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rigelmejo · 2 years

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我说话很少，我可以小更加继续交流跟其他人如果他不知道英文。哈哈

但是我可以继续交流。很慢，很慢，多的问题从他和还从我。

I had a conversation today! It went slowly as I am bad at recognizing words I hear and they did not know any English except for a few words, so we both were often asking "x是什么意思” and 再说 and 你懂不懂，你明白了吗 ToT but we figured it out and talked for an hour!

I do feel I ought to listen to more podcasts and livestreams just more of regular conversations because topic is so much more random in them with so much less context and I'm just not as good at figuring out what the words are. I think part of that would come with more practice. Also I need to learn how to say "give me a moment" or "let me say that again" or "nevermind" not quite filler words but the words that mean forget what I said lol let me rephrase. I only know 没关系 for when I need to say nevermind I know i was incomprehensible djdjjd

I've also run into specifically accents from dongbei twice in two days and maybe I should get more familiar with it. I got confused for a whole minute because someone said 书吧 and I heard Shubar and had no idea what "bar" was. I also heard some shi that sounded like si and I'm used to that so that wasn't as hard to get, but the r at the end of a few things was not the kind of r endings I'm more used to so I kept getting quite confused over words I should have recognized.

I am happy to say my grammar was bad yes, so I did get some corrections (thankfully wooh), but it was Also good enough I was understandable. My grammar was bad but did not impede understanding, and they were able to say "you meant X right?" So I could say yes or rephrase to what I meant. My grammar could be so much worse considering I only did passive grammar study so ;-; I take it as a small personal success my chatting is comprehensible and not total confusing babbling.

Also a small personal success to me, I got a few pronunciation corrections (good cause I need them pointed out) mostly on saying the tone firmer on some words (xiao!). But my tones like the grammar did not prevent understanding. And just being understandable when i say something is a small personal success ;-;. (Also a personal note, I absolutely raised tone instinctively a Lot at the end of sentences, I do think this is that English accent of raise ur voice at the end of a question/when ur not sure, and I did it so much I know I'm absolutely fucking up that way and need to try controlling it better. It didn't impede understanding but it was a very frequent error and could be fixed by me just going 是不是 or asking some small confirmation words at the end of sentences I'm unsure of, its an error i can actually notice and can fix on my own.)

I feel if I did find a tutor, finding one that could teach by first sort of explaining a topic like "country has many places, places have local languages, local languages are called x" then having a few conversations using those many new words, would be a structure that would work well for me. If I have a more basic conversation starter so I know what the subject is then I do much better at figuring out what words I'm hearing and figuring out new ones. But when we just jump into randomly talking about say Travel after something very unrelated I sit going what is 旅行 even though I know the word, or jump to translations and hear 翻译 and don't realize it's a word I know cause I didn't realize we were talking about translations now. Mm so that sort of intro then in depth structure with a tutor I think might suit me well (future me keep that in mind).

Small bit on listening. My listening still isn't ideal (that will take timeee) but it was easier than a podcast obviously since I could ask about the convo. Hearing words wasnt hard I'm actually fairly okay at hearing words and repeating back to ask what X parts meant. So that part of my listening is MUCH better than last year. I struggled a bit to hear fast speaking but I think a decent portion of difficulty was just not knowing topic so not sure what word I was hearing (like again hearing shubar and not realizing it was 书吧), and trying to decide if a word I didn't understand is one I Should know (like 书吧翻译旅行) or actually a new word I don't know and need to ask the meaning of. Listening is still sure rough but eons better than this time last year.

#rant #progress #i need. to practice speaking more ;-;#also to no surprise lv noise i struggle with #lvxing and lvyou are the two words i fucked up saying multiple times #xiao i fucked up the tone Major but its because i kept being like xiao-do-you-understand so i kept fuxking raising #my voice like second tone. mistakeee #anyway yeah. i need more speaking practice ;-;#it was fun tho! my first convo with someone who knew truly very little english #so it had to be entirely in chinese.#we did not even know the other language wors for sentence or word. rip #so when they didnt understand me i had to just rephrase the whole bit #and when i didnt understand i had to come up with alternatives to 'word' djdjjd #truly though im ;-; so happy it went okay. my listening skills ARE much better the fact i managed a convo for an hour #is much better than last year #and fun fact. liu yuning im not sure if hes from donghei #dongbei. but he does some of the same pronunciation stuff #so i got tripped up by the same sounds for 2 days now

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froschli96 · 2 months

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You know what, fuck it, I have to speak my truth! (this is gonna be a rant, so anyone who actually likes assassin's creed revelations and/or the secret crusade, be warned or maybe don't read this at all)

remember how altaïr talks to king richard at the end of ac1, and richard is like "[humans] come into the world kicking and screaming, violent and unstable. it is what we are. we cannot help ourselves."? and how altaïr answers "no. we are what we choose to be." and how that ACTUALLY has meaning bc he himself was "violent and unstable" at the beginning of the game but he has learned and is now CHOOSING to be a better person who cares about others and humanity at large? remember how his calmness and gentleness was something that he ACQUIRED over the course of the story?

and remember how in revelations they then suddenly had a PRE-AC1 altaïr say about the first of his targets "no man should pass from this world without knowing some kindness." and be all wise and calm and collected during a nice little chat with al mualim, who suddenly acts all fatherly? (like, this is suddenly supposed to be a positive relationship? what??)

also, during the confession the target says to altair: "you put too much faith in the hearts of men, altaïr. [...] humans are weak, base, and petty." and altaïr answers: "no. our creed is evidence to the contrary." KJASJFJDKL???? like, it’s almost insulting how close this exchange is to the one with richard. you know, the one that was actually earned after a whole game of character development. like WTF??? cool congrats now that development means nothing. like, apparently that was just altaïr reverting BACK to being the exemplary assassin who understands and believes in the creed that he was apparently just born as. (i also hate how having a young inexperienced altaïr saying this implies that altaïr's faith in humanity is a sign of naivete instead of a sign of the wisdom he has gained after being confronted with counter arguments for a whole game, and also something that distinguishes the assassins from the templars who use humanity's supposed wickedness to justify controlling them like in AC1, but whatever)

altaïr’s development in AC1 mattered BECAUSE he is not NATURALLY a good person, it actually said something about humanity's capacity for both bad AND good and how humans don't have to be forced to be good through mind control bc they can by their own free will choose to be better when taught how and when allowed the freedom to grow. but no. apparently altaïr has just always been calm, wise and gentle. and he just sort of forgot about that during AC1 bc…. ? bc of adha?? bc of abbas???

oh don’t get me started on the whole abbas thing. (it doesnt even make sense that abbas is so hung up about his father and "his family’s honor", like what about the whole point of al mualim not allowing parents to be close to their children bc it would make them weak? like, my dude, you’re not supposed to HAVE any family aside from the brotherhood)

they used the throwaway character that had like 5 lines and made him into altaïr’s main antagonist in revelations… like, abbas wasn’t supposed to be this ONE dude who had personal beef with altaïr, he was just supposed to show how while altaïr’s revered by many, a lot of his brothers also hate him, bc 1) altaïr is a shitty person at this point and 2) bc there’s no real feeling of community and family in this version of the brotherhood, but just a pervasive sense of competition and jealousy — these assassins don’t care about their goal of safeguarding humanity bc they’re too hung up on petty squabbles and divided by rivalries (you know, the things that made malik hate altaïr even before solomon’s temple and that he overcomes in the end which enables him to forgive and to reconcile with altaïr so they can work together and stop al mualim? (you ever just think about "we are one. as we share the glory of our victories, so too should we share the pain of our defeat. in this way we grow closer. we grow stronger." and cry? bc i do. all the time. malik, the man that you are))

and now abbas is altaïr’s childhood best friend turned lifelong enemy?? like, bowden bent over backwards to come up with an explanation for why altaïr is an arrogant ass at the beginning of AC1, when the explanation is right there: he was raised to kill without asking questions and was constantly praised for how good he is at murder, which resulted in him becoming arrogant and disregarding human life. like, it doesn’t have to be some shakespearean family feud type shit. and guess what, this "simple" explanation actually plays into the story’s themes, who’da thunk!

(like, abbas might not have been a "fleshed out" character in AC1, but he had a specific function and now that function is gone. mr bowden, mr mcdevitt, you know characters are allowed to simply exist to tell us something about their worlds and the systems they live in and sometimes that’s more important and also more interesting than having every single character have a detailed backstory to explain all their behaviors, right?)

with all of this revelations loses all nuance in regards to the levantine brotherhood and also the creed in general. like, altaïr being a master assassin at the beginning despite being a terrible person and not actually understanding the creed is a criticism of the brotherhood and the creed itself. like, it said something about the order that someone like altaïr was able to get that high in rank, simply bc he's good at killing, which also tells us what is considered important in the al mualim era assassin order. when you make altaïr’s arrogance the result of his personal conflicts instead of how we was raised by a brotherhood that only valued one's ability to kill, you lose that characterization of the assassin order itself!

and by suddenly making al mualim a semi good "father figure" you also downplay his manipulation of not only altaïr but all those under his care. (altaïr says something about al mualim being "as a father" to him exactly twice in the codex, but he doesn’t mean by that that he WAS a father to him, what he means is that he was the CLOSEST THING he had bc HE DID NOT HAVE PARENTS, not because his mother died in childbirth and his father was executed when he was young btw, BUT BECAUSE IT WASN’T ALLOWED, like his parents actually lived but weren’t allowed to be close to him, he says he came to view al mualim’s "weak and dishonest" love as enough and even better BECAUSE HE HAD NOTHING ELSE, BECAUSE AL MUALIM ISOLATED HIS ASSASSINS FROM THEIR FAMILIES. al mualim "loved" him bc he was good at killing people for him! hm, i wonder if this could be trying to say anything about cults and indoctrination and the inherent contradiction in fighting for peace and free will by taking children away from their parents and raising them to become killers?? like, altaïr wasn't ~the special orphan boy~ taken in by al mualim bc his father died a hero's death, it was "the way of the order" to have al mualim be the closest thing to a parental figure for everyone to ensure absolute loyalty! altaïr saying al mualim was like his father is not supposed to make you go "oh, he must have actually been a good guy for altaïr to consider him a father", it should make you go "oh that's kinda fucked up that he considers the dude who made him into a killing machine and who manipulated him a sort of father figure"!)

and then in revelations they suddenly portray that relationship as positive and healthy??? like, it would be one thing to give it some nuance by delving into the psychology behind al mualim’s "love" and maybe showing how al mualim did care about altair in a complicated, fraught sort of way (like, you know, there’s a lot of interesting things you could say about al mualim at several points addressing altaïr as "my child" in AC1 and how that parallels Garnier referring to the people he drugged and abused as his "children", and what that says about how the templars view the people who they say they want to save and in whose best interests they supposedly act (in any case, al mualim doesn’t use that phrase because he has any real parental feelings but rather to patronize and to invalidate any objections, like in a "mother knows best" way))

but they even fucking DARE to parallel that relationship with that of altaïr and darim in revelations, by having the reflection in the puddle of darim hugging altaïr showing altaïr hugging al mualim…. like their relationship wasn’t inherently abusive but just tragically cut short because al mualim was just "corrupted by the apple"… like WHAT???? so it’s not the very real problems like grooming, manipulation and indoctrination and the hierarchical structure of the brotherhood itself (all of which are antithetical to the assassin ideology), it was just the evil apple all along. great. that’s DEFINITELY a lot more interesting.

god im sorry i really dont want to spread negativity but this is driving me INSANE. like, somebody please tell me im not crazy bc i feel like somehow most of the fandom is in agreement that revelations and the secret crusade have better storytelling and characterization than ac1.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, can we talk about how, even IF we completely ignore AC1 and treat revelations altaïr as his own character…. the narrative still doesn’t really work?

basically, the whole point of his story in rev is that "he gave his whole life to the brotherhood", this obsession led to him not using his time with his family which has him ending up dying alone in a dark library and this in turn makes ezio reevaluate his life choices…. except. he doesn’t? neglect? his family? or whatever? like, his devotion to the assassins is sort of painted as this tragic flaw that leads to a lonely death bc it supposedly comes at the cost of his family, but… his wife has joined the assassins, (at least) one of his sons is in the brotherhood and even when he goes to protect the assassins against the mongols, he takes his family with him (except for the son who stays behind bc he has a family of his own and who, ironically, ends up dying bc of that)… like, you can’t describe altaïr as a good husband and father in the database and have his son tell him that "everything that is good in me began with you, father" when they say goodbye, and then want to make us believe that he put his family behind the brotherhood and that that is a character flaw that leads to his tragedy.

because you HAVE to have a character’s tragedy be the result of a character flaw. like. that is how tragedies work. otherwise it just becomes tragedy for the sake of tragedy which is… boring bc it has no purpose. and we know it is SUPPOSED to have purpose bc ezIO FUCKING QUITS BEING AN ASSASSIN AFTER WITNESSING IT!

it’s like they want to have their cake and eat it, too — they didn’t want to actually make altaïr a bad husband/father, but still wanted to make his life a tragedy where he loses his family which is why instead they outsource all responsibility to abbas who now has to be the reason for ALL the deaths.

like, they try to make at least maria’s death kind of sort of the result of altaïr’s rashness or whatever but like… these guys KILLED THEIR SON and TOLD HIM THAT ALTAÏR HAD ORDERED HIS DEATH. like, altaïr losing it in response to that is not rash, it’s fucking logical and justified! if anything the scene made me angry at maria for trying to stop him. like, GIRL, he was YOUR son too??? but god forbid we give female characters actual real emotions, she has to fill the role of "voice of reason who dies for altaïr’s man pain" i fucking guess.

like, it’s this weird mix where his tragedy is simultaneously painted as his own fault but also not really bc abbas is the one responsible for all the shit that happens. it just… it just doesn’t really go together.

the only way to make his story make sense narratively and to give it actual purpose is by looking at it in the context of ezio’s story, bc the things he sees in altaïr’s memories are supposed to be a revelation (ha!) to ezio specifically. and i guess that’s maybe the crux of it all — altaïr’s story in revelations was conceived of first and foremost to support ezio’s story and development. which is probably also why many people maybe don’t notice bc, having skipped ac1 and started with ac2, the majority of people mostly care only about ezio and only really appreciate altaïr’s story in as far as it serves to push ezio forward. (tho i’ve also seen a few people say that ezio is also written kind of weird in rev, but i’ve never really been an ezio girly myself so i can’t speak to the truth of that)

like, altaïr dying alone in the library doesn’t really have to make sense for his character, i guess, bc it’s only really supposed to be a cautionary tale for ezio.

so, i guess, for once, they actually had a MAN dying for another man’s character development, which is pretty woke actually. ubisoft, i take everything back jksdsfjhgdsahfhsdhfghfdsgjhsdgjh

#assassins creed #ac1 #altair ibn la'ahad #malik al-sayf #ezio auditore #asscreed #rant #long post #this is killing me #i even started rereading the secret crusade bc i thought maybe i remember it being worse than it is #but honestly its the opposite #even just the fact that in the secret crusade altair always says some last sentence after his targets' confessions #has me so irrationally angry aksjdfh #like over sibrands body he says something like 'may death be merciful' or something #like? did they want that to be like requiescat in pace or something???#like aside from the fact that altair WOULD NOT FUCKING SAY THESE THINGS #it also just destroys the tension built up by the target's last words #like... i do think it was very much on purpose that the target always had the last word in the confessions #sigh whatever its just a stupid video game from over 15 years ago who cares #(me. i care. unfortunately. i wish i didn't. send help please.)#also the fact that bowden just completely fucked up arabic naming conventions with the whole “umar/darim ibn la'ahad” thing #(which is kind of an achievement considering that wasn't too great in ac1 to begin with)#tho bc of that they kind of inadvertantly ended up implying that roshan is altairs ancestor which i actually kind of like lol #anyways sorry for this giant wall of text #this is probably (definitely) the longest post i've ever made lmsadjf #but i do think i've gotten most of it off my chest.... maybe #maybe ill add stuff if i come across something else that makes me angry lol #sorry i know i promised an essay and instead delivered a rant #i just dont think i have the capacity to actually structure my thoughts any better kajdsf

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