Category: General

Back from the dead

Hope ZaneGeneral

And a bit sick, so this blog is probably going to be short. I’ve been so busy lately. I started taking qi gong classes, which I’ve been loving a lot. I went STRAIGHT off the fucking deep end for the entirety of October. I got really, really into Kpop. Stray Kids, specifically.

Stray Kids, the rabbit that led me down the rabbit hole

There is a truly terrifying amount of content in Kpop land. I’m enjoying it a lot. I also started learning Korean, which is a real “don’t look at me, let’s not acknowledge how far I’ve gotten down this rabbit hole” kind of vibe. 재밌어요!

I’ve been working on a new story and also had to pull back for a second to kind of take inventory of all my WIPs. I hit a real wall with writing this month, partially because of some life changes that have been going on, partially because I’d adopted a kind of workflow that really didn’t work for me.

We’re working it out, working out the kinks.

Anyway, maybe that’s all for now. I’ll probably elaborate on some of this… later.

For now, I’ve been continuing to serialize stuff on Wattpad, including the new story. Time will tell if this is a mistake or not. Sometimes it feels like it is, sometimes it feels like it isn’t. For better or worse, I’m currently too sick to agonize about it.

I’m going to go… be sick and try not to do things that are too labor-intensive. Maybe I’ll finally watch the survival show that made Stray Kids. I keep putting it off because Felix is my bias, and I don’t know if I can handle seeing him be sad.

New Patreon tiers and an ~extra~

Hope ZaneGeneral

I got my brain back from the war! Kind of! I’m working on un-neglecting my Patreon page, and I renamed all of my support tiers some incredibly goofy shit.

Heh. I like it, though.

(Why is the first tier so expensive? Because Patreon eats things in fees, but you can actually pledge any amount you want.)

I started writing a kind of alternative high school AU about Nice, basically because I started wondering what would have happened if Nice had met someone more like himself in high school. Would he have been any better off? Worse?

I’m only planning to write a short story. I posted the first part on Patreon today. I think I might sync it here as well (still as a patron-only post) just because I don’t like the idea of all my stuff being only on a website that I don’t control.

Here’s a little snippet of the AU for fun. I like Willow so far.

“Good?” Willow asks. “You look good like that.”

“Mm,” Nice says. Maybe it’s an answer to one thing or the other. “Take a picture, then.”

Willow takes his phone out of his pocket and snaps a picture of his new friend. He leans over and steals a taste of Nice’s candy, fastening his mouth to it and sucking some of the lemon-flavored sweetness from the gooey part of its softening surface.

Before Nice can complain that Willow took some of his candy, Willow preemptively reaches into his bag and stuffs a couple of gumdrops into his mouth. In the time it takes him to chew them and swallow, Willow has already pulled back.

He licks his lips while Nice coughs at the sugar crystals he’d accidentally inhaled.

Japanese Language Learning & A Workbook Score

Hope ZaneGeneral

So I’m learning Japanese. Have been learning Japanese? I took a few years of Japanese in high school and have been dusting it off in recent years as I’ve gotten more into Japanese media. It’s going okay! (Except for my ability to write, which is very bad after 15 or so years of disuse!) I know enough to hear some nuance that gets missed in English subtitles sometimes, and I can sometimes struggle bus my way through JP-only games (Clean Dishes, my love…)

Anyway, after doing some research, everyone seemed to recommend the Genki Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese (textbooks). I visit a local thrift store with my dad every week and have been lowkey on the lookout for these books for years, and I finally scored one! A couple weeks later, I got the workbook, too.

A photo of a Genki I Japanese language workbook

Actually, I ended up with two because I fucked up the first time and bought a workbook with ~50 pages torn out, whoops. There’s some writing in the new one, but between this one (whose writing I can erase) and the blank one (with 60 pages missing), I think I’ll be alright.

Anyway, I got all of these for around $9 total, which is still miles better than the $60ish it costs on Amazon. Sweet.

Today I fell down a rabbit hole of learning the kanji 触 after hearing 触れたい over and over again while playing Dramatical Murder. Preserved for posterity, my very bad handwriting:

A photo of a sketchbook page with kanji practice and Japanese-English word definitions on it

I mean to buy a genkouyoushi paper notebook to practice my kanji, but for now it’s getting shoved in my sketchbook.

Did you know that the intransitive verb for “to touch” (fureru) is a homophone for the intransitive verb “to go mad” (fureru). I thought that was neat. I keep thinking about it.

Also, in Mandarin, 触 is pronounced chu. I would like to learn to read Chinese at some point, considering how far down the danmei rabbit hole I’ve fallen. My friend told me it might not be such a bad idea to learn both languages concurrently, since at least it’ll stop me from getting locked into any one reading for kanji/hanzi. Either way, I’m enjoying myself.

A surprising number of people have had the reaction, “No you won’t!” when I tell them I’d like to learn Chinese, but one of my friends reminded me of this very great meme. The time will pass anyway! Why not! At worst, you’ll end up knowing a few more things that you didn’t know before. It’s not like I’m in a hurry.