#i think the text should be swapped tbh

[sunflowerseraph]

MoonScarab 4 life❗️❗️

[scionshtola]

i think i need to make corishtola kiss when i get home 🤔

[rcttencore]

wait till you hear about this next nominee: KANG JUYEONG, born on the 13th of AUGUST, 1993 and bears a striking resemblance to LEE SUNGKYUNG. they’re a FOURTH year BACHELOR OF FINANCE student and RAISED FUNDS TO BUILD THE UNIVERSITY'S FIRST CHAPEL — impressed yet? rumor has it they’re hoping to be the FINANCE DIRECTOR IN MBC, but personally, i think they should aim a little higher — something like the king’s club, for one. now, that suits them a little more, don’t you think? guess we’ll just have to see if they’ve got the talent for it in our upcoming recruitment round.

erm so hi again!! :D august, 21+, swapping one mess for another! i watched this one edit of the roy family to charli xcx's apple and i was like wow i need this canon.... fly high naeon (k*lled her off like they did with my favourite character in the boys season finale but we don't talk about that).. anyways, this is judgemental, elitist, ew poor people, miss kang juyeong! favourite granddaughter of mbc's ceo, who only gives a shit about you if you're old money rich!

super sorry to everyone i've spent the last 2 weeks plotting with, but i promise we'll brainstorm and come up with equally fun plots because she will most definitely cause drama!! ‪♡‬ like this plot for me to double-text you or just drop into your dms again!!

as always more info below!!

personality

inspo: charli xcx’s apple, the glory’s lee sara (thank U gloss for this), gen v’s cate dunlap (juyeong would be a homelander i fear), basically every member of the succession family (but mostly shiv roy’s entitlement), hints of scream queens' chanel oberlin & euphoria’s maddy  tropes: million dollar baby, the hellkite positive loyal, meticulous, articulate, cultured, protective negative pompous, hypocritical, judgemental, elitist, condescending cunt sun, whore moon, bitch rising leo sun, sag moon, leo rising

tbh shes pretty simple. just your typical snobby bitch who thinks people should just stop being poor and will tell u condescendingly about it

strong belief in maintaining a certain social order (if gatekeeping was a person, it'd be her) & extremely elitist 

she’s very big on keeping a good image for the camera (in public, at least, she’s not stupid!). all about smiling for the camera, showing your perfect self but close the doors, invite her to the king’s club, and she’ll show her true colors 

sharp tongue, has the tendency to be very dramatic (it's the leo in her)

she’s the biggest fucking hypocrite out there! she’ll act like the bible is her religion, no sin but then she’s snorting coke off some guy’s abs

but honestly, if ur in her inner circle then you’re kinda set for life. she’ll literally die for you. would go to the ends of the world for u. you ask for the moon? juyeong will get it for you. 

the kind who would provide you an alibi no matter what like ‘babe your boyfriend just called and asked where you were, i told him we were watching a movie but idk where you actually are’ vibes 

her feelings about hyungseo: she thinks he’s gaudy and tacky. although she begrudgingly accepts his presence in the king’s club, she does not like him at all!

background

she’s her grandfather’s favourite child - he thinks she’s like the second coming of jesus or something 

but in reality, it’s kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. he puts her up on a pedestal and spoils her rotten and she’s the only person in the whole family who wholeheartedly listens and believes him & his tradition.. so it kinda works! 

most of her cousins just write it off as an old man’s rambles and their families have enough money…and her older sister is the worst offender though she gets disowned when she’s sixteen for flipping her granddad on live television and just saying some nasty shit about the church her family runs (she gets written off because she’s a teenage girl right but there is truth to her words) 

as she grows older, there are things with her grandfather’s ideology that she doesn’t necessarily subscribe to but she likes the taste of privilege too much to act otherwise 

and she has her own set of values - it’s a mix of what she believes from the bible & what she’s been raised up with. do they contradict sometimes? yes! does juyeong really care? no, not at all! her moral code is whatever she believes to be

but one thing she keeps with her is that u should only trust and respect the generationally wealthy <3 the inner circle of the top 1% is life <3 family name is everything to her!

even with the king’s club, she got in via having connections who vouched for her and just generally made the rituals/ life easier lol 

she thought being in the king’s club would mean being with like-minded individuals but little did she know… people get in on the merit of hard work too! and not just their family names! ew! 

post grad, she’s working in mbc as a finance director (nepo baby vibes) 

her family is also going through shit after the whistleblower ratted them out for embezzlement and they’re going through Serious Investigations and… let’s just say juyeong is practicing escapism heavily (read: she’s pretending nothing is wrong)

plots

we can brainstorm but just some high level stuff! 

her inner circle please <3

people who have blackmail on her !!! like your family’s fucked. u want to make it worse for them? 

also people she does not respect and just has a general antagonistic relationship with !!

omg pls give me people who think her penance is due!! like she used to tell them to fuck right off because they were new money or whatever and now, your muse is like “who’s fucking laughing now?” [jojo siwa vc] karma’s a bitch

someone related to the plot, did something fucked up to hyungseo and juyeong saw but she’s taking it to the fucking grave bc she considers u a friend ~

juyeong fucks a someone she thinks isn't worthy of being in the king's club - alternatively, juyeong falls in love with someone she doesn't think should be in the king's club ^__^

[chibishortdeath]

Ok ok so this one needs context, it’s like half a shitpost half an actual artwork and it all happened because of the tag on this post that I ran into before I had an account:

#scene legend!

So uh, I thought about that for a really long time. The sheer hilarity of calling Simon a scene legend, so I drew something silly >:3c.

You gotta see the context before you see the art trust me on this one it’s important—

So this exists now lol. Scene legend Simon everybody, Konami hire me to make character costumes please— (reform your company first)

I debated making the hair primarily red, but I thought yellow with a red underside looked way cooler :3. Middle school me would’ve DIED for hair like that. The raccoon stripe ear tails are a nod to when Haunted Castle gave him blue hair. I could’ve given him a bit of green since he had that in a palette swap in Dream Mix TV Fighters, but I didn’t know at the time of drawing it (>~< ). A lot of the grid patterns are based on color palettes and textures found in the NES games!!! The shoulder armor being black with the blue outline is based on the Simon’s Quest text boxes!!! There’s also a lot of item sprites!!! And the sharpie writing on his shoes say on his right “The morning sun has vanquished the horrible night”and out of view “bloody tears”, and the left says “vampire killer” and “what a horrible night to have a curse”!!!!!!!! :D. At a certain point this was just a challenge to see how many references I could put in one outfit. Tbh I think I could do more than this, but yeah. Idk how to end sentences and paragraphs uh anyway—

Bonus silly doodles with Judgement Simon being emo lol (he’s got that Death Note shirt) and some old memes I guess based on the whip spinning mechanic. d(•w• ) Anyway I should draw Simon as a HotTopic worker someday—

[kastellaran]

9 Fandom Peeps to Get to Know Better

tagged my @defeateddetectives ^_^ thank you <33

3 ships you like: hmm see which three should I pick here... let's say komahina (danganronpa. yes), bruabba (jjba p5) and just to spice things up, momoko and ichi from maiko-san chi no makanai (really lovely food centric manga about two girls who move to kyoto to become maiko but one of them ends up becoming the cook at the maiko house instead. sometimes frustrates me because of how strong the gay "undertones" are and then the author seems to insist on pursuing a het love triangle/probably het end game with a dude who has a comparatively shallow relationship with his love interest. anyway ever since the flashback chapters came out ive been shipping the house mother and sumire's geiko onee-san because if there's one throughline in my top ships, it's older side characters with some kind of tragic/emotionally fraught relationship LOL.) propaganda:

"Yuuko never let anyone in her room before she became a trainee. [...] For her to be swapping beds with others is... no, it's just Azusa."

(They have each other's apartment keys. She comes over and sleeps in her room. Halfsies!!!)

(This is basically a marriage proposal to me)

first ship ever: ...I think it was karkat/terezi from homestuck. This is kind of funny but before I really got into fandom or when I was just beginning, my approach to text was basically reading it with the most surface level/likely reading. I literally didn't understand why people would ship characters who I "knew" would never get together in canon. I didn't see the point in it LOL to me shipping was like horse racing or something, you ship the characters who are the most likely to end up together. This is also very funny in retrospect considering what happened with that particular ship but I had long moved on from it by the time davekat was canonized so I was happy.

last song you heard: either burning desire by lana del rey (blaming mirai for this) or alan stivell's ian morrisson reel

favourite childhood book: i don't think i had or have a favorite one ummm I was really into the secret series by pseudonymous bosch when i was a kid

currently reading: hmm i'm keeping up with maiko-san and ekuoto (make the exorcist fall in love. it's neat i recommend it though i'm not a big fan of the art style), and I was reading the oofuri manga which i should get back to but currently my attention is being taken up by natsuyuu lol. as for non-manga though the last thing I read before natsuyuu was Devil Venerable Also Wants To Know which is SO GOOD and i had more art ideas in mind for it which i want to get back to at some point...

currently watching: I don't watch a whole lot of stuff. I'm keeping up with the dunmeshi anime but tbh i really don't like the coloring for it. the art is okay but ryoko kui's art is kind of unmatched. it's just nice to have something to watch with my friend every week. also i've been doing a natsuyuu anime rewatch in anticipation of s7 with a friend whose never seen it before

currently consuming: nothing but i just had some crazy noodles. leftover curry in a pan + frozen corn + instant noodles = yummy

currently craving: nothing because i am now full :D

ill tag @ponimado @tattoosingarishhues @beguinemystic @dysaniium @moritzallein @somapodra @garbageg0blin @chuck-charles @joelletwo as always this is just if you wanna!

[sporkberries]

Yes exactly!Like i'm afrolatino(black/white mixed dominican)and i hc Jason is too(dominican like me but fully black)not just because he's my comfort character but also because i think it works really well!

Dc's retcon of making him 'always destined to be bad' can instead be an in-universe thing where he actually was like his original Robin self but had it erased by people in-universe because of being a poc and while there's definitely flaws in his Red Hood writing,the concept of a black kid going through great trauma(Ditf) and deciding to take justice into his own hands because of it is VERY appealing to me as a black person.Also,tbh,his personality when he's written well reminds me of my black and latino friends so there's also that!

I have a few more points but yeah,gross people love ruining it :/ Same with asian Tim and i'm glad you can still enjoy that one like i do afrolatino Jason!!Solidarity!

YEAH! I think there's a lot of really cool concepts that could be explored with afro-latino Jason and how it corresponds with his backstory. How his identity and lived experience as a black man can mix into his opinions on the justice system and batman as a whole. One thing i dislike when DC or other companies swap a characters race is they just do it aesthetically, not literally(literally as in the literal text of the story). Take Helena for example. Black Helena is fucking awesome but is there not something to be explored there? An afro-talian woman growing up in the mob and in a city like gotham city? The experience of being a black woman WOULD affect/change her life and i think it's not only interesting but GOOD representation to show that.

For me and my Tim headcanons i see Jack Drake of Polish Catholic descent and Janet as part okinawan and part russian/Ashkenazi Jewish(the jewish part coming from Cuck Dixon's own plans for her). I think it's a really interesting dynamic to explore there with Tim's mothers death severing his connection to that side of himself. Essentially losing touch with half of his culture.

ANYWAYS TLDR I think these headcanons are super fucking cool and should be used for more than just aesthetics. different races and cultures have different lived experiences and portraying that is a GOOD thing. diversity is the spice of life after all

[catiuapavel]

i really don't understand why all of the dark knights were fine with balxephon fucking over his brother and deceiving ozma tbh

To be fair, for the longest time most of them didn't know but you can split the Dark Knights into 3 categories when it comes to this oreal: those who were in on it, those who learnt of it afterward and regard it as some interpersonal drama, and Volaq.

Hobyrim and Balxephon were spies on their father's account, to keep watch over Lanselot and Loslorien's growing power. While Balxephon came to agree with Lanselot and swapped sides, Hobyrim was never truly a Dark Knight, just pretending to be one. Vogras' assassination and Hobyrim taking the blame for it benefitted the Dark Knights. So in their eyes, that was a necessary crime.

Lanselot knows this and either agreed with Balxephon's doing or actively encouraged him.

Oz knew as well and he doesn't strike me as one to particularly take a stand against corruption. You'd be inclined to imagine he'd at least stand up for Ozma and his House but he shows some bizarre resentment and animosity toward her in regard to her affection for Hobyrim and during Lawful route and CODA, he shows an unsettling willingness to cause her pain.

Now you have those who learnt after the fact but couldn't be bothered to side with Ozma:

Martym and Barbas seem to think this is petty drama and they can't stand Ozma anyway.

Andoras must have greatly enjoyed the discord among the Dark Knights. Any infighting is good for him. (he also can't stand Ozma but I don't imagine he cares much for Balxephon either)

So that leaves us with the Volaq case:

Honestly Volaq should be the Dark Knight who sides with Ozma against Balxephon. The text hints that he's a mentor to both Oz and Ozma (that's how I read "I lost Oz, I'll not lose you as well." at least). And he's a fervent patriot who seems to breath and live only for the sake of Lodis. He does beg Ozma not to desert and to listen to reason. He even promises her Lanselot will not let Balxephon go unpunished so you could imagine he doesn't agree with him. I know Volaq often appears clueless but I'm convinced he just does all he can to maintain some presumable innocence and he wouldn't outwardly back Balxephon's corrupt tactics but he certaintly wouldn't risk himself against him either (I mean... He has to keep all his options in case one side prevails). As a result his inner thoughts and judgements completely elude us. I wouldn't be surprised to learn he thought Balxephon did the right thing for Loslorien or Lodis but just couldn't be caught having a genuine opinion. He's simply the biggest whited sepulcher.

[0fps]

okay wuwa first impressions, first ~3 hours or so

the good

combat is fun as expected, LOVE dodging mechanics and the jump attack is surprisingly a lot of fun too. swapping characters is purposeful and fluid and overall the combat so far is super satisfying.

i just pulled a bunch of characters off the gatcha (did not get jiyan........) so i'm gonna have fun seeing whose kit i vibe with, i like that they all come with their own tutorial thing. that being said i definitely think i prefer the melee characters, ranged ones like baizhi don't exactly feel as nice to play. gun characters are very hit and miss so far (pun not intended) like i don't like playing chixia but i REALLY like playing mortefi

also love the echos system, and how its integrated into exploring the open world and actually fighting enemies. i'm gonna have a lot of fun filling out this data bank lol. there's a wolf one i like using during combat

could also just be new environment syndrome but the city feels HUGE. excited to explore around

the bad

as many have already pointed out yeah the optimization in this is not great (i play on laptop for context). it surprisingly seemed to get better for me the more i played/explored. i have a guess it might be caching things in the backend so the issue is primarily with loading in new/haven't seen in a while assets, but even then there is a pretty consistent stutter to the game, particularly the more open world areas. luckily for me not enough to completely turn me off from playing

i think a lot of this is because their "low graphics" setting is like. not low graphics at all lol, its actually just turning certain settings on/off for you. i think being able to tone down the environment detail/the resolution itself would help their optimization a LOT (even though the game is beautiful, i would prefer smoother gameplay than being able to see every blade of grass lol)

another thing i saw people point out was the fourth line of text getting cut off in the subs. definitely annoying since i read faster than the characters talk. i would hope this is an easy thing for kuro games to fix though, and my impression is they're pretty good at responding to player feedback

picking up items seems. weird? in addition to the fact that picking up items causes stutters often (probably asset loading), it also takes a while for the item to actually disappear which does NOT seem to be tied to the lag, but rather is an actual delay, so it really breaks the immersion

auto lock also feels weird especially in multi-enemy combat. i for one will probably not be using it lol

the loading screens take forever. i'm gonna be seeing 65% in my nightmares

the neutral (i'll be honest most of these are kinda leaning bad too ajkfdla)

music is okay, i haven't heard anything special or notable yet

no large opinions on the story as of yet, tbh i've spent more time exploring than doing any story progression asdlkjafs

i like being able to run up walls but the animation itself for it feels very idk. unpolished? in general climbing feels a bit awkward

idk if my eyesight is bad but it's kinda hard to tell which items are interactable/you can pick up. things like chests are also very unassuming but maybe i'm just bad at noticing them right now since i'm just getting used to the environment

environment is quite detailed but tbh i haven't seen anything yet where i've been like WOW but i've also only been in like. 2 areas so far

while i do like the combat, the hit box/range also seems just a bit. off. idk how to describe it might just be a matter of getting used to things ajkdflsf

kind of in line with that the movement feels a bit delayed, like it isn't as snappy as i'd like

overall its not bad but definitely feels like it needs some polish. i agree with people saying it probably should have stayed in beta longer and gone through more QA/optimization testing because some of these things like the cutoff text feel very rookie mistake

all that being said, even though I guess this post is fairly critical/negative I am really enjoying the game for what it is 💕 the bad optimization/lag is definitely it's biggest problem, so I hope it's something kuro games will be able to figure out, if it's not something that improves as the game gets bigger (map/asset wise) that'll definitely be its nail in the coffin

[bitegore]

hello, im currently making a sort-of remake of your Blorbo Bleebus template (both to make a higher resolution image, darkmode version and transparent versions) and am debating making some changes to it (e.g. changing fruity to queer). Are there any changes you would make nowadays if you could?

originally put this at the end but the post got long so i'm moving it up here. Anyway I really appreciate you doing this and I also appreciate you reaching out about it. If you think I'm full of shit on any or all of the lines, feel free to completely ignore it, I don't mind. I would love to see your version when you're done! Good luck!

Anyway. Honestly I'd probably change up a lot of it - all of the elements were from various memes, and not all of them are in fashion. The only reason fruity is even on there (I don't particularly like the word myself either) is because the original meme that spawned the entire thing (including the idea of it being a blorbo rating system) was from a wine-flavor label - and thus "fruity" was a particularly awkward choice of a word for it to try to say "this tastes like grapes" lol. I don't think almost anyone who saw the sheet had seen that, though, or knew much about wine tasting (no shade, me either), so like a bunch of the other jokes it falls flat to basically everyone lmao.

These are what I would change. You don't have to do any of these, of course. But it's the ones I'd do. Sorry for how much it bounces around, most of them are just "the first thing i thought of after looking at the sheet again" so it's kind of random and not well organized.

#1: "Flavor Container" turned out to be a much more niche thing than I thought it was; replace it with something that gets at the idea of a character being an "archetype" or "really conentrated" amount of that kind of thing that works better and has more broad-spectrum immediate understanding Or just like, some other type of character-describing meme, up to you

#2: someone pointed out (rightly!) that there is one gender-specific subtype (himbo) on there but no female-specific gender subtype, and that the cat meme i put in as placeholder text on the character box uses he/him pronouns, which both kind of push it toward being gender-specific even though that wasn't what I had wanted. I'd either switch Himbo out for a more recent and less gendered meme or add a female-gendered meme (eg: "girlboss", "butch fatale", etc) to even out the subtypes, and swap out the pronouns on the cat meme for they/them instead of he/him. Might also be worthwhile to switch the bar option for "just some guy" for something like "just some rando" but honestly that doesn't have the same energy; I don;t think there is a properly gender-neutral equivalent for 'guy' that i can think of that won't sound forced and as long as it's not directed at anyone in particular I think that one can be left alone. Tbh if you're switching fruity out you should almost definitely also do these.

#3. i'm pretty sure calling things skrunkly is on its way out, i'd come up with a more recent meme adjective for the name spot i think

#4. one of the bars in the middle of the page goes between "1,000 tools" and "1,000 weapons", which (because I expected at most 30 notes) I figured would be similarly comprehensible to flavor container. It's meant to reflect an outlook on life, ie, do they build things up to solve problems or do they attack and tear down their problems? I don't think this is a very effective set and also it's not a good joke, so it's probably best to put something else there.

#5. the "you want them to have" section is clunky and not very good, which is because that was the last part i did when I made it and I rushed it because I was bored of the project by then. I think there are a lot more interesting things to talk about than "do they have sex" "do they have romance" "do they have friends" and "did you hate their ending specifically" BUT also i have been informed that this is the shipping website and I'm not really a huge shipper, so my lack of interest in most of the contents of those boxes might not be reflective of everyone else's! Please use your best judgement here, if you like that bit then you can absolutely keep it. That being said I think it would be interesting to get into something like "tropes" instead, switching out the idea of like, desirable plot beats for the character with like, desirable common storytelling tropes or something to suhove the character into, or genres, or w/e. it would also suit the rest of the sheet better. i also think it would be more fun to be filling in boxes like "go in the dark" and "bonk on head with giant mallet" and "hunted for sport" than "more romance" and "less romance", if you follow me lol

#6. The idea of the slider bars is fine, but the shape is apparently kind of tough for people to work with unless they're confident drawing digitally in some way, so intead of doing a straight black line with a black line down the center, I would do an outlined bar with a black line down the center, sort of like the below. I think this will be easier for people to fill in with a paint bucket tool or w/e and hopefully save some wrists.

#7. I keep seeing comments asking for it to be a fillable PDF as well, which is like, not something I am capable of making if I'm honest. I don't do PDFs. No idea if you do, but if you do have the ability, it might be a solid plan to make it as a PDF first so it can be converted into a fillable PDF somehow. I took a stab at doing that yesterday but then i got frustrated and bored and gave up lol.

#8. tbh if you're making it a bigger resolution this might not be an issue but the text is really kind of small. I'd probably change the image ratio and scale a lot of the text up, sort of like this (sorry i am not working on a computer where i have robust photo editing tools or the original file so i am just sort of cutting it up in photopea with my mouse so it looks kind of jank). The reason for this is because the program I made it in just sort of opened with a printer-paper-sized page and i went "cool, I can work with that" and didn't change it. But when sharing and posting it, it becomes hard to read.

(this also doesnt really work... i'm not very good at optimizing things for post-readability ;-;)

#9. the slider between "stupid as shit" and "scary-smart" isnt that good, i'd swap it for "not the..." and "sharpest tool in the shed" respectively, because i think that that is more fun. or something along those lines

#10. I already said I would change this bit out entirely, but if you do keep the "you want them to have" section mostly as-is, the last eight or so don't really fit with what's already there - "freedom", "catharsis", "justification", "The Realization", "revenge", "conseequences", "sympathy" and "a satisfying ending" are about the writing the character is situated in, but "a better/worse time", "better/worse situation", "more/less trauma", "more/less healing", "more/less/different romance", "more/less/different sex", "more/less/different friends", "painful isolation" and "a family" are about relationships and emotional experiences the character is having in-universe. I guess you could leave freedom, revenge and consequences in there, but they don't really suit it well. I'd either switch the last handful for things that fit the theme (and also the more/less/different/none scheme), or make the entire thing center around the writing choices in the original narrative they're from.

#11. If you're redoing it from the ground up, you also get to pick a better font... I badly wish I had done all the titles in Impact (the meme font, you know the one) because I think it would've been funny. I probably would've put like, "bottom text" at the very bottom of the page too but that's probably not as funny to anyone who isn't me. I didn't want to bother tweaking it when I finished it, so it has NBOS's default font (I think it was Arial Black?) instead.

#12. I'd probably switch "soft and sweet" to "cinnamon roll", i've seen that one make a comeback recently and also it's so old that the fact that it's out of date brings some kind of humor to it along with it in a way that "soft and sweet" doesn't really do.

#13. "aspirational character" doesn't really do anything in the subclass list anyway - it's not interesting or funny and much of what it covers is also covered by "just like you fr" and "braincell haver", so i'd also replace that one with a more interesting recent character meme.

#14. tbh the checkboxes underneath the picture box were me taking a bunch of potshots at Batman specifically (well, besides murderer, but that was beacuse I needed another line). In the spirit of it, if you have a particularly common Kind of blorbo that other people keep putting on your dash nowadays, it would probably make sense to take their traits and put them in there instead until if you check all of them off you get that character instead. Keep it updated and fresh and fun and all that lol.

Also - last things-

please don't write me in as the "original creator" or w/e - I was cribbing so much from so many other people and places that I don't really feel like it's worth crediting it all to me, all I did was grid it out. No idea if that was part of your plan but if it was like. don't worry about it, if it wasn't, then that's great because that works for both of us :D

understand if you're not interested or don't want it, but if it would be helpful, I can send you a probably way higher resolution version than is floating around on Tumblr if you like - the program I made it with was designing it to be a printable sheet so it's a high enough resolution that the edgtes would all print nice and crisply, I think Tumblr just has a maximum image size and my layout didn't work very well with it lmao

[justsomeno1s]

BasilKel swap AU notes

Woo! I've been sick since friday, so I figured I'll post some BK swap notes! These are from text messages with my irl friend- We finally beat the Omori route, and were supposed to do the Sunny route this weekend, so if some things seem off, its cause they don't know The Truth yet. (ALSO: THEY KNOW MY USER NOW!! HII!!!)

Anyway! Notes under Read More!

Idea originally came because of the Blurry Kel drawing/mod on Tumblr. Friend lit said "Man, imagine if Kel is the one who went missing instead of Basil?" and so it began.

A couple of HS Skill ideas for Basil: Plant powers, such as vines to slow enemies down or flowers to affect EMOTIONS. Also, I realized the pun Flash Bulb (As in, the kind used for old photography, and plant bulbs) and that's too good to not mention.

Friend was the one who came up with Kel Recording idea, b/c we were discussing what we wanted "his" house to look like. (In replacement for Basil's Shoe, Kel and Hero get a Blanket Fort! You'll see soon!)

This one's a bit weird, so stick with me: Kel's Pet Rock, formerly Hector, currently Roro, is going to be tied to the fast travel/Pluto "replacement". All we have nailed down for now is that most of the planets are going to appear and speak in one way or another (Roughly around Sweetheart's Castle section), and that the Mars representative is going to a giant space dog named Rover, and he'll act as fast travel. [Look, look- No one on this team should learn Flex /hj]

Hero's gonna end up being a bit short tempered by the end of the Headspace section. At first, he can hold it together, but as they search more and Kel goes unfound, the pressure makes him snappy.

Original text from friend: "Hero replacing Kel in bickering with Aubrey because of how callous she is acting about Kel's disappearance and Hero just not taking this well, snaps at her from time to time [return] Basil is just trying to break it up whenever it happens" (I'm not 100% sure how I feel about The Older Brother (tm) arguing with a kid, but it could be fun- or at least interesting)

Black Space is going to be fun! And by fun I mean angsty (hopefully")

I don't think Kel would go quietly. If he can fight, he will. The Neighbor Area and Spider Area would show that best, featuring Kel actively entering a battle against the friends (and dying after refusing to hurt Hero) and fighting Something in the Walls (Overwhelmed and consumed by Sunny's fear) on his own.

The other three are a bit harder to place/closer to the original:

Melon would need to be changed to match the pillows/cardboard aesthetic, but functionally could be the same.

Raft would be weird, b/c again, Kel would fight! If Omori attacked him, then he'd try to fight back, right? Unless he was killed in one hit, I guess, but still.

Treehouse... I mean, I guess it works! Don't fully get the Subtext of that one, tbh.

Then there's the room of original content!! Woo!

Remember Rover? Giant Space dog? I kinda want him to kill Kel in a Black Space room. Like, Rover has a key in his mouth, and Kel trusts him not to bite, so he reaches in to grab it, and naturally, Rover would bite him in half, then spit out the key.

Maybe a side room, where Omori tries to walk somewhere, but his feet get cut up by glass shards? idk

When I get some more time, I'll talk about some of the Real World ideas we came up with.

[missfangirll]

You lost your dad's body after he died??

I love that story 😅 And in my defense, not I lost him, he... was lost 🤣

I should begin with the fact that my dad was a trickster. He loved to prank people. Nothing mean, just borderline mischievous (he one day swapped my grandma's answering machine text with "I am on the toilet taking a dump and can't answer the phone", it took her weeks to realise why people were howling with laughter on her answering machine). Just to preface this whole thing..

So. when he got really sick and it was obvious he wouldn't make it much longer, we were there with him and it was really nice, he died after we left. so, at night, we got a call from the retirement home he was in that he died, and that we could visit him the next morning (Sunday) to say goodbye.

so far, so good. next morning we arrived at the retirement home, my mum, me, my dad's sister and her husband and my dad's brother with his wife. my aunts were both very devastated, naturally, but I wasn't that sad tbh, I had watched him slowly die for a decade, I was just glad it was finally over.. so we marched into the home to find the head nurse, and there the issues began

first she didn't want to say anything and was very jumpy.. "no, you can't see him right now." I was like, but you called?? last night?? and said we could??? and she was, umm, well... and then she admitted, he is not here.

"What do you mean, He Is Not Here? He can't have walked away??? (I think I asked that and at least one of my aunts broke down crying when I did ^^')

Well, after much hesitation we finally learned what had happened..

When someone dies in a retirement home you have to get the doctor on duty to confirm the death and write a death certificate. but the usual doc was not there and the substitute didn't know my dad's condition, didn't know he had an illness, he just saw "55 year old man, died after being in hospital" and checked Unnatural Cause of Death.

Which meant that, on a Saturday night, at 3am, the police came to the tiny home, declared his room a crime scene, put a note on his toe and carted him off somewhere

to where nobody knew..

which is how I spent the whole Sunday calling different police stations to find my dad. it was a weekend, which meant that only very few people were working, shifts had just ended, no one answered a phone and it was in general a nuisance

Well. I found him after a few hours, or I found a police officer who was there and said they couldn't do anything (since it was an Unnatural Death) and I had to involve The Law.. which I did. called the prosecutor and explained the issue, he said, that's ok, he will talk to the judge to speed up the process. I asked how long it would take.. ... ... ... ...

"Not more than three months."

in the end it took two days, and we were told his body actually never left town, he was brought to the nearest funeral home and left there....

so, that's the story how we lost my dad's corpse 🤣 and I am 100% sure that he somehow orchestrated this shit from Beyond 😁😁

[becquerel]

A lot of modern interpretations of polytheistic religions seems very 'Christianity-poisoned' tbh. Like they use the same structure of it and just swap Zeus into the role and dont change at all the fundamental approach to how people even THINK about deities and their role in society/nature. Its like they have trouble seeing religion as anything other that something hierarchical with an 'objective' truth you're expected to follow no matter what. When in reality, many religions don't have a defining religious text at all and just have culturally important pieces of art or poems, if that. It's kind of fascinating really, how Christianity is so large in number but such an outlier in structure. -signed an ex christian turned polytheist who is absolutely baffled constantly by christian relatives thinking my new religion is just Christianity with different gods swapped in and will not change their mind no matter how much it's explained that no, it is not like that.

yeah i think christianity plays a huge amount into this definitely. i think i also have a problem with the concept of non-western/modern religions being more "in tune" with nature or the natural world. like if you sit down and read a lot of greek texts there's like... plays! that deal with the gods. but mostly any scientific or philosophical based text is based much more on humanity and thinking. though tbf this is my problem directed a lot at w*cca (censored for people to not find this post in searching LOL) and people using outside concepts from other religions without considering their cultural or historical contexts. idk ive just met a lot of girls that were in my primarily white upper class private catholic high school where they would be self described as "hellenistic w*ccans" and then ignore anything i'd say on them being straight up factually wrong on how the greek gods were worshipped or treated (im sure not all people in this group are like this it is just the experience i had with multiple people) truly not a fun experience to be like Hey its kind of weird to hold this goddess up for your mysticism when she wasn't historically used in this way nor have you read any ancient texts from the time period where she had prominence. also general lack of respect on them refusing to pronounce the names right :I like if you're going to worship these random nymphs i think you should at least learn greek pronunciation to SAY their names

[skinni-girls-eat-books]

Monday, January 8th, 2024!

11:32am HCI class this morning, really boring still I regret to inform everyone 😂 no tests this semester, just projects. Easy A but a real brain drain. Not letting the brain drain get to me though! Hopped out of that class (9-11am) and now I'm at Panera getting free coffee (it's chilly out!). I'm going to shoe carnival to use a $15 voucher and also other little errands today. I just realized I'm really hungry (I had 2 prebiotic sodas last night and absolutely BLEW UP this morning so I actually don't think there's anything in my stomach tbh haha). I think I should get a snack bc my stomach will pass start hurting soon. Just checking in! New semesters can be overwhelming so I'm gonna keep coming back here.

11:49am have selected bogo bacon mcdoubles for lunch with my coffee :) eating food is good for you! I am very thankful ❤️

2:34pm lol I went down a rabbit hole and I'm about to be off my phone for the rest of the day. But it's worth it bc I looked on Vividseats and found a $20 after tax ticket to see Company at the Straz tmrw. I have heard of this musical before but didn't know what it was or any of the songs. Omg I didn't the last 1.5 hrs listening to the original Broadway cast recording in my car and investigating the plot and I am very excited!! This is EXACTLY what I'm talking about I had no idea that's what I was going to do today and definitely had no idea I was going to see a Broadway show tomorrow night when I freaking woke up this morning, how do I explain to people that this literally is my hobby. Novelty and new experiences is my hobby. Learning about things is my hobby. Listening to new music is my hobby. Reading about how they are being hot and *controversial* about the gender swap in this revival of a 50+ year old play?? I find this fascinating and I am excited AF now about something I couldn't tell you one lick about this morning. This is my favorite thing to do. This is such a perfect example of my idea of a good time.

Do other people never do things like this?? It's spontaneous, but not expensive or dangerous or retarded, it's just spontaneous and interesting to me personally.

4:05pm I actually went to shoe carnival and used the coupon in their email and got a pair of yellow box sandals for $7 even! Just got home, ate a granola bar and am about to take a nap.

11:45pm I want to text him. I'm ALSO FIVE DRINKS IN LMAO. OFC I wish I had a man to fuck rn. I GOT MYSELF DINNER AND DRINKS!!!! NOW it feels like I've been wined and dined and primed to FUCK. But it's literally just me.... I wined and dined myself bc it's the first day of school, things are stressful and they're bound to be more stressful going forward. I wanted to treat myself before I get depressed AF. Is there another man/ woman here?? Fuck NO. I got ME, MYSELF and I BITCH. Dinner was a delicious pizza from king state and a cocktail and 4 shots while I watched "Hair" so yeah ofc I'm COMFORTABLE AND TURNED ON THAT'S LITERALLY ALL IT FUCKING TAKES I'M NOT DIFFICULT BY ANY FUCKING MEANS. one day there will be a man that understands, but until then it's just me, I got me, I know me better than anyone else. All the men I've met are JUST A DELUSION IN MY MIND BRO I KNOW WHAT I WANT AND I *CLEARLY* HAVE NOT MET HIM YET and that's ok,bc ..... I got ME.

Hopefully this rant has dissuaded me from texting him bc wtf he's SO FUCKED UP EVEN IF HE ACTUALLY CARED ABOUT ME HE'S UNABLE TO FUCKING DO SHIT ABOUT IT. HE'S A BUM ASS BITCH AND CAN'T MEET YOUR STANDARDS!!!!!!! YOU MEET YOUR STANDARDS WHERE YOU ARE EVERY DAMN DAY. HE FUCKED UP AND YOU DON'T HAVE TO THINK ABOUT HIM ANYMORE. LITERALLY LET HIM ROT ONG BC HIS DUMBASS PICKED A LIL BITCH OVER YOU (A STRONG ASS HO WHO DOESN'T TOLERATE BULLSHIT!!!!!). THE END OMG.

1:34am why TF am I still awake ooooorhhg I am killing myself fr.

[survivor-trinidad-and-tobago]

Episode 4: "Bye bye Nick. I don't even think he'll notice that he got kicked out of the tribe chat"—Kolby

In this round: Calypso and Soca dominate at Scattergories, sending Maracas straight back to Tribal Council; Nick is still sick, discusses his diarrhea in his tribal council answer, does not submit a list for Scattergories, and does indeed not notice that he got kicked out of the tribe chat

Soca Confessionals

Alex

Glad that we're all still safe, not glad Calypso keeps getting TT$. A) Because I want those TT$. But B) Because I have NO idea what's happening over there. With how social Zee is and with how little I talked to Lexi I have no idea where they stand. Champ said I was her #1 but she's spent more time post-swap than we spent together so I don't know how things may have changed. Also still ever aware that if Raffy or Michael have an idol and they play it successfully if we did go to tribal one of the Elite is gone. I've talked more with Raffy than it sounds like Steven or Kaleigh have and I don't know if that's good or bad for me. I haven't talked to Michael at all since the first day of the swap. I've also done suuuch strategy with the Elite that it's making me rethink how to move forward: original 5 or the Elite and maybe try and pull in Champ? I've got options, I've just gotta make sure I have the opportunity to make use of them.

Kaleigh

okay, two nights ago steven and alex and i had a little soca elite phone call and talked for over an hour. we talked about our idol hunting and advantages disadvantages etc and i am liiiiiike…………. very uncertain about whether or not i was caught in a LIEEEE which is like torturous. basically we decided to pool our info on idol hunting (which is actually something zee and i did, her idea, love it, but we didn’t get far) and i made the doc and we were sharing info (which, i’m pretty sure at least steven withheld some info bc he said he did all but one idol hunt and i didn’t actually count bc i am lazy and drc but it FELLLTTT like he was short when we were going over the ones we had done… but i could be absolutely wrong LMAO) , andddd i was like, ok i should maybe keep SOOOMETHING to myself IDK this is survivor i need to stop being SO transparent and bimboey... so i decided to not tell them about a $5 advantage i got (NOT WORTH IT FOR THE RECORD) and pretend i hadn’t done it. BUT. earlier in the convo we had just casually been talking about the things we’d done and i didn’t REMEMBER that the abandoned sandcastles was the one that gave me $5 , and steven was like “yeah i helped the kids w the sandcastles and got nothing,” and i was like “oh yeah i explored the abandoned sandcastles and got nothing” LMFAOOOO so then when i made the DOCument, i invited steven and alex, and i had typed out the sandcastle one as one of the options, but not marked a result, even though if i hadn’t actually done it like i claimed i wouldn’t even have that information as the options. and steven was like “didn’t u say u did the abandoned sandcastles?” and i was like no? i thought u did? LMFAOOO OH MY GODDDD!!! anyway… uh… so yeah idk if he clocked me or not (i feel like it’s likely that he did bc he is *very* observant and is def like keeping close track of everything everyone else is doing) or if alex noticed but uh… yeah. so. that has been haunting me since last night. i literally talked about it in therapy yesterday and had nightmares about it that night LMFAO i feel *so* bad , like , getting caught in a lie is among the worst feelings!! sigh. so hopefully i haven’t broken trust with my little alex/steven alliance bc i honestly like them. it’s veeeery different to build trust w someone LIVE on a call than through text. like idk they kind of … j become real ppl.

also, we talked about who we would vote out if we lost (not that we thought we’d lose), and i was like, tbh, probably raffy only bc he doesn’t seem *at all* interested in working with me. and steven was like, idk he’s good at challenges and we wanna win! and i was like, idc, michael seems fine at challenges too AND he is way friendlier to me and doesn’t rly seem like he’s playing super hard , which we allllllllllllll agreed that raffy was like *PLAAAAYING*. anyway so i said i’d vote off raffy if we went to tribal last night, and then yesterday raffy RANDOMLY messaged me after not saying anything for days and fully letting our convo die , and he’s all casually like “hey how’s your day” LMAO ok bud!! i assume it’s steven who was like hey you need to be friendlier to kaleigh … bc i do sense that they have an actual full blown alliance. or maybe raffy just decided to check in! idk. impossible rly to know!!!

i actually hate that i will very likely be betrayed by steven or alex (like, hello, that’s the point of the game and we *all* know it) OR that i’d have to betray them. like i hate that! why am i doing this! but also i’m enjoying getting to know them and do these fun little challenges! this is just kind of an intense experience!

i miss zee, we all agreed that she was so lovable and veeeeryyyy dangerous and steven said she’d probably be an early post-merge vote off, which makes sense to me cuz like i’m thinking most ppl are clocking her as a very lovable angel and as someone they don’t want to compete against at the end. sigh.

today raffy again offered himself up for the boat excursion and after much delibration alex and steven and i agreed to send him. i really think steven is allied w him and i’m considering talking to alex about it. sigh. i think the worst part about this game is that i’m building friendships with these ppl and then will betray them or be betrayed by them and then there is not likely going to be any kind of repair or continuation of the friendship bc these connections aren’t as deep as they would be if we were all stuck on an island together LOL annnyyyyyyyyway i’m interesting to see who else is on the excursion and who gets voted out from maracas. i hope that when zee and i are reunited we can resume our alliance without too much distrust or too many other well developed alliances. i wonder if anyone has an idol? i feel like someone must! idk who!

Steven

Raffy

I had a good call with Steven where I basically said that Kaleigh and Alex are a duo and we should target them. Hopefully it works

Michael

Honestly? Nothing much is going on. Makes me feel on the outs but I'm hoping that's just because we haven't been to tribal in 2 challenges. I hope to keep winning challenges so I can at least make it to the merge.

Calypso Confessionals

Astyn

Champ

Honestly the tribe is so chill that there’s literally nothing exciting going on at all, hopefully we can just keep winning so this game is easy for me lol! Idk if there gonna be like a second swap or these are the teams we are gonna be in until merge but I feel very confident in my spot rn

Lexi

Loved how quickly my team came up with a plan for this challenge! It was nice and simple so this one wasn’t super eventful but I’m relieved we won and it was so fun to see everyone’s answers.

Zee

As it stands rn I'm a bit behind on confessionals. But as far as the scattergories challenge goes, I can't say much because I woke up to having been sat out. I'm not upset bc we won anyway, and also because I did kind of take over the movie challenge but i did let my tribe know I'd like to not be sat out in future bc I'm almost positive I'll be able to participate in every challenge, and if I can i want to :P

Colin

I’m so glad we won bc I’ve been so inactive. Somehow not as inactive as the rest of my tribe lmao. If worse comes to worst, I got a handy lil idol too. I’m just tryna make it to merge

Jack

Hey babes love my tribe and I’m happy we r doing well I’m happy we don’t gotta go to tribal but if we do in the future I wanna target zee🫣I heard she ran the OG tribe and I don’t like that 🤭 we will see what happens tho love y’all

Maracas Confessionals

Tanner

I am doing good making those connections

Eman

If my work calendar didn't look completely ugly, I would currently be creating a spreadsheet with all the remaining members of all the teams and what I know of them. e.g., Nick - Maracas - largely absent and non-participatory. I'm half convinced he's gonna strike out this round and spare us the need to vote. Makes me more bitter that Kathryn offered herself up, because I'm pretty sure even in Hawaii she coulda come up with a list of 8 things. Tanner - Maracas - god grant me the confidence of a white man that needs to be handheld through the process and yet still thinks he's in a good position Kolby - Love the enthusiasm, not sure about his strategic chops yet Tony - closest alley - hope we can hold on and continue to work together post-merge. I might be telling him to much, but I'm trying to show that I'm trustworthy and I'm hoping he'll reciprocate because I think we could be more powerful together than apart. And so on, there's even things that can be inferred through a close read of the posts (like that Steven, Raffy, Zee, Alex, Colin, Champ, and Jack are playing to some extent.) The more mercenary part of me even wants to come up with some sort of coded system to categorize people -- Ally, Threat, Shield, Goat -- but then I start feeling guilty for thinking that way and so I abandon the idea. Plus, in a game this chaotic, things are ever-changing.

--

So, the question is . . . WHO is the weakest link? Nick - who has been largely absent with a few exceptions (like will there be another excuse after this sickness, or can we expect a change?) OR Tanner - who I've had to handhold until this round where--to be quite frank--he defied my expectations (was it a fluke, or will there be more good performances? Has he been playing dumb up to this point and suddenly going to be a sleeper. I don't even know what to make of this!) Do we remain Soca Strong (my original preference) or should we be mercenary and get rid of Mr. Invisible (who may or may not be sick, and will likely have some other excuse in the future)? Stay tuned!

Kolby

Tony

Geez, what a fuckin whirlwind! Not gonna lie, going to tribal twice feels shitty! But I still feel strongly that we can pull out a win!

Nick

I'll hopefully be feeling better in a few days. I voted for Tanner bc of spamming my individual chat and then responding with one word answers. But I'm probably out this round.

Tribal Council

Votes:

eman: Nick (Being absent for one round is unfortunate, being absent for two rounds is a coincidence, being absent for three rounds is a trend that I fear we can’t let last. I’m sorry to do this as I did want to work with you, and I really hope you feel better . . .)

Nick: Tanner (kept individually chatting me and it felt inauthentic)

Tanner: Nick (I love you but there is no game stepped up) 

Kolby: Nick

Tony: LOST VOTE

[rai-knightshade-art]

Tfw you're working on your Star Wars Fanart only to get distracted by an Ever After High AU for a movie from 2012. Anyways here's my OCS in a Pitch Perfect AU! (Plus some canon Fanart aka scene redraws for movies 1 & 2.)

Closeups and Set List playlists plus more details under the cut, image id in the alt text!

Close Ups:

Notes:

In the AU, Arion takes the role of Beca (because they're basically the same character it's seriously uncanny whoops), while Rose and Anteros take the roles of Chloe and Jesse, respectively, with some minor alterations (they occasionally swap places as needed for the narrative cause Rose is much closer to Jesse personality-wise but I needed the final serenade to go like the original otherwise what even is the point so i couldn't just swap them permanently). Arion and Rose are in a mixed-gender group called the Fairy Tones, while Anteros ends up in an all-masc group called the Charming Chords. There's also a third rival group called the Twister Misters but they don't really do much. As for the drawings themselves, they're basically just redone scenes from the movies, like the aca-initiation featuring a Tempis cameo (it's fruit punch Rose swears), the scene from the radio station where Jesse (now Rose cause all three of them work there) uses the various album covers to try to make Beca laugh (and very nearly succeeds not that she'd ever admit it) (Anteros thinks it's funny but Arion thinks they've all gone absolutely batty), and of course the iconic Fist Pump from the end, featuring a bonus Kenni in the Benji role! (Tho actually I'm toying with Andre-as-Benji cause then he and Arion could be Besties™ and i could have an easy segue into an Andre and Rose B-plot. But I digress.)

As for the canon drawings, i just did some favorite scenes, like the picnic (he has juices pouches and Rocky! How could anyone not love him?!) And the audition (still one of the funniest scenes in the movie tbh as far as individual lines from characters go, excellent introduction of personalities). Also that part of the riff off from the sequel cause a) Anna Kendrick KILLED it with Before He Cheats, and b) i was mildly offended we didn't get a Live Slug Jesse Reaction shot because I'm absolutely certain his expression would've been hysterical (mostly in how... Not scared he'd look 😂)

Also also, i think these kids should meet; Beca and Arion could silently judge people together to their hearts content, while Jesse and Rose would immediately launch into French serenades with zero hesitation. (Also Beca is wearing a Trebles Hoodie cause i know what I'm about.)

The Set Lists:

The Group Solos (both groups individual + one bonus duet between both groups): Here

The Riff-Off, Category 1: Dance the Night Away

The Riff Off, Category 2: Heavy Hair Headbanging

[meichenxi]

Hey, could I ask you how you do shadowing? Like the different ways you do it? You mentioned in your tag that shadowing is good and I'd love to hear how you do it! I do not attempt shadowing much so I don't really know what helps, etc. ToT (my studyblr is rigelmejo)

Hellooo! Thank you for the interesting question!

Tbh I think I do it fairly basically - I don’t use any particularly fancy software, but software like Language Learning with Netflix has certainly made it easier. There’s a whole video on how to get the most of it here: [on mobile, link didn't work - How to study Chinese with Netflix! by Chinese Zero To Hero] (I’d recommend checking out all of their videos actually, they’ve done a bunch of livestreams recently and they place a lot of emphasis on shadowing + the course they are trying to sell you is…actually phenomenally good)

(Also, I have to preface this by saying that I have been very lucky in terms of pronunciation: I learnt about 80% of my current vocabulary by ear without characters or pinyin. I have been in China for eight months in total, and while I didn’t speak Chinese for all of that, I was constantly soaking in info on natural sentence intonation. I still often don’t know officially what the tone of a vocabulary item is, especially if it changes tone like 教, 为 or 相, but I don’t get yelled at so I have definitely internalised a lot of those changes. I definitely would have more trouble with this if I hadn’t had that experience - my other areas are waaaay weaker because of this though- my reading SUCKS lmao and I can literally handwrite about ten characters)

Anyway. How I shadow:

1) Quite simply by playing the line, and repeating it with all the emotion it has!! I usually use Netflix or Viki for this. I try to do it as fast as possible, and if I can’t do the whole thing, I ‘chunk’ it: if I were doing the sentence 我们还不知道他会不会来, I would start from the end with 他会不会来, then 不知道他会不会来, and then the whole sentence. Notice that this isn’t breaking it down into words or even grammatical phrases, but intonational phrases: it would be perfectly sensible to just do 会不会来 without the 他 but realistically, since this is a question, it’s likely that a strong stress will be placed on the first 会, and you wouldn’t be able to replicate that without also included the more weakly stressed syllable before.

2) I locate (intentionally or subconsciously) the main locus of stress within the sentence, and I focus on that accordingly. Tones may become less extreme if they are not stressed, and may become more exaggerated if stressed. This is always a good exercise. I accompany this with physical actions - I throw my hands down, I sigh, I groan!

3) I put away the text, and don’t look at the tones or even my computer screen - more on this below.

4) Finally, when I think I’ve got it reasonably accurate, I’ll record them speaking the line into my phone with an appropriate pause for copying and play it back to myself at various points throughout the day.

5) I then go and find other words with the same tone contour to slot in, and copy it again. After that, I find words that are slightly different tonally and pop them in too.

6) I finally do fun things like hold a conversation with myself. This can be really simple phrases imbued with some kind of emotion - 这个女子到底是谁呀？为什么不认识我？应该是新手吧。You can do this either really informally, or very formally, or both - trying to speak in the latter way is very fun! So then it’d be idk something more like: 那位姑娘是何人，来自何处？This is fun because you can really slow down your speech and sound as elegant as you like!! (this will sound stilted if you do it for modern speech, but it’s a very fun exercise)

Choosing your media!!

1) Don’t use donghuas. Seriously. The voice actors usually speak at a ridiculous pace and not with the same range of ‘normal’ intonation

2) Your Chinese is definitely good enough to recognise when anyone is quoting poetry or speaking in a paricularly sexy literary way so, uh…don’t do that. That rules dramas like Nirvana in Fire OUT.

3) Modern dramas and reality TV shows CAN be great, but they can also be quite intimidatingly quick and almost too mushy at times. I’d recommend informal speech in guzhuang dramas more, because they have professional voice actors and extensive sound editing, meaning that although it might be fast and the vocabulary harder, it’s actually much more accessible and easier to copy. You don’t want to be stuck with the awfulness of 50% failed foreigner and 50% 12 year old boy who can’t enunciate properly!!

4) CHOOSE YOUR WEAPON WISELY. I try to find characters that speak in a dramatic, whiny or childish way. This is so important! There’s literally no use copying Lan Wangji unless you want to be able to have that particular cadence and tone of voice you get reciting poetry. Childish/whiny/dramatic characters on the other hand stress some words very strongly, and rush others together - this is great for hearing what actual real speech sounds like. Whininess wins. In The Untamed, characters like Wei Wuxian (not yllz!wwx but just…regular wwx), 一问三不知 Nie Huaisang, Jin Ling, and Jingyi are all great. Also Jiggy, who is just very extra constantly and speaks much slower as well, which really helps. In SHL characters like Gu Xiang are good.

5) CHOOSE YOUR VOICE WISELY! If you are really aiming to copy them 100% (which you should try at least sometimes), you want somebody with your pitch range to sound normal. I have a sort of party trick in Chinese that because I’ve spent so much time listening to women in guzhuang dramas I can change my voice and sound like a) a scheming concubine with honeyed words, or b) the voice of the Beijing metro. My teacher found it hysterically funny. But it’s not my natural voice, and if I speak like that for too long it hurts. The women usually are too high for me, and the big burly manly men too low - so I’d recommend finding a man with a higher voice, or an older woman (like some of the female characters in Nirvana in Fire). Again, sorry that this is mostly the Untamed (I’m just most familiar with it) but the voice actors for Wei Wuxian and some of the juniors (+jiggy) has a higher voice. Likewise Chengling in Word of Honour.

On intonation in general:

- The thing is that whilst shadowing is useful it requires prior ability in a whole bunch of other skills that you can train - it relies on your ability to accurately mimic pitch, emotion and other contrasts. Training this in ANY language, including your native one, will help your ability to do this in Chinese - so I’d recommend spending a fair amount of time practicing shadowing (or speaking just after somebody whilst listening to a string of text, like monolingual simultaneous interpreting) in your native language too. Any training copying accents or mimicking other people is going to similarly help, regardless of the language.

So, with that in mind, further tips:

1) Hum / try to copy the intonation without any words. What this does is force you to pay attention to what the intonation actually is, versus what you may think it should be.

2) Don’t look at the text! Do! Not! Look! At! The! Text! If you look at the characters or pinyin you’re telling yourself ‘ok this is a third tone here’ etc, but you want to override the part of your brain that has gotten into bad habits and is supremely self-confident in how you’re pronouncing the third tone, and actually just go straight back to mimicking.

3) Don’t be afraid to do it with vocabulary that is way beyond your level. Actually, I find this can sometimes be helpful, because you don’t have a prior idea about how a particular tone pair should be useful - and you don’t know which tone you should be producing.

4) Learn vocabulary by ear - listen to a vocab podcast or even make one yourself (I often do this; I record my daily Anki and listen back to it through headphones copying throughout the day - if you’re not confident in your pronunciation you can get Google Translate to do it). Similarly, pick unknown vocabulary out of a longer segment and remember it, trying to internalise the tones instead of figuring out which tone it is.

5) Find emotional sentences, and copy them with emotion. This is SO CRUCIAL!!! We remember things when we relate to them, and when we imbue them with emotion - and it also helps in hearing exactly how an angry second tone sounds, for instance.

6) When you’re copying, look up, and imagine you are having an actual conversation. Carry yourself with conviction and poise!! Really try to whine like wwx or slime like jgy. After a couple of turns copying them, try to turn off the audio and keep delivering it in the same manner.

7) Swap individual words out. Once you have a line properly figured out, swap a word or two that has a different tone pair, and focus on delivering it with the same pattern of stress.

8) Finally, practice doing this in your native language too!! It’s a skill that we don’t use often, and it can be trained. Some people are terrible at it at first go even in their native language, but you can work on it!

About intonation in general:

1) I think a lot of pronunciation problems with people sounding unnatural or stiff ultimately come down to a fundamental misunderstanding of what intonation looks like across different languages. In English we mark it by pitch: and we are so used to the rhetoric that Chinese has ‘tone’ and not ‘intonation’ that we try and focus on blindly copying every single word textbook perfect without listening to how it actually sounds.

2) Chinese does have intonation!!! Except that, unlike English, when you stress a word, the pitch doesn’t change, but the tone contour is exaggerated - basically the only time you will ever hear a full third tone is in isolated or very exaggerated speech. If you have a Chinese friend, get them to record a sentence like the English ‘I didn’t ask her to steal his rucksack’, and put stress on the different elements of it - I didn’t ask, I didn’t ask, I didn’t ask, and so on. Notice and copy how the tones change. When shadowing, you should always be paying attention to where the stress is in the sentence: when you speak by yourself, practicing saying a sentence neutrally, and then with stress on one component, the next, and so on. If it feels unnatural, it’s because you might not have practicised like this before - it’ll get better!

Hope that’s somewhat helpful / interesting!

- 梅晨曦