#potential wasted!!!1

[vitasexualiiis]

when you ship something and it has like NO porn 🤮🤢🤮🤮🤮

[never-looked-so-good]

this would look so much better without the jacket. look how nicely those pants sit on his waist

📷 @/ferraristyle

[gazeopard]

Some Long-awaited Beastars Rambling

I was thinking about this for a while, but upon rereading the Dropout arc a couple months back, and looking back on my earlier review on the Beastars finale from October 2020, I can’t believe it took me as long as December 2023 and January 2024 to realize Yahya refused the offer of trading fish meat onto the land.

“You land creatures have matured quite a bit”…? How is this a sign of maturity and growth?

Just, why...........? What was the point of destroying the Black Market and the stupid whale offering fish if it was just going to be denied anyway?? AND what is stopping another Black Market from being created after all of this?

What was the point of destroying the Black Market if now NONE of the carnivores have anything to satisfy their cravings for meat? Louis said not to turn a blind eye to the Black Market. I thought the Market was going to stay as a necessary evil since some mammals include fish in their diets and others can't. But now that the fish trade has been shot down and the market was destroyed, there are going to be MORE predation attacks than ever! How is this supposed to be a happy ending??

What was the point of Kyuu as a character? She did absolutely nothing, everything she introduced in the story (the Imaginary Chimeras, betraying Legoshi, her involvement with Melon, etc) amounted to nothing, and the story's pacing would have been so much better if she (and San) were never included. San literally disappeared a chapter after he was properly introduced, and we never saw him again ffs.

What was the point of building up Louis and Juno's romantic relationship and all their sexual tension together if they were never going to become a couple?

And worst of all, what was the point of building up Legoshi and Haru's relationship if Haru was just going to become a secondary-character in Vol.6/Season 2, while Legoshi kept ghosting AND avoiding her throughout the rest of the manga? Didn't he say he was going to get stronger for her at the end of the Meteor Festival arc? So why did he wait until after being attacked by Riz in the school grounds to start his meat-resistance training with Gouhin? Why was he suddenly back to hating himself for being a wolf and a carnivore all throughout the Riz Arc, the Dropout Arc, and the Melon Arc? While fighting the Chief Lion, he had appeared to come to terms with that side of himself when he realized he could take responsibility for his strength and use it to protect Haru and the herbivores from other carnivores. So why did he start avoiding that side of himself again? He has to have GOUHIN remind him to see his carnivore side as a good thing, when two arcs ago Legoshi swore to himself that the reason why he was born a wolf: to protect Haru and the other herbivores. Why does he suddenly start claiming he doesn't need his fangs to fight for herbivores, why does he rip out his own teeth to make a point to Yahya, never mind that he once told himself that his fangs and claws were for Haru? And what was even the POINT of him ripping out his own teeth if they were just going to grow back anyway by the magical power of Komodo Dragon genes, Protagonist Plot-Armor, and the narrative's post-Season 2 refusals to hold him or Louis accountable for their actions?

Speaking of Louis, WHY would Legoshi go back to putting Louis on the same pedestal after their fight in S01? By attacking him, Legoshi realized that Louis was not the noble person he thought he was and was a selfish social-climber who was going to let Haru die for the sake of securing his future as a Beastar. Even if Louis didn't want to do it, he still shook hands with the Mayor anyway. Why would Legoshi go back to idolizing Louis and forget about it like their fight never happened?? Speaking of which, why didn’t Haru EVER find out about it? Why didn't Legoshi EVER bring it up with Haru, ESPECIALLY when she was confessing her worries about Louis to him?? We could have gotten some serious character development for Louis right there!

Why was Louis' sudden liking for carnivores so rushed, and why didn't the narrative ever hold him accountable for the things he did? Making a deal with the Mayor to keep Haru's kidnap and potential death a secret? Allowing the Shishigumi to beat the tar out of Legoshi instead of ordering them to stop? Selling herbivore children in the market, which was literally what he went through as a child himself? I literally forgot that happened in the manga until someone else pointed it out.

Why couldn't he have saved the herbivore children while also making sure the carnivores didn't suffer in the market after Ibuki showed him his tattoos and after witnessing the alligator (or was it a crocodile?) get castrated? He was a racist (specist?) asshole to Legoshi and the others (he threatened to shoot Bill, he accused Zoe of eating the script without any evidence all while stereotyping goats and threatened to kill him after falling off the stage, etc.) all throughout the Seasons 1 and 2, until he suddenly realized he admired carnivores right before Ibuki's death. To me, there was not enough buildup and foreshadowing to lead to this transformation. If I recall correctly.

Also, somebody already mentioned this on the Subreddit forums, and I totally agree, but rather than having it be Louis, Haru should have been the one to offer her foot to Legoshi in his fight against Riz. It would have made more sense since Riz's relationship with Tem was the antithesis of Legoshi's relationship with Haru, so it would have been far stronger, and it would have shown just how much she trusts him not to completely eat her. It would have mirrored what had happened to Tem, but without the tragedy. It also would have lined up with what she told him in the Love Hotel in Season 1: That Legoshi could make love to her or eat her, and she would be fine with either choice. And slowly, Legoshi could have obliged, silently vowing to never eat a piece of her again.

Hell, Louis still could have been there after leaving the Shishigumi and could have helped bandage Haru up to prevent her from dying of bloodloss. Then to make up for what he did in Season 1, he could have had his company make a prosthetic foot for Haru. And hell, Legoshi informing him not only of his duel with Riz but also Riz's capture of Haru could have also been Louis's real moment of redemption. He could have told Ibuki that his two friends were going to die, and he made the mistake of nearly letting one of them get killed by their old boss. If Haru and Legoshi die tonight because he became a bystander again, he could never forgive himself.

Something I also thought about, but I think Paru wanted Louis to save Legoshi's life because he felt responsible for Ibuki's death, and he would feel like the weak helpless fawn in the cage that he was in the market. For some reason, upon reading it for the first time it initially came off that way to me, but looking back now it wasn't fully executed, because we never saw and/or heard Louis' inner thoughts feeling responsible for Ibuki getting shot and refusing to watch another carnivore die in front of him… if I recall correctly. Instead, it ended up becoming more about him wanting Legoshi to eat his foot because of the ties it had to his past, unintentionally coming off as more selfish than selfless.

And rather than convincing Legoshi to eat his foot, the closure to his arc could have been him coming to terms with his dark past so it couldn't hurt him anymore and move on. Maybe he could have started training to become the next Beastar, maybe he could have met Yahya, and Yahya could have been a sort of mentor-ish role like Gouhin had been for Legoshi? And if Paru really wanted Louis to lose his leg, he could have lost it in the final battle against Melon. He could have jumped in front of Haru or pushed her out of the way just as Melon lunged for her? Maybe Melon could have finally gotten his sense of taste?? And maybe he could have figured out Louis was the former boss of the Shishigumi somehow?

And speaking of the Shishigumi, it pisses me off that they, like Louis, were never held accountable for their actions towards Haru. Yeah, they were sent to prison, but I hate that their kidnapping of Haru AND their witness to the Chief Lion's sexual harassment of Haru, was NEVER brought up again. And Haru never found out that Louis became their boss either. Looking back now, it kind of reminds me of what Kique did to the Meteor Tribe after Ronja became leader.

When they were first introduced, they were known to have killed many herbivores, mostly white-furred herbivores for the Chief Lion to consume. In the manga, they hanged the decomposing bodies of those they killed up on display as warnings, they kidnapped Haru and were present (in the manga anyway) to her being stripped naked and humiliated in front of their boss, they fought Legoshi and Gouhin and nearly killed both of them. They also would have eaten Louis had Ibuki not suggested a vote for an herbivore leader.

Then when Louis was their boss, he sold herbivore children to the market with them (which, as mentioned, did not happen in the anime since it would have made him look like an irredeemable monster), they beat up Legoshi, and then tried to kill him again in the Melon arc (but Legoshi's Plot-Armor saved him), they kidnapped Kyuu (which ultimately ended up being pointless anyway because Melon never used her betrayal to get the upper-paw in his final fight with Legoshi), and then they got arrested while leading Louis to help Legoshi. If Paru had wanted them to be more misunderstood and redeemable, she could have shown some of them at least hesitating or exchanging looks of disgust or unease as the Chief Lion goes over Haru, or at least considering leaving the room. If I recall correctly, the anime didn't show them being present in the room when Haru was being "examined", which I can see why.

But even while the Chief Lion was their boss, none of them made any effort to overthrow him, challenge his cruelty and opinions, and/or appoint Ibuki as the new boss. They did not express any regret for their previous actions or what they did to Haru. And when Melon became their new boss, they made very little effort to overthrow him despite his weaker form. Agata (the dark-furred lion) attempted to overthrow him, but he still ultimately failed. They could have easily shot him when his back was turned and easily overpowered him as a pride, but they didn't do it because I guess making them act smart or logical would have ruined the Melon plot... 😑

I mean, if Paru really wanted to show off how dangerous Melon truly was to these guys, why couldn't we have a scene where Melon became the boss, instead of getting a hand-waved explanation from Free? Why couldn't we get a scene where the lions tried ganging up on Melon only to be overpowered by the hybrid due to the guy's enhanced speed and senses? We could have had a scene where he'd hear about their former deer boss, take it to his advantage, waltz right into the mansion in full gazelle-disguise, announce his presence to the lions, and declare himself as their new boss while promising that he'd bring them back to glory. Then he could have removed his mask and reveal himself to be a half-breed after they'd vote on it, only to scare the living shit out of them after killing or injuring somebody for disagreeing with his new set of rules, causing some of them to try to attack him... only for him to nearly shoot at them at an almost supernatural speed and accuracy, just for shits and giggles. Thus, establishing him as dangerous and a new kind of threat to the remaining lions and giving them a reason to fear conspiring against him.

I would have loved to have seen how Melon became their boss and how he managed to strike so much fear into them. Also, why didn't any of them try to poison him? We could have gotten a scene or two where Melon uses his cunning and hybridized instincts to avoid attempted assassination attempts, and these scenes, as well as his introduction, could have established the fear and the stranglehold of power he had over the Shishigumi.

Also, Legoshi never brought up Louis' affiliation with the Shishigumi with Haru, and neither did Louis. I don't remember if Louis told Legoshi how he became the boss (by blowing the chief's brains out, thus saving not only Legoshi's life but also Haru's), but we also could have gotten some accountability on Louis' part from Haru's discovery or realization, and his moment of redemption could have been him giving her a prosthetic leg from Legoshi's predation act. Maybe Louis could have told her and Legoshi the truth at some point. He could have told her what he did, that he was wrong to have made the deal with the Mayor, that he went to save her after his fight with Legoshi anyway, and how he had killed the boss and had temporarily taken over the Shishigumi for a while.

Perhaps during the Melon arc, while he, Legoshi and Haru could have been trying to stop Melon, he could have introduced Haru to the lions, and they could have realized that she was his friend, and they could have bowed and apologized for the things they did under the chief lion's rule. Maybe we could have had more humanizing moments between the Shishigumi, maybe they could have had some serious character growth and could have eventually viewed Haru as someone to protect as well? Maybe if Paru hadn't made them as bad in the first few chapters of their introduction, maybe it could have been pulled off well...?

But we didn’t get any of that. I get that Paru wanted to humanize the Shishigumi a bit when they made Louis their new boss, and I know they're supposed to be morally gray characters, but there's a line that needs to be drawn to distinguish them from very evil characters like Melon. These guys were present to what was essentially Haru being sexually-assaulted by their leader, and made no attempts to stop it...

Even if we got to know a couple of their backstories (particularly Ibuki's and Agata's), it didn't excuse any of their previous actions. It just felt like Paru was trying to make them seem not as bad once Louis became their leader. As if solely by association with Louis, it suddenly erased their horrible deeds or something. So, looking back now, the way she went about it feels more like Kique redeeming the Meteor Tribe. I just can't buy that ALL the male rapists were miraculously killed by Kargo and Ferah during the first and second rebellions.

But I digress.

The huge amount of screen-time Legoshi and Louis had gotten post-Arc 2 should have gone to Legoshi and Haru, instead of Legoshi ghosting her throughout most of the manga. And honestly, Legoshi suddenly saying stuff like how Louis was "his most precious scent" and his later line ("You were always there to keep me from becoming a monster") in the Riz Arc just felt more like things he'd say to Haru. And her giving up her leg to him would have felt more selfless, since Louis forcing Legoshi to eat it just so he could break free from his cursed past just felt more benefiting to HIM than to Legoshi, since the wolf got a predation record as a result. And yet he never apologized for it, and later had the audacity to joke about it and then say something like, "You ate my foot and dropped out of school without even telling me" after Legoshi told him it was not funny. Dude, you offered your foot to him, it was your idea to give him your leg in the first place, what the hell?

It sucks that Louis had more screen-time with Legoshi during the Dropout arc and especially the Melon arc, but not Haru. I don't know if Louis replacing Haru as the deuteragonist was Paru's intention all along after she decided to spare him, or if the publishers pressured her into toning down the romance and everything Haru-related, tone up the action for the target audience, and turn Louis into the Sasuke to Legoshi's Naruto in the process, because they assumed the target audience (teenage boys) wouldn't be interested watching multiple scenes of Haru or Legoshi and Haru together… :( Which is frankly misogynistic, but considering how women don't have the best representation in Shonen manga (though Bleach had very good strong female characters and plenty of diverse representation of ethnic groups), it doesn't sound too farfetched unfortunately.

Maybe if Paru had just gone with her original plan and killed off Louis from the beginning instead of sparing him solely because he became popular with fans (no different than what Tite Kubo apparently did when he spared Byakuya Kuchiki from dying like he should have at the hands of Äs Nodt). Or if the publishers had just given her a lot more time to plan out the rest of the manga instead of going with what seemed to be first-drafts, Legoshi and Haru's relationship would have gotten more development than it did. Hell, it BARELY got ANY development. And maybe Louis and Juno's relationship would have gotten significantly more development and more buildup to it in the earlier arcs. I thought they were going to be parallel to Legoshi and Haru's relationship, and they were going to be the secondary protagonist power-couple next to Legoshi and Haru's. And it bums me out that (much like Luke, Leia, and Han in the Disney Star Wars trilogy) we NEVER got a scene where all four of them were in the same room together!

Literally NOTHING was properly resolved, and because of the lack of proper development in their relationship, Legoshi and Haru getting together and FINALLY dating, which should have started happening several chapters ago, was unearned.

Also, why didn't we learn of Legoshi's reason for dropping out? He told Haru that he dropped out, if I recall correctly, and he told her about his fight with Riz, his predation record, and how he got it, but we never really found out why he had dropped out. I always thought it was because he got a predation record, but looking back it apparently wasn't? Someone suggested on the Subreddit already in the earlier link that Legoshi could have dropped out due to regret for consuming Haru's leg, and man, that would have made perfect sense. It also could have worked after eating Louis' foot too. He was already suffering from meat-withdrawal in the beginning of the Dropout arc, but after talking with Sebun, we were TOLD more about it and not SHOWN. Maybe that could have been the reason Legoshi dropped out of school in the first place? Because we never got a reason for why he even dropped out at all. Perhaps eating Haru's foot (or Louis' foot) could have reawakened his carnivorous urge to devour her, and Legoshi could have wanted to protect her by avoiding her again? His dropping out was just an excuse for the narrative to explore the world beyond Cherryton. It's because of Legoshi's neglect of Haru during the Melon arc that caused her to nearly offer herself to Melon, and she considered breaking up with Legoshi at a few points, but never went through with it. So why didn't she tell him about it? She told Louis of all people, but not Legoshi himself? It could have given Legoshi the slap of reality he needed to stop neglecting her! They could have realized that, for their relationship and their future together to work, they'd have to remain honest with each other. They could have promised it, too. That would have been great character growth for both of them!

And why didn't we ever see Legoshi lose control of his carnivore instincts again? After the water fountain accident, his wolf/carnivore instincts never come up again, not even in Season 1. Just like we're not even SHOWN them being discriminated against while he and Haru are out together in public.

And after the love-hotel scene, it bums me out that Haru never overcame HER instincts, and that we were TOLD rather than SHOWN that she stopped seeking validation through sex. We never saw her overcome her self-loathing and learning to love herself. After being rescued from the Shishigumi, her body's suicidal urge to climb into Legoshi's jaws was never shown again, so we never got to see her overcome that part of her instincts either. We never saw her overcome her herbivore instinct to flee from him or other carnivores, and after the Shishigumi kidnapped her, I'm surprised she didn't suffer from PTSD.

Haru suffering from not only PTSD but also her instincts and going through her own fight to get stronger for her future with Legoshi, would have been so empowering and it would have actually given her stuff to do, instead of making her character solely revolve around Legoshi. If we were given more scenes of him struggling with his carnivore instincts, showing us that he still has urges to eat Haru rather than telling us (since actions speak louder than words), giving him a valid reason for dropping out of school and if we were given more scenes of him and Haru suffering from discrimination as an interspecies couple in public, and if we were shown him AND Haru struggling to overcome their respective instincts and fighting against the society that keeps them apart all in an effort to be together… the ending of them finally getting together would have been well-earned.

Ugh... My head. I guess this is what happens when you make the rest of a story up as you go because you're under pressure and need to meet a deadline.

Here's to hoping against hope that Studio Orange somehow manages to salvage the final season/arc of Beastars... 🙏

[icy-watch]

That is the third food item Wu has wasted in this episode!

[elendsessor]

i may be crucified for this opinion but

one of the many reasons i think dds deserves a remake is just how little impact some of the characters have and it’s really fucking sad. unless they’re party members or antagonistic forces they don’t get nearly as much screen time as they deserve and i think that hurts them as characters???

jinana and lupa especially. i get the setting of the first game is a battle royale that turned into a cannibal battle royale so of course not everyone could live but they kinda didn’t get as much screen time as they deserved. i mean think about it they kinda just exist to introduce their tribe, interact with the embryon for a bit, disappear, reappear once or twice, then next time you see them they’ve succumbed to hunger, you beat the shit out of them, and they end up dying. what little they are given does make you like them don’t get me wrong but a lot of that rides on dialogue which, as someone who loves seeing people experience certain plot stuff of games i enjoy, i kinda noticed that it was a really mixed result. it’s either “oh no anyways” with maybe the player getting a little melancholic when they get brought up again or the player doesn’t care. considering how important their struggles and mini arcs are that’s not good??? the fact that they exist solely to develop argilla and gale is a shame since unless you like the exchanges they have their deaths don’t have that big of an impact. they do get mentions and all that in 2 yet it kinda just. makes me question it more from the standpoint of what could’ve been done with them or the giant emotional aftermath that should’ve happened. this isn’t to say they can’t die or whatever but considering the interesting conflicts dds introduces and how it already struggled to explore it as much as it could’ve, jinana and lupa really did have the potential to help remedy some of those issues.

and then there’s fred aka the smokey of dds. i still don’t know why he exists except to explain why lupa somewhat knows what a child is and to introduce the existence of tiny humans to the gang. i’m sorry i straight up forget he was a character at points.

qds fixed a lot of this yes yet i still think it’s important to point out on a game standpoint, since most people who play dds don’t end up reading qds, and i really don’t think actual important contextual stuff or major aspects of a game’s themes should be exclusive to books. it’s not as bad as something like fnaf or other mascot horrors—that shit was over a decade later—but it is a major writing issue and i don’t think the fact that the original lead writer got sick and had to leave means there wasn’t a writing decline. you can tell there was stuff that was going to be built upon only to be abandoned or underdeveloped.

it’s extra sad because this is straight up one of the best instances of world-building the series has ever had, and the whole cannibalistic character drama mixed with spiritual and buddhist + hindu themes is something so inherently interesting while also being in some ways taboo??? there’s not a lot of games out there at least not made by indie developers that get that risky since it’s not marketable, and something like that is next to nonexistent now in the mainstream market. we fuckin need games like the dds duology that challenge the status quo and goddammit if it got expanded upon and had more development for side characters that would be actually perfect.

[citrus-soda]

froggie alien doodle dump

ft. a keroro drawn in 5 seconds that makes me snort

[emmavakarian-theirin]

ello

[leqclerc]

Not the Bahrain International Circuit posting Seb/Charles fanart back in 2017😭

[compacflt]

wip wednesday: going thru my corny arc

[jrueships]

Bought one of my lil nephew giannis shoes for his birthday bcs he loves giannis and these are some of the ugliest fucking things I have ever laid my eyes on in my life. anyways it's his bday today so i gave them to him. but they are so ugly. he loves them

[h-f-k]

artists who are starting to treat albums like a random spotify playlist is my villain origin story.

[rigelmejo]

some basic language learning thoughts (based on some common questions i see on reddit forums). as usual, if you don't like the suggestion, feel free to ignore and throw it out! what works best for you will be what works best for you - everyone is different. at the end of the day, if you continue studying (hours add up), study some new stuff (expand your knowledge), and practice/review some stuff you've studied (improve comprehension of what you know), then you'll improve. You can achieve that in a ton of different ways, and any way which motivates you to keep doing it is great.

What's the easiest language to learn? My thought on this question is... it doesn't matter as much as it might feel like it does. If any language is going to take hundreds or thousands of hours of study, you will probably want to have goals that motivate you to study for THAT long, for years. If Danish 'takes less hours to learn' than Thai, but you watch Thai shows everyday and follow thai webnovel writers and twitter, and don't have much interest in anything Danish (and no friends that speak the language), then Thai is going to be 'easier' because you have more reasons to USE it. If Spanish and French seem to take a similar amount of hours to learn, but you're planning to go to school in a French speaking country and get a job there? Well you have a more pressing Need to learn French, that will hopefully help motivate you. The 'easiest' language to learn is the language you have REASONS to learn. The language you will use, and keep using. If you have no pressing reason to learn any language, but want to learn a language? Find reasons. Make goals that require the language.

(Here's one from me - I wanted to learn Japanese, in theory I can mostly do anything I want by just reading/watching/playing translations, however I am the kind of person that really enjoys reading originals in their original form... so that's motivating. My recent kick to study more? A show I want to watch is untranslated, so I better get to studying so I can still watch it.) Your goal can be anything from: I want to visit X, I want to talk to X friend/family better, I want to blog in multiple languages, I want to watch untranslated media, I want to sing my favorite musicians songs easier, I want to work in a country that speaks it, I want access to more recipes in X language, I am into history and want to read a history book from X time period in X language, I want to play a video game before localization, really the sky is the limit on goals you can set. Your goals, and how much you want them, and how often you do the sub-goals (so if reading untranslated cnovels by an author you love is your goal, maybe along the way you read easier webnovels to motivate you and find more writers you like), is going to push you to keep studying. Even if your goal is 'pass language B2 test' if it has a deadline, and it's a goal connected to other goals (like going to work in a country with the language, translating work, writing better), that will keep you motivated. Motivation is what will make a language 'easier.' If you can't find the motivation, even the languages which should take the 'least amount of time' will feel hard.

All that said, I am now about to contradict myself. While I really think motivation is the biggest factor in if you'll keep studying and keep learning... there are languages which due to their similarity to languages you already know, will take less Total Study Hours to make progress. As an English speaker, it only took me 6 months of very lazy unorganized studying (half hour most days) to be able to start reading non-fiction French with only a handful of word lookups per page. A lot of that was because French (especially science words and proper nouns like places) has so many cognates with English. I basically 'had' thousands of words of French I already knew, just because I knew English. It took about a year to read fiction books in French only looking up a handful of words per page, for 'general main idea' comprehension. When studying Chinese, it took me also about 12 months to read fiction, look up a handful of words, and understand the 'general main idea.' But I was studying 2 hours a day. So I studied around 182.5 hours to read French fiction with word lookups, and 730 hours to read Chinese fiction with word lookups. And the Chinese also took longer to learn to read with NO word lookups, since there was no english-cognate carryover to sound-out and over rely on like with French. (Although at a wonderful certain point, you know enough Chinese hanzi that new words are built of mostly hanzi you know, and you can use that to guess the gist of a LOT of new words when extensively reading with no word lookups - that happened for me at about 2 years). My point is: Chinese DOES take more hours of study to reach language skill milestones as an english speaker, compared to French! It took me the same amount of months, because I studied Chinese more hours per day (to make up the difference - and I had a better study plan with Chinese). But if you are a total beginner, and unmotivated and KNOW you will study maybe 1 hour per day and probably not more, then learning a language that is more similar to one you already know WILL take less study hours total to reach skill milestones. And that will hopefully be motivating.

(Another example: I spent 3 months of 1-2 hours a day studying Spanish, and can read Spanish nonfiction - thanks to the similarities to French and English. I can read fiction too but it requires word lookups. Japanese, due to kanji, also got 'easier' to read once I had learned more Chinese hanzi. So if your goals include learning languages with some similarities, then once you learn some of those similarities it will make future learning 'faster.')

I spent a month once studying Esperanto (a constructed language). Do I ever use Esperanto? No. Did I find the experience helpful? Yes. Because Esperanto is designed to be fairly easy for european language native speakers, has no exceptions, it had 1. a lot of similar-words to english so I could practice 'guessing similar words' (a skill I'd use a lot with French and Spanish later), 2. practice guessing what word endings mean grammatically (since Esperanto has no exceptions the grammar patterns are much more obvious than say grammar patterns in French). 3. Practice recognizing spelling to sound connections. Those 3 skills are useful in learning any language, but natural languages will have more exceptions to the patterns.

After spending a month on Esperanto, I saw HUGE progress after studying a few hundred words, noticed a huge amount of grammar patterns and how to notice them, and just generally got the experience of 'this is what skill milestones feel like.' Later, when studying French, I used that experience to recognize French word endings and what they tend to indicate, word functions, patterns in pronunciation, guessing with cognates/similar words, and I knew what the first 'milestones' I was aiming for would be. In a similar pattern: French milestones took me a few months each to hit, so when I studied Chinese later and it was taking 2-3 times as much study time... I knew which milestone to expect myself to 'work toward' and achieve next, and knew what making progress should feel like (even if it felt like it was moving slower) so I didn't give up. I was aware that Chinese language skill milestones might 'take more hours' so I didn't panic when it was taking me almost a year of reading graded readers in Chinese to move on to simple webnovels, whereas in French I'd only been reading graded readers for half a year before I felt ready to move on. I knew the general process, because I'd done it before in a shorter timespan with French, with Esperanto.

Is Esperanto useful to you? Only you know that. I personally did not find it useful in general for me, and didn't continue to study it. But it did teach me 'how' to study a language, what progress to monitor, and gave me the confidence that I was capable of learning.

If you really feel you're incapable of learning any skill in a new language, then spending some time on a language more similar to what you already know (if possible - a language you have motivating goals with), may help you see you are capable and can learn. An addition to this: spend a LOT of hours studying as a beginner, if lack of progress demotivates you. Once you push past the beginner stage, you'll be able to do goal-related things in the language you study and that will keep you motivated. But in the beginning, progress feels slow and you feel very confused. So the more upfront studying you do, the quicker you will push through that hard-to-motivate stage.

Is learning a language that is more similar to ones you know going to take less hours of study? Probably. But either way, motivation over hundreds or thousands of hours, for years, is going to be needed. So the goals you wish to achieve will be more important in your success, rather than how many 'hours' it will take.

What do you do if you get demotivated that it's taking SO LONG to hit the next language skill milestone? Fair concern. I got demotivated OFTEN by how much longer it took to reach milestones in Japanese compared to in French. First: try to keep perspective. It's normal for it to take more hours to understand certain things, if the language is not very similar to ones you know. You have to build a bigger foundation of understanding for lots of totally new stuff. Second: you're going to hate me but I'd suggest upping the study hours per day (or week). Studying Chinese RARELY demotivated me, despite it taking more actual hours of study to hit milestones compared to French, and why? Because I increased my study time for Chinese so I was still REACHING milestones in a reasonable amount of months (very similar to the months it took to hit French milestones). 2 hours a day of Chinese study was more than 1/2 an hour of French study, but 2 hours was doable. And it meant I still got to watch shows and read within a few months, and watch/read without looking many words up (depending on difficulty) by the end of year 1. Once you are doing the goals or sub-goals you have, it becomes so much easier to stay motivated. Once I could watch cdramas before they got translated, or read any novel I wanted using Pleco or Readibu to help? It was very easy to stay motivated and do things I WANTED to do in chinese. From there it was just practice/learn using activities I had the goal of doing.

Finally, similar to the suggestions above, if you find yourself in a motivation rut what can you do? I personally try to do 'study sprints' when I'm getting demotivated and need to see significant progress. What I do is pick a small goal, then spend 1-2 months studying as much as I can to improve in that goal. Suggestions: A beginner may make the goal to study the alphabet, a pronunciation guide, and 300 common words and see how far they get by the end of the month. (If at the end of the month the pronunciation is easier to hear and alphabet is easier to read then they succeeded - and they likely will). Another beginner may make the goal to read graded readers 1 hour per day or more all month and see how much they can read. (If the first graded reader they read is easier to read at the conclusion of the month, such as less unknown words or faster reading speed, then they succeeded - and they likely will see progress). A beginner/intermediate learner into flashcards might try to study as many flashcards in Anki as they can for a month. An intermediate learner may pick an audiobook and try to listen to AS MANY chapters as they can in a month, or may pick a novel and look up every unknown word while reading for 1 hour per day or more, until the end of the month. The idea is to pick a goal where you KNOW you're current skill level, work HARD on studying to improve that skill for a month, and then try to do the skill again and see how much progress you've made. I find it very motivating. It can take months to broadly notice progress milestones like managing to improve in your overall reading skill to tackle more difficult novels. But it can take just A MONTH to learn a few hundred new words and make the current novel you're reading become much EASIER to read, or the current show you're watching to become much EASIER to follow, or for the listening skills you're struggling with to become much more instant and reliable.

Example: one of my most recent sprints was to improve my Chinese listening skills. So for a month, I listened to audio flashcards of chinese-english sentences audio, and audiobook chapters (re-listening to each chapter a few times). I saw progress in 1. The audiobook got easier to understand over time, and 2. I tried watching a cdrama I've watched before, only this time I watched it without any subtitles, and it is now much easier to quickly comprehend and follow the lines (even without chinese subs). A sprint I did after a 2 year funk with minimal japanese progress was to cram study 2000 words in memrise Nukemarine's LLJ decks (took 3 months) then try to play a japanese video game I'd tried playing before the sprint. Another japanese sprint I did was listen to japaneseaudiolessons.com free lessons for a month, to work on improving my listening comprehension and recognition of word-order faster, and it did really help with seeing an improvement in those things.

As a beginner, I think the sprints can help with staying focused on small achieveable goals and seeing your progress (like reading daily, watching a show daily, studying X new words daily, going through a chapter of a grammar book weekly, etc). And then as you get farther and can actually do some of your sub-goals, can help with pushing yourself to some significant improvement in a particular area. (Like if you reached a sub goal of reading easy webnovels, it might be a month where you read a webnovel with more unique words that's 'harder' and look all unknown words up, and by the end of the month you see that medium-difficulty webnovels now feel as easy as the 'easy' ones did at the start of the month).

And then... if you study like me, which tends to be periods of a LOT of study followed by lulls where I might watch/read/listen to the language but not do much active study, then the sprint goal months tend to help cram in 100 hours of study every so often. So that you'll still (on average through the year) have studied 1-2+ hours a day. I do not focus well, and sprint goal months along with more relaxed months where I just watch/read/listen to stuff when I feel like it, is the only way I can get myself to study regularly. If you can consistently study daily, then sprint goal months can help you make Significant progress in a very specific area if some slow-progress area has been demotivating you. (And you can turn the sprint goals into challenges with friends, or tests to see what study methods work great for you versus bore you).

[aadhiskanmani]

[icy-watch]

That texture of the roof tiles is beautiful

[silentreigns]

I knew there was never a chance when I found out Yuki has never tested a RedBull. So I guess I have to delusionally post that Yuki should go to Aston Martin in 2026 like everyone else is

[m4ndysk4nkovich]

i will never forgive the writers for how much they hurt these two in season 11/how sad both of their endings were