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freemansgirl · 1 year ago

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so, you got a boyfriend?

pairing: amber freeman x fem reader

genre: sfw

words: 2.8k

summary: amber hits up reader on her phone, pretending to be a guy from her class so she can see if reader is single to get closer to her and take her on a date. (there’s lines from the iconic opening of scream in this. bold quotes signifies the lines used. based off of this tamber edit!! watch it for context please, it’s important to the plot)

warnings: jealousy-filled murder mentioned, stalking, obsessive and possessive behavior, amber being yandere-ish, amber kills for you

in the stillness of the night, you lay nestled in your cozy home, surrounded by the soft glow of moonlight filtering through your bedroom window. the eerily hum of distant city sounds of woodsboro lulled you into a dazed reverie as you gazed at the empty ceiling above your bed, eying the flat, smooth surface of it. you didn’t understand why your parents bothered moving to this place, there was nothing even special about it, it was dull, boring, and quiet…. too quiet at that. to make matters even worse, what didn’t help to make the city less creepy was the fact there were so many murders happening around here. that’s how you found yourself here, confined to your room with nothing to do... especially now that your parents have you in a safe place to prevent you from becoming ghostface’s next potential victim.

little do you know, the person who was causing all of these murders so happened to be outside of your window. it was no other than, amber freeman, one of your classmates from your art class that was focusing her dark brown eyes on your relaxed figure staring at the ceiling. she thought you were just so beautiful, it’s like the moment she first saw you, she had to make you hers. ever since, the teacher introduced you as the new girl to the class, she felt this strong feeling towards you.

she was continuously watching you to make sure you got home safely and to protect you from any ominous men in the alley, weird boys at school, and occasionally even girls if they made advances toward you. her body was overcome by a wave of overprotectiveness. she even killed a guy for you because he harassed you for your number, and stole his phone off of him so she can contact you. that’s how crazy she was for you, and how willing she was go to go extreme lengths for you. she frequently appeared below your window, concealing herself behind bushes while wearing her black ghostface outfit that blended in perfectly with the night sky to prevent detection.

the stalking started to turn into a daily habit, which led her to learn things about you, even personal things. she shouldn’t even be outside stalking you, and it’s a good thing richie didn’t even know that she had a crush on some new girl at her school. if he knew, he would try to kill you or even convince her to kill you… but that would be such a waste. you were too pretty to just die, she wanted you. once she obtained your phone number, she instantly felt happy because she would finally be able to call you, her dream girl.

suddenly, you hear your phone go off, the ring tone chirping from the phone’s lock screen while it vibrates against the sheets of your bed. the sound of the ringtone cutting abruptly through the peaceful, calming atmosphere that you were just in made you wonder who wants your attention. who could possibly be wanting to be calling you so randomly in the middle of the night? you grab the phone and turn it over just for it to be…. a random number calling you? at the sight of the random numbers showing on the screen, you let out a sigh while you stare at the phone with a blank expression, your thumb grazes over the decline button.

moving to an small, mysterious town and finding a private number ringing you immediately away—yeah that’s totally not unusual. you turn the phone over and don’t even bother with it. since that ruined your mood of peace, you decided to go downstairs to fix you some popcorn to prepare yourself for a movie to get things off of your mind.

amber wasn’t too happy about that, a frown was present on her face while she watched you ignore her calls. just who do you think you are seriously ignoring her calls? you weren’t doing much anyways, you were just some random teenager stuck at home on a normal night while her parents were away. so she calls you again, pressing her finger to the call button to send the call your way.

that’s when you felt your phone buzz in your back pocket, the vibration sending chills down your spine. the sound danced from soft to loud, starting as a faint jingle before swelling into a vibrant melody that demanded attention. you pull out the phone again, it was just that same number calling you. each ring carried a sense of urgency, beckoning that you respond to the call that awaited you on the other end. you begin to press the answer button as you hold the phone to your ear, before speaking.

“hello, who is this?”

“can’t tell you that much, sweetheart, but what i can tell you is that you got a nice voice.”

on the other side of the phone, you heard a masculine, deep voice. their voice had this weird feeling to it, there was something off about it like it was robotic or fake... it just didn’t feel quite right. it’s as if it could’ve been a voice moderator so therefore this person could clearly be hiding behind a fake voice… not their own… how odd. but who in their right mind would even use a voice moderator in this day and age to talk to someone? even if it was a voice moderator, the fact that it has an attractive voice doesn’t help either.

you began to snap yourself out of these crazy, dumb conspiracy theories so you don’t freak yourself out. maybe it was one of those dumb guys at school playing a prank on you. boys being boys, perhaps?

as weird as this was, you couldn’t help but feel yourself blushing and smile while your cheeks begin to warm up. you timidly tuck a hair strand behind your ear, feeling shy from the sudden compliment. just who is this person and why are they even complimenting you? and why are you getting so giddy from a complete stranger at that?

“um, thank you. i appreciate the compliment, but i think you got the wrong number. i’m going to hang up now, have a nice night.” you speak out, trying to end the conversation before things get further. everything about this phone call was just so sudden and random, there is no way they meant to call you and talk to you. you begin to press the decline button wanting to just finish the conversation but the voice talks again, distracting you.

“wait, wait! don’t hang up!” amber exclaims into the phone, her eyes watching from her eyeholes of her mask at the scene of you about to decline her call again. she starts to get frantic and upset because now she may never hear your voice again. she’s doing all that she can to persuade you, as best as possible, so you don’t hang up. she gave you a compliment and made you blush now you wanna end the conversation? god, you were just hard to please. you let out an annoyed huff when you see how persistent and whiny the voice is acting towards you. “okay, fine, i won’t hang up…. just who is this, exactly?”

the unknown voice doesn’t even bother to respond to you, ignoring the question. it was pretty clear they weren’t going to tell you too much based on the answer they gave you when you asked who they were the first time. you should’ve known better to not even ask again. it seems they just want to keep their presence unknown and not reveal themselves. very, very suspicious. “let me guess, are you the guy from my math class that asked me out for my number today? ethan, was it?”

“bingo, sweet thing. that’s right.” amber replied, going along with what you’re saying, clearly making a lie. the lie was so stupidly funny that it was taking everything in her to not break character by laughing. the fact that you simply believed her was just naive and she loved it. the guy that you think that you are talking to is actually dead, he’s not even alive. she’s just taking over and pretending to be him to simply get closer to you.

the beeping from the microwave starts to get your attention, which makes you go run to it so you can get your popcorn out of there. “what’s up with the noise in the background?” amber asked, clearly playing dumb like she doesn’t see you getting popcorn out of the microwave. “it’s just popcorn, that’s all.” you replied, pouring it into a bowl, watching the popcorn fill inside of it. you start to carry the bowl towards your room, beginning to sit on your bed. you grabbed the remote to the tv in your room, turning it on to find your favorite horror movie to watch.

“popcorn? are you about to watch something?” the raven hair girl replied back to your comment. she watched you turn the tv on, wondering what you were planning to watch now. “yes. i’m going to watch a horror movie, right about now. could we continue this conversation another time?” you said, still clearly not interested in the conversation and just wanted to be left alone. your parents would be so pissed at you if they found out you were sitting on the phone talking to some stranger. they warned you so many times about how the ghostface murders have always started with a random phone call, but you just assumed it was one of the many guys from school who wanted your number. that ethan guy did say he was going to call you tonight, but you didn’t take him seriously until now.

“oh? a horror movie? could it be… (favorite horror movie)?” “ethan” replied back, ignoring your request on ending the conversation. “he” just wasn’t going to quit, was “he”? you started to feel yourself getting really shocked, feeling excitement in your face when you heard the voice guess your favorite horror movie. suddenly, the conversation felt interesting to you, maybe ethan wasn’t so bad? you wanted to give “him” a chance. “what? how did you know it was that one?? that’s my favorite!” you beamed, a smile stretching across your lips when you heard your favorite horror movie being mentioned.

“just a hunch, i guess.” amber smirked, knowing damn well she was lying about it being a “hunch”. when stalking you for quite some time in previous nights, she figured out your favorite horror movie, just like she figured out majority of your favorite things. she was feeling quite proud of herself when she watched how giddy you were acting at the sound of her mentioning it. just a second ago, you didn’t even wanna talk to her but now you’re suddenly all up and bubbly to discuss with her. she was slowly starting to win you over.

after moments of discussing your favorite horror movie, you began to feel more and more comfortable with this “guy”. you hate to admit it, but… a small crush was forming and it was crazy because you only known “him” for such a small amount of time. you never smiled or laughed this hard from someone in this fucked up town. it felt nice to have this moment right about now. amber started to speak up, so she can change the subject. “so, you got a boyfriend?”

when you were asked that question, you begin to blush and were left a little speechless at the sudden subject change. “why? you wanna ask me out on a date?” you giggled, playfully twirling a piece of your hair like schoolgirl talking to her crush for the first time. “maybe… do you have a boyfriend?” amber responded, a little bit of stern adding to her tone, clearly trying to get an answer out of you to see what you will say. she needed to know this because she hated seeing all of these annoying guys around you, it was so unbearable. she needed to know if you were single to make you hers once and for all. even if you weren’t single, she could make you by simply killing any potential crush of yours or secret admirers that look in your way.

“no.” you speak, shaking your head behind the phone. at the sound of that, amber felt so much happiness and excitement inside of her body at that response. she definitely had to make you hers somehow and someway, she’ll figure it out soon. “you never told me your name.” she announced, still trying to keep up the play pretend act of being some guy that asked you out. she acted as if she didn’t see your name saved in this phone on the big, bright phone screen but she had to stay in character to earn your trust.

“why do you wanna know my name?”

there was another giggle that escaped your lips, you pressed your hand to your mouth to hide more laughter to situation. you started to just mess around with the “guy” at this point, just wanting to play stupid. you clearly knew why “he” wanted to know your name, it’s because “he” was obviously interested in you. however, a part of you was confused because you could’ve sworn you told ethan your name when he impatiently asked for your number…. unless he forgot? he was in a hurry to get to his next class after all, when he was speaking to you.

“cause i want to know who i’m looking at.”

the smile on your face instantly dropped, causing you to freak out internally, a million of thoughts racing in your head. your gut instinct told you to check the windows since you were in your bedroom and that’s the only way someone could really see you. all of the doors in the house were locked and the windows downstairs had curtains closed, so theres no reason to bother going downstairs to check on everything. you hop out of your bed immediately to go run to see if theres anyones outside… just for no one to be there. you see, amber is always just one small step ahead of you.

she’s been behind the bushes outside of your window, never moved out of her own spot to go directly in front of the window. she’d be a complete idiot if she did that. at the sound of hearing your frantic footsteps run to get out of bed and you not seeing anything, thats when amber spoke up.

“made you look.” she sneered, causing you get to get upset at the fact that she was clearly playing a prank on you just to scare you. “all of this talk about horror movies we just had, and you still fell for this? if i wanted to know who i was looking at, don’t you think i’d make myself known by taking you out on a lovely date soon instead of hiding behind this phone call…?”

this “guy” just scared the absolute shit out of you and all “he” could talk about was a date? wow, talk about a total jerk, right? you started to roll your eyes, not pleased with the amount of terror that just came through your body. you start to get visibly annoyed, which amber can see from her stalking spot, loving your reactions to this. you ended up closing the curtains to your window so no one could see you now. now, amber wasn’t the happiest when she saw that you did that, she could feel a pout come onto her face because now she couldn’t admire you.

“a date, really? you don’t even know my own name. this is not very funny, i’m hanging up.” you huff, about to press to decline button until the voice comes through again.

“wait, so no date? i could just learn it through text or even at the date! cmon, i’m sorry, let me make it up to you…” amber pleaded through the phone, a sweet smile behind that mask hoping you would forgive her. she couldn’t hold back from doing this, you looked way too adorable when scared, just as she thought you’d look. you begin to give in and just sighed at the response. “fine. if i go on a date with you, will you hang up?”

“it’s a done deal.”

after a while, you and “ethan” started texting. it wasn’t that hard for amber to convince you that she was ethan by sending selfies of him off his phone to you. you did actually ended up giving “him” your name just so “he” can make plans for the date. on a random day after school, you ended up going to the cafe “he” told you to meet up with him at….. just for you to end up waiting a while for “him”. he never did show up, leaving you stranded all alone at the empty table booth. it’s such a shame because you didn’t even pay attention to the news to know what truly happened to him. however, to make light of the fact you got stood up, you did end up meeting a really, really cute girl named amber at the cafe…

#amber freeman #amber freeman x reader #amber x reader fics #scream x reader #scream x you #scream x reader fics #q’d 🖤

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borderlinereminders · 1 year ago

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This is an article I've shared before that I've written, but I wanted to share it again so that I could post the text below the read more for those that aren't comfortable clicking to an external site.

This is a post about how to work on avoiding giving into harmful urges.

Something that comes up a lot in BPD, but also a number of other disorders, is impulse control and urges.

It can be so hard to not give in. For example, when feeling angry, we might have an urge to scream at someone, say something hurtful, harm ourselves or any number of things.

It’s really important to learn how to cope with harmful impulses and urges.

One way to do this is what is called Urge Surfing. Urge surfing is about “riding the wave” of an urge. The longer you resist an urge, the stronger it seems to get, much like the building of a wave. If you do give into an urge, that teaches your brain that giving into the urge is the only way to make it go away. However, research has shown that urges generally last for 20 to 30 minutes. It may feel like it’s going to keep on getting stronger and stronger until you give into it, but much like a wave, it will break and go away if you can avoid it.

Trying to directly stop an urge can be difficult. If you have ever tried to swim directly against a wave, you know that it can be exhausting. Especially as it gets stronger, it can feel like a wave will overwhelm you. On the other hand, if you swim to the side or otherwise do not work directly against the wave, you can move out of its power or give it time to break and dissipate without using nearly as much energy. Working with urges can be exactly the same.

One way I resist an urge is the “not now, later” approach. With this approach, I tell myself that, “Okay, you want to do that thing? That’s fine, but it has to be later.” I find this works for a lot of things because when I outright tell myself, “no,” I find it harder to let go of the urge. By telling myself I can give into the urge, but do it later, I find I can ignore the urge in less discomfort and usually by the time later arrives (I like a “sleep on it” rule for later, depending on the situation), the urge has passed and I can move on. If I do this repeatedly, I teach my brain to understand that the urge will go away whether I act on it or not.

Some things that can be useful to do when Urge Surfing:

Recognize and acknowledge that you are having an urge

Notice and describe the thoughts and feelings you are having, without trying to change or suppress them. This may be uncomfortable, but that’s okay. Discomfort while feeling an urge is normal.

Remind yourself:

There is nothing wrong with having urges. They are normal and natural parts of having addictions, habits and desires.

Discomfort is okay.

An urge is a desire, not a need. I can have an urge and choose not to act.

Urges are temporary. They will pass, whether I give into them or not.

Some other things you can do are focus on distracting yourself whether that’s by activities you like, grounding techniques or just overall keeping busy.

Remind yourself that you are in control. As hard as it is, you can choose not to act on your urge. It may feel impossible, but you can do it, and reminding yourself of that can help.

If it helps you, you can journal about your feelings and urges. Sometimes writing them down can help us realize why the urge isn’t good to give into. With that said, you can also spend some time thinking about why you shouldn’t do the thing you want to do. For example, you don’t want to yell at your friend because you know the feeling you’re experiencing is temporary and you don’t want to cause them unfair hurt which can also have lasting effects on your friendship. (With that said, if after you are calmer and you rationally think that cutting a friend off is better for your own mental health, then you should do that.)

And as time goes on, the urge should get less. This can help us because we are aware the discomfort we are in won’t last. If we feel like the discomfort won’t go away until we act on the urge, we are more likely to act on the urge to make it stop. Remind yourself that it will pass on its own.

Over time, Urge Surfing can help your brain learn that it doesn’t need to react to urges. It can help to make urges easier to avoid giving into, in the long-term.

#my blog posts #urge surfing

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peterparkouryo · 2 years ago

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captivated habits ii | 𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪

prompt; Your unrequited love for Peter turns unhinged.

warnings: mentions of violence, blood, angst, stalking, bpd, self-harm (both mentioned and done), mentions of kidnapping (doesn't actually happen lol), manipulation done by reader

word count: 3.8k

part one part three

The way your mind worked, it scared you to some extend. You really had no idea why or how you thought the way you did. It wasn't like your parents were bad people, they were decent at their parenting skills. Unfortunately for them, you were raised in a different world, where whatever they told you not to do, you'd do the exact opposite of that.

In grade school, they'd have assemblies about mental health, how to not do drugs, really stressing those lessons you have to learn almost every year. It was a sickening thing you went through. You never paid any attention anyhow.

When it came to your mental stability, before you met Peter, you had a suspicion that something was wrong with you, but it wasn't well prominent until you met Peter.

He changed your life for the good, even if it was a one sided appreciation. That's when you knew, as soon as you started paying just a little more attention to detail, you were a goner. It didn't quite click with you why Peter made you obsessively insane. Were you even insane for loving someone such as him?

Now, things were different. Not drastically different, but he knew of your stalking habits. Thankfully, he had no idea of your other activities, which would scare him away forever. You didn't want that.

You had a plan, a completely, diabolical, and potential jail time plan.

If Peter could ever forgive and forget about you stalking him, he had to learn to understand that the only way for you two to be together is to have friends who wouldn't get in the way of your love.

Michelle Jones was your everest. She was the reason why you and Peter had a delayed relationship development. Her and her observing personality ruined any potential friendship, soon to be lovers with him. You wanted her to understand just how upset you were with her big ass mouth. She's the quiet type, but when it comes to her friends and people watching, you knew if it was important, the girl would voice things she'd learn to her friends. You knew that's exactly what she did with Peter.

After your abrupt dismissal from lunch, you avoided Peter and his friends until your plan was well thought out. You had to make yourself the victim if it meant getting rid of Michelle.

Even if the trio didn't know you knew they were aware of you being a stalker, or as you like to tell yourself, making sure Peter is okay, you had made it your life's mission to weasel your way into the friendship. It may be an awkward, and probably not the smartest approach, but you were ruining out of options and you desperately needed Peter to see you as the good guy.

Your mother isn't the brightest of people, you had learned that a few years ago when you were going through this deep depression that had you addicted to self-harm. It took maybe a few weeks for her to learn about your dependency and she took you to rehab, even hid the knives or anything sharp after your time spent in the centre.

Obviously, you had relapsed, and found a loophole to continue with your addiction, but after many insufferable months of harming yourself, you had once again found yourself back in rehab, and this time you did not relapse. It was a miracle for your parents, but for extra precaution, they made sure to hide sharp objects from you very well, and kept an eye on you 24/7.

It had been awhile since you self-harmed, you were healing from your depression, slowly but surely. This time around though, it had nothing to do with you being depressed. Maybe it did, but you summed it up to being about your plan, not your mental health.

The knife you had in your hand was for cutting vegetables, and with how big it was, you were sure the sharpness would make a very large scar, something you didn't really want, but you had no choice.

Thankfully, your parents were on an annual date they had every Friday night, and it gave you the opportunity to do exactly what you needed to do without them worrying for your health. It was this annoyingly clingy thing they did whenever you had something sharp in your hold, and god forbids you "accidentally" cut yourself.

You examine the knife carefully in your hold, analyzing the blade, silently asking yourself if you dare to do this, would you fall back into your old habits you fought so desperately to stop yourself from doing.

It wasn't like you had planned to cascade into the pleasure of self-harm, not like before. You had to remind yourself this was strictly for your masterminded plan, a plan that took heedful thinking and you'd be damned if your mental state got in the way of that.

With one swift motion, you slit the blade across your wrist, hissing at the unbearable pain, something you were accustomed to, but given the fact it has indeed been awhile, you watch the moderate amount of blood trickle down your arm in awe.

You grimace, the pain stinging in the worst way. The cut had been bigger than you imagined.

Examining it one last time, you settle for the results and make your way to your bathroom to clean up the blood.

Flickering the light switch on, you close the bathroom door, holding your arm, red bleeding through your fingertips, and you hurriedly hover it over the washroom sink, grabbing a nearby washcloth. You reach down into the cabinet below the sink, pawing for the alcohol you knew your mother kept for reasons, such as this.

After another few seconds, you feel the familiar bottle, pulling it from its hiding spot and placing it on the counter as you turn the water on.

Letting go of your bloody wrist, your hand covered in the red liquid, you dab a few drops of alcohol onto the washcloth, slowly cleaning the blood of your wrist, winching at the agony.

You remove the washcloth when you finish cleaning your wound, running warm water over it, watching the blood mix with the water, running down the drain.

Turning off the water, you throw the washcloth into the sink, forcing your gaze away from the cut on your wrist and into the mirror in front of you.

It was a really fucked up thing you were doing. You knew that whatever happened moving forward would ruin your future, not just with Peter, but for yourself.

You were under the impression that no matter what, this was for you and Peter. It was the right thing to do, and it didn't matter what happened to you, as long as you found your way back to the boy you loved.

"You can't be serious." Michelle groaned, her eyes narrowing at the boy in-front of her.

"I'm so serious." Peter argued.

"Peter, you barely know anything about her," Michelle points out, to which Peter only rolls his eyes at her.

It was hard to understand that Peter, her somewhat best friend, if he's lucky enough to even have her call him that, had a crush on you, of all people.

You were quiet, and barely talked to anyone unless it was Cindy Moon, or unless you were spoken to. The girl couldn't recall a time where you willingly talked to anyone.

When Peter had told Michelle about his harbouring feelings for you, of course the girl was skeptical, not knowing anything about you, only that you were quiet and very watchful of Peter. That alone sparked an interesting suspicion for Michelle.

Naturally, the girl is a very observant person, a people watcher to most. And with Peter being one of her only friends, she wanted to make sure any girl he ever had a crush on didn't end up with another villainous parent, or were secretly a villain themselves. Ultimately, you were not a villain, and it was safe to say you had no parents who were planning world domination.

What Michelle did manage to find out was that you were a stalker. A very scary stalker, something she accidentally found out when her dad picked up from school one day. It was when she saw Peter meters ahead of you, and you were doing something she's seen in enough movies and TV shows to know that you were either following the boy home or, well, there was nothing else she could really think of.

At first, she didn't want to believe it, considering her friend had a deep affection for you, but with more observation she found out something very disturbing about you. It was almost a miracle that you two were on the Decathlon team and when Michelle forced herself to human interaction, she learned from Cindy that you had a "small" crush on Peter, and that the girl also knew your locker combination because apparently Cindy was the only person you trusted with that valuable information.

Michelle had to think strategically when she had asked the girl for it, hoping she would give in and tell her, and thankfully Cindy is a very kind and albeit, accommodating person, granting the girl with the important detail.

When school was over and Michelle was sure you were no where near your locker, she waited a few good minutes, cautiously approaching it when the coast was clear.

What she discovered was frightening,

You had maybe a few normal school objects cluttered inside your locker, which wasn't anything out of the ordinary, but when she clambered around the textbooks and notebooks, a few photos inside one of the notebooks scattered to the ground. Michelle was quick to pick up the pictures, and when she further examined, it certainly didn't take a rocket scientist to know who the photos were of.

It only proved that if anything, you were not only a stalker, but obsessed.

She was in shock, too stunned to wrap her head around the information she had found out. Michelle knew that she needed to tell Peter of her discovery.

But the boy would probably not even listen to her pleads. Most likely tell her off for the invasion of privacy, which she did understand, but this was urgent, and she didn't know what you were capable of. She didn't know if you had a plan to kidnap the poor boy, never letting him be able to see the light of day again because of how obsessed over him you were. Even if that wasn't your exact plan, she wouldn't put it past you to not do.

After her discovery, Michelle decides to keep it to herself, opting to watch you like a hawk, and she figures its better to not stand in the way of you or Peter, hoping the boy came to his senses and realize just how unnatural your personality was.

Weeks went by and nothing out of the ordinary had happened, until one day Peter tells both Ned and Michelle of his delirious plan to ask you to sit with them at lunch so the boy could get to know you more, and the girl rolls her eyes at his extend.

In the end, it did work out for him, and what made things really weird for Michelle was when you came up to her in math one day, which made her heart skip a beat, fearing you had found out about her invading your privacy.

Thankfully, you had no idea about it, and instead you tried to strike up conversation, telling Michelle about how Peter invited you to sit with them at lunch, and the girl tried to ignore the gleaming sparkle in your eyes when you mentioned his name.

She did entertain you, and it made her a bit happy to know you were very paranoid of anyone finding out about your stalking habits.

When lunch had rolled around, the girl decides to keep her distance for a short amount of time, letting Peter do what it was he needed to do, and when she approached the table, something in the air shifted.

Michelle had not known what it was, but she watched as you quickly gathered everything you had and leave the table in complete fear.

The girl chalked it up to the idea of Peter saying something out of character, which he declined, and it was still a wonder to Michelle to what exactly made you hurriedly leave the lunch table.

"I think she's intimated by MJ." Ned speaks up from next to his best friend, only cowering when the girl shoots him daggers.

"What makes you say that?" Peter wonders.

"Well, maybe she thinks MJ likes you." Ned shrugs, the sentence making both of his friends snort.

"That's funny."

"As if."

Michelle fought hard to make sure anything like that wasn't thought upon or entertained by anyone.

It wasn't like Peter was ugly, but they differ a lot on the personality scale. Some people were mildly confused on how the three of them managed to be friends, but ultimately they did complete each-other in a way that was comforting.

Peter sighs, "I just don't understand what happened.."

Ned frowns, giving his friend a reassuring pat on the shoulder, and Michelle watches the boy carefully, almost feeling bad for his failure of a love life. It was no secret the boy had bad luck when it came to girls.

"I mean, from what I know Y/N does like to be alone, so maybe it scared her being around people for more than two minutes." Michelle tries to reason, though she couldn't figure if that was a half true or a complete lie.

"But she was laughing at our jokes, and engaging in conversation, so I just-" Peter cuts himself mid sentence, his eyes turning a shade brighter when something catches his attention behind Michelle.

She turns arounds, her gaze meeting your figure and you looked tired, she noticed that you were wearing a long sleeve shirt, ditching your usual jacket that you normally would wear with everything.

The girl turns back around, seeing Peter's face itch into a smile.

You had purposely made yourself late to the decathlon meeting, staying up until your eyes were visibly red and the under bags were certainly noticeable from far away.

As if on instinct, you scan the room for the boy who stole your heart, immediately finding his face and witness how he quickly looks away from your gaze, and your heart drops to your stomach at the action.

You had no one to blame but the girl sitting across from him, blazing your eyes into the back of her head.

A hand grips your injured wrist and you wince, breaking your gaze away from Michelle onto a frantic Cindy Moon.

"Oh, I'm so glad you're okay, thought you weren't gonna show up." She countered, letting go of your wrist, unaware of the pain shooting through your arm.

You show the girl a small smile, flickering your eyes behind her, noticing three eyes on you, which doesn't help with your anxiety.

You had to quickly put your plan in motion.

Taking a hold of Cindy's arm, you drag her a bit closer to the three of them, where you knew you two would be in earshot with what you were about to say.

"Hey, Cid, can I tell you something really quick?" You ask in faux nervousness, and the girl quickly nods, squeezing your hand in reassurance.

"Of course."

You smile, taking a deep breath, closing your eyes in preparation of what you were about to say.

Cindy instinctively takes ahold of both your wrists, and you wince in pain at the unplanned action, but you figured it could only be in your favour.

"Oh my god, are you okay?" She asks, letting go of your wrists to examine your state.

You nod hesitantly, rubbing your arm as you watch Cindy's worried expression, having to fight back a smile at the girl.

"I just, I'm having a hard time." You mumble, your eyes meeting the floor.

Since you could consider Cindy one of your only friends, you told the girl about your past depression, including the well known fact of your addiction to self-harm, and like your parents, the girl made sure you wouldn't relapse into that state again.

She was excited to know that you had sobered up, and made it your goal to fight away the thoughts of ever thinking of doing anything like it again, she was with you every step of the way.

If you weren't so fucked up, you'd be thankful for the girl.

"Did you-" Cindy stutters out, trying to piece together your vague words.

"Did you, um, relapse," The question was uncertain, and you steal another glance at the table behind the girl, noticing Peter's curious stare, and you nod as you look back at the girl, holding yourself to sell your act.

Cindy's eyes are wide and she scans your entire body, probably trying to figure out where exactly had you harmed yourself, and its when she does notice your red eyes and under bags.

"My goodness, you look exhausted. Do you want to go to the nurse?" She places a reassuring hand on your shoulder and you quickly shake your head, feeling the tears well up in your eyes.

You unwrap your hands from yourself, using one of your hands to pull up the long sleeve you wore, showing the girl the very large scar on your wrist, and Cindy gasps in disbelief, her audible action catching the attention of the table behind you.

You shyly look up at the girl, watching her intently gape at the wound, the tears now falling down your face in fear of what would happen next.

"I'm sorry, I know this is bad, but I-, it just got too much for me." You choke, pouting when Cindy shows you a pitiful look.

"No, no, I'm glad you had the courage to not only tell me, but show me. I know it's hard for you to do this sort of thing." You wanted to laugh and roll your eyes at her words, but your breath is caught in your throat when you see Peter, and his no good friends come up behind Cindy.

"Hey, um, is everything okay?" Peter questions cautiously, no doubt seeing your sad state, worry as clear as day in his eyes.

Cindy shoves your sleeve back down your arm, turning to a worried Peter, and you wonder if this had something to do with being in your presence, or if the boy was genuinely worried. Had it be the latter, you'd thank him by either kissing every square inch of his charming face, or offered to fall on your knees for him.

You wipe the tears from your face, avoiding eye contact with the boy and his friends, and you suspect Michelle's gaze remained on you.

"It's-," Cindy looks back to you, a silent question etched on her face.

You nod, meeting Peter's gaze.

Peter watches you with fear, not because he was scared of you, but it was a terrifying speculation that ran laps inside his head that you were in some sort of danger. Granted, he knew little about you, but it was safe to admit that he did like you, a lot.

The rational thing to do was make sure that no one was willingly hurting you mentally or physically, and had that been the case, Peter would do everything he could to make you feel better.

"I slit my wrist." You blurt out, your gaze drift to Michelle's, and for the first time in forever, you weren't focused on Peter's reaction.

From the corner of your eye, you can clearly see Peter's face fall in disbelief, and though Michelle doesn't show any sort of shocked expression (much to your disappointment), you can see that her eyes held a sorrowful meaning.

The silence was loud, and thank god not everyone paid attention to your confession, only the people you wanted to know had heard you.

Peter's mouth open and close, completely at a lost for words for your brave confession.

Ned sort of just gapes at you, his mouth hung wide open, and if you weren't acting, you'd laugh at his expression.

Michelle on the other hand, holds her gaze deeply, not knowing what to say or think really. She felt this oncoming guilt that she knew she shouldn't have considering you aren't necessarily a good person, but this confession ate her alive.

No matter what though, it was a sad thing, and probably very hard to come clean to. It was probably one of the reasons why you so eagerly left the table that day, and now she had this urge to help you, despite knowing you weren't mentally stable, but now she was well aware of this issue.

"Y/N, I'm so sorry I-" Peter starts, his frowns and the look alone makes your heart ache. His empathy certainly wasn't needed, and you know that deep down you're doing this for him.

You wanted to let him see that all that you were doing, or planning to do was all for him.

What good does it do if trying to prove your love for him only brings misery for the boy?

The only way you can be one hundred percent sure Peter would ever fully devote to you the way you already devoted yourself to him, was to kill for his love.

Kill those who dare step in your way of accomplishing that. Starting with the one who made sure you wouldn't.

"Hey, Michelle?" You sniffle, shying your gaze away from the girl.

"Yeah?"

"I know that you're in a mental health awareness program," You start, meeting her gaze as she nods for you to continue. "Was just wondering if you could help me with that?" You question.

Michelle shares a look with her friends, Cindy only steps closer to you.

There's a long, dreadful silence, and you grow mildly impatience, but you try not to let that trait show and you watch Peter glance your way before Michelle shrugs with a shaky sigh.

"Yeah, sure." She forces a fake smile.

You reciprocate it.

"Thank you."

Michelle nods and forces her gaze away from Peter who thanks her silently with a smile. She knew she would never hear the end of this from him, the boy telling her how much it meant to him that she was willing to help you out with your mental health.

She wondered if Peter would now ever find the confidence to talk to you, hoping in some way if he ever wanted to be with you, he'd at least try to help you out without Michelle having to do all the work.

Of course Peter plans to talk to you about this newly found information, but he doesn't know how to go about it. He wants to let you know he's here for you even if you wouldn't fully understand how much he means it.

You on the other hand, all you could think about is just how good it would feel to finally have Peter just to yourself.

You couldn't wait until Michelle's blood was on your hands. That alone brings a real smile to your face.

tags

@clairebearfr @tomhollandsslut @betzabobababi

#peter parker imagine #peter parker x reader #peter parker x you #peter parker x y/n #peter parker angst #dark!reader x peter parker

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rocketturtle4 · 1 year ago

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Arthrit was my Favourite Character and I want to write about him; My reflection on the SOTUS Franchise as a newbie

In brief: I am attempting to understand the growth of Thai BLs by watching ABL’s understand the history of thai bl list on the Thai master post. I’m more interested in the growth and change on screen than the tracking of different actors/directors etc. but I do enjoy reading about those things. I am concurrently understanding the history of All BL by watching the Foundation Syllabus lists as well, I am not planning to review everything, but I adored SOTUS and I’ve started following @waitmyturtle’s journey through oldgmmtv and was surprised by our different initial takes on SOTUS and to a lesser extent the SOTUS franchise so I thought I’d share my own feeling about the shows. Yes I know ‘twas a while ago.

I don’t know anything about the actors as people and have minimal knowledge of the IRL ship drama (just aware that there was drama)

Disclaimers:

THIS POST IS LONG (LIKE LONG LONG), and I cut out so much you wouldn’t believe

Obviously, these are my own thoughts, I am not expecting everyone or even anyone to agree, I’m just sharing.

I only talk about Arthrit and Kong in this post, I enjoyed the side couples but I was much more invested in the main one and that’s what I want to talk about.

Not defending Gay for you as a damaging trope

Not defending blushing maiden and sex negativity as damaging tropes

Damaging tropes suck and being aware of them while viewing content is important for not internalising their message for yourself or your perception of others.

I’m demisexual FYI (My sexuality suddenly felt relevant halfway through my reflection so Imma put it here)

General SOTUS Thoughts

In writing this I have realised my attachment to Arthrit started later in the franchise than I thought but eh still mostly going to write about him.

Bullying/hazing (I didn’t mind this time) – I don’t like Hazing or bullying, but the way it was portrayed here, as a form of relationship building which was openly discussed as damaging and then improved on as part of the arc was fine for me. It was about recognizing the good parts of a practice and removing the bad and I was cool with that.

Kongpob (I’m a fan) – He’s hard working, he’s snarky, he’s clearly got good learning habits and cares about his education, he’s supportive of his friends and he stands up for injustice. I was definitely watching SOTUS for this character in the beginning.

Disparate personalities and positions of power (And the different ways our leads present as authority) (there’s also obvs age dynamics at play)

Arthrit is older but also the shyer and less expressive, his assumption of leaderships feels less aligned with his personality and so he cares more about maintaining his professionalism, first as head Hazer and later as an employee while Kong is an intern. (This does not make him a bad leader I think he’s a good one).

Kong is a natural leader, shown overwhelmingly by his standing up for his peers and their inclination to elect him as the campus star and then as the representative (which he runs away from cause he’s already got enough on his plate). His comfort with his own authority is a part of his pursuit of Arthrit and also his differing experience with Authority. (I think the way he bonds with P’Paga the scary office lady is a great example of this difference, he has good instincts).

This feels important to me as Arthrit is holding onto that authority a lot tighter than Kongpob, he’s working to maintain it because it’s NOT natural.

OKAY Onto Arthrit’s Arc and why I found it so impactful.

First up I can tell you the exact moment I fell in love with Arthrit’s character, it was right…

Here (Please study hard P'Arthrit)

(His eyes my good people, they had me and they never lost me) (I literally learnt how to GIF just so I could keep this moment forever) (Episode 13) (I mean, I found a GIF generator) From this point on I was watching this entire franchise for the way Arthrit emoted with his eyes first, and everything else second.

But let’s back up slightly.

My take on Arthrit’s emotional arc through the early parts of SOTUS was essentially:

Why is the first year defiant-flirting with me?

This first year is incredibly clever and that’s dangerous because it could undermine my authority and I want this program to be successful (He did recommend him as campus star, and comment to himself/his friends about not underestimating Kongpob, we had clearly early signs that Arthrit thought Kongpob was pretty amazing, he just couldn’t show this because of this authoritative position) (also age dynamics = a big deal in Thailand)

Then we had the sleep confession (He’s never really sleeping)

Arthrit’s panic over the fact that his sort of friend, definite nong who is a guy apparently had feelings for him

This manifested as his removing himself from Kongpob to work through and process his own emotions, my personal feelings on this were that Arthrit’s reaction was more confused than disgusted and he was trying to avoid a confrontation so he could figure himself out without hurting Kongpob. (There was also some unresolved feelings in here for his highschool friend that needed to be dealt with).

Not the ideal move and poor Kong was so confused and got hurt anyway but then we got to

“I don’t know you well enough Kongpob… But I want to know you more”

Now I seriously appreciated this because I often feel frustrated when characters emotions just immediately match: like one person confesses and two days later other person is like, oh turns out I am also madly in love with you. Boom. Couple. (This does sometimes make sense in the story, just not always).

Arthrit’s emotional response of: Yes I think I like you but I’m still figuring it out so do keep flirting with me so I can keep figuring it out…

I liked it.

Now immediately after this, Arthrit kisses Kongpob (mutual kisses yay!). I don’t take this as say, a final cementation of their relationship (as the kiss often seems to be treated, especially in K BL) but as an expression of interest.

Kiss = I am interested in you romantically, let’s flirt more/date to get to know each other so our feelings can develop.

Then we got to see Arthrit melt (the eyes conveyed it, I adored) honestly it was their tiny little movements that I liked the most and you can’t see that here but still.

Also his shy little smiles.

I totally think that the attraction here is not conveyed by Arthrit’s character the same way Kong’s but to me this reflects

Kong’s more straightforward and open personality + plus his self confidence (Seme dynamics definitely factor into this since these are characters not real people)

Arthrit being more uncertain as to his own emotional state, AND his greater shyness with expressing his emotions publicly (uke dynamics obvs - but not too pronounced I think). I like how the actor conveys these emotions. (whether or not it was intentional)

People have different levels of comfort with any kinds of PDA and that’s okay (look I’m not sure if blushing maiden trope arguably comes into play here but to me some people are shyer of affection than others and I personally feel that for Arthrit, this early on, his emotions were pretty clear and his responses makes sense.)

And then at the end of episode 13 we handed over the gear

In episode 14 we had a bit of drama because it’s early days and Arthrit is just realising he likes a popular boy

Jealously thou name is Arthrit

But things get resolved (by accident by Kongpob’s gift, amusing) and so we have the public declaration (like the kiss earlier this is instigated by Arthrit which I appreciate because he’s the one with the boundaries being crossed in this scenario). His little smile and duck down to hide his face felt very authentic because he’s not a PDA person and so he feels a bit embarrassed about drawing attention to himself.

And they had a good convo afterwards too + Kiss etc but I really want to get onto:

SOTUS S

(Because episode 15 of SOTUS is over the time jump it's included here)

Thoughts on the stuff that happens during the time jump (e.g. the end cut scenes of some episodes).

We had 2 scenes which stuck in my mind from this time, the piggyback ride ("you are my faen after all") after Kong hurts himself.

(THE EYES)

AND

Arthrit handing over the metaphorical power to the future head hazer.

I personally felt this scene was super important because it showed us:

Arthrit simping all over his boy being authoritative and flirting back with the same lines Kong had once used, in a public space.

Arthrit’s continued uncertainty, NOT (in my opinion) with the idea of being openly affectionate with his boyfriend (what do you call his face above if not openly affectionate) but with having his professionalism undermined by being asked to kiss said boyfriend in front of a whole group of his peers while he is technically their leader (plus they will tease him).

Look it's dark here, and I know my love of his eyes and their emotions is irrational but to me that gaze says: “you know I love you, but why are you doing this HERE.” @waitmyturtles, this was the thing I found most discrepant about your thoughts and mine, to me Arthrit’s emotions were conveyed so clearly by Krist, even in SOTUS but especially in SOTUS S. I was so absorbed by Arthrit sometimes I got completely distracted from Singto’s (excellent) portrayal of Kong.

Onto the main timeline of SOTUS S

(How many of my images of Arthrit being a simp can i put it here to justify my having them in the first place) (I restrained myself a lot you have to believe me)...it turns out I hit the limit, enjoy!

(I started doing a quick flick through the show to check my continuity but then I wanting to add stuff so I stopped and I'm trusting my brain)

We get an early sign that their relationship is going strong with their mutual missing of each other: Arthrit’s visit to campus and seeking Kong out because he misses him, and Kong telling Arthrit he has a duty to him as his faen and convincing Arthrit to stay the night with him because he misses Arthrit.

(They're both so doting naaaaww)

Later, we have this scene where Arthrit goes to tell his coworkers he has a faen and gets interrupted ("well I…") Now we don’t know this for sure, but he drew himself up and prepared to face it and then sort of deflates when he missed the chance, so I’m projecting and that’s what I think.

There’s some bumps in the road while they navigate their new seperation and Kong hits a boundary of Arthrit’s he clearly didn’t know existed when he showed up at Arthrit’s work. (I think this is again more of a personality thing, Arthrit is still figuring out his position and authority in the company and feels very unsure about having his male faen show up to his office without warning. This is not the university space where everyone around them knows they’re dating, it’s DIFFERENT. Kong on the other hand is the kind of guy who totally would have interrupted everyone at that dinner to be like, actually I cook dinner for my man. All. The. Time.) Anyways, they talk, Kong visits work in a planned way, and things are more settled and physical (have some more photos, justify my having them in the first place)

until…Kong shows up at work, and then after they sort of talk, Kong shows up next door.

Now while writing this I had a personal realization that I need to check in about (detailed in small text below the next photo) but first.

This moment makes everything else in the Arthrit’s arc make sense to me, to me he’s feeling uncertain about fundamental aspects of their relationship, rather than purely being temporarily hurt by Kongpobs actions, he internalises this uncertainty about their communication.

This is then kind of resolved but then made much worse by Kongpob moving in next door. (Yes Kong says it's to be close while giving Arthrit space, but doesn't Arthrit deserve to be part of that decision?) (We don't see how much they communicated prior to this, but it seems to me that Arthrit's point here, about losing faith in their ability to talk to each other is super relevant)

(Personal note, how secure I feel in a relationship directly affects how comfortable I feel physically in the relationship, and I don’t mean ‘I’m sad so I don’t feel like having sex right now’ I mean, ‘the foundation of our relationships feels less stable and as a result my comfort with physical things, especially sexual intimacy feels significantly reduced’

I THOUGHT THIS WAS NORMAL Y’ALL

Having sat and thought about it right now, I don’t think that’s actually the case for the majority? like not all the time at least? This made me think about my personal reaction to watching Nevertheless a few months ago (a kdrama) and I was crazy uncomfortable with the discrepant emotional comfort vs physical desire plot, (I finished it, because I had to, because leaving in the middle would have been worse but just, No.) I mean I get sex without feelings, sure, or with budding feelings, but sex while you’re feelings have moved from stability to instability or are just floundering in instability without resolution?. Possible? Absolutely. Comfortable? No way.

Is this a demisexual thing? (I'm demi if you missed the disclaimer at the top) Is this a me thing? I am going to examine this more but for now you have my facts and perspective and we’re moving on)

(also this relationship being kind of ace has actually been put forth by ABL (here) and most likely others. I had previously read this post and moved on (because I hadn’t seen SOTUS), so I just wanted to say this is not a Tumblr revelation, just a me revelation)

I may be projecting but…

I adored the way the actor continued to show Arthrit’s foundational uncertainty in where their relationship was going/at, through his discomfort with being physical with Kong even after he’d consciously forgiven him. (Okay definitely projecting)

Episode 7, where Kong gets hurt by the door and is forgiven, but Arthrit still seems kind of uncomfortable with the physical side of things both here and in the next episode.

Plus the excellent scenes where Arthrit keeps telling Kong off for giving him food and then ends up yelling, and Kong goes back to being uncertain about where the line is. (Arthrit needs to talk more I'll admit it).

Arthit during the scene where Kong professes his uncertainty, because it's another screenshot I already had. (HIS. EYES.)

BUT because Arthrit realises he's hurt Kong, they talk about it and tada: Arthrits more comfortable physically again next ep, because he’s more certain of his relationship again.

We get beaches

(seriously Arthrit’s little smile, I’m dying) and fun times and kisses

(I have so many screenshots in here everyone, it's concerning)

And then:

Arthrit get’s double shaken again (Dad + Photo) (and he processes things by taking physical space. AGAIN.) (still totally relatable but I’m actually kind of annoyed with him for not saying a word to Kong now that I’m writing it down, I was not at all annoyed when I watched it, for the record)

And then Kong goes “OKAY THAT’S IT” and expresses his (totally justifiable) uncertainty about what is going on, because Arthrit keeps not being clear and can’t they actually talk about things!! So Kong gives him back his gear and leaves. My take on this was basically:

Kong: You need to be sure you want to be with me.

Arthrit: wait what, you’re leaving? But you’re always there? You’ve been hurting? Oh no I’ve hurt you? *cries* *Processes* *Publicly declares feelings* There I fixed it.

To me, Arthrit was never uncertain about whether or not he Loved Kong (Is this in question?, I don't know), he was just navigating the stability of his existing relationship in a new environment with many new revelations. And I believe that, because, even through the uncertainty, Arthrit continued to stare at Kong with such intensity that I couldn’t look away.

Hmm despite that, I think this reflection has actually left me a little bit less obsessed with Arthrit (definitely a good thing, I realized after I finished SOTUS S that I have 48 screenshots of Arthrit’s face staring at Kong with different adoring expressions and that is… too many).

For me, Arthrit’s emotional arc was so captivating because of the way Krist acted throughout, his expressions (HIS EYES) and the links between his emotions and his physical comfort were compelling and I was sucked into his emotional journey above all else. Did the actor intend this? I don’t know, but I had a great time. I almost feel like I need to rewatch SOTUS S just to pay attention to Singto more because he was kind of sidelined for me.

OUR SKYY SOTUS (the quickest summary because the words are totally out of hand)

(I totally had more pics from our skyy but I've apparently hit my limit oops)

We had some lovely relationship comfort and stability followed by compelling drama and then resolution. I loved it.

The drama is basically just Arthrit going: oh no you’re leaving, what if I make things harder for you, what if things end, how will I live, *get’s bad advice about breaking up* we should take a break because I love you way too much.

Kong: You complete moron, I love you and that’s why we’re supposed to stay together, now I’m leaving tomorrow, and you better prove you love me too by showing up.

Arthrit: *takes time to process* Oh yeah cool cool, I totally love you a lot *shows up and decides to travel with him for a little bit because these boyfriends be clingy*

But with all the excellent acting.

(Tiny note, my understanding is that this performance might be more compelling because Krist is expressing more emotions, but I took that as the first time Arthrit had actually tried to talk about and express his feelings, due to feeling stable enough to do so (all previous space taking was emotional processing). So there isn’t a single scene in SOTUS or SOTUS S where I would have expected this level of emotion (except for when he realized Kong was leaving because Kong was hurt). I would have found it confusing because Arthrits clearly a brooder. So he doesn’t talk to Kong while he’s hurting (an incorrect choice but one he continues to make) and so only the attempt to speak about his emotions here induces this level of physical display.

I cry more when I try to talk about my emotions, anybody else?)

CHEERS FOR READING

ALSO, I appreciate all you Tumblr master posters so much more now (I swear I already appreciated you lots!! but seriously I thought this would take like an hour or two and it DID NOT - and I'm not even meta-ing just throwing my thoughts on a page)

#sotus #sotus the series #sotus s #sotus s the series #rocketturtle4 catches up #thai bl #analysis #our skyy x sotus #Arthrit sotus #Arthrit x kong #rturts is wondering #Rocket4Reviews

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burgeoning-ambition · 1 year ago

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Hi Vincent! Since you're studying Japanese & Korean, I was wondering if there are any major differences in the way you approach studying each language? Especially since you are laddering Japanese and Korean.

Any helpful hints you've picked up on the way would be great too! ありがとう！

Oohhhh... This is a good question...

I think in terms of grammar I approach them similarly, by memorizing grammar by its function rather than by how it's translated, but when I review grammar I try to review my Korean by comparing to equivalent Japanese grammar. They're a lot easier to compare than either one with English, so it's easier since the word order is often the same and stuff.

But with Korean I think I use a lot more learning apps? Although that's mostly because the Korean resources around me aren't as plentiful as Japanese ones, so I can't get my hands on as much native reading material and stuff to practice. (And I'm not huge on k-dramas, haha)

Oh, another thing with my experience with Korean is that my learning community for it is much smaller- I couldn't really click with a lot of my classmates in Korean the same way I could with my classmates in Japanese (and there was one person in my Korean class who was kind of... A creep so I sort of avoided socializing in there in general), so a lot of my Korean learning is more independent. I won't lie that specific person being so like, uncomfortable to be around kinda killed my motivation to study Korean for a little while, so I really had to improve my internal motivations for studying to make sure I didn't give up.

In terms of tips and tricks I have, one thing I've made a habit of doing is writing down the equivalent Japanese grammar point next to each Korean grammar point in my textbooks! I'll write down conjugations with the same meanings, particles with the same meanings, and sometimes also phrases or vocab terms in Japanese next to the Korean headings and try to memorize based on that. It's usually pretty easy to do, honestly, since the English language textbooks I use for both languages describe things very similarly!

Also, I try to cut out English as much as possible when I learn new words in Korean! Like, I have the Learn Korean With BTS book, and in that the new vocab is only written in Korean, and then if I can't guess the word's meaning from the illustration they put with it, I'll listen to the audio translation in Japanese. I only use English if I'm totally lost because I don't know the word in either language and the illustration is confusing.

Hmm... Another tip I think is important is to not beat yourself up if you aren't "fully laddering" or something like that. If you sometimes have to go back to your native language to double check something, that's fine! It doesn't cancel out all the laddering if you have to go back sometimes to make sure you're actually understanding.

You can also usually find what textbooks Japanese universities use for their Korean language classes! I know Waseda puts all of their textbooks up on their class search and that's publicly available to look at, so you can go find whatever level of Korean textbook written in Japanese with Japanese explanations if you're advanced enough in Japanese!

I feel like laddering is pretty similar to immersion study in the sense that they can both feel pretty difficult and high-intensity even when you're just doing something basic. Completely getting rid of your native language makes things a lot more stressful, I think, so it can be harder. Even if you know that for you personally laddering will be a better way to learn it or more efficient or whatever, it can still feel kinda overwhelming to suddenly be trying to avoid your native language when you study, and I think it's important to remember that! Because sometimes it'll feel discouraging to be overwhelmed by "super basic stuff", but the way you're studying is more intense than studying using native language textbooks! So feeling overwhelmed by stuff you'd find "easy" in your native language is fine! Because it isn't your native language!

I dunno, I don't have many life hacks for it yet... But I hope this blurb helps somehow anyway!

#original post #ask #my korean classes themselves are also a lot faster paced #which i think influences how well im taking in korean #we go through multiple grammar points a day #so its more difficult to keep up #langblr #study advice #study tips #language learning #language laddering #studyblr #japanese #korean #motivation

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andyxcds · 6 months ago

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babel rant

okay so i read babel by r.f kuang and i really cannot stop thinking about it.

like i wrote a long piece of my mind and anyone can read it but it might uhm, ruffle some feathers...

anyways im going to reread this soon, if anyone wants to talk literally dm me or reply.

Babel by R.F. Kuang is a literary masterpiece which explores the concepts of racism, and the consequences of elitism, and can be compared to the likes of the Secret History.

“That's the beauty of learning a new language. It should feel like an enormous undertaking. It ought to intimidate you. It makes you appreciate the complexity of the ones you know already.”

To some extent that seems to be the issue I face when I begin learning a language. There is often some battle in my mind because I am made up of only one tongue. When I speak in English, I think in English. Therefore, when I am told something in the tongue of another, I have no choice but to turn it into something I understand. There is hope that some underlying knowledge is made clear to me when faced with a foreign tongue.

“That's just what translation is, I think. That's all speaking is. Listening to the other and trying to see past your own biases to glimpse what they're trying to say. Showing yourself to the world, and hoping someone else understands.”

When Kuang takes it out of the context of speaking, translation becomes something of objectivity. It is transformed into a means of understanding in which topics such as feelings, emotions, ideas, and values are given a new perspective. I could elaborate on my feelings to a stranger in hopes they can understand how I feel. I could express my observations to a friend and hope they have observed the same. I could share my ideas to a classroom and pray that they can easily grasp and memorize them. I could proclaim my opinions and values to the world hoping they may be able to act in the same way as I.

“How slender, how fragile, the foundations of an empire. Take away the centre, and what’s left? A gasping periphery, baseless, powerless, cut down at the roots.”

This is where Kuang revealed her prowess. Her plotting was ever so brilliant in the sense that she decidedly recreated the falling of Jericho, Babel, and Egypt. Three of the most influential venues in the Bible. She begins to paint Robin as Joshua, the soldier of God who was an important part of bringing down the walls of Jericho, in the context of bringing down the British empire from striking against those of China. However, she also creates a contrast between the Babel of the Bible and the Babel of the Great Empire of Britain. Finally, she paints Robin, not as Moses, almost rather close to God inflicting plagues upon those of Britain.

As all these come toward the end of the book, it should be observed that Kuang has a habit of inflicting tragedy as a form of hooking the reader. From the beginning of the book, our main character, Robin has already gone through many hardships, although very little of his life before Lovell was reduced to nothing short of a bad memory he prefers to hide from himself. Even his name, his birth name, was something he did not seem to have much reverence for, seeing that he rarely mentioned it to his friends. From my understanding, his personality was extroverted but shy, and level-headed and could walk away when he knew he was close to anger. Careful but painfully addicted to and obsessed with the idea of punishment and being punished. The abuse he faced in Lovell’s home could frankly be blamed for the violence he displayed towards the end. His anger towards his father, himself, and his friends impacted who he chose to become in the face of inevitable death.

“English did not just borrow words from other languages; it was stuffed to the brim with foreign influences, a Frankenstein vernacular. And Robin found it incredible, how this country, whose citizens prided themselves so much on being better than the rest of the world, could not make it through an afternoon tea without borrowed goods.”

Back to the context of Britain, Kuang refers to English being Frankenstein vernacular, imposing that English is a language made of many other languages. Some of these languages include the romance languages– Romanian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian– which originally stem from Vulgar Latin, a language most to all scholars were required to fluent in to work in Babel. She later goes on to establish through the mind of Robin that the Britons were nothing short of hypocritical or rather ignorant to the actions of colonialism. But just as she lets Robin have these opinions of the British, I was equally struck when she wrote further about Robin’s addiction to survival. That was when I tried to put the two together. Robin’s need for indulging in the splendor Babel had offered to him, while understanding that what they were doing was wrong, was almost similar to the British scholars and citizens being aware that they were exploiting resources and knowledge they desperately needed from places they believed were below them. It could also be seen in contrasting tones being that Robin was already self-concious in the way the Britons were greedy and selfish.

“So, you see, translators do not so much deliver a message as the rewrite the original. And herein lies the difficulty - rewriting is still writing, and writing always reflects the authors ideology and biases.”

Here, Kuang brings her story out of a page and into life. She is tackling the understanding that often, pieces of fiction written in foreign languages is more than often given new meaning when translated into another language. This often is impacted by current world issues or bias and the ideologies of the translator. Take the Bible for example, so many editions have been published in English from the original Hebrew; the KJV, NIV, NSIV, and the rather blasphemous Gay Bible (I despise this one personally.) Most people love to argue (some atheists) that the Bible was altered so many times for any of the words in it to be true, and some believe that regardless of what it says, the meaning still stands the same. However, in all the versions I have listed, one doesn’t particularly sit right amongst the rest because it is said to go against some of the principles the other Bibles uphold.

Another example would be the Illiad which I am currently re-reading! I have tackled two different versions of it and somehow one makes more sense than the other, but I feel as though the other is somewhat closer to the original Greek version. Altogether, I mean to say that Kuang has addressed what she may have found to be an issue she may have faced when writing. She states in her Author’s Note that the issue with historical fiction and written history is tht some writers get dates and important things wrong. Imagine how bad that would be when translated fiction was brought into play.

#babel rf kuang #babel an arcane history #babel #babel the necessity of violence #rf kuang #slight essay #entry.txt

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gothhabiba · 2 years ago

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(fountain anon) I guess the best way to say why I dont understand fountain is that I dont understand why people are so angry at it. Because that seems to be the crux of the piece, the negative reaction to it that continues to this day (part of the reason I find it hard to try look into is that it seems like every second result is some rant about how it should never have been made disguised as an actual article). Its like you say that it rubs against their idea of what art is, but I just dont get that. Even is someone dislikes it as a piece I dont understand why someone would say it doesnt get to count as art, which I guess does tie into the AI stuff as well. idk how well I've articulated that but thats one of the main things I dont understand about fountain, where that response seems more important than the art object itself.

Theres smaller things I dont understand which together make a large hole of many smaller questions but I cant list well all of here, like one being if the whole point of the work is that its "readymade" then why do the institutions seem set on preserving that one specific urinal like a holy relic but from your first response it seems like you have thoughts on that yourself.

If what's confusing you is why someone would get so up-in-arms about this, or insist that they get to dictate what counts as "art," then the context that's probably missing is an idea of how powerful the cultural and institutional orthodoxy surrounding "art" was at the beginning of the 20th century.

You could probably analyse that in a few different ways. To me, the crux of the matter is just what I've been pointing out—a capitalist understanding of "value" relies on a concept of "labour hours" and the attendent concept of "exchange value" in a capitalist market—plus, in the U.S., capitalist ideology and Protestant ideology are often entwined with each other insofar as Protestant ideology glorifies work and suffering as essential to moral "worth" or "value."

@auntbutch points out that the matter of who gets to decide what "art" is is a matter of power. In a concrete sense, the (majority of the board of the) Society of Independent Artists had the power to hide the piece during the Grand Central Palace exhibition despite the fact that the artist had paid the requisite fee to have the piece displayed, which constituted a rejection of the idea that the piece could consistute "art."

In a conceptual sense, the idea that there is "art" and there is "non-art"—because it relies on a distinction between the "artistic" and the "everyday"—must therefore rely on an idea of "value" that is conveyed by scarcity (see again: capitalist exchange value). Put another way: if everything is art, nothing is.

In order for art to have "value" (exchange value, moral value, "artistic" value), it must be (in comparison to the numbers of objects in the world) rare; in order for artists to be fundamentally different creatures than the rest of the masses of humanity, they must be rare.

You can ensure that artists remain rare, and that art consumption remains the province of the wealthy, by insisting that the production of "art" requires a good deal of time, and anything which did not require a good deal of time to produce (in addition to time spent learning the skills required to produce it, time spent networking and paying your dues before you are enabled to proceed in the field, &c.) is therefore not "art."

cut for length:

You can also ensure that "art" remains rare by insisting that art must not be useful. The early 20th century is a bit out of period for me, but I know that the concept of "l'art pour l'art" ("art for art's sake") had come into popularity at the end of the 19th century in reaction to a general culture that insisted on the moral value of art and its "purpose" in shaping minds and leading to good, moral habits.*

Where these discourses agreed is that "art" was not held to have physical, quotidian uses: a working-class woman knitting stockings for her family to wear because they could not afford to pay someone else to do it was not an artist, no matter how much time and skill and aesthetic sensibility went into their production; nor were any of the world's Indigenous peoples who were producing e.g. pottery, or ornamenting various other everyday objects.

This is the inherited distinction between "Art" with a capital "A" and a "craft." This keeps women, the working class, and non-Europeans out of "art," because they do not have the time, the distance from the everyday business of the maintenance of life, or supposedly the intellectual capacity to produce "real" art.

So art did not have a physical purpose. Rather, the purpose of art was to "exalt the senses"; to create exquisite sensations in the viewer as a result of the aesthetic skill of the artist. Depending on how overtly moralist a given theorist was, they might say it was to improve upon what had come before and thereby build on our (read: the white races') inheritance of the best impulses and accomplishments of humanity. (Actually Victorian concepts of eugenics had a lot to do with aesthetics—the purpose of art was to advance the (white) race morally, and thus to improve the hereditary material that they passed down when they reproduced.)

Granted, the context in which Duchamp first attempted to display "Fountain" was one in which you had had some heterodoxy of content—cubism, for example, which the Society of Independent Artists did seem to like. But ultimately, though cubism probably angered a lot of people for its loose approach to representation and thus the potential danger it posed to the future of "art" (again, not really my area), it was something that the Society could nevertheless recognise as "art," because it was clearly an object that the artist had spent time creating and that fell into a previously understood medium of "painting" or "sculpture" (not a lot of heterodoxy of form). Despite the fact that the Society's exhibition was supposedly "open," and that they were supposedly an "avant garde" group, it went too far.

The challenge that readymades posed was that they asked people to consider something that was not created but merely chosen and recontextualised by the artist as "art". They affronted the notion that art required time and skill (on the part of the artist) and therefore had a natural inbuilt assurance of scarcity.

But "Fountain" is by far the most famous amongst the series of readymades that Duchamp exhibited, probably because there's something about its being a urinal that is pretty confronting (whether it reads as "gross" or "disrespectful" or what have you). It lacked respect for the effort that "real" artists put in and the art world that circulated and displayed "real" art pieces and the seriousness with which they took their mission to uplift or express or represent humanity or whatever it was that they insisted art must do.

"Fountain" looked at a whole culture of people who deeply felt that they were doing something important to the fate of humanity—and, in some cases, had made careers and money out of creating and stewarding and judging "art" (not just artists but critics and museum directors and curators and the board members of independent societies of artists)—and said "actually, art is a receptable for piss."

You can see this same sort of attitude today very easily by scrolling through a few replies on any of my posts asking people to reconsider their easy equation of "time and effort" to "value" in their evaluation of art. A lot of people (especially people with money on the line) are very affronted by that request, and insist that art's function as something that binds humanity together and creates wonderful feelings in the viewer (sound familiar?) is dependent upon its requiring "effort" to create.

The museums that treat this specific urinal (actually a few approved replicas, the original was lost, my bad) like a holy relic are, in effect, absorbing (neutralising?) the critique that "Fountain" was levieing without 'understanding' it or behaving accordingly. Really, a museum can't 'understand' a critique of this nature or behave accordingly, because the critique cuts at the very concept of what a museum (or an art exhibition, or an art auction, &c. &c.) is for in the first place.

The climate surrounding art (in the circles of the intelligentsia, art students, rich people who want to be 'cultured," various other groups) has changed significantly in the intervening 100+ years since "Fountain" was made, to the extent that "modern art" frequently comes across critiques along the lines of "my kid could have painted that" (from the non-art-educated "public," who don't have the sometimes enormous amount of information needed to contextualise a given piece or movement. So you have a split between different groups' concepts of "art," where for a lot of people today it's still "looks nice and required effort to make," while a lot of the art-educated have moved on).

However, despite the fact that e.g. a readymade may be "easier" and take less time to create, the museums that feature them still rely on scarcity! Because their value proposition is that they collect and curate and display objects of extraordinary artistic or cultural or historical "value." What's inside of them must be different from what's outside of them for them to be worth keeping the lights on and employing staff and paying an entrance fee and accepting government culture grants. It's just that the scarcity may come from different sources (it's a rare artist who has the right connexions to get a piece or an exhibition accepted; it's a rare piece that has caused enough controversy to be historically significant enough to be "worth" displaying).

As far as I'm concerned, museums' accepting "Fountain" into the fold of "real" art by exhibiting it (putting money into storing and moving the original replicas and displaying them, putting the weight of their institutional cachet behind it, &c.) is one of the greatest ironies of the piece. Pinoncelli, who has attacked "Fountain" exhibitions with, on two different occasions, a hammer and his own urine, got much closer to the spirit of it.

*You can probably just about figure what these "moral" habits are: heterosexual marriage, the maintenance of virginity especially in women, adherence to the nuclear family, a sense of emotional "sympathy" for other people as strengthening the body politic, refraining from "indulgence" in drinking and gambling, avoiding miscegenation, &c. &c.

#questions #art tag #fountain

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ardenrabbit · 7 months ago

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Do you have any tips on how to be more confident in what you write? I feel like no matter what or how I write, it could always be better, and I fall into the trap of comparing my writing to others.

I also feel like my lack of confidence is very apparent and worry that it annoys others or makes for a self fulfilling prophecy.

Ahh pls always take my writing advice with a block of salt! 😅 I'm by no means the most well-equipped writer out there, but I'm happy to share what I've learned.

I truly understand this feeling. It fluctuates for me, like, some days I feel like I'm a writing god, and then some days I feel like everything I touch turns to incomprehensible, structureless, stale, and poorly researched gibberish. Unfortunately, my confidence is largely at the mercy of a personality disorder. 😅 BUT! There are some habits and rules that I've set for myself that make it easier!

Your writing could always be better, and that's okay! You will frequently read back on something you wrote a year ago and wish you had written it differently. That's inevitable and normal. Most of the time, that's just a great indicator of progress that you've made in your writing skill. The important part to remember is that there is no perfect way to write, so cut yourself some slack and just write what you enjoy at the time. Yeah, endeavor to do your best and present a product that you're happy with, but don't ever expect it to be flawless. Embrace imperfection and keep going. It's the only way to practice and get better.

Everyone writes differently, and that's good too! It can be hard to see your own writing as good enough after you read the kind of content that makes you think, "That. That's how I want to write." There are works that have me screaming into my hands and wanting to hold myself to a higher standard, but I can't afford to let that paralyze me and keep me from writing to the best of my ability. The best I can do is take a deep breath, come to terms with the tragic fact that I will never have written Boomchick's No Water Is Enough, and take notes on what I liked about their writing and how I can learn from it. Don't do content that you admire the disservice of letting it make you feel bad about yourself. That's not why its author wrote it.

Do not show weakness. I definitely don't always follow my own advice here, but it's just like in art school: don't point out the flaws in your work to your audience, or it will be all they can see. Resist the urge to type out anything self-deprecating in the author's notes. If you start, hit that backspace key. You can trick yourself into thinking you were more confident when posting it, too.

If you feel like your writing doesn't come across as confident within the work itself—why? Are you pulling punches with narrative decisions to avoid confrontation? Are you leaning into patterns that you've already seen written because you're hesitant to branch out? Find out where and why you're doing it and rework it! Take risks! Ride the adrenaline! Be free!!

Periodically reread your own stuff and take note of what you like about it. Don't just nitpick at it; consciously and deliberately point out to yourself the things you think you did well. It doesn't have to be perfect or the best! Also take note of the things you had the most fun with. What lines of dialogue made you happy to write? What event made you happy to see executed? Example: I'm proud of how I handle characterizations and dialogue, and I have the most fun when there are big turns in events!

Along with that, pick a technical weakness you want to work on. Don't beat yourself up about not being the best in that area; instead, keep it in mind and put a little more effort into that when you write. Again, it's okay if it's not perfect. Don't agonize or let it get you stuck, but gently acknowledge that you want to get better at that specific thing. Shoring up your weak spots will make you feel more confident about the work as a whole, and it's reassuring to feel like you're strengthening your skills. Example: I feel like my weakness is scenery/environment, so I stop and try to add a little more detail about that in each scene that needs it (otherwise I will just breeze right over it and only write dialogue lol). It helps me feel like I'm taking control of my weak spots and improves the scene from the bottom up.

Above all, WRITE FOR YOURSELF. You won't make everyone else in the world happy, and you won't write anything you like if you don't write what you want to read. Be selfish when you write and just do what makes you happy! Dance like nobody's watching and all that.

I hope there was something helpful here for you! The best advice I can give is to be patient with yourself, keep practicing, and write what you're excited about. You've got this!! I believe in you!!

#anonymous #my writing #oh look it talks

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slaviclore · 1 year ago

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thanks to everyone who responded to last week's translation challenge (which you can see here, or under the cut below)! All your answers have been really fantastic and useful. 303 people voted, of which 119 are Polish speakers. I tallied up the votes from the Polish speakers (i changed your vote if u expressed regret in the tags after voting), and I summarize under the cut the various takes on this question and add my 2 cents (or possibly more like 2 dollars, as this is a Long Post). Read on to learn some things about the Polish language and Chopin history. :]

context again:

This is the opening sentence of a letter written by Fryderyk Chopin (who I'll refer to as FC for convenience) to his friend and/or boyfriend Tytus Woyciechowski (TW) in 1829. He's 19/20 years old (we're not sure about his DOB), and he's been spending some time with Prince Antoni Radziwiłł and his family at their palace in Antonin (near Poznań). Radziwiłł is a huge music nerd, and Chopin is having a great time over there. The mood of the letter is mostly positive and upbeat, and you can probably expect him to be at his cheekiest.

There are 3 published English translations of this letter, which I included as options in the poll. None of the 3 professional translators are native Polish speakers. They are: EL Voynich (option 1), David Frick (option 2), and Arthur Hedley (option 4). Option 3 is my own take on the translation (I am a native Polish speaker but not a professional translator).

why is this important?

1) it's an interesting grammar problem where the combination of a referred statement (FC is summarizing what TW said), a command, and a reflexive (się) makes it unclear who is to kiss who. Can we figure out what TW's original statement was based on how FC referred to it? Did he say some version of "kiss me", or "kiss yourself", or something else?

2) We have 22 letters from FC to TW, but we don't have any from TW to FC, so it's useful to piece together the way he may have written to him -- especially since we're not sure what their relationship actually was.

3) FC has a habit of teasing TW for not liking to be kissed, which historians have taken a bit too seriously, if you ask me -- this was some inside joke between the two of them. But if this short exchange was part of that joke, it gives us a chance to understand them a little better.

4) Arthur Hedley was a prominent Chopin scholar in the 20th century. His translations are the ones that are usually quoted to this day, and the choices he made in his translations and biographies have had a huge impact on the field. Some were good choices, and some were bad. Today, he's a controversial figure. I don't think he can be dismissed or blindly trusted, but rather critiqued point by point... we can take on one such point here.

The full original sentence from Chopin's November 14 1829 letter:

Ostatni twój list, w którym mi każesz się ucałować, odebrałem w Antoninie u Radziwiłła.

here's some definitions:

Ostatni twój list -- your last letter

w którym -- in which

każesz -- a command word in the second person present tense: you tell/you command

ucałować -- to kiss

mi -- me

się -- a reflexive to indicate the self, non-specific for gender or person (can be me, you, him her, etc)

odebrałem -- I received/I picked up; first person past tense

The main issues of this translation are:

the order of the 3 phrases (separated by 2 commas)

word choice, especially what to call the kiss

word order of the middle phrase, i.e., who is to kiss who

Several of you mentioned that this sentence is weird. Yeah. Sigh. Unfortunately, Chopin is very dead and has made that everyone's problem. No one specified why it's weird, but I guessed that it's the order of "mi" and the reflexive "się" in the middle phrase, so I asked you in a separate poll if another order would be better. 25 people voted on that one, of which just over half were Polish speakers. No one said that the sentence was weird for some other reason, which explains why the available translations could not agree on how to interpret the directionality of the commanded action (who is to kiss who). Voters were also split pretty evenly among those who preferred an alternative word order (especially "...w którym każesz mi się ucałować..."), and those who said that there's nothing wrong with the sentence or that changing it would change the intended meaning even if it does sound better. I therefore propose that we give Chopin the benefit of the doubt and assume that he said what he meant to say, even if it was awkward.

Some poll responders were not concerned about the kiss at all, and focused almost entirely on the order of the phrases in the sentence. They argued that starting the sentence with the "I received" fragment rather than the "Your last letter" fragment shifts the emphasis away from the location (Antonin), which is the main point of the sentence, and that the kiss is only a secondary point. Those who mentioned the kiss agreed that calling it anything but a kiss is not helpful, but the second most popular translation was the only one that replaced this word. Arthur Hedley's preservation of the sentence order, and maybe his dampening of the kiss subject, is likely what earned him second place -- 20 people voted for this translation (option 4), or 16.8% of the Polish-speaking voters.

Arthur Hedley, Selected Correspondence of Fryderyk Chopin (1962), pg 36:

Your last letter, in which you send me your warmest greetings, reached me at Radziwill's place at Antonin.

Kisses are thrown around left and right in Chopin's letters, regardless of who is writing or receiving them (friends, family, any informal context). While "ucałować" is literally "to kiss", Hedley's goal was probably to remove the ambiguity with which a kiss might be interpreted by an English-speaking audience and instead give you (the suspiciously British) "warmest greetings". This is something he did regularly in his translations and has made himself rather unpopular for it. Even if he is basically correct and the fundamental goal of the kiss is just to offer a warm greeting, replacing the word removes your ability to make the following 2 arguments, should you choose to do so:

Though a kiss is indeed a common greeting/sign-off, when FC refers to the **whole letter** as the one where you tell me to kiss you(/myself/send me a kiss), this creates emphasis not generally afforded to greetings and sign-offs. Presumably, TW wrote other stuff in that letter (if he literally only wrote "kiss me" and nothing else, holy shit i'd have fainted) -- but FC has relegated the rest of the letter as less important than the kiss, even if TW himself didn't give that bit a second thought. It's like if Harry wrote you a whole email with a bunch of stuff in it and signed off with "love, Harry", and then you wrote back, "Harry, i got your email where you say you love me". I'm not going to argue whether this is flirting or not, but I hope you see how it might be.

(watermelon sugar is playing as I write this, but u can have any harry u want in this simulation)

FC's emphasis may also be a reference to whatever inside joke these two seem to have that makes him insist (in other letters) that TW doesn't like to be kissed. So FC's intention may be the very troll-like: i got your letter where you tell me to kiss you(/send me a kiss) but i **thought** you don't like kisses?? interesting!!??

🤔🤔🤔

Either way, Hedley robs us of the TW eye-roll we deserve, so I think he blew it on this one, even if similar choices worked well in other contexts.

For me, the main difficulty in the translation was whether TW's original command was "kiss me/give me a kiss" or "kiss yourself/give yourself a kiss", with FC's rephrasing therefore being either "...to kiss you" or "...to kiss myself", respectively. So who gets this imaginary kiss? TW or FC? and which of them is supposed to give it? David Frick takes the most ruthless route to this answer (option 2), and 17 of you agreed with him, or 14.3% of the Polish-speaking voters, giving him 3rd place.

David Frick, Chopin's Polish Letters (2016), pg. 143:

I received your last letter, in which you tell me to give myself a kiss, in Antonin at Radziwiłł's.

Some of you said that this is the most grammatical choice -- while others brought up the very valid point that... why would anyone be told to kiss themselves? and how does one go about doing that?? Maybe Frick imagined TW's original command as something along the lines of: since I'm not there, give yourself a kiss for me.

I think this is a good take, even if FC made it weird and Frick refused to save him from his own grammar. In a stark contrast to Hedley's method, Frick tends to stay close to Chopin's wording and syntax. Though I do find some over-interpretation in Frick's translations and annotations, some of which I think is incorrect, his translations are very good, and I defer to his choices unless I have a good reason not to.

One poll responder brought up the alternative interpretation that actually TW's original statement was hostile. After I read Frick's translation, this did also cross my mind, and I imagined the exchange as something like this:

FC: kiss me

TW: oh ffs, kiss yourself

FC: i got the letter where you tell me to kiss myself

😔😔😔

hilarious. If TW really is as allergic to being kissed as FC insists, this interpretation is a viable option. Unfortunately for my personal amusement, I don't think he's really so allergic to it. Also, if this were the case, I would expect FC to emphasize "himself" with something like 'sam się ucałowac'. Here "sam" is a type of "self" you use to say you're doing it (by) yourself/oneself.

In this scene from Borat 2 (with which I have a conflicted emotional relationship that belongs in a different post, but I did laugh my ass off at this scene) Borat's daughter says, in reference to the monkey that was dead in the crate (in their fake language that mixes Hebrew, Slavic and Near and Middle Eastern languages), something like "sam się zjad" which is probably meant to be a Slavic "he ate himself", when it was clearly she who ate the monkey:

youtube

I think the commenter had something even harsher in mind for the interpretation of TW's letter, though, like where kiss yourself is a euphemism for fuck yourself. I don't know how people told each other to fuck off in 19th century Poland, but now I'm desperate to find out. Dearest Tytus, your last letter, in which you tell me to go fuck myself, I received in Antonin...

oh my lord this is sending me. I suspect this Bieber-esque usage is modern though, but I'm not sure! Either way, the rest of FC's letter is very affectionate so it doesn't seem super likely that he just got told to fuck off, unless he absolutely cannot take even a single hint

Since FC frequently signs off his letters with kiss me/give me a kiss, it's reasonable that TW might do the same. My translation was option 3, which keeps the structure of the sentence and assumes that FC's rewording is meant to say "kiss you/give you a kiss". This was the most popular option, with 68 votes or 57.1% of the Polish-speaking voters.

Me, tumblr, 2023:

Your last letter, in which you tell me to kiss you, I received in Antonin at Radziwiłł's.

I can't tell if Frick's "kiss myself" or my "kiss you" is the more grammatical interpretation -- if u have an answer for this from the depths of Polish grammar, I'd love to see it. But! I think it doesn't really matter! Since this is a personal letter, all we can safely assume is that FC is being rational, not necessarily that he's being fully grammatical.

On my first reading of the letter, I didn't consider Frick's "kiss myself" possibility at all. I just assumed it was "kiss you", and some of you echoed that sentiment. After I read the published translations, I ran the sentence through google translate (the least reliable of all our translators but still useful for comparisons), which agreed with me. As GT is trained on modern content, I was concerned my translation may be a modern artifact... which may also explain why many of you voted for it -- the professional translators may have simply known better.

I wondered if I could find historical precedent for this sentence structure being used to refer to the giver of the command (kiss TW) rather than the one being commanded (kiss FC). I found this in a prayer called "Litania o Milosci Bozej" or "Litany about God's Love". here is a fragment with the relevant grammar in bold:

Boże, któryś mnie sam wprzód umiłował, zmiłuj się nad nami.

Boże, który mi każesz się miłować, zmiłuj się nad nami.

My translation:

God, you who loved me first, have mercy on us.

God, you who commands me to love you, have mercy on us.

I haven't been in a church in a thousand years, so someone who goes to Polish church, pls tell me if I'm getting this wrong. Here, God commands the individual saying the prayer to love Him (not to "love yourself"). The grammar is the same as in FC's sentence. The last word is the specific verb (love for the prayer, kiss for Chopin), 'każesz' is 'you command/tell', 'mi' is 'me', and 'się' is the reflexive:

the prayer: który mi każesz się miłować

-- you who commands me to love you

chopin: w którym mi każesz się ucałować

-- in which you tell me to kiss you

I don't know how old this prayer is or how long it's used this specific wording, but I found a version of it from the early 20th century -- it might be a lot older. While this doesn't tell you what FC meant in his letter, it does offer precedent for the "kiss you" translation and argues that TW having asked for a kiss is, at least, a viable take that's not necessarily modern.

EL Voynich, Chopin's Letters (1931), pg 73:

I received your last letter, in which you send me a kiss, at Antonin, at the Radziwiłłs'.

Though it may not seem like it, Ethel Voynich's translation (option 1) actually comes to the same conclusion as Frick's -- Voynich was first by 80 years, tho, and the first person to translate Chopin's letters into English -- but she got the fewest votes: only 14, which is 11.8% of the Polish-speaking votes. Like Frick, Voynich switched the phrase order, which may have put some of you off. She also packaged her interpretation in a simpler way that may have felt false to poll responders. In her translation, like in Frick's, FC is the recipient of the kiss. It's just that, here, the kiss is sent to him, rather than administered by virtue of his own action, as Frick would have it. The same is true for Hedley, actually, where FC is the recipient of the greetings. Most of you, and I (and the robot), thought it was TW who should be getting the kiss instead.

One poll responder suggested a hybrid option, which agrees with my interpretation of the middle phrase but Hedley's choice to rename the kiss: "Your last letter, in which you tell me to send you greetings, reached me in Antonina".

So what do you think? Was TW's original statement something like "kiss me/give me a kiss", or more like "give yourself a kiss for me", or even "kiss yourself (hostile)"? Or did TW always intend FC to be the passive party in receiving the kiss or greeting? Was this flirting? Was it part of the "TW hates being kissed" inside joke? There's no right answer to these questions, and a consensus doesn't mean the winning answers are true. We will probably never know for sure what TW really wrote... the best we can do is guess.

Some of my takeaways:

it's useful to look at multiple translations to see where translators have disagreed and where the uncertainty lies

if you remove ambiguity in the translation of a Chopin letter (like Hedley did) or complexity (like Voynich), you're in danger of removing nuance, which Chopin stuffs into his writing like it's build-a-bear.

but if you go with the direct meaning (like Frick), you may end up trying to convince the world that Chopin was asked to kiss himself somehow for some reason

and if the only one who agrees with you is a robot, you'll probably have to dig up an ancient prayer to justify your possibly modernized take (like me).

This is the curse in a nutshell.

Thanks for reading! hope you had as much fun with this poll as i did

#translation challenge #polish langblr #languages #polish #chopin #fryderyk chopin #my translations

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acherontiarchivist · 2 years ago

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Omg okay! It’s my first time asking stuff and I’m super nervous and hope I’m not bothering in any way😭

I just love how you write for Gabriel so much. He’s so underrated and I love vim so much! I was wondering if you could write something for him with a chubby s/o who struggles with self love and always looks herself in the mirror, always feeling discouraged at what she sees. It’s a struggle I have everyday and I’m trying my best to get over it💛 can be SFW or NSFW thank you, and sending lots of love!💛

First of all thank you for this ask because ALL OF THIS SAME, second thank you for your patience :')

This took me a while to write but I think it has been a great journey and has made me feel a little bit better myself, so I hope it does the same for you! Sending lots of love back your way! 💜

Also, this turned out to be almost purely NSFW :^)

MINORS DNI! NSFW UNDER THE CUT

Content: body checking, discussion of body image, cunnilingus (receiving), fingering (giving and receiving) let me know if I should tag anything else!

Word count: 1.3k

You have a routine you like to stick to most mornings: make your bed, meditate for 10 minutes, eat a light breakfast while scrolling your social media feed, and so on. Mornings with Gabriel, however, are always a little bit delayed. He keeps you in bed longer, clinging to you under the warm blankets and fussing if he senses you try to get up. You've come to accept the morning cuddles– it's much better than meditation anyway.

Today marks a full week that he's slept with you and stayed over most of the day, so suffice to say he's learned all of your daily habits. He has also taken notice of your habit of taking your measurements and recording them everyday– mostly because he loves to see you naked. The first time he saw you taking your measurements he had plenty of questions, especially since you were reluctant to let him watch and wanted to do it in privacy. Gabriel doesn't understand why you do it in the first place. He gazes at your reflection in the mirror each time, wondering why you always look so disappointed with yourself when all he sees is your glowing beauty. It's nearly impossible for him to wrap his head around it when he finds your body so fascinating.

There can never be enough excuses for him to feel your bare skin, especially your thighs. It was only now, after the second time he has watched you pull the measuring ribbon around your hips that he saw the golden opportunity.

"Let me help you with that," he sinks down onto his knees beside you and gingerly tugs the ribbon from your loose grip as you record your hip measurements. Before you even know it he has lifted your leg onto the side of the bed and snaked his soft hand around your inner thigh with one end of the ribbon. The sudden sensation sent chills up your spine.

"Oh, fuck," your free hand shoots out to brace yourself against the wall.

"Sorry," he can't help but giggle a bit.

"It's ok, I just… wasn't expecting that is all." You try to play it off, but the blush at the sight of him on his knees and cornered between your leg and the wall is too strong to fight back. He knew what he was doing all along and doesn't intend to stop now. However, he does drop his ruse, letting slip the ribbon to the floor as he nibbles his way up your thigh.

"Hey! You didn't tell me the numb–"

"Shhh. It's not important."

"It is to me," you struggle to get out between the pricks and tickles he leaves with his teeth. Though the closer he gets to your core, the more you agree with him.

"What's the point anyway? What are you doing? Is it fun? It can't be more fun than this."

It is so not fair that he can speak so freely without having to stop. You are afforded no time to gather your thoughts through his 'help.' Instead your mind wanders, focuses on his touch, your free hand tangling in his hair. All remaining pretense is thrown out the window when his tongue graces your bud and two fingers ease their way inside of you.

"Does it feel good?"

"God, yes."

His laugh crackles through the speakers of your alarm clock radio, "That's not what I was talking about. We were having a conversation, remember?"

"Fuck you."

"It's not my turn yet." His pace quickens and his other arm reaches around your leg to squeeze your ass.

"You wanna bet?" Your grip tightens around his hair in preparation to pull his head back, earning a rare vocalization to escape his throat. His moan is something special. Steady in your new shift of mood your hand leaves the wall to instead lift his chin and force eye contact. Gabriel's full attention had now shifted from eagerly finger-fucking you to following your every word. Honestly, he didn't think he'd get this far and failed to plan ahead. But he loves it when you take control. It's amusing how quickly he goes from smugly and confidently knocking down your walls to falling into putty in your hands.

"Get on the bed." Just as soon as you release your grip on his hair he climbs over the edge of the bed, not even bothering to stand up first. You follow just behind him, not bothering to let him find his balance, your hands reaching around him to undo the button of his pants and pull down the zipper. He falls forward (backward?) and rests his head on your shoulder; moaning, drooling as your fingers slip beneath his underwear. You have no idea how he manages it without pain, but his hands find their way to your breasts. His arms nearly become trapped between your bodies as you try to pull him closer. "That has got to be uncomfortable," your breath ghosts his ear.

"I don't care. I just love to feel your body," he pulls his arms out and instead squeezes your hips.

You blush at his comment; you know it's only a sweet nothing, but it's exactly what you needed to hear, and coming from him it means the world to you. Your fingers work their circular motions with more care and deliberation from then on, unraveling him in your arms. One arm holds him close while you leave bites and kisses on his neck, all the while gradually picking up your pace and increasing the pressure on his bud. You're so lost in the sound of his moans and whines that you barely notice him writhing underneath your touch. His hips jerk and his legs grow noticeably shaky making you hesitate for a moment, trying not to overstimulate him.

"No, no, no, don't stop, don't stop," His voice fades in and out of the static on the radio and you brace yourself– you know the feedback is going to come through loud when he finally spills over. Once he does, he falls back on the bed to catch his breath. You take the opportunity to straddle him and squeeze his ass.

"Not fair… I initiated, I was supposed to make you cum first."

"You snooze, you lose," you stick your tongue out at him playfully.

"Fuck you," he sticks his tongue out back at you to the best of his ability.

"Hmm. Yeah, I think it is my turn now." You lay down on the bed beside him, "As you were, then." He wastes no time crawling between your legs to finish what he started, though this time he jumps straight into the pace he had been working up before.

"Ahh," you hiss, "you in a hurry or something?"

"This is your punishment for interrupting me," he didn't need a verbal response to know how much that turned you on; he could feel it in the way you contracted around his fingers. You sing for him anyway.

"Oh, fuck, Gabriel," you wrap your legs around his waist and squeeze. His words of encouragement are drowned out by your own moans. You reach blindly to grab the radio and drag it closer, desperate to hear his voice.

"You're so close, I can feel it already. Cum for me. Scream for me. I want you to feel so, so good." Every word pushes you closer to release until his fingers push on that sweet spongy spot in your core. All of your senses momentarily go fuzzy and distant as you recover from the high. Soon you feel Gabriel scoot up to your side. You roll onto your side and pull him close, earning a sigh of contentment.

"Hey," he speaks up, pulling your leg over his body and idly rubbing your thigh, "Next time can you sit on my face?"

"Sure thing," you laugh and kiss his forehead.

#gabriel may #gabriel may x reader #asks #post content #slasher x reader #slasher fucker

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boltlightning · 11 months ago

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Stupid question maybe but how do you find time and energy and excitement to read books?

Don't get me wrong, I like reading as a form of media. And I have a couple of fanfics I'm keeping up with, and even ones I reread. I think it's important for my vocabulary and on seeing the world. Surprisingly, a fanfic I read helped me a lot in understanding and processing complex trauma.

But at the same time, books intimidate me. I bought a book I know I want to read but actually reading it just scares me. Maybe this is the TikTok attention span (although I always just read with music and in bed). Or the fact I know the book is an emotional piece, either way I can't get myself to start.

Or perhaps it's the fact my brain feels overfull with so much that there's no place for new media unless it's in an universe I'm already familiar with, or forced down my throat by proxy/society.

Are you just inherently excited to read about stuff, or do you also have like a moment where you fight yourself to get started to read?

Also please feel free to ramble about more books you think people should read!

this is an EXCELLENT question, and one i don't know that i'm the best person to answer! i'm pretty flighty about reading and have only gotten back into it within the last two years or so, and largely during lockdown. i have a miserable, internet-y attention span as well, and with so much competing for our attention these days, it can be REALLY hard sitting down somewhere quiet with a book and tuning everything out. i definitely relate.

firstly, i think that fic is a great way to get back into reading! they build up your attention span, depending on the fic, and let you understand what kind of stories you like to read for free, even if it's involving characters you already know. reading work by your peers is always, always valuable.

specifically for the book you own that you know you want to read: make a date with the book! like, literally, set a date and time you know you're free, put an alarm in your phone. put the book somewhere you can see it every day. mentally prepare yourself for it as the hour approaches. do this until you find yourself wanting to pick it up on your own, or until you finish the book. making it a chore seems counterintuitive but sometimes it's the only way to get started.

more tips for getting back into reading in general are below the cut. in general i've sorta...bullied myself into remembering i enjoy this activity. that's also come with the realization that being kind to myself and knowing my preferences are key to building the habit up.

my more learned mutuals, if you have anything to add or books to recommend, please do!!

it's ok to only read what you want to read. it's ok to not finish books. you don't NEED to read big-brain nonfiction or archaic classics if you're not interested in them. and if you don't like something, put it down. you don't have to stay in the world if you don't like it!

use the one-third rule: this works for all other media too. if you start to read something and don't immediately jive with it, read until you're 1/3rd of the way through. if nothing's happened to grab you, that usually means that the book isn't for you and you can move on. you gave it a fair shake! you can let go! this often helps me realize i'm in the headspace for a different kind of story, and that's ok!

make it an accomplishment. i have an awful and ugly spreadsheet where i write down what books i've read this year, when i finished them, and what i thought. my favorite part of finishing a book is writing a short stupid review in this spreadsheet. it's only for me, and yet it feels good to check names off a list.

read books with peers. a huge part of why i read jane austen's novels was because i wanted to understand what everyone on tumblr was talking about, and it's been very fun!! as much as i begrudge it, i think this is the appeal of booktok, honestly — it's fun to meme on stories with your friends. you don't necessarily need to join a book club, but it can be really encouraging to read a book your friend recommended and read it so you can talk to/joke with them about it.

find out how you like to read, and when/where you'll actually do it. for instance, i haaaate audio books and refuse to read on my phone. i'll save good/exciting books to read on the exercise bike to reward myself for biking, or make a fancy coffee to accompany a book i'm struggling to start. treat yourself. trick your brain into associating the physical act of reading with the happy brain chemicals.

reread stuff you liked when you were into reading. i own most of my favorite books just for this purpose. there is no shame in rereading! there is no age limit on any book!! if i feel like my writing is suffering i will usually revisit a childhood favorite just to kickstart my brain.

books i would recommend for getting back into reading (these are all fiction and mostly fantasy/sci-fi. sorry. just what i'm into)

the princess bride by william goldman

a wizard of earthsea by ursula k. le guin

howl's moving castle by diana wynne jones

inkheart by cornelia funke

forestborn by elayne audrey becker

fireborne by rosaria munda

treasure island by robert louis stevenson (language is old, but it's a classic for a reason)

spinning silver by naomi novik. i liked uprooted by her too but it's not as universally loved. damn i should reread these

everyone go read temeraire right now please. thanks

a psalm for the wild-built by becky chambers

nettle & bone by t. kingfisher

the blue castle by l.m. montgomery

this is how you lose the time war by amal el-mohtar and max gladstone

books i would recommend if you want something more toothsome

pride and prejudice by jane austen (again, language is old, but what a banger. persuasion is my favorite by her but a lot heavier)

another oldie: north and south by elizabeth gaskell (although it is often described as pride and prejudice but in the industrial era)

piranesi by susanna clarke

the lies of locke lamora by scott lynch (i would've put this in the previous category if i could. this is great fun, but SO dense)

feast of sorrow by crystal king

the left hand of darkness by ursula k. le guin

notes from the burning age by claire north

genuinely: shakespeare. if you liked a play when you were in school you should reread it as an adult, on your own terms, with a glossary pulled up. they take at most 2 hours to read. i prommy.

i hope...any of this is helpful. again, mutuals, please feel free to add recs or tips <3

#hope this is coherent at all x #honestly one reason i don't read more fic is bc i hate reading on my phone but reading on desktop is even worse #but i want to comment. it's a struggle #if you see me downloading your fic as a .epub look away #replies #homelesspersonchic #bolt reads things

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jizelleisintumblermotherfuckers · 2 years ago

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incoming college freshman advice !

Go to class, even if you don't feel like it. This isn't high school anymore where you can drop a class anytime you want.

Don't commit to 8am classes or you'll regret it. It's a waste of time, energy, and you'll have a hard time learning when there are loads of tasks and you have to get up in the morning and run to uni.

Invest in good quality school supplies, even if it costs more than usual. You will spend more buying poor quality things each time it breaks frequently. To find good quality things that you can use for several months or so.

You go to class for attendance and ask questions to your classmates, and go home to study basically everything. Most of the time this is actually what happens. You teach yourself and put all your effort for your own good.

Stay organized and disciplined. Have fun but be serious in studying. Make organized schedules, comply with your tasks right away, ready a syllabus for advanced studying, and have as much sleep as possible. Even if you fail it at times, organizing and discipline will still become a habit.

Connections. Make friends or acquaintances. Networking is very important in college. These are the people who you ask after lectures for other concerns, the people you help and would help you, and the people you study with. Talk to everyone, from your seatmate to your professors, about anything that would help you go on in college. You don't have to be an extrovert, just communicate. However, NEVER JOIN FRATERNITIES, it's useless.

Analyze everyone first before choosing a friend group. If you join a friend circle and they turn out to be 🚩, leave right away or cut them off. They will push you down in college. Join friend groups that don't exhaust or drain you, choose the ones that make your quality of life better. DO NOT TRY TO FIT IN, just be yourself and you'll find your people.

Stand up to bullies. Yes, bullies still exist in college. They, apparently, exist everywhere at any point in life. But unless you want your 4 or more years of college in hell, do not let them disrespect you. If you can fight, fight them to leave you alone. If you can't, find someone who will.

Enjoy your youth. Go to parties, drink, have fun, and all that. But do not be addicted to the point that you prioritize your vices over studying. Sometimes, partying can help you de-stress.

Approach your professors. Ask questions and raise concerns if you have. We have professors that only showed up to class when we approached them, despite not being present for several weeks already. Seek advice if you also need it, but understand that they, too, are busy so weigh their schedules too.

Join organizations, and clubs, and be a student leader if you have the time for it. It's beneficial for your experience as you'll need it for the industry. Plus, you'll meet other seniors that would give you advice and maybe even help you in your subjects.

If you don't have to work, don't. Enjoy your college years and you'll find yourself more focused on it. You can improve much faster.

Be serious on day one and it'll be smooth sailing from there. Do not tell yourself "I will just do great next sem/year/term" repeatedly, start doing great the first day you enter there but do not overdo it. Freshman year will AFFECT your whole college GPA/GWA so take it seriously. Ace your freshman and sophomore year so you'll have a strong foundation for when you take harder classes that will kick your ass later.

Do not tolerate your classmates, profs, or anyone's bad behaviors. They will do it until the end of time if they're not stopped now.

Save money. You'll need it. You will have college classmates who spend a lot because they have a lot of money or are just undisciplined, big spenders. Stay away from them. Have fun but be wary of your money. You don't wanna go broke.

Assess your degree during your freshman year. If you don't like it, save yourself by dropping or shifting majors. It'll be harder to stop when you decided you don't like what you're doing in your senior years.

Before deciding anything from then on, think about it carefully. Always ask yourself if you're sure multiple times. Calmness and wise decision makings are necessary for college. Impulsiveness will lead you nowhere.

Study and think of your possible future career(s) and salaries since day 1 of your freshman year. As you progress, it may change. But it's great to think about your future the moment you enter college.

Get free scholarships when you need them. College will need a lot of financial assistance.

Drop a class when you are loaded already. There are classes that won't be that necessary for your major. If you're not sure, go ask your school counselors for advice.

Find support. From your college friends, your old friends, your professors, family, organizations, pets, and people who you can trust that will help and support your progress. College is a draining point of life for students, that's why help (and asking for it) is necessary.

#idk who needs it but here we go #college #university #student #student life #degree #gwa #gpa #freshman #freshmen #uni #advice #college advice #tips #college tips #bullies #bullying #college bullies #will add more if i think of more

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liberxi · 5 months ago

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Since someone on AO3 asked for writing advice for beginners, I thought I’d note down some things I find useful for my own writing here, in case someone else might find them helpful, too. I always feel a bit pretentious offering advice like I actually know what I’m doing, and this list is by no means complete and it obviously doesn’t apply to every kind of story equally. But if you want to check it out, you find another completely sane post of normal length underneath the cut.

First some general stuff, that I cannot emphasis enough:

Write

This sounds stupid, but as with every other skill, you will get better with practice. Just do it. Don’t give up. Don’t save that idea. You can always go back and fix it later. Or come up with an even better idea for your next project. Truth it, your style will always keep evolving. I look back on some of my works and manage to feel quite pleased, but with other stories I feel like I would have written them very differently even just six months later. You’ll figure out what works for you once you actually do it.

Finish

Make sure to finish stuff, especially if you are just starting out. You don’t have to finish every idea you ever start, but if you never finish anything, you will only get frustrated. Set yourself attainable goals. Don’t start with the amazing novel idea you have, but try to get into a habit of writing with shorter pieces. I promise, finishing stuff feels good and it will motivate you to keep going.

Read

Honestly, the most important thing for any writer is reading in my opinion. You’ll learn so much just by observing other people do it, especially if they do it well. (Don’t be scared to pick up that literary fiction novel, it will be worth it!) Try to read consciously. Think about what works for you and what doesn’t, and why that is the case. Other media with narrative structure works as well. Try to figure out why the emotional arc in your favourite TV show hits so hard! Also, read other people’s opinions. Some people out there have shockingly smart takes, and even if you disagree with someone, it might help to figure out why you disagree with them. Just observe what other people are doing and how they are doing it.

Basics

Writing is a creative activity, but it still has technical rules that you can learn to follow. Just basic stuff like sticking to your chosen perspective or keeping the right tense is grunt work that everyone is able to get right if they pay attention to it. The good news is that this stuff becomes easier if you just keep reading and writing, and it will become an automatism soon enough. (Of course you can also break those rules or bend them, but you should understand them first to do it consciously!)

Have fun

I know some people will tell you to build a habit out of writing and if you can, that’s great! But from experience, I also know that it will just suck the joy out of it if you try to force your way through a creative block. If you feel like you’re running dry, take a step back and look for inspiration. Check out new places or new art, and maybe step out of your comfort zone. Usually, feeling stuck is the perfect time to listen to that band your friend recommended to you months ago, but that you still didn’t check out, because you hate new things. Or watch that TV show that was popular five years ago, which looked good but where the hype around it turned you off. Write what is fun to you and when it’s fun to you. If it becomes a chore, you will just want to give up on it altogether.

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But let’s say you know all of that already and actually want to get started, but you’re struggling to figure out your plot:

Know where you are going

This advice does definitely not apply to everyone, but it does help me. I remember that when I was a child, my parents took me to a reading by Eoin Colfer, whose books I really liked in elementary school. And he gave this advice to aspiring writers – you don’t have to know how to get there in detail yet, but you should know how your story ends. And years later, when I picked up writing myself, I stuck to that and it works for me quite well. If you know how you want your story to end, it will become a lot easier to determine which plot beats will be necessary to get you there.

Let your character grow

Your character should undergo some kind of internal change throughout the story. That is highly linked to the character’s motivation. I always think of Kurt Vonnegut’s quote: “Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.” Every character should have a goal motivating their actions throughout the story and it doesn’t have to be a big one either. Ideally, their internal progress should be linked to that goal. That doesn’t mean it has to be solved by the end of your story. For example, your character could hate their job, making it their main goal to get out of it. They could now experience something to become aware of that desire or something that changes their mind about it. The story could end with them dramatically quitting their job. It could also just end with them opening a new tap in their browser to finally look for alternative job offers. It could also end on a depressing note where they come to terms with the fact that they need to keep their job, because a large bill arrives. In that case, their change of mind would be one towards resignation, but their stance on the situation would still have changed. Or they could realise that their job isn’t the problem, but their private life is and they finally gather the courage to call back their date from last week, in that case the change would be in their goals themselves. Especially if you are writing romance, it can be helpful to give your character a motivation outside of the relationship to make them feel more fleshed out. If you take the time to figure out what your character wants and what kind of development you want them to undergo, it will become much easier to decide where the plot is supposed to go.

Base your conflict on your character’s personality

Aristoteles already said that consequences hit much harder for the audience, if the character has brought them upon themself. In other words, the conflict should not be something that’s out of the character’s hands; instead, it should feel avoidable. So for example, don’t interrupt the love confession by another person entering the scene. You can do that, but it’s lazy and will not feel as satisfying. Instead, avoid the confession, because your character is deeply insecure, is scared of rejection due to past experiences, etc. That way, it will feel more satisfying when the situation is finally resolved and it can be a direct result of the character changing internally as explained above. That means, you should figure out what your character wants, but also what their weaknesses are or what might trigger them. If you figure that out first, it will be easier to decide what the conflict of your story should be, aka what the actual premise is.

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Now you’ve figured out what’s supposed happen in your story and you finally get to writing. Some things that are useful to keep in mind:

Be aware of everyone’s motivations

This sounds very much like the point above, but I was mainly referring to your protagonist there. You should also be aware of what your other characters (at least the main ones) want and what they are feeling during the scenes, so you will be able to write their actions believably. Even if your protagonist hasn’t figured them out (yet), your readers should be able to understand them, and in order to achieve that, you need to know what they are supposed to understand. If you are not practiced at that yet, it might be helpful to write scenes or parts of scenes from another perspective first, so you are able to explicitly write down thoughts and emotions. Even if it doesn’t end up being part of the story, it can be good practice to figure out your character and it will help with describing them from the outside, too. So, whenever you write, be aware of all the characters’ internal workings, even if you don��t get to name them explicitly. It will make them more believable and your story more consistent.

Visualise the scene

Try to have a mental image of the scene you are writing. It doesn’t mean you have to visualise every detail of the setting. But I’m always thinking about this anecdote I heard about Vladimir Nabokov, who once mentioned that in one of his early short stories, a character tosses a match (or maybe a cigarette?) into an empty glass. But several pages later, the characters refill their glasses and drink from them. Apparently, this kind of mistake didn’t happen to him in later years as he became more practiced at visualising a scene. Because if you visualise it, you will remember that there’s something in that glass and won’t let your character drink from it. I do think this is something that does become easier with practice, and that is the reason why actually writing is such an essential part of improving. If you can picture the scene, it will be more coherent. If you are aware of the character’s surroundings - for example the clothes you described, how you described their surroundings, or that you gave them a hot coffee mug to hold - it will become easier to know what the characters would be seeing, smelling, hearing, etc. at the moment. That allows you to put in descriptions that will make the scene more vivid. They are holding a hot mug? It will become uncomfortable against their palm eventually and they will need to switch hands. They are sitting at a café close to a train station? Noise from the trains might interrupt their conversation. It doesn’t just help with authenticity, but also ensures that your writing won’t sound like a simple list of actions. It also helps with pacing your story, if you can adjust it through giving descriptions, or leaving them out if you need to create a sense of urgency. If you can see it in your mind’s eye, you can write it!

Show, don’t tell

This one is very basic and you’ve definitely heard this advice before, but it’s still worth mentioning. Don’t just mention that your character is nervous. Let them scratch their face. Let them get sweaty palms. Don’t tell me someone is playful and annoying, include a scene where they prank someone, etc. It sounds simple, but I for one do struggle with spelling out things too explicitly, because I’m worried the readers might not understand it otherwise. If you catch yourself just stating things about characters though, it might be worth taking a step back to ask yourself – what would an example of that kind of quality or behaviour be? And then actually write that into your story.

+++

And remember: developing your writing skill and personal style is a progress that’s never over. You’re always allowed to change and grow and that is beautiful! Don’t pressure yourself with expectations, just get started, allow yourself to be silly with it and – HAVE FUN!

#writing advice #if you can think of anything else feel free to add it #or to ask if for some reason I am the person whose opinion you want to hear on writing

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shirleywirleyyy · 1 year ago

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When Saturn is retrograde in Pisces at 7 degrees, its influence can be felt like the 8th house energy because libra is the 8th sign away from Pisces purge. The first sign of hardwork in spiritual medical creative fields we are walking into a new reality. Advice during rx balance ur opposite house when rx.

- Aries: Saturn retrograde in Pisces may bring a need for introspection and reflection on your spiritual beliefs and sense of purpose. It could be a time to reevaluate your long-term goals and aspirations. U could spend time isolated sleeping more having lots of free time some of u learning more spiritual things now u can get consistent with rx Neptune can go on trips. Buckle down on ur creative spiritual pursuit. If health issues come handle them promptly new approaches at work. Check on ur pets change ur routine

- Taurus: This retrograde period may prompt you to reassess your ambitions and career path. It can be a time to focus on restructuring your professional life and finding a better balance between your public and personal spheres. Seeing the world on a new perspective don’t get into competive tiff or arguments with friends or lovers it can take ur shine. Some of u are just focused on ur projects the hard work is done now. Focus on ur children having fun the opposite house.

- Gemini: Saturn retrograde in Pisces might urge you to reevaluate your belief systems, broaden your horizons, and deepen your understanding of the world. It could be a period of spiritual growth and exploration. Feeling overwhelmed tired of all the pressure the work even urself balance of u need space ask for it. You exhausted yourself, just stay home focus on ur family more and ur feelings.

- Cancer: During this retrograde, you may experience a need to reassess your financial situation and approach to shared resources. It can be a time for reviewing investments, debts, and shared responsibilities. You can also gather information of what route im ur purpose u wanna take. Stressful situation with education father figures mentors legal focus on ur mind ur communication the information u are giving out.

- Leo: Saturn retrograde in Pisces may prompt you to reevaluate your close relationships and partnerships. It could be a period of reflection on commitment, boundaries, and the overall balance in your relationships. Focus on ur money ur family building urself up by organizing life, ur self worth thinking more about what u need.

- Virgo: This retrograde period might bring a focus on your daily routines, work habits, and overall well-being. It can be a time to evaluate and make necessary adjustments to improve your health and productivity. Major focus on ur relationship might b time u put into a little more efforts having important conversations conflict resolution getting advice or listen to everyone at the same being discipline on ur constant identity building

- Libra: Saturn retrograde in Pisces may encourage you to reflect on matters of creativity, self-expression, and romance. It could be a period of reevaluating your creative projects, hobbies, and the way you connect with others on a heartfelt level. Yu been consistently getting on top of ur bills problems challenges from others rx might get u scrambled take time off focus on ur creative cut off expenses

- Scorpio: During this retrograde, you may experience a need to reassess your home life, family dynamics, and emotional foundations. It could be a time for addressing and resolving any unresolved issues within your domestic sphere. Lately the children ur love life having fun learning new things have been taken most of ur time do the opposite get outside reach out to ur friends working on ur desires rather then someone else’s is fine.

- Sagittarius: Saturn retrograde in Pisces might prompt you to reevaluate your communication style, thought patterns, and intellectual pursuits. It can be a period of reflection on how you express yourself and the beliefs that shape your worldview. It might be time you focus on ur plan ur goal trying to gather the pieces at home is not the time rx do the opposite

- Capricorn: This retrograde period may bring a focus on your financial stability, values, and self-worth. It could be a time for reassessing your material goals, budgeting, and making necessary adjustments to improve your financial situation. It might be time u work on learning or taking that course talking to a mentor focus on ur purpose.

- Aquarius: Saturn retrograde in Pisces may encourage you to reflect on your self-image, personal identity, and overall sense of purpose. It could be a period of self-discovery and introspection. Budget cuts/time detox from what is wasting ur time Other people in ur family may be able to help u maybe researching u can find the answers u need to start ur own family savings it’s ur level up but it’s the hard work.

- Pisces: During this retrograde, you may experience a need to reassess your personal goals, identity, and relationship with yourself. It can be a time for self-reflection, spiritual growth, and cultivating a stronger sense of self. You are creating a new identity on actuality but see wat energy you are projecting it’s what u are attracting. Focus on ur partners people u have around u.

#astrology #transit #Saturn

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