Witchery

I know Duolingo is fun, and I'm not saying it can't be useful for casual study. But it should come as a surprise to no one that Duolingo is far from perfect, and definitely not best way to learn a language.

If you're one of the many who are looking to ditch the app, I'd love to recommend a tried-and-true alternative: THE TEXTBOOK.

Switching out Duolingo for a textbook instantly solves pretty much every complaint I've seen people share about the app.

"I hate all of the advertisements on Duolingo!" Textbook.

"I hate Duolingo's stance on AI and their rampant use of it!" Textbook.

"I hate how Duolingo barely explains any grammar concepts to me!" Textbook.

"I hate that I can't control my own learning pace because Duolingo makes reviewing previous concepts a pain in the ass and pushes me forward even though I might not be ready to move on!" Textbook.

"I hate how I'm more invested in my streak than I am in actually learning a language!" Textbook.

I know it's not the most flashy or even fun option, but imho the owl app will never be as useful as a textbook.

With a textbook, there are no advertisements. There is no AI (yet). You control your own learning pace—you can breeze through easy concepts and slow down on difficult topics. You don't have to shuffle around vaguely-worded lesson titles to find that one grammar concept you're trying to review. YOU HAVE IN-DEPTH GRAMMAR EXPLANATIONS THAT ACTUALLY MAKE SENSE.

With a textbook, you can actually learn a language.

The best part is that many language textbooks can be found for free online. For example, here's the Japanese GENKI Textbook available in its entirety on Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/Genki/Genki%20-%20Elementary%20Japanese%20I/

I hope this post didn't come off as condescending. I'm just so sick and tired of watching my friends with 1,000+ day streaks stumble their way through basic sentences. I'm tired of seeing them waste so much time on a glorified vocab list while simultaneously complaining about every single aspect of the app.

Anyway, the running gag was that the king (an old Power Rangers knock-off doll) had absolute and unwavering faith in Evil Chancellor Traytor, who basically comported himself like a mix between Grima Wormtongue and Jafar from the Aladdin movies. Everyone was always sure that Evil Chancellor Traytor had something to do with the nefarious scheme of the day. The dude even carried around a poisoned knife called ‘the kingslayer’.

The additional twist on the joke, though, was that he never was behind anything. The king was actually right. Evil Chancellor Traytor was the most devoted civil servant in the entire Action Figure Dystopia. He spent his nights working on writing up new legislature to ensure that broken toys had access to mobility devices, was always on the lookout to acquire new shoeboxes for expanding city infrastructure, and drafted a proposal that once got half the ‘settlement’ in my sister and I’s closet moved to the upper shelf so that vulnerable toys were less likely to be snatched up by the dog.

The knife, as it turned out, was as symbolic as the ‘evil’ in his name. See, Action Figure Dystopia had a long history of corrupted monarchs getting too big for their thrones and exploiting the underclasses. The job of the Evil Chancellor was to always remain vigilant, and loyally serve a good ruler - or, if the regent should became a despot, to slay them on behalf of the people.

But since killing the king would be a terrible crime, the Evil Chancellor had to be the kind of person who would willingly die to spare the people from the plight of a wicked leader; because the murder would be pinned on them, in order to keep the ‘machinery of politics’ working as smoothly as ever.

Anyway, Evil Chancellor Traytor had a diary, in which my sister I would take turns writing out the most over-the-top good shit he’d done behind the scenes. Usually after everyone else had finished talking shit about him. I don’t know why but we got the biggest kick out of being like:

Barbie With the Unfortunate Haircut: Oh that Evil Chancellor Traytor! Why can’t the king see how wicked he is?!

Charmander From the Vending Machine: Char!

Jurassic Park Toy of Jeff Goldblum With Disturbingly Realistic Face: At least if someone puts a knife in the king’s back, we’ll know where to look!

Evil Chancellor Traytor’s Diary: Today I was feeding ducks at the park when I noticed another legless action figure sitting by the benches. I put a hundred dollars into his bag while he wasn’t looking. I really need to increase budgeting to the medical treatment centers. If only we had enough glue, I think we would see far fewer toys trying to get by without limbs… *insert iconic evil laugh*

Anyway, Evil Chancellor Traytor eventually fell victim to one of my mom’s cleaning sprees, and she decided he was too busted up to keep and tossed him out. My littler brother, who tended to follow my sister and I’s games like he was watching a daily soap opera, cried so hard that we had to do a special ‘episode’ where one of the toys found the Evil Chancellor’s diary, and so he got a big huge memorial and the king threw himself into the empty grave and then ordered the toys driving the toy bulldozer to bury him so that ‘Traytor’s grave would have a body’ (this seemed very important for some reason).

intersex people of all

genders normally

My boss, coming to a visible grinding stop in his head: Right, um, no... Are you okay??

Me, having forgotten that I don't tell them things: Oh yeah, I'm fine. It's just that the bleeding episodes are back again (of my grandmother)

I am grabbing you by the shoulders and shaking you like a can of soda. If, for whatever reason, you looked within yourself and decided to be trans - you're still trans. We (as trans people) don't need to have an "I always knew" story. We don't need to have the ~magical transsexual gene~. It's incredibly hard for so many of us to figure out why we're trans, and if being trans was always a choice, the reasons for choosing to be trans would be complex. If being trans is always a choice, that doesn't negate that we deserve human dignity and respect for who we are.

You are not getting pushback from the older segment of the queer community because you are young.

It’s because you came into the spaces we built for you and instantly tried to kick us out.

It’s because we opened the doors for you and you walked in and demanded that everyone you don’t like leave. You demanded that the kinksters, the crossdressers, the freaks and the weirdos, the non-binary trans folks, the people with conflicting identity labels, the people who apparently don’t enjoy their smut “the right way” leave.

It’s because you have thrown yourself into queer spaces with all the fucking audacity of a straight white woman raging at a rainbow flag in a grocery store, wailing about how it’s not appropriate for children.

It’s because you apparently think that you have some right to tell us, and other queer people your age, HOW to be queer.

It’s because a SCARY number of you think that using the word queer is bad in the first place.

It’s because so many of you have come here drowning in radfem rhetoric, and your response to being corrected is to scream “pedo!” At any queer peer who disagrees with your puritanical approach to kink and fantasy.

It’s because so many of you think that being LGBT+ means you can’t possibly hold onto the conservative values you grew up with, and when you’re called on it you attack anyone and everyone in your way.

Us queer elders aren’t hating on you because you’re young. It’s because you have come into the space we built- a space that we built on from what OUR queer elders built. Which was built on what THEIR queer elders built. And so on, all held up by a foundation of fucking blood of the queers who did not fucking survive, who we lost before I was born, and continue to be lost.