MarionetteCreep
marionettecreep.bsky.social
MarionetteCreep
@marionettecreep.bsky.social
180 followers 630 following 700 posts
Cryptid. Weary Millennial. Occasional artist. Horror and monster enthusiast. English/日本語/Dabbling in français and norsk. May go on tangents about Japanese linguistics. 🚫Do not use art for purposes of AI training/ AI 'art' will blocked.
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Things I like for those who might be curious:
- Horror in general
- All kinds of monsters
- Terry Pratchett/Discworld
- Reading (broadly)
- Drawing/sketching
- Japanese linguistics/話せるからね
- Folklore/mythology
- Fighting games (particularly Darkstalkers)
- JRPGs
- Movies/video games/anime
My Kanji knowledge isn't quite up to standard for more formal history texts yet, but I think this new arrival might be a starting point for Bakumatsu and Shinsengumi reading.
Language learning is a personal journey, and it will take the time it needs and different forms for every person. There is no singularly most-optimised method that will bring sustainable results quickly.

Also, language learners need to be kind to themselves, as the road is long and winding.
Do you have any extremely niche, but serious, ethical stances?
It's also a pretty tricky one, and a lot of the ghosts have a bad case of the zoomies at times. Night 3 is also a hell of a thing.
I'm coming up on a year since my last trip to Japan, and given the health of family, it might be a while...

I'm leaning into language study in the mean time, and it's time to tackle some translated literature as well.

Got some Natsume, Dazai and Akutagawa ordered, and I'm reading some Edogawa.
I'm similar, as I hit a brick wall studying for N3 while working full time/overtime, and my progress slowed right down. Between watching things, beginning to read manga and slowly building up skills again, I've found a sustainable rhythm that's bringing about real progress now.
Indeed, and it all contributes to building your skills/overall Japanese literacy level. Most importantly, it maintains interest/engagement, which is where a lot of learners burn out.

Trying to brute force or grind learning a language and expecting to be magically use it is not the way to go.
One of the biggest traps of the intermediate plateau with Japanese is the loop of "I haven't gotten N3/2 yet, so I can't do X" and "This text is difficult, I need to study for N3/2 first".

At this stage, you're actually building literacy, which reading is essential for, and study BOOSTS it. Do both
Decided I'd look back at some of the spookier cartoons I saw when I was a kid, and one of the most unsettling at the time was a Mr. Magoo episode adapting Frankenstein.

There's a fever dream sequence featuring this imagery while stomping, laughing/moaning and organ music plays. Intense for the time
From the camera roll #5: There's a special place in my heart for the streets around Chayamachi, particularly at night.
It's definitely a long road ahead, but it's definitely exciting.

Honestly, there's also a lot of stories and history texts that I want to read one day, and this is the only real pathway to access them. Onward!
On a November day last year, I started my more sustained and consistent push with reading in Japanese, and the results have been fantastic.

I've seen significant boosts in reading fluidity, incidental Kanji/vocab knowledge, and honestly... going from 中級 to 上級 in the coming years feels possible.
This reappeared on my feed recently, and it's definitely a blast from the past.

Also, 中村屋!
中村屋
YouTube video by y2k12290324
www.youtube.com
Hard choice, honestly. I will however, defer to my formative years of anime viewing, where I watched the Spriggan trailer repeatedly in in the early 2000s.
I remember re-watching the opening news room segment of Dawn of the Dead at the height of the 'demic, and it knocked the wind out of me.

The effect is similar in this day and age.
Decided to keep up the momentum from Night last night with Dawn of the Dead (1978) as the next re-watch for this spooky season.

While some elements of Dawn haven't aged as well, much like Night, the social commentary definitely... hits hard in 2025.
You may very well not be where you expected to be with milestones and progress. What's more important is to look at yourself as the sum total of your experiences, not your missed chances.

Be kind to others and yourself, find things that genuinely excite you about the world, and please, stay silly.
Those who are 35+, what advice do you have for people just entering their 30s?
I can say without reservation that NOTLD has not lost its touch at all. If anything, given the times we're in, the social commentary and the horrific implications of the ending remain razor sharp.

Hell of a horror, and definitely unsettling in a new way.
Harry Cooper from Night of the Living Dead (1968) remains one of the best antagonists in all of horror cinema.

Arrogant, prideful, controlling, inflexible and ruled by a combination of fear and a desire to be in charge. Likewise, the sheer hubris of this man and its effects are profound.
It's been years since I've seen IT Remake Part 1. I remember liking it at the time when it came out. Not great, not terrible, with some fun sequences.
Decided to rewatch an all-time favourite tonight for the ongoing, if so far sporadic, spooky season viewing.

Night of the Living Dead still remains a hell of a thing.
Thanks for the suggestion!

I've got a copy of that waiting, but I want to build up my Kanji knowledge a bit more first, to make it a smoother experience.

In return, I can recommend the short story anthology 「ぼっちゃん」.
Made some fantastic friends, got involved in a few small communities, and I got the push I needed to start making art.

Also, I realised potential pathways to where I wanted to go with Japanese language learning, and the tools to achieve it.
Has anything great happened in your life because of social media?
Following a recommendation from an article by @japanesetalk.bsky.social, I've started reading 「ずっと前から好きでした」and 20+ pages in, this is definitely looking like a fantastic text to bridge between manga and novels, and a good example of comprehensible input for anime/manga fans.
If you're ever near Chayamachi, the Surugaya on top of the Maruzen Junkudou tower had a decent range, at least from what I saw last year.
In short, we sometimes get so caught up with what we COULD do, rather than what we WILL be able to do with language learning. It's a journey.

その上に、『昔の能力』についてだけ考えたら、成長出来ないでしょう。この道は長くも、辛くても、頑張り続けたら、成長の可能性はちゃんと上がるでしょうね。やって見たら、一歩でも進めたら、もうすぐ『こんな事が出来るのか?!』のような一瞬は普通の経験に成る筈ですよ。時間が掛かっても、挫けないで、前へ進めましょう!