#do keep in mind I am learning German lol

[spineless-lobster]

Completed my duolingo today and it involved a man taking a taxi to the train station and all I could think of was when the Captain was yelling at Lucy in German about where the train station was

[catinasink]

greetings from the sink

am i in post limit jail? nope :3

posting less due to school 👍

most recent edit: 9/21/24

im the one and only cat btw. if you even care.

also im the ultimate faggot btw

im not a vampire im notttt im notttttttt

main shit

minor. (my birthday is november 8 :3c )

i go by cat and nico and pluto and neptune and siffrin and calypso mainly and you can call me any of those (more about that here)

it/any/ask :3c

my labels arent any of your business blast. polyam + aspec + queer if you really need to know

dont call me your friend + no /p tonetag (im aplatonic :] )

no chain asks + no tag games + no donation asks please.

uhh no real dni? just no porn blogs follow me pls im a minor 👍

more

what youll find here: reblogging. og posts. gayposts. ventposts (tagged #neptune is complaining again or #delete later). lyricposts. fandom posts.

i spam reblog a lot. like a lot. do keep this in mind

i have two cats, kim and shego (or floorshitter); a sister (she/her); and the irls (in real life people i know; i tend to use irl as a term to describe the people i am close to irl) i mention most are pb / pissboy (he/him), cherry (they/any), and eve (she/her)

pst timezone (usually)

scorpio sun saggitarius moon scorpio rising . ok yeah thats a fucking Lie the constellations have shifted but i cba to check again lol

i speak english + russian, learning german + hebrew + ukranian

couple sideblogs, including @nymph-of-the-sea (rp blog for calypso from pjo) (no i never use it); @catinabath (for when im on post limit); two gimmick blogs; i definitely dont own @totallynotcatinasink; as well as @forehead-kiss-mutual-kill-polls :] a few others but ill keep those secret 💥

matching descs w @shrimpysstuff (shrimpy !!!) and banners w @homoashell (starr !!!)

i have four very lovely qpps mwah mwah <3 also a very dear spouse <3

i have an ao3 if that matters :]

discord server link :3 preferably join if youre around the age of a minor so everyone feels comfortable

literally just a cat in a sink btw

fandoms im in / rb from

warrior cats. i love em

will wood. hes so silly . is this a fandom idk

genshin impact. grhghrhgr

pjo. whoag

isat. save me isat

object shows. i like object shows

danganronpa. uhmmm yeah haha dont look at me

tags

most of my og posts: #cat's rambles

asks: #cat's asks

schoolposting: #cat's schoolposting

ventposting: #neptune is complaining again

lyricposting: #cat's lyricposting

art: #cat's art

music i write: #cat's lyrics

polls i make: #cat's polls

pics of my cat: #cat's cat

yearning sighhhh: #nico catinasink is yearning

queued or scheduled posts: #queue you

posts i write in my notes app: #drafts

submissions: #eris' submissions

the penis saga: #the penis saga

pissboy mentions: #my lovely pissboy

lightning anon: #lightning anon

blender anon: #cat's blender anon

rizzler anon: #rizzler anon

brain anon: #🧠 anon

pineapple anon: #pineapple anon

sparkle anon: #sparkle anon

mcchicken anon: #mcchicken anon

sink lore: #happenings of the sink

dreamscape nexus: #dreamscape nexus

posts i want to look at later: #fave

posts of mine that are more popular than others or i want to find em later: #save

i tend to only tag the following tws: sui, sh, ed / eating issues, and emetophobia pls lmk if i should tag anything else !!!

have a good day

[plague-of-insomnia]

what kind of accents do you think the cast has? im a dub main for various reasons (one of my friends had a reading/memory disability so i ended up watching dub w them) so im kinda used to everyones dub accents.

but bards defo got an american accent right? (not in the dub, but im thinking manga terms?)

and ik soma & agni have barely a trace of an accent but does that mean they sound basically british?

and does finny have a german accent? sieglinde? diedrich?

idk food for thought?

❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

(Sorry it’s been a rough couple days and I didn’t realize I hadn’t published this yet.)

Hey anon… so I’m a bit confused as to if you’re asking about the Japanese accents in the various anime, the English dub accents (or some other dub), or just my thoughts on what their various accents would be like based on the manga and independent of the anime.

Now I have only watched Kuro in English bc that’s the only thing that was available/that’s available on what I have at the moment (though I’m finally getting the blu rays for BoM and BoA so I’m hoping they’ll have the Japanese to try that out for once), so I can’t make judgements based on that. (And I’m not a good one to ask about Japanese accents anyway, lol.)

I also favor dubs bc of my disability. I love hearing the Japanese but it can be hard for me to follow sometimes, and even english alone without captions I can struggle with (please fix this, CR!!! Grr), so I feel you there.

Also not sure which characters you had in mind with this ask (other than the ones you specifically mentioned). Since kuro has so many, I guess I’ll just focus on a few. I want to make clear I am American and Latine, so I am not an expert on British regional accents by any stretch, or the historical accents of the Victorian period, so I’ll just do my best. Some may be partly inspired by how the characters are written in Japanese, since there’s a bit more… complexity to the Japanese language in regards to things like formality, rudeness, etc, that may not convert into English when translated in writing.

This is a long post so I’ll use a readmore to keep it a bit less chaotic. Below the break I’ve broken down my hypotheses on how some of the major players might talk:

Sebastian

As a high-ranking servant who regularly interacts with the nobility, Sebastian would have a high-class accent, and it is reflected in how his Japanese (and even his English) is written. It is a fairly neutral, polite manner of speaking. I’m sure the Victorians probably had a term for this accent (a high-class servant accent), but if they did, I don’t know it lol.

Ciel

Most nobles like him would be educated in a public school like Weston, like his father was, and those schools taught a standard accent that often varied slightly from school to school. So everyone who went to Weston would have a similar manner of speech. Ciel has been “home schooled” his entire life, aside from a short time at Weston for the investigation, so his accent might have been slightly different than his father’s. Nevertheless, especially under Sebastian’s tutelage, he would have learned how to speak properly (if he didn’t already). Still, unless Sebastian intentionally had him learn the Weston/public school accent, anyone who speaks to him would know he did not go to school, but was taught by tutors/governesses instead.

Bard

Yes, Bard is American despite his dub accent. We don’t know where he’s from exactly, but we can assume it was probably somewhere west of the Mississippi (that’s about 1/3 of the way west if you’re looking at the US map, going east to West, if you’re not familiar with our Geography).

I say that bc the river was the first real demarcation of the frontier. It’s likely he was living somewhere like Texas or Oklahoma. Ofc where he’s from would affect his accent, but I imagine it as a kind of cross between a more neutral southern midwestern accent (“no accent”) and a subtle Texas or OK one. Which that’s hard to explain unless you really know regional US accents, bc most of Texas doesn’t sound like most people think it does. The accents really change depending on what part of the state you’re in, since it’s such a big place. But basically not too heavy an accent but a bit lazy, definitely coarse and brutish since he was a soldier and a farmer. Lots of slang and not big on politeness. (Which he definitely is in Japanese.)

Mey Rin

She’s interesting because she’s one of the few characters who has a couple different ways of speaking. She has her “maid” voice and her “assassin” voice. The first one stutters a lot and uses imperfect grammar, as reflected in the English translation when she repeats things, like “I’m not one to talk badly about my betters, I am.” The second does not have this quirk. Not sure if the first is meant as an affectation as part of her idea of what a maid is, or if she just has such a divide he her personality/personas that she speaks differently when she’s wielding a gun. Since that wasn’t really mentioned in her subarc, I doubt we’ll get an explanation. We do know she was likely a child of immigrants from China, but not whether she was born there or in England before she was orphaned. But it is unlikely she has any hint of a Chinese accent since she was orphaned so young. She definitely has more of a working class accent, especially when compared to someone like Sebastian.

Finny

I had momentarily forgotten that Finny didn’t speak English when he first came to the manor. It’s likely that he would have had some kind of German accent, but I expect that Sebastian would have drilled it out of him, considering how strict he was with Sieglinde and Wolf, and Ciel didn’t blink an eye.

Finny’s accent in English never struck me as particularly high class, either in the manga or anime, but in one of the recent chapters, Theo makes a point to compliment his “upper-class accent.” It does seem highly probable that Sebastian played a hand in how he speaks, since he probably was the one who taught him English.

However, the fact that it came up in this sub arc could indicate his way of speaking is significant, somehow tying into what’s going on with Undertaker and the orphanage. Either way, his accent is apparently closer to Ciel than Mey.

Snake

Snake is tricky, because he almost never speaks as himself (I’m still not 100% sure what pronoun he would use for himself in Japanese, and even he doesn’t seem sure lol). He speaks via his snakes, and they all have different ways of speaking (which I think the dub does a decent job of, personally). So I can’t really say, but for the most part I would probably say his accent(s) would be closer to working-class, but he might have gotten some lessons on speaking from Sebastian, since, as a footman, he would have been expected to speak at a higher-class level than other, below-stairs servants would.

Undertaker

Like Mey, UT has two manners of speaking. He has his “humble old undertaker” accent, which is Cockney-esque (I don’t wanna do a disservice by saying it IS that), definitely a lower class accent. Then he has his “revealed” voice, or how he speaks after he reveals himself on the Campania. I have not read this arc in Japanese so I cannot base this judgement on how this shift is portrayed by Yana, only based on the translation. But it definitely seems to be a higher-class accent than the other one. It’s likely that it’s his “real” accent, while the other is part of his cover persona. However, we don’t know anything about him or his background from when he was alive, or even how old he is. For all we know, that accent could be an affectation too.

Agni & Soma

I know their dub accents annoy a lot of people, since Yana specifically mentions how they don’t have an Indian accent. I expect both of them would speak with a British accent, probably something close to how Ciel speaks, most likely, since Soma would have been educated by tutors and Agni probably was as well, since he came from a very high-caste family. I would expect that if their dub accents has been closer to Yana’s intent, they would sound more like Hakim in the dub of the anime Emma. That’s how I imagine them, anyway.

Sieglinde & Wolfram

I expect both would have German accents when they speak English, especially Wolf. Sieglinde might do a better job of working to improve and lose it, but I don’t think Wolf would, partly because of his animosity toward Sebastian. I like to imagine he sounds like Hans in the English dub of the anime Emma, and I really hope we eventually get the Green Witch Arc animated and dubbed so we can get a hot German English accent 🥺.

Diedrich

Dee, on the other hand, I think would not have a German accent in English, especially not in the present. I think he probably was educated in English before he went to Weston, likely by a private tutor, probably someone British, and then when he went there would have acclimated to the public school assent there. So probably he would sound like Vincent did, but I expect he’d throw in some German every now and then, especially when he gets irritated, lol.

Lau

Lau is originally from China, and his accent (as far as I know?) has never been remarked upon in the manga. We also know nothing about his background except that he rose quickly and at a young age to be head of Quin-Bang. I would assume that he speaks English very well, and the only hint at his origin that I’m aware of in the Japanese is the kanji (character) for the pronoun “I” he uses, though he doesn’t pronounce it as it’s normally done in Japanese nor does he with a Chinese pronunciation. I would take this to mean he probably has little if any hint of a Chinese accent when he speaks English, and since he keeps company with nobles and was able to pass as a doctor, he likely speaks in a high-class accent.

I hope that satisfied, anon. This was a fun and different ask. I apologize I didn’t publish it sooner.

[therentyoupay]

How many languages do you know?

💕 english is my first language but i speak both spanish and english at home! i've been studying spanish for 20+ years, i speak spanish exclusively with my husbands' family (they only speak spanish!), and am comfortable getting my point across on most everyday-life things. i read in spanish for fun/to study (i forced my husband to read la sociedad de la nieve with me when we both got obsessed with the movie on netflix, even though he's not a reader at all haha), and we have a house rule about always watching movies in the language in which they were created EXCEPT FOR SHREK, which we both agree is extremely well done and just as funny (if not even funnier) in spanish. we do a lot of code-switching for the most part, and whenever we have kids, we'll follow the One Parent One Language plan, except for when we're out at restaurants, because we always ONLY speak spanish while going out to eat, it's just habit at this point. 😂 i once tried to write fic in spanish back in the early 2010s while living in spain but i felt that i didn't have all the vocab that i needed to give my writing the same vibe as in my first language, so i haven't tried writing fic in spanish since... (maybe i should??) for now i content myself with reading larivera's (@laurakrivera) spanish fic!! however, my academic!professional!spanish is much more developed than my fic!spanish writing style, lol, so when i publish my non-fiction book in english, i will work on writing the spanish translations myself (and force my husband to help me lmao)

i learned japanese fundamentals (e.g., basic vocab/phrases, word order, hiragana, katakana, some core kanji) when i was 12 (like most inuyasha-obsessed kids, maybe?? 🤣) and i learned a LOT when i lived there for a year and a half as an adult! but i never took any formal classes, it was all self-taught and in the streets (LITERALLY lmao, shoutout to the people of tokyo). i wasn't allowed to speak japanese at all in my job, so i turned to apps like hellotalk to practice and make friends who really wanted to engage in language exchange. (duolingo didn't add japanese as a language option until after i came back! 🤣😭) so i was just out there in the wild, picking it all up as i went along. i understand a lot more than i can speak, but i could probably hold a pretty convincing conversation with someone for 2 minutes before it became clear that i'd exhausted my limited repertoire. 🤣 i'd get by with a lot of discourse markers and reaction expressions and いいね! and 本当に!? and そうですね 😊 before i fell off the track completely lol.

i did 3 months of german on duolingo to prepare for a conference i presented at in austria a few years ago! helped with everyday basics, but i'm not currently investing in this language right now since i don't have many opportunities to use it in daily life like i do my other languages.

also just started learning korean literally five days ago. still working on the vowels. 🤣 i'm learning for friends, for potential work opportunities, for K-POP joking joking or am i, and also i'm a big believer in the philosophy of keeping the mind fresh and getting excited about Being "Bad" at Something every once in a while, as i purposefully Try New Things to ward off complacency, keep my brain happy and sharp, and remind myself that i can Do Hard Things. (of course, once you start to learn so many languages, your metalinguistic and metacognitive pattern-seeking skills really kick in, so approaching korean is a lot different than how it was in my other language learning experiences, so far 🤣) stay tuned, i guess haha!!

i guess you can see why i'm so obsessed with the idea of elsa being a serial polyglot/multilingual queen in basically every universe i write her in, not only because it fits with her upbringing/education/oryal duties but also i feel like elsa would appreciate all instances in life in which she could exert control over her surroundings by finding patterns and "rules" in languages and finding beauty in expressing so many meanings through so many different avenues when she herself had so much trouble expressing herself at all for so long should i write a one-shot about elsa's multilingualism as it pertains to NO KRIS NO STOP YOU HAVE WORK NOW KRIS NO

[sixty-silver-wishes]

Shostakovich-Sollertinsky letter translations- 1

Hello everyone!

so, some of you expressed interest in me sharing my translations of the letters from Dmitri Shostakovich to Ivan Sollertinsky, so I thought I’d start sharing them here! They range from 1927 to 1944 so I’m not going to Dracula Daily it and send them in real time lol, but I think I can do one a day. I’m not a native or fluent Russian speaker; just an intermediate-level learner, so while I’ve translated these to the best of my ability, I may miss out on some cultural and linguistic nuances. I researched and tried to translate idioms and cultural references as best as I could, but at the end of the day, please keep in mind my translations aren’t perfect. In addition to the published Russian letters, which my translations are based on, there’s a German-language translation that’s been published, so if you happen to speak German or Russian, I would highly recommend checking those out. I will also include footnotes as they appear in the published book when relevant, as well as some historical context from my own research when applicable. Because the first letter is very short, I will start today with the first two letters. These posts will be tagged #sollertinsky letters.

For context, Dmitri Shostakovich formally met Ivan Sollertinsky in 1927 at the home of the conductor Nikolai Malko. Sollertinsky would go on to be one of Shostakovich’s closest friends, until his untimely death in 1944 from heart complications. This first letter is undated:

"I have urgent business for you. Call me when you have 15-20 minutes to talk to me. D. Shostakovich."

Footnote- Written on the front side of the card- "Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, 9 Marat Street, apartment 7. Telephone 496-37." Obviously, the composer wrote the note without knowing where Sollertinsky's house was. As it is only addressed "to you" (translation note: the formal form of “you," вы, which is used mainly for acquaintances and superiors, rather than the informal “ты,” which is used for close friends), this was likely the first letter from Shostakovich to Sollertinsky.

Letter 2- 20th August 1927, Detskoe Selo

My dear Ivan Ivanovich, I was extremely happy to receive your postcard. In such a small space, you combine so many needed considerations and witticisms that I am amazed. I did not write to you because I was in a bad mood. The Muzsektor [Music Sector] sent me only 500 rubles the day before yesterday for my loyal sentiments. Due to this, my mood improved, and I decided to write to you. Tomorrow I'm going to Moscow. The Muzsektor sent me a telegram for a demonstration of my revolutionary music. On my return, I will write of my summer adventures in detail. I recently received a letter from Malko, in which he warns me of an imminent break with him and, like Chamberlain [1], accuses me of such a break. Progress is being made on "The Nose," as well as my German. In my next letter, probably by Wednesday, I will begin with the words "mein lieber Iwan Iwanowitsch." Your D. Shostakovich.

1- “Chamberlain” refers to Chamberlain Ostin, a British statesman. (Footnote)

Translation note- It’s unknown how much time passed between this letter and the last one, but here, Shostakovich uses the informal ты. Between this letter and the last one, he and Sollertinsky drank a Bruderschaft, a drinking ceremony performed to commemorate friendship and switching from the formal to informal address.

Context note for letter 2- at this point, Shostakovich briefly tried to teach Sollertinsky piano, and Sollertinsky- a polyglot who spoke over 20 languages- tried to teach him German. Neither learned much.

[magiccifi]

I just saw the new teaser that was released at some sort of convention and I’m not elated nor am I unhappy…I’m pleased to hear/see more tho!

Here are some things that I’m hoping with the reboot so far (or just simply thinking about):

Warning potential spoilers!!!

I hope that the animation gets polished a bit more; I’m very hopeful on this considering the show isn’t coming out til next year, and any sort of developing polishes a product as time goes on, even if the deadline is soon

I have already seen people be a bit concerned about the mention of social media, with I also am a bit; it’s important to remember that winx came out during a time in which MySpace was very popular and Facebook was both a rising platform and at some point in the winx running time THE social media to be on, which was not really that reflected in the show; so I’m hopeful that social media and it’s presence will either a) be limited to earth and magix/alfea doesn’t have much or b) the creators won’t lean to heavily into it but will be present in magix/alfea

I definitely can see the girls having their own social media accounts, but I don’t think that social media will be too heavily present considering the winx is all about being fairies and defeating evil with friends and you don’t have much time being an influencer doing all that

I do think we have to accept that social media overall has a much heavier presence in the life of people, inducing children (which I do think make up a core of the target demo of the show, accept it or not 🤷🏾‍♀️) compared to the 2000s; it makes sense that it will be at least mentioned here and there

if the reboot gets far, pls do not kill nabu 😫 I didn’t get that far into winx just yet, but I hate that he dies nevertheless

While I’m not the biggest fan or hater of the animation/style of the girls, idk how well it will look on the specialists…

I was very repulsed when bloom smiled at mitzi in the clip, did not like that at all; I pulled the same face when she smiled when I played totk and that one cutscene shows ganondorf’s big ass feet ew; that part of the animation is really off putting…so no more smiling!

I do like that it seems that bloom’s background as a normal girl will be shown before she learns about being a fairy; it also gives us a better idea of mitzi in terms of a school bully rather than some weirdo that is mean to some girl on the street lol

THE LOGO IS STUNNING!!! 10/10 BEST PART OF THE ENTIRE TEASER

look at it!!! (Got the pic from user @/wingsofthe on Twitter)

I saw the prototype of the same scene and have to say, prefer the prototype more but I’ll keep an open mind until the show is actually out; the hair is 100% an improvement tho

with the expectation that the reboot will be good and do well, I demand to have comics similar to manga volume style, not the small thin ones; imagine how beautiful they could be 😍

…someone on Twitter pointed out that Sirius black’s (ya know from Harry Potter) wanted poster can be seen in the background of the bathroom scene…they wildin’ in Italy 😀

Could be a little wink to the German dub referencing Harry Potter in season 1 lol

Someone on Twitter also made a point about Stella being the fairy of the sun AND THE MOON; hope the reboot focuses on Stella’s relationship with her mother and the adjunct powers in the same way they did with her and her father

Anyways the winx are back baby!!!

[willedeservesbetter]

Get to know me tag game

I was tagged by @sflow-er , actually started answering a few days ago but run out of time. So now I have some time to kill, so let's try another time.

Do you make your bed?

Yes, it is an attempt I am actually allowed to call myself a functioning adult 😂.

What's your favourite number?

I don't have one, but my parents love the number 9, so I basically decided this is a family tradition now.

What is your job?

Nope, for one my job is actually not that easy to explain, even in person. Second, I don't share personal information on my public Tumblr account. My two Tumblr friends (you know who you are) can ask me though, in case they are interested.

If you could go back to school, would you?

Fun fact, ppl always assume I was an amazing student. I was not... sadly I am lazy AF, surprised I actually have a Master degree and I always hated studying. I am very much a learning -by-doing person.

Can you parallel park?

I mean, I have a driver license, so at one point I could 😝. Serious answer, I sold my car a couple of years ago, so I very rarely drive a car. Ask me again in September, as I have a road trip ahead of me then.

A job you had that would surprise people?

Mmh, nothing really comes to mind tbh. In terms of work I don't think I did anything particularly exciting.

Do you think aliens are real?

Are we alone in the universe? No, absolutely not. However what kind of life exists and how advanced they are, that is a totally different conversation. I don't believe we are getting visited or abducted.

What's your guilty pleasure?

If it brings me joy, I don't define it as a guilty pleasure, as long as it doesn't interfere with life, friends or family. Maybe I am abusing way too much time at work to write comments for my fav fics or writing novels back to friends.

Tattoos?

No, because I know myself and I will get tired of anything I could get. But I understand why ppl love them because there are some very cool and amazing tattoos (but also gotta say, I find most tattoos very underwhelming or even ugly and I am surprised why ppl get them in the first.place. But those opinions I always, always keep to myself).

Favourite colour?

Blue was always my colour since I was a little girl and it also looks best on me. I love green and altrosa too though.

Favourite type of music?

I suck when it comes to music. I always listen to some random Spotify lists and generally have no idea what is happening in the world of music or particularly care.

Do you like puzzles?

I don't remember the last time I did one... guess that is answer enough.

Any phobias?

I HATE needles. I needed to get a lot of vaccinations last year, I survived, but it really was not my favorite past time. At least the employees at the doctor all complimented me for still being mature enough to take my health seriously 😂.

Favourite childhood sport?

I was the WORST cheerleader in existence, but I loved it 🤷🏼‍♀️.

Do you talk to yourself?

Lol, i am a very chatty person (IF I like you. ironically I can also be very quiet), of course I talk to myself.

What movies do you adore?

Edit: Can you drive a manual car?

The Lord of the Rings trilogy has such a special place in my heart and they better never remake it.

Coffee or tea?

Both, at home and work it is coffee. when I am visiting my parents, I am always drinking tea. but I like both a lot.

What was the first thing you wanted to be growing up?

Lol, a FARMER. The idea is from beginning to end HILARIOUS.

Edit: Can you drive a manual car?

I am German, it is in my DNA 😂. ask me driving the first time an automatic car though. Now that was an experience.

[lucysarah-c]

Oh darling don't worry about rambling. I think readers enjoy knowing more about a writer.

The whole procedure sounds exhausting. Wishing you the best of luck in that. And I hope everything goes smoothly for you.

However, I am curious as to why you decided to do a PhD. degree? I am assuming you really like research, I am curious to know why people apply for it. I have been taught that isn't really necessary to pursue, I am not trying to dissuade you, I just want to know your point of view, and I find that interesting.

I haven't had the chance to visit Germany. It is a great country to settle in, If that what you are planning for. I heard a nightmare about their paperwork. God be with you. Will you be taking classes in german or will it be in English? Do you need an English test certification for it?

Also, it is so lovely of you to think of your mom. She is lucky to have a daughter like you.

I hope that you mind me sending you an abnormal amount of questions 😄

when you answer, your Tumblr asks or writes your posts. Do you do it from a pc or from your phone? I found out that I can't send long paragraphs from my pc unless I do it on my phone. I was wondering if it is the same case for you.

I’m not sure what my readers enjoy to be honest hahaha But if you're my reader and want to know more about my personal life haha I don't mind it.

Thank you! I hope everything turns out smoothly too.

About the PhD, I think it really depends not only on the field you're in but also your prospects. For example, I studied Biotechnology and molecular biology, but in my last years of the degree I dedicated myself to nanobiotechnology for oncological treatments. When I joined the nanotechnology team, nano was something that nobody really cared about and therefore it was a really small side of biotechnology compared to other well known parts of it. Once the pandemic hit, the health science field began to have a boom and Nanotechnology was a field that was only being explored for arms industry and cosmetics. Now nanotechnology is being explored in the health industry a lot and, since I'm kinda part of the "teams who were pioneers on it" I've the chances to work and study a field that doesn't have that much "competition" yet but also its "highly demanded". Plus, someone has to do them, you know haha Someone has to investigate the improvements of new treatments. The PhD is the only option for me if I want to keep going with my studies. Like, yeah I could work in the industry without a master or phd and make way more money than the scholarship I'll get. Sorry, long story short, I want to investigate the probabilities of curing Cancer with nanotechnology. This is way too new so they need people to research about it for it to one day be a treatment available for people.

I have also heard that Germans aren't good with paperwork lmao. It seems to be a thing. I visited Germany when I traveled a few years ago. It's a really calm and lovely place. The master is in English and yes I need an English certificate that I already own. Your girl is a C2 or proficient in English like Excuse me lmao jk I don't feel like I'm proficiency at all but the IELTS exam says otherwise lol.

I'm learning German! I'm actually in the middle of my A2 to B1 classes so, careful I know how to say my name lmao. I feel it's a really "boxy" language but a friend of mine, who speaks German said "but Lucy, you speak Spanish as your first language, it's like you speak in cursive. Obviously it feels less "literature '' '' that actually boosted my self esteem lol I've never thought Spanish as a "lovely" language but I guess it is!

I don't mind the questions if you don't mind that I take a while to reply haha

Eh... I've no idea, because I've not send asks is a long while hahah I basically log in to Tumblr to post and I leave because I've like -10 time in my life at the moment. But I mostly post from my computer because the phone app doesn't let me select more than one paragraph at a time and editing is a mess.

But, for example, the tumblr computer web doesn't alert me when I've overpass the 30 tags limit and the phone does. It's weird, tumblr is a mess.

Have a lovely day!

[sondertaewonder]

Some of my Series 🩷

I have four series at the moment, but my main three I hold very close to my heart, and I think they’re a pretty good example of my work, so I wanted to share them (and some moodboards I’ve made for them) here!

Please be warned, I am a ✨rambler.✨

Under Your Spell

“The lives and misadventures of boyfriends witch Taehyung and animal shapeshifter Jungkook.”

I started UYS in early 2019 as my fourth fic on Ao3, so it’s my oldest child, lol. It’s an urban fantasy AU because I adore urban fantasy, featuring a witch Taehyung from a magical family, and an animal shapeshifting Jungkook from a non-magical family! The series itself is mostly just a collection of one-shots of different moments from Taekook’s relationship, from life and relationship milestones to mishaps. There’s also one spin-off, though it a LOONA-focused on.

The series is mostly one I come to when I want to write fun smaller works, but even if it’s nothing huge or special, I adore it quite a bit. I’ve rewritten or reworked parts of the series to improve them and have plans to continue fixing up some things that I’m not satisfied with, as well as adding new fics once the inspiration strikes.

Overgrown

“Siberian tiger hybrid Taehyung and German shepherd hybrid Jungkook navigate daily life, the past, and a country that’s still learning to accept them.”

Overgrown is my second oldest series that got its sleepy (ha) start in late 2019 under the series name ‘Animal Instincts (Human Hearts)’, though that obviously eventually changed. I don’t know if there’s a popular term for this, but I like to call it a free hybrid AU — basically just an AU where the hybrids aren’t currently pets. The series follows Siberian tiger hybrid Taehyung and German Shepherd dog hybrid Jungkook in a post-ownable-hybrid South Korea. At the moment it’s a bit focused on Jungkook’s work as a police officer, but the last edition brought in more of Taehyung’s experiences, and the fic I’m working on now will hopefully dive much more into the world building I have in mind for this AU.

The series started out as a simple one-off work, then tentatively grew into a series, and as I’ve worked with it more and came up with more ideas, I’ve found myself being really in-love it. As I tend to do, I’ve done some edits on the original three fics and plan to revise the fourth to better fit with the current work-in-progress. I’m really excited to eventually share it!

Pushing Up Daffodils

“The story of Persephone and Hades, but make it Taekook and ridiculously sappy.”

PUD is a series I started in early 2021, and it’s my longest series, mostly because its first installment is my longest fic yet (one that took over a year to write, yikes). It’s a Greek mythology Hades & Persephone AU that I wrote, first as just a vague idea, and then at the encouragement of a friend. It follows more modern recreations of the original myth, essentially involving a lot less kidnapping (and incest, why was that ever a thing) and a lot more sappy lovebirds. Taehyung takes on the role of an outsider, the King of the Underworld, Hades, and Jungkook of spring god, the curious Kore. The series consists mostly of one main fic, a small sequel, and one tiny in-between flash-fic.

Fanfiction vocabulary has so many hyphens—

This series has a special place in my heart. The main work in it took me a lot time and I put a lot of effort into trying to keep it somewhat historically accurate to the time. I have plans to both rewrite some sections of it (are you noticing that I’m never satisfied?), and to eventually add a modern-time installment, but I’m waiting for the urge to return to the series to hit me before I get into any of that.

So those are my babies 💕 I technically have three other series, one of which was a two-fic Halloween series that I wrote mostly as just writing exercises, and the other two currently only have one installment each (and one isn’t even made a series on Ao3 yet). These are just the ones that make up the bulk of my works, so I feel like they’re the best introduction to what you can expect from me :)

Bye~

[ohheyidothat]

I forgot how much I loved studying language! I always felt bad for never becoming fluent in one, but I don’t mind now.

I tried learning German on my own when I was maybe 13 or 14 because there was a book I wanted to read, and the only free version I could find was in German! This was before Duolingo! (And I didn’t have internet access anyways lol) so I had to take quick notes when I got access to a computer and then study them at home; or load a video on my phone and be careful to keep it loaded off-wifi so I could re watch it.

I also tried Japanese, which everyone assumes if for anime-watching, but I’d never seen a single anime before. I just adored the two versions of writing (katakana and hiragana) along with taking loan words (and written symbols) from Chinese, Korean, etc, and studying when the word was adopted based on how much it had changed over the decades, centuries, millennia!

I ended up trying Chinese, because I was doing Japanese, and I thought, “Well, all these complicated Chinese-loan-word symbols are probably the same as Chinese, so I might as well!” And they are not, but that was even more fun!

I didn’t really like learning Spanish because it was part of school, which meant being expected to interact with people. But I do know sometimes successfully interact with customers in Spanish.

And I couldn’t ever forget my own languages! I thought it was so fun! I've attempted to make so many languages. Most stopped growing after I made them just functional enough for me to use in some story I was writing. But a handful went beyond! Some have dictionaries that have hundreds of words. Some have carefully crafted phonetics. Some have intricate syntax, designed to be unfamiliar, designed to show off the un-human-ness of the speakers, often specifically to show of the superhuman-ness of the speaker! (Alien society vastly different from humanity, with a language that indicates they are very far from human, but--perhaps the language is far more precise, or quicker, or isn't limited to audible speech--that is portrayed as superior, as a way for me to show "i am designing these creatures to be superior to humans," to help me discuss the flaws I personally see in humanity. Or, yknow... Just for fun hehe)

One of the silliest I ever made: a spoken language for coyotes. I was just fascinated with coyotes as a kid. Almost as cool as a wolf, but with an underdog vibe, always seen as "like a wolf, but a lot smaller, and wolves hate them." I tried using ONLY sounds that coyotes make. Which is a LOT of sounds! But most of the example sentences were like... "uorao-oo-o urowar wh'whaa rah'wh" hehe

[the-brave-and-the-dumb]

If I may, because I think it is quite important. And by any means, keep in mind I am not justifying anything nor anyone here.

I have already reblogged one post about how Poland welcomes Ukrainian refugees but refused the same with people standing on Belarusian border. I said polish activists are pointing that out as well.

But, you see, there actually IS a difference between polish people pointing out their problems and some westerners who have no knowledge about the region doing the same. It's, as always, a sign of entitlement.

What slips the mind of critics is that Poland was predicting this may be diversion action of Belarus and Russia to distract, divide and later conquer more easily, that we warned about the war back in 2008. These predictions turned out to be true – Germans locked their borders as well as many more countries and the West is angry at Poland they didn't took every refugee because they're not white. (Let's forget that Poland isn't the richest country in Europe and have difficulties with housing, lol)

(Btw why isn't anyone talking about Germany being hesitant to help Ukraine because they valued their business with Russians (for example Nord Stream) more? Why no one is offended Germans have send 2WW helmets as a "help" to Ukrainians soldiers?)

Hell yeah racism IS part of the problem here. The way refugees from Middle East were treated was inhuman. I still think every person from there should be taken in a shelter. But that meant not being able to provide any decent conditions. Thinking Poland is the only racist here is being an useful idiot or manipulating facts on purpose.

At the same time racism is only a PART of a problem since Polish people don't refuse shelter to students from India, China, Middle East and other places who are fleeing Ukraine. Polish people always took a huge part in raise funding and sending food, clothing and other goods to people suffering from tsunamis, war, drought, etc. Activists risked their freedom to help those waiting on Belarusian border.

Tl;dr refugee crisis on Polish-Belarusian border was seen as preparations for the war. Ukrainians suffer from the war that was being prepared, that's why the help was immediate. It doesn't mean it was okay to refuse shelter to Afghan people, inhuman acts will never be justified. But you cannot deny the situation turned out to be way more complicated than, for example, previous refugee crisis.

Is Poland a conservative country? Yes. Do they think of people from Middle East as terrorists? Yes, way too often. And now you can easily trace when the trend of calling Arabs terrorists started, I believe you, the reader, is smart enough to get what I'm talking about. Anyway, Poland who suffered two world wars, wasn't on a map for over 100 years in 19th to 20th century, was under occupation of communists since 1945 to 1989 (de facto even 1992) needed allies. And who was better ally than all mighty imperium of United States? So if US says "you have to fight with us" we go, sure.

During refugees crisis in Belarus many people said it's time Europeans start taking responsibility for being part of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. This is true, period. Why isn't it obvious and easy to do? From polish perspective: most of us didn't want to be part of the war. Since I was a child I have heard one terrifying phrase "this isn't our war. We are dying for a cause that isn't ours". Mothers have lost their sons just because politicians needed to be satisfied. Every time polish soldiers shoot civilians they had massive backlash from polish society. Educating and improving will do more good than blaming each other and pointing fingers.

Before you say something ask, listen, learn only after that you can judge, if you need. Stop applying western perspective on non-western countries. These few years showed us all that this perspective is only used to bash other countries – no help to oppressed ever came from this.

Feel free to agree or disagree, I want to know the opinions, the views on the problem. I hope less and less problems like this will occur but that won't happen unless we learn to oppose politicians and act according to human rights, not business.

[theesteemedladydebourgh]

hi ange, hope this isn't a silly question to ask but i was wondering if you have any study tips haha

not silly at all! 🥰

ah, studying...the bane of my existence (beloathed). why can't i just know all the things i need to hm? evolution has clearly failed.

the main piece of advice is probably not that helpful, but it's that studying is super subjective and you have to find what works for you. for instance, i'm pretty terrible at memorization, so i assign character-traits/personalities to things i need to know (sometimes including dialogues i am a weirdo) and use that as my notes 😂 it's odd, but it works! i still recall Otto von Bismarck the lemon Prime Minister who just wanted to make all the lemon trees part of one orchard, so their roots could share nutrients and prosper (is that organically correct? I have no idea, but it helped me remember the unification of the German territories in the 1800s lmao)

also, i'd just say make a schedule and stick to it. even if it's just one hour a day where you do your reading/assignments, it pays off. Revision/flashcards etc is all well and good, but you can't revise what you haven't already read. And don't exhaust yourself! i'm just learning this this week, lolll, because i've always been a huge studystudystudystudy down to the wire type of person, but there's a point when studying too much is actually harming you because you're so tired that you can't remember basic facts. like i literally forgot that the US was one of the countries that fought in WWII today 💀

i think establishing a plan and doing a little each day is the best way to set yourself up for success--and if there's anything you're fuzzy on, or even things you think you know cold, explain them to someone else. talk to your parent/sibling/friend/pet of choice/interesting rock formation/crack in the wall! Having to explain something really reveals any gaps in your knowledge, and solidifies ideas in your mind.

oh, last thing! sometimes you can pavlov yourself into remembering things hahahah. i listened to Taylor Swift's Speak Now album on repeat when I took Astronomy 101, and to this day when I hear the opening notes of Haunted I start recalling things about parsecs and distance. So keeping the same location/snacks/soundtrack to your studying can help jog your memory later.

hope my nonsense ramblings helped lol, and school goes great for you! ❤️

tagging @clare-with-no-i because she's such a college student marvel that i'm sure she has greater wisdom than i to share.

[vero-studies]

2022 Language Goals

I didn't make a post at all about goals in 2021 I don't think. But let's face it: I accomplished pretty much nothing in the language learning universe at all since I made this blog back in 2018. Big ouch. I got super burned out in 2021 and decided to not really do anything toward the latter half of the year. Waiting until the start of the New Year filled me with so much motivation I had to keep reminding myself to wait until 2022 to try and take things more seriously.

So here I am with some goals. And I still have to post a note picture from a lesson I did yesterday in one of my languages.

Japanese

Finally master katakana. It's been my number 1 struggle and motivation killer since I started to attempt to learn Japanese seriously. No idea why it's so hard for me to grasp, but here we are lol.

Be able to have a basic conversation with one of my Japanese friends on Twitter.

Complete a few chapters out of my Genki I textbook and workbook. I kind of had in mind before to get around the halfway point, but I don’t know. I don’t want to be super unrealistic.

Portuguese (Brazilian)

I severely neglected this language. Badly. So lots of reviewing for me. yay...lol. But I do have goals in mind:

Make a good-sized dent in the Portuguese 1 LingoDeer tree or finish it. I'm nearly halfway done with it anyway and after I review everything to where I was currently up to I plan on jumping back in. Plus it's similar to Spanish so I shouldn't have too much of a problem.

Be able to have a basic conversation with someone.

German

At one point I was around a lower intermediate level back when I took it in high school. Combine that with nobody to practice with and not being fully serious with it, I lost quite a bit of skill and definitely need to review. So this year I want to:

Finally finish my Complete German textbook. This has been a goal of mine in the past since making this blog.

Try and get back to the lower intermediate level.

Find someone to have a conversation with.

Serbian

Keeping this one pretty simple:

Learn the Cyrillic alphabet.

Begin Colloquial Serbian

I’ve also picked up a completely new language that I’ve never, ever dabbled in and have been so excited to start learning:

Nahuatl

Pronunciation because ooof my brain.

Just reach a basic level for now.

Yup. Those are my goals for this year. There might be some dabbling into other languages such as Swedish (I was pretty far along with that once when I was like 15-17 years old. Probably near intermediate level. RIP) But idk. I want to focus on this stuff right now for the time being.

What are your language goals for this year if you have any?

[theonetheycallhannah]

The Treatment of Captain Syverson-Prologue: Onset of Injury (Sy)

Characters: Captain Syverson, various OMCs

Summary: Sy’s POV, the night and the mission that ended his military career and set him unknowingly on a path to true love.

Catch up on all chapters right here!

Word Count: 1.9k

Warnings:  Language, violence, attempted military talk, feels…

Author’s Note: Okay friends, most of what I know about military ops I learned from watching movies…so, this may not all be accurate. But I think most of the terms and jargon are in line, even if this mission wouldn’t necessarily go down like this.

Disclaimer: Unfortunately for me, Henry is not mine, le sigh, and all mention of him, his characters, any characters from his films, or his precious doggy, Kal, are strictly for transformative and recreational use. I neither ask for, nor accept payment for the work I post on Tumblr or AO3. Unbeta’d because this is for fun and escapism.

Tags: 

@onlyhenrys

@cavillryarchive

@summersong69

@titty-teetee

@bloodyinspiredfuck

@agniavateira

@oddsnendsfanfics

@omgkatinka

@thisismysecretthirstblog

@misslaland

@speakerforthedead0

@tumblnewby

@suavechops

@radkesgirl83

@wheretheriversrunintothesea

Hope I’m not forgetting anyone! If you want to be notified when I post a new chapter or work, I’ll be happy to add you to my tag list! Stricken blogs are getting personal messages from me when a new chapter is uploaded because Tumblr’s faulty tagging system will not stand in the way of me delivering what the people want!(?) lol! (Although…their lackadaisical notification system might…sorry for that. I have no control. lol!)

X@X@X@X@X@X@X@X@X@X@X@

Captain Logan “Sy” Syverson had done a hundred briefings like this one. They were going into a compound with some low level goons, mid-level players, and one big boss. Two teams. Two entrances. One exit. The roof. Air extraction. Minimal undesirable casualties. Five or six mid to high level prisoners.

“Alright ladies, here’s the plan. The compound is central city. Alpha team, we’ll get dropped off by transpo two blocks south of the front entrance, Bravo team, same for you, two blocks north of the back entrance. Bravo, you head east and down once inside, Alpha will go west and up. Standard flanking formation. Stay frosty in there. These guys aren’t cub scouts. They will shoot on sight. Do your best not to be seen. Once the lower levels are cleared, we work our way to the top where we should find the big Kahuna. Do your best not to kill anyone in a suit. Tac gear only, unless it’s your life or theirs. These guys have intel the brass wants. Supposedly.”

Heads were nodding. Lopez raised his hand. The other guys laughed, but Sy appreciated the respect.

“Ricky?” He pointed at him to accept the question.

“Sir, what about evac?” He stood tall and sharp. He was new to the team, but Sy liked him already.

“That’s a great question, and thank you for raising your hand. Take notes on teacher’s pet here, class.” Everyone including Lopez laughed.

“There’s a stairwell to the roof in the master bedroom. That’s the LZ for our helo. They should be less than five mikes out, so we shouldn’t have time to order pizzas or anything after we clear the compound. So once the call is made, you won’t have long to get up the stairs. The helo can’t stay grounded for too long without drawing attention. We will need to keep an eye out for unfriendlies off compound being warned about our presence, and for survivors. Listen, I can’t stress this enough. I know it’s not easy to kill. And I don’t encourage it if it’s not necessary.  But these are bad people and they would kill you, the man next to ya, your sister, your parents, or your dog if they could.”

Aika, Sy’s German Shepherd whimpered in the corner but was ignored.

“Kill them for your brothers. For your neighbors. For the children you don’t even have yet. Because what do we do?”

“We embrace the darkness and the suffering.” His teammates that had been there for a while repeated the first part of the sin-eater credo.

“And why do we do it?”

“So that our fellow man is free to live in peace.” they finished the mantra as they had so many times before.

“Fuckin’ A. We roll in one hour.”

~~~~~~~~~

The drop and the entry had gone off without a hitch. Sy's Alpha team were like shadows, the very finger of death for the unjust and evil in the compound. Everyone they encountered was quietly subdued, whether by strategically placed blades, silenced firearms, or in some cases, the literal snapping of necks. Bravo team was just as successful. But Alpha team wasn't finding many prisoners.

The real problem came, though, when they reached the top floor where the big kahuna was supposed to be. Everything had gone dark, even though it had been lit up like Christmas, the Fourth of July, and the Super Bowl all in one when they were making their approach to the compound. Someone had squawked. Raised a silent alarm. Something.

"This…this doesn't smell right, captain." Harztler voiced what was running silently through Sy's mind. "This level was like Times Square when we got here. Now nothing? It stinks."

"I can smell it, Jake. I don't like it." he activated his comms. "Bravo team, we are sitting ducks up here, what is your twenty? Over."

"Sir, we are wrapping up down here, and getting the targets ready for evac. We should be on route in less than ten mikes. Over."

"Push it to five if ya can, private. We don't like the look of this bedroom. Over."

"Is this the moment to be questioning someone's taste in interior design, captain? Over."

"Shitcan that disrespect, private, or you'll be digging latrines alone next time we have survival drills. Over."

"Understood, sir. Will try to push to five mikes. Over."

"That'd be best. Over and out." He signed off with Lopez, amused at the inferior officer’s joke, even though he couldn’t show it openly.

Hartzler has just started to suggest possible reasons for their unease when the sound of rapid automatic firepower rang out from one of the floors below them.

“Fuck.” Both men said in unison followed immediately by frantic shouts from Sy’s radio.

“*crackle crackle* we are taking heavy fire! Kominski is down! Lopez is hit! Alpha team! Captain, do you copy? Over!"

"I'm on my way, Fuller. Hang tight. Over and out." Sy said and looked at the men on his team, "Hartzler, you and Goldberg signal the Helo for evac ASAP and get to the roof. Schmidt, Freeman, you two come with me to back up Bravo team. We meet at the LZ in five. That's not a big window, gentlemen, we'll radio if we hit any snags. Clear?"

"Clear." a round of nods and affirmations came from the rest of the team. Sy turned for the exit to the room, checking his clip, and putting one in the chamber. Stakes were higher than ever.

The last three steps to the ground floor were half blocked by a slumped corpse. Kominski. Sy fought the emotion building in him as he remembered David showing him photos of his two young daughters, Charlotte, who was seven, and Renee who had just turned five. And his gorgeous wife Sasha. His high school sweetheart. He was distracted enough  by thought of the soon to be grieving girls, that he missed the pool of blood, Kominski's blood, on the black tile steps. His knee twisted unnaturally. And he could almost feel the protest of his muscles and tendons.

"Fuck! Mind your footing on these last few, boys." he winced, limping on toward the firefight. He signaled the men behind him to stay against the wall and follow him quietly until he gave the signal to attack. There were three men in tactical gear firing from behind a bar in the corner, pinning what was left of Bravo team in their position behind an overturned dining table. It was just Fuller and Lopez now. Sy took the opportunity during a slow point in the enemy's fire to enter, managing to shoot all three immediately, single handedly ending things.

"Alpha team, secure the area. Fuller, Lopez, what is your status?" Sy asked the men.

"Lopez is hit pretty bad in the leg. We've got a tourniquet in place. I am…uninjured. But our prisoners have been…neutralized by friendly fire." Well, fuck. That was the mission blown.

"Ammo?" Sy asked, frustrated.

"Depleted, sir." they hadn't planned for this.

"Fuller, you and Schmidt get Kominski up the stairs, pronto. We ain't leavin' him in this hell hole. Freeman, you watch their backs. Keep 'em covered in case there are any more of these assholes lurkin' around the place. Lopez, I'm gonna help you up them stairs. Can you get up?"

"I'll try, sir."

"Okay, roll out." Sy went to help Lopez to his feet. The boy wasn't hardly 160 pounds soakin' wet.

It was slow going, with Kominski and Lopez in tow, but they made it back to the bedroom just as the sound of the helicopter began to grow, and the roof began to quiver from the wind kicked up by the blades.

Sy made Schmidt and Fuller go first, as they had the biggest burden. Then Freeman, in case they needed another hand getting Kominski's body into the hold. His knee burned after the four flights he'd already done supporting Lopez, but the private had lost so much blood. He thought he'd have to carry him up this last flight to the roof. The boy was pale as a…sheet. He didn't let himself think of an apparition.

When he felt safe enough, and ready, he told Lopez the plan and hoisted him over his shoulder on his uninjured side. His knee protested angrily, but he proceeded, ignoring the pain, forcing it down with those emotions about the Kominski family.

Relief washed over him as he made the last step and his boot crunched against the loose pea gravel of the roof top. They were almost out of the woods.

Until a massive explosion in the HVAC unit knocked him off balance and took him down to his knees, Lopez's added weight a contributing force in what he was certain was now a broken leg bone given a very clear and distinct pop he'd heard even over the noise of the fire and wind. He had heard it from the inside. He thought  it would be the tibia, but his knowledge of anatomy wasn't anything to write home about. He dropped the boy with an agonized howl. The heat from the blast bit at his back as he tried to find the strength to stand. But he couldn't. His team was charging toward him and the private. And for once, he was overjoyed to receive help. Fuller and Freeman got Lopez under each arm and dragged him the few yards to the open hold. Schmidt helped Sy up as best he could, but the Captain was in excruciating pain.

"Captain, we gotta go. These assholes are gonna blow up their own property to get us. Come on. It's not far. You can make it." Schmidt let his CO lean on him all the way to the helo.

Sy noticed tied up in one of the bucket seats of the hold, a man in maroon silk pajamas and brown leather loafers without socks. An Iraqi, early sixties, hair and beard still dark black. Their primary target. Mostafa Kassab.

"Where'd he come from?" Sy shouted at Hartzler.

"He was hunkered down in that corner over there when we came up to signal the chopper." the sergeant lit up with pride. "Fuller told me their prisoners didn't make it. I'm glad we found Kassab up here, or the mission would have been a total waste.

As they took off, Sy looked from the covered body of Kominski to the prone form of Lopez, who was paler than ever and glassy-eyed. It was hard in that moment to think that even ten of Mostafa Kassab could be worth one of these men he was lucky enough to call friends.

As he examined his knee, beginning to swell and looking a much different shape than he ever remembered, he thought about what this could mean for him, as a captain, as a soldier…as a man. If he could even call himself a man if he had to take away the title of captain and soldier. This was his calling. He wasn’t sure how he’d go on if…but, he’d wait to think about that when he got back to base and the medic’s tent. After all, what was the worst that could happen? It wasn’t like he was hurt bad enough to earn a discharge letter…was he?

Up Next: Chapter One: Evaluation

[rigelmejo]

Unrelated completely, regarding listening reading method:

I am genuinely so excited to test the listening reading method out wholeheartedly. When I looked up the method, few people were trying it with Chinese, and of the people I saw a lot were beginners with less vocabulary than I have which I think both made the task harder for them and made their progress look different than I imagine mine will.

For example, in my first attempts using listening reading method, I noticed I picked up a TON of words I could already read, and a TON of phrases I could already read but didn’t properly “chunk” until I heard them aloud. Whereas the beginners tended to document picking up entirely new words, and not understanding much of any paragraph for the first several chapters. Whereas again, because I had more vocabulary, my first chapters I listening reading method did I heard a TON of individual words/followed the main gist, and it took several chapters for me to start finally understanding full phrase chunks and sentence chunks together. I 100% think the listening reading method can work with mandarin, I just think since few people have tried it and shared the experience, I’m going to find out how much it can improve someone’s mandarin myself...

I saw people who did listening reading method with german, and Dutch, who like the creator of the method ended up going from 0 to B1-B2 listening and sometimes-reading* skill in 3-5 months (reading skill tended to depend on how much they focused on the actual text during target language audio/target language text portion). The people with the most success usually already had a foundation of several hundred or a couple thousand common words, and had seen some grammar summarized beforehand (both of which I have already done with mandarin). I’m extremely curious how far the listening reading method can take my reading skills specifically - since the method mainly improves listening, and reading is simply affected a bit as a consequence of picking up new words/reading target language text along with the audio during one of the steps. With Chinese I suspect I’ll have to do more Hanzi learning, and reading-only work like intensive reading, to supplement my reading skills. However I already do a lot of intensive reading, so maybe that will keep the skills relatively even.

I do know that only couple dozen hours of listening reading method already boosted my listening skills a TON. So listening reading method definitely improves listening skills, as it is intended to. The actual method suggests learners listen read through an entire novel in a week or two, then do another novel etc, at least 3 novels though potentially more - and redoing some novels again from the start if desired. For my kind of novels - like Guardian by Priest, that means 106+ chapters, 800+ pages, 30 minutes audio a chapter (53 hours for the English text-chinese audio portion, another 53 hours for the Chinese text-chinese audio portion, and lets say half as many hours to read it in English 26.5 hours). So that is 132.5+ hours to listen read to Guardian. The listening reading method assumes you do a few books, so let’s say around 3 books, 396 hours (roughly 400 hours). Well... no wonder people saw such improvements! 400 hours of listening to comprehensible input in a European language will get an English speaker quite far into learning. Most European languages according to FSI take around 600-750 hours for an English native speaker to learn. Listening reading method would fill a huge chunk of those hours, and if you focus on the reading portion too, then that should definitely at least be a solid foundation into B1 I can imagine.

Listening reading methods creator also tends to do these in 6-12 hour reading bursts per day - which I absolutely never do because I’m lazy and unable to focus on things for too long usually without switching things up. But like I’ve mentioned, even me just doing maybe 12 hours of listening reading method so far, in small 30 minute to 2 hour chunks, has been enough to make noticeable improvement in my listening comprehension. If someone is already intermediate and just wants to improve their listening skill, I think they’d see fast results like I have regarding their listening skill dragging up closer to their reading skill level.

When I read the listening reading method creators website, they sounded like 10 hours was about how long it took (for beginners in a language) to start parsing individual words and recognizing them, 30 hours to start hearing word chunks and phrases they could understand, and 60-100 hours to start comprehending a majority of the words.

I am therefore very curious what my rate of improvement will be. I do feel chinese study using the listening reading method at least for listening skills will see similar levels of improvement. I’m wondering if my listening skills will improve a bit faster, since I’m already past the “progress at 30 hours” mark expectations wise - I can hear many individual words, can hear many sentence chunks/phrases, and just struggle to follow some full sentences and catch brand new words until I’ve heard them several times. I do very much want to completely go through Guardian with this method - for many reasons lol. 1. Because I’ve been wanting to read it in english and I’ll have a chance to use that for study which is cool, 2. Because I’ve been wanting to read it in chinese and this makes it doable/more comprehensible for my current skill level (aka following along to the audiobook I will read at a less slow pace/comprehend more since the English will be fresh in my mind, compared to if I just read it extensively on its own), 3. Avenuex made a beautiful audiobook I adore and I’ll have an excuse to listen to it while actually comprehending everything since I’ll have the English and Chinese novel to look at while o read! So... once I’m through Guardian, I’ll be able to answer for myself what over 100 hours of progress doing the listening reading method produce, how well it works when using a book with a more complicated/high vocab style - which is sort of priest, reading challenge wise, and the kind of novel the listening reading method creator recommends using. Also, I’ll have read Guardian! ovo)/ and I will have read a full priest novel, so I’ll have picked up words by my favorite author that will hopefully make other priest novels easier to read (the same reason Tian Ya Ke may be helpful).

———-

Another thing people who have tried the listening reading method suggest doing first (particularly if studying a language much different than your native language, but for any language tbh). The creator of the method suggested: knowing a few hundred to a few thousand common words, and having looked at a grammar guide or overview prior. That’s something anyone who’s already a bit of a beginner, to low intermediate, probably has done or is doing. In addition, some people who have done this method suggested using something like sentence audio flashcards (in English and target language audio) and listening to them a few times, repeating them, until one felt comfortable with them. Generally common word/grammar ones, and you could do “listening reading” with those sentences too (reading them while listening to the audio). This would serve as a primer to learn the basics comfortably before going into listening reading novels. They suggested doing yjis would make the method work better - they got to B2 in Dutch in a handful of months of intensive listening reading by doing this beforehand and they think it helped a lot. While I think it’s not necessary, I do think of listening reading is hard, then getting a basis beforehand as a beginner and/or covering a easier basics common language material first will help. I use the Chinese SpoonFed Audio files which basically amounts to the same thing but no reading (if I used the flashcards still, it would include reading). So I do have some sentences/phrases/words I have a good listening foundation for already. Also, as mentioned, I do read, so for many common words and Hanzi I already can read them. I do think this advice is very good for beginners though, if they want to see noticable results sooner (versus 30-50 hours into listening reading before they start learning significant amounts - basically it just means they’d do 30-50 hours prestudy instead of basic common words/grammar, to make the listening reading initially less difficult). A total beginner could dive right into listening reading (just like my chaotic self first started to try to read Chinese knowing 500 words and brute forcing mdzs and guardian a few paragraphs at a time), it just means it’ll feel more difficult at first for a while, and they’ll be mostly learning basics for a while first before they build enough of a basis to comprehend more. Which is fine. It all just comes down to how much incompréhensibilty can you personally tolerate without giving up. The creator of the method? Can tolerate a TON. Me? I can tolerate a brutally large amount, surprisingly, but usually I need to comprehend had least the main idea and that’s a minimum of like 40-60% depending on which parts I’m comprehending. Most people will feel it’s unbearable until they can comprehend at least 80-90% (and I certainly PREFER material I comprehend that much of). And most people ideally are comfortable once they understand 95-98% (think reading a book in your native language with some unknown words you can figure out easily from context, or graded readers made to feel this easy with around this many unknown words for you to figure out in context, or maybe manhua/manga/comics once you’re a pretty decent intemediate level in a language etc).

[mcrmadness]

A Masterpost: ALL MY OLD die ärzte (aka Bela&Farin) COMICS (from 2010-2011)

I’ve lately been talking about my art, especially comics, here a lot but I have never posted my OLD old dä comics here! That’s about to change now. The old ones happened in 2010-2011 when I was 19-20 years old, so they are a bit cringy now :D The scans are my old ones so don’t mind about cat hair or something like that in some of the scans. And I know: my hand writing hasn’t really changed in the past 10-15 years at all :DD

And a slash warning (do I really need that with this fandom tho..?) because I used to draw just very fluffy Bela/Farin comics and they barely have any good plots even. There’s just 4 overall in this post and they all are quite short. But at least for me it’s fun to see how far I have come and how I’ve gotten better at drawing!

Anyway, without further ado, this is where it all started:

Bela&Farin - “Du willst mich küssen”

Simply the idea came from the fact I noticed that on the “Du willst mich küssen” single there’s only one additional song: “Die Antwort bist du”, and that one out of all the potential other songs from the studio album. (Now I’m wondering if I should try to redraw this some day to see my progress? :DD)

The rest under the cut because they get very cringy but if you want to read B/F fluff comics and facepalm at my idiotic humour, go ahead and click the read more link.

Bela&Farin - Bela will ein Baby

(eng. Bela wants to have a baby)

This one was the first I did in German and I traumatized myself. I had just started learning German and totally failed everything and an (old) online friend, native German, wrote something that indicated laughing and I felt so insecure about my German after that that even today I have a fear of saying/writing even simple German words in front of native Germans. She anyway “beta read” the plot and corrected every faulty phrase (aka every phrase) and this is what she suggested that I’d write, and that’s what I did.

The plot shortly: Bela just wants to have a baby but he wants it with Farin obviously, so Farin says they’re both men and can’t reproduce together but Bela found a solution: he found them a surrogate mother. Problem solved.

***

Bela&Farin - “Beer Belly”

Prepare yourself for a cringe overload :)) I’m so sorry that you have to suffer through this.

With this the idea came from the live videos I was watching back then - lots of live videos from 2007-2009 and I noticed that Bela just kept growing and losing his belly all the time. (OMG HELP I’m crying because “SQUEAK SQUEAK” XDDDDDD)

Also the ending is... I don’t know what is it. I guess I just wanted Rod ot make an appearance and didn’t come up anything better than this ::D My peak of humour is right there btw: anything that happens at the background. That shit just never gets old for me. So I find that still funny in this comic but I have no clue how a bass can be pregnant.

Also hey, I have started drawing shadows :DD

And yes, Bela actually did have a cow t-shirt like that in some of the videos and I just had to draw it! And btw, the reason for the fluff is probably because the concerts where those videos were from? It was extremely slashy, Bela and Farin barely could keep their hands off of each other so you really can’t blame me for all this. The ship just sails itself.

***

Bela&Farin - “Zucker”

(eng. “Sugar” - this one was again in German because it wouldn’t work in English. This time I think I did all the language stuff myself but I can’t remember for sure so maybe I got help, maybe I didn’t... This is the last one of these old comics and my personal favorite. You can see that my style somehow went through some major changes but I don’t know what even happened there. I can’t remember.)

I can’t get over Farin’s hair in the last panel, I drew it so perfectly and I still don’t know how to recreate that lol. And now I’m losing it at that tiny “XD” in the grin panel because I found it so stupid looking - the first time I had even drawn a grin for him lmao. Also ignore Farin’s arm that has suddenly lost all its color. (Aka: someone forgot to color it.)

THE IDEA for this comic is simply in the name of brown sugar. At least in Finnish that is called as “fariinisokeri”, which always amuses me still after 12 years because I am a bit simple sometimes, and I figured that it can also be called “Farinzucker” in German so of course I needed to make a Bela/Farin comic about it.

The dialog for those who don’t speak German (too well) yet - Bela just goes to Farin to ask for “Farin sugar” and Farin first is like “nope” but then “jk” and they lived happily ever after. Or something.

***

BONUS:

Something I drew with a ballpoint pen once when I was visiting my aunt and cousin and was bored and doodled this. I like drawing repeated patterns like brick walls or apparently also flowers.

And I have no idea where did I draw this - maybe it was something to do with one course through the employment agency as I tend to doodle when in any kind of class. I feel like I had been watching “Die band, die sie Pferd nannten” prior to this, based on Bela’s looks.

And it was back in 2010, I didn’t have a smart phone yet so no internet to use for reference photos :D

***

So, back to the comics - I only made these 4 back then but before this I did draw other stuff and comics too. I drew several of them as horses when I still didn’t know how to draw humans, and I also have one of them as rats too. The rat one might work as a redrawn human comic, tho... Anyway, at some point I got annoyed because I didn’t like drawing them as horses or rats and wanted to invent a “human style” so then one night, this happened:

The texts are mainly just me chanting how I’m dying from laughter etc. That is actually what I do when I am very insecure of what I do and then I just start openly laughing at everything and myself, that way things don’t feel as bad failures than what they actually are :D (And yeah I know the article is wrong at some point, let’s just say I hadn’t memorized all the article stuff from German yet :D I don’t know if I had even started learning German yet at that point.)

But yeah, then I did find the style and these are the next sketches from my sketchbook:

The bottom left says “facial experessions” - and oh my god I was so damn cringe whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy---

but anyway, those were what I ended up with eventually and the rest is history. I think I’m still gonna make one post with stuff I drew in 2018 and that I haven’t posted here yet as there’s still a few of those, too.