#which is obv not a good thing at all
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ughh i have so many feelings about characters that are backed into a corner, snarling and bleeding and dying but instead of letting themselves die and fade into obscurity they get up and keep fighting. they don’t just let themselves get swept into the wings of the heavens—instead they grit their teeth and make their death mean something. if they’re going down, if there’s no other option—their death is going to mean something. if they’re dying, they’ll take another dozen, hundred, thousand of their enemies with them. even if it’s meaningless in the end, even if they won’t survive to see the happy ending the bloodshed won them. they’d rather plunge a knife into their heart and make the world watch than pass away in a hospital bedside, they’d rather bleed themselves dry out of spite to cover up the sight of their foes celebrating.
#desperate characters#technically done with shen jiu in mind#i mean i will never excuse his child abuse but genuinely i do think his character is extremely complex#the way mxtx wrote his trauma as a reason—never an excuse—and managed to make people understand that there’s no 1 size fits all for victims#i mean he absolutely continued the cycle of abuse#which is obv not a good thing at all#but the way he clawed himself from a slave all the way to a peak lord is absolutely impressive#i think the tragedy of his character is that sometimes trauma isn’t something you get over#it stays with you like the monster under your bed#sometimes it won’t leave and you’ll be stuck looking at its reflection in every mirror you see#and maybe some of it was because of his own inability to trust#but really didn’t everyone else damn him first? at least if he closes himself off it was his choice#he can pretend it was his choices that made everyone hate him#not that they all decided to be willfully blind to his clear trauma#ok so generally i understand why people don’t like him#but i do think he’s such an interesting character#mxtx#svsss#shen jiu#sqq#sj
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I finished the siege of Weisshaupt quest last night, and feel like BioWare did a really good job of selling how chaotic it was. I really felt how batshit overwhelmed everyone was, facing wave upon wave upon wave of Darkspawn from all sides, the booming taunt of Ghilan'nain in the sky and an Archdemon destroying every plan and hiding place as fast as the party could come up with them.
The closest comparison to this mission, ofc, is the assault on Adamant Fortress in DAI. But I never felt the characters’ desperation like I did during Weisshaupt. The relentless mantra of “keep moving, keep fighting, make it alive to just the next second, we have to try we have no choice”.
And because of the dialogue options I picked, it made me the most invested in my Rook that I’ve been for the entire game so far. I kept picking encouraging dialogue, and as the mission went on it really began to feel like she was straining, keeping a strong front because she’s the leader, it’s what she has to do, because if she doesn’t keep up a steady stream of “we’re gonna be okay, we’ll figure out plan B, C, D, don’t give up” then not only will she have failed her team when they need her most, but she herself will fall apart and be unable to do what comes next.
It’s Lucanis yelling, “how am I supposed to stab a cloud with a dagger?!” It’s Davrin saying the horns are calling reinforcements to the east battlements - “And where are we?!” “The east battlements!” - and the realization that the 3 of us fighting these Darkspawn alone are the reinforcements. It’s the dying screams of Wardens every few minutes, it’s the wall is gone the bell tower is gone the escape path is gone everyone is gone—
It’s Rook standing by the dragon trap, muttering, “And now I die.”
it’s also Lucanis’ EPIC move with the wings and dagger
This was the first time in Veilguard that I felt truly sucked into the story. If nothing else, I’m glad I got at least one moment like that.
#dragon age#datv#da4#dragon age veilguard#dragon age the veilguard#spoilers#obvs this was partly due to my imagination and image of rook#ymmv and all that#i’ve been seeing a lot of posts about things veilguard falls flat on and ‘it’s good BUT’#a lot of which i agree on!#so when i experienced smth genuinely positive like this i wanted to share it#i imagine it’s a whole ‘nother level if you’re playing a GW rook too (mine is a SD)
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fool me twice...
#dndads#lincoln li wilson#scary marlowe#normal oak#that ending was sooooo good oh my god#lincs spiral into apathy.... the one thing grant wanted was for linc not to be like him. uh oh#and normal oh my goddddd.#something something normal seeing himself in the doodler and now his friends are giving up on it. giving up on him#which i dont blame linc for obv. normals plans have not been working at all adkjfasd#i love you good storytelling i love you character conflict mwah#its 4 am this is probably so weirdly worded sorry
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Hiii, i love your stuff and kinda from a distance really look up at you for, in my perception, being able to express yourself without giving a fuck. Thats sick dude, Im so so afraid, of absolutely everything, its nice to think like i might grow into someone less apologetic of my existence. Nice to see people just being yknow
hey, thank you, this is really really nice. the secret that is probably not a secret is that i am also deeply afraid a lot of the time lmao -- but less than i used to be, and in ways that feel less stifling and self-suffocating, if that makes sense.
like, it used to be "i'm scared that if i express myself the way i want to, everyone will find me obnoxious, so let's just sand those edges down to be safe" -- now my fears are more like "now that i'm expressing myself in a way that feels natural and real, i'm afraid that it's all stupid/vapid/not worthwhile or meaningful" (<- specifically abt my art) or "i'm happy that i talk and act the way i want to now, but what if it makes me impossible to befriend," etc etc etc. which still feels bad and puts me in a funk a lot of the time but at least it's a fear that comes After/in reaction to doing stuff, rather than a fear that STOPS me from doing stuff, you know? like, it's evolved into a kind of fear that's less in my way.
anyway. i believe you'll experience something like this, because wanting to grow is the first step of growing. the fact that u hope or wish for something different means you're already on your way. to fewer fucks!! or at least distributing the fucks u give in a way that serves u better
#stuff like accepting that i'm reserved and i'm not very accessible via messages.#or that my online tone isn't very bubbly and it's weird and uncomfortable to force it.#i stop letting fears about that shape my behavior ('i'll look mean or snotty so let's force markers of Friendliness to avoid that!!') -#- and instead act the way i want to and then trade it in for new fears that come After the action.#also a good reminder to give urself is that if ur fear is abt how other ppl perceive u (as 90% of mine is personally)#u really... can't actually control that. and being very very anxious abt it all the time is usually ur brain throwing a tantrum abt not--#--having that control. bc it is understandably very scary that u don't have that control#as much as it sucks + is terrifying the truth is the only thing u can do is ask urself 'am i behaving in a way that i'm proud of'#'am i behaving in a way that's in alignment w my values + what i think is important'#bc if the answer to that is yes and somebody hates u or is deeply offended by ur existence anyway. well. literally not ur problem#but obv being at peace w that is way way easier said than done + requires tons of practice and will take. probably. years. which is fine#i am stuck with myself. i can either contort myself forever trying to be someone everyone will like and find totally nonthreatening and-#inoffensive and in the process exhaust myself totally and never feel safe or natural myself. OR#i can say okay. so i am a kind of prickly guy with stern and drab speech patterns and close to no social energy. and i think i can still be#-sexy and fun this way. and it is up to other ppl to figure out if they can agree w me on that#ANYWAY enough rambling for now. just another one of those things i think abt a lot so i have a lot of ready-made sentences abt it in mind
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hey guys does anybody know whats the date today
#.... SORRY.#posts by me dot com#ok. i rembered it was hs day today and did this in about. 1 hour. at 5am rip#i. TTRULY did not spend enough time + i dont rmb enough to give them accurate and true classpects. but#okay. heres my rationale for all of them#callie rogue. obvs. her family are smugglers. she took one of those smuggled goods (serpent egg) and tried to give it to someone better.#stealing and redistributing hope etc. hope i chose for idea of potential & infinite possibilities (destiny peregrines).#also if i rmb right.. hope is one of the classes for like losers. which. i mean that is all of duck teams. losers who realise they suck#AND kick ass#sol blood. connections & bonds we fight for. also his whole arc abt family. etc etc#page because. ok uh#pages have a whole thing of starting out as nobodies and becoming someone. v dteam. i did also consider giving him knight but. ultimately#wanted to draw sol in the page shorts shorts. so. well.#calder i was. least sure abt#gave him void i think relates to his feeling of smallness/insignificance/uselessness + the helm...#and a knight. bcus hes a selfsacrificing guy. also his entire character is like... protecting ppl. very knightly#i dont remember that much abt the knight class tbh tho. RIP#also not featured but oliana/aryox seers of mind. OBVS#......... we are NOT main tagging this one gang B)
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I'm sorry I can't take your call right now, I'm becoming unhinged about Transformers again,,,
#i just. man#first of all i was super into it when i was younger. optimus prime has long been a projectable (and ratchet too‚ from tfp)#but even that's like more recent. when i was SEVEN i was running around in circles to the transformers 1980 theme and re-binging the movie#(autism? what? who? where? but fr it was like a daily thing p much where me and my brothers would just lose it to that song. good ol' days)#transformers#for the search function lol. anyways back to the ramble: the obsession started young and continued throughout my teenage years#the transformers prime version was ABSOLUTELY peak and clears every time. still SO good my brothers and i binged the heck out of that too#but i don't think we ever got to watch the movie??? or maybe it was season 3??? either way i remember being like WHAT OPTIMUS IS EVIL???#and never getting resolution which i still need to do (also reminding me of clone wars...never did finish that one and still not spoiled)#anyway yeah the nintendo 3DS transformers prime game was yet another staple of my childhood. fave main was optimus obvs#but it just fills me with joy to see the resurgence in this and also makes me feel some complex emotions because it's a part of little me#and that version of me feels like so long ago...my own orion pax in a way#11-year-old me checking out giant lore books and speeding through them (i need to find this one book!! it's been years!!#it was the first transformers tome i ever read and told the story of orion pax!! and i vaguely remember the cover? but not the title! help!)#ANYway yes just feeling a lot of feelings and. i love transformers#kay can i just catch my breath for a second#kay has a party in the tags#also if you're reading this: i voted and you should too!!!
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feel like im so so so close to unlocking a higher level of thinking about art google search how to induce brain blast
#that thing about how nobody draws the way i want to draw but realizing past cheye#made the art i wanna be making but better.#thinking about how the struggle with my art is how there's so many ways to draw something or someone#and obvs i have my preferred ways which leads to ''style'' but it still makes it hard to Choose.#as well as tell if it looks good or not#nothing ever has to be the same#the way i also struggle to get inspired bc i struggle to find ppl drawing Weird or Ugly art.#not being able to relate to a lot of general inspiration because it all looks the same.#twitter post heres my hot oc with 1M likes and its the same face the artist draws everyone with which is the same#face everyone draws to denote an attractive person. next.#*i* want to and should make things far outside of this. everything can be drawn in any and every way#my only struggle rn is i still dont have fundamentals down. truly and really. if i could make something look#good bad on purpose instead of bad bad id be home free#how do i get there i need to get there#its like how if you look at ana/tola Howard's work there's lots of things that dont look '''right''' but they look Good. how? how?#i wanna get there#talkys
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oh to be as delusionally in love as my great grandpa saying albacete is the prettiest city in spain
#i do love the city because of all the family i have there and i think it's a great place#but one of her many good things is not her beauty#like the only pretty areas are parks and the ensanche part which can be found in every city#and obvs el pasaje de lodares but that's one hallway
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anyways. I don’t think Jon trusted Jude Perry re: handshake but I think he really really wanted to bc he was in his “I’m turning into a monster” era and wanted a reason to think that “avatar” didn’t necessarily have to mean “evil without exception.”
We know he does a lot of 1) repressing what he doesn’t want to believe and 2) using his pain as payment so
#jarchivist#tma#the magnus archives#jon sims#Haven’t relistened to any of the Jude Perry eps in a minute tho so!#im posting this without thinking and then going to bed. which is always a good idea obvs#If this is like an obvious thing that we all agreed on ages ago sorry I wasn’t here yet
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Canto 6 was incomplete
Literally why are we there? Like, we just go to a manor that's in t-corp I guess. But why are we there? We've got another Heathcliff and he's cool but he just shows up pissed off for no reason and then we leave? Weird af. Nelly, Linton, and Josephine were cool and Hindley...existed. But it's a weirdly low number of supporting characters, and I guess that 1 really important and cool one could have made up for it but that didn't happen. Even the Mili song felt incomplete, like only 1/2 of it was there! Such an odd choice to make at the halfway mark for our 12 sinners. It just feels like a lot of stuff was missing and it's really sad because I was excited for Heathcliff's canto.
#canto 6 spoilers#limbus company#heathcliff#I really loved how much he loved *REDACTED*#this is a joke obv#I'll give my more thorough thoughts once I'm not drowning in work/got some time to remove myself from sheer HYPE mode#but overall? loved it. not as much as Canto 5 but Canto 5 just hit all of my favorite things.#and to be compared to Canto 5 is an unfair fate for anything. it'd be like comparing Aquaman to Dr. Manhattan it's just not how that works#at least not to me#I felt the lows of this chapter and resonated with them. I really liked most the characters (not Hindley though that's a personal thing)#and I'm sure that the 'Carmen shows up like the PS5 in our brain' moment probably kicks ass if you know who she is and why we care#which I did not so I didn't really get that. still a cool moment but it didn't hit like it did for other people.#final fight? a slog and tough and tbh kinda unfun at times. I think that kinda adds to it though. we're stuck in a horrible loop.#the initial fight against alternate Heathcliff was still the height of the canto for me. that kicked SO MUCH ASS and it was a good twist
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HEAR ME OUT!!!
Bakudeku/Class-1A Camp Rock AU
DOES ANYONE ELSE SEE THE VISION
#I’m so sorry but I thought of it this morning and it’s all I can think about#bakudeku#izuku as Mitchie and Inko as her mom obv#connect three is Katsuki kirshima and kaminari#ochako is Kaitlyn#shoto is that popular girl idr her name but the parental issues are 1 to 1 istg#jirou is Margaret dupree#aizawa and present mic are counselors#do you see do you see the vision#I can see the whole movie in my head someone help me plz#Katsuki being sent back to his childhood camp bc he’s become an asshole and needs to reconnect with music#camp rock is really elitist and expensive like in the movie and izuku gets ostracized for being ‘inexperienced’ and behind everyone else#kiri as Nick and Denki as Kevin#ochako wants to become a music producer and work with a list musicians bc there���s good money in it#and she’s really good at the technical side of things#maybe izuku thinks Katsuki is just a pretentious front man but Katsuki is the one who writes the drums for all their music#but he’s not the one performing drums on stage bc he’s busy singing#izuku and Katsuki met as kids through piano lessons and izuku had a knack for all sorts of instruments which made Katsuki jealous#Katsuki focused on piano and later drums bc he gets to hit things#both think the other is way more incredible than themselves for opposite reasons#master of one vs decent Jack of all trades#the only thing that isn’t an easy fit is that todo isn’t a Mean Girl#but I could see endeavor seeing izuku as a threat and making shoto target him#PLEASE SOMEONE HELP ME AM I CRAZY#camp rock au
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also "textless" versions of these, wahooo
#corned beef#joe iconis christmas extravaganza#bsol#speaking of >:3 & >:3 third time's the >:3 in successfully slammed both up against the window of joe iconis's car (twitter @'d & Seen)#which is really just a :3 but whom among us (orchestra hit) is not a little impish with it#first year i did fanart like wouldn't it be fun if joe saw & liked this. second yr like Same plus it did happen last time#then also recency Fun Times bias sure but he did make it a frame in his End Of Year Good Times Celebration video like >:'3#yes i draw exactly what i wanna draw b/c it's some specific thing i enjoy that much so Yep that is the xmas show to me#so powerfully i was moved like ooh fun xmas villain wrole?? in '19 when i was paying attention & relieved of some bmc closure malaise#by the xmas show but obv Least aware / knowledgable lol. technically showed up in '18 around nov/dec but no chance Right then of tuning in#i mean i had the capacity but did not know it existed / even Less helpful preexisting context. anyway so by the time the show returns#& i've done research in between & gone my god i am i live laugh loving like Yeah i'll do more fanart & omg cyril & omg krampusfucking#able to ramp it up this year & like just thanks to Drawing Experience i'm better at forging ahead through thee process even when it's#extra ambitious like my god am i in over my head? well keep swimming for the surface like only several times going [aaa....] only to yknow#not be that tripped up anyway but still go [(celebrate) christmas!!! (with me)] & be like Do It For The Krampusfucking Gift#one post for another like lighting up my life joe just coming out like ''who wants clips. first up Full Cyril Fucks The Krampus number''#like jeez made that happen And passed it along....it's always the like epitome of my art like i make the specific often really niche stuff#i really respond to; does anyone else enjoy this? if yes; Wheeee; sometimes this is also ppl Behind the really niche shit i enjoy#like i truly hope you do get that kick out of it as i slam it up to the window; worth a Highlight Of Your Year or not#the power of [i do like to Draw the things i latch on to] + [internet] for you#really the bsol design even More an event in ''how did i even do this'' b/c even when planning to make it slightly easier like well#fewer figures; i'll use ink pen so i hone the lineart less than i would to precisely get [line weight mostly irrelevant] Line Geometry#yet still going ruh oh i'm honing for sure. but then like did Most of the lineart all in one night + all the coloring the next round#when i draw quite slowly / the Honing is virtually always an inextricable part of my process like i do Nothing in less than Hours#like i think even my freewheeling bsol sketches posted just this morning took me at Least an hour; judging by vids i played in the bg lol#not quite calibrated to have Attuned Confidence In My Ability To Forge Ahead thusly like oh no if i don't have Momentum or it doesn't#happen to be one of those times things just spontaneously come out great right off without more honing / consideration we're fucked....#not actually the case but yknow still realizing this lol But still able to just pat myself on the shoulder like It's Manageable & it is/was
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why are you, as an adult in 2024, still hung up on reylo. why are you still mocking the shippers. why do you believe yourself to be superior only because you dislike a stupid ship from a fucking space fairytale. girl (gnc) get a grip
#it's ridiculous. this ship is... stupidly cliché. like if you know fandoms at all#you could easily guess why people would be into it. hello?? have you tried to watch tfa without your hate-on-kyle-ron goggles?#did you watch their scenes together? you don't have to like something to recognize the hints#hell. at the time i didn't really like jonerys but i realized they were going to be a thing when i read agot in 2011#like folks. it's been nearly TEN LONG YEARS. let it go. LET IT FUCKING GOOOO#and for the lucy/cooper shippers out there who think reylos are (again) delusional when they compare the two ships:#no. *you* are being delusional only because you think reylo is unsexy and uncool (which is your right to think btw. obv)#if you can't see why someone would like both of these pairings for similar reasons... idk what to say honestly#people compared it to hannigram... honestly. again i see why they would appeal to anyone who's into both ships#i really do. but... unpopular opinion (since i'm more of a clannibal fan than i could ever be of reylo):#they are more similar to reylo than will/hannibal. there i said it#i'm not talking about the writing (admittedly the quality of it was questionable). i'm talking about tropes#never mind that imo the ghoul is more akin to vader than kylo but whatever#hannibal is an unapologetic kind of villain. he's not gonna have a redemption arc and that's okay#cooper is an antivillain who used to be a good man and became a disfigured cruel bastard. a parody of himself#lucy is him. him before the bombs dropped before he discovered the person he trusted the most wanted to commit genocide#nice. moral. polite. infused with the Good Old American Values™. he's basically her dark side#all of this is very hannigram/clannibal. i'm not denying it at all#but what'll likely happen is that lucy's actions will have a positive influence on the ghoul and remind him of what it means to be a man#and that's way more reylo-like. sorry.#beauty&thebeast/villain with some hidden good in him+morally righteous heroine/enemies to lovers etc.#i mean. hello??..... having said that. i'm not so much of a reylo shipper anymore and tbh never was. i really liked it at the time#but i was never fond of the st era. my fav characters are vader and leia and revan from the old eu. just saying#*and* it's also not impossible lucy gets darker with the ghoul as her traveling companion. in fact i wouldn't dislike it at all#if done well i mean#but i would still like for people to be intellectually honest and less puerile. god knows i have my notps#but i really don't give a fuck about the shippers. good for them i guess? i have better taste lmao but that's heavily subjective#val rambles in the tags#val speaks#txt
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whenever i read fics i always end up thinkin of a song for the fic or like, th chapter and then i canr stop associating the fic w/ those songs
#i listen to sm fckn music tht all the songs end up bein wildly diff too#ong i cld make playlists for multi ch fics#*stares at electric rebels*#actually u know what#i will#here r some songs:#our song by matchbox twenty is (early ch) electric rebels treemina coded#butterfly by bts (song is abt the fear of losing a person and in electric rebels this is very much true#everyone has the fear of not only losing their lives but losing their family(+found) as well#time is very much sacred n stuff like that)#humming by turnover (thr lyrics “with you ill make it out alive” sold me on this one)#viva la vida by coldplay specifically for the capital students because of how disillusioned theyve become due to the games#and forming relationships w/ their tribute#really good examples are vipsania and hilarius#rhythm of love by plain white t's makes me think of all the good moments treech n lamina have had despite their circumstances#(its also just a them song in general)#young volcanoes by fall out boy for the tributes!!! it seems light a more lighthearted victory song almost?#a “we will persevere” thing but more full of complete happiness#think abt the scene of teslee mizzen n treech running down the hill in jubilation (obvs before shit went down)#would that i by hozier just makes me think of when treech first met lamina up in the tree#which witch by florence + the machine is definitely for vipsania just before & after the bombing (aspen too but to a lesser degree almost)#“whos a heretic now” “im miles away hes on my mind” yeahhhh#love grows (where my rosemary goes) by edison lighthouse is jst a rlly good treemina song#rousseau by nerina pallot is a good fpr one of the main questions in the fic “are we really born free?”#(no. theyre not they have to work for that freedom. rousseaus main theory specifically the idea of it works really well for this fic#and the hunger games in general)#the promise by when in rome seems to work especially for treech and how he interacts with the others#he always seems to make promises - that theyll live - that he wont leave - that hell take care of the living for the deceased#this ended up sm longer than intended i reached the TAG LIMIT#basil.txt
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and when i live on my own ill be able to decorate like real life decorate ive never gotten to do that in real life b4
#like im not barred from doing it Nd i do like. a little bit kind of but its like. Idk my entire life is a very transient thing and im rly#rly rly not used to being in one place for a long time so as a kid we never rly decorated ever#and like obv i wont be Owning a house or anything like that so itll still have to be moveable but i can like. but furniture that i like and#stuff... ive never gotten to do that b4 even in um. wa. i didnt rly get to do any of the decorating even when i was in the actual house bc#him and the roommates umm. did all that. Okay well now ive sort of freaked it by making myself think of that so im going to go stare#longingly at the floorplan i did#bc umm. well ideally id like to move into one of the apartments thats right across the way bc theres a couple of apt buildings like right#there 5 min walk tops and one of the places Has an open one but no floorplan#i wont be movjng out for ages i just wanted to look at floorplans yk#but like i said no floorplans BUT theres one a bit further away not rly walkable bc its umm#youd have to walk on the interstate and stuff and um. no sidewalk and everything but theeeeeeeeee thing had a floorplan#still very close by like 2 min drive but yk. but i still did my little mockup floorplan with that apartment instead#i want it to be closeby so everybody can come visit and so that i dont die and explode . i dont rly want to continue living in this town#4ever once km like Normal and have savings and ive got everything worked out i wanna maybe move to chicago or something since il is better#for the transgenderisms. + ive always wanted to try living in a big city at least once and i think itd be awesome#but thats Ages and ages away like maybe 5 years depending on how good i am. weeee will see if 5 years in the future is like on the table 4#me LOLLLL 24 year old connor seems rly crazy to imagine. but anyways....#but itll be nice to move out and still be in town bc then i can have the same job yk . and maybe ill know how to drive atp and i can like .#buy a car ..or something . if i do know how to drive#which i probably should since this town very car dependent and i dont want my mom to have to drive me to work esp if umm. i dont live with#them ... im just rly rly rly rly rly fucking scared of driving but i know also in my heart that when i do know how to drive the bond between#me and that car will be crazyyyy like. idk how many of you followed me last year but you may remember my insane bond with angel my cart from#work and there was a lot gokng on woth that <- was Very delusional at the time and i was convinced that she was a sentient thing and had the#power to make my life better or worse if i upset her so i said good morning and goodnight to her every single day so that i could have a#good day . looking back on it probably was something to be concerned abt but whatever.... she is still my best friend and i do miss her#deeply#her bathtub and heater were my besttt friends when i was in wa LOL. i was quite unwell#bathtub is still in my room tho yayyy. heater lives with lamp now and angel is of course at my old job....#bathtub currently is holding a project i gave up on. everyone say thank.you bathtub im looking at her right now
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so anyway I really did start compiling a kinyarwanda/english dictionary/grammar guide out of all the random resources i've been hoarding on my phone (it doesn't have to be great, it just has to be better than searching multiple different files every time I'm looking for some obscure vocab or grammar detail) and one of these resources is some PDF uploaded to the internet archive and it's... not great. from the writing and contents it's clearly
old (my guess is mid-1900s. I don't remember colonial and post-colonial Rwandan history specifically enough to guess well here, but based on some of the typos, it was done on a typewriter and then scanned with OCR)
intended for missionaries (some examples of actual sentences in the "translate this" exercises include "I praise God because He saved me and He gave me peace and joy" and, I shit u not, "The blind man cannot see the Word of God, but he can hear and he can know the love of Jesus." it's. well for one thing this is basically useless vocabulary for me, and also it's cringe af)
written by someone who was not a linguist (at one point instead of just saying "if T is preceded by an unvoiced consonant, it turns into D" they give you a list of every unvoiced consonant and then recommend that you invent a mnemonic phrase to memorise the list?! why?)
written by someone who was shit with pronunciation (legit so many places where they're like "there's no way to describe how this sounds, you just have to ask someone to make the sound for you" my good bitch the phoneme might not be in english but I could describe it just fine. skill issue.)
but the thing that's really killing me about all this is that every time they try to explain tonal vowels or phonemes that aren't in english, they tell you to "ask an African to say it for you."
an. an what now? an African? babe there are approximately 1.5 billion people in Africa. Africa accounts for about 20% of the land on earth, it's the second-biggest continent, and it has an estimated two thousand living languages spoken throughout the continent.
and kinyarwanda? it has maybe 15-25 million native speakers, depending on which source I trust. it's spoken (almost*) exclusively in rwanda, which is the 9th smallest country in Africa--and that roundup includes islands off the coast of the continent. It has the second densest population in Africa but it still only has like 13 million people in it. and it's a very unique language. its closest relatives do not have the same phonemes that kinyarwanda has, and its closest relatives are also spoken by relatively few people. I don't know enough about kirundi to say much but I do know that it doesn't have the same vowel tones in all instances and it doesn't have some of the same consonant clusters. and the more widely spoken related languages that you're more likely to stumble on someone who knows how to speak? they're even worse for a reference; ask someone who speaks kiswahili to pronounce kinyarwanda for you and they will not pronounce the difference between, say, umuceri (rice) and umucyeri (berry), or the tonal difference between words like umusambi (floor mat) and umusambi (crested crane).
so, like. it's just absolutely sending me, this random white lady who was obviously a colonialist missionary, bothering to make a whole language guide to teach me how to proselytise in kinyarwanda, but along the way she's like "just ask an african--any african--how to say this" lady less than 1% of them are going to know this language but go off i guess
*almost because there's the diaspora of rwandan expats and immigrants in other countries plus the banyamulenge which is a whole aspect of it that has so much fraught history on all sides that I won't even try to say something intelligent about it, it's totally not my place/something i'm educated enough about, but to my knowledge most of them speak dialects that are more or less dissimilar to kinyarwanda; kinyamulenge and kinyabwisha are not the same as kinyarwanda. take it from my munyamulenge coworker who could never pronounce the difference between c and cy
#i meant to write a snappy salty thing but i kind of just got going#like. i am scavenging this because it's one of the few things I can find that includes verb tenses charted out#and past tense suffixes are a bitch#but it's also like. i do not trust it. anything i don't personally know already goes in a file to be fact checked#legit this thing tried to tell me that 'komera' is a phrase you use to say 'excuse me' if you cause harm or witness harm#like if you see someone have an accident I guess?#newsflash that is NOT what it's used for we have words for that we have mbabarira and ihangane i just like#look if any rwandan is on here and wants to correct me please do but i cannot imagine any scenario in which komera means excuse me#imagine you knock someone over and instead of saying any variety of sorry or excuse me or oh yikes i hope you're okay you say 'tough it out#like i know 'tough it out' is not a literal translation of komera but it's contextually a good translation in certain circumstances#not all obv but whatever#anyway this is. i wish anyone in my household also spoke this language bc i'm dying over how absurd this stupid reference is#kinyarwanda#languages#we'll see how long before I realise that there's a reason it took samuel johnson that long to write a dictionary#granted he didn't have ctrl+c/ctrl+v on his side sooooo i have that#tw colonisers#i guess idk if those phrases from the book are like triggering to anyone but they put a sour taste in my mouth at least so
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