#I first took it the first way but there's some literacy thing at work that my head hurts too much to understand

[incorrect-web-novels]

[Photo ID: a Tumblr reply from kitsuneluvuh that reads: "No, JC calls him Wei Wuxian, but it's still fun." End ID]

Something something something about WWX calling JC by his birth name and JC calling WXX by his courtesy name

#there's two ways to take it: wwx thinking they're closer than they actually are or smth #and the difference of values/position #there's something there but IDK what. someone make post for me pls /lh #I first took it the first way but there's some literacy thing at work that my head hurts too much to understand #'why's the screenshot in dark mode' head hurty #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #the grandmaster of demonic cultivation #godc #the untamed #the founder of diabolism #yunmeng bros #wei wuxian #wwx #jiang cheng #also I think jc was one of the few ppl who were called by their birthnames but I could be wrong (also wen ning) #my posts #edit: I forgot the third and most likely option - wwx just likes to call ppl by their birthnames #he doesn't refer to lwj as lan zhan like he does with jc or jyl and we don’t even know nhs's birth name #(pretty sure nhs is his courtesy name) #*tho #not a quote

[rewrite-canon]

im going crazy with how people are starting to agree with snow that sejanus was really stupid and deserved what was coming to him. reading the books first should be a pre requisite to the movie idcccc if that takes away the wider audience, the wider audience all have smooth brains anyway.

“why was he colluding with rebels when he could’ve just thought about it pragmatically 🙄” i’m in your fucking walls. sejanus was never dumb, snow just kept pushing that perception of him through the book to deflect the fact that sejanus was an actual good person. snow thought himself the personification of good and benevolence, which was why everything he did had to have some half-assed excuse as to why he was justified in doing it. it was why he was actually tweaking in the woods when lucy gray left him, because he wanted to rid himself of her but he didn’t have an actual reason so he convinced himself of the most random scenario ever to justify trying to shoot at her. so we can establish that snow was an evil broke boy who clearly wasn’t good— then sejanus was a direct confrontation of snow’s own shortcomings towards that (i don’t think i have to detail how sejanus was genuine, it was obvious). coriolanus and sejanus are like the direct opposite characters of each other, and snow knew and took pride in this to an extent. which is why snow couldn’t admit that sejanus was good to himself, thus sejanus was deemed ‘stupid’ to protect his own deluded self actualisation (but this also includes other aspects like how the war made the plinths rich and the snows poor, leading to resentment and jealousy from snow).

“but that still didn’t mean he wasn’t doing dumb things throughout the book” was it really that dumb? a rebellion will always include some level of risk but i don’t hear anyone calling heavensbee stupid because it actually worked out for him. plus sejanus is district, so if we use our common sense of who he is as a character and emotional intelligence of his situation, it’s pretty easy to see why he would get in touch with rebels. he’s literally always yearned for the districts, he never once cared about his money or safety, which isn’t stupid, it’s sad. this was his way of dealing with the guilt of profiting from his people’s suffering— again, not stupid. you could argue he was reckless, especially when he went into the arena, but most people who simply cast him as a ‘dumb character’ ignore how troubled he is and fall into the very filtered lens of snow who was just concentrating on his stupidity.

sejanus’ growing radical actions had nothing to do with stupidity and everything to do with feeling helpless and like nothing was changing. he tried minor/low-risk things such as attempting to change the perception of the districts in the capitol, advocating against the hunger games etc etc. of course it didn’t work, so his options grew limited to more radical courses of action. its a natural line of thought— activists literally do it in real life when they feel as if their cause isn’t getting enough attention (eg. setting themselves on fire). sejanus is a desperate character who is so selfless in light of snow’s constant self-preservation. snow will always put himself first and be paranoid that he will be betrayed like he’s betrayed others, so he never understands sejanus’ disposition to help and trust people, so he labels him dumb. omg. like. sejanus is so not-stupid i’m actually gonna start freaking out!! this is defamatory leave my boo alone!! plz go read a book and work on media literacy i am begging!!!

#maybe the stupidity was the friends we made along the way….. #i saw someone say that since the book was in third person then it wasn’t told from snow’s pov so it was reliable 💀💀 #like are we stupid now??? #this was supposed to be a short post but now im ranting and tweaking out #sejanus haters catch these handz leave this boy alone #he is literally the best!!! i hate yall sm 😭😭 #some of yall have the WORST takes about tbosas ever. #dont even get me started on the ‘lucy gray was manipulating and using snow the whole time’ bcuz i will freak out worse #sejanus plinth defender 4EVAAAAA #sejanus plinth #coriolanus snow #snowjanus #lucy gray baird #tbosas #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #thg #the hunger games #rewriting

[bixbythemartian]

Okay, I wasn't going to say anything, but I've seen posts about this get passed around. And it's probably too late to push back on this, anyway, but I'm so frustrated I feel the need to say to say something. This is coming from a place of love- I just hate seeing this going around, and I want to offer some perspective on the matter.

First of all, regarding that poll where the user did not know how to pronounce 'Miette'- if you look in the replies, it doesn't take long to discover that the OP was genuinely confused about the pronunciation and, when corrected, was working to get it right. That poll came from a place of innocent ignorance. I hope the OP took it down and stopped reblogs and turned notes off or whatever, because some people said some awful shit. I hope you are the kind of person who is kind and understanding, in the face of such ignorance. Or, if you can't be that, I hope you can at the very least be quiet. (And props to the people in the replies who patiently and kindly explained things to the OP.)

Second of all, I've seen a lot of posts talking about literacy rates, and I'd like to point out that English literacy has very little to do with figuring how to pronounce a French fucking word, goddamn. The OP just didn't know. The dunking, the pointing, the laughing- rude, unnecessary, not helpful.

Thirdly, in response to the complaints of 'they don't even teach phonics in schools these days'- that's bullshit. Because the odds are very good that they didn't teach phonics in schools when you went to school, either.

When I was a kid, it was called Whole Language. It was the new hot literacy technique, and a lot of schools adopted it. It used cueing techniques and sight words and was very similar.

If you're a millennial, you might remember the commercials for Hooked on Phonics, and you might conclude that teaching phonics in schools was perhaps not common, if you think about that for a bit. If it was worth it to sell a whole reading tutoring program for struggling readers based in phonics, perhaps it might lead one to conclude that phonics weren't as common as other methods, right? You might not have been taught phonics to start. What you do know about phonics, you might have picked up in the past 20-30 years, right?

Okay. Lets go back further, you know Dick and Jane? It was based on, more or less, the same sight words principle, and those primers date from the 1930s, although I don't think that teaching technique came really into vogue until the 40s.

If you are alive, today, in the United States, the likelihood that you were not taught phonics in school is well above non-zero. Especially if you're a millennial.

The notable exception is the 1970s. And during that period of time, there were probably plenty of schools that still used fucking Dick and Jane. And plenty of schools that were starting to adopt Whole Language, because while it was popular in the 80's and 90's, it was developed before. So, Gen X, you didn't get out of this unscathed either, though you had a better chance of getting a phonics-based reading program, I think.

'Kids these days' are not less literate because they were taught wrong. A great deal of us who are alive and speak English as a first language were taught wrong.

(I also think this is the common way English as a Second Language is taught and I'm sorry if you learned sight words, it's so much less intuitive than phonics, and English phonics aren't particularly intuitive. But I know a lot less about this, and I'm not sure.)

The reason some younger people struggle with language and words that I, for example, don't, is that I've been reading and speaking the language a lot longer. That's it. That's likely the same thing for you.

Please quit mocking people for their lack of information, for a start. I don't blame you for not knowing this about the literacy programs, for example. I had to do a lot of research on this. Right? Odds are good, you didn't know this.

And you are hitting people who struggle with literacy for other reasons- English as a second language, for example. The people who deal with dyslexia, there's plenty of autistic people who struggle to communicate fluently in their first language, and many more people who struggle with learning, speaking, and otherwise communicating in English for a huge variety of reasons.

Even if you're right, you're hitting people who had no choice in the language method they were taught from. They were five.

I don't think people mean to be unkind, generally (some do, but we block and move on), but it's really frustrating to a lot of snark circulate without the greater context of 'actually, a lot of English speakers of all age groups were taught English this way, especially USAmericans' and 'hey, what does English literacy have to do with pronouncing a French word, anyway?'

Okay? Okay.

Love you bye

#literacy

[abattre]

It's actually so disappointing that Naruto's narrative took the route that it did. Kishimoto created an incredibly interesting world and premise, and ruined it by having everything amount to a shallow message of forgiveness that undermines almost every meaningful element in the story. And it's like,, I want to appreciate the world outside of the plot, but the moral framing of the story makes it virtually impossible because of how disingenuous it is. It completely undermines the audience's understanding of the tragedy and horror of the world so that Naruto becoming Hokage and being the most powerful person in the world by the end doesn't come across as distasteful as it actually is.

Like it's made abundantly clear throughout the story that the village system, and Shinobi society as a whole, is incredibly flawed. Kishimoto goes out of his way to show us that Konoha's council is made up of objectively horrible people. We see first hand how the council's short-sighted ideas of what 'protecting the village' means results in devastating tragedy for people both in Konoha and outside of it. It's clear in how Danzo and the rest of the council act that their atrocious behaviour is them just blatantly abusing their power to maintain their authority. The council has no remorse in anything they do; human experimentation, genocide, slavery, and blatant exploitation is all fair game to them if it preserves their status quo. And instead of maybe, like, addressing Konoha's skewed morality in a sensible way and setting the village up for reform, the narrative just tries forcing the audience to perceive Konoha's genuinely heinous actions as necessities. Which, you know, will work when you're like 8, but once you've grown up and developed some reading comprehension and critical thinking,,, it just feels annoyingly manipulative.

At its core, Naruto is a story that attempts to deconstruct morality. Like this is abundantly clear in how Kishimoto is constantly paralleling the dichotomy of good and evil literally every chance he gets. In the end though, this dichotomy just doesn't work in the context of the Naruto story because the narrative framing of the village being the good guys is just hysterically ridiculous. Konoha is an awful place, that does awful things, and is run by awful people that refuse to change anything because it benefits them for the village to remain awful forever. To anyone with a developed sense of media literacy the village cannot in any way be framed as morally good, so when the story resolves itself with Naruto becoming next in line to govern Konoha under the same unchanging authoritarian regime, with the same council supporting him because of his sheer physical prowess and complete dedication to their twisted ideology,,, it's honestly just an incredibly underwhelming conclusion to a story that made itself out to be more profound than it actually is.

If I had to guess, I imagine Kishimoto just didn't think through how negatively the world he created would reflect on the plot. Ultimately though, you can't write a moral story that's so deeply entrenched in real world social inequity and decide halfway through that because you don't know how to fix these things your story's going to have to be about how they're actually okay to be doing and perpetuating,,, like that is awful and also a terrible lesson to impart on an audience of children. With how serious the issues are in Shinobi society, trying to resolve things with the power of friendship was always going to fall flat. These broad scale injustices can't be brushed aside in that way without undermining their severity and diminishing the understandable impact they had on the characters that experienced such extreme oppression. That's essentially the trap that Naruto's conclusion falls into though, and so the story just ends up feeling incomplete and unfulfilling because none of the issues brought up are actually addressed or discussed with the gravity they deserve.

#i guess kishimoto was hoping the aliens would distract us or something #i love the naruto world but i can't stand the pro-konoha rhetoric like it's just so bad #anti konoha #anti naruto ending #anti shinobi system #pro uchiha #pro sasuke uchiha #pro neji hyuuga

[lurkingshan]

Okay now that Halloween is over and my head is clearer, I wanted to add some thoughts to the great posts @waitmyturtles and @bengiyo shared debriefing Only Friends and unpacking this desire by some in fandom to declare that it has no message and therefore we can't be upset with the creators for what they chose to put out into the world via this show. Let me just say upfront: I find that claim preposterous and completely contra the basic tenets of media literacy and analysis.

Turtles already gave a great overview of the foundational truth here: media is communication, and all communication contains messages, both explicit and implicit. For the first 11 weeks, I believed that Only Friends was attempting to take a neutral POV on its characters' morality, asking us instead to think for ourselves about the moral complexities and implicit messages of the situations the characters were in, and wondered if the lack of a very explicit perspective from the show was making folks uncomfortable. But then, in the final hour, the show shifted its tone to provide an extremely explicit POV on the characters and its themes (with the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the head), with a heavy focus on punishing Boston, and that POV was so rooted in heteronormativity, sex shaming, and frankly, anti-queer sentiment, that it took many of us aback. As Ben put it so succinctly in his post: NOT A SLAY.

I want to unpack this more because it’s important to understand that there are ways to write the events of the final episode as essentially the same without embedding that explicit moralistic POV. If the intent was to maintain a neutral presentation of events that does not cast judgment on Boston, you would not do any of the following:

Have several characters explicitly judge Boston for being a non-monogamous slut in dialogue with no counterpoint voices

Make Boston spend the episode apologizing to every character while receiving no apologies in return for the wrongs done to him

Insert a random episode of Boston acting on impulse in a way that is not actually consistent with any of his previous behavior to make a sudden point that he can't change

Have Nick, who has been explicitly singled out as the one person who understands and loves Boston, change his mind and dump him in a frankly condescending way while Boston begs him for another chance

End Boston's final scene of the show with him devastated, alone, and defeated while the rest of the characters are happy and thriving

There is absolutely nothing neutral about those choices, fam. And they were in fact choices that the creators of this show are responsible for. They could have had the basic events of the finale stay the same, but changed the dialogue and framing of these interactions, and it would have completely changed the message being sent. For instance:

Instead of having Sand say Nick deserves better than Boston because Boston kissed someone else, he could have focused his comments on helping Nick understand whether he wants monogamy and why

Instead of having Boston grovel to everyone, they could have had all the friends just decide to forgive and forget all their mutual trespasses, or had the rest offer Boston sincere apologies in response to his own

Instead of Boston randomly deciding to make out with Boeing and lie about it, they could have had him invite Boeing to meet Nick for a threesome and have Nick react to that

Instead of having Nick dump Boston, they could have had them mutually decide they want different things and decide to part ways

Instead of Boston crying and dejected on the concrete, we could have seen him say goodbye to Nick on positive terms and walk away with his head held high to the life waiting for him in NYC where he can be his authentic self

Do you see how that works? All of the events of the story are the same, but the message it delivers is completely different. This version of the story would tell us that even though Boston's current friends don't really get him, and even though Nick is not ultimately comfortable with an open relationship, there is nothing inherently wrong with the way Boston wants to live. But they didn't give us this version; they gave us the stigmatizing and shaming one I described above. And that is absolutely something we should hold the creators responsible for, even if it makes us feel some kind of way about our drama heroes.

I have been giving this show the benefit of the doubt for weeks because I had a lot of faith in Jojo and Ninew not to put art out into the world with such a terrible message, a faith that was rooted in their previous work, including Gay OK Bangkok, 3 Will Be Free, and The Warp Effect, all of which featured queer ensembles and strong sex positive messaging. But no creator is infallible and mistakes were made. We will never know how much of the final messages in Only Friends were intentional versus a result of sloppy and rushed storytelling, or how much was the creators’ original vision versus studio interference, but ultimately it doesn't matter. We have to deal with the show we got, and we should be putting a critical eye on the people who delivered it to us. I know I will not be going into any future Jojo/Ninew shows with the same kind of faith, and I will not be pretending this one wasn’t a huge letdown from these creators.

#only friends the series #thai bl #shan shouts into the void

[etincelleart]

The more I'm on internet and the more I see harassment and call out posts every single day on various fandoms/artists spaces for all possible reasons and honestly I don't even know what to say outside of the fact that this is so freaking dangerous and wild to put labels and accusations on people you don't even know, or to not even try to understand and seek knownledge about the situation outside of what you want to see and understand. There are real predators doing illegal stuff who need to be stopped and yet people having fun and imagining things for ocs, various characters and ships are being accused of the worst things ever and it follows them everywhere. Tiny things are took as obvious signs of predatory behavior or racism or whatever and this is supposed to be fine.

I don't even mean to bring back the topic of my own story but experiencing dog piling and rumors and serious accusations for months because of a follow is just completely wild when I think about it. With some distance, I think I could have handled everything better when I spoke about it publicly. But I never should have wrote this post in the first place.

Block button exist and report button exist as well for serious problematic elements. My take is that no one deserves harassment and cruelty. But when you say "I'm against harassment and I don't want this person to be harassed", people take it as you defending "problematic" elements and completely distort it anyway. It's honestly exhausting and stupid.

Everyone has something that make them uncomfortable or that triggers them and I have my own standards as well. There are things I consider seriously weird but we don't know people and we don't know any of the intention behind the art. The way you explore something, how you do it, for what reason is what should matter. There are so much things you don't know. Nothing is black and white. I honestly think that as an artist, your art is connected to you, but the themes you work on are NOT reality. Again it's about the intention and how you go about something. I just think media literacy should really be teached at school because wow.

I just thought about expressing myself on this because it's just too serious and harming a lot of people who did nothing. I got attacked over a FOLLOW for someone who did nothing but imagine a future AU for characters and I think that's insane. Everything should be analyzed case by case. There are a real dangers who need to be exposed but this is never a reason or a justification to become cruel or to wish harm to anyone and assume the worst on people you never met. Just take a breath, go outside and learn how to block people, because that's insane the amount of people I had to block because they were being shitty but didn't block me or were still even following me.

I'm trying to not let my emotions get the better of me but that's honestly insane many others and myself got caught into this. The only thing I always did is drawing Nuts and Dolts because that's the only ship I could ever care about in RWBY. Being against harassment is not about defending "bad" people. It's so easy to judge people and make your little assumptions harming REAL people like that.

#fandom #ship #proship #anti #discourse #just rambling

[c0l0re]

I think people need to be reminded that media literacy is an actual, extremely important thing and not just a fancy buzzword people throw around to look smart.

Media literacy is completely and unarguably absolutely vital in order for you to engage with media at all, not just extremely complex ones, and I am being dead serious. You cannot constantly refuse to actually think about something. You cannot refuse to read between the lines. You cannot refuse to actually use your brain when interacting with media, especially it actually is based around nuance and dark/uncomfortable topics.

You can't make everything black and white, and you can't refuse to ever thoughtfully engage with anything. Not only does it make you immature, but it also makes you extremely easy to manipulate. No one, and I mean NO ONE is immune to propaganda, but it is especially dangerous for people who can't even recognize that what they're seeing is propaganda in the first place. This is not a debate. If you cannot understand basic media literacy and analysis, then you are even more vulnerable to getting swept up in some really sinister shit because you simply couldn't recognize the red flags and took everything at face value, or deliberately refused to actually think about any other possible implications.

People who refuse to learn media literacy and understand why certain pieces of art exist and are important are a massive reason for things like book bannings. Why do you think books like Lolita are still so controversial and still has so many people insisting that it romanticizes child sexual abuse? It's because they refuse to actually read the fucking book and really think about what it's trying to say, and how it's saying it.

Or if you want a more online example, why do you think fandoms for really heavy and mature pieces of media still have people that refuse to acknowledge and talk about the actual media and its messages, metaphors, etc? Why do you think so many people grossly misinterpret and misrepresent characters and stories that have any amount of nuance or development? They refuse to accept that media is not, nor should it always be "easily digestible" or "comfortable"

Believe it or not, sometimes art is SUPPOSED to make you uncomfortable. Sometimes art is SUPPOSED to make you rethink yourself and your own ideologies and world views. Sometimes art is SUPPOSED to have a message in the story it tells, and that message needs to be analyzed and talked about in an actually meaningful and mature way.

You don't get to just ignore the entire point of more heavy and mature media just because it's uncomfortable for you, or because "you just aren't good at media literacy" or because "all you know is your little blorbos" or whatever the fuck. You do not get to sweep meaningful and extremely valuable stories aside and ignore everything about them other than makes you comfortable.

And don't even try to say "But that's what fandom does, that's to be expected!" because that is not the winning defense that you think it is. Tell me, do you truly believe that it's good, constructive, and healthy to have massive groups of people all sharing the same incorrect and potentially harmful information and incorrect readings of something that is meant to have a real point and message? Do you really think that it's a good thing that people are refusing to read into heavier and more mature works just because "They're too silly for media analysis uwu"? Do you genuinely believe that that sort of space is going to lead to anything good? "It's just how fandom is!" is not an excuse for you to refuse to use your goddamn brain and actually think critically about a piece of media for once.

If you don't want to talk and think about such heavy stuff, then find a different piece of media. Find something that's more to your tastes than bastardizing and spreading misinformation about something that is supposed to be layered, nuanced, and yes, even uncomfortable. Don't come into a community for a piece of media that is mature and nuanced and get pissy when people are discussing that media in a mature and nuanced way. Take a second to think that maybe you aren't the person that this media is for, actually.

Don't be surprised when people get annoyed with you for refusing to actually use your brain when engaging with something. Don't be surprised when people tell you that it's not funny or cute that you don't understand the basics of metaphors, symbolism, or allegories. Don't be surprised when people tell you that a piece of media is not for you because you refuse to actually appreciate and respect it for what it actually is, and instead turn it into something completely different.

Sometimes there is a reason that the curtains are blue, and you're gonna have to learn to accept that. The world isn't black and white, and neither is the art that people make.

Don't get mad at other people for actually acknowledging that and talking about it.

#media literacy #media analysis #textual analysis #fandom #colore speaks

[amuseoffyre]

For the past fortnight, work has been getting in the way of me doing fandom related stuff, but it’s also given me a lot more time to turn over “working class northern Izzy Hands” in my brain.

There have been some fab posts going around with the analysis of Izzy in the context of the social history and what it meant for him and the more I thought about them, the more I recognised him in my dad’s side of the family.

I’ll foreword this with a note that this is entirely based on my lived experience around northern blokes of a certain generation. I have no idea what things are like now, but back when I was a wee bit of a thing, this seemed to be the norm.

A big thing about the north of England is that it’s where a lot of industry was based: glassworks, steelworks, collieries, mines of all kinds, shipbuilding. Whole cities sprang up there based around manual labour and manufacture and trade. There was a history of graft and everyone was expected to do their share and pull their weight. (“Your lots days of sitting around doing fuck all are over”)

There was also a certain pride in that work. Yes, it was hard and yes it could probably kill you, but by god you were good at it. And even moreso if you’d managed to make your way up to be in a position that earned you some modicum of respect and authority. Or even just survived that long. (“My name is First Mate Hands or God as far as you’re concerned”)

There was also a very definite pecking order, whether in social circles or work circles. You couldn’t just swan in and expect to be accepted and respected. You had to earn any respect you got and demanding it was a guarantee you wouldn’t get it. (“Pirates my arse”)

I’ve mentioned before on the post I linked further up about literacy and education. For the longest time, literacy in the north was very low because the majority of people left school early because they had to work. It wasn’t an option to stay on and get an education. If you had stayed in school, then you weren’t working and if you weren’t working, your family may not be eating.

There used to be a vibe of Proper Jobs (ie. manual labour of some kind) versus Soft Jobs (clerking, secretary etc). There were careers such as doctor and lawyer that did get considered Proper Jobs, but for the pencil pushers and the paperwork monkeys scurrying around and making notes, they were doing Soft Jobs.

All of these factors are very clearly in play in the scenes between Izzy and Lucius in episode 5. Here’s a lazy and disrespectful younger man whose entire job on the ship is a Soft Job. He gets to fanny about, writing things down, while everyone else has to do manual labour, and then he disrespects someone who is accustomed to a certain level of authority and respect, someone who has clawed his way up through the ranks.

He’s absolutely dead centre in a ven diagram of Things That Will Annoy Izzy Hands. Even more so since Izzy can’t do anything to Stede for fear of crossing Blackbeard, but this guy? Oh, this guy he can take out his frustrations on.

It explains why Izzy’s ire is focused on him, even though Wee John was having a nap and Black Pete was slacking off just as much. Both of those characters are manual workers (to a given degree, “bottom of the barrel”, after all) but the boy writing the journal, who clearly thinks he’s better than Izzy? Well, there’s someone who needs to learn his place.

(I still have Thoughts on the ‘ooooh daddy’ moment, but I have little brain left to articulate them just now)

And while I was going down that road, my brain took a sharp turn into the realisation of why Izzy dresses the way he does as well. Like the rest of Blackbeard’s crew, he’s in the black/leather combination but unlike them, he is covered from collar to cuffs, neck to toe. Some of it’s worn and repaired, but it’s an outfit that would be seen as Respectable even beyond the pirate world: a full shirt with cravat and a waistcoat on top.

Why would he choose to be so formally dressed? Because “I was honoured to work for the legendary Blackbeard”. It comes back to the pride in his work. He’s First Mate. He’s the second-in-command on the Queen Anne’s Revenge. He has worked bloody hard and survived many things to reach this point. He is representing something both to himself and to the world.

It’s about status: he stands out among the crew, so there’s no question that he’s in charge with his formal clothing. But he also stands out when we see him around other pirates. The only other pirates we see who dress to impress to this degree are Stede and Spanish Jackie. “Make people feel underdressed and suddenly you’re the one in charge” can be applied to all three of them. And it cracks me up knowing how much Izzy would hate that.

All of this is also the reason I’m pretty sure there will be an arc in the coming season when Stede does actually earn some little grudging respect from Izzy. Stede earning his place, doing the work and proving himself feels like it will be a vital cog in the story. Izzy will still deplore him, because he’s a creature of habit and routine, but I feel like there will be at least a grudging “...fine. You’re not a totally useless fucker”, which is high praise indeed.

Now, though, it’s midnight and I’m listing sideways. I shall no doubt have more thoughts, but for now, this will do.

#ofmd #ofmd thinkie thoughts #ofmd meta

[evilwickedme]

that 88% statistic literally comes from a poll conducted in january by tel aviv university called the peace index survey. if you google anything along the lines of israeli support plus 88% the first result is a nyt article that cites it with a link to the study. it took literally two seconds to find. 88% of jewish israelis surveyed believe that the number of palestinian casualties, including both deaths and injuries, is justified. it also found 94% believe the idf has used adequate or too little force in the war (43% believe it’s too little!). this survey was taken at a time when 20000 palestinians had already been killed and much of gaza leveled 

unless you’re going to claim that tel aviv university is disreputable/has anti israeli bias/is antisemitic, this clearly shows overwhelming israeli support for the level of death and destruction in gaza. the fact that netanyahu is unpopular is completely irrelevant and i’m not even sure why that was included in your post as some sort of evidence that the 88% stat must be untrue. support for the war clearly goes far beyond just the right wing parties

also the fact that so many in the notes of that post talk about the importance of sources but made 0 effort to even look up the original statistic and claimed with 0 evidence that it was made up is. very telling.

Dude, I wrote in the post itself that I might have googled the wrong terms. I googled variatiojs "destruction in Gaza + 88%" instead, because that's how I saw it quoted. I went on a Google deep dive, and still left doubt in my post BECAUSE I COULD HAVE BEEN WRONG.

The post covered two different subjects because I wanted to talk about two different subjects - the fact that people don't understand how the Israeli government works, statistics regarding that, and that since I saw the statistic quoted multiple times unsourced, including in a professionally published piece, I decided to talk about statistics literacy in general. This isn't an academic article - it's my own personal blog.

Also, chill. I cited multiple sources ranging a wide range of subjects, and didn't even conclude that Israelis don't support the destruction in Gaza at all.

Now I have found the source you're referring to and am looking at it. It covers a lot of questions, such as a majority doubting that the war in Gaza even has a purpose (52%). You're right on the 94% percent and the way it's divided.

I however once again point out that the (actually slightly less, but that's frankly irrelevant, I'm just a pedant) 88% you're citing IS DIVIDED INTO TWO CAMPS. Relatively justified is 21.3%, which still has doubts.

I also clarified again and again in my original post and in other posts *that I'm opposed to the war in Gaza*. I've also clarified that I think that people on both sides of the conflict are people even if they have opinions that I find horrific, such as MOST OF THE OPINIONS I cited. My point, overall, was to view people complexly.

Support for Hamas has increased in Gaza and more than trippled in the West Bank since the war started. Does that mean that Palestinians are all evil? That I should avoid viewing them complexly, say they should all die, call for a second nakba? Because I see people on the website and irl calling all Israelis (and really all Jews) evil, saying they should all die, and calling for another intifada.

My post, same as everything else I post, talks about viewing all people as people. And also about citing your sources and showing how I cross reference multiple sources, not that I suppose that matters to you.

I think it's very telling you're on anon, and I think I know the kind of content I'd see on your blog. And that's the last thing I'll say on that.

#or more succinctly: fuck off #jew tag #gail speaks #ask #anonymous

[karenandhenwillson]

One last post from my side about this

I've been pondering how to do this post for the last couple of days, and also if I should write it at all. My thoughts went from being really vicious and unrepentantly calling out a couple of people to just not bother with wasting my energy on it to feeling very unsatisfied with some of the things that have been said or not been said despite also being relieved about the turn this situation took on Tuesday.

(The rest is under the break because this turned out long. Much longer than I expected.)

I honestly believe that any kind of call out post is always a form of cyberbullying. Because in the end, what you are doing with that in social media isn't informing people about a problem. What you are doing is trying to get people blindly to agree to your point of view by twisting the information you present. And sadly, all too often it works. 

It did work this time, too. I have seen several people state, publicly but also privately, that they saw one of the call-out posts from Monday and reblogged without looking at the publicly available conversation with the artist. When they then looked at it later, they were appalled with themselves to have blindly followed the accusations. I hope for those people and also at least a fracture of the people seeing their posts about it, this is a lesson: Always double check the information you are fed. (And honestly, that goes for news outlets as much as any social media post. But I don't want this post to be about media literacy.)

I'm aware that this is a kind of call out post all on it's own. The version of this post from Monday would have named all the names and at that time I wouldn’t have felt sorry about it. But that's the thing about reacting and posting something while the emotions are high, isn't it? A version from Tuesday doesn't exist, because I thought it not worth the energy and time the would be spend on it.

In the meantime, I have come to the conclusion that while I will be addressing a certain group of people, this post wouldn't have ever been about them, not even the first version from Monday. It's about fandom as a whole, preserving information for those who'll join the fandom in the future or who'll be attacked or witness an attack in the future or those who'll stumble over what happened this last week later on who are completely unaware of it right now. Because thankfully, for the fandom as a whole it didn't go very far.

I'm aware that in a way, I'm contradicting myself, that I might be participating in cyberbullying with this post. I'm rationalizing this for myself by the circumstances that it's a conclusion of a bullying campaign and that I won't feel responsible for those who started it being now attacked themselves. Some people will tell me I'm still wrong, some will shrug about it, others will agree with me. It is the reason, though, that I have decided not to name any names even though it will be stupidly easy to find the names I'm talking about. For that reason, I have cropped the screenshots I'll share about things I feel I need or want to address or blacked out the names on those screenshots.

To everyone who'll feel encouraged to seek out those names and spam their ask boxes or DMs with provocations or hate: Don't do it! It might feel satisfying in the beginning (the thought alone of the Monday-version of this post felt on Monday very satisfying for me, too), but it won't accomplish anything. They have proven they don't want to have a conversation, no matter how much they claim differently. Nothing will make them overthink and judge their own actions. (Also, I hope not providing the names here will make most of those who first like leaving anon hate to have lost interest once they have found the names because it will give them time to think better of it.)

And of course, the people who started this, have repeatedly stated they don't believe a call out post to be bullying. So they really won't be in a position to have a problem with this post. (They still will cry about it and claim the unfairness of it all, no doubt.)

An anon sent this to someone involved in this debate:

I've realised that I will never convince anyone by publicly shaming them. I might be able to silence them, but I won't convince them.

I fully agree with these words. I think everyone involved in this situation should take these words to heart. In other posts of the last view weeks, I already shared some thought about communication and teaching. I’ll elaborate on those thoughts in a later part of this post.

I realized this post is getting long. So I'm breaking it up in several parts and I'll add links to this post as soon as the other posts are up.

The actual call out part of this whole thing

Some thoughts about learning and communication

The usual aftermath

#911 abc #911

[yuriswitch]

the fact, that so many Christians and Christianity-influenced fans of Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica see Homura as a villain honestly reveals a lot about what is wrong with the faith, media literacy and the general attitude towards mental illness.

On one hand you have aliens seemingly devoid of any moral system at all, acting purely out of self-interest while pretending to work towards some grand utilitarian goal the results of which will never be experienced by the people affected by the system they created. The Incubators literally rip souls out of children and turn them into a physical object, so that it can store more energy than it took to create it and explode, releasing all of it so that the aliens can then collect the surplus they're after. The psychological effects of that are shown to be equivalent to a perpetual psychotic breakdown shattering the personhood of the victim, dooming them to years of torment that cannot be escaped by any means other than being killed by a magical girl.

On the other hand you have a desperate struggle to protect a sweet lesbian bean girl too devoid of self-worth not to sacrificially throw herself away at the first occasion, time after time after time until it turns out that even a complete rewrite of the universe won't achieve anything permanent unless the Incubators are completely and utterly defeated for good. You have a drastic measure meant to prevent a reactionary takedown of Madoka's universe, taken right after experiencing the aforementioned breakdown.

And then you have imagery of a God and a Devil superimposed on top, contrasting the traits of the characters in a way that should have made it clear the symbolism isn't used in a standard Christian way at all.

But it doesn't matter, because there's so much more discourse on Homura being supposedly in the wrong and evil, accusing her of psychopathy while the actual low empathy villains are doing horrible things for reasons completely unrelated to lack of empathy anyway.

There's a lot of examples of bias, poor media literacy and broken discourse, but this one really bothers us a lot on a personal level and we don't even have a single fictive from the show

I hope that the upcoming movie manages to handle the mismatch between the actual politics of the franchise and its image, but honestly it's gonna be one hell of a job in this climate

/Oneesama

#anime and manga #mahou shoujo madoka magica #madoka rebellion #media illiteracy #bias #christianity #symbolism #cw: ableism #madoka spoilers

[brekker-by-brekkerr]

hsmtmts s4 spoilers ahead!

so i actually liked hsmtmts season 4. and i never expected to be saying that. from the trailers, i was worried the high school musical 4 plotline would take over and make the story too crowded. i thought they would focus too much on new characters. i had my problems with how portwell was handled and how EJ's plotline was handled in season 3. i was scared they would turn EJ into this guy who peaked in high school. i thought half of the theatre kids would be missing.

but i've never been happier to be wrong. yes, it took me a second to warm up to this season (though I'm looking forward to rewatching it and seeing how these thoughts change) and some choices felt especially out of pocket, and i still have problems with things, but this was still. so good. it honoured the heart of the early seasons and each character was given so much love. i'm so happy EJ Caswell my love was still a part of the show and got to sing and have his moments and story. i'm not super happy with how much of it was more for ricky's benefit and i still think he deserved so much better but i like them being friends. i like where he ended up with gina.

I am so proud of each of these characters and how much they have grown. I'm especially proud of how much Gina and Ricky have matured and how much they've learned from their past relationships

this season brought me the things i said i needed for me to support ricky and gina. yes portwell will forever have my heart and i will read fanfiction about a world where they got together and dream about what should have been but I'm also learning to be okay with the way things went this season. they were respectful of ej and gina as characters (other than taking risotto away what was that >:0), had them communicating and in such a healthy way and gina apologizing, and it felt so much kinder than last season. and the show acknowledged how it's always gina having to go first and put in the work and they had ricky change that! ricky really did show up and not gonna lie that love confession scene at the end got me it was good. they're not going to be my favourite ship ever by any means but that's okay. i can understand why other people love them and i just hope we can all be friends bc there are so many good ships in this fandom lol so we can all calm down and stop bullying each other thanks <3 (seriously the way none of these ships are problematic but people will be saying the rudest stuff if you mention a ship they don't like. like the number of posts i keep seeing calling people stupid and lacking in media literacy for having a different opinion is just so unnecessary)

and i was so happy for gina in this season! having her moment, showing so much strength and growth she was just everything and i love her so much.

i like that hsm 3 had its moment. and i am so so so happy all of the family was back (other than nini I'm sad she couldn't be there but i also didn't think she would be unfortunately). the highlight of everything for me was really gina's goodbye speech to everyone. it was so beautiful it felt like a love letter to every character on the show and i appreciated that so much.

so even though it was messy and imperfect and i love seasons 1 and 2 much much more, this season was so strongly found family and it's the found family i love and I'm happy with the ending. it had me sobbing because these characters (and the interactions I've had with people in the fandom) have meant so much to me. i started this show as a senior in high school and now I'm going into my senior year of college and this show with its found family of theatre kids and the soundtrack have been a huge comfort for me and I'm just happy it ended in a place i could appreciate (especially because i didn't think i would be saying any of this after season 3).

so for every moment of heartbreak this show caused me, I'm still happy knowing it ended with these theatre kids laughing and singing in a limo driving to denny's. maybe i would change some things along the way, but that was the perfect ending.

#i understand why people might no t like this season bc i didn't think i would be a fan at first #and i understand why this may be some people's favourite #i will forever miss the days of s1 and 2 #but i am happy w this ending especially bc i didn't expect to enjoy this season this much #hsmtmts #high school musical the musical the series #hsmtmts spoilers #maybe this is all covid brain talking and i shouldn't have watched it all in one day and my thoughts will change #but this is what i think right now #portwell #gina porter #ej caswell

[rebelbyrdie]

David Nolan HeadCanons

Previously:

"As the most basic pretty white cishet man in Maine, David also got: Random WWII and American Civil War knowledge, almost encyclopedic recall of the NBA, NHL, MLB from 1986 to 2002, and a nostalgic love of Louie L'Amour Westerns."

@cpark1899But why no knowledge of the NFL (football)?!? The Patriots Dynasty!! @rebelbyrdie 🤣

A Non-Exhaustive Explanation of my take on David Nolan. Also some history/literacy nerd stuff.

I only use Seasons 1 and 2 of OUaT for canon reference...because after that it is a disaster.

David was a Mama's Boy and a Farm Boy. He was also very poor. The chances of him being literate are slim-to-none. His mother was most certainly illiterate. He would have learned culture, religion, history, and everything else by listening to others. He and his mother would have both worked from sunrise to sunset to make ends meet. They were serfs. They didn't have money for books, nor time to devote to reading.

When he became Prince James, he may have been given reading lessons (or at least taught to sign James' name) This is not certain though, because Royals and Nobles didn't nessecarily need to read. They had people to read for them. Literacy was definitly higher in the Noble and Royal ranks, but not a given. Aditionally, he was being tutored in a ton of other things to be James, so reading may have gone to the wayside.

So, in my mind he was functionally illiterate. Now since he was married to an educated royal, he may have been embarrassed by this. However, since there was a war and enemies on all sides, I doubt it was a priority.

The Curse.

As far as we can tell, Regina had partial control of some details of the curse. The extent of her control and choice is debatable. What we do know is that it integrated the people into 1984 Maine, USA.

David is a bit of an outlier curse-wise, but here are some Storybrooke headcanons that I have for him.

He played sports as a child. Pee-wee hockey, basketball, and baseball. He played baseball and was a very good first baseman and batter. He always had second-hand equipment and had to keep a paper-route to pay for his uniforms, fees and gear. He could have gotten a baseball scholarship to the University of Maine, but he had to stay home and help keep his family farm going when his father died.

His mother died shortly before his "marriage" to Kathryn.

He and Kathryn (Softball 1st base) dated on-and-off during high school. They broke it off when she "left for college" and he did not.

Within the "history" of the original curse, Kathryn attended Yale alongside Regina. She played softball there. When she came back to work for her father at Storybrooke's bank, she and David got back together.

Then, of course, he was comatose for twenty-eight years. Things are harder to fit in here, and I personally think Regina did some "patchwork" to integrate the curse's history and the new situation.

During that time the bank "took the farm". Which is why he worked at the shelter. Kathryn thought he left her and Storybrooke to play minor-league baseball so he might make it to the Big Leagues someday. Which was why she never realized he was in a coma.

Now, post-curse, David knows he (and everyone) owes a lot to the curse (even if he refuses to mention it). The curse gave him a High School education along with modern farming and animal husbandry knowledge. He can play the guitar a little. He knows enough about engines to keep his truck, and/or a tractor running well. He knows his way around hand tools from the Enchanted Forest and power tools (from the curse).

He still loves hockey, basketball, and baseball. Football is too slow for him. As for the NFL: He personally does not like Tom Brady. He did not like his attitude, which led to a dislike of the Pats. If pushed, he will say he likes the NY Giants. If he has to watch football, he prefers high school and college teams the best.

He is now literate and reads about 4 books a year. Usually Westerns. He really likes audiobooks and podcasts better than reading. They remind him of listening to his mother by the fire.

In a settled-down Storybrooke, David resigns from the Sheriff's Office to farm again. He is a member of the Storybrook Agricultural Co-Op and Farmers Market. He started coaching the middle school baseball team and started working at the animal shelter again.

He has watched the Ken Burns Civil War documentary 8 times. He is a mediocre bowler and ran exactly 1 10K with Emma and swore he would never do it again.

Favorite Movie: Saving Private Ryan

Favorite TV Shows:

Curse - Gunsmoke

Current - 1883

Favorite Foods:

Shepard's Pie and he knows that everyone finds that hilarious (He will never admit that Regina's version is better than Snow's especially since Regina smirks every time she makes it)

Blueberry Pie with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce

Strange Quirks: Speaks fluent French but has the worst accent imaginable. Still thinks Pro Wrestling is real. Has gotten poison ivy rash 34 times in his life because he can never identify it correctly and he is very allergic.

#ouat #David Nolan

[smartgirl1970]

Digital Essay on my Technology Literacy (Class Assignment)

Digital Essay on my Technology Literacy (Class Assignment)

In 1981 the IBM Personal Computer model 5150 was released. My parents bought one for my 11th birthday, thinking it would be a great asset for school. I used it as a glorified typewriter. You had to essentially add the programs yourself, and that was not easy to do. I was too young to understand what all the bells and whistles did, and there were not many. The World Wide Web, or WWW, was not introduced until 1989, my freshman year in college (the first go-round).

My first video gaming system was Atari. This came out in 1977. However, I didn’t get one until I was about 10 years old. To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t a big gamer. I skipped right over the Nintendo era. My cousins and friends had one, but other than Leapfrog and the first Mario Brothers game, it wasn’t my thing. I wasn’t good at Pac-Man either.

I bought my first cellphone in 1992. It was a Nokia. The first phone bill came in at $289. You got something for 1000 minutes free and were charged .30 cents a minute over that. I understand that in 2023, that may not sound like a lot of money, but in 1992, it took an entire paycheck to pay it. I made $7 an hour, and that was a decent salary working at Macy’s flagship store on 34th Street in New York.

My son was born in 1996, and the world of technology opened new doors for me. I bought him a LeapPad to be used as a learning tool for reading and math. He graduated to every gaming system created from an Xbox to Nintendo. I was introduced to the World Wide Web through social media when Facebook became a thing because I had to monitor his use of this platform. By 2008, my son was in the 7th grade, and I allowed him to interact with his friends on Facebook, but his time was limited, and it was conditional upon him accepting my friend request. My acquired sons (I dislike the word step) were older than him, and they kept me in the loop about how social media worked. Facebook was great for me because it was a link to communicating with my family in New York without having to call all the time. It was great for sharing pictures. Social media has taken a turn, and in some ways its great for activism, in other ways, people are very comfortable being contrary and saying things they would say publicly.

My concern with the development of AI is how easily things can be manipulated. AI’s voice generator can create words that do not come out of someone’s mouth. I see the dangers in that with a political leader’s voice. Manipulating photos can be fun. However, it can also be used to lie about where someone is, what they are doing, and who they are doing it with. Technology is changing rapidly. There isn’t much a robot can’t do. From driving a car without human intervention to soon enough, flying an airplane. My question would be, will there be a time when life imitates art, and we are faced with an iRobot catastrophe.

My technical literacy is almost nonexistent beyond the day-to-day life of social media and basic content creation. As a creative writer, storyteller, and activist, I took this class with the hopes that I will be able to better understand the basics of web design and create more enticing visual content when I use TikTok and other platforms to display my work. I am a Global student, so my entire degree has been online. I graduate in May of 2024!

Over the last year, I have learned to use social media sites like LinkedIn to further my writing presence and create an outlet to network with like-minded people. I am a self-published author on Amazon, and I had to learn how to utilize Canva when creating my book "Journal and Manifest with Your Ancestors." So I consider that to be an incredible success since I created this journal completely on my own. I followed someone on YouTube to learn the ins and outs of utilizing KDP Amazon and Canva.

[angelselene]

The Rise and Fall of Vibes Based Literacy

(from this post that has reblogs turned off, which is SUPER annoying--but go read the original post. Also, below is the particular part I'm stealing screenshot with the link below).

Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went so Wrong. 

Link above. I happened to come across this post right when I was waiting for my car to air out for a minute before driving home, and I am mad.

Because this is how my youngest was "taught" to read.

And it happens to be particularly relevant because he wanted to write down rules to a game he made up, and though he's only in 3rd grade, and all the damn spelling mistakes he made. I don't expect a 3rd grader to be perfect by any means, but he should know how to spell try.

I remember sitting down with this kid to do his homework by reading him the books and feeling like he was not learning to read it but was memorizing it. I remember complaining to my husband that he wasn't reading so much as guessing based on the picture (I was right), and then the podcast describes an older child who doesn't like reading, will do anything to avoid it, and hates writing anymore (you should have listened to this kid whine about having to write down the rules of the game, but he cheats like a beast--they gotta be in writing), how he looks at the first letter and the context and makes guesses as to what the word is.

I don't remember these tactics used with my eldest when he was in elementary, but, honestly, this is also the kid I read Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings (and we took turns reading aloud) with when he was 10, so... he's always been a bit above the curve. He was a kid who was able to put the pieces together and figure it out.

We're pretty sure Thing 2 has some level of dyslexia (he still very consistently confuses b's and d's and could write his name backwards as soon as he learned how to write), and this guessing method makes me want to tear my hair out.

We're lucky this kid loves to be read to, so I'm going to sit down and work with him, and hope we can undo the bad foundations, but fuck, am I mad that we have to. No wonder he struggled so much. And the experts talking about kids struggling and giving up and thinking it's because something is wrong with them...

We saw our kid go through that. Fortunately, we never let him stew in believing there was something wrong with him, but still.

So frustrated. And no one to aim that frustration at because I don't really think any one person is at fault. He's had wonderful teachers who have bent over backward to try to help him. Just... frustrated that it didn't have to be this hard, and now it's going to be hard to break bad habits. It'll be worth it, but damn.

#on reading #on literacy #on education

[javerend]

2022 Japanese Wrap-up + 2023 goals

In 2022, I went from having a lot of disconnected vocabulary and grammar knowledge in japanese to having a real baseline of literacy! 2022 started out with me doing several months of wanikani, before really starting to burn out on doing flashcards around April. In April and May, I took mostly a break from adding new cards on wanikani to do my first real sustained attempt at immersion: playing どうぶつの森 e+ on the gamecube. I really enjoyed it, but decided I still needed to do some more work before I'd be able to play it comfortably. I was spending about 30 minutes a day on average, just running around doing normal animal crossing things and also making sure to talk to villagers. A lot of them talk in non standard japanese (guliver only talking in katakana was the *worst*, lots of villagers use オイラ, etc), I will go back to this game eventually because it is my favorite animal crossing game.

After that, I decided to go back to doing wanikani more seriously until I hit level 20. By the time I hit 20 in mid september, I was really really burning out on doing flashcards. I felt that a lot of the new vocabulary I was learning was useless to me without context (not sure if I still entirely think this, but wk vocabulary is.... strange sometimes since it is for reinforcing kanji readings and not necessarily by how common words actually are). So, I decided to completely drop wanikani **and** anki sentence mining to focus entirely on doing extensive reading. I joined the wk community forums challenge for "Read Every Day Fall 2022" and really really really enjoyed it.

I read 30 volumes in japanese, 29 manga + one short story, totaling 5583 pages! Word/character count in manga is super high variance, so I wouldn't try to put a hard number on this, but going from literal 0 real reading in 2021 to this in 2022 was a huge huge huge jump. I read: よつばと！ volumes 1-15 耳をすませば 赤い手袋 (short story) ホリミヤ volumes 1-6 ハピネス volumes 1-2 からかい上手の高木さん volumes 1-5 and change, I also read some chapters of komi, nagatoro, and call of the night in japanese here and there. I also re-read the Tae Kim Grammar guide in October, to see if having more reading experience would make any of the stuff in the later chapter stick any better, and it absolutely did! Definitely was a good year for my japanese. Now, as we're getting closer to 2 years (and god knows how many hours) of me learning, I am actually starting to finally feel like I can *use* the language! Still many areas to improve on, and a lot more time to invest, but the time I spend feels less like grinding now, and more like just doing things I enjoy that happen to be in japanese. Towards the end of December, I decided to buy a year membership for wanikani again, since it was on sale. I would eventually like to get to level 60 here, because I have noticed the kanji I learned through wanikani I am **way** more comfortable reading than ones I've slowly picked up, but I really don't want that to be my primary goal. Eventually, it will happen, and I've spent the last few weeks cleaning up the lingering reviews that skipping 3.5 months of SRS gives you.

2023 Goals:

For 2023, my main goals are (surprise surprise) reading related!

Finish every volume of manga I currently physically own: This is the main one, I have built up a considerable backlog of reading material while the yen was weak, and I'd like to really work on thinning this out so things don't end up never getting read as I buy more stuff. I have 66 unread volumes of varying difficulty on my shelf, so this should give plenty of reading variety!

Read more things which are pure text: eventually, the goal is to be able to read things at the level I tend to enjoy reading things english (maybe slower, but still), and a lot of that happens to be really dense, academic non-fiction stuff. Manga is great, but it is not that. So this year, I'd like to get into reading children's books, light novels, short stories, and maaaaybe an actual novel, plus get more comfortable reading stuff like wikipedia. I'm starting with the magic tree house series and 夜カフェ, which I've already purchased digitally and done some test readings for. Harder to predict what I'll read like this, but as long as I make some noticeable progress here I'll be happy.

Be prepared to take the JLPT N2 test by December 2023. Maybe this is a bit ambitious, but I think it’s probably doable. Whether I actually decide to sit for the test or not, I’d like to be at a level where I would feel comfortable doing it. Taking N3 and below always felt kind of pointless to me, but N2 and N1 would actually be a cool achievement, even if it doesn't "mean" anything in terms of real proficiency. I have simple goblin brain that sees tangible reward for intangible progress and goes "ooooo shiney"

I probably won't be doing the daily updates here (they do actually take quite a bit of time to write out), but I will be posting my readings and vocabulary I pick up every day on the Wani-Kani Read every day challenge Winter 2023 forum topic!

#langblr #japanese langblr #language learning #language #studyblr #japanese studyblr