#reblog & put in the tags your thoughts

[creativesplat]

I would also like to see some miphlink, if that's okay!

I was really struggling with what to draw, and then I remembered your ask from ages ago (dang ADHD brain...) anyway, sorry its such a late answer, but Miphlink inspired by Dicksee's La Belle Dame

[helenstudies]

These are my language learning timelines and how long I've studied to get to that level!

English: fluent C2 > about thirteen years. I started learning when I was 5 (in kindergarten). I got to this level by age 18, when I started working as a professional English - Burmese translator.

Korean: fluent TOPIK 6 level > eight years. I taught myself how to read hangeul at age 15 and achieved TOPIK level 6 in 23. It should be noted that I attended a language program in Korea for nine months to accelerate the process. I started from level 1 and ended in 4/5 in nine months.

Chinese: advanced HSK6 level > eleven years. I started learning chinese when I was 13 and now I'm 24. And no, my chinese ancestry didn't help because no one in my family speaks Chinese.

Japanese: Intermediate JLPT N3 level > nine years. Like Korean, I taught myself how to read hiragana and katakana at age 15 but I prioritized Chinese and Korean. It should be noted that I really struggled with Japanese and had to attend basic classes three times to get to an N5 level. And then twice more to get to N4.

I think this is important for all langblrs to realize! I am not "gifted" at all. I just started studying a bit earlier than y'all because I knew my life long interests are in language, literature and translation. I learned all these so that I could read books in their original language.

It should be noted that in Myanmar, I graduated high school at age 16/17. Since then, I've been attending a distance education university (before I dropped out in 2021 of course) and I've been working freelance or part time jobs. So this is an actual realistic timeline as an adult who also has a life outside of studying.

If you work full time, study full time or have responsibilities in your life that you have to prioritize, you might need to take a few years longer than me. You might even need to retake classes and fail a few tests. And it's okay.

I can't emphasize this enough so I will do this again and again: not being able to quickly learn language is not a failure on your part. Don't fall into ageist traps because you really do retain your brain functions well into your years. You can keep learning and keep improving as an adult. Look up neuroplasticity and stop listening to "polyglot" influencers.

Another thing I want to mention is in my last post, I wrote that language learning takes years and you'll just have to make these years bearable and I mean it. Just sitting down and studying for hours is annoying to me. So, I personally make it bearable by reading stories and translating songs or poems because that's what my brain likes. I like writing chinese characters but it's boring to just sit down and write them. So I write them while watching tv because I have adhd and I need to fidget anyway. My goal is to read books in their original languages so I read, read and read. You have to figure out why you want to learn these languages and see how you can make it bearable.

[moderator-monnie]

Challenge for artists for fun! (Create A Slammer Clone Oc!)

Create your own 'clone' copy for Slammer.

What Is A Slammer Clone/How to describe one?

1: It can take the form of any character. (Not limited to the Sonic Series.)

2: It can take the form of any insect that, (lays eggs and has a larva stage at some point.)

Rules:

1: They must have empty eye sockets on their face, however they can have an eye or eyes. Somewhere else on the body.

(You can decide the placement on the body.)

2: These Two Colors Must Be Used Somewhere In The Design.

3: Sonic, Shadow, Tails, Amy and Mario already have Slammer Clones/an insect assigned to them, so they can't be used.

4: have fun!

Slammer Sonic for reference art by lazy-charlie

[louthestarspeaker]

it's almost 1am here's my essay about Dal and captainhood <333

I hath promised a Dal essay and I hath delivered… 

I've had this in the drafts for so long, but I just rewatched season two and it really allowed me to solidify a lot of my thoughts.

One of things that really strikes me about Dal's character and his relationship to command is that being in charge is a place of safety for him. He's had to be self-reliant and self-sufficient pretty much his whole life until the Protostar. It's something that was engraved into him since he was small, that the only person Dal could really depend on was himself.

And because he was never around anyone who actually cared about him until the Protostar, that was the right thing to do. This need to be in charge, to be in control really, is a learned survival skill. "I can tell you from experience, people in authority lie."

But in season two, his circumstances have changed (for the better!), and that's not the right thing to do anymore. Ultimately, to me, Dal's season two character arc is about vulnerability and trust. He's been in survival mode for so, so long, and now we watch him learn to heal.

You start with this boy who's spent the grand majority of his life alone or with people who are exploiting him, and the story takes him by the hand and tells him "now that you're safe, now that you have people who care about you, you can't live like that anymore."

All throughout season one he learns trust. Trust in his crew, in Hologram Janeway, in the Federation and in Starfleet as institutions that can and will help him and his newfound family. But as a captain,when he was guiding his crew through active crisis after crisis, trust looked like open doors. It looked like laying out all the variables and problems on a table so they could figure a way out together. 

Trust looks very different on the Voyager-A. It asks him to have faith in what he's not seeing, what he's not being told. He has to believe that they have his best interests at heart, that he's not trusting his family to something that will try to hurt them. 

Captainhood isn't just bossing people around for Dal. It's the responsibility of holding the lives of the people he loves in his hands. He trusts his own hands. He has the best interest of his crew at heart. 

To ask Dal to relinquish control, is to ask him to place the lives of himself and his family into someone else's hands. Which, historically, has not gone great for them. It prods directly at his trauma, asks him to take undo and ignore the survival instincts that kept them alive for so long. Is it any wonder he has trouble with that?

Dal's not going around crawling through Jeffries Tubes because he's a brat or because he thinks he's entitled to know everything. He's a traumatized kid whose self-sufficiency, independence, and ability to make his own decisions were once, for a very long time, the literal line between life and death for him and his crew.

And even if he trusts Starfleet and Janeway in his head on a logical level (which I absolutely believe he does), there's still this instinct that's written into him. It's a process to learn how and when to turn that off, and that's what we see especially throughout the first half of season two. 

This really culminates in the cafeteria scene after they return with the Protostar and Chakotay, when Dal advocates for the Starfleet temporal management guys to figure out a way to get the Protostar back to Tars Lamora. Dal was able to see that his hands weren't the best ones for the job, and trust Gwyn's life to someone else. That's huge for him. He trusts not just a person, but a branch of an institution he's never interacted with before, with one of the people that mean the very most to him. And Dal's able to give up that control, to place himself and his crew in that position of potential vulnerability, because he's finally started to feel it in his bones that he's safe here.

[pineapplefulfillseveryneed]

Sparks tour 2023

[whimsicalentropy]

Call me nosy and old fashioned but people just aren't reblogging as much anymore or putting sufficient tags on their posts anymore for me to know what YOU'RE THINKING! I wanna know your REACTION, your VIBE, I wanna know what you're FEELING, I wanna know how the post you reblog attacks you and your household specifically, i wanna know your birthrights and your guts and your will

[adamsvanrhijn]

thinking exercise: if you took your blorbo to the aquarium, what would their favorite fish be

[kimtaegis]

I’m feeling quite sad about how much the active bts fandom on tumblr has shrunk and/ or how selective the community has become regarding content interaction. I’ve heard people pointing out a clique-building here lately, and while I’m well aware of closer mutual circles existing – and I can only speak on behalf of my friend group here – these pretty much develop naturally when there’s just no one else who reacts, reblogs from and talks to you anymore except for these handful of people. I don’t like that some people perceive these “cliques” as “exclusive”, for example to content creators only. that’s bullshit; it’s certainly not great to have only other cc’s support your work because they personally know how much time and effort it takes. also, knowing how lovely most of these people are, you’d get immediately followed back and showered with love too as soon as you’d even show a speckle of kindness on a regular basis, regardless of whether you make gifs yourself or not. ccs dedicating sets to each other isn’t a sign of exclusivity, but rather us holding onto and appreciating people who still give us at least some motivation to create and post in the first place anymore, because there’s quite literally no one else left by now.

[the-kipsabian]

for @naritaren :)

[hephaestuscrew]

Thoughts on the patterns of who speaks the episode title phrases in Wolf 359

This analysis is based on the data I gathered in this spreadsheet and summarised with graphs in this post. Basically I've been looking at which character first says the episode title phrase (i.e. the exact words which form the name of that particular episode) in every episode of Wolf 359. Go and look at the spreadsheet if you want more context.

I think we can view the episode title phrases as often expressing the key problem or question of that episode. (I might talk about this in relation to individual examples another time.) Through this lens, the consideration of who speaks the title phrase is about which character gets to frame the key issue of the episode for the listener. This doesn't necessarily mean we are meant to share that character's view of the issue, but it's why I think there is some potentially significant analysis to be done on this topic. (See below the cut...)

The proportion of title phrases said by Eiffel reduces with each season. 69.2% of the Season 1 title phrases are (first) spoken by Eiffel, compared to 46.6% in Season 2, 22.2% in Season 3, and 20% in Season 4.

This is perhaps unsurprising. Eiffel is very much the main perspective character and the primary narrative voice at the start of the series. And, as someone with unusual speech patterns, he is excellent at coining a good memorable title phrase. However, while I'd argue that he never stops being the main protagonist, over the course of the series, the narrative focus broadens away from a singular emphasis on Eiffel's perspective. This perspective shift is reflected in episode titles being spoken by a greater range of characters.

I think the decreasing proportion of Eiffel title phrases also reflects the podcast's shift towards a generally more dramatic rather than comedic tone. While Eiffel is capable of being serious at times, I'd argue that his mode of speech is particularly well suited to generating amusing unusual turns of phrase that work well within a more comedic context (e.g. Succulent Rat-Killing Tar, What's Up Doc?, Bach to the Future). As the stakes become higher and the tone becomes less humorous, characters other than Eiffel, who are more often inclined to take things very seriously, are more likely to speak the title phrases.

There's also just the fact that as we get more characters involved in the action on the Hephaestus, the opportunity to speak the title phrase is spread between more characters.

Although Eiffel is by far and away the most common speaker of title phrases in Season 1, in the first three episodes of the whole show, we get all the characters of that season represented in the title phrases. Minkowski speaks the title phrase in the second episode and Hera does in the third episode - but probably quoting a phrase from Hilbert. This gives us a good early indication that, while Eiffel may be the focal point particularly in this season, this is going to be an ensemble show and all of these characters are going to be significant.

Hilbert's only title phrase is in Ep12 Deep Breaths, in the first stage of his mutiny, arguably the only point in the show where he appears to clearly have the upper hand while acting alone.

After the SI-5 are introduced at the beginning of Season 3, we get five Kepler or Jacobi title phrases in a row, which solidifies the SI-5's presence in the show. It also highlights the fact that the SI-5 have taken over the Hephaestus and are now (at least ostensibly) the ones determining the aims of the Hephaestus mission.

In addition, these patterns might be seen to reflect the shift in the show towards a more conflict-focused tone (related but not identical to the movement away from comedy). While Wolf 359 has always been a show full of conflict, the balance of this conflict shifts with the arrival of the SI-5. For the first time, our protagonists are facing a unified team of antagonists. The potential for violence feels higher, as do the stakes. This might explain why, while we only had one antagonist-spoken title phrase across Seasons 1 and 2 (Hilbert in Ep12 - Lovelace doesn't get a title phrase while she's serving as an antagonist), 44.4% of our Season 3 title phrases are first spoken by antagonists.

The only title phrase spoken by Maxwell is spoken by her in a recording that we hear after her death. This isn't even the only posthumous title phrase spoken from the past in Season 4 - we've got one from Commander Zhang of the Tiamat as well. It's an interesting kind of legacy, an interesting way to emphasize the questions characters leave behind after death, recalling similar themes to those explored in Ep46 Boléro.

[x-adoringvoid-x]

Very necessary questions to ask your partner…

Hadri says that ‘He’s a nice blue color’ and that ‘He looks mischievous’.

[hunny-bunni-bear]

🌸🧸 Put in the reblogs/tags which version you play (Classic and/or Next) & tell me about your fav pets or your dailies routine when you play! 💖🌈

[jasonfunderberkerthefrogexists]

please help me settle an argument!!!

@jusaleetleguy this is all your fault

By genitals, I mean of any kind. Penis, vulva, both, a completely different form, etc.

By sex, I mean something they could use to help in copulation/reproduction. We know they reproduce through mitosis originally, but do they use certain rituals/movements to assist in this reproduction? DO they reproduce at all anymore? These are questions I will allow you to answer

Please vote and reblog! I genuinely would like an answer to this question!

And here’s the image that started this controversy, I’m unsure of its origin:

[tmae3114]

the example people always go for with 'taking things literally' is 'not understanding idioms and metaphors' or 'not understanding sarcasm' and that's frustrating for Me, Specifically, Personally because I am a person who has a lot of social struggles with Taking Things Literally but, crucially, not in that sense. I understand idioms & metaphors just fine and, as someone who's primary special interest is the written word & storytelling, actually am pretty good at them and thrive with them. I miss sarcasm occasionally but catch it most of the time and am often sarcastic myself.

No, my Taking Things Literally is that if you say something to me or give me an instruction, I will Understand It Literally. I will get what you said and not at all what you meant. There are exceptions to this in cases where I've learned the script and even use it myself (e.g. the other day I asked my mum "Is this Not Butter" about a thing, and she replied "Yes but it has buttermilk", because we both understood the real question was "is this the lactose-free spread?" because I was making food for my sister) but in the vast majority of cases, I just. will miss implications and unspoken assumptions. I will just completely miss them, they will not register, I Did Not Know They Were There.

Implications in a narrative? I am on it immediately, this is my bread and butter, I can pull a story apart to get to five layers of subtext & implication & theme like breathing

Reliably understanding that the request "Can you empty the dishwasher?" includes emptying the drying rack which is not physically part of the dishwasher because the real request is "Can you put the clean dishes away?"? Not a chance

[necrotic-nephilim]

I’m here to bother you again!!!

You don’t have to if you don’t want to but maybe dark ship bingo with timjay or brudick????

hELLO i love being bothered by you this is delightful omg thank you, i would love to

Here is JayTim, I can't believe I only got one bingo for them. Ironically I genuinely don't view Jason and Tim as family, even when I'm not shipping them, I think they're tentative allies at best and you can only brother-ify them if you're doing very generously OOC fluff, a la WFA-style. They're absolutely toxic and codependent on each other's existence, Tim wouldn't exist without Jason and Jason is Undeniably Weird about Tim, but not brothers so I can't check off the familial squares. Also, I have no idea if I've been blocked by 10+ people, but it'd be funny if I am. And funnily enough, I don't think Tim or Jason are vanilla in any capacity even when they're not fucking. Especially not Tim, that boy is Certified Weird.

and ofc BruDick I nearly blacked out the whole board because they absolutely are weird and unwell. Some of these only apply to certain AUs of BruDick (like an idea I have rattling in my skull rn with Talon!Dick) but most of it applies to them all the time. I really need to write some fucked up BruDick, it's tragic I haven't yet. Right now the two fics I'm working on are a weird JayDick and a more fluffy DamiDick, but I have Plans™ for BruDick too. They are the OG and deserve their flowers for being the most toxic mess you've ever seen.

[crabussy]

I want to take a bite out of someone's arm but I'm too shy