#ive actually listened to the audiobook a few times

[bananonbinary]

thinking about cinemasins again and its always so weird to me how....deeply, vitriolically angry people get about them. like idk i thought they were funny when i was like 15, and now i dont really anymore, but there's a LOT of unfunny youtube series. i dont understand why this one is treated like its caused IRREPERABLE DAMAGE TO THE MORAL FIBER OF THE INTERNET when its literally just like. some jokes you don't like. it hardly created the concept of "comedy series where we take something way too literally." thats like 80% of lets players.

[callme000]

I don't think audiobooks are bad or an inferior format - but they're not necessarily reading and they're not equivalent to oral storytelling! When people pass on stories orally, they are directly interacting with their audience, tailoring that retelling in that particular instance to that particular audience. Easiest example being campfire stories that are always about "nights like this" and "not too far from here". It's a false equivalence because audiobooks do not and cannot do that. (Ted Chiang has a very interesting story about oral storytelling called Truth of Fact, Truth of Feeling which is centered on the differences between oral and written tradition - fantastic read) The malleability of oral tradition is the most important part!

Audiobooks are wonderful for accessibility, for those who may have learning or physical disabilities that can make traditional print inaccessible - 100% in agreement. But audiobooks, especially in this day and age, are very often used as background noise when completing another task. Not saying it's impossible to be focused on an audiobook, but reading traditional print requires pretty significant active involvement and is hard to do while also dedicating some portion of your concentration elsewhere.

Imo you lose a lot with audiobooks: you can't make annotations, the reader/narrator's intonation and performance choices will color your perception of the book, it is difficult to jump between passages or sections or quickly browse through the book, you cannot really set your own pace without audio distortion - you also gain a lot: integration of music and background noise and multiple voices expand the world far beyond the page, it's great for accessibility, it can help incur a more visceral reaction (ex: Lolita's audiobook, which is excellent and I highly recommend it) in the listener.

But it is fundamentally different and I don't think it's entirely unfair to assume that people are often engaging with audiobooks in a less active way than they do with traditional print. Relinquishing your ability to "steer" the reading makes it a significantly different - and not necessarily equivalent - experience. To the point where, in my experience, it's often incomparable.

[tiktaaliker]

my thoughts on the stuff ive listened to during work; note that im not basing my reviews on how good the actual book is, its based on how my personal experience was to listen to the audiobook while working in the lab

Animorphs books 1-3: i read this series as a kid but only once, so i was familiar with the story enough to not get distracted but i had forgotten enough of the details to be kept engaged. Voice acting was fine, tolerable to listen to, character voices distinct enough to differentiate without being annoying (albiet with at least one exception). Biggest issue is length- since my shifts are 8 hours, i got through the first 3 books in a single shift, and the specific version i was listening to was split up into a handful of short parts each book so i kept having to switch to the next video, which was way too much of a momentum-stopper (and work interruption) to stick with this series specifically.

The Witcher books 1+2: eh. was fine enough. once again this was something i was familiar enough with to follow without having to worry too much about missing details, while also being somewhat entertaining. i think i liked it a lot better to read than to listen to. voice acting was fine. biggest issue was that i had finally gotten used to the narrator pronouncing dandelion as dan-DIL-leon for the first book but in the second book he switched to pronouncing it as DAN-dee-lion and i had to stop partway through because of it

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: i remember enjoying reading it a lot more than listening. Ill be the first to admit that im kind of picky about audiobook narration and this one just didnt hit right, but was overall a good experience. Voice acting was fine, and the actual story was very entertaining as expected. Perfectly acceptable.

Discworld books 1-2: extremely good listens. Voice acting was great, character voices were fun and fit the characters really well, only skirted the line of being annoying. fantastic story, but not too complicated or unfamiliar, so i could still follow and be entertained while still focusing on work. Will probably continue the series at some point, but giving myself a buffer period before i start up again to avoid series burnout

Malevolent parts 41-44 (catching up with the podcast lol): man. theres just something about listening to a guy getting gutted and filled with maggots while working in the lab of a hospital. like broooo you are going to get sepsis!!! Very good listen, as expected, just kinda funny trying to keep a straight face while talking to coworkers and simultaneously listening to arthur's no good very bad day

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell: probably the best one so far for what im using these for. The length meant i was able to spend like 4 whole shifts on the one audiobook. Footnotes were incorporated fantastically, narrator and voice acting was phenomenal, and its also pretty much my favorite book of all time. Ive read this SEVERAL times, but because of how fucking huge this thing is theres a lot of details i forgot about or misremembered. Only issue is that it was split up into several audio tracks, so i had to switch to the next one a few times per shift. They were each around 2 hours long however, so it wasnt too inconvenient. Also at one point i fucked up and accidentally skipped like 8 whole hours without realizing until after an hour in where they referenced an event i KNEW i hadnt gotten to yet lol

Catch-22: man they really went all fucking OUT on the voice acting here. All characters are EXTREMELY distinct, so im very easily able to tell who's talking even without speaking tags. One of my pet peeves in audiobooks is when the narrator whisper-yells when a character is meant to be screaming. That does not happen here. Narrator fucking COMMITS. Yelling, sobbing, laughing, all of it. Fucking fantastic. Phenomenal as an audiobook, i think i mightve even enjoyed it even better than actually reading it.

Slaughterhouse-five: man. this one is ALSO an audiobook that is fucking PHENOMENAL. biggest problem is that i got WAYYY too into it. I really needed to just sit down and soak it in, which was not very condusive to a workplace environment. I now have a self-imposed limit where im not going to be listening to any more vonnegut books from now on because i KNOW itll have a similar affect

His majesty's dragon: this one couldve been good, but the recording i found was not. The guy reading it did a big spiel at the beginning of each chapter and kept adding unneeded commentary like it was a middle school read along. Im going to be getting a library card today so i can use libby, so i might come back to this once i get access to an actual official audiobook lol

murder on the orient express: nope. barely lasted three minutes into this one

percy jackson and the lightning thief: see this is an example of something ive actually read too many times as a kid so i know the book too well for an audiobook to be entertaining. Dropped it after less than a chapter.

the kane chronicles: had potential, i remember liking the story a lot as a kid but i hadnt read it nearly as much as the pjo series, and i think it wouldve been at least vaguely entertaining. However, half the book has one of the narrator sdoing a really bad british accent for his sister's voicelines and i just couldnt do it. i didnt have the strength. Dropped after maybe 4 chapters.

Camp Damascus: the only audiobook of the lot that i actually bought, and the first one i got through that i hadnt read the physical book before. Interesting story, ok voice acting. Solid choice to listen to. Not quite what i was expecting, but pretty good story! Had some EXTREMELY gnarly descriptions of body horror thrown in at like. two points of the story maybe. Didnt really affect me personally but kinda threw me off in a 'this feels like a different story entirely' sort of way. Dont have much else to say here since these reviews are more talking about my experience with these as audiobooks specifically, and i havent read the book itself to be able to compare this one.

[lunatic-fandom-space]

Hey! I've been obsessed with Elisabeth: das Musical for a good while and one of the things I really like about it is the way it comments on Sissi-media. However, Im saying that as someone who really only knows about that media through cultural osmosis and hasnt really seen any of it. And since I'm gonna have a bunch of free time the next few weeks, I thought it would be interesting to watch all* the media about Elisabeth I can get my hands on and review it and just talk about my thoughts on it. I'm also gonna watch all* the Rudolf media I can find as part of this little project because, I might as well

*by 'all media' I mostly mean stuff like movies, series and stageplays, obviously I know there's books but I'm not really in a place where I can focus on reading a bunch of stuff, but I know that the trilogy is based on books, and if I can find free audiobooks online I'll listen to those

I also want to give a quick disclaimer that I'm not a history person, I know very little about all this, so I'm not gonna get too much into the historical accuracy of any of these pieces. I mean, maybe this whole thing will get me to do research into the actual history, I actually have been wanting to do that more since Ive started engaging with the Elisabeth das Musical fandom and seen all these people talk about how much reasearch they do for fanfics and stuff, and its making me feel a little left out ngl, but I struggle with actually doing that for reasons I dont really want to get into. Long story short, if I dont approach historical topics very carefully Im gonna end up with horrible intrusive thoughts that last for days, and I'd like to avoid that but I need to figure out how to do that first.

Anyway, that's pretty much it for now. I'll put everything I want to watch in order under the readmore. I'm pretty sure I got everything (that i can access atleast), but if you feel like Im missing anything please tell me, I want to be thorough and I would really appreciate it ^^

• Kaiserin Elisabeth von Österreich (1921)

• Elisabeth von Österreich (1931)

• The King Steps Out (1936)

• Mayerling (1936) (with english subtitles)

• L'Aigle à deux Têtes (1948) (with english subtitles)

• Le Secret de Mayerling (1949) (with german subtitles)

• Ludwig II. — Glanz und Ende eines Königs (1955)

• Sissi (1955)

• Kronprinz Rudolfs letzte Liebe (1956)

• Sissi, die junge Kaiserin (1956)

• Mayerling (1957)

• Sissi — Schicksalsjahre einer Kaiserin (1957)

• Mayerling (1968)

• Elisabeth Kaiserin von Österreich (1972)

• Ludwig (1973) (with german subtitles)

• Viza Privati, Pubbliche Virtú (1976) (with german subtitles)

• Der Kronprinz (1989)

• Sisi und der Kaiserkuß (1991)

• Elisabeth: das Musical (1992 Austrian proshot)

• Elisabeth: Ai to shi no Rondo (1996 Snow Troupe Proshot) (with english subs)

• Elisabeth: das Musical (2004 Hungarian proshot) (with english subs)

• Kronprinz Rudolfs letzte Liebe (longer original version split into two parts: Kronprinz Rudolf — der Rebell (Part 1) und Kronprinz Rudolf — Mayerling (Part 2), same as 'Kronprinz Rudolf — Sissi's einziger Sohn) (2006)

• Lissi und der wilde Kaiser (2007)

• Sisi (2009)

• Rudolf: Affaire Mayerling (2009)

• Sisi... und ich erzähle euch die Wahrheit (2012)

• Sisi (2021)

• The Empress (2021)

• Sisi & Ich (2023)

Media I am aware of but could not access:

• Leibfiaker Bratfisch/Day Geheimnis von Mayerling/Die Tragödie eines Prinzen (1919/1924-1925)

• Tragödie im Hause Habsburg/Der Prinz der Legende (1924) (<- I was very surprised that I wasnt able to find these two anywhere since theyre old silent films and would think they would be archived somewhere, and I couldve sworn Ive seen gifs or screenshots of Tragödie im Hause Habsburg on tumblr, so idk, if anyone could point me to where I could watch these, I would really appreciate it)

• The Last Half Hour: The Mayerling Story (1951)

• Sissi — Beuteljahre einer Kaiserin (1989)

• all the various Mayerling-shows by the Takarazuka revue

[marabarl-and-marlbara]

hi mara! i'm not sure if you've already answered a question like this, but what are some of your favourite games? i've been trying to get back into playing games/reading visual novels, but i find everything unbelievably boring and can't get through even just 10 minutes of it. maybe you have any recommendations for games that you find tolerable? it can be any genre. i hope you're having a nice day!

hi anonymous; several times, but by-design [impersonal] you:re meant to answer the same few questions over and over, cause [impersonal] you can:t really expect every person to read every q&a;

most recently i:ve really just been playing brotato while listening to podcasts, and before that diablo 2, and before that diablo iv for a bit until i ran out of content i could do with my computers poor little specs (i couldn:t do nightmare lilith because i lagged too much and could only really do minion necro for any content)--i wrote about this in my hurricane blog for october but during the few days of having power again but not having internet i realized games i really just can:t enjoy except as 'active stimulation' to do while listening to other things--i:d really wanted to play Grandia 2 during that time but just the slow pace that needed me to focus was all needles to me; games are too boring on their own, and podcasts/audiobooks are too unstimulating to listen to on their own;

^ not the whole truth though because doldrums pass just as much as good times pass, but currently i:m in the doldrums and really just want to read books (started light by john harrison last night, don:t know how i feel about it; finished the red tree by caitlin kiernan yesterday morning and really loved it) and play brotato while listening to podcasts (i only do audiobooks for chores and exercising and while at work; doing carrion comfort by dan simmons atm and i am in love with it, makes me want more hours at work just to listen to the mind rape vampire story);

a bit earlier this year i actually had a lot of fun finally playing Bloodstained and clearing that, and similarly when i returned to Ragnarok Online and FFXI i had a lot of fun grinding in both of those; Pathologic is a favorite and i:ll always have a soft-spot for the music, but i don:t think i would enjoy it today even though i:d been a huge Ice-Pick Lodge fan since way-back (never finished The Void though or bothered with their vehicle island game);

shmups can be a lot of fun sometimes, if i:m in the mood; super XYX i really enjoyed and is easy to get into / doesn:t require a lot of brainpower so it:s great podcast material; Picayune Dreams also i really loved but ran out of content pretty quickly, but still rules; "The Void Rains Upon Her Heart" i sunk hours into and am mostly just waiting for it to get out of early access cause i don:t want to spoil myself too much on it; Angel At Dusk is neat;

i like traditional roguelikes a lot, too; not really traditional but Elin entered early access 1~2 days ago, it:s by the Elona dev and i really loved elona; TOME4 is fantastic, and Zorbus is really enjoyable;

VNs i don:t really have any interest in atm because i just like reading books more lately; the last few i really enjoyed: Archangel:Nemesis, Soundless, 2236 AD;

brotato is the best, though; take care

[pallases]

31, 32 and 47 for the bookworm asks! <3

31. Do you mostly read through e-reader; reading app on phone; on your laptop; a physical copy; or by audiobook?

physical copy!! i’ve read ebooks before (both on phone and on kindle) and have listened to a couple audiobooks but i prefer physical. although ive never read a book all the way thru Just via audiobook, usually if im reading an audiobook i have a physical copy to follow along with and it’s a book for school so the audiobook forces me to stay on track lmao

as for ebooks ive always liked them less than physical copies but now there is added matter that im not sure i trust myself not to instinctively approach them w the same mindset as i often do fics where i just want smth to keep my mind occupied and entertained rather than smth to dedicate actual thought and analysis toward. this is also part of why i haven’t started tsc yet 😭 wish there were a physical copy so bad

32. Name your favorite author(s).

been a while since i read anything of hers but big fan of ve schwab 👍🏻 ive read three of her series and loved them all and i have high hopes for addie larue whenever i get around to it. also mary oliver!! very basic answer on this website but idc there are few things better than going down to the river with a book of hers tucked under my arm and a handful of highlighters and pencils <3

47. What are the last three books you read?

last three books i Read are dracula, mythology: tales of gods and heroes, and les mis. last three books i Finished would have to be the last three books of pjo still 🙈 i wrapped up my reread of that series and then my courseload and extracurriculars descended upon me like a pack of rabid monkeys and i have unfortunately had 0 time and/or energy to really dive into any books since then until this past week. so.

— bookworm asks!

[dogstarblues]

accomplishments 3/8/24

walked my dog

ran an errand to get my medicine (another black girl told my my hair is beautiful 😭 feeling highly blessed bc i was convinced it was a mess today)

ran an errand to give my dad a belated present

talked to my dad for 2 hours and didnt have a meltdown

ran to dunkin for a drink

ran to the grocery store to pick up a few things

read a book to cross off an item on owned TBR list challenge from The Server - hated it but i read it

sewed in lining partially for my friend's bag that i made

listened to an audiobook that just happens to be on the book bingo challenge sheet i made for myself

listened to Media Club Plus

made breakfast

made dinner

made the snack i posted earlier

filled out interview questions

this was the most ive been out on errands in almost 2 years. maybe 2 full years. the most ive driven my car in almost 2 years. possibly tbe most ive been on my feet. and i feel okay. i still dont want to hope im getting better. im scared this is just feeling okay for now. im scared ill go back to how i was. that i'll regress. im scared that this isnt progress at all that its a fluke. and thats the thing is: my CFS isnt going away. even if im going into remission something could trigger it years down the line and i could get sick again. i have to live my life constantly cautious from now on.

i wanted to do work today but seeing my dad took a lot out of me mentally. we talked about some heavy topics (my mental illness, my chronic illnesses, scratched the surface of my financial trauma that he partially inflicted on me) and like. idk. i dont think my dad knows how crazy i am. he had like an expression of fear??? almost??? when i told him (only slightly!!!) what mania is like and wbhat psychosis is like and that i still get delusions like that time this january i cut myself off from almost everyone for a week because i was convinced i was being shunned by everyone. or that time several years back i was up til 4am tearing apart the apartment and ranting trying to find the source of a smell that didnt exist in the space (burning cinnamon). like im delulu. ive made my peace with it and look at my irrationality with a fondness now. but im delulu. and always will be.

anyway i dont think he ever bothered trying to understand what bipolar disorder and chronic illness was until now, when he retired. idk something changed after his first year of retirement, its like he actually listens to me talk aboht my experiences instead of like reminding me over snd over that my birth parents gave me up and didnt want me and constantly bringing up my childhood instead of talking about my life now. hes less exhausting now is what im saying. still get flashbacks from seeing him tho.

tldr: i djd a lot. idk how to feel abt it. im scared to hope. today was mentally draining.

[prophecyofgray]

i reeeally want the tuc audiobooks in CD form (ive never listened to the audiobooks and i NEED to change that, and i rly like having physical copies of the books) but idk when i would actually listen to it... time to dig out my old icarly radio from when i was a kid. in fact now that i think about it, listening to tuc on an icarly radio is such a vibe so i will be doing this. i will also finally (hopefully) be getting my license this summer so i can listen while driving >:)

on that note, i've already found a few, but if anyone knows of ppl selling used tuc CDs pls send them my way! the cheaper the better (im a broke college student lol) but worst case scenario im committed to buying a new set of tuc editions every summer, so i'll be willing to splurge more then

[unlimitedhorsepower]

Tagged by: @thevoiceofthanatos​

Favorite color: warm bright yellow, mustard yellow & old gold, and just yellow in general. its a good colour. it makes me happy

Currently reading: idk, probably star trek fanfic my friend @rubbertplant​ was writing to give my opinion on it. i often read through my own stuff too lol, like whoah i wrote that??? ADHD has taken everything from me including my capability to read though, for real. ive been thinking of trying to listen to some audiobooks recently though, this cannot continue... its just that i also have no ears disease so idk how well that would go. determined to try though

Last song you listened to: havent been listening to music so much bc ive been playing videos instead but my last.fm has all my spotify listens so itll stay up to date on whatever i listened to last. currently seems to be “please play-bite” by pinocchioP. i often just let spotify play me whatever it recommends anyhow so theres variance. and i only started this account like a few months ago max so its not really a full picture of my music-listening

Last movie (in theaters): its not really a movie, but if it counts, the first ginga nagareboshi gin stageplay (recorded and released in finland in theaters with subs)

ginga was always huge in finland for some reason. idk. the anime is so violent though that i got really afraid of bears for some reason. theres so much blood... i never read the manga either i just knew of the anime and partook in my share of wolf roleplays (dogs were uncool! so i didnt do dog roleplays. iirc that really was my reason).

heres some funny wolves from my wolf rp days

2010. one of the first things i coloured digitally... i painstakingly cleaned the scanned pencil lineart with a mouse

2011. i had gotten my first drawing tablet as a birthday/xmas gift and practiced a ton around this time (more than just wolves lol)

Last series I watched: trigun stampede. even changed my phone bg into vash... but millions knives is probably my favourite. he just does everything wrong and makes his life worse. and everyone elses life too bc he sucks. but hes multifaceted so hes also my meow meow and whatever. i hope a ford explorer drives over him

if it counts though, ive seen some star trek TOS episodes and movies because my friends have been watching them. im not super into it but its always fun to hang. i also dont watch a lot of stuff. i dont even know what i do. guy who doesnt read or watch things but listens to jerma videos on youtube without actually looking at them while i “draw” and “write”

Craving: food honestly. i should cook something lmfao. i also want soda so bad but i dont have any. id make some tea but its disgustingly warm in my house so i only want cool drinks. could kill for a nice milkshake or a smoothie rn i think

Tea or coffee: tea... im the only finnish person who doesnt drink coffee for real. also got really into loose leaf tea bc i befriended a chinese lady who is really into tea and has a tea shop in the city near where i live

Currently working on: drawing this and trying to think how i want to do it. somehow want to incorporate flat colours and maybe shade his body naturally, and make the blood look realistic instead of flat colours... hmm not sure yet what i want to do

other than that im trying to proofread the chapter of my ryanyuri fanfic i already published because theres a lot of typos and strange sentences in there but its been a chore bc my body breaks down when it gets too warm smfh... not looking forward to when my apt goes over 30 degrees celsius it is unlivable. im also trying to complete a “lookbook” of my tnb sims. but i always start huge projects that take three million years to complete and im really slow lmfao

Tag people you’d like to get to know better: i could just ask these questions from everyone i talk on discord with. fuck my friends i know irl or otherwise, only asking people who r my friends through tumblr. no need to do this though. also this isnt probably meant to be answered so long-windedly... thats just me. i cant answer with one word i gotta write an essay. heres three tags though @basslinegrave​ @vita-divata​

(record scratch before 3rd tag) and @rubbertplant​ bc they were streaming a game in discord when i started typing this and i was like hey wanna do it and they were like yeah

i expect replies on my desk by 5pm TOMORROW!!!!get to work!!!! no i jest, do it or dont, i dont mind either way, just if you feel like doing this. if you see this and want to do it feel free to consider yourself tagged. godspeed

[iantimony]

tuezdai

i was thinking about crossposting this to dreamwidth and THEN i remembered that ive been looking for an excuse to make. a neocities website. so. :3 i am going to make a neocities page for weekly roundup hehe

relatedly look at this bizarre captcha i got when i went to make an account. like. any of these fools could be robots.

listening: not a lot of music this week but ive been listening to rangedtouch's just king things podcast! i'm listening in order from the beginning and im at about halfway through ep 8 (the dead zone). i really enjoyed their homestuck reread podcast so when that finished i was like. well. i want to listen to these clowns (appreciative) hang out more. time to peruse their back catalog. and ive been enjoying it so far! i wouldn't call myself a huge king-head, i've read carrie, salem's lot, the shining...pet sematary? cujo? a few other misc king stories. there's a short story about a cat that crawls its way down someone's throat i think was stephen king and that one lives in my head rent-free. so definitely a lot of books ive never even heard of in here, and i definitely haven't read the Big King books (the stand and dark tower, mainly) but it doesn't matter too much for podcasting :)

sidebar, i told my roommate about the podcast and she misunderstood the premise and thought it was like. audiobook style. like they were reading the books out loud. i was like babe the stand episode is less than 4 hours long. do you think it's on like 10x speed. lololol

music-wise, @delta-orionis has some DELICIOUS synthwave playlists that ive been working out and studying to. it's like 40 hours long. go nuts

reading: i went to the library with the intention of wandering the nonfiction section until i found something that looked fun but they're remodeling soon so a ton of the stacks aren't open for wandering rn...i can reserve stuff and pick it up but they're not accessible to the public :( the fiction section is though so i grabbed "the birthday of the world", a short story collection by ursula le guin! i thought short stories would be nice because of my lack of time to properly get engaged in a Book and i was right, it rules. i read the first three or so last weekend when i took myself to brunch at a new tea place on main street (3/5 for the brunch, the restaurant is brand new so there are definitely some things that went wrong - food took forever to come out, i was frequently forgotten, after i was seated i waited for like 10 minutes to be noticed by waitstaff, when i finally got my food the rice was crunchy, etc. i would go back to eat there but not any time soon, maybe in a few months after theyve been open for a while. the tea RULED though. their gimmick is like...travel? airplane? so all the staff introduce themselves as flight attendants, and their rewards card is formatted like a passport book where once you get a row of stamps for a certain continent you get a free tea, and once you fill out the whole book you get another free tea........it's so cute.......) actually now im not sure if it's the location the tea came from or the Type of tea? because that top column goes from japan to england which is not exactly a Region. eurasia????? idfk. still cute

anyways. the short stories. i read the first three ("Coming of Age in Karhide", "The Matter of Seggri", and "Unchosen Love") and really enjoyed them! i never finished Left Hand of Darkness (i will return to her one day i promise) but it definitely wasn't required reading even though the first story was set on that same planet. the next story is "Mountain Ways" which is actually available online for those interested :)

watching: more evangelion, and my roommate put on "cunk on earth" for me and it rules it's so funny. obsessed with her.

making: embroidery progress! about halfway done filling in the headphone cord.

as a self reminder, the task list for finishing this is:

fill in headphone cord

words along the side

fill stitch for hair

color in eyes

add misc hair flyaways

misc: quantum midterm thursday......it's open note so im not as frantic as last semester's exams but still. ah. ahhhh. :(

[civettea]

I think the last time I did one of these was probably like 5 years ago on deviantart sjhfgdjh. I got tagged by @meitantei-lavi

1. three ships: Oh man I get to embarrass myself immediately. Al-an/Robin has been floating in my brain for like a year and a half now so them ofc. Fusehound!! Because them!! And since I've gotten back into undertale recently I've been thinking about Soriel again sfhgjghjfh

2. first ship: FUNNY ENOUGH I think it was also pokemon, I used to watch whatever episodes were available online at the time when I was like 7 so I think rocketshipping was my first.

3. currently listening: Well right now Undercover Martyn by Two Door Cinema Club but I've listened to Rolling Girl a ridiculous amount in the past few days because the bass is pretty simple but REALLY fun to do >:O

4. last movie: Puss in boots the last wish oh god that movie is SO GOOD. The animation is phenomenal, the voice acting is amazing, and the story itself is very well done.

5. currently reading: So I'm ashamed to admit I haven't actually sat down and read an actual book in probably a solid year. All I've really read in the past year is stuff for class and a lot of different fanfics for a bunch of different things, including listening to the audiobook fr Blue Sky for the hundredth time. Actually!!! I think @meitantei-lavi's TLOW would actually count as a novel in this case so I think that's the only original novel Ive read recently sjghfgfd

6. currently watching: Most of the shows I watch now are things I manage to binge in a couple of days, so Sonic Prime and The Owl House are the most recent that Ive gone through on my own, though I've been watching so much sailor moon with @meitantei-lavi, plus chainsaw man

7. currently consuming: An everything bagel with wayy too much cream cheese and iced coffee.

8. currently craving: I have been thinking about fried pickles for months now and I still haven't gone and gotten any >:I

People I'd like to get to know better: How do people even have 9 friends on here?? Most of the people I follow are artists lmao, so I'll just tag @a-little-bisexual-moron & @ashflamethewaffleangel (I could've sworn I was following you) + anyone else who feels like doing this

[swampgallows]

enrichment, enclosure, etc.

i am enjoying the new wow xpac but also i really want to go outside and do things again :/ 

cant walk xena because of her leg and even though ive been getting up at relatively normal times the sun goes down at 4pm and all of that so i havent even been going on walks around the neighborhood

i do not leave the house for weeks at a time. 

im tired of eating, and ive been getting nauseous and dizzy a lot lately so ive only been eating maybe once or twice a day. im pretty sure it’s because i’m getting zero physical activity, except for the ringfit i do every other day, which i had to drastically reduce the difficulty of compared to the start of the year and it’s still kicking my ass because ive been so insanely sedentary. still heavier than i used to be, and i dare not weigh myself now. it will only make the situation even harder to deal with.

i recently got a ton of records but i have zero desire to play them let alone stream. really bummed about how the transitions in my headphones are not actually what’s going through the master, so most of my recordings are complete trainwrecks. i didnt realize this because i didnt have monitors until recently (getting to use them is a whole other issue). also annoyed that nobody told me, so all this time ive been like “i’ll dj! i’ll stream!” thinking ive been improving, and it turns out it’s been sloppy ka-chunk ka-chunk shit the entire time.

i havent been listening to music at all of any kind. it just bums me out. i cant remember the last time i danced. ive just been listening to podcasts and audiobooks or voice chat, save for the first week of dragonflight where i immersed myself in the game audio and nothing else.

between dragonflight and watching the extended lotrs over the last few weeks ive been aching for adventure and the life i used to live. not just road trips and raves and all of that, but the magic of strangers and the miles-long journeys on foot. 

im tired of writing this. but my therapist retired. i was assigned a new one, who is dogshit, and i will be meeting with her on wednesday specifically to have her refer me to a new therapist. i will be hard pressed to get someone as professional as my previous one, as part of the reason she retired when she did is because she knew the upcoming changes were not conducive to any actual treatment or improvement for mental health.

people love to dish out platitudes like “you’re not alone” and “you can get help” and “talk to your doctor”. feeding me wax fruit when im fucking starving. they say that shit because theyve never bit into this. they have no idea that it might look good on the outside, but the inside, it’s all hollow

[rigelmejo]

Some updates 9/4/2024:

I am through 2723 sentences in glossika japanese, which is still A1 (in the app). In reality I think the A1-B2 categories glossika is using must not match the actual kind of level's vocab or grammar. I predict A2 will go to arond the 5000 sentences mark, and the last 1000-2000 sentences in the glossika japanese collection will be randomly categorized B level. Supposedly glossika japanese teaches 5000 unique words, I hope that's true by the end. So far the A1 sentences Ive gone through (2700s lol) have a lot of words just used multiple ways or in multiple conjugations, and if iku counts as like 10+ words just for each conjugation... that could mean significantly less unique words are actually taught. If glossika japanese doesnt at least teach over 3000 unique words (and all verbs etc counted as 1 word each even if various forms are in sentences), then its gonna be beyond a disappointment. Its fairly doable to find free japanese learning resources that teach around 2000-3000 words. The reason Im slogging through glossika is because it gives the promise of potentially MORE WORDS TO LEARN than the free stuff i could find. Like... japaneseaudiolessons.com, a free site with great lessons, teaches at least 2000 words (i calculated it once ;-; if needed ill go figure it out again) if the grammar notes are included. So if glossika turns out barely more than that, ill be pretty fucking beyond annoyed.

In other news, japanese progress? Ahahahhaa

Well really. I've mostly just been focusing on writing stuff lately, so I haven't studied much. But I've noticed some things in passing I find kind of fun?

I can now translate (roughly) 70% of the lyrics of the Yakuza games karaoke songs in passing as a friend plays them. I can also translate (roughly) about 50% of what people are saying in-game. I assume this means if I tried to play Ishin in japanese again, this time I might feel less drained than the first time I tried. (The first time I tried, I understood enough to play the game and roughly guess what was going on, but it took a ton of focus and I felt burned out quick).

Chinese progress? Im in a weird holding pattern where I just dont have time in my schedule to dedicate enough to it to make good progress for a while. I definitely refreshed my memory over the summer, and I can listen to audiobooks now! Which is a huge personal goal I had. But the comprehension of audiobook plots goes between "can follow almost all details" to "roughly can guess where the scene is and actions taken and understood some key dialogue details". Even if I relisten to the same chapter of an audiobook just on different weeks. My comprehension of audio details varies WILDLY right now. Im not sure if its because my vocab recognition is just rusty until used, then rusty again quickly after a break (aka i recall meaning slower than the audio plays). Or if its because listening is just hard. Since i am comprehending something when i listen, ive just chosen to keep listening to audiobooks. I do think a good round of REVIEWING vocabulary (like relistening to chinese spoonfed anki audio files) would help. Or just listening to an audiobook for HOURS a day would probably help. But again, im focusing on writing lately so i just havent carved out dedicated time for chinese listening that id like to be doing eventually.

Reading chinese goes a bit differently. I am rusty with reading too, but it comes back within a few dozen minutes. My recognition of hanzi is sort of like "rusty when not recalled" but once im reading for a few minutes it goes back to an easy to flip to part of my brain and stuff i already know. When trying to read japanese in any context, my brain still jumps right to hanzi chinese pronunciations before i can recall any japanese words. When i see a chinese webpage or subtitles im lost for a little while, then things click and its about as easy as it was last time i was reading a lot. I seem to remember how to read chinese fairly well, and rustiness wears off and goes back to Quick Reading comprehension (which quick for me is still like 150 characters per minute but u get the idea) fairly quickly. Its even a little better than my french reading skill... which does degrade a little over time, and i compensate with cognates usually until ive read for a few hours and the french reading skill returns. Whereas my chinese reading skill seems to come back within an hour usually of trying to read.

[diorcities]

WAIT SORRY MY FINGER SLIPPED AND I THINK I TOTALLY OUTED MY ACC PLS DONT RESPOND TO THAT ONE LMAOOO

anyway i was the v.e schwab anon and i started addie larue about a week ago, i just came here to say that it’s absolutely killing me that exam study is stopping me from binging rn !!!! im a book binger to the core, like i will usually lock myself in my room for days and devour a book a day and it never feels enough, so the fact that i only have the time to read a few chapters a day rn feels criminal, esp considering how good this book is

i’ve only just gotten to part 2 and i’m already having too good of a time. i feel like i haven’t read such good prose in soooo long. i’m also audiobooking sometimes when im in the car or on the train and hearing her writing being read to me is actually one of the best things ive ever heard. will probably come back when i actually finish the book lol, my excitement just took over me

LMAO no you're good, you didn't dw.

i knoww 😩?!! it's so beautifully written i can cry. i read it in my native language and it makes me feel so good that it doesn't lose the prose and essence when it's translated 🥹 the only book ever written! oh i will definitely try and listen to the audiobook. i actually started rereading it for you haha, can't wait to hear your favorite character. good luck w your exams ♡♡

[straighttohellbuddy]

are you open to your work being podficced? also 🌻🤍

I'd deadass cry with joy if my work was podficced!! Not only am I open to it, I highly encourage it!! I consider it the highest fucking compliment omg. Like I've never listened to an actual audiobook, but MULTIPLE of my favourite fanfics, I've never actually read, I've just listened to the podfic on repeat.

If you or anyone else would like to podfic my work, PLEASE do so ❤️❤️❤️

Also I meant to answer this so much sooner but Ive been doing A LOT of work over this past few days!! But I seriously love these questions and I love you!!

🌻what makes you want to give up on writing? what makes you keep going?

I'd never consciously give up on writing, nothing in the world would ever make me want to do that. It's such a fundamental part of my being. Even if I didn't publish anything I'd still be writing, it's who I am as a person. I may not always have the time to write, so if I "give up" it's only because I wasn't able to prioritise writing at that point in time, but there's absolutely nothing that could make me even consider giving up writing.

And part of that is the other side of the coin; there's two things that keep me writing, and one of them is that if I don't write, the ideas stay in my head for far longer than they have any right to. I have to create or else I'll get overloaded, I need to write so I can clear that brain space.

The other thing that keeps me going is the overwhelming kindness I've been so lucky to receive from the people who've read my stories. Seriously, the messages and comments I've received I will treasure for years to come. Writing is how I cope with the overwhelming amount of love I have for the media I consume, and I have been so lucky to have had that love returned back to me from the amazing people who read my work ❤️❤️❤️

🤍what's one fic of yours you think people didn't "get"?

This is a tricky one, because by the nature of X Reader fics I think they need to be pretty accessible in one way or another, and honestly I'm fortunate enough to be a reasonably competent writer, so if I set out with a certain intention, usually it comes through in my work.

Maybe is it too much to expect? that i would name the stars for you borders on being too meta for its own good, it could do with an edit probably 😅😅 so it's not that people don't "get" it, but I think different people will get different things out of it, specifically I think that as much as it is a love letter to the readers, there's moments of acknowledgement of the, idk, inherent vulnerability of publishing this kind of writing online, as well as reassurance, for both readers but also especially fellow x reader writers, that the fact that enjoying x reader fics (reading and writing) as an inherently self indulgent practice is should be accepted and even celebrated. Also smthn about x reader fics being a healthier way to simp for/parasocially obsess over people so long as the actual person is treated with respect. There's a lot in that fic that's hard to describe. I love it so much.

[shoyoist]

ive heard amazing things about emma !! i think there was a movie adaptation with anya taylor joy as emma and i heard clueless was like a modern adaptation of it as well !! thatll def be the first one i read from the list <3 plus !! ive also heard wonders about the picture of dorian gray n now that it was the rekha™️ seal of approval ill go ahead and give it a read as well 🫡

i'd also love to hear about your top faves and how getting into classic lit might have changed/shaped the way you think? did it have a positive impact or sometimes a negative one? do u think it helped with your writing? how did you get into classic lit as well !! go full geek on me id love to hear you out :D 💕

HAHA the rekha™ seal of approval ‼️ YES YES emma had such a good movie adaptation. my favourite lines were delivered SO WELL i loved itt. & yes, clueless was based on emma as well! that's how you know it's a really fucking good story imo <3 and hmmm, i have such a hard time choosing faves out of anything i enjoy, whether it be songs or shows or books...

but really, the picture of dorian gray🏆. the fantasy elements and the villain protagonist and everything just SLAPS so hard i loved it from start to finish. the entire message of the book is revealed to you in the first few chapters, so you sort of spend the rest of the book wishing and begging the main character to get the message as well? that's how it felt to me. the entire time i was like PLEASE REALIZE!! YOU DONT HAVE TO DO THIS YOU ARE LOVED YOU ARE CHERISHED! JUST THE WAY YOU AREE 💔💔 lmao i was very heated and very absorbed the entire time. i've been listening to an audiobook ver. recently and it's great as well!

apart from that, i really like fyodor dostoevsky's novels. the brothers karamazov, and crime and punishment are my fav works of his! they have pretty dark themes in them though.

+ yes omg reading classics definitely helped my written and spoken english. i read my first classic (in eighth grade, with a dictionary beside me because i did not understand like 70% of the big words in it 😭 and ever since then my english has only improved with the help of my big books<3 and also my view on lots of things in life were gradually changed. we all know how beautiful the quotes in classic lit. are, and when you actually get to them by the process of reading the book, it hits much harder and you receive the meaning so clearly. i think amongst other things, reading made me a lot more romantic HAHA