#but also internalized cringe culture is such a bitch lmao

[bittersweetbeet]

When the Green Influencer arc is really starting to hit too close to home cause you keep going back and forth on what content you should make cause you don’t know if people will like it

The next episode might actually kill me/j

[patheticfrogarchive]

sometimes i feel like im in such a weird position as someone who has a half korean mom and a 100% white dad like so white its blinding. so like im “”””25%”””” korean but like

i apparently look asian. everyone whos ever met me is like “oh yeah i can tell ur some kind of asian. its the eyes” kids would make ching chong jokes to me when i was in middle school. i distinctly remenver a kid doing the thing where he’d pull his eyes into slants and go CHING CHING CHONG CHONg to me across the hall. we were in 6th grade. but im arguably more white than not, right?

like it really is bts and kpop that got me and my mom interested in connecting to our korean culture. i hate to say it but watching bts be huge and popular and loved really did help me finally.... not overcome, but deal with in a more healthy way the very real internalized racism that i had in myself. for years i HATED being visibly asian. “why dont i look like my other friends” id ask. “why do my eyes look like that. why does my side profile look like that.” etc. etc. and like as cringe as it is seeing the bts guys be almost uniVERSALLY praised as good looking did kind of succeed in pushing me over the edge to “oh i AM pretty. hell yeah” and these days im full of myself lmao. id be like “oh jimin has a similar side profile to me, and everyone thinks hes pretty! that means IM pretty for the same reason!” and like. it worked. it works. 

but also part of me is like. am i fetishizing korean culture? aren’t i really just a white person whos tokenizing her barely there korean heritage? whats the difference between me and those cringe white bitches you see on tiktok being like “according to my blood test im .000005% african so i can say the n word!!!!”

ive never REALLY experienced racism, so im a white person right? my brother doesnt look asian, my cousins look more asian than me, im just faking it right? but also like. i AM korean. my grandmother was born and raised in korea, her name was ok-cha kim, shes KOREAN. my mother is korean. IM korean. but sometimes i feel like im faking it and just being a koreaboo. and its weird. 

[thebellekeys]

Here’s me roasting some foreign language literature

2/7 of my final exams are finished so I will be roasting all of the Spanish and French literature books that I studied over the last two years, ranking them in order of how much they should have existed in the first place, uwu.

Spoiler: I have no idea what I’m talking about.

8. Pays-Mêles and Nanna-Ya by Maryse Condé.

Main idea: Men are trash.

Synopsis and Review: Two novellas about the legacy of colonialism in the French and English Caribbean. Umm, women suffer a lot, racism exists, rich kids are treated like breeding mares, guys beat girls a lot, everyone’s life is kinda suckish. I... I think that’s it, lmao. I swear I’d rather die than ever have to reread these stories beyond for my exams. I just can’t tell you what the point was. This was painful, but Condé raises important questions concerning négritude and the partiarchal nature of Caribbean society so I can’t give this nothing.

Rating: 1/5

7. El coronel no tiene quien la escriba by Gabriel García Márquez.

Main idea: Go vegan.

Synopsis and Review: This was almost as bad as Condé, but it’s not last because I have a special fondness for Colombia and Colombian history, and I also love seeing la mujer stick it to el coronel. It lowkey reminds me of my parents. I, personally, as a being, would have curried the rooster a long time ago but not everything is about me. A lot of absolute nothing happens in this book and I won’t pretend otherwise. It’s just a lot of old people basking in their own futility and impending death. It’s borderline painful except for one scene where el coronel thinks he’s talking to a dead guy out of nowhere. That was fun. Also, screw Sabas.

Rating: 1.25/5

6. Un Papillon dans la Cité by Gisèle Pineau.

Main idea: Diasporic life is overrated.

Synopsis and Review: Okay, a kid narrates this book and it was kind of annoying for me. But, all that happens is that Félicie goes to France and realizes that it ain’t shit and that she misses her Grandma. It’s basically 5 chapters long, but there’s admittedly some commentary and subtext about why white countries aren’t the Promised Land and also, the writing style was sometimes interesting to me. That being said, I lost a lot of hours on this book.

Rating: 1.75/5

5. Une Si Longue Lettre by Mariama Bâ.

Main idea: Disappointed but not surprised.

Synopsis and Review: So our resilient Senegalese queen Ramatoulaye is writing a letter to her BFF as they discuss exactly how their husbands have (repeatedly) failed them. Basically, Ramatoulaye’s husband got a second wife behind her back who happens to be a girl that’s his teen daughter’s age i.e. the daughter’s friend. Ramatoulaye says “screw it” and decides to just be completely independent from him. Now, this is the most interesting thing about the story... the details about their childhood and the political background of the country didn’t interest me as much. Anyway, the hubby dies which triggers Ramatoulaye to write the letter. Whoop.

Rating: 3/5

4. Cuentos de Eva Luna by Isabel Allende.

Main idea: Only women deserve rights.

Synopsis and Review: This is an anthology of short stories about ~the human experience~ and features a lot of feminist rhetoric, commentary on European imperialism, humanity, power dynamics, and love. And sex. Lots of fade-to-black-the-CW-type sex scenes that we had to discuss with our teachers, lmao (save me). Anyways, the stories we zoned in on were beautiful and empowering even despite their conciseness. Nonetheless, my issue with this book is the *ahem* magical realism. Eye- okay, listen, I get that the stylistic choices of Allende are to create a fable-like reading experience for the reader, to enchant them, whatever, but for me, personally, sometimes her writing style in these stories comes across as a wee bit pretentious. Maybe that’s the whole point but I found myself cringing enough to remember this detail.

Rating: 4/5

3. Bodas de sangre by Federico García Lorca.

Main idea: Woe is me! *snatches babe*

Synopsis and Review: I love this play so much, I almost put it second actually. My sole qualm with it is that everyone is so fricking extra in this bitch that I’m like “stop lamenting to the moon and start stabbing each other please!”, but other than that, this is exquisite solely because it’s full of drama and angst. Mutual pining, cheating, forbidden romance, secrecy, discourse on the validity of the bride’s virginity? It’s all there, bud. Leonardo is a bit of a bitchass but I imagine him as a hot Enrique-looking ass type guy so I can’t really blame the bride. Out of all the main characters on this list, I only want to fight Leo slightly less than the MC of my #2 pick.

Rating: 4.5/5

2. Les Mains Sales by Jean-Paul Sartre.

Main idea: Eat the rich.

Synopsis and Review: Okay, Hugo is the biggest bitchass of all time, but like, he humors me with it, okay. Olga is the baddest HBIC ever, and Jessica deserves better. Anyways, the discourse on power and politics and capitalism through pure dialogue was enough to hook me yet not overwhelm me. The constant foiling, and every passive-aggressive conversation between Hugo and Jessica was worth the 8 weeks of studying it. The ending made the entire story even better than it already was. Everything in this play boils down to “I’m insecure and I wanna die but then I wouldn’t be able to fight the bourgeoisie so what now?”.

Rating: 5/5

1. La Casa en Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros.

Main idea: You can run, but you can’t hide (from yourself).

Synopsis and Review: This is so beautiful that I didn’t even need to take this book in 2020 yet I still think about it all the time. It’s the most lovely in-school book I’ve read in secondary school. This is a book that’s meant to be read only in Spanish, because the translations of the vignettes aren’t done any justice in English. Anyway, it’s a collection of short stories and vignettes about Esperanza, a young chicana girl in Chicago dealing with her internal, familial, and cultural issues. It’s hella freaking inspiring so go learn the Spanish language and read it. Now.

Rating : 6/5

Anyway... I’ll miss some lit classes. But not all.