Explodes

If you believe hard enough, every character can be aroallo

That Cullen letter has had me spiraling for days because what do you mean you’re coming to Tevinter. Could you imagine Cullen in Tevinter? It’s like taking a Medieval English peasant to Times Square. Someone please come get peepaw he’s hypnotized by neon signs

it’s really important to me when men put their heads in women’s laps. one of the most important things i can see on my tv. men laying their heads in women’s laps or men sitting and women standing and the man holds her around the middle and presses his face into her tummy as she hugs him around the shoulders. two very important poses. extremely soul igniting tableaux.

Characters that crumble without any pressure, characters who can only function when the stakes are high and fall apart in normalcy, characters who are so honed into weapons of the narrative that when the narrative slows they are left with nothing

“weird and unhealthy relationship that cant be categorized neatly as sexual or romantic or platonic but has a defining air of devotion and obsession to it” wins sound of the summer for the 13th year in a row

We call it kirkwall fashion

“i‘m sorry anakin, for all of it“

What makes German a difficult foreign language to learn?*

Phonology / Pronunciation & Comprehension

✳️ accent-based language (accent isn't fixed, rhythm isn't as melodic and forseeable)

✳️ 16 vowel sounds (lots more than the average 5-6!)

✳️ complex syllables

Morphology

✳️ Case system (Kasus) - allows for variable word order but requires lots of inflection on articles, pronouns, nouns and adjectives

✳️ Kasus-choice changing the meaning (esp. Akkusativ/Dativ with movement verbs)

✳️ rule-governed fusion of article and preposition (z.B. zur, zum, hinterm)

✳️ 9 plural markers for nouns

✳️ 3 grammatical genders (with mainly only probabilistic rules of which is which

Vocabulary

✳️ very frequent use of

🔅 composite worde (z.B. das Rathaus, die Weltkarte, die Mitternachtsformel)

🔅 derived words (z.B. laufen -> verlaufen, günstig -> ungünstig)

🔅 conversion of words (z.B. laufen -> der Lauf, hoch (adj) -> das Hoch (N))

Syntax:

✳️ word order is very variable, but there's still lots of rules (keywords: Verbklammer, Satzglieder, topologisches Feldermodell)

✳️ the verb is often split in two with stuff in between its parts

Miscellaneous

✳️ localizing verbs

🔅 mode of movement often in verb itself, direction often in separate word

🔅 position verbs vs. contact verbs and static vs. causal location (I sit down & I sit on the chair vs. Ich setzte mich hin & ich sitze auf dem Stuhl)

✳️ variety of prepositions (on the table & on the wall vs. auf dem Tisch & an der Wand))

*Disclaimers:

Furthermore of course difficulties that language learning generally has (like vocabulary as a whole, various registers, dialects, etc).

I'm not saying German is more difficult than other languages, just that these are typical difficulties in German (other languages will have many of these as well).

This is also not only from an English-native perspective! (German has 16 vowel sounds + 3 Diphthongs, English 12 vowel sounds + 8 Diphthongs, but Russian, Greek and Spanish for example have only 5 vowel sounds each! so 16 is a lot more in those cases))