#i recommend Not doing this

[scribefindegil]

unlocked a new form of writing hubris (working on multiple docs in different tenses simultaneously)

#generally i default to past tense #but sometimes a thing just Wants to be in present #also present tense feels friendlier to the brain fog?? for some reason? #but i've been bouncing between the emergency contact fic (definitely in past tense) #the post-mogami fic (definitely in present tense) #and the broccoli fic (which currently has sections written in like three different tenses) #so time has lost all meaning #i recommend Not doing this

[ruhua-langblr]

Duolingo Sucks, Now What?: A Guide

Now that the quality of Duolingo has fallen (even more) due to AI and people are more willing to make the jump here are just some alternative apps and what languages they have:

"I just want an identical experience to DL"

Busuu (Languages: Spanish, Japanese, French, English, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Polish, Turkish, Russian, Arabic, Korean)

"I want a good audio-based app"

Language Transfer (Languages: French, Swahili, Italian, Greek, German, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, English for Spanish Speakers)

"I want a good audio-based app and money's no object"

Pimsleur (Literally so many languages)

Glossika (Also a lot of languages, but minority languages are free)

*anecdote: I borrowed my brother's Japanese Pimsleur CD as a kid and I still remember how to say the weather is nice over a decade later. You can find the CDs at libraries and "other" places I'm sure.

"I have a pretty neat library card"

Mango (Languages: So many and the endangered/Indigenous courses are free even if you don't have a library that has a partnership with Mango)

Transparent Language: (Languages: THE MOST! Also the one that has the widest variety of African languages! Perhaps the most diverse in ESL and learning a foreign language not in English)

"I want SRS flashcards and have an android"

AnkiDroid: (Theoretically all languages, pre-made decks can be found easily)

"I want SRS flashcards and I have an iphone"

AnkiApp: It's almost as good as AnkiDroid and free compared to the official Anki app for iphone

"I don't mind ads and just want to learn Korean"

lingory

"I want an app made for Mandarin that's BETTER than DL and has multiple languages to learn Mandarin in"

ChineseSkill (You can use their older version of the course for free)

"I don't like any of these apps you mentioned already, give me one more"

Bunpo: (Languages: Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Mandarin)

#EDIT: Added a great resource for ESL and African languages that weren't found elsewhere #I do NOT recommend memrise and will talk about it another day but #langblr #duolingo #duo #language learning #language learning apps #mandarinblr #resource #reference

[fleshadept]

looking at (vetted) gofundmes for people trying to escape palestine and i don't know how many of you actually click on the gofundme links you reblog but i would like to point out, for what it's worth, just how amazing it is that so many have raised so much money. it may overall feel like a drop in the ocean but the fact that several gofundmes have raised tens of thousands of dollars is amazing. it is so expensive to leave gaza right now, and people still need money after they escape. but regardless of what propaganda the US, UK, canada, and other western nations are trying to pump out, people across the world are doing what they can to help these people survive. many of them are still very far from their goals (like this one and this one and this one) and some of them are very close to high goals (like this one), and some of them have reached almost double their original goal.

and that's not even addressing direct aid or organizations that take continuous donations for distribution of food, menstrual products, etc. the PCRF has raised $16,000,000 of their target goal of $20,000,000 to fund current aid and long-term relief efforts in gaza. ANERA's febuary 13th update discusses the material ways they helped palestinians today:

(ANERA donate link)

my point is, it often feels like the world is turning a blind eye to palestine. but i would like to point out that there is an important difference between "the world" and "western political leaders and media narratives". a breathtaking amount of real people, the people who make up the world, are trying to help. in the face of israel attempting to commit genocide, the world is saying No. These people deserve to live. and literally sending millions of dollars internationally, through the internet connection that israel has desperately been trying to destroy.

it may not feel like it matters in the grand scheme of things. but to the people who get fresh clothes, or a hot meal, or blankets, or the kids who get new toys, or to the people who are able to bring their families to safety, it matters to them. go make someone's day better. i've linked so many options with ways to do that.

#free palestine #cricket chirps #palestine #gaza #if you feel overwhelmed and don't know where to begin #i recommend deciding on a total amount of money to donate (e.g. $20 $100 etc) #and deciding you will either donate it all in one place or split it between a few places #do what you can!!! it will always be helpful no matter how little #1k #5k #10k #20k

[throesofincreasingwonder]

"A story doesn't need a theme in order to be good" I'm only saying this once but a theme isn't some secret coded message an author weaves into a piece so that your English teacher can talk about Death or Family. A theme is a summary of an idea in the work. If the story is "Susan went grocery shopping and saw a weird bird" then it might have themes like 'birds don't belong in grocery stores' or 'nature is interesting and worth paying attention to' or 'small things can be worth hearing about.' Those could be the themes of the work. It doesn't matter if the author intended them or not, because reading is collaborative and the text gets its meaning from the reader (this is what "death of the author" means).

Every work has themes in it, and not just the ones your teachers made you read in high school. Stories that are bad or clearly not intended to have deep messages still have themes. It is inherent in being a story. All stories have themes, even if those themes are shallow, because stories are sentences connected together for the purpose of expressing ideas, and ideas are all that themes are.

#original post #text post #500 #1k #2k #btw i know my definition of death of the author is loosey goosey here #it wasn't the main point so i went informal with it! as ppl in the tags have pointed out it isn't exact #and i do recommend reading the wikipedia article or similar (possibly even the essay itself if you're narsty) if you want to learn more! #wasn't expecting this to take off so my apologies to my barthes-heads out there #love you mwah #5k #10k #15k #20k

[oof-i-did-it-agaaiiin]

Beautiful from Ordinary Days

#EDIT: I added links to the post’s caption go click them. #I did this because people were mistaking the words as a poem. I love poems. it’s not a poem. #it’s a song from a musical that deserves more attention. go listen to the song. if you like it go listen to the musical. it’s fantastic #it’ll make you laugh and it’ll make you cry. could not recommend enough. #okay edit over. back to my og tags #long post #and I'm talking LONG like do you love the color of the sky long #today I am a nuisance to your dash #but it's in the name of art and beauty #ordinary days #musicals #paintings #art museum #post i made #i love lyrics #greatest hits

[taffywabbit]

reminding myself there are no truly "bad days", because every single day, someone somewhere in the world has taken a photo of an extremely tiny animal and shown it to someone else, and that's very good actually

#buny text #bless the people who take photos of incredibly small baby bunnies and post them on line. they are what keeps me going #when i was running the bunnieswithVGM twitter it was like. genuinely a healing experience getting to look at rabbit photos regularly #i highly recommend looking at pics of very small rabbits and thinking to yourself 'you tiny fucking thing. how do you exist' #it's very important and also fun. and then you can share those images with a friend #the tiny fucking animals on the internet are free and you can take them with you

[rixareth]

As requested, I have examined my fondness for terrible characters, and I have concluded that I like them because they're terrible and I'm not sorry.

#light yagami #joe goldberg #jack shephard #joshua kiryu #ardyn izunia #james sunderland #arnold rimmer #this entry brought to you because someone recommended YOU to me #so i checked out the wikipedia article #and the 'cultural influence' section was MADDENING #extremely patronising to be so concerned #about all these foolish and misguided women #(not exclusively women #but i do feel i mainly see this 'concern' targeted at women) #expressing fondness for a Bad Person #who is Not Real

[plorpl]

Today I offer Tumblr real, undoctored screenshots from the House MD DS game, free of context:

Special awards go to:

"Would you still love me if I was a worm" core:

And my personal favorite, for all the omegaverse girlies out there:

EDIT: adding a link to my other post with more info on the game

#house md #hate crimes md #ds game #i do not recommend this game fwiw #truly a surreal experience start to finish #i have many many more if anyone wants to see them #believe it or not i am showing restraint here

[thenearsightedmicroraptor]

Seen a lot of posts about people coming into your notifications out of nothing and liking your entire blog, but here's a shoutout to the people who do Not follow you, who appear out of nowhere, reblog One (1) post that you are Not the op of, and then you never see them again. Where did you come from girl.

#EDITED bc I think this one goes on ppls recommended pages now #HEY GUYS the question in this post is rhetorical ! i don't actually care. you can stop telling me honeys its ok #i like the mystery. i don't needta know everything #also when i say shoutout. i mean it. i love you guys i am not annoyed. you're all wonderful. keep doing you. #posts by ME #tumblr #like ... you didn't find the post thru tags because I just reblogged it #i made no addition. how did you find me #be free you majestic creatures I'm glad I got to witness you in passing #how tf tho. #did you look at my blog but only one post made the cut. amazing. i love you.

[bumblebeebats]

I've been watching so much Leverage lately while in the grippe of a terrible cold and honestly it's been so soothing in this billionaire-bootlicking day and age to watch a show that is so unashamedly fond of just straight up psychologically torturing corrupt rich people. Like remember that episode where they locked a hedge fund manager in a hospital and made him think he had a fatal disease? Every single ep the client is like "I just want him to face legal justice for what he did to my poor daughter/grandpa/pony/etc :(" and the crew is like "Not only will we do that, we will also find out this bastard's hopes, their fears, their deepest darkest dreams and desires, and rip their whole life to shreds right in front of their eyes while they watch and weep in abject dispair. And then we will give you $2 million dollars cash." Fucking legends. Do Elon next

#and the whole time they have a weird poly thing going on (affectionate) #if you can get past the extreme 2008-ness of the early seasons (which is thus far all I've watched) I do highly recommend it #leverage

[thrill-kill-kult]

#I hope a lot of people see this #poll #music #metal #Im genuinely just so curious about how people build their music taste #I’d say I most often find an artist on a Spotify generated playlist or in my recommendations #and I’ll listen to their top songs then start going through their albums #but I do love using gnoosic and obscurify #I also love finding small playlists #esp ones made by musicians #huge fan of the aggrotech attack playlist #I like pride myself on having extremely obscure taste in music lol #I love showing people cool small bands they’ve never heard of before #on that note check out My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult #and Xorcist

[panthermouthh]

“I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel.”

#Frankenstein #frankensteins monster #victor frankenstein #mary shelley #gothic lit #gothic art #goth artist #sooo the creature is pretty fuckin terrifying and I don’t think I’ve conveyed that much in my art yet #if you haven’t watched the royal ballet I highly recommend you do #I may post some clips bc I haven’t seen anyone else do that? #but ur better watching the whole thing #and the national theatre play #they’re both just Very good adaptations and the monster is terrifying in them 😭 #my art #this is very much inspired by/based on a statue by Jean-Baptiste carpaeux #‘ugolino and his sons’ #and the carvings of Satan by Gustave Dore

[ministarfruit]

day 3: your life is mine ♡

(femslashfeb prompt list)

#minifemslashfeb2024 #this is how you lose the time war #tihylttw #book jumpscare! #yes I read it because of the trigun tweet #everyone say thank you bigolas dickolas wolfwood #this is based on their early book appearances! #they do change appearances a lot throughout the book tho #it is so epic I also do recommend it #sapphic sci-fi... time travel bullshit... my kind of genre... #bro this might be the first book fanart on this blog #that's wild. all these years. WHERE is my book fanart

[moonsinkfoxgirl]

-- みみみっくす！７匹め ／ Mimi Mix!, Ch.7

lot of girls like this on tumblr.com

#mimi mix! #yuri #so cute #ftr I recommend only doing this with girls you're in love with

[zombie-bait]

happiest girl in the whole entire world

thinking about my favourite kind-hearted eldritch horror trapped in the body of my favourite traumatized goth girl

(+ purple variant)

#nona the ninth spoilers #nona the ninth #the locked tomb fanart #the locked tomb #the locked tomb spoilers #harrowhark nonagesimus #tlt spoilers #tlt #alecto the first #nona tlt #nona the ninth fanart #Vague Pyrrha & Paul in the bg #I miss reading those books man #Fanart #digital art #Recommending them to literally everyone I meet #Cuz man tlt did a number on my brain #On Harrow’s brain too lmao #I love making Harrow look inconsistent in every piece of fanart I do #My excuse is that its a book and her face on the cover of HtN and NtN is very small ok #One day I’ll settle on a design I like #That day is not today (two weeks left of my semester and I’m losing it)

[rathonk]

she chil on my chuck til i tims

#dungeon meshi #dunmeshi #chilchuck #chilchuck tims #I just read all of it on mims recommendation and it was sooooo good #I am a Laois fanboy though.. do not get it twisted #*laios but I shan’t retype