#i've been slowly rewatching and listening to the podcast

[lucyllawless]

PAM SWYNFORD DE BEAUFORT 7.04 "Death is Not the End"

[my-smial]

9 people you'd like to get to know better

tagged: @agapantoblu

Thank you, Agap, for tagging me! I like doing these things and I always need to do more things <3

tagging: @mornyavie, @rauwyn, @gender-trash, @melancholy--lion, @fandomreferencepending, @thewomanwhobloggedlikeaman, @blankerthought, @in-the-mists, @grundyscribbling, @sous-le-saule, @ainawgsd, and anyone else who wants to do it!

three non romantic duos:

Hmm, this one's tough. There's always a lot going on, so I could name sooo many characters. It would be harder to stop naming duos, so I'll choose a few media that have been particularly relevant to my life lately. Just know there are so many more. Every pairing from The Circle of Magic, for a start.

1. Percy de Rolo & Keyleth. I'm writing this while watching the Legend of Vox Machina TV show, so I decided to choose one of them. Ever since the first episode of both the show and the podcast, I enjoyed how these two bring out fun sides of each other. They're close, they love each other, and they relax around each other as they do around very few people. Even with their respective romantic pairings in the show - those are more fraught and intense. Percy and Keyleth always feel like they're having fun when they pair up.

2. Aaron & Andrew Minyard. Man!!! All for the Game has taken up my dash for months now, so I had to choose one pairing. I will choose the twins, because I can. I want them to like each other. I devour any fic I can find about them slowly blossoming their relationship over the post-grad years.

3. Wirt & Greg, from Over the Garden Wall. It's rewatch season! I love these two, and I enjoy the way they are brothers first and always. In particular, my favorite moment is when Greg, who is on the surface level scene more thoughtless and random, actively chooses Wirt over himself. He's offered to escape and chooses uncertainty instead to save Wirt and it's incredible. He is more thoughtful than a surface-level viewing would indicate.

a ship that might surprise others: mmm. Hm. This is hard. I don't really come up with non-canon ships often, and I am generally very normie when I do. I have non-canon hot takes like "Leverage OT3 is awesome" (that's a joke). So I'd say my most "surprising" ship is probably from Fullmetal Alchemist. I am firmly of the opinion that Ed and Winry should break up so she can follow her true love for Paninya, the mechanic girl with two metal legs from the baby episode. THEY ARE MEANT TO BE. Or maybe we can do fun polyamory! Winry has two hands.

last song: Come Out Ye Black and Tans by Colm McGuinness, specifically the rock version. Although I was listening to the regular and rock versions back-to-back on repeat. For Reasons.

last film: KNEECAP. I've listened to the band for a while and LOST IT when I found out they made a biopic and it was playing near me. Somehow I missed all the advertising until I randomly looked at a theater schedule??? Extremely funny being the rap fan in what felt like a room full of people there because of the Sundance win. I was honestly preparing to not like the film because Biopic Drama is not my genre, but oh boy was it not that. It was so fun. I was dancing and singing in my seat.

I loved their laissez-faire approach to whether this is a "true" story and the constant energetic thread their music pulled through the movie. It was a riot. As a bilingual film it felt very natural, clearly informed by people who actually live their lives bilingually - slipping in and out of languages happened logically, and the band walked a fun line between "suck it up and read the subtitles" and "99% of our audience doesn't speak this language or know this particular struggle, let's explain a few things in our own way."

Only thing I didn't like is that it's far more vulgar than I normally enjoy, but you know. I listen to KNEECAP on purpose. I knew what it would be like going in, it would honestly be disappointing if KNEECAP chose to clean themselves up for Hollywood. I actively chose to shut off that part of my brain during viewing, and it was a great time. Just know before choosing to view that the Trainspotting references are earned, and I can give you more detail if you want to go watch.

currently reading: The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. I started it last year but didn't have the spare brainpower for such a complicated story - I got sick of keeping track of the POV swaps. But I did like the worldbuilding, so I eventually picked it back up and it's going much better this time around. For me, this is one of those books that I've been told to read so many times that I knew I would get around to it eventually.

currently watching: Actively on Season 3, Episode 11 of The Legend of Vox Machina TV show. Episode 12 is starting, time to wrap up.

currently consuming: Kimchi hash browns with eggs. Delicious.

currently craving: My fellowship application to get back to me please why does this take you so long.

This was really fun, thank you Agap!

[mifhortunach]

tagged by @rhavewellyarnbag ! theirs here - ty as always !

--

last song: its nothing but covers of 'she dont use jelly' today im afraid

current book stack: as always, only getting worse! All of the books i'm juggling atm are unfortunately podcast motivated.. 😔 shelved by genre is doing earth.sea, which im not 100% sold on. I cant decide if that's bc its a kids book, or if its that i dont actually like ukg's writing style! 99pi, a show i dont listen to, is also doing a bookclub of the power broker w tfh's very own elliott kalan, so i WILL be starting that i think

i'm also reading the big nowhere! which is pure schlock, but mostly rips along

last film: i saw the holdovers yesterday!! which was so good, really funny & touching - otherwise i have SO slowly been trying to watch for all mankind ( ;0 ), but as cool as the footage is, if i see more than 3 frames i immediately become so tired

last show: probs still ntbts... i rewatched some of the webseries last week, and i think that finale ep is truly insanely good. tbfh, more than the movie i want them to release commentary tracks for the vice show so badly, rip

current obsession: its subtle, but honestly probs still operation avalanche! i've been thinking a lot about it anyway, so im watching stuff that influenced it (possibly 'for all mankind'!, definitely stone's JFK!), but i also keep running into adjacent works, or stuff that makes me think of it. i listened to an SFultra ep this week that was all about a guy who wrote a book about murderous moonlanding conspiracies, as well as jfk recreation obsessions (big nowhere's ellroy is also SO tapped into all that bs lol)

tagging. if theyre interested??:

@nonsensegnomes @gatogotica @mithridacy @imageofvoid @guymontspellingbee @chemiosmotic & you! if you want??

[marshymeds]

Tag Someone You Want To Know Better!

Tagged by @nibbelraz (thank you ;-; your art is very yummy)

Favorite Color: Green. Like, forest green, olive green, anything in that range. I have so many pieces of green clothing it’s not funny.

Last Song: Sucker Punch by Sigrid (its an ear worm sorry)

Last Movie: The Millennium Actress (I watch a lot of movies with my dad and we were on an anime kick, we watched Perfect Blue recently too but I’d seen that before).

Currently Watching: TGCF Season 2 >;3 and I’m rewatching BSD with a friend who hadn’t seen it before.

Currently Reading: I usually don’t read much, but when I do it’s constant (read through every MXTX novel in a matter of a couple weeks or something). But I think the latest thing I’ve actually been reading is Peerless? Very slowly.

Currently Listening: I listen to a ton of podcasts while at work and in the ceramics studio soo. Distractible, Buried Bones, Small Town Dicks, Tenfold More Wicked (and Wicked Words) are probably the ones I go to most. I maybe just really enjoy Paul Holes/Kate Winkler Dawson and Mark Bob and Wade talk.

Currently Working On: I’m finishing up some sketches of Mobei-jun’s mother. I've been building some headcanons about her. In the studio I’ve been throwing a lot of mugs for design tests now that I’ve gotten a decent colored slip recipe down and testing a lot of glazes >:3 I know I don’t mention it here but I do ceramics as a hobby and I’m in the studio…a lot. This semester has mostly been working on teapots (hopefully some MDZS themed ones eventually). Also…working on my thesis still. Dunno how much I’ve mentioned that here.

Currency Obsession: MXTX novels. Moshang. It drastically increased my motivation for writing and drawing, and I’ve improved a lot since I got into it a couple months ago.

Tagging: @merlinnski @thelazyaki @kerizaret @lunannex @junesfool (I’ve spoken to very few tumblr mutuals yet, so sorry if this is a little out of the blue! And don’t feel pressured to do it, its just for fun ❤️)

[destinationtoast]

Top TV shows (and TV podcasts) of 2022

It was a great year in TV! Lots of new shows I really enjoyed. I mostly haven't been pulled into the transformative fandoms, but there have been a hell of a lot of TV podcasts out there that I've been enjoying as accompaniment. I've listed podcast recommendations where applicable.

Favorite new shows

In roughly descending order -- though the first two are tied for first place:

Andor (Recommended podcast pairing: The Ringer-verse's House of R, which you'll see mentioned multiple times; it's multiple hours of thoughtful analysis for each episode of show from two of my favorite podcasters, Joanna Robinson and Mallory Rubin) -- it totally caught me off guard how good this is. It's absolutely my favorite Star Wars property. It feels uncomfortably relevant, full of people living under slowly growing tyranny and having to make all sorts of morally uncomfortable decisions about when to act and what to sacrifice. It also has the best droid ever, I think, and my favorite dark!bureaucrats. It felt a little slow initially, but the last half of the season gripped me so hard -- and I've heard that on rewatch those first ones planted all sorts of interesting seeds. There are a couple early threads that I'm really hoping we revisit in S2, because otherwise they're a bit dissatisfying and messy. But everything else in the show is so carefully and well done, that I expect we probably will.

Interview with The Vampire (Recommended podcast pairing: official AMC podcast, hosted by comedian/tv writer Naomi Ekperigin -- this had great interviews with the show creators/actors/bts folk; also enjoyed The Ringer's single-ep discussion) -- I was unprepared to love this one, too. Adored the books in high school (there were only ~5 at the time), but did not expect them to be turned into a brilliantly updated and compelling show. Making Louis & Claudia black and moving it forward in time were terrific moves. And making the sexual relationship text instead of subtext, with all the queer crisis that that puts Louis through, on top of the conflicts due to race... Ugh, it's so fucking good. I also am intrigued by what they're doing with the framing story. I totally re-fell in love with these characters enough that I'm about to embark on a reread of at least the first few books, even though I think a lot of the adaptations choices surpass the original work.

Severance - This was fantastic, but I never found a great podcast. I'm also a little worried it'll be a mystery box show that never has satisfying payoffs for a lot of the weird stuff that's been set up. But I loved it, and I'm excited for more.

House of the Dragon (RPP: House of R; also enjoyed HOTD by Bald Move) -- like many, I was wary following the debacle that was the end of GoT, but it felt good to be back in Westeros. This season didn't hit the highs of the best of GoT, but it also came nowhere near the lows, and I found it pretty compelling throughout and loved how much of it focused on women. I hope next season follows a wider set of characters. This was the only show on the list I felt compelled to write fic for, and I am disappointed that there's not more canon-compliant Alicent/Rhaenyra fic.

Station Eleven (RPP: official HBO podcast, hosted by showrunner Patrick Somerville) - I read the book when it came out and mostly found that it wasn't really for me. but I thought that I would probably like an adaptation for the screen. I was right, and having an IRL pandemic arrive on the scene in the meantime only made it more interesting to me. I really liked about 70% of the changes they made to the book in adapting it, and even though I thought some of what they did with the "big bad" failed, I still enjoyed it considerably. And listening to the showrunner talk about the process of adaptation was terrific.

Rings of Power - (RPP: House of R; also enjoying @wildwren and @aadmelioraa's new rewatch/deep dive podcast, Where the Shadows Lie, which covers some of the fandom discourse as well as the show - but it's by two new podcasters exploring the format, so I don't mean to set it up as competing with long-established professional podcasters! XD ) - this show was definitely slow at times, and I wish it hadn't invested so much in a couple character reveals, because I don't think the identity mysteries were nearly the most interesting parts. Still, I loved a lot about it, including both worldbuilding and some of the characters (harfoots and elves and dwarves ftw!), and I am looking forward to more. This may be the show where podcasts added the most additional meaning for me, in part because they provided interesting tie-ins to source material I hadn't read, but also because they unpacked a lot of layers of characterization and worldbuilding that I didn't always catch on first watch.

The Sandman (RPP: Endless, hosted by author Lani Diane Rich and author/comics editor Alisa Kwitney) - Been a huge fan of the source material for decades, and I was delighted to be able to see it onscreen at last. I generally thought the adaptation was very good (good enough that I haven't felt any need to explore it through fic), and I'm also enjoying all the tumblr fanart a great deal.

Heartstopper - I didn't think about this one much at all when not watching it, and never thought to look for a podcast. But I binged it rapidly twice (once with my BFF, Mr. Maccas), and it was delightful both times.

Favorite continuing shows

For All Mankind (RPP: Hi Bob! by Bald Move) - This show continues to be such an interesting alternate history, with a number of great characters, even if I find some of the storylines a bit uneven. Why isn't everyone talking about it??

Tuca & Bertie (RPP: Baby Geniuses isn't directly show coverage, but it's cohosted by show creator Lisa Hanawalt and Emily Heller -- a writer for Barry -- and it's weird and hilarious and occasionally serious, much like the show) - I'm so bummed this was just canceled, but the seasons we got were amazing. Contained a surprising number of deeply real issues that I don't usually see portrayed (e.g. the intense menstrual pain being dismissed by doctors was all too familiar, plus a bunch of the career-related compromises & angst), all mixed in with hilarious bird-person + plant-person worldbuilding and delightfully absurdist humor.

Star Trek: Lower Decks (RPP: Greatest Trek, hosted by two guys with a history in filmmaking and who are extremely endearing and goofy... these two have entertained for years with their The Greatest Generation podcast, which I also recommend.) - Every episode slays me. It's great to have a funny podcast that helps me spot all the references and Easter eggs.

Honorable mentions to messy yet compelling Euphoria and White Lotus.

Shows I wanted to continue watching but didn't get to yet: Barry, Industry.

Shows I enjoyed rewatching

Ted Lasso (RPP: Unspoiled! Ted Lasso - the two bestie hosts are having so much fun watching the show, as hardcore fan RoShawn introduces it to newbie Natasha; they can get rambly, but it's usually cute) - I rewatched it a bunch because of reasons; never stopped enjoying it.

BtVS (RPP: Buffering the Vampire Slayer -- hosted by songwriter/musician Jenny Owen Youngs and queer activist Kristin Russo, who are hilarious and also write a good song about every Buffy episode omg) - I'm currently rewatching S4 and interspersing Angel for the first time ever (I'd previously binged them separately), and Angel is comparatively quite rough, but the crossovers sure are making more sense this way. :)

[charmedrumblings]

I've been very slowly listening to the charmed rewatch podcast House of Halliwell with Holly, Brian and Drew and it has been really good thus far

Just between you, me, and Tumblr, I was a patron and everything and I stopped listening/watching the videos before the end of the first season. They didn't talk as much about the plot as I would've liked. I really enjoyed the behind the scenes info, and I appreciate that Drew tried hard to keep the others on track, but........... they just kept talking about stuff I didn't care about. But let me know if there's a really good episode I should listen to!

[bronanlynch]

trying to get back into writing weekly roundup posts inspired by @/girlfriendofthegalaxy's tuesday again no problem series so here goes (disclaimer that these are not recommendations, as a rule I don't like recommending things to people because taste is so subjective and also because I enjoy doing analysis on things that are not good)

listening (podcast): making my way through the Gundam Wing episodes of Great Gundam Project. love to hear queer leftists talk about Gundam. it's fun to listen to now that I know more about Gundam, because when I watched Wing myself I knew literally nothing, and it's cool to get extra context but also cool to hear that some of my initial analysis still holds up. has the (un?)fortunate side effect of constantly making me wish I were watching Gundam

also obligatory shout out to Media Club Plus, a Hunter x Hunter rewatch podcast just started by some of the Friends at the Table folks, which I'm also enjoying a lot (this *is* a recommendation. please listen to Media Club Plus)

listening (music): so turns out I mostly listen to music when I'm driving these days, and right now the cd in my car's cd player is Avril Lavigne's Let Go, which is causing me to think a lot about a world in which Fire Emblem 3 Houses was an anime and there could be a sylvix+dimilix amv set to Complicated. also I've been fondly remembering that one wangxian sk8er boi amv that makes me cry every time I watch it

reading: recently finished The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon. lots of divine-mechanical body horror and also a big win for fans of body sharing. very tasty, lots to chew on. I think I would have more to say about this one if I'd read it more quickly, but it was the book that I read a chapter or two every night before bed because that's a load-bearing part of my routine, and I think that meant that I sometimes lost track of some of the plot threads and shifting allegiances & motivations

currently reading The Water Outlaws by S.L. Huang, which I'm not far into but it's fun so far, and. sighs. Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo. unfortunately because I couldn't remember exactly what happened in the books to properly compare it to the second season of Shadow & Bone I committed to rereading the whole series and, well, this could be compelling political intrigue except that's not where the focus is (it feels like there's a lot of words wasted on reiterating who the main characters are but not in particularly interesting ways or ways that show them changing very much, at least so far) so it's just simply not compelling to me

watching: rewatching Hunter x Hunter (2011) along with the Media Club Plus coverage. only on episode 6 so far but man what a good show

with my roommate, we've been slowly making our way through Elementary, because it's good to have on in the background while working on other things, and I do enjoy a competently written mystery. we also watched. uh. the Bionicle movies. those sure are movies that exist to sell toys to children. like, there's stuff in there that could be really interesting. as a kid I probably would've been obsessed. I'm glad I've seen them. they're not ""good movies""

now, this past weekend, instead of making any progress in any of the shows I was already watching, or fic I was writing, or anything like that, I saw a tumblr post that made a very compelling argument for spending the entire weekend watching all 16 episodes of 2021 k-drama The Devil Judge. this is a show for people who watched Tiger & Bunny and wanted Yuri (you know, everyone's favorite T&B side character, the guy who's a vigilante murderer and also a judge and also very sad) to be the main character (it's me. I wanted that.) anyway. this one's gonna be rattling around in my brain for a while. it's a dystopian legal drama with a significant helping of the gothic (gothic is here defined as when you're forced by circumstance to stay at the mysterious big house of an older wealthy man with secrets). it's about, among other things, corporate greed, the rise of fascism, systemic judicial inequality, the self-destructive catharsis of revenge, whether justice is possible in an unjust society, and having an intense homoerotic bond with your hot morally dubious coworker

oh yeah I'm also keeping up with the Ahsoka show because I was cursed at birth to care about Star Wars. I wish I liked it because I love Ahsoka and Sabine as characters but it's just simply not a well-made television show. really suffers from over-reliance on their Volume soundstage and various other issues that seem to stem from uninspired direction, but I've been especially disappointed with so many of the blocking choices

playing: finally getting back into playing Ace Attorney 5, which I paused literally three months ago and didn't pick up again until this week. there are parts of the game I've enjoyed (Athena is a cool character even if I dislike her mood matrix thing both mechanically and thematically; the mock trial conceit of 5-3 is fun; I like Blackquill & his bird) but other parts I do not enjoy (the transphobia oh my god I hoped I was free after getting past the homophobia & transmisogyny in 5-2 and then got hit with whatever the fuck they were doing with Robin in 5-3 please Ace Attorney be normal about trans people I am begging you)

making: we recently got B. Dylan Hollis's cookbook Baking Yesteryear, and made some maple-squash gems from the 1920s. not too much to say about these, they're nice muffins, tasty, not too hard to make. I think I would probably double the amount of cinnamon next time though

drinking: it's nog season which means it's time for the return of one of my favorite seasonal mixed drinks: eggnog (pumpkin, since that felt the Most seasonal) with a splash of Kraken spiced rum

writing: picking away at editing my t4t yurivain fic that was originally meant to be for Fire Emblem Trans Week, which was like a month and a half ago now. it's fine. everything is fine. anyway here's some lines:

“This feels like a test,” said Sylvain. “Is that your subtle way of telling me that I have to order our next round?” “Depends,” Yuri said, suppressing a laugh at the expression on Sylvain’s face, like he’d forgotten an answer during an exam. “What would you order for me?”

[kiefbowl]

what shows/movies do you like? :)

Oh so many. Right now I've been watching like every other day this series on Netflix called the Universe. Fucking mind blowing.

My bf and I are rewatching Buffy again, but we're not binging we're really slowly going through it. He wanted to rewatch it because he started listening to a podcast where two women are watching it together one a new comer and the other a veteran. Buffy is fun, but it's also getting to the point where I've seen it so much that the seems are becoming more and more visible. Still, watching it slowly episode by episode means giving "bad" episodes I've ignored another chance and it's nice discovering some charm about them I don't remember.

I want to rewatch Lost with my bf cause he never saw it and I'm a big Lost apologist and I'm eagerly awaiting the Lost Renassiance - I don't think it's coming :'(

I couldn't finish Gilmore Girls. I got father than last time (Valentine's episode of season 6) and watched the first season of episode 7 and I gave up. The drama of Luke having a daughter he didn't know about could have been enough without making him lie about it and Lorelai lose her gd mind by the end of the season.

I'm slowly getting through season 5 of The Crown, I've watched 3 episodes so far. The Crown is so fascinating to me, it's compelling and it's like low key a secret comedy. The royals are such losers lmao.

That's what's going on tv wise in my life right now. The last movie I watched was The Wonder and I liked it.

[sixofravens-reads]

I feel like I've been MIA for a while, so a short update:

Finished the Kingston Cycle! Loved it, though I wish books 2 and 3 were longer bc it felt like there were too many subplots for such short books! Aside from that though it's a wonderful queer fantasy series and I'll definitely reread it!

Started the Micah Grey trilogy bc my goal was to finish those 2 series by the end of November, though I've been pretty slow to start it. I think I'm just not really in a reading mood right now. Might try and force myself to just read for a half hour a day or so (I need to start doing a half hour on the exercise bike anyway) and see if I can chip away at it slowly.

I've been into a lot of other stuff lately: nanowrimo, rewatching/finally finishing Twin Peaks, playing video games, and kpop (Blackpink, mostly). Work has also been busy since I got back from vacation, and all the snow means my commute has been extra long and stressful, so when I get home I only have the mental energy for writing (sometimes) and staring at a screen lol

That said, this is the first nanowrimo in 2 years that I'm not failing horribly at! It's not particularly well written, but I'm just glad to be getting words down on the page, and my brain didn't quit just because I had to think up some new characters (like it did last November)

Started listening to the podcast Wizard and the Bruiser, which is about pop culture/geek history, and it's reminding me of a lot of stuff I used to love or wanted to get into as a kid but couldn't, and now like every three days I have a new thing to obsess over

At least I'm quite far ahead on my reading goals for this year and I'm trying to let myself have Other Hobbies and not get stressed out for not finishing a trilogy in one week. As long as I finish the Micah Grey series by the end of November I'll still be on track.

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

To be honest you and all the people that re watch the show are very brave. I couldn’t do it myself.

Watching how slowly they were caring less and less for this show until they let it die when it was one of my favorite back in s1.

Lol, please don't misunderstand me-- I am not rewatching the the series at this point. I've just been listening to back episodes of Supergirl Radio, which is a Supergirl podcast. So, like... I'm not too brave.

[spngeorg]

I've been (slowly) going through the podcast, and i just gotta say...

How dare you kick me in the feels in ep 11?!? Like, ouch. Literally teared up a little bit there.

And yes, so much agree on the finale parallels. It made me kinda annoyed at sam, so sad for Dean, and really mad at the finale (again).

Seeing the earlier episodes through the lens of having seen the whole series just hits different. And kinda makes one wonder about which parallels/foreshadowing were accidental, pre-planned, or a thread that wasn't intentional, but picked up later in the show on purpose. Regardless, it adds so much to the experience of the rewatch.

Ok, going to go sit in a corner and go mildly insane over all the heart stuff on ep 12 now!

AAAH hello friendo, and I'm sorry for all the feels. I'm using this podcast to basically dump my feels into. There will be more :'D

As for what was planned, I don't know that they had even the remotest clue how the early seasons would be expanded on the way they were in later seasons. They just laid down characters that were easy to love and a dynamic universe they could endlessly toy with and delve back into in new ways. The writers were (mostly) very good at knowing the bounty of past canon and (mostly) building on it year after year.

(don't worry, there will be points where most of my yelling is devoted to lamenting where they fell down on that job, but still the vast majority of my personal wailing will be all about the characters :'D)

Thanks for listening!

[nordic-language-love]

hi! i tried to look for an faq to see if you've answered this question before, bcuz im sure im not the first one to ask, but i'm curious as to how you got to the level you are in norwegian? i've been studying it for years and just found that im only A1 in listening, and A2 in everything else. feeling pretty gutted and frustrated, and I remembered seeing in your bio that you're like solid B1. So, yea any tips that have got u where u r would be super helpful! takk :)

Oh I understand that frustration - the first time I took a Norwegian proficiency test I was certain I was at least A2, maybe even verging on B1… came back as A1 for everything. My poor ego took quite a battering that day.

(This got kinda long and I’m really sorry about that :| hope it’s all helpful! Gonna put it under a ‘read more’ so it doesn’t clog up people’s dashes)

I think the most important thing when pushing myself from A2 to B1 was to try and use or expose myself to the language as much as possible. My phone is in Norwegian. I always had a Norwegian CD in my car. I’d listen to audiobooks, podcasts or the radio while I’m doing menial tasks (and when I say ‘listen to’ I mean I’d desperately try and pick out words here and there, never mind whole phrases). I’d try to read at least the headlines on NRK every day, even if I never got as far as reading any articles (sometimes I’d just read the first paragraph of one). I’d talk to my cats in bad, broken Norwegian. I’d sing in the shower. I’d watch a grammar explanation on youtube (Norsklærer Karense is my favourite). I’d write snippets of my thoughts or a bit about my day, even if I ended up just deleting it. Basically, even if I wasn’t sitting down to study properly, I was still doing something - that way I got used to sentence structure and prepositions and other grammar, and the most common vocab got cemented in my head because I was exposed to it so much. I also make sure to ask for clarification when I’m unsure, and when I do post things in Norwegian I always try to use at least one word or sentence structure I’m unsure of and ask for feedback, because if I never push myself and get that feedback I’ll never be able to write in a natural way.

Some things you can do specifically to improve your listening:

1. Listen to Norwegian songs with the lyrics in front of you. This will especially help with learning to recognise words even when they’re spoken in dialect, as a lot of Norwegian sing in their dialect too. When I do this as a learning exercise I usually listen to the song once without lyrics to see what I can pick out, then with the lyrics, then I’ll translate the lyrics (always try to translate them yourself first, then double-check with online translations), listen again a few times with the lyrics in front of me and then I’ll try without the lyrics to see what I recognise and what I’m still missing. Here’s a spotify playlist if you’re stuck for songs!

2. If you use Duolingo - close your eyes or look away from the screen while the sentence is being read and try to understand what’s being said as best you can. Then look at the sentence and replay the audio while reading it. Again, this helps you to match the sounds to the words so you’ll understand better in future.

3. Take advantage of youtube teachers - Torill Høiby offers grammar explanations with text onscreen and Norskkurset by Anne-Beate Stenstøen can be viewed with subtitles. Norsklærer Karense speaks very slowly and clearly, and she often uses written aids. Again, these will help with matching the sounds of the words to their written equivalent.

4. Have the radio, podcasts or audiobooks on in the background while you’re studying or doing housework. This will help you get used to the natural rhythm of the language, even if you don’t pay a lot of attention and can’t understand much. Radio can be found on the NRK website or the app and audiobooks can be found on youtube (just type the Norwegian title + lydbok into the search bar).

5. Watch Norwegian TV shows on NRK with subtitles. Again, you may not understand everything, but you’ll expose yourself to different dialects and you’ll start to pick out more common words (if an unfamiliar word or a phrase that doesn’t quite make sense keeps popping up, look it up then go back and rewatch things again and see if it helps give context to other words).

I also made a post of Norwegian Listening That Doesn’t Feel Impossible - check it out!

@kjaerekrake made a masterpost of Norwegian youtube which you should check out too :)

For your other skills:

A decent textbook is a good investment if you’re looking to improve your level. The Mystery Of Nils is great, and I really like Norwegian Tutor as well (Mystery Of Nils has audio files available online as well as awesome grammar explanations and short vocab lists too; Norwegian Tutor is more grammar-based and comes with a lot of exercises to help push you to the next level. Plus you’ll learn lots of new and more difficult vocab, which is important when you’re looking to reach intermediate level).

Reading articles about things you’re interested in is a good idea too. NRK and Aftenposten are good news sites - try browsing articles related to your interests (I love cooking, so I spent an obscene amount of time reading recipes). Wikipedia’s a good shout too - maybe look up your favourite sport or your favourite animal or a subject you know a lot about.

Write a journal - you don’t have to share it with anyone, but I’ve found keeping a journal reinforces vocab I’ve learnt and has improved my confidence with using the language. You can also look back and spot your own mistakes as you get more advanced, which is kinda cringey because omg did I really write that but also awesome because you realise you’ve improved.

I hope that helps! Learning a language is really difficult, and Norwegian listening in particular is very tricky because of all the different dialects and the fact Norwegians tend not to pronounce half the letters in any given word (I’ve had nowhere near as much trouble with Spanish listening!) But you will pick it up - even if it takes you a bit longer than some people, you’re more than capable. Just don’t give up