after enough hours I will be able to enjoy understanding the detail of a lot of the japanese lines. Which is definitely a good motivation to want to play more games in japanese - I am very interested in comparing the japanese script and choices with the english translation, and knowing it will be possible to do that is exciting. 

With manga - an unexpected improvement. I’ve been opening up manga from time to time. I am finding some easier to read now. I think the improvement is mainly due to reviewing information I knew already because I’m using japanese more. I still find heavy adverb use and hiragana word usage hard and that’s where a majority of the unknown words I don’t understand but that are important are. 

Basically - I’m seeing a significant reading improvement in both skill and especially speed at 3x faster than last year, ability to follow the speed up japanese in of cutscenes/follow the speed of japanese in audio much better than before, significant improvement in recognizing stuff I’ve studied before faster/easier, and some small but solid improvement in vocabulary. I did not expect any noticeable improvement until I’d studied a few hundred more hours, so honestly this is really great and a lot more than I expected.

In regard to the Glossika lessons: I DO think they’ve been helping, I Do think they’ve been reinforcing my knowledge I already knew and giving me good review, and while I struggle to listen to them often I do think they work similarly well for me as anki/memrise do except without requiring 100% of my focus when I do them. So the glossika lessons (audio flashcards) are easier for me to actually study. While I wish I was doing them more, I’m happy to say I do think they’re helping me improve like I hoped they would.

[the-fibre-stuff]

I made a fren.

[silencedogood1969]

You stood beneath a stolen flag,

a coward’s grin behind your mask,

breaking glass like you broke your oath,

spilling blood, spilling truth, spilling both.

The Capitol stood like a sentinel of time,

until you tore it down, crime by fucking crime.

The floors ran red where history walked,

and democracy bled as your chants mocked.

You came as a mob, a tide of rage,

hands on riot shields, fists on the stage.

Tear gas kissed the marble halls,

while “patriots” desecrated sacred walls.

Tarrio, you fucking coward,

Rhodes, you spineless son of a bitch.

Barnett, who pissed on freedom

while democracy screamed in the ditch.

QAnon prophets in horned disguise,

Nazis and “militia” with vacant eyes.

You called it liberty, called it war,

but all you left were shattered doors.

Then the ink of the pen, the coward’s decree,

fifteen hundred pardons for your fucking heresy.

Trump stood tall on lies today,

“Unify!” he cried, while justice decayed.

The audacity of that son of a bitch,

to pardon the mob and their seditious itch.

“Merit-based justice,” he dared to say—

yet he handed treason a golden bouquet.

He spat in the face of every cop who stood,

every drop of blood spilled in those halls of wood.

He pardoned the wreckers, the rioters, the damned,

and gave democracy its final backhand.

Where were you, McConnell, when the blood dried?

Where were you, Thune, when democracy cried?

Greene, you cheered; your voice rang clear—

you gutless motherfuckers, complicit in fear.

Your silence, your nods, your partisan games,

have carved your legacy into the flames.

You are the ghosts of this dying nation,

mute accomplices to its damnation.

And to you who stayed silent, stayed home that day,

clutching your morals as the country frayed,

spare me your protests, your outrage, your blame—

this fire’s on you; you stoked the flame.

You fucking stood back, let them torch the house,

and now you want to cry about the ashes.

Don’t you dare whisper a single goddamn word—

you let others fight while the country burned.

The tear of glass, the battering ram,

the fists that struck, the shields that slammed.

The cries of fear, the clash of will,

the officers falling, the chambers still.

They stormed the gates with malice bright,

and made a coup of that January night.

Freedom fell with every cheer,

the sound of treason in the atmosphere.

And for those who fell defending the line,

we carry their memory through space and time.

But let me tell you something, loud and true:

You may pardon the guilty, but we’re coming for you.

Two years from now, we’ll clear the House;

we’ll take your seats and call you out.

We’ll vote, we’ll march, we’ll raise our fists,

we’ll break the chain of your accomplice list.

And four years from now, your reign will end,

this nightmare gone, this wound will mend.

You’ve made a coup the morning’s norm,

treason an acceptable form,

but you don’t get the final say—

we’ll take this country back one day.

Traitors, cowards, you hollowed the flag,

turned stars to scars, left stripes to sag.

You spat on the graves of those who fought,

and shredded the ideals they thought were taught.

Your pardons are nothing, your names will fade,

while the strength of the people sharpens its blade.

This isn’t your country—it never was.

It belongs to the dreamers, to the cause.

So hear this now, from sea to sea:

We are America, the land of the free.

You tore it down, but we’ll rebuild—

your names forgotten, your dreams killed.

This is the anthem of those betrayed,

a promise to history: you won’t evade.

For every flag, for every vote,

for every tear in the words we wrote.

True patriots rise, unbroken, free—

the soul of this nation will always be.

We are coming.

We are rising.

We are America.

[toodetudpimedas]

Found some of my old Stay fanarts that I haven't posted here yet.

[born2b-beheaded]

FINALLY MADE MYSELF A CD

[wangxianficrecs]

Follower Recs

~*~

uh-oh, you’re in trouble

by tiraminsu

T, 8k, Wangxian

Summary: “So, um – if it’s not too much to ask, could you pretend you didn’t see me and just… let me go? I’ll find an inn or something, and you can track my every move if that helps! I just need to wait until I can get back, and I promise I won’t do anything reckless. Not that I could, anyway – no golden core here. The last world I was in didn’t even have cultivation. Seriously, you can check if you want. And – and I swear, I’ll keep quiet and steer clear of you – “ “Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji cut into his rambling, “You may stay.” Wei Wuxian gawked at him. “...Huh?” Lan Wangji was already heading for the door. “It is late. I will prepare a warm bath for you.” or, Wei Wuxian dies and becomes a transmigrator, only to find himself back in his original world thirteen years later – right in Lan Wangji’s bedroom.

~*~

Protecting that which was broken

by MyLittleHaloqii

Not rated, 1k, Jiang Yanli & Wei Wuxian

Summary: “No honey, well not alone at least.” She carried the little boy into her arms, shocked at how easy it was considering they were only a few years apart in age. “Jie-Jie will come with A-Xian! We’ll find a nice warm house with lots of food far away form any scary dogs. Would you like to come with me?”

~*~

In Allegiance to the Truth

by Anonymous

T, WIP, 33k, Zhuiyi & Wangxian

Summary: “He was the dawn to my twilight; the sun and sky to my moon and stars. He was the conviction to my doubt, and he favored the bold. He was the justice to my mercy, and he favored the righteous.�� Sizhui’s god hangs their head. The stars in their eyes dim. “And just as the unknown begets fear as much as it does curiosity, the known truth can inspire rage as much as it does devotion. It is easy to justify horrible, terrible things as long as one thinks they were right.” In which a disgraced cleric and his party consisting of a cursed ranger, a very-normal “bard” and an oathbreaker unravel a mystery involving his god and their husband. Oh, and they’re also following an arm to the rest of its body.

~*~

Feeling The Warmth Again

by mxtx_disciple13

T, WIP, 34k, Wangxian & Xuanli & Chengqing & Nielan

Summary: BURIAL MOUNDS SETTLEMENT DAYS If someone would have tell Wei Wuxian that someday in the future he'll going to meet his twin pretty sons in a lan sect robes for the first time and at the burial mounds of all places, he would laugh his ass off until he has tears on his eyes and he can't breathe anymore. But here he is, holding two pretty lan babies who called him... "Mama?"

~*~

Shatterproof

by Greywake (@greywake)

T, WIP, 37k, Wangxian

Summary: Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng, and Jiang Yanli arrive at the Cloud Recesses Institute for Advanced Cultivation. All they had to do was complete the two-year programme to gain their full cultivation qualifications and not get into trouble. Easy! …Right?

~*~

(Please REBLOG as a signal boost for these hard-working authors if you like – or think others might like – these stories.)