#even when i don't know vocab definitions (which is most of the time) i can at LEAST transcribe phonemes

[tadpoles-and-daydreams]

A witchcraft basics doc; update, resource call, interest check, and a possible second doc

Bet most of you didn't even know I was working on this >:D

Yes this is a huge post. It's a lot of things.

So, one of my first posts ever on this blog was me mentioning that a friend of mine had NO clue what they were signing up for when asking for the basics of witchcraft. The google doc I wrote took on a life of its own, and the post did as well when people started asking for it. I still plan to tag said people when I post it, assuming they haven't deactivated. The thing is, this doc had become a proper project, and it took a long time for me to have the motivation to work on it again. Now, though, it seems to me like a damn good way to reconnect to my craft after a rut! (which, by the way, is why I've been offline.)

So, my first post back is for a couple of reasons. For one, if you have any resources you'd think would be useful for beginner witches, feel free to shoot me an ask, DM, or comment/reblog on this post! I'll have a list of things I'm putting in the doc (taking recommendations there as well) at the bottom of this post.

The other thing is that I might end up making a second doc, one that's a little less "101" in vibe. It would have a MAJOR MAJOR UPG warning on it, first off, and I'm not sure whether or not I would be marking any UPG either since this would essentially be a second Grimoire/Book of Shadows for me that would be public to others for the sake of sharing information! I can't say I'd call it "advanced witchcraft" by any means, I'm not very fancy lol, but I don't want the basics doc to get too overwhelming. I do, however, want to scream about random witchcraft topics that interest me. So this is also a bit of an interest check for that, as well as the basics doc.

FINAL NOTE: I fully plan on posting this basics doc before it's done. Some sections will be unwritten or unfinished, because if I wait until I find it "finished" I'll never post it. It's going to be added onto whenever I can, but I feel as though getting it out is the best course of action.

A list of stuff in the doc that I'd take resources on (AKA everything planned in it) with * by anything that will be left unwritten/unfinished on purpose until I know more. I will take resources and recommendations on EVERYTHING though. This is in no particular order:

grounding and centering

VOCAB (intention, intuition, UPG/SPG/VPG, appropriation. probably others I'm forgetting.

candle, plant, crystals and safety* (as well as any other tools one might need safety tips for. This is left completely unwritten as I use very few tools of this type.)

deity work* (the whole debate surrounding when to start, as well as information about it. Will include smth about house rules/boundaries. My work is very casual, I'd love to see different POV's of this! This is by nature left unfinished because deity work is so unique to the witch.)

grimoire/book of shadows

tools of the craft* (common tools and how to use them consumerism in witchcraft, etc.)

cleansing

appropriation* (I don't know near enough about this, I just check what's in my own practice. I would like this to include a list of commonly appropriated closed practices, a definition of appropriation and why it shouldn't be done, open pantheons, and common open practices.)

spellwork*

meditation

where someone could go from here* (including sigils, tarot, crystals bc my friend likes rocks lol, maybe astrology but oh god I have nothing about that it makes my brain hurt just looking at an astrology chart /pos. I will probably make a list of stuff that I could add in this section.)

casual/daily/quick/low energy practices and witchcraft

paganism and witchcraft; overlap, what they are individually, why one might be for you rather than the other, etc.*

there'd be a credit section for anyone who wants to be credited for links/resources at the end! If you send me resources plz specify if you want to be included in that or not.

Things I might include in the second doc if I make it:

the craft and mental health and my experiences with it

things commonly touched on in the community (your deities don't hate you, cycles of inactivity and burnout, other things I'm forgetting rn)

deity-specific things, more specific topics of the craft, etc. yet another reminder that this would all include UPG, possibly unmarked, because it would basically be primarily used to give me motivation to research more.

[just7frogsinapeoplesuit]

Finally reading the Locked Tomb series because for once it wasn't taken out of the library! Thoughts one book one (spoiler free):

- I loved that our point of view is a character who is completely clueless about everything that's happening. It felt like assembling a puzzle with most of the pieces missing. Very fun. I wish more authors did this. I can definitely see how other people could find it frustrating, though, especially considering that we're still mostly in the dark at the end of the book.

- The foreshadowing is done perfectly. We are never given too much information at once and rarely the whole picture, so even if you figure something out early on there's an extra layer to it during the Big Reveal that would only be noticeable on a re-read.

- Love the setting and the characters. They're unique and interesting and I'm excited to see where it goes from here. Science fantasy is a woefully underused genre.

- A lot of the characters' names are too long to be used in full all the time. I'm already bad with names, I cannot remember a large cast of people whose names are 4+ syllables, and it makes reading feel clunky when we have both "Protesilaus" and "Nonagesimus" multiple times on one page.

- The necromancer and cavalier of the 8th house are uncle and nephew, but the (younger-looking?) nephew is older by what seems to be a significant amount. I know this is completely possible, especially in a knights-and-lords society, but I feel like there should have been a sentence somewhere to acknowledge that their roles and ages don't match up as expected because it got confusing.

- The horror is really fun and creative, except for the blood writing and flickering lights in the scenes with the 4th teens which felt jarringly campy. Possibly that will be explained in a later book, or Muir was just having fun with tropes.

- Gideon's commentary sometimes breaks the immersion of the setting, which is otherwise done really well. For example, early in the book she describes her acne as "pizza face" when we know for a fact she's never encountered pizza and probably doesn't even know what dairy is. I don't think there's a way to justify her learning about whole types of food and a colorful assortment of swears and slang from magazines but not things like the concept of swimming and the existence of showers, which are clearly common in the places her magazines are from. The Autism in me wants to be bothered by this, but being funny is objectively the best reason to break the 4th wall a bit and she is very funny. Gideon is just the Locked Tomb Bugs Bunny.

- Re: immersion, my favorite detail is that Gideon's default unit of measurement is bodies. 10/10.

- My one real issue: the prose randomly switches between casual language Gideon would use and words that are about 3 levels more obscure than necessary. I could understand the obscure vocab if the word choice added something, but most of the time it doesn't and sometimes it's actually less applicable. I shouldn't have to look up words that fell out of the common lexicon over a century ago just to learn that what's being said is something like "this guy acts like a knight", and it doesn't make sense with Gideon as our POV. There is no way she's consistently thinking "deliquesce" instead of "melt away", especially not as part of a description that used "clusterfuck" two sentences earlier. Sometimes this shift happens midsentence and we get stuff like "a lahar of gunge"*. My spellchecker doesn't recognize either of those as words, because one is only used by volcano scientists and the other is so casual it's not in most dictionaries. Part of me is delighted by the choice to just chuck the whole English language into one book, but the inconsistent way it was executed made reading feel awkward and cumbersome at times, and having to somewhat frequently look up words that weren't actually adding anything got frustrating (I even looked up words I knew because sometimes the context made me think I had to be mistaking them for something else). I know it's not just me, because people regularly tell me I use words that are too obscure and I've had to learn to tone it down. I definitely wouldn't recommend this series to anyone with less than a solid "college level" vocabulary, and I think Muir's editor should've had a conversation along the lines of "most people are not immersed in worldbuilding research and/or in love with their thesaurus".

Overall, this was a fun read and I'm looking forward to the next two!

* Upon further reflection I think this one in particular is just a localization issue, since Muir is from New Zealand where lahars have historically been a threat and "gunge" is of UK origin. I'm guessing both words are much more commonplace in NZ than here in the US so if that's the case it's actually a fantastic bit of imagery I was too American to appreciate

EDIT: I just came across one of those "what's your English vocabulary size" tests and effortlessly got the highest possible score (which is apparently not at all common going by other people's results in the notes) so I feel further validated that the obscure vocab point is not me.

[ibetitdoes]

i wanna know how you learned a bunch of scripts did you find any special techniques or certain websites or something that help?

I think I just focus most on finding some kinda way to use a language in that writing system! I always try not to memorize language, including writing systems, but ofc some of that does happen anyways at the start lol.

When I learned kana and hangul as a kid (like 12/13) I think I mostly just very poorly transcribed a lot of english into those two adkjfg which doesn't give you a strong sense of the way the corresponding languages are actually written, but I definitely learned to read a little like that lol. I also just tried reading kpop song lyrics a lot in hangul which was really good practice! I tried for kana too but the transition to reading a syllabary was just too much at first akjfdgh

With Cyrillic (~14y/old) I started with little alphabet songs on youtube, things w little words for each letter, then some basic vocab. actually this video specifically lol, having the sounds/letter names/easy vocab all together definitely helped.

Still nowadays I like to use things like songs and basic vocab a lot! I'll probably start with a youtube video of the alphabet (plus how to handwrite it), then I'll just write that down and start learning some vocab in that writing system. Also, going back to avoiding memorization, I try as soon as I can to use resources that don't transcribe the words into the latin alphabet. I still usually have to go back and check characters now and then, but as long as the script is phonetic I try to just remember the sounds and practice reading/writing them.

Songs do kinda the same thing, where even if I don't understand it I can learn the sounds, and then I connect those sounds to the characters. I think it's easier than trying to learn new words all the time, or starting w/ written language and having to remember all the characters. esp for abjads where there's more sounds just Implied.

It also might take some digging, but I'll try to find super basic books, like for preschoolers and the like w/ just a couple words on a page. but easy vocab videos tend to fill the same niche too, esp if you can find them without english. Also, make sure you consistently work in writing practice, it really helps.

And for stuff like kanji, I mostly treat that like how to learn individual spellings of words in alphabets. I think writing is extra important for kanji because you wanna get exposure to/learn the radicals, that way the characters don't just look like a jumbled mess and you can distinguish things like 時/持つ/待つ. plus, since I know kanji/radicals in general, it's way way easier to learn new kanji, and I can kinda guess at ones I don't know. I also have a little browser extension to give me furigana (hiragana written above kanji to show how it's pronounced) which has been helping too, so I can get the reading and then either look it up easier or just guess based on the context and the radicals

[amandapen]

2012!TMNT (and my gripes with it)

My first ever long brainrot blog post and it's about the things i dont like in my childhood show

Also, disclaimer : I'm sorry for my bad english, it's not my first language, my vocab isn't as wide as most people and this is also just my ramblings so it might stop making sense at some point

HERE IT GOES

APRIL/DONNIE/CASEY LOVE TRIANGLE (and the romance in general)

Everybody said this already but I haven't shared my thoughts so you get to listen

The romance in the show is not gross and disgusting at worst and not plot relevant at best. Personally, I have no problem with any pairings between any of the turtles and the humans characters, I don't care if the show wants to push a romance between any mutant with any humans at all. Anyone calling this beastiality or zoophilia is incorrect to me, as most of the mutant characters (aside from Karai when she first mutated) have their own mind and can choose for themselves. They are not irrational or mindless beings and 90% of the time is even smarter and more intelligent emotionally than the few human characters that we have.

The only problem with the romance in this show would be the context, and the circumstances of the characters involved in said romance.

For example, let's look at the case of Donnie/April, which is the first time the concept of romance is introduced in the show.

In the first 10 minutes of the first episode, we see the turtles comes up to the surface, and literally right after we see them marvel at the wonderful place that is the the NYC, April comes out and Donnie is immediately in love, exclaiming she is the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. (for the show's credit it was a kids show made in 2012, love at first sight was a very common trope)

Seconds after that, April and her dad get attacked by the Kraang, and Donnie jumps in to save her, the show is setting it up for this to be a thing in the future, making it clear it's not just a one-off thing or a throwaway line for jokes.

In season 2, Casey comes in, and cause he and April is the staple couple of the franchise since 2003, they have to have their moment too. In 2012, Casey is the

And we go through the rest of the show of Donnie, Casey and April in this will they, won't they scenarios also consisting of Donnie and Casey fighting over her at every second they are in the same frame.

What is the problem here?

Well, as other people have said it, this love triangle plotline ruins the characters of everyone involved.

Donnie's crush on April was cute at some point, but it stopped after he started going all stalker-ish, following April and knowing her schedule, going out of his way to plan things to get her to go out with him, getting possessive over her despite her showing she's not comfortable with his advances.

Casey is portrayed as a perverted asshole, whose whole thing is just makes fanservice jokes about April's body or just be horny for her. And when he's not, he's just the tough bad boy who contrasts Donnie, the awkward nerd.

April's character suffers the most from this situation, as from the very first second she is introduced in the show, she is introduced as Donnie's love interest. Her whole character was fixed from that moment forward as just the love interest, and nothing else. And her being thrown around between Donnie and Casey didn't make it better. What was her personality? Her hobbies? Likes and dislikes? All seems invisible as most of her scenes compromises of her being with Donnie, or her being with Casey or both.

Most of the fandom even sees her as a bitch for 'leading on the two guys that liked her', as if she asked for that situation to happen in the first place.

The romance itself isn't good, it just makes everyone look bad. Which is sad, cause outside of the love triangle, these three are great characters on their own (not the best, Donnie is definitely the weakest of the turtles in terms of characterization)

Their implied relationships off-screen sounds so much better, Donnie and April were theorized to be best friends as she seems the most comfortable with him, Casey occasionally helps Donnie with mechanic stuff (shown in one scene in season 3).

The way this plotline is handled isn't good either, it pretty much just dissolves away without any conclusion. No talks between the characters about the situation, no April standing up for herself and telling the two of them she doesn't want to hurt their friendship and she cares for them just the same as she cares from everyone in their group.

What we get was just one episode where Donnie realizes he may have made April uncomfortable all this time, (only took him 2 seasons and a half, look at that, character growth everybody). He apologizes to April and get ready to move on from her and I thought this show is actually gonna be good about it.

And April kissed him, of course.

Fuck you, Nicklodean. Of course, why would I thought a kids show is gonna handle a topic like this maturely, why would I expect such caliber writing from a show that have proved before this that they could write emotionally intelligence moments??

For the other romance subplot, they're whatever.

Leo and Karai was controversial because of the whole, they're siblings so it's incest thing, but they dropped it almost immediately after Leo finds out Karai is Splinter's bio daughter. Their 'romance' started as attraction of something new, and ended like that too.

Mikey and Renet was pretty boring, it was just, well Mikey hasn't had a crush yet and we have another single female character, so why not? They're not bad, but doesn't really add anything to Mikey or anyone since Renet is not from their timeline.

There's also Mikey and Shinigami, but I don't remember that going anywhere. It was just another comic moments instead of adding anything to Mikey's or Shini's character.

Splinter/Tang Shen/Shredder whole fiasco serves only as context as to why everything is the way it is, but nothing really deep as the show didn't really go down that path, we get some few flashbacks scenes, and we get to see what truly happened when the turtles went back in time, but nothing truly game-changing other than the revelation that it was the turtles who saved Splinter back then.

This show has only one good romance and it is...

RAMONA

LOOK AT THEM!!!

They are perfect, probably the healthiest one in the show, and the cutest one consisting of the two (imo) most mature characters in the show.

This is supposed to be a list but this is way too long already, I'll have to talk about the rest in another post.

[coffeestainedcamera]

Anyways, time to obsessively theory-craft while waiting on ep 3! Heavy spoilers, obv!

Okay, so I'm not sure Lu Guang is in the clear yet. We had that poster where only Cheng Xiaoshi and Qiao Ling are wearing black formal clothes, but he isn't. Almost like they might be attending his funeral? Not too sure if this was part of the misdirection about his death before the air date, though. But then again, the crew sure loves emotionally devastating us viewers, so they might very well kill him off and have a season about Cheng Xiaoshi and Qiao Ling trying to save him. Our girl is in the know about the photo time travel and the superpowered killer now, so it'd not be surprising for her to be a co-lead. And we did have that ending sequence where she's the mission control, even though Lu Guang normally serves in that role.

I'm still not entirely sure that the killer will be responsible for offing him, though. They're in this for fun, so I think that they'd love to keep toying with the most powerful opponents they've gone up against yet. I do suspect they'll try to steal Lu Guang's powers, if they weren't bluffing about the matter in the season 1 finale. From there, I think that fate will be the other main villain, as he previously told Cheng Xiaoshi that death is an unchangeable node. So maybe if the killer doesn't want to end him, the universe will keep setting up bad ends to prevent a time paradox. Maybe it's punishment for potentially trying to save Cheng Xiaoshi from death in the other timeline. Not too sure how many times he lost him before the current timeline, but it'd explain the aggressive protectiveness. And maybe this talk of him being too mature for his age is a hint that he's been time traveling a while now.

Additional items of interest about the killer:

They say their powers are photo-related too, and we do see the Officer die after that lawyer steals a photo of him. Not lying about possession, then.

Most likely pushed him off the roof, and the manner of death overall reminds me of Emma. It's a clear taunt to the leads.

The last person who held the photo was the creepy kid, although it'd be a little too unsubtle. Maybe the crew is misdirecting us again?

The killer's manner of speaking in the russian subs for the post-stabbing confrontation is very informal. The vocab used is more likely to be used in a conversation between friends than acquaintances. They use ты/informal you with Cheng Xiaoshi upon an early meeting, which can be considered impolite/overfamiliar. It fits with their "do you wanna be friends with me, and only me?" schtick.

This stalker-ish moment is why I'm not completely discounting the possibility that they may off Lu Guang. He's an obstacle to Cheng Xiaoshi's attention, but offing him would make him mad. For preserving this "friendship", they might not do it.

It's very interesting that the russian subs for the main confrontation scene avoided gendered conjugations of words (and s1 has not back-added them, so I don't really have a comparison point). Can't comment on how faithful this is to the original voiceovers, but this ambiguity is very interesting indeed. Definitely preserves the feeling of basically anyone being a suspect for now.

Anyways, there's still a ton of missing puzzle pieces so uh. That's about it. Oh, and quick explainer of my understanding of the misdirection around Lu Guang's "death":

Two guys in critical condition at around the same time

Both go into the operating room

We begin cutting between these concurrent events, like when we had that scene of luring the killer to the photo studio

We never see their faces, and both are in bad enough condition that either could flatline

The killer didn't go at Lu Guang's throat at any point, so he shouldn't have the neck injuries

The man getting defibbed has neck injuries, therefore it's someone else

But of course, I was too shocked in the moment to think of any of this lol.

[alex-just-vibing]

OC ASK GAME

1 2 4 8 12 14 18 19 21 22 24 28 30 32 34 36 38(new follower, I don't really know your OCs so choose whoever) 40

It's fine! Even people who have been following me for a bit don't really know them, so I'm happy you wanna know so much! ^_^

which oc has the best sleep schedule? the worst sleep schedule?

Quartz probably has the best, though Ubi would be a close second. Meanwhile, Amma and Yra are fairly tied for last, but Yra probably has the worst.

2. which oc has never had their first kiss?

Lapiz, considering they're still young (and they're aroace.) And maybe Ubi too

4. which oc can cook? what’s their favorite thing to cook?

Quartz can cook and bake! She loved making bread, and anything to do with bread!

8. which oc prefers flowing clothes? tight clothes?

Yra prefers flowing clothes (both for trans reasons and cuz it makes them look cool.) Amma prefers tight clothes, cuz she needs her clothes to stay out of the way (she's a swordswoman and an actress on the side!)

12. what oc is the best at dealing with stress? how do they deal with it?

Quartz, definitely. Woman is the queen of stress relief tactics, from journaling, to art, to deep breathing, and to self care.

14. which oc makes their bed every morning? which one thinks it’s a waste of time?

Quartz is very neat, so she always makes sure to make her bed! Meanwhile, Lapiz is a messy teen who is constantly just running around, and thinks it's a waste of time.

18. which oc cried during the lion king and SWEARS they didn’t?

Yra, definitely. "No, Amma, I did not cry. You were just imagining things. Shut up Amma."

21. which oc is a lightweight? which oc carries them home?

Quartz would probably be pretty lightweight, though I don't think she'd really drink all that much. Her and Ubi would be the designated drivers most of the time, so they end up having to deal with Amma and Yra drunk.

22. which oc likes to read to their partner? which oc prefers being read to?

I can imagine Quartz reading to her partner (or her sister, Amma.) I also think Amma would like reading to people, considering she is an actress. Yra would enjoy getting ready to (though he'd definitely deny it if Amma tries to bring it up lol)

24. which oc hates the taste of water?

Ubi. Don't really have much else to say lol

28. which oc would start a podcast? what would it be about?

Lapiz would try to start a podcast about technology and stuff like that! Not sure how well it would go, but they would try!

30. which oc dresses the best? the worst?

Amma, definitely. But Ubi, and I mean this in the most loving way possible, would be the type of guy to wear shorts when it's snowing.

32. which ocs believe in ghosts?

Ubi and Lapiz. They try to convince Yra, but it thinks they're just being silly (he does actually get scared from one of their stories, but they'd never admit it)

34. which oc is chronically online?

Ubi. And he has a very Tumblr-y vocab (scrunkly, horse plinko, eeby deeby, stuff like that. No one knows what he's talking about. Lapiz starts to pick up on these speech habits, much to everyone's dismay)

36. which oc has the best skin care routine?

Quartz, though Amma is a very close second.

38. drop a fun fact about your oc!

Well, the name Amma actually comes from a conversation I had with my older sibling where we were talking about names that are palindromes, and I came up with Amma, which they insisted was not a name. Also, Yra comes from the Latin word for anger, ira! And Ubi comes from Latin too! It means "where," and it's actually a nickname given to him by Lapiz, because he sucks with directions. Lapiz is the only one who knows his birth name.

40. if all your ocs were to get into a giant, mcu style fight, who would win?

Either Amma or Yra. Probably Yra.

[szarolina]

Hiii! I’d also like to take up Japanese, but beyond memorizing the Hiragana and Katakana characters I’m not exactly sure how to proceed with vocab and learning Kanji at the same time.

Do you have a plan/sources that you stick to? I also like how your sheets are organized! Did you do them yourself?

Hi there! ♡

First of all I should stress that my experience may be slightly different since I was learning Japanese via university course, with help from a tutor. However, I'll try to answer the best I can.

Get a textbook. It will provide you a structure and introduce to basic grammar points in suitable order, together with kanji and vocabulary. My knowledge isn't very broad here, because we used a specific series in class which is Minna no Nihongo (probably one of, if not The most common one). The significant disadvantage is that it's written entirely in Japanese, so not exactly the best for total beginners who don't have exercises explained by a teacher BUT there's also an English book "Translation and Grammar notes" which, as it says, includes translations of dialogues, texts, example sentences, etc. + vocabulary lists for every chapter alongside very neatly explained grammar points and grammar structures, so I can't stress enough how profitable it is to get it too. Apart from these, I also came across a kanji book. Fortunately, pdfs can be retrieved from google (hit me up if you're interested and have problems with finding them). I've also seen praising reviews of Genki, I looked it through and apparently also have everything what one could expect from a regular textbook, just better divided on different grammar/vocabulary/reading/so on parts than Minna and, unlike MnN, it's written in English.

About kanji and vocab. You probbaly noticed that things like nouns, verbs, adjectives and such are often written with kanji, so it may seem a natural move to learn all these kanji at once while learning vocabulary. I'm saying - not exactly. The good thing is that for the beginning you can write new words only in hiragana (or katakana) memorize them, and later "match" kanji to them (not like in mandarin chinese, yes, i'm looking at you mandarin). For example, you found out that "to study" is べんきょう する (benkyō suru). It's ok to write it this way and later replace "べんきょう" part with kanji (勉強する). We did it at the course, I had been knowing only hiragana writings for maaaany words and only after some time introduced kanji to them, gradually. Otherwise I would end up having to learn hundreds of kanji early on and I'd definitely feel discouraged by that.

About kanji and readings. It somehoew refers to what I wrote above. Don't memorize ALL possible readings of a kanji without using them in practice. For example, according to a dictionary kanji 人 "human, man, person" has five different readings: ジン, ニン, ひと, り, と. It looks like kun/on readings soup. What's a better way? You learnt that "person" (人) is pronounced ひと. Or "population" (人口) is じんこう (see ジン reading here?). Wait, that's better - "doll/puppet" which is にんぎょう (人形). You see my point?

Summing it a bit up, when making a vocabulary list, firstly write words in hiragana/katakana and if you at some point learn a kanji for some of these words, replace them using that kanji. When learning kanji themselves, sure, learn how to write them, stroke by stroke, even memorize their basic meanings, however, if learning pronounciation (readings), add a word, two, three containing these kanji alongside the full reading.

I'm planning to make a kind of masterlist of resources I personally use but for now I can recommend dictionaries like jisho (online) or kanji dictionary (Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary). For extra grammar explanation "Tofugu" and "Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese" websites or a book "Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar" are good sources. The sheets you're asking about I made myself. Kanji are from class and featured in Minna books, verbs as well but mostly taken from another Kodansha book. Like I wrote, I'm going to list everything in a separate post so just give me a moment to compile it :)

Sorry for the lenghty answer, not sure if that's what you expected but I hope I helped!

[bidokja]

re: orv is good but not great - i agree w most of the major beats of the post but i dont think you can say one way or another whether orvs writing style and vocab etc. are intricate or poetic when reading an english fan-translation. to be clear im not arguing that its amazingly worded in korean, just that if youve only read the english version i dont know that its fair to draw conclusions on the quality of the prose when its been translated out of its original language by 2 different translators as a personal project. on a similar note, i wonder if orv is as long in comparison to other korean novels? i know translation can often make things end up longer or shorter than in their original language, especially in languages written in characters like korean or mandarin, although coming in at a million or so words im sure orv is still on the long end, i just wonder if its as insanely long comparatively in korean

that's entirely fair and a very important point that i neglected to fully consider. that is 100% on me and i thank you dearly for pointing it out.

i'm mostly going based off of the e-pub, and some second-hand accounts of people i know who HAVE read it in krn, so my assessment of that aspect is going to reflect that specific experience, which means i'm unable to directly comment on the Original "quality" of orv's writing. my commentary is only meant to reflect my experience, which is unfortunately not comprehensive of the original text.

i Would like to clarify that i don't think orv is Never intricate or poetic, that's definitely Not the point i was making and i hope it didn't come across that way. it definitely has some extremely beautifully written passages in it. i also think it's important for me to say i'm of the belief that it is actually fairly important for written mediums to NOT be poetic and intricate the Entire Time (or even the majority of the time, in some cases) especially if theyre longer. it's important - for pacing and variety and all that jazz - that you have some less intensive writing in between the more intensive bits, in order to highlight said intensive bits. and i think orv does that well, even in the translations.

anyways! additions and clarifications aside, those are by No means meant to be an excuse, tbc. as i said, it's on me for not fully considering and addressing the whole "i can only ever speak from the angle of the translations, Not the original language, which is definitely conveyed in a more clear and intricate way than a translation can hope to achieve" thing. and again, thank you for pointing that out to me! i appreciate it.

as for the second part of your ask, i think orv is prrrobably a lil shorter in krn? but like, marginally so, as far as Word Count is concerned. (not character count, since krn is Definitely more compact in that department)

[seeingteacupsindragons]

Where would you say your level of Japanese is at? And how did you come to learn it? Sorry if this has been asked before.

Trying to estimate fluency in a second language is really hard to estimate...I would say that if I took the JLPT right now, I could probably manage a pass on the N4, but I haven't taken it, so I don't know that for sure.

My attempts at learning Japanese is a long history starting at least when I was about 12 and my parents got me a foreign language learning set for Japanese for Christmas...very little took back then. I knew a handful of words and that was about it. I found a list last year or something in my desk of "list of Japanese words I know" that I definitely wrote in middle school, and it was kind of endearing.

When I went to college, my college offered Japanese, and I made it through three semesters. I didn't go past that because honestly, I don't think I was in a good place to learn a language (which is why I only did two years of Italian in high school). I knew no one who could speak the language or practice with me, my family made fun of any attempts I made at sharing my skills, my anxiety disorder was so unmanaged and intense at the time that even the thought of speaking to someone I didn't know frozen my in place and strangled my throat, and I didn't use social media much so I had basically no access to read Japanese outside of class.

So. I kind of gave up on Japanese at that point, sadly. I learned some very useful skills back then (especially my kana), but it didn't ultimately go anywhere.

And then JR came out and wasn't translated, and YuuMori came out and was way behind on translation, so I realized it came with furigana, I knew my kana, I had friends who spoke Japanese fluently and could give me help and suggest resources, so I flung myself back into learning. My old skills returned very quickly and I picked up new ones pretty quick. Even my friends have mentioned they're impressed with how fast I have picked up grammar.

But I have very little ease at this point, and my vocab is garbage. I understand it better than I can compose in it, which is fairly typical for foreign language learners, I think. I can read better than I can "hear" and write better than I "speak."

I'm still working on getting better. But I'm proud of what I've gotten so far. I'm slow, and I need a dictionary a lot, but I can understand it pretty well most of the time. Not always, but pretty consistently.

I have a trip to Japan next month and I am very anxious about how bad my skills are going to feel there.

[nocompromise-noregrets]

five good things

because it's November already, and therefore definitely time to remind myself there are nice things in the world.

The big one first. I am GOING TO GERMANY FOR CHRISTMAS! We spent Christmas with our friends in Schleswig-Holstein in 2016 and it was honestly the best Christmas we've ever had - and then we haven't managed to do it again, for various reasons. I was chatting with them last month and they invited us, and after some discussion we decided that the missus will stay home with Last Cat Standing just in case (he has an overactive thyroid but is otherwise fine, but we're just a bit paranoid about something unexpected happening given that we lost two cats unexpectedly this year), but I'm going to go, and do a bit of full-immersion German practice :D I booked everything yesterday and I'm ludicrously excited.

I'm writing again! I spent most of September and October feeling distinctly inspiration-free, but the prompts are getting the muses working again, and that feels great.

The missus finishes at her job this week, and is going contracting - and has a contract beginning at the start of December. Which should mean she's considerably happier and less stressed, as the job has been getting steadily worse and worse over the last year or so, with various people who don't know what they're doing being put in positions of authority etc etc. So now she can work for herself, which will suit her much better.

I've been going for long walks at the weekends when the weather hasn't been too hideous, and have discovered a few places I haven't been to before, within walking distance of home. And, much like Lucifer at the end of Season of Mists, I have to admit the autumn leaves are pretty fucking spectacular. XD

I have a really nice Yuletide assignment which is going to involve reacquainting myself with one of my favourite comfort-things, and ought to be an absolute joy to complete.

Speaking of assignments, I've nearly finished the first one for this year's OU course - I'd have sent it in last week (deadline is this Thursday) but the tutor was promising a list of hints and tips a few days before the deadline, so I was waiting for that - which she posted yesterday and doesn't include much I haven't already covered (I think XD ) so I'm going to incorporate that and check it all over tomorrow evening while the missus is out, and then submit, and then get on with next week's work. I'm really enjoying it so far - it's very different from anything I've done before, but really fascinating :D

And I'm ploughing through all the German vocab I kind of abandoned at the beginning of the last course because I didn't have the headspace for it - only another thousand words and phrases to go, and then I'll be able to dip in when the app thinks I need to practise stuff (I'm not quite sure how much time elapses between 'learning' a word and needing to practise it). I've been telling it not to ask me anything I get right first time when the next practice round comes, so the total number I need to practise (I've got about 2800 things in there, which is somewhat overwhelming) should come down gradually. I'm doing practice quizzes of 15 items each, and mostly getting between about 3 and 6 right XD but a lot more of it is coming back to me, so hopefully it'll start to embed itself. This was a whole lot easier when I was 16!

[nordic-language-love]

I’m the anon who sent the ask about Norskprøven, and thank you so much for the long and immensely helpful answer!

The tip about not throwing random words into a flashcard deck makes so much sense, for the past couple years I’ve just been haphazardly chucking new words into the Notes app and now almost none of them makes sense to me. Do you suppose it’d be worth going back to comb through all those jumbled words and looking up example sentences, or would I be better off just diving into new material and focusing on acquiring as much new stuff as possible?

The essay structure is super helpful as well, I’ll be sure to stick to it as best as I can! If you don’t mind me asking, how many practice essays did you have to write approximately before you started to feel remotely confident? I’m thinking setting a goal for myself (e.g. 1–3 essays a day) might help with efficiency since I’m otherwise super unorganised when it comes to this sort of thing.

And about the speaking section, I think I’ve read somewhere that you’re not supposed to stop talking until the examiner stops you. Do you reckon that’s true? And if so, are there any strategies I can use for when I’ve honest to goodness run out of stuff to say?

Again, thanks very much and sorry for the new barrage of questions, you really are a godsend 😭😭😭

Hi again! Oh gosh you're so sweet, I just hope it all really does help!

In regards to vocab - personally I'd just start fresh. The words you'll need most will be common enough to crop up again anyway. Plus it's a lot more interesting imo than searching single words, finding a single sentence out of context containing that word and writing it in a deck. But if the week before the exam you feel really confident and like you need to boost your vocab further, then by all means go back through and find sample sentences.

Practice essays: difficult to say because by the time I started prepping for the Bergenstest I'd been writing essays on a semi-regular basis (1-2 a month) for a year or so. So I felt relatively okay with them after 2-3 timed/handwritten essays because I kinda knew I could do it to a reasonable standard (but I definitely should've done more). I'm sure if you can do 1 a day you'll feel quite confident by the day of the exam (if you can do 3 a day then even better, and I absolutely bow to your drive!)

Speaking: I do generally agree with this advice, so here's a couple of tips that helped me (påstanden jeg måtte snakke om var «Friluftsaktiviteter i Norge er altfor dyrt», som var nesten umulig for meg siden jeg aldri har bodd eller brukt penger på friluftsaktiviteter i Norge): remember that you're being marked on your language use, NOT your factual knowledge of a topic or your opinion. So say ANYTHING related to the topic. Talk about something you heard on the radio one time. Talk about something your friend said. Talk about things people DON'T say (one point I made on my Bergenstest task was: well I don't see anyone complaining that it's too expensive in the news, and none of my Norwegian friends really complain about it either, so I guess it can't be that bad). Compare the situation in Norway with the situation in your home country, or another country you know a lot about. You can also say shit like "wow dette er faktisk ganske tøft, jeg har aldri tenkt på dette temaet så grundig før, jeg er sikker på at det er mange som har mer erfaring enn meg og andre meninger, og det er skikkelig interessant å diskutere det, nå har jeg lyst til å lese litt mer om det etter denne prøven er ferdig", blah blah blah just to give you time to come up with something else to say/drag things out when you've clearly finished.

THAT BEING SAID... I had a look at the tasks for Norskprøven, and in regards to task one: I'm not sure whether it's necessary to keep blathering if you're finished. You're giving a summary of a text, which means any extra details (your opinion, your outside knowledge of the topic etc) could actually drag your grade down! So I think this is the one case where I would just confidently finish with a little conclusion (and then a super awkward "ooooog det var det jeg hadde".) But for tasks 2 and 3 where they ask for your opinion, I'd absolutely just talk about any old shit that you can link back to the question (although of course in task 2 you have to sum up the opinions presented in the articles. In this case I'd again give a summary first and then present my own opinion separately afterwards).

Sorry for another super long answer! I hope it's helpful. Feel free to hit me with more questions if you have any!

[the-old-book-town]

I decided to try reading Heaven Official's Blessing in Japanese, so here are a few of my notes for the summary (it's...going to be a long journey).

This is kind of...really long and a mix of my thought process when I read and random ramblings. Obviously, in my head, it's much faster and condensed. Writing it all out just makes it seem chaotic. I promise, it doesn't take me this long to read a single paragraph even when I have to look up a lot of words.

The only reason I look up so many as well is because it bothers me to not know the reading - in my head, I don't actually "know" or "learn" a word until I know the kanji and the reading. Yeah, I don't do well when reading with ambiguity...on the other hand, if you look a word up 20 times in a single chapter, you're eventually going to learn to recognize it whether you like it or not. That's how I learned to read a lot of words, honestly.

The vocab in TGCF is not exactly...useful, on a broader scale, but it's a book I've been meaning to read forever and the English translation just never holds my attention long enough to make it past the first 20 chapters.

Raw:

八百年、貴方に焦がれ続けた。

仙楽国の太子・謝憐(シエ・リェン)は、十七歳の若さで飛昇し天界の武神となった。 しかし、自らの行動が原因で二度も天界を追放されてしまう。 それから八百年後――。三度目の飛昇を果たし天界に復帰したものの、 今や謝憐(シエ・リェン)の信徒は残っておらず、 他の神官たちからもはみ出し者扱いされてしまうのだった。 地道に信徒を獲得しようと下界で一人奮闘する謝憐(シエ・リェン)は、 ある日、三郎(サンラン)と名乗る美しい少年に出会う。 行くあてがないと言われともに過ごすようになり、 慕ってくれる彼と仲を深める謝憐(シエ・リェン)。 だが、なぜか天界や鬼界に詳しい三郎(サンラン)には秘密があるようで――?

Notes:

I discussed 焦がれる in a previous post.

仙楽 is Xianle (CHN: 仙乐). Now, I do know this is Senraku in Japanese already, but if we didn't know and wanted to take an educated guess, 仙 is usually pronounced せん in most of the words it's used in (and note, it's very close to the chinese pronunciation). I also discussed 楽's readings in a previous post, and from that observation I can deduce it's likely using the らく reading and not がく, which seems more common for words involving music.

飛昇 is a word that didn't appear in the Japanese-English dictionary I use. It's pretty obviously "to ascend to heaven" given the rest of the sentence and the kanji involved (fly + to rise up), but I looked it up in Japanese out of curiosity. The dictionary definition is actually "to become an immortal" (仙人になること). As for how to pronounce it: ひしょう, which is also straightforward because both kanji only have a single on-reading.

An interesting thing about the third sentence, it very clearly states the reason he is thrown out of heaven a second time was a result of his own actions. 自ら is "one's own" and the verb しまう implies a sense of regret, or something that ended up happening but wasn't intentional.

他の神官たち refers to "other heavenly officials". If you look up the word 神官 (しんかん) you get "Shinto priest", but due to the context, that's obviously not what it means here.

地道 (じみち) is literally earth + path, but means "steady", "honest", or "straightforward". 獲得 (かくとく) means "acquisition", making the whole first part of that sentence mean "to steadily acquire followers". I'm not familiar with the word 地道, but looking up example sentences, it seems to more often mean "steady" than "honest". There are other common words for honest. 地道 might be more complicated, given its weblio entry, but I'm only interested in its usage in this sentence.

下界 is the opposite of 天界, but I didn't actually know its reading until I looked it up: けかい. Same with 鬼界, the ghost realm, which is きかい I would guess, based on the on-readings.

奮闘 (ふんとう), although I know 闘, I didn't know the whole word, which is "hard work, a strenuous effort".

慕う (したう), I've likely seen before but couldn't remember what it means. It's "to yearn for, adore" or "to idolize".

詳しい (くわしい) is one of those words I know extremely well in the spoken language, but always forget the kanji. I've heard it a million times, but don't read it nearly as often.

[philautiathegreat]

something i don't think i appreciate enough is the fact i'm a native portuguese speaker. i'm quite good with languages and learning them, and i think the fact that my native language is portuguese definitely helped!

i'm only fluent in 2 languages at the moment - portuguese and english - but i feel glad that those are specifically the ones i happen to speak just because of how versatile this knowledge seems to me. like, i know one germanic language and one romance language very well, which means i have access to a plethora of different grammar rules as well as vocabulary that's very similar to other languages' vocab !

spanish, for example, is a language that most portuguese speakers understand the gist of. i'm not great at it, but i can read texts for school and completely understand them, which is a very useful skill to have when studying portuguese history - most of our sources are in portuguese, spanish or latin. i'm pretty shit at speaking spanish - i like to try my hand at an ~ acento madrileño ~ bc it's my favourite and happen to find it quite difficult, plus i obviously don't have enough vocab to consider myself fluent - and i always inevitably speak portuñol when attempting spanish. still, it's definitely neat to be able to understand it and to have a whole new world of untranslated media to explore if i want to.

french i'm okay at, and, surprisingly, knowing english helped me with it. not THAT much, but it's helped! there's so many french terms that i know how to use in their appropriate contexts because english borrows them so often, like faux pas or touché. furthermore, unsurprisingly, speaking english was also an immensely useful skill to have when i studied german for 2 years in high school. so many similarities!

even when it comes to languages i don't speak, i love accents and trying to read or sing in other languages just for the kick of it. speaking a language doesn't require a 'perfect' accent, of course, but i love trying to sound like a native speaker. when i try to pronounce greek words, it helps so much to know both english and portuguese - portuguese for the R sounds and other pronunciation similarities, and english for the Th sounds - and i find that ✨ neat ✨

recently, while studying latin, i've also found that german has helped! the 'y' in latin is the same as it is in german, a sort of mixture of 'ü' and 'i' (at least in the way i see it), as opposed to english and portuguese which kind of use it as a different version of an 'i' lol.

language is super cool tbh. and the more you know about other languages, the easier it is to find out even more. it's one of those interests that just gets easier with time, which is insanely refreshing when my other interests get too hard and i get frustrated lol

[crimeronan]

my irish after a little under a year of study is at a point where Most of the time as i listen to raidió na gaeltachta, i can only follow the very broadest strokes of what’s being talked about - like, news recaps i can identify Who and What Topic is being mentioned, general discussions i can identify The Basic Topic This Discussion Is About, music i can identify the general vibes of whether this is a relationship/farming/sailing/anti-imperialism song, etc

except that there are times when rafi will see me light up & be like “what are they talking about?” and the answer is “oh they’re talking about language preservation inside and outside the gaeltacht and the role of parents versus schools and whether it’s feasible or practical to open more gaelscoileanna when almost every workplace uses english exclusively and-”

imagine if i actually learned common vocabulary like a normal fckn person instead of. just. hyperfixating on all the vocab related to one extremely specific niche of extremely specific political discourse in a country i do not live in

[yellowocaballero]

Do you have any star wars fic recommendations? You and your fics started my spiral into star wars hyperfixation hell and I C R A V E substance

AH OH JEEZ

I've been reading Star Wars fanfic literally for the past ten years, I think the Prequel section just all around contains the best fanfic on AO3 as a whole, and I almost basically do not. Every one of my favorites is still on ffn, and they would be such a pain to find. Check out the TvTropes SW fanfic rec page, they have The Real Old Timer Favorites.

I will say that the reason that the lead of the recent story is Fox is because of Our Guard and pretty much Our Guard exclusively. I need to finish it but it's deeply funny.

Similarly, a big part of the reason for The Cody Love is False Dichotomy , which influenced a lot of the way I see him. Another super good Cody (& Obi-Wan & Luke post O66) is the No Choir Series, first I Gathered You Here. My favorite Dad!Cody would definitely have to be Edges, which is just super good plotty casefic in general.

My Leia characterization can be slightly blamed on the best Original Trilogy fic on AO3 is "no one can stop me, not even gravity or nasa". The best fanfic summary of all time belongs to Ad Utrumque Paratus which is also great and has a good Leia and whatever but, more importantly, "black-cloaked psychic cyborg sorcerer dad with a severe breathing problem throwing an old man down the Death Star reactor shaft." Literally I've never read another synopsis that ever compared, I think about it every damn day of my life.

For some reason I used to read a lot of fics set around the Jedi Apprentice era (and boy oh boy is it hard to find somebody who writes a good Qui-Gon these days why are people so bad at it, just make him a good person who is so fucking annoying), which is likely the reason behind all my teen Obi-Wan fascinations. Guy's life is just HILARIOUSLY fucked. I read so much Melida/Daan stuff it's just so funny. The best and most influential fic for me right now in that aspect is also Edges, so go read it. Despite how many I read I can't think of too many, sorry! Most Teen!Obi-Wan stuff these days have takes I disliked so much that I ran off and wrote reel to reel about it. I feel like such an old man grumbling about how Jedi Apprentice era stuff used to be good but now it's all woobie Mandalorian blah blah blah.

More generally and mainstream, Vod'e An is really really fun and intricate timeline nonsense that goes into backstories. Obviously anything esama does, but we know that.

There's a ton of others I can think of but they tend to fall into the "Luke and Leia roleswap???" and "time travelling Obi-Wan??" category and I couldn't possibly dig them up right now jalksdf. It's pretty telling that usually when people ask me for fanfic recs of whatever I'm currently writing for my answer is "I don't read any of it because I hate all of it", but I can think of so much for SW I can't even name it. But those fics have been floating at the top of my mind because they were big inspo for the fic.

There would be fics that are #mandalorianinspo if it wasn't for the fact that 90% of fics about Mandalorians had so much random Mando vocab in them that they're almost undecipherable grumble grumble. And nobody recognizing how interesting Satine can be as a character for favor of #hotdunks grumble grumble more nuances on Jango outside of shipping context please grumble.

But thanks for reading, this isn't a lot but I recommend them all highly! And also ignore my old man grumbling, anybody who's been reading fic in a fandom for 10 years has a 'good old days'. The old days were not always good. So much Obikin.

[mishkakagehishka]

Do you have any tips for someone that is trying to learn a new language? (especifically Japanese)

Consume media!!!! Imo this goes well for any language, I personally find it impossible to pick up a language if I can't "surround myself" with it. It's best to read (books especially), but watching television is good for pronounciation and songs are great if you want to remember vocabulary and phrases as catchy songs will stick, and if you remember the translation you can go "Oh, yeah, that word/phrase is like that, I remember it from this song". It's the second best thing you can do short of spending time in the country where the language is spoken imo. I mostly watch tv programmes or vlogs, and play videogames both dubbed and subbed in my target language. Videogames are actually a great thing to focus on because they require you to know what's going on and being asked of you to progress - it's also how I learnt a bunch of English. Definitely check if you can play The Sims in your target language, I literally owe it most of what I now know in English, due to the genre it really offers a wide vocabulary.

Now, I don't know how qualified I am to give tips for learning languages, or for learning Japanese specifically, but here's basically how I went: first learn hiragana and katakana, then focus on grammar. I used the Genki textbooks, but when I need a refresher for certain grammatical rules I'll often google it and there are a lot of neat websites/blogs that offer grammar lessons. JLPT sensei sticks out to me as one I most often go to. Once you got most of the grammar down, you can start reading with a dictionary on hand - whether books or visual novels or manga. Jisho.org is a great online dictionary, and if you don't know how a kanji is read, you can "write" it in the search bar. There's a bonus point for manga, anyway, most I read in "raw" form also have the reading for kanji written in hiragana on the side, so it's a lot easier to look them up. I'd definitely suggest a dictionary that can let you input kanji by radicals or by handwriting, though I prefer handwriting simply because I get annoyed trying to find radicals in the charts lol. But learn radicals! It makes it a lot easier to memorise kanji if you can learn it not as one big piece, but a puzzle made of three smaller pieces (or however many radicals it's formed of). You can also learn kanji through flashcards - there are websites and blogs that teach you kanji through years/levels, at a specific order. Though, for me, I felt it more natural to learn them through media. It's a flawed system, but that's how I find it easier to remember and, besides, I'll sooner remember the more often used ones that way. Familiarise yourself with websites like hinative, too, though just googling "[phrase] meaning" (or "[phrase] 意味" if you don't mind the explanation in Japanese) will often give you links to blogs and forums with good answers, because sometimes even if you got the vocab and grammar down, you'll come across phrases that you simply won't be familiar with purely because you're not a native speaker. Stuff like idioms, and phrasal verbs (?)

Personally, I left kanji for last and that's why I'm illiterate lmao but basically, I feel like if you're not in a hurry (as in, if you're not gonna move to Japan any time soon or need to write some formal letters), you can learn them while strengthening your vocabulary after you learn enough grammar to be able to consume media mostly effortlessly, by which I mean, you'd only have to look up words you don't know - but when you do you can read the sentence again and know what's going on because you already know enough grammar that the only unknown in the equation is the meaning of a word, not the whole sentence. How do I explain it - if you see 食べなくちゃいけません you'll know the sentence is saying something must be done because of the verb's grammatical form - the only unknown would then be what 食べ(る) means. Though if you're gonna take my advice of consuming media, make sure you consume it consciously. If it's voiced, listen to what is being said and try to repeat the words you're unfamiliar with while looking them up. If there are translations online, read both the translations and listen/read the original text. Don't just consume it - make sure to make an effort to understand and to remember the new words and phrases you come across.

And also don't just look up a kanji's meaning, make sure to look up its readings in kun'yomi and on'yomi as that'll help you down the line.

Also a good youtube channel to use for vocab and culture is Comprehensible Japanese!! But asides from that, I can't remember if there's anything else that needs to be said. I would really suggest classes and/or textbooks at first, before the media, though, as I feel like media should help you enrich your vocabulary, while textbooks should teach you the core of the language. But, either way, good luck in your learning!!🤝