I started looking for alternatives when they added the weird character voices and I started noticing inaccurate pronunciation of kanji in my Japanese course. A lot of people on the message boards recommended Memrise, and it's been great! The official courses contain actual video and audio of native speakers, so I knew for a fact the pronunciation would be correct---even better than the old Duo voices!

There's also user-generated content, too, some of which might not be accurate, but most of the user courses I've found are pretty good. You can even make your own set and publish it.

(I haven't visited the site in a few months, so I can't guarantee it'll be exactly as I found it, but I doubt it has changed much)

And depending on what languages you're studying, you might be able to find some good ones dedicated to your language if you do some digging. For Spanish, I used SpanishDict, and for Japanese, I used Kanshudo (both are freemium, with more restrictions than Memrise)

I’m not trying to undermine the idea that Star Trek was progressive for its time, far from it, but since no one else has pointed this out, I thought I’d say it. Star Trek was NOT the first interracial kiss on television. In fact, the actors’ lips never touched in the shot.

Well, sort of. I’ve been reading William Shatner’s autobiography, and they had to fight really hard to include an interracial kiss. The network was going to forbid it, telling Rodenberry that televisions across the South would rather black out their televisions for an hour than allow something so highly offensive. When he insisted upon it, they kept making concessions Rodenberry wouldn’t agree to, like instead having Uhura kiss Spock, since it there would be a little more disconnect between reality. Eventually, Rodenberry offered to film the kiss both ways—one way with their lips actually touching, the other with Uhura’s back to the camera as they embraced, giving the illusion that they kissed without their lips ever touching. The actors were really upset about it, because It was originally going to be a passionate kiss, but the only way they allowed it to be filmed on television was if the actors displayed clear discomfort—which could be used to reinforce the idea that interracial relationships were bad.

Soo…yeah! That’s your Star Trek history lesson for the day! (I’ve never watched the original episode, I’ve only watched TNG and Discovery for myself, so this is all secondary info, but if you watch the episode, you can see for yourself.)

This is about the best thing I could have hoped for, so I really hope it doesn't get taken down! (but then again, the for-profit Fandom wiki farm hasn't taken down Breezewiki or other mirror sites yet, so maybe corporations figure this sort of thing isn't worth the effort to take down.🤞

Yep! Basically a beta reader will read a written work (in this case fanfiction) and offer feedback on what can be improved, ranging everywhere from plot to characterization. Though some betas may specialize in only one or two components that go into a good work.

This is a guide for beta reading for original fiction, but the same principles apply!

https://kindlepreneur.com/how-to-be-a-beta-reader/

I just signed on, and the main thing I notice that's on here but is lacking there is the exact count of upvotes and downvotes. I much prefer being able to see exactly how many upvotes and downvotes something has, so I don't think I will use it as my main means of accessing this Lemmy, but I'll keep on testing it to see where else it can be improved.

Very cool! What did you use for the black material underneath?

Is this your art? It's really beautiful! I haven't watched the show in months, but I remember these two were my otp 💜

My compliments to you and your brother's girlfriend! It looks like it could be a backdrop for one of those stop motion films!

I lately got into a fandom for an older indie game, and I never expected it would have any fanworks, and if it did, I expected them to have been written years ago. But when I looked on AO3, there was just one fic, written a little over two weeks prior. The author was really grateful for my comment, responding with one twice as long as mine…something that’s never happened to me before! A few months later, someone else commented, and posted a fic of their own a few days afterwards. I really want to keep the momentum for this fandom going, and it’s finally given me the boost of motivation I needed to finish—and publish—my first fanfic. It’s not done yet, but I have about a thousand words written as of right now.

I recently posted a microfic featuring a cursed-sounding CW involving consensual cannibalism...you wouldn't believe how much I got jumpscared by this title until I realized it was posted 2 months before I got a Mastodon account...

Never heard of that pairing, but I like reading MegOP fanfiction (the pairing between Megatron and Optimus Prime, leaders of warring factions from the Transformers fandom). In some canons, they used to be political allies and close friends, and I sometimes like to imagine they had feelings for each other in the past. So many fanfiction writers make the pairing either really poignant (usually if it's a former relationship between the two, which was broken apart due to irreconciliable differences in ideology), or hilariously over the top (where they're secretly dating, yet making no efforts to end the war), that I like it in fanfiction.

I'd probably be really annoyed if it became canon, though, at least anything more than the implication of a past relationship. Realistically, I'm not sure if they could have anything more than a shaky friendship after the war, especially now that modern Transformers shows tend to display war in a more serious light. I can easily see it becoming a massive plot tumor, taking focus away from far more pressing matters such as rebuilding the planet, figuring out whether enemy soldiers can be assimilated into the winner's society. And I just can't see any possible way of them dating during the war outside of a crack fic. That would just be crazy. And the majority of Transformers takes place during a war, so…

*Edit: Just looked up the pairing you mentioned, and I see it's from Star Trek! Nice to see a fellow Trekkie on this nascent sub! ; )

I watched the pilot of the Amazing Digital Circus, only to learn that it'll be almost a year until it gets another episode. But in the meantime, I've been watching Murder Drones, and I like it even better! It's probably subjective, since I already love stories about robots who act like humans. I also watch Sonic and Transformers, which both have sentient robots/center on them. So I'm kinda the target audience. Unlike the Amazing Digital Circus, Murder Drones is going to be getting new episodes this spring. So I'm pretty pumped about that. (I just finished the third episode, and I saw that there were over a thousand fanworks of the show in AO3. But I have to be disciplined and not read them, otherwise I may get spoiled.)

It's always cool to see someone with an pfp from a show you like. :) Especially if it's an obscure character. The other day I was scrolling through a YouTube comments section, and someone with a Sonic pfp was talking to someone with a Shadow pfp, and pretended they were actually Sonic talking to them. I had a pfp from Sonic too, so I joined in on the fun! Sadly, they both changed their profile pics the next day. :'( Did this user ever reference Murder Drones?

It's cool to see another writer who's also an artist on here :D And I admire your ability to draw things outside your interest, I'm trying to develop that discipline as well. I used to draw only "fun" things that were directly related to my fandom/area of interest, but I've since become interested in making fancomics. And in order to be really good at making them, you need to be able to draw lots of boring/difficult things, like buildings, cars, airplanes, etc.*

*Cars and airplanes are awesome, since a lot of my fandoms include them in fun contexts, but for whatever reason I feel immensely bored even thinking about drawing a house in perspective. Though I could probably make it fun with study/practice

Me, Slag, say you full of beryllium baloney!

I mainly lurked on the art and fanfic forums, and considered getting an account when I had the time/had created something worth sharing on there. But when I learned about the disabling of apps to improve accessibility...I started looking for alternatives.

Plus, I don't like the idea of the karma system on there. Supposedly, it reduces the number of trolls and low effort posts, but I've seen it cause people to post ragebait to karma farm on subreddits that reward you with upvotes for making up outrageous stories. I've also seen "debate" subreddits where people downvote people who make good points, but disagree with. Then those people leave, not wanting to be punished on other subreddits that require a high amount of karma to post, leading to "debate" subreddits that are laughably one-sided.

Nice! It's been forever since I've seen the Gambler, so it took me a moment to recognize Slizardo :D I like the background too, even if it's just packaging.

I might not have even close to the same level of experience watching Star Trek as everyone else, but I think you can't go wrong with starting her on on TNG. My dad started me on TNG, and I've been a huge fan of it ever since. It's perfect for a new fan, since the show still makes sense even without watching the other series (though he has also shown me some of the original movies). And it lacks a lot of the sexism present in the OG series, which can be a turn off.

Though I found the first episode a little boring, it quickly got awesome as it went on. I've only watched that show and Discovery, but I'm pretty sure it will stay my favorite. The characters are likeable, Picard's a strong leader, and Data is a great foil for the rest of the cast.

Great! It used to take me three tries to log in, and it would take forever to load, but now I logged in almost instantly! Thanks!