#i guess this could apply for korean and chinese medias as well

[piosplayhouse]

I'm curious

[goldtowhite]

nathan hong // character study

PART ONE: STATISTICS. 

basic information:

FULL NAME: nathan hong

NICKNAME(S):  nate

AGE:  26

DATE OF BIRTH: october 2nd, 1997

PLACE OF BIRTH: los angeles, ca

GENDER: cismale

PRONOUNS: he/him

ORIENTATION: bisexual

LANGUAGE(S) SPOKEN: english, korean

NEIGHBOURHOOD: downtown los angeles

LIVING ARRANGEMENTS: downtown lofts, he lives alone

family ties:

MOTHER: hong jiyoo

FATHER: hong seungmin

SIBLINGS: none

SPOUSE / PARTNER: none

CHILDREN: none

PETS: a cat named mandu

occupational information:

OCCUPATION: social media manager at sonic magazine

physical appearance:

FACE CLAIM: kim mingyu

HAIR COLOR: black

EYE COLOR: brown

HEIGHT: 6'2"

BUILD: very athletic, very muscular

TATTOOS: none

PIERCINGS: ears

CLOTHING STYLE: streetwear when casual, nice business attire when working

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS: his teeth have a sort of fangs vibe to them that make his smile really endearing

personality:

MBTI: ENFJ

ELEMENT: air

WESTERN ZODIAC: libra

CHINESE ZODIAC: ox

POSITIVE TRAITS: adaptable, amiable, courteous

NEGATIVE TRAITS: airy, enigmatic, indulgent

HOBBIES: going to the gym, running, bike riding, surfing, cooking, sketching

wanted connections:

CONNECTION TYPE: an ex: one where nate was definitely in the wrong. he's not very communicative with feelings, not in a malicious way, just in a clueless way. nate definitely like... assumed things were casual and it was not for the other muse and he just kind of kept doing his own thing and they broke up with some pretty bad blood.

CONNECTION TYPE: pleaseeeeeeee gimme a partner in crime and i need it to be like... they are yes men to each other. like they lowkey kind of enable each other for the worse sometimes.

PART TWO: QUESTIONNAIRE. 

this part of the questionnaire is intended to be filled out in character just like your muse is being interviewed by someone at sonic magazine for example. feel free to add as much or as little detail as you like. if you find there is a question that doesn’t apply to your muse for whatever reason within your category feel free to omit the question or come up with your own that you think is relevant. this section is designed to replace a character bio, but you can still add extra information to your intro as you wish. 

IF YOUR MUSE IS IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY (NON MUSICIAN):

why don’t you start at the beginning and tell us who you are? nathan hong, first generation korean american. my parents moved here from korea about a decade before i was born to open a restaurant and start a new life. i worked there as soon as i legally could officially, unofficially i always helped. it's how i learned how to cook and all that, and i grew up speaking both korean and english, so i feel a pretty strong connection to both parts of me. the restaurant isn't something i plan to inherit in a meaningful way but i'll always keep it in the family.

what is your place in this massive industry? i went into being a social media manager simply because i feel really comfortable with social media. i've always run the socials for the family business and i found it pretty easy to get into doing that for other fields.

life in los angeles can be pretty intense, do you love it or hate it? i love it, but it's all i've ever known. when we visit seoul, i feel just as at home there. i'm not sure i'm the type who could ever give up city life, i think i'd get too bored. i'm not much of a homebody really.

what inspires you to show up for the musicians you work for or collaborate with? i just like knowing i can contribute to the industry in any way, and being bilingual i can also help out when we have artists who might not be fluent in english coming from korea to work with us. i guess i'm a bit of an unofficial translator as well, i wouldn't say my job keeps me so busy that i can't help elsewhere.

what are some of your favourite genres of music? i'm a hoe for top 40 pop forever, i also love a lot of korean music. i like pop punk, rock, really anything. country's never really done it for me but there are some exceptions.

what is the first record you ever bought? for myself? seo taji and boys self titled debut. it came out a few years before i was born but the first trip to korea i can remember, i found it in a thrift store and spent my pocket money on it.

what’s next for you? i feel pretty good about where i'm at right now, but i've been thinking about expanding my comfort in running social media accounts, like maybe taking on individual clients, or reaching out to gyms or other restaurants. my parents say i'm not ambitious enough but i think i'm chilling.

[marimopeace]

there's a limit on how much you can be an isekai intellectual...

a bunch of analyses have been popping up before me all day so i wanted to throw my hat into the ring. all love to ppl who are exercising their creative minds + ppl like geoff here who just talk about these things because of fan interest but i feel like there reaches a point where exploring the "types" of isekai is pointless? i've seen ppl list out the different types of villainess revenge isekai or fantasy mmorpg isekai but eh why fit them all into separate boxes like that?

i think it's easier to think of isekai as a "type" (genre) of itself with only two categories: 1) a focus on isekai (lit. another world) 2) tensei (lit. to be reborn). this allows for a variety of applications and thus tropes that ppl see so many trends of!

with isekai - in another world

you see everything from:

pure fantasy (inuyasha, digimon wait maybe not the best example but in my childhood mind i count digimon as pure fantasy, fushigi yugi)

mmorpg inspired fantasy/adventure (.hack//legend of twilight, sao ugh, log horizon, overlord (LOVE OVERLORD!)

otome game-esque worlds >>> this is where it gets complicated with "villainess routes" since i admit there are multiple villainess tropes but this is why it's nice to not think of this as a "sub-type/genre" bc it frees you from those complications! (the saint's magic power is omnipotent, the white cat's revenge as plotted from the dragon king's lap soso cute!, the savior's book cafe in another world, i'm a villainous daughter so i'm going to keep the last boss wait i can't remember if she's reborn in this one lmaooo see this is why rules make everything hard)

with tensei storylines - being reincarnated/reborn in another world as *insert character/role*

you see...

the same tropes!!

pure fantasy (a returner's magic should be special, reminiscence adonis, the lady and the beast, light and shadow, i can't think of a manga off the top of my head for this ah)

mmorpg inspired fantasy/adventure (so i'm a spider so what i stan kumoko so hard, her majesty's swarm, can't name another off the top of my head ah i hate lists shorter than two things...)

self-insert based games/novels (fiance's observation log of a self-proclaimed villainess, who made me a princess, death is the only ending for the villainess, the villainess wants to marry a commoner, honestly games vs novels are different applications but i'm not in the headspace to try to remember a bunch of both lol)

*insert line break to give random ppl a break from scrolling but tl; dr just enjoy things for what they are no need to micro analyze*

similar variations occur in both genres (if ppl want to be super technical i guess i'm arguing that isekai itself is a massive genre that has the "another world" subgenre and "reincarnation" subgenre tl; dr) so i think it's honestly a huge pain to try to separate all these trends into so many different types of stories. for me personally it's easier to not get overwhelmed by this gigantic umbrella of "isekai" that spans light novels, manhwa, manga, and mobile games by just stripping each story down into its trademark tropes (aka character archetypes, story structures) and slapping "oh this is a person going to a world that's not ours" and "this person gets reborn as blank in another world". none of this "omg this power fantasy is such a this kind of isekai moment" or "there are 14 different types of villainess revenge stories and this series fits into this" bc AH labels! limitations! circle-jerks via ppl trying to compartmentalize everything and sound smart for leaving a comment on story analysis instead of ooh-ahhing over a character's face! dividing things into light novel manga vs manga vs korean manhwa ft. female characters!

the last bit is mainly why i feel frustrated by ppl's insistence to group everything?

the video linked at the beginning of the post (honestly good video essay, i enjoyed it, i just kept thinking in my head the whole time "marimo these are tropes do not take the genre talk literally") has a baby comment thread talking about "korean isekai manhwas" as a genre featuring nothing but reincarnated villainess' and i can't.

like i cannot acknowledge that as a genre of any sort. the energy i felt reading through some of those insights takes me back to 2012 when all yt americans discovered k-pop and deemed all korean music k-pop from then on! (ppl still do this now, yes you are seen and don't talk to me pls i don't like you. k-pop is korean pop music and nothing less and nothing more. take a few seconds and try to parse apart aspects of korean culture instead of slamming everything into a monolithic label that has the letter k and a hyphen.) it feels so odd to see a bunch of young ppl on ig and tiktok acknowledge korean media that happens to be in the form of a webtoon as "oh stories all about young girls becoming villains in stories they made/played" bc it feels so reductive u.u

(positionality disclaimer that i'm praying isn't actually necessary: i am a 3rd-generation korean of japanese descent do not fite me i am exhausted irl of ppl asking for validation/verification bc massive shove off.)

breaking news! korean manhwa...is just as multifaceted as japanese manga...bc how can comics as an art-form not have multiple genres...huh such a shocker?!?! same likely applies to media in other parts of the world like chinese manhwa and french comics--not my place to explain either of those i just know those industries exist bc of wakfu and donghua shows by Tencent.

at the end of the day it's not like analyzing any kind of isekai is wrong--absolutely not!! i think it can be super fun to think about how isekai elements complicate a story (MCs trying to go back home, ppl from the og world, reincarnation plot-twists) or maybe even bash a series for including some kind of other world element when they could have just written a super fun fantasy.

insert marimo's brief ramble that hey you can get sick of truck-kun's hitting disillusioned guys who happen to be super duper smart or girls who happen to be master chefs/craftsmen but transporting a fully-grown being into a fantasy setting is the ultimate cheat code for making mundane modern technology seem cool and overpowered, and being reincarnated as a fully grown person in a world with a pre-made story/game set-up completely bypasses the need for an author to slowly flesh out world-building in a natural progression so isekai is actually a really smart writing tool it's just that there are some series where the author didn't use it well at all and it's cheesy or clearly isekai was misused as a vehicle for character/story development and it was pointless *DEEP BREATH OUT*

in this essay i will argue...lol i am such a culture studies major!! if i were an english major i would be talking all about writing but here i am having a side-tangent about world-building via someone being reborn wow i love this for me (don't get me started on when an author has someone reincarnate as a baby and the story is mostly them having warm fluffy moments with their family--typically father figures--and getting lots of powers i could and would and probably will rant about east asian toxicity)

but anyway am i crazy????? like yes for being passionate about the technical use of a word like genre (i am a scorpio rising let me be fussy pls) but i don't think it's a lot to ask for ppl to not unironically see "villainess revenge isekai" as the definition of korean manhwa.

idk as someone who resonates with why japanese isekai is so popular domestically + why a lot of korean manhwa feat. the same tropes (it's not for great reasons lads it's actually depressing tbh) i'm just starting to feel kind of pained by the generalization and need to separate "cute japanese girl in an otome game"/"japanese boy finds a harem in another world" from "korean girl dies and comes back as a villainess" bc they are just! applications to the same story device!!

recommendations for any who makes it this far down below <3

// also gladly recommend any of the examples i've listed in the above rant as i've read/watched all of them and adore them v much! //

save me princess

super refreshing fantasy manhwa ft. a princess and her ex-boyfriend having to save the world!

the beginning after the end

an AMERICAN web novel turned into a comic (but see it being not korean/japanese doesn't really matter when you just consider isekai as a genre...isn't it nice to not overthink it?) ft. a super-powerful wizard king reincarnated into another world and starting from scratch--gives mushoku tensei vibes but huge twists!

the reason why raeliana ended up at the duke's mansion

love love LOVE this story--read the title and you'll learn how this girl reincarnated as the character raeliana in a book gets married to a duke!

trash of the count's family

such a good novel!! a guy gets reborn as a lazy oaf and he takes the hero of the story under his wing...plot twists come up later on!

this time i will definitely be happy!

v good and refreshing for a shorter series! she's been reborn 3 times and remembers every time the hero's stabbed her in the back, and now she just wants to break up with him!

silver diamond

older manga but v good adventure w intrigue! a boy who loves plants get sucked into a desert world with demonic lizards and a mysterious bodyguard by his side. shonen-ai not BL but wonderful vibes nonetheless + great side characters!

the princess imprints a traitor

adore everything in this from the world (not in that way this society makes me so angry) to the machinations at play and the dynamic between the fl and ml

[brianna-lei]

Anonymous Butterfly Soup asks, batch 6

IT’S RIGHT NEXT TO THE BIG TOBLERONE I’M ALIVE

Being covered by a big gaming news site was one of my fantasies, so I’m elated this happened. The article is here, for anyone curious! 

More asks under the cut!! 

A note before I start -- if you submitted a bug, I saw it!! Thank you for reporting them!

Yes, she did! Her Facebook profile pic is her posing in front of a store at the mall, and you can see Jun’s reflection taking the pic in the store window

Akarsha didn’t realize, but Noelle totally heard it. Noelle kind of had a sense of what was up already, but actually hearing it worried her. She was debating whether or not to intervene when Min showed up. 

On a small note, Min trying to cheer Akarsha up slightly improved Noelle’s opinion of Min (even though Min and Akarsha almost end up fist fighting again afterward).  

Min plays video games too, imagine them playing Team Fortress 2 and later Overwatch together... Diya, Min, and Noelle have all seen some basic anime like Pokemon, Digimon, and Yugioh, but Akarsha’s the only real hardcore anime fan. I’m glad she met “Sakura”, “Yuki”, and Ester through the baseball club, because now she has weeb friends to talk about that stuff too. 

(Ester is less obvious about liking anime than “Sakura” and “Yuki”, but you can still tell by her outfit’s style. Lowkey but not lowkey enough)

I can totally relate to all of them, but I’d say Diya!

Yes, they grow close over the course of the year and Noelle has to try really hard not to cry LMAO They still keep in touch afterward. 

Yep, they both feel this huge gulf between themselves and their parents due to cultural differences. Many Asian immigrant parents are extremely conservative so it feels like they’re on a completely different wavelength from you, and at the same time they have complete power over you. It’s kind of a bad feeling.  

...Also, shadowing their faces saved me the work of drawing their different facial expressions. 

Min was actually out of town when the fire happened, so Diya had to call her and tell her what happened :( Diya (and eventually Min) sleeps on Noelle’s couch for a bit. Noelle and Akarsha aren’t living together at the time and Noelle has the nicer/cleaner apartment  

It sounds really miserable, but they’re ok in the end

Noelle's passion is math and science, so she definitely ends up doing something in STEM that she likes, just not what her parents were expecting. Akarsha is similar and becomes a software engineer -- They’re actually both naturally interested in those subjects, which says a lot about how bad the parental pressure really is.  

I like to think Diya and Min actually manage to break into minor league baseball and eventually MLB

Most of my outfit inspiration comes from my tumblr/twitter feeds. I wish I could recommend you fashion blogs, but I’m not following any?! They’re all just fandom mutuals who randomly reblog cool clothes sometimes. 

I used to have trouble deciding what clothes characters should wear, so every time I see an image of a cool outfit I save it for reference. After doing this since high school I now have...uh...

And those are just the unorganized ones, the ones i have in folders are like...

Now if I’m stumped for what a character should wear, I just browse these massive folders for inspiration. I can actually pinpoint the omocat jacket that gave me the idea for Min’s:

I thought, “it should be a warning: high voltage sign on the back!”, and then I just went on Google images and looked them up. 

Sorry if this isn’t helpful! 

I don’t think Min really minds, but The Squad is even better! Deke squad

Yeah, Akarsha’s parents wouldn’t approve either. Out of the main four, Diya is actually the only one whose parents are fine with it 

Ooh thank you this is an awesome compliment to receive!! 

I REALLY want to make merch some day! I’ve never made physical merch before and I’m a bit intimidated not knowing where to start/how to handle shipping, so it may take a while, though :( 

I didn’t give anyone last names and I doubt I ever will, sorry! Feel free to give them your own if you want 

This was intentional, but at the same time I can’t believe everyone IMMEDIATELY noticed. You guys are so in tune with 4/20

Diya and Akarsha are Indian, Min-seo is Korean, Noelle is Taiwanese, Chryssa is black, Liz is…mostly Irish, I think? “Sakura” is Pakistani, “Yuki” is Filipino. I’ve heard a lot of guesses for Ester, but she’s half black and half Chinese!

i got u son!!

Thank you, I really love hearing this because the feeling that this narrative was missing was what made me want to make this game in the first place! 

you might feel a bit more sympathetic to min when you reach her part of the story! Your mileage may vary, though

If you want to make a game like Butterfly Soup, try the program Renpy! It doesn’t require programming experience to use and there’s a lot of guides online on how to use it.  My NUMBER ONE BIG ADVICE IS MAKE A REALLY, REALLY SMALL GAME FIRST. My first game, Pom Gets Wi-Fi, was only 30-45 minutes long. If you make it any bigger than that, you almost guaranteed will never finish it. The dream game that you want to make is probably longer than that, so don’t make your dream game first! That’s kind of why I was so alarmed when Pom Gets Wi-Fi took off -- I’m very proud of that game and still love it, but it was like my test for the games I dreamed of making like Butterfly Soup. (Also, 17 is a great age to start making games, good for you!) Other stuff I’ve learned:  Programming: I mostly learned super specific things that can’t be easily applied to other situations. If you want to know how I did a specific thing in Renpy, message me! 

Writing: If you’re struggling to write something, it might be for a good reason. Maybe the scene is unnecessary or boring, your mental image of the scene doesn’t translate well to the format of your work, or the character motivations aren’t convincing enough. Deleting a scene altogether isn’t defeat, sometimes it’s the best path forward! Give up more! 

Artwise: Drawing for non-pixel art games takes FOREVER. The sheer amount of time it’d take to draw all the characters and backgrounds was so demoralizing that I found myself procrastinating because I didn’t want to tackle it. Not only did I have a large cast of characters (9 in the baseball club alone), but because of flashbacks, I had to draw half of them again as kids!

To anyone thinking about making a game by themselves, SERIOUSLY consider making it a pixel art game. If you’re that set on making a non-pixel art game, SEVERELY limit the number of characters and backgrounds you have to draw!! I’m begging u...learn from my mistakes... 

You’re welcome!!! :> 

I loved USC! The Interactive Media major was cool and fun -- I met a lot of good friends through the program! It was probably the best few years of my life. 

Unfortunately...I felt like it did nothing to prepare me for finding a job. There are very few classes for aspiring game artists and game writers. There wasn’t a single professor who worked as an artist at a triple A studio while I was there, and only one who was a major writer. I get that you gotta be self motivated, but I wish I had someone in the faculty I felt comfortable discussing my career path with. Some of the professors had clear favorite students and if you weren’t one of them, they’d make very little effort to reach out to you or interact with you. I know I'm introverted, but I never got this feeling with my general elective classes -- I had plenty of chances to talk to my writing professor, architecture lab professor, art teacher, etc., yet I came out of a lot of my Interactive Media classes wondering if my professors even remembered me.  

If you want to be a game designer or maybe a writer, and are really focused/outgoing with your professors, it could be the major for you, but if you want to be a game artist I’m not sure it’s the best place to be. 

I was actually crazy stressed out when it came out, so nope! It’s happening this weekend  

I was super nervous right after it came out because I was worried people wouldn’t like it! I put a lot into it, and actually teared up writing parts of it, so it was a ridiculous relief to see that people were touched by it. I’m really happy now and really want to make a sequel.  Also, I’m beyond grateful to my friends/mutuals/fans spreading the word and tweeting/posting about the game and making fancontent ;~; I really owe everything to them!  A few people wondered about how I was holding up attention-wise, and actually...as a fanartist I sort of thrive on this, haha. Also, this is much less intense than when I released Pom Gets Wi-Fi. For perspective, it took Butterfly Soup a week to reach the number of downloads Pom got in one day. 

Good!!! You’re welcome! 

you’re welcome!!! 

[ladyburksn-blog]

Siracha Challenge post

The first challenge I chose to talk about that I found similar to the Ice Bucket Challenge was the Siracha Challenge. The Siracha Challenge first made it’s appearance in 2013, To raise money for Homeless Vets, to help get them off the street, and give them some decent clothes to wear and hot meals to eat. There are roughly about 58,000 vets who are homeless every night. These are the same men and women who have served our country, who have risked their lives and their limbs for their country and then came home to no family, no creature comforts, no Job, and no place to call their own and sadly this is a ongoing problem in our society. These people are heroes and they give of themselves to fight for our country and our freedom and what do they get in return, inflated medical bills, over booked Veteran hospitals, and veterans affairs office that have to many cases and not enough assistance programs to fulfill the needs.

Now over the past few years the Siracha Challenge has made a reappearance and over time there have been a few tweaks added to spice up this already extremely spicy challenge. Originally it was one teaspoon of siracha now it has been taken up to one shot glass. The recent siracha challenge came about after the ice bucket challenge raised so much awareness for ALS, so when the big Ebola Virius scare happened they decided to try to raise awareness by doing a similar Challenge and Viola the new upgraded version of this challenge was born when 3 guys with a camera decided to raise awareness about this new disease buy pouring themselves a whole shot glass of Siracha sauce supposed to the previous table spoon that people used to do. It was originally meant to be a parody but as so often happens on the internet people who have too much time on their hands, and who will do anything for view see these kinds of stunts and try to use them to their advantage and suddenly the internet explodes with challenges like this. Like so many before it this Challenge quickly grew in popularity, instantly gaining the attention of several members of the online community and so several different youtubers began to not only take up this challenge but apply their own little twists to it. Today their are hundreds of videos done by several different walks of life, People for different countries different backgrounds,Different races and religions, different ages and genders and even with their own different takes on this challenge yet they all have one thing in common, and it is more then just a love for spicy food, or a love for making fun and creative videos. No these people have come together to make these videos with a common goal and that is a desire to make a difference in this world.They desire to make a change. They desire to make a difference in this world and to use their time and the talents to help people. These people have decided to use their platforms to make a significant change in peoples life all from the comfort of their own homes and in doing so they have helped raise awareness about these terrible diseases and have help aid in funding the necessary organizations so that they can find a cure. Isn't that wonderful? What would the world be like if we could all use our time and our talents like this.

Now I want to take just a moment to talk about some of the youtubes who have taken this challenge over the years and maybe explore the possibility as to why this challenge has become such a huge thing, and possibly even look at a few of the ways that various youtubers, viners, younowers, facebook/instagram livers and various other  social platforms which have taken it upon themselves to take up this challenge. Now I am not saying that all these people who have take this challenge did so just because they wanted to support this cause. Because I have seen some who have taken this challenge just for the views, or because they enjoy a challenge, or even simple because they enjoy following the latest trends and so they chose to do their own version of this challenge. But even in doing so without even trying they have helped raise awareness and spread the underlying message of this challenge. Which in and of itself is pretty amazing. Because there was a time when the world was not so easy to access, and where a message like this would of been much harder to share without technology. But thanks to the advances in technology and the various social media platforms we have access to today people like Alfie aka Pointless Blog a popular British youtuber with over 4 million subscibers who has taken this challenge a few years back and was able to tag some of his mates their, most of whom had several hundreds or even thousands of followers as well as tag his friend Tyler Oakley here in the united states. Then Tyler Oakley a very famous and well know youtuber for states side with his channel of over 7 million subcribers was able to take the challenge and then challenge several of his friends all whom have several successful youtube channels of their own, all with  hundreds and thousands of followers of their own, and among his list of friends he has chosen to challenge is his friend Troye Sivan a famed Australian musician who got is start on, you guessed it youtube. So now Troye takes up the challenge and shares it with his hundreds and millions of followers and then challenges his own Aussie Youtube friends among which their is a well know youtuber who is or Korean decent and who is originally from Korea and is Just studying over in Australia  at the moment but most of the videos he post are in Korean. So now he takes up this challenge and shares it with his followers and tags his fellow youtube friends which include several other youtubers who are of Korean decent and even a few Chinese friends and a friend from Africa all who take up the challenge and share it with their followers, and challenge their own friends and now this message and this challenge has gone global on this  much larger scale however their is also the fact that their viewers who have seen these videos and got inspired to take the challenge themselves are also passing along this challenge so on a smaller scale you have these other lesser known youtubers passing along this challenge to and the outcome is what we came a global phenomenon called going viral. This challenge like the ALS challenge went Viral because of people like these youtuber I have just named, and they each had their own way of doing this challenge and sort of adding their own spin on it to make it their own the point is that the message was still spread across all these contents and to countries all over the world and the people who saw them then continued to share them, and along with them they were able to share the hope that they bring and if you ask me that is pretty dang cool.

Here are few examples I found of various people taking this challenge, in their own unique way:

[xanyxhi]

It is one of my headcanons that both Phichit and Yuuri are, in fact, polyglots (Yuuri blames Phichit). I wanna say super-polyglots too, but that probably applies to one of them, probably Phichit.

Both boys went to America to train, so they each have English down first.

Now imagine both of them being the only international figure skaters at the moment in that particular rink, moving from so far away following their dreams. They bonded, eventually. So Phichit gets the brilliant idea of learning some japanese to help his new bff with his homesickness. Yuuri, touched by this, vows to do the same and goes and learns thai (Phichit was more than happy to teach him)

And what? Turns out they aren’t that slow learning the basics? They are actually pretty good?

“hey Yuuri, since we are at it, let’s learn some Italian too because our coach is prone to rant in Italian every now and then when he thinks no one can hear him, might as well know what is he saying…”

And Yuuri, bless him and his fanboy heart, was already learning some Russian for a while on his own for years because it was, like, the only way to get news on Viktor because not everything was always translated into English, much less Japanese. So he decided to take some actual classes while in college since they were offered

Phichit finds it kinda adorable, tbh. And because he didn’t want to have one less language than his bff, he goes and learns, say, Portuguese or something.

But guys, they are living in America, and the other language that seems to be almost everywhere is Spanish, and some of the other skaters at the rink are either hispanic, or have some roots, or have that one member in their family that knows zero English and more or less grew up hearing it. And since Italian and Spanish are similar since they share the same latin origin, well, they also pick it up too because why not, right? Though they do admit some accents or variations are just unintelligible to them, but they get fluent enough eventually… It also helps in not feeling as bad about it when sometimes they don’t understand it when even natives say they can’t understand a word some other people are saying because all the accents and regionalisms are things from nightmares.

Yuuri put his foot down, however, into learning Chinese because he remembers his early years when learning kanji and no thank you *shudders* (Besides, he doesn't think his hand (and brain) can recover from Thai, he reaaally should have known better about learning how to write it). He does get some basics down, speaking only, mostly because he had to live with the thai skater mumbling it when he was learning it and it just stuck (it is until muuuuch later that he learns Phichit did it for Guang-Hong because he found the guy to be very sweet and figured he had to introduce him to social media one way or the other)

"Hey Yuuri, ever thought about Korean? Some say the alphabet is not that hard to remember..."

"I bet you can't learn how to write arabic without tripping like you did with Thai"

One thing leads to another and next thing they know, they are both expanding to beyond spoken/written/official languages, they learn morse code and/or gallifreyan, because Phichit thought it would be hilarious to see if they could include some hidden message in the their step sequences or something when skating (they can’t, the less is said about the matter the better.)

Someone saw them fooling around and jokingly said “you guys, wanna try sign language next?”

Jokes on him/her/them though, because guess what happens next time? and "OMG!!! I WAS JOKING!!! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS!!? KATSUKI I THOUGHT YOU WERE THE SENSIBLE ONE!!!"

The best though?

Almost no one knows this. Only Celestino knows, truthfully, mostly because he had to put up with them for years and their stints at learning languages after languages (and he won't tell because he's not one for gossip, and because a part of him actually finds the entire thing hilarious when other people assume they can't understand them)

It's not like they go around saying: "i know how to speak at least 8 languages fluently-not counting any fictional one-,some days I lose count. I also have the basics in another 3 or so... and I know at least three variations of sign language. Between Yuuri and I, we have probably more than 15 different ones since we didn't always learn the same ones"

people just don't ask them, really

Guang Hong knows Phichit knows some Chinese. He also knows Yuuri knows some Thai. From Leo, it is also known they both understand Spanish, and Yuri suspects Katsudon actually knows some Russian

They probably find out eventually, though, most likely gradually, by accident and/or in hilarious situations...

[tortuga-aak]

Inside the secretive intelligence agency that keeps track of the world's ICBMs

United States Air Force

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio (AP) — When North Korea launches a ballistic missile over the Pacific, the United States top leaders turn to the National Air and Space Intelligence Center based at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

Analysis by NASIC keeps the White House, Congress and the Pentagon aware of air, space and cyber threats and determine what dangers a missile from the rogue country has for the U.S. and its allies.

“It is no exaggeration to say that the assessments NASIC generates can make the difference between war and peace,” said Loren B. Thompson, a senior defense analyst with the Virginia-based Lexington Institute.

NASIC last week opened a $29.5 million building expansion in a remote part of Wright-Patterson. The Air Force allowed the media to be at the opening, but revealed very little about the work that will be going on at the expansion.

The secretive agency with a MiG-29 jet fighter outside its headquarters assesses the intercontinental ballistic missile threat capabilities of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, among others, and disassembles foreign technology to find out the secrets an adversary has flying in air or space.

“They are clearly focused on cutting-edge problems that our country faces and that frankly many of my constituents ask me about every day,” said US Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, the House Armed Services Committee chairman who got a behind-the-scenes tour of NASIC this month. “What are we going to do about North Korea? Where is Iran headed? What about the Russian and Chinese capabilities?”

US Rep. Mike Turner, R-Dayton, has invited several members of Congress, including Thornberry, to tour NASIC and Wright-Patterson, which he called “critical” to national security.

Today, NASIC has 3,100 civilian employees and military personnel and a $430 million budget.

Along with the nation’s highest-ranking political and military leaders, it provides intelligence to warfighters and to acquisition weapons experts to counter adversary threats.

“There are certainly issues that you hear about that are high in the national dialogue like North Korean ballistic missiles, but there are plenty of other things going on in the world that we watch,” NASIC commander Col. Sean P. Larkin said in an interview with this newspaper.

NASIC will need future funding for a major expansion of its main headquarters to meet demands, Larkin said. He projected “modest” growth of the workforce, which has added an average of about 100 employees a year since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The agency workforce has mostly science, engineering and technology skills, and high demands in cyber, and data processing experts as the volume of intelligence to interpret and evaluate grows.

“The main thing we need at NASIC is innovative, hardworking, dedicated people to come here to do the nation’s business,” he said.

United States Air Force

NASIC has a key role assessing the severity of military threats against the United States, said Thompson, who also serves as a defense industry consultant.

“It typically relies on technical means of collecting intelligence, which in the case of North Korea may be the only reliable intelligence we have,” he said. “There are probably not many US spies operating on the ground in North Korea.

“NASIC not only analyzes what weapons an enemy has, but what weapons it is seeking to acquire, when those weapons will become available, and how they might be used.”

Turner, a member of both the House armed services and intelligence committees, said lawmakers understand the work NASIC does has grown in importance as the nation faces increasingly complex threats.

“By continuing to bring other top congressional leaders to Wright-Patt to see firsthand the important work done here, I am better able to advocate for Wright-Patt funding in Washington,” he said in a statement that also credited his advocacy for congressional dollars to build a recent NASIC expansion.

NASIC marks its 100th anniversary in Dayton this year, tracing its history to the Army’s old McCook Field in Dayton where engineers took apart foreign airplanes in World War I to learn the secrets they held. Since then, the predecessors of the agency and NASIC itself has dissected Russian-built MiG fighter jets and air-to-air missiles, among other bounty, and once lead the Project Blue Book investigation into reports of UFOs in the 1960s.

North Korea, which has threatened a nuclear strike against the US if the communist regime is attacked, has had a series of escalating missile and nuclear tests that have rattled neighboring US allies Japan and South Korea and others.

“North Korea is a very tough problem set for us to analyze because it’s so insular and so we only get to see their advancements when they test,” said Gary O’Connell, a retired NASIC chief scientist. “It’s getting predictive as possible against a country like that, trying to find out how far they’ve gotten before they actually launch.”

The most difficult is trying to determine a nuclear-armed North Korea’s intentions, he said. NASIC collaborates with other US intelligence agencies to try to find that answer, he said.

“The biggest (nuclear arsenal) is definitely Russia simply in terms of numbers and destructive capability, but North Korea is probably the most unpredictable,” O’Connell said.

The Defense Intelligence Agency assesses an adversary’s nuclear warhead threat, while NASIC analyzes a foreign adversary’s missiles with a range over 1,000 kilometers, he noted.

“Understanding precisely what capabilities North Korea has could be crucial to the survival of millions of people in the US and allied states,” said Thompson, a former deputy director of the security studies program at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.

“It isn’t enough to know that the North Koreans are testing long-range missiles,” he said. “We need to know whether they have nuclear warheads that might be carried on the missiles, what the explosive yield is, how accurately the warheads can be delivered, and whether they can survive fiery reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere.

The US has an array of arcane systems for collecting such technical intelligence, Thompson said, but added NASIC has to apply experience and expertise to the information to figure out precisely what it means for America’s security.

In June, NASIC publicly issued a “Ballistic and Cruise Missile Threat” report reviewing global threats. The analysis, put together with the Defense Intelligence Ballistic Missile Analysis Committee, noted North Korea had launched the Taepo Dong-2 space rocket that carried a satellite into orbit in December 2012 and February 2016.

If configured as an ICBM, it could reach the United States,” the report said, adding the country had “unveiled road mobile ICBMs,” and was developing submarine-launched ballistic missiles, among a range of short- and long-range weapons.

“The pace of North Korea’s ballistic missile flight tests have increased dramatically in recent years,” NASIC experts reported.

In July, North Korea launched two Hwasong-14 ballistic missiles raising new alarms about the reclusive country’s capabilities after the NASIC report was released.

Based on those flight tests, three independent researchers however concluded the Hwasong-14 was not currently a nuclear threat to the US lower 48 states, but a “carefully choreographed deception by North Korea to create a false impression” it was a threat to the continental United States, said their report, published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists in August and also reported in Newsweek.

United States Air Force

The researchers’ conclusions also raised doubts the missile could strike Anchorage, Alaska with a nuclear bomb. But they noted North Korea was advancing its skills.

Some questions remained unanswered, said Theodore A. Postol, one of the researchers. He is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor emeritus of science, technology and national security and a former scientific adviser to the chief of naval operations.

Among the unknown issues: Could North Korea build a lightweight nuclear weapon that a rocket could carry as a payload; could a warhead survive the gravitational forces of a trip through space and the fiery re-entry through the atmosphere; and how accurately could the weapon strike, Postol said in an interview with this newspaper.

“I would basically say that they probably do not have a nuclear capability against the United States at this time,” the rocket expert said. “I’m making what I think I could claim is a highly informed guess. But it is a guess and to be absolutely transparent, I have guessed wrong about these guys in the past.”

In an email, he added it was “extremely unlikely” North Korea has built a miniaturized warhead. “However, to be absolutely transparent, nobody - including the US intelligence community — knows how far along North Korea has advanced in the miniaturization technology and ruggedizing of warheads,” he wrote.

The United States has pushed to increase spending on anti-ballistic missile technology in the wake of North Korean tests.

The expansion of the Foreign Materiels Exploitation labs bode well for NASIC’s future at Wright-Patterson, Michael Gessel, Dayton Development Coalition vice president of federal programs in Washington, DC.

“In the foreseeable future, that work is soundly planted at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base,” he said.

NASIC collaborates with MSIC, which analyzes ballistic missiles with a range under 1,000 kilometers and surface-to-air missiles, Larkin said.

“We know where the lines are drawn between our missions but together is where we do our best work to answer those key intelligence questions for our customers and help defend the nation,” Larkin said.

NOW WATCH: Watch the US THAAD missile defense system strike a ballistic missile in a target test

from Feedburner http://ift.tt/2luBMBT

[clubofinfo]

Expert: One of the longstanding functions of the ‘mainstream’ media is to channel government ideology about who are ‘the Good Guys’ – that’s ‘us’ and our allies – and who are the ‘Bad Guys’ – ‘Putin’s Russia’, ‘Saddam’s Iraq’, ‘Chavez’s Venezuela’, ‘Gaddafi’s Libya’ (until rehabilitated for a while by Blair) and North Korea. Of course, ‘we’ often help ‘Bad Guys’ into power, even give them poison gas, sell them arms, and support them through thick and thin. But let’s put all that to one side. Consider a recent BBC News at Ten segment on the US, China and North Korea that began with presenter Huw Edwards saying: President Trump has said the United States will “solve” the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear programme. In an interview with the Financial Times, the president said the US would act alone if China would not intervene. He made his comments ahead of a visit to the US by the Chinese president later this week. Our North America editor, Jon Sopel, is at the White House. And, Jon, what does this tell us then about President Trump’s approach to this upcoming visit? Jon Sopel: ‘Well, Huw, for all the talk of surveillance and phone tapping and wire taps and Russia, this is the major strategic national security issue, at least as far as this White House is concerned. What to do about North Korea and their growing ability, it seems, to launch a nuclear missile that could hit the west coast of America.1 As we will see, far from being responsible, ‘impartial’ journalism, this was blatant propaganda, depicting North Korea as a serious threat to the United States, capable of hitting California with a nuclear missile. Consider, by contrast, a careful analysis by the US writer Adam Johnson in a piece for Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting last month. Johnson noted that: Tensions between the United States and North Korea are making their way back into the news after a series of missile tests and presidential Twitter threats. Meanwhile, a conservative think tank—previously thought all but dead—has seen a resurgence in relevancy, thanks to its alignment with Donald Trump. The result is that the Heritage Foundation has provided much of the narrative backbone for North Korean/US relations in the age of Trump, making the rounds in dozens of media articles and television appearances. Johnson continued: One key feature of reports on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is the Hypothetical Scary Nuke Map that shows an entirely hypothetical, not-yet-proven-to-have-been-built intercontinental ballistic missile hitting the US mainland. Two types of missile, known as KN-14 and KN-08, are depicted in media reports as capable of reaching the United States. Johnson highlighted the crucial fact that: These missiles have not been tested by North Korea. In other words, the media have been publishing ‘misleading’ maps that ‘buried the fact that the range indicating the US could be nuked had not, in fact, been demonstrated.’ Recall Sopel’s words: What to do about North Korea and their growing ability, it seems, to launch a nuclear missile that could hit the west coast of America. The sole extent of Sopel’s journalistic scrutiny was to insert two words, ‘it seems’, in a report blatantly boosting the US propaganda message of North Korea as a nuclear ‘threat’ capable of attacking the west coast of the United States. As for the right-wing Heritage Foundation, Johnson raised questions about its funding ties to the South Korean government and to the US weapons industry: In the late ’90s, it was criticized for accepting $1 million in funding directly from the South Korean government. A 2015 report in The Intercept (9/15/15) showed the cozy relationship between the foundation and military contractor Lockheed Martin, with Heritage building the requisite marketing collateral to lobby Congress to expand the F-22 program, urging the purchase of 20 planes for resale to Japan, Australia and “possibly South Korea.” He also points out that: The Heritage Foundation has been incredibly influential in the Trump administration, having written many of its budget-slashing proposals and shaping policy at a high level. On April 4, 2017, we emailed Sopel (ku.oc.cbbnull@lepos.noj): Dear Jon Sopel, On last night’s BBC News at Ten you reported that the White House is concerned by ‘North Korea and their growing ability, it seems, to launch a nuclear missile that could hit the west coast of America.’ But surely responsible journalism should include scrutiny of government claims, rather than channelling them uncritically to your audience? Indeed, BBC editorial guidelines say that journalists must show ‘appropriate scrutiny… to those who are in government, or hold power and responsibility’. You have not done so here. By contrast, US media analyst Adam Johnson has examined the claims surrounding the supposed threat posed by North Korea’s missile programme. Many of the lurid claims and ‘scary nuke maps’ originate with the right-wing Heritage Foundation which has (or had) funding links to South Korea and US military contractor Lockheed Martin. Crucially, Johnson notes of the missiles that are depicted as being able to hit the west coast of America: ‘These missiles have not been tested by North Korea’. Even a BBC News article concludes of the claim for long-range nuclear missiles: ‘experts have cast doubts on this given the lack of evidence.’ Why did your report not include these balancing facts and concerns? Best wishes David Cromwell & David Edwards Editors, Media Lens www.medialens.org Sopel did not reply. Current news coverage about North Korea omits significant history. The fact that the United States devastated the Korean peninsula in the 1950s is regularly buried. US General Douglas MacArthur testified to Congress in 1951 that: The war in Korea has already destroyed that nation of 20,000,000 people. I have never seen such devastation. I have seen, I guess, as much blood and disaster as any living man, and it just curdled my stomach, the last time I was there. After I looked at that wreckage and those thousands of women and children and everything, I vomited.2 US Air Force General Curtis LeMay wrote: We burned down just about every city in North Korea and South Korea both…we killed off over a million civilians and drove several million more from their homes, with the inevitable additional tragedies bound to ensue.3 All this is regularly forgotten in news reports about North and South Korea today. Instead, BBC News and other outlets dutifully report, without blinking, that: US Vice-President Mike Pence has said his country’s “era of strategic patience” with North Korea is over. One BBC News article stated: North Korea has long been seen to use provocation and brinkmanship to raise tension for its own strategic advantage. That this sentence applies to the United States in global affairs, where it goes beyond brinkmanship into actual full-scale invasion and war, is an irony that will not be lost on many readers. As if on cue, the US Navy has just provoked North Korea by deploying a strike force, including a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, in its direction. The Guardian said this was ‘to provide a presence near the Korean peninsula’. Why the US should provide ‘a presence’ is not questioned; it is simply taken for granted that Washington is the world’s policeman. The Guardian also noted casually that the recent: US strike against a Syrian base is also being seen as a warning to North Korea. Again, it is just a given that the US is entitled to make such threats. In an interview with Democracy Now!, Noam Chomsky sketched the more recent history of US – North Korea relations that is also routinely missing from ‘mainstream’ media reporting: 1994, [Bill] Clinton made—established what was called the Framework Agreement with North Korea. North Korea would terminate its efforts to develop nuclear weapons. The U.S. would reduce hostile acts. It more or less worked, and neither side lived up to it totally, but, by 2000, North Korea had not proceeded with its nuclear weapons programs. George W. Bush came in and immediately launched an assault on North Korea—you know, “axis of evil,” sanctions and so on. North Korea turned to producing nuclear weapons. In 2005, there was an agreement between North Korea and the United States, a pretty sensible agreement. North Korea agreed to terminate its development of nuclear weapons. In return, it called for a nonaggression pact. So, stop making hostile threats, relief from harsh sanctions, and provision of a system to provide North Korea with low-enriched uranium for medical and other purposes—that was the proposal. George Bush instantly tore it to shreds. Within days, the U.S. was imposing—trying to disrupt North Korean financial transactions with other countries through Macau and elsewhere. North Korea backed off, started building nuclear weapons again. I mean, maybe you can say it’s the worst regime in history, whatever you like, but they have been following a pretty rational tit-for-tat policy. Thus, despite standard media misrepresentations to the contrary, North Korea has been following ‘a pretty rational policy’ in the face of ‘hostile acts’ and ‘harsh sanctions’ from, in particular, the US. You would never know that if you relied solely on ‘mainstream’ media such as BBC News. * April 3, 2017; kindly captured and uploaded to YouTube for us by Steve Ennever * Napalm – An American Biography by Robert Neer, Belknap Press, 2013, p. 100 * Ibid., p. 100 http://clubof.info/

[chiingsze-blog]

Sungai Long Life.

When I was 17 and planning for my future, I always thought I would end up studying abroad. At that time, UTAR wasn’t really on my radar, so it never occurred to me that I would further my studies here. I knew I wanted to study communications, I just don’t know where. I only applied to UTAR because my friend was applying. However, when I seriously compared the university with other institutions, I was actually glad I applied. Apparently, not only UTAR is one of the most affordable universities in Malaysia, the employment rate of graduates is pretty high too.

In my first few months living alone in Sungai Long, I struggled. I had trouble making friends, I found it difficult nourishing myself, and I realised my time management skills are terrible.

As a second year corporate communications student, I can assure you, my degree life so far has not been a “piece of cake”. Many people think that communications is a course for those who don’t know where their interest lies, and is just in it for the sake of ‘having a degree’. Corporate communication basically covers how an organisation communicates to it’s publics. Through this course, I’ve learn a lot about the corporate world such as how marketing works, how to use social media and traditional media to an organisation’s advantage, how to retain the investors of an organisation and how to manage the reputation of a company. Some other subjects that I’ve taken are photography and web page design which are skills that will definitely come in handy in the future.

As Corporate communications is a very assignment based course, I can’t deny that it has been tough as I don’t really work well with others. However, I do think that this actually made me mature a little. I learnt how to make compromises and accept other people’s opinions even if it opposes to mine. Each subject we take will most likely have at least one assignment so our workload is quite heavy and there are plenty of group work. There are even some subjects that doesn’t have finals and is hundred percent coursework, which I’m in favour for since I generally don’t do well in exams. 

The social scene in UTAR is just like any other university. In my case, meeting people was easy. Finding friends was the challenge. Of course there are people who instantly found a group they belong to when they entered, but I with my dark sense of humour and snobby vibe, found it difficult. Majority of the students in UTAR are chinese educated. I may have 11 years of chinese education, but I’m horrible at the language. I came from a family of english speakers, so I can be considered as a banana. In my first year, I couldn’t find people that I could click with as not only there was a communication barrier (and no one gets my jokes), but because I have zero interests in common with the people I first met. Thankfully, UTAR has a variety of clubs for students. Clubs are a great way of finding people who will understand your passion and will never judge you for it. Although it took me a year to finally have the courage to join a club alone, I have no regrets. Through dance club and board game club, I’ve met some of my closest friends. Even though some of them can barely utter a word in english and I speak broken chinese, we have no problem bonding over how we like to spend our time.

The only thing UTAR differs from other universities is that there are no on campus dorms. Students are required to find their own housing. It really isn’t difficult as there are so many rooms around the campus for rent. Choices vary from condos to shop houses to semi Ds. The facilities provided in the hostel depends on the landlord. For the past one and a half years, I’ve been living in a single air conditioned room in a shop house above a mini mart. The utilities and Wifi bills are settled by my landlord, unlike many of my friends. I guess the only downside of my hostel is that it doesn’t have a stove. Technically it really doesn’t bother me because my cooking skills are little to none. I can’t cook to save my life. Fortunately, there are a variety of food choices in Sungai Long, inexpensive too. I’ve accustomed to eating economy rice and mamak alternately, and occasionally dine at cafes when I’m not feeling broke.

When you’re in university, you’re left to your own devices. You make choices everyday, significant or not. You get to decide how much you want to spend on food, or if you should blow all your money on coffee to keep you functioning (which I have a habit of doing) or to save your money for rainy days. Before I started my degree, I would spend hundreds on unnecessary luxuries which I would neglect two weeks later. I definitely was forced to learn how to budget my spendings wisely (I’m such an adult). That being said, I can’t deny that living alone certainly has it’s perks. Curfews for one, does not exist and no one’s going to nag you for playing Dota or watch Korean drama all night. All my last minute master piece of assignments are prove of my inferior time management skills. Over the course of my first year, I undoubtedly have gotten better at managing my time, though I still need to learn how to reject unnecessary trips to the mall. What I enjoy most about living alone and close to campus is that majority of my friends are here as well. When I graduate, I won’t remember how much time I spent staring at my computer screen trying to do my assignments or how difficult it was to get up for my 8am classes. What I’ll remember are those spontaneous 2am McDonald runs and cooking 5 packets of instant noodles with my friends at an inappropriate hour because we got hungry while studying. I’ll only remember the things we do just because we can.