Do you ever get the urge to study a certain language and then realise it's not all cool grammar stuff, and you actually have to learn words?

Made her “normal” vs monster/bestial comparison!! + height comparison + color palette comparison

(This is an oc for the Objectfied comic au im making! I will explain her role soon..!)

(Adding this just in case you aren’t interested in reading my infodumping below :P I basically got a bit too excited and wrote down a lot of details abt her lol—)

The full sets of her pronouns jic: Xe/Xem/Xer/Xeirs/Xerself — She/Her/Hers/Herself

Aaand.. maybe I’ll sneak in a neopronoun :3c Cub/Cubs/Cubself

Now let’s get onto some character design study! Let’s start with her limbs!

I was going to make her limbs white, which aesthetically didn’t look nice, so instead of white limbs, I thought maybe I make it the colors OF the stripes, with the white slightly showing, and if your wondering how her limbs turn from normal to tiger.. let me demonstrate..!

That’s basically how her limbs change color, her limbs originally have dark stripes with a slightly lighter rest of the skin, depending on how much she turns into a tiger is how much the colors show!

The paws on the normal limbs are different from the tiger ones, I couldn’t make the paws the exact same color as the limbs so I made it lighter (since I didn’t show it in the reference above, I didn’t put it’s color in the palette)

Her tail completely shifts into nothing just like her fur on her neck, I thought it would be cool if I added small stripes along her neck where the fluff comes but I thought it was a little too much, since the limbs were already showing off the cool stripes, yk?

Plus, if you noticed, the more normal version of her is more awkward and shy, to the point she doesn’t even know what pose she should make! But the more she shows off her bestiality, the more confident and proud she is! Since tigers are very strong and confident, I thought it would be cool to make her lose/gain that confidence based on how normal/bestial she is!

Her claws can unsheathe, which is why I demonstrated it in the reference above btw

To disguise her stripes, she said she was just born with this “odd beauty mark pattern” which wasn’t exactly a lie, some people would fall for it, and some got suspicious but didn’t think too much about it

And uhh about my older sonas, (Fuorzy, Bookmark, and Portal) I’ll see which ones I’m gonna stick with since I think I’m losing my hype for Bookmark

And to end everything, she is one of my (favorite) sonas now, as she really shows off everything I have!

I am a white tiger therian, very VERY skinny, I have glasses (my old ones were circle glasses), freckles, I always feel confident and happy when I shift into Xue, aka my theriotype, and in reality I am a very shy and awkward person!1!

Soo.. WOAAH!! HI OBJECTIFED VERSION OF ME!! :D

I thought it would be such a perfect idea to add my theriotype in my sona because I got SO MUCH therian energy off of Dynamite! Which inspired me to make my own oc and lore and au and… yeah you get my point.. <:D (I actually shifted earlier today and yesterday after months of nothing which felt so refreshing, I thought I lost my connection for a while!)

Woah! That was a bit too much hahahahhahahaaaaaaa— uhh I hope this feeds you well! I think I got possessed by a grammar demon or something but wow I didn’t even misspell that much, I may have worded some things wrong but bear with me, it’s a struggle I deal with every day :,)

Ilysm if you are still reading this/p, I’d love any fanart of my ocs so tag me if you draw xer! <3

(Tagging @ch0cocrave, @facelessthefreak and @hollow8007 since y’all rebloged/commented on the first post <3)

So ive been trying to note writing styles as i read lately, to learn maybe how to improve the way i write to more of the result id like to have and also to notice what i like or dislike. What ive liked so far:

im not the only writer in the world who changes fucking tense so my inner-critique should shut the fuck up please, many authors exposition dump or do a quick tell sentence for unimportant quick transitions and frankly both these techniques work well and serve functions (examples i read recently: priest gives a lot of exposition actually, meanwhile brom gives less and may write more like me and both approaches i Enjoy, In The Dark's author does quick Tell sentences to move the investiagtion since evidence collecting and traveling To case ijterest points isnt ncessarily the focus - the scenes AT those locations and scenes figuring Out those clues are more key...and i realize many mystery plot novels and shows do this to move the pace better and focus on the most important scenes), i realized some authors do rely heavily primarily on just Dialogue-Action information and little else (which in my head for my own writing i guess i had thought i could only do for plot outlines not actual full scene writing) and some do give exposition or inner world reflection but only in key instances (Observations by janon does this minimal inner reflection then used for impact more in certain moments and does it Well, versus Murakami who i love who... extensively uses inner world perception and thoughts and that definitely reflects in how often i similarly fall into doing it).

I realized some authors do creative weird shit where grammar breaks, quotes and references to other stories are used, where the entire scene becomes purposefully cojfusing and prose practically turns into poetry in how Feeling suddenly takes over as the goal of the writing instead of clarity. Again Observations does this (with some beautiful moments and quotes), and Murakami loves doing this shit sometimes (and i love doing this too but often reign myself in out of worry im doing Too Much rule breaking). Theres authors like Suzanne Collins that write in present tense (i love present tense), theres ursula le guin who utilizes em dashes and i probably got my sentence style from her long ago, i like stephen kings descriptions a lot (and to a degree i hope i try for similar things).

Ive realized that while i miss how concisely i wrote a decade ago, compared to my long winding chapters now, and i admire writers who stick to primarily dialogue-action cause wow i wish i could it looks easier... i also would like to try putting more exposition in since some of my favorite writers do it more than me. And i realize i like my particular way of describing things in stories. Sure, just action setting descriptions would be easier. But like... im still not sure where i picked up the way i describe stuff. But i like how i do. (My guess is maybe Murakami or stephen king but i am not quite sure to be honest).

Like.

These bits are rough and im probably going to do sigmificant changes one day in editing. But i quite liked these bits of my writing ive done recently:

Khan's eyes are like two golden suns, burning through the hesitant guard, as if to consume. / Maybe Khan had always known. As he sat there, crumbling into the wooden floor, his face sinking lower and lower as it grew damp. / "I'm sorry," Misery had said, in the end. Over and over / Danny's in the water, fumbling deeper and deeper and resolutely ignoring the coldness seeping in, as the boys at the shore laugh and shout words he's no longer hearing. / The blossoms were frosting now, as she'd expected. Little specks of white glazed across them. Like the white scales of the god Tajin, the white knuckles of the man beside her as he kept himself from shattering the stone ledge against his palms.

Sannin headcanons and thoughts

The last thing I would like to post for the sannin week. It is still 24.04 here! :D @sannin-central

This is long. Spoiler alert. Mostly Orochimaru, some Tsunade, a little of Jiraiya (because his story is pretty clear and spoken and idk what I can add). Also I recommend to read this meta about Orochimaru, it has influenced me a lot and has some good points. Sorry for any posible grammar mistakes. Also I really should put here a lot of references to the manga or anime but it was something that was piling up for a year and I'm soooooooo lazy. After all, those are just headcanons. Also: Im not excusing Oro's bad stuff here, Im trying to understand the reasons.

Ive already posted some hcs, here, here and here.

1. First if all, the chronology pic of sannin lifetime based on the info i found on naruto wiki and also some statements about wars from this post. It was tough considering what a mess naruto’s chronology is.

2. Sannin story shows what it cost to be a legend. They're like Team 7 but more realistic. Tsunade literally carried the war but left with nothing and developed a ptsd and have problems to just live on. Also anger control issues. I think she can be pretty bossy and stubborn which is not always nice. Jiraiya is the hero of the day but also very idealistic and can ignore some important details in the real word whether its the fight (he always injured during flashbacks maybe because each time he took too much to handle and on the one hand it's heroistic but on the other is a mistake that can lead your team to situations like in that Iwa cave) or your friends issues (I bet he saw what's going on but thought it's fine until Oro actually got red handed and left). He lives in his world and may have problems to get out to see it through someone else's shoes. As for Orochimaru, it seems like he was a normal guy for 20+ years (I mean, he didn't do crazy criminal shit and had something good in him and it was stated somewhere that it was his teammates influence. It is obvious they considered him as a friend, I don't thinks it was for nothing) but we mostly know his darkest side. Despite being a moster he is a human that have empathy and some ordinary human traits (man just decorates every bit of an environment he is in lol).

3. Tsunade was the leader of team Hiruzen.

4. Tsunade sometimes hit Jiraiya for some stupid things he did or said but never touches Orochimaru even if he did something same. Jiraiya complained about it once and almost got another hit.

5. Jiraiya had problematic parents that didn't care about him much and a lot of time he was wandering in the streets.

6. Judging by the look of Oro bangs and hair, he sometimes cut it off. A stress relief huh? And the fact that he doesn't do it now in Boruto..

7. It was shown that Tsunade and Orochimaru was acknowledged before they become a team. Maybe they did just before, or maybe some longer time before. I prefer the second option and hc that they met because both had no real friends - Orochimaru seemed weird and scary for everyone and Tsunade was Senju so everyone wanted to hang out with her but didn't really care. They weren't seen as what they were - people put the labels on them. But they didn't care about each other's labels and actually saw each other in true lights.

8. Tsunade knew it was an accident and it's not right but still she blamed Orochimaru for Nawaki's death for some time. It was something that seriously damaged their friendship and the team. Orochimaru was mad but also guilty, after all, he was responsible at least as a shinobi since Nawaki was under his watch. So he started to act cold and emotionless and was trying to distance himself from his teammates.

9. Jiraiya was in Ame while Dan died.

10. The whole his orphans mission was a bit irresponsible tbh. They already fought Hanzo and as he stated the conflict between Konoha and Ame is going to an end with Konoha's win. It's weird to stay here for three years in the middle of the war while there were other lands to fight. He left his teammates for some idea. Maybe that caused another crack in their team friendship.

11. If Tsunade would have find a way to live on with her trauma and follow the will of fire and stuff it would affect Orochimaru as well just as her grief affected him. It's like he would get an example that you can live on with this pain. So death isn't above human capability and we are not just the slaves of mortality (sounds stupid but i dont know how else to describe sorry). But as we know what he actually saw is that it broke her crucially to the point she couldnt be herself again. And so the death is above everything.

12. Oro wasn’t just acting as a cold pragmatic bitch in that cave but also tried to save Tsunade. Jiraiya knew it and that’s why he showed this sign to him like "I see what youre doing here" and that stunned Oro because he would prefer to look rather like a cold pragmatic bitch hehe

13. Just a thought. People in the village probably treated Oro as a foreigner or just wouldnt accept him because he looked so differently and had a weird attitude. That's why he sometimes didn't feel that Konoha is his home. After the wars where people were treated as means and tools, even the children, he himself developed this view on people - he dehumanized them and used as the means to his goals, just as his village did. Funny thing some people were straightly dehumanizing him too like Ibiki thought that he was a demon (tho he was a child). And he probably weren't the only one. Anyways the point is that it's logical that Orochimaru don't care about anybody but some few people, he's the product of his era. He's like Naruto that would chose the hatred way. But naruto had some good and understanding people around him and.. Orochimaru had them too, but match how Iruka treated Naruto and this Hiruzen's "I sAw tHe mAliCe in This cHiLd fRoM tHe BegGinNinG". And oro didn't even have a big ass evil fox in him. sry i hate hiruzen

ANYWAYS the moral of the story is not "go criminal if they hurt you" but always treat people like people. Waving my hand to Kant.

14. The reason why Orochimaru didn't pick some good morals to stick with through the hard times no matter what (like, idk, Jiraiya or Naruto) is because 1) I think he is/was pretty depending on people around him 2) the war fucked him and his friends up too much (Nawaki incident + Tsunade) 3) twisted addictions (though I don't think he's that sadistic, we never saw him torturing randoms just for fun, it was always some science experimental shit. He tends to get fun out of cruelty only when it's personal) that maybe developed as a way to sublimate anger and sadness caused by his parents loss (that's what they share with sasuke - unlicke naruto, they knew their parents and it's other kind of pain. Sasuke developed a revenge issue and Orochimaru - cruelty pleasure which... is kinda the same but less epic and more occasional lol).

15. Speaking of that, Orochimaru cared for Sasuke because he saw himself in him.

16. Oro hold grudges against Hiruzen for not choosing him to be Hokage not only because he was ambitious and/or egoistic, but also because Hiruzen was some kind of a father figure for him and his approval was important tho i doubt he was aware of that. He also probably could tell that Hiruzen was suspicios about him when he was a child and that led to many conflicts and was hurting as well.

17. Tsunade knew things weren't pretty with Orochimaru after the wars but she never expected them to be this bad. During the week that she was given in her arc she thought not only about how much she wants to see Nawaki and Dan again despite how wrong would it be but also was trying to bury all the good memories she had left of Orochimaru so it would be easier to kill him.

18. She poisoned Jiraiya exactly because she knew he would not let her do it. Jiraiya was always hesitant to kill and inclined to forgiveness, while Tsunade, as mentioned by Orochimaru, could be merciless (so much so that he was not surprised when Kabuto suggested that she wanted to use Jira for Edo Tensei).

19. That was one of her traits that scared Jiraiya and fascinated Orochimaru.

20. Remember how Oro grabbed Jiraiya's neck when the latter was trying to cover with hair jutsu? On the snake, in Tsnade's arc. Orochimaru could have easily kill Jiraiya by pulling the sword out of the mouth (arteries are right there) but he didn't. As well as he could kill Tsunade when she was still shaking - just aim for the neck or the heart. Instead, he just injured her lung and kicked her which is not a big deal for the kind of shinoby like her at all.. Also he helped Anko not accidentally kill herself but it would be way much profitable to let her do it. "Orochimaru has no feelings".

21. The reason he suddenly wanted to kill Tsunade instead of forcing her to heal his arms as it was planned (which is weird since it will not going to get him heals and he kinda said that he wouldn't want to kill her just minutes ago) is that not only she refused to help him (he thought he could work it out) but she also prefered the village over him (from his point of view). Out if everyone she was the closest to being able to understand him since the village caused her painful losses too but nevertheless she agreed to be on it's side.

22. He wasn't fighting her back in the end partly because he thought he deserved that. Somewhere deep inside hahah.

23. Tsunade got a fear to develop deep bonds so they probably weren't very close with Shizune (also the way she knocked her down in this hotel.. oh).

24. Orochimaru will be here when she'll die.

25. Orochimaru's eng dub to Tsunade: "I often wondered what it would be like to ring that pretty neck yours". No comments.

26. Orochimaru is either bi/pan or ace. Anything or nothing lmao

27. Hiruzen knew about at least some of the Oro’s illegal experiments and was okay just as he was okay with the Foundation all the time. Because it’s useful. Then he has discovered he went too far OR he knew everything and oro just became too inconvenient because of his methods. The way Orochimaru tells Sasuke about reasons they are well treated as the criminals is based on in his experience with Hiruzen.

28. As you may know the lyrics in Orochimaru’s music theme goes “don’t talk with the silence of the heart”. It was taken from one Indian song that also had lines like “don’t question life too much”, ”pain arose somewhere in the chest”, “don’t speak to the wounds of the heart”. Though I’m not sure 100% because I was translating it with some hindi dictionary with like zero knowledge of hindi

29. I like to think that this “silence of the heart” theme and the fact that he called his village a hidden sound village are somehow connected. The hidden sound is the possible explanation of all things waiting to be listened to but the truth is silent and you know it deep in your heart and it bothers you. The world is silent just like the life is meaningless but people can only hear. *Sigh* anyways

30. Orochimaru’s journey is the one about accepting death. When he saw Karin released her chains while was trying to get to Sasuke he understood that the death is a part of human’s strength.

Can’t wait to feel that everything I wrote is wrong or not enough or stupid and obvious lol. Anyways, it’s something that I wanted to share until I move to some other fandom.

Instructions ~ JJ Maybank

Blurb: In which JJ buys your cat an ‘assemble your own cat furniture’ kit and refuses to read the instructions

Word Count: 976

Warnings: swearing, spelling/grammar mistakes, stubborn JJ??, I think that’s it.

We’re not going to talk about the story behind this. I...I’m a broken girl at this point and feel foolish and I actually read the instructions. If you want a reference to what Im talking about in this, google kitty city mega kit. It’s really not that complicated to assemble but I did it reverse to how the instructions were telling me to do it and it fucked me up like halfway through the process.

Anyway, enjoy.

~~~~~

JJ cursed under his breath yet again as he pulled some more pieces apart to stick them somewhere else.

“I’m telling you, J, just take the whole thing apart and start from scratch and read the instructions. It’ll be way easier, and faster, to just do it that way.” You said from the couch, your 8-month-old cat next to you.

You don’t really know how you convinced JJ to adopt a cat from the shelter with you considering he didn’t seem like a cat person at all, but two weeks ago, you managed to do just that. You also weren’t expecting JJ to walk in with a ‘build your own cat furniture’ kit while saying ‘look what I got our son!’ either but here you were. 

It was honestly just a bunch of pipes and connectors with a ramp and some little cubbies that had to be put together and came with instructions on how to do it along with like four other ways you could assemble it. You figured half an hour at most and it’ll be done but JJ, in typical JJ fashion, put the instructions to the side.

“And I’m telling you, Y/N/N, that I practically have this put together. Have some faith in me, babe.” He retorted.

You sighed. “That’s exactly what you said about the IKEA dresser we bought and you almost broke it out of rage.”

“But I didn’t.” He grinned.

Your cat, Rasputin, gazed up at you and blinked before turning his attention back to JJ, laying on his side as he did. You leaned forward and snagged the instructions off the table, trying to figure out what your boyfriend was trying to do.

“You want some help baby?”

JJ stayed quiet, licking his lips as he yanked one of the connectors off a little plastic pole. 

“JJ?”

He shook his head. “Why the fuck does it take the strength of a small army to take these damn things off?”

You shrugged, knowing that they were difficult to get off considering JJ had you tug on a connector as he held one of the poles. “They wanna make sure they don’t fall under the weight of a cat or multiple.”

JJ sighed before laying on the floor, looking up at the ceiling as he contemplated what to do. The fed-up part of him was saying to look at the instructions but the stubborn part of him, aka the part he usually listened to was saying to look at the picture on the boy and figure it out from there.

And, of course, JJ listened to the stubborn part.

You watched as JJ grabbed the boy and stared at the picture. "JJ, baby, I hate to question you during a time like this but what the hell are you doing?"

"I'm looking at the picture to figure this bullshit out."

"Alright, well, there are pictures in this little booklet to help you figure this bullshit out."

JJ shook his head. "I'm going to do this without instructions. I'm a man of my word. I said I was going to do this all by myself and that's what I'm going to do."

"Alright," You said with a sigh, getting up as you did.

“Where are you going?” He asked. 

“To order a pizza. By the time you’re done, it’s going to be dinnertime and the pizza will be here.” 

“You think I can get this done?” JJ beamed, happy that you believed in him. 

That filled him with motivation and hope that you quickly shattered.

“What I mean by that is by the time your done being a stubborn little boy and decide to look at the instruction manual, the pizza should be here.”

JJ pouted at your words. “You’re so mean to me, baby!”

You leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to his lips as you held your phone in your hand. “Well, maybe I’d be nicer if you just put on your big boy panties and looked at that damn booklet.” You grinned before sauntering away.

JJ turned his attention to Rasputin. “Your mom is really out here insulting me while I’m trying my best to give my son something he deserves. I’m trying to assemble this amazing thing for you that I bought and your mother is over there having a ‘tude. The audacity.” Rasputin blinked at JJ and JJ sighed. “You’re right, bud. If I didn’t love her and her ‘tude, I wouldn’t be sticking around.”

***

You were wrong. 

By the time the pizza arrived, you had served yourself two slices right away, not giving any to JJ because, with how hard those posts and connectors are to pull apart, greasy fingers wouldn’t help. 

JJ had taken a 20-minute break to get a fresh perspective since he was determined to make you eat all your suggestions of reading the damn instructions and, after 10 more minutes of staring at the picture on the box, seemingly figured it out. 

He unassembled whatever atrocity he had built and started from the beginning.

So no, he was not done by the time the pizza arrived. In fact, he had just finished remaking the base of the cat tree thing when the pizza arrived, but he did manage to complete it without looking at the instructions once.

But now, here he sat next to you, a celebratory beer in hand along with dinner, Rasputin playing on his new whatever the fuck you want to call it, and you next to him with your head resting against his shoulder.

“You know,” JJ said after swallowing the bite of pizza that was in his mouth, “it wasn’t that complicated.”

“You know what would’ve made it less complicated and done within like half an hour at most?” You looked up at him.

“Don’t fucking say it, Y/N.”

“Reading the instructions.”

march - just some thoughts

i have read more this month than any other month? and its not slowing down its only 3/12 so i have 2/3 of a month to go and i’ve read 26 chapters. even if these chapters are ‘short’ at 10 pages, if i wanna count by ‘20 page’ chunks i’ve still read 13 chunks so far. and i’ve still got more time in the month left. most other months i’ve managed to read ‘a lot’ i read 10-20 chapters. so i’m doing really good.

grammar is a weird thing? in reading i feel like its quite easy now to understand. when listening or watching - same. and yet if asked ‘why do i say/type X’ or ‘why is it written/spoken like X’ i have absolutely no explanation in my head. i could not explain the grammar if prompted. this puts me in a weird place and i feel like i SHOULD go over a grammar guide again just so i can WORD what i’m intuitively understanding.

this is a bit bizarre to me because within the first 6 months of study i DID read through an entire grammar guide just to get an idea of what i was about to look at, and it hardly made sense once actually reading/watching/listening. i understood the guide fine, but actually Seeing chinese i was still confused. i would reference AllSetLearning’s Chinese Wiki on some basic points, then after 6 months i just stopped. now its been what 1.5 years and - reading is so easy, listening is so easy, grammar wise. none of the grammar confuses me. but i no longer ‘explicitly’ have any idea what the fuck the grammar is. i used to. i studied it explicitly before trying to read/listen. and yet now that i can read/listen, i have no idea how to explain the grammar. i can listen to a podcast and i don’t think about what the grammar is i just get it. i read and just know what i’m looking at. its like english - i cannot fucking explain it. Which makes speaking/writing a bit hard. Because when i try to check if i’m right i have no fucking clue HOW anymore - i just say/write what comes to mind and HOPE it makes sense. i have no way to conciously check for errors except ‘does this feel right’? And that’s not good enough for me lol. So I definitely do need to eventually read a grammar guide for explicit explanations again.

Technically I think “English and Chinese Grammar Side By Side” grammar book would be an excellent one to use. Because i read the first 50 pages of it and it compared it to english (so it explained english too), and it was very easy to understand and started basic then got more involved. 

I’m probably gonna use my very old Chinese Grammar Self Taught by Thimm book instead. Just because I really like that book. Then I guess use another after (probably Basic Chinese Sentence Patterns since its modern and perfect for ‘catch your own mistakes’ study and much shorter than Eng+Chinese Grammar side by side). 

Anyway I’m in a very weird place right now lol. I know i’m understanding grammar that is stuff I never even studied initially in the grammar guide, but unable to explain what it is, and a lot of stuff i did explicitly study in a grammar guide i completely forgot the explanation for. My reading and listening is GREAT, because all my effort only has to go into learning new words lately! its relaxing! Its the only part i need to do! But my writing/speaking i am very concerned about because being able to check myself for mistakes is something i’d like the ability to do.

how grammar is presented really makes a difference in how well i get it. there is some serious benefit to ‘show simple first then build up what you know’ that text books tend to prefer. versus like grammar reference books that may start with some in depth stuff.

i tried to read a japanese grammar guide the other day and 1 it was great but 2 it covered some ADVANCED stuff i never learned in genki 1+2, and so it was Explicit grammar description of stuff i had literally years ago been immersing in japanese and Still not conciously known about. So i felt. Overwhelmed lol. I felt so confused. I feel like I might switch to Tae Kim’s grammar guide primarily just because its structured with basics covered first. and i feel like until the basics are again glued into my brain, seeing even more advanced stuff just confused me so much i had no idea how to remember it. which is funny because? my usual strategy with grammar guides is to just read it and let what sticks stick and what is confusing be moved on from, in the hope i will later see it again and understand it better. so like based on what i usually do i should’ve just been able to read through it (and i’m gonna try anyway lol). but truly japanese grammar just... my mind does not like wrapping around it and remembering it. (chinese grammar is so much easier for me... so much easier....;-; )

i have been tempted to just Restart Nukemarine’s LLJ (Lets Learn Japanese) memrise decks, because I KNOW they worked for me last time really really well. And they include Tae Kim grammar lessons. And I know if i did it then maybe i’d get back to where i was years ago pretty fast.

I tried Earthlingo app. Its a cool idea, I don’t think its worth it though unless you planned to get Rosetta Stone (since Earthlingo is FREE). Earthlingo features 1000 words per language, taught to you by exploring video game worlds as an alien. Its a cool concept, but since all words seem to be nouns then you aren’t even learning the most common verbs/adjectives. And 1000 words is not a lot. And you could learn 1000 quite fast if using srs flashcards like Memrise or Anki (think weeks if you push yourself, and a month or two months if going at a regular pace). Earthlingo you have to slowly explore the worlds so that eats time, you have to choose to test yourself (so you don’t review nearly as often as flashcard apps), and one test includes walking around the world clicking the object which you’re given the word for (takes time to find the right object). All this means a word that might take maybe 15 minutes to study over a few weeks, might instead take much longer to study and learn. I don’t use duolingo because it generally covers so few words (usually 2000-4000 i think which is good for a beginner resource but you have to do the WHOLE course to get to all those words and i take so long on duolingo that could take YEARS for me versus a month on a flashcard app or clozemaster). Duolingo I also don’t use because it very slowly paces learning material (it takes me months/years to get through 1000 words on duolingo - just personally i go so slow on it, i think faster people would find a use for it). Likewise Lingodeer takes me AGES to get through (and i think covers 2000 words nowadays? I’m shocked Duolingo has more words for the japanese course tbh). However, Lingodeer is by far the best ‘app’ for Japanese grammar lessons in app practice form. Even if basically all the apps feel pretty slow to me in how fast they give you new info. Earthlingo is cool that its free, and for learners 12 and under i think it would be super useful as a way to engage them and keep them studying (since what child likes flashcards? whereas as a child i would’ve loved this). But as an adult Earthlingo is sooooo slow on how fast you can learn words, and it does not even offer very many words (1000 is a nice bare minimum but without verbs/adjectives it can only be a supplementary learning tool for beginners at best).

Link about Lingodeer having 2000 words in a course. (Since its SO hard to lookup how much vocabulary lingodeer includes :c )

Nukemarine’s LLJ memrise decks (which I’m considering going through again but ToT agh flashcardssssss.... they sure do work though agh)

http://www.chinese-grammar.com/beginner/ - this is the site I read a chinese grammar guide on at like Month 3. I am rereading it now maybe it will help me remember wtf grammar explicitly is. ToT (A tip, read Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced sections). Last time I visited the site you just clicked a section, then saw each fully explained grammar point and clicked ‘next’ it was nice. Now its laid out a little less ideal for me, but its still got all the same nice info! (Also honestly if you are a beginner I really DO like this grammar guide... it introduces basic info first, gradually gets more complex, and i could follow its logic knowing like 200 hanzi and 100 words ToT. its very easy to understand even if it takes a while to apply that info).

im probably gonna read hanshe more today. i’m at the point where either i know enough vocab, or the writers style has just ‘clicked’ idk. but now i just am not getting bogged down by unknown words and am just. speeding through enjoying the plot. Also rip me this novel has 155 chapters and im only on chapter 30.

watching japanese lets plays is really fun! i feel like im 3 years old cause i just see nouns i can learn pretty easy in context cause i know the game well, and hear some vaguely familiar verbs, but its fun! also it helps i know kingdom hearts 2 like by heart so. a lot of it makes me instantly cheerful and nostalgic. roxas’s voice is so cute in the japanese version.

oh i almost forgot: I found a book recently for chinese that for it’s like 10 page grammar guide summary at the beginning ALONE i think is more than worth the 4 dollars it costs to get. It has a ton of compound words and its a reference book in mandarin and cantonese (it has pronunciation for both, all characters are in traditional). I got it initally because it as a bunch of compound words and I’d like to get better at knowing a lot of common ones. But the intro to the book has a page explaining sentence structures in chinese, then examples. Its so straightforward and to the point. I love it. The book is “Understanding Chinese: A Guide to the Usage of Chinese Characters” by Rita Mei-Wah Choy. (There is also a companion book for individual hanzi, which is nice but this book specifically I’m finding more useful).

what i really like about Listening-Reading method, and reading, as study activities: no matter how I do them it is only improvement. I have a tendency to ‘redo’ material i don’t feel i fully mastered, or refuse to move on. So when i have duolingo, flashcards (sometimes i can move on if i ignore reviews/make myself do new stuff), books, grammar guides, self guided classes - i have a tendency to redo the material. over and over. and not progress and challenge myself. whereas with reading - every time i look up a word its useful because its new or something i clearly Need to review (not something i’ve actually learned and can move past reviewing). so whether i reread material or read new stuff, as long as i run into things i find somewhat challenging (feel the desire to word look up), i know i am running into new material i can learn. Same with listening-reading method: whether i finish a book or just skip to random books, any new chapter i do will give me new words to learn/remember (until i’ve reached a point of perfect listening comprehension which is a WAYS away). There’s no way for me to mess it up. I can give up a book im bored with, i don’t have to stick to one resource to the end. 

someone tell me why professionally made chinese audio books almost NEVER line up to the chapters???? whyyyyy ;-;

Even More Notes lol:

So I read so much in Pleco, which auto pronounces, I have COMPLETELY forgot. 得 地 - for these two, when they’re attached after a description like 淡淡 慢慢 高兴 etc, when are they pronounced di versus de???? i’m pretty sure  得 is pronounced de when its an adjective like ‘-ly’. but for  地, i don’t remember if when part of a describer if its pronounced di or de????

hi! sorry if this is weird you dont need to answer, but do you have any tips for a native english speaker wanting to learn japanese? ive dipped my toes into language learning in the past with spanish and norwegian but japanese is so different that im not sure where to start. thank you in advance!

don’t feel bad at all for asking! i love love loooove opportunities to talk about languages!

here are some random tips that i find really useful for japanese:

to learn the alphabet, begin by getting a basic grip on all of them (i.e. don’t go in blind) and THEN once you have a basic idea of what’s what, learn by context, not by repetitive study. just google, like, pdfs of kids books like the very hungry caterpillar in jp, and without trying to understand it, just read it aloud to yourself. when you find you just Cannot remember a letter, go back to your reference sheet and check. for some reason, it’ll just stick in your head better after that.

throw out any preconceived ideas you have about grammar. especially since u mentioned ur only other experience is spanish and norweigan, that are basically the same as english grammar wise! instead of trying to translate your thoughts word by word into japanese, think of your whole thought as one phrase and THEN translate it. and just accept that the way things are said are just very different, and that the english system is not inherently more correct or sensical. that may sound dumb, but a LOT of people struggle with this...

dont worry about the kanji... i see ppl complain abt them but theyre no worse than trying to learn non-phoenetic words in english or french imo. you’ll learn them with time (and get better at remembering them at that), so don’t beat yourself up about it.

this being said, i would recommend that you get started with kanji straight away, instead of learning words with the alphabet first. it might just be my preference but i dont see the point of slowly getting into the pool instead of just throwing yourself into the deep end. it just wastes time.

this is the grammar book i relied on the most. it’s really good. i have quite a few complaints with it, BUT it covers a lot of content and i like it a lot! it’s the best one i’ve used, anyway.

ブラーモーメント

i made a resources post a while back, if you want i can reblog it for you too! until then, good luck and take care! japanese is good fun.

study plans?

recently i feel like my friend going to japanese college has motivated me to try to start studying japanese again. plus some spontaneous chinese here and there, more vocab/pronunciation/tone focused rather than grammar right now.

ended up a kinda long ramble lol, ill cut it up into two pieces.

i literally do daily: 1 duolingo so the owl doesnt hunt me down like the weak prey i am (any language)

i try to do once a day: 1 or 2 anki decks for vocab. for japanese i use many: JLPT N4, Genki 1 & 2 Including Genki Supplementary Vocab,  Core 2k/6K Optimized Japanese Vocabulary, 2500 Most-Used kanji. For Chinese I use the HSK level 1/2/3 word list. these are seperate, just a pain to type lol. i dont use wanikani actually lol. the renaming of radicals annoyed/confused me, who was forced to learn the names of the very proper strokes in high school chinese lol. plus having no assessment test and having to start over from the very beginning and then getting the simplest kanji wrong because i remember the radical by its shape or a stroke by its proper chinese name and not a silly american name (no i did not learn this character is actually wearing a hat or a pot lid. thats weird.), i just got kinda annoyed and went back to simple anki flashcards lol.

3-4 times a week: going over 2-4 grammar concept from genki 2 so far. partly because when i was studying with my 2 friends over the summer we were doing a cramming thing for our friend to to get up to standards of the college they were transferring to, now attending. as a result, we uhh. kinda skipped over basically all vocab. only did the grammar, and sometimes not even all the grammar. we skipped over really simple stuff (ie the volitionary form which is just slapping a ~ou/おう at the end of things) and the stuff that was just -te form + some extra words. so i’m finally properly going over that stuff in full, alone. plus im rewriting/digitizing my notes in onenote bc pencil and pen kinda smear/fade over time so this will just be better if i want to go to my notes for reference in the future. the ease of searching by control+f is also nice compared to flipping thru pages in confusion. i also feel like my learning style is def repetitive related, so going over things a second time works for me. (for japanese im using using genki 2/the genki 2 track on bunpro.jp. (this website is incredible and for the most part free. even if you want the premium sub version, the cheapest sub plan is $2 a month! while i dont have it, i did do the free trial when i first signed up and it was ok and you can totally do the free version and get all the barebones japanese grammar explanations from like 4 different textbooks) when/if i ever finish genki 2, ill just check out the minna no nihongo track on bunpro, more to see if there’s any grammar that gets covered in that one that genki doesnt have. if they’re just the same but a different order or something, ill just move on to the tobira track since its the intro to real intermediate japanese grammar.) i might check out the free textbook irodori, more out of curiosity than seriousness honestly. iroiro uses a different fluency grading system than the common JLPT N5-1 levels, iroiro uses the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment, or CERFL. Since im focusing on the JLPT N level standards and these are totally different curriculums and stuff, im not sure how helpful irodori will be to me at this point but ill look at it because its a free textbook. when i try to relearn chinese again ill dig out my integrated chinese textbooks (goodreads), only intermediate since i seem to have lost my beginner editions somewhere in my house between moving from college dorm to house every summer ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . i might check out the all set learning site, it seems to both HSK and CERFL. ill probably review the HSK 1-2 stuff real quick since thats basically what i learned in high school/college and i kinda forget a lot since its been like 6 years now. then ill maybe hopefully finally get to HSK 3. ill try to watch videos from yoyochinese on youtube too. she explains things really clearly and helpfully to native english speakers in a way that my previous teachers havent been able to. ill stick to the youtube tho since ive heard that the actual courses from her website are very expensive for online self study tho, and purchasing a regular textbook would be cheaper lol. 

once a week: try to use words from anki decks + whatever grammar i learned in practice sentences/make up sentences yourself. this is a bit hard bc since im self studying if my sentences end up wrong/sounding awkward to a native speaker i am not really sure how to check lol. i’m on polyglot.city (a mastodon instance focused on language learning/blogging) and i post there sometimes and people have helped me/rated my sentences every now and then but recently its been very slow. (japanese, altho i hope that i regain enough of my mandarin skills to do this again sometime)

every 2 weeks: after accumulating grammar for a bit, i try to read a grade/language level appropriate short story in the language. (hint: the level of a toddler probably lol.) for japanese i started using satori reader, altho other short story apps exist. for chinese there’s du chinese and tcb/the chairman’s bao. honestly i use du chinese just because im too lazy to make an account for tcb, altho i may finally make an account and use it one day. one day..... (japanese and chinese)

for japanese i just want to get to tobira right now and then long term is simply reaching what is probably jlpt n3, the typical not quite fluent but still ok enough to conduct business or ask a native speaker for help in a convenience store. kinda eh, a good middle intermediate level. from that point, i should be ok enough to try to read a YA novel. no not a light novel (might try it tho) but like a regular novel for middle schoolers. or maybe doremon? ill see where it goes from there. i hope to at least be able to understand some of the things an average person would like a weather forecast on the nhk or a short newspaper article. maybe ill take the actual jlpt test someday.....not sure how to sign up/where to find it in my city tho....

for chinese, i just want to know more vocab and improve my tones/pronunciation right now. 

13, 18, 23, anddd 31 (try your best but i don't have high expectations)

Really fighting the urge to just post this ask with no answer...

 13. What are you trying to make fanon through sheer force of will via your writing?

RIO STEALING AND WEARING BETH'S CLOTHES, PARTICULARLY HER ROBES. THAT'S IT, THAT'S THE POST.

 18. Say something mean about hemingway

GLADLY. yknow sometimes I think maybe it wasn't this dumbass' fault and actually I'm angry at like the cult around him, and then I read some of his stoopid macho writing advice about how you have to courageously fight your novel battle and I'm just like ??!?? SHUT THE FUCK UP. SHUT EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE FUCKS UP!!!

 23. Do you think you refer to characters by name enough? Too much? Both?? Neither???

Ah, well i don't believe that there's a magical correct amount, and I think it's gonna be different for different ppl and different stories. When I read my earlier stuff I'm just like ok... But you know these characters do have names yea?? You could... Idk just spitballing here mention them outside of dialogue?? I think it's hard to figure out how and how much you wanna do that with fairly tight third person pov though, and you just gotta try things out and see what works.

And then, I think you'd have to try pretty hard to be using characters' names too much TBH.

But then again, in the gg context, the use of names (particularly for beth and rio) is v interesting and it's something that's fun to play with. Like, in the show beth basically doesn't use rio's name (pls pls a scene of her being like wait what IS your name again man??) so depending on the type of story it maybe feels a bit disingenuous to have her using it a lot/it's just fun to play with. (for example, in dirty dirty game, which is from Beth's pov, I wrote it as her being totes comfortable with referring to rio as rio in her internal monologue if it's about worcrime stuff, but all R-HIM if it was about sexy stuff.)

And I think in the original draft of climbing up the walls (which is from rio's pov and post s2 and he's in a Mood) I had him barely referring to eliza/beth by name in the narration (it was all like that bitch, this moron, that fucking maniac, the insane kook, MY MORTAL ENEMY THAT I AM PLAGUED BY DESPITE DOING NOTHING ABOUT IT woe is me woe is me woe is me etc etc etc) for the bulk of it, with it softening throughout. but then I was like idk is this dumb?? And changed it. (I think the affectation might still be thinly there but def not how it was originally.) I think if I was writing it now I'd have more confidence in it and stick to it.

 31. Are there any clichés you love to include in your writing? Any you don't like to? Elaborate!

Well to quote one of the most irritating characters of all time, clichés are clichés for a reason.

Plus, a cliché isn't always cliché?? Yknow, San junipero woulda maybe felt more cliché if it wasn't about two ladies etc.

AND I think you can involve something tropey/typical, but if it's not in the usual way, maybe that doesn't come across as cliché?

Idk if there's any in particular that I strive to include (well beyond the tropes of like brio, and my own personal fanon tics: RIO STEALS BETH'S ROBES AND TRASHTALKS HER COFFEE, RUBY WILL MOCK BAD SPELLING/GRAMMAR MERCILESSLY, BETH MAKES WEIRD PUNS ON HER NAME AND IS VERY PROUD OF THEM etc etc).

And idk if there are any im against, beyond... I guess I don't come at stories with a very tropey lens? I'm not like: OK I am going to write an angst now, or a bed sharing with no sexy times. I don't think it's an endeavour to avoid clichés, but I suppose it's also not an attempt to grasp them?

And I do think that clichés can overlap with stereotypes and I have, for example, no desire to write beth as meek or incapable or entirely submissive

My Journey to Self Discovery

So this post was originally posted on my website here. The main reason I am reposting it is because I want to set up the blogs theme and I need some content to be able to see what everything will look like. 

But I am also very proud of this. Even though my thoughts are all a mess and there is no structure or proper grammar, I am proud that I have finally made my first post. 

Friday, November 8th 2019. 1:15 AM

Anxiety has seemed to cripple my life for as long as I can remember. Many of my family members who may read this may disagree as they generally think am an outgoing people-person.

The truth is, it is only around very select few people that I tend to open up and have more confidence. Over the years the number of people I have in my trust circle has shrunk considerably.

I have never been one to have many friends, so it’s not like I ever really had a huge group of people around me, but all the people I thought I trusted and knew well enough to have in my life until I was well into my old age has shrunk all the way down to zero. The only people I really consider close enough to trust would be my family.

This doesn’t mean that all these people left, there were a couple people that I had considered to have left (and I don’t blame them), but for the most part it was all my doing. But nevertheless there is still the emotional pain from these loses that I never seemed to have processed.

I have never had a steady sense of self. There is not one thing that contributed to this, but I do place a lot of blame of the bullying I endured while I was growing up. I grew up wanting to please people. I wanted people to like me. So when people didn’t like me for whatever reason - whether it be because I dressed a little more tomboy and alternative than all the other girls my age, or because of my taste in music, or even just because I seemed to be the sore thumb of my grade. The bullying never stopped. At one point I found myself asking what I needed to do in order for them to just leave me alone

I got a whole list of things I needed to do. And I pretty much had to change everything about myself. And let me tell you, I tried. I asked people I considered friends how I could accomplish

This moment has always stuck with me.

This seems so silly to talk about now when this happened like 15 years ago, but these are still memories that weight on my heart and seem to prevent me from moving forward with my life.

I have such a fear of judgement and abandonment, I have based almost all of my life decisions around those fears.

Because I would give into my fears, I slowly gave them more and more power and didn’t notice that in return my world was growing smaller and smaller. I started reaching out to people less, then would rarely reply when someone reached out to me. I started going out less and preferred to stay at home. If I made plans I would cancel them last minute even though I would then be swallowed by a wave of depression knowing that I was doing more damage than good giving into the anxiety

And this pattern has happened for years. The more independence I have gained with age the more I seem to isolate myself. I give too much power to the voices in my head that tell me I am not good enough and that I shouldn’t even bother participating in life because happiness is not something you deserve.

And it is so hard getting out of that mindset when every molecule in your body believes that and has believed it for the majority of your life.

Of course I want to better myself. Of course I want to live life for me and achieve all the things I dream about at night. I want to travel the world and carve my own path in life. I want to have a family. I want to make a name for myself. I want to pursue my passions. Yet the dreams I have always had did not match the expectations and family and most of all society. I have never fit in a mold, I have always done things my own way, yet I have now had the courage and the strength to stick up to all the voices that are telling me I will fail or that I am not good enough.

The past un-dealt with fear has festered for so long I can barely accomplish anything. Whenever I do start a new venture or hobby, the passion comes on life a tidal wave. I could stay up for days straight brainstorming new things, but when it comes to actually sitting down and putting genuine effort in, I panic.

The voices in my head start getting louder. I have the voices of my parents criticizing me for not ever finishing anything. The voices in my head of my peers who laughed and mocked any time I did put myself and my work out there. I felt like I could never make anyone happy.

But thats the exact problem.

I have lived my entire life wanting to make other people happy thinking that peoples opinions of me will equal what I am worth. While I have craved to life an independent life solely for myself, my actions have done the complete opposite.

And now I am a 26 year old girl who is still living in her teenage self’s head.

But that’s where this blog comes in. This beautiful blog that I have been trying to start since May 2013.

For reference, it’s now November 2019.

That just tells you how shit I am at doing anything.

But I am tired of living this way. Im tired of living in the past. I am tired of giving weight to the opinion of people who don’t matter in my life. I am tired of worrying about what everyone thinks of me and thinking I need to get others approval of myself if I am ever going to be happy.

I hope that through this self discovery journey I am able to connect with others out there who may have had similar experiences. I am hoping to learn how to trust other people and let people in. I am a very emotional person but it seems when it comes to friendships I have built up walls too high for me to scale.

But most of all, I hope I can use this blog as a journey of transformation. Right now I know my head is a jumbled mess, but I am hoping that the more I just right and document how I am feeling and what exactly I want out of life, I will slowly be able to paint a vivid, colourful, exquisite life for myself.

I'd also really like to learn grammar. I know this must be painful to read.

Baby steps.

Lisa

{ Laws of the Land: }

Please read these before interacting. (:

My blog is PRIVATE. Typically I prefer to write with MUTUALS ONLY but I am currently open to NEW INTERACTIONS. I usually write && talk with someone OOC for a while BEFORE FOLLOWING to make sure we vibe.

I’m HIGHLY SELECTIVE with PARTNERS/FOLLOWS. I’m trying maintain a cleaner dash this time around. sidenote: When choosing partners: Literacy is a thing. I understand typos but basic spelling and grammar are easier to manage than trying to mentally fix things as I go. I DO understand language barriers. But BOTTOM LINE: If I can’t understand what just happened in your post, I can’t reply adequately because I have nothing to go from. I also prefer people who are dedicated and interested in writing detailed plots. Moving the story along.

By stating that I am PRIVATE: I reserve the right to work on the things that speak to me the most at any given time. I’ve had a lot of stress this year && this is a coping thing for me. I will write what I have MUSE for. Typically I will NOT start something unless I know I have MUSE for it to avoid dropping THREADS && INTERACTIONS. I’m simply focusing on things that I have the most juice for. sidenote: This means that while I have a ridiculous number MUSES && VERSES, I’ll be sticking pretty close to my MOST ACTIVE LIST unless we have heavily established PLOTS && CONNECTIONS OR I have explicitly offered to give you a MUSE OR VERSE that is NOT on the MOST ACTIVE LIST. I post this list regularly, it’s easy to find on my blog.

My blog is currently on LOW ACTIVITY temporarily. There are a lot of things going on in my life right now. I am trying to be on as much as possible. However, I won’t be here 24/7, nor am I obligated to THREAD/POST/TALK all the time. It is not personal. I was just diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis && have existing severe mental illness. Some days just suck.

IMPORTANT: I have roughly 230 muses, 40+ verses, my blog is ALWAYS under construction. These projects are my passion, that’s why I have them. Don’t be a jerk and tell me maybe I should cut back. I operate how I operate.

My writing is PG-13 to Mature. It’s not always this way but violence, explicit language, substance use, etc. happen here. NSFW of all kinds. I’m 28 and will only write with adult partners. So 18+ only on this blog. IMPORTANT: I will NOT write SMUT with others. It may happen occasionally in drabbles I write. But not in threads. I don’t mind sexual references, headcanons, jokes, etc. But no threading with NSFW language. Fade to black for me.

The length of my writing tends to fluctuate. Para to multi-para mostly. You do NOT have to match me because sometimes I might not completely match you. Just how it is.  Sidenote: Do NOT give me one or two sentences if I gave you a solid paragraph. It makes it really difficult to adequately reply. I might write a one liner starter, but it will ALWAYS grow.

On the topic of ORIGINAL VERSES && MY POST SERIES FANDOM VERSES: I welcome anyone to take part in my ORIGINAL VERSES or my POST SERIES FANDOM VERSES. PLEASE DO, that’s why I created them. However, do NOT steal my verses or post series for your plots. I work extremely hard to WORLD BUILD and develop these complex plotlines. DO NOT STEAL THEM && certainly DO NOT TAKE CREDIT FOR THEM. I do not mind if you and another person involved in that verse or post series with me write for the verse or plot but do NOT just openly steal them && start writing them with other people I don’t even know. I work my ass off for this stuff. Don’t be gross.

GRAPHICS IN THREADS: I use ICONS &&GIF ICONS. They keep it cleaner looking && more accessible. IMPORTANT: I have a very large number of UNDERUSED FACECLAIMS. For this reason, DRY POSTING WILL BE A THING. I’m working to make resources, but it takes time. IMPORTANT: I AM HERE FOR THE WRITING NOT THE GRAPHICS. I should already know what your muse looks like if I’ve seen a picture and likewise, you can find pictures of mine. NOTE: If my muse has no resources, I will post a pre-designed icon of them at the beginning of the thread so you know what they look like. After which it will be dry threading.

I would hope that you would have ideas of your own. It works much better if we can feed off of each other and really go back and forth with plots than things being one sided. Sadly, this has happened to me a lot. Sidenote: We don’t have to come up with something first but it would be nice if there was an idea. However, I won’t ever turn away an intriguing starter with no back story. Though, I might ask questions to make my reply as accurate as possible.

DO NOT GODMOD. I should be the only one controlling my character. I really hate when people assume they know my character and get them all wrong. Or even insinuate some prior history I never agreed to. Sounds ridiculous? It’s happened. If there’s a time it’s needed, shoot me an IM. I’m totally good with that.

I’m EXTREMELY SELECTIVE when it comes to ROMANTIC SHIPPING. I’ve been burned way too many times. My muses are my babies. If they aren’t feeling it. I am not going to force it on them. You can find ALL of my MUSES romantic preferences on my MUSE DIRECTORIES including if they’re romantic shippable or not. I have several who are CLOSED. Chemisty. Chemistry. Chemistry.

IMPORTANT: I AM NOT HERE JUST TO ROMANTIC SHIP. I’m tired of only ever heterosexual romantic shipping– especially with my MALES. Come to me with bromance, familial, platonic, or enemy. I’m always looking for new connections to my muses. It helps them grow as people.

IMPORTANT: I heavily prefer LGBT+ romantic ships at this point especially as a queer writer myself. I’m real over the heteronormativity. If you come to me with a queer pairing I’m far more likely try it out.

IMPORTANT: Please give my FEMALES as much attention as you give my MALES. I’ve tried closing my MALES. I still get used for them. Especially to romantic ship. Treat my FEMALES the way you’d want yours to be treated. I’m always down for F/F interactions so we both win. I truly love female muses, I simply wanna get to use mine too.

Drama is pretty much a must, in the sense of the plot. I’ve had people tell me they don’t like it and that’s fine but without things happening, the story doesn’t really progress.  IMPORTANT: However! NO DRAMA OOC. I worked with middle school kids for half a decade so my bullshit meter is super low. No OOC drama. No HATE.   I DO have the following TRIGGERS: incest, rape, sexual assault of any kind, romanticizing the devil. 

The first three are self explanatory. However the fourth has become really common with shows like Lucifer in existence. For personal reasons, treating the devil like he’s a cool guy is really triggering for me. I understand that his character from Supernatural is very popular. However, romanticizing him, making him seem like he’s “not actually a bad guy.” like he’s just “misunderstood.” or even “falling in love with the devil.” I can’t handle. If you’re writing him as a villain or enemy that’s perfectly fine. It’s really just the threads and content that romanticizes him that really really triggers me. 

I’m asking that these things be tagged: tw: incest, tw: rape, tw: sexual assault, tw: devil friendly.

NOTE: If I ever post anything you need tagged with a trigger that I haven’t, please don’t hesitate to ask. If it makes you uncomfortable I don’t want you to have to see it. Typically I don’t post traditionally triggering content. But just in case, let me know.

Last but certainly not least, I’M HERE TO MAKE FRIENDS. Seriously. I want to get to know you OOC. You guys are my friends and I care about you very much. I love chatting. Likewise, I can make a great soundboard. If you need someone to talk to, please don’t hesitate. You guys are so important to me. I’ve been on Tumblr roleplaying for about five years. But I’ve been roleplaying for about 13 years total. And some of my closest friends have come from writing with others.

These have been updated as of 10/08/19. I tried to make them more streamline and I really do appreciate you reading them. It makes writing together easier. If I find out you didn’t read them before interacting I will be less inclined to write with you. I read all rules before I follow someone or write with them so I expect the same courtesy. They are here for a reason.

Thank you!

💜💜💜💜💜

Benchmarking: Primary School

As a benchmarking exercise, I contacted my friend Francesca who did a placement at 2 primary schools in the North Coast area, in order to ask what websites she used to download resources. She recommended Twinkl then very kindly lent me 2 Placement Report binders full of incredibly thorough documentation regarding both her placements. 📚

This was a real eye opener for me in terms of finding out how primary school education, the bedrock of all other education, is structured. 👩‍🏫At the beginning of each binder she had some information about the class including what technology is available: mostly whiteboards and tablets. 💻There was also a section outlining the number of children with learning disabilities, bereavements, and those for whom english was a second language. 👨‍👧‍👧

Furthermore, there was a little on strategies such as how the teacher gets the children’s attention or disciplines them - the latter isn’t something I actually thought much about in terms of design: integrating some kind of positive reinforcement tactic into my worksheets. 🧠Conveniently, Id attended a talk by Amy Bocher, author of “Engaged: Designing for Behaviour Change” who talked about techniques which she avails of in order to encourage positive lifestyle change through medical apps. I got the book instantly - below you can see a couple diagrams from her talk which I will reference further into the project - perhaps even analyse, but I think they make sense without my input for now.

The one which peaked my interest the most, was that breaking down motivation into autonomy, competence and relatedness. I think this is a great framework to begin designing from for education.

Back to Francesca.

The school curriculum was divided into: Numeracy, Literacy, WAU (World Around Us), RE and Arts. 🗒At the start of each section Francesca had a weekly plan which broke down the plan into lecture time (i.e. the teacher standing at the board and explaining a concept) which gradually blended into practical time. Practical time would be divided into personal, pair, group and whole class activities. 👩‍👧‍👧What was so interesting about this though, was the amount of interactive activities. 🤾‍♀️From what I read, it was very rare that the teacher would simply explain a topic - Francesca had a million ways of relating each topic to the real world with games and examples. Even in the lecture style activities, she would use props, ask loads of questions, get kids moving round the room etc.

I thought this was truly exceptional, and reflecting on my primary school vs high school and university experience, that interactivity is precisely what was missing from the latter two. I excelled at primary school, then went to a grammar school where I really struggled. I did get straight As, but hated the experience and grew quite disillusioned with learning and life by proxy of living through a negative feedback loop. The content simply wasn’t interesting. I cant help but think if it was better related to the world around us, the information would’ve been much more compelling. 🌍

Earlier in my research I spoke to a Learning Support Teacher who told me the best way to teach is to relate the unknown to the known. Breach the gap. Below I included a photo of a poem which is a fantastic memory aid a child can recite back when they forget related information (anyone else still sing the alphabet song when trying to remember the order of the letters?) and a carroll diagram which breaks down 3D shapes into the more familiar 2D shapes. 🔶🔺⬜️🔵

Reflecting on the education I’ve been receiving under lockdown, its only now that I realise Im missing the kinetic aspect - our heads may be engaged but sitting in front of laptops, are bodies simply aren’t and we cant underestimate how integral moving is to the human experience. 🏃‍♀️

Left to right: learning plan, poem about shapes and a carroll diagram

In the image below are some more sorting exercises and a plan which outlines them. In the second photo, the children had to stamp one edge of a shape, using art (a kinetic AND self-expressive exercise) to cement their understanding. The last photo is a set of cards depicting items beginning with “st” and “sw” breaking down language into syllables. 🤔I could create a more uniform version of printable cards like this myself which the teacher could laminate.

I was pretty inspired looking at these resources. 💡 I thought maths is a great thing to teach through metaphors and perhaps simpler than I imagined. ➗As we have just went into a second lockdown, there has never been a better time for me to get in touch with a school and ask if I can sit in on a couple online lessons and then offering the teacher to design visual resources explaining more complex math concepts.

Below are a couple more worksheets Francesca used - getting a very strong bout of nostalgia looking through these. 🔮It’s incredible how much of our understanding of how the world works we take for granted. For example, when I go to list off the months, think about what month we’re in, or how far away a month is, I imagine a circle divided into 4 sections with the months written out as if I have photographic memory. 📸 I must’ve used a diagram like this to learn the months, and it stuck with me all my life. Its a very calming thing to think about, so I am sure the art style, colours, characters and objects depicted in these diagrams have a monumental impact on who we are - the way we view the world - even as extreme as our mental health. 🎨🧠

Anyway, these could definitely do with a re-design. ✍️

This post is getting quite hefty so I’ll begin to wrap up. The last 2 photos are from the literacy section, “reading with comprehension” I believe this is called,  where Francesca read a book to the children and then broke it down and looked at it from every angle imaginable. 📚One of the techniques is shown in the picture on the right, where the children were asked to identify the setting, characters, beginning, middle and end. Once again, breaking a convoluted idea into bitesize chunks. 🧇

I think my biggest takeaway from analysing these resources is just how granular we have to make information for it to actually stick. 🙇‍♀️

[Fic Search] #5

1) Jeopardy - Oh goodness the ask box is open! Im looking for a fic where Chan and Baek are spies(?). They get in a one night stand the first chapter and are assigned as each other's partner in the second. The fic ends with (spoiler) Chan dying to protect Baek. Thank you very much and keep up the amazing work!! Hello! I sent in an ask but I think I wasn't specific enough ^^' sorry,, anyways, I read this fic but I can't find it anymore, it has: Assassins, they meet in a bar, then become partners and work really well together, so many Disney references, Chan dies at the end ;^; it was in aff and it had over ten chapters, I'm oretty sure.

2) Also I've been SEARCHING for this one fic where baekhyun is a "bad boy" and chanyeol is a nerd with glasses and they end up doing it in a car??? Chanyeol tops too...Hopefully this rings a bell! Thanks so so much 💗💗 LOVE this blog!

3) So i want to know this fanfic, it's about chanyeol who only will fuck someone who have "hyun" in his/her name because baekhyun always(?) reject him. I hope you can help me and I'm sorry about my grammar :(

4) Not Real - Hello!! Firstly thank you so much for having this page, I always come here when I need to find baekyeol fics to read!! I'm looking for this fix where chanyeol is a wolf and baekhyun is his mate but he doesn't know it! Everyone doesn't believe baekhyun when he says that chanyeol exists and they even put him in a mental institution until chanyeol comes and saves him!! Thank you!:)

5) I'm looking for a wolf!au/vampire!au where one of them was a wolf and the other was a vampire and the vamp kind of hated the wolf at the beginning but they were mates. Near the end they were in danger and the wolf ended up being turned into a vampire without the vampire knowing? But he could sense something happened to his partner. And the vampire was so worried he wouldn't wake up, but in the end he did (happy ending) Those are the only details I vaguely remember but I can't find the fic :(

6) Hello, lately I've been into Chanbaek. I don't know I'm just really obsessed with them. Im looking for fics in which Baek is annoying Chan on chat (internet) coz he has big crush to Yeol. then yeol will fall for him eventually.. That kind of theme, sorry i cant explain properly but i hope u get it.. My english is bad. So very sorry!! :( thanks u very much!! Of all admin here.

7) can i have this dance? - Hello!! I was wondering if you could help me to find a fic!! It's quite vague but chanyeol and baekhyun used to be neighbours I think and there was something about prom but in the end they danced together? The next time chanyeol saw baekhyun was when he was at a wedding and baekhyun got into a fight with his boyfriend... baekhyun then asked him to dance with him again? I'm sorry if it's messy and unclear!!

8) Hello~ I have been trying to search for a fic where Chanyeol had a bachelor's party and he meets Baekhyun on the party. After, I think Chanyeol runs away from his wedding (?) and encounters Baekhyun in a shop. I can't remember the name of the fic. Could you guys help me out? I appreciate the help. Good day~

9) the alpha and his omega to beta or not to beta Heyy(; i'm searching for a wolf au where yeol is an alpha and an anonymous 'heat carer' (i think it was called like this) at a hospital. Baek is an omega and a friend of yeol. He always refused to go to heat carer but this time his heat was so bad that he eventually went there. They had s*x and realized that they were mates. There was also a little smut scene of yeol and a girl. Thx for your help! You guys are doing an awsome job*^*

10) i am as straight as a stick Hi admins! So theres this fic where baekyeol are best friends and both have girlfriends (Jessica and Taeyeon). Baekyeol accidentally(?) kiss and after pcy breaks up with Jessica bc he realizes he's gay. But Baek is still dating Taeyeon. When Baek finally decides to breakup with her, he finds out their whole relationship was based on a bet. I've been looking everywhere for this fic and I just need to know if it still exists or got deleted. Thanks in advance for your help!!!