Mysterious Lotus Casebook - Fang Duobing 1/?

Have you ever considered cubes?

Like biblically?

All I can think about is cubits now and this is your fault

Ascension to Mt Targon (:

Please, for the love of god, please don’t be this person. No matter how long it’s been since an update, no matter how many unfinished stories are sitting on their account, no matter what - do not be this person.

Not only is it insanely rude, but you also do more damage than you think be being such a self-entitled ass about something someone created for free and for fun. “This author” can see what you say.

RIP decency indeed.

瑯琊榜 fanart

HAPPY 3 YEAR ANNIVERSARY TO GAY PEOPLE !!!🚂♾💥💥💥💥

I’m convinced if ppl on this site knew how crappy gifs look before you color them properly, they would appreciate editors more

Duolingo is NOT what it used to be.

Nation.Cymru

Language learning app Duolingo to mothball Welsh course

Emily Price Language learning app Duolingo will mothball its Welsh course at the end of this month meaning it will no longer be edited or up

“Duolingo is ‘sunsetting the development of the Welsh course’ (and many others)”.

I’ve used Duolingo since 2013. It used to be about genuinely learning languages and preserving endangered ones. It used to have a vibrant community and forum where users were listened to. It used to have volunteers that dedicated countless hours and even years to making the best courses they could while also trying to explain extremely nuanced and complex grammar in simple terms.

In the past two years it feels like Von Ahn let the money talk instead of focusing on the original goal.

No one truly had a humongous problem with the subscription tier for SuperDuolingo. We understood it: if you can afford to pay, help keep Duolingo free for those who couldn’t.

It started when the company went public. Volunteers were leaving courses they created because they warned of differing longterm goals compared to Duolingo’s as a company; not long after it was announced that the incubator (how volunteers were able to make courses in the first place) would be shut down. A year goes by and the forums—the voice of the users and the way people were able to share tips and explanations—is discontinued. A year or two later, Duolingo gets a completely new makeover—the Tree is gone and you don’t control what lesson you start with. With the disappearance of the Tree, all grammar notes and explanations for courses not in the Big 8 (consisting of the courses made before the incubator like Spanish/French/German/etc. and of the most popular courses like Japanese/Korean/Chinese/etc.) are removed with it. Were you learning Vietnamese and have no idea how honorifics work without the grammar notes? Shit outta luck bud. Were you learning Polish and have absolutely no clue how one of the declensions newly thrown at you functions? Suck it up. In a Reddit AMA, Von Ahn claims that the new design resulted in more users utilizing the app/site. How he claims that statistic? By counting how many people log into their Duolingo account, as if an entire app renovation wouldn’t cause an uptick in numbers to even see what the fuck just happened to the courses.

Von Ahn announces next in a Reddit AMA that no more language courses will be added from what there already is available. His reasoning? No one uses the unpopular language courses — along with how Duolingo will now be doing upkeep with the courses already in place. And here I am, currently looking on the Duolingo website how there are 1.8 million active learners for Irish, 284 thousand active learners for Navajo, and even 934 thousand active learners for fucking High Valyrian. But yea, no one uses them. Not like the entire Navajo Nation population is 399k members or anything, or like 1.8 million people isn’t 36% of the entire population of Ireland or anything.

And now this. What happened to the upkeep of current courses? Oh, Von Ahn only meant the popular ones that already have infinite resources. Got it. Duolingo used to be a serious foundational resource for languages with little resources while also adding the relief of gamification.

It pisses me off. It really does. This was not what Duolingo started out as. And yea, maybe I shouldn’t get invested in a dingy little app. But as someone who spent most of her adolescence immersed in language learning to the point where it was literally keeping me alive at one point, to the point where languages felt like my only friend as a tween, and to the point where friendships on the Duolingo forums with likeminded individuals my age and other enthusiasts who even sent me books in other languages for free because they wanted people to learn it, the evolution of Duolingo hits a bitter nerve within me.

~End rant.

Aw man I did my best but I think this doesn't capture the joy of the original sketch! But I'm glad to finally draw the historical beauty standard of the Tang dynasty.

mysterious lotus casebook 🪷 as text posts pt.1

Every day I think about Li Xiangyi and his two swords and go a little more insane. The unbendable, unyielding Shaoshi that carried Li Xiangyi to the top of the world, and was found and lost and found again. The flexible but equally lethal Wenjing that remained with him in his life as a ghost, looking for the brother that gave it to him. Shaoshi, which his master gave him, which he left behind for so long in favour of his master's wine gourd instead. Wenjing, the blade that had always been soaked in blood and betrayal, undoing the meaning of the decade he had spent with it. Wenjing, abandoned after he realised it was a mark of everything broken and bitter in his past. Shaoshi, which he took up and carried again till he could, and shattered the moment he decided to run once again. Shaoshi, whose shards Di Feisheng found and kept. A swordsman shouldn't have weaknesses, Di Feisheng told him long, long ago. What does it mean, then, when a swordsman carries a sword that is broken and nothing more than a memory?