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railingsofsorrow · 10 months

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New Traditions

[spencer reid x reader]

summary: you bring him coffee from his favorite coffee shop, he brings you your favorite blueberry muffins. it's a silent routine you've established with one another. but maybe, just maybe, you'd like something more than coffee and muffins during work hours. and maybe, just maybe, he'd like that too.

or. . . in which this is a sequel to this blurb.

pairing: s.reid x gn!reader

w.c: 4K

warnings/content: spencer & reader being a Simp ™ for e/o; discussion regarding addictions and intoxication; expectations being uphold; friendly banter; I love you but I'll never admit it trope (hang tight with me); self-doubts; language; fluff fluff fluff; making out.

A/N: I guess this can be read as a standalone but it'd make more sense if you read this one first. enjoy!

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When Spencer arrived in the Bureau that morning, he did his usual ritual: place his satchel on his chair and retract immediately to the pantry to make his coffee. He couldn't function without it. Actually, he was pretty certain no one in his team could function in the morning without any type of caffeine. Some of the times, when he was the first to arrive — it's rare, Hotch is always there — he'd prepare a coffee pot, fill up his mug, add seven sachets of sugar and cream, and leave it there for whoever wanted it.

It was the same thing every day. His routine was drab but he liked it the way it was.

Spencer wouldn't consider himself a person inclined to changes. Everybody knows that and everybody is used to it. But he's accustomed to it. He's came around to the fact that life comes with lots of surprises and unexpectancy, even if he's not fond of it, he's gotta take it and stop whining about it.

You were the change that made him not despise surprises that much. Your arrival at the BAU was one of the best choices the department made. To the team. And to him, of course. Not that he'd ever tell you that.

It changed how he felt listened. He was used to being brushed off by his co-workers whenever he started rambling, so much so that he begin to contain his urges to spurt out statistics in random conversations. Then, you came along and actually paid attention to what he was saying in these moments. In every moment, precisely.

You wouldn't stop asking him about the history of the movies and the snacks they were selling during that night at the Korean Festival. It was a week ago. He wished he could come back to that day and see your mesmerized face as he explained details of the culture.

He had so much fun. He didn't do it a lot; hanging out. Being with people was totally tangent to his comfort zone. Spencer cherished his alone time. The silence, the peace and the no-need-to-pick-up-on-social-cues part — he was really bad at the latter.

But he loved spending time with you. He'd like to do it more often. If only he was able to stop hyperventilating and shaking whenever he thought about asking you out.

Not as a date. As friends. Because that's what you were.

Definitely not as a date.

That morning, when he arrived at his desk, a coffee sat upon it. Remember those changes he mentioned? Yeah. This is one of them. You started bringing him coffee from his favourite coffee shop near Quantico. And it was his exact order.

He felt his heart swell every time he'd see your messy handwriting in the cup holder.

“Did you know that Mr. Oscar Wilde had a photographic memory? He was able to remember long passages and then effortlessly recall them later. That reminded me of you. Although I'm sure you certainly can remember three entire books from the 1st page to the last one and quote the whole thing. Wilde would be jealous, Spence.”

Ps: I know photographic memory and eidetic memory are two different things, it just reminded me of you :)

Since the beginning of the week you had this little thing going on. He didn't know what it was, he didn't know if you knew what it was. But you'd bring him coffee with random curiosities and he'd bring you blueberry muffins with quotes from your favorite poets.

“What's that smug grin for?” His neck snapped up at the voice, Derek was sipping on his coffee with a curious look. He was sizing him up.

“Nothing.” Spencer smoothly covered your little note with his hand and took a sip of the beverage. Eyes shutting in delight. Fuck. How can you do everything right? This is perfectly sweetened. “We got a case?” He mentioned Penelope walking straight to the conference room, distracting himself from the obvious profiling Derek was doing.

“Yeah.” Derek clicks his tongue against his palate, tilting his head. “Pretty boy...”

“What?” Spencer gave him an innocent look, grabbing his stuff. “We should go.”

Derek chuckled behind him, “You're not slick, Reid. I can see it!”

“What are you talking about?” He shrieked out, taking a seat across from Emily while carefully placing his cup on the table. Garcia was already preparing the images to detail the case.

Derek pointed at him and mouthed I see you before sitting down beside Hotch, JJ taking the seat at his right. The middle of his forehead twitched slightly when he didn't see you. Were you late? Did something hold you up? No. You had brought his coffee, you must be—

“Morning, Reid.”

He just had to look at his side. Your soft smile greeting him. He's going to have a great day.

“Good morning,” he replied, the corner of his lips quirking up when he saw the brand sticker on your coffee cup. Seems like it wasn't just his favorite place anymore. The little bag inside his satchel didn't have a chance to meet your hands yet, he'd usually put beside your computer as soon as he arrived.

He'd have to give it to you later. He knows you don't like having any breakfast in the morning. But you still shouldn't spend the day on coffee and an empty stomach.

Fortunately or not, it was a local case, so you didn't need the jet this time. You ended up stuck in the Geographical profile while everyone else head down to the ME's office. Penelope abandoned her cave to keep you company.

“Hey,” she called out, not looking up from her laptop. By the long time you knew your friend, if there was one thing she could do, that thing was multitasking. Don't fool yourself thinking that she wasn't paying attention to everything that's going on around her just because she's focused on something else. Sometimes, you convicted yourself that she was a robot.

“Yeah?” Your eyes lingered on the board before you drifted to her. “What's up?” you questioned while picking up your water bottle.

“Is there something going on between you and our resident genius?”

Luckily enough, you hadn't drank anything yet or you'd probably have choked up with the accusation.

“What do you mean?” You guped down the water quietly, feeling your neck heat up. Now, she was looking at you, a smirk dancing on her features as if she knew something you didn't.

“You and Reid.” She kept on typing, and clicking clicking clicking. “What happened in the film festival. You went together, right?”

You hummed, turning back to the triangulation process you were trying to finish. There was just one area missing, you couldn't see the pattern but you had a hunch.

“So, what happened?”

“We watched the movie. What else is there to do in a film festival?

Penelope clicked her tongue together, “Uh-uh. I see what you're doing. But watching the movie doesn't give you that stupid smile you have plastered on everytime he's around. And you brought him coffee, I noticed. I saw it.” Well shit. “Not to mention that's not the first time you do that either, missy.” She was pointing her sparkly pen at you and you had to hold yourself back from laughing. That was a threat in Penelope Garcia's style.

“Friends can treat each other, Penelope.”

“Sure they can,” she nodded vehemently. “Just as people on a relationship do as well.”

The heat lifting up your neck was enough for you to curl into yourself in the chair. You pushed a photo into her hands, clearing your throat awkwardly. “I need you to find info about this guy, please. Brian Englebert, I'll go... I have to... yeah.”

Penelope's giggling was the last thing you heard as you left the room.

Falling in love is like a drug addiction.

According to some researches, falling in love with someone gives you the same sensation as feeling addicted does; the release of euphoria and triggering of brain chemicals like dopamine, oxytocin, adrenaline and others. Ergo, the more time you spend with this person, the more addicted you will become.

Spencer knows all about addictions. How it can affect your brain and your life in general. He's also aware that if you just ignore it, without the rightful treatment, it will just proceed to get worse.

Ah, there's also that. Spencer is awfully good in ignoring things. Pretending they aren't there. But when something is imbedded into his brain, continuously causing his synaptic connections to go haywire, he can't just keep ignoring it, can he?

Because looking at you from the bullpen entrance, happily eating your muffins as you surveyed some files in your desk... that made him feel something. That made his heart to want to burst out of his chest. How is this possible? Why is his face heating up? Why is his mouth dry? Is he about to die?

“Wilde was also considered a genius back on his days. I believe that he would also be considered a genius today given his literary accomplishments and the way he spoke loudly about banned topics.” He gulped down the rock in his throat while licking his dry lips. You looked over your shoulder, mid-bite into the muffin when your eyes crinckled up by your smile. At him. You were smiling at him. Were you happy that he was there? Or was he being a nuisance by interrupting your snack break?

He couldn't stop talking and when he was about to begin another monologue, you cut him off.

“You don't believe in the genius terminology, do you?” You spoke, politely cleaning the corners of your mouth with a napkin even if they were perfectly clean. “You've mentioned it before.”

You pay attention to what he says too. How could he not fall for that?

“No,” he says, quietly sitting down in a chair that you had pulled closer to yours. “The methods to classify someone as a genius usually refer to high IQ or when one has great accomplishment in science or related areas.” He declined when you offer a muffin to him, a smile spreading around his face. “There's a lot of people who have made great accomplishments in many other areas, like music or art. They don't get the same recognition though,” he shrugged, fidgeting with his satchel. “I just think it's unfair.”

You nodded, thoughtfully, “That makes sense. I hadn't thought through this perspective yet.” Your attention lowered back to your desk and he thought he had lost your attention until you pulled up a blue post-it. His face reddened immediately. “No other word makes my mouth as tender as your name.” You recited, a warm feeling embracing your heart, when your eyes locked with his, you exhaled softly. “How did you know? I never mentioned this book to you, nor the author.”

It was your favourite book from all times. You had found it in an old bookstore on your hometown, it was your last purchase before you moved away. It's the last memory you made there. You never spoke about it. It's kind of the secret you keep to you from someone you no longer knew but craved once in a while.

“You have it with you all the time,” Spencer said timidly, eyes nervously shifting away from your gaze. “You—You were reading on the jet once and I saw the title and I always see it on your bag when you're fixing it in your desk and—” after a sharp inhale, he started gesticulating with his hands. “Not that I go through your stuff or anything! I saw see it really quick I didn't even touch—”

“Spence.”

“... because it's not mine! And it would be really impolite for me to do so—”

“Spence?”

“I swear I'd never purposely go through your stuff, Y/N—”

“Spencer,” your tone was soft but stern, at least to convey you needed him to stop talking without sounding rude. His lips clipped shut and his cheeks were pink with shame. Rambling. You finally got tired of it, he was waiting for it to finally happen— “Hey. I didn't imply that you went through my stuff,” you said calmly with a smile lifting the corners of your mouth, reaching out to him with your hand. You waited until he grasped yours, a silent request for consent to touch him since you knew he wasn't very fond of it. “I'm just kind of... flattered? That you pay attention. I didn't know I was interesting enough for you to notice these things, Doctor Reid.”

“You're the most interesting person I've ever met.”

He didn't realize until it was out and then he looked down at your hands in embarrassment. You chuckled softly, playing with his fingers on yours. He's so lovely.

“You're the most interesting person I've ever met, too, Spencer.”

He blinked up at you, surprise traveling across his features. “I am? Me?”

Fondness embraced your orbs just as your heart hammered in your chest. Spencer. There's so much you don't know. So much that you've no idea. . .

“Mhm.” You hummed, pulling one of his unruly stands behind his ear. Spencer almost melted when your hand grazed his cheek. “You, Spencer Reid. You've no idea how much I learn with you every day and how it amazes me, don't you?”

Spencer was out of words for the first time in his life.

Your finger trailed down his cheek, the middle of your forehead creasing slightly. “You're amazing.” But you don't know that. You don't realize that. Why?

Air didn't reach his lungs and Spencer felt like hiding and never letting go of you at the same time. Oh, it's been so long since he felt like that. . . It was almost too great to love someone that was good to you. A healthy love — Yes, it is love, he admits it now. He can be a fool no more — It seemed foreign. The idea. Spencer never thought he deserved much than what he had and what he received. But maybe, maybe he did. Could he deserve you?

He decided to be bold. “You—” but Aaron Hotcher cut him off and all his courage went down the drain. Seems like the universe wanted to joke with him. He was a fool, afterall.

“Go home,” Hotch walked by, pointing at the manila files on your desk and then at you and Spencer. “Get some rest, the two of you.”

When you looked around, there was just you and Spencer in the bullpen — and Anderson, because you were sure he never really left the precinct. You'd find all of his stuff somewhere in the pantry — Everyone must have gone home, already. The Bureau was slightly frightening when it was a deserted island. It reminded you a lot of a liminal space.

You obeyed your boss. By the time you cleaned up your desk, Spencer was gone. Disappointment taking over your features. Well, what did you expect? It's not like it was his obligation to wait for you. He wasn't your boyfriend. He wasn't your anything. You had no right to put expectations on him.

Stepping into the parking lot, the cold breeze immediately involved your body. Too bad you had chosen to wear a tank top exactly today. It was warm in the morning!

“Did you know that approximately 28 million people read poetry in America?” You jumped in your spot, gasping at the silhouette beside your car where you were about to get in.

Spencer gave you a little wave.

“You...” a relieved sigh escaped you, shoulders descending. “You scared me, Spencer.”

“Sorry.” He said sheepishly, pulling at the strap of his satchel. “Ehm, t-this number doubled up in the age range of 18 to 24. It's proven that—uh, social media actually helped the growth of these numbers. It pushed people's interests into poetry a lot more.”

You stared at him in complete bewilderment. Your mind was working fast to seek out an answer for his rambling, but you were so confused that you just stayed quiet. And he gave you a grimace.

“I'm being weird.” Spencer nodded, “I know. I'm sorry.”

“It's okay—”

“I'm just trying to tell you something— ask, yeah, ask you something but that's what came out. I am so sorry. I should go, yes, I should—”

You leaped forward, surprising even yourself from the move. You had grabbed his wrist and quickly retracted your hand. “Sorry.” you apologized, biting your lip. “I— you can ask, Spencer. I was just a little confused.”

He let out a long sigh, his hands were shaking and they were starting to sweat too. But he told himself that this is when he stops being a fool.

“I'm a mess.” Yes, great way to start. “I'm a mess because I don't know how to stop talking. I don't understand social cues — I'm actually getting better at that — and I'm still scared of the dark. I have to sleep with a lampshade on. That's embarrassing.” his knuckles were turning white from how hard he was holding his shoulder strap. “I'm not great at letting people be there for me because I've been taking care of myself my whole life, I don't see the appeal in letting anyone in, it's too much work. My brain doesn't stop, I'm always thinking and it tires me out. Sometimes I wish it all went silent. I don't have a favourite book, I've read many great ones and I find it unfair with the authors to just choose one. So I don't.” For the first time since he started talking, he breathed in. You took a step forward, expecting him to just crumble down in front of you. Where was he getting with this? You wanted so badly to hug him but you didn't know if he wanted it and you weren't given an opening to ask. He didn't let you. “I don't know how to love.” That made you frown. Before you could retort, he carried on. “I've learned there's no pattern for it and people are different everywhere. I can't plan it, I can't see the numbers. I can't control people because they aren't meant to be controlled.”

Your eyes softened. “No, no they aren't, Spence. And it's okay, you know? You don't have to plan everything.” you finally spoke as he let you. But he didn't seem to be finished so you remained quiet. You didn't expect him to take your hand in his, to which he chuckled nervously at your startled reaction.

“But I think... I think I'm starting to love you.” What was breathing? You never learned. “I'm not sure if that's the right thing to say when I'm trying to ask you out—”

“You want to ask me out?” The failed tone made his face fall and you shook your head vehemently, pulling him towards you. “That's not how I meant it! I just— God, Spencer. Do you want to give me a heart attack?” you exclaimed. “I wasn't expecting this.”

He frowned, looking down at your hands to avoid looking into your eyes. “What were you expecting?”

“Rejection,” you said, earning a look of confusion. Then, enlightenment and them disbelief. It was cute to watch him tech the conclusion. “It was a clear setting in my head so I never tried.”

“Why would I ever reject you? I've lov— I've had a crush on you since the moment you stepped into my sight.” Spencer added, covering his slip-up but you noticed it. You didn't comment on it, you'd wait for the right time. “Do you—does that mean that you feel the same?”

A breathy laugh left your lips. “Oh, Spence.” you approached him slowly, hand raising to his cheek. He leaned in, eyes fluttering shut and you smiled. “I feel more than the same. I feel everything for you.” And I'm starting to love you too.

His eyelashes tinkled against your hand before he lifted his gaze to you, he was trying to avoid breathing just like you were. Afraid this moment would be lost in the wind by a single action. Spencer's eyes drifted down to your mouth.

“Can I—”

“Do it.”

Your lips didn't crashed together. They met in the middle, carefully joining into one space. It didn't felt as if you've been waiting for this — the both of you — it was a perfect pace. That until your body was being pressed against your car and his hands were roaming all over you. You needed to breathe, as much as you didn't want to.

“Hi.” You whispered, cracking a smile as you stared down at his swollen lips. Your hands pressed against his chest.

He sighed, burying his face into the croak of your neck. “Hi.”

A chuckle made your body shake slightly and his hold on you tightened.

“You just kissed me like that and you're suddenly shy?” You teased, fingers caressing the back of his neck. “Is that all an act to make me fall for you? It's working.”

“Shut up,” he mumbled with a shake of his head, leaning back to meet your eyes. You studied the glint in his hazel orbs with a warm feeling spreading on your chest. “I've just— I've wanted to do that for a long time.”

You quickly peck his lips, cupping his face as your features turned serious. Even if you couldn't stop smiling.

“I've wanted to do that just as long, Spencer. Trust me.”

You know when wine makes you less inhibited? A few too many glasses can make you less serious, less controlled. Alcohol causes the oxytocin levels of one's body to increase, which is why people tend to feel more confident and comfortable while drunk. Spencer understood now all of those researches that talked about how being in love can make you feel as if you're drunk. Because he was drunk and he was completely addicted to you at that moment.

“Ask the question, Doctor Reid.” You traced the tip of his nose and chuckled as he scrunched it.

“Ask what question?”

“The one you came after me for.”

“Oh.” you were able to feel his fingers nervously shifting against the exposed skin of your tank top. “I... Mhm.” He gulped, gaze meeting yours apprehensively. “Would you like to go on a date... with me? You don't have to say yes. Don't feel obliged to because—”

“Because you just took all my breath away?” You learnt that you loved to make him blush. “I'd love to go on a date with you, Spencer.” you said softly.

His eyes widened in surprise, “Really?

“Yes.” you assured him, tucking a curl behind his ear. “So, is there another film festival I don't know about?”

His eyes brightened in excitement and you knew he was about to talk your ear off about something. And you couldn't wait for him to start. That was something you could easily get addicted to: his ramblings and his kisses.

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A/N: anybody recognise the book quote on the blue post-it? 👀

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sources: [1] [2]

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taglist: @lilyviolets

#spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds imagine #spencer reid one shot #spencer reid x gn!reader #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fluff

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neither-blogs · 11 months

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Fasting Activities:

Here's everything I did during my 46 hour fast!

Watched Mukbangs: I love and want to try so many Korean/Japanese dishes so my favorite youtuber is Tzuyang, she eats so much and so skinny its insane (I'm watching one as I type, lol).

Meal prep: I planned out meals. What I wanted to eat to break my fast and everything around that. I typically plan around dinner since those typically have the more calories, either big breakfast or big dinner and I almost never do lunch.

Calorie research: People tend to "get hungry" when they're bored, I do as well but, if I get too hungry (and mukbangs aren't cutting it) I'll go to all of our shelved food and just read the nutrition label, even if I cant remember any of it.

Fast food prep: I usually want foods that I cant have because of the calories. This is similar to meal prep but you know, fast food. I searched up various places that I craved and looked at their menu and created an order that's under 500cal for my higher calorie days and under 300cal for my lower calorie days.

Tumblr: Just like every one else I'll scroll through tmblr for about an hour or more, especially when I cant sleep. I'll look at thinspo, mealspo, and food/calorie logs or I'll look over my own page.

Supersize vs Superskinny: I actually just got into this show, I'm not entirely interested, I just like being able to watch the skinny people eat extremely large meals.

Cleaned/Chores: I took it upon myself to reorganize the kitchen and clean it even though it had nothing to do with me, I'm ganna clean the fridge out today. I've also been waking up early since someone told me that I should start doing that.

Bonus- Reading, drawing, movies: I didn't do this because I don't have my glasses to read and didn't have my stylus to draw but I would have done that, maybe reading over drawing since I have a couple books I haven't read yet. I also didn't watch any movies since I didn't exactly have time, nor was I very interested.

Restock: I went grocery shopping. I never actually do this, I just pick through what ever groceries my mother get but because of my special diet I thought now was the perfect time, also because of all the calories I'd be able to burn while walking around hehe

Games: I love playing random mobile games, especially cooking games because it distracts me so well. I also do pc games like minecraft, gatta love mc.

That's it, that's everything I did while fasting, pretty uninteresting.

#ana stuff #tw ana fast #tw ana shit #ed not sheeren #ana trigger #tw ana diary #tw ed diet #pr0ana diet #calorie deficit diet #f@sting

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cookieeks-art · 4 months

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Here’s a little project I worked on last year, but kinda, forgot to post? It’s a fake Red shoes art book spread for Edda! The composition, and art styles used, is mainly based on Snow White first page, and Arthur's second page from the actual art book, including of course the artist featured in them (aka Jeon Mi-jin (전미진) who drew the art that the art on the first page and the drawing to the top right on the second page is based on, Kim Sang-jin (김상진) aka Jin Kim who drew the art that the first drawing and the four lower drawings in the second page are based on, and Choi Minjeong (최민정) who drew the the art that the top middle drawing on the second page is based on.) (I had to use Google translate to get the names in the Latin alphabet, so I apologise if there’s any mistakes, I tried to keep the Korean name order for all the names, with the exception of Jin Kim.) [EDIT: I took a closer look Arthur’s first page today and realised that it served as a bigger inspiration for the first page that I drew then I remembered when first posting this, so shout out to that page as well which have two drawings made by Jeon Mi-jin and Choi Minjeong respectively.]

If you’ve been around for a bit you might also notice that two of the drawings on the second page are redraws of older sketches, which I mostly did as a fun treat for myself, since I find redrawing old art pretty fun. I also took this opportunity to give Harriet’s clothes a small makeover, taking some inspiration from Snow herself, a bit from the shapes of Drottning Kristinas gowns (like the drape around her shoulders and how puffy their arms are, and the general shape of the collar), and most likely from looking at details of other dresses I can’t recall at the moment (I do specifically remember looking up images of historical lace collars to get an idea of how they could look, but I don’t remember if I looked at a specific site or what sites I could have looked at in that case). I tried to keep it relatively simple with some spots for details, but looking at it now I’m not entirely sure how well it would fit the movies vine fashion wise (both Regina’s and Snow’s dresses both feel pretty modern to my amateur eyes looking at the cuts and shapes), then again I guess I can always say that the fashion is different kingdom to kingdom I suppose.

Also small shout out to Kay @the-moonlightknight who was someone who helped years ago to actually put words to Eddas personality back when I had to make a reference sheet for a discords event, which is the reference I went back to and used small parts of when writing the text for the first page.

(ID in alt and under the cut)

[ID:

Two fake Red shoes art-book pages depicting my oc Edda and Harriet (A pale chubby woman, with deep eyebags, brown hair and grey eyes).

The first shows Harriet, dressed in a blue dress with lace and snowflake themed embroidery, wearing a crown and matching necklace, with her hair up in a ponytail, is looking forlornly at the viewer, her hands held before her. Edda, dressed in her casual while fluffy shirt, dark muddy red skirt and bodice, and brown leather boots, is looking to the side with a lopsided smile and holding out her knife. Cookieek is written under both of them. Behind them is a wavy dark red graphic with a pattern of thin leaves. In the bottom right corner is two patterns running side by side, one of simple tight stitches, and a more detailed snowflake inspired embroidery pattern. To the upper right of the page is a block of text titled “Edda & Harriet”, and reading: “Edda is a wise woman in the woods that Arthur stumbles upon after entering Frode kingdom to search for it’s missing princess. Edda is also the identity taken on by said missing Princess Harriet after she was able to leave the castle behind. Her life as a mistreated princess has left her jaded and with a distain for nobility and royalty, but her escape has given her hope for a better life. In leaving the identity as Harriet Edda has made a big change in her way of dress, as well as letting the mask she’d been forced into as a royal slip. She’s determined, eccentric, and considerate, with a hunger for magic knowledge. At first she doesn’t realise she’s falling for Arthur, taken in by his ridiculous yet sensitive personality and his way of smiling, but when she does she’s sure she can’t tell him at risk of making things uncomfortable between them. She doesn’t realise that a lot of the ridiculous things Arthur has done has been to show love for her, and that they are both just as willing to sacrifice themselves for the other.”

The second is a page with drawings of Edda and Harriet. The first is a grey scale drawing Harriet looking mentally exhausted, with a thousand yard stare in a profile view. Second is a head shot of Harriet crying in a blue frilly nightgown as pale hands with long nails grip the sides of her face, tips of light brown hair hovering above her. Third is a drawing of Edda sitting and talking to someone while smiling as if she’s about to laugh. Fourth is a collection of greyscale drawings of Edda making a few expressions, such as: 1, looking intrigued while grinning sinisterly with a shadow over her eyes as she holds her chin, 2, looking in awe of something with shine in her eyes, her hands hovering in front of her, 3, looking embarrassed and startled, a blush across her face and her fist held to her chest, 4, scowling deeply with a dark shadow over her eyes. Cookieek is written under all of the images.

End of ID]

#oc #oc's #fanart #red shoes and the 7 dwarfs #red shoes and the seven dwarfs #edda

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turtlevariabilis · 2 months

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Honest Opinion. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

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Warning 1. This review will contain some spoilers from the movie, so I recommend avoiding reading it if you haven't seen it yet.

Warning 2. Here I only present my opinion, which does not mean it is entirely correct or entirely wrong. Of course, I would also love to read yours, especially if you differ on something. Always remember that diversity of opinions is a wealth.

Well, it's finally time to express my opinion about the movie Mutant Mayhem (2023), the newest version of our beloved ninja turtles. Get ready because it will be somewhat extensive, and although I will of course mention positive aspects, I really want to focus on the drawbacks it has, especially on the significant and serious problem it faces.

First of all, I want to clarify that I love the ninja turtles and I accept and admire them in all their versions. I firmly believe that each one has something special to contribute to the beautiful franchise they are part of. Mutant Mayhem is no exception.

First, I want to mention several very positive aspects of this new version. Its style. Its art. Its animation. The design of all the characters, mutants and humans. The setting. The soundtrack. I love how it highlights the ugliness, the dirt, the filth, and the darkness. I remember that when I watched tmnt 2012, I loved that they showed the garbage, the graffiti, and the dirty streets. In rottmnt, this almost doesn't happen and I miss it. But in Mutant Mayhem, it's picked up again, and I really love it.

The story is quite simple, but it's very good, well-crafted, entertaining, fun, and highly enjoyable for anyone. Here I want to emphasize that, despite the negative aspects that I will highlight later on, I loved the movie and I have already watched it a total of four times, and I'm capable of watching it many more times.

So let's start talking a little about the characters.

Donnie has always been my favorite turtle, so seeing him change in this version bothered me a bit. Just a bit. How did he change? He's still the turtle who stands out for his intelligence and has a great interest in technology, but in a more realistic way, without being the one who knows everything and fixes everything. That's great. What bothered me was that they made him a big fan of various things, like anime and the Korean band BTS, which isn't bad, but this personality trait usually belongs to Leo. Leo, from the start, can be seen either reading the science fiction book Dune, or being the only fan of the series Space Heroes, or even being the biggest fan of the Jupiter Jim movies, depending on the version. He has always represented those who are fans of something specific. But in Mutant Mayhem, it's now something about Donnie. It took me a while to get used to it, but in the end, it's just a small change, nothing serious.

About Mikey and Raph, I won't say much because we already know them, and they didn't have a very significant change, and they also don't contribute much individually in the movie (like Donnie). Generally, we can't see the turtles develop individually, and on rare occasions, we can only distinguish them as Leo and his brothers. That is to say, as a group, they have excellent development, but individually, there was a lot missing, we can only see slight character development in Leo. For me, this is not entirely bad, because in reality, a movie limits a lot, and I believe they couldn't have done it differently. I imagine this will change with the new series that is coming, and we will be able to enjoy them more as individuals than as a group soon.

I love the dynamic between the four brothers. It's great to see them so youthful and their interests and conversations reflect that. However, sometimes conversations, jokes, and references overlap, and even after watching it four times, I still can't catch absolutely everything. They know a lot about current popular culture, and that's great for introducing a new generation of ninja turtles fans, as has always been done with new versions.

Now, I have a personal conflict with Leo. To address this, I ask that we take a moment to consider the version of rottmnt. Initially, this version was quite poorly received by ninja turtles fans (including myself), mainly because it made very radical changes, such as the character designs, where the turtles are of different species and ages, and, what caused more conflict: the change in Leo's personality compared to previous versions, as he is not even the leader. This is not an opinion about rottmnt, so I won't dwell on it too much, but I really believe it was a good decision to have Leo not be the leader at first and then later on, because it's perfect for developing his character, his identity, and his place and relevance in the team. What about the Leo in Mutant Mayhem? He returns to being the typical leader of the group, the one who seems like the older brother. Within this movie, he has his own development, as he is portrayed as the good and obedient son, the one who wants to do things right and meet his father's expectations. I love that because I identify with this, but if we think about it, this is a regression for his characterization and for the franchise in general, because his character will once again fall short and remain quite static. It's like I have the feeling that, in this movie, which supposedly was made for the new generations and certainly succeeds in many aspects, it actually seems to be made for ninja turtles fans who only stuck with the older versions. Which isn't entirely bad. Again, this is just my feeling and it was one of my big disappointments on a personal level.

Now let's briefly talk about April. Honestly, I didn't understand why she faced so much discrimination from the audience in general, as if it were the first time she was depicted as black and asocial. And yes, now they also designed her as overweight. So what? The truth is, she's perfect and fits really well into her role in the movie. And those who say she's not the same April anymore... well, let me tell you, only April O'Neil would think to go alone after the people who stole her motorcycle, without worrying if they're dangerous people. April is still exactly the same April from previous versions, just with an added layer of insecurity regarding how she feels about herself. And that's great for her own character development.

As for romantic relationships... personally, I prefer when they are nonexistent, but it makes sense that one of the turtles, who are teenagers and therefore have raging hormones, would fall in love with a girl, in this case, Leo with April. It won't contribute much to the plot, and it's obvious from a mile away that it will end up just as toxic as the "relationship" between Donnie and April in tmnt 2012. But this is not a problem because it adds a lot to the comedy, which is an essential trait in any version of ninja turtles.

Let's talk about the villains. Cynthia remains as a background villain, but she sets off a chain reaction that will surely explode in relevance in the likely sequel. Actually, the true villain of Mutant Mayhem is Superfly, who is awesome and I love him, very charismatic as well. The fact that he has his gang of mutants, most of whom we know from previous versions, is perfect. It's true that none of these, except for Superfly, gain individual relevance, but they act as a group (like the turtles). I didn't mind that the movie handled so many characters as a group rather than individually; I think the opposite would have been too much. And I also know that some may have been bothered by Superfly's origin, but let's be honest, every version of ninja turtles is different, and that's great. In this case, it fits well with the plot, it works well. And, furthermore, it follows a parallel trajectory to that of Splinter, who is like his counterpart.

Well, let's talk about Splinter now, and this is where the real problems begin because his character is quite flawed no matter how you analyze it. But first, I must admit that I like his role as a father: he is overprotective, it's clear he loves his sons, he wants the best for them, and wants them to feel their best. We also see his frustration at not finding a partner (another romantic relationship that I didn't like, but which fits well to complete one of his personal subplots). The problem with Splinter is his origin. I really hated that he's originally just an ordinary rat from New York. It seems ridiculous to me because Splinter is supposed to represent the connection the turtles have with humans. And I know it's not the first time in his origin story that he's a rat because it also happens in the tmnt 2003 version... and I hate it (although at least in this tmnt 2003 version, it makes a little more sense because of his connection with Hamato Yoshi and Oroku Saki, but I still see it as a problem). And in Mutant Mayhem, he decides to learn Ninjutsu out of nowhere through movies and that's how he teaches his sons. It's just absurd. To me, it's a regression for the franchise. And yet, I'm able to overlook this issue because, if you pay close attention, in this new version, the only ones who can turn into mutants are animals that are not human (if you hadn't noticed this, I advise you to pay close attention to Superfly's plan).

And here is where the real serious problem that I wanted to bring to the discussion table begins: that the ooze only affects animals that are not humans despite the fact that... humans are animals! There is nothing biologically that distinguishes us from the rest of the animal kingdom, so there is no logical reason why humans cannot become mutants. I understand that this is why they decided that Splinter is originally a rat because otherwise he wouldn't have been able to become a mutant rat. But I just can't accept, ignore, or forgive that they start from the premise that humans are not animals and that's why they don't react to the substance the same way other animals do! And the worst part is that I doubt they can fix this in the plot, which I think is a very serious mistake. Some of you may believe that humans are different from other animals, either for anthropocentric or religious reasons; that's fine. But purely biologically, which is how the ooze affects, we are not different from other animals. Therefore, it makes no sense that humans cannot become mutants. And I don't understand why no one is talking about this, since it's the only major flaw the movie has. This makes the new version built on a very weak argument, and I believe it could lead to its self-destruction over time. Which is very sad.

We could try to fix this by considering that humans are not entirely human and that this is the reason why the ooze doesn't affect them, for example, they could be half extraterrestrial like April was in tmnt 2012 (and that's why the mutagen didn't affect her). Because, I don't know about you, but I have no doubt that Cynthia and her henchmen, who control the strange company TCRI, have something to do with the Krang. Still, this solution that absolutely all humans are not one hundred percent human seems impractical to me and even unrealistic.

In short, I love these new turtles; I love their youth, their dynamics, their relationships; I love the animation and the setting; I love the comedy; I love all the references both within the franchise and from the popular and current external world; I love the moral reflection the characters had to face and the final message; I even love the plot and most of the subplots that I consider well-developed, and I also love that they leave us with some big loose ends that enhance the likely great sequel, which seems to be very promising. I loved this movie, and yet, personally, I feel like it's already ruined and there's not much that can be done to fix it. A real shame, because it had plenty of potential. It could have even become the best version so far... but it didn't.

To conclude, I want to add something else about the ending, a separate topic.

We're used to the turtles being ninjas, meaning they work in the shadows of the night, hidden, as invisible heroes of New York. All this even though we, as viewers, only wish for them to have a normal life, to enjoy their youth pleasantly, and to be accepted by society just as they are. In Mutant Mayhem, this goal is achieved... is this good?

To answer this question, I want to go back a bit to previous versions. Even in tmnt 2012, they do everything possible to be invisible to normal people. But in rottmnt, the situation changes slightly. Although disguised (obviously), they are not afraid to go out during the day, and it seems like they care less about being seen. And the people of New York rarely seem to be scared of them. This may seem silly, but to me, it seems like another success of rottmnt, since the goal of delivering a new version to the audience is to reach new generations, and these new generations are increasingly open-minded in many ways. So, it makes sense to me that the turtles go out more and hide less, and that they are more easily accepted. The fact that in Mutant Mayhem they have been completely accepted, to the point that in the end they even attend school, not only makes it the cutest version of the ninja turtles but also, I'm sure, reaching that ending was necessary to adapt to these younger generations. This is a huge change in the franchise, and I am very curious to discover how the story will unfold now and what new challenges the turtles will have to face as a result of this.

I think I've gone on too long with this opinion, and I could actually go on even more, analyzing every detail under a powerful microscope... but the truth is, despite it all, I loved this movie. It excited me a lot. It made me feel a lot. It will always be a pleasure to reunite with these characters in different circumstances and versions.

So we'll leave it here. Thank you for reading, I hope you found my perspective interesting, and hopefully, I can hear yours as well. Have a great day!

P.S. If I feel like it and see that this opinion has been interesting and entertaining to you, and also sparks a pleasant discussion, perhaps I'll be encouraged to write my opinion about other versions.

•💜•

Click here if you want to see content about Mutant Mayhem

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retrieve-the-kraken · 7 months

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9 favourite books

Thank you @gwiazdziarka for tagging me (and thanks for all those book recs, I’m adding all of them to my list, except for the ones that I’ve already read), and I agree, maybe all of these won’t be my absolute favorite books, but they’re either books that I think about a lot, or books that have a special place in my heart, but not necessarily something that I go back to over and over.

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exúpery

This one is definitely a favorite. It’s a book that I’ve reread many times, because I feel that it has a different feel every time, depending on what I’m going through at that moment. Also a classic. Love it so much that I’ve started to collect editions in different languages; so far I have Spanish (of course), French, Italian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Euskera (possibly one of the rarest), and Swedish (of course, because I intend to be able to read it by next year).

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Also an absolute favorite, classic down-the-rabbit-hole type story that takes place in London Below. Fell in love with it, with the world-building within an already existing world. If i actually had to list 9 of my favorite books, pretty sure the whole list would be Neil Gaiman, but this book is both entertaining and comforting, so I pick this one. The BBC radio drama adaptation starring James McAvoy and Natalie Dormer is also excellent. Still waiting for the book sequel, though…

84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

The most charming book in history, composed entirely of letters between an aspiring writer and rare books collector in New York and the manager of a rare books bookshop in London. Their relationship is platonic, and yet one of the most romantic things I have ever read. The movie adaptation is equally charming and it has Anthony Hopkins and Judi Dench in it. Read the book first, then watch the movie, then cry endlessly. Rinse and repeat.

Like a Hole in the Head by Jen Banbury

You should know that I get a lot of book recommendations from TV shows, so I decided to hunt down this book when Monica was reading it in more than one episode of Friends (felt like a subliminal message). And it was fucking worth it. Also a book about a book. A dwarf comes into a bookshop where the protagonist works, to sell a first edition of Jack London’s White Fang, and only after he’s gone she finds out just how rare it is. Heist plot ensues. It’s equally strange and exciting, mind-blowing and cathartic.

The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan

Very melancholy, this book is a collection of essays, poems and short stories published posthumously, as Keegan died in an accident at 21. She was very talented and could write convincingly about many things. Can’t even pick a favorite one out of the collection, because they’re all very good in very different ways. Very bittersweet.

Los Caballos Estornudan en la Lluvia by Dimas Lidio Pitty

Another short story collection (the title literally translates as “Horses Sneeze in the Rain”), from a Panamanian author, from the region where I spent my childhood summers, which still holds a very special place in my heart, and which has a mysticism about it that he helps preserve in these stories. Dimas Lidio Pitty was very good at magical realism. One of the stories in particular is so brief, but it’s incredible how good it is in such a short narration.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

I’m a huge fan of classic dystopic science fiction, and this one has got to be my favorite. The narrative is interesting, moves along at an excellent pace, and it covers everything. Another book about books too. If you haven’t read Fahrenheit 451, the premise is simple: in this dystopic society, firemen don’t put out fires, they start them… to burn books. Book banning to the extreme. What happens next? You need to read it to find out.

El Misterio del Solitario by Jostein Gaarder

I have been obsessed with this book (The Solitaire Mystery in English) by Norwegian author Jostein Gaarder since I started reading all his books when I was a teen (I don’t even know how I came across him, I just picked one up one day and went with it, it wasn’t even Sophy’s World, it was Through a Glass, Darkly). Of course Sophy’s World is probably the most famous, and it was very good, but this one is so strange and magical that I read it several times ages ago, and it was such a comforting book, and now I would like to reread. Maybe one day soon I’ll read it in Norwegian!

The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Another classic and favorite, which I have also read many times. Some people like Alice in Wonderland, some like Peter Pan, I like the Wizard of Oz. I like anything Oz related, the movie, the musical, Wicked (the musical, not the book, tho), everything. But the source material is still where it’s at.

No pressure tags: @makingupachangingmind , @voldiebeth , @raincitygirl76 and @phoebenpiperx .

#booksbooksbooks #booklove #book recs #i love learning about what people are reading or have read or love to read #give me all the book recs #i wish i could have a book club with everyone here

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ithinkilikeit-reactions · 1 year

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3 Book reviews from someone with no credentials other than the ability to read

I have been reading a lot again lately and this year I finished 3 books so far! So I wanna do a little review of the books because I think it’s fun and I really missed reading! Let me know if you’ve read these, what your thoughts were or if you have a recommendation for me!

Might contain spoilers

You’ve Reached Sam - Dustin Thao

It had been a minute since I had read a book with romance adjacent plot, I had recently watched a lot of tragic love stories in films and wanted to read something with a bit of a tragic air to it. Sam and Julie’s story is definitely tragic however I should have maybe skipped this one. The book is a Young Adult story about healing and moving on and that’s how it’s written. Young Adult is an amazing genre and considering I hadn’t been reading for a while, I thought diving in with YA book would be good for me and I thought wrong. It’s not that the story isn’t written well, it’s more that I found myself feeling slightly too old for it. I also found myself getting incredibly frustrated with the main character and some of her choices, while still understanding her loss.

This being said, the ending was a great sense of closure for the book and main character Julie. It also had me bawling my eyes out as I’m an emotional wreck in general.

2.5/5 Good read, just simply not for me!

My Grandmother asked me to tell you she’s sorry - Fredrik Backman

The connection between grandmother and granddaughter is something beautiful, as someone who has grown up with my grandparents surrounding me this book definitely hit me where it hurts. Elsa and her grandmother’s relationship was absolutely beautiful, even after the passing of her grandmother. I liked that Elsa didn’t regard her grandmother as a saint, learning about her wrong doings in the past and holding her accountable. There’s a beautiful sense of forgiving in this book, the residents of the apartment building all being connected to the grandmother in one way or another. Elsa’s grandmother created an entire world to make Elsa happy and it’s simply stunning. There’s a hint of found family trope in this book as well and that is simply my favorite trope ever. However, the wurse’s death had me sobbing because in my head it looked like my dog.

4.8/5 as no book is perfect but this one nearly is

Pachinko - Minjin Lee

Now this book is another one that hits me in an emotional way. I have a Korean grandmother and know that she lived through many things in her life, she doesn’t like to talk about it and I don’t pry. This book gave me some insight however. I loved that you travel through this family nearly generation by generation, starting with Yangjin moving to Sunja, then to her sons Noa and Mozasu and then to her grandson Solomon. It’s a tragic story, Sunja’s life having never been quite easy. The first 2 parts of this books touched me the most, Isak and Hansu’s characters being so different yet both oddly appealing. I love that Sunja grew to love Isak as he was truly her savior. While sometimes not much happened within the chapters, I found I couldn’t put the book down as I needed to know what would happen.

It made me feel sad to see the shame people had simply being Korean yet also not being able to detest the Japanese as a lot of them grew up among them despite the things the country had done. It was interesting to see and shed a personal light onto the entire situation through the eyes of one family experiencing life this way. At many times through out this book I wanted to extend my arms and give Sunja a hug. Especially at the end, as she visits Isak’s grave to speak with him and burrying Noa’s picture next to him so that she has a sense of closure knowing her son is with him.

4.5/5 The last part of the book didn’t keep my attention as well as the other parts. But the last chapter made my chest hurt, feeling sad that I wouldn’t get to see anything else from this family that I had been following for 500+ pages. I simply wept at the last page.

If you have read any of these, let me know if you shared some thoughts! I know this is a kpop writing blog but reading has been bringing me peace and I wanted to share it with you all! Might do this more often after I finished another 3 books.

#you've reached sam #dustin thao #my grandmother asked me to tell you she's sorry #fredrik backman #pachinko #minjin lee #book review

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organicclownfarm · 1 year

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Funny how just bc Rowling is a bad person everyone just says harry potter is shit lmao, if she wasnt problematic everyone would still think hp is great and im saying this not even being a fan of that series

honestly i straight up can't disagree with half of this. i think if joker rotflmao had never joined twitter or learned to shut the fuck up a lot of us would HAPPILY view it through rosy nostalgia goggles and the red flags would just look like flags. shit, some people still do REGARDLESS of terfany's unhinged hateful bullshit.

when her insane manifesto dropped, that knocked a lot of peoples rose colored glasses right off and had us looking back at the long list of questionable ass things she added to those books and the world they're set in; how badly she writes the maybe 5 people of color in the ENTIRE series including but not limited to giving a character who is meant to be chinese two korean last names, naming a black man "kingsley shacklebolt", making the two indian characters 2-dimensional props. the way she wrote about a slave race who is often graphically abused but are so stoked about their own slavery that one of the heroes talking about how she thinks they should have rights is played for laughs. the fucking antisemetic caricatures. lycanthropy as a metaphor for aids while there is a character who makes a point of attacking and infecting CHILDREN. the list goes on and on. i could be here all day.

and thing is? a lot of these issues were being spoken about and criticized well before she became an out and proud bigot. the bigotry was baked in on a near atomic level and showed in nearly every page. if it wasn't racism or antisemitism, it was classism, if it wasn't classism it was disdain for welsh irish and/or scottish people or even people from different parts of fucking england, if it wasn't that it was fatphobia, on and on and on.

but like. even if u were to somehow make all of that vanish, you would STILL be left with messy and often inconsistent worldbuilding, a lot of poorly done character development, absolutely no research and it shows, plot holes, occasional pacing issues, and straight-up plagiarism.

harry potter and the world around it was, if anything, a fun sandbox. it was an easy world to place yourself in and play with and imagine as something better than it was. a lot of us loved it not just for the nostalgia but the POTENTIAL so much of it had, because it did have a lot of potential that a better author might have been able to realize.

i myself think i might have still enjoyed the world to this day if jkr never opened her mouth! it's possible to enjoy or even love a thing and still be critical of it or even if u don't love it, you can discard the canon entirely and make ur own little world out of the scraps. but after a certain point u just gotta cut your fucking loses and take the L and say "yeah this wasn't ever good i was just 9 and needed the escapism".

like death to the author or whatever but not when the author is v much alive and proudly using her royalty checks to campaign to make life even harder for a marginalized group in her country.

and i am saying this as person who's special interest for YEARS was hp and the hp world, who bought and re-read the books as an adult just before jinkies ratlicker decided to. y'know.

#marie kondo that shit it was a piece of fiction that got me into fantasy and I'm thankful for that but it's not worth keeping #jkr cw #hp cw #ask to tag

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olderthannetfic · 2 years

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re: the ask about latam manhua piracy

if a fan translator hadn't picked up a korean webnovel that another had to stop translating (maybe the talks from the original publisher to make it the official translation ended because they anticipated a similar shit-show? a south-korean person i follow recently lamented the anti-piracy sentiment there), i wouldn't have found one of my favorite novels, and if i couldn't read it i definitely wouldn't have looked up a tutorial on how to pay for the original version (there are different "plans", but i chose full price because a- one and done, i wouldn't have been able to keep a site-visiting schedule in one that's entirely korean and b- it's one of my favorites and the author's first to boot, keep it going).

i got the info on where to legally pay from the translator, it's encouraged even over paying to them for pre-published chapters.

library? there isn't an official translation to any language. learn korean? no fucking bandwidth, i tried. automatic translator? are you for real. wait until it reaches my country? our tv barely has a concept of anime, let alone our book stores a concept of manga (and not comics), forget about webnovels from east-asia (would they even prioritize that over translated classics? especially with no demand? pretty sure people here barely know about local webnovels).

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antiresolution · 1 year

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Do you think my names match my face?

Fingers dance over leather-bound spines. Embossed titles bump under his curious touch. He explores the other man’s library as if he were memorizing a face. These shelves were as revealing as the curl of lips threatening a smile, or eyes avoiding the truth. He’s only ever witnessed the naked truth of Sen’s anger. Or maybe the sight of red knuckles swayed him the way a name could, so he couldn’t forget the way their face looked then. It had been a violent moment that didn’t belong to him. Maybe he was chasing the same feeling now.

His sister would touch his face silently when they were kids. Trace his brows and cheeks as if she were carving out the hollow impressions and shadows from marble. She called him stiff, like stone. She said she hated looking at his ugly, tense, bored face unless he was dancing on stage. Then he moved like the sea eroding rocks on the shore. With violent and relentless purpose. Then he was someone she recognized.

Maybe it’s this same suspension between violence and peace he sees in Sen’s face. Comparing someone to the sea is an easy romance between the mind and mouth. What you yearn for is the ocean. What you fear is too deep to fathom. When it was hard to see someone honestly, it was easier to compare them to something you understood.

Wenhan glances at the curve of Sen’s eyes, following the sharp trail and soft square of his jaw. If he watched the other man’s face for too long, it seemed like the type of face that could disappear and reappear as someone entirely different. This face could be a churn of sea foam and salt water. This could be a face he might not ever understand if he didn't push them both in the same direction.

“I think…sometimes, you don’t want to be recognizable to anyone.” As he steps closer, he offers up a book for their trade. There’s no dust jacket hiding its Korean title: Dream of Ding Village. It’s something he’s never been able to read in his native language. The red paperback spine cracked like bloody knuckles he had never been meant to see. This book he now shoves against Sen’s chest as if it were a barrel of a gun. The ease of his smile doesn’t match the aggression. “--I think, sometimes, your name could belong to anyone. And I think, almost always, we can be convinced of what we are and who we could be just by the way someone says our name, Sen.”

He allows that name to rest in the air between them, and then turns his attention to the bookcase. “Are you going to run away and take a new name with you? Give me a book to remember you by.”

What could he really know of the sea unless he allowed it to drown him first.

#you can reply to this. or not! live your life

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langcob · 1 year

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Langblr Reactivation Challenge - Week 1, Day 2

Hello again <3! Today is my second day of the Langblr Reactivation Challenge!

The prompt for today is: Write a list of goals you have for your target languages. Make both long term and short-term goals. An overall goal could be to have the ability to talk with native speakers with ease and a smaller goal would be to finally learn that difficult grammar point that's been plaguing you for ages. How will you achieve them?

Setting goals for myself has always been the hardest part of learning a language for me. I usually learn languages for fun, so setting a goal is never really the point for me most of the time. However, the languages I want to stick with always have some sort of goal that gets me started on it!

My main long-term goals for Mandarin Chinese and Korean are to be able to better understand TV shows and music in the two languages, because I watch plenty of Chinese and Korean dramas and listen to music in those languages as well. In the short-term, I would love to be able to start understanding short stories in Mandarin and Korean. I haven't really expanded my vocabulary enough in either language to be able to read to any great extent, so I would love to get there in the coming weeks <3.

French, I would love to be able to read books with less needing to go back and forth between the book and a dictionary and overall, just build up my fluency. I have really neglected my French since I graduated a year and a half ago and I really want to get it back, because French has always interested me. In the short-term, I need to regain some of the vocabulary I have lost, because at some points I even forget the basic verbs and their conjugations now :'(

Portuguese I am still expanding my vocabulary, and as a short-term goal I really need to brush up on verb conjugation and the different tenses. In the long-term, I am not entirely sure what my main goal of learning Portuguese is, and I think for the time being, that is alright! I mainly am learning it because I have always loved the way Brazilian Portuguese sounds, and I am a fan of bossa nova music as well, so I guess in the long run I would want to be able to understand Brazilian music?

#langblr reactivation challenge #langblr #learning mandarin #learning portuguese #learning chinese #learning korean #learning french #languages #language #foreign languages

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ash-and-books · 1 year

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Rating: 4.5/5

Book Blurb: “Nothing good can come from a relationship built on secrets.” Penelope’s fate is looking grim, but she’s got a plan: sneak out, rescue Eckles, and secure herself a one-way ticket out of death. The problem with making the seemingly docile boy her “all-in” love interest? He’s a lot more dangerous than she expected! A single bad hand means she’ll go bust, and Penelope quickly realizes she needs a backup plan—that is, a backup man! Winter appears to be the obvious choice, but there’s more to the enigmatic sorcerer than meets the eye…With the odds stacked against her, will Penelope be able to play her cards right?

Review:

When your entire life depends on how well you can manage a game set on killing you, every decision can lead either one step closer or further from death. Penelope has found herself trying to plan to gain as much of a safety net as possible but that means getting the most seemingly docile boy to become her love interest.... except he is far more dangerous than she imagined. She needs a backup plan in case this fails and that means figuring which other love interest in the game would be her safest option. Her only options being a mysterious wizard who has his own agenda, a bloodthirsty tyrant who she definitely wants to avoid as much as possible but seems to be the most interested in her, and the potential familial love option from her two brothers..... but this game was set on the hardest level. Can she survive? This was a fun continuation of the story and i can’t wait to see where the third book leads us. I’ve read the korean translated version and now reading the official english one was a fun way to re-read the series!

#book review #villains are destined to die #graphic novel

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wes-breaks-your-kneecaps · 1 year

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How I learned to read in my target languages (Part 1)

I will barely mention Korean in this post, since I don’t have enough knowledge in it to just start reading whatever I want.

A few ways of learning are shared in between all my target languages:

I absolutely love One Piece and I try to find either One Piece fanart or fanfiction I can read.

Korean and Chinese fanart is really easy to find and I have a dedicated Twitter acc I go to everyday just for that. Korean OP fics are pretty hard to find and either way I'm so far away from even looking into their direction with my knowledge level.

Italian fics exist, even though there's not a lot of them matching my preference. Chinese has A LOT of fanfiction and I love it for that. Same applies to fanart.

So let's get into how I started reading in Chinese:

I had a burning desire to start Chinese and I looked into a way to immediately start learning, without needing to go through suffering.

So I started doing the Immersive Chinese lessons. I know it's currently available for free in Play Store. You can go through around 20 lessons, without having content be locked without further pay (although it's really cheap). You will learn from the very basics. It will teach you, adding 2-5 or more words per lesson, which consist of increasingly varied sentences, in which these words are used in different positions. It worked for me around the very beginning.

Then I started jumping between Immersive Chinese lessons, for however much I could go, reading Du Chinese short stories and learning HSK 1 to HSK 2 words, using Pleco as a dictionary, which I call THE CHINESE BIBLE, because of how much I would go to it and recheck word meanings and their use in sentences.

My goal was to learn all the words from one HSK level, before changing the difficulty to the next level of the texts I read in the same app. There's not a lot of texts available for free, but I noticed that they add new texts weekly and then it's available for free for a certain period of time.

At some point through reading and upgrading my vocab, I completely dropped Immersive Chinese, since it was no longer useful for me.

I did not learn the words I did not understand, I waited for some time, before it started hitting me how it works in context.

My biggest goal was to learn all ≈1200 words from HSK 1 to HSK 4. So I would learn the words from the level I'm at to words that are 1-2 levels higher.

I'd try to not learn too much of the HSK 5 word before learning first 4 levels entirely, because I wanted to go into "Free Flight" once I accomplished my goal and start reading whatever. Which is where I'm at rn.

You will not be able to learn all the words from first 4 levels just by reading in Du Chinese. So I learned them additionally through HSK vocab lists.

After hitting HSK 4, I've started reading in Readibu, which is a great place to read in once you hit that level 4. It has a few flaws, but they don't matter to me, because I know ways to avoid them — using Pleco.

However, I got so bored of reading texts I did not care about, that I just started reading the thing that first got me into learning the language — One Piece fanfiction.

I'm currently reading 再世为人 by LaLaGossip on Ao3.

I don't learn words I don't feel like learning at the moment and I'm just chilling, enjoying the fruits of my labor.

If you're worried about not understanding the entire phrase, because of the words you don't know, try using Smart Book, which separately translates paragraphs in a text, allowing you to catch the meaning, while being able to understand what's going on. I use the translate feature (which may be inaccurate, especially with names) any time I've read everything I could in a sentence or a paragraph.

#language learning #langblr #mandarin langblr #mandarin language #mandarin #reading #langblog #languages

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kaatiba · 1 year

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Original photo by Valerie Blanchett on Unsplash

2022: A Year In Review

I made a post like this for 2021 and I thought it would be nice to do the same this year too. I have a hard time remembering and/or focusing on the positives rather than the negatives, and an overview is usually pretty uplifting. So let's get into it!

✧.* January

made several writing related intentions

wrote 18k of CofM; in this draft a prophecy took more precedent, there was a Nameless Queen, magical books, and Halah becoming the granddaughter of a Keeper of the Great Library. Halah was also able to hear a mysterious, unknown being (a hatif) that had a vested interest in the safety of Qusaiy and was the driving force behind her involvement in his rescue

brainstormed some more about a Muslim writers network, but eventually shelved the idea

started writing a second draft of Rivener, where Wren is more of an anti-hero, has a redemption arc, and had a history with Kai and Cormac (the villain). It was my first time working on revamping a completed draft!

began an A to Z glossary of creatures, places, and notable people for the world of CofM

decided the world of CofM would have two moons

✧.* February

completed the aforementioned glossary

wrote a book review for Frederica by Georgette Heyer

experimented with writing a mute Wren and verbal Kai, a reverse of the original draft

✧.* March

contemplated removing the existence of two character in CofM that I didn't feel needed to be there, as their absence had no impact on the plot; I just liked them

wrote out the entire plot of CofM on flashcards, which helped iron out some kinks and give me a better view of it all

took a hiatus from writing

✧.* April

on hiatus from writing

learned about discovery/gardener writers (term via Brandon Sanderson) and felt it resonated with me!

✧.* May

travelled, and on my way home was struck by an idea that completely and totally restructured the entirety of CofM, which led to it being rebranded into Legends of Mourra to reflect this change!

✧.* June

further reflected on the types of stories I like to actually write vs. just imagine

went forward with Legends of Mourra with a lot of brainstorming and chatting about it and finding new joy in what had become a very tired story over the past decade

shifted my Alice in Wonderland retelling into my Oracle wip

decided to put rewriting Rivener and writing Glitch on hold for now

released a re-introduction to Legends of Mourra

released an intoduction to Oracle

✧.* July

started a mini blog series for work called ‘Type Talk’, the first installment was on non-linear narratives

began writing Oracle from Ro's pov

tried writing Oracle from Sage's pov, giving him a more fractured mindset

✧.* August

second installment of ‘Type Talk’ published, about gameified reads

continued the draft for Oracle that was in Ro's pov, with added snarky footnotes from the omniscient 3rd person narrator

✧.* September

started learning Korean, for fun!

started another draft for Oracle, this time experimenting with writing Sage's pov using 2nd person

wrote the start of a prompt fill that eventually became my first fictober entry

✧.* October

revived my writeblr account

started Fictober 22 using prompts from the wonderful deepwaterwritingprompts, wrote for fourteen days

wrote a fragment of a poem

wrote another poem titled 'hamartia'

wrote my final entry for the ‘Type Talk’ series, on fanfiction

✧.* November

decided to do my own version of NaNoWriMo, only I would aim to write content for LofM for 20 mins a day

wrote for 19/30 days (so I only missed 11 days total!)

✧.* December

picked up a fragment of a Lord of the Rings fanfiction that I'd started last year, and expanded upon it

started to learn crochet

wrote 10k of LofM

wrote a review for The Last Battle, the final book of the Narnia series, which I haven't read since I was a child

read (or listened to) 20 books, when my initial goal was 15!

wrote this post!

Wow. I'm genuinely flabbergasted that I did all this! I worried I'd have so many empty months, or barely anything to say for this year's creative endeavours but—look! I'm so glad I made this post, I feel a lot better about how I handled this year. I encourage you to do a similar recap of your year if you're also a writer or creative (or even if you're not!). You may surprise yourself too.

Here's to 2023! Happy reading and writing!

#kaatibawrites #a year in review #writeblr year in review

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inkofamethyst · 2 years

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May 20, 2022

Broke: The PJO show casting decisions have given us an opportunity to draw Annabeth Chase as a Black girl and nobody can say anything about it

Woke: Rick himself was down for open casting for his characters without regard for race and he believes that the selected cast are best able to embody the spirit of the characters he wrote, so really the races of the characters aren’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things and artists should feel free to race-bend these characters as much as they bloody want.* Lemme see ya Latina Clarisses, ya Black Beckendorfs (I actually always imagined him as Black which is really interesting because I pretty much never imagine characters as anything other than white), ya Korean Thalias. I don’t mean this as a disrespect to the source material (which I obviously care for and respect very deeply) but rather as an expression of the fact that things like this aren’t necessarily disrespectful to the source material.

*Note: I do think there are limits to this, and I’m thinking specifically about HOO with Leo Valdez, Frank Chen, and Hazel Le.. Levesque(?). The thing about the whole White As Default thing when it comes to books and adaptations and whatever is that any time a character appears who is not white, the author often doubles down on that choice to demonstrate to the reader that the character is not white (having them speak a different language, showing them partaking in an element of their culture, etc). That doesn’t happen with white characters, and that opens them up to being played by an actor of any race. There’s not really any “proof” of their “whiteness” other than their skin color, and that’s not the case for most characters of color.

(I realize when I first wrote that paragraph that I didn’t explain why a lack of “proof” opens them up to being played by actors of a different background. It’s really easy to explain, actually. It goes like this: the experiences that a white character goes through are generally not exclusive to white people. I go to school, I apply to college, I have a career goal like,,,,, tell me one thing a white character does which a black person generally does not. That’s not necessarily a “gotcha” type of question; there are definitely thing that would fit that description, but authors tend not to use them as story elements. This contrasts stories like The Hate U Give or When the Moon was Ours where the main characters’ identities/races are pretty central to their experience and the plot.)

And I mean we can talk about other “defaults” as well. Learning disabilities are not the default and I vividly remember reading a passage where Annabeth has difficulty spelling because of her dyslexia. Moving away from PJO briefly, having both legs and being able to walk is Default. Matthew Mercer described Keyleth’s mom’s viney prosthetic leg and Dagen’s wheelchair-snowmobile. These are elements of representation that should not be abandoned lightly because they (often, not always) demonstrate important parts of a character’s background/backstory.

I can’t entirely remember Leo’s, Frank’s, or Hazel’s backstory (I’ve only read HOO once), but representing them as closer to book-accurate may be more important because their characters exist outside of culturally-established “Defaults.”

Now! I don’t wanna make it seem entirely like characters of color should/could never be race-bent no, that’s not it... um... Not every author does the whole “doubling down” thing. I’m thinking of the Harry Potter books with Cho Chang, the... Parvati(?) twins(?), and maybe other characters of color in those books that I simply can’t recall at the moment (I would not be surprised if those were the only clear-cut ones lol). The stories weren’t about them, and that’s okay. But outside of names I can’t recall their characters really displaying any cultural significance. Is their presence representation enough? I don’t know (I mean I have heard that Cho Chang’s name is a lil sus).

Anyway this is coming from a Black girl who played Sharpay in her first real musical and she is forever thankful that they didn’t stick her in a blonde wig.

And maybe this is all a bad take. It’s just something I’ve been thinking about for a little while.

Today I’m thankful that the shrimp alfredo I made for my family tonight turned out really really well.

[edit: today I learned that the dsmp might still be going on which I mean... it does make part of me happy for some weird reason but because of its soap-opera-y nature, I don’t think I could ever.. yknow]

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halfseoulco · 2 years

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Exploring MINOR FEELINGS: A review

Published Sunday, August 7th, 2022 — About halfway through Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning, I felt a brief embarrassment at how I was almost desperately picking out passages that mirrored my own thoughts and experiences, quickly followed by a bout of indignation that I should feel embarrassed at all for being excited to find something I could relate to in someone else’s writing. After almost an entire lifetime of reading “classics” and bestsellers written by predominantly white authors, could I not enjoy this triumph in which both the author and reader could share? Is Cathy Park Hong going to appear in my bedroom and accuse me of grasping at straws for similarities between her life and mine?

Introduction

While confined to my home for about three months at the beginning of 2020, I swept through a long list of books but found myself unable to keep up the habit into 2021 and 2022—even though I was still buying books whenever I saw a title and plot synopsis that sparked my interest. Although I have always been close to my culture and have kept my Koreanness hugged tightly to my identity and sense of self, I decided that I would put my money where my mouth is and actively support Asian and Asian American authors by buying their books. At the beginning of July, discovering a new supply of spare time after starting to work from home, I gathered all of the books by Asian and Asian American authors that I had received as gifts or purchased over the past year and made a commitment to myself to read all of them. Gifted to me for my 27th birthday by a friend, Minor Feelings was among the nine books I had yet to read—and one of the shortest—so I started reading.

How Minor Feelings Sparks Some Not-So-Minor Feelings

The book follows what Hong calls an “episodic form, with its exit routes that permit me to stray” (page 104), which means that there is no glue holding a timeline together, only individual vignettes whose order in the fabric of Hong’s experiences may elude everyone but Hong herself. I often found myself nodding in agreement unconsciously at certain things Hong said or anecdotes she shared. She has a sense of humor that I quite like, a brash-bordering-on-inappropriate kind of funny that I myself don’t indulge in but like to hear in other people. Not too far into the book, on page 31, however, Hong includes a passage on how during the Korean War, her grandfather had been dragged out of his home by U.S. soldiers for being a suspected Communist collaborator—and I cried. I cried and I cried and I cried. My mother had been born the year following the Korean War’s end, which means that my grandmother and my mother’s older siblings had all lived during that time. It was hard not to imagine my grandmother in Hong’s grandfather’s place and it was some time before I was able to pick the book back up and keep reading.

“Minor feelings” are, as Hong says, “the emotions we are accused of having when we decide to be difficult—in other words, when we decide to be honest. When minor feelings are finally externalized, they are interpreted as hostile, ungrateful, jealous, depressing, and belligerent, affects ascribed to racialized behavior that whites consider out of line” (page 57). Racial oppression is, to put quite bluntly, not a competition; and all people of color acutely feel the experience of being told that they are too much when they speak up against a system that seeks to only benefit those who created it. But the truth—or at least my truth—is that Asians are the only ones deemed still safe to mock, still safe to harass, still safe to attack in public and get away with it. Being Asian in America means being cast to the side because our supposed white adjacency affords us a protection that other minority groups don’t have, when the truth is that we are working far too hard to please white people who don’t care about us at all. The same way that many Asians align themselves with whites for the benefit of their nonexistent protection, the result of that misplaced trust is that now we are being targeted and blamed by other groups eager to no longer be the most hated people, not realizing that their behavior is not earning them protection from whites either. And I think that there are people—quite a lot of people, in fact—that may find it distasteful for me or anyone else to say so out loud. “Why do you hate white people, Liz?” is a question I get often—and all I have to say is “Why aren’t you more upset about the fact that the system created by white people makes it difficult for the rest of us to succeed?” White people, particularly white men, can pass off mediocrity as the standard and thrive—but people of color, we will always be fighting tooth and nail for the chance to have our work recognized. (For the record, I feel it’s important to state that I don’t “hate white people”, but I find that the question is also a reaction to me sharing my minor feelings because the other person is uncomfortable with how comfortable I am in refusing to stay put in the boxes that the system created by white people would love to keep me in.)

Minor Feelings and the Current Sociopolitical Climate

With the shared trauma of being the scapegoat for the COVID-19 pandemic, Asian Americans and other Asians living outside of their home countries are experiencing a reclamation of their cultures, their identities, their Asianness. We’re showing a renewed interest in our parents’ language, food, and customs—a desire to travel to our home countries, immerse ourselves in the culture that we may have taken for granted in our youth. But Hong brings up an excellent point: As artists, as filmmakers, as writers, does all of our work have to be framed as “the Asian experience”? Can my stories simply be stories and not “stories about the Asian experience”? Can I write without having to worry about whether white people understand where I’m coming from or whether I’ve hurt their feelings with my criticisms? Can my value as a writer come from the quality of my writing and not how well I can translate “the Asian experience” into something that is palatable and inoffensive enough to be popular?

The last two chapters of Minor Feelings were particularly difficult to read, opening up space for discourse on topics that people would rather avoid. Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, a thirty-one-year-old artist and poet, was raped and murdered in New York on November 5, 1982. And while her work was celebrated and continues to be celebrated, her homicide received minimal media coverage and neglects to also be labeled as rape. I’ve been told that Asians don’t suffer as much as other minority groups in the United States, that we have good lives here—but that’s just what the majority wants people to believe. Sexual assault among Asian women is severely underreported and therefore statistics, let alone accurate statistics, are hard to come by. Internalized shame as a result of trauma is so culturally rooted that we refuse to speak up and then in turn, the rest of the world turns a blind eye. “She was just another Asian woman,” Cha’s close friend said when asked why there was no media coverage of her rape and homicide. “If she were a young white artist from the Upper West Side, it would have been all over the news” (page 176). To this day, no one wants to talk about Cha’s death for fear of overshadowing the impact of her work, but in doing so, we are making it easier to pretend that these things don’t happen—that they don’t exist—and therein does the rest of society make it acceptable for us to be targeted without repercussions. “From invisible girlhood, the Asian American woman will blossom into a fetish object. When she is at last visible—at last desired—she realizes much to her chagrin that this desire for her is treated like a perversion. [...] [But] the Asian woman is reminded every day that her attractiveness is a perversion, in instances ranging from skin-crawling Tinder messages (”I’d like to try my first Asian woman”) to microaggressions from white friends” (page 174-175).

Hard Pills to Swallow

Hong’s work can be taken for what it is: a series of written episodes about exploring what it means to be Asian American and how it can differ from person to person. It talks about the negative truths that we must acknowledge and the silly things we later learn caused us more stress than they were worth, the sadness we carry as a result of our feeling like outsiders and the joy we savor when we make progress in this messed up universe. We’re all still carving out our identities and our places in this world, in this society. “Even if we’ve been here for four generations, our status here remains conditional; belonging is always promised and just out of reach so that we behave, whether it’s the insatiable acquisition of material belongings or belonging as a peace of mind where we are absorbed into mainstream society” (page 202). In the end, neither she nor any other Asian American writing about similar topics is trying to convince you of anything. You either get it or you don’t. Contrary to what racial fetishization and general ignorance might have you believe, being Asian in America is not so much an enigma as it is one of those things that gets swept under the rug because our minor feelings have been internalized for so long. I didn’t need to read Minor Feelings to know this, but reading it made me more tangibly aware of it. Being Asian in America means being treated poorly and then being told to be grateful because we could be getting treated much worse somewhere else—and by the way, if you don’t like it, then why don’t you go back to where you came from?

“Then be grateful that you live here. [...] I bring up Korea to collapse the proximity between here and there. Or as activists used to say, ‘I am here because you were there.’ I am here because you vivisected my ancestral country in two. In 1945, two fumbling mid-ranking American officers who knew nothing about the country used a National Geographic map as reference to arbitrarily cut a border to make North and South Korea, a division that eventually separated millions of families, including my own grandmother from her family. Later, under the flag of liberation, the United States dropped more bombs and napalm in our tiny country than during the entire Pacific campaign against Japan during World War II. [...] My ancestral country is just one small example of the millions of lives and resources you have sucked from the Philippines, Cambodia, Honduras, Mexico, Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, El Salvador, and many, many other nations through your forever wars and transnational capitalism that have mostly enriched shareholders in the States. Don’t talk to me about gratitude” (page 193, 195).

Conclusion

Hong writes about a former friend, “This was the most Korean trait about her, her intense desire to die and survive at the same time” (page 146). In that line, I found solidarity. In Hong’s writing, I found solidarity—and if there is anything that I think should be taken away from Minor Feelings, it’s that we are going through a shared experience, a collective trauma but also a collective movement towards loving ourselves for who we are and recognizing that we deserve to exist wherever and however we choose to exist. I shed more tears during the reading of this book than I expected to, but shared trauma brings people together in many ways. I think that Minor Feelings is meant to both comfort and discomfort, to hit you in all the right places and all the wrong places. For every Asian person out in the world who felt that they couldn’t be someone, that they couldn’t do something—for every Cathy Park Hong who felt like they shouldn’t write a book just like this, though our experiences may differ, there are some things we all share; and we must be our greatest allies.

#GeniusLabReads #Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning #Minor Feelings #Cathy Park Hong #AAPI Literature #AAPI #Asian American Literature #Asian American #Book Reviews #TW: Rape #TW: Homicide #TW: Violence

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