Joined 6 March 2021 · 101 posts
I'm just a regular person who enjoys learning languages, writing, reading, coding, and more!
120 KT
0 KT received · 0 KT given
@Shounenbat
Unsolved Mystery: The Death of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) Most of us know of Edgar Allan Poe through our English classes. The poems and stories he’s most often known for are dark, twisted, and frightening. “The Raven”, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, and “The Masque of the Red Death” are just some of the works you likely know of his, and I bet you can even quote them. You may also know some of his life. Mr. Poe was a profusely unlucky man, losing his first wife (and…
@Shounenbat
Movie Novelizations: Why I Love Them This article was originally posted by me on Medium. I was going through my massive book collection when I found an old tote bin. Aside from only a handful of shelves worth of fiction books (most of them in foreign languages so I could study with input), all of my books were textbooks or nonfiction. Some of them contained information so out of date, I could only speculate why I kept them on the shelf and not stashed away or donated to a…
@Shounenbat
Extreme Introversion and a Pandemic When the coronavirus began ravaging a little place in China that I’d never heard of, Wuhan, I knew it was only a matter of time before it hit the United States of America. It slowly spread throughout the world like a winning game of *Pandemic*, and at last, the news hit that this new virus had come to America. I knew at that time that it wouldn’t be long before it hit Minnesota, too. It crept into the cities first, by means of passengers…
@Shounenbat
An Idea for a New Game I have a problem. I can’t seem to commit to a single thing at a time. I have several articles for read.cash, Medium, and (hopefully soon) Publish0X. I’m also working on two novels simultaneously and have a series in the back of my head to write. I also have three different games bouncing around in my head, and I’ve done some preliminary work on creating some graphics and coding the menu. Unfortunately, a massive financial setback has set some of those…
@Shounenbat
Why the Star Wars Sequels are Bad Fiction Part 2: More Bad World-Building Welcome to my next chapter in the ongoing saga of why Disney’s *Star Wars* sequels are bad fiction. This time, we’re going to focus on the rest of the world-building in the Disney trilogy now that we’ve gotten all of the problems with the Force out of the way. I’ve already gone into detail as to why world-building is important in my last article about this trilogy, so I won’t reiterate it here. Go…
@Shounenbat
Australian YouTuber Pledges to Buy 111 Tesla Model 3s if Elon Musk Accepts BCH I don’t normally write articles about cryptocurrency, which I know is strange for this platform, but this caught my eye and I had to say something about it! Check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KnmUKW9yVE 1stmil.com, the username of this YouTuber, makes some good points. Most people, myself included, would rather hold onto our BTC like gold, or a savings bond, or maybe like a…
@Shounenbat
How to Do Research Like a Boss! Working on a school report? Writing that novel or short story that’s been nagging the back of your brain? Stuck on that article you’re trying to write for read.cash? Research is one of those things that some people are in love with and some people hate. If you hate doing research, it’s probably at least partly to do with how confusing and overwhelming it can same. The fun part is when your fingers are flying across the keyboard, visions of…
@Shounenbat
5 Pieces of “Trash” That Turned Out to Be Treasure We all have heard that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, but what if this was something most of the world would recognize as a treasure that disguised itself as trash? I’m feeling like delving into some trivia today, so let’s check it out! A Haul of Gold Coins Worth 500,000 Euros Stashed in an Old Piano! One piano tuner had the best day at work ever when he discovered, hidden inside of a piano that had been donated…
+2 more
@Shounenbat
Why I’m Switching to Hybrid Publishing I’m working on a novel right now, and in the firm tradition of counting my eggs before they hatch, I’ve been deliberating over how to get it published. We’re standing at a crossroads in the publishing industry now, and I think we may be witnessing a drastic change in the publishing industry. Specifically, there’s a surge of a third publishing option that combines self-publishing and traditional publishing: hybrid publishing. What’s the…
@Shounenbat
Worst Jobs in Ancient Rome: Actress When most of us think of the term “actress” now falling out of favor in terms of the more gender-neutral “actor”, we think of fame and fortune. People who are either on top of the world or diving deep into the abyss of drink and drugs – a pit largely of their own making. We don't think of condoned rape or sexual exploitation. Perhaps in the porn industry, but most have a difficult time seeing any of those performers as real actors and…
@Shounenbat
Titanic: An Adventure Out of Time What can I possibly add to the many voices that have cried out about the sinking of this famous vessel 109 years ago? So many people have honored this tragedy in their own way, there's little I can say that hasn't already been said. We have the accounts of passengers and crew, the entire transcript of the communications between the Titanic and the various other ships in the area as she desperately cried for rescue, many documentaries, books,…
+2 more
@Shounenbat
How To Write Amazing Dialogue “Hi, I have a real problem with dialogue,” said the nervous-looking young woman sitting in front of my desk. “What's your problem?” I asked. “My dialogue sucks. It feels really organic, but when my friends read my stories, they always look like they're just skimming through the dialogue. One of them even yawned!” “It's probably because you're writing your characters' dialogue exactly like in this example. It's lifeless, nothing but talking heads…
@Shounenbat
The Ghost Writer (Flash Fiction Attempt) *I was encouraged by a prompt* *I wrote in my flash fiction article* *and wrote this as an exercise. I wouldn't call it a final draft, but wanted some criticism, hence posting it here for feedback. Maybe someone reading will be encouraged to try their hand at flash fiction, too!* https://read.cash/@Shounenbat/how-i-learned-to-love-flash-fiction-e5911edd “Lorraine?” Andrew's voice was always so loud over the phone, even when they were…
@Shounenbat
How I Learned to Love Flash Fiction In a way, we've all been exposed to what is now called “flash fiction” (stories written in 1,000 words or less) throughout our lives. In fact, you were probably introduced to it through the works of Aesop! As a new writer who was trying to break into publications, I hopped from one online magazine to another. I would check their submission guidelines and most of them would say something along the lines of, “Flash fiction only!” I hung my…
@Shounenbat
Could Humans (and Pets) Live Forever? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHIIATt0BaM *Forever young! I want to be forever young! Do you really want to live forever, forever young?* The song “Forever Young” by Alphaville asks the poignant question if you want to live forever young. It posits that old age and death are a sick, cruel joke and remarks that, “Youth is like diamonds, and diamonds are forever.” We're entering an age in which aging may become a thing of the past. While…
@Shounenbat
The Rise Of Slaughter-Free Meat Originally published on Medium.com In 2013 the world's first lab-grown beef patty was made and eaten in London. The cost? $330,000 worth of research! Unfortunately, the finished product was edible but didn't taste quite like a hamburger. One reporter said it was a start, but not a viable replacement for beef at this time. Fast forward to 2018 and the vegan food company Just created the world's first slaughter-free chicken nuggets from nothing…
@Shounenbat
Why the Star Wars Sequels are Bad Fiction Part 1: World-Building (The Force) I have a bone to pick with the new Star Wars trilogy. Specifically, it’s an awful trilogy with ardent defenders seeking to slam anyone who disagrees with them as being either a misogynist or someone with internalized misogyny, being unable to appreciate nuance, or being the kind of fans who worship every decision George Lucas ever made. Lots of bad faith arguments abound, and I’m here to lay out…
+2 more
@Shounenbat
Stop Saying Ishtar is the Source of Easter Every Easter, a meme goes around saying that the Christian holiday Easter actually comes from the Babylonian goddess Ishtar. This isn't done for scholarly reasons, either; it's meant to be a little “gotcha!” to the Christian religion because some people really have nothing better to do. Here's the thing: no one denies that a lot of pagan practices were absorbed into Christianity. Religions have borrowed from other traditions for as…
+2 more
@Shounenbat
The Road Map of Language Learning Everyone and their brother has their own method of learning languages (as an adult) and all of them are valid. I have no intention of writing a definitive guide on the best way to learn a language because that really depends on you and how you learn. What I *can* do, however, is help guide you towards the way you may best be suited for learning. As such, this article isn't specific to any particular language and is more of a catch-all guide.…
@Shounenbat
Historical Movie Review: Agora (NOTE: I intended to write something for Good Friday, but this article was on the back burner, so I finished it up instead. It's an odd thing to talk about on this day, but history cannot be forgotten...) I absolutely love history, and historical movies are a lot of fun. I normally prefer historical documentaries, as I like historical facts more than fiction, but I still have a soft spot for historical films. Sometimes fiction can be a lot of…
+4 more
@Shounenbat
Undoing Extinction? How Russia Plans to Resurrect the Woolly Mammoth I originally posted this article on Medium.com. It's a subject I'm fascinated by, so I'm also posting it here! https://marketingwhirlwind.medium.com/undoing-extinction-how-russia-plan-to-resurrect-the-woolly-mammoth-cb252a229f4f I was a kid when *Jurassic Park* came out, allowing me and many other moviegoers to see, for the first time, how a living and breathing dinosaur might have actually looked and…
@Shounenbat
Sloths are Amazing! I'm an animal lover. Specifically of the variety who prefer the companionship of animals to humans. You know, the best kind of people! We live in our houses with our animal family members and eschew the rest of the world until it becomes impossible to do so. This isn't going to be a post about pets, though. I was tempted to write about dog breeds, language learning, or some other subject I know so well that I don't have to research, as I'm currently deep…
@Shounenbat
Ancient Roman Vampires?!? Okay, before I veered off into sharing old stories, I wrote about an Ancient Greek ghost story (totally true, according to Pliny the Younger) and how many of our modern tropes regarding ghosts and the stories they partake in are actually very old. Today I'm going to look at a sort of ancient vampire, although many other ancient cultures also had similar stories. https://read.cash/@Shounenbat/an-ancient-greek-horror-story-09e54c6f No, I'm not talking…
@Shounenbat
The Myth of Useless Languages This article was originally written by me for Medium.com, but I wanted to post it here in case any of you are interested in language learning! Too bad there's no community for it. I perused our ever-boring newspaper in search of anything worth reading when I came across an article about our local school's experiment with implementing German classes in its curriculum. For years they'd offered only Spanish, and since I was teaching myself Japanese…
@Shounenbat
The Mill Part 2 Part 1 can be read here. https://read.cash/@Shounenbat/the-mill-part-1-b66e8a6c He knew somewhere in his jumbled mind that he must sound incredibly foolish, perhaps even inebriated, which no royal would ever stoop among the common folk, but the innkeeper paid no mind. He handed a key over and said, “Second door up the stairs, Highness.” After seeing that the prince was managing to climb the stairs all right, he retired to his own bed in the back room. The…
@Shounenbat
The Mill - Part 1 *Time for another fairy tale. Again, this fairy tale is part of a collection I've self-published. I'll be revising the publication, so I won't link it right now, but maybe I'll edit it in later. In the meantime, please enjoy this, and if you like it, you may like my* *previous fairy tale also**.* https://read.cash/@Shounenbat/the-bakers-cat-0f2c4a87 The old mill had stood there for at least one hundred years, maybe more. It depended on who you asked and how…
@Shounenbat
Amazon's Delve Into Crypto? My last article was about ancient ghost stories, and I planned to follow up on that today. However, research is taking a little longer than I anticipated, so I decided to follow up instead on a different article in which I bemoaned the lack of marketplaces where one can buy things with crypto or sell things with crypto. In it, I lamented that Amazon didn't accept crypto, but someone on Reddit pointed out that Amazon had been laying the groundwork…
@Shounenbat
An Ancient Greek Horror Story Before you ask, no, this isn't an original tale of mine. This is a look at one of the earliest ghost stories we have on record, and I'm sure that there are many other eerie, haunting tales that predate this one – they just didn't have the luck to be recorded and preserved throughout the canyon of time. In modern times, around 46% of Americans believe that ghosts are real. You may be thinking that that's an impressive number, or perhaps you're…
@Shounenbat
Lamenting the Lack of Crypto Marketplaces Do you want to know what sucks? The fact that places like Amazon, Etsy, and eBay don't accept any cryptocurrencies. Now, I recently got my own website to accept crypto, but, let's face it, people are far more likely to trust a place like eBay and Amazon. As of right now, there are three marketplaces I can think of where average people can sell their thrift or other wares for crypto: OpenBazaar/Haven, Bitify, and Particl. That's the…
@Shounenbat
5 Mistakes Newbie Entrepreneurs Make I haven't touched on marketing at all on this site. I'm trying to touch on everything I enjoy writing about, and that includes entrepreneurship. I'm celebrating finally being able to accept cryptocurrency on my site, so this post is an extension of that! This particular article isn't geared for the eCommerce space, which is the focus of my celebration, but it will help out everyone.…
+3 more