#trilingual struggles in real life

[lecilly]

worst day of my life, I've been told i talk like I'm always on social media and i don't go out (basically calling me chronically online) by an english native speaker when the only reason i talk this way is because english is the third language I've learnt and i learnt it strictly through reading weird wattpad as a teen and going through twitter as an adult 😭 how else am i supposed to talk??? like how do normal people talk???

i wish monolinguals would do us all a favor and stop commenting on people's languages skills when they have none!!!! anyways moving on now ✨

[chronic-escapixt]

His Rose ~ Details

(Kai Parker x Bennett OC fanfiction)

content warnings/tags ~ Dark fiction, dom/sub dynamics, abuse, murder, childhood trauma (mentioned). Minors DNI

I don't claim ownership of The Vampire Diaries or its characters. All credits go to the rightful owner(s). I only own my original character(s).

K.P. Masterlist

This fanfiction is born from my dissatisfaction with the way Kai was criminally underutilized in the TVDU. Honestly, I found him annoying at first, but he grew on me as season 6 went on. Thru Chris Wood's charming performance, Kai stole the show for me. I'll never forgive the showrunners for a lot of things, including underutilizing Chris Wood in this role & not allowing this broken king to have a real redemption arc.

On the topic of the showrunners, I'll never forgive them for how they did Bonnie Bennett or the Bennetts in general with how they were limited to magical plot devices for everyone else's use without any appreciative focus on their power & how it could really benefit them. Even though I love Bonnie & Kai, my otp endgame for her has always been Bonenzo, but I also adore Klonnie ❤️.

My AU changed and added plenty of lore around his coven & certain events. The plot follows the life of Bonnie's younger sister, Rosalina "Rose" Bennett-Ruiz. I go on to describe her below, but I'd like to state that she acts as Kai's antithesis as an innocent, fledgling witch. She's also Bonnie's support system. I always hated how the show often ignored that Bonnie lacked family around her that were unconditionally there for her. Bonnie's mom left when she was small, she lost her grams in season 1, and her father was a non-factor in her life until he returned... just to get killed off in front of her.

I wrote Rose & Bonnie's dynamic keeping in mind everything I hate about older sibling/younger sibling dynamics, like the one between Buffy and Dawn in BTVS. Bonnie deserves family that consistently supports her, encourages her to prioritize her well-being, and actually tries to lessen the existing load on her shoulders.

Another thing I kept in mind when adding Rose to my TVD AU is not to have her replace or take away Bonnie’s space in the plot. Now, I do give her Bonnie's plotline of being sent to the prison world in season 6, but this is essential to the story, and the way Bonnie was treated that season made me so sad that I have no problem taking traumatic experiences from her (of which she has more than enough) and giving them to Rose.

Okay... if you made it through my rant, congrats. I also want to offer my inbox as a place where anyone can offer up requests, scenarios, ask questions, even if you want to roast my cruddy writing... my inbox is open.

🌹Rosalina "Rose" Bennett-Ruiz:🌹

Born: March 18th, 1994 (18yrs)

Gender: Female | Height: 5’1” | Hair color: Brown | Eye color: Hazel

Race/ethnicity: Black and Latino/Hispanic

Species: witch (Bennett)

Titles: Rosy (Kai), littlest witch (by Kol), kid (by Damon)

Characteristics:

Rose is a gentle and kind-hearted person, always looking for the good in people and situations. She can be a people pleaser and overall naive when dealing with people, often seeing the best in everyone and believing in second chances

She highly values family, so bonding with Bonnie means a lot her. Due to her naivety and weakness, she can be easily manipulated and taken advantage of. Like Bonnie she’s compassionate and tends to selflessly help others. Struggles with powerful spells due to her insecurity in her magical abilities

She enjoys singing, gardening (honing her nature-based magic, making potions & studying herbology), sewing and cooking (she bakes when she’s anxious)

She has a strong aversion to blood & violence so spending time with vampires took a lot of getting used to

Trilingual: fluent in Spanish & Portuguese

Despite her demure demeanor and virginal innocence, with her stuffed animal collection, enduring love of cartoons and a lack of dating, she’s a hopeless romantic that harbors the hidden desire to submit herself to a powerful dominant

Background:

Family: Bonnie Bennett (half-sister), Jamie Ruiz (half-brother), Abby Bennett-Ruiz (mother), Matteo Ruiz (father 🕊️), Sheila Bennett (maternal gm🕊️)

Rose was raised in Summersville, North Carolina. She was a child model until 13 when her father tragically died. She was the captain of her high school majorette dance team. Her life drastically changed when Bonnie arrived on her doorstep.

Rose was 16 when she & Bonnie would finally meet. Bonnie and Elena came to Abby for help with a spell. Rose was shocked to find that she had an older sister as Abby never mentioned Bonnie or the life she left behind in Mystic Falls. She was even more surprised upon finding out about her magical bloodline and that supernatural creatures walked the earth. Unlike Grams, Abby never mentioned magic throughout Rose’s life and even went as far to suppress her magic with a binding spell

After Abby is turned by Damon, she decides to leave her family to learn control and find peace as a fledgling vampire. Rose moves to Mystic Falls with Bonnie where she learns magic from her.

Magic doesn’t come naturally to her. Admittedly having a 50% accuracy rate with her spells. She struggles with her confidence & focus when chanting and spells drain her much quicker even when she tries channeling the energy around her. Despite this, Rose is determined to improve, valuing her one-on-one time with Bonnie and spending late nights on her own practicing & memorizing spells. She is determined to use her magic for good, prove herself and lessen the load on Bonnie as the resident Bennett witch of the group.

Her role in the Mystic Falls gang is the “Bennett witch in training” or “the bringer of baked goods” (according to Damon), since she often supplies their gatherings with fresh pastries. Everyone underestimates her power, even Bonnie. She tries to keep Rose out of danger unless she can’t help it.

🔪Malachai "Kai" Parker:🔪

Born: May 9, 1972 (22yrs)

Gender: Male | Height: 6'0" | Hair color: Dark Brown | Eye color: Blue-gray

Race/ethnicity: white/non-Hispanic

Species: siphoner (Gemini Witch coven)

Titles: abomination, black sheep, the defective twin (his coven)

Characteristics:

Charismatic with a charming smile. Upon meeting him, his charisma operates as a façade to hide his lack of empathy and his sadistic tendencies

Can be hard to read but that’s because he struggles with expressing his emotions which stems from his abusive childhood. He’s cold and relatively unfeeling with people, but once he lets someone in, he’s fiercely loyal and protective.

He can be observant, calculating and manipulative to taking advantage of someone and get what he wants

He’s a sassy man, often comes back with quick quips and has a natural sense of humor (typically dark humor)

When he’s comfortable, he never shuts up, has no filter and sucks with certain social cues. After being alone for nearly his whole life, will talk anyone's ear off without realizing they are not willing to listen

Kai can siphon all of a witch’s magic without killing them. He controls how the process feels - at its worst, a fast searing burn to a slight tingle. Overtime, a witch will regenerate their magic

High libido!!- He’s starved for touch and affection (though he would never admit that he needs anyone). Sexual desires reflect his sadistic personality as he enjoys dominating another person through absolute control and pain infliction

He likes raunchy comedies and media with half-naked women such as Bay Watch and MTV videos. A major foodie with constant cravings for sweet and salty snacks. He prefers snacking throughout the day but when he does bother to cook, it’s really good

He is fluent in old Latin, often found in grimoires and other ancient texts. When he was young he’d get his hands on old grimoires and study them, all the time to himself allowing him to hone his knowledge of witchcraft and technique

Background:

The Parker family is the head of the Gemini coven. Its patriarch, Joshua Parker is the coven leader. Kai is the eldest child, being half an hour older than his fraternal twin, Josette. Unlike Jo, Kai was born without the ability to generate his own magic, instead siphoning magic from lingering spells, objects, or other witches. When he was young, he would naturally gravitate toward the magic of his sister, so Joshua quickly decided to physically isolate Kai from everyone for fear of his son's "defect" hurting others.

As fraternal twins born of the coven leader, Jo and Kai would be set to merge on their 22nd birthday, where the winner takes the other's magic and coven leadership and the loser dies and is absorbed into the other but with the risk of Kai's siphoning ability giving him an edge in the merge, Joshua and Viviane continued having kids until she birthed another set of twins that would merge instead.

Kai's upbringing was lonely, spending most of his time locked in his bedroom up in the attic. Following his father's lead, most of his family excluded and demonized him. As he grew, Kai learned to internalize the cruel labels they gave him. If they wanted a monster, they would get a monster and on his 22nd birthday, May 9th, 1994, he would finally act on his boiling rage and resentment toward his family, unleashing the hatred he accumulated through a lifetime of torment onto his siblings when Jo refused the merge. To protect the twins, she would relent to merge with him but the coven was waiting and with the help of Sheila Bennett they banished him to a prison world of complete isolation.

Each year that passed only added to his hunger for revenge, left with nothing to do but plan his escape and seizer of coven leadership. He grew to take pride in what he had done to his siblings and his status as a sociopath capable of killing anyone who gets in his way without remorse.

AU-Specific Lore:

Prison world Lore:

Prison worlds are created by Bennett blood sacrifice, meaning a Bennett must be bled to death so the gemini coven can channel her blood magic.

A prison world resets with the eclipse every 3 months.

Time works differently, so no one ages throughout their time there.

A prison world cannot create life so the only living inhabitants are those sent there or arrive via ascendant.

Kai is linked to his prison world so he can’t die. If something kills him, he’ll be out for a while depending on the damage but the magic will heal him back to life. Without Kai, the prison world falls apart so while he’s there, it sustains his life to sustain itself. Once he leaves, it ceases to exist.

The Ascendant - an ancient device created by the Gemini coven and a Bennett ancestor that only responds to a living Bennett’s blood magic. The ascendant is sensitive to magic in general, so even when the spell is done right, it will activate then fall apart. You only have one chance at the time of the eclipse to correctly do the spell, which Kai knows from experience because early on he tried collecting a vial of Bennett blood that he hunted down in a hospital and using Josette's magic he siphoned from a hidden dagger. Disappointment boiled over into rage when he did the spell beneath the eclipse, the ascendant disassembled, but he was not transported out.

The Gemini Coven Lair:

Exists as a interdimensional where the coven keeps ancient texts, grimoires, enchanted items (talismans, gems, ascendants, etc.), and materials for spells & potions

Infinite space that can be utilized by the coven leader: often includes a space for magic instruction, a library, spell casting, a gathering area for the coven, etc.

Accessed only by portal, which is summoned by a spell entrusted to high-ranking Gemini members

[system-of-a-feather]

Anyways, I think a great and important yet difficult thing to learn when healing and recovering from trauma is to learn to both see and appreciate but also engage in just how wide and vast life can be.

At least in my experience its been had putting down the swords and tools that I clung to in order to survive trauma and clung to in order to survive recovery. It felt very empty, very boring, very unmotivated, very pointless, very depressing. What could be more motivating, more engaging, more exciting (even if frightening), more purposeful and clear of a reason to do things than "its life and death and you have to"? How could ANYTHING in a safe environment match that engagement and pressure and intensity?

And really? Not many things can, but that in itself needs to become the charm of it. The charm of not HAVING to do anything but doing it cause its neat and seems fun. And being able to do THAT is hard because it isn't easy to just see things that are neat and fun let alone identify and feel that they are neat and fun when the only real motivations you are used to are survival

But over time? Things become neat and fun. Things become nice and enjoyable. Then doing things become neat and fun and nice and enjoyable. Then some things, you might just wanna do cause theyre nice.

And thats a thing I started to realize while thinking about things this morning. I always have been a rapid learner, a jack of all trades that sought out things to build a resume, get a better skill set for survival, obtaining power and security that (over the past few years, not so much in the past) didn't sacrifice my values and what not - but it was all largely for this sense of security and survival.

I think a year ago I would struggle to believe that honestly these days I am learning languages and all originally just because... I like to. I like learning patterns and memorizing things and its just something I GENUINELY enjoy because its neat and fun. Its neat being able to know secret languages. Its neat trying to learn patterns and rules to things like grammar and structure. Its neat. Sure being bilingual, trilingual etc would be great resume shit and all, but my career path isnt one that regularly and long term benefits that much from having multiple languages. It's hardly the most efficient and necessary skill to built but like, who gives a fuck honestly.

Me gutsa aprender patrones y recordar las palabras. Tanoshi to kakkoi desu. Boku wa sukoshi dake nihongo o hanashimasu. Pueden leer y escribir en Japones, pero soy perezosa para encontrar los japones caracetres.

Anyways that's probably gibberish to anyone who is actually fluent in japanese and spanish but shits fun to try to put together. Its a fun puzzle and its something nice to learn just cause why not.

[fictionfromafar]

Deadly Autumn Harvest

By Tony Mott

Translated by Marina Sofia

Corylus Books

This is the long awaited English debut by Romanian crime fiction author Tony Mott. Set in her home city of Brașov is a city in the Transylvania region, ringed by the Carpathian mountains. I believe this may actually be the second book in a series featuring forensic pathologist Gigi Alexis, yet was presumably chosen as her English language debut as it was seen as a good introduction by the publisher, Corylus Books.

Accessible it certainly is. After a heart stopping and short opening sequence, the novel quickly introduces Alexis. Having just returned from holiday it takes no time to begin to discover elements of her personal life, her work environment and her dark sence of humour. Having established the basics, our new protagonist is quickly called to a crime scene where ominously the investigating officer warns Alexis that the murder victim shares a strong resemblance to her. This crime is perplexing as there is no obvious motive and due to the unique placing of the corpse. It isn't long before it becomes clear to the reader that this is a police division under the pressure of a new chief and secondly that the views and opinions of a female civilian are judged secondary to those of male police officers

As further events including subsequent mystifying murders unfold it appears that Brașov could be facing the almost unique predicament of having a serial killer at large where Alexa will require to channel all her wits and experience, as well as her powers of persuasion in order to attempt to make these crimes stop and find the perpetrator.

Readers will find that Deadly Autumn Harvest is an absorbing introduction to Romanian crime fiction, although it also complements well previous novels already available to English language readers from the same publisher. It offers a fascinating insight into murder investigations in the former communist country and also is a very revealing introduction to Brașov and it's surrounding area which will appeal to many existing readers of crime fiction. I strongly recommend it and look forward to reading more novels by Tony Mott in the future.

Deadly Autumn Harvest

A series of bizarre murders rocks the beautiful Carpathian town of Braşov. At first there’s nothing obvious that links what look like random killings.

With the police still smarting from the scandal of having failed to act in a previous case of a serial kidnapper and killer, they bring in forensic pathologist Gigi Alexa to figure out if several murderers are at work – or if they have another serial killer on their hands.

Ambitious, tough, and not one to suffer fools gladly, Gigi fights to be taken seriously in a society that maintains old-fashioned attitudes to the roles of women.

She and the police team struggle to establish a pattern, especially when resources are diverted to investigating a possible terrorist plot. With the clock ticking, Gigi stumbles across what looks to be a far-fetched theory – just as she realises that she could be on the murderer’s to-kill list.

Author bio:

Tony Mott was born and bred in Braşov, which often forms the backdrop for her novels. She has worked internationally as a coach and HR professional, but her real passion remains writing. In 2022 she received the Romanian Mystery&Thriller Award. Deadly Autumn Harvest is the first novel in the Gigi Alexa series to be translated into English.

Translator bio:

Marina Sofia is a translator, reviewer, writer and blogger, as well as a third culture kid who grew up trilingual in Romanian, German and English. Her previous translations for Corylus Books are Sword by Bogdan Teodorescu and Resilience by Bogdan Hrib. She has spent most of her winters in Braşov skiing, so is delighted to translate a book set in her favourite Romanian town.

ISBN 978-1-7392989-1-3

£9.99

Many thanks to Corylus Books for an advance copy of Deadly Autumn Harvest and to Ewa Sherman for inclusion on the blog tour. Please check out the other reviews of this book on the blog tour as shown below.

[nagasakidivision]

35 Facts Meme: Shirou Sonozaki

Let's do this for Shirou now! I uh, am trying to usually go in the leader/2gumi/3gumi order but Damien has so many spoilers (until I work my way through the drama tracks) that I need to dance around. I am still trying to figure out how to handle it. Below the cut blah blah

He's the youngest of four siblings!

There's a fairly large age gap between them, his oldest sister is ten years older than him.

The middle siblings are fraternal twins who are six years older than him.

So when I say he's the baby of the family...he's REALLY the baby of the family.

He was super spoiled because of this but he didn't turn out to be a nightmare child in spite of it.

He's in an older brother role to the other two members, which is a little new to him. This is partially due to him being the only responsible one.

He's half-Filipino on his mother's side!

He's from a trilingual household, and speaks Japanese, Tagalog, and English fluently.

Well...more or less. His reading fluency isn't as good as it could be in Japanese and he still struggles with some complex kanji just due to lack of exposure because...

He was not born in Japan but had dual citizenship.

He grew up (for the first thirteen years of his life) in western North Carolina.

He does, of course, need to have an opinion on barbecue since barbecue is serious business in North Carolina. However, he is a traitor to his geographic region who thinks Eastern style Carolina Barbecue is better. (He's right, but still a traitor given where he's from.)

He's Catholic...more or less. More on the Catholic Worker weird leftist end of things.

Him and his mom are the only members of the family who are actively religious.

He's generally closer to his mom than his dad, though his family is very tight-knit.

He's the black sheep of the family in the sense that he's the only one who didn't pursue a vocation in the arts. He just never had a talent for it...bar rap battles, of course.

(They still love him though, but it did make him try to pursue some kind of artistic expression for a while before falling into his current job.)

He's the only one of the team who has any real level of experience with Hypnosis Mics!

His sleep schedule is horrendous. He regularly only gets three hours of sleep a night.

Fortunately he is an expert of catching a few cat naps per day. Not that it helps much.

Powered by black sludge coffee and overbrewed tea, yes he is. Haruto, who is a food/drink snob, is appalled by the way he treats tea leaves/coffee beans.

Because he had to do chores and the like a lot, he's surprisingly a good cook! Top tier malewife...

He does not use profanity. Ever. Under any circumstances.

He has a remarkable skill in making phrases like "I beg your pardon" sound like "go fuck yourself" tonally, however.

While he's never outright rude, he also has a talent for being incredibly passive-aggressive.

Oh boy, he is extremely bad about holding grudges forever too.

He is quite nearsighted. 20/90 vision.

His favorite animal is vultures.

He does not have any pets because he's barely ever at home and his schedule is a nightmare since he's functionally on call 24/7.

Well, sort of: the three of them kind of co-own Lucia depending on who Damien is crashing with at the time.

During the inevitable drinking nights that happen, his usual drink order is a whiskey sour! He will watch you to make sure you use an actual lemon and not sour mix and that you add in the egg white.

Probably the most considerate roommate of the group between the three. He's reasonably organized and doesn't spend an eternity getting ready in the morning.

Hidden talent: he's surprisingly good at sleight-of-hand tricks!

Hidden talent 2: he's...uh...fluent? in flower language, both Victorian style and hanakotoba.

He's an extremely formal dresser who's rarely if ever seen in anything less than a button-up Oxford and slacks.

[insomniac-jay]

{Hime Takarano}

Hime Takarano, or the Luxuriant Hero: Queen Midas as she's known as, is a character in the unnamed BNHA OC universe. She is a student at U.A. University and a member of its Class 3-B. She is also the younger sister of the Hero Splendor, thus making her the aunt of her three children (Hiko, Fuyuhito, and Hiroko) and the sister-in-law to InkStain. She is also related to another student: Class 3-A's Seisai Hoshokura via her aunt Queen Jewel.

During the Life After the Fall Arc, she becomes the CEO of the Dutch branch of Takarano Inc and becomes pregnant with her first child, Kinsei Takarano, around this time as well.

Much like her sister, she is a member of the Renaissance Club.

{Appearance}

Hime is a beautiful, fair skinned young woman. Her curly/wavy blonde hair comes from her mother (via her Dutch grandfather) and her lilac eyes come from her father. Like other women in the Takarano family, she has two beauty marks: one near her eye and one by her lips. Her build is mostly average save for her muscular arms.

Three years after Commissiongate, her appearance has changed drastically. She now wears a pair of black cat eye glasses and her bang is styled off to the side. Her build has also become slightly more softer.

The tips of her fingers are gold, another trait among the family.

One thing that Hime is very fond of is pearl jewelry and continues to wear it even as she ages.

[Hime Takarano, age 26]

{Personality}

Hime has exuberant taste when it comes to her personal life. Her motto is go big or go home. She's been raised with the philosophy of never settling for second best, after all.

Full of ambition, Hime is someone who will do whatever it takes to make it to the top and knows how to be well connected to those who can help her do so. She's not above persuasion, either. And she doesn't give up easily, either. But at the same time, if she doesn't feel like engaging in a power struggle, she'll find a different way to reach the top.

She's quite charismatic as she has many admirers and many fans throughout the school. Her colorful persona and flashy ways captivate many and draw attention to her.

Being that she is a rich kid, her privilege sometimes blinds her worldview and she is sometimes ignorant to the struggles those of a lower class than her go through.

When Hime becomes bored of someone or they can no longer be of use to her, she discards them and forgets about them and acts like they never existed. An example of this is how she discarded her life at U.A. shortly before and during Commissiongate as they were no longer of use to her. When asked about her time as a student at the school, she replied with, "Huh? U.A.? What's that?"

When it comes to business, she becomes serious and calculated. She doesn't like being compromised when there's an opportunity set in front of her. Hime doesn't get distracted easily when working, so one would have to be a real pain in her ass to get her to look away from her work.

{Overall Abilities}

Charisma: Hime prides herself on her charisma as it has helped her in many situations. Having been on the cover of several magazines over the span of her career has increased her effect on others.

Skilled Armed Combatant: Due to the nature of her Quirk, she has had to be trained in armed combat. She is a master at fencing and is proficient in using a bo staff.

Trilingual: Hime and her sister can speak three languages, which include Japanese, Dutch, and Mandarin.

Statistics

Power: 4/5

Speed: 4/5

Technique: 5/5

Intelligence: 5/5

Cooperativeness: 5/5

{Quirk}

Primary Quirk: Princess - The user can turn jewelry into weapons based on the material they are made of via touch. For example, if she were to touch her beloved pearl necklace, it would turn into a chain and ball flail.

Secondary Quirk: Jewelry Box - The user can manipulate the properties of jewelry such as luster, hardness, etc and can even create them to some extent.

{Trivia}

Her and Blood Widow, another OC, share the same birthday.

Her inspirations are Emma Frost (X-Men), Stella (Winx Club), and Rarity (My Little Pony).

While she is proud of her Dutch heritage, she is not fond of the food as it tastes bland (at least to her).

{Taglist}

@floof-ghostie

@calciumcryptid

@eggb

@peachyblkdemonslayer

@opalofoctober

@elflynns-horde-of-stuff

@pizzolisnacks

[mcrmadness]

Madness draws: Behind the Scenes of the Bela/Farin: “Widumihei” comic.

A few months ago I posted here this comic:

CLICK HERE for the original post about that comic where you can see it in better and bigger size, and also reblog it ;)

And this post is just a deep dive into how I plan, do and draw my comics.

Let’s start with sketchbook things...

So every comic needs a story, right? My comics usually are born from either some dialogue I imagine in my head or by an impulsive inspiration that happens when I see something or talk with people and a random idea is triggered. I’m very good at coming up with new ideas solely based on just one word or so which is why I often ask people if they have anything they would want to see/read because I suck at coming up ideas on my own. Or I do get ideas, but not as often as I’d want to.

This particular idea was very old and I have tried but I cannot find the piece that was my inspiration but it was in some of my old German books because I remember laughing at it with either my brother or even with the German teacher in 2011 or 2012. I was only able to find my first “sketch” of the story:

This is in the notebook I used for writing down some comic ideas and even had one comic in it, plus it’s also my fanfiction writing notebook. It has no date but I know for sure it was either 2011 or 2012 because that’s when I did my last Bela/Farin comic and pretty much started my (unintentional) 6 year pause from drawing altogether.

I have always been trilingual when I do these plans for my comics, often writing the “narration” in Finnish and the dialog either in English or German because I just cannot imagine them to speaking Finnish. The translation of that text goes as:

COMIC (sarjis = sarjakuva = comic book in Finnish)

1. The phone is ringing. 2. F: “Widumihei?!” B: ? 3. B: “Farin wtf?” 4. Farin walks from another room. 5. B: “Widumihei?” 6. F: “It means, “will you marry me?”“ 7. B: *wtf* REPLAY:

1. Bela is sitting/laying somewhere. 2. The phone is ringing. Reached with his hand? 3. Looks at the phone, “wtf?”, a thought: “von Jan: Widumihei?!” 4. Bela: “Farin?” / “Jan?” 5. F comes from another room, looks in from behind the door frame or something. B: “Widumihei?” 6. F: “Widumihei: “WIllst DU MIch HEiraten”“ 7. B: “WTF”

So when I then started to draw these comics again in 2018, I kept thinking about this one too and still wanted to draw it one day. If you have read the finished comic, you may notice something different in the old plot versus new: I switched Bela’s and Farin’s roles. Back then I didn’t know too much yet but over the years I have learnt much much more about them and I just figured that asking to marry him even as a joke would be too much for Farin and that it would fit Bela’s persona much much better.

***

I had a bit of problems with getting started with this one, mainly because the last times I drew a dä comic was in June 2020, in April 2020 and before those in October 2019. Because of so long time between the comics, I just always forgot about my methods and in which order I do things and what works for me the best. So every time I started to work on a comic, I had to start completely over because all I had was blank paper and I somehow needed to get my thoughts in order and out of my head, into a physical form aka as text and images on the paper, and it’s easier said than done.

So pardon me but from this on the text is going to get a little bit confusing for a little while from now on - but it’s also a very good look over how the life with my suspected ADHD be like sometimes...

I started working on the plot once again to my sketchbook... I think it was somewhere in the beginning of 2020. Because the next idea there is from the summer. This is what the plot looked like at that point - here I had already switched their roles:

Shortly, the texts go: 1. Farin is reading a book. 2. A phone makes a noise. 3. (Farin) looks at it/read the message. / 6. B appears into the doorway. / 11. F spits out the tea.

And underneath it you can see one of the stick figure storyboards I often do in order to kinda see the text in pictures better, and I will write down or draw important aspects like expressions (Farin’s eyebrows) or things like *facepalm’* or *eyeroll* so that I remember to add them.

Next I was struggling with the era. It needed to be an era with the old mobile phones with SMS options but still not too early because I feel that Farin would have not been the first in line to buy a brand new technology object, especially not when it’s a phone. I was even googling when did Germany get their first mobile phone - I remember I got my first phone aka Nokia 5510 in 2000 or 2001 after my mom got a new one and gave her old one to me, so the story shouldn’t happen too many years before the Millenium.

Originally I planned 1997 for that - I needed to think about that based on their styles because shorter hair is harder to draw. Here’s me trying out some hairs and how they’re to draw and which era would suit my needs the best. I actually find the text hilarious altho it’s mine but this is what it’s in English:

Time period -> 1996-1997? 1998 I’ve never drawn 1999 is not that much fun to draw 2000 is already a bit too late? Bela not that much fun to draw. -2001 moustaches are not fun to draw?

I think I was struggling with my thoughts because the next thing in that sketchbook is yet another storyboard:

Or actually I think this was just to see how many sheets I’d need and how many panels I could fit on one sheet.

Anyhow, I then did other things for some time before I got back to this project this year. Including finishing with the sketchbook I had been using since 2010 (and the half of it since 2018!) and I had to get myself a new one. So when I started to think about this comic again, one night I was just thinking about some Bela/Farin scenarios as usual and suddenly I just felt that I NEED to do the comic in the 1998 style!!! So suddenly we jump from the original 1997 idea to the new era, only because of the colors. 

So asap I grabbed my sketchbook and started to look for the proper colors for the hairs:

This one I posted here before too as I was struggling a lot and just felt that I didn’t know how to draw, again. Sometimes when I feel like that, I start drawing with my non-dominant aka left hand because it doesn’t have all that in muscle memory so drawing and writing with it feels more free and it feels almost like pressing a refresh button in my brain. Suddenly the right one know again how to draw because left isn’t too well in control. The below part of the image is done completely with the left hand, including the coloring.

And because I had now a new sketchbook, I somehow couldn’t... deal with the plot and plans being in a different sketchbook than everything else so I had write the plot/dialog AGAIN, into this new sketchbook, along with the storyboards and everything:

Translations: kirja = book, puhelin = phone, oviaukossa = in the doorway, teet suusta = tea(s) out of a/the mouth. “Puhelin zoom” just means “close up to the phone screen” in Madness.

You can also see that I found out that I don’t need to do the stick figure storyboards to imitate a sheet when I can just draw this rectangle and smaller rectangles inside of it and write there numbers to match the things in the dialog to make it much easier for me to plan the pages. And here’s also a small easter egg: there’s 13 panels overall in this comic :D I almost did 12 but then felt that no, I really need to do 13 because, you know, the hairs, the era, the album title. And also because I like the number so much lmao.

So from there we get to the second storyboard which is not just stick figures anymore but just me planning how I want the panels to look like. To get the imagery of the rooms and facial expressions etc. out onto the paper so that I can see them in real life instead of my shady imagination that sometimes isn’t as vivid as what I could be.

Also have you ever tried to draw a beach chair? It’s more difficult than you’d think:

I tried to draw the same thing from the same reference photos so many times and still I always felt like I was trying to draw that impossible triangle or some other illusion image. And it just went on and on here:

Originally I also had planned the second panel to be a close up of the phone so that Farin’s face would be left at the background from the frog perspective. That’s what I was trying to with that weird-ass face on the left but turned out that I have never drawn these characters from such angle and I just... couldn’t see it in my head clearly enough to be able to draw it. So I dismissed that idea and that’s why the angle changed from a phone close-up to a side view to the room and at Farin.

As I was in the middle of planning the second page, I suddenly wasn’t happy with my original plot anymore. I wasn’t sure if it would work and needed to think about it one more time. So I wrote two other dialogs here, along with a storyboards for them both. I ended up choosing B from those two options eventually.

I don’t remember anymore if I had already done the first sketch of the comics or not but at some point I just felt that I no longer knew how to draw in my style. Sometimes you just draw and learn wrong things and wrong methods that you get used to and then you have to take a break and actually do a little bit of studying over your own style to find again the way how you want to draw, and get rid of the bad habits and find the good ones again. In my case it was to draw the eyes way way too big when they originally never were THAT big, so I had to learn how to draw them small and normal again. That’s why I did these, as I really needed to pay attention to the faces and remember how to draw them again:

The front-side views were another big readong for this “study” because I have drawn that perspective only once or twice before and I needed to figure out how I want to draw that. Also, I don’t know if it’s just me but for some reason the front-side Farin reminds me of one of the parent characters from this cartoon called The Rugrats which I watched as a kid. It was totally unintentional, but you can google The Rugrats if you don’t know how the charatcers looked like in the cartoon.

The things below are just me testing something. The red Farins were just to test how the colored pencils work on each other and how the fineliners work with the colored pencils, and which way is the better way to do the shading. And the red colored pencil was the only one available at the time so that had to do.

A little bit about the heads btw: You might notice some difference between the left and right faces. It’s because I have always, always struggled with drawing anything that is looking at right. Most of the animal portraits and all I have drawn so that they look at left because I just find it so much easier to draw. I think with comics it’s because I always start with the eye (and the eyebrows if I don’t forget it) and then do the forehead, nose, mouth and chin, and after that I either continue from the hair (from the front) or do the ear first. But when I am drawing them to look at right, I have to basically draw the mirror image and starting from the hair is not the key because it can easily mess up with the perspectives. I still usually draw everything in the same order but it really is difficult because I’m doing a mirror image and my own hand is on the way, too. Basically I’m drawing from right to left instead of left to right! (I think I should try drawing those with my left hand, then...)

And from here we get to the first sketch of the comic. From here on the images are from my phone’s camera so they are sometimes illegally bad but no can do, I again didn’t think I’d post these to anywhere:

Here you can see I was mainly just focusing on the shapes and the space inside those panels. Just trying to see the perspective and how everything is. The only thing that I drew more precisely was the third panel, with the hand and phone. I had quite a nice memory of old phones in my head but I still googled for some reference photos of Nokia 5110 phones as that was my first phone (as I mentioned earlier), and I also happened to have some of my other old phones on the table nearby so I took my own hand reference photos too:

They always say there’s a little bit of the artist in their art and this one literally has that - “Farin’s” hand is actually my hand! :D And I think the size is kinda on point too because this phone was like 2-3 times smaller than Nokia 5110 and I have small hands, and I believe Farin must have much bigger hands, so the 5110 probably would have looked about the same size in his hand.

After the first sketch, the next step was then - the second sketch:

I also wanted to add more action to the panels so that it’s interesting to look at and not just basically the same panel over and over again with just different speech bubbles, so I came up with the idea of Farin spitting out his tea not being as cartoony as it could be and that he would have to actually clean it up instead of just leaving it there just because in cartoons/comics everything is possible. That way I got more depth into the panels and it was also interesting for me to draw because I drew lots of new postures I have never drawn before, and I’m surprised how well it went despite me not even looking for any kind of reference photos! The only things I used reference photos for were the beach chair, and the phone in a hand. (I have actually always been quite good at drawing 3D objects and spaces, especially if they are rectangular.)

So yeah, this is the phase where everything is then finished with pencil and what follows next is drawing the lines with fineliners - I use Sakura Pigma Micron fineliners for everything else, and black Promarker for doing the lines for the panels (and also if I need bigger pitch black areas done).

Here are the panel lines done but I only had a photo of this first sheet.

And here are both sheets with the finelining done and all pencil marks etc. erased. I really like this part because it looks so clean when all those sketch marks are gone. It’s also crazy to think I literally spend hours drawing something in pencil only to erase it all away later :D

And here’s one photo of the coloring process, the first one has only the base colors done but none of the shadows yet (apart from the shirts), and the second one has some of the shadows done but not everything yet.

Usually after coloring, I will then go through everything with the fineliners one more time to make sure all the lines are dark enough as it just gives everything the finished yet a bit “sketchy” look that what I really like with my comics. The actual last detail is always adding my signature along with the date or year.

And here’s the finished comic one more time for comparison:

Don’t forget to check and reblog the actual post about this comic if you read this post all the way here. I’d appreaciate that a lot since art and artist on Tumblr are not really that much appreciated.

[greenandhazy]

ppl in the Trobed discord asked if I had more future headcanons for Rickie and Leon (Troy and Abed’s kids from my Nadir-Barnes Canon verse) when they grow up and I was THRILLED because idk if I’m going to write more in that verse (writing too far into the future makes me wary for some reason? like how can I just pretend I have ANY concept of what the 2030s will be like) but YES I HAVE THOUGHTS:

Rickie grows up to be a confident, outgoing person, the life of the party and everyone’s  de facto big brother, although he does struggle a bit more with those early traumas and is more self-conscious about identity issues, so that confidence is the result of intermittent therapy and mindfulness

Such as, for example, morning prayer with Abed, which leads to him expressing more of an interest in Islam--sometime in late elementary/early middle school he transfers to a mainstream school that’s close enough for him to walk to a nearby after school program, and eventually formally converts. (Leon doesn’t feel the need for that and Abed doesn’t feel the need to push.) so yeah, another trilingual in the family heyyyyy.

Neither of the kids are fluent in Polish, although they hear it occasionally from Abed around the home.

He likes to dance as a hobby, although not so much modern--he likes jazz and hip-hop, things that are more high-energy. He and Troy have a LOT of spontaneous dance parties around the house. But starting in middle school, spoken word poetry and rap become his real big things and he eventually goes on to have a music career--think early Childish Gambino, Chance the Rapper vibes. (Leon achieves minor TikTok stardom for his ASL covers at one point.) He likes to run them by Troy first, and Troy and Abed are the ultimate hype men.

Abed is always really careful to seek out opportunities to connect with both kids, and they’re both written into Voyage of the Starship Legacy in some way... but it’s Leon’s. He thinks of it like a personal bedtime story that happens to have been made into a feature film, and it’s his comfort rewatch. In general he’s more of a fan of Abed’s stuff because he likes the meta aspects, and while Rickie enjoys them too, that’s not really his style as much, you know?

(I mentioned in one of the fics, Rickie is Abed’s ego-shrinker. If people find out Rickie and Leon are Abed’s kids they’ll be like “omg that’s so cool!” and Leon will be like “haha yeah” awkwardly and Rickie will say “cool? lol right, it’s the nerdiest thing about me.”)

Subsequently, Leon is always really excited when Troy suggests they go sailing. Rickie is enthusiastic in theory but usually gets bored once they’re out on the open sea, so this becomes Troy and Leon’s Thing, especially as he gets older and is less easily entertained by funny voices and faces. He just finds the open ocean very soothing and, yknow, parallels between sailing and space exploration or whatever. He really loves hearing Troy’s stories about his trip.

He’s more of a shy person, especially around people his own age--definitely not an entertainer the way the rest of the family is, and has a bit of a dryer sense of humor. One of his hobbies growing up is drawing, and there’s a running joke in the extended (found) family that someday Abed is going to produce an animated film illustrated by Leon modeled on Troy’s dance troupe with a soundtrack by Rickie. Cut to Leon’s sophomore year of college, when he announces that....... his major is astrophysics and he has a summer internship at NASA

(you can’t prove I was rewatching The Martian when I came up with this) (I just love the idea of Abed’s kids being just as phenomenally successful but one in in a Very different way, also I think the study group’s reaction would be very funny for some reason) (come on guys, he’s been very into space for a long time, this shouldn’t be a surprise, right?

Sometime around middle school, Leon starts not only not putting his hearing aids in, but leaving them at home when he goes out. Troy and Abed always prefer he have them as a backup, and a very common dad joke in their household is “You’d lose your ears if they weren’t attached to your head--oh, wait.” Eventually he admits that yeah, he’s “forgetting” them on purpose, partly because he’s getting tired of Questions and Looks, partly as an act of defiance because he dislikes the expectation that he wants to hear all the time, partly because it makes him feel Some Kind of Way that he doesn’t actually need them--that between his family, his school, his community, and even the cashier at the bodega across the street who taught himself a few signs, he really can get plenty of social interaction and communication just using ASL and he likes that feeling. (Troy is especially touched by that, given that he does not have Abed’s gift for languages and learning ASL took more effort for him.)

They both really enjoy traveling. The family makes semi-regular trips to Arizona and wherever Annie ends up with the FBI, but spend the most time in Colorado--especially in the summers. Gobi is still grumpy but spoils the kids rotten, and they like being the cool older cousins of Jeff and Britta’s kid. the Bennett boys are a little older but Rick and Leon are always trying to convince them to get into Shenanigans, and when they do, they reach a whole new level of shenanigans. Shirley is Tired.

They come back from Colorado with more complimentary Greendale merch than you could ever imagine. the Dean knows they’re not going to go there but..... he can try. Rickie gets his first taste of alcohol from Britta. Leon goes to Annie for girl advice when he gets his first crush because he figures his dads are way too gay to be helpful. Jeff takes them out to play paintball all the time (in like... actual, legit paintball--fields? idek what they’re called) and regales them with tales of Greendale paintball, which they had been 100% sure their dads were exaggerating until Jeff stepped in. They think Chang is putting on a hilarious act for like their entire childhoods and are solely responsible for portions of Chang’s “I Never Die” song becoming a meme among LA schoolchildren.

oh and I don’t have, like, faceclaims for them or anything but I picture Rickie wearing lots of bright colors and being ultimately like an inch or two shorter than his little brother, which offends him deeply, and Leon tends to wear his hair a little longer, like..... Power Rangers-era Eka Darville.

ANYWAY those are the things that have been milling around in my head the last couple of weeks. I have very strong feelings about this children I made up <3 <3 <3

[kuramirocket]

Created by Elizabeth Ito, the animated series City of Ghosts explores the history of different neighborhoods in Los Angeles through friendly ghosts that make the past of this metropolis real. Our guides into these adventures, created in documentary style, are a diverse group of children, the Ghost Club, who navigate each encounter with curiosity and compassion.

For episode six, focused on Koreatown, the creators recruited professor Felipe H. Lopez, a Zapotec scholar to help them portray the Oaxacan community of L.A. With Ito and producer Joanne Shen’s support, Lopez brought authenticity to the depiction of certain visual elements, such as the grecas de Mitla, geometrical designs specific to the Indigenous people of Oaxaca. More importantly, he voices an animated version of himself, as well as Chepe, a lovable alebrije ghost at the center of the story. Lopez’s dialogue is both in English and Zapotec.

A native of the small Oaxacan community of San Lucas Quiaviní, where the vast majority of the population speaks Zapotec, Lopez has become a binational bastion in the preservation of this Indigenous language and the culture it gives voice to. He came to the United States when he was 16 years old speaking mostly Zapotec. He learned English first and then he worked on improving his Spanish while at Santa Monica Community College.

In 1992, Lopez got accepted into University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the Latin American studies program; he has restlessly devoted himself to preserving the identity of the Zapotec diaspora, which has been present in the United States since the days of the Bracero program. Lopez first found support in linguist Pamela Monroe with whom he created the first trilingual Zapotec dictionary, which was published in 1999 via the Chicano studies department at UCLA. Today he is a postdoctoral scholar at Haverford College.

Below, he expands on his life’s work and the significance of the positive mainstream representation of Indigenous peoples.

What was the impulse or situation that made you realize you wanted to dedicate your professional life to preserve the Zapotec language and culture?

There’s always this relationship between economic gains with language. I saw how a lot of families in the Oaxacan community were raising their kids. Even if they didn’t speak Spanish fluently, they wanted to teach their kids Spanish rather than Zapotec. In a sense, they didn’t see a lot of usefulness in teaching their kids Zapotec. Interestingly, some of them actually were teaching their children the little English they knew. They even skipped teaching them Spanish. The parents would speak with each other in Zapotec but then would talk to the kids in English.

Being a college student back then and thinking about those things made me realize that the language was being lost and being substituted by either Spanish or English. At that moment I thought, ‘Maybe my language is going to be lost. I’ve got to do something about it. Even if it is just to leave a record. I want it to at least be known that we spoke this language at one time.’ That’s what really drove me to seek out somebody to help me because I’m not a linguist. Ever since then, we’ve been creating a lot of open source materials in Zapotec for people to use. We now have dictionaries. We’ve really used the technology in order to make our language, our culture, and how we are visible. City of Ghosts is another component that continues the work we started in 1992.

One of the interesting things about Indigenous languages is that sometimes they are not seen as real languages. You have this battle against the established ideology that Indigenous languages are not really languages. It’s almost like being salmon going against the current, if you’re trying to preserve your language because there are very few spaces for you to use your language and it’s not being taught in public schools in Mexico. But I was fortunate to be able to teach one of the very first courses in Zapotec. In 2005, UCSD [University of California, San Diego] asked me to teach a course in Zapotec. We needed to create all the materials from scratch because unlike Spanish or English or French, which are the dominant languages, you have tons of materials. If you want to teach Spanish you can go to the library and you have tons of materials to teach. But for us as Indigenous teachers we really need to create materials.

Language is deeply connected to how a culture sees the world. In that regard, why do you think it’s necessary to protect and teach Zapotec and other Indigenous languages in Mexico?

A lot of our Indigenous knowledge is embedded in the language. For example, when I think about how we’re being taught math in school from a Western point of view, we have the decimal system of counting: 10, 20, so on. But in Zapotec we have a different counting system, which is a base 20. We do 20, 40, and 80. Sadly, in Mexico something people say, ‘Why do you want to preserve the language? It’s not even a language. It’s a dialect.’

Fortunately, last year, I think if I’m not mistaken, Mexico changed the constitution to recognize more than 68 languages spoken in Mexico as national languages. There has been a long struggle. I’ve been doing work both in the U.S. and Mexico. Currently I’m teaching a free course on Zapotec in one of the universities in Mexico, because I want to contribute. Indigenous languages are important because they represent our history. They represent our identity and the ways in which we see our surroundings. There are even words in Zapotec that I can’t even translate into Spanish because there are no concepts that are equivalent. They need to be explained.

With the constitutional changes that you mention and someone like actress Yalitza Aparicio inspiring conversations about racism in Mexico and across Latin America, do you believe we are on the brink of a deeper appreciation of Indigenous culture and language?

It’s interesting that you mentioned Yalitza because when she first came out people attacked her. They would say, ‘She’s an Indian. She doesn’t deserve to be there.’ It is the sentiment that has endured in Mexico and Latin America. It’s a colonial mentality. If you look at the soap operas and Mexican TV shows just about every single actor or actress is white. There has been a push historically for Mexico to aspire, to be white. We, as Indigenous people, have been perceived to be a problem for modernity. They feel like, ‘How can Indigenous people be modern?’

We tend to be very fluid and move into different cultures, into different eras. I can speak my language in my pueblo, but at the same time I can use the Internet and I can speak English.Being Indigenous is never a detriment.In Mexico, the dominant culture, the politicians and the [non-Indigneous] intellectuals, see us as something less than Mexican. They speak about Mexicans versus Indigenous people. I’ve always questioned that because they like to talk about Mexico’s Indigenous roots, yet ostracize and put us on the margin. When they speak about Indigenous communities, they tend to think of us in a museum because once you put us in a museum it means that we no longer exist. There is this contradiction in terms of where we are, where we fit in Mexican society. That’s why we’re pushing so hard to make ourselves visible.

Specifically speaking about Zapotec people, and other immigrants from Indigenous communities, in the United States, what are the major obstacles in resettling?

Indigenous immigrants go through two steps of assimilation, because a lot of us who move into the States, we bring our indigenous language and culture. But the dominant culture that exists in LA is a Mexican or Mexican American culture. It’s a mestizo culture and there’s Spanish. So we as Indigenous people first need to assimilate into that culture and then assimilate into the mainstream culture. We need to speak English, but we also need to speak Spanish. There are two steps of assimilation for us to even try to situate ourselves in mainstream American society.

Tell me about your experience working on such a unique show as City of Ghosts, which really digs deep into the cultural fabric of Los Angeles. What convinced you that this could be positive for Indigenous communities?

One of the things that I asked Joanne [Shen] was, ‘How much say do I have?’ Because I didn’t want to be there if they already had an idea and they just want me to emulate something. So she said, “No, we want to sit down with you and talk about what are some of the important aspects of Zapotec society and what is it that really impacts you guys? How do you see the world?” That was one of the most important things for me in order to agree to do the project.

We had several meetings in terms where they asked me questions. Once I looked at the whole script, not just mine but also those for the alebrije ghost Chepe and Lena who is voiced by Gala Porras-Kim, I made some changes according to how I felt it represented Zapotec culture. For example, tying the idea of the ghost with the idea of the nahual orthe alter ego in Zapotec and Mesoamerican culture, as well as the use of alebrijes and the colors, which properly represented Zapotec culture on the screen.

They were very sensitive and they wanted to get it right. I really commend them for that, because I’ve worked in projects where they don’t really care. They have an agenda. But for this project they were so attuned with me.I think that’s what makes City of Ghosts such an important program for kids and just for the public at large to understand who the Zapotec are, because when we think about the Mexican community we assume that everybody speaks Spanish. This program, and specifically episode six, will help people to at least begin to rethink Mexican society and that not all Mexicans speak Spanish. Not all of them are mestizo, but rather that we are a multilingual and multicultural society, and we are bringing that to the States. I hope it makes people at least curious.

One aspect prominently mentioned in your episode is how certain Oaxacan communities use a whistling language. Why was this a significant element?

To be honest with you, I have no idea where it came from, but as far back as I remember when I was a kid we would just whistle to communicate basic phrases to each other. Also when we go to work on the field and you see somebody far away, you whistle at that person just to get some information like, ‘How are you doing? What’s going on?’ Since, we didn’t have any phones back home then, we whistled to communicate, but it’s not entirely just Zapotec communities. There are other Indigenous communities in Oaxaca and Mesoamerica that use whistling as a means of communication. So when I was asked to be part of the show, I did a lot of whistling in the episode just demonstrating how we communicate and that we don’t need words. Whistling is another expression of language.

When you think about Angelenos you think about Mexicans or mestizos at the pueblo of Los Angeles. But we rarely talk about the Indigenous people in LA. By having the Zapotec people in this sho2, we begin to have this conversation go beyond thinking about this land only having Latinos, African Americans, and whites. There are these hidden multicultural societies here that have been fighting and resisting against all these forces.

One thing that is so interesting to me is that when we are on the margins, we tend to fight and resist at the margin to maintain our language and culture. So then by bringing us into the light and being visible, even by asking, ‘Where do you guys come from?’ We can say, ‘Well, we’ve been here all along. You just haven’t seen us.’ With these particular episodes on the Zapotec, all of a sudden some people might learn something. I’ve seen on Twitter the young Indigenous people express they feel so proud of the fact that Indigenous people are represented in this show. There’s something unique about this show, because it really brings some of the historical aspects of the composition of LA, specifically of the Pico-Union area.

The most important thing people should take out of those two episodes that talk about Indigenous communities, it’s the very first time that we see Indigenous communities well represented and not objectified, but just as human and what they do in everyday life. And also how we bring our traditions and cultures to some of the megacities in the world, coming from small communities, such as mine where we have about 1700 people, yet we are being represented in such an incredible episode.

City of Ghosts is streaming on Netflix.

[narcissasdaffodil]

Thank you for the tag @kiki-the-creator @codename-mango and @voile-de-lune this gives me a perfect excuse to ramble and talk in depth again!

1. What do you prefer to be called name-wise?

Iris. Some people know my real life name too, so if you do, please don’t use it on here. I make a serious effort to separate my real life from online life.

2. When is your birthday?

22nd February

3. Where do you live?

Wales, UK. That’s how specific I’m willing to get.

4. Three things you are doing right now?

Listening to music, thinking in general, and considering writing/editing something.

5. Four fandoms that have peaked your interest?

LITG definitely, that’s by far my main one. This blog is a split between LITG and positivity. I’ll chuck Choices, The Haunting of Bly Manor/Haunting of Hill House and Taylor Swift in there too. This blog has way more than just those 4, but those are my main ones.

6. How has the pandemic been treating you?

Back at the start of the year, I was getting better mental health wise, and starting to become a proper adult in general. Then the pandemic hit, and my mental health fully stabilised and has mostly been stable. I’ve had a couple anxious spirals and anxiety attacks since then, but I’ll always have anxiety and depression, it’s all about how I manage my shit and not let it overwhelm me too much. And, ooh! I started my first year of uni in September, and uni in a pandemic is definitely a strange experience. Online lectures actually fit better with me, not having to struggle to hear is great.

7. A song you can’t stop listening to right now?

I’ll cheat, and go for two albums: Folklore and Evermore have definitely made my year! Those two have been on pretty frequent repeat, so yeah x

8. Recommend a movie.

Booksmart and Ladybird. I can’t remember watching anything in the past year, so here’s two recommendations from past years.

9. How old are you?

I’m 19, 20 in 2 months and a day! I don’t always keep a realistic count either, but oh well. It’ll be weird when I do hit my 20s for real though, it appears at the moment I’m likely to have a lockdown birthday.

10. School, university, occupation, other?

University and I’m mostly loving it! I love my course, and am so relieved that past me decided that English wasn’t my thing, or even half the weird stuff I got tempted to do. 4 years ago, I seriously wanted to be a child psychologist despite a dislike of children and sucking at Maths and needing a B to even take Psychology. I scraped a C, so Psychology was out, thank god.

11. Do you prefer hot or cold?

Cold by far. I hate hot weather and the summer with a passion. With cold weather, you can add more layers, hot weather you can’t do much, just get more and more uncomfortable!

12. Name one fact others might not know about you.

I want to be bilingual/trilingual in terms of long term life goals. I’m very slowly teaching myself French and Welsh. Both languages are on hold for a bit, but I plan to pick them back up.

13. Are you shy?

Yup. I plan words in my head when I do speak, usually the conversation has continued without me in groups, hell, even group chats that happens! For me to go unfiltered I have to be very comfortable with you, so if you’re starting to hear me talking about more weird stuff (I call it weird o’clock for a label) you know I’m very comfortable, especially so if my messages sound weird and I sound high. Which I’m not, just unfiltered.

14. Your pronouns?

She/her

15. Biggest pet peeves?

Slow walkers, noisy eaters, people who eat with their mouth open, people who move/take my stuff (like, I had it like that for a reason.), loud people, people being nuisances late at night, peer pressure/influencing people in general (I’m pretty damn stubborn, so if I don’t want to drink, there’s no way that you’ll influence me to), arguments, large groups, people who use me for a therapist, dogs (that’s more me not being comfortable with loud noise, things jumping up on me, being absolutely terrified of dogs/having a genuine trigger for them), people who mock strange/rare stuff about people (a serious amount of stuff about me is strange/weird. So you’ll need to find a different person if you want something not weird!), interrupters, being ignored deliberately, and I think that’s it! Phew, that’s a lot.

16. What is your favorite “dere” type?

I used to be into anime, but that was way too long ago, so I have no clue.

17. Rate your life from 1-10

Likely a 7/8. As my mental health is mostly stable, I can actually write and do creative stuff without letting other people tell me it sucks (well, if you hate my stuff so much, do you really need to tell me? Heck no, in my opinion anyway.) I don’t quit stuff just because I get negative feedback any more,

18. What’s your main blog?

I only have this one! My LITG/positivity/random crap one, which started as a mental health recovery/positivity and fandom blog, then gradually got more chaotic as my own creations appeared.

19. List your side blogs and what they’re used for.

I don’t use side blogs, mainly as when I used to have multiple accounts on other social media, I’d always end up sticking to one and neglecting the others. I don’t know how multiple blog people do it, seriously.

20. Is there something people need to know about you before becoming friends?

If your first interaction with me is via an ask box, it might change a little bit once we properly message. I ramble, and talk about a serious amount of strange crap just because it interests me and do spam a lot when I do create stuff, so if spamming makes you uncomfortable, you’ll have to give me a heads up. But also what you see is pretty much what you get, I’m straightforward in that if you’re an arse to me, or people I care about, I will cut people out pretty quickly. I have no patience for people who lash out at others and do set boundaries with people. On a slightly more positive note, a side effect of chatting to me a lot is that I do gush about people’s work a lot. If I love something someone creates, my motto is always telling them! I’m human sunshine for a reason, but even then I can’t always keep it up, so don’t expect me to be constantly happy!

Tagging: @ravenadottir @confused-lesbiam @ajs-wife @bubblybabynailpolish @lucas-koh just tagged the first set of names I could think of!

[feathery-dreamer]

the (likely) reasons i am a wreck

I keep going back and forth between considering myself the most worthless burden in human history and feeling damn proud of the extraordinary things I’ve been through.

I think the main issue is, young people are expected to have done everything and be willing to give away their own wants for society/family/money/whatevs. Anything and everything we do for someone else, is taken for granted; anything and everything we ever think of doing for outselves, is selfish and outrageous.

It was even worse in my case, with a largely autistic older sister. Almost as soon as I was able to walk and speak, I was expected to function as a “big guy” - while being treated as a “baby” in other respects. Displayed as swoon material, grabbed painfully for “affection”, shown off by my sister as “tiny baby bro”. All the while doing household chores and other legwork (parents, sister, uncle, even guests I didn’t know), entirely for free. (That’s on top of all the usual children’s troubles with adults, which you’re probably all familiar with. You know - “you need to talk about your problems” until your problem is with them, your issues are mocked as you struggle to find words to describe them...)

Later on, bitter people kept saying “everyone does this, everyone suffers that” to dismiss the rare complaints or boasts I dared make. That, and crippling memory issues, forced me to forget the most unusual things in my life.

Hence I constantly forget how special I really am, and I don’t mean that in a “we’re all special snowflakes” kind of way. There are many circumstances to my life which, looking at other people’s stories, I’m positive only a handful of people on Earth even heard of.

- No, everyone does NOT have “sibling rivalry”... certainly not one where they grow up babying an older sibling who abuses them with impunity. She’s physically assaulted me, and done other unspeakable shit, to get her frustrations off. The rest of the time, I watched her make my mother cry on a regular basis. I saw this creature get away with manipulative behavior, and took charge to keep her in line while the grownups were away. Over time, I too began making excuses for her; couldn’t even name her behavior as harassment/bullying/abuse.

- No, everyone does NOT do legwork for family... definitely not to replace the older sibling‘s lack of work. I was probably given twice the normal amount of chores to cover for my sister’s lack of interest/comprehension. If I ever said no for any reason other than my physical health, I was chided and reminded to “make myself useful”. All while being called a baby, and having my complaints laughed at, just like any other infant.

- No, everyone does NOT learn a foreign language thoroughly as I did. It’s quite rare to send your primary-school kid to a weekend course for, what, two years? It’s also rare, for a child at that age, to go to a French-speaking school for two years and then move to France. This is how I came to be (at the risk of sounding cliché) top of my class in that subject, and in English after we moved.

- No, everyone does NOT have a hard-working father. Mine is, in fact, very enterprising and hardheaded when it comes to subjects that interest him. He was purposedly called to France to work there, at one of the shiny central workplaces of the firm he worked for. I don’t know how many Turkish engineers have that kind of reputation.

- No, everyone does NOT have birthday parties. Particularly one organized by school staff, on the last year you lived in your home country. It actually made me cry in happiness, and trust me I’m rarely even happy enough to laugh. I still can’t believe I forgot one of the most beautiful days of my life, until I rediscovered the trilingual birthday cards they gave me.

- No, everyone does NOT go study abroad. I didn’t even just "go study abroad”. I literally went to live in a culture practically opposite to the one in my childhood. One where people hated my entire nation with blood-boiling passion, in a private school full of snobs.

- No, everyone does NOT “get picked on at school”, or experience the issues I’ve faced during adolescence. Being bullied and hormones are one thing; but I also had to adapt to a complete 180° cultural turn + abusive sister. Things woulda been agitated enough if I’d stayed home, and I spent it among children who hated my kind. That’s on top of all the news about corruption and terrorism and other horrors, coming together to plague my home country.

- Everyone does NOT take a theoretical aviation course in middle school, and then enter a nationwide test for it. Our teacher was a real pilot, and he actually included Cessna planes (I forgot the type) since there’d be practical training as follow-up. My group continued these lessons while the other kids had their first traineeships; that shoulda tipped me off about its importance. Thing is, the first attempt, the entire group failed; then we had catch-up lessons, and the second session’s date was approaching. My invite arrived on the exam’s day so I couldn’t notify the school in advance; the principal herself came to tell me it was okay to go, but I insisted on staying cause I was a sickler for regulation. I really hate myself for being so short-sighted, because that was something so casual to me back then, I didn’t even remember it.

- Everyone does NOT pass their bachelor’s exam, and with honours at that. Certainly not in a prestigious private high school, and definitely not with all the added cultural and familial struggles.

- Everyone does NOT go abroad to do traineeships, and find new research topics in the process. In fact, the great majority of students at my university trained either on-campus, or with one of the partners conveniently listed on the website. The few who actually left France, went to Québec to train in a French-speaking environment; and those were still partner teams. Meanwhile I landed two traineeships without any campus involvement, first in my native country (family helped me get that) and then in Ontario. During the latter I saw a conference, and from there arranged my third traineeship in Sweden. That last one, among the three, was the only compulsory traineeship I ever did; the rest was entirely my own doing.

[nsdigitalword]

Joe Seo bio, age, height, weight,

Korean-American actor, joe seo age, is best known for his breakthrough performance in acting, which earned him a US Dramatic Special Jury Award. Joe, who was only 19 at the time, had already established a solid name among the audience. In the web series Cobra Kai, he plays an important role alongside Xolo Mariduna and Marie Mauser.

Joe’s Net Worth: How Much Is He Worth?

Joe draws his earnings from his professional acting career to calculate his net worth. Since starting his career in the entertainment industry, he has appeared in over two dozen films. He earned an award for the film Spa Night, which was written and directed by Andrew Ah. At the Sundance Closing Awards ceremony, he received the U.S. Award for Breakthrough Performance. Received the Dramatic Special Jury Award, which Ahn accepted on his behalf because SEO did not exist.

He (sigh) mentioned in his award speech that Joe gave himself a lot. The duality of being a gay Korean-American was difficult to portray, but Joe gave it his all. Joe was also praised as an actor whose intimate and humble performances are highly emotional by presenters Lena Dunham and Avi Kaufman.

The film demonstrates how conservative the Korean community can be in Los Angeles, especially when it comes to LGBT rights. The film does something that I think is important: it depicts a character who is both gay and Korean-American, and who struggles as a result.

In response to the question, Ah said that Los Angeles is a bit more conservative than Korea.

When asked about her role in the film, she believed that it sheds more light on the gay community.

At the end of the day, we’re all ordinary people, whether we’re straight, gay, or whatever… pastors or gay men. I really hope this film will raise awareness about this issue and more people feel safe, especially in the church.

His film achieved an average rating of 6.9/10 and grossed $38,578. Seeing Seo’s performance in this film, it is clear that he earned more money than the rest of the team.

Joe’s films Freedom Writers and Gridiron Gang grossed $43 million and $41 million respectively at the worldwide box office. These films also helped him to increase his profits significantly. Joe played the role of Arthur Lee in the 2017 film The Bird Who Can Fly.

He is now playing the role of Kyler in the television series Cobra Kai.

You may also be interested in Mary Mouser’s wiki which includes information about her age, parents, siblings, height, boyfriend, dating, and cobra moss.

Joe posted photos of himself with a woman named Giovanni to Facebook on July 18, 2007, with the caption, “Me and Giovanni.” She loves me… and so was it on stage.

Apart from her on-screen fiancée from the movie Freedom Writers, little is known about her real-life partner.

Biography of Joe Seo

joe seo age was born on August 2, 1998, in San Francisco, California, United States. Joe was born into a family of traditional Asian parents, Yoon Ho Cho and Harry Kim.

He is of American ethnicity and stands 1.8m (5'11") tall. According to the wiki, Seo received his education from the University of California, Los Angeles. Who is trilingual (Korean, English, and Spanish). He is known for his acting work. Also enjoys DJing, Hip Hop Dance, and ADR.

[her-culture]

Navigating My Shyness with the Help of Joe Moran’s SHRINKING VIOLETS

A few months ago, I was sitting across from a dear friend at a quaint coffee shop nestled in the hum of the busy East Village. I expressed how troubling my shyness can be and how more often than not it feels like a disadvantage in a world that seems to reward the extroverted in social situations. Reflecting on the previous week’s academic instance that marked the end of my undergraduate studies, my senior thesis presentation, where I felt my cheeks redden and my heart beat at 180 bpm for the nth time, I expressed how this crippling fear of speaking in front of a group of people has been following me since I first became aware of my voice in a silent third grade classroom. Since then, comments from teachers and professors about my participation in class have ended with a compliment followed by “but you should participate more during class discussions.”

As I grew older, I began to use other adjectives like awkward, introverted, and reserved to describe myself since “shy,” according to my friends, no longer seemed to encapsulate my personality. Now, I’m just reserved when I’m in the presence of strangers. I can be myself in front of eyes and minds I have spent enough time with to understand and trust, but I close in and dread small talk with friends of friends at house parties and neighbors I run into in the elevator. Nevertheless, whether it’s shyness, timidity, reservation, introversion, or social anxiety it’s still something that has set me apart in social settings to the point where I sometimes feel like an outsider looking in, or an imposter when I apply for a job knowing very well that my oral communication skills are not “strong” all the time, and for the longest time I’ve wanted to fix it… to just get over it.

A few days after we talked, he recommended that I read Joe Moran’s “field guide” to shyness, Shrinking Violets: The Secret Life of Shyness. Unlike personal growth books where one is either encouraged to improve or is reminded of the fact that his or her personal struggle is actually a boon, Joe Moran’s exploration of shyness in all its shades and complexities aims to remind his fellow afflicted violets that shyness is neither a burden nor an advantage, but a necessary part of “the delicately balanced ecosystem of human behavior” (233) that should be accepted as an “unyielding reality” that no one needs to, or will ever completely get over or fix (229). Moran comes to this conclusion by spending relatively little time asking what causes shyness, and more time exploring the various ways in which shy individuals amongst the famous and creative have dealt with or used it to propel their careers. To not give away spoilers to this empathetic 235-page long field guide that I highly recommend to anyone who slightly or completely relates to my personal relationship with shyness mentioned above and throughout this blog, I will focus on one of the stories that I related to and found to be helpful in answering one of the questions I have asked myself regarding my waves of shyness (i.e. Why do I have an easier time participating in discussions with strangers that require me to speak French? Why do I practice future conversations in the comfort of my bedroom? Why do I tend to scan the room for other shrinking violets in social situations?)

During my junior year abroad in Paris, I realized that I felt more at ease when presenting or participating in French class discussions, as well as more open to engaging in small talk with the few French people who did venture out of their friend groups to talk to a complete stranger at a bar or social gathering. Despite the possibility of it being liquid courage in the latter (fellow violets, you know what I’m talking about), the fact that my cheeks didn’t blush or that my stomach didn’t turn ten seconds before I planned to raise my hand was something impossible not to notice. I grew up learning English and Spanish at the same time, but unfortunately, I rarely feel at ease when speaking to strangers in either language. Since I left Mexico at a young age and only speak in Spanish to my parents, I am very much aware of my limited vocabulary, constant grammatical errors, and a lacking or wrong usage of slang expressions that would help me feel less like an alien in front of 20-something-year-olds. It might all be in my head, but I feel like a little kid while speaking to adults in Spanish. This change in personality, or preference for another language in a given conversation, was something that I found to have in common with my other bilingual or trilingual friends: we choose different languages to express ourselves depending on the tone of conversations, or the people involved in our conversations.

But why do we feel more confident in one language compared to another? In Chapter Five: Stage Fright, Joe Moran finds the perfect German word to describe this, an antonym to stage fright: Maskenfreiheit, the freedom that comes from wearing masks. Moran recounts the shy life story of Nick Drake who despite his “defensed” nature, expressed what might as well have been personal stories “with hints of missed opportunities” by adopting the French chanson (singing) tradition which typically “allows singers to sing their hearts out while hiding behind different guises” (137). In some way, the French version of myself armours herself up with a lower pitched voice to better enunciate and pronounce different words, and by blowing raspberries and throwing in the interspersed euh (the French version of ummh). It’s a disguised performance that keeps me from feeling completely naked and embarrassed in front of new faces. Since French is my third language, I allow myself to take pauses mid-conversation to gather my thoughts without being consumed by the fear of having left the other person alone in an otherwise daunting silence that occurs when one has said her or his point and is thinking about what to say next. According to Moran, shy people are surprisingly attracted to the idea of performing because “on stage, you are still making up a version of yourself that you feel more comfortable with, real but not real, natural but with a naturalness you have amplified and enlarged” (150). My shy self may have scanned the room to see who else hasn’t spoken to make sure that I speak either right before or right after to avoid being seen as the quiet girl in class, but my French self will simply raise her hand, take a few seconds to gather her thoughts, and start off with an eh bien…

I still get shy, but now I don’t want to fix it. This is not me coming out of my shell, it is breaking the silence around my shyness and accepting it as part of who I am. And when I forget, I have found it helpful to flip through the book to the carefully folded triangles at the bottom of specific pages to remind myself of the many different ways that I can do this. In fact, this blog post, where I have engaged in a conversation with my readers, whether fellow violets or not, is one of them.