#i unironically learned english through reading and writing fic which then i used to read eng novels and watch english language tv and movies

[hingabee]

i think everyone who speaks a language beside english (whether theyre esl or not) should write a fanfic in that language (or more, if you know more!) fandoms need more language diversity and its incredibly fun to read non-english fics, even if you have to use a translator or dictionary to help you at times! its a good tool to expand your vocabulary and understanding and i just think its neat

[friendly-peep]

Which Homestuck characters would read Homestuck and their opinion

idk i’m bored. What’s Homestuck^2? What’s epilogues? We’re strictly Homestuck in this house. Also only doing main characters, I’m not going to dive into the Felt or caparacians, I want this to be done today.

Beta kids:

June: Avid reader. Got in early and read the whole thing. Got shirts, unironically liked it.

Rose: Got in late, but got into it. Loved the tarot deck, uses it to pretend she’s reading while she just tells people their truths. Noticed some narrative issues but overall liked it.

Dave: Got in shortly after June did, read for a while, but his irony poisoning led to him sassing the HECK out of it. Made a diss blog. Kept reading it “ironically” and cannot tell if he actually likes it or not. Got a god tier hoodie he wears at home. Sampled some of the soundtracks for his raps.

Jade: Loved it. LOVED IT. Got the full soundtrack. Made remixes. Got all the shirts. One of the blogs that posted “UPD8!” whenever an update happened. Big fanartist during the Gigapauses.

Beta Guardians:

June’s Dad: Tried to get into it to connect to his daughter’s interest, but the memes were too much, so he became the “Are ya winning, daughter?” dad. Very supportive but would need fifty slow paced “Homestuck explained” videos.

Mom Lalonde: Read it, but was too intoxicated to remember most. She holds obscure knowledge and will remember minute trivia, but don’t ask her about any of the large plot points.

Bro Strider: Too busy being A Mess Of A Human Being to sit down and read.

Poppop Harley: Too busy being A Dang Explorer to sit down and read.

Alpha kids:

Jane: Takes time to read it slowly. Has a blog of theories she constantly updates. Was upset about how some plot points got dropped and underdeveloped.

Roxy: Much like Jade, loved it. While Jade made remixes, Roxy cosplays. She has killer cosplays of most characters. Screamed about updates on twitter. No filter, accidentally drops spoilers left right and center.

Dirk: Deep, DEEP character examinations. Draws diagrams, writes essays. Unironically liked the potential of Paradox Space, may have even submit his own stories to be a guest artist.

Jake: Read the whole thing, liked it, missed many connections and plot points, was satisfied with the ending. Got some merch, can say “I read Homestuck” in public and be blissfully unaware of any positive and negative baggage that comes with saying so.

Alpha Guardians:

Jane’s Dad: Much like June’s Dad, tried to get into it. Unlike June’s Dad, watched and read his daughter’s theories (and Dirk’s explanations when Jane linked them to him) and became A Walking Homestuck Encyclopedia. Jane is unsure how to feel about this. He, however, does not reference it.

Roxy’s Rosemom: Too busy fighting the good fight to read. It’s in her radar but didn’t get the time to read it.

Dirk’s Davedad: Read it as a novelty. Sent Hussie a gold-plated Bad Dragon dildo. Put offhand references to it on his movies, but they were so oblique that even readers didn’t get it.

Jade English: Too busy running her own baking good company to read Homestuck. Not even in her radar.

Alternia Trolls:

Aradia: Much like Dirk, got REAL DEEP into it. Makes youtube vids explaining classpects and narrative points. Actually wrote a dissertation on Homestuck.

Tavros: Tried to get into it, but the first few acts were not to his taste so he never got to the trolls ironically enough. Likes the character designs though.

Sollux: Next level Dave. Critiques the FUQUE out of it on every platform he can. If Hatedom is a thing, he made it. He’s the founder. It’s him. But he read it to the end.

Karkat: Read it, loves it, does some interesting character relationship examinations. Predicted who would end up with who with 100% accuracy. Wasn’t a vocal fan, didn’t get merch, but still liked it.

Nepeta: The shipper who launched a thousand ships. She writes crackfic but with deep care, making sure it makes sense that characters would end up together. Got one of every homestuck shirt. Very into it.

Kanaya: Got into it only because her friends got into it. If Karkat hadn’t talked about it she would not have gotten into it but she did because she wants to be able to carry a conversation with her friends. Not a huge fan.

Terezi: She can and WILL correct you if you get trivia wrong. She did not sit through hours of text-to-speech pesterlogs for some scrub to get it wrong. Defiant Homestuck defender. She’ll cut you if you say you don’t like Homestuck (she won’t, but she’s judging you from the other side of the room)

Vriska: Skipped the first acts and jumped right into Alternia. Little context, little care. Pretends she didn’t, gets facts hilariously wrong which Terezi takes as an invitation to tease her. Fanartist.

Equius: Another fanartist. He made physical media as opposed to drawings. Slow reader, got into it late and didn’t finish until way after the comic had ended. Did not get to experience the comic without Random Paradox Arms all over the place. Loved by the community for his short reaction posts about what happened at the point he’s at.

Gamzee: Either first person to post “Update” when comic updated, or doesn’t read for months and then catches up in two days. Skips many chat logs, but still gets most of the plot no problem. Remembers exact phrasing of the posts he does read though.

Eridan: Another Character Analysis blogger. He dives into (pun unintended) why some characters are The Absolute Worst and writes fanfic of how they would be if they had a chance to be in a different circumstances. The Problematique fan, but only because people assume the worst of him. He’s actually pretty chill.

Feferi: Superfan, and Super Content Creator. Started making plushies and charms and eventually started selling them. Her stuff became a badge of honor and people posted themselves hugging their plushies during the gigapause.

Ancestors:

Too busy caught up in their personal turmoils to read any of it. Except the Condesce. She sent Hussie a diamond-studded Bad Dragon dildo.

Beforus trolls:

Damara: Big fan, but doesn’t express it because of the crowd she’s with. But she has a blog where she tries to get in touch with new readers and is always open to answer questions others might have. Not a Big Name fan, but she’s much more vocal online than in person, and even then it’s through an alt account.

Rufioh: Got people into it, but he himself didn’t finish reading after the Scratch. Said he would but he just never got to doing so.

Mituna: Prone to ranting when updates happened. Very emotionally invested, nearly died when Game Over happened.

Kankri: The nitpicker to end all nitpicks. He critiqued everything, and hated that there were hero mode, simplified and silly drawings. Genuinely disliked all characters for faults that he himself has, yet never self-examined. Got a following that  consisted three-quarters of people who made fun of his rants and one-quarter of people who were as intense as he is.

Meulin: Big, BIG fan. Prolific fanfic writer, if a character pairing exists, rarepair or not, she wrote a fic about them. Likes all characters and as such thinks she must devote roughly the same wordcount for everyone she can. Disappears for months then reemerges with twenty new fics.

Porrim: Moderate fan, great cosplayer. The more complex the outfit, the more she wanted to make it. Routinely goes out in Jade’s Dead Shuffle and Three in the Morning dresses because she is incredibly proud of them.

Latula: Not a big fan. Knows most of what she knows through cultural osmosis because her friends got into it, but she’s not likely to ever read it herself. Likes how into it her friends are though.

Aranea: Much like Jane’s Dad, she’s the walking encyclopedia, except she memorized the content of almost every page, and if she doubts her knowledge, will immediately go to her computer and look up what she is unsure of. Tries not to talk people’s ears off and will only talk about Homestuck when asked about it.

Horuss: Super into it. To a maybe creepy degree. Doesn’t show in public but if you get access to his secret blogs it’s more like character shrines. Don’t dig too deep into it.

Kurloz: Read it, kinda into it, but not that big of a fan. He will talk about it but he’s pretty lukewarm about the whole thing.

Cronus: Read it to impress a crush, got genuinely into it, but isn’t a vocal fan.

Meenah: Didn’t read it, much like Latula learned about it because everyone around her talked about it. Unlike Latula, she mocks everyone for liking something she says is “for nerds”. Still kinda wants to read it to be part of the conversation but her pride of Not Knowing About Homestuck is too great to overcome that hurdle.

[sturlsons]

How do you do it? How do you stay so motivated and keep...going at life? Sometimes i get that motivation/urge to go out there and work towards my goals but it always disappears in a couple of days, sometimes maybe the same day

so my commute to uni takes like, 20 minutes right? add 10 minutes for me to walk to the tram station, and 5 to walk to class. 35 minutes from my door to my classroom door. 20 minutes, let’s say, to shower (i usually shower at night so in the morning i just like, throw warm water on myself and scrub my face) and get ready (i try to lay my outfit out the night before so that i don’t stand aimlessly in my towel trying to figure out what to wear and if my crush on my rhetoric professor is strong enough to warrant THAT sweater). 55 minutes, let’s say an hour to be safe. if i have class at eight, i can afford to get up at seven, and in emergencies i can get all of the above done in 40 minutes (throw on jeans and a sweater over whatever top i slept in and slather on some lipstick bc i can’t leave the house without lipstick).

which is, you know, a sweeter deal than a lot of people have. i have friends who need to take the train from strassy b’s surrounding towns to come to uni, i also have friends who go to the gym before coming to class. me, i live across the city from uni but i can still wake up just an hour before class. 

my alarm is set for an hour and a half before class though. now don’t get me wrong, i’m not one of those people who needs a million alarms set 4 minutes apart because i’m a chronic snoozer. a five-second ring of one alarm is enough for me to shoot up in bed movie protagonist style (or like, not do that if my octopus boyfriend is wrapped around me so that i don’t break his nose) and even roll out of it immediately given the situation (exams, parties in case it’s an afternoon nap, travel, appointments). 

however, it’s the other 80% of the time that’s the problem. i got class at eight, my alarm rings at six-thirty. from six-thirty to seven i’m lying in bed, trying to - no points for guessing - “motivate” myself. but guess what? i’m already motivated. i know in my head what i need to do to achieve what i want, and i have that burning desire to do it, i unironically watch this every week. i’m like, FUCK. LET’S DO IT. LET’S DO EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE. CLEAN THE HOUSE (negative: it’s always clean and i’m not only neat/clean in general, but also a stress cleaner, so when i’m stressed i get more stressed when i see that my apartment is already in top condition. so i grab a toothbrush and start microcleaning. welcome to my twisted mind and hard-water-stain-free taps) BUY A STATEMENT PIECE START LOOKING FOR INTERNSHIPS SOMEHOW FAST-FORWARD ALL MY FRIENDSHIPS UNTIL WE’RE IN STABLE JOBS AND STILL HANGING OUT TOGETHER IN BIGGER APARTMENTS WITH BETTER BOOZE LET’S WRITE THOSE FICS (lol) AND FINALLY CLEAR MY BACKLOG OF ARTICLES I’VE BEEN WANTING TO READ SINCE LITERALLY 2015 LET’S MEMORISE THE ENTIRE SEMESTER’S VOCAB IN ONE GO LET’S START WAKING UP AT 5 AM LIKE ROBIN SHARMA TOLD ME TO AND MAKE A SCHEDULE SO THAT I USE FACE MASKS REGULARLY AND SEE MY SKIN GLOW AND DRINK TWO LITERS OF WATER A DAY NEVER FORGET MY MEDS (lol) REDO MY BUDGET TO BUY HEALTHIER THINGS DONATE THE CLOTHES I PULLED OUT OF MY WARDROBE LAST WEEK TELL MY BOYFRIEND I LOVE HIM BUT WE’RE NOT GETTING A DOG BECAUSE I CAN’T STAND THE DOG SMELL, LET’S GET EDUCATED AND BE ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE WHO KNOWS SOMETHING ABOUT EVERYTHING FROM EPIGENETICS TO ETHNOLINGUISTICS. LET’S DO IT ALL, RIGHT NOW.

then my six-thirty alarm rings. and i open my eyes, and i don’t need to ask myself questions from point zero. i don’t need to ask do i really want to do all that? because i know i do. what i have to ask myself every day is those things i want to do, which are worth the effort i have to make - do i have it in me to make that effort every day?

you can’t do everything all at once anon. it’s the most frustrating lesson i’ve had to learn. motivation makes you want to do everything all the time forever. it’s like my best friend in cali, who snorts a line of coke after a party so that he can clean the house. motivation is gonna make you jump out of bed and spend fifteen minutes making an Upbeat Playlist which can then play in the background while you do your dishes, clean your bathroom, organise your wardrobe - and then collapse on the floor. unfuckyourhabitat is one of my favourite blogs on the internet, and they have something very important to say about this. 

you can’t do everything all at once. if you want to clean the house you’ll have to evaluate what needs cleaning, then see if you have supplies, acquire them if you don’t, and make a plan if everything’s a mess. if you want to buy a statement piece you’ll have to go through your wardrobe and see what you need, go through your budget and see what you can afford, go through online catalogues and see what you like, then clear some time so you can go out and get it - or more time if you want to browse. looking for internships - don’t even get me started. fast-forwarding friendships? sometimes the temptation of jumping ten years into the future and seeing if i’m still friends with the people i love today, seeing if i’m still with the person i’m with today, reaching that part of life where everything has become habit and dinner is with wine and there’s a fireplace in the living room - it’s so strong that the thought of having to live through those years to get there is excruciating. what do you mean i’ll have to live ten years, day for day, and slowly, painstakingly get there? what do you mean friendships don’t calcify in one day and i can’t decide today that that one friend i love is now my confidante and official best friend and we’ll do everything together? what do you mean you have to do everything together to get to a point where doing everything together is a habit. are u fucking kidding me. 

i get it, right? all the things i listed up there - face masks, water, 5 AM, success, progress. they’re not one-liners on a to-do list. they’re concepts and they require something more than motivation.

you know, even rumi has something to say about this. first of all, i digress, but rumi has something to say about EVERYTHING and i really hate when people assume he’s some kind of over the top abstract vague philosopher. bro rumi was practical as fuck? he talked about sex and friendship and hangovers and life as we know it, so bizarrely immortal that it applies these centuries later.

rumi says: submit to a daily practice. your loyalty to that is a ring on the door. keep knocking, and the joy inside will eventually open a window and look out to see who’s there. 

rumi also says: this windy mountaintop trough is ours. it sustains and protects, and you do not arrive here by just straining your neck to look at the mountain. you must start out and continue on.

but here’s my favourite thing that rumi says: it doesn’t matter that you’ve broken your vow a thousand times. still come, and yet again, come.

those things up there - Upbeat Playlist Number 29, buy-a-blender-make-frozen-smoothie-packs-stop-going-to-mcdonald’s-so-much, my-boyfriend-said-i-can’t-stop-him-from-buying-me-flowers - require more than motivation. 

coming back to my six-thirty alarm. do i have it in me to make this effort every day? i want to do something with my life but this bed is warm, i’m tired, and it’s cold outside. it’s going to be a long, long, long day. do i have it in me to make this effort? i know i have the desire to make this effort, so why is it so difficult? why do i have to wake up half an hour in advance to negotiate with myself and coddle myself into actually getting out of bed and moving to meet my day?

motivation is 20% anon. the other 80% is sheer fucking discipline. say it out loud to yourself: D I S C I P L I N E. it’s not motivation that makes me live my life - sure, motivation starts the fire and i won’t lie, i have a lot of it, almost inexhaustible supply except for when it suddenly burns out on me without a warning.

which is why we need discipline. motivation can quit on you anytime - discipline won’t. motivation is i want to ace this english class, it’s easy as balls, i can do it. discipline is well, this english class i want to ace is at 8 AM and i’m not going to miss a single one. you don’t need to convince yourself of your life goals every morning - you just need to train yourself into fucking getting out of bed. submit to a daily practice, because you’re not going to achieve everything all at once. you’ll have to live every single day until you get there, and it’s a constant process, and when you have that process down pat, it’s the journey itself that’ll be rewarding. no need for instant gratification through sudden unexplained achievement of goals - your gratification is seeing your kilometer count stack up steadily, that odd “wow, you’re glowing these days!” from an aunt, the realisation that you chop salad so much faster now out of habit. wake up in the morning (feeling like p diddy) and take your fucking half-hour if you need it, but at the end of that half-hour, roll the fuck out of bed and give yourself finger guns in the bathroom mirror.

it’s not about motivation. i frankly don’t care if your motivation runs out in two days, or one day, or the fifteen minutes it took you to make your Upbeat Playlist Number 29. boo fucking hoo, anon. that’s how fickle motivation is. it ran out while you were looking for that one elvis song. so what’s going to make you clean your house anyway? not motivation, that’s for sure, motivation’s fuckin peaced out man. you don’t care about those dishes anymore, you’ll do them when you get back from uni (you won’t, you’ll order sushi and sit at your table). 

you know what isn’t fickle? discipline. it’s discipline that’s going to make you clean your house. it’s discipline that’s going to make you wake up at 5 AM even if you’ve kind of failed four days in a row. keep knocking. keep working. still come, and yet again, come. you haven’t failed if you started trying to wake up at 5 AM last month and you did it maybe four times. you fail the day you turn that alarm off and give up on the concept. 

motivation provides you with concepts - discipline provides you with the means to nurture those concepts. motivation is a high-resolution photograph of a beautiful oil painting. that’s all it is. discipline is the hour you put aside every day to sit at your easel and make it real.

today i want you to look for your willpower and gather your paintbrushes.